U.S. Politics 2017: You Flynn Some, You Lose Some

[Starkess]

2 hours ago, dmc515 said:

Well, I may be reading that email wrong, but from my understanding grad students are already being taxed from their tuition waivers - just at much lower levels that the House GOP bill would.  If that's the case, I have no idea how or where that is on my statements, and I certainly haven't been declaring it as income.

Nope, currently tuition waivers given to grad students who RA/TA are specifically excluded from taxable income. That exclusion would be cut in the House bill, leading to a massive increase in taxable income for grad students. This would be basically disastrous. In my own case, I do not think I could continue with my program if I was expected to pay income tax on a tuition waiver of over $50k a year.

[Mexal]

I guess they're going to fight it out.

 

[DMC]

6 minutes ago, Starkess said:

Nope, currently tuition waivers given to grad students who RA/TA are specifically excluded from taxable income. That exclusion would be cut in the House bill, leading to a massive increase in taxable income for grad students. This would be basically disastrous. In my own case, I do not think I could continue with my program if I was expected to pay income tax on a tuition waiver of over $50k a year.

Gotcha thanks.  And damn, that's quite the waiver!  

It indeed would be disastrous.  Many if not most grad student colleagues I know would have rethought entering the program if they knew the waiver would be taxed at such a rate, which is a significant portion of most stipends, at least in poly sci.

[LongRider]

44 minutes ago, Mexal said:

I guess they're going to fight it out.

 

As well they should, as English was given a lawful appointment.

[Martell Spy]

The death penalty is dying. Here's what that means for the criminal justice system.
Lawyers, not lawmakers, are killing the death penalty. There’s a critical lesson there.

https://www.vox.com/2017/11/26/16666952/death-penalty-america-criminal-justice

[lokisnow]

Regarding academia, a lot of liberals there are in the liberal arts and tend to be doing serious poilitical agitating like spending ten years writing a thesis on how bradamante was a trail blazing statement on trans rights in the Orlando furioso.  they're clearly such a threat to the childruns!

i think a lot of the problem is that intermarriage no longer happens. The thirty percent of kids that go to college will only marry kids from college and their kids will go to schools that are segregated from children of parents who didn't go to college, leading to a reinforcing cycle that suppresses intermarriage simply due to the ever furthering walls of segregation preventing the college educated from interacting with the non college educated.

since liberal wonks do not want their party to ever earn a vote from anyone who didn't go to college, they don't view this segregation as a problem but as something to be encouraged. 

People who rail about librul academia are mostly parents and family confused how their lovely (allegedly) straight laced kid can go to college and come back with all these foreign weird and new opinions and experiences that don't truck with thine kenning of everything two miles from yer house, must all be turrble!

What's really happening is that whether you're from Los Angeles or from Springfield, you grow up with a fairly narrow set of experiences, and college throws you into a melting pot with thousands of other kids with different narrow sets of life experiences and since most people don't hate everyone they meet, your classmates get fused into your subconscious in-group and as a result you now automatically act to defend and preserve those in your pack when they're rhetorically threatened by folks from back home who only acknowledge your original much smaller pack.

it is actually a fair approximation of what happened with GIs drafted in WWII and much research has shown that those melting pot experiences the GIs had resulted in a whole lot of good for the country for decades.

and also consider that until 2016, college graduates always voted by a comfortable majority for republicans, so I dont think that the liberal academia indoctrination is working that well. plenty of my classmates and friends are quite conservative overall and will undoubtedly vote republican in the future and would have already been stable votes for republicans if it weren't for gay marriage.

[denstorebog]

Sarah Kendzior pens a short, but precise summary of the three-pronged attack that's happening right now which will end democracy in the US. She ain't wrong. The packing of the courts is already a done deal, but we haven't seen the worst of gerrymandering yet, and the abolishment of net neutrality is possible to challenge. Making the coming year pretty pivotal in what the USA is fundamentally going to be here on out.

 

[Yukle]

7 hours ago, lokisnow said:

i think a lot of the problem is that intermarriage no longer happens. The thirty percent of kids that go to college will only marry kids from college and their kids will go to schools that are segregated from children of parents who didn't go to college, leading to a reinforcing cycle that suppresses intermarriage simply due to the ever furthering walls of segregation preventing the college educated from interacting with the non college educated.

This is supported by historical evidence. Suburbs used to be segregated using means such as banks denying black families loans, or town planners just refusing to allow black families into certain neighbourhoods. They were even advertised as such: white suburbs to raise your white family. The flow-on effects are that communities are now still segregated, although as much by economic as racial causes.

Formal segregation is over (thank goodness) but that doesn't mean its effects have entirely dissipated. As you say, it makes sense that you grow up with, become close to, and raise families with those of your own communities. Since communities were once segregated by race. they've developed into racial pockets that haven't entirely blended with each other. Segregation went on just long enough for each pocket to develop its cultural quirks that make it just that much easier to fit in within your own community and feel a bit alien within another.

Add to this that certain areas will be more affluent, and therefore more likely to attend university, leading to more cultural disparities and barriers between social groups when it comes to empathising with each other. Even when students do attend university, their means of paying for it, and their experiences differ: getting sports scholarships or army-paid subsidies versus full-fee up-front payments, meaning one group has extra stresses and pressures upon them to perform in areas other that their studies to maintain their scholarships. It all adds up.

It's probably also a factor in the feeling of being "left-out" that many disenchanted voters have felt in general, where it feels as though nobody else seems to get their specific problems and needs, based on the issues facing their own local communities.

[Fez]

10 hours ago, Triskele said:

Is there any hope that if they do pass this that it would add least hit in some kind of graduated way so it doesn't hit people that have already started down the path?  Presumably not since it's this GOP that's trying to pass it, but in a sane world where this wouldn't even be on the table in the first place they'd arrange it in a less harsh fashion.  

Probably not. What's going to need to happen is for universities to figure out clever workarounds for their graduate students; which they could do. Just like there are ways for states that would get hit by the SALT elimination to workaround it.*

*Such as establishing a state-run charitable foundation that funds various items currently funded by the state general fund; and allow taxpayer donations to this charity in lieu of state income taxes. So long as the state can get the IRS to classify the foundation as a charity (meaning it probably could only fund certain kinds of state expenses, like medical costs, but that's a big chunk; and states have other revenue streams still to cover the rest), taxpayers would be unaffected; they'd just have much larger charitable deductions on their federal returns rather than any SALT deduction. (Credit to Josh Barro, who is the first one I saw mentioning something like this).

[Fez]

Moran says he's undecided on the tax cut bill, citing the Kansas experience as one concern. http://cjonline.com/state-government/news/2016-elections/2017-11-24/us-sen-moran-engages-kansas-voters-town-hall-tax

It's not a hard 'no' and may end up being nothing, but it was Moran waffling on ACA repeal that was the first sign that there were real stumbling blocks there.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

12 hours ago, Nasty LongRider said:

As well they should, as English was given a lawful appointment.

This is problematic given the prior ruling of the DC Circuit Court holding that the Director of the CFPB serves at the pleasure of the President to avoid seperation of powers problems with the existing structure of the CFPB:

  https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2016/10/court-rules-consumer-financial-protection-bureaus-structure-is-unconstitutional/503660/

But to make things even more confusing, we are still waiting for a ruling from the DC Circuit Court that heard the same case en banc (every judge on that Circuit Court rather than the normal three judge panel) which may overrule the earlier three judge panel.  In any event this is far from a slam dunk for the CFPB and, I suspect, Trump will be allowed to appoint the new Director.

https://www.jdsupra.com/legalnews/phh-v-cfpb-en-banc-oral-argument-recap-38369/

[Mexal]

32 minutes ago, Fez said:

Moran says he's undecided on the tax cut bill, citing the Kansas experience as one concern. http://cjonline.com/state-government/news/2016-elections/2017-11-24/us-sen-moran-engages-kansas-voters-town-hall-tax

It's not a hard 'no' and may end up being nothing, but it was Moran waffling on ACA repeal that was the first sign that there were real stumbling blocks there.

Rand Paul voting for the Senate tax plan. 

[Week]

I fully support this idea -- let's compare which networks have been the most accurate and complete in reporting on the Mueller investigation, fall out from failed travel bans, etc. This tweet is not coming from a mentally capable individual.

 

[Morpheus]

Not including FOX because state run media is free from Dear Leader's evaluation of the free press.

Like how he had to add the parenthetical "me" after "your favorite president"

[Mexal]

It's still amazing to me that Republicans in Congress cannot see how wrong this all is.

 

[Mlle. Zabzie]

1 hour ago, Mexal said:

Rand Paul voting for the Senate tax plan. 

Yeah - the Senate tax plan is very, very likely to pass by the end of the week, I predict with minimal changes.  It will then go to conference and we'll see, but they really need to do something.  But I will say, my relatives in Trumpland totally hate the bill and understand what it's doing.  I don't think it matters though.

[Mexal]

12 minutes ago, Mlle. Zabzie said:

Yeah - the Senate tax plan is very, very likely to pass by the end of the week, I predict with minimal changes.  It will then go to conference and we'll see, but they really need to do something.  But I will say, my relatives in Trumpland totally hate the bill and understand what it's doing.  I don't think it matters though.

It doesn't. The Republicans, including Trump, give no fucks about their constituents. They care infinitely more about their donors which makes sense in today's political world. When over half the time by Congress is spent fundraising, donors matter much more.

[Martell Spy]

Where the New York Times article on an American Nazi went wrong
Why is it a surprise that Nazis love muffins?

https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/11/27/16701780/nyt-nazis-trump

The Red-State Revolt Spreads to Oklahoma
Republican voters soured on tax cuts in Kansas. Now a similar budget crisis is playing out in Oklahoma, and in a string of special-election wins, Democrats are taking advantage.

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/11/the-red-state-revolt-spreads-to-oklahoma/546671/

[TheKitttenGuard]

1 hour ago, Week said:

I fully support this idea -- let's compare which networks have been the most accurate and complete in reporting on the Mueller investigation, fall out from failed travel bans, etc. This tweet is not coming from a mentally capable individual.

 

I used Sad mockingly a few times.

Making something up and adding silly rules really is.

[Mlle. Zabzie]

50 minutes ago, Mexal said:

It doesn't. The Republicans, including Trump, give no fucks about their constituents. They care infinitely more about their donors which makes sense in today's political world. When over half the time by Congress is spent fundraising, donors matter much more.

Though interestingly, the Mnuchin meeting anecdote about the gathered CEOs not being happy about the plan is being borne out in my practice.  I'm not sure who likes this but the Koch brothers.  And even they have some parts of it that they really don't like.