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Ghost of LL

Burnt Ends
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Posts posted by Ghost of LL

  1. 23 minutes ago, BillyBadAss said:

    I understand morally why some Dems might want to extend ACA subsidies, I don't understand politically why they'd want to (right now). I really don't understand why they'd want to extend them only 1 year - which would stave off the pain of increased premiums until post midterms. 

    The Dems seemed to stumble into a good outcome - they shined a bright light on the fact that Rs are refusing to extend subsidies, without getting the subsidies extended.

    This seems like a good political outcome ahead of the midterms when people who have freshly lost their insurance or been forced to pay out the ass for it are headed to the polls remembering Rs allowed the govt to be shut down rather than help. 

     

    What an I missing?

    You're not missing anything.  The Senate Democrats played this to maximum cynicism.  And as a cynic myself, I appreciate it.

    Plenty of Democratic voters and unrealistic expectations about what was achievable in this shutdown.  But realistically, very little was achievable through this (or really any) shutdown.  That should've been clear once it became evident that Republicans would starve Americans and crash the air-transit system.  Once that happened, it just became a game of maximizing blame on Trump and the GQP.

    Is there a possible universe in which the Republicans cave and extend the ACA subsidies?  I mean, maybe.  Probably not.  But maybe.  But in that universe, it works to the GQP's electoral benefit.

    And while there are plenty of us who would be happy to see the shutdown continue through the 2026 midterms . . . that wasn't realistic.  The political impact of that would've been highly unpredictable.  Right now, Trump is getting the blame.  But he has a larger microphone and a lot of corporate media at his back.  The narrative could've quickly swung.

    So the Dems took their fairly modest winnings and went home.  I understand that move.  I don't particularly love it.  Maybe I kind of hate it.  But I definitely understand it.

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  2. 1 hour ago, Francisco 2.0 said:

     

     

    We have an update:

     

     

     

    As someone who is doing a home renovation right now, I owe Donald Trump (and to a somewhat lesser extent, Chip & Joanna Gaines) a real debt of gratitude because I can point to everything he touches and tell my contractor/decorator, "for the love of god and all things holy, don't do anything like this.  In fact, do the exact opposite."

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  3. 2 hours ago, Huckleberry said:

    I'm not sure about them but I think this is more dumb than right wing based in early primary season. Of course the Republicans would love to face Allred so I guess it's possible they were involved. 

    But instinctively it feels more like typical holding Democrats to moral standards that the media never holds Republicans to. In this case, though, it's a huge swing and a miss by the media in thinking that a representative communicating with sex worker constituents is somehow immoral. 

    Counterpoint: these type of things will sometimes be leaked by the subject candidate around this time in an effort to innoculate him against the issue later.  It could be that Talarico's team saw that he's following a bunch of porn stars on the Gram and decided to get out ahead of it.  Had this come out two weeks before the primary . . . that'd be bad.  Two weeks before the general election--catastrophic because of the aforementioned reality that we hold Democrats to a ridiculously higher standard than we hold Republicans.

    Let this come out a couple weeks before Thanksgiving, and it's completely forgotten by Christmas.  But if anyone tries to bring it up in February, it just gets dismissed as "old news" and Talarico's people would say "this came out months ago and nobody cares."

  4. 5 minutes ago, Fudge Nuggets said:

    I think it makes things less likely for a re-opening. They know they are going to get smashed next year so why not inflict as much pain and cruelty as possible in the meantime?

    Because as last night makes very clear, Republicans are taking a disproportionate amount of the blame for the shutdown.  Hell--even Trump has said so.  And by the way, once the president (of any party) says "we're taking the blame" for anything, the blame is placed.  There's no walking that back.

    If I'm the Democrats, I hold out for everything I've ever had on my wish list.  Because why would I want to reopen the government and let Trump pass his priorities through a unified Congress?  Fuck that--leave the government shut down for the next year, and let Republicans take the blame.  They'd get fucking wiped out in the midterms.

    Which is why, one way or another, there are going to be just enough Republicans who like their jobs to get through some compromise.

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  5. 22 minutes ago, bluto said:

    Any news on Austin prop q?

    The county clerk here counts votes so slowly, we’ll probably know about California Prop 50 before we know about Austin Prop Q.

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  6. On 11/3/2025 at 5:27 AM, dieucla98 said:

    6am out of AUS this morning and it was the fastest I've made it to the gate in recent memory. No issues. But 6am isn't really peak departure time here.....

    Six in the morning actually is the peak departure time from AUS.

    The airlines want to maximize an airplane's productivity, so they want to get it in the air as early in the morning as possible.  But there's really a hard stop around 6:00 AM for most people--they're not going to buy a ticket for a flight that leaves at 5:00.  So virtually every gate at AUS has a flight that is going to leave within 20 minutes of 6:00.

    There's no other time of day at AUS that is that busy.  After 6:00, the flights start to get staggered.  So the early morning is the busiest it's going to be all day.

    54 minutes ago, DDD Dad said:

    I see no reason for Dems to back down as the last time they did so with the promise that Rs would come to the table the Rs told them to shove it.

    Why would they ever believe Rs will negotiate in good faith?  

    They shouldn't.  Trump and the Congressional Republicans have demonstrated over and over and over again that they cannot be trusted to negotiate in good faith.  If the Republicans want the government to reopen, then they need to give on the ACA subsidies.

    And it's pretty clear at this point that Republicans should want the government reopened.  They're the ones taking the blame for this.  You can see that in Trump's approval ratings, which are steadily declining.  Every poll shows Republicans taking more of the blame for the shutdown.  And when people can't go visit grandma for Thanksgiving, shit's going to get real focused.  It's one thing to say you blame the ebil Democraps for the shutdown while it's not really affecting you.  But when you're standing in an endless TSA line on Novmeber 25 and you know goddamned well the Republicans control the White House and both houses of Congress, that facade cracks a little bit.

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  7. 11 hours ago, Leanderman said:

    May be an image of football and text that says '4 Football FootbalTexa Texas @NTfootballUT Texas fans, be prepared for the officiating in next game.'

    I'm actually not that worried about the officiating in the Georgia game, at least from the standpoint that I don't think Georgia is going to get some inherent favoritism from SEC officials.  I say that for two reaons:

    1) The SEC doesn't have an interest in Georgia beating Texas.  The SEC wants more teams in the CFP, full stop.  If Georgia wins, they're probably still in the CFP with only two losses.  Texas, on the other hand, is probably out (not definitely, but probably).  So if anything, the Conference should favor Texas winning that game.

    2) I'm very skeptical of the conspiracy theories about conferences wanting certain teams to win.  It would be just too big a conspiracy to keep a lid on.   It's one thing for two or three referees on a crew to agree to something among themselves; it's quite another to have a crew agree with the league office about something.  I just don't think it's realistic scenario.

    What is a realistic scenario--and one that could affect any game--is gambling.  It's just really hard to watch the fourth quarter of that Vanderbilt game and conclude that one or more of that crew didn't have an interest in Vanderbilt +3.5.  I think that's exceedingly rare.  But as we saw--it does happen.  But next time, it could just as easily happen in favor of Texas.  It's completely unpredictable.

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  8. On 10/31/2025 at 5:47 PM, Bozo_Casanova said:

    No it’s an indictment of the voters and the citizens of a city that has overcome incredible strokes of good luck and natural advantages in order to avoid being a great city. Our council isn’t great, but it’s 100x better than the voters deserve.

    I mean, ok.  I'm not going to argue with you that Austin voters suck.

    But they suck largely because Council does everything it can to reduce voter turnout among groups that would not suck nearly so much as the NA-ocracy that runs this place.  So there's a little bit of a chicken-and-egg situation going on here.

    Regardless--the suckiness of Austin voters is no reason to vote for Prop Q.

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  9. 1 hour ago, Bozo_Casanova said:

    After some back and forth, I’ve decided to vote for prop Q.  To be clear, I expect Prop Q to fail. I also expect the failure of Prop Q to launch careers and other initiatives that will cause this city real harm. 

    Im voting for prop Q for three main reasons:

    1)  Half of this increase covers essential needs. Yes, our homeless strategy is an incoherent, inhumane mess and it’s likely that 25-30% of this will be wasted or actively increase misery. That’s unfortunate but there is no reality but this one. 
    2) Austin’s city taxe rates are not too high and won’t be if this passes. We’re getting killed by recapture, and the people bitching the most about this increase are the same people who vote for the people robbing us blind while their party bans books and refuses  to reform property taxes.
    3) Most importantly, opposition to Prop Q has united the worst and most dishonest people in Austin’s public life, and they have run their campaign on the basis of misinformation and kicking down. Fuck them. 
     

     

    I gotta tell you--you're Point 3 makes absolutely no sense to me.  The fact that someone you hate is going to vote against Prop Q is no basis to conclude that you should vote for it.  Some things should be non-controversial.  Matt Mackowiac could vote against a proposition to kill all puppies in Austin, that doesn't mean that you or I or anyone else should vote for it.  

    Proposed legislation should stand or fall on its own merits.  And the other two points you outline indicate that Prop Q has none.

    Austin's tax rates are too high when applied to to the residential real estate in this city.  Compare the tax burden a citizen in Austin pays to any other peer city.  I don't care whether we're talking San Antonio or San Jose--Austin residents pay more, and generally get far less.

    Otherwise, you beg the question when you write that the increase covers essential needs.  The increase covers "essential" needs only because so much of the budget is already taken up covering non-essential needs.  The budget is bloated.  But many budgets are bloated.  Austin's is bloated in in ways that are both highly publicized and intensely stupid.

    And that's why you're exactly right that this ill-concieved, ill-considered, and ill-timed proposition will launch careers and initiatives that are going to be bad for the City.  But that's an indictment of the Council who put this proposition on the ballot just weeks after the airport-art debacle and the city-logo kerfuffle.  And you advocate giving that Council more money?

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  10. 2 hours ago, Sbbruin said:

    Of course ticket sales have bottomed out.  Cletus and Lerlene aren't lining up to buy tickets to La Boheme (it's an opera).

    Two different Simpsons references and a Trading Places reference all in one sentence?  Bravo to you, sir.  That's some peak Gen-X energy right there.

    1 hour ago, Superhero said:

    Didn't want to CR the Wives Stupid Shit thread, but my wife voted No on California Prop 50 (temporary redistricting to counter Texas gerrymandering). She doesn't like Trump and wants to see him gone, but doesn't want to pay the price for redistricting. Told her sometimes it takes sacrifice for democracy, but nope, she's pretty stubborn.

     

    Well, it's not like she's going to have to worry about voting in future elections.  So she might as well blow this last one.

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