Daily Kos

Saturday open thread for night owls: DeVos lets students know she doesn't care about their debt

Daily Kos Staff

Saturday August 31, 2019 · 7:30 PM PDT

2019/08/31 · 19:30

At Mother Jones, Rebecca Leber writes—Betsy DeVos Just Made It Harder For Defrauded Students to Get Their Debt Canceled:

Just in time for the start of a new school year, Education Secretary Betsy DeVos on Friday finalized a new suite of changes to an Obama-era policy that targeted fraud at for-profit colleges. The new DeVos rule significantly raises the bar students have to clear in order to qualify for debt forgiveness when their schools close while they’re enrolled.

After state and federal investigations into fraud at some of the country’s biggest for-profit college operators caused the schools to shutter, thousands of students found themselves deep in debt for incomplete degrees. As my colleague Eddie Rios reported last year:

The Century Foundation, a Washington-based think tank, found in May that more than 127,000 debt relief claims were filed to the Education Department by March 2018, up 29 percent from August 2017….More than 98 percent of those claims came from students who attended for-profit colleges.

The Obama program has cleared $222 million in loans from nearly 20,000 borrowers since 2016, according to the New York Times. But as a result of the new DeVos rule, after July 2020, students filing for debt relief will have to prove their colleges intentionally deceived them, that it influenced their decision to enroll, and that it made them financially suffer. The change also sets a three-year deadline for filing a claim; the Obama rule had no deadline and automatically relieved their debts if they didn’t enroll elsewhere within three years. [...]

TOP COMMENTS

TWEET OF THE DAY

Counter protesters screaming at Straight Pride participants. #StraightPride pic.twitter.com/Z8wDRuCI6G
— Mike Luso Ã°ÂÂÂ¤Ã°ÂÂÂÃ°ÂÂÂºÃ°ÂÂÂ¸ (@ItsMikeLuso) August 31, 2019

BLAST FROM THE PAST

At Daily Kos on this date in 2004—Romney's convention surprise:

Dan Rather helps build the hype:

Hot tip or just so much hot air?

Two individual Republican powers on separate occasions in the past 24 hours have said, on a "Don't quote me by name, but..." basis: "Keep your eyes and ears open for Mitt Romney's convention speech Wednesday night."

Romney is Governor of Massachusetts, generally described as a moderate Republican. He's also generally regarded as thirsting to run for president in 2008.

What, if anything, he might come forward with when he speaks to the Republican faithful here on Wednesday night is anybody's guess. When a reporter circulates among other Republicans asking, "What could it be, this 'Romney surprise'?" the most common response is: "Beats me."

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Nestlé wants to take 1.1M gallons of water per day from Florida, then sell it back to the public

Marissa Higgins

Daily Kos Staff

Saturday August 31, 2019 · 7:00 PM PDT

2019/08/31 · 19:00

A woman walks past an aisle with bottled water at a supermarket in Los Angeles, California on March 15, 2018. .The world's leading brands of bottled water are contaminated with tiny plastic particles that are likely seeping in during the packaging process, according to a major study across nine countries. Plastic was identified in 93 percent of the samples, which included major name brands such as Aqua, Aquafina, Dasani, Evian, Nestle Pure Life and San Pellegrino. / AFP PHOTO / FREDERIC J. BROWN (Photo credit should read FREDERIC J. BROWN/AFP/Getty Images)

Campaign Action

Nestlé Waters is trying to take an astounding 1.1 million gallons of water per day from Ginnie Springs and the Santa Fe River in Florida, as first reported by The Guardian. Local conservationists are afraid that the corporate giant will disrupt the natural habitat of turtles that live in the bank. They’re also afraid that the river is simply too frail to survive all of this, as it’s already been designated as “in recovery” from being over-pumped in the past.

Perhaps the biggest, most glaring issue? That a corporate giant wants to take publicly owned water and … sell it back to the public. Yikes.

How does this work? Basically, the Florida Water Resources Act says that all of the water in the springs (as well as the rivers and lakes) is state property. However, it never established a price for the water. So while taxpayers pay into resources that, for example, restore the spring from over-pumping, companies like Nestlé are able to take state water without paying for it.

Of course, in a statement on its website, Nestlé sings a different tune:

"Springwater is a rapidly renewable resource when managed correctly. Nestlé Waters North America is committed to the highest level of sustainable spring water management at all of the springs we manage," the company explains in a written statement. "We have worked to be a good neighbor in Florida for decades. Our commitment goes beyond just caring about the water. We value our relationships with Florida residents and community leaders, and always strive to create shared value within the communities where we operate."

Merrillee Malwitz-Jipson, a member of the Our Sante Fe River conservation group, told The Guardian she isn’t buying it.

Nuts & Bolts: Democratic campaign or party in disarray is the easiest story to write

Chris Reeves for Daily Kos

Daily Kos Staff

Saturday August 31, 2019 · 6:00 PM PDT

2019/08/31 · 18:00

It’s another Saturday, so for those who tune in, welcome to a diary discussing the Nuts & Bolts of a Democratic Campaign. If you’ve missed out, you can catch up anytime: Just visit our group or follow Nuts & Bolts Guide. Every week I try to tackle issues I’ve been asked about, and with the help of other campaign workers and notes, we tackle subjects about how to improve and build better campaigns.

Finding ways to make writing easier certainly is something most writers think about now and again. Following the news? Quick reporting and just the facts. Entertainment? State your opinion. In politics: write a column about how the Democrats are in disarray. The reason that writing that article is so easy isn’t hard to guess — it’s because there are a ton of Democratic officials waiting in the wings to provide you quotes that will back your claim and make you feel as though the sky is falling.

As a group, Democratic party members have a tendency to wring our hands often, and too many find it pretty easy to doubt success all the way until it happens — that way, if something goes wrong, we knew it all along, and it just shows why other people should have listened to us, good old Eeyore.

Breaking out of this negative cycle is a big part of what gets Democratic candidates elected. Ready to stop being Eeyore and think a bit more like Tigger?

As other companies price-gouge ahead of Dorian, this brewery is stockpiling free water for all

Jessica Sutherland

Daily Kos Staff

Saturday August 31, 2019 · 5:30 PM PDT

2019/08/31 · 17:30

Joe Dunham, owner of the Grove Roots Brewing Company in Winter Haven, Fla., talks about stockpiling 1500 of free, fresh water for the local community, ahead of Hurricane Dorian. — This is a good dude

It seems like almost every looming natural disaster brings a headline or two about attempts to profit off of people as they prepare and panic. Price-gouging for essentials like gas, water, and ice is not a new practice, yet it never fails to inspire anger and disgust when it happens. It’s so common, Florida passed a law against it in 1992; the Sunshine State is not alone.

But as Hurricane Dorian threatens landfall, and multiple governors of states in its path have declared a state of emergency, price-gouging is popping up across Florida; over 1000 reports have already come in, according to the Attorney General.

In Tampa:

A picture taken from inside the (Family Dollar) store shows 24 packs selling for $18 and $24, a steep price hike from an online ad (Tampa resident Miranda) Doyel downloaded showing the same packages costing $4.25 on special this week.

Out-of-pocket costs for multiple sclerosis medications have quadrupled during past 10 years

Walter Einenkel

Daily Kos Staff

Saturday August 31, 2019 · 5:00 PM PDT

2019/08/31 · 17:00

A laboratory worker prepares solutions for homoeopathic medical products at the Boiron's production laboratory plant in Messimy near Lyon, central-eastern France, on February 5, 2019. - In the factory of the homoeopathic pharmaceutical producer Boiron, in Messimy, state-of-the-art equipment meets ingredients that seem to come out of the back of an apothecary's shop. Fearing the possible ending of reimbursement of homoeopathy in France, the French giant of the sector opens its doors, with a new concern for transparency. (Photo by ROMAIN LAFABREGUE / AFP) (Photo credit should read ROMAIN LAFABREGUE/AFP/Getty Images)

New research published in JAMA Neurology on Monday reports that the annual cost of “self-administered disease-modifying therapies for multiple sclerosis more than quadrupled” between 2006-2016, raising the mean yearly costs for drugs from $18,660 to $75,847. The median American family income is $61,372. The out-of-pocket spending for a patient needing these drugs has risen from $372 annually in 2006 to $2,673 in 2016. The researchers point out that considering the market for these drugs has seen almost double the competition from new self-administered, disease-modifying therapies for multiple sclerosis since 2009, the price increase shows that competition isn’t working to moderate prices.

Inmaculada Hernandez, an ssistant professor of pharmacy at University of Pittsburgh and senior author of the report, told Science Daily, "We wanted to see how increases in list prices translated to increases in out-of-pocket spending, and we discovered that actual price increases do get passed down to patients, and that can negatively affect access.” The team looked at Medicare beneficiaries over this time to point out that the increases to Medicare spending on the drug, problematic for a lots of reasons, still did not immunize patients from being hit with out-of-pocket expense increases.

And while millions of Americans borrowed more than $88 billion last year alone to cover medical expenses, it’s not just big-ticket items that hurt their pockets: It’s also the millions of little cuts, the $20 a bottle for what was once $4, that pile up over time.

What are the best and worst states for workers? This week in the war on workers

Laura Clawson for Daily Kos Labor

Daily Kos Staff

Saturday August 31, 2019 · 4:10 PM PDT

2019/08/31 · 16:10

Some states have raised their minimum wages, passed paid sick leave, and upheld their workers’ right to organize. Others, not so much. So how do the states stack up? Oxfam has produced a best to worst states index, focusing on wage policies, worker protection policies, and right to organize policies.

Best and worst states to work in, 2019 — Click through for the interactive version.

Wage policies mean not just the minimum wage but how the minimum wage compares to a living wage and whether cities and towns are allowed to pass their own laws. Worker protection policies mean equal pay laws, paid family leave and paid sick leave, fair scheduling laws, sexual harassment protections, and accommodations for pregnant and breastfeeding workers. Right to organize encompasses providing collective bargaining and wage negotiation to teachers, police, and firefighters; legalizing project labor agreements; and not having so-called right to work laws in place.

The number one state is actually the District of Columbia, followed by California, Washington state, Massachusetts, and Maine. The bottom five states are Virginia, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, and North Carolina.

Where does your state rank?

Mass shooting in west Texas: 5 dead, 21 injured

Mark Sumner

Daily Kos Staff

Saturday August 31, 2019 · 3:50 PM PDT

2019/08/31 · 15:50

Odessa police chief making announcement from hospital

A series of shootings took place in the closely linked cities of Midland and Odessa, Texas on Saturday evening. Initial reports, which came from residents in the two cities located about twenty miles apart, led police to believe there were at least two suspects. But as of 6:00 PM Central Time, police in Midland believe that there was only a single suspect who changed vehicles several times while shooting at people in a Home Depot, along the highway, and at various locations in Odessa.

According to police reports five people have died, in addition to the suspect, while twenty=one have been reported at a local hospital. Other reports indicate that two state troopers may have been wounded in a highway chase and total numbers of the number of those wounded have been reported as high as 30.

As with most such situations, there is a considerable amount of confusion in the moments following the shooting, and it may be a few hours before a definitive timeline of events, and an accurate tally of those killed or wounded is available.

A statement from the Midland police, issued just before 6 PM, indicated that the shooter had been killed at the Cinergy entertainment complex in Odessa.

The Odessa police chief has just finished giving a statement in which he did not provide a name for the shooter, but has indicated that he was “a white male in his mid 30s.” According to the Odessa police, the incident began with a traffic stop at which a state troopers was shot. The shooter then continued to shoot others in the area, including taking shots at random vehicles and pedestrians in multiple locations. More details are still forthcoming.

Reports of multiple suspects is common in the early minutes following a mass shootings. In this case, the idea that there was more than one person involved was bolstered by the shooter moving between vehicles, including a stolen postal van.

^{This story has been updated from the initial reporting as new information has become available.}

Saturday, Aug 31, 2019 · 11:37:58 PM +00:00 · Mark Sumner

A reminder from NBC News.

“Just weeks after the shooting in El Paso, gun laws are changing in Texas … Starting Sunday, September 1, it’s going to be a lot easier to carry and store guns in Texas.” That’s right. The Texas legislature has responded to mass shootings by loosening gun laws in Texas. And those laws go into effect tomorrow.

This includes a rule that protects people carrying guns who knowingly enter a business or home where guns are prohibited. And it includes a rule that churches have to permit handguns.

Picks of the Week from the Daily Kos Community, Aug. 31 (and a Community conversation)

Jessica Sutherland

Daily Kos Staff

Saturday August 31, 2019 · 3:30 PM PDT

2019/08/31 · 15:30

Community Picks Image — Great job, y'all!

Greetings, dearest ones, and welcome to this week’s celebration of writing by the Daily Kos Community! We’ve got a baker’s dozen of diaries this week, the maximum allowed, but let me tell you, we could have easily had 30 entries. This was one hell of a week for great content, both inside and outside of the Picks of the Week parameters.

Spotlight on green news & views: Regenerative agriculture; missing sharks; starving orcas

Meteor Blades for Daily Kos

Daily Kos Staff

Saturday August 31, 2019 · 3:00 PM PDT

2019/08/31 · 15:00

Lightning striking mountain — A lightning bolt strikes a mountain overlooking Enterprise, Oregon. See foresterbob's photo diary of storms in the Extreme Weather and Natural Phenomena category below.

This is the 612th edition of the Spotlight on Green News & Views (previously known as the Green Diary Rescue). Here is the August 17 edition . Inclusion of a story in the Spotlight does not necessarily indicate my agreement with or endorsement of it.

It’s a huge spotlight today—133 stories!!—because I was ill last Saturday and decided to include two weeks’ worth of environmental posts this week. A lot to read, but you’ve got three whole days to do it.

The spotlight will be on hiatus until Saturday, September 21.

OUTSTANDING GREEN STORIES

citisven writes—Turn the orange blues into action: California about to pass important climate bills, with your help! “It’s so easy these days to get either distracted or depressed by the daily barrage of orange madness raining down on us, ranging in significance from hopelessly vapid to humanly atrocious. Coupled with what seems to be an ever sprawling and accelerating onslaught of social media on our senses, an almost instinctive reaction I witness in myself as well as many of my friends is to want to hide in our cocoons and withdraw from public discussion of important issues altogether. What good is another deep dive into the ignorant policy manifestations of a deranged mind when all it does is get your blood boiling? Whenever I get into this space I remind myself that the temptation to check out because of the perceived futility of it all existed long before the current occupant of the White House and his wrecking crew slithered onto the scene, and will continue to be beckoning long after they’re gone. Just take climate change, an issue so complex, protracted, and wrought with dynamics ostensibly out of my own hands that it had me flirting with despair long before the Chinese-hoax barker ever got to appoint shady climate deniers and coal-industry lobbyists as EPA chiefs. And while there’s no denying that the current (mal)administration represents a new nadir in its brazen nihilism towards all things human and vibrant and alive — at least in my 30+ years in this country — it is also true that a lot of the current disasters like the burning Amazon forests, record heat waves across the globe, and a melting arctic full of microplastics aren’t easily pinned on just one bad actor. The good news in all this, if any, is that for those of us who refused to stick our heads in the sand before the orange hot air balloon started to stink up the place, there really is no good reason to do so now. The structural challenges to curbing global carbon emissions to where future (and at this point in the game, current) generations will have a fighting chance at life on a habitable planet were always going to be daunting, ever since we (and the fossil fuel industry) have known the trajectory we’re on.

••• •••

skralyx writes—Hail biodiversity! Weird mushroom cranks out a chemical that neutralizes the odor of skunk spray: “I don’t think I need to convince you of the benefits of biodiversity, but we just learned a new way to eliminate skunk odor from a mushroom. That mushroom, Tolypocladium, is pictured above, courtesy of the Western Pennsylvania Mushroom Club, and if you don’t mind, I would like to take a moment to commend Western Pennsylvania for having a Mushroom Club. Tolypocladium has needed to defend itself from pests out there for a very long time. Bacteria would love to devour it, and those bacteria are always coming up with new chemicals to make life difficult for other organisms. We humans struggle with anthrax, botulism, tetanus, and many other bacterial maladies, but mushrooms have their own set of bacterial toxins to worry about. Dr. Robert Cichewicz’s lab at the University of Oklahoma has been studying Tolypocladium for awhile, and they got their species of it from a crowdsourcing project where people submitted soil samples from odd places. They found, back in 2016, that one Alaskan fungus (that turned out to be Tolypocladium) started making a new compound when it was exposed to bacteria, presumably to defend itself. So they set out to find what that compound was, and why it was there.”

••• •••

Mi Corazon writes—Farms for America: Regenerative Agriculture Shines Bright: “It’s not unimaginable America’s farms could rise from the ash heap and lead an ecological/cultural renaissance badly needed in an age of industrialism, technological overkill and climate upheaval. It’s just not likely. Just as it was never likely that a kid like me would end up farming. Modern farms are businesses, not just places to raise family and settle land. Businesses have a bottom line, and need to pay taxes, hire, invest, and ride out years when times are tough. And raising children costs more than ever, with sports and medicine and college. A farm has to produce for that too. Over many decades, every farm in America has had to make their choice: stay on the land and find ways to grow revenue — or, cut back on farming or rent the acreage while one or two adults go elsewhere to work. Small towns and farmsteads in the Midwest have fallen backwards in this time; fewer farms, school populations in decline, investment dwindling. Semi-trucks haul grain off the land and dump into grating at a rail yard, the farm’s lifeblood disappearing down a corporate silo which ships it to feedlots or ethanol plants or overseas.”

Indiana student sent home over T-shirt that condemns homophobia and racism, sparks protests

Marissa Higgins

Daily Kos Staff

Saturday August 31, 2019 · 2:30 PM PDT

2019/08/31 · 14:30

screenshot-www.youtube.com-2019.08.31-09_52_45.png

Dress codes lean archaic and sexist from the jump—how often are young women policed for the length of their shorts or the rise of their tops? Dress codes tend to be rife with double standards (how often are female students pulled out of class or humiliated over their bodies in comparison to their male peers?) and can be especially tough on students who have non-traditional forms of gender expression. Something else? According to one student at Highland Hills Middle School, this southern Indiana middle school is experiencing a whole different kind of dress code drama. And it’s now led to students walking out in solidarity and protest.

According to Renee Williams, one of the 13-year-old girl’s mothers, the student was pulled out of physical education and told she was violating the dress code by wearing a T-shirt that reads, “Why be racist, sexist, homophobic, or transphobic when you can just be quiet?” All in, a message that exudes inclusion and equality… Two concepts that should be stressed in middle school, not debated.

Anyway. Williams shared their account (and a picture of her child wearing said T-shirt) on a Facebook post, as reported by the Courier Journal. She also participated in an interview (embedded below) about the situation.

After the teenager was pulled out of class, she was sent to the school’s office. Principal Wendy Ivey, according to the student, said that the shirt didn’t necessarily violate the dress code. So what’s the issue? That from a distance, the only words you can see are “sexist” and “homophobic.” Hmm, OK...

“She said that my shirt was inappropriate and could be seen as disrespectful,” recalled the student.

From there, according to the student, the principal gave her a few options. Wear a different shirt (provided for physical education classes), put on a jacket, or turn the shirt in question inside out. She agreed to put her own hoodie over the shirt. Then the situation continued.

Times are good for the yacht class, while the struggling-to-pay-the-mortgage class gets left behind

Laura Clawson for Daily Kos Labor

Daily Kos Staff

Saturday August 31, 2019 · 2:00 PM PDT

2019/08/31 · 14:00

Eclipse, the largest yacht in the world, is docked at a pier on the west side of Manhattan ON February 26, 2013 in New York. The "Eclipse" belongs to Roman Abramovich, the Russian billionaire who owns Chelsea Football Club. AFP PHOTO/DON EMMERT (Photo credit should read DON EMMERT/AFP/Getty Images)

Great news, if you’re already wealthy! Wealth in the U.S. is growing—if you’re already wealthy. The Wall Street Journal reports, “The top 1% of households have more than twice as much as they did in 2003.” The picture isn’t so bright in the bottom 50% of households, though, which “have only recently regained the wealth lost in the 2007-2009 recession and still have 32% less wealth, adjusted for inflation, than in 2003.”

A big part of the reason for this divergence in the wealth picture is that rich people own stocks and bonds and chunks of private companies, while the main assets of not-so-rich people are likely to be their houses, and it just so happens that the (rigged) economy of the past couple of decades just so happens to favor the kind of wealth held by the wealthy. By this point, lower- and middle-income families struggle to even buy a home.

One thing The Wall Street Journal doesn’t mention here is race, but it’s a powerful driver of wealth inequality. Black families in particular remain disadvantaged, when it comes to building wealth, by having been redlined for generations. Racial income inequality also feeds the wealth gap, but whatever you attribute it to, the gap is serious:

This is why policies that tinker around the edges of our economy without making big changes are not enough.

Charleston church mass shooting victims may sue federal government over gun purchase, court rules

Marissa Higgins

Daily Kos Staff

Saturday August 31, 2019 · 1:30 PM PDT

2019/08/31 · 13:30

CHARLESTON, SC - JUNE 17: Cathleen Thomas (R) leads a prayer with Kinlee Thomas (L), Hannah Blystone, and Caylee Thomas outside of Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church, June 17, 2016 in Charleston, South Carolina. Suspect Dylann Roof is charged with killing nine parishioners during a bible study session one year ago today at the historic Emanuel AME Church in Charleston. (Photo by Sean Rayford/Getty Images)

In 2015, a male white supremacist entered Mother Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina and shot and killed nine black Americans (and injured three others) in their place of worship during a Bible study. On Friday, a federal appeals court ruled that survivors of this mass shooting can sue the U.S. government because its negligence allowed the shooter to buy the gun, to begin with.

How did this work? Basically, the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the government was not immune under the Federal Tort Claims Act (FTCA) or the Brady Act. A three-judge panel looked at 16 lawsuits that called to question the means by which the government decides who can and cannot buy a gun. Basically, the government’s vetting process and how reliable it actually is in reality.

If the white supremacist in question had an appropriate, complete background check, he wouldn’t have been qualified to buy a gun from a federally licensed dealer. In this particular case, the shooter had admitted to drug possession in the past, which should have been a disqualifier. But, in layman’s terms, because of “confusion” on behalf of the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) Examiner (this is the negligence part) and its subsequent delay of the review, the firearms dealer sold the shooter the gun anyway.

“The government has to do what the law requires,” Williams Wilkins, who represents the victims and is a former chief judge himself, said in an interview as reported by Yahoo. “It failed to do that in this case.”

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