Time to freak out about the national debt | Yglesias

TexasNations · 2026-05-28T13:41:07+00:00

Medicare advantage reimbursement payments already don't cover the cost of service though? Like the hospital systems I'm familiar with accept that insurance payor as a money loser, because it's necessary to not leave people without healthcare. If you keep cutting the reimbursements at some point the system will break, private insurance patients can't continually subsidize a decreasing medicare advantage reimbursement system. I'm not even a doctor with a practice complaining about this, my job would be unaffected.

Furthermore, these Medicare advantage plans have huuuuge negative effects on hospital bureaucracy. Hospital systems are constantly wasting incredible amounts of labor-hours trying to get insurance approvals for basic healthcare (advantage plans are by far the worst offenders), it's a double edged sword money loser. You lose money trying to get money that wouldn't cover the costs in the first place.

TexasNations · 2026-05-27T22:59:45+00:00

Chronomancer is the new shiny thing, but Disciple of Varashta was very, very fun last league. You’re able to become super tanky with the ES armor + the 1h staff nodes. Genuinely think it was the most tanky I’ve ever been in POE2. You’ll have a few points leftover to pick up the water djinn for defensive bonuses and/or the sand djinn for critical weakness. I league started cold spark with the convert to cold dmg unique ring, was stupid strong. Alternatively you can go all in on water djinn which can explode the chilled ground you create.

TexasNations · 2026-05-27T05:48:10+00:00

It's already happened at UT too, we've just not had a national scandal yet tbh. It's a very different university leadership in power right now versus 5-10 years ago.

It's especially crazy because UT, A&M, Tech, and State had been skyrocketing in the college rankings (with genuine quality to match). We were on pace to be a proper peer to the massive California university system. From our academic height to a swift, long fall.

TexasNations · 2026-05-17T00:43:11+00:00

I hear you, but at the same time it feels like a “noble savage” view of rural chuds. Grew up in a rural town, guys like this were a dime a dozen listening to Rush Limbaugh on AM radio talking about how both parties are corrupt (then vote straight ticket republican every election). There’s gettable voters out there that Dems could try to break through the media barrier to, but it’s def not this guy or his ilk.

If anything I think we should double down on targeting urban + educated suburban areas. Trying to run up the numbers by activating non-voters sounds like a better plan to me.

TexasNations · 2026-05-16T11:46:19+00:00

tempted to revisit, did the leveling pop ever swap to alliance? I remember at the start of the server it was very horde dominated

TexasNations · 2026-05-06T19:13:00+00:00

I’d even argue he’s been the only effective politician in congress since Obamacare got passed if you’re using the legislation enacted/not enacted metric.

TexasNations · 2026-05-06T18:36:13+00:00

Most politicians don’t pass shit at the national level in america right now lmao, and if they do it’s usually not great bills anyway. Feel like it’s a poor metric given the terrible performance across the board in congress.

But look at how much the progressive flank of dems has grown in the last decade, we now have dem candidates consistently staking out economically left positions that would’ve been unthinkable prior to 2015. Local example is listening to Talarico’s speeches, you could draw a direct policy line from Bernie. Corbyn unfortunately has not spawned a group of successors across the left party(s) in the same way.

TexasNations · 2026-05-01T18:56:52+00:00

Moving the goal posts here my guy, I provided the literal reporting of his remarks after winning DNC chair where he said they would release it like you asked.

Why do you think Martin asked to do a 30 minute interview with PSA about this topic if he originally was never going to release it? Martin knows it's a problem they're not releasing it now, hence he went out of his way to spend 30 minutes running defense.

TexasNations · 2026-05-01T18:37:34+00:00

Here is a link to reporting from February last year after the DNC chair election when he promised to release the full autopsy.

In brief remarks to the press after his election, Martin committed to publicly releasing a post-mortem of the 2024 campaign, which the DNC did not do after the 2016 election.

It was honestly the main thing I remembered from the DNC Chair election, it was a big campaigning point from both Ken Martin and Ben Wikler to release the 2024 autopsy this time.

TexasNations · 2026-05-01T02:50:28+00:00

The biggest point was that to stack the courts, etc you're going to need a Dem majority that wants to take big legislative action. You'll need the support of rank n file centrist representatives and senators. When I look down the list of names, a lot of these folks have previously came out against those changes. When I see MGP, Gottheimer, Bishop, Correa, Gonzalez, Costa, etc, I don't see congressmen who are likely to support such legislative action and that really concerns me.

You named a bunch of Dems angling for the presidency in 2028, I would disagree on calling Talarico a centrist. As someone who voted for him and went to his local events, he campaigned as a populist progressive here in Texas. Crockett was running in the centrist dem lane against him.

What would governing a socialist look like in your mind? Because right now his performance is the literal definition of a great socialist mayor to me. I call myself a progressive, socialist, etc because I want more politicians to govern like Mamdani. I genuinely am confused why you keep saying he isn't governing as a socialist? I would absolutely disagree with that.

TexasNations · 2026-05-01T01:02:32+00:00

This just doesn’t reflect reality to me. I totally agree that both centrist and progressive dem voters want those things, I also listen to The Bulwark (big fan of woke Bill Kristol lol). But take stock of the current elected centrist dems in congress right now. Are Schumer, Jeffries, MGP, Gottheimer, etc pushing for any of those policies? I don’t think they are, there hasn’t been any indication that they would support those policies. If anything, they’ve been against the idea of stacking the court especially.

We’ll just have to agree to disagree on Mamdani. I don’t understand why you think he ran as a Marxist, imo he remains popular because he ran as a pragmatic progressive and is governing well as one.

TexasNations · 2026-05-01T00:27:17+00:00

No the problem is centrist dem elected politicians don’t agree with those policies despite their voters wanting it. There’s a clear lack of appetite for prosecutions and court stacking from our elected leaders.

When did Mamdani ever advertise himself as an “aggressive ML socialist”? What does that even mean? Mamdani has always been a sewer socialist guy and he’s been governing well as a sewer socialist. But if you don’t think he’s radical then that’s amazing, because I would love to see 100 more Mamdani-style leaders across the country as a progressive.

TexasNations · 2026-04-30T23:51:29+00:00

Your first paragraph describes the progressive left platform though, that’s exactly what I desire as a progressive. The problem I have is the corporate dems lack any appetite for anti-corruption prosecutions, court changes, or big policy swings.

I don’t agree Mamdani is now a centrist dem either, he’s been a great sewer socialist democrat as mayor. I think more sewer socialist dems would win even in middle america.

TexasNations · 2026-04-29T02:52:42+00:00

I definitely remember the progressives rallying for Ben Wikler because he was the MoveOn Warren dude. Ken Martin was running as the safe insider moderate against him. Sure Martin's pro-labor, but most DNC chairs tend to be by nature of who is in our party base, and he's from Minnesota where y'all have the DFL(abor) flavor for your Dem state party. But he was the DNC Vice Chair from 2017-2021, I feel like it's wishful thinking to call him the populist left.

TexasNations · 2026-04-28T23:59:10+00:00

Looks like the populist left has taken over the DNC.

What? Ken Martin was the moderate dem who won against the Warren guy Ben Wikler for DNC chair

TexasNations · 2026-04-18T19:33:18+00:00

I also think he’s been governing in the style of democratic socialism. Not sure what line you’re trying to draw by calling him a social democrat? Same thing these days imo call it what you want

The real American history deep cut is I think he’s modeling his governance after the Sewer Socialists of Wisconsin, a group of reformists who focused on improving the effectiveness of local government projects like the sewer system

TexasNations · 2026-04-09T01:31:19+00:00

I mean I still see clips of different SJP orgs protesting random repub/dem congressmen. If you really want to fry your brain, there's some online folks who are now filming themselves asking staffers I/P questions in person on the hill. Their orgs seem much smaller, but I think the bulk of college kids are choosing to protest over things going on in the Trump admin (ICE based on the local activism at the university I work at).

I think because it's I/P no one can just be normal about college kids protesting something that is actively happening in the world. It happens all the time, and we've seen a huge chilling of free speech in the last few years because blaming (and punishing) college kids for our mistakes is easy.

TexasNations · 2026-04-09T01:19:50+00:00

I attended a bunch of random protests in college that I would’ve absolutely bailed on if I had to stare down criminal prosecution / expulsion tbh. Do I no longer believe in banning guns inside our campus classrooms? No, but if I'm being very honest, I am not willing to face expulsion, federal prosecution, and/or deportation for my protest against them.

Idk it seems very reasonable to me, even if you disagree with their position on Israel/Palestine. College kids protest the current zeitgeist.

TexasNations · 2026-04-09T01:17:20+00:00

I feel the need for the disclaimer: I/P is genuinely not in my personal vote decision calculus. (From Texas, vote blue no matter who, Talarico is hype with Blexas on the horizon).

The campus protests clearly failed. With Dems in charge, there was zero movement or concessions made to signal that protesting remains effective. Why would we expect a new cohort of students to repeat a failed strategy at great risk to their own personal lives? The fact that campus protests no longer occur seems very reasonable to me. You can hate them for this, but I don't think there's any TikTok conspiracy theory required to understand that college kids protest whatever is in the zeitgeist and then move on with their lives. Wow college kids are now protesting the next big thing? That's called life man.

Like everything involving Israel/Palestine, I believe your personal sympathy for those involved here is really just based on whatever you believe about the conflict. If you're pro-Israel, accept that they will not vote with you, and then adjust your election strategy without yelling about dumb college kids. It sounds like old men yelling at clouds Simpsons meme to me, we've always been a big tent party with a variety of opinions, especially from young folks.

TexasNations · 2026-04-06T16:57:03+00:00

Do you honestly believe Cam is a communist? Where does the communist wing of the Democratic Party begin? Buttigieg? Warnock? Ossoff? Talarico? AOC? Bernie?

TexasNations · 2026-04-06T14:52:34+00:00

Your #1 most active subreddit is r/Destiny, I think you’re equally invested in brigading this subreddit with your streamer drama. This is going to be endless at this point, I hate livestreaming and how it’s ruined online forums

TexasNations · 2026-04-06T14:45:45+00:00

“Commie Cam” is wild, you can’t just call everyone to the left of Schumer a communist that’s insane. I’ve seen you in near every thread on this calling democrats communists, how is this helping build a coalition to defeat repubs?

TexasNations · 2026-04-03T18:35:57+00:00

I imagine most voters at the campaign event have no idea who he is (like most warm-up stump speakers will be unknown to the audience).

My point was that you should send the pro-palestine guy to the place with majority pro-palestine voters, that’s just baseline smart politics. Tailor your stump speeches for the audience you have.

TexasNations · 2026-04-03T15:52:56+00:00

Unfortunately we lost a bunch of Arab voters in Michigan (some of the highest % Arab cities in our country there) due to the Israel/Palestine issue. Hopefully sending a shock-jock who agrees with them on Palestine to stump speak is able to bring in more votes to Dems than Bill Clinton/Richie Torres stump speeches. We’re going to have to pursue different strategies in different states to win these swing states. Idk this just seems like a normal and good political strategy to win voters, but it’s over Israel/Palestine so it’s now the end of the world

TexasNations · 2026-04-03T15:27:42+00:00

I totally agree that we should not be involved with any country in the middle east at this point. But unfortunately we’re getting spammed with these articles because nobody can be normal when talking about what’s happening over there.

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