The House introduced a $3 trillion relief bill called the HEROES Act. Mitch McConnell dismissed it as "aspirational."
These are some of its major proposals. https://t.co/9C7mjy48iM pic.twitter.com/Yi3DfEtcbe
— CBS News (@CBSNews) May 13, 2020
One of the most oft-circulated stories about LBJ’s political acumen concerns the time he (allegedly) started a rumor that his pig-farming political opponent was known to commit carnal acts upon his livestock. An appalled aide was said to have said, ‘Sir, you can’t accuse the guy of pig-[abuse]!’
Maybe not, Lyndon replied, But I can make him deny it.
Seems to me like Madam Speaker, and her fellow Dems, are using their attempt to pass the (extremely good) HEROES Act as a way of forcing Mitch McConnell to admit that he doesn’t care about his voters.
Hard to see how @senatemajldr McConnell thinks this isn’t urgent. https://t.co/FkmU0YwghP
— Sheldon Whitehouse (@SenWhitehouse) May 13, 2020
40% of households making under $40,000 lost jobs since March. That's a mind-bending number – a nuclear meltdown of the economy.
But McConnell says there's no urgency to act.
Why? Because if you don't have a lobbyist or a PAC, you just don't matter with these guys in charge.
— Chris Murphy (@ChrisMurphyCT) May 13, 2020
Sen. McConnell called the House Dems' new Heroes Act “aspirational”
It's not “aspirational” when it's a health crisis
It's not “aspirational” when a family can’t feed kids
It's not “aspirational” when people are worried about losing a home
It's about urgent & necessary relief
— Chuck Schumer (@SenSchumer) May 13, 2020
Also, it’s not as though his hardcore Base will care about McConnell’s Dixiecrat racism, but getting him to say the quiet parts out loud doesn’t encourage the suburban swing voters to turn out for him…
“I’m sure Mitch is aware that a grown ass black man who happens to be a former president has agency to speak his mind on how his successor is managing this crisis,” Steele said. “Especially since his successor has yet to ‘keep his mouth shut’ about him.” https://t.co/2Eyo4wfZGW
— MSNBC (@MSNBC) May 13, 2020
So, in essence McConnell is saying, “Boy, don’t you say anything. Trump is a white man, and you are a black ‘boy.’” McConnell has lost his mind. Speak the truth, President Obama.https://t.co/E0qSPqKeMz
— Rev. Dr. William J. Barber II (@RevDrBarber) May 13, 2020
"Should've kept his mouth shut" is…I guess he didn't call him "uppity"? https://t.co/xusjuiWjZ7
— Julia Ioffe (@juliaioffe) May 13, 2020
NotMax
FYI. So much
winningfusterclucking. (WaPo link)West of the Cascades
@NotMax: Hard to believe they turned down a manufacturer with actual machines available for an untried defense company.
danielx
True and all good and well, but people whose net worth is less than eight figures aren’t real to McConnell. He gives a fuck about some coal miner or busted ass farmer, or whether their kids get fed?
Please.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@NotMax:
The money quote from that article. Trump didn’t think this virus was a big deal back in January. That’s why they turned down that offer. How many healthcare professionals died because they turned down that offer and had to use cloth masks instead of N95 respirators?
Doc Sardonic
@NotMax: And there is a company in Texas that tried for months to get a contract for manufacturing masks because they have 4 lines currently idle. If restarted they could produce ~7 million masks a month for around 79 cents per.
HumboldtBlue
I’m a go off-topic, just because.
Episode 14 of Sesame Street featured a song written by Piero Umiliani originally for the Italian pornographic documentary “Svezia, Inferno e Paradiso.”
The song would be performed by the Muppets on Nov. 30, 1969 and again days later on The Ed Sullivan Show, and the rest is Muppet History The song? Mah Nà Mah Nà
Shalimar
Taking McConnell’s entire comment in context, yeah, he pretty much called Obama an uppity boy.
feebog
This is what happens when a malignant narcissist puts his snot nosed ignorant son-in-Law in charge of securing PPE for the federal govenment.
Mike in NC
We recently re-watched the Tarantino movie “Django Unchained” and I was thinking the evil character played by Leonardo DiCaprio could easily be Trump.
Anya
@danielx: Forget about who McConnell considers real. He can count on a significant number of people with less than eight figures to supporting things that hurt them. Years of Fox and rightwing miss-information has convinced a significant number of Americans to fight for the rich and appose their interests.
“If you’re not careful, the newspapers will have you hating the people who are being oppressed, and loving the people who are doing the oppressing.” ― Malcolm X
Enhanced Voting Techniques
Turtle thinks crashing the economy is awesome? Would think housing foreclosures alone would be terrifying.
ziggy
Anybody have an idea why the FBI just served a search warrant on Senator Burr?
Enhanced Voting Techniques
I want to point this out again; they are saying a small room with lots of people talking and stale are is optimal virus spread conditions. That’s a typical meeting that 1%er twatwaffles like Turtle love so much.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
Was perusing 538 and immediately regretted it:
Why Some Democrats May Be Willing To Look Past The Allegation Against Biden: Democrats aren’t uniformly progressive on #MeToo issues.
No mention in the article about Reade’s inconsistencies and credibility issues.
SiubhanDuinne
“The Reverse LBJ”? You’re going to confuse raven.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@ziggy:
Others noted downstairs that it could be some attempt to strong-arm Burr, head of the Senate Intelligence Committee, by Trump to disavow the the Committee’s conclusions about Russian interference in the 2016 election
SiubhanDuinne
@ziggy: Humboldt Blue posted this downstairs:
Hope that helps.
NotMax
@HumboldtBlue
Can readily recall the first time seeing the Muppets on the boob tube in New York.
(64 years ago? Yikes!)
ziggy
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): That makes as much sense as anything, I don’t see this as positive. They must be hoping to get some serious leverage over him.
Shalimar
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: I was riding around earlier with a realtor friend and she pointed out a lot of For Sale signs that were sold and closing. Why anyone would buy right before it is glaringly obvious the bottom is about to fall out of the market, I have no clue.
Jay Noble
mahna mahna
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@NotMax:
Wow, that’s Kermit the Frog! In 1956. Had no idea the Muppets (Sam and Friends here I guess?) were around then
Major Major Major Major
Mitch is trying to add search and browsing history to section 215 of the patriot act. This is the section that says the FBI can seize ‘any tangible thing’ relating to a subject under investigation, without a warrant. And he’s adding internet history to that power.
Wyden had an amendment to remove this. It failed with 59 votes. Not present were Sanders and Murray. Feinstein, Manchin etc. voted against.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Major Major Major Major:
….Fucking why?! Are they fucking stupid?! Don’t they understand the ramifications of this?
Now that I’ve caught my breath, can’t internet browser histories be deleted? Unless this refers to the ISP records?
Major Major Major Major
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Feinstein is always going to be a yes for this shit, and whatever we have Manchin in the caucus, but so many other Dems votes yes too and where the HELL were Sanders and Murray?
And yes doubtless it refers to ISP records. One bright note is that with HTTPS they can only see the domain name.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Major Major Major Major:
We can do better than Feinstein. She needs to go. And I can’t wait to bash any Bernie Bros I encounter over the heads with this vote.
That’s not that much better. A domain name is bad enough
Major Major Major Major
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): only having the domain name is a huge improvement! But yes supporting any extension or renewal of section 215 is very bad.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): DiFi will go when she decides to retire, I don’t see her getting a serious challenge if she decides to run again in 2024(she’ll be 90 then).
SiubhanDuinne
@NotMax: May I wish you a happy belated birthday? I saw the announcement long after the thread had curled up and died, but I hope the day was a good one for you.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Major Major Major Major:
I hope you’re right. You work in the tech industry so I’ll defer to you
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
I don’t get why Dem voters keep voting for her aside from name recognition
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): She usually runs with pretty weak opposition
ETA: Or the opposition is a good number of candidates and she ends up running against a Republican in the general. Then it’s a no brainer to vote for DiFi.
NotMax
@SiubhanDuinne
You may, and many thanks.
cain
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
Remember this is about page clicks. Owning the libs and causing outrage makes money. The blue checks also augment that outrage – the whole thing is about triggering everyone so that they can sell ads.
lol chikinburd
@NotMax: Yet another vulgar display of power from the White House.
Amir Khalid
Another Tale of The Totally Predictable: Trump versus The Science.
cain
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
How can you even have the energy to run and do stuff for your constituents at 90? That too 5 years.. 95? Will she try to run again at 95? Fuck .. why not..
The entire boomer political class is going to try to hold on to politics as long as they can.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@cain:
The oldest Boomer will be 74 this year DiFi’s 12 years older than that. She’s a Silent not a Boomer.
Major Major Major Major
@NotMax: ooh, happy birthday!
NotMax
Whoopsie. Fix.
@Major Major Major Major
Thanks. It was Monday but I’m not one to turn down well wishes at any time.
:)
lol chikinburd
In other news, the July convention now has to be made entirely virtual, and physically displaced from Milwaukee to the maximum extent possible. First, no part of the state — and, thanks to us, the region — is going to be safe enough to conscience telling people to travel there; second, the Tavern League and the restaurant association don’t need to get any convention-goer money given how eager they were to force their employees to risk their lives.
On that second point, it would be nice to know which local establishments threw in with the forced reopening, and which ones will open to normal hours this weekend, so we can know where never to spend another cent ever again.
NotMax
Making my way through the newest season of the Finnish police procedural Bordertown on Netflix. Somber.
Checked just for the heck of it and the English dubbing, while not the greatest, is noticeably better than most of the dubs on Netflix’s foreign stuff has been in the past.
John Revolta
@?BillinGlendaleCA: Ain’tcha heard? “Boomer” now means anybody or anything that a person doesn’t like.
Roger Moore
@ziggy:
Another possibility is that they’ve given up on him as a reliable lackey and are trying to show the rest of the Senate what will happen if they don’t cooperate to Trump’s satisfaction. Of course it’s also possible they simply haven’t completely politicized DoJ yet, and these are honest civil servants investigating a miscreant.
Roger Moore
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
The weird California top two ballot wound up with her facing off against a more liberal Democrat in the general election, and I suspect a lot of Republicans held their noses and voted for her rather than Kevin de Leon.
Anya
@Major Major Major Major: this is terrible. Sanders and Murray better have a life and death excuse or this decision should be hung around their necks forever.
I don’t expect much from Manchin and we he does something good, I am actually shocked. DiFi should be premiered. She seriously needs to go.
Amir Khalid
@NotMax:
In case I forgot to convey my good wishes on the day, happy birthday.
Darkrose
@Roger Moore: Kevin de Leon also had some issues relating to his unwillingness to take action on sexual harrassment in the Lege, which happened to coincide with his attempt to blame DiFi for how she handled Dr. Blasey Ford’s initial contact with her. It wasn’t a good look.
@Anya: See above. She had a challenger from the left, and with the top-two primary, she faced him again in the general, but he was problematic. I don’t like her, but I’d rather have the woman who’s problematic but has seniority than the dude who’s problematic and would be coming in as a clueless newbie.
Ruckus
@West of the Cascades:
I take it that this is snark.
Because all you have to do is look at the price they agreed to pay, against the normal price. Someone or someones is/are/were supposed to be getting a piece of the action. I’d bet a pretty good sized piece.
Calouste
@Anya: Meh. I doubt that if Murray and/or Sanders had been around that the same number of Republicans had voted for the amendment. It was always 59 at the most, McConnell can count.
Redshift
@NotMax: Hey, Republican voters, tell us again how great it is to have someone who “runs government like a business”…
Sab
@cain: Sigh.
What generation are you? I am a boomer, and none of my cohort thinks like you think we do. Undoubtedly yes elsewhere, but not around me. Gen-Xers yes. All the ones I know have always voted like you think we do.
Mnemosyne
@Roger Moore:
Also, 2018 was an absolutely terrible year for a younger man to run on a platform of telling an older, more politically experienced woman that she needed to shut up and sit down. It did not fly with the suburban women who showed up in droves to vote Democrat.
sukabi
@ziggy: his selling his stocks right after the briefing on covid19 on jan 24th…insider trading.
cliosfanboy
@Shalimar: people buy this time of year so theyll be settled in their new homes for school in the fall
cliosfanboy
@Sab: thank you!!!!!
Baud
Jesus Christ. Not a single “Fuck LBJ” in this whole thread.
Everyone above needs to write a personal apology to raven.
tybee
well, then fuck LBJ.
raven
@tybee: Thank you thank you very much. . .
SFAW
@cain:
A) You mean “power,” not politics
B) That statement is true of every generation and group, most especially white people.
But thanks for cluelessly broad-brushing
Uncle Cosmo
@NotMax: In that clip Steve Allen properly credits DC television as the first showcase for the Muppets. Jim & Jane Henson both went to the University of Maryland flagship campus in College Park, & the first home of the Muppets was their house in Bethesda – both suburbs of the District.
The Muppets (in their earlier incarnation of “Sam and Friends”) were making TV ads for Baltimore-based Faygo sodas and Cloverland Milk as far back as 1958 – I remember seeing the famous amphibian on our TV when I was a kid, and that was a frackin’ lonnnnnnng time ago.
Here’s a photo of the Jim Henson statue on the UMCP campus.
opiejeanne
@cliosfanboy: Also, there’s still a housing shortage in some places. The market in the Seattle area has not slowed down at all, and the busiest price range is about a million dollars.
Miss Bianca
@Uncle Cosmo: Faygo was from Baltimore? The ads for Faygo were so ubiquitous in Detroit when I was a tad that I was sure it was a local pop brand, like Vernors.
Love the statue.
Uncle Cosmo
@Miss Bianca: Faygo was probably bottled in Bawlmer & Detroit & a lot of other places, I’m not sure. The one brand I’m fairly sure was from here was Suburban Club, famous in local lore for a wine-colored fizzy liquid of about 150% sugar called Almond Smash. (The Suburban Club is still in business, just barely outside the city limits on the far side of town from where I grew up. I never knew it was an actual place till I was invited there for an end-of-Pesach feast in 2019.) /tmi