The 219-212 House final passage vote on $1.9T COVID-19 relief bill was announced by Speaker Pelosi from the chair at 2:04am Saturday morning. pic.twitter.com/rlvRGcLBwK
— Craig Caplan (@CraigCaplan) February 27, 2021
The employment of procedural delays to manufacture this talking point is one of our Great Legislative Traditions I could go without https://t.co/yRZ16sO1S8
— Jim Newell (@jim_newell) February 27, 2021
Several of the loudest GOP protestors against ‘paying people not to work’ were… not there to do their jobs:
Here's @repherrell serving as Paul Gosar's proxy in Congress so that he could at that very moment be speaking at a white supremacist convention instead pic.twitter.com/ZlMZcDjiTP
— Timothy Burke (@bubbaprog) February 27, 2021
"If Liz Cheney were on this stage today, she'd get booed off of it," Gaetz says. "What's that say? The leadership of our party is not in Washington DC."
(NB: Gaetz claimed to have the votes to oust Cheney, and did not) #CPAC2021
— Dave Weigel (@daveweigel) February 26, 2021
Democratic & Republican voters agree on one thing—the need for generous COVID relief https://t.co/Up1ZdzTDkJ via @physorg_com
— delthia ricks ?? (@DelthiaRicks) February 27, 2021
Elsewhere, President Biden visits a food bank and a vaccination center in Texas…
Biden visits Texas amid recovery from deadly cold snap https://t.co/5IEy8ouNkf
— BBC News (World) (@BBCWorld) February 27, 2021
While the governor chips in [According to reporters travelling with Mr Biden, he packed canned peaches while the governor packed raisins] to “help”:
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said he is working on a plan to remove all statewide coronavirus restrictions and will make an announcement soon.? https://t.co/e7XhkGTpAC
— FOX26Houston (@FOX26Houston) February 27, 2021
debbie
Abbott has to go. The whole state government has to go.
OzarkHillbilly
@debbie: We’ll have to let them secede to get that result.
JPL
@OzarkHillbilly: They probably will vote to secede, but only after the federal government helps them out.
debbie
@OzarkHillbilly:
I cannot wait for Abbott, Paxton, et al. to begin showing zero gratitude for the federal government’s recovery assistance. //
OzarkHillbilly
@JPL: Cheap at twice that price.
Ken
Remember, though, that there were more Biden voters in Texas than New York. If there were some way that only the GQP could secede, maybe along the lines of Besźel and Ul Qoma in China Miéville’s The City and the City.
Nicole
Oh my God, I’m so tired of the “paying people not to work” line. What the fuck does the GOP think the children of the hereditary wealthy spend their lives doing? Being paid not to work, thanks to GOP policies to turn us into an aristocracy. Tell you what, GOP, let’s go back to taxing capital gains at the same rate as income and make copyright expire upon the death of the creator and then we talk about the ethics of working class people getting a couple hundred bucks a week so they can buy food and put gas in their car.
Brachiator
This is an idiotic decision, but I suspect that governors in other red states will start doing this as well.
The only good thing is that people in Texas are getting vaccinated.
Ramalama
Apropos of me spending too much time watching old Fran Lebowitz clips on YouTube, I started searching for an online copy of Outside Magazine that presented Fran spending one night camping. It’s hilarious – if you can read the images of the 3 pages. Written by the E. Jean Carroll who, as I’m delighted to discover, is a very witty writer. Here’s a twitter link where the images are shared.
Well worth your valuable time. Well worth mine, anyway.
OzarkHillbilly
Me too. What the fuck, the GOP in DC don’t do any work and look at how much they get paid.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Ken: Am I the only one who finds it hard to remember character names if I can’t pronounce them? The book I’m reading now has name after name like that. I can’t keep the characters straight.
Baud
@Nicole:
If they want to pay people to work, they should offer people good salaries to incentivize them to work.
germy
germy
Baud
Kudos to House Dems and Nancy Pelosi. This is a BFD.
I unfortunately am seeing more rumblings about the minimum wage issues in the Senate. I fear we’ll be fighting a two front war before this is all done.
germy
prostratedragon
Well now here is a textbook high classic Gaslight maneuver: accuse the wife of addle-pated loss of the earrings that you stole and hid expressly to then make the accusation.
Baud
The key phrase in “we passed it in the dead of night” is “we passed it.”
TS (the original)
@debbie:
Via covid-19 or freezing, one way or the other, Abbott is going to kill of large numbers of Texans.
Brachiator
@Nicole:
The GOP is stuck on stupid. The last stimulus, which included enhancements to unemployment compensation, did not see people stop looking for work.
Some business owners claimed that they had trouble finding people, but some of this may have been because they were paying shitty wages and some people were not so desperate to just take any job.
This is perhaps another argument in favor of a $15 minimum wage. It makes work more rewarding. Even the GOP should be in favor of that.
lowtechcyclist
Yay, Pelosi and the House Dems!!
I remember how, back in 2009-2010, big legislation would get through the House by margins like that, despite there being >250 Representatives in the House Democratic caucus – and it was no easy feat either, back then, for Pelosi to get to 218.
Say what you will about the thinness of our House majority, this group of House Dems is far more united than their predecessors from a dozen years back. If there are still Blue Dogs in the caucus, at least they realize shit needs to be done.
trnc
@germy: Not only are repubs creating the circumstances for their planned complaints, who fucking cares what time it was done at? Is there some large group of people who watch C-Span during the day who have some magic way of influencing their rep while the vote is being taken?
Plenty of shit gets done in the middle of the night. Would like to see the reaction if Kevie declared that any business anywhere done in the middle of the night is shady.
Ken
@Dorothy A. Winsor: I think it’s pronounced CHEE-na mee-AY-vil, but I’m not sure.
Kidding aside, I have the same problem. Usually I make my best guess, and it becomes automatic after a few dozen pages (in the sense that my “reading voice” just drops in those syllables).
lowtechcyclist
@trnc:
I declare the results of all MLB night games on the West Coast to be invalid!
SFAW
@OzarkHillbilly:
Oh, bullshit, they work. Unfortunately, their work is primarily focused on destroying the proper functioning of the US government. About the only thing they’re not actively trying to destroy is tax cuts. [I imagine there are various programs, geared toward helping the rich or toward harming the non-rich, that they like, but I’m not going to spend time trying to think of them.]
Gin & Tonic
I had my “exit interview” yesterday, which is stupid. “Is there anything you would recommend to management?” “I don’t give a flying fuck, you handed me my last check and I’m out of here.”
Anyway, spent the rest of the very nice, sunny, late-winter New England day out with my dear wife, exploring, and came home to a touching and unexpected family (well, partially) dinner. Several bottles of wine were consumed, tales were told, I went to bed content.
Now, I get to not spend 8 hours a day staring at a screen.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Ken: I can manage one or two odd names but then my brain wears out
ETA: I see the FBI has identified a suspect in the murder of Brian Sicknick. The current theory is that bear spray was the weapon
Betty Cracker
Assuming Dems don’t find an end-run around the minimum wage, what do y’all think about the House doing a standalone minimum wage bill to get everyone who opposes it on record?
Brachiator
@Baud:
Didn’t they rule that the minimum wage part of the bill could not be part of the Senate bill?
This battle may already be lost, at least for now.
I am hoping that the Senate does not lower the income threshold for the stimulus payments. This idea that relief must be targeted to the lowest income groups is wrongheaded.
Betty Cracker
@Gin & Tonic: Awww, congrats! I bet you’ll find more productive ways to occupy your time.
debbie
@Gin & Tonic:
Nice! (She said enviously.)
lowtechcyclist
@Brachiator:
And Republican governors in blue states: yes, I’m talking about you, Larry Hogan!
Dammit, fellow Marylanders, we’ve got to realize that however reasonable a Republican might appear, there are times when he’s going to act like a Republican in ways that are to everyone’s detriment. Good thing Hogan’s term-limited.
SFAW
Rethugs are desperately trying to provide a new definition for “chutzpah.” *
* For the whippersnappers: the working definition of chutzpah is : When a child murders his parents, then asks the court for clemency, on account of he’s an orphan.
prostratedragon
@Betty Cracker: Do it! If is does pass, then great, and if not, at least the so-and-sos can’t hide.
Baud
I for one am proud that my party is working late into the night for the American people.
Baud
@Betty Cracker:
It will almost certainly happen if they can’t negotiate a compromise with 10 Republicans.
Mike R
@Betty Cracker: It would be an excellent idea, take the win on covid relief and move on. Play up the popular stimulus package and continue the battle.
lowtechcyclist
@Betty Cracker:
Hell yes! Make the Republicans vote for crappy wages nobody can live off of.
Hell, I’d even settle for a vote on Manchin’s proposal: immediately to $9.50 and then to $11 next year – same schedule so far as the $15 plan – but it would stop at $11. (Has anyone asked Manchin if he’d vote for the whole Covid package if his proposal replaced the $15 plan?)
I’d be OK with that because it would get people the same money between now and the 2022 elections as they would under the $15 bill, and maybe we could actually pick up a few seats in the midterms and pass the rest of it in 2023.
Brachiator
@Betty Cracker:
It couldn’t hurt, even though the GOP is happy to oppose Democratic stimulus efforts. Republicans don’t care that their arguments are wrong and reek of bad faith.
germy
trnc
@Betty Cracker:
Aren’t they all already on record?
Mary G
@Gin & Tonic: Congratulations! ???
SFAW
@lowtechcyclist:
Don’t forget Charlie Baker (MA). Who, after doing a decent job in Spring/Summer of 2020, decided to focus on … something. But he was not focusing on the vaccination-sign-up process, because the website, as originally released, was a piece of shit. But that’s OK, because they “fixed” it, so now it’s … a piece of shit.
“Don’t blame me! We’re only getting 135K doses per week. We can’t remove our heads from our asses until the Fed delivers a gazillion doses per week! ”
Fuck off, Charlie. Proper system architecting and website design is not dependent on number of doses per week.
The number I heard quoted for the website design and implementation contract was $400,000. I’m a hardware guy, not a Web architect/designer, but that seems kind of low-ball for something like that. Mrs. SFAW speculated that MA tried to “cheap out,” buying the entry-level product. I’m inclined to agree, but I realize my knowledge is weak in that area.
lowtechcyclist
@Gin & Tonic:
Congrats! I’m retiring at the end of 2023. My boss (who’s been with the organization <2 years) wants me to stick around part-time in a consultant role after that, but fuck that shit.
If he can’t learn what he needs to learn from me in three years’ time, he’s on his own. When I walk out that door, I’m gone.
MomSense
@lowtechcyclist:
She still had to let two Dems off the hook. One of them is our Rep from CD2 in Maine where the white resentment is overriding the acute need for assistance. There are fewer blue dogs now because more Republicans hold those seats. Now we are having to negotiate with only 2 of our own asshole Senators instead of the 10-12 assholes Obama had to deal with.
He did them a solid by talking about working with Republicans. The real negotiations were with conservadems. Now it’s fashionable to say how naive he was blah blah blah. He was just giving cover to blue dogs.
germy
Of course.
JMG
It would be poor politics to make Manchin and/or Sinema take a public vote that’d do nothing but cause them trouble and wouldn’t bother the Republicans a bit. So that won’t happen. But as far as I know, the $15 minimum wage is the only part of the relief bill Manchin has said he opposes. If he and Sinema are on board with the rest, get ‘er done and worry about ways and means on the wage hike later.
Brachiator
@lowtechcyclist:
This might be an acceptable compromise for all the reasons you suggest.
And some states are already raising the minimum wage. So a compromise would not be a defeat and people would still be helped.
lowtechcyclist
@SFAW:
Oh believe me, I don’t, it’s just that I haven’t been paying enough attention to Massachusetts to give a decent critique. I figured we had enough jackals from the Bay State that one of you would step up, and you did.
MomSense
@Gin & Tonic:
Congratulations!!
Immanentize
@Gin & Tonic: Someday that will be me. Nice dinner and all.
Sadly, today is not that day.
Happy beginning, G&T
SFAW
@lowtechcyclist:
Not unlike me with MD. My vague recollection is that Hogan has sometimes mouthed the right words vis-a-vis the Shitgibbon. But he’s still a Rethug, and some of the other stuff I’ve seen from him appears to re-affirm that.
MomSense
@Immanentize:
I was talking and laughing with a friend of mine last week, both complaining about our jobs. We really started laughing when we realized we only have to do this for another 20 years.
Immanentize
@MomSense: I like your sense of humor!
SFAW
@Gin & Tonic:
Congrats, youngster!
If you don’t want to spend so much screen time, whyn’t you run for Mayor of Providence or something like that? Or run day cruises on your yacht, out of Newport?
Baud
@Gin & Tonic:
?
lowtechcyclist
@germy: A lot of this was already in the news last fall, but BuzzFeed did add considerably to the story.
I find Cawthorn particularly despicable even compared to other sexual predators. The thing about Patrick Henry College is that it exists primarily to serve kids who were home-schooled in religiously conservative homes. So the girls there were even more naive than their counterparts who had attended evangelical K-12 schools, let alone public schools. I can’t help but think he chose PHC because the girls there would be easier to prey upon.
germy
@lowtechcyclist:
You’re probably right.
He’s not smart, but he’s certainly cunning.
Geminid
@Ken: Last November Joe Biden lost Texas by 5.6%. That means that for every 9 voters for trump, there were 8 for Biden. Had 1 of 15 Republican voters picked Biden instead, he would have won Texas narrowly. In 2012, President Obama lost Texas by 16%. Political trends don’t neccessarily run in straight lines, but were I a Texas Republican, I’d be worried about the next few election cycles. I don’t think there would be anything I could do, though. The radical base exemplified by carpetbagger State Chairman Alan West has the party locked into it’s current rightward course.
stinger
@Gin & Tonic:
Congratulations on retiring! About the exit interview, I’m like, why would management change anything in response to the opinion of someone who’s left, when they didn’t care about it while I was still working there?
BC in Illinois
On another topic, I want to give credit to local journalism — the Riverfront Times of St Louis.
Here are the first and last paragraphs of an article about . . . well . . you’ll see.
They go on to note that he wasn’t from St. L, that the city voted 82% for Biden, and that the cemetery where he was buried “has long been a resting place for famous drug addicts like William S. Burroughs, so Limbaugh will fit right in. . . . It does seem a bit odd that the noted homophobe would choose a spot where he would be laid right next to a gay icon like Burroughs for all eternity,”
“Leak out some tears.” Delicately stated.
stinger
@Dorothy A. Winsor: I’m the same way, The names don’t have to be familiar — they can be obviously made up — but I have to be able to guess at a pronunciation, or the character goes into a black hole in my memory.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@MomSense: I knew a lot of people who liked their work but not their jobs.
narya
@Betty Cracker: I’ve been thinking for a few days that this would actually work in the Dems’ favor. Make it a straightforward, simple bill, possibly w/ adjustments for local economy and a revision of the calculation of FPL, and then DO IT. I didn’t realize how popular it is across the country, which makes it a great think to run on in 2022.
Betty Cracker
@trnc: Some are, but not all. Some will use the parliamentarian’s ruling as cover to avoid going on record.
@JMG: IMO, it’s worse politics to let Republicans off the hook and leave low-wage workers hanging after campaigning on $15. Maybe the compromise lowtech mentions at #38 would work as a stop gap, getting an increase now and giving Dems an opening to campaign on $15 again in 2022. We damn sure don’t want to get outflanked on this issue. It’s a chance to define our party as pro-worker for a new generation. Hawley the seditionist shit-stain just released a $15 minimum wage proposal.
OzarkHillbilly
The GQP is all about the “dignity of work” as long as they don’t have to pay for it.
Baud
@Betty Cracker:
I don’t believe Manchin or Sinema are up in 2022 anyway.
Baud
@Betty Cracker:
Let Bernie negotiate with Hawley on a stand alone bill.
MomSense
We are binge watching Cowboy Bebop today. Music is fab.
Geminid
@trnc: They may be on record as far as this complex $1.9 trillion relief package goes, but a stand alone vote on the minimum wage gives Republicans no excuses in 2022.
OzarkHillbilly
@SFAW: Speaking as one who has done both, building shit takes a hell of a lot more work than tearing stuff down.
There are those who call me...tim... (Still posh)
Re: Texas: have all the jokes been done? Like “go it alone, already” and “how’s it going? Oh right, alone” or “Texas, the You’re On Your Own State”? ’cause I got jokes.
OzarkHillbilly
@Gin & Tonic: “Yeah, stop being assholes.”
Spanky
@Gin & Tonic: Welcome to the ranks of the gainfully unemployed! Just beware – I thought my time was going to be my own, but the cats always seem to have a different idea, which usually involves huddling in my lap. Or on my chest. They’re not particular once I’ve been rendered immobile.
OzarkHillbilly
@Geminid: They are worried and they are doing something about it: Doubling down on voter suppression.
hueyplong
Wasn’t it after midnight when McCain gave the thumbs down to the GOP attempt to repeal the ACA?
Geminid
Yesterday I recommended to another commenter Rachel Bitecofer’s February 2020 New Republic article, titled “Hate is on the Ballot.” So I reread it myself. Wow! Some very fascinating and penetrating analysis. Bitecofer previewed the upcoming election in light of the last few cycles, with particular focus on the 2018 midterms. Anyone with ten minutes to spare would do well to check it out.
OzarkHillbilly
@BC in Illinois: I’m pretty sure he decided he needed to be buried there because of all the famous people already interred there. He was famous, right? The most famousest of them all, right? He had to be buried there.
trnc
@Betty Cracker:
True dat. I think the compromise sounds better than no raise, too.
Geminid
@OzarkHillbilly: I’m not sure how effective a solution that is, at least in the face of demographic changes and political shifts. Voter suppression is a motivator for our side, and I know independents who are turned off by it. I guess we will find out next year, in Georgia and in Texas.
SFAW
@OzarkHillbilly:
No argument from me.
I didn’t say they worked hard, I just said they worked. The guy using the dozer/crane to demo a house doesn’t work as much as the framers, but he still works. Even the guy who tries to prevent others from building things does some work — until someone “adjusts his attitude” with a 24-oz Estwing to the head. [If only it were that easy with people like the Rethuglican caucus.]
SFAW
@OzarkHillbilly:
Plus, he was thinking [sic] of all the people who would want to find his grave, so they could piss/shit on it. So he was thoughtful, unlike what you libtards say.
prostratedragon
@SFAW: A sick sic.
OzarkHillbilly
@Geminid: It definitely backfires (“If my vote was so meaningless, why are they so desperate to take it away from me?”) but it’s all they’ve got and they are doubling down on it, tripling down on it in Georgia.
OzarkHillbilly
The most strenuous thing he does all day is climb into the cab. I can’t count the number of times I heard somebody on a jobsite say, “I should’a been an operator.”
OzarkHillbilly
@SFAW: I am certainly grateful to now have a use for all that used kitty litter.
Geminid
@hueyplong: I think McCain gave the thumbs down after 2am. Maybe the most consequential individual vote of the last decade.
RandomMonster
@SFAW: Hogan is doing a terrible job distributing vaccines to Baltimore City, as opposed to, say, the rest of the state. I wonder why that could be…
Mike in NC
Turned on the TV this morning and MSNBC was covering what they called the “CPAC Cesspool”. Sounds about right.
frosty
@lowtechcyclist: I’m sticking around part time to keep in touch with people and do some work if it’s interesting*. So far it’s been about 20 hours over the last year but part of that was writing a proposal for a County I’d really like to work for, for a task that’s right in my wheelhouse. I’m in for about 200 hours over 12 months which seems right.
* recommended by The Retirement Maze too.
raven
@Gin & Tonic: When I hung it up they wanted to do a goodbye gig and I declined.
BlueGuitarist
@prostratedragon:
Rs howled with rage when Jerry Nadler adjourned the Judiciary Committee and foiled the R attempt to manufacture the dead-of-night-vote talking point in the first Trump impeachment.
Geminid
@OzarkHillbilly: Georgia Republicans are trying hard, but I don’t think they can stop Stacey Abrams from becoming the next Governor. I certainly hope not. Georgians need a good Governor, and Abrams could be a great one.
taumaturgo
The Chamber of Commerce is opposed and centrist Democrats and the GQP won’t allow it to happen by following the wishes of the Chamber. Once again, with control of the House, Senate, and the WH the Democrats go into battle and can’t or won’t deliver. How’s that for bipartisanship?
raven
@Gin & Tonic: Seen “Nomadland”?
Omnes Omnibus
@taumaturgo: Oh, you’re back.
kindness
Thank God for Nancy Pelosi. She rocks! It kills me that we had to fight over whether she’d be a good leader or not.
Baud
@kindness:
In the end, it was a lot of noise and not much of a fight.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@germy:
Imagine standing out as douches at the secular version of Regents U
MattF
@Mike in NC: And there’s very weird stuff under the CPAC cesspool.
Ksmiami
@trnc: to which bakers and er nurses across the country say fuuuuuuck yooooou to Kevin. There are so many people who work overnight shifts jfc
mali muso
Over here in Virginia, our blue trifecta has been busy passing all kinds of great stuff. Bills banning the “gay panic” defense, a voting rights act, banning the death penalty, we are on a roll!
germy
I bet they were grateful Gosar was there to share his deep wisdom.
germy
He and his crew must have put in extra effort.
germy
Ken
@germy: How embarrassing. I saw a note that someone had proxy-voted for Gosar because he was at a white nationalist fascist convention, and assumed that meant CPAC
What, what have I got to be embarrassed about?
germy
@taumaturgo:
As the party moves to the left, maybe someday the Centrist Democrat will go the way of the Heath Hen.
germy
@Ken:
He cleared it up the next day with his “I am opposed to everything the crowd who cheered me last night stands for” clarification.
Ken
@germy: Republicans really should just have that tattooed on their foreheads.
Geminid
@mali muso: Virginia has shown the limits of gerrymandering in the face of demographic change and political shifts. In the House of Delegates, Democrats went from a 35-65 minority going into the 2017 election to a 55-45 majority, on a Republican-drawn map.*
*A court order under the Civil Rights act mandated redistricting of 11 districts east of Richmond, and last year a couple Democratic pick-ups were among these seats.
taumaturgo
Is not about moving left, but doing the work for the people, not for those who write the big checks. Honestly, who benefits by not raising the minimum wage?
taumaturgo
Kirk Spencer
@OzarkHillbilly:
Dignity doesn’t pay the rent.
mali muso
@Geminid:
Yes, it’s been quite something to see. When I arrived in this state in 2006, things were very different. I think my first election was the George “macaca” Allen one. I’ve gone from being represented by a retrograde old white guy to a modern, progressive woman (yay Wexton!). Here’s hoping other states like Georgia can follow Virginia’s trajectory.
Geminid
@mali muso: Jennifer Wexton does not make much national news, but a lot of capable, hardworking Representatives don’t. Wexton, Abigail Spanberger, and Elaine Luria are three promising Virginia members of the Democratic class of 2018.
Spanberger had a very close reelection contest last year. Elaine Luria won by around 4 pts. Luria was favored with a seat on the House Armed Services Committee as a freshman. (her VA 2nd district has the nation’s biggest Navy base and biggest shipyard). She is fairly young, 44 I think. In 20 years she’ll probably be Chairman of Armed Services.
J R in WV
@TS (the original):
Not to be critical, really, but check out this correction:
@debbie:
ETA: this was so malformed after I submitted it, that it took nearly all my 5 minutes to get it sensible. The TEXT mode sometimes is really stubborn about how IT wants your comment to look. I don’t much care for Chrome the browser, but I’m getting steamed about Firefox, even though I know it probably isn’t Firefox that has a terrible bug in it.
J R in WV
@Betty Cracker:
The best thing they can do, short of passing the dammed thing somehow via parliamentarian majic … we need to get better at that kind of majic, really. But knowing exactly who is keeping people from making a living wage has to help come next election.
The Rs seem to have it down, if we can make it work for us instead of them, yay!
Yutsano
@MomSense:
Yoko Kanno is a fucking genius. She’s done a shit ton of anime work since 1986. I haven’t heard much from her lately but her work is solid.
Hoppie
@lowtechcyclist: Most of the districts that were represented by “blue dogs” are now represented by repukes. That helps us how?
Beware what you wish for. The big tent, however much hated by progressive purists, lets us get things done. Even if those things are imperfect.
Miss Bianca
@MomSense: OK, I just broke down and ordered Cowboy BeBop from the library. You are only the latest person I’ve heard throw bouquets around about it, so I figure I better find out what the hype is all about!
J R in WV
@taumaturgo:
Democrats so do not “control” the Senate — that takes 60+ seats, not 50-50. You seem to be able to display ignorance in every comment…
Don’t know how Senate rules work, show that off to the world.
Hoppie
@BC in Illinois: Ms Hoppie is from Cape Girardeau. Her mom once dated Rush’s dad. Once. Said Junior (Rush was a third, of the famous southern Third family) was a flaming asshat too.
Their family was the local Ford dealership, in case you didn’t already have opinions about car dealers.
J R in WV
@Gin & Tonic:
Belated congratulations on retirement! Sounds like a great beginning to a wonderful part of your life! Plus the Trump Plague is apparently beginning to end… which will faciiltate being able to enjoy life.
Geminid
@lowtechcyclist: The House Blue Dog Caucus still numbers 18 or 19, including Lou Correia (CA), Mikie Sherrill (NJ), Jared Golden (ME), Abigail Spanberger (VA), and Stephanie Murphy (FL). Murphy may run for Marco Rubio’s Senate seat next year.
The caucus had 25 members going into last year’s election, but promising freshmen like Kendra Horn (OK), Xochitl Torres-Small (NM), and Joe Cunningham (SC) lost their purple districts. Lipinski (IL) lost a primary to Marie Newman, and Colin Petersen lost his red Minnesota district.
If a few more had lost, the Democratic House Caucus would be marginally more compact ideologically. And Kevin McCarthy would be speaker.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Hoppie: the LImbaughs? I thought Sr and Jr were both judges?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Geminid: Florida politics are a bafflement to me, what with one Senator being an animated JC Penney’s mannequin who got pantsed by Chris Christie and the other being a huge crook, but people on twitter seem to think Murphy is a strong candidate.
Geminid
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Murphy might be a strong candidate in a purple state. The primary could be interesting, as former Congressman Alan Grayson evidently will run also. But I imagine there will be other contenders in the mix.
Uncle Cosmo
The quality of a post by “traumaturdo” occasionally rises to the level of ignorance. Mostly he’s just a shithead (& if he’s some front pager’s sockpuppet, that goes double for whoever’s arm is elbow-deep in the hosiery).
taumaturgo
A little bit of knowledge is a horrible thing. Add to it tribal thinking and self embarrassment shorty follows. The Democrats do control the Senate in a 50-50 split with VP Kamala, who is a Democrat, right? as the tie-breaker. The 60 vote filibuster rule that you refer to is what the wimpy leadership conservatives need to decide to abide by it or not, and since they control the Senate they have the power to do away with it. The Democrats policy game is more sound and fury with little deliverables for the working folks, I have a dollar that says they continue to wave the white flag to surrender while hiding behind the parliamentarian. Remember hang tight, help is coming? Oh well, another day another campaign promise down the drain.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@taumaturgo:
the fact that you seem blissfully unaware of what’s in the bill is further evidence that you’re one of those middle aged Bernie Kidz who still gets an allowance. You don’t need to worry about unemployment because dad pays your bills, and you think $1,400 is nothing because it’s like, literally a tenth of what you get when grandma makes the annual gift to reduce her taxable estate. And doesn’t everybody’s grandma do that?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
But… but my trust-fund poutrage!
Hoppie
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Possibly, not my knowledge. “Judge” in Kentucky (and other Virginia legacy states) means “executive”. Not sure about Misery. Just telling family lore.
Another Scott
@Gin & Tonic: Congratulations!
I’ve officially got 30 years in at my place of employment, so could be on the retirement side of things soon if I wished, but I don’t quite wish it yet. We’ll have to see how things change once the “new normal” starts.
One of the challenges at my work is our “overhead rates” are quite high, so there is pressure to cut expenses that we control (like office space in buildings). But overhead rates are per wo/man hour worked, so if fewer people are working on-site then it would seem to imply death-spiral issues if more people are teleworking. This could be a very big deal with a lot of organizations unless they figure out some way to pay for old facilities with half the people actually there. Or yet more complex accounting that requires more people to do (“Jane is teleworking half-time, so her overhead rate for office space is 0.5X while her overhead rate for IT service is 2.0Y and ….”).
:-/
Very great “opportunities” ahead!!1
Enjoy!!
Cheers,
Scott.
Another Scott
@SFAW: I blame the sorry state of IT, myself.
E.g. The DC signup website crashed shortly after it went live with only ~ 130,000 people trying to use it. Mayor Bowser was reported to have said that they’re “working with Microsoft” to fix it.
It’s not a purely party thing.
It’s that in the 30 years since the web became a thing, it’s still not something that companies can be reliably counted on to roll out quickly at high quality. And customers seem to accept it as normal.
“Yeah, sorry that your new house fell over and burned to the ground with your family and pets inside when you moved in. We’ll fix it in version 2.0…”
:-/
Cheers,
Scott.
Another Scott
@Kirk Spencer: “Clapping doesn’t pay the bills” – also too.
I hope the UK voters throw out BoJo for everything he has destroyed, but also for his “we’re having a clap tonight a 7 PM for X” thing – like his clap for bankers last June.
Politicians who scramble for every kopeck they can get for their campaigns want us to believe that normal people can pay their bills with trumped-up expressions or costless actions.
It’s so infuriating.
Cheers,
Scott.
NotMax
Casually tossing out the word “dead” when it comes to a COVID bill? Do Rs listen at all to what passes out their pieholes?
//