Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

A consequence of cucumbers

Only Democrats have agency, apparently.

Innocent people don’t delay justice.

When we show up, we win.

Authoritarian republicans are opposed to freedom for the rest of us.

A snarling mass of vitriolic jackals

The rest of the comments were smacking Boebert like she was a piñata.

They’re not red states to be hated; they are voter suppression states to be fixed.

Schmidt just says fuck it, opens a tea shop.

Since when do we limit our critiques to things we could do better ourselves?

“And when the Committee says to “report your income,” that could mean anything!

Republican obstruction dressed up as bipartisanship. Again.

It’s easier to kill a dangerous animal than a man who just happens to have different thoughts/values than one’s own.

if you can’t see it, then you are useless in the fight to stop it.

Biden: Oh no. We’ve upset Big Pharma again.

Come on, media. you have one job. start doing it.

Jesus, Mary, & Joseph how is that election even close?

Give the craziest people you know everything they want and hope they don’t ask for more? Great plan.

“That’s what the insurrection act is for!”

It’s easy to sit in safety and prescribe what other people should be doing.

Republicans do not pay their debts.

They think we are photo bombing their nice little lives.

Fuck the extremist election deniers. What’s money for if not for keeping them out of office?

The revolution will be supervised.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / Late Night Open Thread – H.R. 1 Passes The House

Late Night Open Thread – H.R. 1 Passes The House

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H.R.1, which contains voting protections and much else, just passed the house, 220 -210.

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65Comments

  4. 4.

    Cheryl Rofer

    Thread

  6. 6.

    Ivan X

    So, presuming it is opposed by all Senate Republicans, am I correct in understanding that Manchin and Sinema will need to yield on the filibuster for this to pass the Senate?

  7. 7.

    TriassicSands

    Not a single Republican voted in favor of the bill.

    Looks like the plan to work with Republicans “to get stuff done” is right on track.

  8. 8.

    dmsilev

    @Ivan X: Yes. It’ll probably come down to whether there’s some change to the rules that (a) they will accept as leaving the filibuster in existence but (b) allows legislation to eventually proceed.

  9. 9.

    Old School

    @Ivan X: Seems unlikely to get 60 votes in the Senate, so yes – it will not pass if the filibuster exists in its current form.

  10. 10.

    cain

    I also expect a lot of legal challenges. We will need to expand the court as well to make sure that it isn’t struck down.
    In this I really trust Biden to move forward and move everything toward a more liberal center than any other candidate. While I had wanted Warren, I realize now that it was Biden that can and will deliver the goods and set the stage for women like Harris and Warren to be able to take power and govern.

    I’m hopeful that we will be able to get past this but otherwise I will owner my citizenship oath and make it my business to change things.

  11. 11.

    topclimber

    @Old School: I am grasping at straws but some stubborn brain cell thinks there is a distinction in filibuster logic between initially blocking extended debate on a law (60-vote threshold) and later setting a deadline for the end of the debate (cloture). The barely detectable optimist in me hopes Manchin may find a path to majority rule in the labyrinth of such political parsing.

    Talking to you too, dmsilev of the coveted #8 slot.

  12. 12.

    Kent

    My idea would be to require that every post office in the US put out secure red ballot drop boxes in front or inside the post office, similar to, but contrasting with the regular blue mail boxes.  These would be Federal ballot drop boxes to out of the reach of state laws.  As long a the state allows any kind of mail-in ballot then these could be used up to the last minute and the Post Office could either deliver them directly to local elections offices or have elections workers come retrieve the ballots.  It would probably save the USPS a lot of time and hassle if voters were already pre-sorting the ballots out of the regular mail stream for them.

    Houston, for example, has over 50 different USPS locations.   That would nip in the bud a lot of the bullshit that cities go through to limit ballot drop box locations.

  13. 13.

    The Oracle of Solace

    If anything can break the filibuster, this is it. No matter how supportive Sinema and Manchin have been toward the filibuster, I can’t imagine they want to be seen as the people who blocked this generation’s most important voting rights bill.

  14. 14.

    Kent

    @topclimber: Yes, you are grasping at straws.  There isn’t any magic loophole that will let the Senate see it’s way to a 51 vote passage of HR1 without killing the filibuster, or setting it aside for that one measure.

    Manchin and Sinema could always come up with some new bullshit rule where they are willing to override the filibuster for civil rights votes but not other types of votes or some such.  It is all bullshit but they can make up any rules that they want honestly.   Like first they eliminated filibuster for cabinet positions.  Then for lower court judges.   Then finally for SCOTUS.

  15. 15.

    Zelma

    Not a chance this will pass the Senate as it currently exists.  There’s a really depressing interview with pollster David Shor at New York with an analysis of the 2020 electorate.  It does not paint a pretty picture of the Democrats prospects and offers the counterintuitive suggestion that Trump has been good for the Republican Party.  He notes the slippage among Hispanics and African Americans and suggests that their inherent social conservatism makes them good targets for the GQP, and that the Dems have depended on getting 90+% of the AA vote and 70+% of the Hispanic vote.  Any significant decrease will harm future chances and he’s not sanguine that an increase in college-educated voters will compensate. Or that it will continue.  And he discusses the structural advantage the GQP has which is likely to continue.   He thinks the Dems can perhaps do well in 2022 if they concentrate on economic issues. There’s a lot more there as well.  But his basic argument is that the electorate leans more conservative than we think.

  16. 16.

    fuckwit

    This is strategically brilliant and exactly what we need. Fix the system and all the other problems become easy to fix.

    Public campaign finance? Holy shit! I was working on trying to get that passed in California 15 years ago– because I saw how desperately we needed it– and it was a pipe dream. I’m amazed.

    And widespread voter registration, and an end to gerrymandering? Fuck, that’s beautiful.

    If we nuke the filibuster over this, i t’ll be worth it. Get it passed and we will have saved America, at last.

  17. 17.

    Martin

    Consider that it was Senate Dems that want to use the minimum wage for pressure against Manchin/Sinema for filibuster reform. I understand the House eagerness to change the filibuster, but Schumer allowed this approach to go forward, so he believes there is some hope for it.

    But this is dead in the water without changes to the filibuster. I’m hoping that there’s so much outspoken interest in the Senate to abolish it that a ‘compromise’ to return to the speaking filibuster will be acceptable, and Manchin/Sinema can take credit for that.

    Not optimistic, but holding out a bit of hope.

  18. 18.

    Brachiator

    @Zelma: 

    He notes the slippage among Hispanics and African Americans and suggests that their inherent social conservatism makes them good targets for the GQP

    This sounds like nonsense, at least with respect to the black vote, and most Hispanics. The Republican Party is moving away from anything that is social conservative, and is outright bigotry.

    But his basic argument is that the electorate leans more conservative than we think.

    This may be true, but I just am not sure of the degree to which a larger share of voters will embrace outright lunacy.

    If they do, then we are headed into something much worse than fights over standard political ideologies.

  19. 19.

    Brachiator

    @Kent:

    My idea would be to require that every post office in the US put out secure red ballot drop boxes in front or inside the post office, similar to, but contrasting with the regular blue mail boxes. These would be Federal ballot drop boxes to out of the reach of state laws.

    Wouldn’t this require a constitutional amendment?

    States oversee elections.

  20. 20.

    gwangung

    @Brachiator: Yeah, white political scientists have ALWAYS leaped onto the “inherent social conservatism” of minorities as to why they’d be great Republicans.

    It’s a luxury for white pundits not to think of racism, but it’s a goddam matter of survival for ANY minority, and particularly for Blacks. Might be a little slippage, but cold hard reality is that racism is a salient survival issue for blacks, brown and Asian people and it’s something that works against Republicans.

  21. 21.

    HumboldtBlue

    I read it was stupid to point out that Manchin and Sinema and now Shaheen have a grip on just what relief those of us in dire straits need.

    Thank goodness we have Manchin, willing to cut down the amount on relief checks and who can get them while cutting weekly unemployment insurance and completely stifling a $15 minimum wage because of Jim Crow era senate rules to pass this bill.

    Stupid me.

  22. 22.

    Kent

    @Brachiator: Not at all.   The USPS already handles ballots in every state.  This would just facilitate what they are already doing.  These would not be official county elections drop boxes.  They would be US Post Office mail boxes that are specifically for mail-in ballots.  No one is stepping on any state toes.  You are still mailing in your ballot.  Just in a more efficient manner that makes it easier for all involved.

  25. 25.

    ?BillinGlendaleCA

    @Zelma: From what I’ve seen from the 2020 polling, most of the slippage was with Black and Hispanic males, the Former Guy spoke to males and motivated them to vote.  A lot of these pundits and polling analysts don’t seem to understand there was a uniqueness to the Former Guy that isn’t transferable to others.  It’s like in the last 20 years, no Republican could get elected Governor of California, except Arnold.

  26. 26.

    Major Major Major Major

    My tentative prediction is still that the filibuster will be massaged in a way that lets Sinema vote for (their version of) this while saving her brand or whatever. Feels like this fall.

  28. 28.

    James E Powell

    @?BillinGlendaleCA:

    there was a uniqueness to the Former Guy that isn’t transferable to others.

    I sure fucking hope so. This racist demagogue shit has got to end.

  29. 29.

    Roger Moore

    @Major Major Major Major:

    I think the electorate is more socially conservative than Democrats want to believe and more economically liberal than Republicans want to believe.  This is why Florida passed an initiative to raise the minimum wage to $15, but California can’t pass an initiative to end capital punishment.

  31. 31.

    Major Major Major Major

    @?BillinGlendaleCA: @Roger Moore:

    Socially/dispositionally/whatever you want to call it for sure. And that extends to flash point topics like police reform. Economically, more liberal than republicans yes but people aren’t exactly beating down the doors for M4A or a $15 minimum wage that would “cost millions of jobs”

    ETA Free money, everybody understand that, checks are very popular though.

  32. 32.

    ?BillinGlendaleCA

    @James E Powell:

    This racist demagogue shit has got to end.

    Oh, they’re going to keep on doing that, they just won’t be as successful doing it as the Former Guy.  I’ve said this a number of times, he put all the right stuff together: a non-politician, a celeb, a successful(ok, not true) businessman and he said the quiet parts out loud(truth teller, at least in their minds).

     

  33. 33.

    Roger Moore

    @?BillinGlendaleCA:

    I think there’s also a case of people liking ideas in the abstract but disliking them when presented with specifics.  Of course a big part of that is that it’s much easier for opponents to target the specifics in a real proposal than it is to criticize the overall principle.

  35. 35.

    gwangung

    @Major Major Major Major: Yes.

    Voters’ self image is more self-described centrist and moderate than the ends of the political spectrum. They self-identify as moderate and centrist because they themselves don’t see themselves as partisan.; they’re just the sensible middle.

     

    Individual ideas they can glom onto as “sensible”…and they’re often progressive, but their overall mindset is “middle of the road.” And they’ll run away from a collective mindset that they see as radical or markedly lefty.

  37. 37.

    ?BillinGlendaleCA

    @Roger Moore: That’s absolutely the case, it’s why m4a is such a heavy lift.  It’s really easy to demonize the specifics.  While people may not be happy with their insurance and think the whole system is a scam, they hear that they’ll have to go to the DMV to see their doctor.

     

  38. 38.

    ?BillinGlendaleCA

    @Major Major Major Major: If you want to see why police reform is a heavy lift, watch the local news.  You watch that for 10 minutes and you’ll think we live in a crime riden dystopia.  If you walk down the street and ask folk is the crime rate lower or higher than it was 25 years go, I’d bet you’d get a majority saying it was higher.  As I noted in my reply to Roger, do you want to go to the DMV for your health care?

  39. 39.

    Chetan Murthy

    @?BillinGlendaleCA: Re: police reform, I think you’re sadly correct.  NextDoorin SF is …. not indicative of progressive sentiments on that front.

    Re: medical care, though, I think most people just don’t deal with it enough to know how shitty it can be.  And even if they have a good experience, they’re unaware of how much churn their employers are doing behind the scenes, trying to cut costs, so that the next time …. it wont’ be so great.

    All that said, people are people, and they’re not going to accept big change.  The best way to proceed is a public option and/or lowering the medicare elegibility age [along with a public option top-up plan].  Go proposing to change their medical care -delivery- system, and yeah, people are gonna *scream*.

  42. 42.

    ?BillinGlendaleCA

    @Chetan Murthy: I don’t have NextDoor, but I do have a Ring doorbell and have their app, same thing, Glendale is a hellish crime ridden dystopia(it’s not) and crime has been getting worse and worse(it hasn’t) because “those people” are starting to move here(Glendale used be a sundowner city).

    About m4a, I agree the public option might be a way for the government to “prove” that it can be an insurer(it already does so with Medicare).

     

  43. 43.

    HumboldtBlue

    @?BillinGlendaleCA:

    While people may not be happy with their insurance and think the whole system is a scam

    When is it allowable to call health care access in this country a scam? I’ve paid tens of thousands of dollars into various health care plans and I have yet to pay anyone who wasn’t an insurance go-between before I got to see a doctor.

    Why do I have to give an insurance company money before I go to the doctor for a checkup?

    How is this not the scam?

    What isn’t a scam about how health care is managed in this country?

  47. 47.

    Chetan Murthy

    @?BillinGlendaleCA: Ah, ok.  Sorry, misremembered.  I know that every sundown town, every Red area, to turn Blue, has to have its first contingent of brave people …. but I sure couldn’t do it.

  51. 51.

    Baud

    @HumboldtBlue:

    Why do I have to give an insurance company money before I go to the doctor for a checkup?

    I’m sure the doctor will take your cash directly.

  57. 57.

    Monala

    I missed the thread about the changing upper thresholds for stimulus payments, so reposting here:

    Two things to add to that discussion:

    1. For people whose income increased due to early distributions from a retirement plan, they have the option to claim the distribution over three years (in other words, they can choose to only claim 1/3 of it this year), and the usual early distribution penalties are waived. This may help them stay below the stimulus threshold.

    2. Although some people will lose out on stimulus, others who were left out of the earlier stimulus payments are getting it this time around. This includes dependents ages 17 and up, who got nothing in the earlier payments. So if your family includes a high school senior, a college student, and grandma, you were screwed before. Well, no longer under this bill.

    The second group who were screwed before but no longer, are the US citizen spouses and children of undocumented immigrants. They got nothing in the earlier stimulus packages, but now will receive their payments under this bill.

    I guarantee you that many families with older dependents and those who are spouses/children of someone undocumented make a hell of a lot less than the upper income thresholds. They were completely iced out before and didn’t even get the partial payments of some higher income folks.

  58. 58.

    Baud

    @Monala:

    Oh wow.  Thanks for that. I didn’t know about those benefits (which is indicative of our propensity to obsess over a single thing and ignore the rest).

  60. 60.

    Sloane Ranger

    @?BillinGlendaleCA:

     

    that they’ll have to go to the DMV to see their doctor.

    Eh, for real? Or just a way of saying they think “socialised ” medicine will be as slow and bureaucratic as your DMV reputedly is?

    Based on Quora and similar sites, some Americans can’t seem to get their heads around the idea we Brits can choose which GP practice we register with and can get an appointment without having to fill in multiple forms in triplicate using our own blood as ink.

  61. 61.

    Platonicspoof

    @Sloane Ranger:

    Some Americans are ready to believe it’s really, really necessary to vote using our DNA certified blood as ink, so of course it’s believable for soshulist healthcare.

    Thus far this year, thirty-three states have introduced, prefiled, or carried over 165 bills to restrict voting access.

     

    Not necessarily all bad – Brennan article also reports:

    . . . . thirty-seven states have introduced expansive policies, for a total of 541 expansive bills introduced or carried over into 2021.

  62. 62.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @Old School: It’s pretty reasonable argue the point of this bill is to force the entire GOP to go on record as being against voter’s rights and campaign finance reform. For all the crazy from the GOP Base, corruption is a big concern with them too.

  63. 63.

    Lee

    My Rep finally took his mask off and outed himself as a wing nut. Last night he tweeted out how HR1 was going to ruin all his good work to ‘secure’ voting.

  64. 64.

    UncleEbeneezer

    @Major Major Major Major:  No, just the loudest ones who get amplified by Twitter. The people screaming that Defund/Abolish are the ONLY possible solutions (and won’t hear any argument otherwise) really aren’t the majority of people doing police reform work. Most people doing the organizing and pushing of reform bills come from places like ACLU and NAACP and know from experience what kinds of messaging works/doesn’t. When Defund came up for discussion here, an NAACP organizer who knows her Community very well said “Nah…white people will never go for that. Let’s go with ‘Fund Our Lives’ instead.” With even the very-pro-Defund people agreeing that she is probably right. That’s the reality in many reform conversations. It just doesn’t get the attention that screaming Defund!! will get.

  65. 65.

    dnfree

    @HumboldtBlue: I think Covid has radicalized some people, or at least put them in a position to realize how fragmentized the system is.  I’ve talked to a couple of people who had parents hospitalized and then moved to nursing homes to recuperate, and run into the failure to communicate before, during, and after the transfer.

    And the vaccine rollout demonstrates the failure of the public health system to be able to coordinate this venture, instead forcing people to contact pharmacies and grocery stores to try to get a shot.  But that cuts both ways—who wants to turn their health care over to the DMV?

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