President Joe Biden and Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell are finally ready for a face-to-face meeting. It comes as Biden is ramping up efforts to reach a bipartisan infrastructure deal that McConnell says he has no interest in passing as proposed. https://t.co/cJzgAFBNPw
— The Associated Press (@AP) May 11, 2021
… President Joe Biden’s sit-down on Wednesday with Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell and other congressional leaders comes as the White House accelerates its efforts to reach a bipartisan infrastructure agreement — or at least aims to show it’s trying. But McConnell is plainly stating in advance that he’s not interested in the plan as proposed.
The president’s meeting with McConnell, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy is the first formal gathering of the “big four” congressional leaders since the president took office — a late start after a tumultuous new year. But the timing is crucial for White House’s outreach on Biden’s two-pronged $4 trillion American jobs and families plans…
Just days before the meeting, the Republican leader said his goal was simply, and essentially, to halt the Democratic president’s agenda.
McConnell said “100% of my focus is stopping” the Biden administration, a comment that evoked his vow early in the Obama presidency to make the Democrat a one-term president…
The president has hosted a trio of key Democratic senators at the White House already this week, including moderates Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, both of whom the White House needs to keep on board for the massive spending bill. And on Thursday, Biden will meet with six Republican senators, including Sen. Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia, the ranking GOP member on the Environment and Public Works Committee, to hear their plans for a smaller and more narrowly defined infrastructure bill.
Aides said to expect Biden to host more Republicans in the weeks ahead of a soft Memorial Day deadline the White House set for gauging how feasible a bipartisan bill may be. Missing no opportunity, Biden buttonholed Louisiana senators John Kennedy and Bill Cassidy on an airport tarmac during a visit to their home state last week…
One can but hope…
.
Also much under discussion:
“Our election was not stolen,” Cheney says the evening before she is expected to be removed from her leadership post for saying as much, repeatedly and over the objections of the former president.
— Kaitlan Collins (@kaitlancollins) May 12, 2021
Normally I’d go with the Not Our Circus, Not Our Monkeys rule, but when your enemies are floundering, throw ’em an anchor…
Liz Cheney: "We face a threat America has never seen before: A former president who provoked a violent attack on this Capitol in an effort to steal the election has resumed his aggressive effort to convince Americans that the election was stolen from him."
— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) May 12, 2021
This speech by @RepLizCheney is a profile in courage, not because anything she said is controversial, but because she knows she will lose her @GOP leadership position for telling the truth. https://t.co/4jRspsOCaO
— Ted Lieu (@tedlieu) May 12, 2021
PST
I find it rather hard to believe that Biden and McConnell are in any sense “friends”.
JPL
McConnell is a self centered asshole, and he is the face of the republican party.
rikyrah
Good Morning Everyone ???
rikyrah
@PST:
Uh huh ??
Baud
@rikyrah:
Good morning.
debbie
@JPL:
I wonder if there’s a way to set up a runaround McConnell’s obstruction and appeal more to voters. Like maybe a few bills rather than one omnibus bill? Separate out McConnell’s “traditional” infrastructure, get it passed, then sock them with the other parts and reconciliation.
Baud
Interesting contrast between Biden working for the American people while the GOP enforces their cult membership rules.
Dorothy A. Winsor
How do you negotiate with someone who already said their only goal was to block you? Or on the other side of the Capitol, someone who says you stole the election and aren’t really entitled to be president?
Baud
Baud
Morzer
@Dorothy A. Winsor: You smile, look sympathetic, convey the appearance of respect and then do what you need to do to pass your bills as the GOP squawk and screech at every measure that helps Americans.
Ejoiner
So here in the wonderful state of South Carolina, our governor just issued an emergency order that students at school do NOT have to wear masks. Uuugh.
1) We have five weeks of school left…why the heck is this even necessary?
2) SC has done a horrible job handling this catastrophe thanks to McMastern and the GOP. The result? A total decimation of all progressive/democratic candidates in 2020. This state is hopeless.
3) McMaster HATES education and teachers, like in a weird, personal way. I have friends who teach in private schools with (supposedly) close connections to the governor and they get the same message constantly. There is really something very wrong with this man and his constituents.
4) Fortunately, it looks like our district and admin are going to slow walk this for a few weeks and run out the clock…or at least down to the last few days.
5) Did I mention how much this school year has suuuuuucked? We’ve opened/closed/rescheduled everything about 5 times now since August. Everyone – teachers, staff, students, etc. – is exhausted. Done. Kaput…and high stakes testing is just now firing up! >:(
Thanks for letting me vent a little!
Baud
NYT
Percysowner
@Dorothy A. Winsor: You can’t, BUT it may cut down the media’s constant chant of “Biden promised unity, why isn’t he delivering?” He can point to asking the Repubs to negotiate and how they turned him down, or offered so little it wasn’t worth it. The media will still carp, of course, Democrats are supposed to bow down to their “betters” and give the Repubs anything they want, but Biden will have some cover of TRYING to work with the (disloyal) opposition.
Baud
NYT
Kay
Republicans announced we could never again raise income tax rates from 2017 level which means they’re coming to the table with no money to pay for anything, which is a non-starter because Biden isn’t going to raise revenue with federal “user” taxes which are regressive and also wildly unpopular and the wrong thing to do.
He should hold fake negotiations to placate the “bipartisan” fetish in political media though. That’s almost a full time job all by itself.
Baud
No reason for the GOP to negotiate. It’s easier just to take credit for what the Dems pass.
p.a.
Can Joe issue an EO selling off KY’s TVA power production? After all, it’s a government run subsidy for them, and that’s s0c1alism?. When all they understand is the hammer, hammer them.
hueyplong
@debbie: I guess you’ll need all Dem senators on board and one or two (gosh, who could they be?) might be satisfied with your part one.
JPL
@debbie: Schumer has been effective so far, so let’s hope that there’s a way to move forward.
Kay
Almost 40% of our local public school population were recommended for summer school as a result of the pandemic. It’s usually less than 5%. t’s a huge remediation project and Biden’s federal school funds will be welcome.
rikyrah
@Ejoiner:
Vent away.
gvg
@debbie: No. Omnibus bills are the only way to get much done at anytime, not just now. Most issues actually have just a few Congress people supporting them. That means everything fails to get votes. In practice it turned out that omnibus bills were the only way that horse trading got done. Sticking everything together, including things republican congress people need to deliver for their constituents is more likely to work.
rikyrah
@Kay:
I think that is what he is doing. Going through the motions..giving the GOP the chance to come through with a sincere offer..
They won’t, and we will proceed
rikyrah
@Kay:
I think that is a good idea
New Deal democrat
I just want to highlight an important reason for optimism that the US will soon reach herd immunity for COVID 19.
Polling, most recently last week by the Economist, has consistently reported that 30% to 35% of seniors say they will not get vaccinated.
But according to the CDC, over 83% of seniors *in fact* have already received at least one shot.
In other words, for political/tribal reasons about 15% of seniors are vocal that they will refuse the shots – and then quietly getting them.
There is every reason to believe that the same will be the case among younger age groups.
Geminid
@Percysowner: Biden may be talking to these Republican Senators, but he is speaking past them to Independent and Republican voters. I thought the Covid relief bill was politically a very potent example of bipartisanship. Congressional Republicans unanimously voted against it, caught flat footed as a substantial portion of Republicans and a majority of Independents favored the measure. The same may happen with infrastructure legislation.
Baud
@New Deal democrat:
I agree. I don’t see why the general pop won’t reach the same levels as seniors are already at.
Soprano2
I think he has to do this because it’s his brand. He has to show that he’s tried to work with them and get them onboard. Every story about how they won’t compromise should include the quote from McConnell about how his only goal is to stop Biden. Democrats should constantly contrast that with their message that they’re working to help the American people.
Geminid
@Ejoiner: Do you by any chance live in Tom Rice’s South Carolina congressional district? He was one of the ten Republican House members to vote for impeachment. I was wondering what his constituents are saying about this.
Soprano2
@New Deal democrat: I had a customer tell me last night, when I asked if he’d gotten his shot, “No, I had Covid so I didn’t think I needed it”. I told him I’d had Covid but I got the shot, as did my husband. I said that’s the only way we can stop having to wear face masks, if enough people get vaccinated. He said maybe later he’ll consider it. I figure he’ll get one eventually. I think quite a few people will once they perceive that some of the pressure is off. Seems weird, but some people are like that – as long as people are telling them to do something, they don’t want to do it. Most all of our “senior” regular customers have been vaccinated, and they lean heavily toward MAGA. They might believe in Former Guy, but they also want to protect themselves.
eclare
@Soprano2: Ah, the old “you ain’t the boss of me!” attitude. I am very familiar with it. Hopefully they’ll come around.
Kay
@Soprano2:
I’m not sure about that. I know it’s the accepted wisdom but I am no longer sure that “bipartisanship” is what the public actually care about. The reason I doubt it is Biden is getting high marks for it and he isn’t actually doing any of it. I think “normies” probably look at results.
Early on in law practice I realized no one cares about my explanations of the process. That’s why they hired me- so they wouldn’t have to understand it.
I feel the same way with people I hire. Our “tech person” at the law office drives me fucking crazy explaining what he’s doing. I feel put upon that I have to be polite with him and listen for what seems like a REALLY long time but is probably ten minutes – I don’t want to figure it out. I have my own work to do.
Ejoiner
@Geminid: no, I’m in Clyburn’s district. Based on this past election cycle, though, I’m thinking Tom Rice has a great big target on his back.
Raven
@Baud: because we need stuff to freak out about! We’re in the Florida panhandle and the gas here doesn’t come from the pipeline but it’s hysteria!!!
Soprano2
I agree, but unfortunately all the Beltway press cares about it a lot, and it affects the slant of the stories they write. I think part of Biden’s brand is “reaching across the aisle”, so he has to be visibly seen trying to do that. It sucks, and it’s performance art, but I think it’s necessary.
Baud
@Raven:
The Florida panhandle is highly GOP. They’re going to freak out about everything as long as Dems are in charge.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Soprano2: That’s true in the over-55 building I live in too. Of the 330 residents, only ONE refused the shot. A couple couldn’t get it for medical reasons (chemo, etc). But there’s a social expectation here that you’ll get vaccinated. You don’t get a lot of support for refusing it
ETA: Also it’s really easy to get here and has been from the start. Management arranged appointments in January and February, and now has the J&J vaccine in the nurse’s office.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
So Disney make the Pirates of the Caribbean more Woke by change the pirates from auctioned off captive women from the town they just stormed sacked, to actioning off food.It is good to see the romantic world of Piracy with all it’s hijacking, theft and kidnapping being made less offensive. Heaven forbid the class warfare aspect of 18th C piracy be brought up, like the pirates might just be work class sorts quite deliberately humiliating the slave owning upper class with that auction…
Geminid
@Ejoiner: Yeah, I would think Rice is a dead duck. He may have multiple trumpist challengers, though, and South Carolina has open primaries, so independents and Democrats could bail him out. But the crazies seem to be taking over the state party. They may find away to have the nomination determined by caucuses and a convention. That’s how they rolled my VA 5th Republican Congressman and nominated bible thumping Bob Good. He won by 5 points, and now the 5th is a priority target for Democrats.
Anne Laurie
I’m sure President Biden knows the old proverb: Diplomacy is saying ‘Nice doggy’… until you can find a rock.
Soprano2
Also, as I anticipated, our governor has announced that MO is going to quit accepting all the pandemic unemployment from the federal government on June 12th, because he says there’s a “labor shortage” and those employers need people to go back to work. (I find myself wondering what employers are going to blame when this doesn’t cause tens of thousands of highly qualified people to suddenly flood into the job market.) I know a lot of you don’t agree, but I wish they had set up the federal benefit to taper off until the unemployment rate in an area reached “x%” and the rate of full vaccination reached “y%”. This would have been more complicated, but I think if it were set up like that you wouldn’t see whole states cutting it off like this. This is an extremely uneven economy right now, even moreso than usual. Where I live, the unemployment rate is 3.7%, and many many more than just food service establishments are hiring people. Under most circumstances with those numbers extra unemployment benefits would be cut off. I hate that people in these states that live in areas where the job market is still bad and the rate of vaccination is still low are going to be thrown off their benefits just because some parts of the state are doing better. Linking it to vaccination rates might have helped encourage more vaccinations sooner, too. Just my 0.02¢.
Soprano2
@Raven: I’m just waiting for some idiots here to start that crap. We don’t get our gas from that pipeline either!
sdhays
@Geminid: I think there’s also value in drawing the Republicans out into presenting their own “plan”. Their default position is always the lazy “what the Demoncrats are doing is communist and won’t work and everything would be fine if they would just listen to us” while actually having no real thoughts of their own on legislating.
The best example is the GQP’s “healthcare plan” which never materialized. According to TFG, this plan we never saw would not only be cheaper than Obamacare, with better coverage, but it would also put the kids to bed and wash your dishes at night.
Drawing Republicans into a negotiation forces them to make an ask, and their ask is going to be embarrassingly out of step with the needs of the country. We saw that with the COVID bill and we’re going to see it with the infrastructure bill as well. That lets Democrats make the case that the Republicans just weren’t serious about dealing with the country’s problems.
Raven
@Soprano2: Yea we’re going to just try to be cool for a bit. Unfortunately it’s been storming so the beach is out and I assume the “shortage “ will impact the boats too!
Raven
@Baud: you should read the editorial by the head of the Bay County Puke party about Cheney! “Let us make it perfectly clear, the Republican Party stands for free speech – but the childish and irresponsible behavior we have seen from Rep. Cheney goes far beyond any simple disagreement of principle.”
Baud
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
I can’t believe they soiled the sanctity of Pirates of the Caribbean.
Jeffro
Who’s going to be teaching summer school, though? Teachers here are FRIED. The local school divisions know it, too, and while there is some summer school going on, most of the ‘plan’ (such as it is) is to try and catch kids up across the coming fall.
Baud
@Raven:
I thought Cheney mooning Trump’s portrait was a bit much.
Matt McIrvin
@New Deal democrat: My daughter told me a few days ago that all of her friends want the vaccine as soon as they can get it (and that probably starts today).
Yesterday she amended that: she knows one who wants the vaccine but her antivaxxer parents won’t let her get it.
I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that there’s more will to get vaccinated among teenagers than among 20-to-30-year-olds, though. It’s a question of whether they can do it.
Cermet
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: Get off the soap box; selling woman still occurs (young girls even as young as 9 to 10 to be brides.) Woman are second class (or lower) in all the world and selling woman isn’t an attack on white privilege but a terrible fact that woman see even today. So how and why should young girls watch that on a family ride? Talk about oblivious to the real world. Disney did the right thing.
Kay
@Soprano2:
I just don’t know what it’s based on. I feel like it HAS to be based on their belief that Democratic initiatives and plans are less popular and more controversial than Republican plans are and that’s how they came to the belief that Democrats will be punished by the public for “overreach” and Republicans will not be.
Trump’s tax giveaway to the 1% wasn’t bipartisan. None of them were punished for jamming it thru. Why would Democrats be punished for a D-only infrastructure plan? It’s much more broadly popular than tax cuts for the wealthiest are. How many people in this country will even know how many Republicans voted for it? Maybe 5%?
Baud
@Kay:
It’s based on the idea that Democrats are inherently untrustworthy, duplicitous, corrupt, and ant-Real-Americans, so anything they do that doesn’t have substantial Republican buy-in is suspicious.
Amir Khalid
For me, Mitch McConnell has always been the standard-bearer of Republican nihilism. Biden is not a big enough fool to be unaware of it. I don’t see Biden expecting to get anything out of McConnell at the meeting, or to yield anything big to him. But then Biden has to be able to say afterwards that he made a good-faith effort to deal, and Mitch refused to do his part. I think that’s the plan here.
Baud
@Baud:
Ant= Anti
japa21
Cheney is wrong about one thing. Trump is not the threat to our democracy. The GQP is the threat. If the party as a whole renounced Trump and acknowledged the truth about the election, Trump would fade away. The Republican voters would forget aand forgive by next year.
Kay
@Jeffro:
A lot of ours are taking a summer contract. I think it was a really hard year, but a lot of our younger teachers with families work year round on a regular basis. They take contract work from this district or another during the summer. The problem right now isn’t instructors- it’s bus drivers. We don’t have drivers. In rural areas anytime you mandate anything at a public school you have to provide free transportation. You can’t ding a 12 year old because he can’t get 11 miles to school.
smith
Last week I saw some reports of R congresspeople speaking longingly of earmarks. Seems to me an omnibus infrastructure bill would be an excellent thing to salt with earmarks in exchange for some R votes. Of course, there’s always the possibility that they’d do the Lucy and the football thing (again), but certainly Joe could let them know that if they renege, the offer won’t come again. He already showed them with the covid relief bill that he’ll bulldoze through if they just play silly games.
lowtechcyclist
@Ejoiner:
I can’t imagine having to be a teacher during this school year. At least up here in MD, we were entirely virtual from August through February, then our idiot GQP governor decreed that the schools would go to hybrid.
So for the past couple of months, teachers have simultaneously been teaching kids who are physically in their classrooms, and teaching kids virtually. I think they should get hazard pay for that alone, let alone what you’ve been going through down in SC.
I met and married my wife there while I was working on my PhD at USC, so I have very positive memories of South Carolina. It’s always been a conservative place, of course, but it’s sad to see them go this far down the rabbit hole.
Kay
@Baud:
I really do believe in negotiation and compromise – I’ll always try- and even I am no longer buying this double standard. They discredited their own bipartisan rule by not applying it to Republicans and since I can’t see any real benefit from it as far as what the public cares about, I’m for ditching it.
Get on with it. If they actually wanted a deal they would have brought some money. They came empty-handed.
Geminid
@Kay: I think some Republican Representatives may have been punished for their tax vote. In the 2018 midterms, the Democrats’ Communications Commitee trio of Jeffries, Cicciline and Bustos urged candidates to pound two issues: defence of the ACA, and their opponent’s support of the trillion dollar tax giveaway to corporations and the wealthy. That could have helped to flip forty Republican seats that year.
NotMax
36 hours apres shot #2. Upper arm as tender as a USDA prime filet mignon, throbbing in 2/4 time (slathering on smurf jam helps tamp that down, a lot), fingers of hand on that side mostly numb. Extending the arm is wince inducing. Basically a repeat of what happened with the other arm after #1. This too shall pass.
Discomfort was enough to push back preparing the extra special birthday din-din had planned by one day, which is, as the kewl kids say, no prob.
What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?
@Kay: I’m not saying Biden should use user fee type taxes to pay for anything in his infrastructure bill because they are unpopular and there are other ways to pay for stuff, especially in a system where the rich are getting away with paying far less than their fare share for public goods. But the idea that user fees are forever and always wrong is a bunch of BS. They can be regressive, but people can also avoid paying them entirely. E.g. during the pandemic I’ve driven my car maybe once every three weeks on average and maybe not even that much. Where I live I can run most errands by bike or foot.
Another example…when it comes down to it we all “use” the climate and a carbon tax, while wildly unpopular, would be the most efficient way to lower carbon emissions. We can reduce carbon emissions without a carbon tax but the reductions will roll out slower and entrain hidden costs, which also may be wildly unpopular and regressive, that exceed the costs that would be borne with a carbon tax. The fact that carbon taxes are wildly unpopular is a reason for politicians not to use them, because politicians need to win elections, but they are essentially a user fee to protect the climate and they’re not bad just because they’re unpopular.
Kay
@Geminid:
Their position is ridiculous. We can never again raise income taxes on anyone? That’s the opening offer by conservatives? We’re stuck with their shitty Trump tax giveaway forever?
I know they traded their souls for the shitty, budget-busting tax cuts but that’s not my problem. It’s just a number to me.
Matt McIrvin
@japa21: They won’t admit they lost the 2020 presidential election because this is part of their plan to steal the 2024 presidential election, and every subsequent one.
They can do it legally, if they have control of enough state governments–just pass laws in enough Republican-controlled swing states allowing the legislature to override any presidential election they think is fraudulent, and then declare any Democratic win fraudulent. It’s constitutional, at least on the face of it. Which means we may be the ones who have to go insurrectionist next time around.
hueyplong
It’s possible Biden’s intended audience for the McConnell meeting is limited to senators from AZ and WV.
Kay
@Geminid:
Because that’s part of it. The one and only thing they actually accomplished during Trump’s one term was the tax cuts, other than rubber stamping low quality federal judges and a couple of falling down sections of overpriced wall.
I don’t have any interest in protecting Donald Trump’s tax cut. Trump ran on infrastructure and failed to get it done. They shouldn’t be allowed to stop Biden from cleaning up their shoddy work.
NotMax
@Soprano2
Absent a confirming test result, I suspect a significant percentage of those who say “I had COVID” as an excuse actually suffered some other malady. A bad cold, a mild case of food poisoning, a touch of strep, etc., and they wrongly attribute any symptoms they experienced as COVID.
Cheryl Rofer
Soprano2
@Raven: I saw a post on FB this morning that some gas station was out of diesel! My comment was that if they’d raise the price 0.50¢ or $1.00/gallon, that crap would stop fast.
Baud
@Matt McIrvin:
I wouldn’t concede that. It’s constitutional for the state legislatures to choose the electors themselves. I don’t think it’s constitutional for them to hold an election and then reverse the results of they don’t like the outcome.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
So do I have this right; telling young kids it’s fun and awesome to go invade a peaceful town, kill all the men and burn the place to ground is a good thing, just as long as their are no rapes? Because that is what those pirates are doing during the “children’s ride”. Anything I am describing sound like what happened during the Iraq War to you? I will note everything you are listing is what our enemies in the War of Terror are accused of. But help me out here since I am obviously not as social aware as you are.
Ejoiner
@lowtechcyclist: thanks for the good thoughts! Yes, I’m a transplant as well – moved here to marry my wife in 1990. During the 90’s/early 2000’s this state seemed to be moving in a real positive direction…slowly, but surely and with a real committment to education in particular. This past decade (?) or so has seen that completely evaporate and, as we all saw in 2020, the elections here have been a complete setback to all progress. The top issues for our legislature right now seem to be abortion, guns, the death penalty, and attacking public education. It’s really shocking and sad.
Nicole
@Baud:
Way back in the dark ages of 2018, no less! Amazing how that passed unnoticed by the pro-sexual-slavery crowd for 3 years.
Geminid
@What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?: A carbon tax would be, in strictly economic terms, a neat and simple tool to reduce carbon emissions. But economist Robert Pollin, in his excellent Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists article, said he did not think carbon tax proposals were worth the political blowback. Pollin thought government mandates were as good a way to skin the carbon cat.
Pollin’s March 2019 Bulletin article, titled “We Need a Better Green New Deal,” gives an excellent overview of the economic problems and potential of the clean energy transition.
Baud
@Nicole:
Disney was cancelling before cancelling was cool!
Soprano2
@Kay: I think it’s easier if you think about it as a performance for the press. It’s to stop the framing that Democrats said they wanted unity but didn’t even try. It’s dumb, but that’s what it is.
sdhays
@Kay: Dump had to almost literally steal the money for “wall”, so they can’t even look to that as one of their own accomplishments.
NotMax
@Baud
Wake me when they change the character’s name to The Rationally Challenged Hatter.
:)
Matt McIrvin
@Baud: The Constitution says the electors will be chosen in such a manner as the legislature may direct–which has usually been interpreted to mean the state can pass laws saying how they’re going to be chosen, then has to stick to those laws. That’s why it would have been bogus for legislatures to override the vote in 2020.
Fair enough. But that also means that if they pass a law in advance saying the legislature can override a popular vote they don’t like, they can do it. The question is just whether there would be a political cost for those legislators.
The fly in the ointment here is the 15th Amendment–the courts could rule that this behavior is denying people the vote on account of race (which we all know would be the case, though they wouldn’t explicitly say so). But I wouldn’t count on today’s federal courts going that way.
Kay
@Nicole:
Lol. I feel like the War on Woke couldn’t end any other way than “badly”. It’s a mess as an argument. Poorly thought out, contradicts itself, lends itself to being immediately used as a weapon to chill speech.
“Wokeness” would have tempered and got less extreme, because these things always do. They panicked prematurely and now they have joined forces with insane Right wingers who want to cut public school funding if anyone discusses racism.
SFAW
@Kay:
A guy I used to work for, when I would give a too-long status update, would say “give me the left-brain version.” That was his tactful way of saying that he didn’t need to know the minutiae. Since then, when I sometimes ramble on in a similar situation, I hear his voice saying that, and I tighten up my “presentation.” I don’t know if that would work with your tech geek, but it might be worth a try.
O. Felix Culpa
WaPo: Republicans oust Cheney
NotMax
@Enhanced Voting Techniques
It takes a pillage.
//
SFAW
@NotMax:
Well, that comment indicates you’re already woke.
Kay
@SFAW:
He’s such a nice man. But why can’t he see the agony on my face? I know it’s childish but he is torturing me :)
Part of it is sales which I’m sympathetic to- always be closing- but I like him and I will pay him forever because I’ve tried the competition. We’ve moved on from that part of the relationship. He’s in.
SFAW
Who’s the fourth? I see only three “leaders.”
Ksmiami
self flying armed drones will be more effective in that case: just remember we are smarter
Baud
@Matt McIrvin:
No it doesn’t. All laws are passed in advance, but that doesn’t mean the all laws can discriminate among voters or citizens. State legislatures can say President isn’t subject to a popular vote, but they can’t say it’s only subject to a popular vote of Republicans. And if they decide to give everyone the vote, then they can’t give themselves carte blanche to overturn that vote if Republicans lose.
I’m not going to predict what the Republican 6 on the Supreme Court will do, but we shouldn’t be going around saying “of course this is constitutional.”
What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?
@Geminid: Because one whole economist says so doesn’t refute the idea that carbon taxes are a bad idea, although I am sympathetic to the political blowback issue, which I think I made pretty clear. And, once applied, depending on how they’re applied, I’m not convinced the blowback would be as bad as people think. Suppose we used the revenue to offset payroll taxes. Now everyone is pissed at the new carbon tax until they see hey my weekly paycheck went up by a a couple hundred bucks! Maybe this isn’t such a bad deal after all!
The other thing I like about “user” taxes is that they are hard to wriggle out of. E.g. Amazon pays almost nothing in corporate taxes. Now, my preferred response to that is to eliminate the various loopholes they use to get out of paying taxes, but that seems to never, ever happen despite strong public opinion over the decades that it should. However, every time they gas up their Amazon Prime delivery vans they’re at least paying something towards maintaining the roads they’re using. There are ways the regressiveness of user based taxes could be dealt with but we seem perpetually stuck with a system that allows the wealthy to wriggle out of paying their fare share of the most progressive tax schemes we have.
O. Felix Culpa
@Baud:
Thank you.
SFAW
@Kay:
I’m sure he’s nice, I mean that sincerely. But sometimes people can’t/don’t read cues, such as pained expressions. I didn’t take it personally when I was told “give me the left-brain version,” in no small part because that guy was a pretty good guy, and we got along fine, both before and after. And I have been known to over-explain. Your guy may not realize that his delivery is not appropriate for his “audience,” and may appreciate the gentle guidance from you. [“Appreciate” because he may realize it will help him for the future, with others, not just with you.]
NotMax
@Baud
Next up, legislation to count Dem ballots as 3/5 of a vote.
“Southern heritage, don’tcha know.”
narya
I’ve decided–based on NO actual evidence–that part of the reason Cheney is willing to take this hit is that there’s no compromising stuff on her to hold over her head. And, as others have said, she’s playing a longer game, which is also smart. She might even be principled. I disagree with her on nearly every political or economic issue, for sure, and I can’t help but wonder what this episode will do to/for her.
Matt McIrvin
@Nicole: There was a huge bellyaching outcry within the Disney-park-fan community when it happened. Every change that happens for any reason whatsoever causes one.
The big thing now is that, during one of last year’s spasms of reexamination of racially problematic stuff, Disney announced somewhat vague plans to remove the “Song of the South” theming on their various Splash Mountains and re-theme them to “The Princess and the Frog” (I kind of suspect they’d been mulling this over for some time).
It’s always been kind of amazing to me that on a ride from the late 1980s, they used source material that was dicey enough that they memory-holed the movie around the same time–though they did do their best to use relatively inoffensive aspects of the movie in the ride. The thing is, Splash Mountain is also in its own right one of the most impressive and beloved rides in the parks, so of course people are going to get upset about any change.
SFAW
@NotMax:
Yeah, if it weren’t for “those meddling kids,” that would still be in the Constitution.
Nicole
@Kay:
I read the op-ed of the guy in the Orlando Sentinel, I think it was, who wrote a despairing piece about Disney taking away joy from upstanding white guys like him by letting employees have tattoos and changing rides, and while he got super specific about Splash Mountain and the dress codes, he suddenly went veeerrrry vague about what it was he disliked about the (3-year-old) changes to the Pirates of the Caribbean ride. Almost like… he realized advocating for depiction of sexual slavery was a bridge too far (though I guess, racism was fine for his readers).
The Splash Mountain thing is dumb. Yes, most important to change the ride from Song of the South to The Princess and the Frog for moral reasons, but from a purely capitalistic stance (Disney’s main objective, let’s be honest), it makes sense there, too. How many kids coming to Disney World have actually seen Song of the South, vs how many have seen The Princess and the Frog? Heck, how many Disney-going adults, even, anymore? It makes sense from a business perspective, too, and I was raised under the delusion that the Right was all about capitalism. It’s almost like… they’re not, really…
SFAW
@narya:
Seems unlikely, given her parents. But stranger things have happened in this world.
New Deal democrat
@Matt McIrvin: I respectfully disagree.
The Congress, and only the Congress, has the right to determine the *date* of the Presidential election under the Constitution.
It is true that State Legislatures do have the absolute right to select their State’s Electors on their own, without any popular election at all. It was how South Carolina allocated its Electors in the 19th century.
What they *don’t* have the right to do is intervene after the date of the election. For example, Congress determined that November 3, 2020, was the date of the last election. The decision made under the State’s rules (e.g., popular vote winner take all) on that date was final and determinative. Any action to change that result by a State legislature after that date would have been Unconstitutional, as violating the date on which Congress specified the election was to occur.
I don’t even think this Court would entertain any different Constitutional result.
Nicole
@Matt McIrvin:
Which, as I said above, makes sense from a business perspective, too, as kids today know the latter movie but not the former. These Disney-heads seem oblivious to the fact that dear old (anti-Semite) Walt was all in favor of updating rides as times changed to keep them appealing.
But you’re right about the freakouts. I had a friend I dumped after she voted Trump who was OBSESSED with Disney, and she vehemently (and hilariously, to me, who had to listen to these diatribes from a grown woman) objected to any changes to the parks. HOW DARE THEY.
PJ
@Kay:
The Republicans are the party of economic growth, savviness and responsibility, while the Democrats are the party of handouts to the undeserving poor, hamstringing business, fecklessness and irresponsibility. Despite the fact that there is no basis for this in current reality or history, it’s what many pundits and journalists believe, even as they acknowledge that current Republicans are bat-shit crazy.
Another Scott
Pretenders!
?? “Maybe tomorrow.
Maybe someday.
Maybe tomorrow.
Maybe someday.
You’ll change…”??
Moscow Mitch will never change, of course.
Cheers,
Scott.
Matt McIrvin
@Nicole: I have this sort of odd fascination with the Disney parks and their fandom–it’s such a weird, screwed-up company that has arguably damaged the culture in all sorts of ways… but they put out such genuinely impressive product sometimes. Part of it is that I never actually went to Disney World as a kid, so I’m seeing these phenomena for the first time as an adult.
I’m fascinated by the push-pull between their historically conservative instincts, their need to plug an impressive back catalog that has all kinds of problematic crap in it, and their need to present as a modern inclusive institution.
And their fans get WEIRD. Some of them are amazingly nice and non-toxic as superfans go, though. Compare it to, say, video game fandom and it seems positively idyllic.
NotMax
Now the Prime AI is just goofing with me.
Scrolled through the offerings in one area. As expected, all non-fiction space related (Apollo missions, Hubble telescope, NASA, planetary probes, etc.) — all that is but one, “Sinatra in Palm Springs: The Place He Called Home.”
Go figure. ;)
;)
Ruckus
@debbie:
Have 5 or 10 bills to pass, or fail?
He is going to fight everyone of them, every democratic bill that comes before the senate. Because he’s not a leader, in the traditional sense of the word. He thinks his job is to do everything in his power to stop his enemies. And his enemies are every democrat and everyone who isn’t a rich fuck who got rich screwing people and every human being of color. He is a racist ass who has made pretty decent money and has a lot of power, from being a racist ass. He’s not going to change in any way, ever. He’s going to his grave being a racist ass. His sole concept of government is that he is right and everyone else who doesn’t agree with him 100% is wrong.
NotMax
@Nicole
Ask her how upset she was (still is?) about Disney changing the policy that had the employees inside the character suits share the same underwear over different shifts.
O. Felix Culpa
For rikyrah, if you’re around, from the Chicago Tribune:
COVID-10 vaccines for kids 12-15 to begin at Chicago city-run sites Thursday; no appointment needed
Chicago sites accepting those 12 and older are:
Chicago Public Schools will partner with the public health department, particularly on Saturdays, to bring the mobile COVID-19 Chicago Transit Authority vaccination bus to high schools across the city. (Pharmacies and Cook County Health will also be offering vax for kids.)
Good luck to you and Peanut!
Ruckus
@New Deal democrat:
There are likely enough places that will require a mask or being vaccinated for entry, especially in places like CA. Mask wearing outside is I’d say 50% at best, but any indoor shopping requires a mask, at least in LA county. And I’d say reasonable mask wear for that is around 95%, in my experience. That and vaccines are how the rate of exposure is down to almost minimal levels. Exposure still exists, and likely will for a long time, but it is limited. And people are seeing that just being semi responsible actually works. I’m sure there are hard core assholes here, just like everywhere else, but the laws, the living and percentage of democrats helps a lot.
Kay
@Nicole:
Wasn’t it inevitable that they would end up policing “woke” speech, though? That they would become what they supposedly abhor? The Pirates exhibit can say some things. It can say what they’re used to or it can say something else. It says something else so that’s unacceptable?
This thing has fallen apart. It’s imploded. Because it’s a sloppy mess that, incredibly, public intellectuals didn’t really think through before releasing a big sanctimonious public letter and wholly committing themselves to this vague mush about being “cancelled”.
PST
@O. Felix Culpa: I got my shots at Loretto Hospital. It was cheerful and friendly.
Kay
@Nicole:
I didn’t really learn anything about civil rights and black people in the United States until 3rd year of law school when I took a civil rights class and happened to get an excellent teacher. She basically spent 3 months correcting people who had a bachelor’s degree and 2 years of law school about their own country’s history and she did it not with seminars on “wokeness” but with Jim Crow era state statutes and photographs and records. We didn’t know anything. We knew like this inspiring story about Martin Luther King Jr and how he cured racism. It was just feel-good nonsense.
O. Felix Culpa
@Kay: A friend of mine calls the history we were taught in school “US fan fiction.” She’s not wrong.
Geminid
@What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?: Well, I was not asserting that Pollin’s opinion was definitive proof that carbon taxes are no good. And Pollin did allow that a modest carbon tax might be useful as a method of financing clean energy initiatives.
Pollin is a knowledgeable and lucid commentator on these matters, and has helped draw up several state-level clean power plans. His article- actually an interview by a Bulletin editor- is well worth reading.
Another good Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists article in this area is “The Green New Deal: a View From Across the Atlantic,” February, 2019, by British climate scientist Myles Allen. Allen served as a technical advisor to the IPCC, and contributed to the Panel’s October 2018 report that called for a carbon-neutral world economy by 2050. He gives a global view of the problem: a necessity to cut 40 gigatons of carbon emmissions a year to a net of zero, in 30 more years. Allen has some interesting thought on the ways and means.
Soprano2
@Nicole: If Disney has any hope of hiring anyone under the age of 25, they have to change their policy on tattoos. Good luck finding people under that age who don’t have at least one easily-visible tattoo. Shoot, our police department had to change their policy on tattoos because of the same thing! Tattoos aren’t an indicator of being a criminal or low class anymore, like they mostly were when I was a kid.
gwangung
@Matt McIrvin:
Cultural embalmers. They’re all over the place.
karen marie
@PST: I find it hard to believe McConnell can publicly announce that he is going to stop the “Democrat agenda,” two popular-vote-winning Democratic administrations in a row, yet the media persists in demanding to know why said Democrats are not “compromising” to the degree Republicans demand, after going with the “Republicans have a mandate” during the last two popular-vote-losing Republican administrations, yet here we are.
Soprano2
That is a great term. It perfectly describes what they are trying to do. I’ve had the discussion with a couple of co-workers about the Potatohead thing, where one of them asked me didn’t I see that this was insulting to the idea of traditional marriage? I replied that I didn’t think a toy company changing how they market a toy was going to endanger traditional marriage at all. These are people who believe that any change like that is a direct insult toward them.
Urban Suburbanite
@Kay: I thought this piece sums up the Disney ride “controversy”. It’s a children’s ride at an overpriced theme park run by a giant corporation of middling malevolence.
https://www.thedailybeast.com/angry-entitled-disney-adults-are-the-heart-and-soul-of-the-gop
Uncle Cosmo
@Anne Laurie: I thought the definition of “diplomacy” was
Of course that’s a more general usage of the word…
Another Scott
@Soprano2: I understand and sympathize with your labor situation. And yes, benefits and stimulus/rescue should always taper based on the situation on the ground (I think the as-proposed American Rescue Plan had tapering/automatic stabilizer features, but I don’t know if they were included in the final bill nor do I knw the extent).
I think we agree that too many GQP politicians are playing politics with the extended UI benefits.
Dean Baker at CEPR:
CalculatedRiskBlog – Record 8.1 M job openings in March:
In short, even with all the openings, there’s a mismatch between the work that people are willing to do and the positions / compensation available.
Looking at the graph, there’s still a huge amount of volatility in the labor market. These aren’t normal times. It will probably take a while for things to settle down, and then we’ll have a better idea of what the labor market looks like going forward.
Good luck.
Cheers,
Scott.
WaterGirl
@Soprano2: Unless the “wrong” people have them, and then I’m sure the police assume that tattoos = gang affiliation.
J R in WV
@Raven:
Also, it’s just over 1600 miles (according to Google Maps) from Houston to Linden NJ, the northern terminus of the pipeline, yet the news shows keep talking about the “5,000 mile long pipeline” — only if it’s a corkscrew across the SE USA.
That’s more than 3 times the actual distance from TX to NJ!
J R in WV
@Kay:
What?!?! Where’s the gumption nowadays? Why aren’t the parents of that 12 year old out there in the early morning teaching them how to hitchhike to school?!?! I used to get around with my thumb out — back in the 1960s and ’70s — it saves gas too!!! //s
;~)
LongHairedWeirdo
I have only one question: did she call out that everyone who doesn’t state that the election was not stolen, nor so fraudulent that it requires intervention, a coward, too scared to stand up for what’s right, and what’s good for America? That would be courage.
Anything less is simply “not being a complete (expletive)ing coward”. Of course, cowardice has been the hallmark of the Republican Party since 9/11.
artem1s
@debbie:
I hope Biden doesn’t fall for that trap. Didn’t work with ACA or the Obama stimulus bill. Won’t work for this one.
lowtechcyclist
@Matt McIrvin:
Neither did I, because it hadn’t been built yet. I did go to Disneyland once when I was 11, though.
Ruckus
@karen marie:
The major problem with the shitforbrains party is money and who gets most of what moves in the economy. And the second problem is the racism that conservatives worship and “thinks” is the basis of everything wrong with the world. That second part is only a smidgen behind the first, and only for the money mongers at the top. All of their “policies” are about these 2 issues and how to hold the power to control them. Nothing else is anywhere near the same level of concern to them.
Soprano2
That’s basically the argument I keep making to people, plus the dearth of childcare options for women is causing a lot of problems. I think we’ll know more in June. We’re going to have a natural experiment, as some states drop the supplement and others don’t. I highly doubt that it’s going to cause tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of qualified people to flood into the job market all at once. Restaurants/bars are getting all the attention, but around here all kinds of businesses are trying to hire people – retail like WalMart, a new Amazon warehouse about 10 miles south of here, FedEx is advertising, as is the Post Office and various manufacturing companies. I heard the governor of Arkansas interviewed on “All Things Considered” yesterday, and he admitted that employers are having problems at the high end of the wage scale, so he knows it’s not just the unemployment supplement that’s causing this to happen! It’s a lazy explanation, but it comes out of the mouth of literally everyone I talk to about it right away “It’s that extra federal money, no one wants to work anymore” even though the unemployment rate is 3.7%!! It’s a “thing” that “everyone knows”. *rolleyes
Soprano2
@WaterGirl: I don’t know, I only know that they had to relax the requirement that if you want to be a police officer you have no visible tattoos. I’m sure it’s because they couldn’t find enough young people who don’t have them!
StringOnAStick
@Soprano2: I heard that from the gutter replacement guy yesterday, but then he went on to say that a 50 year old friend of his left good service to become a Verizon tech, “harder for an older guy but he worked hard to learn”. He said his friend changed fields because the on again, off again of restaurants being shut down here in OR made it hard to collect unemployment. I told him how I had read that line cooks had a really high infection and death rate since the kitchen ventilation is set up to pull air in from the eating area to keep cooking smells out of there. I could tell that registered with him because he used to do HVAC work. He followed up with “well now that we’re all getting vaccinated things should keep getting better” so he’s not an antivaxer.
All these tradesmen I talk to are freaked out by the increase in the price of lumber; it concerns me too. I think that’s the inflationary pressure that Wall Street was freaked out about yesterday.
Soprano2
@StringOnAStick: There are all kinds of shortages and weird anomalies in the market right now. The price of lumber is insane, for sure. There’s a bone-in chicken wing shortage, too. I’ve read that the price of toilet paper is going to go up because the price of wood pulp is up. Covid has had all kinds of strange effects in the market. You can’t just turn that supply chain around on a dime.
A woman from anywhere (formerly Mohagan)
@SFAW: As a former programmer/analyst, I am well aware that many in IT are somewhere on the spectrum (as I am). Not autistic, but socially awkward and somewhat oblivious to social cues, and would appreciate being told they don’t need to go into so much detail.
A woman from anywhere (formerly Mohagan)
@Nicole: I’ve been to Disneyland three times in my life, and really only enjoyed the first (when I was 6 years old). The other two times my inner child has gotten me in the gate, and then my adult brain takes over and realizes it is all just a bunch of (boring) rides. The worst was when my inner child was really excited to see The Enchanted Tiki Room (macaws!) and we sat in the front row. Then the show started and I realized it was all a bunch of (boring) animatronic plastic birds (sigh). Being in the front row made it hard to leave early LOL.
The most amazing ride is It’s A Small World, which is a bunch of singing dolls singing the same earworm song over and over and over again. I continue to be surprised it is so popular.
A woman from anywhere (formerly Mohagan)
@Soprano2: I used to work at a (conservative) community bank that went through the same thing. They had to relax the tattoo policy in order to hire practically anyone under 30.
Geminid
@StringOnAStick: Some of the scarcity of lumber may stem from February’s big Texas freeze. Damage from broken pipes has required framing as well as drywall to be scrapped.
Another Scott
@Geminid: Softwood prices have been high for a while, driven by a lot of factors.
PRNewswire (from March 29):
Housing demand and decreased exports from BC are probably the biggest factors. Prices started going vertical in mid-2020.
Cheers,
Scott.
Geminid
@Another Scott: “Some…may…”