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You are here: Home / Politics / Biden Administration in Action / Monday Morning Open Thread: Laws Must Be Made, Children Must Be Fed

Monday Morning Open Thread: Laws Must Be Made, Children Must Be Fed

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House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has proposed a procedural vote this month that would set up future passage of two economic measures crucial to President Joe Biden’s domestic agenda, a move Democratic leaders hope will win must-have votes from unhappy party moderates.

In a letter Sunday to Democratic lawmakers, Pelosi, D-Calif., suggested that the House will take a single vote that would clear an initial hurdle for both a budget resolution and a separate infrastructure bill. The budget blueprint would open the gate for Congress to later consider a separate, $3.5 trillion, 10-year bill for health, education and environment programs.

Nine centrist Democrats said Friday they would oppose the budget resolution until the House first approves their top priority: a $1 trillion package of road, railway and other infrastructure projects. In the face of solid Republican opposition, Democrats can lose no more than three defectors to pass legislation through the closely split chamber.

Late Sunday, the moderates issued a statement saying they still wanted a vote on final approval of the infrastructure bill to come ahead of the budget. They stopped short of saying they’d oppose Pelosi’s plan to initially move both measures forward together, suggesting the speaker’s move had bought some time yet left the battle unresolved…

When the House returns this month, it will also vote on revised legislation addressing federal oversight of many states’ election laws, Pelosi wrote, another Democratic priority. That measure seems likely to pass the House but get bogged down in the 50-50 Senate…

… U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack is expected to announce Monday morning that benefit amounts for the program, formerly known as food stamps, will rise an average of 25 percent above pre-pandemic levels. First reported by the New York Times and confirmed by a spokeswoman at the Agriculture Department, average monthly benefits, which were $121 per person before the pandemic, will rise by $36 under the new rules.

The increase is based on an update to the algorithm that governs the Thrifty Food Plan, which tracks the cost of 58 different categories of groceries needed to provide a budget-conscious diet for a family of four.

“Plain and simple, this is totally a game-changing moment,” said Jamie Bussel a senior program officer at the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, a philanthropy focused on health. “The changes have enormous potential to reduce, and potentially eliminate, child hunger and poverty in this country. This will reflect much more accurately what food actually costs in communities.”…

… In 2021, it’s liberals who want citizens, politicians included, to look rigorously at the evidence. It shows how many public programs make a substantial, positive difference in the lives of Americans, especially kids from low-income families. It’s conservatives who prefer ideology and moralism to the facts.

The spending that liberals favor these days — much of it included in President Biden’s American Families Plan that Democrats are pushing through Congress — is for government interventions that have been tested and proved…

Just a few particulars from the report written by Arloc Sherman, Ali Safawi, Zoë Neuberger and Will Fischer:

“When children grew up in a household receiving additional cash benefits, their academic achievement increased on a lasting basis.”

“When elementary and middle school students received access to free school lunches, their academic performance improved.”

“When children had access to quality pre-kindergarten at age 4, they were likelier to enter college on time.”…

There is no rational reason the child poverty rate needs to be as high as it is in the United States. The percentage of children living in poverty in this country based on market incomes is not all that different from the share in most of 18 other rich countries. But an analysis of pre-pandemic data from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development — that is, from before the covid-fueled surge of social spending — found that when public policies relating to taxes and benefits were taken into account, the United States ranked dead last.

We should do better. With smart policies, we can…

Reader Interactions

113Comments

  1. 1.

    Matt McIrvin

    I’m not sure why Dionne has to qualify these statements with “in 2021” as if there was a time when conservative stereotypes of liberals were true, especially since as far as I know he’s always been a liberal. But there’s a weird cultural cringe here going way back.

  2. 2.

    JPL

    Dear MSM, I don’t need to see the same plane trying to take off from Kabul Airport while surrounded by mobs of people. It would be more informative if you let me know, that the runway now has fencing secured with razor wire, in order to prevent that in the future. BTW how about some numbers, informing us how many Americans have we evacuated.

  3. 3.

    evodevo

    But, but, but the atheist left-winger budget plans don’t include prayer and laying on of hands and funding for Xtian-led youth groups and church charities where you have to listen to the reading of Bibble verses before you get to eat and and and….so therefore they are SOSHULIST!

  4. 4.

    David ? ☘The Establishment☘? Koch

    Looks like I picked the wrong week to vacation in Afghanistan

  6. 6.

    JPL

    @raven: Begrudgingly someone did mention that it was common to use helicopters between the embassy and the airport.   I turned the news off.

  7. 7.

    Ken

    @David ? ☘The Establishment☘? Koch: Reading some of the twitter threads last night, I stumbled on some idiot from the UK who had decided to do exactly that. He was sending increasingly frantic updates after his flight out was cancelled. The replies were not completely supportive.

  8. 8.

    debbie

    @JPL:

    Can’t find it now, but I remember SNL spoofing CNN’s coverage, running a clip of someone walking down the front steps of the building, then the same clip in slo mo, sped up, and in reverse, over and over.

  9. 9.

    Spanky

    @raven: Are they pushing them off the decks of aircraft carriers yet? Maybe the msm can just run the 1975 footage and let the viewers make the assumption that it’s off the Afghanistan coast*.

    * Assumes typical viewer’s knowledge of SWA geography.

  11. 11.

    Ken

    Children Must Be Fed

    It’s attitudes like this that show how out-of-touch the Democrats are.

  14. 14.

    NotMax

    The terms moderates and centrists have only so much elasticity. At this point they’ve lost whatever shreds of meaning they still held.

  17. 17.

    debbie

    Surprised, Richard?

    Walking around kabul. Hard stares. Mood changing. People not just sad, but angry, blaming the US for abandoning the country to war, chaos, and the Taliban
    — Richard Engel (@RichardEngel) August 15, 2021

    This could apply to so many:

    Some of our friends in the press are really revealing themselves. Not that it’s a surprise. I mean every ten years or so they really come out from where they live and leave no doubt.
    — Richard M. Nixon (@dick_nixon) August 16, 2021

  19. 19.

    JPL

    @debbie: I’m just surprised that they have not shown old footage of beheadings, over and over.  They can then talk about how this could happen to those Afghan citizens that helped us.

  22. 22.

    OzarkHillbilly

    Tyler Gilbert makes first MLB start at age of 27 … and throws no-hitter

    Tyler Gilbert, an aspiring electrician, delivered a shocker for the history books on Saturday night as he threw a no-hitter on his first big league start.

    Gilbert struck out Trent Grisham and Ha-Seong Kim in the ninth inning before Tommy Pham lined out to center fielder Ketel Marte to clinch a 7-0 victory for the Arizona Diamondbacks over the San Diego Padres.
    ……………………….
    Among those celebrating the first Diamondbacks no-hitter at home was Gilbert’s family. They were also on hand for his debut in relief earlier this month. Gilbert didn’t play baseball in 2020 after the minor league season was wiped out by the pandemic. He spent the summer learning to be an electrician from his dad, making some extra money while occasionally crawling around attics and in between walls.

    “I’d rather be doing this than pulling wires,” Gilbert said with a grin. “No offense, Dad.”
    ……………………………….
    The last pitcher to accomplish the feat before Gilbert was Bobo Holloman of the St Louis Browns in 1953. Bumpus Jones also did it in his major league debut with the Cincinnati Reds in 1892, and Theodore Breitenstein threw one in his first start for the Browns in 1891.

    Normally I’d say, “It’s all down hill from here.” but maybe not. Pitching a World Series clincher might beat it. Here’s looking at you Tyler. May you have a long and prosperous career.

  25. 25.

    Dorothy A. Winsor

    @rikyrah: I remember being entertained by the book. We don’t get Disney, so I didn’t even know it was a movie. It’s a Middle-Grade book (ie ages 10 and up), which goes to show you what readers can miss if they automatically walk past some books.

  29. 29.

    Ken

    @rikyrah: If Florida had a contact tracing system, everyone’s phone would be beeping every ten minutes, so it’s less than useful. Also, the point of contact tracing is that the people contacted will do the right thing and isolate or at least mask for two weeks, and the odds of that are non-existent.

  35. 35.

    rikyrah

     

    ??⚖️ Kenneth of House Pfizer™?, 1st of His Name (@Needle_of_Arya) tweeted at 6:36 AM on Mon, Aug 16, 2021:
    So it turns out that Afghanistan didn’t actually have very much of an army. From what I heard of an NPR interview last night, the size of the Afghan army waxed & waned during the year as it  went on, and the new recruits would eventually go AWOL & melt back in to the population.
    (https://twitter.com/Needle_of_Arya/status/1427232732938125315?s=03)

  40. 40.

    Butter Emails!

    @JPL:

    They’ll keep showing that picture until the entire airport is cleared. Just like they’ll keep showing the picture of the helicopter leaving the embassy despite the fact that helicopters were routinely used as transport to the airport.

  41. 41.

    Kay

    @germy:

    It’s not just that- his commentary has so little context it’s like this started 5 days ago.

    blaming the US for abandoning the country to war, chaos, and the Taliban

    Is that an accurate recitation of what happened? He speaks as if we went in on a humanitarian rescue mission after a natural disaster and then abruptly and inexplicably cancelled it.

    During a briefing with reporters in Kabul, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld declares an end to “major combat.” The announcement coincides with President George W. Bush’s “mission accomplished” declaration of an end to fighting in Iraq. Rumsfeld says President Bush, U.S. Central Command Chief Gen. Tommy Franks, and Afghan President Hamid Karzai “have concluded that we are at a point where we clearly have moved from major combat activity to a period of stability and stabilization and reconstruction and activities.” There are only eight thousand U.S. soldiers stationed in Afghanistan.

    May 1st, 2003.

    There were four or five announcements that we were handing it over after that- about one every two years.

  42. 42.

    David ? ☘The Establishment☘? Koch

    I thought when I bought this Kabul excursion from Club Med that I would be flying in on a Boeing or an Airbus; at no time did not imagine I would holding onto the straps of a Hind helicopter.

    Man, am I going to give a piece of my mind to the concierge at the Kabul Ritz-Carlton.​​ Hopefully they didn’t lose my reservation to Spago at Kabul

  43. 43.

    James E Powell

    First day of school! On my way in five minutes. Wish us luck, we’re gonna need it.

  44. 44.

    lowtechcyclist

    @Matt McIrvin:

    I’m not sure why Dionne has to qualify these statements with “in 2021” as if there was a time when conservative stereotypes of liberals were true, especially since as far as I know he’s always been a liberal. But there’s a weird cultural cringe here going way back.

    I think your last sentence nails it.  It’s still practically heretical in the commentariat to suggest that the Dems, as a party, aren’t a bunch of hippies in need of punching.  So at a minimum, he’s got to cover his ass by implying that this is a new development.

  47. 47.

    Ken

    @Kay: Afghan President Hamid Karzai

    Now there’s a name I haven’t heard in years.  Let’s see… Hmm, he’s one of those rare people whose wikipedia page has a “Corruption” section with a link to the main article.

  49. 49.

    germy

    @Kay:

    I admire his courage for putting himself in harm’s way, but his reporting of facts leaves much to be desired.

    The network loves him because he delivers exciting footage.  “Boom! Boom!” etc.

  52. 52.

    debbie

    @Ken:

    He tweeted a photo yesterday of his daughters and him, saying he was remaining in Afghanistan to support women. B.S.

  53. 53.

    germy

     

    The failure to anticipate the rapid fall of afghan cities, including kabul, is a huge US intelligence failure. I know some US mil commanders anticipated it. They told me. Yet somehow their voices were not heard.

    — Richard Engel (@RichardEngel) August 15, 2021

    If only there’d been some way to share that knowledge pic.twitter.com/dCjfejHg7m

    — Tom Scocca (@tomscocca) August 15, 2021

  56. 56.

    Butter Emails!

    I strongly suspect the press screeching is heavily related to a big chunk of the foreign civilians remaining in Afghanistan being the members of the press or their affiliates. They could have left anytime between a year and a half ago and 1 week ago but now they’re stuck at the airport or sheltering in place until their governments can get them out and they are pissed about it.

  57. 57.

    Kay

    @Ken:

    That timeline is sad. 2014- Obama announces the surge is over and they’re going back to 9800 troops. Up from the 2003 announcement of drawing down to 9000. Trump’s (alleged) drawdown was from 15000.

  58. 58.

    germy

    The Taliban has announced their political agenda for Afghanistan includes:

    – Abortion is banned
    – Gay marriage outlawed
    – Rejection of science
    – No vaccines (against their religion)
    – No separation of church & state
    – Religion taught in schools

    — William LeGate (@williamlegate) August 15, 2021

  59. 59.

    Kay

    @debbie:

    saying he was remaining in Afghanistan to support women.

    Unless he can get the men in Afghanistan to “support women” I don’t think it will work.

  64. 64.

    Betty Cracker

    At least Republicans in Congress are focused on what really matters:

    “This is the low moment of Biden’s presidency thus far,” a senior GOP aide told The Daily Beast. “His central case throughout 2020 and during his Administration has been that he’s the steady hand to stem the Trump chaos. More than anything else, this throws a wrench into that narrative.”

    “The problem for Republicans,” the aide added, “is that our ability to go on offense against him is somewhat limited because Trump essentially had the same policy position.”

    “Somewhat.”

    I agree with Josh Marshall’s take, which is that the rapid collapse of the former Afghan government’s army and reactive screeching of US-based pundits is further evidence that withdrawing with all possible speed was the right thing to do. The collapse demonstrates the illusory nature of the former government’s hold on the country, and the screeching signifies that our national security intelligentsia is still in denial about what was possible in Afghanistan.

  65. 65.

    SFAW

    @Matt McIrvin:

    I’m not sure why Dionne has to qualify these statements with “in 2021” as if there was a time when conservative stereotypes of liberals were true, especially since as far as I know he’s always been a liberal.

    I think it would be an excellent public service if various MSM outlets published Steve Gilliard’s “I’m A Fighting Liberal” at least once a year.

  66. 66.

    SFAW

    @Betty Cracker:

    “The problem for Republicans,” the aide added, “is that our ability to go on offense against him is somewhat limited because Trump essentially had the same policy position.”

    Asshole.

  67. 67.

    hueyplong

    @NotMax: All I see there is Facebook doing quality control on the misinformation.

    They’re not opposed to it; they’re merely opposed to misinformation so lame that it is a threat to the credibility of the other misinformation.

  68. 68.

    Ken

    @Betty Cracker: I was more struck by “essentially”.  I suppose negotiating a deal to have all US troops withdraw in 2021 might be called “essentially” the same policy.

  69. 69.

    zhena gogolia

     

    @Butter Emails!: NYT, David Sanger this morning: “Rarely in modern presidential history have words come back to bite an American commander in chief as swiftly as these from President Biden” (about you’re not going to see helicopters). I guess by using “commander in chief” he weasels out of TFG telling us Covid would go away in a couple of weeks.

  70. 70.

    NotMax

    @hueyplong

    This particular absurd disinformation popped up last fall. Took nine months before it was excised. (WaPo link this time.)

    Facebook investigators said the Russian-linked campaign began in November and December last year, when the network allegedly posted memes and comments that falsely claimed the Anglo-Swedish AstraZeneca vaccine could turn people into chimpanzees. Source

  72. 72.

    hueyplong

    @NotMax: Takes them a while to fine tune the QC process.

    Only medium grade and better misinformation going forward.  At least that’s the plan.   Getting Trump offline helps their program.

  73. 73.

    Dorothy A. Winsor

    @Kay: Once the terms of the withdrawal agreement were announced, it was obvious we were abandoning the female half of the population. Apparently it’s only just dawning on the other half that they’ve also been left to their own devices.

    I think the Taliban’s return to power was inevitable, but I must admit I’m surprised by the speed.

  77. 77.

    Ken

    @lowtechcyclist: Also, I don’t think most of the people screeching on TV are part of the national security or intelligence apparatus. Formerly part, I’ll give you, at least in some cases.

    But I’m under the impression that anyone who’s currently doing intelligence work will not be showing up on a Sunday morning or cable TV show to discuss the latest reports.

  78. 78.

    Kay

    @Dorothy A. Winsor:

     Apparently it’s only just dawning on the other half that they’ve also been left to their own devices.

    For every testimonial from one of the women I would like a testimonial from her father, husband, brother that they are also committed to her rights. Without that it isn’t going to work.
    We can’t just carve out women and female children. It’s not a lifeboat floating within a country where women and children go first. They live within communities and then families. I don’t think this is a harsh stance- it’s reality. “The women” and a group of Americans cannot do this without the men in that country.

  79. 79.

    Kay

    @Dorothy A. Winsor:

     Apparently it’s only just dawning on the other half that they’ve also been left to their own devices.

    For every testimonial from one of the women I would like a testimonial from her father, husband, brother that they are also committed to her rights. Without that it isn’t going to work.
    We can’t just carve out women and female children. It’s not a lifeboat floating within a country where women and children go first. They live within communities and then families. I don’t think this is a harsh stance- it’s reality. “The women” and a group of Americans cannot do this without the men in that country.

  80. 80.

    Dorothy A. Winsor

    @zhena gogolia: For me, there are a lot of questions here. Can we do some good? Is it possible to do good? History says probably not. OK, then, can we look away? What are we responsible for having broken here? Or maybe the last guy broke it, or the one three guys ago, and we’re in the other political party, so is that still our responsibility? Are we making things better or worse?

    It’s a tragedy. I don’t know yet what we’ve learned from it.

  82. 82.

    zhena gogolia

    @Dorothy A. Winsor: Why did we go there? Because they harbored Al Qaeda, which attacked us on U.S. soil. We had no plans to reform Afghanistan or save its women and children before that. How many countries are there in which women and children are oppressed? Can we save them all?

    If we wanted to save Afghanistan, why did we then take over Iraq for no discernible reason?

  83. 83.

    Chris Johnson

    @NotMax:

     Those are the ones you’re meant to see. Got to have some disinformation exploring the outer fringes of what’s no longer effective.

    The ones that drive mainstream antivax, mainstream immigrant hatred, mainstream anti-BLM, those ones don’t get kicked off the platform and do much bigger numbers. They gotta do some ‘vaccines literally turn you into chimpanzees’ to know where the line is, both in terms of what people will believe and what the platforms will shut down. It’s ablative armor.

  87. 87.

    hueyplong

    @Dorothy A. Winsor: You could make a pretty good argument that the only thing we’ve learned is that domestic political opportunity always trumps (sorry for the word but it fits) any consideration of what’s best for the people living in whatever country we’re talking about.

    Even the Marshall Plan can be explained in part by the domestic political elephant in the room of needing to be seen doing something to counter the Soviets.  You’re hard pressed to look at the top half of page one of any newspaper on any day in the late 40s and not find the word “Reds” in a headline.

  90. 90.

    Dave

    @zhena gogolia: Completely failing to understand the environment we were operating in.  Lying to ourselves; I mean the slides were almost alway green or at worst yellow.  Really completely failing to understand the environment we were operating in and it seemed to grow more delusional the farther up the chain you went.

  91. 91.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    @germy:

    Fundamentalist versions of the Abrahamic religions all pose the same oppressive social philosophy. Stalin may have been onto something….

  92. 92.

    Soprano2

    @Kay: This. I interpret the fast fall of the Afghan government as proof that the men in Afghanistan who weren’t part of the Taliban weren’t that sold on secular democracy and protecting the rights of women, even after 20 years of us being there. It seems that our effort to impose a secular government on a country that preferred a religiously-based one was a failure. That shouldn’t be a surprise.

  93. 93.

    WaterGirl

    @Ken: Your comment inspired me to go back and find Baud’s comments – I have been pretty busy lately and haven’t kept up with all the threads.

    Baud’s reply to Sloane Ranger:

    Yep. All good.  Just going to be busy and away from reliable internet for a while.

    Whew.  Now I can breathe again.  :-)  Miss you, Baud!

  95. 95.

    WaterGirl

    @Betty Cracker: I suspect that Afghanistan has been a house of cards for years, more likely a decade.  Grieving for the people of Afghanistan, but we were never going to be able to save the country because that can’t be done from the outside.

  96. 96.

    Immanentize

    @Dorothy A. Winsor: Forget Afghanistan. It’s toast. But where is everyone’s deep concern for Somalia (we have lots of troops there)? Women are suffering!

    Or Ethiopia which is a strong US ally in the war on terror. We have lots of military advisors and special forces and combat troops there? That place is falling apart, and likely disintegrating into old tribal political divisions.

    Qatar? That place is our military’s air port/transport/weapons/troop staging base for the whole of the Middle East. And it is not exactly a pretty place for women or girls, except for the truly wealthy (who mostly live elsewhere).

    Yemen?

    Nigeria and Chad and Niger, the playgrounds of Boko Haram?

    And let’s not forget Libya….

    Afghanistan is just today’s reminder that the world is a very messed up place — by our standards. Very few in the US really care about Afghanistan and will soon forget it exists again unless it is the site of something dramatic and weekend news worthy. Afghanistan is mostly now just a political cudgel that gives even the kindest Americans the opportunity to say, “why couldn’t we do more/something/better/etc.” Message – we care.

    But the people in those places all over the world where some really bad things are happening today are persistently attached to their views and their local political power over ours. And that commitment beats our fleeting flirtations with imposing western style governance and pluralism. Every time.

  97. 97.

    Tony Jay

    @Betty Cracker:

    “This is the low moment of Biden’s presidency America’s Afghan misadventure thus far,” a senior GOP aide told The Daily Beast. “His Biden’s central case throughout 2020 and during his Administration has been that he’s the steady hand to stem the Trump GOP chaos. More than anything else, this throws a wrench into underlines that narrative.”

    “The problem for Republicans,” the aide added, “is that our ability to go on offense against him is somewhat limited because Trump the GOP essentially has had the exact same policy position for the last five years.”

    Oh, those nameless aides and their cute little administrative errors. However do they keep on creeping in?

  102. 102.

    Immanentize

    @Elizabelle: Haiti makes perfect sense to me. We have huge population/cultural ties and helping there would be a drop in the bucket compared to continuing troop deployments elsewhere. For that matter – Puerto Rico could still benefit from a hand up. Also poor women and girls in Mississippi.  Closer to home, please.

  103. 103.

    Soprano2

    @laura: Thanks for asking. I’m doing OK, busy taking care of mundane but necessary things. Going to the bank and then calling to cancel things today. The graveside service is Wednesday.

  106. 106.

    Soprano2

    @zhena gogolia: Thanks. She passed peacefully Friday morning. Wherever she is, I hope she’s with my sister. I hope the people she asked to take care of her cats call soon. They’re lonely, and I can’t tell them what happened. I can’t take them because they’re old and have never been around dogs. I won’t put them through that trauma. I already have one cat that lives in my upstairs bedroom because she’s afraid of one of our dogs.

  108. 108.

    Elizabelle

    @Soprano2:   My condolences on the loss of your mom.  It is a mercy, for both of your sakes, that it was not protracted.

    I wish you peace.

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