Two months ago he was offering to bring a "soft food" lunch to the White House if Biden agreed to meet with him. https://t.co/9FeRX7JMOD
— Annie Karni (@anniekarni) May 28, 2023
Biden gave a thumbs up when asked whether Dems should vote for debt deal. He’s confident the deal will get to his desk, he said upon return to White House from Delaware. He said his 3 pm call with McCarthy is to make sure “Ts are crossed and the Is are dotted,” he told reporters.
— Jennifer Jacobs (@JenniferJJacobs) May 28, 2023
Dear Colleague from Jeffries to House Dems:
“Early this afternoon, no later than 2 p.m., President Biden and Speaker McCarthy are scheduled to speak in order to complete the agreement.”
“Shortly thereafter, the legislative bill text will be released” pic.twitter.com/h5lTLRXerh
— Max Cohen (@maxpcohen) May 28, 2023
Schumer dear colleague on debt limit deal. pic.twitter.com/O6cQCIDTD9
— Jake Sherman (@JakeSherman) May 28, 2023
Positive reaction to debt limit deal from New Dems Chair @RepAnnieKuster:
“Our Members are encouraged that the two sides have reached an agreement, and are confident that President Biden and White House negotiators have delivered a viable, bipartisan solution to end this crisis” pic.twitter.com/yQ9cjN0CG3
— Max Cohen (@maxpcohen) May 28, 2023
McCarthy brushes off right wing concerns, says 95pct of his members are in favor of the bill.
Says he’s “not at all” worried his job is at danger
— Max Cohen (@maxpcohen) May 28, 2023
Anybody want to see a tweet where the last five words were written first, and the rest was constructed in reverse to try to support them? https://t.co/VDrsLKpXWB
— The Fig Economy (@figgityfigs) May 28, 2023
Around 200k unemployed people exist between the ages of 49 and 54. Some portion have dependents or disabilities.
There are 500k homeless people between the ages of 16 and 49. Almost none of them were eligible for SNAP before.
This is an *expansion* of SNAP. https://t.co/joXnCucRQi
— Galen Metzger🪬📈🇺🇦 (@GalenMetzger1) May 28, 2023
AND Biden looks "bipartisan" while McCarthy will probably face some blowback from his own party.
— Galen Metzger🪬📈🇺🇦 (@GalenMetzger1) May 28, 2023
bbleh
Now all you Pollyannas you just listen here! There is a thriving industry in Democratic Eeyorism and we will not have it disrespected, much less ignored, just because Joe Biden avoided economic and political catastrophe for what so far look like comparatively small concessions to the sadists of the Grand Old Psychopath party.
And in any case, at this point I think the main problem is programs run by states where Republicans have administrative/legislative control. All the assistance in the world won’t help if the people in the middle are determined not to accept it. And meanwhile, I look forward to much internecine Republican bloodletting.
OzarkHillbilly
Shhhhhhhh…. Maybe the repubs won’t notice.
Steeplejack
I was going to edit and editorialize on this Twitter thread, but I’m too lazy right now. So here it is in the raw. It’s a good recap of the Ken Paxton situation in Texas and also offers what I think is a very plausible hypothesis on why the Texas legislature suddenly got moved to action: (A) feds taking over the investigation and (B) if the legislature authorized the $3.3 million payment to the whistle-blowers, (supposedly) their testimony could not be used in a trial and the legislators would potentially be guilty of obstruction. (I’m paraphrasing it badly, but that’s the drift.)
There are also some interesting side notes on Trump era DOJ dirty linen.
Nukular Biskits
@bbleh:
BINGO!
One only needs to look at the TANF scandal here in MS.
Ben Cisco 🇺🇸🎖️🖥️♦️
Hey Jackals – passing through to say hi!!
Also, that Ettinger dude – he don’t seem none too bright. Is he a regular on the Sunday shows? He’d fit right in.
Baud
I didn’t know about SNAP expansion.
Sister Golden Bear
Palette cleanser, George Santos gets trolled by Jeopardy,
Baud
@bbleh:
But I wanted a platinum coin.
:: stomps feet::
zhena gogolia
@bbleh:
😄
Baud
@Sister Golden Bear:
Jeopardy is woke!
Steeplejack
McCarthy really made that “soft food” crack?! What a colossal dick. But we knew that already.
zhena gogolia
@Baud: 14TH AMENDMENT
zhena gogolia
@Baud: Ken Jennings is most definitely woke. Don’t know about Bialik.
hueyplong
@Steeplejack: It would be kind of disorienting if McCarthy spent a few minutes not being a colossal dick, wouldn’t it?
Eolirin
@Baud: I didn’t either. That makes this so much better and now I really don’t see how the hell McCarthy agreed to this.
bbleh
@Nukular Biskits: and imho even that is eclipsed in avoidable human misery by the decisions of several Republican-controlled states — MS included iirc — who refused federal money to expand Medicaid eligibility during the COVID emergency.
The sheer meanness of those people …
@Eolirin: concur, and I was surprised by other aspects of the (reported, not yet finalized) deal as well. My only hypothesis, a long standing one, is that McQarthy is, um, badly unsuited to his position due to his political incompetence, his flimsiness as a leader, and his general lack of smarts. Joe Biden out-negotiated and out-politicked him, simple as that.
Kinda makes me think one of Biden’s political strengths is the tendency of people to underestimate him by thinking he’s just a feeble elderly backslapper …
M31
and I’ve been working on my trillion dollar coin heist movie, where the Treasury mints 7 decoy coins and one real one and then allows the decoys to be stolen to divert attention from the real one, only Major the dog buried it in the White house lawn and they can’t find it
zhena gogolia
@M31: If only Peter Ustinov and Maximilian Schell were still alive . . .
Nukular Biskits
@bbleh:
Yeah, but here in MS, we’re REALLY owning teh stewpit libtards and teachin’ that Obummer mooslim guy a lesson he’ll never forget! HYUCK!HYUCK!HYUCK!
M31
but they do find Alexander Hamilton’s secret decoder ring that tells the location of a buried treasure but the secret of how to use it was lost when he was killed so it takes the combined effort of a bunch of plucky kids who solve the problem, recover the treasure, and solve the debt ceiling forever
dmsilev
I guess we should read this to mean that his job very much is in danger.
There’s no way in hell 95% of the Republican caucus is in favor; that’d mean only about a dozen or so opposed. The Freedom Caucus loons alone are something like four times that, so he’s essentially claiming that even 75-80% of the lunatic fringe supports this deal.
RepubAnon
@M31: Starring Nicholas Cage?
dmsilev
@M31: Sounds promising, but is still missing something. Maybe Obama’s time machine, the one he used to fake the evidence of his birth, is involved somehow?
Nukular Biskits
With reference to what I mentioned about MS & TANF, here’s a good place to start:
‘A Sprawking Conspiracy’: MS TANF Scandal Archive
bbleh
@M31: ok but what character does Nick Cage play? Maybe the plucky kids are, like, community college students, and he’s their teacher? And near the end of the movie they realize all his stories about things written on the back of the Constitution and whatever else (not sure I have those right) were TRUE, and they gain new appreciation for the Wisdom of Elders.
I think we can sell it. Bring your screenplay and let’s do lunch.
SFBayAreaGal
@zhena gogolia: Bialik is woke. She won’t cross picket lines while the writers strike is ongoing. Jennings on the other hand will cross picket lines and continue to host Jeopardy.
zhena gogolia
@SFBayAreaGal: Oh, okay.
SFBayAreaGal
@M31: On the History Channel, there’s a series called History’s Greatest Heists with Pierce Bronsan hosting the series. I highly recommend the series.
Mr. Bemused Senior
@dmsilev:
He [McCarthy] is not so good with numbers.
NotMax
@RepubAnon
And Christian Slater as the Beaver.
;)
Dangerman
Things sure changed in a couple days, didn’t they? Almost like McCarthy got one or more phone calls from some group of Folks, let’s call them The Money for lack of a better phrase, that told him if he liked his Jewels to stay in their present location, he’d knock this shit off. Let Trump, et al, jerk off about the wonders of defaulting. It was never going to happen.
Suzanne
@Steeplejack:
My Kevin is just asking for karma to make his senior years painful and embarrassing.
JaySinWA
@Mr. Bemused Senior: Being innumerate explains the failure to see that he agreed to expand SNAP as well.
JaySinWA
@Steeplejack: The true meaning of BDE.
Geminid
@Baud:
‘They’re not going to mint that fucking coin and you might as well get used to it.”
Annie
Joe has done it again.
I really do think his superpower is being underestimated. I hope the Republicans keep underestimating him!
NotMax
@JaySinWA
Somewhat surprised Kevin didn’t phone Paul Ryan, pleading to borrow the latter’s magic asterisk.
//
Raoul Paste
@Dangerman: I wish The Money could throw enough bucks around and get rid of some of these bomb throwers in the House
NotMax
@Baud
Platinum is so yesterday.
Plutonium coin or bust.
//
JaneE
Democrats have always been willing to let reps in hard districts defect, even on really big bills, when they did not need their votes. Emphasis on when they did not need those votes. This was always understood, and if those votes did reflect more accurately the views of their constituents so much the better.
The GOP has done the same, but far less so, and with more criticism from their own side.
The difference is that Democrats still expect compromise and hope to get something both sides can agree on, at least on enough of the parts to vote for it. Republicans have a much larger loony group that will accept nothing less than total victory, regardless of their actual vote count.
When push comes to shove, the GOP will let the American people, and the world, down. This vote will just give us more ammunition – either let’s keep the bipartisanship going or the GOP hates America. Either one helps Democrats with sane constituencies.
RSA
Nicolas Cage is on line one.
bbleh
@Suzanne: he’s working on making his current years painful and embarrassing. Hell, they’re already embarrassing.
kalakal
@M31: Remember that the baddie has to be British.
NotMax
@kalakal
BoJo’s available.
:)
Dangerman
@Raoul Paste: Bad investment. Bomb throwers are from safe districts.
ETA: Now The Money should pay a LOT more in taxes but that’s a different topic.
Chris T.
@JaySinWA: I for one would be surprised if Kevin McQarthy weren’t innumerate.
David 🌈 ☘The Establishment☘🌈 Koch
I was so hoping Biden would use the trillion dollar coin.
A trillion dollar coin here, a trillion dollar coin there and pretty soon you have a lot of coins.
Sister Golden Bear
@RSA:
Tell him sorry, but we’re casting the movie with muppets.
Ben Cisco 🇺🇸🎖️🖥️♦️
@Annie:
He’s been underestimated so much he qualifies as an honorary black person! *
*snark, he’s been one of us for a while now
Ben Cisco 🇺🇸🎖️🖥️♦️
@NotMax: Gold-pressed latinum or GTFO
Mallard Filmore
@Steeplejack:
Now that’s why I would never be a good politician. I would be thinking “Hmmm, I wonder what flavor?”
bbleh
@kalakal: and a graduate of Yale Law School
Miss Bianca
@Ben Cisco 🇺🇸🎖️🖥️♦️:
LOL!
CaseyL
This reminds me of when Nancy Pelosi rolled Trump during a budget negotiation.
He, and the GOP, were crowing about how much they were going to force the Democrats to cut domestic programs. Turned out Pelosi – who is very, very smart – met directly with Trump – who is very, very stupid – and had him agree to a budget that wound up increasing the very items the GOP wanted cut. I don’t remember how she did it, probably talking math that would go so far over his head even weather balloons couldn’t detect it.
I would not be at all surprised if Biden used much the same tactic on McCarthy. Once again: a very smart, very canny person (t)rolling a very not-smart person.
Carlo Graziani
@Annie:
A contrast to Dubya’s notorious self-evaluation: “They misunderestimated me!”
eversor
@Raoul Paste:
The problem with The Money is they don’t always want the same things.
You have the Koch’s who just want tax cuts and deregulation. You have the fossil fuel and resource extraction crew who just want their specific industries untouched and protected. You have your grand technological libertarian monarchs like Theil who just want a libertarian monarch. You have Leonard Leo of the Federalist Society who really wants Christian Theocracy preferably by Catholic Integeralism and is fleecing the rich to get it. Then you have odd balls like the Home Depot billionaire who wants Catholic Integeralism and what the Kochs want.
None of these fuckers agree about what the grand vision is. Least of all who’s going to be in charge of the Death Star they’ve created. Since they can all basically donate unlimted The Money because that’s what they wanted they are all funding rivals for their visions which is why the GOP is a chaotic fucking mess. None of them are going to give an inch. So they are all trying to undermine the others to get their priorities and candidates to the top.
It couldn’t have happened to a worse nest of pit vipers. Though that’s being unfair to pit vipers. Who do carry out a useful function and go about their lives leaving most of us the hell alone.
Delk
There was a TV ad In massive repeat today that pretty much says that Biden lost and this is a win for CONSERVATIVES. (They stress conservatives a lot) Some conservatives for America pac paid for it
Kind of feels like a rebuke to the free dumb mouth breathers.
strange visitor (from another planet)
oh, FFS, even senator fucking schumer doesn’t know how to use possessive “its”.
that frustrates me to no end.
JoyceH
@CaseyL:
That trait, the crowing business, illustrates the main thing about Trump that made him a lousy businessman, and later a lousy politician, and the fact that the GOP is adopting that mindset is… unfortunate. Trump’s psychology has always insisted that it wasn’t enough for him to win, the other guy’s got to lose. Well, that’s NOT how business or politics work! In both cases, you need to come up with solutions that leave both sides happy.
You want my product and I want your money, and if we strike a deal that results in you getting my product and feeling satisfied with the price, and I walk away satisfied with your money, that’s the beginning of a good business and business relationship. But Trump always went into every deal wanting to walk away certain that he utterly screwed over the other side. Even if he wound up with what he wanted, he couldn’t count it as a satisfying win if the other guy didn’t lose. And it’s hard to get repeat business when you do deals like that.
strange visitor (from another planet)
@Ben Cisco 🇺🇸🎖️🖥️♦️: hard to default on your debts if you have a replicator, emissary.
Brachiator
@bbleh:
I don’t think that Biden should have made any deal at all. I don’t believe that McCarthy is so stupid that he would risk the US economy.
Principles matter. It would be insane for the Republicans to destabilize the economy. By comparison, when British prime minister Liz Truss and her idiot chancellor tried to submit a budget plan so stupid that the financial markets immediately reacted negatively, even the most extreme right wing Tories turned on Truss and ultimately dumped her and the chancellor. I cannot imagine that the US money interests would let McCarthy ruin things.
Negotiation, compromise, bipartisanship only applies to Democrats. The GOP will do whatever they damn well please if they regain the White House.
So, I ain’t happy. But I also recognize that the actual deal is not a total tragedy. Biden and his team were pretty damn smart about what they would accept.
That this thing was wrapped up over the holiday weekend, when most people are not paying attention, suggests that the Democrats and Republicans just want to get this mess out of the way and move on.
James E Powell
@Baud:
I didn’t know anything about the details, but I have tremendous faith in Joe Biden.
Ken
@dmsilev: @Mr. Bemused Senior: As long as he gets at least 50% of the House Republicans on-board, he can still say he’s following the Hastert Rule.
Er, that would be the Hastert Rule about congressional votes, not the one about paying hush money to the teenage boys you sexually abused.
eversor
@JoyceH:
It’s not just winning and losing with those types.
I’ve dealt with a lot of people professionally (IT) where it was not enough to get the result they wanted, they wanted it done the way they wanted it done. Nevermind that they didn’t know shit about shit. What they wanted was possible, however doing it they wanted was going to result not only in failure but creating a bigger fucking problem. When this was pointed out, the results were ranting, hectoring, lecturing, firing, and what everyone expects. Musk syndrome.
The only way to deal with people like that was to basically lie your ass off at the middle manager or technical specialist level to the big boss and then go about and do what you were going to do while pulling a whole ton of fucking kabuki… or do what they wanted and light the damn thing on fire while floating your resume.
A ton of our capitalism is based off I win and you loose while also demanding shit done your way while everyone else frantically tries to keep everything going.
Baud
@Brachiator:
A deal has been inevitable since the beginning of the year since that’s when a lot of liberals abandoned the idea that the GOP was solely responsible for the debt ceiling and started dreaming about Biden using the platinum coin and the 14th Amendment, which put the responsibility in him instead of McCarthy.
gwangung
@Sister Golden Bear: Yes? And? This doesn’t exclude Cage.
Shalimar
@dmsilev: McCarthy has never been able to count votes so that 95% number is pure fantasy. He might get 75%. But I don’t think Kevin is a total idiot and I doubt he got rolled. The only way that this deal makes sense from his perspective is if he got promises from Jeffries that Dems won’t vote against him in no-confidence votes that are coming. McCarthy’s ambition is to be Speaker, and even though that seat is meaningless now and nothing else will get accomplished in the next 19 months, my bet is this deal assures he will keep the job for the rest of this Congress.
Raoul Paste
@eversor: Granted, there are a lot of monied people with different interests, and many seem rather warped in the head. But I think Dangerman was talking about an overarching element of The Money who want stability, and who presumably got to Kevin McCarthy.
And yes, Dangerman, we would like to to pry out bomb-throwers from safe districts. That’s why it’s going to take money.. A whole lot of spending money. It’s going to take plenty of money to do it right
gwangung
@Baud: Dealing with the debt limit isn’t possible when the Republicans have a grubby hand on the levers of power. ANY lever. Once the Republicans won a part of Congress, this dealing was inevitable, and speculations about platinum coins are putting carts before horses.
Another Scott
@strange visitor (from another planet): The soft keyboard (GBoard) on my phone defaults to it’s. It’s annoying. Maybe autocorrect attacked Chuck, too?
Cheers,
Scott.
Eolirin
@Brachiator: As it turns out, if the specifics on the work requirements are correct, there was no compromise. McCarthy rolled over and gave the Democrats everything they could want and got nothing of value back except their votes.
Another Scott
@Raoul Paste: It’s gonna take time. A whole lotta patience and time.
Cheers,
Scott.
Subsole
@Raoul Paste:
And a whole Lotta time. Patience and time.
Brachiator
@Eolirin:
That’s just one element of the deal.
Eolirin
@Brachiator: The rest of it is effectively best case scenarios for budget negotiations in divided government and things that would have been harder to get later.
prostratedragon
@zhena gogolia: Somehow, they’d never quite make it.
Ruckus
@Brachiator:
I don’t think that Biden should have made any deal at all. I don’t believe that McCarthy is so stupid that he would risk the US economy.
And I’m pretty sure McCarthy is exactly that stupid. He has zero street smarts and Joe Biden has street smarts in bucket loads. And if Joe Biden didn’t make any deal, what would have happened? McCarthy was not going to come to him and beg him. And if he did, how good would that deal have been, because McCarthy surely would not have written it and the rethuglican caucus would never have put their name on one even close to this. Joe Biden burned them and burned them badly. He played them. And he played them well. Now sure, maybe push getting to shove time had arrived but if Joe Biden hadn’t played them as well as Yo-Yo Ma plays the cello this wouldn’t have happened.
bbleh
@Brachiator: the implicit premises being that (1) McCarthy (or some shadowy collective) agrees with you that Republicans could not risk causing a default even though the consequences likely would fall harder on Biden and the Dems, (2) he is / they are sufficiently in control of the caucus that it’s reasonable to expect that nothing would go wrong when he/they gave orders to fall in line, even as Biden told them to pound sand, (3) world markets (not always known for their rock-hard stability in times of high stress) would stay steady right up until the Republicans surrendered or Biden invoked one of the Fixes, and (4) whatever Fix he invoked, if he had to, would work as theorized.
If one (or in some cases two) of those premises failed, then if Biden stuck to “principle” and refused to negotiate, we’d have an economic and political catastrophe on our hands that would cause untold human misery for years for which Biden would receive most of the blame.
Feh.
Brachiator
@Ruckus:
McCarthy may be stupid, but he would pay attention to corporate donors. Biden did okay, but he was not the master strategist that some want to pretend that he was.
ETA. I know you sometimes use public transportation to get around. Will the June 16 opening of the Metro Regional Connector help you at all?
surfk9
The Republicans will get in line and support this. The Chamber of Commerce has come out strongly for this plan.
Ruckus
@Brachiator:
Will the June 16 opening of the Metro Regional Connector help you at all?
Absolutely!
As you obviously have read here I take the Metro train system a lot. This takes out Union Station and the subway completely for my normal ride. So all I have to do is get off one train, stand on the platform for a few minutes at most and get on the next train. This will likely take about 15-20 minutes each way out of the semi regular trip I take. And I can do that transfer at any of 4 stations.
YY_Sima Qian
Continuing some of the discussion from the previous thread, the debt ceiling negotiation can be analyzed at the tactical & the strategic levels. At the tactical level, given the immediate constraints that the Dems are operating under (absolutely cannot afford a default), I’d say the Dems did as well as one could possibly expect, perhaps more, helped by the fact that McCarthy is incredibly incompetent & weak. However, at the strategic level, the debt ceiling negotiation is just a delaying action against the GOP’s reactionary onslaught. The best case scenario for the Dems is avoiding harm, there is no prospect of the Dems advancing their priorities from the GOP hostage taking. Every other possible outcome means Dems making concessions that will hurt people.
The reason the Dems have to operate under the immediate constraints of having to negotiate w/ the hostage takers in order to avoid the hostages being shot, is because they have not done the preparatory work between debt ceiling negotiations to remove the debt ceiling as a gun that the GOP can use to hold the country & the world hostage. It is not reasonable to expect the Dems to pull the 14th Amendment or the platinum coin options out of the blue. The Dems need to attempt to shape the discursive environment (to the public & to the MSM) well in advance, that such “drastic” actions are reasonable & indeed responsible in face of GOP hostage taking – taking the gun away from the terrorists. They have not done so, understandably focusing on their priorities after kicking the debt ceiling can down the road for a couple of more years. Until it comes up again, & the Dems have to fight another rear guard action to free the hostages. Whoever is leading the GOP will not always be as stupid as Trump or as weak as McCarthy. All the while, holding the country/world hostage becomes solidified as a “legitimate” part of the budget negotiation process, even though it is well outside of the actual budgeting process.
The effective SNAP expansion is certainly a mark of tactical brilliance, deserves to be praised as such, & just the kind of tactical trickery the Dems tend to pad themselves on the backs for. Nonetheless, the deal essentially freezes non-defense spending for the next 2 years in nominal terms, at a time of high inflation, which translates to cuts in non-defense spending in real terms over that time. Defense spending is also effectively cut in real terms, since the increases do not match inflation, but not to the same degree as non-defense spending. It just further hardens the GOP framing that defense spending has priority over non-defense (social welfare, domestic investment, foreign diplomacy & aid).
In hindsight, the 10-year sequester negotiated by Obama is seen as Dem getting rolled. However, it is one of those rare occasions where defense spending came in for cuts as steep as non-defense spending, thus not taking precedence over domestic priorities. The Obama team understandably thought they came out even in the exchange, that the defense cuts would force the GOP to properly negotiate on the budgets. However, they mistakenly thought the GOP actually cared about the military & national security, as opposed to their nihilist reactionary ideology. Has the GOP paid any price for it? No, they have instead demagogued the Dems for not investing in national defense. They continue to effectively demagogue the Dems for being “weak” on national security, & Dems continue to fear being demagogued as “weak” on national security (“weak” on Communism during the Cold War, “weak” on terrorists during the GWOT, “weak” on the CCP in the new era of Great Power Competition) & thus consistently triangulate toward the hawkish position on matters of national security. The discursive environment on most matters of public policy remains favorable to the GOP, that needs to change.
BTW, this is not a call to give up on voting for Dems. Come Election Day the singular focus has to be preventing Rs from winning any & all posts. If that means voting for Sinemanchin, so be it, even if one has to throw up while doing so. However, that too is just a delaying action. We have to pressure Dems to take stands on nuking the filibuster, expanding the SCOTUS, repealing the debt ceiling, & eliminating other tools that the GOP reactionaries are consistently leveraging to degrade democratic governance (or even just orderly governance). Keep pounding that message until perceptions of them go from “fringe” to “mainstream”, just as the GOP has done w/ their radical ideas.
karen marie
A view from Texas on the Paxton debacle.
Eolirin
@YY_Sima Qian: Again, in what media environment do you think the Democrats can, by talking really consistently, actually lay the groundwork for anything?
The way the lay the groundwork for getting rid of the debt ceiling isn’t by preparing the ground rhetorically, it’s by getting enough votes in the legislature to get rid of it, or to get enough majority on the courts that we can feel confindent than they’ll support something like the 14th amendment solution. Nothing else is going to work in this country. Public opinion isn’t the problem, public education is. Most of the electorate doesn’t know what the fuck is going on with the debt ceiling and the media we have isn’t going to inform them properly no matter how much democrats stay in lockstep on saying the “right” things.
And most of the electorate doesn’t give a fuck about any of this as long as a default doesn’t happen. We can’t smack the republicans over it effectively unless we actually let a default happen because people aren’t going to remember it even happened in 6 months.
I should also say, much of the Right’s ability to lay groundwork for their initiatives exists because their billionaires own media channels that we don’t, and because they have a network of grass roots organizations in their churches that we haven’t been able to compete with since the decline of unions.
We are running with a number of serious disadvantages when it comes to countering that, and are going to have to go at it with far less effective top-down organizational strength. The one thing we have going for us is that their positions are deeply unpopular and the more they’re able to enact their agenda the less people like it. Well, that and their factional infighting and endemic culture of grifting reduces their effectiveness. Everything else is going to be a slog.
David 🌈 ☘The Establishment☘🌈 Koch
Biden sold us out!
You can take my DOOM narrative from my cold dead hands
Ken
I am trying to decide if today’s waffle (#493) is being political. Opinions?
Ken
@David 🌈 ☘The Establishment☘🌈 Koch: Untergangserzählung has a certain ring, but I think I prefer the original Dolchstoßlegende.
David 🌈 ☘The Establishment☘🌈 Koch
And I say, DOOM today, DOOM tomorrow, DOOM forever!
YY_Sima Qian
@Eolirin: The message effort I talked about is aimed at Dem voters, too, to condition Dem voters to stop perceiving nuking the filibuster, repealing the debt ceiling, & expanding the SCOTUS as “radical” ideas. Only then the national level Dem pols that Dem voters send to DC will feel motivated and/or compelled to fight to take the guns away from the GOP hostage takers.
Otherwise, the GOP will keep taking hostages, & the Dems will have to make concessions large or small to free the hostages, & pop the champaign when the concessions are merely perceived to be “minor”, but forever trapped in this GOP friendly dynamic.
Wombat Probability Cloud
@YY_Sima Qian: Yes.
Another Scott
The debt ceiling bill text is out – 99 page .pdf
Cheers,
Scott.
No One You Know
@Another Scott: yep. It’s really annoying. And even more amazing, we have an end in sight, and someone is fretting about apostrophes and assuming it must be the writer’s fault! Eeyorism, alive and well.
Anyway
@Ken:
OMG! I completed it on auto-pilot and totally missed the zinger. Snap!
Anyway
@YY_Sima Qian:
I feel D voters are ahead of the pols. (Many) D pols and their consultants are the ones stuck in the past.
Trying to see if the long weekend and debt ceiling news memory-holed the gawdawful SCROTUS ruling gutting the Clean Water Act.
CindyH
@Anyway: same!
strange visitor (from another planet)
@No One You Know: how the fuck is that “eeyore-ism”?
it has nothing to do with the debt ceiling bill.
it’s a pet peeve.
it pops up on this blog all the time and it’s irritating.
it’s bad fucking grammar.
i know, i’m one to fucking talk, but schumer went to the high school around the corner from where i grew up. i know he’s ejumicated and talented with the linguisticals and all that.
Skepticat
“Very professional, very smart. Very tough at the same time,” McCarthy replied.
Well, that made one of them.
YY_Sima Qian
@Anyway: Some Dem voters, yes, but not enough.
karen marie
@Anyway: That is hilarious.
Steeplejack
@Ken:
* Possible spoilers ahead! *
I’ma say no, although I was mildly surprised to see “TRUMP” appear. But it has “UNFIT” dangling from it, so there’s that.
Steeplejack
@strange visitor (from another planet):
And if you’re going to ride with autocorrect or speech-to-text, at least take a minute to proofread the results. There are regularly comments here with little glitches of gibberish in the middle of the text. And it’s is pandemic.
Another Scott
From the press backgrounder and Q&A at Whitehouse.gov:
Biden’s people know what they’re doing. They did a good job.
We need to do the work to Finish the Job by voting the monsters out.
Cheers,
Scott.
JWR
@Steeplejack:
English being my first and only language, I can assure you that I always check my its versus my it’s, and still get it wrong sometimes. ;)
Steeplejack
@JWR:
I don’t mind the occasional mistake. But lately there has been an explosion of it’s as a possessive pronoun, e.g., “It’s attraction to me is that I can set it and forget it.” Ugh.
JWR
@Steeplejack:
I hear ya. Maybe it’s simply all the drama of late that accounts for the uptick in errors. Ah, who cares? Don’t let it bug you. ;)
Frankensteinbeck
@eversor:
I so vividly remember in the first election after Citizens United being told that the chaos was a one time thing, and that was just a trial run. After that it would all be united into one seamless, targeted spending machine. My argument was that the plutocrats are too god damn egotistical for that to happen.
Planetjanet
@Ken: Oh,my!
JAFD
@strange visitor (from another planet):
I have said, and wrote, on many occasions, that I will pit my knowledge of spelling and grammar against any test.
But I will also freely admit that I am a mediocre typist.
Rebel’s Dad
I hope that when McCarthy gets old and needs to go into a home, he gets a resident with severe dementia who thinks she is a monkey trapped in a zoo and keeps flinging her poo at/on him.
Joey Maloney
@Rebel’s Dad: After presiding over MTG, Boebert, Gaetz et al., he’ll feel right at home.
thalarctosMaritimus
@Ben Cisco 🇺🇸🎖️🖥️♦️:
Nym checks out.