Reporter: What do you say to members of your own party who say you made too many concessions in this deal.
Biden: They'll find I didn't. pic.twitter.com/tSq7MAug6E— Acyn (@Acyn) May 28, 2023
An "agreement in principle" between President Biden and House Speaker McCarthy would raise the nation's legal debt ceiling, but Congress has only days to approve a package that includes spending cuts and would avert a potentially disastrous U.S. default. https://t.co/obS2WdY8bT
— The Associated Press (@AP) May 28, 2023
… “Good news,” Biden declared Sunday evening at the White House.
“The agreement prevents the worst possible crisis, a default, for the first time in our nation’s history,” he said. “Takes the threat of a catastrophic default off the table.”
The president urged both parties in Congress to come together for swift passage. “The speaker and I made clear from the start that the only way forward was a bipartisan agreement,” he said.
The final product includes spending cuts but risks angering some lawmakers as they take a closer look at the concessions. Biden told reporters at the White House upon his return from Delaware that he was confident the plan will make it to his desk.
McCarthy, too, was confident in remarks at the Capitol: “At the end of the day, people can look together to be able to pass this.”
The days ahead will determine whether Washington is again able to narrowly avoid a default on U.S. debt, as it has done many times before, or whether the global economy enters a potential crisis…
the most famous example of “we don’t negotiate with” statements i can remember came from george w bush, and we should all take a moment to reflect on how that worked out https://t.co/aMvu5PF4dO
— GOLIKEHELLMACHINE (@golikehellmachi) May 28, 2023
A good bit of that is on the media refusing to explain the topic in any way other than he said/she said and Both Sidesing it. But it’s also the beginning of summer in an off-year, voters don’t even want to pay attention now, even if the explanation was compelling.
— Jason Karsh (@jkarsh) May 28, 2023
One point I haven't seen emphasized about the budget deal is that as far as I can tell, it's not going to involve a major hit to the safety net for children. The new SNAP work requirements are cruel, but they apply to childless adults in their 50s 1/
— Paul Krugman (@paulkrugman) May 28, 2023
The big concern now is that the deal won't be harmful enough to satisfy the Freedom Caucus (freedom's just another word for kicking people when they're down). Legislative action will be interesting 3/
— Paul Krugman (@paulkrugman) May 28, 2023
Fedus Ex Machina? Was the Federal Reserve Holding the Debt Ceiling Cards all Along? https://t.co/PJP1Ux249c via @TPM
— Josh Marshall (@joshtpm) May 28, 2023
p.a.
It seems like an adequate deal but a good part of my “14th Amendment! Trillion $coin!” magic bullet desire was to kill this bullshit Rethug weapon forever.
Geo Wilcox
SOme big donors made some calls and lit fires under some people’s asses.
RevRick
President Biden speaks softly, but carries a big stick.
The Thin Black Duke
@p.a.: That will happen when the Democrats have the House, the Senate and the Presidency.
satby
That explanation on TPM makes some sense, I was wondering why the market wasn’t fluctuating more wildly too. But I always thought Joe would come out on top: he’s not only a seasoned negotiator, but his age and experience gives him a long view that most lack. He really turned out to be the right guy for this moment in history.
rikyrah
Good Morning, Everyone😊😊😊
RevRick
@rikyrah: Good morning!
RevRick
@satby: It turns out that South Carolina black church ladies are our wisest voices and voters.
Suzanne
@p.a.: I felt similarly. Like, this is just so fucking dumb. I want to never see it again. It’s insulting to our intelligence.
OzarkHillbilly
This one’s for you, Uncle Joe.
Barbara
I have avoided all hand wringing coverage. I was here for every government shutdown from the 1990s forward, and it makes me so furious that I wait for the denouement to start paying attention. It’s a matter of mental health. Paul Krugman has it right. Kicking people who are down is their whole reason for being.
Barbara
@p.a.: Really, they should just ignore it and let Rs sue to enforce it.
David 🌈 ☘The Establishment☘🌈 Koch
@p.a.: I wish Biden would buy some ice cream with the trillion dollar coin and tell the clerk to keep the change.
Frankensteinbeck
I am very bullish on this deal. If it’s true it expands another area of desperate needed SNAP more than it cuts, then all we lose is a tiny amount of IRS spending. We get the debt ceiling, but more importantly we rob the GOP on budget negotiations until 2025. That is a win. A huge, gigantic, ‘laugh at the losers’ win.
If, somehow, I misunderstand how this works and there are still budget negotiations, then these budget negotiations are meaningless except that the default ‘continuing resolution’ state is truly neutral. So we did get an effectively clean debt limit until 2025.
Biden rolled McCarthy. Stomped all over him. So much so that I’m worried something will go wrong.
OzarkHillbilly
From US seeks to fine January 6 rioters to claw back donations they raked in, comes this little tidbit:
“The #1 Free Christian Fundraising Site”, I’ve never heard of them but boy, they sure sound very christian to me. Pretty sure they would be first ones Jesus threw out of the temple.
Spanky
@Suzanne:
The very definition of “owning the libs”.
Spanky
@David 🌈 ☘The Establishment☘🌈 Koch:
So you’ve read Twain’s “The Million Pound Note” then.
David 🌈 ☘The Establishment☘🌈 Koch
Now back to the NBA playoffs – Celtics in 7
Anyway
@Suzanne:
Yep. That it magically becomes this world-crushing scare only against D presidents and not an issue at all when there’s a R administration is craziness. Is there an analogous thing for the Ds? Something we should weaponize against Rs?
Spanky
@Frankensteinbeck:
Yeah, there are still votes to be counted. But I’m hoping a secret part of this deal is Joe guaranteeing Kevin’s Speakership. So in a very real sense, Kevin sold himself to Joe.
At least I hope so.
Gvg
Yes. I AM also fucking tired of the debt ceiling drama. I always want that thing ended. But we don’t hold all three branches or even both of Congress and we need a big unified majority in Congress to take it away. And the only way we get that is if republicans fuck up so badly nationally that we win a lot of place we haven’t in spite of gerrymandering. Think about how much worse they would need to make things than they already have to have that happen…..that would be really bad. So I kinda hope for a more incremental democratic win, quietly
The republicans have rather boxed themselves in. They have made racism so much a part of their brand that even though they know they need to appeal to more ethnic groups, they can’t without losing more votes than they would gain with the softening of their rhetoric (those are what the trump voters are really). They also can’t let any immigrants in even legal ones. And even if they did soften, it would be awhile before most of the targeted groups would believe them, so they would lose voters and have to wait for several cycles of losing before they could gain any voters back.
we need to help them attack each other for not being Republican enough.
David 🌈 ☘The Establishment☘🌈 Koch
The two Photos above, one of Biden smiling ear to ear and one of Kevin with his two gimps looking like hooked fish being pulled out of the lake, tells you who got rolled.
Baud
@rikyrah:
Good morning.
Frankensteinbeck
@Spanky:
It’s the only thing that makes sense. If not, buy a Hell of a lot of popcorn and prepare for a speaker election shit show that made the first one look tame, with the Democrats no longer having any reason to do anything but laugh no matter how long it goes on.
catclub
… with majorities as big as Johnson had, which is twelfth of never.
catclub
@Frankensteinbeck:
How would that work? promising that Biden would force Democrats to vote for Mccarthy over Jeffries for speaker?
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Frankensteinbeck: They could chant “Hakeem, Hakeem” a few times. That would be entertaining.
Baud
@catclub:
We could try being racist again.
Joe Falco
Biden has the stronger hand in negotiations than McCarthy does, and both know it. The Freedumb Carcass bozos can take the deal McCarthy made for them (and grumble loudly in public if it helps keep their street cred with the other bozos) or they can blow it all up. Let the Biden administration and the Democrats figure out what to do and manage to save the country from Republicans. Again. If they can pull it off, Democrats can show the country what a bunch of ineffectual, useless people the House Republicans are. Whether that translates to votes for the D column next year is another question.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@catclub: No, vote to keep McCarthy when the loons call for a vote to remove him.
daveNYC
@Frankensteinbeck: It expands SNAP, but it also opens up more space for Red State shenanigans on work requirement front, so I’m not sure I’d call it a net win. There can be one hell of a gap between being eligible for a program and actually being able to enroll in a program.
The Thin Black Duke
@catclub: Then we’re doomed.
Baud
@The Thin Black Duke:
I suppose if the Republicans control the government and they want to raise the debt ceiling, the Dems could filibuster and say they will only vote for a complete repeal. That would get rid of it forever.
Matt McIrvin
@Anyway:
There can’t be because we care about policy and people not getting hurt. It would have to be some thing that everyone knows will damage the country, but somehow everyone also knows we care less about it than they do.
There are things that we believe are fine and they believe will damage the country, like, say, LGBT rights. But would we just use that as a threat or bargaining chip, to be withdrawn when we get concessions? I hope not.
Brachiator
@Frankensteinbeck:
The Republicans got to veto parts of already passed legislation. They got a second pass and effectively a line item veto. Fortunately, Biden may not have given up much, but he should have held his ground and given the GOP nothing.
And budget legislation begins in the House. The GOP still is in control for now.
Sheila in nc
@RevRick: No shit. One of my friends, if you ask him to do election volunteer work, he says “I just want to drive black ladies to the polls.”
brantl
It’s pretty clear to me that McQarthy got rolled. Biden out-maneuvered him, dead-stop.
Matt McIrvin
Maybe we should be more publicly pissed off about this deal to increase the chance that it actually passes.
Baud
@Matt McIrvin:
Maybe, but the Internet rarely adopts a helpful view of political dynamics.
geg6
@Matt McIrvin:
And this is the perpetual dilemma of being a Democrat. I have no idea how we solve it.
Spanky
@Matt McIrvin: If I was a Dem member of the house, that’s exactly what I’d do. Grumble loudly about it, then vote for it and shut the hell up.
OzarkHillbilly
I’ll settle for a circular firing squad.
Nukular Biskits
Mornin’ all!
Baud
@OzarkHillbilly:
You’re in the right party!
gene108
@Gvg:
Part of it goes beyond racism. They’ve locked in to “supply side economics”, where every problem looks like a nail and the only solutions are to cut taxes for the wealthy, slash the social safety net, and gut business regulations that protect consumers and the environment.
I really don’t know how one party got this rigid in its ideology, but a lot of people seem to like it, so what do I know.
Baud
@Nukular Biskits:
Morning.
gene108
@Nukular Biskits:
Good morning!☀️🌞😃
Shalimar
@OzarkHillbilly: I am sure GiveSendGo has mostly fundraisers for good causes, but the only time they ever make the news is when people set up crowdfunding that GoFundMe has rules against, to reward horrible people for hurting others in some way (Rittenhouse, etc).
Nukular Biskits
@David 🌈 ☘The Establishment☘🌈 Koch:
Is this too long for the rotating tag?
Ohio Mom
@David 🌈 ☘The Establishment☘🌈 Koch: And yet, I am sure there are people who are telling themselves Kevin did fine, the Republicans won this round. Dimwits.
@Barbara: I also did my best to not pay attention to all the drama. I called on my normie past and when I felt myself faltering, reminded myself that Biden knows what he is doing. Underneath that kindly exterior is a very shrewd strategist.
Baud
@Shalimar:
If it keeps happening, the platform can’t simply point to its rules and wash its hands of the problem.
OzarkHillbilly
@Baud: too true.
Shalimar
@Spanky: I can’t believe Kevin would have agreed to it without those protections. He’s looking out for himself, and that explains how he got rolled on all of the visible parts of the deal. It will also be better to deal with McCarthy for the next 19 months than whoever replaces him. The investigative committees under Jordan and Comer will go forward no matter what, but this deal effectively ends any attempt by the House to do anything.
PaulWartenberg
fifty years ago on May 29th, 1973, Doonesbury dropped a bomb on the national political discourse when a strip on John Mitchell’s role in Watergate ended with the punchline “THAT’S GUILTY! GUILTY GUILTY GUILTY!”
Shalimar
@Baud: I wasn’t clear. GoFundMe, the site that began the crowdfunding boom and still the biggest, is the one with the rules that keep these assholes from doing things like collect money to reward convicted criminals for their crimes.
The site OzarkHillbilly was talking about, the “Christian” knock-off site, is no-holds-barred. Raise money for any scumbag you like.
Matt McIrvin
@geg6: I think it is a wider problem of democratic societies, maybe of societies in general. Sociopaths or fanatics, who are willing to hurt people and don’t care about broader consequences, have tactics available to them that decent people don’t have, and this means that in head-to-head confrontations the bad guys often win. But when they win, their sociopathy or fanaticism means they screw things up–reality bites them.
In the United States we see this in the cycle where when times are good, people elect Republicans for selfish or bigoted reasons or because they’re bored, and then the Democrats get elected as the technocratic cleanup crew after the Republicans wreck everything, over and over and over. (And then there’s usually a Republican midterm win when the Dems can’t fix everything instantly, but this time around the Republican misrule had been so egregious that even that was muted.)
OzarkHillbilly
PaulWartenberg
There is a lot of money in that rigid ideology, which reinforces the “tax cuts for the rich/slash spending for the poor” mentality.
Baud
@Shalimar: Gotcha.
Who Would Jesus Grift?
Michael Bersin
Still, in Warrensburg, Missouri, pearl clutching right wingnuts are agitating against a June 3rd Pride Festival (including family friendly drag shows and, gasp, a drag queen story time) on social media. One such hand wringing post on a community page this weekend earned an epic ratio.
“…It shocks me that the city of Warrensburg is ok with a
‘family friendly’ drag show. So disappointing!”
There was much hilarity in the responses:
Everyone is here for the ratio
Ken
@satby: I was twitching a bit around the third paragraph, where the TPM author was saying the markets weren’t worried, but fortunately a couple of paragraphs later he said “markets aren’t always right”. It is an interesting idea for a fix, although it deprives Baud of his beloved platinum coin.
Frankensteinbeck
@catclub:
Biden asks Hakeem ahead of time if he can include the most obvious and powerful bargaining chip in negotiations, and confirms occasionally that the deal is acceptable. It’s not rocket science.
@Brachiator:
That is an incredibly distorted description of slight concessions in the budget negotiation that we already had to face and were always, always going to have to give something up for.
cmorenc
@The Thin Black Duke:
So long as there is a majority of six hard-right justices on SCOTUS, even with control of the other two branches, SCOTUS will be on a mission to undermine, limit, and undo whatever Ds do with their majority. For example, Clarence Thomas would like to whittle back the commerce clause to a twig instead of a tree.
Nukular Biskits
From the Jason Karsh tweet above:
As much as I hate to admit it, he nails it here.
Call me cynical, but elected officials, IMHO, COUNT on voters/citizens not being fully informed. This is a feature, not a bug, of our system of government.
The average working stiff Joe/Joanne simply doesn’t enough time to keep up with the machinations, details, negotiations, etc, … and that’s assuming this information is reliably provided by an objective media (which is an altogether different subject as Karsh previously addressed).
And you think this is worse? It’s my experience (based partly on running to campaigns for office) that most folks have at least a small clue as to what their congressional critters are doing … but absolutely no clue at all as to what’s happening at the state and local level.
Generally speaking, most people aren’t that civically engaged and won’t be until some issue directly and personally impacts them and theirs.
Kay
i like Will Stancil. i make a point of reading him – I think he often has genuinely original and fresh views on politics. His views about how voters react to big emotional appeals more than small factual arguments tracks my experience canvassing.
He’s wrong sometimes but so are the people who always predict that everything will be fine- Stancil predicts 11 out of 9 disasters and the people who fight with him on Twitter predict 11 out of 9 successes. None of them are super “accurate” as far as predictions but “predictive accuracy” was never the main goal of advocacy.
Shalimar
@OzarkHillbilly: I have not investigated, but my assumption is that the vast majority of the site is small church fundraisers to help with building projects or constituents who have a tragedy in the family.
I won’t investigate because I don’t want to be wrong. I want to think they’re decent people most of the time and this political cult only turns them into hateful monsters on specific issues.
mrmoshpotato
@Shalimar:
You’re encouraging bad behavior. I’m sure Baud! 20XX approves. :)
Ken
@OzarkHillbilly: I’m sure (despite the “Free” in the ads) that the site takes at least 25% off the top, which parallels the temple moneychangers’ operations.
OzarkHillbilly
@Ken: So am I.
Frankensteinbeck
@Kay:
I think he’s right about what the public wants, and the emotional appeal will be Biden saying “Republicans tried to blow things up again, and I protected you again,” which will match them looking around and seeing nothing change.
Baud
@Kay:
I don’t get the point of what he’s trying to say in his tweets posted in the OP.
Kay
@Frankensteinbeck:
Oh, I think Biden generally tracks Stancil’s views on big, bold political themes rather than small policy proposals. Biden ran on “democracy”- can’t get much bigger than that.
Ken
If there is a challenge to McCarthy’s speakership, I hope the Dems twist the knife a bit. If they don’t have to vote in alphabetical order this time, they could all wait to vote until all the Republican votes are in, then give him exactly enough to retain power, making it clear just who owes their political existence to whom.
Additional “paper cut with lemon juice” factor if some of the votes for McCarthy are from the Republican shibboleths, like Pelosi or AOC. Maybe with a brief speech about how they know they can work with McCarthy.
bbleh
@Spanky: @Frankensteinbeck: @Shalimar: I’d bet folding money that’s part of the deal. I think it would almost HAVE to be, to get McQarthy to agree to anything, since he knows the Krayzee Kids Caucus won’t vote for ANY deal, and when he teams up with Dems to pass it, they may well move to vacate, either out of spite or just to stir up sh!t.
@catclub: it wouldn’t be a contest, just an up-or-down vote on throwing McQarthy out. (The contest would come later, if he was thrown out.) And Dems wouldn’t have to vote FOR McQarthy; they’d just have to ABSTAIN in sufficient numbers that the Krayzee Kidz would be outnumbered by the old-style corrupt-plutocratic Republicans, who know which side of the bread their butter is on
@Ken: yeah I’m sure they won’t make it pleasant, and if I were they I’d do everything possible to exacerbate AND publicize the splits among the Republicans and leave Qevin dangling until the last minute.
Kay
@Baud:
Well, it’s the tail end of what is a long (long) running argument. Will Stancil says “Democrats should do this” and his mortal enemies respond with either “they are!”or “it will be fine no matter what they do or don’t do” :)
Thats what those two Tweets out of context are.
I read him for “Democrats should do this”. I think there are some good ideas in there. I would hire him if I were putting together a campaign just as a kind of check on complacency and groupthink. He’s fairly good natured too- level headed- he doesn’t get personal.
Geminid
@Kay: Stancil has his deficits, and one is that he doesn’t know what he doesn’t know about practical politics. If he had your base of knowledge in this area he could be a formidable advocate.
Stancil doesn’t seem interested in learning more, though. And his addiction to Twitter fights may not leave him much time for growth.
Baud
@Kay:
Thanks. I don’t follow him. But the “Democrats should do this” market is pretty saturated. It can be hard to separate the wheat from the chaff.
Mike in NC
Ah, Memorial Day. Who could ever forget the solemn scene of Trump — dressed in his golf outfit — making a five minute detour to lay a wreath down at the Tomb of the Unknown Suckers and Losers, and then bugging the hell out for more important stuff. “I don’t care, do U?” as the third lady would say.
JWR
I heard this on local news last night. (From The Hill)
… he said through pouty lips. And in good “Lindsey” fashion, he added a snap on the word intimidated. And I enjoyed every minute!
Baud
I wonder how worried McCarthy was that the discharge petition would actually happen if he didn’t deal with Biden. That would truly end his speakership.
Kay
@Geminid:
He works on state level policy/politics though, which I think adds real-world experience in a way many Twitter pundits don’t have.
He doesn’t really get upset in the Twitter fights, even when they attack him for dumb, mean things like failing the bar exam. He likes to argue. I bet he would say it helps him clarify his thoughts.
OzarkHillbilly
@Shalimar: One of these is not like the other:
I’m not at all sure of what you are saying anymore. That being said, I’m not interested in an argument, so I am going to clarify what I believe:
I have no axe to grind with most Christians, I think for the most part they are fine people. I think the same of Muslims, Jews, Hindus, Buddhists, etc etc etc. As an atheist, I also think a fair amount of their beliefs are a bit out there, but if it helps them to get thru this world who am I to say they are wrong? As Jefferson said, “It does me no injury for my neighbour to say there are 20 gods or no God. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.” Whatever works.
But anybody who fund raises for J6 seditionists… I’ve got no use for. They are pro trump and all his criminal behavior and are pieces of shit.
Ken
I’m finding today’s Google Doodle for U.S. Memorial Day oddly moving.
NotMax
From the silly to the somber for Decoration Day.
lowtechcyclist
@PaulWartenberg:
Yeah, “Guilty, guilty, guilty!” is the one everyone remembers, but I still get a kick out of “Los Angeles is a lonely town to grow up in, especially if you’re a small boy named H.R. Haldeman.”
And of course, what happened when Ehrlichman, on his way to the Oval Office, would encounter Haldeman.
Ben Cisco 🇺🇸🎖️🖥️♦️
@Mike in NC: I did, and would have been fine not remembering it again.
Glad we have Biden in the White House.
bbleh
@Baud: But the “Democrats should do this” market is pretty saturated.
And this is exactly why my Fresh Takes and Penetrating Insights don’t get the attention they deserve!
Kay
Conservatives have completely re-written their own history with civil rights for gay people. They were INSANELY anti-gay. George W Bush specifically and viciously targeted gay people in his 2004 re-elect. Ohio Republicans admitted it! They crowed about it! They said they swung Catholics in Ohio to Bush with attacks on gay people. A deliberate, careful targeting of one group of people to win an election.
I think we have to keep repeating the history because they have apparently convinced themselves none of it happened.
Bush won Ohio by 136,000. He would have lost but for attacking gay people. That’s what happened.
Kay
@bbleh:
Not to get too far into the weeds (ha! my specialty) but Stancil is often reacting to specific centrist pundits- the people who call themselves “popularists”. Popularists see politics as like policy levers you pull to move voters- pull the “minimimum wage” lever (popular!) and here come the minimum wage voters. Like that.
He thinks it’s bullshit and so do I. I don’t think people work like that.
Baud
@Kay:
Is talking about Pride or church leaders?
Baud
@Kay:
Interesting. I’ve never heard that term before. As you describe it, I agree that that doesn’t work as well as we’d like.
Jackie
Russia issues arrest warrant for Lindsey:
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/lindsey-graham-russia-arrest-warrant/
PAM Dirac
@Frankensteinbeck:
Continuing resolutions are just another piece of legislation so they can be subject to whatever conditions the legislators want to argue for. Traditionally they were “spend at the current rate”, but we’ve seen how much the Rs respect tradition. The “current rate” default was also from a period when budgets were always going up. There was a period in the aughts when the continuing resolutions were at 95% or even 90% of current rates. It also was a pain for government agency planning as the final agreement always would say what the yearly budget was, not what you could spend from here to the end of the fiscal year. So if the continuing resolution was “current rates” and the final agreement was a 10% cut, you would have to make up the entire cut in what was left of the fiscal year, which many time was less than 6 months.
Frankensteinbeck
@Kay:
I will note a major difference that happened in 20 years. This time, they don’t seem to be getting an electoral advantage from it at all. Doesn’t stop them from forcing their hate on everyone else anyway, unfortunately.
Chief Oshkosh
@Anyway:
And the MSM never, ever pointed this out. Every single piece I saw on ABC and CBS both-sided it to farcical levels, even the longer programs that did 5+ minute stories on the (fake) crisis. Heck, CBS Sunday Morning even went into enough detail to make is clear how bass-ackwards the contrivance is when (falsely) used as a tool for lowering spending. Plenty of process details given, but absolutely NO actual reporting on the politics and the history of the crisis creators.
The world really would be a better place if those “News” execs all…retired to spend more time with their mistresses and dealers.
Geminid
@Kay: l would not criticize Stancil for failing the bar exam. I don’t disrespect his work in metro policy either, but I have not seen his knowledge in this area add to the arguments he makes about Democratic politics.
What I don’t like about Stancil is the way he abuses Democratic leaders, which is why Democrats abuse him. They feel as defensive of Joe Biden and other Democrats as Stancil’s advocates feel defensive of him.
Personally, I think Stancil would do well to get away from Twitter for a while. He’s addicted to argument, and he’s not that good at it. He’s not learning either. He’s stuck.
Kay
@Baud:
I’m taking about this:
Conservatives loudly objected to each and every advance in civil rights for gay people. They ran whole national campaigns around it. They’re doing exactly the same thing accusing all gay people of being “groomers”. It’s the same fucking play, but more over the top, because they have to keep upping the ante because their voters are outrage addicts.
Why can’t I buy a rainbow tshirt for my 8 year old if I want to? What business is it of theirs? I go to Taregt all the time- there are plenty of non-rainbow tshirts for kids. Target is actually know for plain tshirts.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Frankensteinbeck: They don’t get an electoral advantage from opposing abortion either, but they still do it. I can’t fathom their thinking.
Miss Bianca
@PaulWartenberg: Oh, I remember that one. In fact, I believe, “Guilty, Guilty, Guilty, Guilty!” was the name of one of the Doonesbury collections I used to own.
Kay
@Geminid:
Well, if “criticize” Democratic leaders is “abuse” them then I guess you have a point. I don’t think he’s “abusing” anyone. I think Nancy Pelosi can bear Will Stancil’s criticism.
Baud
@Kay:
He’s definitely lying about history. But he’s also lying about the pedophilia fetish that’s a bigger problem in conservative circles than it is in ours.
Kay
@Frankensteinbeck:
They are getting an advantage with it with their base and right now that’s all they care about. That’s why they are doing it- at this point in the campaign calender they’re ginning up their base voters and their base voters DO care about this. They will tell moderate voters something different later.
But don’t kid yourself. They have their own polling. They know this resonates with their base.
Kay
@Baud:
Oh, I agree. I now think they started the groomer accusation because there are so many child abusers on the Right / in fundie religions. Fundamentalist religions have a REAL problem with child abuse. They should address it and stop worrying about rainbow shirts at Target.
SFAW
@Kay:
I was under the impression that Ken Blackwell’s screwing with voting machines in Cleveland and other heavily-Dem areas was at least as much a cause, although I have no idea whether the Cleveland (et al.) under-vote was as high as 100K. [Nit: I think the actual 2004 vote difference was 118+ K, but that’s neither here nor there.]
rikyrah
Good
Serious Black 🗳 (@NicsuPR) tweeted at 11:56 PM on Sun, May 28, 2023:
In the weeks after the former president appeared on #CNN, the network’s ratings have plummeted…its ratings last week were the worst the network has posted since June 2015….The network averaged just 429,000 total daily viewers from Monday to Friday
https://t.co/ffLDJ6Iv50
(https://twitter.com/NicsuPR/status/1663046735273381890?s=02)
SFAW
@Kay:
Good one! Next you’ll be telling us Trump should accept some/any responsibility for January 6.
[Kay: The preceding was a semi-attempt at humor. I always love reading your comments, and often wish you were front-paging again/still. (Assuming my crappy memory is correct that you once were.)]
Baud
@rikyrah:
I wonder if anyone will get fired the way Bud Light fired their pro-trans people.
geg6
@Kay:
Agreed. They are trying to gaslight us all.
Watched the FX/Vanity Fair series on Hillsong Church yesterday. Just horrific and another perfect example of the phenomenon.
Another Scott
@rikyrah: Somehow, I think they’ll learn the wrong lesson.
“Our ratings post-TFG are in the toilet! Quick, schedule another week of town halls with him!!11”
[sigh]
Cheers,
Scott.
(“Who never watches CNN.”)
rikyrah
@Kay:
I don’t forget. They put those measures on several state ballots that year😠😠😠
Citizen Alan
@OzarkHillbilly: I stand by my belief that jesus will condemn approximately 80% of all American evangelical christians to hell.
rikyrah
@OzarkHillbilly:
Get all that $$$$
No. They should not be able to profit off of being a traitor😠
schrodingers_cat
@Citizen Alan: Only 80%?
Kay
@SFAW:
I don’t think they took Ohio by theft. I know a lot of people disagree with me but I was heavily involved on a county level. Bush won by 136k. If there weren’t sufficient voting machines in D precincts that would be the fault of the D members on the county boards of election. There are equal numbers of D and R on the boards.
I think people should consider who promoted this theory:
I read most of the “theft” theories and they just don’t fit with the basics of how elections work in Ohio- the process. I felt like it was sort of classic propoganda and mostly deployed by people like Kennedy and the Greens who want to discredit Democrats- the argument was we should have contested the results. I don’t think we should have – Bush won. He won by demonizing ordinary gay people but he did win.
Kay
@rikyrah:
Eleven. Eleven state ballots. A huge national effort by the GOP and their donors to demonize and target ordinary gay people in order to drag their nepo baby candidate over the finish line. Gay people suffered so Republicans could win a cycle.
Matt McIrvin
@gene108: The Republicans were anti-tax, anti-business-regulation, anti-government-social-programs even back when the Democrats were still the party of white Southern racists. It’s more fundamental to the party.
I guess they tended to be the anti-immigrant party way back too, absorbing the remnants of the Know-Nothings in the Northeast. But the Southern Strategy was something they consciously did to gain their huge crushing supermajorities in the 1970s and 1980s.
Kay
@SFAW:
Democrats turned out in ’04. There was no “undervote” in Cleveland or anywhere else. They swung some southern Ohio voters and some suburban Catholic voters and that equalled 100k more than D’s had.
I actually credit Kerry with Democrats overperformance with young voters. He focused an enormous amount of money and effort there and it has paid off. John Kerry is underrated.
Geminid
@Kay: A few days before the Midterms, a Tale of Two Cities.
From Portland, Oregon:
From Minneapolis, Minnesota:
Matt McIrvin
@Kay:
And I also remember the “leftists” who blamed gay people for that. “Dead kids in Iraq hope you enjoy your gay marriage, libs.” In hindsight that was a harbinger of 2016 and the anti-anti-Trump left.
rikyrah
@Citizen Alan:
It’s 90%
Frankensteinbeck
@Baud:
In a remarkably New York Timesian response, the executive who ordered the town hall told his staff he is absolutely delighted with how it went and the backlash proves he’s bringing much-needed news content to America.
rikyrah
@Kay:
Every week, we get one of those right-wingers arrested for harming children😠
schrodingers_cat
@Geminid: Will Stancil hates Democrats but I am not so sure that he is representative of the Mn Democrats.
sab
@rikyrah: Our household hasn’t watched since the townhall. I mostly watch MSNBC and spouse mostly watches sports, If Imam bored or frustrated with MSNBC then ESPN it is. I used to think of CNN as the bland neutrl alternative. Not anymore.
schrodingers_cat
@rikyrah: From my anecdata people who wear their religion (whatever religion that may be) on their sleeve are usually full of hate and hypocrisy.
JWR
@Chief Oshkosh:
This morning, I think on NBC Morning News, they interviewed one of the Dem negotiators, and when the negotiator spoke a bit too highly of Biden’s achievement, the news person asked, almost pleadingly, “but isn’t it safe to say that there’s plenty of blame to go around?” And I laughed, because, I mean, what a stupid question.
Geminid
@schrodingers_cat: I did not mean to imply that Stancil represents Minnesota Democrats, was just saying that he was tweeting from one city and Bitecofer was tweeting from another, with a very different view of the midterm campaigns.
Matt McIrvin
@Kay: “Groomers” is just a repeat of Anita Bryant’s 1970s rants about how “The homosexual cannot reproduce, so he must recruit.” The claim was always that they were a bunch of pedophiles who were coming to screw your children.
“Adults can do what they want, but children need to be protected from this” was always the wedge. It’s related to the conservative notion of the unmarked case. Conservatives claim a monopoly on what children are allowed to access, because whatever they prefer gets defined as innocent and non-sexual. Showing a straight married couple holding hands isn’t “adult” or “sexual” content, but showing a gay married couple holding hands is in the same category as pornography.
Kay
@Geminid:
Nothing against Rachel Bitecofer but she wants to get hired by D campaigns. I’m fine with it- I have no problem with anyone getting paid for work and there have to be professional campaign people but they have different incentives than Will Stancil.
If we’re examining motives we shoudl examine all motives.
Kay
@Geminid:
Nothing against Rachel Bitecofer but she wants to get hired by D campaigns. I’m fine with it- I have no problem with anyone getting paid for work and there have to be professional campaign people but they have different incentives than Will Stancil.
If we’re examining motives we shoudl examine all motives.
Spanky
@schrodingers_cat: They don’t wear their religion on their sleeve, they wield it as a club.
Matt McIrvin
@JWR: The guy holding a gun to the hostage’s head, and the people who insist on him not shooting the hostage, are being equally stubborn!
Citizen Alan
@schrodingers_cat: Twenty percent of evangelical christians voted for hillary. I assume that makes them at least tolerable.
Anyway
@sab:
I watch MSNBC 2-3 times a year maybe — can’t get into it. My bland neutrals are Food Network and sports … I used to watch E! but don’t recognize anyone they talk about and gave up.
Geminid
@Kay: I know that Bitecofer has a professional stake in the political discourse. But I have read her for a while now, and I think she is a genuinely committed Democrat and was speaking as one in that tweet.
Ed. As to motivations, Will Stancil would like to have a career as a reporter and pundit, like another Brian Buetler.
Kay
@Matt McIrvin:
But they’re not even consistent week to week with that!
Beer is an adult product. Last week they were pulling beer off shelves and throwing it on the floor. No mention of children at all.
Their one campaign contradicts their other campaign.
Kay
@Geminid:
Right but now we’re in the realm of personal decisions about who is or is not a genuinely committed Democrat. Obviously opinions differ on that. I think Stancil’s passion comes from wanting them to win.
Brachiator
@Frankensteinbeck:
RE: The Republicans got to veto parts of already passed legislation. They got a second pass and effectively a line item veto.
The debt ceiling, also known as the debt limit, is the maximum amount of money that the U.S. Treasury can borrow. Increasing the debt ceiling allows the Treasury to borrow funds to pay for government obligations that have already been incurred as the result of laws and budgets approved by the President and the Congress.
The Republicans wanted to make this about spending, and to force Biden to retreat on already passed legislation. Since 1959, the debt limit had been raised 89 times. It is only recently that the GOP has used this as an opportunity to attack Democratic Party policy.
Kay
@Matt McIrvin:
I mean the question to ask them when they say “we’re fine with adults” is “okay, but what about the beer then?”
They already forgot their giant adult product hissy fit and boycott? It was 2 weeks ago.
Eolirin
@Kay: Bitecofer has had no problem criticizing Democrats when they were doing things she didn’t feel were tactically correct.
That Stancil tweet was completely divorced from reality and entirely unhelpful.
But I don’t and won’t closely follow either. Maybe he was just feeling particularly pissed off about something in that moment.
Kay
@Geminid:
I like him too! :)
I don’t always agree with any of them but I also don’t think they “abuse” anyone in power by criticizing them nor do I think they’re some grave danger or threat to the D party. You hear worse in any Dem county meeting.
zhena gogolia
@Kay: Then he shouldn’t dump on them publicly.
Kay
@Eolirin:
Oh, he gets punchy. He’s passionate. But his critics are really childish sometimes. They had a whole thing where they made fun of his looks- he’s dorky and wears midwestern sweaters – geometric patterns :)
schrodingers_cat
Will Stancil is a clown. By his own admission he does not vote. But don’t take my word for it, check out his Twitter feed for yourself.
OverTwistWillie
Well you hate to see politics, especially in a town like D.C.
Eolirin
@Brachiator: What was given up would have had to have been given up to get a budget passed but it’s less than we would have had to give up without the leverage of the debt ceiling votes and it constrains them on the budget. We avoid a government shut down and get smaller cuts than we would have.
There was no way to avoid negotiation on the budget. All of these concessions were inevitable, and we would have had more of them.
Geminid
@Kay: I only spoke to Bitecofer’s motivations. I did not compare them to Stancil’s and I did not say he is not a genuinely committed Democrat.
The two quotations do show a difference in attitude, and I think one is more constructive than the other. Other people can draw their own conclusions.
gene108
@JWR:
Company I worked for had a few small DoD contracts and subcontracts. I was helping administer those contracts. Got to meet and talk to the DoD contracting officers.
I wouldn’t go so far as to say sequestration destroyed the Defense Department, but sequestration and the stop gap budget deals that authorized spending for three months and three months there did make it hard for some projects to be planned.
The problem was how does a contracting officer plan to get bids for a project* that might take six months, when contractors or materials prices have gone up and they are authorized to spend money for only three months and may not be authorized to fund the six month project.
*Projects can be anything great or small, such as renovate schools on military bases or sign a food contract to supply the officers club. I’m
Edit: Changed it to sequestration
Chief Oshkosh
@JWR: What did the Dem negotiator say when asked if everyone was to blame?
OverTwistWillie
Gerontocracy?
Brandon’s been doing this a long time. He –might– have learned a few things along the way.
Eolirin
@gene108: This is a two year deal, no? So we should be able to avoid that problem here, I think. I think we’ve figured out how to avoid the issues that arose from the Obama era deal.
Geminid
@Kay: Yes, I used the word “abuse” loosely. Stancil makes vehement criticisms of Democrats and their party, and his mortal enemies, as you described his critics, make vehement criticisms of him.
Matt McIrvin
@Kay: Oh, that’s the “ramming it down MY throat” angle. “Do what you want with your Schmitts Gay Beer, but don’t ram your big throbbing Gender Confusion down MY throat.”
mvr
Doonesbury has long kept me sane in ties of national trouble (the Iraq war & 2000 election, for example). Unfortunately, the column is now only weekly so far as I know and it takes work to go see it now that my local paper has raised prices and fired reporters.
Eolirin
@Kay: They never care about consistency because they don’t care about truth, they care about advantage.
brendancalling
@Barbara: i also ignored the drama. The press has about as less short-term memory than a gerbil (and is incentivized for melodrama). Meanwhile so many of the leftier-than-thou blogs have lost credibility with me, what with the knee-jerk “BIDEN IS DOING IT WRONG AGAIN” stance, so I generally ignored/eye-rolled those suspects. I figured JB would get it done, and get it done right.
Eolirin
@mvr: https://www.gocomics.com/DOONESBURY
Jackie
@Another Scott: CNN’s holding two more town halls (so far) with Haley and Pence – both surely guaranteed to help insomniacs sleep.
Sure Lurkalot
I was looking forward to the coin/14th amendment/consol bond solution because why do the Republicans get to formulate all the crazy ideas?
Like a rigged election where only the result for one person of 20 on the ballot was wrong? Like you can just appoint yourself an elector, sign a pledge and your person wins? Like the concept of the unitary executive? Like you can declassify a document in your mind?
JWR
@rikyrah:
I still think that Chris Licht, (last seen producing The Late Show with Stephen Colbert), spent the entirety of the T***p admin getting his news from his, and other late night political comedy shows and thought, “Hey, if Stephen Colbert can make T***p look stupid, I’m sure that I, as a serious news person, will be better prepared at squeezing T***p for serious answers”. Or something along those lines.
davecb
@OzarkHillbilly wrote
We ran into them in Canada, when the anti-vaxers staged an occupation of the capital to protest COVID vaccines. The funding for the “trucker’s protest” was mostly from the US, and via the so-called Christian site.
Jinchi
I keep seeing things phrased that way, usually with the addendum that it takes days to get a bill from the House through the Senate and then to the president’s desk, but we’ve seen Congress act extremely quickly when it really wants to.
mvr
@Eolirin: Thanks! Does this mean he’s back to doing it daily? For a while all I could find were the longer Sunday comics.
Ken
@Sure Lurkalot: Given your list of examples, perhaps the problem is the Democrats aren’t being crazy enough. 14th amendment, consul bonds, even the platinum coin — you look at those and think “I wouldn’t have thought of it, but I can see the sense behind the argument.” They need to go for “I wouldn’t have though of it, because no sane person could possibly think that would be legal, practical, or indeed possible.”
With that, I suggest… the Platinum Non-Fungible Token. Put all the US debt on the blockchain!
Omnes Omnibus
Without getting too meta here, if someone can criticize the Democratic Party, others should be able to criticize their critique.
Ken
Yes, but this isn’t a bill to raise their pay, or a motion to adjourn for a six-week holiday.
Kay
@Geminid:
I was kidding about “mortal enemies”. I overheard someone describe knitters and crocheters as “mortal enemies” the other day (also joking) and I thought it was funny. This is Twitter fight is the difference between knitters and crocheters to me- I think they’re all on the same side.
Another Scott
@brendancalling:
The political press reporting on this is kinda amazing. Something for everyone! E.g. RollCall.com:
It’s a UUUGE 7% Cut! Biggest ever! We’re cutting that EBIL SPENDING MONSTER down to size!!11
Eh, it’s down $1B. It’s not even a rounding error!
That’s the way it had to get done. The GQPers needed something to claim as a win with their weak hand. Biden gave them some talking points while winning on the substance.
It will all be forgotten in 2 weeks.
Electing more Democrats everywhere is the goal. Eyes on the prizes.
Cheers,
Scott.
Jinchi
Plus replacements for Manchin and Sinema.
gene108
@Kay:
The seemingly random youth pastor who sexually assaults a teenager might make it into the local news for a day or two and maybe gets a mention, when the trial begins, but these scandals rarely dominate national headlines. The Catholic clergy sexual abuse case is the one glaring example.
There’s no equivalent national recognition for Southern Baptists, Mormons, and conservative evangelical churches.
What’s driving the groomer accusations is the deeply held belief by conservatives that homosexuality is a life style choice, like wearing certain types of clothes or listening to certain genre’s of music. Most people were coming around to the reality that homosexuality is inborn and not a choice.
If this notion took hold, they could no longer justify their bigotry. If homosexuality is a lifestyle choice, then homosexual don’t deserve any civil rights protections and conservatives are free to discriminate.
Eolirin
@mvr: Looks like it.
Michael Bersin
@Kay:
It’s a right wingnut talking point. It’s stochastic terrorism, they excel at creating the ‘other’.
“…We want our children protected from an agenda that is hell bent on grooming our children. We want our children’s minds and their lives protected in these very vulnerable years…”
Addressing Bigotry – Warrensburg, Missouri City Council Meeting – May 8, 2023 – part 4
Geminid
@Kay: I think these groups are on the same side too. I just think one is more constructive than the other.
Jinchi
Brilliant idea. And if a power surge caused all the servers to fail …. the debt’s gone completely.
gene108
@Eolirin:
This deal should avoid those problems. I just provided my own context for the post quoting Sen. Graham that sequestration “destroyed” the Defense Department. Sen. Graham, in quote, is exaggerating but sequestration did cause some headaches.
JWR
@Chief Oshkosh:
I wasn’t listening closely enough to accurately paraphrase, but I’m pretty sure she just carried on as before, criticizing Rs while praising Biden. Clearly unacceptable!
Kay
@gene108:
I was surprised this one didn’t get more attention:
I actaully think Catholics are correct when they say their systemic child abuse issue gets all the attention while the systemic child abuse in other religions gets a pass. That’s true. There’s systemic child abuse in all of these fundamenalist religions, including, in my direct experience within the criminal justice system where I live, Mennonite and Amish.
I think they get away with it because Americans give too much deference to religion. That has harmed children. They should have been stopped by law enforcement.
Geminid
@Jinchi: Sinema will be replaced this year, most likely by Ruben Gallego.
Manchin may win reelection, but right now that seems like a 50-50 proposition, assuming he runs. The more likely of his replacements is Republican Governor Jim Justice. Rep. Mooney is the other contender.
Manchin said he won’t announce a run or retirement until late fall.
gene108
@Matt McIrvin:
I get Republicans were always pro-business.
They also were capable of making reality based decisions in the past, like the 1990 Clean Air Act, combating the hole in the ozone layer, etc.
I can’t picture any modern Republican politician agreeing to anything like the those noted above, or the Gingrich House to go along with the Clinton Administration and pass sCHIP.
gene108
@Kay:
I don’t know why the SBC sexual abuse allegations didn’t get more attention, either.
OverTwistWillie
A baby’s right to a cheap, adulterated, non gay beer after a twelve hour shift is clearly stated on the Statue of Liberty… or maybe in the Confederate Constitution….
Eolirin
@Geminid: Manchin and Sinema won’t be our only roadblocks so we will need more Dems than just 50 long term, but I think we get voting rights and maybe some kind of court reforms, at least ethics rules for the SCOTUS, done if we can hold Tester and Gallego wins. I think if we hold Tester there’s a very good chance we win the House back.
If we can hold out long enough the shift in values that younger people have will be transformative.
Miss Bianca
@gene108:
Mayyybee…maybe not. First, of course, the notion that “it’s innate! It’s nature, not nurture! They can’t help themselves!” is what is going to make homosexuality at least tolerable to religious bigots kind of chaps my ass. It shouldn’t matter whether it’s nature or nurture, damn it!
That being said, I think there’s an inherent cognitive dissonance to that notion for your religious bigot. Hard to trumpet, “God doesn’t make mistakes!” on the one hand – which they do, in order to diss the existence of trans people – and then have others come back with “Well, if you think homosexuality is a sin, BUT science says homosexuality is innate, then either God DOES make mistakes, according to your world view, or He doesn’t, and your world view (and Leviticus) is fucked up.”
ETA: Or, well, they could come back with, “Science is wrong about this the way it’s wrong about, say, the efficacy of vaccines”. Check and mate, Libtard!
Eolirin
@Miss Bianca: Again, truth is irrelevant, only advantage matters. They have a target they want to demonize, justifications will be whatever helps win the argument with whoever they’re talking to, updated by the minute.
This is also why they’re so vulnerable to grifters. If someone is attacking the right people they’re on-side, and that they’re transparently liars doesn’t matter
There’s been a lot of writing about this dynamic by ex-evangelicals.
Another Scott
@Kay: Janet Reno was apparently railroaded by the FBI and was convinced that a raid was essential stop abuse at Waco. It didn’t end well:
That is to say, it’s a very long-running problem and a difficult one for law enforcement (especially national law enforcement who has their own macho agenda) to address sensibly.
I have no idea what a sensible solution is, other than continued press-reporting to break through the underlying national pathology that self-proclaimed “holy” people are somehow beyond criticism and have the right to do whatever they want by claiming it is part of their “religion”…
Grr…,
Scott.
bbleh
@Geminid: I wouldn’t bet on Manchin, despite his name and history. Justice is seen as both reliably Republican and non-Krayzee, and these days this is a state that rewards both. I don’t know whether Mooney will even bother to run much of a campaign, although I suppose there’s the possibility that he runs hard, he and Justice split the vote, and Manchin somehow squeaks through. But there’s also the (long-rumored) possibility that Manchin won’t run for Senate and instead will run for Gov (which he was before).
Jackie
Kohl’s is next…
https://dnyuz.com/2023/05/29/kohls-latest-retailer-facing-boycott-calls-for-selling-pride-onesie-for-babies-time-for-a-bud-lighting/
I believe most major clothing retailers sell Pride merchandise so these idiotic imbeciles are doomed to boycott ALL clothing stores 😂
Jackie
@bbleh: I’ve seen rumors that the No Labels group are trying to get Manchin to run for president.
His already swolled up ego must be close to exploding. “Everybody wants me!”🤮
trollhattan
@Another Scott: Lord knows the press will never pursue it but I’m finding the Republican war (pronounced “whoh-wah” on the IRS is quite a tell. What’s that they always say about police overreach, “If you’re not committing crimes, what do you have to worry about?”
They’re kneecapping IRS on behalf of their major donors and their own selves. Let’s ask them “why?” using our outside voices.
Geminid
@bbleh: If Manchin runs, it will be against either Justice or Mooney. Justice ought to have the inside track in that primary. Mooney will have Club for Growth money, and will run to Justices right, so it could be a tight primary. Manchin would have a better chance against Mooney in November.
I’ve heard that rumor about Manchin running for Governor. I think if he runs for anything he’ll run for the Senate again. Manchin likes being a Senator, and DC is a much bigger stage than Charleston.
trollhattan
@Jackie: Clothes? How about sidewalks?
IMNSHO they should have told “parent of a former Birch Lane student” to fuck right the hell off.
Davis is a wealthy university town west of Sac.
gene108
@Jinchi:
The replacement for Sen. Manchin will be a Republican.
Captain C
@Jackie: I guess Linz won’t be joining his Republican colleagues in Moscow this 4th of July.
bbleh
@trollhattan: never hurts to point out that they’re carrying water for the rich, but the message they’re using is that the additional agents would harass Hard-Workin’ Folk Like You ‘n’ Me, and it has the always-reliable subtexts of We Hate Taxes and We Hate Big Gummint, so I fear it wouldn’t get much traction.
What I’d like to see more shouting about is that Republicans would also defund things nearer and dearer to less committed voters’ hearts, like aid to hospitals (especially rural hospitals, some of which are actually closing for good), money for highway repair and construction, funding for education and vocational training, money for teachers and schools, money and equipment for first-responders, etc. Republicans want you to have to drive 50 miles to the nearest hospital, and they don’t even want to pay to keep the roads in good shape! But they’re happy to hand trillions to big corporations and billionaires!
Omnes Omnibus
@gene108: Maybe in WV, but numbers in the Senate can be made up from any state.
Captain C
@rikyrah:
It seems like I read or hear about another one pretty much every day. And an awful lot of them seem to be youth preachers.
bbleh
@Geminid: I think the whole genesis of the rumor, and the main reason he’d do it, is that he sees the writing on the wall and doesn’t want to be out of a job completely. And a lot of WV voters wouldn’t mind ticket-splitting if one of the candidates was Manchin.
Re Mooney, I think he’s just doing it for brand enhancement. He’s certainly got the money — he’s been running ads here regularly at least since the start of the year — but there isn’t as reliable a Krayzee vote here as many places, and he has the additional disadvantage of being a carpetbagger (he’s from Western MD, which is more like WV than most of the rest of MD, but it’s still not WV). I think Justice will own the automatic-Republican vote and that’ll carry him handily.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@trollhattan: I knew there was something wrong with The Reading Rainbow!//
mvr
@Eolirin: That’s good news! Thanks!
Geminid
@gene108: Manchin will likely be the last Democratic Senator from West Virginia for the next few decades. I’m not counting him out next year though, if he runs. I think the race will be close and winnable.
Jackie
@trollhattan: That’s so sad; the children won’t really understand why their hard (and joyful) work was unceremoniously washed away. This *one parent* complaint rule needs to be addressed; the student body should get to vote yea or nay. 😡
trollhattan
Think your commute is bad?
https://twitter.com/clashreport/status/1663152867220267008?cxt=HHwWgICxnZKu2pQuAAAA
trollhattan
@Jackie: Right? And former parent, since the kid is no longer at the school. I’d be furious–tyranny of the minority at work.
Jackie
@Captain C: Any GQPers stupid enough to go will be detained and held for ransom 🙏🏼 🙏🏼 🙏🏼
Geminid
@bbleh: I hear Justice a lot on a Harrisonberg, Virginia radio station. They have a lot of listeners in West Virginia, and they often play excerpts from Justice’s news conferences on their news segments. Justice seems to me like he’s “got game” as a politician.
If he’s the nominee, Justice’s campaign and related PACs should have a lot money to spend. He and Manchin are not that different in political ideology, but Justice will vote for a Republican Majority Leader if he can, and control of the Senate could ride on that race. That will be a paramount concern next year for conservative donors.
Frankensteinbeck
@JWR:
I wish. Licht’s response to the train wreck afterwards was to gloat about how he’s giving important points of view a chance to be seen by everyone. He loves it, thinks it was a huge success.
@Geminid:
I can’t see how, but I can’t see how he has won re-election for over a decade. I can’t hope to predict anything or underestimate him.
JWR
@Jackie:
@trollhattan:
Just like the lunacy going on in FL, where all it takes is one to ruin it for the many. I say the person filing the complaint must have a child currently attending the school, and yes, this *one parent* rule must needs be addressed, in schools and in libraries. (But… Floriduh. It was always intended to be open to abuse.)
rikyrah
Another snippet of dialogue that will never NOT be hilarious to me, no matter how they choose to present it😂😂😂
https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZTRoNMuWR/?t=1
Brachiator
@Eolirin:
This is not a budget. And the result of an impasse would not be a government shutdown, but a financial crisis and possible severe downgrading of government bonds and other financial instruments.
From one of many news stories about this.
Now that the Republicans control the House, they refuse to write budget legislation that would be acceptable to Biden. So we get along with spending resolutions.
Chris T.
@Jinchi:
“Sorry, we had a ransomeware attack, nobody gets any social security this month and the Pentagon is disbanded!”
(Do I need a /s ?)
Frankensteinbeck
@Brachiator:
You are entirely discussing what theoretically was going to be decided and ignoring the actual results.
In which case, yes, this was exactly the budget we’ll be using and it was indeed a budget deal. Or hey, if there’s another negotiation then these cuts are utterly moot and all that happened was an adjustment of SNAP that wasn’t even a cut plus a two year debt ceiling raise.
Your ‘line item veto’ claim isn’t even theory, it’s imaginary.
rikyrah
When your are at your Prom and your School Principal is a Que Dog 😂😂😂
https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZTRoLEXkr/?t=1
JaySinWA
@Jackie:
The anti-gay nude protests should be interesting.
M31
maybe Target could appease everyone by making “Fuck Your Feelings” onesies
Geminid
@Brachiator: I think that right now federal government is running under the Omnibus spending bill passed last December, in the lame duck session. The government ran under continuing resolutions last fall, from September 30 when the new fiscal year began until the Omnibus bill passed.
Steeplejack
Excellent thread about what the right really wants—an outlet for their rage.
Sister Golden Bear
@Kay:
These are exactly same arguments made by Anita Bryant, the 1979 Briggs Initiative in CA, and many, many Republicans prior to that.
@Baud:
Republicans have more projection than a IMAX multiplex. They assume that because so many of their brethren are pedophiles that obviously LGBTQ+ people must be too.
gene108
@Kay:
@gene108:
I was thinking about this and I maybe one reason might be the SBC sexual abuse scandal was mainly older men sexually assaulting adolescent girls. A lot of girls were sexually abused by Catholic clergy, but that never got much attention. The stories almost exclusively focused on boys being abused.
kindness
Maybe my take is a bit twisted but humor me. Some Freedumb caucus yahoo is going to challenge McCarthy’s speakership because of this. What if Democrats don’t vote for Kevin? Kevin loses and Republicans end up installing a bigger loon than Kevin. I think that would help Democrats in the ’24 elections. Republicans won’t get squat done but whine, pout and throw stuff at the walls. The electorate that isn’t MAGA will be highly unimpressed. Like I say though, I could be a bit twisted.
Sister Golden Bear
@gene108:
I dislike the “haters are all self-hating LBGTQ people themselves” because while it’s not intentional it’s actually a subtle form of victim blaming, plus some haters are just bigots, some haters can’t deal with anything outside their rigid worldview, etc., plus systemic homophobic.
But a certain percentage of homophobes are repressed LGBQ folks, who are “choosing” to be heterosexual, so they assume out LGB people are also “choosing” to give in to the “sinful” behavior they themselves are fighting. Same dynamic with some religious anti-trans haters. As I said up thread, more projection than an IMAX multiplex.
japa21
@kindness:
You are at BJ after all. Being twisted is somewhat of a requirement.
Brachiator
@Frankensteinbeck:
The Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 addressed long-standing IRS funding deficiencies by providing $79.4 billion in stable, long-term funding through 2031 to improve tax compliance.
The negotiated reduction in IRS funding gave the GOP a line item veto over already passed legislation.
trollhattan
@Brachiator: Rebranded as a “claw back.” IDK how it works mechanically.
artem1s
@satby:
I think TPM is incorrect about why the markets aren’t reacting. first, they love volatility. that and speculation is what’s largely been propping up the markets since 2016. neither of those things are going to stop if there is a default.
he’s correct that the Feds will be in control of finding a stopgap should there be a shut down or default, not the MAGAt branch of the Wingnut GQP or the Elders of Zion or the Rothchilds. And they aren’t going to rely on a platinum coin or Sorobucks or bitcoin to address the country’s economic problems.
I think the major reason the market isn’t reacting is because Qevin’s bo$$$es and McTurtle have made it clear there will be no default. TPM’s take on the Fed’s options is dangerous because they are still equating the market with the national and world economy and hinting that a default is no biggy because the stock market, venture capitalists are saying it’s no biggy. It’s irresponsible. Just wait until there’s a run on Goldman Sachs and Wells Fargo and a couple of other ‘too big to fail’ institutions are closing and going bankrupt. Tell me it’s not going to effect the economy then.
Sister Golden Bear
@Sister Golden Bear: On a related note, this is an extremely on-the-nose take about Republican transphobia.
And I’ll note that numerous studies have show than 1) trans pron is one of the largest subgenres in pron, and 2) it’s most popular in the religious Red States. The most forbidden sex is the sexiest sex. And yeah, many, many chasers are conservative Republican men.
Another Scott
@Brachiator:
Congress can always change the budget – Article 1 and all that.
Repost: Whitehouse.gov:
(Emphasis added.)
FWIW.
Cheers,
Scott.
japa21
@Brachiator:
A line item veto would have removed all the funding. A reduction of a little over $1 billion, which can be added back in, is hardly a line item veto. The $10 Billion figure itself would have been minor, but that is something that right now is on paper but without a means to enforce it.
PAM Dirac
@Brachiator:
That is true and it is always true that any law can be changed or eliminated by future laws. But laws generally stand until a new law is passed by both houses and signed by the president. In this case the debt ceiling would be increased and could not be changed without passage of a new law. When the appropriations bills are being discussed there is nothing to stop Rs from demanding that a reduction in the debt ceiling be included, but nothing will change unless the bills are passed and signed. At that point, a stalemate will result in a government shutdown, but not a debt default, which as you point out is much more dangerous. So passage of this law will guarantee Biden complete control to avoid a debt default for the rest of his first term. Even if the budget deals in this bill don’t carry over to the appropriations bills, that still sounds like a pretty damn good deal to me.
prostratedragon
“Banner,” by Jessie Montgomery; Chamber Orchestra of the Springs.
SFAW
@Kay:
Long before RFK Jr said anything about 2004, there were myriad stories of heavily-Black districts/precincts being sent (by Ohio SecState or his minions) far fewer voting machines than were reasonable. Plenty of stories about ridiculously long lines to get in to vote. Were they true? Probably. Did they make a difference in the Ohio outcome? Contemporaneous thought was that it/they may have, with a strong “likely” lean, but I don’t know.
Naturally, at this point, it no longer matters. I just see it as yet another data point in the Rethug-vote-suppression timeline.
Captain C
@Jackie: Putin: “You must pay us a trillion dollars and give us Ukraine!”
Biden: “Or what?”
Putin: “We keep them! Forever!”
Biden: “You keep them forever? Those are great terms! We accept!”
Chris T.
@Another Scott: That whitehouse.gov transcript is pretty opaque.
The way to think about this, and to understand what the IRS budget actually means, is to realize that the IRS spends money on two things, just like any company / bureaucracy: there’s “capital” and “operating” parts. The “capital budget” buys stuff: desks, chairs, typewriters (olden days) and computers (modern days), printers, paper, all the stuff you find in an office building. The “operating budget” buys work done over time: people’s salaries, electricity and water for the offices, cleaning services, and so on.
Now, someone hands you a budget: a dollar, a thousand dollars, a million dollars, 500 trillion dollars, whatever, over some time horizon. The actual number doesn’t matter yet. You split this into two parts, capital and operating. The capital budget buys stuff, which lasts however many years: desks are good for 10 years, computers were once good for 40 years or 10 years but are now about 3 or so, etc. The operating budget hires people and pays ongoing expenses. You figure out whether you can hire more people and if so, advertise for jobs; filling the jobs is going to take at least 3 months in government, probably 6 months to a year just to get started.
A few months down the line, someone says whoops here’s a different number. You get two dollars, not 1, or 1 trillion, not 500 trillion, or whatever. You make adjustments to the plans and continue on. That’s pretty much all there is to it.
In this specific case, the budget was “80 billion for 10 years” and now it’s “70 billion for 10 years” so the adjustments will mean buy a little less stuff and hire somewhat fewer people. If you’ve spent some of the budget-so-far you have to make more adjustments to the remaining part, and if you’ve spent nothing of the budget-so-far, you have more room to juggle the adjustments about. And that’s all there is to that. So it’s not like “can’t hire anyone after all”, it’s going to be “well we were going to hire roughly 40k people over the next two years, now it’s roughly 35k people”.
lowtechcyclist
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
I’m partial to this version:
Jimmy Fallon Does Jim Morrison=The Doors.. HD ..Reading Rainbow. – YouTube
lowtechcyclist
@Steeplejack:
To riff off of Al Capp, they’re Seditionists Wildly Indignant about Nearly Everything.
Another Scott
@Chris T.: You’re right, but it’s more than that.
IRS Strategic Operating Plan was just released on April 6, 2023:
Unless the Congress tells the Executive “you are forbidden to spend appropriated funds on X”, the executive has a lot of flexibility to implement the laws as s/he sees fit. There will probably be more funding needed in the out years (there always is), but Biden and the IRS will be able to keep moving forward to implement their plans.
Thanks.
Cheers,
Scott.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@lowtechcyclist: That’s probably what started the whole rainbow terror.
JWR
@Another Scott:
I just checked the mid-morning TV news and was told that the proposed bill will cut $10 billion in both this year and next, (not sure of the years), but my understanding has always been that the $80 billion was over a decade, and not year to year, or in one fell swoop, as our glorious Newsgivers seem to be telling us. (Yes, they really said that.)
So thanks, Newsgivers! Where would we be without sloppy ol’ you, giving us sloppy ol’ news?
Miss Bianca
@Steeplejack: That is, indeed, an excellent thread – thanks for sharing it.
bbleh
@Geminid: concur on all counts. And I fear that, unless some unholy scandal erupts, WV voters will do so as well, just because of the ‘R’.
Kelly
It seems to me the amount the debt ceiling needs to be raised should be known as soon as the appropriations are agreed to. Why isn’t the debt ceiling the very next bill, voted on minutes after the appropriations?
Another Scott
@Kelly: This isn’t really an appropriations bill. It just sets broad, top-line numbers.
The last section of the 99-page bill is the part on the debt ceiling. They suspend the law until January 1, 2025, so there’s no need to stick a particular number in there (though one can make estimates of how much it should be to cover it).
(Sorry about the weird formatting. Lawyers…)
HTH!
Cheers,
Scott.
The Thin Black Duke
@Sister Golden Bear: This is fucking brilliant. Thanks for sharing.
Brachiator
@Another Scott:
This is probably the key part.
I have noted before that even though I disagreed with Biden doing any kind of negotiation with McCarthy, Biden made some smart moves. So I am not sitting up at night moaning “woe is the hapless Democrats.”
The crazy thing is that the GOP know that the government needs the IRS for tax enforcement and compliance. A few years ago, part of the GOP directed tax bill was so messy that the GOP explicitly threw up their hands and directed the IRS to come up with clarifying language.
But here the GOP is happy with the IRS cracking down on low income taxpayers and wants to slow down audits of corporations and high income individuals.
artem1s
@Kay:
WRONG. Blackwell specifically targeted D leaning districts with fewer voting machines and booths. The counties could only set up what they had been given. You have no idea what you’re talking about.
Chris T.
@Another Scott: Yes, and it’s good to see that they have this kind of detail. The bigger the budget, the finer-grained the planning has to get…
zhena gogolia
@Steeplejack: Excellent. She’s always good.
Frankensteinbeck
@Brachiator:
Then every budget is a line item veto over already passed legislation, and most bills are, for that matter. Every bill modifying existing legislation becomes a ‘line item veto.’ Your terminology is exaggerated to the point of falsity.
Brachiator
@Sister Golden Bear:
I used to do taxes for some video stores, back before streaming became big. I would visit some of the stores and shoot the breeze with the owners. In one store, trans titles were very popular. The crazy thing is that lesbian titles also were popular, but this store didn’t have a lot of gay male titles.
This was in Southern California.
Brachiator
@PAM Dirac:
Yep. This is a pretty big deal, I think. And Republicans are unhappy about it, which makes me glad.
Sister Golden Bear
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
I prefer to think it as rainbow terroir. “Yes we fine selection, from newly harvested Castro twinks to well-aged Noe Valley daddies to bears from the woods of Guernevillle to East Bay lesbians.
Ken
@Kelly: I wonder if it would help focus Congress’s collective mind if the President vetoed every spending bill, explaining that it was illegal on its face as it required spending funds in excess of the debt limit. But if they want to increase the debt limit to match the amount required by the bill and send it back…
Sister Golden Bear
@Brachiator: Straight guys love lesbian pron because 1) the male gaze, lesbian-made for other lesbians pron looks much different, 2) dudes always assume that the lesbians on screen would welcome them into a threesome.
Interestingly, I know a number women, both lesbian and straight, who enjoy gay pron. Something about seeing two men go at it changes gender role dynamics that’s freeing for these women
Ruckus
@gene108:
Republicans have always been this rigid. And a lot of people like it because it removes any concept that they might have to change or be nice to people they don’t like, like most people with dark skin.
The other side to the above is that it really hasn’t been all that long that democrats had a lot of ability to make the country better. Most of that has changed in the lifetime of people alive today, like me. Yes there were differences in the parties 70 yrs ago, but the differences today are far wider. Success in making this a better country has allowed the Democratic party to push farther and continue to make it better and better for far more of the population. Or even everyone. And that is something that rethuglicans can not even think about because they believe that making it better, making it actually equal, always comes out of their pockets. And in some ways it does. That old adage of a rising tide raises all boats is true, and raising all citizens to equal level doesn’t sink all republicans. It might effect a few of the extremely wealthy, who might become ever so slightly less extremely. But that rising tide thing takes over again because a more equal rising economy also raises all. Over my lifetime the world has gotten far wealthier, while many of our citizens are still on the same racist, sinking raft. WE HAVE TO FIX THAT.
Baud
@Sister Golden Bear:
You can’t prove that they wouldn’t.
BellyCat
@Jackie: This.
brantl
@SFAW: High numbers of sequential punch-style ballots were either single-punched for Bush, or punched for Bush and Kerry. The fix was in. Ken Blackwell, doing an exemplary job for his party.
Ruckus
@Kay:
I lived and voted in OH in 2004 and we went from 3 machines in my precinct to one, and they combined 2 precincts into one. I stood in the rain for 4 hrs to vote, along with a lot of others, but some left because I believe that they had to go to work. I lived in Franklin County just northeast of Columbus. There were a lot of pissed off people in that line. I was one of them
I never did find out why it was done but I also agree with you that Bush won in OH. And I’m not sure that the lack of machines made the difference, just made voting quite the pain in the ass.
Ruckus
@Matt McIrvin:
My take is that the republican party is and always has been about money. At least in my lifetime.
Getting, having and holding on to more of it. And not giving any of it to anyone with darker skin than unused white toilet paper.
Kay
@artem1s:
County Boards of Elections are “contracting authorities”. They’re entitled to procur (buy, lease or borrow) any equipment they anticipate they need for an election. Ohio Democrats were complacent and didn’t prepare at the county level for high turnout. Ken Blackwell doesn’t dole out voting machines from a central location in Columbus- it is up to the 88 Bds of Elections (and the Democrats on those boards) to anticipate demand and meet it. The Democrats on the boards of elections did a bad job. Their voters had to wait because they didn’t plan and prepare properly. They got better at it- they had huge turnout in ’08 and ’12 and fewer lines. Early vote helped too- took some of the pressure off on E Day.
Citizen Alan
@gene108: I think the big difference is because of the infrastructure differences between the Catholics and the Protestants. Historically, if the Catholic hierarchy discovered a pedophile priest, they would sweep the issue under the rug and just transfer the priest to another parish and ideally a position where he would never be around children. Simply firing the priest and quietly giving a vague but unquestionably bad reference if he tries to get a job as a priest elsewhere as a way of forcing him out of the priesthood isn’t an option the way it is with, say, Baptist youth ministers who can be encouraged to quit and take up another line of work.
Citizen Alan
@Sister Golden Bear: I think some homophobes are deeply repressed gays acting out to sublimate their own urges. But I think the majority of homophobes are actually deeply misogynistic men who assume gay men look at them the way they look at women and are horrified at being viewed as a sex object, particularly to another man who might actually be able to force himself on the homophobe.
Citizen Alan
@Kelly: I don’t think so. The amount by which the debt ceiling needs to be raised is conditional on the amount by which appropriations exceeds incoming tax revenue, which is not knowable with precision that far in advance. Frex, my understanding is that before Yellen gave June 5 as a firm X date, there was some belief that we might be able to make it to June 15, in which case incoming quarterly tax payments would give us enough revenue to possibly make it to the end of July.