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You are here: Home / Economics / C.R.E.A.M. / Memorial Day Monday Morning Open Thread

Memorial Day Monday Morning Open Thread

by Anne Laurie|  May 29, 20237:07 am| 262 Comments

This post is in: C.R.E.A.M., Proud to Be A Democrat, Republican Stupidity

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Memorial Day Monday Morning Open Thread

(Ann Telnaes via Washington Post)

 

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

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Previous Post: « Late Night Open Thread: Thank Us for the No-Smoking (Ya Little Twerps)
Next Post: What’s Everyone Up To For Memorial Day? What's Everyone Up To For Memorial Day?»

Reader Interactions

262Comments

  1. 1.

    p.a.

    May 29, 2023 at 7:16 am

    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.

  2. 2.

    Geo Wilcox

    May 29, 2023 at 7:16 am

    SOme big donors made some calls and lit fires under some people’s asses.

  3. 3.

    RevRick

    May 29, 2023 at 7:19 am

    President Biden speaks softly, but carries a big stick.

  4. 4.

    The Thin Black Duke

    May 29, 2023 at 7:21 am

    @p.a.: That will happen when the Democrats have the House, the Senate and the Presidency.

  5. 5.

    satby

    May 29, 2023 at 7:24 am

    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.

  6. 6.

    rikyrah

    May 29, 2023 at 7:28 am

    Good Morning, Everyone😊😊😊

  7. 7.

    RevRick

    May 29, 2023 at 7:33 am

    @rikyrah: Good morning!

  8. 8.

    RevRick

    May 29, 2023 at 7:34 am

    @satby: It turns out that South Carolina black church ladies are our wisest voices and voters.

  9. 9.

    Suzanne

    May 29, 2023 at 7:38 am

    @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.

  10. 10.

    OzarkHillbilly

    May 29, 2023 at 7:44 am

    This one’s for you, Uncle Joe.

  11. 11.

    Barbara

    May 29, 2023 at 7:45 am

    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.​

  12. 12.

    Barbara

    May 29, 2023 at 7:47 am

    @p.a.: ​Really, they should just ignore it and let Rs sue to enforce it.

  13. 13.

    David 🌈 ☘The Establishment☘🌈 Koch

    May 29, 2023 at 7:51 am

    @p.a.: I wish Biden would buy some ice cream with the trillion dollar coin and tell the clerk to keep the change.

  14. 14.

    Frankensteinbeck

    May 29, 2023 at 7:56 am

    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.

  15. 15.

    OzarkHillbilly

    May 29, 2023 at 7:56 am

    From US seeks to fine January 6 rioters to claw back donations they raked in, comes this little tidbit:

    Most of the fundraising efforts appear on GiveSendGo, which bills itself as “The #1 Free Christian Fundraising Site” and has become a haven for January 6 defendants barred from using mainstream crowdfunding sites, including the more widespread GoFundMe, to raise money. The rioters often proclaim their innocence and portray themselves as victims of government oppression, even as they cut deals to plead guilty and cooperate with prosecutors.

    “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.​

  16. 16.

    Spanky

    May 29, 2023 at 7:59 am

    @Suzanne:

    It’s insulting to our intelligence

    The very definition of “owning the libs”.

  17. 17.

    Spanky

    May 29, 2023 at 8:01 am

    @David 🌈 ☘The Establishment☘🌈 Koch:

    So you’ve read Twain’s “The Million Pound Note” then.

  18. 18.

    David 🌈 ☘The Establishment☘🌈 Koch

    May 29, 2023 at 8:01 am

    voters don’t even want to pay attention now

     
    Now back to the NBA playoffs – Celtics in 7

  19. 19.

    Anyway

    May 29, 2023 at 8:03 am

     

    @Suzanne:

    I felt similarly. Like, this is just so fucking dumb. I want to never see it again. It’s insulting to our intelligence.

    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?

  20. 20.

    Spanky

    May 29, 2023 at 8:04 am

    @Frankensteinbeck:

    Biden rolled McCarthy.  Stomped all over him.  So much so that I’m worried something will go wrong.

    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.

  21. 21.

    Gvg

    May 29, 2023 at 8:04 am

    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.

  22. 22.

    David 🌈 ☘The Establishment☘🌈 Koch

    May 29, 2023 at 8:05 am

    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.

  23. 23.

    Baud

    May 29, 2023 at 8:09 am

    @rikyrah:

    Good morning.

  24. 24.

    Frankensteinbeck

    May 29, 2023 at 8:09 am

    @Spanky:

    I’m hoping a secret part of this deal is Joe guaranteeing Kevin’s Speakership.

    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.

  25. 25.

    catclub

    May 29, 2023 at 8:10 am

    @The Thin Black Duke: That will happen when the Democrats have the House, the Senate and the Presidency.

     

    … with majorities as big as Johnson had, which is twelfth of never.

  26. 26.

    catclub

    May 29, 2023 at 8:13 am

    @Frankensteinbeck: ​
     How would that work? promising that Biden would force Democrats to vote for Mccarthy over Jeffries for speaker?

  27. 27.

    Dorothy A. Winsor

    May 29, 2023 at 8:14 am

    @Frankensteinbeck: They could chant “Hakeem, Hakeem” a few times. That would be entertaining.

  28. 28.

    Baud

    May 29, 2023 at 8:15 am

    @catclub:

    We could try being racist again.

  29. 29.

    Joe Falco

    May 29, 2023 at 8:15 am

    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.

  30. 30.

    Dorothy A. Winsor

    May 29, 2023 at 8:16 am

    @catclub: No, vote to keep McCarthy when the loons call for a vote to remove him.

  31. 31.

    daveNYC

    May 29, 2023 at 8:18 am

    @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.

  32. 32.

    The Thin Black Duke

    May 29, 2023 at 8:18 am

    @catclub: Then we’re doomed.

  33. 33.

    Baud

    May 29, 2023 at 8:22 am

    @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.

  34. 34.

    Matt McIrvin

    May 29, 2023 at 8:22 am

    @Anyway:

    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?

    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.

  35. 35.

    Brachiator

    May 29, 2023 at 8:27 am

    @Frankensteinbeck:

    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.

    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.

  36. 36.

    Sheila in nc

    May 29, 2023 at 8:27 am

    @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.”

  37. 37.

    brantl

    May 29, 2023 at 8:30 am

    It’s pretty clear to me that McQarthy got rolled. Biden out-maneuvered him, dead-stop.

  38. 38.

    Matt McIrvin

    May 29, 2023 at 8:31 am

    Maybe we should be more publicly pissed off about this deal to increase the chance that it actually passes.

  39. 39.

    Baud

    May 29, 2023 at 8:32 am

    @Matt McIrvin:

    Maybe, but the Internet rarely adopts a helpful view of political dynamics.

  40. 40.

    geg6

    May 29, 2023 at 8:33 am

    @Matt McIrvin:

    And this is the perpetual dilemma of being a Democrat.  I have no idea how we solve it.

  41. 41.

    Spanky

    May 29, 2023 at 8:35 am

    @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.

  42. 42.

    OzarkHillbilly

    May 29, 2023 at 8:37 am

    @Joe Falco: 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.

    I’ll settle for a circular firing squad.

  43. 43.

    Nukular Biskits

    May 29, 2023 at 8:37 am

    Mornin’ all!

  44. 44.

    Baud

    May 29, 2023 at 8:38 am

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    You’re in the right party!

  45. 45.

    gene108

    May 29, 2023 at 8:38 am

    @Gvg:

    They have made racism so much a part of their brand

    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.

  46. 46.

    Baud

    May 29, 2023 at 8:38 am

    @Nukular Biskits:

    Morning.

  47. 47.

    gene108

    May 29, 2023 at 8:38 am

    @Nukular Biskits:

    Good morning!☀️🌞😃

  48. 48.

    Shalimar

    May 29, 2023 at 8:40 am

    @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).

  49. 49.

    Nukular Biskits

    May 29, 2023 at 8:41 am

    @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.

    Is this too long for the rotating tag?

  50. 50.

    Ohio Mom

    May 29, 2023 at 8:42 am

    @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.

  51. 51.

    Baud

    May 29, 2023 at 8:43 am

    @Shalimar:

    If it keeps happening, the platform can’t simply point to its rules and wash its hands of the problem.

  52. 52.

    OzarkHillbilly

    May 29, 2023 at 8:46 am

    @Baud: ​ too true.

  53. 53.

    Shalimar

    May 29, 2023 at 8:47 am

    @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.

  54. 54.

    PaulWartenberg

    May 29, 2023 at 8:48 am

    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!”

  55. 55.

    Shalimar

    May 29, 2023 at 8:49 am

    @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.

  56. 56.

    Matt McIrvin

    May 29, 2023 at 8:49 am

    @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.)

  57. 57.

    OzarkHillbilly

    May 29, 2023 at 8:50 am

    @Shalimar: ​eta: My bad, I see the sarcasm now. My sarcasm meter needs a tune up. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

  58. 58.

    PaulWartenberg

    May 29, 2023 at 8:50 am

    @gene108:

    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.

    There is a lot of money in that rigid ideology, which reinforces the “tax cuts for the rich/slash spending for the poor” mentality.

  59. 59.

    Baud

    May 29, 2023 at 8:51 am

    @Shalimar: Gotcha.

    Who Would Jesus Grift?

  60. 60.

    Michael Bersin

    May 29, 2023 at 8:52 am

    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

  61. 61.

    Ken

    May 29, 2023 at 8:52 am

    @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.

  62. 62.

    Frankensteinbeck

    May 29, 2023 at 8:54 am

    @catclub:

    How would that work?

    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:

    The Republicans got to veto parts of already passed legislation. They got a second pass and effectively a line item veto.

    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.

  63. 63.

    cmorenc

    May 29, 2023 at 8:55 am

    @The Thin Black Duke:

    @p.a.: That will happen when the Democrats have the House, the Senate and the Presidency.

    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.

  64. 64.

    Nukular Biskits

    May 29, 2023 at 8:59 am

    From the Jason Karsh tweet above:

    One thing to remember about this debt ceiling deal is that the overwhelming number of voters will know nothing about it, do not care, and will not remember a thing about it in two weeks.
    …
    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.

    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.

  65. 65.

    Kay

    May 29, 2023 at 9:00 am

    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.

  66. 66.

    Shalimar

    May 29, 2023 at 9:00 am

    @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.

  67. 67.

    mrmoshpotato

    May 29, 2023 at 9:00 am

    @Shalimar:

    The site OzarkHillbilly was talking about, the “Christian” knock-off site, is no-holds-barred. Raise money for any scumbag you like. 

    You’re encouraging bad behavior.  I’m sure Baud! 20XX approves. :)

  68. 68.

    Ken

    May 29, 2023 at 9:01 am

    @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.

  69. 69.

    OzarkHillbilly

    May 29, 2023 at 9:04 am

    @Ken: So am I.

  70. 70.

    Frankensteinbeck

    May 29, 2023 at 9:05 am

    @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.

  71. 71.

    Baud

    May 29, 2023 at 9:09 am

    @Kay:

    I don’t get the point of what he’s trying to say in his tweets posted in the OP.

  72. 72.

    Kay

    May 29, 2023 at 9:09 am

    @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.

  73. 73.

    Ken

    May 29, 2023 at 9:11 am

    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.

  74. 74.

    bbleh

    May 29, 2023 at 9:12 am

    @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.

  75. 75.

    Kay

    May 29, 2023 at 9:15 am

    @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.

  76. 76.

    Geminid

    May 29, 2023 at 9:16 am

     

     

    @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.

  77. 77.

    Baud

    May 29, 2023 at 9:19 am

    @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.

  78. 78.

    Mike in NC

    May 29, 2023 at 9:22 am

    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.

  79. 79.

    JWR

    May 29, 2023 at 9:23 am

    I heard this on local news last night. (From The Hill)

    On “Fox News Sunday,” Graham likened the current debt ceiling situation to the debt ceiling crisis in 2011, saying that the deal made then “virtual destroyed” the defense budget.

    “Listen, this is sequestration, potentially, 2.0. In 2011, my good friend Mitch McConnell negotiated a deal with Joe Biden that virtually destroyed the Defense Department in the name of raising the debt ceiling,” Graham said. “If this is another round of sequestration, not only will [I] vote no, I will not be intimidated by June 5th.”

    … he said through pouty lips. And in good “Lindsey” fashion, he added a snap on the word intimidated. And I enjoyed every minute!

  80. 80.

    Baud

    May 29, 2023 at 9:23 am

    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.

  81. 81.

    Kay

    May 29, 2023 at 9:24 am

    @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.

  82. 82.

    OzarkHillbilly

    May 29, 2023 at 9:26 am

    @Shalimar: One of these is not like the other:

    The site OzarkHillbilly was talking about, the “Christian” knock-off site, is no-holds-barred. Raise money for any scumbag you like.
    and,
    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’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.

  83. 83.

    Ken

    May 29, 2023 at 9:27 am

    I’m finding today’s Google Doodle for U.S. Memorial Day oddly moving.

  84. 84.

    NotMax

    May 29, 2023 at 9:32 am

    From the silly to the somber for Decoration Day.

  85. 85.

    lowtechcyclist

    May 29, 2023 at 9:34 am

    @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.

  86. 86.

    Ben Cisco 🇺🇸🎖️🖥️♦️

    May 29, 2023 at 9:38 am

    @Mike in NC: I did, and would have been fine not remembering it again.

    Glad we have Biden in the White House.

  87. 87.

    bbleh

    May 29, 2023 at 9:40 am

    @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!

  88. 88.

    Kay

    May 29, 2023 at 9:43 am

    Stephen L. Miller
    @redsteeze
    ·May 26
    Pride has been going on for like 20 years. It was fine. No one really objected or cared. Sure! Rainbows and shots and shit.
    Then you guys went full “but why can’t we do this shit with 8 year olds?”
    And now everyone is like “wait what?”

    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.

    COLUMBUS, Ohio, Nov. 3 – Proposed state constitutional amendments banning same-sex marriage increased the turnout of socially conservative voters in many of the 11 states where the measures appeared on the ballot on Tuesday, political analysts say, providing crucial assistance to Republican candidates including President Bush in Ohio and Senator Jim Bunning in Kentucky.
    The amendments, which define marriage as between only a man and a woman, passed overwhelmingly in all 11 states, clearly receiving support from Democrats and independents as well as Republicans. Only in Oregon and Michigan did the amendment receive less than 60 percent of the vote.
    But the ballot measures also appear to have acted like magnets for thousands of socially conservative voters in rural and suburban communities who might not otherwise have voted, even in this heated campaign, political analysts said. And in tight races, those voters — who historically have leaned heavily Republican — may have tipped the balance.

    Bush won Ohio by 136,000. He would have lost but for attacking gay people. That’s what happened.

  89. 89.

    Kay

    May 29, 2023 at 9:46 am

    @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.

  90. 90.

    Baud

    May 29, 2023 at 9:47 am

    @Kay:

    Is talking about Pride or church leaders?

  91. 91.

    Baud

    May 29, 2023 at 9:48 am

    @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.

  92. 92.

    Jackie

    May 29, 2023 at 9:48 am

    Russia issues arrest warrant for Lindsey:

    https://www.cbsnews.com/news/lindsey-graham-russia-arrest-warrant/

  93. 93.

    PAM Dirac

    May 29, 2023 at 9:49 am

    @Frankensteinbeck:

    the default ‘continuing resolution’ state is truly neutral.

     

    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.

  94. 94.

    Frankensteinbeck

    May 29, 2023 at 9:49 am

    @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.

  95. 95.

    Chief Oshkosh

    May 29, 2023 at 9:50 am

    @Anyway:

    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?

    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.

  96. 96.

    Geminid

    May 29, 2023 at 9:53 am

    @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.

  97. 97.

    Kay

    May 29, 2023 at 9:53 am

    @Baud:

    I’m taking about this:

    No one really objected or cared

    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.

  98. 98.

    Dorothy A. Winsor

    May 29, 2023 at 9:55 am

    @Frankensteinbeck: They don’t get an electoral advantage from opposing abortion either, but they still do it. I can’t fathom their thinking.

  99. 99.

    Miss Bianca

    May 29, 2023 at 9:55 am

    @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.

  100. 100.

    Kay

    May 29, 2023 at 9:55 am

    @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.

  101. 101.

    Baud

    May 29, 2023 at 9:55 am

    @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.

  102. 102.

    Kay

    May 29, 2023 at 9:58 am

    @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.

  103. 103.

    Kay

    May 29, 2023 at 10:01 am

    @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.

  104. 104.

    SFAW

    May 29, 2023 at 10:03 am

    @Kay: ​
     

    Bush won Ohio by 136,000. He would have lost but for attacking gay people. That’s what happened.

    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.]

  105. 105.

    rikyrah

    May 29, 2023 at 10:07 am

    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)

  106. 106.

    SFAW

    May 29, 2023 at 10:07 am

    @Kay:

    They should address it and stop worrying about rainbow shirts at Target.

    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.)]

  107. 107.

    Baud

    May 29, 2023 at 10:09 am

    @rikyrah:

    I wonder if anyone will get fired the way Bud Light fired their pro-trans people.

  108. 108.

    geg6

    May 29, 2023 at 10:11 am

    @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.

  109. 109.

    Another Scott

    May 29, 2023 at 10:12 am

    @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.”)

  110. 110.

    rikyrah

    May 29, 2023 at 10:20 am

    @Kay:

    I don’t forget. They put those measures on several state ballots that year😠😠😠

  111. 111.

    Citizen Alan

    May 29, 2023 at 10:20 am

    @OzarkHillbilly: I stand by my belief that jesus will condemn approximately 80% of all American evangelical christians to hell.

  112. 112.

    rikyrah

    May 29, 2023 at 10:23 am

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    Get all that $$$$

    No. They should not be able to profit off of being a traitor😠

  113. 113.

    schrodingers_cat

    May 29, 2023 at 10:23 am

    @Citizen Alan: Only 80%?

  114. 114.

    Kay

    May 29, 2023 at 10:24 am

    @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:

    IN THE JUNE 15, 2006 issue of ROLLING STONE, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. considers this question: Did Bush steal the 2004 election? We’ve posted Kennedy’s piece with Web-only footnotes. Take a look and share your thoughts below.

    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.

  115. 115.

    Kay

    May 29, 2023 at 10:26 am

    @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.

  116. 116.

    Matt McIrvin

    May 29, 2023 at 10:28 am

    @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.

  117. 117.

    Kay

    May 29, 2023 at 10:30 am

    @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.

  118. 118.

    Geminid

    May 29, 2023 at 10:33 am

    @Kay: A few days before the Midterms, a Tale of Two Cities.

    From Portland, Oregon:

        Gotta tell you, I’ve NEVER seen every part of the Left’s coalition, from Yellow Dogs to progressives, rowing in one direction amd it gives me so much hope for 2024.

    Rachel Bitecofer  Nov. 5 2022

    From Minneapolis, Minnesota:

        “Oh well, since there’s nothing we should have done we should do nothing”  -democratic party motto

    ***

    hope Tuesday turns out well but either way, pathetic defeatist loser party tbh

    Will Stancil. Nov. 7, 2022

  119. 119.

    Matt McIrvin

    May 29, 2023 at 10:34 am

    @Kay:

    Bush won Ohio by 136,000. He would have lost but for attacking gay people. That’s what happened.

    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.

  120. 120.

    rikyrah

    May 29, 2023 at 10:34 am

    @Citizen Alan:

    It’s 90%

  121. 121.

    Frankensteinbeck

    May 29, 2023 at 10:36 am

    @Baud:

    I wonder if anyone will get fired the way Bud Light fired their pro-trans people.

    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.

  122. 122.

    rikyrah

    May 29, 2023 at 10:36 am

    @Kay:

    Every week, we get one of those right-wingers arrested for harming children😠

  123. 123.

    schrodingers_cat

    May 29, 2023 at 10:36 am

    @Geminid: Will Stancil hates Democrats but I am not so sure that he is representative of the Mn Democrats.

  124. 124.

    sab

    May 29, 2023 at 10:39 am

    @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.

  125. 125.

    schrodingers_cat

    May 29, 2023 at 10:39 am

    @rikyrah: From my anecdata people who wear their religion (whatever religion that may be) on their sleeve are usually full of hate and hypocrisy.

  126. 126.

    JWR

    May 29, 2023 at 10:43 am

    @Chief Oshkosh:

    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.

    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.

  127. 127.

    Geminid

    May 29, 2023 at 10:43 am

    @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.

  128. 128.

    Matt McIrvin

    May 29, 2023 at 10:44 am

    @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.

  129. 129.

    Kay

    May 29, 2023 at 10:45 am

    @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.

  130. 130.

    Kay

    May 29, 2023 at 10:45 am

    @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.

  131. 131.

    Spanky

    May 29, 2023 at 10:46 am

    @schrodingers_cat: They don’t wear their religion on their sleeve, they wield it as a club.

  132. 132.

    Matt McIrvin

    May 29, 2023 at 10:48 am

    @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!

  133. 133.

    Citizen Alan

    May 29, 2023 at 10:48 am

    @schrodingers_cat: Twenty percent of evangelical christians voted for hillary. I assume that makes them at least tolerable.

  134. 134.

    Anyway

    May 29, 2023 at 10:50 am

    @sab:

    Imam bored or frustrated with MSNBC then ESPN it is. I used to think of CNN as the bland neutrl alternative.

    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.

  135. 135.

    Geminid

    May 29, 2023 at 10:50 am

    @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.

  136. 136.

    Kay

    May 29, 2023 at 10:51 am

    @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.

  137. 137.

    Kay

    May 29, 2023 at 10:53 am

    @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.

  138. 138.

    Brachiator

    May 29, 2023 at 10:56 am

    @Frankensteinbeck:

    RE: The Republicans got to veto parts of already passed legislation. They got a second pass and effectively a line item veto.

    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.

    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.

  139. 139.

    Kay

    May 29, 2023 at 10:56 am

    @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.

  140. 140.

    Eolirin

    May 29, 2023 at 10:58 am

    @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.

  141. 141.

    Kay

    May 29, 2023 at 10:59 am

    @Geminid:

    like another Brian Buetler.

    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.

  142. 142.

    zhena gogolia

    May 29, 2023 at 11:02 am

    @Kay: Then he shouldn’t dump on them publicly.

  143. 143.

    Kay

    May 29, 2023 at 11:03 am

    @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 :)

  144. 144.

    schrodingers_cat

    May 29, 2023 at 11:03 am

    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.

  145. 145.

    OverTwistWillie

    May 29, 2023 at 11:04 am

    Well you hate to see politics, especially in a town like D.C.

  146. 146.

    Eolirin

    May 29, 2023 at 11:04 am

    @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.

  147. 147.

    Geminid

    May 29, 2023 at 11:05 am

    @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.

  148. 148.

    gene108

    May 29, 2023 at 11:05 am

    @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

  149. 149.

    Chief Oshkosh

    May 29, 2023 at 11:09 am

    @JWR: What did the Dem negotiator say when asked if everyone was to blame?

  150. 150.

    OverTwistWillie

    May 29, 2023 at 11:09 am

    Gerontocracy?

    Brandon’s been doing this a long time. He –might– have learned a few things along the way.

  151. 151.

    Eolirin

    May 29, 2023 at 11:10 am

    @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.

  152. 152.

    Geminid

    May 29, 2023 at 11:10 am

    @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.

  153. 153.

    Matt McIrvin

    May 29, 2023 at 11:12 am

    @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.”

  154. 154.

    mvr

    May 29, 2023 at 11:13 am

    @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!”

    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.

  155. 155.

    Eolirin

    May 29, 2023 at 11:14 am

    @Kay: They never care about consistency because they don’t care about truth, they care about advantage.

  156. 156.

    brendancalling

    May 29, 2023 at 11:14 am

    @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.

  157. 157.

    Eolirin

    May 29, 2023 at 11:15 am

    @mvr: https://www.gocomics.com/DOONESBURY

  158. 158.

    Jackie

    May 29, 2023 at 11:17 am

    @Another Scott: CNN’s holding two more town halls (so far) with Haley and Pence – both surely guaranteed to help insomniacs sleep.

  159. 159.

    Sure Lurkalot

    May 29, 2023 at 11:19 am

    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?

  160. 160.

    JWR

    May 29, 2023 at 11:20 am

    @rikyrah:

    In the weeks after the former president appeared on #CNN, the network’s ratings have plummeted…

    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.

  161. 161.

    davecb

    May 29, 2023 at 11:21 am

    @OzarkHillbilly wrote 

    “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.​

    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.

  162. 162.

    Jinchi

    May 29, 2023 at 11:27 am

    Congress has only days to approve a package that would avert a potentially disastrous U.S. default.

    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.

  163. 163.

    mvr

    May 29, 2023 at 11:28 am

    @Eolirin: Thanks! Does this mean he’s back to doing it daily? For a while all I could find were the longer Sunday comics.

  164. 164.

    Ken

    May 29, 2023 at 11:28 am

    @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!

  165. 165.

    Omnes Omnibus

    May 29, 2023 at 11:28 am

    Without getting too meta here, if someone can criticize the Democratic Party, others should be able to criticize their critique.

  166. 166.

    Ken

    May 29, 2023 at 11:29 am

    @Jinchi: we’ve seen Congress act extremely quickly when it really wants to

    Yes, but this isn’t a bill to raise their pay, or a motion to adjourn for a six-week holiday.

  167. 167.

    Kay

    May 29, 2023 at 11:29 am

    @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.

  168. 168.

    Another Scott

    May 29, 2023 at 11:31 am

    @brendancalling:

    The political press reporting on this is kinda amazing. Something for everyone! E.g. RollCall.com:

    All told, nondefense funding outside of veterans medical care would be cut by about $42 billion or 7 percent below this year, to $583 billion. But in reality, appropriators are allowed several additions outside of the caps that help make up the difference and keep funding roughly flat from this year.

    The bill provides offsets for higher fiscal 2024 spending by clawing back some $28 billion in unspent pandemic relief, plus $1.4 billion in mandatory IRS funds appropriated for this year in the 2022 budget reconciliation law. Then there’s an informal understanding that another $10 billion of the mandatory IRS funding would be repurposed in each of fiscal 2024 and 2025.

    Overall, the White House estimates nondefense, non-veterans spending would total $637 billion in fiscal 2024 after “agreed-upon adjustments.” That’s just $1 billion lower than the comparable figure this current fiscal year, officials said.

    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.

  169. 169.

    Jinchi

    May 29, 2023 at 11:32 am

    @The Thin Black Duke: That will happen when the Democrats have the House, the Senate and the Presidency.

    Plus replacements for Manchin and Sinema.

  170. 170.

    gene108

    May 29, 2023 at 11:34 am

    @Kay:

    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.

    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.

  171. 171.

    Eolirin

    May 29, 2023 at 11:34 am

    @mvr: Looks like it.

  172. 172.

    Michael Bersin

    May 29, 2023 at 11:36 am

    @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

  173. 173.

    Geminid

    May 29, 2023 at 11:37 am

    @Kay: I think these groups are on the same side too. I just think one is more constructive than the other.

  174. 174.

    Jinchi

    May 29, 2023 at 11:37 am

    @Ken: I suggest… the Platinum Non-Fungible Token. Put all the US debt on the blockchain!

    Brilliant idea.  And if a power surge caused all the servers to fail …. the debt’s gone completely.

  175. 175.

    gene108

    May 29, 2023 at 11:37 am

    @Eolirin:

    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.

    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.

  176. 176.

    JWR

    May 29, 2023 at 11:40 am

    @Chief Oshkosh:

    What did the Dem negotiator say when asked if everyone was to blame?

    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!

  177. 177.

    Kay

    May 29, 2023 at 11:42 am

    @gene108:

    I was surprised this one didn’t get more attention:

    A bombshell, third-party investigation into decades of alleged misconduct by Southern Baptist leaders was released Sunday, nearly a year after 15,000 SBC church delegates demanded their executive committee turn over confidential documents and communications as part of an independent review of abuse reports that were purportedly mishandled or concealed since 2000.

    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.

  178. 178.

    Geminid

    May 29, 2023 at 11:45 am

    @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.

  179. 179.

    gene108

    May 29, 2023 at 11:46 am

    @Matt McIrvin:

    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 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.

  180. 180.

    gene108

    May 29, 2023 at 11:48 am

    @Kay:

    I don’t know why the SBC sexual abuse allegations didn’t get more attention, either.

  181. 181.

    OverTwistWillie

    May 29, 2023 at 11:49 am

    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….

  182. 182.

    Eolirin

    May 29, 2023 at 11:50 am

    @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.

  183. 183.

    Miss Bianca

    May 29, 2023 at 11:51 am

    @gene108:

    If this notion took hold, they could no longer justify their bigotry.

    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!

  184. 184.

    Eolirin

    May 29, 2023 at 11:53 am

    @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.

  185. 185.

    Another Scott

    May 29, 2023 at 11:59 am

    @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:

    What changed Reno’s mind? The implication in the main body of the Justice Department report on Waco is that the documented statement Reno had requested from the F.B.I. somehow swayed her, because after receiving it she began discussing the rules of engagement with Sessions, Clarke, and Potts, but a footnote in the report notes that Reno “did not read the prepared statement carefully, nor did she read the supporting documentation provided along with her statement. She [merely] satisfied herself that ‘the documentation was there.'” It subsequently became clear that Reno’s decision to approve the plan was influenced by her belief that there was ongoing child abuse inside the Davidian compound. The F.B.I.’s briefing book on the Waco situation, which was compiled that final weekend, mentioned allegations by former Davidians and by psychiatrists of child abuse by Koresh–his belief that even girls in their early teens were potential “wives” and the Davidians’ practice of corporal punishment–but there was no evidence of ongoing abuse. However, sometime during the week of meetings with Reno, in which F.B.I. officials were addressing her reservations about an assault, someone from the Bureau had told Reno that children inside the compound were being abused. The Justice chronology reports that “someone had made a comment in one of the meetings that Koresh was beating babies.” Reno had pressed that official (“I double-checked it,” she later said), and got “the clear impression that, at some point since the F.B.I. had assumed command and control for the situation, they had learned that the Branch Davidians were beating babies.”

    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.

  186. 186.

    bbleh

    May 29, 2023 at 12:01 pm

    @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).

  187. 187.

    Jackie

    May 29, 2023 at 12:05 pm

    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 😂

  188. 188.

    Jackie

    May 29, 2023 at 12:12 pm

    @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!”🤮

  189. 189.

    trollhattan

    May 29, 2023 at 12:15 pm

    @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.​

  190. 190.

    Geminid

    May 29, 2023 at 12:17 pm

    @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.

  191. 191.

    trollhattan

    May 29, 2023 at 12:20 pm

    @Jackie: ​Clothes? How about sidewalks?

    Complaints and a threat of a protest led to the removal of a rainbow crosswalk created by students at an elementary school in Davis to celebrate LGBTQ+ Pride Month. Students in a Montessori education class at Birch Lane Elementary School created the crosswalk on Tuesday as part of an art project, said Mara Seaton, an employee in the school’s counseling office.

    The city sponsors the Pride Festival event each June to celebrate LGBTQ+ culture and its community, which includes the creation of rainbow crosswalks in designated intersections. Now, there are some who fear an uproar over Birch Lane’s crosswalk will lead to protests as volunteers try to paint city-sponsored Davis Pride rainbow crosswalks around Central Park. Seaton said the Birch Lane Elementary students used chalk paint Tuesday to create the rainbow crosswalk just outside their school. The crosswalk was removed Friday by the city’s public works department.

    “We really wanted to show that this is an inclusive school,” Seaton said. “Obviously, it’s a symbol of inclusion that they want to wash away.”

    Trouble started when the parent of a former Birch Lane student complained to school officials about the Pride symbol. Seaton was told that the parent argued that allowing a rainbow crosswalk would give white supremacists the right to paint a Nazi swastika on a crosswalk. Seaton bristled at the parent’s attempt to equate the two symbols.

    https://www.sacbee.com/news/local/article275835371.html#storylink=cpy

    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.

  192. 192.

    gene108

    May 29, 2023 at 12:25 pm

    @Jinchi:

    Plus replacements for Manchin

    The replacement for Sen. Manchin will be a Republican.

  193. 193.

    Captain C

    May 29, 2023 at 12:26 pm

    @Jackie: I guess Linz won’t be joining his Republican colleagues in Moscow this 4th of July.

  194. 194.

    bbleh

    May 29, 2023 at 12:26 pm

    @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!

  195. 195.

    Omnes Omnibus

    May 29, 2023 at 12:31 pm

    @gene108: Maybe in WV, but numbers in the Senate can be made up from any state.

  196. 196.

    Captain C

    May 29, 2023 at 12:31 pm

    @rikyrah:

    Every week day, we get one of those right-wingers arrested for harming children😠

    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.

  197. 197.

    bbleh

    May 29, 2023 at 12:31 pm

    @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.

  198. 198.

    Dorothy A. Winsor

    May 29, 2023 at 12:36 pm

    @trollhattan: I knew there was something wrong with The Reading Rainbow!//

  199. 199.

    mvr

    May 29, 2023 at 12:36 pm

    @Eolirin: That’s good news! Thanks!

  200. 200.

    Geminid

    May 29, 2023 at 12:37 pm

    @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.

  201. 201.

    Jackie

    May 29, 2023 at 12:41 pm

    @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. 😡

  202. 202.

    trollhattan

    May 29, 2023 at 12:45 pm

    Think your commute is bad?

    https://twitter.com/clashreport/status/1663152867220267008?cxt=HHwWgICxnZKu2pQuAAAA

  203. 203.

    trollhattan

    May 29, 2023 at 12:46 pm

    @Jackie: ​Right? And former parent, since the kid is no longer at the school. I’d be furious–tyranny of the minority at work.

  204. 204.

    Jackie

    May 29, 2023 at 12:48 pm

    @Captain C: Any GQPers stupid enough to go will be detained and held for ransom 🙏🏼 🙏🏼 🙏🏼

  205. 205.

    Geminid

    May 29, 2023 at 12:50 pm

    @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.

  206. 206.

    Frankensteinbeck

    May 29, 2023 at 12:57 pm

    @JWR:

    “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”.

    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:

    Manchin may win reelection

    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.

  207. 207.

    JWR

    May 29, 2023 at 1:01 pm

    @Jackie:
    @trollhattan:

     ​Right? And former parent, since the kid is no longer at the school.

    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.)

  208. 208.

    rikyrah

    May 29, 2023 at 1:07 pm

     

    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

  209. 209.

    Brachiator

    May 29, 2023 at 1:07 pm

    @Eolirin:

    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.

    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.

    Potential economic consequences of default include: recession and a sharp rise in unemployment; chaos in financial markets; and lasting damage to U.S. leadership in the global economy.

    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.

  210. 210.

    Chris T.

    May 29, 2023 at 1:12 pm

    @Jinchi:

    Brilliant idea. And if a power surge caused all the servers to fail …. the debt’s gone completely.

    “Sorry, we had a ransomeware attack, nobody gets any social security this month and the Pentagon is disbanded!”

    (Do I need a /s ?)

  211. 211.

    Frankensteinbeck

    May 29, 2023 at 1:13 pm

    @Brachiator:

    You are entirely discussing what theoretically was going to be decided and ignoring the actual results.

    So we get along with spending resolutions.

    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.

  212. 212.

    rikyrah

    May 29, 2023 at 1:16 pm

    When your are at your Prom and your School Principal is a Que Dog 😂😂😂

     

    https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZTRoLEXkr/?t=1

  213. 213.

    JaySinWA

    May 29, 2023 at 1:19 pm

    @Jackie:

    I believe most major clothing retailers sell Pride merchandise so these idiotic imbeciles are doomed to boycott ALL clothing stores 😂

    The anti-gay nude protests should be interesting.

  214. 214.

    M31

    May 29, 2023 at 1:21 pm

    maybe Target could appease everyone by making “Fuck Your Feelings” onesies

  215. 215.

    Geminid

    May 29, 2023 at 1:24 pm

    @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.

  216. 216.

    Steeplejack

    May 29, 2023 at 1:24 pm

    Excellent thread about what the right really wants—an outlet for their rage.

    If you’re a corporate marketing officer concerned over what’s happening with Target, let me make something abundantly clear: you will never appease anti-LGBTQ extremists. They don’t want *some* concessions. They want all of them. But there’s a colder truth at play here.

    (thread)

    — Charlotte Clymer 🇺🇦 (@cmclymer) May 25, 2023

  217. 217.

    Sister Golden Bear

    May 29, 2023 at 1:25 pm

    @Kay:

    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”.

    These are exactly same arguments made by Anita Bryant, the 1979 Briggs Initiative in CA, and many, many Republicans prior to that.

    @Baud:

    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.

    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.

  218. 218.

    gene108

    May 29, 2023 at 1:35 pm

    @Kay:
    @gene108:

    I don’t know why the SBC sexual abuse allegations didn’t get more attention, either

    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.

  219. 219.

    kindness

    May 29, 2023 at 1:39 pm

    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.

  220. 220.

    Sister Golden Bear

    May 29, 2023 at 1:42 pm

    @gene108:

    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.

    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.

  221. 221.

    japa21

    May 29, 2023 at 1:43 pm

    @kindness: ​
     

    Like I say though, I could be a bit twisted.

    You are at BJ after all. Being twisted is somewhat of a requirement.

  222. 222.

    Brachiator

    May 29, 2023 at 1:45 pm

    @Frankensteinbeck:

    Your ‘line item veto’ claim isn’t even theory, it’s imaginary…

    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.

  223. 223.

    trollhattan

    May 29, 2023 at 1:49 pm

    @Brachiator: ​Rebranded as a “claw back.” IDK how it works mechanically.

  224. 224.

    artem1s

    May 29, 2023 at 1:51 pm

    @satby: ​
     

    That explanation on TPM makes some sense,

    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.

  225. 225.

    Sister Golden Bear

    May 29, 2023 at 1:51 pm

    @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.

    This is demonstrative. Many transphobes were “fine” with trans women in the sense that they tolerated our existence if we were quarantined off from public life, but made available for sex, which they want from us. What they hate is us participating in society as equals https://t.co/STkshHbqlp
    — Cassie Pritchard (again) (@hecubian_devil) May 24, 2023

     

    This is the problem also with respectability politics for trans women. We can’t ever be respectable enough for transphobes, because they don’t *want* us to be respected! They want us to live in the shadows, to be exploitable for sex on demand but otherwise invisible

    This isn’t only true of trans women. This is the conception of many hyper-exploitable populations being demonized right now. Undocumented immigrants, for example. The hegemonic group wants them to be forced into invisibility *until* exploited for below-market wage labor

    Homeless people, prisoners, undocumented people, trans people (and obviously these groups overlap). All are targeted right now by eliminationist rhetoric and policies because society is only ok with us existing in secret until called upon to perform hyper-exploited labor

    Part of this is disgust, but also dovetailing with how being consigned to second-class citizenship *makes* and *keeps* us hyper-exploitable. If we have the same options as everyone else then we are no longer at the mercy of those who want our labor

    The point is that making us pariahs is what keeps us cheap, accessible, and powerless. The disgust has a purpose. They need to designate certain groups as untouchables in order to maintain an economy of extraction

    So yes, it’s no surprise that many transphobes “didn’t care” until we started showing up in sports, media, politics, business, education. Because they believe our sole value to society and the only justification for our existence is as a resource supply for their pleasure

    They’d rather eliminate us than let us live as full, equal human beings in public life, because they believe our correct and natural state of existence is as consumable objects. Objects aren’t people. They can’t let us be people.

    This is why the rhetorical focus of transphobia tends to land on 1) public figures 2) trans women deemed unfit for sexual exploitation by cis people (due to appearance, age, sexual orientation, whatever). We’re the ones who break the social contract.

    Cis people will suffer us to live only if we’re fuckable in a physical *and* political sense. We have to be *economically* fuckable. We have to be in a position with no other options. That’s what they demand, in exchange for our lives.

    So yeah this is why you see such a big overlap in chasers and transphobes—or for that matter why any type of bigot is often laced with a *consumptive* type of affinity for their targets. They usually prefer us exploited to dead, but prefer us dead rather than free

    This is why you can’t compromise on bodily autonomy. This is why you can’t compromise, period, with fascists and bigots and theocrats. They want you to bargain away your personhood, your options, your dignity, at gunpoint. It’s just violent extortion.

    There is no middle ground here that’s acceptable to them. If they ever compromise, it’s only because they’re momentarily weak and they’ll just bide their time until they have a chance to try to force you back into un-personhood. You can’t share society with these people

    For God’s sake, look at the battle over anti-Blackness if you want to understand this. These fuckers lost an entire civil war and they still just come back whenever they have a chance to try to retrench racial hierarchy. It’s an endless tug of war.

    You’ll never be able to share a society with people who fundamentally do not view you as entitled to human status. Who see you only as a resource, as fuel for their consumption. They’re cannibals and you’d be insane to try to live with cannibals.

    In the end we’ll only be safe if we can take control of the political and social apparatuses with the power to suppress that cannibalism. We will never be able to bargain, compromise, co-exist. You can’t live in harmony with predators that want to eat you alive.

  226. 226.

    Another Scott

    May 29, 2023 at 1:54 pm

    @Brachiator:

    Congress can always change the budget – Article 1 and all that.

    Repost: Whitehouse.gov:

    Q Thanks for the call. What do you estimate to be the net deficit reduction from this agreement?

    And then, on the IRS cuts in particular, the document that [moderator] has passed out says $10 billion in FY24, $10 billion from FY25. But isn’t that sort of a complete rollback of the funding that came in from IRA for those two fiscal years? I was hoping to get a little bit more clarity there.

    WHITE HOUSE OFFICIAL: I’ll start on the second.

    So, no, the $80 billion appropriation in the Inflation Reduction Act was a 10-year appropriation. So it’s not as if the IRS was appropriated $10 billion for one year, $10 billion for the next, et cetera. So the CBO then estimated how much it thought the IRS would spend over that 10-year period. But it — that is, you know, 10-year money, and so the IRS will continue to be able to spend that, you know, remaining 60, and spend that over the course of the next several years.

    You know, on the question of what that means going forward, you know, it might be the case that, you know, in six, seven, eight years, there would be a need to come back and ask for more IRS funding, just as there was going to be a need to do that after the 10-year window anyway. So we don’t think it’ll fundamentally change what the IRS does over the course of the next few years.

    And on the second, we don’t have a score yet. The discretionary savings are likely to be, you know, in the $1 trillion or higher range, but we’ll have to wait for the CBO score.

    […]

    And then, on the second, look, you know, I think part of — part of what you’ll see is that — on the IRS — is that, you know, the IRS commissioner has said, and we’ve noted, that, you know, because of the structure of the IRA — where the IRS funding was 10-year funding, and it’s not as if you’re taking 2024 or 2025 money from the IRS — we don’t believe in the near term that anything will need to change. Obviously, that’s something that will play out over the next year or two.

    And, obviously, you know, I think it’s worth noting that the enforcement — every enforcement dollar that we invest in the IRS, obviously, there’s a real return there to the taxpayer, and enabling that agency to crack down on tax evasion and to crack down on folks at the top of the income distribution, who are not paying what they’re legally supposed to pay.

    So this is a — this is a big priority for the President. We think the IRS will continue to be able to effectuate its plans in the near term, and then there may be a need to come back to Congress and ask for additional funding.

    (Emphasis added.)

    FWIW.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  227. 227.

    japa21

    May 29, 2023 at 1:54 pm

    @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.

  228. 228.

    PAM Dirac

    May 29, 2023 at 1:59 pm

    @Brachiator:

    The negotiated reduction in IRS funding gave the GOP a line item veto over already passed legislation.

    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.

  229. 229.

    prostratedragon

    May 29, 2023 at 2:05 pm

    “Banner,” by Jessie Montgomery; Chamber Orchestra of the Springs.

  230. 230.

    SFAW

    May 29, 2023 at 2:06 pm

    @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.

  231. 231.

    Captain C

    May 29, 2023 at 2:14 pm

    @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!”

  232. 232.

    Chris T.

    May 29, 2023 at 2:17 pm

    @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”.

  233. 233.

    lowtechcyclist

    May 29, 2023 at 2:18 pm

    @Dorothy A. Winsor:

    I’m partial to this version:

    Jimmy Fallon Does Jim Morrison=The Doors.. HD ..Reading Rainbow. – YouTube

  234. 234.

    lowtechcyclist

    May 29, 2023 at 2:25 pm

    @Steeplejack:

    To riff off of Al Capp, they’re Seditionists Wildly Indignant about Nearly Everything.

  235. 235.

    Another Scott

    May 29, 2023 at 2:30 pm

    @Chris T.: You’re right, but it’s more than that.

    IRS Strategic Operating Plan was just released on April 6, 2023:

    […]

    Each objective will be accomplished through specific initiatives outlined in the plan. The plan contains 42 initiatives designed to achieve IRS goals, each of which includes multiple key projects and milestones to measure progress. The plan covers more than 190 key projects and more than 200 specific milestones. The IRS will identify additional projects and milestones as work continues. The number of projects and milestones will grow significantly over time as the plan evolves to meet the needs of the nation and tax administration.

    For each milestone, the plan includes specific timeframes based on year.

    Following passage of the law last August, the IRS embarked on this effort to identify the highest-priority opportunities to deliver transformational change. In addition to working with the Department of the Treasury, the IRS received input from tax professionals, partner groups inside and outside of the tax community, taxpayer groups, IRS federal advisory groups and IRS employees. The planning process also built on prior IRS efforts that received feedback, including the Taxpayer First Act Report to Congress.

    In addition to the efforts outlined in the plan, the Inflation Reduction Act is already making a difference for taxpayers and tax professionals during the 2023 filing season.

    “People can see the first signs of change this filing season following this infusion of funding,” Werfel said. “Taxpayers and tax professionals can see the difference as we have dramatically improved our phone service thanks to more staff. More walk-in services are available across the country. New digital tools have been added. And these are just first steps.”

    […]

    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.

  236. 236.

    Dorothy A. Winsor

    May 29, 2023 at 2:31 pm

    @lowtechcyclist: That’s probably what started the whole rainbow terror.

  237. 237.

    JWR

    May 29, 2023 at 2:34 pm

    @Another Scott:

    So, no, the $80 billion appropriation in the Inflation Reduction Act was a 10-year appropriation. So it’s not as if the IRS was appropriated $10 billion for one year, $10 billion for the next, et cetera.

    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?

  238. 238.

    Miss Bianca

    May 29, 2023 at 2:35 pm

    @Steeplejack: That is, indeed, an excellent thread – thanks for sharing it.

  239. 239.

    bbleh

    May 29, 2023 at 2:40 pm

    @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’.

  240. 240.

    Kelly

    May 29, 2023 at 2:44 pm

    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?

  241. 241.

    Another Scott

    May 29, 2023 at 2:53 pm

    @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).

    15 DIVISION D—INCREASE IN DEBT
    16 LIMIT
    17 SEC. 401. TEMPORARY EXTENSION OF PUBLIC DEBT LIMIT.
    18 (a) IN GENERAL.—Section 3101(b) of title 31,
    19 United States Code, shall not apply for the period begin-
    20 ning on the date of the enactment of this Act and ending
    21 on January 1, 2025.
    22 (b) SPECIAL RULE RELATING TO OBLIGATIONS
    23 ISSUED DURING EXTENSION PERIOD.—Effective on Jan-
    24 uary 2, 2025, the limitation in effect under section
    1 3101(b) of title 31, United States Code, shall be increased
    2 to the extent that—
    3 (1) the face amount of obligations issued under
    4 chapter 31 of such title and the face amount of obli-
    5 gations whose principal and interest are guaranteed
    6 by the United States Government (except guaran-
    7 teed obligations held by the Secretary of the Treas-
    8 ury) outstanding on January 2, 2025, exceeds
    9 (2) the face amount of such obligations out-
    10 standing on the date of the enactment of this Act.
    11 (c) RESTORING CONGRESSIONAL AUTHORITY OVER
    12 THE NATIONAL DEBT.—
    13 (1) EXTENSION LIMITED TO NECESSARY OBLI-
    14 GATIONS.—An obligation shall not be taken into ac-
    15 count under subsection (b)(1) unless the issuance of
    16 such obligation was necessary to fund a commitment
    17 incurred pursuant to law by the Federal Government
    18 that required payment before January 2, 2025.
    19 (2) PROHIBITION ON CREATION OF CASH RE-
    20 SERVE DURING EXTENSION PERIOD.—The Secretary
    21 of the Treasury shall not issue obligations during
    22 the period specified in subsection (a) for the purpose
    23 of increasing the cash balance above normal oper-
    24 ating balances in anticipation of the expiration of
    25 such period.

    (Sorry about the weird formatting. Lawyers…)

    HTH!

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  242. 242.

    The Thin Black Duke

    May 29, 2023 at 2:57 pm

    @Sister Golden Bear: This is fucking brilliant. Thanks for sharing.

  243. 243.

    Brachiator

    May 29, 2023 at 3:07 pm

    @Another Scott:

    This is probably the key part.

    You know, on the question of what that means going forward, you know, it might be the case that, you know, in six, seven, eight years, there would be a need to come back and ask for more IRS funding, just as there was going to be a need to do that after the 10-year window anyway. So we don’t think it’ll fundamentally change what the IRS does over the course of the next few years.

    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.

  244. 244.

    artem1s

    May 29, 2023 at 3:07 pm

    @Kay: ​
     

    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.

    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.

  245. 245.

    Chris T.

    May 29, 2023 at 3:08 pm

    @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…

  246. 246.

    zhena gogolia

    May 29, 2023 at 3:23 pm

    @Steeplejack: Excellent. She’s always good.

  247. 247.

    Frankensteinbeck

    May 29, 2023 at 3:45 pm

    @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.

  248. 248.

    Brachiator

    May 29, 2023 at 3:56 pm

    @Sister Golden Bear:

    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.

    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.

  249. 249.

    Brachiator

    May 29, 2023 at 4:13 pm

    @PAM Dirac:

    So passage of this law will guarantee Biden complete control to avoid a debt default for the rest of his first term.

    Yep. This is a pretty big deal, I think. And Republicans are unhappy about it, which makes me glad.

  250. 250.

    Sister Golden Bear

    May 29, 2023 at 4:29 pm

    @Dorothy A. Winsor:

    : That’s probably what started the whole rainbow terror.

    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.

  251. 251.

    Ken

    May 29, 2023 at 4:37 pm

    @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…

  252. 252.

    Sister Golden Bear

    May 29, 2023 at 4:37 pm

    @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  

  253. 253.

    Ruckus

    May 29, 2023 at 4:45 pm

    @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.

  254. 254.

    Baud

    May 29, 2023 at 4:45 pm

    @Sister Golden Bear:

    dudes always assume that the lesbians on screen would welcome them into a threesome.

     
    You can’t prove that they wouldn’t.

  255. 255.

    BellyCat

    May 29, 2023 at 4:50 pm

    @Jackie: This.

  256. 256.

    brantl

    May 29, 2023 at 5:20 pm

    @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.

  257. 257.

    Ruckus

    May 29, 2023 at 6:43 pm

    @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.

  258. 258.

    Ruckus

    May 29, 2023 at 6:54 pm

    @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.

  259. 259.

    Kay

    May 29, 2023 at 7:10 pm

    @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.

  260. 260.

    Citizen Alan

    May 29, 2023 at 7:26 pm

    @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.

  261. 261.

    Citizen Alan

    May 29, 2023 at 7:29 pm

    @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.

  262. 262.

    Citizen Alan

    May 29, 2023 at 7:39 pm

    @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.

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