Just a quick post to point out why Jeffries was against whatever debt ceiling change that the R’s were going to propose. As many of you have pointed out, it would be nice to get rid of the debt ceiling. That’s not the proposal. It’s a total shit sandwich, without the bread:
Reconciliation has a whole bunch of special rules, including that it isn’t subject to the filibuster in the Senate.
Also the last thing I saw said that Pastor Mike has cooked up some fantasmagorical three vote plan that requires cooperation of the Rules Committee, so he can bring a bill to the floor for a majority vote. Remember that MyKevin packed Rules with fanatics, so it’s unlikely that they want to vote a bill out to the floor that isn’t pure artisanal right wing shit. Also, the good Rev Speaker loses at least 30 of his caucus on any bill that isn’t naming a post office. If something’s going to pass, it’s probably going to have to be under suspension, with Democratic votes.
Democratic Party – ‘Strong Bones, But We Need More Muscle on Those Bones’
PsiFighter37
I am flying to Australia tomorrow with my family for winter break…am sure that getting through security tomorrow is going to be even less pleasant than usual.
If I were Democrats, I would force the Republicans to pass what they agreed upon, or they can simply deal with things being shut down when Cheeto enters office. That’ll be a great look for them. Jeffries better be playing with real knives this time and not butter knifes.
hrprogressive
These people really gonna try and blow up the government before President Musk even gets to Inauguration Day.
laura
They want Our Earned Benefits so bad, because riches beyond riches is just not enough. Fuck these fucking shite-bags and their amoral monster owners!
J. Arthur Crank
Is it Revered Johnson or Pastor Johnson? I don’t want to disrespect a man of the cloth, so I want to be proper when I say “fuck _________ Johnson and his horse that he rode in on.”
PsiFighter37
Also – and I know this would hurt a lot of people – I actually do want to see the GOP decrease Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid benefits. Grabbing a bunch of third rails full-on is the only way to wake up the cultists who are being spoon-fed conspiracy theory BS 24/7. It would be the easiest way for Democrats to make up tons of ground amongst the white working class very quickly, so long as Democratic strategists who have been insulated far too long in the DC/NY/CA bubble don’t get their hands on the messaging.
Baud
I’m no parliamentarian, but I don’t think increasing the debt limit is eligible for reconciliation.
J. Arthur Crank
@PsiFighter37:
Well, you are either 6 months early or 6 months late, given that I today is the first day of summer there.
Old School
Is the agreement amongst Republicans?
Also, I thought one of the rules of reconciliation was that it was limited to one per year as it is meant for the annual budget. “First reconciliation package” would seem to indicate they plan more than one.
Steve LaBonne
@Baud: Well then you’re fired, and we’re replacing you with one who does think that.
Baud
@Old School:
I believe Dems did it twice to get past Republican filibuster.
Baud
@Steve LaBonne:
A real possibility.
@mistermix.bsky.social
@Baud:
From that first tweet, I think the plan is:
So the reconciliation part doesn’t touch the debt ceiling
Edited to add: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reconciliation_(United_States_Congress)#:~:text=The%20procedure%20overrides%20the%20Senate's,president's%20as%20the%20tie%2Dbreaker.
Baud
@@mistermix.bsky.social:
Thanks.
Steve LaBonne
@Old School: Up to 3, one each concerning revenue, spending, and (sorry Baud) the debt limit.
Baud
@Steve LaBonne:
From your link
Glory b
@PsiFighter37: I don’t know.
Again, I recommend the book “Dying of Whiteness: How the Politics of Racial Resentment is Killing America’s Heartland,” by Jonathan Metzl.
Steve LaBonne
@Baud: The “after 10 years” bit is why the Trump tax cuts are set to expire next year (of course they won the election so they’ll get extended).
KatKapCC
@PsiFighter37: And the people who didn’t vote for them who would suffer because of this? Are you gonna pay their bills? Buy their groceries? Let them move in with you if they get kicked out of their homes?
Baud
@Steve LaBonne:
I was thinking about the Social security limit.
Scott S.
@J. Arthur Crank:
🤣
laura
@PsiFighter37: I actually do want to see the GOP decrease Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid benefits.
As “an old” I would like you to be aware of the sleepless nights I’m already enjoying at the prospect of your dream come true. I appreciate that you restrained yourself from wishing us death in a burning down house as well, so thanks for that.
Gretchen
@Glory b: Yes, that’s a must-read book. But what I got out of it is that the cultists are impossible to wake up, like the guy who chose dying of kidney cancer over taking Obamacare. If Republicans cut their social security and tell them the democrats did it, they’ll blame democrats and double down on voting Republican.
@PsiFighter37
Steve LaBonne
@laura: Co-signed.
PsiFighter37
@KatKapCC: @laura: I’d like you to tell me any other way that the formerly somewhat-rational people of flyover country will be convinced to vote Democratic otherwise. At this point, shock therapy of the worst kind is the only way that is going to do it. Just my cold, hard two cents.
And yes, it’s not fair for the many millions of people who didn’t vote that way. I don’t know what to say except that I acknowledge it, and that we Democrats will fight it tooth and nail. But if the plurality of this country wants end-stage capitalist looting of social welfare programs, then we should get it – and then we can go about setting up a better solution for the generations down the road when 55-60% of this country realizes that President Musk, Vice President Thiel and the rest of the oligarchic crowd don’t give two shits about them, no matter how many brown people get deported.
Old School
@@mistermix.bsky.social: @Steve LaBonne:
Thanks!
frosty
@J. Arthur Crank: @PsiFighter37: The proper description of this break is Snowbird Trip. Then you can go wherever you want, any hemisphere, so long as its warmer there than it is where you are.
JML
Of course, they’re coming for social security and medicare/medicaid. these have been massively successful government programs that have kept people out of poverty and allowed for millions to have a retirement (not luxurious, for many not even comfortable, and for far too many it simply meant they could actually retire and not end up on the streets, rather than work until they died) so god knows the billionaire class can’t allow that shit to stay in place. How will the serfs know their place if the government might actually take care of them for a change? How can they dismantle everything in the federal government except defense under the guise of “government programs don’t work” if social security is still standing out there working incredibly well with better efficiency than any private system can dream of?
I’m sure this is all the Democrats fault somehow, right?
H.E.Wolf
I’m a hard no, on proposals that start off like that.
Children relying on Medicaid – to take just one demographic – are not our toys to smash, to teach some other group a lesson.
The most charitable description of anyone who proposes hurting lots of people is “un-empathetic”. Ebeneezer Scrooge is a memorable fictional character for a reason.
(“Are there no prisons? Are there no workhouses?”)
Trivia Man
@PsiFighter37: so optimistic
The felon was a shrug, i expect shrugs till there ate bodies piled up like cordwood in the streets
Gretchen
@PsiFighter37: You think the Fox viewers who think Chinese drones are invading Newark and Venezuelan gangs have taken over Denver are going to correctly attribute exactly why their Social Security checks are smaller? They’ll be told that the money was spent on hotel rooms for illegal immigrants, Donald Trump will fix it, and they’ll believe it.
I know an older Fox viewer, bright guy who was CIO of large companies, who was honestly scared to visit his son in Denver because of the Venezuelan gangs.
Gretchen
@Trivia Man: There were literally bodies piled up like cordwood in New York during early covid. The cultists just refused to believe it.
Glory b
@Gretchen: We need a “Like” button.
laura
@PsiFighter37: I’d like you to tell me
Sorry champ, I’m all booked trying to figure out a survival plan, but as soon as I’m living out under an overpass, I’ll get right on it as I’ll have all that free time.
prostratedragon
@J. Arthur Crank: Something about Pastor just seems right to me. More sanctimonious, I guess.
Matt McIrvin
@Gretchen: Those bodies were in New York, a faraway blue city, at a stage in the pandemic when people in the heartland could mostly pretend it was not happening.
I think the timing affected a lot of things. COVID came to much of Red America when Biden was already in office, so they associate the pandemic with him, not with Trump. In 2020 they were just acting like it wasn’t there and they were OK. The people who were dying were mostly Democrats and lived in blue states.
Also, red-staters got the worst of it when the Omicron variant appeared. The original vaccine was extremely effective at preventing transmission by the original “wild-type” virus but was not so effective at keeping people from catching Omicron. So DeSantis could say that Biden had lied about the vaccine effectiveness and it sounded plausible.
frog
@PsiFighter37:
A deep depression and mass unemployment should do the trick. It worked in the 1930s.
Kelly
It’s a competition to become the first trillionaire
PsiFighter37
@frog: To be fair, flyover country was much more Democratically-aligned populists back in the day (even socialist, to some degree). But the point still stands – in this day and age of massive misinformation, the only way to make people wake up out of their stupor is for them to feel the consequences of their actions. The Obama-era optimism of inspiring people to their better angels is done. Give folks the cattle prod…it’s the only way the dummies who couldn’t hack it through high school will understand.
ETA: And if anyone here wonders why I am so negative after my many years here – it is because the results of 2024 proved beyond a doubt that the meritocratic, pull yourself up by your bootstraps bullshit that is peddled in this country is a lie. I did all of that, and I have done well for myself. But I could never, ever imagine of failing up in life in the spectacular fashion that Donald Trump has done. First and foremost because I’m not a white / orange face-painted male, but for fuck’s sake, if I had done a fraction of the borderline criminal things he has done, much less the sheer number of lawsuits and litigation I have been involved in, I would have a much lower lot in life. And the fact that a legacy affirmative action baby is coasting through life on the backs of the most revanchist, stupidest people in the country, is just icing on the cake. So I am deeply cynical about human nature, specifically American human nature, and the only way to wake up the dumb fucking sheep in this country is to let the foxes come after them while the shepherds get wasted, or high, or whatever your libation of choice is up on the top of the grassy hills.
Baud
Moot point. Republicans will do what they want, if they have the votes.
KatKapCC
@PsiFighter37: Explain to us how you are any better than Republicans if you don’t care if people suffer just to prove a point? It’s really easy for you to say this if you wouldn’t be impacted, but this high-and-mighty “well maybe this is what has to happen” shit makes you sound no different than conservatives who are wholly unmoved by people not being able to pay bills, buy food, or keep a roof over their heads. Calling it “not fair” is laughably obtuse. Starving and getting evicted is just “not fair” to you? We’re not talking about people losing a few channels on their cable plan here, bro.
There are millions of elderly people and disabled folks who would be grievously harmed by this. And you don’t care. Which makes you just as callous as the Republicans doing it.
The Audacity of Krope
I’m not saying our hair won’t get a little mussed.
The Audacity of Krope
@KatKapCC: I think the argument is people will never learn how shitty Republicans are if Democrats keep protecting voters from their own bad decisions.
ETA: End the filibuster now. Like seriously.
Chief Oshkosh
@Gretchen:
Yep. I had the huge misfortune of having to be around some of those people. There is nothing that will convince them that the stove is hot, even when they put their own hands on it and get burned. Hell, I even know people who lost parents and siblings, CLOSE relatives, and they themselves were hospitalized and barely lived, and still absolutely refused to understand what was happening to them and right in front of them.
I don’t know the way out of this. The problem, as always, is that even if a lopsided percentage of deaths from the next round of Covid-like events are MAGAts, there’s an awful lot of innocents that will suffer, too.
Baud
@The Audacity of Krope:
We can’t have our fingerprints on their actions.
We already get blamed for not using the power of our soaring rhetoric to stop them. Actually ending the filibuster to help them would be counterproductive.
PsiFighter37
@KatKapCC: There is a reason that liberal political engagement has been way down since the election. No more time to invest trying to make sure that bumfucks in rural Missouri are looked after. The vast majority (admittedly, not all of them) can reap what they sowed.
It is a very 2000s-era Republican mentality, to be fair, but I just can’t be bothered anymore. I invested virtually my entire adult life in following politics closely, volunteering tons of time for Kerry in 2004 and Obama in 2008 – and this is what it has led to. I have more personal responsibility in life now, with a family to look after and be involved in. I do not have the additional time and stress level capacity to be as actively engaged with (and mostly angry about) national politics anymore. I will never, ever vote for a Republican, but at a philosophical level, I am more than willing, even happy now, to wish bad things to happen to the morons out in the middle of nowhere who have wrought this outcome upon America.
It’s also personally crushing to see the trajectory of this country after personally investing so much in it. Fuck the bending of the arc towards justice. Let the arc snap back and hit people in the face when they get their entire social safety net stripped from them – that’s the only way people in Ohio might decide to vote for someone who will actually fight for them, like Sherrod Brown, instead of for a literal used car salesman like Bernie Moreno. Or for a hedge-fund carpetbagger like Dave McCormick. Or for a racist liar like Tim Sheehy. And so on…
KatKapCC
@The Audacity of Krope: Well, forgive me if I care more about “protecting people” from ending up on the streets. People like my own parents and other members of my family. Forgive me if I care more about disabled people, like my partner, being able to continue receiving the measly fucking money SSDI sends each month, money we rely on to help cover our basic expenses.
This “everyone has to suffer so that a few assholes *might* learn something” concept is hot garbage, and it’s especially repugnant when the person spewing it wouldn’t be among that “everyone”.
The Audacity of Krope
@Baud: Ending the filibuster is ending an anti-democratic relic that hampers change and is likely the main contributor to the notion that voting doesn’t matter.
They won. Let them run the government. And, assuming better people find their way in charge again, the filibuster will still be gone and those fine public servants won’t be hampered in their necessary recovery efforts…again.
KatKapCC
@PsiFighter37:
And to the Democrats who had no hand whatsoever in this outcome. So again, I ask you: How are you any better than the Republicans? You mention your family you look after. Well I have family too. So do lots and lots and lots of people WHO VOTED FOR HARRIS AND DEMS UP AND DOWN THE BALLOT and who will not be able to look after their families if these cuts happen. And you are making it clear you do not care. And you think this makes you the moral one. It does not.
Professor Bigfoot
@PsiFighter37: Look up what Davis X. Machina said over a decade ago, right here on this blog: the salient fact of American politics is the number of people who will volunteer to live, with their families, under an overpass, and cook sparrows on an old curtain rod as long as they can be assured that the Black or Latino or LGBTQ or Muslim or Jewish or *what the fuck ever* family in the next box over doesn’t have a sparrow or a curtain rod.
This is what Americans* want, and they’re gonna get it good and hard.
*”In this country American means white. Everybody else has to hyphenate.” – Toni Morrison
Baud
@The Audacity of Krope:
I agree with the policy of ending the filibuster. But if they won’t do it, we shouldn’t do it for them. We should do it when we control things again.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Gretchen:
Funny how core Denver residents, particularly ones who didn’t grow up in burbs and moved here bringing their suburban sense of race and security with them, have never felt threatened by these hordes of Venezuelan gangs.
Now, let the inevitable Aurora jokes begin.
Professor Bigfoot
@PsiFighter37: You don’t seriously believe those fine white folk will give a good goddamn, do you?
AS LONG AS other people suffer more, these white male Christian supremacists are more than happy to suffer themselves.
Because this is just who the fuckers are.
The Audacity of Krope
I definitely consider myself among the everyone who would be harmed.
Doesn’t matter. Society has been languishing in a miasma of constant harm inflicted by the masters of the universe. All the little harms have added up to a lot more than what big harms we were warned about decades ago.
This defensive, conservative posture is what keeps us constantly losing ground in terms of access to wealth and in a constant state of cleaning up messes behind us.
The Audacity of Krope
If there’s an opportunity to do it together, we should take it. Who’s to say 52 D Senators will be willing to pull the trigger if we get a majority again?
Baud
@The Audacity of Krope:
I see your point, but we need to take that chance. The more damage we prevent, the easier it’ll be for those Dem senators to fix.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
I’ve been musing on this same “the only way voters might change is if they actually feel the hurt” angle this week. And how we as Dems don’t typically want to do that because well, we don’t want to hurt people who need help.
One thing that gives me pause in that totally theoretical construct of voter behavior is the abortion issue. We thought for decades that if the right finally abolished Roe, well, watch out because people would come out of the woodwork to vote appropriately.
And we just saw how that played out despite some earlier election results that suggested maybe we were right in that assumption all these years.
Which brings me back to sure, I have no sympathy for the morans who voted for this and any negative outcomes they might experience. It’s the collateral damage of others that should give one pause when going down that particular road.
PsiFighter37
@Professor Bigfoot: I firmly believe that there is a limit to that. If you were to cut off the entire social safety net, you would start seeing Democrats or Dan Osborn-type independents getting elected in states that are viewed as solidly red now. No amount of Fox News bullshit will be able to cut through that, IMO.
And if I’m wrong, then this country is going to hell anyways, and it’s time to start looking for the escape hatch while I’m young enough.
The Audacity of Krope
@Baud: The more damage we prevent, the easier it will be for Republicans to blame the hangover effects on Democrats. Especially when a slow recovery is hampered by the filibuster.
I, for one, am tired of that dance.
Melancholy Jaques
@Gretchen:
And the political media did not consider it important to include in its, “Were you better off four years ago?” stories.
Gretchen
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: Yes. The guy’s Denver-based daughter in law thought “ what the heck is he talking about” when asked if she was scared to go out and about.
The Audacity of Krope
Fixt
WaterGirl
@prostratedragon: Mike Johnson is very creepy, and Pastor Johnson suits that creepiness. Rev. would add stature, which he most certainly does not deserve.
PsiFighter37
@The Audacity of Krope: Not as long as John Fetterman is willing to keep playing footsie with MAGA. I actually appreciate his stand on the whole Gaza situation – I am more on his end of the spectrum, save for his willingness to give Netanyahu a blank check to do anything – but his recent turn towards posting sympathetically towards Cheeto’s nominees and going on Truth Social is a weird turn. Maybe it’s because his wife was an undocumented immigrant and he’s bending the knee to save his family. Who knows.
Baud
@The Audacity of Krope:
They will still do plenty of damage. At some point there are diminishing returns.
Shalimar
@laura: Every other time Republicans have tried to go after Social Security, they have made it apply only to people under 55 so it wouldn’t affect their election chances. Maybe they don’t give a fuck this time. We will see. I will believe they have the guts to go after Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid for current beneficiaries when I see the bill.
The Audacity of Krope
@PsiFighter37: For your consideration, Fetterman’s approach to Gaza is encouraging stochastic terrorism against our nation’s students.
Baud
Can’t help but smell false flag in light of upcoming elections
The Audacity of Krope
@Baud: I don’t want more damage. I want the filibuster gone forever.
After 30 years since Republicans took this form with Gingrich’s Contract On America, the process of shredding the government then building back as best we can in a short time repeating again and again; it occurs to me that enabling a little extra damage for 2 years might be worth it if it means never having to think about the filibuster again.
Baud
@The Audacity of Krope:
Your whole premise rests on the idea that Dems can help get rid of the filibuster and then reap the benefits from the damage the Republicans cause by it being gone. I find that highly unlikely.
Professor Bigfoot
@PsiFighter37: It’s much easier to run than to confront other white people, isn’t it?
ColoradoGuy
For the “give it to them good and hard” argument, consider this: the vast majority of Southern soldiers in the Civil War did NOT own slaves. They were fighting, and dying, for an oligarch/plantation class that didn’t give a shit about them. Yet they fought ferociously for “their way of life”.
Not a way of life they experienced personally, no, a way of life that benefited people they barely knew. They fought for the oligarchs that ran their states, controlled their legislatures, spoke from Southern Baptist pulpits, and owned their newspapers.
I would submit the MAGAs of today are no different. They are fighting for White Oligarchy without knowing it by name, because Fox will never call it that. If the Trump Cabinet + Acting President Musk aren’t a White Oligarchy, what are they?
PsiFighter37
@Professor Bigfoot: You clearly haven’t paid attention or met me at BJ meetups I attended when I was younger. I’m not white, which is part of why I’m even more cynical about this country than the vast majority of this blog’s readership, based on those I have met and the pictures posted here that I have seen.
Ksmiami
@KatKapCC: The Democratic Party needs to let the GOP show their awfulness and then do damage control after.
Baud
@Ksmiami:
There’s no “let.” It’s not within our power to stop them if they have the gumption to do what they want.
Ksmiami
@KatKapCC: the Republicans will kill the country and everything good about it. And it’s what our apathetic and stupid citizens wanted. Don’t get mad at Psi. He’s voicing how a lot of us who’ve fought feel now.
Fair Economist
@Chief Oshkosh: Yep. My mother’s housekeeper’s husband died of COVID, and she still thought it was “no big deal”.
Baud
@Fair Economist:
Maybe she didn’t care much for her husband.
Steve LaBonne
@Baud: They will have a margin in the new House the thickness of Kleenex. Keeping the pressure on the most vulnerable Republicans could actually prevent some of the bad stuff. Even though he’s not really vulnerable I will be all up in the grill of my idiot rep Max Miller.
Fair Economist
@Shalimar:
Fortunately, we’re now close enough to the crunch of the trust fund running out that that’s no longer an option.
jackmac
@PsiFighter37: Are you fucking kidding? Maybe you don’t have to rely on Social Security and Medicare, but my spouse and I do and any cuts would seriously hurt. Don’t flippantly advocate cuts like this just to teach some idiot MAGA voters a lesson.
Another Scott
@@mistermix.bsky.social: Yup.
Johnson is after magic beans, and as usual doesn’t understand that magic beans don’t exist.
Best wishes,
Scott.
Fair Economist
@Baud:
Well, he *was* a conservative, and from what I’ve experienced of conservative men, that would be understandable!
Gretchen
@ColoradoGuy: A lot of MAGAts are literal descendants of Confederates. See the overlay of confederate states and Republican voters. The Southern Baptist Convention was started by slave holders, they gained power with school desegregation and private schools, switched to abortion when open racism became taboo. Evangelicals voted for Trump 80/17 for Harris. Their pastors told them it was a sin to vote for Harris, and obedience to authority is a core value of the SBC.
Wild Faith is a terrific insight into Christian Nationalism: https://www.amazon.com/Wild-Faith-Christian-Taking-America/dp/B0CWHGYQ4F/ref=sr_1_1?crid=12VCWABFUJT6S&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.0vGod-_CorHfPuN0aQYqsRL10B75qdT1vjmBYA2S_VJUomhXEJXjJakg5XnnMHMV.4yagyAY_Wui767Glyge6IeOJ6UxPzsRiQImxRePVBIY&dib_tag=se&keywords=wild+faith+talia+lavin&qid=1734730728&sprefix=Wild+faith%2Caps%2C158&sr=8-1
Baud
@Another Scott:
Interesting.
Fair Economist
I don’t think PsiFighter is advocating that Democrats do anything to *help* Republicans screw over the American populace. It’s just that we can’t actually stop them right now if they are unified, and it could be a long term benefit if they actually give their voters what they’ve said they wanted to, notwithstanding the short-term pain of people getting cut off.
Another Scott
@PsiFighter37: Fun!
:-/
My J and her sister are flying to Oaxaca MX in mid-January for a guided tour vacation. On November 6 I asked if they had trip insurance. They do have insurance, but… :-/
[ sigh ]
Good luck!
Best wishes,
Scott.
prostratedragon
@WaterGirl: Maybe that’s it. Or, truthfully, maybe it’s just that I’m a pk* whose ordained parent went by Rev.
_______
* preacher’s kid
Ksmiami
@Gretchen: I still blame General Sherman for not burning it all down the first time.
The Audacity of Krope
I would also be pushing for them to cooperate in terms of letting states have more local control. Fewer federal directives means I don’t have to worry as much in Massachusetts what Alabama’s Congressional delegation is up to.
Let the net federal contributor blue states have more say over their own money and our more federal dependent blue allies cooperate as suits them best as states.
Let the red states run themselves into the ground so the winner can declare themself Boss Hogg or whatever they want. I know it’s not ideal. People are allowed to move.
Baud
@The Audacity of Krope:
I could agree to that, potentially. Republicans would never agree without huge blue state to red state subsidies.
Geminid
@Ksmiami: I blame Andrew Johnson for undermining Reconstruction.
Abraham Lincoln made few big mistakes, but picking Johnson to be his runnung mate in 1864 turned out to be a whopper.
PsiFighter37
@jackmac: My mom will need to rely on those benefits. I will help her out if draconian cuts come to pass. It is what it is. It’s time to feed flyover country the food they feed their farm animals.
prostratedragon
@Geminid: Though we sometimes think of Lincoln’s re-election as a historical inevitability, I’ve read that it was much in doubt in 1864. Wonder if he was trying to shore up flank support. Tragedy all around.
PsiFighter37
@prostratedragon: That’s what Obama did with Biden, and I think in hindsight, it was a terrible mistake. He should have picked Kathleen Sebelius. Given how things turned out, he still would have won, and she may have been able to stem the tide on what became massive Democratic bleeding in the Midwest/Great Plains during his tenure.
The hotter take – and an accurate one, with benefit of hindsight – is that Hillary Clinton winning in 2008 would have been the better outcome for Democrats.
brettvk
@PsiFighter37: The only problem I see with this scenario is that I don’t trust the Dems to not let the party centrists go on CNN and announce that they’re keeping the cuts because they’re so fiscally responsible.
Splitting Image
@J. Arthur Crank:
I prefer Pastor Johnson.
Reverend Johnson is the guy who holds up a Bible and urges the men of Rock Ridge not to shoot the new sheriff.
(Someone shoots a hole in it, but at least he tries.)
Another Scott
C-Span.org – Debate and vote on Plan C – going on now.
Best wishes,
Scott.
The Audacity of Krope
There are some places where people think their own social responsibility reaches too far. Taxes are a big one for a lot of people.
Republicans offer the abdication of all of it. That is why they hold so much sway among…less nuanced thinkers. This is also why big money will always back them and why some well-lobbied Democrats will always speak up for some of their individual initiatives.
MagdaInBlack
@PsiFighter37: Take it from someone in the “flyover country” you sound a lot like Elon and his” yes, there will be pain.” bs.
Ohio Mom
@H.E.Wolf: And for my one millionth and one time, Social Security, Medicaid, and to a somewhat lesser degree, Medicare, are what disabled people depend on to live — to clothe, feed, shelter and all the other necessities themselves.
Republicans already got away with taking nibbles at Social Security back under Reagan. People accepted it as something like having their picnic rained out, something out of all human control. Hanging those cuts around Republican’s necks has been a lost opportunity.
Bill Arnold
@PsiFighter37:
Are you willing to suffer serious deprivation in solidarity? Or even just take in homeless elderly people as permanent house guests?
jackmac
@PsiFighter37: You sound like a troll. Go away.
Baud
@Another Scott:
Blue sky speculation is it will pass.
ETA: Spoke too soon.. starting to see contrary takes.
Omnes Omnibus
@PsiFighter37: It’s awesome to see you putting other people’s skin in the game. Well done, you.
Geminid
@prostratedragon: Lincoln wanted a War Democrat for a running mate and he got one in Andrew Johnsin. Johnson was an East Tennessee populist whose politics were driven by his hatred of the Nashville and Memphis slave interests that dominated Tennessee.
So Johnson had the right Unionist spirit. He lacked character though, and was ambitious as a politician. He also was an alcoholic.
After Lincoln’s assasination, Johnson was quite vengeful. “Treason must be made odious,” he said and proposed putting Lee and other high-ranking Confederate offivlcers.
Grant opposed this though. He was determined that the terms of Lee’s surrender at Appomattox would be observed. Grant had discussed them with Lincoln in the days before Richmond fell. Grant said he’d resign before he helped violate them, and Johnson backed down.
It did not take Johnson very long to figure out that the Republicans wanted nothing to do with him. If he had a political future it would be with the Democratic Party. So he tacked the opposite way and replaced the more hardnosed generals managing Reconstruction with more passive ones. But the Democratic Party rejected him too.
Grant made up some of the lost ground when he took over in 1869, but not nearly enough.
SomeRandomGuy
@Baud: Don’t worry – the Republicans don’t want a parliamentarian making choices like that, either, so they have an R stooge sitting the the parliamentarian’s seat, and, if that stooge says “no,” they fire him and put in another.
@Old School: if the Senate doesn’t pass a 2023 budget, they’ll use reconciliation on the 2023 year, then again on the 2024 year, etc.; they tried it before to both kill Obamacare and pass tax cuts. McCain saved Obamacare.
Omnes Omnibus
@The Audacity of Krope: A form of accelerationism bullshit.
Martin
So, generally cuts as outlined are over 10 years, so $250B/yr wouldn’t necessitate cuts to SS/Medicare. Not clear from the context, and the media are TERRIBLE about spelling out what is over 1 year, 5 years, 10 years.
Will also note that tax credits/deductions like the mortgage interest deduction are ‘spending’ as they are an immediate handback of taxes. Democrats need to learn how to wield this language to their benefit.
prostratedragon
@Geminid: What a story. I should review history soon.
Professor Bigfoot
@PsiFighter37: NONETHELESS.
Professor Bigfoot
@Gretchen: Oh, but so many white people, even here, will downplay the role of white supremacy and misogyny and instead talk incessantly about ANYTHING ELSE– especially when it shows how useless, incompetent and feckless the Democrats are.
Omnes Omnibus
@PsiFighter37: Oh, you invested in politics. Well, I guess that’s fine then because no one else here did, right?
Professor Bigfoot
@PsiFighter37: Nah. He needed a white man to assure white men that he wasn’t going to send them all to reeducation camps.
Not that they took that reassurance, of course, being who they are…
Another Scott
Interesting. The vote has started, no/few Democratic votes yet.
55-11 with 1 Democrat Aye at the moment.
Best wishes,
Scott.
Ohio Mom
@Fair Economist: I admit that over the years I’ve had PSIFighter-type moments. It’s a feeling not far removed from, “Okay, I’m done fighting,” which lots of people have been voicing lately.
I realized a long time ago though that what I think and fantasize affects absolutely nothing, except maybe my mood. Sometimes it’s a release, other times I’m just puts me in a deeper funk.
SomeRandomGuy
delete
Another Scott
@Another Scott: They’re going under “suspension of the rules” so to pass it needs “2/3 of those present and voting”.
So if Democrats boycott the vote it could pass? I guess that’s the case. (They could kill it by voting “present”?)
No Democrat has voted No yet, so I assume it will pass (unless there’s some weirdness about the rule that I don’t get).
[ eta: ] Fritschner says it will pass.
Best wishes,
Scott.
Ramona
@Another Scott: is this one under rules suspension?
Another Scott
@Ramona: Yes. They didn’t have time to try to get it through the Rules Committee process, etc., so that only a simple majority would be needed on the House floor.
Best wishes,
Scott.
brantl
@J. Arthur Crank: I Think that in the Republican Party, it’s fair to say that he’s a revered Johnson, and what a johnson!
Gin & Tonic
@jackmac: He’s been commenting here on and off for many years. Not every unpopular opinion-holder is a troll.
The Audacity of Krope
@Omnes Omnibus: Not sure if you noticed, but acceleration continues space despite our best efforts.
brantl
@PsiFighter37: it’s cute that you keep thinking that they have brains to be shocked; they don’t.
Omnes Omnibus
@The Audacity of Krope: So? That doesn’t make heightening the contradictions a good plan.
Geminid
@prostratedragon: Lincoln spent a week at Grant’s City Point headquarters right before Petersburg fell. Then Grant went west running Lee’s army down while Lincoln stuck around and visited liberated Richmond before returning to D.C.
The two men must have discussed the terms Grant would offer Lee. This was a critical matter with plenty riding on it. You can see Lincoln’s hand in the terms of parole: “not be disturbed so long as they observe the laws in place.”
Grant was one hell of a general and a clear and concise writer in his own right, but Lincoln was a hell of a lawyer and he knew what he was doing when he authorised what was effectively an amnesty.
But Lincoln thought he would manage Reconstruction. He was in good physical health, and at the time no American President had ever been assassinated.
brantl
@KatKapCC: are you deliberately not getting that PsiFighter hates this idea, but thinks this is the only thing that will wake these comatose cultists? Because I’m speed reading this argument(& that’s not one of my forte’s) and I got it in a heartbeat. Don’t make the rest of us get you a hearing-ear dog, OK?
Gretchen
@PsiFighter37: I disagree. Kansas still has a Democratic governor. The tide of lunacy has been stemmed here without affecting Missouri or Oklahoma.
brantl
@PsiFighter37: Feedback isn’t always a wonderful thing, but sometimes, it’s the only thing that works, you know? Like that abusive husband that gets a frying pan to the side of his head.
The Audacity of Krope
@Omnes Omnibus: I’m advocating for giving people what they voted for. The filibuster affects the rules both sides play by when they are in charge.
Anyone who wants it gone when they’re in charge needs to accept that it will be gone when they aren’t. I don’t see that deal ever getting cut unless a group of Senators take a principled stand from the minority. And we can only pray from principles from Democrats.
Another Scott
We can effectively fight them if we stick together.
Best wishes,
Scott.
Steve LaBonne
@Another Scott: People need to start recognizing that Jeffries is good at his job.
Omnes Omnibus
@The Audacity of Krope: I am not arguing with you about the filibuster.
jackmac
@Gin & Tonic: I usually enjoy the give and take here on BJ and I typically brush off opinions that I may not necessarily agree with. But this one I felt was just plain nasty and ignorant. And it struck very close to home.
brantl
@ColoradoGuy: those southern slaveholders also made about 3/4 of the economy in the south. Those people were Ticks on a big mean dog.
The Audacity of Krope
@Omnes Omnibus: Ok, then don’t. I don’t need an announcement, I’m low-maintenance that way.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Another Scott:
Comments from his post:
https://x.com/Fritschner/status/1870241162839372215
I haven’t looked at this as closely as I should, and the following is a sincere question, what did Dems get out of this?
Steve LaBonne
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: Most of what they wanted and none of what they didn’t (debt ceiling) plus a large majority of Republicans defying Trump on the debt ceiling.
Omnes Omnibus
@brantl: What about the people who didn’t fucking vote for this and would be screwed? Collateral damage? Fuck ‘em? It’s not just the abusive husband getting hit by the frying pan.
Baud
@comrade scotts agenda of rage:
Depends on your baseline for comparison.
Omnes Omnibus
@ColoradoGuy: I don’t particularly give a fuck about MAGAs. I do care about the non-MAGAs and the kids who will be fucked over.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Baud:
The first agreed-upon bill and this one. What’s different?
Baud
@comrade scotts agenda of rage:
This is worse than the first agreed on bill. Some stuff stripped out. But it’s only a 3 month funding, I think, and no debt ceiling extension.
ETA: We also have a more unified caucus and the margins will be even closer next year. I hope we can get some of the items restored.
John S.
@Baud:
Our caucus was way more unified than the Republicans on this particular vote.
Baud
@John S.:
And that’s even considering the influence that Musk and Trump tried to exert on the Republican caucus.
Another Scott
@comrade scotts agenda of rage:
WhiteHouse.gov:
They took a lot of stuff out (the original agreement was ~1800 some odd pages, and this was ~ 155.) Other stuff that was agreed may come up in the future (or might not – who knows).
We can’t control what the monsters on the other side do (like setting their own Speaker on an ice floe), we can only stick together and fight as best we can for what’s possible to make things better.
This was a win – especially in the days of divided government and the other side being captured by ~ 35 extremists.
My $0.02.
Best wishes,
Scott.
Starfish (she/her)
@PsiFighter37: I have never seen you this frustrated and disappointed. You were the one traveling everywhere, and there would be meetups around your travel plans, yes?
Baud
@Another Scott:
That’s a big difference in pages. Was the original agreement a full year spending package?
Another Scott
@Baud: The CR for applicable government operations was always and still is until (the end of?) March. Programs added to the CR could be for much longer (I think the original pediatric cancer thing that is expiring was a 10 year program and this was a 10 year renewal).
Of course, new programs get a lot of new language.
In general, this stuff is complicated (especially when the SCOTUS is just making up Congressional Intent out of whole cloth), and GQPers bellyaching about “I didn’t get 72 hours to read it!!11” was and always is performative mouth noises.
95% of the text is probably “in Section 238.b(2)6(iii) strike “may” with “shall, unless specifically exempted as directed by the Secretary…” and ‘September 30, 2024’ and replace with ‘September 30, 2025′”, etc., etc., so House members have to trust the Appropriators and their Leadership know what they’re doing. They’re not going to spend hours chasing down all the search-and-replace language.
My understanding anyway. Corrections welcome.
Best wishes,
Scott.
Ksmiami
@Geminid: definitely a huge mistake and the excuse of “corruption” as a way to shut down radical reconstruction. Though I still think had Sherman been more thorough, a lot of the ppl that give us grief now would never have been born…
kalakal
@Chief Oshkosh:
I fear that once polio Bobby get’s to work the US is going to discover just how horrendous all those preventable childhood diseases are.
The icing on the cake will be all the fools drinking unpateurized milk. There’s a reason it’s considered one of the most dangerous foods around.
There’s no need for a new pandemic, the Trumpists are putting the band back together for a collection of horrors from the past
Hey hey RFK, how many kids did you kill today?
WaterGirl
@kalakal: New rotating tag.
No One You Know
@laura: Co-signed. Without SS I will lose my house. Without Medicare my husband will die years earlier. I’m already limping to the finish line. Some of us clearly think the grief won’t happen to anyone they know, least of all themselves.