Enough With The Cutesy Titles, People Are Dead: US Politics January 2021 pt 2

i thought caek said they didn't have enough votes to get rid of the filibuster?

the moment my mom got her first fake news drops from fucking Line, I died a little inside

Radio Free Europe is a decent follow on twitter ime? Idk about their broadcasting.

Buttigieg is terrible and I hate that he's competent enough to move up through the ranks but a non-trivial chunk of me keeps coming back to "competent enough" and hating how much the rest of me craves that after the past four years.

Breaking: Leader Schumer says that Speaker Pelosi will send the article of impeachment to the Senate on Monday.

— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) January 22, 2021

that's the stuff

This is phenomenal news. https://t.co/iW1QLq2KaD

— Ryan Morgan (@ryanheadedsouth) January 22, 2021

lol even David Brooks has come out more or less for getting rid of the filibuster, and he is a giant equivocating wuss.

"more or less"

Manchin has stated he will not nuke the filibuster - stating basically that without the filibuster there's no reason for having a Senate.

In a saner world, this might even sound like a noble principle. Rather than the simple majorities that allow legislation to pass the House narrowly, the Senate is there to cool the passions of the rabble, and ensure that legislation consists of things with broader support than 50%+1. Theoretically, needing to get 60% would require legislators to craft bills that have bipartisan support and that benefit a wider portion of the people.

Unfortunately that's not the world we live in. In the world we live in, the only bills that are supported by 60 Senators tend to be shit like "National Puppy Day."

David Brooks — the columnist @JoeBiden could absolutely not stop quoting during the Democratic primaries — floats Democrats nuking the filibuster. https://t.co/MlgV2L8Aib pic.twitter.com/LsA6kSt3R6

— Kevin Robillard (@Robillard) January 22, 2021

Well, he's in a sense right: without the filibuster the United States has two legislative chambers whose members get elected differently but serve the same purpose.

So amend the Constitution and eliminate the Senate.

The Brooks excerpt:

Everyday, I read that Republicans will never go for these spending plans, and I always want to ask the writer: Have you noticed that Republicans have already voted for roughly $3 trillion in new spending over the last 10 months? Do not underestimate how divided and confused their party is right now. Do not underestimate how much Republicans trust Biden personally.

Do not underestimate how many congressional Republicans would like to send checks to their people. Recently, I was on a call with the bipartisan House Problem Solvers Caucus and a similar group of senators. I was struck by how passionately these Republicans and Democrats are committed to one another across party lines, how deftly they used the evenly divided Congress to restart the Covid-19 relief effort in December, how fervently they want to break the partisan logjam.

If this doesn’t work and Republicans go into full obstruction mode, Democrats should absolutely kill the filibuster.

Someone should tell brooks how many republicans in the problem solvers caucus voted to overturn the results of the election.

That might be, on the whole (and plenty of it is still bullshit), the single smartest column David Brooks has ever written.

was on a call with the bipartisan House Problem Solvers Caucus and a similar group of senators. I was struck by how passionately these Republicans and Democrats are committed to one another across party lines, how deftly they used the evenly divided Congress to restart the Covid-19 relief effort in December, how fervently they want to break the partisan logjam.

I don't believe a word.

There was a Politico article last month about Biden's media diet, and it mentioned David Brooks and Thomas Friedman as favorites of his. Since then, I've been hoping that he would have staffers who would slip him columns by Jamelle Bouie and Ezra Klein, but if Brooks is advocating for killing the filibuster, then that's good, too.

In a saner world, this might even sound like a noble principle. Rather than the simple majorities that allow legislation to pass the House narrowly, the Senate is there to cool the passions of the rabble, and ensure that legislation consists of things with broader support than 50%+1. Theoretically, needing to get 60% would require legislators to craft bills that have bipartisan support and that benefit a wider portion of the people.

not to mention, in this world, the 50 democratic senators represent 41 million more people than the 50 republican senators (roughly 56% of the total population).

I don't believe a word.

I mean, I believe they *said* it

How differently would these Cabinet confirmations be going if it were 51-49 GOP instead of 50-50? Would the whole Cabinet just go unconfirmed? (Austin right now has 86 yea 2 nay.)

Schumer's spine appears to have grown in...

Majority Leader Schumer rejects Minority Leader McConnell's demand to preserve the filibuster: pic.twitter.com/BuUvg8M2EU

— The Recount (@therecount) January 22, 2021

Schumer isn’t getting rid of the filibuster. He’s telling McConnell he’s refusing to give up the option. Low bar for competence but sure.

So now Republicans filibuster the organizing resolution and then...?

They do the futterwacken.

the bipartisan House Problem Solvers Caucus

lol I heard an interview with one of these dorks (GOP division) the morning after the inauguration, and one of his unity-promoting suggestions was to have a bipartisan investigation into 2020 election fraud, just to prove one and for all that there was no fraud. You know, a suggestion totally in good faith to win over the handful of remaining skeptics.

Oh, that will put their minds at rest?

But who will front such an initiative?

Is it too late to resurrect Strom? well-liked on both sides

My favourite terrible fact about Pete Buttigieg (that I learned the other day) is that his husband still has a thirst trap picture of Mayor Pete in front of the Holocaust Memorial up on his Instagram.

― scampish inquisition (gyac), Friday, January 22, 2021 12:30 PM (four hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

too good

I really don't understand the fascination with his husband? He seems like a previously-unfamous Andy Cohen.

i don't know anything about his husband, it's just the thirst trap picture at the holocaust memorial that makes me go ewwwww. oh and him sniffing at the stripper pole. idk they seem like avatars of a kind of respectability homosexual culture that i despise.

map how many Chastens are there in your nabe

chasten is kind of cringey, i guess. he is probably a nice guy though.

i bet they have nothing nice to say about rupaul for example. and rupaul is like queen of the strivers. sorry, just baselessly bitching about my favorite love-to-hate guple.

xp lol, i don't know a single guy named chasten. i've met some in-the-closet chasetens for sure. oh, and an out gay 60-something formerly-straight-married business professor at a state college here who was/is a big fan of mayo pete and went to the mayo pete campaign event in utah. i saw a big picture of that someone posted on fb - so many depressing gays in one room.

Anyone who voluntarily goes to serve empire in an unjust war isn't a nice person, and neither is anyone who would tolerate that in a romantic partner.

They're both horrible creeps.

I had several gay friends/acquaintances tell me "you don't like Pete? I didn't know you were homophobic" and that is why I no longer speak with those former friends/acquaintances because life is way too short to spend with people that stupid

I mean I know I'm just flogging a dead horse, but seeing as how the *idea* of flogging would probably give Chasten and Pete the vapors, I will continue to do so.

hahahaha

(I did say "that's funny, I knew you didn't like Black people" before peacing though, signed #1 Petty Warrior)

DJP, yeah, a dear friend who's queer and Black told me that he basically cut off half the white gays he knew over their cheerleading of Pete.

My mom didn't understand why I disliked him. I'm pretty certain it's because she wishes I was like him.

(I did say "that's funny, I knew you didn't like Black people" before peacing though, signed #1 Petty Warrior)

― Hello Nice FBI Lady (DJP), Friday, January 22, 2021 5:03 PM (two minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

ice cold

I'm not a huge Pete fan, but some of the hate seems a little OTT. He seems like an avatar for what people don't like about neoliberalism/meritocracy/Dem establishment.

he's terrible but he also seems like he might be the least bad transportation secretary we've ever had (which granted is a very low bar).

Anyone who voluntarily goes to serve empire in an unjust war isn't a nice person

This is overly condemnatory in that it assumes only bad motives could result in such an action. Most volunteers are 18 year olds fresh out of high school, who were educated to think of the USA as God's gift to the world and our military adventures as noble pursuits. They usually find out different only after they are shipped out to a war zone. What makes Pete's service particularly disgusting in my view is that I'm certain he did it in order to have that military service on his resume when he eventually ran for office.

pareene on manchin

https://newrepublic.com/article/161013/dont-worry-joe-manchin

Wait, so does this mean that Mayor Pete and McConnell are married now? Federal-level machinations are so esoteric to me.

I'm not a huge Pete fan, but some of the hate seems a little OTT. He seems like an avatar for what people don't like about neoliberalism/meritocracy/Dem establishment.

Dude is, at best, indifferent on racial issues and it's arguable (as many have) that his tenure as South Bend mayor shows he was actively hostile towards his Black constituents/employees, often while smiling to their faces and claiming to have their backs.

someone asked me why Pete wasn't all that good and I gave reasons and they snidely said "other than that Mrs Lincoln, how was the show"

beat him to death with his own fedora

jaymc, I was very "eh who cares" about Buttigieg until I read this: https://www.theroot.com/mayor-pete-s-invisible-black-police-1840727624

Every fan of Buttigieg (I refuse too call him by his first name) I know is Hispanic and hates dating their own ethnicity.

traister largely otm here, particularly "Things fall apart and yet the center can hold. It holds and holds and holds" and "In his contest, questions not just of identity but of ideas were put to the side"

https://www.thecut.com/2021/01/biden-america-is-back-indeed.html

I want Biden to have his FDR-size presidency, to take the best ideas, the smartest people, the propellant energy they provide, to make this nation better, more just, more equitable; to provide more dignity and opportunity and protection for more people. And then what I want to give him credit for is stepping aside to let them take us forward. I want to believe that this could be what’s ahead: a remaking and not a restoration. I need to believe in a future in which the real drivers and laborers and perfectors of our democracy actually become its leaders.

But … we’re not there yet. So in the meantime, I guess this is my dream: the American Dream. In which the video ends with the ordinary white guy as the hero of the story.