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

just make it an even $20 and raise it a dollar every year, ie min wage in 2025 will be $25, 2030 -> $30 etc

b-b-but it's not 2020!

aha! fair point and thank god i'm not out here writing checks. $21 it is!

a) that was two years out of the five ago, already

Technically, Bernie's bill was 5 years (2019-24), the new bill is 4 years (2021-25), so it's only one year difference between when we get there.

Because we’re so far behind the curve a phase in is probably “politically necessary,” and to ease shocks and blah blah blah but that makes it all the more necessary to have a built in COL adjustment going forward.

If the minimum wage increases $.50 per year after 2025, its baked in to labor calculations and easy to deal with even for “small businesses.”

the minimum wage would be about $24 if it had kept pace with productivity the way it did between the 50s and the 70s.

actually it kept pace from the 40s til 1968

lol the ohio minimum wage got a boost on jan. 1 - from $8.70 to $8.80

otm. Legislation should be to make it $35 now, to cover the next 12 years of inaction.

on another topic, I appreciate all the renewed interest in how fucking awful Marjorie Taylor Green is, but where was all this stuff when she was running? I guess media was busy dealing with covid and Trump, but it's not like everyone didn't know this. Now it's all "omg she is Qanon and wanted dems executed!" Uh, yeah.

Mmmm I remember reading about her and I knew a Qanon candidate was in the race, it's just that her district was probably going to elect her because of exactly what she stands for and no one could really change that? Idk what else could have been done.

yeah there was definitely talk about it but every fucking week of the Trump administration was so bonkers and infuriating that it probably got buried

The people who elected her knew exactly who she was.

otm

we drove through her district back in the summer to see Howard Finster's Paradise Gardens and her signs were everywhere. like, more than Trump.

honestly she could make a decent run at primarying Kemp

just putting this here in case

A spokesman says @SenatorLeahy has been taken to a hospital. pic.twitter.com/6WHaJGRWmn

— Steve Herman (@W7VOA) January 26, 2021

yikes, R governor in VT

You can breathe a little easier about Phil Scott. He's on the record as saying that he would have appointed a Democrat had Bernie been chosen for Biden's cabinet.

If Sanders were to leave his position within the Senate, the current governor would be able to appoint a temporary replacement until a special election could be held.

Gov. Phil Scott, who is running for reelection, noted that there are several moving parts to the hypothetical situation but asserted he would keep the seat within the party until a replacement could be named.

"Historically, whenever there's been an opening with the Legislative branch, appointed a person in the position from that party," Scott said. "I would choose someone — if we're playing the 'what-if' game — that is independent, that isn't seeking the office."

Scott also noted any potential appointee would caucus with the Democrats in the Senate, a crucial note with the possibility of a 50-50 party split looming in the chamber.

thanks!

Senator Patrick Leahy has been hospitalized and is being evaluated.

.

Democrats should consider not having all their most powerful members be 900 years old.

also otm

Democrats should consider not having all their most powerful members be 900 years old.

He was born several years before the US entered WWII. Do you not want someone who has a broad perspective on conflict presiding over the impeachment trial of a president who tried to overthrow the government with a coup, so that he could keep hosting golf tournaments for $?

lol the guy who's supposed to preside over the impeachment trial is dying of old age. good stuff.

I think it's the Chief Justice who officially presides.

normally yes but Roberts declined this time

the CJ has no constitutional obligation to preside

President pro tempore presides over impeachments of non-presidents.

xpost also he smells bad

Thanks for the corrections. I've never seen an ex-president's impeachment trail before and those finer details have escaped me.

Neither you nor anyone else, I think

i think the VP presides if the CJ does not, but the VP declined this time for obvious reasons, so they dug up the fossil who was next in line.

I guess the February 2021 US politics thread will have things to talk about after all.

https://www.scotusblog.com/2021/01/roberts-will-not-preside-over-impeachment-trial/

Anyway, it’s kind of subtle.

In a statement released on Monday, Leahy wrote that the president pro tempore “has historically presided over Senate impeachment trials of non-presidents.”

lol

Right

Operative word is “historically.”

hysterically

There is saying in there somewhere

in light of his predecessor's lack of transparency re: Putin phone calls, seems like getting asked about same by a major news network wld be a softball for a civics lesson *and* Putin smackdown, nice to see libs getting all excited instead about "owning" FOX

eh fair point, but honestly after the last 2 decades (ramping way up in '08, and then turning it to eleventy and ripping off the knob when Trump waddled into the fray) I have no real issue with pols treating anyone from Fox with the appropriate derision, including - or perhaps even especially - their "hard-news" personalities.

that, too, wld seem to echo Trump behavior...I don't think witholding on nat sec issues from even the shittiest reporters because you don't like the way they cover you is a precedent worth recognizing

There’s a readout of the call made public. It’s not exactly Trumpian to give a non-answer to a question shouted out at the end of a press briefing like that.

Dems have won every statewide election in WI since Trump's election. they've been close but I feel like a good D candidate will probably win here, especially given what an unparalleled disaster RoJo has been

I'm usually overly optimistic when it comes to stuff like this but 2020 was looked upon as a horrible year by basically everyone and Trump & the Rs played no small part in that, if things are back to normal after 2 years of Dem rule I think that'll really boost their chances. not to mention every R Senator is gonna have to go on record as either betraying their party or their country and I can't see either being good for their electoral chances

― frogbs, Tuesday, January 26, 2021 11:08 AM (two hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

what’s feingold up to?

― k3vin k., Tuesday, January 26, 2021 12:45 PM (eight hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

President of fledgling liberal Federalist Society counterpart the American Constitution Society
https://www.acslaw.org/

I'd be shocked if he ran for statewide office again; he really pissed off Wisconsin Dems with what even his voters saw as a listless "this seat is rightfully mine, give it back mmkay" campaign against Johnson in 2016. He ran well behind Clinton here!

Really no different from when he had the same joke reply to the same guy when he asked him if he picked his running mate yet.

One low key hilarious thing about stuff like that is Joe yet again demonstrating he’s quicker and funnier than people who spent months saying he “doesn’t even know where he is” and “can barely speak” etc

well now i'm not going to get too excited that slappy joe's synapses can still randomly access a zinger

i just want Peter Doocy to get laughed at.

re: feingold, I guess I don't know a ton about wisconsin politics or why he'd be disliked by dems. I do remember him running behind clinton which stood out as biazrre to me at the time, but I never understood why that happened. surely he's a better pick than pretty much anyone else they've got