“It’s a little too quiet” - US Politics February 2021

EXACTLY.

this is a couple of weeks old but just reading it now. https://newrepublic.com/article/161013/dont-worry-joe-manchin

Which is why the threat to a successful first Biden term isn’t the power of Senator Joe Manchin. It’s the potential power of a gang of “moderate Democrats” teaming up to sabotage his agenda by handing veto power to “moderate Republicans.”

A senator like Manchin has a fairly simple calculation to make: Do popular things and avoid doing controversial things. The challenge for liberals in Congress and the White House is to convince him that good things would be popular. Centrist Democrats in safer seats, on the other hand, want to do things they know would be unpopular (especially among Democratic voters) without being blamed for it.

The worst-case scenario, then, is that Democrats bow to Mitch McConnell and preserve the filibuster not simply because they worry about what some future Republican majority might do but precisely because an influential group of moderates want to exploit it to grab total power over the congressional agenda.

this doesn't seem like a threat for the stimulus, but it's coming.

also i like this

Manchin has openly signaled that he will be easy to negotiate with. After making headlines for seemingly opposing $2,000 Covid-19 relief checks, he clarified that he would be OK with them if they were means-tested a bit more—but what he really wants is $4 trillion in infrastructure spending.

A moderate senator asking not for a “revenue-neutral” bill but for more spending on economic stimulus and billions of dollars in infrastructure investment is what is known as a good problem to have. As those who remember Barack Obama’s first presidential term could tell you, this is not how things used to work.

Impeachment II: The Impeachening.

whew

House Democrats will move ahead with a coronavirus stimulus package that would keep the existing income limits for Americans who receive stimulus checks, while tightening eligibility for higher-earning Americans — a major win for progressives.

The plan, which was unveiled Monday night, would keep $1,400 stimulus checks flowing to Americans making up to $75,000 a year — rather than the $50,000 threshold that some moderate Democrats had proposed. It would, however, tighten eligibility for those making over $75,000 as an individual — a higher-earning group that previously qualified for smaller checks.

now let's do $2,000 monthly backdated

and get the delayed $600 sent

lord, even that was very hard enough for them though, the manchins et al must be clenching their ass cheeks so hard right now that they're going to need a break for a few years.

i wish they would subpoena trump and interrogate him

Yeah, give 'im the hose, Muggsy! Make him talk!

good morning!

cross-examine, not interrogate, whatever.

cross-examine, not interrogate, whatever.

We call that enhanced interrogation, son.

Nice

SCHUMER says he’s working with the parliamentarian to get minimum wage in the covid relief package as part of reconciliation.

— Jake Sherman (@JakeSherman) February 9, 2021

*sips coffee while reading wikipedia* it's nice that elizabeth macdonough, the current senate parliamentarian, appointed by harry reid in 2012, survived the trump years.

There should also be a maximum wage and that max should be .001 of what most CEOs make.

Neera Tanden taking shit for being a poster, you hate to see it.

Only posters should hold public office at this point, Ocasio Cortez/Fetterman in 2028 or bust

Trump was a poster

Only posters should hold public office at this point

anyone got a monkey's paw handy

get ready for a fun new phrase during the impeachment hearings:

"citizen trump"

Drops snow globe

Utters "vote fraud"

Makes sense.

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0103973/

get ready for a fun new phrase during the impeachment hearings:

"citizen trump"

― Zach_TBD (Karl Malone), Tuesday, February 9, 2021

Charles Foster Lame

It would be good if Tanden yelled "SHOW YOURSELF, COWARD, I WILL NEVER LOG OFF"

of course the second impeachment will fail. man, republicans really are wretched, vile, just wrong all the fucking time.

here are my optimistic hopes:

- that they will hold a separate vote, afterward, to keep trump from running for office again
- that cruz and hawley (et al) eat shit during the trial

ok, i'm getting cynical just typing that. revising that to ONE hope that i have, for this entire wretched wrong country:

- that ANYONE in congress or the trump administration will be held accountable for what they did and continue to do, at all

Narrator: ...

Narrator: *muffled butt dial noises for over 20 minutes and counting*

- that they will hold a separate vote, afterward, to keep trump from running for office again

I think the point is it's not clear they have constitutional authority to do this absent an impeachment conviction.

Absent a conviction in his impeachment trial, passing a law preventing Trump from running again would amount to a "bill of attainder", i.e. a law affecting only the one person named in the law, which the constitution expressly forbids.

I want to believe, given reports that he's happy and relieved to no longer be president, that Trump will just peace the fuck out on notions of running again absent any outside intervention.

I would love to think so, but as long as there are rubes about just salivating at the thought of being able to wave their flags at his rallies and toss him money, his ego won't be able to ignore that adulation and revenue stream.

Good question

Senator @ossoff asked OMB Director nominee @neeratanden if she agreed that an RN making $77k a year on average deserved direct relief during this pandemic. She agreed.

— Miryam Lipper (@MiryamLipper) February 9, 2021

xpost Oh, I'm sure regardless of whether or not he actually pulls the trigger on running again he'll still tease the possibility and bilk his followers and just generally be an unbearable choad and burden upon the world as long as he's drawing breath.

Absent a conviction in his impeachment trial, passing a law preventing Trump from running again would amount to a "bill of attainder", i.e. a law affecting only the one person named in the law, which the constitution expressly forbids.

― Compromise isn't a principle, it's a method (Aimless)

ah, maybe that's why talk of passing separate legislation died off. i was also reminded of this approach suggested a few weeks ago:

...In an opinion piece published in The Washington Post on Monday, Yale Law School professor Bruce Ackerman and Indiana University law professor Gerard Magliocca argued that members of Congress have another, perhaps easier, path to barring Trump from office.

They pointed to the Section 3 of the 14th Amendment, aimed at preventing people from holding federal office if they are deemed to have “engaged in insurrection or rebellion against” the Constitution.

The professors write that if a majority vote of both houses agree that Trump engaged in an act of “insurrection or rebellion,” then he would be barred from running for the White House again. Only a two-thirds vote of each house of Congress in the future could undo that result.

The sole article of impeachment adopted Wednesday cites that provision of the Constitution and says Trump should be disqualified from holding future office.

The 14th Amendment was one of three amendments adopted after the Civil War to end slavery and afford equal rights to Black people. The point of Section 3, according to Ackerman and Magliocca, was to keep Confederates — those who had engaged in “insurrection or rebellion” — from holding public office in the postwar period. In 1872, Congress passed the Amnesty Act to allow those men to serve again. But Section 3 remains. It was last used a century ago to keep a socialist from Wisconsin who opposed U.S. entry into World War I from taking his seat in Congress.

but yeah, given that the idea seems to have sunk like a stone, i guess it's safe to assume that the senate won't convict trump, again, and then we'll all just go back to hoping that trump isn't bad again

the US needs a new constitution

the current one definitely had its day. props to the constitution - 2 out of 3 historians agree that it was important. but now it is very out of date and bad

What are you guys thinking of course he’s going to run again it’s the only way he can stave off utter financial ruin.

i don't know, he almost got that 40% stake in parler a couple days before it got hacked, he seems like a very good businessman with many lucrative opportunities

only if he gets wind of the idea thaht he broke the constitution it will go straight to his head.

i don't know, he almost got that 40% stake in parler a couple days before it got hacked, he seems like a very good businessman with many lucrative opportunities

the US needs a new constitution

― Zach_TBD (Karl Malone), Tuesday, February 9, 2021 11:51 AM (eight minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

The US needed more than one goddamn constitutional convention. But that ship has definitively sailed because can you even imagine what kind of nightmare revised constitution would result from having one now, can you even imagine.

first ten amendments are now variations on the second amendment

Amend My Heart

New US Constitution (sponsored by Hardees) substitutea The Ten Commandments for the Bill of Rights.

substitutes

if it's sponsored by Hardees, wouldn't it substitute ten roast beef sandwiches for the Bill of Rights

I'm excited to hear Trump's Three Amigos legal team.. I'll bet they provide some novel interpretation of the law.

if it's sponsored by Hardees, wouldn't it substitute ten roast beef sandwiches for the Bill of Rights

― Hello Nice FBI Lady (DJP), Tuesday, February 9, 2021 1:33 PM bookmarkflaglink

one hot Big Carl

"President Trump may not know much about the Framers; but they know a lot about him." - quote of the day