Beware the Ides of March -- U.S. Politics March 2021

xp - Just vhs being kind.

alleviate =/= eliminate, fwiw

idgi is this about how labour costs must be kept down so employers can make a profit and the resulting deprivation can be alleviated by the state? because there seem to be a lot of unnecessary moves there

50% of the wages of 20% of the workforce seems like a program unlikely to be found elsewhere.

Outside of COVID wage programs, which are maybe not the standard fare.

there seem to be a lot of unnecessary moves there

if you want the Congress to legislate along the most rational line of economic policy any time soon, you are whistling up the wind.

I still like Dr. Seuss, so I decided to read Green Eggs and Ham.

RT if you still like him too! pic.twitter.com/2pbRbSiJD6

— Kevin McCarthy (@GOPLeader) March 6, 2021

The 2024 budget will only get passed when Biden agrees to mandate racist Seuss books in every elementary school library.

mandatory

mandate worked

#flashbackfriday

A full-time minimum-wage earner makes less than $16k a year. This one’s a no-brainer. Tell Congress to #RaiseTheWage! http://t.co/gmHYXGZzaT

— Kyrsten Sinema (@kyrstensinema) March 12, 2014

Might just fit here.
I just found out that with the Trash section of my Yahoo mailbox otherwise empty they're playing Fox News on a screen in there if I look in there.
Is that deliberate or random algorithm fun?

They are going to eat shit so hard in 2022 and they’re going to deserve it. the 2010 ‘wave’ is going to look like a ripple in comparison

this is what a girl boss looks like pic.twitter.com/P2ssitTKpy

— aída chávez (@aidachavez) March 6, 2021

They should be badgered in public every bit as much as Betsy DeVos

Net worth of the 8 Democrats who just voted down $15 minimum wage:
Chris Coons: $10.13 million
Angus King: $9.49 million
Joe Manchin: $7.62 million
Tom Carper: $5.73 million
Jeanne Shaheen: $3.82 million
Jon Tester: $3.67 million
Maggie Hassan: $3.47 million
Krysten Sinema: N/A

— Ken Klippenstein (@kenklippenstein) March 5, 2021

A pity about King (whom I didn't know was so rich!). Since caucusing with the Dems, he's generally been good people and an incisive interlocutor. The Delaware duo, however, remain hopeless.

yeah tbh he surprised me more than most on that list

that Sinema clip/GIF is going to live forever. (or, in internet terms, six months)

what is this

Another week in the books. pic.twitter.com/Q2u8fSS86Q

— President Biden (@POTUS) March 6, 2021

I don’t know but all I could focus on was the pink tie struggling vainly to free itself from the backpack strap.

other than something that makes me want to die I can’t really say what tf that is

As Chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, I am proud that we passed the American Rescue Plan, which, in my view, is the most significant piece of legislation to benefit working families in the modern history of this country.

— Bernie Sanders (@SenSanders) March 6, 2021

This package, among many other things, increases direct payments by $1400, extends unemployment benefits, reduces child poverty by half, ensures we are vaccinating as many people as possible, and puts us on a path to safely reopen schools.

— Bernie Sanders (@SenSanders) March 6, 2021

The American people are hurting, and this comprehensive plan goes a long way to addressing the myriad crises that we face.

— Bernie Sanders (@SenSanders) March 6, 2021

Biden is doing the cool guys don’t look back at explosions bit but they forgot to edit those in.

Whoever's handling the social accounts forgot to lay the music in before they uploaded that video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ju65gr9sUjk

This picture--PET and cabinet members arriving to be sworn in in 1968--was circulating around when Justin became PM a few years ago.

https://img.huffingtonpost.com/asset/5cd6bb2c2400005900754d4d.jpeg?ops=scalefit_960_noupscale

^ the shoes are the crowning touch

Is 'PET' a well-known acronym in the US? I kind of doubt it.

Doubtful...I thought mentioning Justin would be enough for the connection.

As a general rule, I tend to assume Americans know zilch about our politics, but maybe ILX is different.

M. Trudeau pere received multitudes of publicity in US media compared to the usual, less-glamorized Canadian PM.

Interesting. There may be a generational aspect to it as well.

He made the cover of Time in '78, along with Levesque:

http://img.timeinc.net/time/magazine/archive/covers/1978/1101780213_400.jpg

I initially thought it would have been a Canada-only cover, but it's the one you get in the main gallery of Time covers. I think they may have started a Canadian edition at some point after that, where occasional covers would be different.

Good on Bernie, who at least knows how to declare victory. Maybe some of his stans will get the message.

hopefully more than that, too. if democrats are going to avoid the 2022 wipeout that everyone fears, it will be because they continue to describe it as an enormous accomplishment and something they're proud of.

this is from a couple weeks back, but i thought it made sense then and it still seems accurate now, when a massive bill just passed this morning and everyone on the left seems embarrassed by it

...

To wit with all of this, Democrats are in the midst of passing a massive COVID relief bill which will spend almost two trillion dollars to revive the economy, speed the vaccination program that will crush the COVID epidemic and address entrenched inequalities that predate and have been deepened by the crisis. It will also send out fat checks to tens of millions of households – ones two Georgia senators ran on with the explicit commitment of the incoming President himself. The bill is overwhelmingly popular with the public at large and it seems likely that few and quite likely no Republicans at all will vote for it. When you do something that popular, that you promised you’d do and your political opponents are all refusing to support it … you absolutely, positively have to tell everybody. It’s negligence not to.

As soon as the bill passes, Democratic party aligned groups need to be running ads in every district in the country that is remotely in play and frankly even ones that aren’t in play and telling everyone this: The country is in crisis. President Biden just delivered and every Republican including [add name here] refused to support the plan.

Politics isn’t just something that happens at election time. You need to start telling the story now. The precise inflection of the story will be different in different regions, communities. But it’s absolutely critical to tell the story now. Because if you don’t – actually regardless of what you do – Republicans will be picking little chunks out of the bill to lie about and make that the story.

It is always the case. But it is especially the case now – given the that everything the Democrats do over the next two years has to be part of an integrated plan – both doing and publicizing – to convince as many Americans as possible to go into the 2022 midterm election believing that it is important to them personally that Democrats retain and expand their congressional majorities. Did you like your $2,000 check? [ZS edit: HI ILX!] Well, Democrats brought you that, even after Senate Republicans tried to filibuster those checks. Every Republican including [add name here] voted against it. Again and again and again.

Are these ads being prepped? Is money billing allocated for this? Which groups are taking the lead? I have no idea and frankly I haven’t heard anything about anything like this happening. But it needs to. So if you care about saving the country, it’s time find ways to make this happen.

https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/whos-gonna-tellem#more-1361685

The minimum wage stuff is a real kick in the dick but generally I think this is an excellent bill that is proof the left has had a huge influence on joe fuckin biden and senior democrats over the past decade or so.

It is and it is — and the left should be proclaiming exactly that rather than THIS IS A CLASS-TRAITOR BETRAYAL OF ALL THINGS GOOD AND DECENT AND I CAN'T WAIT FOR JOE BIDEN TO BE KNEECAPPED BY THE FASCISTS IN '22. Which seems more the temperature at the moment.

well, Bernie gets it

Yep. An important part of politics is knowing when to take a win, even when it's not everything you want.

(and btw it is ALWAYS not everything you want)

I think it’s fine to complain about the outcome and the process too btw. I’m not saying those people or wrong and the criticism is not deserved or even that she should save it for another time.

The process was bad and the outcome is inadequate, but I don’t object to the idea of attacking Republicans for their no votes, which since it’s a good idea is something the DSCC or whatever probably won’t do

yeah, that's the thing. we can have these conversations among friends and family and that's important too, but it'd be cool to see the people who are nominally supposed to be promoting and growing the Democratic party, would, you know, do that

The process is always bad and the outcome is always inadequate and those things are always worth pointing out. But politically it is also important to say (as Bernie did) LOOK AT ALL THIS GOOD STUFF WE'RE DOING. And to have that message be a lot louder than FUCK JOE BIDEN AND JOE MANCHIN THE DEMOCRATS HATE ALL POOR PEOPLE AND ARE TOTALLY USELESS.

Fortunately ilx has a smaller reach than most superPACs

Anyway I assume the Supreme Court will declare some component of this unconstitutional when Texas sues over not wanting their residents to receive rent relief or whatever

But politically it is also important to say (as Bernie did) LOOK AT ALL THIS GOOD STUFF WE'RE DOING.

It might be valuable for Bernie (Twitter followers: 15.7mn) to do that (just as likely it's completely irrelevant - winning team proclaims victory is not really man bites dog territory). It is not important, valuable or necessary for anyone who is not one of the most famous political figures in the country to do so, especially since they aren't actually part of the winning group.

*i, the sheeple, walking in and being my usual self*

but, who is the winning group?

The Democrats I guess

The politicians who ran on it, wrote it, amended it, voted for it the people actively involved in the process. It’s part of their job to trumpet their victories.

If you’re not looking to get re-elected in two to six years there’s absolutely no reason that it’s wrong to express disappointment that the bill was made worse than what was promised in January, worse than it was a week ago and fails to deliver on the best chance to accomplish a major promise, for no reason but the ego of a few obstructionist Democrats.

so you like the bill?

Could have been much better, doesn’t bode well for anything going forward with less leverage and the need for cloture.