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

The outrage is not that Manchin, Sinema and the Centrist Democrats watered this bill down. That’s to be expected. They are doing what their voters sent them to the Senate to do- be a Democrat, yes, but be a pain in the ass and gum up the works whenever possible so things don’t go too far progressive. The real outrage is that there was never any question that there might be even a single Republican vote for this bill. The outrage is that every single Republican senator was willing to line up and vote no on a bill that is going to help people during a crisis. Where are the Centrist Republicans, who are willing to buck their party and vote their conscience and vote with the best interests of the people in mind? Oh, there are none? They are all more interested in scoring political points and taking advantage of schisms in the other party, knowing that the Democrats will take the hit for any watering down of this bill? Knowing that it will be Manchin’s name in the news during negotiations and not theirs? Fuck them. We have one whole party in our 2 party system that is complete and utter shit. That’s the outrage here. I’m not happy about this bill getting watered down, and I think Manchin et al can fuck right off, but the real problem is the party that has been completely radicalized and has no interest in helping people unless it’s incidental to them scoring political points, i.e. not the Democrats, but the other fucks that have no qualms about lining up to say “fuck you” to the American people en masse while people are suffering.

agree

We have one whole party in our 2 party system that is complete and utter shit.

afaics, they, too, are doing what their voters sent them to the Senate to do, to use the power of government only to repress anyone who is not in lockstep with whatever the outrage machine decides is "conservatism" this week.

We deserve everything

silby otm

There is no conceivable world where the conservative party has a role in good policymaking/isn’t shit. The reactionaries are inherently and eternally trash. The only way to deal with them is to render them powerless - which is what they are in Congress and the White House right now.

It's hard to argue that's what they were sent there to do when a bill enjoys 70% support

Yeah I might buy that if it weren’t every single one of them. Surely some of the Senate Republicans were sent to Congress to own the libs at all costs. But all of them?

You were referring to Manchin and Sinema with 'be Democrats but gum up the works,' weren't you?

If there were Republicans willing to cross the aisle and vote for the relief bill it would have been worse. Manchin and Sinema would have jumped at the chance to strip more from the bill.

I thought I was agreeing with Moodles that it’s hard to argue that every single Republican was sent to Congress to try to kill a bill that has 70% support. But in any case the 70% support is unclear. Did everyone who was polled actually read the proposed bill and say, yes that’s just exactly how I want it? Or was there more generically 70% support for *a bill*? Because we did end up with a bill passing.

I was referring to Aimless' comment about Republicans. I think to an extent they are going against their own voters wishes. I buy the idea that Manchin was sent to gum up the works though. I have no fucking idea what Sinema's deal is.

Unless I misread and Moodles meant Manchin and Sinema. But I find it much easier to believe that 2-ish Democrats were sent to Congress in part to pull shit like this, rather than that every single Republican senator was.

Although yes, it's probably for some bill and not necessarily this exact one, but I suspect they still support the stimulus, UI, and other stuff as well, possibly at a lower dollar amount.

xp ok that’s what I thought

Republican senators were sent to congress to promote mass death and the hastening of the Millennium mostly

it's doubtful that huge amounts of people receiving checks are going to be pissed about extra cash

*gasp* even..... Susan Collins??

xp

The 64 year old people who posted “don’t destroy the economy to save my life” absolutely will be mad to get handouts because they want to die

I get the sense that most people in Maine would rather be dead than alive in Maine

The only thing that makes the Republican Party make sense is death cultism. The Democrats don’t want their constituents to die they just accept that a certain amount will have to in the name of fiscal responsibility.

Just as a thought experiment- if the WH, House and Senate were all tilted in favor of the Republicans, what bills would they be passing right now? Let’s say they decided to pass some kind of COVID relief bill, because they would be the ones getting credit for doing something. What would that look like? Would it be mostly legislation outlawing masks and forcing the economy “back open”? What unrelated riders would be tacked on, etc? Or how about the Republican version of a Voting Rights bill? It almost makes me physically ill to imagine these things, but I can’t help thinking about it.

And would they be getting any Democratic votes?

They'd probably be in rudderless disarray like they were in 2017

but also counterfactuals are a waste of breath so who cares

I guess you don’t like thought experiments.

silby’s “the republicans are a deathcult” t-shirt is prompting a lot of questions already answered by the t-shirt

a lot of people (rightly) focused on Krysten Sinema's old tweet in support of raising the minimum wage

...but did you know almost every one of the 8 Democratic Senators who voted to kill the minimum wage increase has tweeted out the same support of the thing they voted against pic.twitter.com/HL2QYtCwMT

— Matt Binder (@MattBinder) March 7, 2021

xps I actually wasn’t asking silby specifically (though I see it looked like I was). Just thinking aloud, I guess.

I was just goofing. (I do think there's literally no value in running thought experiments of "how much worse would Republicans make it" though, given nearly all of them voted for American democracy to be outright abolished just weeks ago.)

"Biden stimulus showers money on Americans, offers generous expansion of aid to poor" I liked seeing that headline

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said he’s studying a proposal from Waffle House that would phase in a wage increase to $15 over six or seven years.

This is a strange sentence

Not if he's actually at a Waffle House for six or seven years, which is exactly where he should be.

enshallah

By 2028 every American worker will be able to afford to have their hash browns scattered, smothered AND covered.

me making $8/hr at a drive thru in 2011: god, this fucking sucks. i hope things are better 10 years from now.

god: i can make one of the senators bisexual i guess

— kim possible facts (@kimpossiblefact) March 6, 2021

god i could MURDER a pecan waffle and some bacon right now

I read that 4 times as “pelican waffle”, decided I must not be up on current slang, went to a different website and read an article, came back, idly read that as “pelican waffle” again, started to come up with ideas of what it might mean, and then suddenly the 2 extra letters disappeared and DUH.

https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcSptMAvhEQYd5Wps8FUAjsAZDYdM6xqaKl4IQ&usqp=CAU

Tell me that was the first GIS result for pelican

Sorry, funtime is over

ACTIONS HAVE CONSEQUENCES pic.twitter.com/M4sf9BhGjA

— CAPYBARA MAN (@CAPYBARA_MAN) March 6, 2021

Does anyone have a link to polls on raising the minimum wage in states like WV & AZ? Bonus points if it’s from a reliable pollster and not an org with an agenda

we can always start a poll on ilx for what we believe people in states like WV and AZ think about raising the minimum wage.

Speaking of WV, Manchin gave an interview on Fox where he signaled openness to filibuster reform, not getting rid of it, but making it "painful" to do.

I mean if you had to actually stand there and talk instead of just pressing the filibuster button that’d help

That seems to be the kind of thing he has in mind. It's ridiculous this isn't already required.

Yeah, I didn't realize until recently that it's really just a matter of sending an email to formally register an objection, which any senator can do.

I did not know that either! I def thought they had to talk or at least have the floor

I feel like that happened during Obama’s first term? Or became increasingly common.

It would certainly make it more difficult for the geriatrics who run this country. But I’m sure Tommy Cotton and that Hawley asshole could handle it

It would give Ted Cruz another chance to read Dr. Seuss, and this time it would doubly own the libs.

He said the same thing to Chuck Todd. Manchin must've done the Sunday talk show circuit. In any case, he's "signaling" his intentions to the White House.