On Sinema at the Sinema: October 2021 US Politics thread

right

Democrats? Shit the bed? Again? You don't say.

Do we have a thread dedicated to strikes in the US?

Last September someone started a Rolling Labor Actions thread.

updated yesterday:

Rolling Labor Action Thread

Thank you!

NEW: Sen. Manchin has told the White House the child tax credit must include a firm work requirement and family income cap in the $60k range, Axios has learned.

These demands would dramatically weaken one of Biden's signature programs. https://t.co/ZL5PHUfpBY

— Axios (@axios) October 17, 2021

Did Axios learn Biden's reply?

President Biden to police officers: "I believe with all my heart there's nothing you're unable to do if we equip you, that we can unite this nation and fight our common foes: anger, resentment, hatred." pic.twitter.com/h1ojWcAfy4

— The Hill (@thehill) October 16, 2021

Beginning when I was about 12 years old, whenever my mother stopped our station wagon at an intersection and saw a law enforcement officer on the street corner, I was taught to get out of the car, approach the officer, shake their hand, and say “Thank you.” pic.twitter.com/NZFI4phacc

— Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas (@SecMayorkas) October 17, 2021

the populist proposals that biden wanted to make the legacy of his presidency are not happening.

i doubt it's just manchin and sinema blocking it. not to be conspiratorial, but they are likely the designated "fall guys."

for me, the single issue is making life more affordable for the working class of the country. giving opportunity to those who are made to feel marginalized, hopeless, including people who have been incarcerated. this population has a very hard time getting on their feet and feeling like they can be part of society. this is an example of the fundamental cruelty at the heart of our system.

i could go on and on about the kafkaesque nightmare that is the "american dream." these days, if you want to follow the rules and get ahead and don't have family help, you end up burdened with crippling college debt for life. we are all under the boot heels of the ownership class.

however, i don't make decisions here. americans do not feel the way i do. they do not feel the way the house progressive caucus does. even though these proposals "poll well," i suspect this is an illusion. talking to people, they are mostly just worried that the "wrong people" will benefit from compassionate policies. the myth of the undeserving poor is so fundamental to american culture it's impossible to overstate. sinema knows this, the senate democrats know this, and biden might even know it. we will continue to grind people up and spit them out and maintain a society of mutual distrust and paranoia and insanity because that is the american way.

i'm going to try to find individual causes that i can contribute to and i'll stay active in my union and whatever, but overall i think we just need to get used to this. an issue like housing security for instance. no one gives a shit that housing is unaffordable.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/16/opinion/pramila-jayapal-infrastructure.html?smtyp=cur&smid=tw-nytopinion

Just envisioning the Mayorkas family station wagon stopped in the intersection, the light's turned green, everybody's honking and yelling, little Alex still standing on the corner pumping the fist of an increasingly aggrieved parking cop

we will continue to grind people up and spit them out and maintain a society of mutual distrust and paranoia and insanity because that is the american way.

i basically agree with this. we can and should mitigate against it as much as we can, but this is "who we are" and it's why americans distrust democrats (or why democrats run on one thing and do another), and why republicans can just be completely full of shit but seem authentic because they accurately represent american values.

good morning!

the kind of shift in values that would need to happen in order for something more substantive to change isn't going to come from national politics as presently constituted imo. xp

Maybe if space aliens invaded we could get the hospital bills waived and they would let people live in the empty houses and apartments? Maybe

New - Biden told House progressives tuition-free community college is out of package, per multiple sources. Child tax credit won’t go as far as some would like — likely a 1-yr extension. Home health care likely less than $250B. Dems had wanted $400B. Climate change still a debate

— Manu Raju (@mkraju) October 19, 2021

What a fucking waste this has all been

Has it?

I didn't fucking want this old prune as president, but I also didn't expect a Senate majority. The Senate majority is a 50-50 phenomenon. If we get a $1.2 trillion or whatever it is bill that's more than I expected from this lot. I've convinced myself Congress has gone so many years without, you know, legislating that its muscles have atrophied, so I'm not minding the delays yet. Twitter culture makes it hard not to detach, though.

If Biden signs a bill that Sanders and Jayapal are happy with, I'd be comfortable. What worries me now are sunset provisions.

it's been a pile of garbage

Putting aside the Beltway press hyperventilation about Sinema-Manchin as a Trojan horse for other reluctant members, it's really this minority against a majority of the House-Senate. It's really not PROGRESSIVES VS MODERATE, it's the majority of House-Senate members against this preening minority.

I'm curious what y'all thought you'd get from this president and this Senate majority. That we're getting a bill over a trillion dollars -- one, I hope, without too many sunset provisions and other limited lifespans -- was unexpected for me in November when I hoped to elect a president who wasn't Trump. Did you really have audacity of hope in February?

oh, i don't mean garbage in terms of what should be expected. 50-50 + the existence of manchin and sinema = pile of garbage. we were all joking about it from the night of the election, how manchin would control everything. i hadn't thought about it, until that night. and then thought - makes sense. here we are

remember those Biden-FDR comparisons? lol. With this Senate and this president? Although I'm sure he would've signed the
Humphrey–Hawkins Full Employment Act if handed to him.

I admit I let my expectations get a little high this spring. I was counting on Biden's better rapport with a Democratic Congress than Obama's (he pretty famously didn't like to schmooze) getting out by something bolder through.

-out-

it's disappointing but politics is compromise which was exactly why sanders was shooting so high. the unfortunate thing is that compromises never make everyone happy. but if they weren't shooting high, imagine what we would have gotten.

But we still haven't gotten much of anything! The delays are making it harder to see any future success and making it feel more likely that this administration will be seen as a failure. At this point, they should just pass something

Pretty sure "something" will pass.

good morning!

Two problems:

(1) Several legislators and Biden don't understand the moment of crisis.

(2) Because Dems are now a true coalition party in that they represent everyone NOT a fascist, the structural deficiencies imposed by the Constitution empower the most reactionary factions.

One's personal expectations of Biden (a senescent crook) don't make the outcomes any less poor. "One trillion" doesn't mean much when most of it can (and will) be undone by the 2023-24 GOP House and it fails to make structural changes in the face of inequality and climate catastrophe. This was their one chance to switch the tracks on the trolley line and they've blown it.

We're going to make it through half of Biden's meaningful Presidency and he won't even have bothered to reschedule weed.

At least he's not Bush/at least he's not Dubya/at least he's not Trump-ing our way into the apocalypse.

Almost six whole quarters of our next military budget!

your response is that he is a senescent crook, ok

this is a country dominated by republicans, even with a democratic majority, and is sliding into autocracy.

I think that the presidential election in 2024 will show us that democracy in the US is basically over

your response is that he is a senescent crook, ok

https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/biden-delaware-way-graft/

I'm not thrilled, either, but I'm honestly not sure what Biden personally is supposed to have done to pass a better bill. There's this fantasy that he could've been strong-arming Joe Manchin behind closed doors; I just don't know what that would actually look like in order to be effective, or whether a president temperamentally different from Biden could make it work in the face of Manchin's incentives.

Putting aside the Beltway press hyperventilation about Sinema-Manchin as a Trojan horse for other reluctant members, it's really this minority against a majority of the House-Senate… it's the majority of House-Senate members against this preening minority.

Get here if you can!

honestly as long as it's somewhat good on climate I'll consider it a big win

xp wasn’t part of Biden’s message that he would be singularly able to convince moderates and Republicans to get on board and do what was best for the country? Obviously that was bullshit and you would have to be a moron/not have paid attention to the last 20 years of politics to believe it for a second but he did make that argument.

Look they’re tackling the important stuff, the minimum wage will have to wait.

The House Foreign Affairs Committee is marking up a bill this week to sanction whoever “directed or carried out” Havana syndrome attacks lol

— aída chávez (@aidachavez) October 19, 2021

Pretty sure "something" will pass.

― So who you gonna call? The martini police (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, October 19, 2021 8:47 PM (two hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

me, after a few pints

"The Democrats struggling and fighting for a full year to pass a bill that mostly makes ineffective pre-existing programs more complicated and harder to access" is one of those outcomes that's obviously funny but also very difficult to laugh at. https://t.co/xOMIIY6tV6

— David Roth (@david_j_roth) October 19, 2021

Interesting

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/new-public-defenders-joe-biden-quietly-makes-history-courts-n1281787?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=news_tab&utm_content=algorithm&fbclid=IwAR1Bs0_Jed-qN4YOQJFf0p0E0NFAp00tcvEdhQjaY9GLOw5ZlIbl3rglAwY

Sorry, sic

So I’m finally listening to the Revolutions podcast about the French revolution and it is very interesting to hear about about how desperately pre-Revolutionary France needed reform but the system was structurally incapable of making any effective change.

Makes ya think, donit?

Let them eat NFTs