On Sinema at the Sinema: October 2021 US Politics thread

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

yeah, but out of that difficult situation came modern day France!! it was all worth it, right?

right

as i understand it, after napoleon was finally defeated, he continued to lead france until the middle of WW2, when he was sacked and replaced with de Gaulle. also some colonialism in there

I'd take current France over current US easy.

i've never been to europe :(

that's why i don't know the history :(

i hear in europe that they have these really nice breakfast nooks tho

If you've been to Epcot, you've been to Europe.

epcot was one of my very first memories (grew up in jacksonville til i was 3)

is this epcot, is this europe, or neither?

https://i.imgur.com/mhjPiN3.jpg

https://www.reddit.com/r/WaltDisneyWorld/comments/gqx2pz/saw_this_and_thought_spaceship_earth_had_caught/ - neither. 1976 fire in Montreal.

hmm. ok, in that case. i think the answer is europe

i mean france

Tu me brises le coeur, Karl.

Just to echo some of what has already been said here, it is hard to imagine leaders being more out of touch with the populace they ostensibly serve and the crisis conditions so many are living in.

But I also want to propose that a large part of this is because of Protestant cultures and hierarchies of work that are deeply ingrained in this country. In essence, the crisis is with the entire way that our society is structured, and because these absolute assholes have mostly unjustly benefited from these structures, they just don't care how they've failed the rest of us.

Blah blah this country is doomed, still glad I didn't vote for this sentient raisinfucker

Le plus difficile, c'est que je dois me fier à google translate, parce que... vous ne le croiriez pas, mais mon français est horrible, juste le pire.