On Sinema at the Sinema: October 2021 US Politics thread

Murray, the chair of the HELP Committee, and Sen. Debbie Stabenow say laid leave program will be modified so workers would have to pay into it. It would not be a pure social spending program.

— Alex Bolton (@alexanderbolton) October 27, 2021

Radical centrists, still the dumbest group in Washington.

NEW NO LABELS/HARRISX POLL: 40% of voters say Congress is moving too fast on the Democratic social spending and climate bill and say #NoMoreRushJobs.https://t.co/BBEtMYPw3r pic.twitter.com/kG3ltWcer4

— No Labels (@NoLabelsOrg) October 27, 2021

News flash for NoLabels.org: when your position is losing 40% to 60%, that's called a landslide defeat.

what a shitty organization

confounded by wacky hat aficionado and a guy I’m 99.99% sure I’ve seen wear an ascot on cable news, Mark McKinnon

…and recently hired sex pest Mark Halperin

VERY SERIOUS

co-founded*

To date, only four of Biden’s choices to be a U.S. ambassador to a foreign government have been approved by the Senate — three of them just on Tuesday. That means Biden is lagging considerably behind his immediate predecessor, Donald Trump, who at this point in his presidency had 22 such U.S. ambassadors confirmed, 17 of them by voice vote, according to data compiled by Senate Democratic leadership aides.

The delays stem from threats by some Republican senators, led by Ted Cruz (Tex.), who has been angling for a fight with the Biden administration over matters of national security. That is prolonging the usually routine process of getting ambassadors formally installed, while several high-profile posts are also vacant because the White House has yet to put forward nominees for them.

ambassaords

having to pay into a leave program without any commensurate increase in wages just sounds like they have invented a 401k for leave

lol Biden about to announce a framework of the deal with no fucking deal in place. this will go well

https://www.nytimes.com/live/2021/10/28/us/biden-spending-bill-deal/budget-deal

DAMN

I believe I wore it better @BobMehr @SenatorSinema https://t.co/5afXX88BZL

— Aaron Neville (@aaronneville) October 27, 2021

The plan leaves out several major proposals, including paid family leave and lowering drug costs.

they are assuming the progressives are just going to be ok with this?

he campaigned on both of those specifically ffs

Sinema: "I don't know much, but I know I hate yooooooooou."

so the Dems won the trifecta by campaigning on a bunch of very popular ideas and are going to fail to deliver a single one of them, very cool

idk if I can even be too mad at Biden, I'm honestly not sure what he's supposed to do when this country is so rigged in favor of small states which allows the entire legislative agenda of a significant majority to be torpedoed by a single coal baron. god bless the U S of A

then again the shit he campaigned on wasn't going to pass anyway if Georgia hadn't happened

going to be great when this shit bill passes, doesn't do a damn thing of note for a majority of people and the republicans point to all the wasted money.

what are you talking about? many people are saying they love the idea of adding another line in the deduction section of their pay stub, and eagerly look forward to filling out another form to maybe (???) get paid when they take their 2 weeks of parental leave

in fact, 40% think it goes too far ;)

idk if I can even be too mad at Biden, I'm honestly not sure what he's supposed to do when this country is so rigged in favor of small states which allows the entire legislative agenda of a significant majority to be torpedoed by a single coal baron. god bless the U S of A

Biden’s pitch was that he was uniquely qualified to wrangle Congress, it was only months ago that ILXors were still talking about his skill at working them behind the scenes.

Beyond that, he wasted most of the year not aggressively asserting his authority/stature/popularity (on good policy, he exerted that authority all over Haitian refugees) - starting with President Senate Parliamentarian ensuring the minimum wage stagnates for another decade - because he bought into his own hype as President Deals.

The round of capitulations could have taken place in April, which would have at least made it possible for Nov. 22 voters to feel some tiny effects of the Biden admin.

starting with President Senate Parliamentarian ensuring the minimum wage stagnates for another decade

was just thinking about the big fear the raising the min wage at the time would cause the inflation

but instead inflation happened anyways effectively lowering the value of the starvation wages even more.

She’s one tough cookie. pic.twitter.com/VMzPiHk5YX

— Mitt Romney (@MittRomney) October 28, 2021

they're fucking trolling us! get fucked

lock thread
send to decontamination

stabby stabby

(Romney's cosplaying there as Sudeikis btw)

Sudeikis as Romney vs. Romney as Sudeikis pic.twitter.com/rV9SB3eodd

— 🕷🎃Trick-or-Keith🎃🕷 (@nagy_minaj) October 28, 2021

I thought it was Dabney Coleman at first.

Biden’s pitch was that he was uniquely qualified to wrangle Congress, it was only months ago that ILXors were still talking about his skill at working them behind the scenes.

bernie's pitch was that he was uniquely qualified to wrangle congress as well. that's everyone's pitch.

"it was only months ago that ilxors were still talking about"

i'm grumpy because i'm getting divorced and i'm moving and i'm still sober today, but i really hate this kind of line of thinking. as if it means anything at all. which ilxors? is that supposed to mean everyone here was talking about that? or is it more like "i remember a couple people who were arguing that, so now i'm going to make it seem like it was joe biden fever on ilx in 2021". being able to find a couple old posts like that doesn't prove jack shit, it's just flood the zone with shit shit

biden said he would be able to convince republicans to work with him, and then he didn't! he lied! waaaaaah!

oh stfu

how fucking pseudo-naive can you be

You might note what I was responding to there (it was quoted!) about ‘what Biden was to do’ and blaming/‘being mad’ at him.

If you believe we are at some point in the future going to have another Democratic president, then you could pretend-console yourself by saying, "NEXT time they'll know not to think they can build bipartisan support."

But since the former is only marginally likely anyway, maybe it doesn't matter. Biden will go down as the last gasp dying hope of functional government, and it will be all kleptocratic clown-show Handmaid's Tale shit from there on.

(Speaking as a resident of a state that's already gone pretty much full-on kleptocratic evangelical clown show.)

that is certainly one thing that might happen

My reasonably literate non-MAGA Republican bro-in-law and sister acknowledged a few weeks ago they loved the Biden child tax credit. We wouldn't be talking about a $1.7 or whatever trillion infrastructure bill had Warnock and Ossoff not won their races. I didn't take Biden "at his word," whatever that means. If some of the items reported in the proposed bill are true and he signs them, that's more spending by the federal government I've seen in my lifetime, and Joe Fucking Biden, whom no one here endorsed, is the president.

Given, as tipsy points out, what we emerged from and what might happen in '22 and '24, I'm impressed this happened at all.

I’d be more impressed if they took steps to avert the looming disasters of 2022 and 2024.

(And 2028 and 2050 and)

I would like a large pizza with mushrooms. I voted for a party that, I thought, would give me a large pizza with mushrooms. Instead, they are giving me a medium cheese pizza. That's disappointing.

Meanwhile, the other party wants to feed me arsenic and nails.

— Ian Millhiser (@imillhiser) October 28, 2021

I don’t know, maybe if they delivered on the large mushroom pizza then Arsenic Hut wouldn’t be the only chain in town next year.

Whereas one party is pretty much united in their determination to shove arsenic and nails down the throats of their constituents, the problem is that the other party runs the gamut from endless free pizzas with the works for all to, well, arsenic and nails. Say what you will about the GOP, but they know how to build and maintain a coalition. Evil is powerful as a binding force, I guess.

I voted for water.

I feel like having certainties about 2024 is a bit presumptuous. I guess no one really knew in 2005 that Obama would win, or that in 2013 that Trump would, or in 2017 that a pandemic would upend politics this much.

I voted for removing from office the person criminal who would have tried to get himself appointed President For Life.

Wasn't Milo certain that if Sanders lost to Biden then Trump would automatically win the elections? Or is it another poster? In any case, having certainties of the kind is a fool's errand.

if not, we'll change the terms of the argument again

Wasn't Milo certain that if Sanders lost to Biden then Trump would automatically win the elections?

Nope.

I voted for water.

With the Democratic climate plan, you'll have plenty of it. Salty, but nevertheless...

Truly glad that I "wasted" my vote (yes, in Pennsylvania) on a third-party candidate with a platform I actually agree with.

And not one whom I knew would essentially be a feckless piece of shit mumbling bullshit to a bunch of feckless pieces of shit, none of whom understand or care about anything except lining their own pockets

congrats, here's your banana sticker