Joe Money, Joe Problems: the November 2021 U.S. Politics Thread

re: Sinema, metaphorically speaking the democratic leadership is trying to horse trade with someone who doesn't have a horse and doesn't want one.

$72k!!!!

Updated @TaxFoundation distributional estimate for raising the SALT cap to $72,500. About 80% of the benefit goes to those earning over $200K.

Biggest winners are those earning between $250K and $1M. https://t.co/DuSWgcIsU4 pic.twitter.com/xpyNtrGgjQ

— Garrett Watson (@GS_Watson) November 3, 2021

congratulations to the 90th-98th percentiles i guess

¯\_(ツ)_/¯ pic.twitter.com/0hpHkMHQcg

— Osita Nwanevu (@OsitaNwanevu) November 3, 2021

It's a challenge to his donors.

Why bother texting a reporter that you’re putting paid leave back in without asking President Manchin first?!

it's the narcissism of small differences, but i find the "NAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY" voices on the left to be incredibly annoying. it's like you feel better when the world gets worse because it means you were right. and god, even the optimistic scenario of that person, in which finally the world actually DOES get better and there's a revolution and AOC is president and everything is perfect, that same person would be like "SEEEEEEEEEEEEE, if they would have done what *I* said from the beginning, see, I was right". it's like there is no scenario in which this is not just totally fucking annoying

― Karl Malone, Wednesday, November 3, 2021 2:12 PM (forty-six minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

Thank you. If you can't inject some hope into your message, your message is gonna be a real hard sell to those who aren't already onboard. At their worst, the two ends of the spectrum just become about nursing different varieties of grievance.

If you’re running for office or issue canvassing, that might be true. If you’re posting on ILX or Twitter I can’t see how “selling” anyone anything is the goal.

I guess if you're looking for hope all I can say is that things change really, really quickly in American politics these days. like the rate of change itself seems to be accelerating. maybe the writing is on the wall for Dems to get slaughtered in 2022 and 2024 right now, but so much is going to happen between now and then.

I can’t see how “selling” anyone anything is the goal

We know, we know, we fuckin' know.

Right-o! If you’re posting on ILX or Twitter it's really just about nursing different varieties of grievance.

I don't think the issue is not being sold hope, it's the cumulative effect of watching the Dems continually douse even the smallest spark of hope with a big, liquidy shit time and time again.

Always surprised to find out the worst Joe is still alive.

Joe Lieberman urges Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema to fight Biden agenda as he fought Obama https://t.co/Wl1L7dvOEa by @EoinHiggins_

— Ryan Grim (@ryangrim) November 3, 2021

Zip it, Droopy.

In terms of souring voters' takes, especially, this traffic jam etc. seems like it might be a key cock-up:

from Monday's Politico Nightly
By ELANA SCHOR

With help from Renuka Rayasam

BREAKING UP IS HARD TO DO — It’s the arranged marriage that promises to ruin Democrats’ year. But nearly three months ago, the Senate majority leader described the match in glowing terms.

Centrists and liberals “need each other,” Chuck Schumer told our reporters back in August. “The moderates couldn't pass a bipartisan bill without the more progressive wing of our caucus,” Schumer said, referring to the $550 billion infrastructure bill that’s idling in the House after its Senate passage.

“And the progressives couldn’t get a big, bold bill without the moderates,” Schumer added. That “bold bill” is the roughly $1.75 trillion social spending framework that could get a House vote as soon as this week.

Occasionally shorthanded as the “two-track strategy,” what Schumer described was the bet that Democratic leaders have repeatedly raised in order to advance their and the president’s agenda: Get progressives to back an infrastructure bill shaped with GOP input (i.e. not as liberal as they’d like) and, in exchange, get centrists to back a party-line social spending bill shaped with no GOP input (i.e. too liberal for their tastes).

This strategy likely would have worked a lot better had both bills been ready for action at the same time. But as it stands, the infrastructure measure is mired in the House awaiting an elusive consensus on the social spending measure. And the longer that both bills sit in the House, the more those centrist and liberal wings forget why they got engaged in the first place.

Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) today bluntly told the House that “it’s time to pass” the infrastructure bill. Days after they balked at exactly that vote, progressives now sound ready to heed his instructions — even as the social spending bill they wanted to wait for is no closer to quick passage than it was last week.

Before today, progressives, as much as Schumer, were insistent on sticking to the two-track strategy. Both party leaders and the left seemed to have decided that the only way to lock in centrist votes for their social spending vision was to hold up the infrastructure bill at the altar in the House, awaiting its promised legislative spouse.

But the nuptials may have finally been called off, as Democratic confidence that weeks of delay on infrastructure would help pass the social spending framework looks increasingly misplaced. Manchin referred to the bipartisan Senate-passed measure as a “hostage” today. Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.), looking at a home-state gubernatorial race where his party’s nominee is floundering, is getting increasingly vocal in his criticism of the holdup.

And while that duo are as centrist as two Democrats might come, progressives are sounding more eager to pass infrastructure as they get more evidence that they’ve pushed the rest of their party about as far as possible on social spending. It’s entirely possible that both bills will make it to lawful bliss on Biden’s desk – though less and less likely that they’ll stay connected, given that House passage of the social spending package will presage a much longer Senate consideration.

From the start, Democrats never quite agreed on timing for these bills even as they set and missed repeated deadlines.

Now we’re seeing their time — as well as their political capital — run short.

weeks of delay seems longer

I feel like a boomer asking this but wouldn't voters and uncertain voters get behind a house and senate that voted on individual bills that are transparent? Like today we're voting on the "Student Loan Reform" Now it's the "Child Tax Credit" Seems simple to me but it's one of the many reasons I have little faith in the government of either party since the Iraq war.

those individual bills would all get filibustered

You have to tie bills together to get them passed (same as it ever was) and no one would actually care anyway. 'Individual bills' is one of those supposedly common man appeal things that matter less to people than getting the shit they want.

Yeah. Infrastructure bill ff passed by House, is a "single" yet def omnibus bill, like The Other One.

it's a great question, though - why can't bills just be raised and voted on in that simple way? the first answers are correct, and there's more to add to that. but the first question is the important part. it's really sad that things can't be addressed in that way, via a vote on a single issue, to see where people stand.

the more complicated the legislative process is, the more opportunities there are for shenanigans and distortions. i think that's one of my more conservative opinions actually

why can't bills just be raised and voted on in that simple way?

Long Answer: because the men who ran everything when the US constitution was written and the senate formed its filibuster tradition hated and feared democracy. since then these roadblocks have served as a fortress against the nation having 'too much' democracy and the powerful, or simply those groups most favored by this system such as the smaller or more rural states, have jealously guarded their continuation.

Short Answer: Mitch McConnell

Has this lady considered drinking some water?

"A gallon of milk was $1.99. Now it's $2.79. When you buy 12 gallons a week times four weeks, that's a lot of money."@EvanMcS goes grocery shopping with the Stotlers and shows us how badly inflation is hitting the middle class. pic.twitter.com/39hPPRHLja

— Brianna Keilar (@brikeilarcnn) November 4, 2021

To be fair, they do mention raising 9 children so I don't think 12 is that insane for a family of 11.

Still, it is an abso0lutely bizarre framing for the story and I'm sorry she hasn't shopped for milk since 1990 when it was last $1.99 or so.

I prescribe milk and trying some butt stuff going forward.

Water and butt stuff, time to skip the milk.

Powdered milk, then they'll know real suffering.

Part of the issue is that people don't need to drink that much milk— suggested servings of dairy are numbers pushed by the Dairy Industry.

Also, the idea of that much milk makes me want to fucking barf.

I see cold glasses of milk as a dinner table beverage and I don't understand. Mix a Negroni.

Not that I care to be captain save a dairy industry guy, but some of the middle America sneering on this board is so fucking gross. 9 kids eating cereal for breakfast every day is going to use up a lot of milk, it's not like these are weird aliens.

here's a Republican that just won in NJ

Wow sexy ass body

— Edward Durr (@edwarddurr1) February 14, 2018

I see cold glasses of milk as a dinner table beverage and I don't understand. Mix a Negroni.

My kids prefer aperol spritzes, but ok

a gallon of milk is like $5

I see cold glasses of milk as a dinner table beverage and I don't understand. Mix a Negroni.

Not for adults, but midwest kids got a cold glass of milk with every dinner whether you wanted it or not. Something I'm glad to have left in the past.

i'm a 2 gallon per month kind of milk drinker, so i get the good shit

I don't understand this.

i actually try to drink milk, when i can. i'm skin and bones and my butt hurts when i sit on non-padded surfaces. milk puts a thin protective layer of butt fat on me, barely there at all but enough to give me some comfort in this very sharp, solid world

I'm like you and I eat almonds instead.

down to the butthurt

oh i eat granola as well. that's to put some padding on my elbows so they don't snap in half

My dad drank a glass of milk with dinner every night until he died. Didn’t matter what was being eaten - steak/milk, catfish/milk, chicken fried rice/milk, taco night/milk. Awful.

Not for adults, but midwest kids got a cold glass of milk with every dinner whether you wanted it or not.

This is a *wild* generalization, also this is a ungodly amount of milk.

It's been so long since I drank actual from-a-cow milk that I literally can't remember how long it's been. I eat cheese twice, maybe three times a month, on pizza, but that's pretty much the extent of my dairy intake. The weird thing about that story isn't that a family of 11, nine of them kids, drinks a lot of milk - it's that CNN thought "let's interview these two psychos who have nine fucking kids to give the folks at home a sense of what life is like for Real Average Americans."

Even worse as he got older and his doctor made him switch to 2%.

what was his butt like, though?

(jk)

Blessedly not lactose intolerant.

milk is totally subsizdized as well. . . a daycare nearby gets a couple of gallons each week b/c of federal funding, and there is a certain amount they have to get otherwise they don't get the $, and they can't go through all the milk each week, they either give it away or chuck it. . . we're in the midwest btw

Milk contains more than I’d really thought about before, it seems.