US Politics, March 2020 — There’s a very good chance you’re not going to die.

i did a study. polling size was like 200 million people.

How many responded with "deez nuts" to each question?

i just hope that the Dems win the PR game with this stall, because Republicans are going to push hard on the "D's delayed your relief/D's are obstructionists" crap.

I am enjoying all the "looks like the US could've been paying reparations in $1000 checks this entire time" commentary.

I mean Louie Gohmert delayed the first relief bill

the average democratic then wasn't as aware of the way capital seizes on a crisis.

i sympathize with what you mean, on having a greater awareness of how evil the GOP can be in these times (see: the patriot act, or barr's attempt last week to push for new powers for the justice system, which was so crazy that even mike lee opposed it)

but the thing is - we're roughly the same age - i think it's easy to take what WE learned, as we witnessed those events and changed our understanding, and conflate that with other people learning the same things. there were other, older or wiser people than ourselves, who were fully prepared for the bullshit that went down in the wake of the 2008 crisis, and 9/11 before that. and then there were many more who didn't understand what was happening then, and don't understand how they're trying to fuck us over now. it's abominable to try to screw over other people for the purposes of power and financial gain in the middle of a crisis - that's why most people don't see it coming every time.

so anyway, what i'm trying to say is that just because we may have learned a thing or two from the past doesn't mean that anyone else has, even well-meaning people on the left, and certainly not anyone on the right ("how dare you criticize the ruling party in a time of crisis!")

all true. i do believe, though, there has been some consciousness-raising in the past four years though and not just among our age cohort. how widespread it has been, i can't say, but we live in a much more political era than we used to. just look at how ilx has changed.

Dems are voting against cloture motion & will block it. Talks between Schumer-Mnuchin-McConnell will continue

— John Bresnahan (@BresPolitico) March 23, 2020

*participates in democracy*

LET'S GO SCHUMER!!

Summing it all up was Sen. John Neely Kennedy (R-La.), who took his turn on the Senate floor, shaking his head before declaring: “This country was founded by geniuses but it’s being run by a bunch of idiots.”
“You know what the American people are thinking right now?” Kennedy inquired rhetorically. “They’re thinking that the brain is an amazing organ. It starts working in a mother’s womb and it doesn’t stop working til you get elected to Congress.”

one of the most astonishing moments of the year was John Kennedy calling out a trump administration official (Chad Wolf) about

Kennedy then sought to compare mortality rates for the coronavirus — which is about 2 percent — and for influenza “over the last 10 years in America.” Wolf, who was clearly on his heels, responded somewhat haltingly that the flu was “also right around that percentage, as well” — referring to the 2 percent.

“You sure of that?” Kennedy asked.

“Yes, sir,” Wolf said.

The mortality rate for influenza in the United States is significantly lower than that — only around 0.1 percent, according to the CDC, with some differences depending on how you define an influenza-related death.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/02/25/chad-wolf-john-kennedy-coronavirus/

seriously, kennedy pulling that off surprised me even more than everything that has happened since trump, because kennedy is one of the dumbest bumblefucks on this earth

Isn't he at least smart on paper?

At the heart of the impasse is a $425 billion fund created by the bill that the Federal Reserve could leverage for loans to assist broad groups of distressed companies, and an additional $75 billion it would provide for industry-specific loans. Democrats have raised concerns that the funds do not have rules for transparency or enough guardrails to make sure companies do not use the funds to enrich themselves or take government money and lay off workers. They also argue the measure would give Mr. Mnuchin too much discretion to decide which companies receive the funds, calling the proposal a “slush fund” for the administration.

As the legislation is currently written, Mr. Mnuchin would not have to disclose the recipients until six months after the loans were dispersed. Some Democrats also objected to loopholes in the legislation they said could allow Mr. Trump’s real estate empire to take advantage of the federal aid.

...

“Are you kidding me?” Senator Mitch McConnell, Republican of Kentucky and the majority leader, demanded on the Senate floor. “This is not a juicy political opportunity, this is a national emergency.”

this is not a juicy political opportunity, this is an opportunity to funnel hundreds of billions of dollars to our corporate pals with no restrictions so that they can ensure themselves a $50M+ "soft landing" when they leave the company in a few months

uh, and an emergency as well

lol fuck you, Mitch. Has anyone called him out on his conservative court-recruiting fundraiser vacation last weekend?

To quote one of my fave podcasters, Alexis Goldstein, "Mitch McConnell, who has never NOT made everything political" obvs.

curious what y'all think of this, I like all the stuff Pelosi is putting into the bill but you know it's not gonna pass and every day nothing happens is a disaster

media seems to be hammering the Dems on this for some stupid reason

They have to fight for more. The people suffering the most need more than what this bill provides.

Someone has to blink eventually, but... pointless to just take a substandard bill

Murc's Law, that's why

“Are you kidding me?” Senator Mitch McConnell, Republican of Kentucky and the majority leader, demanded on the Senate floor. “This is not a juicy political opportunity, this is a national emergency.”

https://66.media.tumblr.com/203b3d8cc0850a6349e8a9599681ad6b/tumblr_oywxzzkpRT1qmob6ro3_500.gifv

They have to fight for more. The people suffering the most need more than what this bill provides.

i don't think that's what they're fighting about, unfortunately. seems to be more about provisions to ensure corporations don't completely fuck over others to enrich themselves with their bailout money, as they did 10 years ago. i don't see them really bickering over the checks to people

Democrats are also arguing that the package doesn’t do enough to prevent layoffs and that a two-year time frame on executive compensation limits is not enough.

In addition, Democrats are pushing for unemployment provisions to last four months instead of three and include independent contractors, hundreds of billions for both hospitals and a “State Stabilization Fund” to assist states with loss of revenue and expanded provisions for more worker protections.

I don't know if it was someone on this board who said it, but I absolutely think any delay in getting $$$ and protections to people is going to be blamed on the party in the White House by those precious low-info swing voters that are needed to win in November. iow, there's no reason for the Dems to back down.

xp oh nice! i hadn't seen all that, sorry. make sense. i wonder if "democrats" in that passage refers to schumer and the senate compromise, pelosi's counter plan in the house, or both?

"I absolutely think any delay in getting $$$ and protections to people is going to be blamed on the party in the White House by those precious low-info swing voters"

I hope so. I mean, in my heart I hope that what most people think of the Trump presidency come Nov is that they couldn't leave their homes for weeks, lost their jobs, and couldn't even buy toilet paper. I hope. But who the fuck knows with some people

Yeah, Trump/Republicans will own this crisis no matter what, so Dems should get everything they possible can into the bill. There is no downside to delay for them (though obviously sooner would be better for the potential beneficiaries).

As the legislation is currently written, Mr. Mnuchin would not have to disclose the recipients until six months after the loans were dispersed. Some Democrats also objected to loopholes in the legislation they said could allow Mr. Trump’s real estate empire to take advantage of the federal aid.

Getting some sickening graft revelations in October is tempting, but no.

But Trump is an OUTSIDER, how could he possibly be at fault here?? Do-Nothing Democrats are clearly to blame etc etc.

Democrats will of course be blamed in the short run but it won't have any lasting effect. Just like Republicans shutting down the government in 2013 didn't prevent them from rolling to large congressional gains in 2014 midterms.

Democrats are particularly fighting for constraints on the largely Republican-led effort to provide $500 billion for corporations. Democrats call that a “slush fund.”

Democrats won a concession — to provide four months of expanded unemployment benefits, rather than just three as proposed, according to an official granted anonymity to discuss the private talks. The jobless pay also would extend to self-employed and so-called gig workers.

But Republicans complained Democrats were holding out for more labor protections for workers, wanting assurances that corporations taking federal aid will commit to retaining their employees.

Krugman:

A thread on pandemic economics, stimulus and bailouts — and why Democrats should not give in to McConnell's bum's rush 1/

— Paul Krugman (@paulkrugman) March 23, 2020

But Republicans complained Democrats were holding out for more labor protections for workers, wanting assurances that corporations taking federal aid will commit to retaining their employees.

Other than direct payments to individuals (which likely won't happen to the extent really required), this and the other limitations on companies proposed by Warren are things I very much want to see. Companies should be offered the money and if they don't want to take it with the limitations, well, good luck to you.

love that these negotiations are being covered through the time-tested tit-for-tat horse-trading lens, where one side's looking for their opponents to accede to things like expanded healthcare coverage, temporary cessation of evictions, and forgiveness of student loan debt, and the other side's looking for absolving multibillion dollar corporations of accountability.

negotiations, live on c-span

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZEIO2xxHiK8

i'm frankly somewhat surprised the Dems haven't caved yet, as a couple regulars here surely wdve advised them to (NO CARDS)

Yeah, Trump/Republicans will own this crisis no matter what, so Dems should get everything they possible can into the bill. There is no downside to delay for them (though obviously sooner would be better for the potential beneficiaries).

I wanna believe this is true but remember our media landscape is infested with both-sidesism & Trump has actually been pretty successful in deflecting blame and demonizing everyone not on board with his agenda, I don't know how this is gonna play out exactly

xp

c'mon, this is absurd and you know it. I can't imagine a single person on here is on board with a cave to the Republicans strategy.

unless something fundamental changes, a recession is here and massive unemployment is coming soon, regardless of the specifics of this legislation. you'd think that would be damaging for republicans, but this is the country where a president getting impeached and being clearly guilty resulted in a slight bump to his approval

republicans with their evergreen advantage in these showdowns, zero guilty consciences to assuage

no shame + cooperation of media that is literally a propaganda wing for them now

(and i literally mean literally there)

not sure when it fully 100% got to full-fledged propaganda. some would argue back in the 90s, i guess, but it's a stark difference between now and 10 years ago. they are in the deep end now.

yup

and before anyone jumps on me, yes i know it was deeply propaganda-like 10 years ago, too. this is like the turning the amp up 11 kind of thing

the way the media is treating those two polio drugs (which have now been massively hoarded) as TRUMP DRUGS def seems to play into that, especially since the instant one is found to be somewhat effective there will be a nonstop loop of Trump saying "I had a hunch, the doctors and the media all said I was being careless, but I was right..."

tbf, the actual names of the drugs are more than two syllables, making them literally - and i mean literally - impossible to pronounce normally

Drag 'em AOC

.@SenatorCollins can keep her crocodile tears.

She voted & fought HARD to strip pandemic prep funding. She helped drive the lack of preparation that we had leading up to this.

What’s actually disgraceful is her “I’m a Moderate Lady” dance to cover up brutal policies and votes. https://t.co/sY2Iv4y3fT

— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) March 23, 2020

here's the president's misinfo literally killing someone

A man has died and his wife is under critical care after the couple, both in their 60s, ingested chloroquine phosphate https://t.co/5K5upQ2B1t

— Timothy Burke (@bubbaprog) March 23, 2020

jfc that is grim