“It’s a little too quiet” - US Politics February 2021

The House Rules Committee will move Wednesday to begin the process of removing @mtgreenee from the Ed/Labor committee.

— Jake Sherman (@JakeSherman) February 1, 2021

xpost - Eh, I don't feel like there's ever been a precedent for her pulling anything like that. I'm guessing it's only happening now because she's had to talk with some lawyers about how much detail she can get into at this point without jeopardizing any ongoing investigations.

(I reserve the right to backtrack on that if the Democrats present an entire army of Buttigiegs)

god yes. the gerontocracy running the democratic party is dumb and bad and something i love to bitch about, but then they try to primary a pretty moderate but decent guy like Markey with the dampest, palest Kennedy and it's like No Please Not Like That

(I reserve the right to backtrack on that if the Democrats present an entire army of Buttigiegs)

Don't want to be pedantic here but I'm pretty sure the correct plural is Buttigieux

I'm not sure he really even needs a defense team, but this could prove awkward:

The trial could be particularly dangerous, legal scholars said, if Trump built his case around his lie that the November election was stolen and Senate Republicans effectively endorsed that lie, in unprecedented numbers, by voting to acquit.

Multiple reports suggested Trump jettisoned his previous legal team because they were unwilling to recite the election fraud lie. Trump’s new lawyers, David Schoen and Bruce Castor, did not indicate what defense they had planned...

Markey deserved to win that race even imo though “he’s being primaried from the right” was kind of a phony baloney talking point. Did he have some bad pretty votes over the years? Sure but he became more progressive over time just like his friend President Joe Biden.

Don't want to be pedantic here but I'm pretty sure the correct plural is Buttigieux

― Guayaquil (eephus!)

Buttiteras

So I guess this is what happens without the fabled organizing resolution?

I keep telling you the GOP is still in charge of Senate committees. And Merrick Garland still can't get a hearing.https://t.co/X9VfgneF4C

— Jamie Dupree (@jamiedupree) February 1, 2021

We don’t have a rolling dystopia thread

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/01/upshot/rich-hospitals-profit-poor.html

“he’s being primaried from the right” was kind of a phony baloney talking point

but it was just sO wEiRd that he was being primaried at all, right? since that's Bad Form and Bad for Democrats and consultants who engage in such transgressions are to be blacklisted (and yes as i understand it this was a position taken by DCCC, not explicitly on senate races)

something tells me anyone who worked on Kennedy's senate campaign will be juuuust fine though

what happened with the organizing resolution? it was reported that McConnell back off his filibuster threat last week. Does anyone know what they are stuck on now?

This is built on a quoted Times story, but Times site fucking with me:

A whistleblower alleged Monday that a top Trump administration official abused his authority by entering into a series of last-minute agreements with the union for Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers that could hamstring President Joe Biden’s sweeping policy changes.

The letter released by the Government Accountability Project, which was sent to congressional committees and the Department of Homeland Security inspector general, alleges that Ken Cuccinelli, the former acting second-in-command at the Department of Homeland Security, signed a set of agreements with the ICE union, which endorsed former president Donald Trump in 2016 and 2020.

“The agreements grant [the union] extraordinary power and benefits — far more than what DHS agreed upon with its other employee unions which did not endorse President Trump. The agreements confer on the union the ability to indefinitely delay changes to immigration enforcement policies and practices as well,” the letter, written by David Seide, an attorney with the Government Accountability Project, states. “Moreover, under the agreements, ICE expressly waives statutory management rights which negotiating parties know better than to waive. Even more shockingly, the agreements attempt to prohibit any challenge to their validity for eight years.”

According to the Government Accountability Project, the agreement could give the ICE union “unprecedented veto authority in many areas” and increase the use of agency resources. The letter was first reported by the New York Times.

The group says it is representing the whistleblower, who is a current government official and “possesses information concerning significant acts of misconduct committed” by Cuccinelli.

The controversial former acting deputy secretary also signed a series of agreements that required DHS to provide notice of immigration policy changes to local jurisdictions to give them six months to review and submit comments. The state of Texas, which signed one of the agreements, eventually sued DHS over its implementation of a deportation moratorium, claiming it violated the contract.

However!
The letter states that the government has 30 days to officially disapprove of the union agreement.
https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/hamedaleaziz/ice-union-agreements-biden-policies

just so it felt less like Democatic elders were bogarting all the work and glory and taking their clout with them when they go.

― Hello Nice FBI Lady (DJP), Tuesday, February 2, 2021 9:03 AM (one hour ago)

(I reserve the right to backtrack on that if the Democrats present an entire army of Buttigiegs)

― Hello Nice FBI Lady (DJP), Tuesday, February 2, 2021 9:04 AM (one hour ago)

don't bogart the buttiegiegs

grr @ typo

what happened with the organizing resolution? it was reported that McConnell back off his filibuster threat last week.

Apparently not yet?

lmao

GOP Rep. Kinzinger tells Business Insider: "My dad's cousins sent me a petition — a certified letter — saying they disowned me because I'm in 'the devil's army' now" over his vote to impeach Trump.

— Ana Cabrera (@AnaCabrera) January 31, 2021

unperson, I think the relevant con law doohickey is equal protection.

Undermine equal protection where you DON'T like it and you incur the loss of it in places where you DO like it.

meanwhile

I wish the media would stop reporting on Nobel "nominations."

It's an honor just to be nominated amirite

to caek's link: devil's army, sounds lit. where do I enlist?

Ned Raggett and David Grubbs liked
Mike Larsen
@MikeLarsenOH
Charles Manson carved a swastika in his forehead and his lawyers didn't quit.

Replying to
@MikeLarsenOH
Charles Manson never entered the Tate nor LaBianca house yet he went to jail. That’s an argument the prosecutors need to demonstrate in the senate impeachment. Well---

hmm. have all of donald trump's lawyers been accounted for?

Ronald W. Hughes (March 16, 1935 – c. November 1970) was an American attorney who represented Charles Manson. Hughes disappeared while on a camping trip during a ten-day recess from the Tate-LaBianca murder trial in November 1970. His body was found in March 1971, but his cause of death could not be determined. At least one Manson Family member has claimed that Hughes was murdered by the family in an act of retaliation. No one has been charged in connection with his death.

Being "disowned" by one's Dad's cousins seems like it would be a relatively painless experience, tbh. Their ownership stake was a pittance from the beginning.

Kinzinger is the only Congressional Republican who realizes he has bloodthirsty third-rate fascists around him who want him dead.

xpost

in retaliation, i am disowning Kinzinger's cousin

This is from the right of the party

Short thread on Biden's COVID relief plan vs. GOP Senators' plan:

Median income here in western PA is around 60K, meaning half our people make that or less. If you're in/close to that group, there's no question which COVID release proposal is better for you. (1/)

— Conor Lamb (@ConorLambPA) February 1, 2021

when all the GOP vote against COVID relief the Democrats can spend the next two years attacking them for it

wau, so has Biden grown a spine too?

Senate Republicans emerge from a 2 hour meeting with Biden at the White House, describe it as "productive," "cordial" and "excellent" and took zero questions from reporters.

— Alice Miranda Ollstein (@AliceOllstein) February 2, 2021

he drugged them

PSAKI statement following meeting with GOP senators, says BIDEN "will not slow down work on this urgent crisis response, and will not settle for a package that fails to meet the moment." pic.twitter.com/MO4XRaPWbi

— Eli Stokols (@EliStokols) February 2, 2021

god yes. the gerontocracy running the democratic party is dumb and bad and something i love to bitch about, but then they try to primary a pretty moderate but decent guy like Markey with the dampest, palest Kennedy and it's like No Please Not Like That

Which "they" are you talking about here? Pelosi endorsed Kennedy because she has ties to the family but Schumer and the DSCC endorsed Markey.

The entire race was incoherent and only happened because Kennedy thought MA owed him a Senate seat.

otm

Let the games continue

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/01/us/politics/mitch-mcconnell-marjorie-taylor-greene.html

Pelosi endorsed Kennedy because she has ties to the family but Schumer and the DSCC endorsed Markey.

yep fair enough i was letting Pelosi stand in for "Democrats". I thought there were more (and i know there were some more conservative House reps who backed Kennedy), but it looks like most of the senate stayed out of the fray or backed Markey? Except Sinema lol .

AOC is on IG Live right now if you forgot (like me)

Any news?

.@AOC is on IG Live rn walking through the events of Jan. 6 at the Capitol. And she revealed that she is a victim of sexual assault.

— Marlow Stern (@MarlowNYC) February 2, 2021

A coalition of 10 Republican senators took a stimulus counterproposal to the White House on Monday evening, urging President Biden to scale back his ambitions for a sweeping $1.9 trillion pandemic aid package in favor of a plan less than one-third the size that they argued could garner the bipartisan consensus the new president has said he is seeking.

After a two-hour closed-door meeting, Senator Susan Collins of Maine, the leader of the Republican group, said the discussion had been excellent, though “I wouldn’t say that we came together on a package tonight.” She said Mr. Biden and the senators had agreed to continue their talks.

The discussions took place as Democrats prepared to push forward on Mr. Biden’s plan with or without Republican backing, and as the president faced a test of whether he would opt to pursue a scaled-back measure that could fulfill his pledge to foster broad compromise, or use his majority in Congress to reach for a more robust relief effort enacted over stiff Republican opposition.

At the end of a lengthy statement hailing a “substantive and productive” meeting, Jen Psaki, the White House press secretary, indicated that the president would not be giving much ground.

Mr. Biden reiterated, she said, “that he will not slow down work on this urgent crisis response, and will not settle for a package that fails to meet the moment.”

jesus at tweet-thread about AOC, particularly the Capitol Officer detail

Quite.

Meantime Ronan Farrow's latest about Bullhorn Lady...I just, some of the details in THIS one.

https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/a-pennsylvania-mothers-path-to-insurrection-capitol-riot

Just wait until you get to the part about her favorite book -- and the context.

omg u weren't kidding

Powell defended the use of the N-word, saying, “My favorite book is ‘Gone with the Wind,’ and it uses that term freely.”)

Aoc tonight feels like a big deal.

Very much so. What a nightmare.

I would not be surprised if -- if she chose to -- she ended up being a witness next week.

Wtf at that Officer not identifying himself and just repeatedly yelling “where is she”.

wait so they found Bullhorn Lady?

(reading that New Yorker article now, JFC)

xpost - yes and it wasn’t our second worst rep’s mother, not that it matters, still an execrable human being.

Heartbroken over AOC’s IG live thing. I knew it already, on some level, but we really were a razor’s edge away from something far more deadly that day.

she seems to be lobbying for leniency by doing that interview, cos she has to know she's getting caught by now.

Hey, I'm just an ordinary schlub of a working mom who eagerly joined a violent mob to storm the US Capitol Building in an attempt to overthrow the government. Who could blame me for that?