Retire, Breyer: another September 2021 US Politics thread

and seriously, that's why the GOP is winning right now. it's media warfare, "flood the zone with shit", it really is. it's keeping arizona in the news for so long, in such a boring and stupid way, that we all come to associate with it in shorthand, just to save the effort of having to think about it at length. the shorthand differs with everyone. with me it's something like "arizona bullshit". with the GOP/Q/WhiteXtians party it's more like "arizona treason", with everyone that tuned out years ago or is unfortunate enough to be coming of age in this timeline, it might be something like "arizona election dispute"

Relax, it's all part of the plan. T's got this.

I have that fantasy about Italy or Mexico

― A True White Kid that can Jump (Granny Dainger)

About Biden winning them? Let's wait for the returns.

by the way, just to "open this up a little", but thought exercise within a made-up breakfast conversation:

what is the correct or best or most empathizing way to answer the question "So ... Biden won Arizona? Again?" at that breakfast table? there's the first way i typed out, which was just Me Online voice being like god the fucking GOP they are literal fascists, GOP Death Cult is not hyperbole, let me tell you about my father. THEN, let me tell you about my mother". so that's obviously on one side. then i did Terryton GOP Jackass voice, which we all know well because that was our president for 4 years.

but what is the "proper" way to politely explain to the person who asks that question

I have that fantasy about Italy or Mexico

― A True White Kid that can Jump (Granny Dainger)

If you have the funds, you could always move into one of those ruined castles in Southern Italy and rehab it.

we need an ilxor who hangs with real people who don't know

If it helps, I don't want to ask my mother about Arizona.

Sardinia seems like a pleasant refuge from (most of) humanity but climate change will probably fuck the island pretty hard.

scotch islands sounds fun to me, probably will get even nicer with climate change

IMEACH BIDEN

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FAEPZlBXoAA3J83.png

I guess the danger of the audit is, as Karl suggests, it creates a narrative that the result is the subject of debate, which the outcome of the audit doesn't necessarily put to rest, since the months of bullshit that preceded it feel more salient to many people. At the same time, the outcome is pretty funny.

"If you have the funds, you could always move into one of those ruined castles in Southern Italy and rehab it."

Precisely! Or at least an old home. My great grandfather was from Calabria and from what I've gathered that gives you a shorter wait to obtain Italian citizenship. And if I was actually alive when he was still in Calabria I would be immediately granted citizenship. Alas.

I think we really owe Donald Trump an enormous amount of gratitude for exposing how corrupt our elections and the FBI are. What else? The media too I guess? Just amazing how we all foolishly believed they were all more or less on the level until this patriotic genius pointed out the deep rot that was invisible to us mere mortals.

xps that's just viral marketing for chaka khan's new song "i'm each biden"

Turning off my sarcasm: good fucking God how fucking dumb is it that when presented the choice of "is this obvious pathological lying conman correct, or is everyone else??" a significant amount of Americans respond "Don't know about you sheeple but I'm going with the lying conman!" to the point that we actually investigate his ridiculous claims and even change laws in "response" to them.

“Huge findings in Arizona! However, the Fake News Media is already trying to ‘call it’ again for Biden before actually looking at the facts—just like they did in November!” Trump said, invoking once again his baseless claim that the 2020 election had been stolen from him.

“This is a major criminal event and should be investigated by the Attorney General immediately,” he added. “The Senate’s final report will be released today at 4:00PM ET. I have heard it is far different than that being reported by the Fake News Media.”

WHAT ABOUT THE BAMBOO FIBERS

bamboo fibers are the new watermarks

scotch islands sounds fun to me, probably will get even nicer with climate change

they won't get nicer if the melting Greenland ice halts or greatly slows the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation. btw, there are some scottish islands where scotch whiskey is distilled, and I commend your discernment in confining your future ambition just to moving to one of those favored few.

(I visited Highland Park on Orkney mainland a couple years back)

Rudy Giuliani has reportedly been banned from Fox News.

“Rudy is really hurt,” Politico quoted a source “close to Giuliani” saying.

...Adding that this painful rejection by FOX News might drive Giuliani to drinking.

More material for his 'no respect, no respect' routine

Turns out it wasn't THE Fox News, but rather a newsletter for fox hunters.

his scent confuses the foxes

Four Seasons - Total Foxhunting

Great to have allies.

There are only 3 options re Australia about the CIA plan to abduct or murder Julian Assange.
1. Aust was regarded as so supine/pissant, we were not informed of a plan to abduct/murder an Australian
2. Aust was informed, objected - and was ignored
3. Aust was informed, and agreed

— Bernard Keane (@BernardKeane) September 26, 2021

o hell yeah spike my vein with that sweet sweet means testing

Sources tell me that White House and Democrats considering attaching means test to a number of key agenda items - from EV rebates and free community college - as a way to shrink reconciliation bill and pacify spending hawks.

— Jarrett Renshaw (@JarrettRenshaw) September 27, 2021

Well they should means test EV subsidies.

essentially no entitlement should ever be means tested imo! like.... how many "lucky duckies" are we ever really talking about? how many millionaires are going to cash in on sending their kids to subsidized community college anyway? how many people who need the program will end up losing out because of the testing? how much does the testing add to the cost, red tape, and delays in people finally receiving benefits/services? and if we're incentivizing some kind of massive change, like people switiching to more efficient plumbing fixtures or something, i don't really care if some people get in on it who could have afforded to do it without the subsidy, but didn't - the point is to get them to do it! every single person who cashed in on those $100 vaccine incentives, could have gotten the vaccine the week before... still glad they got 'em.

Why? The BBB proposal already limits the rebate based on MSRP and requires it to be union made. If the goal is to encourage uptake of EVs (and bolster unionized auto plants), seems like a thing you want to make as broad as possible.

If it's means tested, seems like that would also demand that it be converted from an immediate rebate to a future credit, which would discourage middle-class people from taking advantage anyway.

the thing with means testing is someone has to develop the system to do the testing or have a mechanism to enforce it

I guess in some cases it’s as easy as “add a rule to the tax return process to disallow a tax credit if the number in this box is too high” but the administrative overhead of some means testing is practically more expensive than just providing the service to everyone

making people jump through hoops just to get the government services they’re due is just cruelty

That's the US motto, after all: The Cruelty Is The Point

We should not subsidize cars. Find something else to subsidize if the goal is stimulus.

I’m opposed to means testing on principle for the usual reasons (wedge issue, complicated and poorly administered etc), but means testing a benefit only available to people buying new cars (ie rich people) effectively eliminates the benefit. Which is good.

I am dying to see the test for the EV rebate. "Ah yes, we want to make absolutely sure that only households with <$90K in annual gross taxable income can get a $10K rebate on a, uh, $57,000 Ford F-150 Lightning." https://t.co/7f4MDue1N4

— Jacob Bacharach (@jakebackpack) September 27, 2021

I tend to not think it's good -- making it cheaper for rich people to buy electric cars makes more rich people buy electric cars makes more rich people want electric cars makes car companies devote a larger portion of their production to electric cars (which already includes more affordable cars like the Nissan Leaf and will include more and more.) I mean I guess it's bad if you think the idea of electric cars is a scam and cars themselves are the problem and there's no real difference between transit scenarios if they both involve the large majority of people traveling in individual vehicles, that just happens to not be what I think, I guess.

This sounds too clever an interpretation by half, but Jayapal's on the record, so:

With Democrats stumbling headlong into the final negotiations over President Biden’s agenda, and progressives vowing to exercise maximal leverage in a way that has centrists in a fury, a question has arisen: How does the president himself want this process to unfold?

The answer to this suggests something counterintuitive about this moment. It may actually be in Biden’s best interests — that is, it may be crucial to ensuring passage of his agenda, which would be better for the country — if progressives do continue using their leverage as aggressively as possible.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) has announced that a planned vote on the $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill has been postponed until Thursday. She hopes to broker an agreement in principle between centrists and progressives on the multitrillion-dollar social policy bill, in hopes that progressives will then agree to pass the bipartisan one.

Progressives want to wait until the Senate passes the social policy bill first — by a simple majority reconciliation vote — thus using their leverage to ensure that the latter is sufficiently robust.

But the centrists — or “moderates,” as some call them — now want Biden to bring down the hammer on progressives. Some centrists anonymously leaked to Politico Playbook that they’re “infuriated” that Biden has not yet pressured progressives to pass the bipartisan bill this week, before reconciliation is done...

You see, from the point of view of centrists, this is an indictment of Biden. But this misses the point entirely. If anything, this shows that Biden does not see utility in pressuring progressives, at least not in this fashion, meaning this gambit is already backfiring.

I can report that the office of Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), the chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, confirms this to be the case.

“The White House has not asked progressives to change course,” Chris Evans, a spokesperson for Jayapal, told me. He noted there has been no pressure to vote for the infrastructure bill “before” the reconciliation one is “passed.”

“Like the overwhelming majority of Democrats, progressives support President Biden’s entire Build Back Better agenda and look forward to sending both bills to his desk,” Evans added.

Means testing EV credits doesn’t mean money will go to mass transit - it just means that money goes unspent (making room for more defense spending!) while people who can afford a $30k car buy an ICE vehicle instead of an EV,

New: Two House Progressives - @RoKhanna and @JamaalBowmanNY - signaled a path forward that would allow progressives to vote for the bi-partisan infrastructure bill, before the Senate passes the reconciliation piece. “We're gonna respect and get behind our president,” Khanna said.

— Jim Sciutto (@jimsciutto) September 27, 2021

caaaaaaaaave

https://www.politico.com/news/2021/09/27/pelosi-house-democrats-infrastructure-514359

Pelosi explained her thinking in a rare Monday night caucus session, saying she and Biden himself are continuing to push the Senate on negotiations related to the social spending package, but the House must move ahead on infrastructure this week before surface transportation funding expires Thursday.

The speaker had declared earlier this summer that the House would only pass Biden’s bipartisan infrastructure bill if both chambers had also agreed to the party’s broader social spending plan. The California Democrat privately told members that the thinking began to change 10 days ago when she learned that Democrats would need to scale back the initial $3.5 trillion price tag for that spending bill — a massive legislative task.

“I told all of you we wouldn’t vote” for the infrastructure bill until reconciliation was finished, Pelosi told Democrats at the end of the caucus meeting. “Until 10 days ago when the price had to come down.”

Weak sauce

Entitlement mentality

MANCHIN on $3.5T bill: "We're just concerned about entitlement mentality versus rewarding mentality and then taking care of those who really can't take care of themselves... there's so much good stuff in there that we’re still working diligently."

via @LACaldwellDC @JulieNBCNews

— Sahil Kapur (@sahilkapur) September 27, 2021

Moderate = corporate entitlement whore

Got to get payback for all that legal griff!

https://i.pinimg.com/736x/c0/01/c4/c001c4156804096cddaa93804cee6866.jpg

it’s like we’re pawns in some kind of game to him

reading about congress pic.twitter.com/2ArxHxqqTO

— Osita Nwanevu (@OsitaNwanevu) September 28, 2021

"It’s almost as if, to the people with the power to act, the prospect of a Trumpified Republican Party with the will to subvert the next presidential election and the power to do it is one of those events that just seems a little too out there. And far from provoking action, the sheer magnitude of what it would mean has induced a kind of passivity, a hope that we can solve the crisis without bringing real power to bear."

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/28/opinion/trump-2024-election.html

you should have been the one to start the 2024 stolen election thread, raymond! i tried but i got too mad and sad about it, it went downhill quickly. but i do want more level-headed people to think about it and take it seriously. i've hit my nyt paywall limit and can't seem to bust in using a VPN, but Bouie usually is great

Speakin' of that good ole' (semi) legal graff...this was another one that seemed to get filed in the back pages.

https://www.courier-journal.com/story/news/politics/2021/09/20/jesse-benton-indicted-rand-paul-mitch-mcconnell-former-campaign-manager/5791086001/

Got a feeling that this perhaps be tied to this load of BS.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/news/played-for-fools-ky-lawmakers-want-their-2415-million-back-from-aluminum-mill/ar-AAOSIPv

Don't really have to hide anything...

Shafer attempts to pull Kagen back from the ledge: https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2021/09/24/why-the-fear-of-trump-may-be-overblown-514270

Basically, don't worry about Trump, he won't get re-elected... but that's what everyone said about him getting elected in the first place and that doesn't address the underlying faults in our system of government that he's exploiting. I can buy that Trump is on his way out, he's already giving himself a "health conditions" pass to drop out if all else fails, but all the unprecedented and unthinkable things he's done to undermine our democracy are now part of the Republican playbook and Democratic leadership seems to think once he's gone, the Republicans will just toss that playbook and come join them in the center to help them defeat those pesky progressives.

Right before a star dies, it swells up and make a giant terrifying explosive flash... but it still dies.

So goes the GOP.