[The Soup Nazi]

From Paste:

Democrats Are Finally Fighting in the Legislative Trenches. Good.

A moment comes, in any endeavor, when you have a last chance to take a shot, and when taking that shot is the only possible route to success. Looked at from the other direction, it’s a situation so desperate that it doesn’t matter if you fail, because failure is also the price of inaction. It also doesn’t matter how you fail; there’s no longer a need any half-measures, because the worst outcome stays the same. The safety net is gone. In such circumstances, you might as well go for broke.

That’s where Democrats find themselves in 2020. Lose the midterms, and Republicans control both chambers of Congress, and the best-case scenario is that Biden keeps the presidency in 2024 and we maintain the status quo, which is a slow stalemate that leads to ruin. But how do you lose the midterms? Three ways:

1. Inaction. The president’s party routinely struggles in midterms, and doing nothing, whether because of Republican obstructionism, Senate rules designed to handcuff the ruling party, or the constant rebellion of Joe Manchin types, leads to one place: Annihilation in 2022.

2. Watered down compromise material. If, in order to lure the Manchin/Sinema “moderates” (or worse, to suffer the delusion that you might sway actual Republican), Biden and the Democrat Senate and House turn in feckless pieces of legislation whose benefits are difficult to explain and harder for people to understand, full of means testing and compromise measures, you will lose the midterms. We saw it happen with Obama; it will happen again.

3. Go for broke and fail. Try to get everything you want, by hook or by crook, even if it means setting up the circumstances for the other party to do the same when they take power. Try to show the American people that you’re serious about doing something for them, but get blocked by Manchin/Sinema or the parliamentarian or Republicans or just bad luck. In that case, you also lose.

Here’s the key point, though, and it hearkens back to that first paragraph: We’ve reached the point of no return. If you fail now, in any way, it doesn’t matter what the fallout looks like, because you’ve failed for good. The sheer amount of people who came out to vote for Trump, even though he lost, was our first indication that even as bad as things get in this country, seemingly nothing will steer us off course from the polarization that leads to a near 50/50 split. If you can’t change that now, at least to gain a slight edge through smart, beneficial policy, it’s likely that it will never happen. We cannot afford a stalemate—not with climate change and its promise of pending catastrophe—and we certainly can’t afford Republican control.

In short: A loss looks the same no matter how you achieve it. A loss is catastrophe. Given that, which of the three options above would you choose? The answer, of course, is no. 3: If you’re going to lose, you might as well shoot your shot.

Luckily, that seems to be exactly what the Democrats are doing. Chuck Schumer, who hasn’t exactly inspired confidence with his past leadership, seems hellbent on passing Joe Biden’s infrastructure bill through Congress using budget reconciliation. Per Politico:

Schumer has asked the Senate parliamentarian, the upper chamber’s official adviser on procedural matters, for her OK to essentially recycle the same reconciliation process used to pass Biden’s pandemic aid package earlier this month. But his request, if granted, would further stretch a legislative tool that wasn’t designed for the sorts of policy goals that both parties have used it to pursue.

You may remember the Senate parliamentarian, whose arbitrary ruling during the COVID relief package screwed Americans out of a $15 minimum wage. It’s an open question whether this parliamentarian, Elizabeth MacDonough, will grant the request, but if she does, it will open the door for Democrats to pass almost anything they want using reconciliation. As it stands now, 60 votes are needed to overcome a Republican filibuster, and with just 50 senators on the side of the Democrats, that is an impossible number. If this reconciliation tactic works, 50 votes will be the new threshold for almost any piece of legislation.

Because this is the Senate, it comes with complications. These include voting marathons, compulsory time spent on the floor in both Houses, and the highlighting of potential Democrat infighting—mostly involving, yes, Joe Manchin—that would otherwise not emerge in the world of an effective filibuster. It’s ugly, and it’s mind-numbing, and it could lead to the parliamentarian killing whole chunks of Democratic policy if they don’t follow every arcane rule in the book. Should it work, it also paves the way for Republicans to do the same thing when and if they retake power.

It’s also, at the moment, the only way. As nice as it would be to kill the filibuster once and for all, if that proves impossible, resting on your laurels is not an option. The fact that Democrats are picking their way through the rule book in an attempt to find a loophole is a very good thing—their time is now, and they can’t afford to waste it.

Some of the quotes from legislators are hilarious:

“My reading of the text of that section [of the law] seems like it’s perfectly okay to do it,” the House Democratic lawmaker said. “I didn’t know it was ever in there.”

Between the infrastructure bill and a voting rights bill that emerges at a crucial time when red states are passing laws to restrict voting, there are some massive pieces of policy on the agenda. The infrastructure bill raises the corporate tax rate, and the voting rights bill…protects voting rights…which means that Republicans will be fiercely opposed to both. Passing them will require an incredible effort by Democrats, even just to get their own team on side. And outlets like the New York Times will continue to be fixated on why they can’t work, or the obstacles that stand in the way. It will be hard.

Still, when there’s nothing to lose, you might as well try to pass the laws of your dreams. There will be flaws in every piece of legislation, but for the first time in my lifetime, a Democratic president is actually taking progressive steps in the right direction, and he has the support of Congress. It’s an opportunity wasted by Barack Obama, but Joe Biden seems to know better. At this point, you have to capitalize on your advantage, or die trying. The Democrats are pulling out all the stops, and it’s stunning to witness for a country that has watched them engage in a decades-long shoulder shrug leading up to this administration. They must keep going, come hell or high water, and if failure is the result, at least fail grandly. Nothing is worse than knowing you didn’t try everything.

[The Soup Nazi]

If you thought this motherfucking shit was over...

[h8kurdt]

Originally Posted by The Soup Nazi

If you thought this motherfucking shit was over...

Turns out it was a black male who was with the nation of Islam that did it. Ruins the narrative for a lot of people I suspect.

[The Soup Nazi]

Originally Posted by h8kurdt

Turns out it was a black male who was with the nation of Islam that did it. Ruins the narrative for a lot of people I suspect.

Only partially. I'm sure that if it weren't for January 6th looney tunes of all stripes wouldn't actually crash into the Capitol.

[Skuj]

John Boehner is telling it like it is. It's a bit late though.

[_tunic_]

Dutch politics is completely messed up since last Thursday. Really interesting what's going to happen next. Basically all political parties except for his own have strongly claimed that they distrust the demissionairy Prime Minister Rutte. After the elections of two weeks ago a new parliament needs to be formed. His party VVD came out as the largest, but no other party wants to form a coalition with him now. However without that party it's impossible to form a strong majority coalition

Dutch PM Rutte narrowly survives no-confidence vote

[Skuj]

We need to fight cancel culture with....er…..cancel culture!!

https://thehill.com/homenews/state-w...georgia-voting

[The Soup Nazi]

Originally Posted by Skuj

John Boehner is telling it like it is. It's a bit late though.

From Zakaria's newsletter:

“You could be a total moron and get elected just by having an R next to your name,” Boehner writes of the 2010 Republican-wave election—“and that year, by the way, we did pick up a fair number in that category.” Calling many in the Tea Party wing of his House conference “the crazies,” Boehner laments: “Incrementalism? Compromise? That wasn’t their thing. A lot of them wanted to blow up Washington. That’s why they thought they were elected.”

Yeah, and you embraced them, BONER, so you could be House Speaker. So not only is it too late, it's colossally hypocritical, which is now a requisite to belong to your party. So FUCK YOU.

[The Soup Nazi]

And now FZ's latest Washington Post column:

How Biden’s New Deal can really make America great again

While Donald Trump claimed he wanted to “Make America Great Again,” President Biden is attempting to actually do it. The former president’s slogan got Americans thinking nostalgically about the 1950s and early ’60s, when the United States dominated the world and its economy produced rising wages for workers and executives alike. A defining feature of those years was federal investment in infrastructure, scientific research and education. (Think interstate highways, NASA and the massive expansion of public universities.) By contrast, Washington in recent years has mostly spent money to fund private consumption by giving people tax cuts or transfer payments. Biden’s infrastructure plan is the first major fiscal program in five decades that would focus once again on investment.

When you look at federal spending as a whole, it seems to have risen significantly over the past few decades. But the composition of that spending tells the real story — most of that increase is a result of sharp rises in entitlement programs such as Medicare and Medicaid. Core investment spending has actually dropped substantially. The United States used to spend as much as 3 percent of its gross domestic product on transportation and water infrastructure; that number is now closer to 2 percent. The United States used to be the world’s unquestioned leader in basic science and technology. China is now almost on par with it.

Biden’s plan harks back to the New Deal. During the Great Depression, the Works Progress Administration (WPA) built or improved almost 1,000 airports, creating the backbone of the modern airline industry. The president’s proposal will help create a modern electric vehicle system by funding a network of 500,000 chargers. The 1936 Rural Electrification Act brought electricity to rural areas. Biden proposes doing the same with high-speed Internet, which he argues is the equivalent in today’s economy. The New Deal was bigger (relative to the size of the economy at the time), but it is the only valid comparison with what the Biden administration is proposing.

Where the spirit of the New Deal is sorely needed today is in the cost, efficiency and transparency of these kinds of projects. The United States used to be able to build things with astonishing speed. The George Washington Bridge, the world’s longest suspension bridge when it opened in 1931 across the Hudson River from Manhattan to New Jersey, was built in four years, ahead of schedule and under budget. By contrast, just adding two miles of new subway lines and three new stations in Manhattan took, depending on when you start counting, 10 to 100 years and ended up costing $4.5 billion by the time it opened in 2017.

Building infrastructure in the United States is insanely expensive. The New York Times found that another project in New York, an expansion of the Long Island Rail Road, was the most expensive subway track on Earth, coming in at seven times the world average. New York is particularly bad — in a league of its own — but U.S. infrastructure often costs several times more than it does in Europe. Paris, Rome and Madrid have managed to build subway extensions for less. Yet those cities are hundreds of years older than any in the United States, and they have many unions and tons of regulations. So none of the usual excuses will do.

One recent study found that the cost of building U.S. interstate highways quadrupled from the 1960s to the 1990s, though material and labor costs have barely budged (after accounting for inflation). There are lots of reasons: multiple authorities (each with a veto), endless rules and reviews, and likely corruption. New York University scholar Alon Levy did a detailed analysis of the country’s crazy costs and concluded that there were at least eight reasons for them. Fundamentally, though, he concluded that they were so high because Americans were unwilling or unable to look around the world and try to learn from other countries. American exceptionalism has led to an exceptional, uniquely bad system for building infrastructure.

By contrast, the New Deal was surprisingly well-run. The WPA employed 3 million people at its peak, more than any private company. In today’s workforce that would be about 10 million people. The entire enterprise was skillfully managed by Harry Hopkins, a social worker-turned-bureaucrat who was one of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s closest aides. The vast Tennessee Valley Authority — spanning seven states and eventually comprising about 30 hydroelectric dams — was devotedly led by David Lilienthal, a crusading lawyer. Most of the funds appropriated for the New Deal were administered scrupulously by Interior Secretary Harold Ickes, another confidant of FDR. Each of these men developed a reputation for honesty, efficiency and reliability, which in turn made people believe that government could do big things and do them well.

For the Biden administration to truly be transformative, it needs to rival not only the ambition of the New Deal but also its impressive execution.

[Skuj]

Ever since I've heard of Matt Gaetz, and his rabid love of all things Trump, I have wished for a meteorite to land on his head.

The latest news (DOJ investigation) wiil have to do, for now.

[The Soup Nazi]

Originally Posted by Skuj

Ever since I've heard of Matt Gaetz, and his rabid love of all things Trump, I have wished for a meteorite to land on his head.

Isn't it impressive how most of these fuckers are also pieces of shit as human beings? The Democratic party has its share of crooks, for sure, but we could be here all the whole month listing corrupt-as-fuck Trumpians. It's not just the evil ideology - Steve Bannon turned out to be just another two-bit conman. Both things go hand in hand with these assholes.

[Antagon]

I could say plenty about how the Austrian chancellor fucked up in the process (intentionally putting a cap on the spending budget, whilst spending a shit ton of money on ads and self-serving promotion) of securing a certain amount of vaccines and is now trying to put the blame on other states in the EU. Subsequently costing the country billions and further curtailing the vaccination progress significantly. But that shit's a bit too depressing right now.

So here's a fuckup one can actually laugh at, for levity's sake. The Tyrolian fraction of Austria's premier far right party FPÖ, recently put out an ad for its Youth Organization - wanting to get young "patriots" to join. It's the usual drivel about "Being a patriot isn't a crime" and all that BS. For some reason though, they put a stock photo of Brooklyn Bridge Park to go with that ad. It's an absolute laughing stock on the Austrian social media right now. Ah yes, the Tyrol - fresh air, the alps, the grid plan, hey, I'm walkin' heeyah!

 

[tw2113]

Been stabbed, will get stabbed again later this month.

[The Soup Nazi]

Originally Posted by tw2113

Been stabbed, will get stabbed again later this month.

Wrong thread. More power to ya, though.

 

[tw2113]

Originally Posted by The Soup Nazi

Wrong thread. More power to ya, though.

 

It's all political in some way.

[The Soup Nazi]

Originally Posted by tw2113

It's all political in some way.

Indeed. "It's all one song!" —Neil Young

[The Soup Nazi]

From The Washington Post:

McConnell says companies should stay out of politics — unless they’re donating money

Sounds like the headline of an opinion piece, but the guy actually said it. The son of a bitch! OK, the complete text:

After the Supreme Court ruled in 2010 that companies could finance election spending, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R) celebrated the prospect that corporate America would enter— and influence — the political fray.

“For too long, some in this country have been deprived of full participation in the political process,” he said in a statement at the time. He hailed the decision, Citizens United, as “an important step” in “restoring the First Amendment rights of these groups.”

But just over a decade later, McConnell has a different message for companies: Unless it involves money, they had better stay quiet.

“My warning to corporate America is to stay out of politics,” McConnell said at a news conference in Kentucky on Tuesday, before adding: “I’m not talking about political contributions.”

His comments come amid an escalating battle over Georgia’s sweeping new voting law, which has been publicly condemned by major companies based in the state, including Coca-Cola and Delta Air Lines. Major League Baseball has moved its All-Star Game out of Atlanta in response to the legislation, saying it will restrict access to the ballot.

Similar showdowns appear to be brewing elsewhere, with American Airlines criticizing a Texas bill that would prohibit extended voting hours and outlaw drive-through voting across the state, among several other major changes.

McConnell has long supported companies’ political participation, but on Tuesday he joined the Republican charge to attack corporations for speaking out on the voting laws by drawing a distinction between donations and corporate statements.

“Most of them contribute to both sides. They have political action committees. That’s fine. It’s legal. It’s appropriate. I support that,” he told reporters. “I’m talking about taking a position on a highly incendiary issue like this and punishing a community or state because you don’t like a particular law they passed. I just think it’s stupid.”

In a statement earlier this week, he argued that the Georgia voting law would in fact make it easier to access the polls and issued a warning to companies condemning the changes: If they continue to oppose Republicans and engage in “economic blackmail,” McConnell said, they would face unspecified repercussions.

“From election law to environmentalism to radical social agendas to the Second Amendment, parts of the private sector keep dabbling in behaving like a woke parallel government,” McConnell said in a statement. “Corporations will invite serious consequences if they become a vehicle for far-left mobs to hijack our country from outside the constitutional order.”

In the past, McConnell has often spoken in starkly different terms about the role of big business in democracy, as NPR noted in a recent episode of its podcast “Embedded.”

Even while working as an attorney in Kentucky during the 1970s, a young McConnell argued for more money in politics before a college class he taught.

“The three things you need to succeed in politics and to build a political party — money, money, money,” he wrote on the chalkboard during one memorable lesson, NPR reported.

That belief followed him to Washington, where he continued to argue that it is a First Amendment right to spend money on politics. And he practiced it himself: McConnell collected millions of dollars in campaign contributions — and notably, filibustered several bills to regulate the industry.

In the Senate, he battled with John McCain, the GOP senator from Arizona, over campaign finance reform. After McCain teamed up with Sen. Russ Feingold (D-Wis.) to limit “soft money” donations made through parties and committees, their bill was repeatedly filibustered by McConnell.

When the Senate finally passed the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act in 2002 with a bare-minimum tally of 60 votes, McConnell sued the Federal Election Commission to block the legislation. That lawsuit, McConnell v. FEC, upheld most parts of the law but eventually gave way to the 2010 Citizens United ruling that he fervently backed.

With some Georgia-based companies now vocal on the state’s voting law, McConnell warned he was not the only one upset over their political statements. Just as companies can put their money behind their politics, loyal members of his party could do the same, he said.

“Republicans drink Coca-Cola, too, and we fly, and we like baseball,” he said. “It’s irritating one hell of a lot of Republican fans.”

[Skuj]

He also, with a straight face, said that he would vote for Trump if Trump is the nominee.

This, after the Jan 6th fiasco, and his comments on that.

Mitch McConnell is one of the worst human beings ever.

[tw2113]

"for the greater good"

[The Soup Nazi]

Chubby Gaetz is going down...