Variations on a theme

by

by liberal japonicus

We’ve talked about this a bit here, so a discussion on where things are moving in Minneapolis

https://www.politico.com/news/2021/09/22/minneapolis-reckoning-defund-the-police-513568

This, from this link is interesting.

The amendment went through the city’s Charter Commission, who are appointed by the chief judge in Hennepin County. At the Minneapolis City Council, city staff tried to attach “explanatory language” onto the ballot question, which wasn’t the traditional practice. Although some council members had concerns about the explanatory language, they approved the ballot question anyway due to time constraints.

Yes 4 Minneapolis sued the city, arguing that the explanatory language was misleading. The judge agreed with the group in part, and sent the ballot question back to the council. Council members passed a version that didn’t include any explanatory language, which Mayor Frey opposed. The mayor vetoed the ballot language twice, until nine council members overturned his veto.

Discuss.

370 thoughts on “Variations on a theme”

  1. There are times when sweeping changes are necessary. But trying to enact them is not without risks. Not so much that they may not work as intended, or may have unexpected negative side effects.
    The problem is that something like the Minneapolis proposal amounts to going “All in.” Maybe you get everything you think you want. Then again, maybe you spend a lot of political capital and end up with nothing.
    Whereas, if you adopted a more incremental approach, you might get a bunch of stuff that focuses on the worst problems. And you can always go back for more, once you have those things in place — especially if they work as advertised, the next steps become easier.
    Note the parallels to the current flailing around in Congress. The all-or-nothing folks are currently making a lot of noise. But with any luck, they will figure out that getting nothing is not a good idea by any stretch of the imagination.

  2. There are times when sweeping changes are necessary. But trying to enact them is not without risks. Not so much that they may not work as intended, or may have unexpected negative side effects.
    The problem is that something like the Minneapolis proposal amounts to going “All in.” Maybe you get everything you think you want. Then again, maybe you spend a lot of political capital and end up with nothing.
    Whereas, if you adopted a more incremental approach, you might get a bunch of stuff that focuses on the worst problems. And you can always go back for more, once you have those things in place — especially if they work as advertised, the next steps become easier.
    Note the parallels to the current flailing around in Congress. The all-or-nothing folks are currently making a lot of noise. But with any luck, they will figure out that getting nothing is not a good idea by any stretch of the imagination.

  5. The way that incremental change actually works, though, is usually that the smallest, least controversial change gets passed first and the people involved in the change congratulate themselves on accomplishing something and put everything else off, hoping they won’t have to take on any of the more difficult questions.
    If you doubt this, I invite you to read several thousand student draft revisions, and revisit your expectations.

  6. The way that incremental change actually works, though, is usually that the smallest, least controversial change gets passed first and the people involved in the change congratulate themselves on accomplishing something and put everything else off, hoping they won’t have to take on any of the more difficult questions.
    If you doubt this, I invite you to read several thousand student draft revisions, and revisit your expectations.

  7. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_race_relations_and_policing_in_Minneapolis%E2%80%93Saint_Paul
    Start at 2010.
    2015: In Minneapolis, the “duty to intervene” policy was enacted as one of the police reforms introduced following the 2015 police shooting of Clark.[87] “Duty to intervene”—when an officer saw a colleague doing something to endanger a member of the public— was one of the newly introduced policies considered to be “key to the swift firing and arrest of the four officers” in the 2020 Floyd case.[87] Minneapolis city council member, Alondra Cano, said that the reforms had not worked since “none of the officers took the initiative to follow the policy to intervene.” Cano said in 2020, that “it just became really clear to me that this system wasn’t going to work, no matter how much we threw at it.”
    I posted this earlier,
    https://www.mpd150.com/wp-content/themes/mpd150/assets/mpd150_report.pdf

  8. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_race_relations_and_policing_in_Minneapolis%E2%80%93Saint_Paul
    Start at 2010.
    2015: In Minneapolis, the “duty to intervene” policy was enacted as one of the police reforms introduced following the 2015 police shooting of Clark.[87] “Duty to intervene”—when an officer saw a colleague doing something to endanger a member of the public— was one of the newly introduced policies considered to be “key to the swift firing and arrest of the four officers” in the 2020 Floyd case.[87] Minneapolis city council member, Alondra Cano, said that the reforms had not worked since “none of the officers took the initiative to follow the policy to intervene.” Cano said in 2020, that “it just became really clear to me that this system wasn’t going to work, no matter how much we threw at it.”
    I posted this earlier,
    https://www.mpd150.com/wp-content/themes/mpd150/assets/mpd150_report.pdf

  9. “ The all-or-nothing folks are currently making a lot of noise. ”
    If you are talking about the intro- Democratic fight, the corrupt corporate Democrats are going against Biden’s largely centrist proposals ( Bernie likes it, but it is not what he ran on) and trying to force the vast majority of Democrats to bend to their will.
    I understand that when faced with soulless people who are willing to blow everything up sometimes you have to cave in, but let’s be clear about what is going on here. The progressives compromised already. The moderates now want them to compromise on the compromise. And they don’t care if they wreck the Democratic Party’s chances in 2022.
    Now if you mean the debt ceiling, I wish the Democrats would just go ahead and raise the ceiling themselves. Waiting for Republicans to do the fair and decent thing is a ridiculous waste of time and endangers the economy. Do the adult thing and tell the voters they had to do it on their own, because the Republican Party is without any scrap of honor or decency. It frankly is ridiculous for the Democrats to try and shame the Republicans into doing the right thing. They don’t give a damn about that.

  10. “ The all-or-nothing folks are currently making a lot of noise. ”
    If you are talking about the intro- Democratic fight, the corrupt corporate Democrats are going against Biden’s largely centrist proposals ( Bernie likes it, but it is not what he ran on) and trying to force the vast majority of Democrats to bend to their will.
    I understand that when faced with soulless people who are willing to blow everything up sometimes you have to cave in, but let’s be clear about what is going on here. The progressives compromised already. The moderates now want them to compromise on the compromise. And they don’t care if they wreck the Democratic Party’s chances in 2022.
    Now if you mean the debt ceiling, I wish the Democrats would just go ahead and raise the ceiling themselves. Waiting for Republicans to do the fair and decent thing is a ridiculous waste of time and endangers the economy. Do the adult thing and tell the voters they had to do it on their own, because the Republican Party is without any scrap of honor or decency. It frankly is ridiculous for the Democrats to try and shame the Republicans into doing the right thing. They don’t give a damn about that.

  13. if you mean the debt ceiling, I wish the Democrats would just go ahead and raise the ceiling themselves. Waiting for Republicans to do the fair and decent thing is a ridiculous waste of time and endangers the economy.
    Totally agree. Thank God there is already provision to raise the debt limit via a reconciliation (i.e. not subject to filibuster) bill. Since it’s not a particularly complex bill, they should just ram it thru at warp speed. The last thing we need right now is to get our credit rating downgraded (and our interest rates therefore raised) just because McConnell is an assh*le. Just do it.

  14. if you mean the debt ceiling, I wish the Democrats would just go ahead and raise the ceiling themselves. Waiting for Republicans to do the fair and decent thing is a ridiculous waste of time and endangers the economy.
    Totally agree. Thank God there is already provision to raise the debt limit via a reconciliation (i.e. not subject to filibuster) bill. Since it’s not a particularly complex bill, they should just ram it thru at warp speed. The last thing we need right now is to get our credit rating downgraded (and our interest rates therefore raised) just because McConnell is an assh*le. Just do it.

  15. If you are talking about the intro- Democratic fight, the corrupt corporate Democrats are going against Biden’s largely centrist proposals ( Bernie likes it, but it is not what he ran on) and trying to force the vast majority of Democrats to bend to their will.
    They are. And the most liberal Democrats are insisting that they won’t let any proposals go forward unless they are guaranteed that they get everything they want. I’m praying that Biden and Pelosi find a way to let both sides save face (without which McConnell gets a gift demonstration that the government doesn’t work) while getting done.

  16. If you are talking about the intro- Democratic fight, the corrupt corporate Democrats are going against Biden’s largely centrist proposals ( Bernie likes it, but it is not what he ran on) and trying to force the vast majority of Democrats to bend to their will.
    They are. And the most liberal Democrats are insisting that they won’t let any proposals go forward unless they are guaranteed that they get everything they want. I’m praying that Biden and Pelosi find a way to let both sides save face (without which McConnell gets a gift demonstration that the government doesn’t work) while getting done.

  19. I’m not going to equate the two sides. Progressives have been acting in good faith. The various moderates ( Neal, Manchin, Sinema) are working for their corporate donors.
    I would sacrifice a few things to get their votes, but to be clear, I would be sacrificing policies that would help working people. This isn’t a compromise between people who have honest differences of opinion on issues. It is a hostage situation.

  20. I’m not going to equate the two sides. Progressives have been acting in good faith. The various moderates ( Neal, Manchin, Sinema) are working for their corporate donors.
    I would sacrifice a few things to get their votes, but to be clear, I would be sacrificing policies that would help working people. This isn’t a compromise between people who have honest differences of opinion on issues. It is a hostage situation.

  25. I could get on board with this. It would be a pleasant change from the left always getting rolled.
    The so-called “moderates” positition boils down to “We get the goodies or we burn it down!” It is, simply put, inchoherent.
    Yeah. Burn baby burn. I recall saying stuff like that 50 years ago when young and callow. You have to admit…it did get a few results.
    Time will tell.

  26. I could get on board with this. It would be a pleasant change from the left always getting rolled.
    The so-called “moderates” positition boils down to “We get the goodies or we burn it down!” It is, simply put, inchoherent.
    Yeah. Burn baby burn. I recall saying stuff like that 50 years ago when young and callow. You have to admit…it did get a few results.
    Time will tell.

  27. I have two more paragraphs describing the savage horror that is upon us at the hands of the conservative subhumans killers of America, if anyone needs them.
    There are no options remaining in the “fair and decent” category.
    The vermin Republican Party murdered fairness and decency long ago.

  28. I have two more paragraphs describing the savage horror that is upon us at the hands of the conservative subhumans killers of America, if anyone needs them.
    There are no options remaining in the “fair and decent” category.
    The vermin Republican Party murdered fairness and decency long ago.

  29. Passenger airlines, hospitals, and government agencies, and all of their employees, among many of the items we take for granted, are no longer safe from the violence of the conservative insurrectionary civil war, now being waged by the malignant filth.
    One of the “astronauts” who returned from his Musk adventure, got home to find his entire family, even though vaccinated, infected with Covid-19 in Florida, deliberately infected by the genocidal Republican Party murdering Floridians at will.
    A well-known right wing cartoonist and his are now suffering from severe Covid-19. They lie about and disparage the vaccines, even this minute, as they tweet for air, and are self medicating their suicide attempts with veterinary treatments and beet juice.
    Yet another case of their horrible deaths coming too slowly to save America, given all of the weapons and ammo Americans have stockpiled all these decades to take out their enemies foreign and domestic.
    Joe Biden should mandate that all hospitals in America turn away all conservatives and republicans showing symptoms of this fake disease the chinks and commie democrats made up and direct them to their local morgues, for efficiency’s sake.
    The states of Alabama and Idaho are increasingly relying on mobile refrigeration units (what’s next, republicans, mobile gassing units?) to keep their murder victims on ice. Do these people even believe in the science of refrigeration?
    Wouldn’t leaving the bodies to rot in the midday sun be more constitutionally correct, like we used to do when America was young and knew all there was to know about sciencey shit.
    It’s obvious the fascists know they have already stolen the 2022 and 2024 elections in their favor via radical gerrymandering and replacing state electors with liars, cheats, and thieves. Else, why would they be murdering at will and steering America to certain default, ruination, and savage killing violence in broad daylight.

  30. Passenger airlines, hospitals, and government agencies, and all of their employees, among many of the items we take for granted, are no longer safe from the violence of the conservative insurrectionary civil war, now being waged by the malignant filth.
    One of the “astronauts” who returned from his Musk adventure, got home to find his entire family, even though vaccinated, infected with Covid-19 in Florida, deliberately infected by the genocidal Republican Party murdering Floridians at will.
    A well-known right wing cartoonist and his are now suffering from severe Covid-19. They lie about and disparage the vaccines, even this minute, as they tweet for air, and are self medicating their suicide attempts with veterinary treatments and beet juice.
    Yet another case of their horrible deaths coming too slowly to save America, given all of the weapons and ammo Americans have stockpiled all these decades to take out their enemies foreign and domestic.
    Joe Biden should mandate that all hospitals in America turn away all conservatives and republicans showing symptoms of this fake disease the chinks and commie democrats made up and direct them to their local morgues, for efficiency’s sake.
    The states of Alabama and Idaho are increasingly relying on mobile refrigeration units (what’s next, republicans, mobile gassing units?) to keep their murder victims on ice. Do these people even believe in the science of refrigeration?
    Wouldn’t leaving the bodies to rot in the midday sun be more constitutionally correct, like we used to do when America was young and knew all there was to know about sciencey shit.
    It’s obvious the fascists know they have already stolen the 2022 and 2024 elections in their favor via radical gerrymandering and replacing state electors with liars, cheats, and thieves. Else, why would they be murdering at will and steering America to certain default, ruination, and savage killing violence in broad daylight.

  33. And the most liberal Democrats are insisting that they won’t let any proposals go forward unless they are guaranteed that they get everything they want.
    That is simply not even remotely true.
    No? And yet,
    https://thehill.com/homenews/house/573840-pelosi-bipartisan-infrastructure-vote-will-happen-monday

    “It cannot pass,” Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), the head of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, said Friday. “I don’t bluff, I don’t grandstand. We just don’t have the votes for it.”
    Behind Jayapal, liberal lawmakers have been lining up by the dozen to oppose the infrastructure bill

    Sounds pretty close to me.

  34. And the most liberal Democrats are insisting that they won’t let any proposals go forward unless they are guaranteed that they get everything they want.
    That is simply not even remotely true.
    No? And yet,
    https://thehill.com/homenews/house/573840-pelosi-bipartisan-infrastructure-vote-will-happen-monday

    “It cannot pass,” Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), the head of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, said Friday. “I don’t bluff, I don’t grandstand. We just don’t have the votes for it.”
    Behind Jayapal, liberal lawmakers have been lining up by the dozen to oppose the infrastructure bill

    Sounds pretty close to me.

  35. This is definitely a variation: Trump endorsing a Democrat over an incumbant Republican governor:

    “Of course, having [Abrams] I think might be better than having your existing governor,” Trump said. “Might, very well, be better.”
    “Stacey, would you like to take his place?” Trump asked. “It’s okay with me.”

    Who knows, maybe Trump’s fanboys will vote accordingly. That would be amusing.

  36. This is definitely a variation: Trump endorsing a Democrat over an incumbant Republican governor:

    “Of course, having [Abrams] I think might be better than having your existing governor,” Trump said. “Might, very well, be better.”
    “Stacey, would you like to take his place?” Trump asked. “It’s okay with me.”

    Who knows, maybe Trump’s fanboys will vote accordingly. That would be amusing.

  37. I’ve sworn off the Hill as a source. For every link that it has identifying real problems, there seems to be 3 or 4 built on false premises.
    https://thehill.com/changing-america/468763-changing-america
    The kind of fuzzy lens ‘oh, how can we let our imaginary differences divide us’ leaves me cold.
    I’ll keep my open for the more egregious ones, but looking at the links, this one
    https://thehill.com/opinion/finance/573680-progressives-spending-proposals-out-of-step-with-battleground-voters
    It’s also useful to see whose byline that is
    Will Marshall is president and founder of the Progressive Policy Institute (PPI).
    Progressive! It’s right in the name! However…
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progressive_Policy_Institute
    https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/03/15/the-new-democratic-party-proposal-to-rival-bernie-sanders-socialism/
    The Progressive Policy Institute is the latest centrist Democratic institution to try to counter that image. Today it will release what its president, Will Marshall, calls a “radical” agenda to get America working for the working class again. The report is called “Unleashing Innovation and Growth: A Progressive Alternative to Populism,” and it is organized around a straightforward, if not perfectly simple, principle.
    “Innovation is not the problem; it’s how we solve the problem,” Marshall says, previewing a 20,000-word agenda that aims to energize America’s investment, entrepreneurship and education. “Right now, you’ve got Bernie basically making an argument against the economic changes that have swept away the industrial landscape that he loves so much. Somebody’s got to stand up for the new economy.”
    That new economy, in PPI’s imagining, draws heavily on public investments — read: government spending — to help the United States lead the world in new ideas, new products and new jobs.
    That was 2016. You tell me how well that has worked out…

  38. I’ve sworn off the Hill as a source. For every link that it has identifying real problems, there seems to be 3 or 4 built on false premises.
    https://thehill.com/changing-america/468763-changing-america
    The kind of fuzzy lens ‘oh, how can we let our imaginary differences divide us’ leaves me cold.
    I’ll keep my open for the more egregious ones, but looking at the links, this one
    https://thehill.com/opinion/finance/573680-progressives-spending-proposals-out-of-step-with-battleground-voters
    It’s also useful to see whose byline that is
    Will Marshall is president and founder of the Progressive Policy Institute (PPI).
    Progressive! It’s right in the name! However…
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progressive_Policy_Institute
    https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/03/15/the-new-democratic-party-proposal-to-rival-bernie-sanders-socialism/
    The Progressive Policy Institute is the latest centrist Democratic institution to try to counter that image. Today it will release what its president, Will Marshall, calls a “radical” agenda to get America working for the working class again. The report is called “Unleashing Innovation and Growth: A Progressive Alternative to Populism,” and it is organized around a straightforward, if not perfectly simple, principle.
    “Innovation is not the problem; it’s how we solve the problem,” Marshall says, previewing a 20,000-word agenda that aims to energize America’s investment, entrepreneurship and education. “Right now, you’ve got Bernie basically making an argument against the economic changes that have swept away the industrial landscape that he loves so much. Somebody’s got to stand up for the new economy.”
    That new economy, in PPI’s imagining, draws heavily on public investments — read: government spending — to help the United States lead the world in new ideas, new products and new jobs.
    That was 2016. You tell me how well that has worked out…

  41. It wasn’t that I was disputing the facticity (which I thought I made up, but is actually a word) of the cite, just that if you are reading The Hill all the time, you are going to have a warped view of what is at stake and what is happening. Did Biden win because centrist voters rose up and said ‘hey, let’s go back to staying in the middle of the road’?
    If you look at the wording of ‘the progressives are threatening to block it’. Well, I guess that is true in one sense, just like emergency rooms are preventing people from recovering from COVID.
    I mean, all this stems from Jayapal’s appearance on the Sunday talk shows, I think specifically on the CNN show, so it would be good to look at the transcript:
    JAYAPAL: So, that’s all the stuff that’s in the Build Back Better Act, what we’re calling the reconciliation bill.
    And our point is just, we’re ready to vote for both. We are excited to vote for both. And we will vote for both. But we need to actually get the reconciliation bill done. That was what we said three-and-a-half months ago, Jake.
    TAPPER: Yes.
    JAYAPAL: And so our belief is that we will get there. We’re very close. But it has to — we have to get to that reconciliation bill first.
    TAPPER: Would it be enough if there were an agreement on the Build Back Better Act, the $3.5 trillion spending package, but not an actual vote tomorrow? Would that be enough for you and the House progressives to vote for the infrastructure bill?
    JAYAPAL: Well, the reconciliation bill does have to start in the House, because it’s a budget reconciliation bill.
    TAPPER: Right.
    JAYAPAL: But everything should be agreed upon.
    What we don’t to have happen…
    TAPPER: So, an agreement is good — an agreement is good enough?
    JAYAPAL: Well, no, but an agreement of exactly what’s in there. The language needs to be worked out, because…
    TAPPER: And a commitment that everybody’s going to vote for it.
    JAYAPAL: And everyone’s going to vote for it, and, if Republicans offer amendments in a vote-a-rama, that we’re not going to have Democratic senators suddenly vote with Republicans.
    So, the idea here is, unlike many other bills, many other times that we do this, where the House passes a bill, it’s not necessarily something that the Senate can do, the Senate then goes and passes their bill, and then we conference, or we have back-and-forth, this is a pre-conferenced bill, which means everybody, everybody in the Senate right and everybody in the House has to agree on every piece of it. [09:05:05]
    TAPPER: But Pelosi says that she’s bringing the infrastructure bill, the bipartisan bill, to the floor of the House tomorrow for consideration.
    Are you going to vote for it or against it?
    JAYAPAL: I don’t believe there will be a vote.
    I mean, the speaker…
    TAPPER: You don’t think there’s going to be a vote tomorrow?
    JAYAPAL: I mean, the speaker is an incredibly good vote-counter. And she knows exactly where her caucus stands.
    And we have been really clear on that.
    TAPPER: The votes aren’t there? She’s not going to bring it up?
    JAYAPAL: The votes aren’t there.
    So, I just — I don’t think she’s going to bring it up. But I think — look, I think the urgency is important. I mean, this — in some ways, the fact that this is there has finally provided the urgency for senators to engage in reconciliation, for the president to really weigh in.
    And, ultimately, we’re delivering on the president’s agenda. I mean, this is — the Build Back Better agenda is not some crazy agenda that just a few people support. It’s actually the vast majority of the Democratic Caucus. And there’s a few people in the House and a couple in the Senate who aren’t quite there yet.
    But even moderates in front-line districts all support this Build Back Better agenda.
    TAPPER: Right.
    But just to clarify, there, you don’t think there’s going to be a vote tomorrow, but, either way, you’re looking for an agreement on the reconciliation, not necessarily a vote first, when it comes to infrastructure?
    JAYAPAL: Well, it’s just the logistics of it, right?
    TAPPER: Yes.
    JAYAPAL: Everything has to be done. There has to be kind of an ironclad…
    TAPPER: Are you guys close to that at all, an agreement?
    JAYAPAL: Well, I think we’re finally talking, which is important, because that hasn’t been happening for the last couple of months. TAPPER: Yes.
    Pelosi says it’s going to happen this week. Is that realistic?
    JAYAPAL: I mean, we want to have that happen as soon as possible. So everybody — I know I worked every single minute of every single day for the last several weeks — for the last week, last several days, trying to try to talk to people and get this done.
    That’s our hope, is to try to get it done. But we need the Senate to engage with us if that’s going to happen.
    TAPPER: Well, let’s — let’s listen to what West Virginia Democratic Senator Joe Manchin said on the show two weeks ago about the threat by progressives to tank the bipartisan infrastructure bill.
    (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
    SEN. JOE MANCHIN (D-WV): If they can go home and tell people that, hey, I don’t care about the roads and bridges, you don’t need it, I don’t care about Internet service, you don’t need that, I don’t care about fixing water and sewer lines, if they play politics with the needs of America, I can tell you, America will recoil.
    (END VIDEO CLIP)
    TAPPER: What do you say to that?
    JAYAPAL: I mean, look, we need to bring down the temperature, but I would just say, I could say the same thing about anyone who votes against the reconciliation bill.
    If you want to go back and tell people that you don’t want child care, or you don’t want housing, or you don’t want to take on climate change, or you don’t want to provide health care to people. I mean, that’s not good either.
    This is the president’s Democratic agenda. We will deliver on both of them, Jake. I am absolutely confident of that. But it’s going to take work. And it’s going to take the Senate, Joe Manchin and others, sitting down to actually negotiate.
    And I am ready, willing and able to talk to anyone about anything at any time to get that done.
    https://transcripts.cnn.com/show/sotu/date/2021-09-26/segment/01
    To extract from that ‘the progressives are threatening to block it’, well, it’s a good soundbite, but in no way presenting the full context.
    From bobbyp’s excellent Beutler article
    Just this week, a tiny group of centrists with ties to the pharmaceutical industry forced the party to remove provisions that would allow the government to directly negotiate prescription prices for Medicare beneficiaries from the Build Back Better Act. These provisions are extremely popular and generate huge cost savings. It’s the most destructive and selfish single thing any of the centrists in Congress have done, and they’ve justified it with disingenuous pablum about bipartisanship.
    Schrader’s tweet is referenced and it has to be seen to be believed.
    Buetler’s point that
    This is all great news, and the furthest thing imaginable from demonstrations of bipartisan comity. But neither the vaccine rules nor the Newsom campaign required any input from centrists. The coming weeks, by contrast, will test whether party leaders intend to keep allowing centrists to drag down the whole party unimpeded or not.

  42. It wasn’t that I was disputing the facticity (which I thought I made up, but is actually a word) of the cite, just that if you are reading The Hill all the time, you are going to have a warped view of what is at stake and what is happening. Did Biden win because centrist voters rose up and said ‘hey, let’s go back to staying in the middle of the road’?
    If you look at the wording of ‘the progressives are threatening to block it’. Well, I guess that is true in one sense, just like emergency rooms are preventing people from recovering from COVID.
    I mean, all this stems from Jayapal’s appearance on the Sunday talk shows, I think specifically on the CNN show, so it would be good to look at the transcript:
    JAYAPAL: So, that’s all the stuff that’s in the Build Back Better Act, what we’re calling the reconciliation bill.
    And our point is just, we’re ready to vote for both. We are excited to vote for both. And we will vote for both. But we need to actually get the reconciliation bill done. That was what we said three-and-a-half months ago, Jake.
    TAPPER: Yes.
    JAYAPAL: And so our belief is that we will get there. We’re very close. But it has to — we have to get to that reconciliation bill first.
    TAPPER: Would it be enough if there were an agreement on the Build Back Better Act, the $3.5 trillion spending package, but not an actual vote tomorrow? Would that be enough for you and the House progressives to vote for the infrastructure bill?
    JAYAPAL: Well, the reconciliation bill does have to start in the House, because it’s a budget reconciliation bill.
    TAPPER: Right.
    JAYAPAL: But everything should be agreed upon.
    What we don’t to have happen…
    TAPPER: So, an agreement is good — an agreement is good enough?
    JAYAPAL: Well, no, but an agreement of exactly what’s in there. The language needs to be worked out, because…
    TAPPER: And a commitment that everybody’s going to vote for it.
    JAYAPAL: And everyone’s going to vote for it, and, if Republicans offer amendments in a vote-a-rama, that we’re not going to have Democratic senators suddenly vote with Republicans.
    So, the idea here is, unlike many other bills, many other times that we do this, where the House passes a bill, it’s not necessarily something that the Senate can do, the Senate then goes and passes their bill, and then we conference, or we have back-and-forth, this is a pre-conferenced bill, which means everybody, everybody in the Senate right and everybody in the House has to agree on every piece of it. [09:05:05]
    TAPPER: But Pelosi says that she’s bringing the infrastructure bill, the bipartisan bill, to the floor of the House tomorrow for consideration.
    Are you going to vote for it or against it?
    JAYAPAL: I don’t believe there will be a vote.
    I mean, the speaker…
    TAPPER: You don’t think there’s going to be a vote tomorrow?
    JAYAPAL: I mean, the speaker is an incredibly good vote-counter. And she knows exactly where her caucus stands.
    And we have been really clear on that.
    TAPPER: The votes aren’t there? She’s not going to bring it up?
    JAYAPAL: The votes aren’t there.
    So, I just — I don’t think she’s going to bring it up. But I think — look, I think the urgency is important. I mean, this — in some ways, the fact that this is there has finally provided the urgency for senators to engage in reconciliation, for the president to really weigh in.
    And, ultimately, we’re delivering on the president’s agenda. I mean, this is — the Build Back Better agenda is not some crazy agenda that just a few people support. It’s actually the vast majority of the Democratic Caucus. And there’s a few people in the House and a couple in the Senate who aren’t quite there yet.
    But even moderates in front-line districts all support this Build Back Better agenda.
    TAPPER: Right.
    But just to clarify, there, you don’t think there’s going to be a vote tomorrow, but, either way, you’re looking for an agreement on the reconciliation, not necessarily a vote first, when it comes to infrastructure?
    JAYAPAL: Well, it’s just the logistics of it, right?
    TAPPER: Yes.
    JAYAPAL: Everything has to be done. There has to be kind of an ironclad…
    TAPPER: Are you guys close to that at all, an agreement?
    JAYAPAL: Well, I think we’re finally talking, which is important, because that hasn’t been happening for the last couple of months. TAPPER: Yes.
    Pelosi says it’s going to happen this week. Is that realistic?
    JAYAPAL: I mean, we want to have that happen as soon as possible. So everybody — I know I worked every single minute of every single day for the last several weeks — for the last week, last several days, trying to try to talk to people and get this done.
    That’s our hope, is to try to get it done. But we need the Senate to engage with us if that’s going to happen.
    TAPPER: Well, let’s — let’s listen to what West Virginia Democratic Senator Joe Manchin said on the show two weeks ago about the threat by progressives to tank the bipartisan infrastructure bill.
    (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
    SEN. JOE MANCHIN (D-WV): If they can go home and tell people that, hey, I don’t care about the roads and bridges, you don’t need it, I don’t care about Internet service, you don’t need that, I don’t care about fixing water and sewer lines, if they play politics with the needs of America, I can tell you, America will recoil.
    (END VIDEO CLIP)
    TAPPER: What do you say to that?
    JAYAPAL: I mean, look, we need to bring down the temperature, but I would just say, I could say the same thing about anyone who votes against the reconciliation bill.
    If you want to go back and tell people that you don’t want child care, or you don’t want housing, or you don’t want to take on climate change, or you don’t want to provide health care to people. I mean, that’s not good either.
    This is the president’s Democratic agenda. We will deliver on both of them, Jake. I am absolutely confident of that. But it’s going to take work. And it’s going to take the Senate, Joe Manchin and others, sitting down to actually negotiate.
    And I am ready, willing and able to talk to anyone about anything at any time to get that done.
    https://transcripts.cnn.com/show/sotu/date/2021-09-26/segment/01
    To extract from that ‘the progressives are threatening to block it’, well, it’s a good soundbite, but in no way presenting the full context.
    From bobbyp’s excellent Beutler article
    Just this week, a tiny group of centrists with ties to the pharmaceutical industry forced the party to remove provisions that would allow the government to directly negotiate prescription prices for Medicare beneficiaries from the Build Back Better Act. These provisions are extremely popular and generate huge cost savings. It’s the most destructive and selfish single thing any of the centrists in Congress have done, and they’ve justified it with disingenuous pablum about bipartisanship.
    Schrader’s tweet is referenced and it has to be seen to be believed.
    Buetler’s point that
    This is all great news, and the furthest thing imaginable from demonstrations of bipartisan comity. But neither the vaccine rules nor the Newsom campaign required any input from centrists. The coming weeks, by contrast, will test whether party leaders intend to keep allowing centrists to drag down the whole party unimpeded or not.

  43. Manchin alone is a veritable professional corporate fluffer. He wears knee pads at all times and his corporate handlers set their drinks on his head as he circles the room on his knees collecting his money shot payoffs through his unmarked mail slot of a lying mouth.
    He lives on the Love Boat. Rats fuck each other in admiration of his lavishly greased palms.
    Torpedoes away.

  44. Manchin alone is a veritable professional corporate fluffer. He wears knee pads at all times and his corporate handlers set their drinks on his head as he circles the room on his knees collecting his money shot payoffs through his unmarked mail slot of a lying mouth.
    He lives on the Love Boat. Rats fuck each other in admiration of his lavishly greased palms.
    Torpedoes away.

  45. Border state West Virginia will be torn apart and split up in Civil War II, just as they tried having it both ways the first savage go-round in 1861.

  46. Border state West Virginia will be torn apart and split up in Civil War II, just as they tried having it both ways the first savage go-round in 1861.

  47. wj,
    Please do read the Chait article i cited above. I would offer he has an accurate portrayal of the politics. Both sides are escalating, but the nut of the matter is this: BOTH sides agreed to a path of bringing BOTH bills out and passing them simultaneously. The left members of the caucus have repeatedly conceded to centrist demands to try and make that happen, but apparently to you that actuality does not matter.
    Well, it does. And now the centrists have ratcheted it up to demand passing only the infrastructure bill, tossing the heart of Biden’s agenda. But yes, by all means, let’s blame the left….after all it is your default position.
    As an aside, I would sooner swallow RoundUp* than take anything in The Hill seriously.
    *I’ve done the research. It stops aging in its tracks.

  48. wj,
    Please do read the Chait article i cited above. I would offer he has an accurate portrayal of the politics. Both sides are escalating, but the nut of the matter is this: BOTH sides agreed to a path of bringing BOTH bills out and passing them simultaneously. The left members of the caucus have repeatedly conceded to centrist demands to try and make that happen, but apparently to you that actuality does not matter.
    Well, it does. And now the centrists have ratcheted it up to demand passing only the infrastructure bill, tossing the heart of Biden’s agenda. But yes, by all means, let’s blame the left….after all it is your default position.
    As an aside, I would sooner swallow RoundUp* than take anything in The Hill seriously.
    *I’ve done the research. It stops aging in its tracks.

  51. They’re still partying like it’s 1999, but Prince is dead.
    All too many still have their head stuck in stagflation circa 1977 also, too.
    The music you like, the economic concerns you consider “serious”, and the bodies you consider “hawt”: all leftovers in your brain from puberty through mid-teens.
    Imprinting: it’s not just for ducklings.

  52. They’re still partying like it’s 1999, but Prince is dead.
    All too many still have their head stuck in stagflation circa 1977 also, too.
    The music you like, the economic concerns you consider “serious”, and the bodies you consider “hawt”: all leftovers in your brain from puberty through mid-teens.
    Imprinting: it’s not just for ducklings.

  53. Please do read the Chait article i cited above. I would offer he has an accurate portrayal of the politics. Both sides are escalating, but the nut of the matter is this: BOTH sides agreed to a path of bringing BOTH bills out and passing them simultaneously. The left members of the caucus have repeatedly conceded to centrist demands to try and make that happen, but apparently to you that actuality does not matter.
    Actually, I did read the Chait article (when it came out). (lj Note: Chait is someone I read fairly regularly. The Hill is something I occasionally cite. Mostly when I’m doing a quick Google for something I remember, but not from where.)
    My personal take is that the moderates, especially the moderates in the Senate, really, really need to get a grip and quit posturing. Not just because the country needs to get this stuff done, but because failing to get it passed will be electoral suicide in 2022 and 2024. And the likely results of that are horrifying.
    That said, the Progressive Caucus in the House is displaying some of the same behaviors. My guess is that it is mostly a negotiating tactic . . . but it might not be. And whether my view on that (from a long distance) is correct or not, it is still the same threat.

  54. Please do read the Chait article i cited above. I would offer he has an accurate portrayal of the politics. Both sides are escalating, but the nut of the matter is this: BOTH sides agreed to a path of bringing BOTH bills out and passing them simultaneously. The left members of the caucus have repeatedly conceded to centrist demands to try and make that happen, but apparently to you that actuality does not matter.
    Actually, I did read the Chait article (when it came out). (lj Note: Chait is someone I read fairly regularly. The Hill is something I occasionally cite. Mostly when I’m doing a quick Google for something I remember, but not from where.)
    My personal take is that the moderates, especially the moderates in the Senate, really, really need to get a grip and quit posturing. Not just because the country needs to get this stuff done, but because failing to get it passed will be electoral suicide in 2022 and 2024. And the likely results of that are horrifying.
    That said, the Progressive Caucus in the House is displaying some of the same behaviors. My guess is that it is mostly a negotiating tactic . . . but it might not be. And whether my view on that (from a long distance) is correct or not, it is still the same threat.

  55. wj,
    How much are you willing to bet that the GOP and its “moderate” Dem collaborators are NOT going to torpedo the budget bill once they get their grubby hands on the “bipartisan” infrastructure bill?
    He Who Thinks He’s Alone In His Tree may seem immoderate to devotees of civility, but I predict He will sound more and more reasonable quite soon.
    –TP

  56. wj,
    How much are you willing to bet that the GOP and its “moderate” Dem collaborators are NOT going to torpedo the budget bill once they get their grubby hands on the “bipartisan” infrastructure bill?
    He Who Thinks He’s Alone In His Tree may seem immoderate to devotees of civility, but I predict He will sound more and more reasonable quite soon.
    –TP

  57. How much are you willing to bet that the GOP and its “moderate” Dem collaborators are NOT going to torpedo the budget bill once they get their grubby hands on the “bipartisan” infrastructure bill?
    Sorry, Tony, you’re not winning any sucker bets today. 😉
    I hope they don’t. And I think Biden will bring them around. With enough concessions that they can claim a “win”, whatever that means (and for whom). But with most of the budget bill intact.
    Still, I’d rather have at least the “bipartisan (except it’s not)” bill than nothing. And sooner, rather than later. So I hope the procressives in the House grit their teeth and approve it. Now.

  58. How much are you willing to bet that the GOP and its “moderate” Dem collaborators are NOT going to torpedo the budget bill once they get their grubby hands on the “bipartisan” infrastructure bill?
    Sorry, Tony, you’re not winning any sucker bets today. 😉
    I hope they don’t. And I think Biden will bring them around. With enough concessions that they can claim a “win”, whatever that means (and for whom). But with most of the budget bill intact.
    Still, I’d rather have at least the “bipartisan (except it’s not)” bill than nothing. And sooner, rather than later. So I hope the procressives in the House grit their teeth and approve it. Now.

  59. I hope they don’t.
    Hope is not a plan.
    And I think Biden will bring them around.
    Around to what, exactly? You mean like this?
    But with most of the budget bill intact.
    Define “most”.
    Still, I’d rather have at least the “bipartisan (except it’s not)” bill than nothing.
    A trillion spent over a 10 year time frame is 100B/yr. So basically, the progressives have to sacrifice everything they want policy-wise so a couple “moderates” can renege on the deal they made and get a few more miles of freeway built in their district?
    That is simply incoherent.
    If the “center” is allowed to get away with this highjacking/blackmail, then burn it down. Let the GOP and renegade Dems pass their own ‘effing infrastructure bill and put it on Biden’s desk if it is so damned good.

  60. I hope they don’t.
    Hope is not a plan.
    And I think Biden will bring them around.
    Around to what, exactly? You mean like this?
    But with most of the budget bill intact.
    Define “most”.
    Still, I’d rather have at least the “bipartisan (except it’s not)” bill than nothing.
    A trillion spent over a 10 year time frame is 100B/yr. So basically, the progressives have to sacrifice everything they want policy-wise so a couple “moderates” can renege on the deal they made and get a few more miles of freeway built in their district?
    That is simply incoherent.
    If the “center” is allowed to get away with this highjacking/blackmail, then burn it down. Let the GOP and renegade Dems pass their own ‘effing infrastructure bill and put it on Biden’s desk if it is so damned good.

  63. Not even close to an argument, cleek. That ground has been covered to death since 2016. Clinton lost for a variety of reasons, none of which had anything to do with that particular phrase.
    More here. Suddenly the $1trillion “infrastructure” bill is only half that number. Who coulda’ known?

  64. Not even close to an argument, cleek. That ground has been covered to death since 2016. Clinton lost for a variety of reasons, none of which had anything to do with that particular phrase.
    More here. Suddenly the $1trillion “infrastructure” bill is only half that number. Who coulda’ known?

  69. And I think Biden will bring them around.
    Around to what, exactly? You mean like this?
    Around to delivering on “most” (see below). That is, I don’t agree with your assumption that, as soon as the “bipartisan” bill passes, the moderates will renege.
    But with most of the budget bill intact.
    Define “most”.
    The obvious definition would be >50%. Although in this case I’m thinking more in the (extremely approximate) 80% range.
    Still, I’d rather have at least the “bipartisan (except it’s not)” bill than nothing.
    A trillion spent over a 10 year time frame is 100B/yr. So basically, the progressives have to sacrifice everything they want policy-wise so a couple “moderates” can renege on the deal they made and get a few more miles of freeway built in their district?
    Other than massive dislike for them, why do you assume that the moderates would make a deal and then break it? If we were talking about Trump, or someone like him, I’d totally agree, of course. But if you can’t see an enormous difference between the moderate Demicrats and Trump, I’d say you have lost touch with reality.

  70. And I think Biden will bring them around.
    Around to what, exactly? You mean like this?
    Around to delivering on “most” (see below). That is, I don’t agree with your assumption that, as soon as the “bipartisan” bill passes, the moderates will renege.
    But with most of the budget bill intact.
    Define “most”.
    The obvious definition would be >50%. Although in this case I’m thinking more in the (extremely approximate) 80% range.
    Still, I’d rather have at least the “bipartisan (except it’s not)” bill than nothing.
    A trillion spent over a 10 year time frame is 100B/yr. So basically, the progressives have to sacrifice everything they want policy-wise so a couple “moderates” can renege on the deal they made and get a few more miles of freeway built in their district?
    Other than massive dislike for them, why do you assume that the moderates would make a deal and then break it? If we were talking about Trump, or someone like him, I’d totally agree, of course. But if you can’t see an enormous difference between the moderate Demicrats and Trump, I’d say you have lost touch with reality.

  71. Other than massive dislike for them, why do you assume that the moderates would make a deal and then break it?
    Because that is what they have done by proposing something themselves and then voting against it once they have gotten another thing they wanted more.
    Because they have turned on their party’s voting rights bill and massively disadvantaged their party in the process.
    Why wouldn’t we assume they were going to turn on this, too?

  72. Other than massive dislike for them, why do you assume that the moderates would make a deal and then break it?
    Because that is what they have done by proposing something themselves and then voting against it once they have gotten another thing they wanted more.
    Because they have turned on their party’s voting rights bill and massively disadvantaged their party in the process.
    Why wouldn’t we assume they were going to turn on this, too?

  73. That is, I don’t agree with your assumption that, as soon as the “bipartisan” bill passes, the moderates will renege.
    What assumption? They already have.
    Although in this case I’m thinking more in the (extremely approximate) 80% range.
    And it is the left that has it head in the clouds? That assumption is simply daft. If the “moderates” were willing to concede “80%” of the bill it would have been a done deal by now.
    why do you assume that the moderates would make a deal and then break it?
    Because they already have. What part of “they already have” do you not understand?
    But if you can’t see an enormous difference between the moderate Demicrats and Trump, I’d say you have lost touch with reality.
    LOL. Well I would say that whole sentence is a pile of bull cow poop. It is you who is violating your own political touchstone here, you know ‘the perfect being the enemy of the good’ yadda yadda yadda. The moderates are basically saying, “Give us the infrastructure deal now or you get nothing.”
    Well, perhaps the time for nothing is now. If you and “moderates” like you desire to kill the heart of Biden’s agenda, why not just say so?
    But you don’t.

  74. That is, I don’t agree with your assumption that, as soon as the “bipartisan” bill passes, the moderates will renege.
    What assumption? They already have.
    Although in this case I’m thinking more in the (extremely approximate) 80% range.
    And it is the left that has it head in the clouds? That assumption is simply daft. If the “moderates” were willing to concede “80%” of the bill it would have been a done deal by now.
    why do you assume that the moderates would make a deal and then break it?
    Because they already have. What part of “they already have” do you not understand?
    But if you can’t see an enormous difference between the moderate Demicrats and Trump, I’d say you have lost touch with reality.
    LOL. Well I would say that whole sentence is a pile of bull cow poop. It is you who is violating your own political touchstone here, you know ‘the perfect being the enemy of the good’ yadda yadda yadda. The moderates are basically saying, “Give us the infrastructure deal now or you get nothing.”
    Well, perhaps the time for nothing is now. If you and “moderates” like you desire to kill the heart of Biden’s agenda, why not just say so?
    But you don’t.

  77. Prediction – if AZ starts to go any more purple, Sinema does a reverse Ben Nighthorse Campbell and tries to position herself as the heir to McCain’s maverick streak.

  78. Prediction – if AZ starts to go any more purple, Sinema does a reverse Ben Nighthorse Campbell and tries to position herself as the heir to McCain’s maverick streak.

  79. What nous said.
    I think there are decent honorable moderate politicians because I am willing to think that about some politicians on every part of the political spectrum ( though it has gotten really tough to think this about Republicans) but Sinema and Manchin and probably Neal just seem corrupt. Sinema also seems weird— the curtsy during her vote against a higher minimum wage was almost Trumpian in its bizarre inappropriateness.
    Is Mitch McConnell honorable? Of course not. I don’t trust Manchin or Sinema much more than I trust him.

  80. What nous said.
    I think there are decent honorable moderate politicians because I am willing to think that about some politicians on every part of the political spectrum ( though it has gotten really tough to think this about Republicans) but Sinema and Manchin and probably Neal just seem corrupt. Sinema also seems weird— the curtsy during her vote against a higher minimum wage was almost Trumpian in its bizarre inappropriateness.
    Is Mitch McConnell honorable? Of course not. I don’t trust Manchin or Sinema much more than I trust him.

  81. Manchin had been described as having a built-in political compass. Which may spin erratically during uncertain times. Someone who has worked with him has said that on a number of occasions he has entered the Senate floor for a major vote not knowing which way he was going to vote.

  82. Manchin had been described as having a built-in political compass. Which may spin erratically during uncertain times. Someone who has worked with him has said that on a number of occasions he has entered the Senate floor for a major vote not knowing which way he was going to vote.

  83. This is not original to me, but I think Manchin and Sinema are basically out in front, but there is a group (small I hope) that encourage them in their fecklessness. I don’t want to get into CharlesWT territory of they are all worthless so the problem is the whole concept of government, but I feel like they are seeing how much Manchin and Sinema can get away with and will follow that. The calculations are obviously different in the House, but I think a similar thinking is involved. In the other thread, we have speculation about a small group of individuals (in that case, alpha males) and how they apparently license behavior. If one want to argue for it there, why don’t you see it in operation here?

  84. This is not original to me, but I think Manchin and Sinema are basically out in front, but there is a group (small I hope) that encourage them in their fecklessness. I don’t want to get into CharlesWT territory of they are all worthless so the problem is the whole concept of government, but I feel like they are seeing how much Manchin and Sinema can get away with and will follow that. The calculations are obviously different in the House, but I think a similar thinking is involved. In the other thread, we have speculation about a small group of individuals (in that case, alpha males) and how they apparently license behavior. If one want to argue for it there, why don’t you see it in operation here?

  85. Earlier:

    And the most liberal Democrats are insisting that they won’t let any proposals go forward unless they are guaranteed that they get everything they want.
    That is simply not even remotely true.

    And now:

    perhaps the time for nothing is now.

    That latter sounds like you (if not the progressives in Congress) think exactly “My way or the highway. All, or nothing at all.”

    If you and “moderates” like you desire to kill the heart of Biden’s agenda, why not just say so?

    I have no desire at all to kill the heart of Biden’s agenda. I may take exception to bits of it here and thete, but overall? Go for it. However, that does not, for me, mean I can’t see the merit of taking part of it immediately, while thrashing out the details on what parts of the rest will follow.

  86. Earlier:

    And the most liberal Democrats are insisting that they won’t let any proposals go forward unless they are guaranteed that they get everything they want.
    That is simply not even remotely true.

    And now:

    perhaps the time for nothing is now.

    That latter sounds like you (if not the progressives in Congress) think exactly “My way or the highway. All, or nothing at all.”

    If you and “moderates” like you desire to kill the heart of Biden’s agenda, why not just say so?

    I have no desire at all to kill the heart of Biden’s agenda. I may take exception to bits of it here and thete, but overall? Go for it. However, that does not, for me, mean I can’t see the merit of taking part of it immediately, while thrashing out the details on what parts of the rest will follow.

  87. Given that Jayapal’s quote shouldn’t be rendered as “progressives are threatening to block it”, and it seems that moderates are reneging on the course of action that was agreed to, it’s hard to understand why you are riding this horse so hard.
    It seems to me that moderates want to NOT agree to the bill that they have control over (reconciliation) while pushing thru a bill that they know will be subject to Manchin and Sinema rules. Jayapal (and I assume other progressives) are pointing out that this isn’t going to work. Given that bobbyp’s not in either chamber (that I know of), taking his expressions of frustration and saying ‘a ha, so you admit progressives want to burn things down’ is not really compelling.
    I hate to suggest this, but the whole ‘it’s the progressives that are screwing things up’ seems to have the same object permanence for you as ‘government is always wrong’ does for CharlesWT.

  88. Given that Jayapal’s quote shouldn’t be rendered as “progressives are threatening to block it”, and it seems that moderates are reneging on the course of action that was agreed to, it’s hard to understand why you are riding this horse so hard.
    It seems to me that moderates want to NOT agree to the bill that they have control over (reconciliation) while pushing thru a bill that they know will be subject to Manchin and Sinema rules. Jayapal (and I assume other progressives) are pointing out that this isn’t going to work. Given that bobbyp’s not in either chamber (that I know of), taking his expressions of frustration and saying ‘a ha, so you admit progressives want to burn things down’ is not really compelling.
    I hate to suggest this, but the whole ‘it’s the progressives that are screwing things up’ seems to have the same object permanence for you as ‘government is always wrong’ does for CharlesWT.

  89. That latter sounds like you (if not the progressives in Congress) think exactly “My way or the highway. All, or nothing at all.”
    To your tin ear, perhaps. To most it sounds like fair play…you renege on a deal, you don’t get your way. There was an agreement in place to move forward together. Again I ask, what is it about this that you do not understand?
    However, that does not, for me, mean I can’t see the merit of taking part of it immediately, while thrashing out the details on what parts of the rest will follow.
    There is no guarantee that anything will follow. The tell is this: These so-called moderates have not told us what exactly it is that they want. This is a tell.
    In what discussions that have been going on over the reconciliation bill the progressives have bitterly swallowed a great deal. They have compromised to get something passed. Now the rug is pulled out from even that. The moderates demands are insane and should be defeated. If you really believe that “something” can be negotiated later, then why the fuck not negotiate everything “later”. I’m sorry, but you are making absolutely no sense.

  90. That latter sounds like you (if not the progressives in Congress) think exactly “My way or the highway. All, or nothing at all.”
    To your tin ear, perhaps. To most it sounds like fair play…you renege on a deal, you don’t get your way. There was an agreement in place to move forward together. Again I ask, what is it about this that you do not understand?
    However, that does not, for me, mean I can’t see the merit of taking part of it immediately, while thrashing out the details on what parts of the rest will follow.
    There is no guarantee that anything will follow. The tell is this: These so-called moderates have not told us what exactly it is that they want. This is a tell.
    In what discussions that have been going on over the reconciliation bill the progressives have bitterly swallowed a great deal. They have compromised to get something passed. Now the rug is pulled out from even that. The moderates demands are insane and should be defeated. If you really believe that “something” can be negotiated later, then why the fuck not negotiate everything “later”. I’m sorry, but you are making absolutely no sense.

  93. I hate to suggest this, but the whole ‘it’s the progressives that are screwing things up’ seems to have the same object permanence for you as ‘government is always wrong’ does for CharlesWT.
    I don’t think that it’s progressives who are screwing things up. If I’m coming across that way, I definitely need to work on my communications skills!
    What I’m trying to say is that both the moderates and the more extreme progressives are threatening that nothing will happen if they can’t get their own way. (The sincerity of those threats, for either side, is beyond my ability to estimate.)

  94. I hate to suggest this, but the whole ‘it’s the progressives that are screwing things up’ seems to have the same object permanence for you as ‘government is always wrong’ does for CharlesWT.
    I don’t think that it’s progressives who are screwing things up. If I’m coming across that way, I definitely need to work on my communications skills!
    What I’m trying to say is that both the moderates and the more extreme progressives are threatening that nothing will happen if they can’t get their own way. (The sincerity of those threats, for either side, is beyond my ability to estimate.)

  95. What I’m trying to say is that both the moderates and the more extreme progressives are threatening that nothing will happen if they can’t get their own way.
    And what bobbyp has been posting about in the links is how that framing is not reflective of reality, which is that everyone had agreed on a course of action that was already a compromise consensus and then two members backed away from that consensus agreement in order to pose as moderates opposing radical demands. And when asked what they want in place of the current course of action as a further compromise, they refuse to say what they want.
    So it’s not about compromise or about wanting a result, it’s about wanting to be seen to be obstructing the desires of the “radicals.”
    Take away the moderates vs. radicals frame and you are left with the two rightmost Dems grandstanding to burnish a pose they rely upon for reelection.

  96. What I’m trying to say is that both the moderates and the more extreme progressives are threatening that nothing will happen if they can’t get their own way.
    And what bobbyp has been posting about in the links is how that framing is not reflective of reality, which is that everyone had agreed on a course of action that was already a compromise consensus and then two members backed away from that consensus agreement in order to pose as moderates opposing radical demands. And when asked what they want in place of the current course of action as a further compromise, they refuse to say what they want.
    So it’s not about compromise or about wanting a result, it’s about wanting to be seen to be obstructing the desires of the “radicals.”
    Take away the moderates vs. radicals frame and you are left with the two rightmost Dems grandstanding to burnish a pose they rely upon for reelection.

  97. wj,
    I think I can guess who you mean by “the more extreme progressives”, but I have no idea who might pass muster as a NON-extreme progressive in your book. I’d love to know. Seriously.
    –TP

  98. wj,
    I think I can guess who you mean by “the more extreme progressives”, but I have no idea who might pass muster as a NON-extreme progressive in your book. I’d love to know. Seriously.
    –TP

  99. I think I can guess who you mean by “the more extreme progressives”, but I have no idea who might pass muster as a NON-extreme progressive in your book. I’d love to know. Seriously.
    I haven’t done an in-depth survey. But off hand, I’d say about 80% of the Democratic caucus on the House. Slightly more in the Senate. If you want a list of names, that would be a research project I’m not sure I’m up for.
    In short, I’d classify pretty much all of those outside the self-described moderates as varying degrees of liberal/progressive. Not sure that’s what you’re after, but that’s where I’m at.

  100. I think I can guess who you mean by “the more extreme progressives”, but I have no idea who might pass muster as a NON-extreme progressive in your book. I’d love to know. Seriously.
    I haven’t done an in-depth survey. But off hand, I’d say about 80% of the Democratic caucus on the House. Slightly more in the Senate. If you want a list of names, that would be a research project I’m not sure I’m up for.
    In short, I’d classify pretty much all of those outside the self-described moderates as varying degrees of liberal/progressive. Not sure that’s what you’re after, but that’s where I’m at.

  101. Not trying to bust your chops, but I’ve been busy and not following it closely, but it’s pretty depressing to see how 90% of news stories identify progressives as the problem when, as nous points out, is so-called moderates. And when you look at the actual quotes, it seems like a pretty egregious misreading. I don’t think you are doing it in bad faith (which raise a whole nother set of problems) but I’m hoping to suggest that you loosen your grip on the whole moderation in all things approach. Two yen from me.

  102. Not trying to bust your chops, but I’ve been busy and not following it closely, but it’s pretty depressing to see how 90% of news stories identify progressives as the problem when, as nous points out, is so-called moderates. And when you look at the actual quotes, it seems like a pretty egregious misreading. I don’t think you are doing it in bad faith (which raise a whole nother set of problems) but I’m hoping to suggest that you loosen your grip on the whole moderation in all things approach. Two yen from me.

  103. https://www.businessinsider.com/bernie-sanders-infrastructure-house-progressives-tank-bill-nancy-pelosi-2021-9?amp
    Sanders reiterated that a deal had been struck between House and Senate Democrats on how the basic package would pass the lower chamber as long as senators pushed the more comprehensive version through by using filibuster-proof budget reconciliation.
    “Let’s be crystal clear,” Sanders tweeted, using one of his signature phrases. “If the bipartisan infrastructure bill is passed on its own on Thursday, this will be in violation of an agreement that was reached within the Democratic Caucus in Congress.”
    He added: “More importantly, it will end all leverage that we have to pass a major reconciliation bill.

  104. https://www.businessinsider.com/bernie-sanders-infrastructure-house-progressives-tank-bill-nancy-pelosi-2021-9?amp
    Sanders reiterated that a deal had been struck between House and Senate Democrats on how the basic package would pass the lower chamber as long as senators pushed the more comprehensive version through by using filibuster-proof budget reconciliation.
    “Let’s be crystal clear,” Sanders tweeted, using one of his signature phrases. “If the bipartisan infrastructure bill is passed on its own on Thursday, this will be in violation of an agreement that was reached within the Democratic Caucus in Congress.”
    He added: “More importantly, it will end all leverage that we have to pass a major reconciliation bill.

  111. Marshall seems to think the average Democratic voter is paying close attention to any of this and that she cares deeply about the inter-party politics that has screwed-up this situation.
    that’s how he’s wrong.

  112. Marshall seems to think the average Democratic voter is paying close attention to any of this and that she cares deeply about the inter-party politics that has screwed-up this situation.
    that’s how he’s wrong.

  113. Strip them of their committees and see how they deal with that. There must be a cost.
    Do what you must for the rest, but put them both in a position where their power and influence in committee is curtailed to where they are no use to the lobbyists.
    If all they have to offer is opposition, then there is a party for that they can choose to caucus with instead, and better that narrative for the midterms than what this current shitshow will bring.

  114. Strip them of their committees and see how they deal with that. There must be a cost.
    Do what you must for the rest, but put them both in a position where their power and influence in committee is curtailed to where they are no use to the lobbyists.
    If all they have to offer is opposition, then there is a party for that they can choose to caucus with instead, and better that narrative for the midterms than what this current shitshow will bring.

  115. cleek,
    Do you think the average Republican voter is paying any more attention?
    I don’t disagree with you, BTW. The “average voter” has stronger opinions about which team should win the next ball game than about intramural shadow-boxing in the Congress. But this seems to imply that, in electoral terms, it doesn’t matter who cheats, who blinks, or even who “wins” on Capitol Hill. Right?
    –TP

  116. cleek,
    Do you think the average Republican voter is paying any more attention?
    I don’t disagree with you, BTW. The “average voter” has stronger opinions about which team should win the next ball game than about intramural shadow-boxing in the Congress. But this seems to imply that, in electoral terms, it doesn’t matter who cheats, who blinks, or even who “wins” on Capitol Hill. Right?
    –TP

  117. Unfortunately, them doing nothing and blocking others from doing anything suits the donors quite well (the status quo is in their favor). It’s not that there are any major tax cuts for the rich on offer at the moment that need some help getting passed.

  118. Unfortunately, them doing nothing and blocking others from doing anything suits the donors quite well (the status quo is in their favor). It’s not that there are any major tax cuts for the rich on offer at the moment that need some help getting passed.

  119. If all they have to offer is opposition, then there is a party for that they can choose to caucus with instead
    The trouble is, Congress is so narrowly divided. And they just might do that. Giving them a huge bribe to do so would, after all, be right in McConnell’s wheelhouse.

  120. If all they have to offer is opposition, then there is a party for that they can choose to caucus with instead
    The trouble is, Congress is so narrowly divided. And they just might do that. Giving them a huge bribe to do so would, after all, be right in McConnell’s wheelhouse.

  121. wj – I realize that. What that has to offer that this current situation does not is clarity of message. Kicking them out and leaving them to deal with Mitch eliminates the appearance of a disunited party. It gives the Ds more control over the narrative, and it puts Mitch in the position of having to move left to get to the middle rather than dragging the Ds further right.
    Do you think they will show any more loyalty to the other party than they will the Ds? I don’t see this as losing any close votes that weren’t already at risk.

  122. wj – I realize that. What that has to offer that this current situation does not is clarity of message. Kicking them out and leaving them to deal with Mitch eliminates the appearance of a disunited party. It gives the Ds more control over the narrative, and it puts Mitch in the position of having to move left to get to the middle rather than dragging the Ds further right.
    Do you think they will show any more loyalty to the other party than they will the Ds? I don’t see this as losing any close votes that weren’t already at risk.

  123. Do you think they will show any more loyalty to the other party than they will the Ds? I don’t see this as losing any close votes that weren’t already at risk.
    On legislative matters, perhaps not.
    However,
    – executive branch appointments (already painfully slow)?
    – Potential Supreme Court nominations?
    – For that matter, other judicial nominations?
    Just for starters.
    Even if they vote as Rs the same way as they vote as Ds, I submit that having McConnell once again in charge of the Senate is a Bad Thing.

  124. Do you think they will show any more loyalty to the other party than they will the Ds? I don’t see this as losing any close votes that weren’t already at risk.
    On legislative matters, perhaps not.
    However,
    – executive branch appointments (already painfully slow)?
    – Potential Supreme Court nominations?
    – For that matter, other judicial nominations?
    Just for starters.
    Even if they vote as Rs the same way as they vote as Ds, I submit that having McConnell once again in charge of the Senate is a Bad Thing.

  125. clarity of message
    To the extent that the average voter cares, the critical message is about can get things done. Even if it’s just a basic (and, I agree, inadequate) infrastructure bill. Demonstrating that McConnell and company are right that government doesn’t work is a vote loser.
    it puts Mitch in the position of having to move left to get to the middle rather than dragging the Ds further right.
    And your reason for believing that McConnell will feel the slightest inclination to move to the middle, under any circumstances, would be what, exactly?

  126. clarity of message
    To the extent that the average voter cares, the critical message is about can get things done. Even if it’s just a basic (and, I agree, inadequate) infrastructure bill. Demonstrating that McConnell and company are right that government doesn’t work is a vote loser.
    it puts Mitch in the position of having to move left to get to the middle rather than dragging the Ds further right.
    And your reason for believing that McConnell will feel the slightest inclination to move to the middle, under any circumstances, would be what, exactly?

  127. that’s how he’s wrong.
    That’s not the question at hand. The discussion is about what we dyed in the wool political observers think about this issue. Is this yet another case of the perfect being the enemy of the good? Political treachery by the moderates? Democratic Party stoopidity? Should Congressional progressives fold or hold?
    You have not weighed in on the question.

  128. that’s how he’s wrong.
    That’s not the question at hand. The discussion is about what we dyed in the wool political observers think about this issue. Is this yet another case of the perfect being the enemy of the good? Political treachery by the moderates? Democratic Party stoopidity? Should Congressional progressives fold or hold?
    You have not weighed in on the question.

  129. To the extent that the average voter cares, the critical message is about can get things done. Even if it’s just a basic (and, I agree, inadequate) infrastructure bill. Demonstrating that McConnell and company are right that government doesn’t work is a vote loser.
    And if you give them a win and they kill the rest of your agenda and call it too extreme, government still doesn’t work and your own party is talking trash about you and confirming the other side’s message.
    If you take a strong stand on the issues that you are trying to get through – which are winning issues – and the lines are clear, then it’s a clearer choice and the two you kicked out are just sore losers.
    And if Mitch doesn’t want to budge, and Manchin and Sinema actually have a position, then they will just pull the same shit with them they did with the Ds and be his obstructionists.

  130. To the extent that the average voter cares, the critical message is about can get things done. Even if it’s just a basic (and, I agree, inadequate) infrastructure bill. Demonstrating that McConnell and company are right that government doesn’t work is a vote loser.
    And if you give them a win and they kill the rest of your agenda and call it too extreme, government still doesn’t work and your own party is talking trash about you and confirming the other side’s message.
    If you take a strong stand on the issues that you are trying to get through – which are winning issues – and the lines are clear, then it’s a clearer choice and the two you kicked out are just sore losers.
    And if Mitch doesn’t want to budge, and Manchin and Sinema actually have a position, then they will just pull the same shit with them they did with the Ds and be his obstructionists.

  131. I (no big surprise) tend to agree with nous, especially when he says that (and I’m sorry I can’t find the exact phrase) they (Sinema and Manchin) have to be some consequences.
    There’s an interesting conundrum here, at least for me. If I were to take one of them out, pour encourager les autres as it were, it would be Sinema. The whole West Virginia vibe (even though Tester has a similar situation and doesn’t act like a shithead) and his longer tenure would have me suggest they drop the hammer on Sinema. I think that bizarre performative vibe that Donald mentioned and the fact that if it were done to Manchin, she would not be smart enough to read the writing on the wall, but I really have to wonder if there is a dash of sexism that has me suggest it. But then I read this
    https://www.salon.com/2021/09/29/activists-helped-elect-kyrsten-sinema-launch-crowdpac-to-fund-a-primary-challenger/
    And think, well, them’s the breaks.

  132. I (no big surprise) tend to agree with nous, especially when he says that (and I’m sorry I can’t find the exact phrase) they (Sinema and Manchin) have to be some consequences.
    There’s an interesting conundrum here, at least for me. If I were to take one of them out, pour encourager les autres as it were, it would be Sinema. The whole West Virginia vibe (even though Tester has a similar situation and doesn’t act like a shithead) and his longer tenure would have me suggest they drop the hammer on Sinema. I think that bizarre performative vibe that Donald mentioned and the fact that if it were done to Manchin, she would not be smart enough to read the writing on the wall, but I really have to wonder if there is a dash of sexism that has me suggest it. But then I read this
    https://www.salon.com/2021/09/29/activists-helped-elect-kyrsten-sinema-launch-crowdpac-to-fund-a-primary-challenger/
    And think, well, them’s the breaks.

  133. I wondered myself if my dislike for Sinema is partly unconscious sexism. Maybe. But I despise Manchin about as much, so maybe not. He is corrupt and she is corrupt, but that little curtesy when voting down the minimum wage bill strikes me as an extra seasoning of narcissism or something weird. I am sure there are weird Republican male politicians but I don’t pay much attention to them. Sinema has gotten a lot of attention as a traitor and she seems to like it.
    I don’t think making Manchin a Republican helps us. For Manchin it might be a natural fit. Sinema would probably lose as a Republican. Arizona Republicans are probably happy to have her as a Democrat, but wouldn’t vote for her. Demanding she leave the Democrats, however, would probably just enhance her self image as a maverick and we are stuck with her for a few years.

  134. I wondered myself if my dislike for Sinema is partly unconscious sexism. Maybe. But I despise Manchin about as much, so maybe not. He is corrupt and she is corrupt, but that little curtesy when voting down the minimum wage bill strikes me as an extra seasoning of narcissism or something weird. I am sure there are weird Republican male politicians but I don’t pay much attention to them. Sinema has gotten a lot of attention as a traitor and she seems to like it.
    I don’t think making Manchin a Republican helps us. For Manchin it might be a natural fit. Sinema would probably lose as a Republican. Arizona Republicans are probably happy to have her as a Democrat, but wouldn’t vote for her. Demanding she leave the Democrats, however, would probably just enhance her self image as a maverick and we are stuck with her for a few years.

  135. If the Democratic Party (at least its leaders)** aren’t working seriously, if covertly, on a primary challenger for her, they certainly ought to be. Manchin at least has a sort-of excuse, in that his state is so reactionary. But Sinema doesn’t have that going for her.
    ** Not talking here about just the activists mentioned above. This needs a higher level of commitment to getting someone into office who is at least amenable to negotiation.

  136. If the Democratic Party (at least its leaders)** aren’t working seriously, if covertly, on a primary challenger for her, they certainly ought to be. Manchin at least has a sort-of excuse, in that his state is so reactionary. But Sinema doesn’t have that going for her.
    ** Not talking here about just the activists mentioned above. This needs a higher level of commitment to getting someone into office who is at least amenable to negotiation.

  137. Do you think the average Republican voter is paying any more attention?
    well, they’re paying more attention to a mythology generated for them by Fox News and the greater wingnut-fantasy complex.
    the Dems don’t have that.
    But this seems to imply that, in electoral terms, it doesn’t matter who cheats, who blinks, or even who “wins” on Capitol Hill. Right?
    it matters how those things get handled. Trump didn’t lose much support for anything he did, for example.
    i don’t think the average Dem knows or cares about any of this inter-party stuff. they’ll see the headlines and hear chatter about “Dems Failed! Biden Impotent!” and that’s what they’ll base their opinions on. Marshall thinks people will vote for progressive House members because a handful of moderates didn’t live up to their end of a handshake deal about a pair of infrastructure bills … zzzz. nope.

  138. Do you think the average Republican voter is paying any more attention?
    well, they’re paying more attention to a mythology generated for them by Fox News and the greater wingnut-fantasy complex.
    the Dems don’t have that.
    But this seems to imply that, in electoral terms, it doesn’t matter who cheats, who blinks, or even who “wins” on Capitol Hill. Right?
    it matters how those things get handled. Trump didn’t lose much support for anything he did, for example.
    i don’t think the average Dem knows or cares about any of this inter-party stuff. they’ll see the headlines and hear chatter about “Dems Failed! Biden Impotent!” and that’s what they’ll base their opinions on. Marshall thinks people will vote for progressive House members because a handful of moderates didn’t live up to their end of a handshake deal about a pair of infrastructure bills … zzzz. nope.

  139. “I wondered myself if my dislike for Sinema is partly unconscious sexism.”
    Get over it.
    Although women face remaining sizable injustices in pay and in other ways, in 2021 America women have reached spectacular parity when afforded the opportunity to be jagoff assholes, even armed ones, in the lovingly harsh and highly remunerative limelight of reactionary social media and subhuman conservative politics, at will, particularly when it is in the service of insurrectionary hardheadedness against any kind of rational governance in which their palms don’t get slavishly greased.
    Sinema, like all conservatives, including Manchin, won’t even divulge in meetings with the President the terms of her bargaining position, other than offering her patootie to be smooched, the little minx.
    She wants what she wants and she’ll let you know what it is AFTER you cave to it. She’s a dick and she wants sucked and you’ll say thank you for her mercy.
    There is no such thing as civil discourse or negotiation with such confederate evil creatures.
    There is Sherman burning his way through them, taking out city and hamlet and leaving them in smoldering ruins.
    She is one of these pristinely festooned non-hypocrites conservatives love to champion for their purity, the substance of which remains a vast cheap suit of mystery, except for the part where no one is permitted to do anything.
    You don’t lower yourself to negotiate in their snide give-it-all-to-me presence. You punch their (her) fucking lights out, literally, and you welcome and congratulate them and her for her descendency to coequal gender status with her male jagoff/asshole republican cohorts, and if any of them want to take it from there, you find a more lethal way to fuck them.
    You take the ground out from under where their dug-in heels are planted.
    https://thehill.com/homenews/news/574625-gop-ekes-out-a-win-in-return-of-congressional-baseball-game
    Give me another shot at Scalise, the gun-loving government-hating cuck, at second base.

  140. “I wondered myself if my dislike for Sinema is partly unconscious sexism.”
    Get over it.
    Although women face remaining sizable injustices in pay and in other ways, in 2021 America women have reached spectacular parity when afforded the opportunity to be jagoff assholes, even armed ones, in the lovingly harsh and highly remunerative limelight of reactionary social media and subhuman conservative politics, at will, particularly when it is in the service of insurrectionary hardheadedness against any kind of rational governance in which their palms don’t get slavishly greased.
    Sinema, like all conservatives, including Manchin, won’t even divulge in meetings with the President the terms of her bargaining position, other than offering her patootie to be smooched, the little minx.
    She wants what she wants and she’ll let you know what it is AFTER you cave to it. She’s a dick and she wants sucked and you’ll say thank you for her mercy.
    There is no such thing as civil discourse or negotiation with such confederate evil creatures.
    There is Sherman burning his way through them, taking out city and hamlet and leaving them in smoldering ruins.
    She is one of these pristinely festooned non-hypocrites conservatives love to champion for their purity, the substance of which remains a vast cheap suit of mystery, except for the part where no one is permitted to do anything.
    You don’t lower yourself to negotiate in their snide give-it-all-to-me presence. You punch their (her) fucking lights out, literally, and you welcome and congratulate them and her for her descendency to coequal gender status with her male jagoff/asshole republican cohorts, and if any of them want to take it from there, you find a more lethal way to fuck them.
    You take the ground out from under where their dug-in heels are planted.
    https://thehill.com/homenews/news/574625-gop-ekes-out-a-win-in-return-of-congressional-baseball-game
    Give me another shot at Scalise, the gun-loving government-hating cuck, at second base.

  147. Scalise and company put guns and ammo on the table for the taking, thinking they would only be used on the niggers and wetbacks and queers and a few white and Jewish and Muslim outside agitators.
    https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2021/9/29/2055126/-Maskless-audience-scolds-masked-dad-after-he-s-attacked-by-unmasked-man-right-in-front-of-them
    Think again.
    It’s time to pick them up and defend ourselves with deadly force at all times in self-defense just as mealy-mouthed republicans have been counseling us to of all these decades.
    Expect physical attacks on us from paid republican operatives at voting places in 2022.
    Be a good conservative and shoot to fucking kill them.
    Conservatives yearn to be martyrs.
    Martyr them.
    School board meetings and hospital emergency rooms and local health departments and other legit governing bodies are today’s Fort Sumter, Antietam, and First Bull Run.
    More whiskey.

  148. Scalise and company put guns and ammo on the table for the taking, thinking they would only be used on the niggers and wetbacks and queers and a few white and Jewish and Muslim outside agitators.
    https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2021/9/29/2055126/-Maskless-audience-scolds-masked-dad-after-he-s-attacked-by-unmasked-man-right-in-front-of-them
    Think again.
    It’s time to pick them up and defend ourselves with deadly force at all times in self-defense just as mealy-mouthed republicans have been counseling us to of all these decades.
    Expect physical attacks on us from paid republican operatives at voting places in 2022.
    Be a good conservative and shoot to fucking kill them.
    Conservatives yearn to be martyrs.
    Martyr them.
    School board meetings and hospital emergency rooms and local health departments and other legit governing bodies are today’s Fort Sumter, Antietam, and First Bull Run.
    More whiskey.

  149. Civil War II has already started.
    Donald J Trump attempted to remain in office by disrupting the legal and constitutional processes that provide for a peaceful transfer of power in this country. Including by the encouragement of and incitement to violent rioting and mayhem.
    In plain English, that is called an attempted coup. In legal terms, it’s seditious conspiracy.
    The fact that nobody of consequence seems to be able to call it by its name, or treat it as such, is the single greatest threat to this country in my lifetime.
    We’re all just hoping it will all blow over.

  150. Civil War II has already started.
    Donald J Trump attempted to remain in office by disrupting the legal and constitutional processes that provide for a peaceful transfer of power in this country. Including by the encouragement of and incitement to violent rioting and mayhem.
    In plain English, that is called an attempted coup. In legal terms, it’s seditious conspiracy.
    The fact that nobody of consequence seems to be able to call it by its name, or treat it as such, is the single greatest threat to this country in my lifetime.
    We’re all just hoping it will all blow over.

  151. “We’re all just hoping it will all blow over.”
    All decent people do.
    I also have property on the eastern seaboard’s outer banks for sale as uninsured shelter from the storm.
    The hatches one wants to batten down are already under water.
    Wide horses there will be called seahorses in a few years.
    OK, I’ll leave what scenery there is left to chew to the rest of ya’s the rest of the week.

  152. “We’re all just hoping it will all blow over.”
    All decent people do.
    I also have property on the eastern seaboard’s outer banks for sale as uninsured shelter from the storm.
    The hatches one wants to batten down are already under water.
    Wide horses there will be called seahorses in a few years.
    OK, I’ll leave what scenery there is left to chew to the rest of ya’s the rest of the week.

  155. Marshall thinks people will vote for progressive House members because a handful of moderates didn’t live up to their end of a handshake deal about a pair of infrastructure bills … zzzz. nope.
    Which is why when you do go after them, you don’t make it about loyalty to the party. You take the popular legislation that you were trying to pass and you make them the villains who want to keep the people from having those nice things.
    Manchin wants to hide behind sticker shock? Go after him for hurting the people who needed the things that price tag paid for. Make it not about the dollar amount, but about what we would get in return if they would quit being dicks and vote for the package.
    No clever Rachel Maddow does Sondheim showtunes for the limousine liberals, just a good solid Springsteen punch in the face.
    It’s not hard.

  156. Marshall thinks people will vote for progressive House members because a handful of moderates didn’t live up to their end of a handshake deal about a pair of infrastructure bills … zzzz. nope.
    Which is why when you do go after them, you don’t make it about loyalty to the party. You take the popular legislation that you were trying to pass and you make them the villains who want to keep the people from having those nice things.
    Manchin wants to hide behind sticker shock? Go after him for hurting the people who needed the things that price tag paid for. Make it not about the dollar amount, but about what we would get in return if they would quit being dicks and vote for the package.
    No clever Rachel Maddow does Sondheim showtunes for the limousine liberals, just a good solid Springsteen punch in the face.
    It’s not hard.

  157. Which is why when you do go after them, you don’t make it about loyalty to the party. You take the popular legislation that you were trying to pass and you make them the villains who want to keep the people from having those nice things.
    the moderates get to fight back, too.
    and if it’s a fight over, again, handshake deals about a two-part infrastructure deal involving reconciliation and the filibuster and … zzzz.
    it’s not enough to have something to argue about because elections aren’t just, or even mostly, IMO, about policy. things like personality, incumbency, support from powerful groups, etc, all matter too.
    that doesn’t mean i don’t think some progressives could win on it. i’m just saying it’s not the lock Marshall seems to think it is.

  158. Which is why when you do go after them, you don’t make it about loyalty to the party. You take the popular legislation that you were trying to pass and you make them the villains who want to keep the people from having those nice things.
    the moderates get to fight back, too.
    and if it’s a fight over, again, handshake deals about a two-part infrastructure deal involving reconciliation and the filibuster and … zzzz.
    it’s not enough to have something to argue about because elections aren’t just, or even mostly, IMO, about policy. things like personality, incumbency, support from powerful groups, etc, all matter too.
    that doesn’t mean i don’t think some progressives could win on it. i’m just saying it’s not the lock Marshall seems to think it is.

  159. Manchin wants to hide behind sticker shock? Go after him for hurting the people who needed the things that price tag paid for.
    Make that:
    Manchin wants to hide behind sticker shock? Go after him for hurting the people in his state who needed the things that price tag paid for.

  160. Manchin wants to hide behind sticker shock? Go after him for hurting the people who needed the things that price tag paid for.
    Make that:
    Manchin wants to hide behind sticker shock? Go after him for hurting the people in his state who needed the things that price tag paid for.

  161. The moderates are fighting and they fight as they always have–by claiming to be the adults in the room concerned about fiscal discipline. They also have a bunch of kneejerk citizens in their corner who automatically assume that if there is a problem between liberals and moderates, it’s because of the extremist crazy left that refuses to compromise on their wild ideas. (Self-described moderates are among the original practitioners of identity politics. The substance of an issue doesn’t matter–what matters is posturing as a sensible moderate.)
    At some point, maybe now, it might be a good idea if liberals and lefties, including the crazy extremists who think climate change is real, should fight back.
    And Manchin is a conservative Democrat who is corrupt–he and his family make money off of coal.

  162. The moderates are fighting and they fight as they always have–by claiming to be the adults in the room concerned about fiscal discipline. They also have a bunch of kneejerk citizens in their corner who automatically assume that if there is a problem between liberals and moderates, it’s because of the extremist crazy left that refuses to compromise on their wild ideas. (Self-described moderates are among the original practitioners of identity politics. The substance of an issue doesn’t matter–what matters is posturing as a sensible moderate.)
    At some point, maybe now, it might be a good idea if liberals and lefties, including the crazy extremists who think climate change is real, should fight back.
    And Manchin is a conservative Democrat who is corrupt–he and his family make money off of coal.

  165. “Moderates”?
    Are those the kind of politicians who would say things like
    “You know, we can’t afford to fix ALL the bridges, so how’s about we compromise on fixing half of them”
    or,
    “Let’s not spend money saving the ENTIRE climate, let’s only save as much of it as we can afford without raising taxes on billionaires”
    or,
    “Can’t we just agree that a LITTLE voter suppression won’t hurt?”
    Halfway between sanity and lunacy is ONE definition of “moderate”, I suppose.
    –TP

  166. “Moderates”?
    Are those the kind of politicians who would say things like
    “You know, we can’t afford to fix ALL the bridges, so how’s about we compromise on fixing half of them”
    or,
    “Let’s not spend money saving the ENTIRE climate, let’s only save as much of it as we can afford without raising taxes on billionaires”
    or,
    “Can’t we just agree that a LITTLE voter suppression won’t hurt?”
    Halfway between sanity and lunacy is ONE definition of “moderate”, I suppose.
    –TP

  167. Self-described moderates are among the original practitioners of identity politics. The substance of an issue doesn’t matter–what matters is posturing as a sensible moderate.
    I like to think I’m a “sensible moderate” — a moderate conservative, but still. And for me, the substance of an issue definitely matters. For example, I think only an idiot would think that climate change is not real.
    But perhaps you were speaking exclusively of politicians at the national level.

  168. Self-described moderates are among the original practitioners of identity politics. The substance of an issue doesn’t matter–what matters is posturing as a sensible moderate.
    I like to think I’m a “sensible moderate” — a moderate conservative, but still. And for me, the substance of an issue definitely matters. For example, I think only an idiot would think that climate change is not real.
    But perhaps you were speaking exclusively of politicians at the national level.

  169. If there was any common sense left every Republican in the House would vote for the infrastructure bill, then vote to raise the debt ceiling and against the 3.5 trillion goody bag.
    But they will probably just vote against everything.

  170. If there was any common sense left every Republican in the House would vote for the infrastructure bill, then vote to raise the debt ceiling and against the 3.5 trillion goody bag.
    But they will probably just vote against everything.

  171. People do vote for personalities and for abstract principles dressed up as values. It’s true.
    But those abstract principles dressed up as values achieve that status because of simple messaging that connects and becomes a metonym for the value and the party. That’s what Reagan did. That’s what Gingrich did. That’s what Kennedy did. That’s what Obama did.
    Dems can win with this *if they stay positive and argue for what we all can achieve together.*
    These two corrupt nihilist are vulnerable to that sort of thing. And yes, they can use it too, but they will lose if the things they oppose are popular and easy to grasp *in principle*.
    Bludgeon them with it.

  172. People do vote for personalities and for abstract principles dressed up as values. It’s true.
    But those abstract principles dressed up as values achieve that status because of simple messaging that connects and becomes a metonym for the value and the party. That’s what Reagan did. That’s what Gingrich did. That’s what Kennedy did. That’s what Obama did.
    Dems can win with this *if they stay positive and argue for what we all can achieve together.*
    These two corrupt nihilist are vulnerable to that sort of thing. And yes, they can use it too, but they will lose if the things they oppose are popular and easy to grasp *in principle*.
    Bludgeon them with it.

  179. i’m all for bludgeoning Manchin and Sinema. figuratively bludgeoning them would be best, i figure.
    Halfway between sanity and lunacy is ONE definition of “moderate”, I suppose.
    thing is, they think your positions are loony and that they’re right in the sane, rational sweet part of every argument. unlike everyone else, of course.

  180. i’m all for bludgeoning Manchin and Sinema. figuratively bludgeoning them would be best, i figure.
    Halfway between sanity and lunacy is ONE definition of “moderate”, I suppose.
    thing is, they think your positions are loony and that they’re right in the sane, rational sweet part of every argument. unlike everyone else, of course.

  185. i’m all for bludgeoning Manchin and Sinema. figuratively bludgeoning them would be best, i figure.
    I’m a radical moderate, so a bit of both is fine with me. It’s what they’d want.

  186. i’m all for bludgeoning Manchin and Sinema. figuratively bludgeoning them would be best, i figure.
    I’m a radical moderate, so a bit of both is fine with me. It’s what they’d want.

  189. WJ–
    I am thinking mostly of politicians and pundits.
    , but I do see people on Twitter and in NYT comment sections who reflexively assume that the moderate centrist position is true almost by definition, and that in any conflict between moderates and the left, the left has to be the side guilty of extreme, stupid, irrational childish thinking.
    So no, I’m not talking about all moderates. For that matter, some leftists really are or can be stupid, extreme, childish,etc… But it is lazy thinking to assume this and some moderates do assume it.
    I also have a friend in real life who thinks like this. For him it is a devastating argument to label someone as a kooky leftist.

  190. WJ–
    I am thinking mostly of politicians and pundits.
    , but I do see people on Twitter and in NYT comment sections who reflexively assume that the moderate centrist position is true almost by definition, and that in any conflict between moderates and the left, the left has to be the side guilty of extreme, stupid, irrational childish thinking.
    So no, I’m not talking about all moderates. For that matter, some leftists really are or can be stupid, extreme, childish,etc… But it is lazy thinking to assume this and some moderates do assume it.
    I also have a friend in real life who thinks like this. For him it is a devastating argument to label someone as a kooky leftist.

  191. I also have a friend in real life who thinks like this. For him it is a devastating argument to label someone as a kooky leftist.
    Of course, if the label is accurate (which, as you say, it sometimes is) then it ought to be a devastating critique. Just as “kooky rightist” should be — and, these days, with far more visible examples available.

  192. I also have a friend in real life who thinks like this. For him it is a devastating argument to label someone as a kooky leftist.
    Of course, if the label is accurate (which, as you say, it sometimes is) then it ought to be a devastating critique. Just as “kooky rightist” should be — and, these days, with far more visible examples available.

  193. AOC is a kooky leftist to this friend. Ben Sasse said something like this about her too. IMO, one can disagree with AOC, but considering her a kook is kookish. Anyone on the far left (by American standards) is kooky to my friend. Way back in the 80’s he thought leftwingers who criticized our support for the Salvadoran government were kooks. We were supporting death squads.
    IMO, kooks can be found on all parts of the spectrum. Centrists who refuse to acknowledge unpleasant realities (our need for drastic action on climate change, various truths about what we do to people overseas) are crackpots. Moderate, centrist crackpots.

  194. AOC is a kooky leftist to this friend. Ben Sasse said something like this about her too. IMO, one can disagree with AOC, but considering her a kook is kookish. Anyone on the far left (by American standards) is kooky to my friend. Way back in the 80’s he thought leftwingers who criticized our support for the Salvadoran government were kooks. We were supporting death squads.
    IMO, kooks can be found on all parts of the spectrum. Centrists who refuse to acknowledge unpleasant realities (our need for drastic action on climate change, various truths about what we do to people overseas) are crackpots. Moderate, centrist crackpots.

  199. “Kooky” was a guy with a quick draw comb on 77 Sunset Strip 60 years ago.
    Let’s update the lingo.

  200. “Kooky” was a guy with a quick draw comb on 77 Sunset Strip 60 years ago.
    Let’s update the lingo.

  201. Republicans and their conservative movement are racist subhuman McCarthyite vermin:
    https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/a37807934/rachael-rollins-us-attorney-ted-cruz-tom-cotton/
    Last time I saw Ben Sasse, the reasonable, thoughtful one, he wanted more American death in Afghanistan and was lined up with the rest of the malignancy rooting for total default on America’s debt obligations.
    Fuck the lot of them.
    The Great Replacement Theory, beloved by conservative burning martyrs at FOX and throughout, can’t happen fast enough.
    You can have either the Republican Party or America.
    Choosing the first murders both.

  202. Republicans and their conservative movement are racist subhuman McCarthyite vermin:
    https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/a37807934/rachael-rollins-us-attorney-ted-cruz-tom-cotton/
    Last time I saw Ben Sasse, the reasonable, thoughtful one, he wanted more American death in Afghanistan and was lined up with the rest of the malignancy rooting for total default on America’s debt obligations.
    Fuck the lot of them.
    The Great Replacement Theory, beloved by conservative burning martyrs at FOX and throughout, can’t happen fast enough.
    You can have either the Republican Party or America.
    Choosing the first murders both.

  203. The Great Replacement Theory, beloved by conservative burning martyrs at FOX and throughout, can’t happen fast enough.
    Ah, but there is an antidote to the Great Replacement.
    https://www.eastbaytimes.com/2021/09/29/what-is-going-on-at-fci-dublin-first-prison-guard-now-warden-charged-with-sexual-abuse-of-incarcerated-women/
    Think about it. You have (white) prison guards rape (white) women in prison. Because rape is not a justification for an abortion, that gets you another white child. Figure an additional child every two years, for as long as the sentence lasts. You could pile up a whole lot of additional white children, and avoid the Great Replacement. Problem solved.
    /disgusting sarcasm
    But don’t bet that the idea won’t occur to them. If it hasn’t already.

  204. The Great Replacement Theory, beloved by conservative burning martyrs at FOX and throughout, can’t happen fast enough.
    Ah, but there is an antidote to the Great Replacement.
    https://www.eastbaytimes.com/2021/09/29/what-is-going-on-at-fci-dublin-first-prison-guard-now-warden-charged-with-sexual-abuse-of-incarcerated-women/
    Think about it. You have (white) prison guards rape (white) women in prison. Because rape is not a justification for an abortion, that gets you another white child. Figure an additional child every two years, for as long as the sentence lasts. You could pile up a whole lot of additional white children, and avoid the Great Replacement. Problem solved.
    /disgusting sarcasm
    But don’t bet that the idea won’t occur to them. If it hasn’t already.

  205. Yes, but like everything else republicans do, it kinda ruins sex for normal people, by which I mean everyone but them.
    I’m sure the republican powers that be in Texas, when they see this, will be making regular visits to the women’s prisons for a little rapey R&R and drinks all around on them for their kinky Christian base after they sue their imprisoned victims for pursuing medical help.

  206. Yes, but like everything else republicans do, it kinda ruins sex for normal people, by which I mean everyone but them.
    I’m sure the republican powers that be in Texas, when they see this, will be making regular visits to the women’s prisons for a little rapey R&R and drinks all around on them for their kinky Christian base after they sue their imprisoned victims for pursuing medical help.

  207. Another comment on the subject…
    I swallowed a bit of bile and actually read that column. It was the usual Freidman pablum. Here’s a quote:
    “So, I repeat: Do Representative Josh Gottheimer, the leader of the centrist Democrats in the House, and Representative Pramila Jayapal, leader of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, have the guts to stop issuing all-or-nothing ultimatums and instead give each other ironclad assurances that they will do something hard?”
    A couple things:
    1. There was an agreement. The moderates broke it. Somehow this important fact goes unmentioned by mr. ‘suck on this’.
    2. The progressive caucus is on record that they will vote for both bills, but they need to advance together. The moderates have not made any such offer.
    2. The progressives and the administration have trimmed their sails substantially in an effort to get the Big One up for a vote. What is the moderates counteroffer? Here it is: We don’t want to talk about any of these programs that we really really want at this time. Trust us. Pass the potholes bill now, or we walk.
    But of course it is the radical commies apparently are the big roadblock.
    Like I said, pure pablum.

  208. Another comment on the subject…
    I swallowed a bit of bile and actually read that column. It was the usual Freidman pablum. Here’s a quote:
    “So, I repeat: Do Representative Josh Gottheimer, the leader of the centrist Democrats in the House, and Representative Pramila Jayapal, leader of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, have the guts to stop issuing all-or-nothing ultimatums and instead give each other ironclad assurances that they will do something hard?”
    A couple things:
    1. There was an agreement. The moderates broke it. Somehow this important fact goes unmentioned by mr. ‘suck on this’.
    2. The progressive caucus is on record that they will vote for both bills, but they need to advance together. The moderates have not made any such offer.
    2. The progressives and the administration have trimmed their sails substantially in an effort to get the Big One up for a vote. What is the moderates counteroffer? Here it is: We don’t want to talk about any of these programs that we really really want at this time. Trust us. Pass the potholes bill now, or we walk.
    But of course it is the radical commies apparently are the big roadblock.
    Like I said, pure pablum.

  209. We would all be better off if the media would stop soft pedaling Manchin as a moderate and start calling him a conservative Democrat like he actually is. The Dems span both sides of the center and the GOP hasn’t sniffed the center in more than a decade.
    Call them what they are.
    Even the Guardian insists on this falsehood and it perpetuates and legitimates the lie that the GOP has not evolved into a radical right wing party.

  210. We would all be better off if the media would stop soft pedaling Manchin as a moderate and start calling him a conservative Democrat like he actually is. The Dems span both sides of the center and the GOP hasn’t sniffed the center in more than a decade.
    Call them what they are.
    Even the Guardian insists on this falsehood and it perpetuates and legitimates the lie that the GOP has not evolved into a radical right wing party.

  215. Replace all republican murderers (they murder the Afghans in their own country and then fuck with them here) with Afghan refugees.
    It will indeed be great.
    Subhuman mealy-mouthed cuck Mitt Romney goes along with this barbarian conservative Trumpian pig shit, which will of course end with violence against the refugees by conservative armed operatives, just as gays, blacks, other immigrants, Jews in their synagogues, and any old liberal walking the streets is violently assaulted for crossing the uncompromising high principles of the racist, subhuman conservative movement.
    The Afghan refugees become part of the 50% (most of us here are held in similar , low esteem by the conservative scum) of Americans the Claremont Institute regards as un-American and not fully capable of participating in the American experiment and therefore subject to the violent Civil War Claremont, FOX News, QAnon, the entire Republican establishment infesting all levels of governance, and their brownshirted base and their trigger fingers are preparing for us.
    Nothing will blow over until it is blown up.

  216. Replace all republican murderers (they murder the Afghans in their own country and then fuck with them here) with Afghan refugees.
    It will indeed be great.
    Subhuman mealy-mouthed cuck Mitt Romney goes along with this barbarian conservative Trumpian pig shit, which will of course end with violence against the refugees by conservative armed operatives, just as gays, blacks, other immigrants, Jews in their synagogues, and any old liberal walking the streets is violently assaulted for crossing the uncompromising high principles of the racist, subhuman conservative movement.
    The Afghan refugees become part of the 50% (most of us here are held in similar , low esteem by the conservative scum) of Americans the Claremont Institute regards as un-American and not fully capable of participating in the American experiment and therefore subject to the violent Civil War Claremont, FOX News, QAnon, the entire Republican establishment infesting all levels of governance, and their brownshirted base and their trigger fingers are preparing for us.
    Nothing will blow over until it is blown up.

  217. WRT the Atlantic article, I’ve recently read up some on Strauss and am currently reading a bunch of Levinas and Derrida (where he’s working through Levinas’ ideas). It’s ironic that the Claremont stooges are using one Jewish scholar deeply engaged in the Jewish Question to argue against two other Jewish scholars also working through the thorny questions of difference and hospitality and come out the other end like a swallowed penny, having not digested any of it and supporting Christian Dominionism dressed up as Western Chauvinism.

  218. WRT the Atlantic article, I’ve recently read up some on Strauss and am currently reading a bunch of Levinas and Derrida (where he’s working through Levinas’ ideas). It’s ironic that the Claremont stooges are using one Jewish scholar deeply engaged in the Jewish Question to argue against two other Jewish scholars also working through the thorny questions of difference and hospitality and come out the other end like a swallowed penny, having not digested any of it and supporting Christian Dominionism dressed up as Western Chauvinism.

  219. When I’m watching Congress making sausage, I try to keep in mind that the same maneuvering for position, and the same irritating compromises, have always been part of the process. It’s more visible now; that’s the world we live in today in many spheres. Recalcitrant members with personal agendas, whether ideological or career-oriented, are nothing new. Deadlines, delays, rescheduling? Also old news. Or it would be, if we’d been in a position to see it.
    That doesn’t keep me from being irritated (or disgusted) by some members behavior. But it does tend to keep me from both dispair and triumphalism. Time for that after the last batter is out. Because until then, we won’t really know who won. (And maybe not for quite a while after that, in some cases.)

  220. When I’m watching Congress making sausage, I try to keep in mind that the same maneuvering for position, and the same irritating compromises, have always been part of the process. It’s more visible now; that’s the world we live in today in many spheres. Recalcitrant members with personal agendas, whether ideological or career-oriented, are nothing new. Deadlines, delays, rescheduling? Also old news. Or it would be, if we’d been in a position to see it.
    That doesn’t keep me from being irritated (or disgusted) by some members behavior. But it does tend to keep me from both dispair and triumphalism. Time for that after the last batter is out. Because until then, we won’t really know who won. (And maybe not for quite a while after that, in some cases.)

  221. From the Claremont thing that nooneithink links to:

    We disagree on what men and women are; on what human nature is; what rights are. That’s a real crisis.

    That seems about right. And no small part of the crisis is the difficulty people like Ryan at Claremont have with sharing a world and a polity with people he disagrees with.
    I was also struck by this:

    But the courts and administrative agencies quickly turned against the color-blind, equal-opportunity vision of the founding and toward affirmative action—this calculation of current oppressor or past oppressor, and the pursuit of equity and social justice.

    The “color-blind … vision of the founding” declared that black people were 3/5 of a human. So I’m unclear on exactly what history and traditions Ryan is trying to preserve.
    I’ll also say that the “pursuit of equity and social justice” seems like a completely appropriate thing for the courts and administrative agencies to be doing.
    More excerpts:

    The counter from the left is that there’s systemic racism that has built up over years by certain legal systems. I would have to see some real proof of that. The main evidence seems to be that there are disparate results, thus there’s systemic racism.

    Unclear to me what it would take to persuade this guy that we have a history of unequal treatment of black people, or that that history contributes to current-day inequities.
    Some folks just don’t want to know.

    The Founders were pretty unanimous, with Washington leading the way, that the Constitution is really only fit for a Christian people.

    Anybody else see a problem here?
    The reality is that ‘the founders’ were not of one mind. About nearly anything. The reality is that slavery was baked into the Constitution at its writing, and it took a fncking horrendous war to un-bake it. And another 100 years of domestic terrorism and legal, de jure discrimination before the law of the land implemented what the outcome of that war demanded.
    And FWIW I find it more than rich to listen to a guy who thinks the Constitution is only fit for a Christian nation talk about identity politics.
    Everything he is selling is identity politics.
    The US is, at the moment, a dysfunctional mess. There is no unity, there is no consensus, there is little if any common ground.
    Claremont has no answer to this other than for their particular vision to dominate.

  222. From the Claremont thing that nooneithink links to:

    We disagree on what men and women are; on what human nature is; what rights are. That’s a real crisis.

    That seems about right. And no small part of the crisis is the difficulty people like Ryan at Claremont have with sharing a world and a polity with people he disagrees with.
    I was also struck by this:

    But the courts and administrative agencies quickly turned against the color-blind, equal-opportunity vision of the founding and toward affirmative action—this calculation of current oppressor or past oppressor, and the pursuit of equity and social justice.

    The “color-blind … vision of the founding” declared that black people were 3/5 of a human. So I’m unclear on exactly what history and traditions Ryan is trying to preserve.
    I’ll also say that the “pursuit of equity and social justice” seems like a completely appropriate thing for the courts and administrative agencies to be doing.
    More excerpts:

    The counter from the left is that there’s systemic racism that has built up over years by certain legal systems. I would have to see some real proof of that. The main evidence seems to be that there are disparate results, thus there’s systemic racism.

    Unclear to me what it would take to persuade this guy that we have a history of unequal treatment of black people, or that that history contributes to current-day inequities.
    Some folks just don’t want to know.

    The Founders were pretty unanimous, with Washington leading the way, that the Constitution is really only fit for a Christian people.

    Anybody else see a problem here?
    The reality is that ‘the founders’ were not of one mind. About nearly anything. The reality is that slavery was baked into the Constitution at its writing, and it took a fncking horrendous war to un-bake it. And another 100 years of domestic terrorism and legal, de jure discrimination before the law of the land implemented what the outcome of that war demanded.
    And FWIW I find it more than rich to listen to a guy who thinks the Constitution is only fit for a Christian nation talk about identity politics.
    Everything he is selling is identity politics.
    The US is, at the moment, a dysfunctional mess. There is no unity, there is no consensus, there is little if any common ground.
    Claremont has no answer to this other than for their particular vision to dominate.

  223. Manchin is demanding as part of his nebulous list of demands, that the Federal Reserve immediately taper its policy that has kept the American economy from collapsing these past few years.
    One: Who the fuck does he think he is? The Fed is an independent body.
    Two: Immediately removing the stimulus would crater the American economy, which already is slowing.
    Three: This demand is bullshit from the get go as he already knows the Fed is embarking on a taper, free of his fucking advice, as they have already announced it will begin tapering in the near future in a responsible manner. Why doesn’t he demand the sun rise tomorrow at Congress’ will, and claim he caused it to rise?
    Four: Prove to us Manchin that you are so horribly concerned about inflation. See your houseboat at noon tomorrow for half-price. Demand that the coal interests your coal-brokerage, the source of all of his self-interested corruption which he confuses with the general good of America, like all fucking conservatives do, immediately accept a 20% reduction in the price of coal for both energy and metallurgical uses.
    Broker something for the American people instead of yourself, ya pig.
    Christ, what a self-righteous conservative movement tool. He’s the whore in the cat house the Republican Party trots out for its especially kinky clients, who love a trans-conservative Democrat who will bend over for their demands.
    I am for Manchin’s tax increases. I guess when he takes those to McConnell and the filth, he’ll find out those cheap little handjobs he’s been giving out gratis to the conservative caucus will be returned in the form of an anal gang bang.

  224. Manchin is demanding as part of his nebulous list of demands, that the Federal Reserve immediately taper its policy that has kept the American economy from collapsing these past few years.
    One: Who the fuck does he think he is? The Fed is an independent body.
    Two: Immediately removing the stimulus would crater the American economy, which already is slowing.
    Three: This demand is bullshit from the get go as he already knows the Fed is embarking on a taper, free of his fucking advice, as they have already announced it will begin tapering in the near future in a responsible manner. Why doesn’t he demand the sun rise tomorrow at Congress’ will, and claim he caused it to rise?
    Four: Prove to us Manchin that you are so horribly concerned about inflation. See your houseboat at noon tomorrow for half-price. Demand that the coal interests your coal-brokerage, the source of all of his self-interested corruption which he confuses with the general good of America, like all fucking conservatives do, immediately accept a 20% reduction in the price of coal for both energy and metallurgical uses.
    Broker something for the American people instead of yourself, ya pig.
    Christ, what a self-righteous conservative movement tool. He’s the whore in the cat house the Republican Party trots out for its especially kinky clients, who love a trans-conservative Democrat who will bend over for their demands.
    I am for Manchin’s tax increases. I guess when he takes those to McConnell and the filth, he’ll find out those cheap little handjobs he’s been giving out gratis to the conservative caucus will be returned in the form of an anal gang bang.

  225. Some folks just don’t want to know.

    The Founders were pretty unanimous, with Washington leading the way, that the Constitution is really only fit for a Christian people.

    Anybody else see a problem here?
    Pretty clearly he has never read any of, for example, Thomas Jefferson’s writings on religion. Jefferson does probably count as Christian. But how many of today’s loud Christianists would see him (more precisely, someone with his views) that way is another story.
    As for Washington, there’s this from the Mount Vernon Ladies’ Association, which manages Mount Vernon:

    Shortly after his inauguration as president, religious communities began writing to Washington. He told these groups that the only being to whom Americans owed an explanation of their religious beliefs was God. When the Virginia Baptists wrote about their qualms that the new Constitution did not specifically guarantee freedom of religion, they went on to say that they knew they were in good hands with Washington at the head of the government. The President responded that he would never have signed the Constitution if he thought it would endanger the religious rights of any group.
    There are some who believe that Washington was only speaking of religious freedom in regard to Christian denominations, but did not intend it to apply to other religions. To a Jewish congregation in Rhode Island, he noted that,

    It is now no more that toleration is spoken of, as if it was by the indulgence of one class of people, that another enjoyed the exercise of their inherent natural rights. For happily the Government of the United States, which gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance requires only that they who live under its protection should demean themselves as good citizens, in giving it on all occasions their effectual support”

    Doesn’t sound very “Christian only” to me.

  226. Some folks just don’t want to know.

    The Founders were pretty unanimous, with Washington leading the way, that the Constitution is really only fit for a Christian people.

    Anybody else see a problem here?
    Pretty clearly he has never read any of, for example, Thomas Jefferson’s writings on religion. Jefferson does probably count as Christian. But how many of today’s loud Christianists would see him (more precisely, someone with his views) that way is another story.
    As for Washington, there’s this from the Mount Vernon Ladies’ Association, which manages Mount Vernon:

    Shortly after his inauguration as president, religious communities began writing to Washington. He told these groups that the only being to whom Americans owed an explanation of their religious beliefs was God. When the Virginia Baptists wrote about their qualms that the new Constitution did not specifically guarantee freedom of religion, they went on to say that they knew they were in good hands with Washington at the head of the government. The President responded that he would never have signed the Constitution if he thought it would endanger the religious rights of any group.
    There are some who believe that Washington was only speaking of religious freedom in regard to Christian denominations, but did not intend it to apply to other religions. To a Jewish congregation in Rhode Island, he noted that,

    It is now no more that toleration is spoken of, as if it was by the indulgence of one class of people, that another enjoyed the exercise of their inherent natural rights. For happily the Government of the United States, which gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance requires only that they who live under its protection should demean themselves as good citizens, in giving it on all occasions their effectual support”

    Doesn’t sound very “Christian only” to me.

  231. Alex Jones admits to being a psychotic mess of a conservative republican animal:
    https://www.cnn.com/2021/10/01/us/alex-jones-loses-sandy-hook-cases/index.html
    He of course is lying about the psychosis as all serial killers do when confronted with personal responsibility.
    I congratulate the decent families of the 20 children and six staff members at a fucking elementary school, for Christ’ sakes, murdered by conservative gun policies carried out by a republican operative, who no doubt also lies about being crazy, for resisting the urge to track down Jones and his staff, and his family and his supporters, particularly in the Republican Party, including Donald Trump, with fully automatic weapons and riddling their bodies with bullets as revenge.
    It illustrates that there is still a window of opportunity to use the proper, lawful, governmental channels to gain the frankly inadequate relief of judicial deliberation in this country against our mortal domestic enemies.
    Martyr Jones will not pay the penalties, although he can well afford it from his grifting ivermectin and other horseshit businesses and he will be pardoned by the next Republican President, probably Trump, the day after Inauguration Day in 2025, so none of this good will hold and then extra-judicial channels will be wide open for fully justifiable furious revenge against all of the guilty parties, who are legion.

  232. Alex Jones admits to being a psychotic mess of a conservative republican animal:
    https://www.cnn.com/2021/10/01/us/alex-jones-loses-sandy-hook-cases/index.html
    He of course is lying about the psychosis as all serial killers do when confronted with personal responsibility.
    I congratulate the decent families of the 20 children and six staff members at a fucking elementary school, for Christ’ sakes, murdered by conservative gun policies carried out by a republican operative, who no doubt also lies about being crazy, for resisting the urge to track down Jones and his staff, and his family and his supporters, particularly in the Republican Party, including Donald Trump, with fully automatic weapons and riddling their bodies with bullets as revenge.
    It illustrates that there is still a window of opportunity to use the proper, lawful, governmental channels to gain the frankly inadequate relief of judicial deliberation in this country against our mortal domestic enemies.
    Martyr Jones will not pay the penalties, although he can well afford it from his grifting ivermectin and other horseshit businesses and he will be pardoned by the next Republican President, probably Trump, the day after Inauguration Day in 2025, so none of this good will hold and then extra-judicial channels will be wide open for fully justifiable furious revenge against all of the guilty parties, who are legion.

  233. Here’s an interesting thought piece for you.
    The counter-example here is John Tester, who somehow finds a way to be a (D) Senator from a rural Western state that went for Trump by double digits, yet manages to not throw a wrench in the gears on a daily basis.
    The (D)’s need more John Testers. They can live without more Manchins.

  234. Here’s an interesting thought piece for you.
    The counter-example here is John Tester, who somehow finds a way to be a (D) Senator from a rural Western state that went for Trump by double digits, yet manages to not throw a wrench in the gears on a daily basis.
    The (D)’s need more John Testers. They can live without more Manchins.

  235. The (D)’s need more John Testers. They can live without more Manchins.
    Actually, they need both. Especially if that’s what it takes to avoid filibusters (should it, unfortunately, survive). Every addition makes it less likely that McConnell gets back in control.
    Note that, as recently as 2020, Democrats held both the Governor’s and Lt Governor’s offices in Montana. So, not that bright a red state.

  236. The (D)’s need more John Testers. They can live without more Manchins.
    Actually, they need both. Especially if that’s what it takes to avoid filibusters (should it, unfortunately, survive). Every addition makes it less likely that McConnell gets back in control.
    Note that, as recently as 2020, Democrats held both the Governor’s and Lt Governor’s offices in Montana. So, not that bright a red state.

  237. “Unclear to me what it would take to persuade this guy that we have a history of unequal treatment of black people”
    Oh, it’s SUPER-easy.
    Just impose on him a chemical treatment that turns his skin semi-permanently black, then have him jog around in a lily-white rich southern neighborhood.
    Or drive a fancy car. Or act “uppity” to a cop.

  238. “Unclear to me what it would take to persuade this guy that we have a history of unequal treatment of black people”
    Oh, it’s SUPER-easy.
    Just impose on him a chemical treatment that turns his skin semi-permanently black, then have him jog around in a lily-white rich southern neighborhood.
    Or drive a fancy car. Or act “uppity” to a cop.

  239. Just impose on him a chemical treatment that turns his skin semi-permanently black, then have him jog around in a lily-white rich southern neighborhood.
    Or maybe just have him read or watch Black Like Me. Things are somewhat better now. But only somewhat.

  240. Just impose on him a chemical treatment that turns his skin semi-permanently black, then have him jog around in a lily-white rich southern neighborhood.
    Or maybe just have him read or watch Black Like Me. Things are somewhat better now. But only somewhat.

  241. ask him to count up all the state and local GOP party chairpeople who got busted sending racist emails of the Obamas.

  242. ask him to count up all the state and local GOP party chairpeople who got busted sending racist emails of the Obamas.

  243. what the Senate needs is to end the filibuster.
    it’s the reason a President’s entire “agenda” gets shoved into giant reconciliation bills: they’re the only bills that can avoid the filibuster.

  244. what the Senate needs is to end the filibuster.
    it’s the reason a President’s entire “agenda” gets shoved into giant reconciliation bills: they’re the only bills that can avoid the filibuster.

  245. “Summary
    Background
    The burden of fatal police violence is an urgent public health crisis in the USA. Mounting evidence shows that deaths at the hands of the police disproportionately impact people of certain races and ethnicities, pointing to systemic racism in policing. Recent high-profile killings by police in the USA have prompted calls for more extensive and public data reporting on police violence. This study examines the presence and extent of under-reporting of police violence in US Government-run vital registration data, offers a method for correcting under-reporting in these datasets, and presents revised estimates of deaths due to police violence in the USA.
    …
    For every decade from 1980 to 2019, the highest age-standardized mortality rate due to police violence by state occurred in non-Hispanic Black people. In 2010–19, the states with the highest rates of police violence towards non-Hispanic Black Americans were Oklahoma, Alaska, West Virginia, Utah, and the District of Columbia, whereas, in 2000–09, the states with the highest rates were Oklahoma, Nevada, Nebraska, Iowa, and Kansas. Oklahoma has among the highest rates of police violence against non-Hispanic Black Americans in the country, with a peak estimated age-standardized mortality rate of 12·20 deaths (5·36–23·19) per 100 000 in 1980 and a current rate of 3·05 deaths (1·82–4·59) per 100 000 in 2019. This aligns with extremely high rates of police violence in recent years as reported in the open-source databases, high under-reporting rates in the NVSS, and large peaks in police violence in the 1980s and 1990s in the NVSS.”
    Fatal police violence by race and state in the USA, 1980–2019: a network meta-regression

  246. “Summary
    Background
    The burden of fatal police violence is an urgent public health crisis in the USA. Mounting evidence shows that deaths at the hands of the police disproportionately impact people of certain races and ethnicities, pointing to systemic racism in policing. Recent high-profile killings by police in the USA have prompted calls for more extensive and public data reporting on police violence. This study examines the presence and extent of under-reporting of police violence in US Government-run vital registration data, offers a method for correcting under-reporting in these datasets, and presents revised estimates of deaths due to police violence in the USA.
    …
    For every decade from 1980 to 2019, the highest age-standardized mortality rate due to police violence by state occurred in non-Hispanic Black people. In 2010–19, the states with the highest rates of police violence towards non-Hispanic Black Americans were Oklahoma, Alaska, West Virginia, Utah, and the District of Columbia, whereas, in 2000–09, the states with the highest rates were Oklahoma, Nevada, Nebraska, Iowa, and Kansas. Oklahoma has among the highest rates of police violence against non-Hispanic Black Americans in the country, with a peak estimated age-standardized mortality rate of 12·20 deaths (5·36–23·19) per 100 000 in 1980 and a current rate of 3·05 deaths (1·82–4·59) per 100 000 in 2019. This aligns with extremely high rates of police violence in recent years as reported in the open-source databases, high under-reporting rates in the NVSS, and large peaks in police violence in the 1980s and 1990s in the NVSS.”
    Fatal police violence by race and state in the USA, 1980–2019: a network meta-regression

  247. what the Senate needs is to end the filibuster.
    Completely agree.
    But whether that happens depends AFAICT on getting a larger Democratic majority in the Senate. Which, realistically, means electing Senators in purple, and even red, states. Which, in turn, means coming up with candidates who are more conservative than the average Democrat nationwide.

  248. what the Senate needs is to end the filibuster.
    Completely agree.
    But whether that happens depends AFAICT on getting a larger Democratic majority in the Senate. Which, realistically, means electing Senators in purple, and even red, states. Which, in turn, means coming up with candidates who are more conservative than the average Democrat nationwide.

  249. Articles like the WaPo one wj links to are good for testing assumptions and for asking if there are other ways of understanding the conflict, but I find their frameworks unconvincing as arguments for what the Democrats need because they treat the assumptions made as conditions for their re-framing as givens.
    What if Manchin had supported the federal voting rights legislation the Dems had proposed instead of opposing it? How many of those state vote margins would have changed had more people been give the ability to vote? Would we still need more Manchins if he had, or would we be looking for more purple pro-labor Latinos like the Tio Bernie crowd?
    Are Manchins an Eastern thing and Testers a Western thing? Does purple shift by region? Can’t tell just by looking at vote margins.
    So good for alternative perspectives, but better for deeper. more granular, more comparative analysis to give us a better sense of the actual sorts of political crises we face.
    Actually, they need both. Especially if that’s what it takes to avoid filibusters (should it, unfortunately, survive). Every addition makes it less likely that McConnell gets back in control.
    Just having more Dems doesn’t make passing legislation any more certain and doesn’t help one bit with the filibuster if those Dems are going to take positions that go against the party consensus. All having them does is give the illusion of power and control.
    What the Dems need is a Democratic Romney or Cheney, who makes a lot of noise about values but finds a way to vote for the party when it comes to a partisan showdown over legislation. If we had just two of those, we wouldn’t need a single Manchin.
    And no one but a lobbyist needs a single Sinema.

  250. Articles like the WaPo one wj links to are good for testing assumptions and for asking if there are other ways of understanding the conflict, but I find their frameworks unconvincing as arguments for what the Democrats need because they treat the assumptions made as conditions for their re-framing as givens.
    What if Manchin had supported the federal voting rights legislation the Dems had proposed instead of opposing it? How many of those state vote margins would have changed had more people been give the ability to vote? Would we still need more Manchins if he had, or would we be looking for more purple pro-labor Latinos like the Tio Bernie crowd?
    Are Manchins an Eastern thing and Testers a Western thing? Does purple shift by region? Can’t tell just by looking at vote margins.
    So good for alternative perspectives, but better for deeper. more granular, more comparative analysis to give us a better sense of the actual sorts of political crises we face.
    Actually, they need both. Especially if that’s what it takes to avoid filibusters (should it, unfortunately, survive). Every addition makes it less likely that McConnell gets back in control.
    Just having more Dems doesn’t make passing legislation any more certain and doesn’t help one bit with the filibuster if those Dems are going to take positions that go against the party consensus. All having them does is give the illusion of power and control.
    What the Dems need is a Democratic Romney or Cheney, who makes a lot of noise about values but finds a way to vote for the party when it comes to a partisan showdown over legislation. If we had just two of those, we wouldn’t need a single Manchin.
    And no one but a lobbyist needs a single Sinema.

  251. Just having more Dems doesn’t make passing legislation any more certain and doesn’t help one bit with the filibuster if those Dems are going to take positions that go against the party consensus.
    I’m amazed that you can say that with a straight face. (You could equally well argue that just having more Republicans doesn’t give McConnell more power.) It’s blatant bullsh*t.
    Sure, if you have more (relatively) conservative Democrats, you might be no more likely to directly get some of the things you want. On the other hand, your chances of getting something like a voting rights bill go way up. Which, down the line, gets you more states redistricted without Republican gerrymandering. Which, in turn, gets you more people in Congress who agree with more of the things you want.
    In a perfect world, you could get progressives elected in West Virginia. But in the real world, you should be thanking God for Manchin — simply because he is arguably the only reason that McConnell can’t block even the things you are getting via reconciliation. Or would you rather be failing on getting even that little bit, if you can’t have everything you want? (Which is, whether you intend it or not, what you come across as saying.)

  252. Just having more Dems doesn’t make passing legislation any more certain and doesn’t help one bit with the filibuster if those Dems are going to take positions that go against the party consensus.
    I’m amazed that you can say that with a straight face. (You could equally well argue that just having more Republicans doesn’t give McConnell more power.) It’s blatant bullsh*t.
    Sure, if you have more (relatively) conservative Democrats, you might be no more likely to directly get some of the things you want. On the other hand, your chances of getting something like a voting rights bill go way up. Which, down the line, gets you more states redistricted without Republican gerrymandering. Which, in turn, gets you more people in Congress who agree with more of the things you want.
    In a perfect world, you could get progressives elected in West Virginia. But in the real world, you should be thanking God for Manchin — simply because he is arguably the only reason that McConnell can’t block even the things you are getting via reconciliation. Or would you rather be failing on getting even that little bit, if you can’t have everything you want? (Which is, whether you intend it or not, what you come across as saying.)

  253. Another point of reference against the founders intending a ‘Christian nation’ is the treaty of Tripoli which states explicitly that the US are not founded on any religion, in partuclar not Chritianity (stated there as a reason why there is no natural enmity between the US and the Muslim Barbary States).

  254. Another point of reference against the founders intending a ‘Christian nation’ is the treaty of Tripoli which states explicitly that the US are not founded on any religion, in partuclar not Chritianity (stated there as a reason why there is no natural enmity between the US and the Muslim Barbary States).

  255. Try to read the whole thing before writing your outraged response
    Read it all. Don’t see much reason to be outraged. More John Testers is fine by me (I actually kinda’ like the guy, and as politicians go, he knows how to come across). More, say, from places like Ohio, Pennsylvania, maybe sneak one across the line in Florida or Maine. Of course you realize that if that happened, Senators from blue states would most likely tend to be ‘bluer'(sic).
    What we do not need are more Joe Manchins from places such as California, New York, or my state Washington.

  256. Try to read the whole thing before writing your outraged response
    Read it all. Don’t see much reason to be outraged. More John Testers is fine by me (I actually kinda’ like the guy, and as politicians go, he knows how to come across). More, say, from places like Ohio, Pennsylvania, maybe sneak one across the line in Florida or Maine. Of course you realize that if that happened, Senators from blue states would most likely tend to be ‘bluer'(sic).
    What we do not need are more Joe Manchins from places such as California, New York, or my state Washington.

  259. What we do not need are more Joe Manchins from places such as California, New York, or my state Washington.
    Sure. But how likely is it that someone with Manchin’s views could even survive a primary in those states? The challenge is getting more folks into the Senate from small, rural, conservative states — of which there are a larger number than their share of the population.

  260. What we do not need are more Joe Manchins from places such as California, New York, or my state Washington.
    Sure. But how likely is it that someone with Manchin’s views could even survive a primary in those states? The challenge is getting more folks into the Senate from small, rural, conservative states — of which there are a larger number than their share of the population.

  261. I’m amazed that you can say that with a straight face. (You could equally well argue that just having more Republicans doesn’t give McConnell more power.) It’s blatant bullsh*t.
    Nope. You can only pass the shit that your left/right most member will eat, and if you want to pass something with a filibuster you need to avoid putting shit on the plate that the member will not eat, otherwise they may as well be an independent.
    How much leverage that gives you is dependent on whether you need to say yes to something or no.
    So, yes, it helps for things like judicial appointments and cabinet positions as long as you aren’t making demands on your members’ dietary demands, but it is not a comparable situation for anything legislative.

  262. I’m amazed that you can say that with a straight face. (You could equally well argue that just having more Republicans doesn’t give McConnell more power.) It’s blatant bullsh*t.
    Nope. You can only pass the shit that your left/right most member will eat, and if you want to pass something with a filibuster you need to avoid putting shit on the plate that the member will not eat, otherwise they may as well be an independent.
    How much leverage that gives you is dependent on whether you need to say yes to something or no.
    So, yes, it helps for things like judicial appointments and cabinet positions as long as you aren’t making demands on your members’ dietary demands, but it is not a comparable situation for anything legislative.

  263. wj
    The challenge is getting more and better senators from just about every state…but if it is just about getting more Dems in the Senate, then picking of those borderline states (like Penn) would be great, even if the Dem is a turncoat piece of shit “moderate” (Evan Bayh comes to mind). The deep red rural states need good dems as well. But even the Joe Manchins of the world would need an earthquake type epic event to get those voters to come to the light of sweet reason (you know, the sweet reason I preach here constantly).
    But don’t take that as the same as throwing in the towel. We should always be there, pulling out whatever stops we have, and burning incense to the Black Swan Event.
    Never give up. Never surrender. Fuck those guys.

  264. wj
    The challenge is getting more and better senators from just about every state…but if it is just about getting more Dems in the Senate, then picking of those borderline states (like Penn) would be great, even if the Dem is a turncoat piece of shit “moderate” (Evan Bayh comes to mind). The deep red rural states need good dems as well. But even the Joe Manchins of the world would need an earthquake type epic event to get those voters to come to the light of sweet reason (you know, the sweet reason I preach here constantly).
    But don’t take that as the same as throwing in the towel. We should always be there, pulling out whatever stops we have, and burning incense to the Black Swan Event.
    Never give up. Never surrender. Fuck those guys.

  265. don’t take that as the same as throwing in the towel. We should always be there, pulling out whatever stops we have, and burning incense to the Black Swan Event.
    Absolutely. Even though it may mean putting up a candidate who is less progressive than you would like. Get enough of those “less progressive” folks, and occasionally one of them may become the critical vote you need to get something done.
    For the downside of not doing so, look no further than the California GOP. Years of demanding only far right candidates has turned them into an irrelevance in a state which was once safely Republican. The state changed a little, but not that much. It was rejecting those who didn’t toe the line on everything which took them down.

  266. don’t take that as the same as throwing in the towel. We should always be there, pulling out whatever stops we have, and burning incense to the Black Swan Event.
    Absolutely. Even though it may mean putting up a candidate who is less progressive than you would like. Get enough of those “less progressive” folks, and occasionally one of them may become the critical vote you need to get something done.
    For the downside of not doing so, look no further than the California GOP. Years of demanding only far right candidates has turned them into an irrelevance in a state which was once safely Republican. The state changed a little, but not that much. It was rejecting those who didn’t toe the line on everything which took them down.

  267. wj – just a note to say that I don’t blanket disagree with what you are saying, just that I don’t think your position on this is relevant in these current circumstances.
    And your “aim for what moderates want rather than what radicals want” principles completely apply here, it’s just that the people posturing as moderates are the radicals, so your instinctual sympathies may be misplaced. By your principles they should be the ones to yield for the broadly popular progress within reach rather than torpedoing the whole deal.
    Seems like a possible blind spot to me.

  268. wj – just a note to say that I don’t blanket disagree with what you are saying, just that I don’t think your position on this is relevant in these current circumstances.
    And your “aim for what moderates want rather than what radicals want” principles completely apply here, it’s just that the people posturing as moderates are the radicals, so your instinctual sympathies may be misplaced. By your principles they should be the ones to yield for the broadly popular progress within reach rather than torpedoing the whole deal.
    Seems like a possible blind spot to me.

  271. For the downside of not doing so, look no further than the California GOP.
    I think one reason you are led astray (imho of course) is that you always view California as a microcosm of the US, so whatever happens in California goes for the rest of the country. Was it Perlman’s observation that God basically tilted the country and everyone who wasn’t nailed down ended up, like ball bearings, rolling to California? California has had highly visible diversification for certainly the last half of the 20th century, (my benchmark is the Dodgers move) and as such, makes much more sense to hew to the moderate line. In other places where diversity is not so visible (but is actually quite a lot, its just that you don’t see it, you don’t hear it being talked about and you don’t celebrate it), you need something to move the needle. (For the benefit of the obtuse, ‘moving the needle’ does not mean intersectional LGBT takeover, however many wikipedia pages on the Frankfurt school you read)
    nous’ point about posturing also suggests how this all works: keep making this about ‘moderation’ while beefing up the systemic biases to prevent any meaningful change happening. You can do that, and if all hell breaks loose, you can say ‘geez, why are they so angry?’.

  272. For the downside of not doing so, look no further than the California GOP.
    I think one reason you are led astray (imho of course) is that you always view California as a microcosm of the US, so whatever happens in California goes for the rest of the country. Was it Perlman’s observation that God basically tilted the country and everyone who wasn’t nailed down ended up, like ball bearings, rolling to California? California has had highly visible diversification for certainly the last half of the 20th century, (my benchmark is the Dodgers move) and as such, makes much more sense to hew to the moderate line. In other places where diversity is not so visible (but is actually quite a lot, its just that you don’t see it, you don’t hear it being talked about and you don’t celebrate it), you need something to move the needle. (For the benefit of the obtuse, ‘moving the needle’ does not mean intersectional LGBT takeover, however many wikipedia pages on the Frankfurt school you read)
    nous’ point about posturing also suggests how this all works: keep making this about ‘moderation’ while beefing up the systemic biases to prevent any meaningful change happening. You can do that, and if all hell breaks loose, you can say ‘geez, why are they so angry?’.

  273. Was it Perlman’s observation that God basically tilted the country and everyone who wasn’t nailed down ended up, like ball bearings, rolling to California?
    I think it was loose nuts, not ball bearings…

  274. Was it Perlman’s observation that God basically tilted the country and everyone who wasn’t nailed down ended up, like ball bearings, rolling to California?
    I think it was loose nuts, not ball bearings…

  275. I think one reason you are led astray (imho of course) is that you always view California as a microcosm of the US, so whatever happens in California goes for the rest of the country.
    I don’t think I’m doing that. Although I could just be too close to see it.
    For example, I don’t see the rest of the country going the way of California, necessarily. Certainly not on everything. But what I was trying to say was that the California GOP’s narrowing of how much political/ideological diversity they would tolerate in their own ranks contains a warning for Democrats. They would be well advised not to make the same mistake from the opposite side.

  276. I think one reason you are led astray (imho of course) is that you always view California as a microcosm of the US, so whatever happens in California goes for the rest of the country.
    I don’t think I’m doing that. Although I could just be too close to see it.
    For example, I don’t see the rest of the country going the way of California, necessarily. Certainly not on everything. But what I was trying to say was that the California GOP’s narrowing of how much political/ideological diversity they would tolerate in their own ranks contains a warning for Democrats. They would be well advised not to make the same mistake from the opposite side.

  283. It’s always projections with them
    I figure somewhere between a fifth and a third of the country is straight-up barking mad.
    True or not, it would explain a lot.

  284. It’s always projections with them
    I figure somewhere between a fifth and a third of the country is straight-up barking mad.
    True or not, it would explain a lot.

  285. They would be well advised not to make the same mistake from the opposite side.
    The Cali Republicans are coming from a particular context. While I draw lessons from what happens here in Japan, I don’t want to suggest that American liberals take their the Japan left. That’s an obviously extreme example, but I think you are falling into the same error, thinking that the context that the CA Republican party grows out of is the same nationwide as well as in the House and Senate. Yes, there is a ‘warning’ for Dems, but the Dems are not CA GOP. Unless you think that folks like Larry Elder, or the chunk of CA GOP QAnon friendly candidates that were endorsed by the state party are the functional equivalent of the Squad. And if you do think that, we need to explore why.
    Again, my opinion on this, but Donald’s article about moderation as a term to retire is on point here.
    There was a previous comment about AOC being called ‘kooky’. I’m sure that if she and other progressives become more threatening, they will pull out a bunch of other terms…

  286. They would be well advised not to make the same mistake from the opposite side.
    The Cali Republicans are coming from a particular context. While I draw lessons from what happens here in Japan, I don’t want to suggest that American liberals take their the Japan left. That’s an obviously extreme example, but I think you are falling into the same error, thinking that the context that the CA Republican party grows out of is the same nationwide as well as in the House and Senate. Yes, there is a ‘warning’ for Dems, but the Dems are not CA GOP. Unless you think that folks like Larry Elder, or the chunk of CA GOP QAnon friendly candidates that were endorsed by the state party are the functional equivalent of the Squad. And if you do think that, we need to explore why.
    Again, my opinion on this, but Donald’s article about moderation as a term to retire is on point here.
    There was a previous comment about AOC being called ‘kooky’. I’m sure that if she and other progressives become more threatening, they will pull out a bunch of other terms…

  287. I’m obviously doing a terrible job of articulating my point, lj. Let me step back, and have another go.
    The demise of the California GOP, in my opinion, stems from them collectively deciding that no candidate from their party would be acceptable for state office (executive or legislature) unless they adhere to ALL of a particular set of positions. As a result, they lose a lot. Republican candidates can and do win local elections, where the ideological straitjacket isn’t as rigorously applied. But not higher offices.
    The way I read the comments from some here (perhaps incorrectly), they would prefer to apply a similar approach to Democratic candidates. Totally different positions, of course, but the same insistance on conformity.
    The thing is, the Senate is elected by state. And there are as many, or more, conservative states as progressive states. So for Democrats to control the Senate with any consistancy, they need candidates in red (and purple) states who can win with the voters there. That means you’re looking at a bunch of fairly conservative Democrats.** Not necessarily on every issue (that’s why they aren’t Republicans), but on several critical-to-their-constituents issues.
    That means, for example, that you either field a candidate in West Virginia who fights for the coal industry, or you concede the seat. You can maybe get someone who supports you on most other issues, but he’s gotta oppose you there to get elected at all. Similarly in other states; different issues, but the same overall phenomena.
    That’s it: Insist on purity, or decide electability is more critical. You can work on changing opinions of the electorate, but that’s going to take time. And, frankly, the country has too many issues which can’t wait. So it’s important to somehow elect people who will help you address as many of those as possible. Even if you don’t get everything you would like.
    ** Then there are the folks, like Sinema, who are apparently only interested in their next career move. But they’re a different story.

  288. I’m obviously doing a terrible job of articulating my point, lj. Let me step back, and have another go.
    The demise of the California GOP, in my opinion, stems from them collectively deciding that no candidate from their party would be acceptable for state office (executive or legislature) unless they adhere to ALL of a particular set of positions. As a result, they lose a lot. Republican candidates can and do win local elections, where the ideological straitjacket isn’t as rigorously applied. But not higher offices.
    The way I read the comments from some here (perhaps incorrectly), they would prefer to apply a similar approach to Democratic candidates. Totally different positions, of course, but the same insistance on conformity.
    The thing is, the Senate is elected by state. And there are as many, or more, conservative states as progressive states. So for Democrats to control the Senate with any consistancy, they need candidates in red (and purple) states who can win with the voters there. That means you’re looking at a bunch of fairly conservative Democrats.** Not necessarily on every issue (that’s why they aren’t Republicans), but on several critical-to-their-constituents issues.
    That means, for example, that you either field a candidate in West Virginia who fights for the coal industry, or you concede the seat. You can maybe get someone who supports you on most other issues, but he’s gotta oppose you there to get elected at all. Similarly in other states; different issues, but the same overall phenomena.
    That’s it: Insist on purity, or decide electability is more critical. You can work on changing opinions of the electorate, but that’s going to take time. And, frankly, the country has too many issues which can’t wait. So it’s important to somehow elect people who will help you address as many of those as possible. Even if you don’t get everything you would like.
    ** Then there are the folks, like Sinema, who are apparently only interested in their next career move. But they’re a different story.

  289. hi wj, appreciate you hanging in there, and I don’t want to keep on. For me, the disjunct is this, in the vox article I linked to above, they had this
    This move marks a huge shift in the way the CPC has used its power and what it has asked of its members. Prominent progressives have long argued that if even a subset of the caucus stayed united, it could influence major legislation and make ambitious policy demands — modeling themselves after methods used by groups such as the conservative Freedom Caucus and the moderate Blue Dog Coalition.
    To get to that point, House progressives have had to think differently about congressional power as well as their own caucus. “It was a really important social club, for people with shared values to come together. But there wasn’t really any infrastructure built to support the organizing work,” CPC Chair Pramila Jayapal told Vox.
    This thinking has been pushed by a new guard in the progressive caucus as well. “The thing that gives the caucus power is that you can operate as a bloc vote in order to get things done,” Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY)
    There is the old Will Rogers joke, “I am not a member of any organized political party — I am a Democrat.” I’d suggest that Dems have something of a built in regulator on purity for most issues, so telling them not to succumb to purity tests, especially when it isn’t on a particular issue, it is more as a general approach, misses the mark with me.
    Now, I admit, we won’t have peace in our time until we make everyone realize that the Judean People’s Front are all wankers, but baby steps…
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WboggjN_G-4&t=34s

  290. hi wj, appreciate you hanging in there, and I don’t want to keep on. For me, the disjunct is this, in the vox article I linked to above, they had this
    This move marks a huge shift in the way the CPC has used its power and what it has asked of its members. Prominent progressives have long argued that if even a subset of the caucus stayed united, it could influence major legislation and make ambitious policy demands — modeling themselves after methods used by groups such as the conservative Freedom Caucus and the moderate Blue Dog Coalition.
    To get to that point, House progressives have had to think differently about congressional power as well as their own caucus. “It was a really important social club, for people with shared values to come together. But there wasn’t really any infrastructure built to support the organizing work,” CPC Chair Pramila Jayapal told Vox.
    This thinking has been pushed by a new guard in the progressive caucus as well. “The thing that gives the caucus power is that you can operate as a bloc vote in order to get things done,” Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY)
    There is the old Will Rogers joke, “I am not a member of any organized political party — I am a Democrat.” I’d suggest that Dems have something of a built in regulator on purity for most issues, so telling them not to succumb to purity tests, especially when it isn’t on a particular issue, it is more as a general approach, misses the mark with me.
    Now, I admit, we won’t have peace in our time until we make everyone realize that the Judean People’s Front are all wankers, but baby steps…
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WboggjN_G-4&t=34s

  291. I don’t buy the idea that you absolutely have to pander to right wing talking points to win elections in West Virginia. Krugman probably has it right here—
    https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/27/opinion/biden-centrist-democrats.html
    I don’t doubt that, for instance, someone like AOC would have trouble winning in West Virginia, but could a white man with roots in West Virginia run on Biden’s economic platform and win? I think that is a different question. Even leaving racism aside, voters often like the type they could imagine having a beer with. This folksiness crap goes a long way. So it isn’t clear to me that a local West Virginian with moderately progressive economic views, maybe even from a coal mining family, couldn’t win in W Va if he was someone who they thought was one of their own. Probably not some leftist carpetbagger from out of state.

  292. I don’t buy the idea that you absolutely have to pander to right wing talking points to win elections in West Virginia. Krugman probably has it right here—
    https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/27/opinion/biden-centrist-democrats.html
    I don’t doubt that, for instance, someone like AOC would have trouble winning in West Virginia, but could a white man with roots in West Virginia run on Biden’s economic platform and win? I think that is a different question. Even leaving racism aside, voters often like the type they could imagine having a beer with. This folksiness crap goes a long way. So it isn’t clear to me that a local West Virginian with moderately progressive economic views, maybe even from a coal mining family, couldn’t win in W Va if he was someone who they thought was one of their own. Probably not some leftist carpetbagger from out of state.

  293. Put it another way. If Biden was from West Virginia, I think he could win in West Virginia as a senator. He’s got that white guy folksiness. He would be somewhat conservative, but he wouldn’t have to be as extreme as Manchin. There is quite a bit of space between Ilhan Omar and Joe Manchin.
    Also, there’s no law that says a politician and his family have to benefit financially from connections to fossil fuels.

  294. Put it another way. If Biden was from West Virginia, I think he could win in West Virginia as a senator. He’s got that white guy folksiness. He would be somewhat conservative, but he wouldn’t have to be as extreme as Manchin. There is quite a bit of space between Ilhan Omar and Joe Manchin.
    Also, there’s no law that says a politician and his family have to benefit financially from connections to fossil fuels.

  295. This folksiness crap goes a long way. So it isn’t clear to me that a local West Virginian with moderately progressive economic views, maybe even from a coal mining family, couldn’t win in W Va if he was someone who they thought was one of their own.
    You could well be right. After all, that’s precisely what Manchin has done. (I realize you don’t see his economic views as “moderately progressive.” But compared to what you’d probably see out of West Virginia otherwise, I’d say they qualify.)
    But someone even more progressive? Might work — but how big a risk are you willing to run? Might be an idea to field test it in some races for less critical offices first. Which would have the added benefit that it might shift WVa’s local Overtorn window to the left.

  296. This folksiness crap goes a long way. So it isn’t clear to me that a local West Virginian with moderately progressive economic views, maybe even from a coal mining family, couldn’t win in W Va if he was someone who they thought was one of their own.
    You could well be right. After all, that’s precisely what Manchin has done. (I realize you don’t see his economic views as “moderately progressive.” But compared to what you’d probably see out of West Virginia otherwise, I’d say they qualify.)
    But someone even more progressive? Might work — but how big a risk are you willing to run? Might be an idea to field test it in some races for less critical offices first. Which would have the added benefit that it might shift WVa’s local Overtorn window to the left.

  297. But compared to what you’d probably see out of West Virginia otherwise, I’d say they qualify.)
    I’m not so sure.
    Might be an idea to field test it in some races for less critical offices first.
    The assumption lying behind this statement is simply not true.

  298. But compared to what you’d probably see out of West Virginia otherwise, I’d say they qualify.)
    I’m not so sure.
    Might be an idea to field test it in some races for less critical offices first.
    The assumption lying behind this statement is simply not true.

  299. Might be an idea to field test it in some races for less critical offices first.
    The assumption lying behind this statement is simply not true.
    I’m not clear what it is you think I am (incorrectly) assuming. Please advise.

  300. Might be an idea to field test it in some races for less critical offices first.
    The assumption lying behind this statement is simply not true.
    I’m not clear what it is you think I am (incorrectly) assuming. Please advise.

  301. I remember the good old days when Tsar Nicholas fell from power and the “moderates” decided that continuing a disastrous war was in Russia’s best interests..
    …or that time when the center right parties in Weimar Germany thought that throwing their lot in with the Nazis was to correct political strategy to defang the Social Democrats.
    Sometimes moderation is not really moderate. It is driven by self interest as much as other political actors, and they, too, are prone to making politically disastrous decisions. They have demonstrated many times that they are perfectly capable of making their perfect the enemy of the greater good.
    When self styled moderates whine about the cost of stuff like the “Green New Deal” but routinely support $3/4 trillion annual defense expenditures, it’s telling me that they are not actually serious. They are deluded.

  302. I remember the good old days when Tsar Nicholas fell from power and the “moderates” decided that continuing a disastrous war was in Russia’s best interests..
    …or that time when the center right parties in Weimar Germany thought that throwing their lot in with the Nazis was to correct political strategy to defang the Social Democrats.
    Sometimes moderation is not really moderate. It is driven by self interest as much as other political actors, and they, too, are prone to making politically disastrous decisions. They have demonstrated many times that they are perfectly capable of making their perfect the enemy of the greater good.
    When self styled moderates whine about the cost of stuff like the “Green New Deal” but routinely support $3/4 trillion annual defense expenditures, it’s telling me that they are not actually serious. They are deluded.

  305. wj,
    You call yourself “conservative”. Manchin is way more conservative than you are. So my first thing is: “moderate” is a weasel word.
    The voters of MAGAt-red West Virginia presumably applaud things like this …

    Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia told reporters on Thursday that he is not a liberal as he calls for the Biden administration’s $3.5 trillion reconciliation bill to be pared down to $1.5 trillion.
    “I’ve never been a liberal in any way, shape or form,” Manchin told reporters outside the US Capitol. “There’s no one that’s ever thought I was. I’ve been governor, I’ve been secretary of state, I’ve been in the state legislature, I’ve been a US senator, and I hope voted pretty consistently all my whole life.”

    … although the next bit may perplex them a little:

    “I don’t fault any of them who believe that they’re much more progressive and much more liberal. God bless them,” he said. “And all they need to do, we have to elect more, I guess, for them to get theirs — elect more liberals.”

    Yes, Joey, that’s what we have to do: liberate you to be the Republican you always wanted to be. And not just a McConnell Republican, or even a MAGAt, but the Christianist mullah God created you to be:

    Outside of the U.S. Capitol building on Wednesday evening, Manchin briefly spoke to National Review:
    National Review: Senator, you’ve been very firm on keeping the Hyde amendment on the appropriations bills. Are you concerned about that issue at all in reconciliation—
    Manchin: Certainly—
    NR: —with this new Medicaid program?
    Manchin: Yeah, we’re not taking the Hyde amendment off. Hyde’s going to be on.
    NR: In the new Medicaid program?
    Manchin: It has to be. It has to be. That’s dead on arrival if that’s gone.

    Force (poor) women to bear children so there will be more people to suffer the fuss and bother of a climate whose degradation you are too greedy and too old to care about. That’s Joey’s “moderate” position.
    He’s a pig, but a shrewd, level-headed pig, who knows how to cater to his constituents. So maybe that’s all “moderate” means, in modern American English.
    –TP

  306. wj,
    You call yourself “conservative”. Manchin is way more conservative than you are. So my first thing is: “moderate” is a weasel word.
    The voters of MAGAt-red West Virginia presumably applaud things like this …

    Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia told reporters on Thursday that he is not a liberal as he calls for the Biden administration’s $3.5 trillion reconciliation bill to be pared down to $1.5 trillion.
    “I’ve never been a liberal in any way, shape or form,” Manchin told reporters outside the US Capitol. “There’s no one that’s ever thought I was. I’ve been governor, I’ve been secretary of state, I’ve been in the state legislature, I’ve been a US senator, and I hope voted pretty consistently all my whole life.”

    … although the next bit may perplex them a little:

    “I don’t fault any of them who believe that they’re much more progressive and much more liberal. God bless them,” he said. “And all they need to do, we have to elect more, I guess, for them to get theirs — elect more liberals.”

    Yes, Joey, that’s what we have to do: liberate you to be the Republican you always wanted to be. And not just a McConnell Republican, or even a MAGAt, but the Christianist mullah God created you to be:

    Outside of the U.S. Capitol building on Wednesday evening, Manchin briefly spoke to National Review:
    National Review: Senator, you’ve been very firm on keeping the Hyde amendment on the appropriations bills. Are you concerned about that issue at all in reconciliation—
    Manchin: Certainly—
    NR: —with this new Medicaid program?
    Manchin: Yeah, we’re not taking the Hyde amendment off. Hyde’s going to be on.
    NR: In the new Medicaid program?
    Manchin: It has to be. It has to be. That’s dead on arrival if that’s gone.

    Force (poor) women to bear children so there will be more people to suffer the fuss and bother of a climate whose degradation you are too greedy and too old to care about. That’s Joey’s “moderate” position.
    He’s a pig, but a shrewd, level-headed pig, who knows how to cater to his constituents. So maybe that’s all “moderate” means, in modern American English.
    –TP

  307. I’m not clear what it is you think I am (incorrectly) assuming. Please advise.
    The implication, as I read that statement, is that “field tests” of progressives running for other offices in W Va. has not or is not occurring. Such an assumption is simply not the case.

  308. I’m not clear what it is you think I am (incorrectly) assuming. Please advise.
    The implication, as I read that statement, is that “field tests” of progressives running for other offices in W Va. has not or is not occurring. Such an assumption is simply not the case.

  309. it’s telling me that they are not actually serious. They are deluded.
    they don’t share your priorities.

  310. it’s telling me that they are not actually serious. They are deluded.
    they don’t share your priorities.

  311. The implication, as I read that statement, is that “field tests” of progressives running for other offices in W Va. has not or is not occurring. Such an assumption is simply not the case.
    Thank you for the clarification. And the information.
    If such progressives have been running, have they been winning? In sufficient numbers to suggest that a progressive Senate candidate would win? If so, then you’re good to go. But if not….

  312. The implication, as I read that statement, is that “field tests” of progressives running for other offices in W Va. has not or is not occurring. Such an assumption is simply not the case.
    Thank you for the clarification. And the information.
    If such progressives have been running, have they been winning? In sufficient numbers to suggest that a progressive Senate candidate would win? If so, then you’re good to go. But if not….

  313. according to this, GA’s two new D Senators are both in the top four most liberal Senators.
    Sinema and Manchin are #49 and #50.
    nine months probably is enough data to by, though.

  314. according to this, GA’s two new D Senators are both in the top four most liberal Senators.
    Sinema and Manchin are #49 and #50.
    nine months probably is enough data to by, though.

  315. they don’t share your priorities.
    lol. fair enough. i’ll remember that the next time you excoriate the GOP.

  316. they don’t share your priorities.
    lol. fair enough. i’ll remember that the next time you excoriate the GOP.

  319. lol. fair enough. i’ll remember that the next time you excoriate the GOP.
    always keeping your eyes on the prize.

  320. lol. fair enough. i’ll remember that the next time you excoriate the GOP.
    always keeping your eyes on the prize.

  321. WV is the 4 most conservative state (Gallup, 2018). 68% of WVs voted for Trump, both times. only 16% of WVs say they’re “liberal”. no “progressives” will be elected Senator there in my lifetime.
    that Manchin got elected as a Dem says more about the fact that we have a two party system and Manchin picked the D label in a state where “southern Democrat” still had its old meaning than it does about WV’s willingness to support anything to Manchin’s left. Manchin ran, as Governor, to get Robert Byrd’s seat when Byrd died.
    the Dems need to aim for places like NC, PA, FL or ME and just accept that a Dem from WV is an echo of days long past.

  322. WV is the 4 most conservative state (Gallup, 2018). 68% of WVs voted for Trump, both times. only 16% of WVs say they’re “liberal”. no “progressives” will be elected Senator there in my lifetime.
    that Manchin got elected as a Dem says more about the fact that we have a two party system and Manchin picked the D label in a state where “southern Democrat” still had its old meaning than it does about WV’s willingness to support anything to Manchin’s left. Manchin ran, as Governor, to get Robert Byrd’s seat when Byrd died.
    the Dems need to aim for places like NC, PA, FL or ME and just accept that a Dem from WV is an echo of days long past.

  325. the Dems need to aim for places like NC, PA, FL or ME and just accept that a Dem from WV is an echo of days long past.
    Yes. The Ds don’t need more Manchins, they need more Dems of whatever stripe is supportable in the purple state they can win, where there is a chance that the public will not just vote for the D candidate, but back broadly popular public policy that Dems propose. And they need to run strong candidates with good communication skills in states that are on the verge of turning more purple, especially in districts that haven’t been gerrymandered to make them perpetually safe for the GOP (the real travesty that must be stopped).
    An occasional bit of support from Manchin will do nothing to move the nation back towards a reasonable political center and stop our rightward slide because Manchin, like WV is still to the right of our current center.
    Accept the gifts of the unicorn when they come, but don’t rely on them. They are not loyal or reliable.

  326. the Dems need to aim for places like NC, PA, FL or ME and just accept that a Dem from WV is an echo of days long past.
    Yes. The Ds don’t need more Manchins, they need more Dems of whatever stripe is supportable in the purple state they can win, where there is a chance that the public will not just vote for the D candidate, but back broadly popular public policy that Dems propose. And they need to run strong candidates with good communication skills in states that are on the verge of turning more purple, especially in districts that haven’t been gerrymandered to make them perpetually safe for the GOP (the real travesty that must be stopped).
    An occasional bit of support from Manchin will do nothing to move the nation back towards a reasonable political center and stop our rightward slide because Manchin, like WV is still to the right of our current center.
    Accept the gifts of the unicorn when they come, but don’t rely on them. They are not loyal or reliable.

  327. Accept the gifts of the unicorn when they come, but don’t rely on them. They are not loyal or reliable.
    Not just accept them, but occasionally thank God for the blessing. Not because things can’t be better, but because they could so easily be substantially worse.
    they need to run strong candidates with good communication skills in states that are on the verge of turning more purple, especially in districts that haven’t been gerrymandered to make them perpetually safe for the GOP (the real travesty that must be stopped).
    All that and more. The Democrats number 1 priority, from 2026 (if not earlier) must be to overcome the existing gerrymandering in state legislatures in order to prevent the same disaster after the 2030 census as Democrats experienced after the 2010 and 2020 ones. Whatever kinds on registration drives and building up the on-going enthusiasm that will turn out voters that may require.
    It won’t be easy, of course, because in a lot of places the deck is stacked against them. But in places like Florida and Texas (and others) it is far from impossible. And it’s absolutely critical going forward.

  328. Accept the gifts of the unicorn when they come, but don’t rely on them. They are not loyal or reliable.
    Not just accept them, but occasionally thank God for the blessing. Not because things can’t be better, but because they could so easily be substantially worse.
    they need to run strong candidates with good communication skills in states that are on the verge of turning more purple, especially in districts that haven’t been gerrymandered to make them perpetually safe for the GOP (the real travesty that must be stopped).
    All that and more. The Democrats number 1 priority, from 2026 (if not earlier) must be to overcome the existing gerrymandering in state legislatures in order to prevent the same disaster after the 2030 census as Democrats experienced after the 2010 and 2020 ones. Whatever kinds on registration drives and building up the on-going enthusiasm that will turn out voters that may require.
    It won’t be easy, of course, because in a lot of places the deck is stacked against them. But in places like Florida and Texas (and others) it is far from impossible. And it’s absolutely critical going forward.

  337. Sullivan makes a reasonable point.

    between talk of government shutdowns and the bipartisan infrastructure framework (BIF) and Build Back Better (BBB) and $3.5 trillion and other Washington-ese, the public does not know which is which or what is on the line for them.

    and

    The public doesn’t care about process. They just want to know what’s in it for them.

    The difficulty, of course, is that “what’s in it for them” won’t be certain until the final bill gets voted on. Which is true of every budget bill, every year. (Unless, of course, the party has a big enough majority and the party leaders strong enough control, that they can decide from the get-go what they will include and then just ram it thru as is. Which isn’t the usual situation.)
    One more thing we need to do: improve civics education, so the public really understands how legislative things get done.** Things may have changed, but when I was taking high school Civics, the emphasis was on how the system ideally works. Rather than on how it works in the real world. We need more than that.
    ** Which might be seriously embarrassing for a lot of politicians. But perhaps we could stress the miracle the sometimes good stuff gets thru anyway.

  338. Sullivan makes a reasonable point.

    between talk of government shutdowns and the bipartisan infrastructure framework (BIF) and Build Back Better (BBB) and $3.5 trillion and other Washington-ese, the public does not know which is which or what is on the line for them.

    and

    The public doesn’t care about process. They just want to know what’s in it for them.

    The difficulty, of course, is that “what’s in it for them” won’t be certain until the final bill gets voted on. Which is true of every budget bill, every year. (Unless, of course, the party has a big enough majority and the party leaders strong enough control, that they can decide from the get-go what they will include and then just ram it thru as is. Which isn’t the usual situation.)
    One more thing we need to do: improve civics education, so the public really understands how legislative things get done.** Things may have changed, but when I was taking high school Civics, the emphasis was on how the system ideally works. Rather than on how it works in the real world. We need more than that.
    ** Which might be seriously embarrassing for a lot of politicians. But perhaps we could stress the miracle the sometimes good stuff gets thru anyway.

  339. More grist for the mill
    https://theintercept.com/2021/10/02/gottheimer-congressional-progressive-caucus-infrastructure/
    At the end of August, Gottheimer and a gang of eight other House members used their leverage to force Pelosi to schedule a vote on the infrastructure bill that had already passed the Senate with a bipartisan majority. The group of conservative Democrats hoped to cleave it off from the broader reconciliation package, which includes steep tax hikes on the rich and robust social spending.
    But come Friday, Gottheimer was the lone name on the statement after, according to Politico’s Heather Caygle, no one else from his “unbreakable nine” would sign on. Later that evening, a Republican representative said one angry Democrat called Pelosi a “fucking liar” for not putting the bill on the floor, and there was little question about the identity of that angry Democrat.
    The goal of Gottheimer’s group had been to pass the infrastructure bill and then train their fire on the bigger bill. Free the hostage, then blow up the insurgents. Their demand went against the grain of the Democrats’ two-track strategy, but Pelosi conceded by giving them a date for the infrastructure floor vote: September 27.
    Gottheimer and some of his allies then huddled with the dark-money group No Labels, which finances their campaigns and was instrumental in organizing the opposition. “You should feel so proud, I can’t explain to you, this is the culmination of all your work. This would not have happened but for what you built,” Gottheimer told them, according to a recording of the conversation obtained by The Intercept. “It just wouldn’t have happened — hard stop. You should just feel so proud. This is your win as much as it is my win.”
    Rep. Kurt Schrader, D-Ore., former chair of the right-wing Blue Dog Coalition, celebrated that the victory would let them focus next on fighting the reconciliation package, which he told the group he opposed. “Let’s deal with the reconciliation later. Let’s pass that infrastructure package right now, and don’t get your hopes up that we’re going to spend trillions more of our kids’ and grandkids’ money that we don’t really have at this point,” Schrader said.
    But House progressives quickly responded, vowing to block the bill — to hold the line — if it came to the floor without the broader spending bill. Gottheimer remained confident over the next several weeks, saying privately that he was sure the progressives would fold. On September 27, it was clear that there weren’t enough votes to pass the bill, and Pelosi pulled it from the floor, rescheduling it for a September 30 showdown.
    As someone somewhere said, read the whole thing

  340. More grist for the mill
    https://theintercept.com/2021/10/02/gottheimer-congressional-progressive-caucus-infrastructure/
    At the end of August, Gottheimer and a gang of eight other House members used their leverage to force Pelosi to schedule a vote on the infrastructure bill that had already passed the Senate with a bipartisan majority. The group of conservative Democrats hoped to cleave it off from the broader reconciliation package, which includes steep tax hikes on the rich and robust social spending.
    But come Friday, Gottheimer was the lone name on the statement after, according to Politico’s Heather Caygle, no one else from his “unbreakable nine” would sign on. Later that evening, a Republican representative said one angry Democrat called Pelosi a “fucking liar” for not putting the bill on the floor, and there was little question about the identity of that angry Democrat.
    The goal of Gottheimer’s group had been to pass the infrastructure bill and then train their fire on the bigger bill. Free the hostage, then blow up the insurgents. Their demand went against the grain of the Democrats’ two-track strategy, but Pelosi conceded by giving them a date for the infrastructure floor vote: September 27.
    Gottheimer and some of his allies then huddled with the dark-money group No Labels, which finances their campaigns and was instrumental in organizing the opposition. “You should feel so proud, I can’t explain to you, this is the culmination of all your work. This would not have happened but for what you built,” Gottheimer told them, according to a recording of the conversation obtained by The Intercept. “It just wouldn’t have happened — hard stop. You should just feel so proud. This is your win as much as it is my win.”
    Rep. Kurt Schrader, D-Ore., former chair of the right-wing Blue Dog Coalition, celebrated that the victory would let them focus next on fighting the reconciliation package, which he told the group he opposed. “Let’s deal with the reconciliation later. Let’s pass that infrastructure package right now, and don’t get your hopes up that we’re going to spend trillions more of our kids’ and grandkids’ money that we don’t really have at this point,” Schrader said.
    But House progressives quickly responded, vowing to block the bill — to hold the line — if it came to the floor without the broader spending bill. Gottheimer remained confident over the next several weeks, saying privately that he was sure the progressives would fold. On September 27, it was clear that there weren’t enough votes to pass the bill, and Pelosi pulled it from the floor, rescheduling it for a September 30 showdown.
    As someone somewhere said, read the whole thing

  341. how it works in the real world. We need more than that.
    ** Which might be seriously embarrassing for a lot of politicians.
    …following a field trip to a sausage factory?
    “educational”?, surely. Nauseating, probably.

  342. how it works in the real world. We need more than that.
    ** Which might be seriously embarrassing for a lot of politicians.
    …following a field trip to a sausage factory?
    “educational”?, surely. Nauseating, probably.

  343. Been reading the articles linked here from Sully and The Intercept, but not commenting much. Glad they were posted, but don’t have time ATM to wade in to any discussion/disagreements. Too much early term work for classes and for union stuff going on.
    Instead, I’ve been reading Levinas, and Derrida meditating on Levinas, and thinking about just how much of the “deconstructive, postmodern, critical theory secular relativism” that the right bitches about is actually a deem meditation on ethics grounded in Jewish religious philosophy. At its heart it is an argument for why we owe a duty of hospitality to those not like us, which seems an odd ground from which to build a totalitarian threat.
    Anyway, back to reading and to prepping for this coming week’s classes.

  344. Been reading the articles linked here from Sully and The Intercept, but not commenting much. Glad they were posted, but don’t have time ATM to wade in to any discussion/disagreements. Too much early term work for classes and for union stuff going on.
    Instead, I’ve been reading Levinas, and Derrida meditating on Levinas, and thinking about just how much of the “deconstructive, postmodern, critical theory secular relativism” that the right bitches about is actually a deem meditation on ethics grounded in Jewish religious philosophy. At its heart it is an argument for why we owe a duty of hospitality to those not like us, which seems an odd ground from which to build a totalitarian threat.
    Anyway, back to reading and to prepping for this coming week’s classes.

  345. an argument for why we owe a duty of hospitality to those not like us, which seems an odd ground from which to build a totalitarian threat.
    If you are ardent about nobody being able to tell you to do anything, or expect you to do anything, then having any kind of “duty” is necessarily a totalitarian threat.
    Which is nonsense. Except if you believe in anarchy when it comes to doing what you want to do, but the opposite when it comes to forcing others to do what you think they should.

  346. an argument for why we owe a duty of hospitality to those not like us, which seems an odd ground from which to build a totalitarian threat.
    If you are ardent about nobody being able to tell you to do anything, or expect you to do anything, then having any kind of “duty” is necessarily a totalitarian threat.
    Which is nonsense. Except if you believe in anarchy when it comes to doing what you want to do, but the opposite when it comes to forcing others to do what you think they should.

  351. Stop all commie republican corporate subsidization of employment-destroying technology:
    https://finance.yahoo.com/m/3d0a8fe5-f8a8-3ef4-9d82-cd58c1988d06/robots-are-hiding-27-million.html
    Double and triple the software robots’ unemployment benes, food stamps, healthcare subsidies, and prevent them from being vaccinated to incentivize them to stay out of the workforce to make way for real humans, not those fake job-killing free market corporate humans.
    God, America is a piece of self-serving shit.

  352. Stop all commie republican corporate subsidization of employment-destroying technology:
    https://finance.yahoo.com/m/3d0a8fe5-f8a8-3ef4-9d82-cd58c1988d06/robots-are-hiding-27-million.html
    Double and triple the software robots’ unemployment benes, food stamps, healthcare subsidies, and prevent them from being vaccinated to incentivize them to stay out of the workforce to make way for real humans, not those fake job-killing free market corporate humans.
    God, America is a piece of self-serving shit.

  357. ‘A deem meditation’ = a deep meditation plus some deeply incompetent thumb typing.
    Think I need to pick up a copy of Totality and Infinity. I’m beginning to think that most of the 20th C.’s most consequential philosophy and a big chunk of The Culture Wars comes down to Levinas and Strauss arguing over Schmitt.
    And those money hiding robots are several orders of magnitude less crooked with their financial shenanigans than what South Dakota is allowing, according to the Pandora Papers.

  358. ‘A deem meditation’ = a deep meditation plus some deeply incompetent thumb typing.
    Think I need to pick up a copy of Totality and Infinity. I’m beginning to think that most of the 20th C.’s most consequential philosophy and a big chunk of The Culture Wars comes down to Levinas and Strauss arguing over Schmitt.
    And those money hiding robots are several orders of magnitude less crooked with their financial shenanigans than what South Dakota is allowing, according to the Pandora Papers.

  363. Recommendations by dint of it being easy to get, the Oxford Handbook on Levinas and the Cambridge Companion to Levinas are both up at genesis library
    The Cambridge is fun for me because there were a couple of really interesting takes on Levinas and language

  364. Recommendations by dint of it being easy to get, the Oxford Handbook on Levinas and the Cambridge Companion to Levinas are both up at genesis library
    The Cambridge is fun for me because there were a couple of really interesting takes on Levinas and language

  365. I’m a Levinas noob, but Entre Nous (no relation) seems like a good collection. I’m looking at T&E because it’s the book that Derrida looks most deeply into when developing his thoughts about hospitality and autoimmunity in Adieu, Levinas.

  366. I’m a Levinas noob, but Entre Nous (no relation) seems like a good collection. I’m looking at T&E because it’s the book that Derrida looks most deeply into when developing his thoughts about hospitality and autoimmunity in Adieu, Levinas.

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