Biden Thread [Archive]

rory_20_uk

01-21-2021, 10:11

Biden and the VP both seem to be above all else pragmatists with a long history of doing deals rather than idealism. And personally I think getting something done is better than screaming at the Other Side.

I hope that Donald's four years - and above all else Capitol Riot will - focus minds. It is easy to overlook rampant racism, a broken healthcare system and so on and so forth when it is all Out There and happening to other people. Poor people. Until the riot it was the usual view that yes, all the noise was worth the Conservative judges and the tax cuts. He's had an affair with a couple of pornstars? who cares? But when there's a mob only a few metres away that might seriously be looking to kill you personally this changes things. Hopefully there will be bilateral support for creation of the "guard rails" that up to now have mainly relied on human decency - laws having to procure all tax returns, all assets into a blind trust would be a small start. Addressing the Pardon power would probably require an amendment to the Constitution; Congress could also reduce the limit the power of the executive branch in codifying more independence of the Justice Department.

Biden talked about restoring American Leadership to the world. Barring military aggression (which is of course not leadership) I am unsure what leadership this is exactly. Human rights? Climate change? Weapon proliferation? Upholding the rule of law or democracy? Only an American could believe that they are ideals of any of these things, barring Cold War propaganda. Yes, historically America has aggressively enacted its interests but only in a "might is right" way. There is no underlying moral worldview and I don't see this changing. the American military needs things to do and enemies to face to justify the massive amount of money spent. Allies will be happy to have a return of the Pax Americana since they can all continue to underfund their military - which was one point that Donald was not wrong.

The other big issues are well known and well ignored:

Rampant personal and institutional racism
Worsening Wealth inequality
Broken Justice system (racist and for-profit)
Military-industrial complex
Health system / Pharma-industrial complex
Unequal tax burden
Abysmal / absent worker's rights

To many in power in America, all of the above aren't broken - they're working fine. Money is sucked up and mainly given to the extremely rich with those in prison able to be treated as slaves and those outside able to be treated as indentured workers. Politicians are there to be bought. If Biden wanted to address them I doubt he could. There's no political will / votes in doing so and at 78 he is not going to have the stamina required to take on practically everyone.

If Donald was an F, Biden will probably be a solid C+

~:smoking:

ReluctantSamurai

01-21-2021, 14:09

The other big issues are well known and well ignored

All of those issues do, indeed, need to be addressed. None of them can be solved in a single presidential term, or even several. Maybe never...

Biden and the VP both seem to be above all else pragmatists with a long history of doing deals rather than idealism. And personally I think getting something done is better than screaming at the Other Side.

I think one of the toughest tasks ahead for this administration is to govern in the face of very high expectations, some of which they've placed on themselves. Having a plan for moving the country forward is in stark contrast to the rudderless path we've had here the last four years, which is a symptom of not only Trumpism, but the GOP as a whole. Because no administration ever gets everything they want, how much of their plan they can enact, will be the basis for how they are graded....:shrug:

Biden talked about restoring American Leadership to the world. Barring military aggression (which is of course not leadership) I am unsure what leadership this is exactly

Reversing some of the economic damage done by the Trump Administration with the EU, is a start, though I'm not sure how that can be done. The China Investment Agreement the EU just signed is a bad omen for the US. While no details have been released yet, it's a clear sign that the EU is trying to secure some form of economic stability going forward. America's economy has grown significantly in ten years, while Europe's has flatlined. China's economy has grown by leaps and bounds, and will surpass the US in the not-so-distant future. Military might is not the only weapon being wielded here.

So is the EU's willingness to deal more closely with China done from a position of strength or weakness?

Furunculus

01-21-2021, 15:51

So is the EU's willingness to deal more closely with China done from a position of strength or weakness?

https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2021/01/joe-biden-europe/617753/

Hooahguy

01-21-2021, 15:54

Definitely a good indication (https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/01/20/democrats-are-planning-quick-move-dreamers-heres-why/)that Biden and the Dems have learned something from the Obama years when it comes to legislating:

The fact that Democrats plan to move quickly on dreamers reflects a bunch of lessons that were learned the hard way, producing a shift in thinking. The key insight is that after years spent trying to do a large comprehensive immigration reform bill, it’s clear this approach has failed.

To be clear, the agenda that Biden plans to pursue is very far reaching and ambitious. As The Post reports, it includes pursuing legalization for the millions and millions of undocumented immigrants already here, an undoing of the past administration’s deep cuts to asylum and refugee flows, and more.

But the paradigm that Democrats were devoted to for so long — in which they tried to assemble a large package of reforms, then win over Republican support for it by offering to spend enormous sums on border enforcement — has largely failed.

Seeking a quick victory on the dreamers is emerging as one answer to this problem among many Democrats and immigrant rights advocates.

The basic thinking is that chasing Republicans with promises of enforcement money to get them to back immigration policies they think their base will hate is largely folly; they rarely seem to be willing to buck the base in the end.

A policy like legalizing the dreamers — and possibly people with TPS as well — could conceivably win Republicans. After all, some GOP senators who just won reelection, such as John Cornyn of Texas and Thom Tillis of North Carolina, did so while advocating for this, and others, such as Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and James Lankford of Oklahoma, have also backed the idea.

“If there’s one thing we’ve learned from the failed pursuit of comprehensive reform legislation, it’s that we should not wait and postpone progress where there is already consensus,” Chris Newman, the legal director at the National Day Laborer Organizing Network, told me.

The idea here is to start right out of the gate on immigration by doing something that would win overwhelming public support. The dreamers are highly sympathetic figures, and, crucially, their plight is well understood by the public. If Democrats passed something like this fast, and Republicans who signed on got public kudos and faced less blowback from the right than they feared, it could clear space for more movement later.

Pannonian

01-21-2021, 18:05

Pannonian

01-21-2021, 18:08

Hooahguy

01-21-2021, 19:31

Interesting thing going on in the Senate right now (https://twitter.com/brianschatz/status/1352309652235702273), per Senator Schatz (D-Hawaii):

McConnell is threatening to filibuster the Organizing Resolution which allows Democrats to assume the committee Chair positions. It’s an absolutely unprecedented, wacky, counterproductive request. We won the Senate. We get the gavels.

Not sure what Mitch is playing at here, but if there was ever a move that would make Sinema and Manchin vote to remove the filibuster, this would be it.

rory_20_uk

01-21-2021, 20:13

If not the US, then who? Who else in the world combines reach and living with these standards that you lambast the Americans for failing? The only alternative I can of would be western Europe, but you don't agree with that either. Japan and their institutional racism? China and their even more rampant racism, along with their very distant relationship with liberal values? India and their homicidally nationalist identity?
Does the world needs a country prepared to invade others for perceived slights? Is Iraq / Lybia / Afghanistan amongst others better for the intervention?

The attacks are not based on values - since there are many countries where there are ongoing problems such as Myanmar or Yemen that have yet to be bombed (unless you count selling weapons to those bombing).

Americans like to think they hold those ideals but the evidence demonstrates that this isn't the case.

Although far from perfect, the UN generally leads to a lot less deaths than America does.

~:smoking:

Montmorency

01-21-2021, 20:28

Why does the Trump thread get a capital 'T'? Outrageous bias.

An unusual much will rest in the laps of a handful of individuals, really: Biden and Manchin, Pelosi and Schumer. The party consensus is almost in place to make the first two years considerably more productive than Obama's (with large Congressional majorities). So now we're waiting not exactly on Great Man Theory, but to the Great Veto Points.

I am heartened that the Democratic caucus has finally shifted a little left, when even Joe Manchin is volunteering that we need more direct transfers and trillions in stimulus above the proposed programs.

No idea why Biden is making immigration reform (in Congress) a Day-1 priority, but it could be a prologue to packing every item on the near agenda from minimum wage - NO MORE TIPPED MINIMUM?!?! - to coronavirus relief into an enormous reconciliation omnibus, so we'll have to see what that looks like.

(Another suggestion I've heard is that Dems introduce arbitrary exemptions to the legislative filibuster before whatever the bills du jour will be, but I'm not sure whether Dems would be more or less likely to back such a gimmick than outright abolition anyway. )

"Trump talked out of pardoning kids and Republican lawmakers" (https://www.cnn.com/2021/01/19/politics/trump-self-pardon-warning/index.html)

For once I'm genuinely surprised by Trump's behavior. Fire away, fellas.

Aww, he also has our most famous king as the image background for his twitter account.

It's a trend.

The Left (https://twitter.com/JesseKellyDC/status/1345787665887629312)calls you “fascist” because the Left fears fascism. Sadly, the monstrous fascist dictators were the most historically successful at stopping communism. I wish it wasn’t so. And I worry about what that means for our future.

Know what the Left doesn’t fear? Conservatism. They hate it because it’s the opposite of Leftism. But they don’t fear it because they know Conservatism cannot defeat Leftism.

Again, I wish it wasn’t so.

Conservatism is the opposite of Leftism. But it cannot defeat Leftism. Because there is not laissez-faire way to defeat communism. It must be aggressively purged or it festers and spreads like any other infection.

From a certain point of view, democracies have a perfect record in "stopping Communism," whereas fascism fell through in a big way in allowing almost all of Eastern and Central Europe to come under its authority.

I agree on this, the 'old guard' republicans like McConnell are clearly ready to dump Trump but the ground swell is of the Tea Party>Trump>post Trump movement what will likely elect even more extreme people in the midterms next year.

The McConnell wing doesn't want to dump Trump because they're better than Trump, it's because the McConnell wing wants itself to preside over Republican domination. Their only use for Trump is was insofar as he can hold a pen.

The only way out of it I can imagine is if the Dems make a concerted effort to prove the Trump-clan fears wrong.

I feel strongly about this. We can leave aside that "Trump-clan fears" are so often evidently not with regard to liberal policy outcomes per se, but to the essentialized nature of the liberal coalition (i.e. who, not what). Even an agnostic on that element of the conflict should be able to see it's time, for once, for conservatives to bring something to the table, to take the first step as Biden said, to prove their own seriousness. Trying to appeal to right-wing shibboleths was one of the worst things Dems did (or were forced to do, by some tellings) in living memory. (The only worse is their former status as the party of formal racism, really.) It's part of how we got to where we are, those bad old days when liberals crouched and cringed at the slur "liberal" and did their best to distance themselves from it as a historical concept or an ethos - and it's bad policy in its own right. In any other country the appropriate stance would self-evidently be for the governing party to continue to advocate to the general electorate over the common policy ground that truly exists, which is pretty much what Dems do (if arguably not as efficiently or intensively as they could). Yet what's obvious in every other country can't be allowed for here, in one of those odd bits of inverted exceptionalism where America is apparently such a depraved and degenerate society that some people - specifically the Right - can't be held to normal-people standards. But if a given individual don't wan't to compromise over common ground, which does exist, because they prefer fascism to compromise (compromise is not equivalent to 'conservatives receiving everything they are due'), they can learn that we don't negotiate with terrorists. Appeasement is OVER.

The grassroots fascism, for there to be so many fascists besieging us is, naturally, a national emergency that calls for action. Someone else put it well (to paraphrase): The goal cannot, in terms of ethics or feasibility, be to persuade fascists to be liberals; it must be to make them into anything but fascists.

One means to that end is to show fascism losing over and over...

Perhaps biding their time but its so hard to tell, especially with a Justice Department that is now vowing to crack down on those groups. Now that their leader is gone and cowed (the Proud Boys called Trump "a total failure"). I guess we will see.

These kinds of domestic plots are, in the end, easy to infiltrate and break up by an agitated FBI. We do pay for our national security, we may as well enjoy some benefits for the price.

Something good enough immediately is better than something perfect in the indefinite future.

To be clear, the proposal here is to limit mucking about with conservative games and just move left immediately. Ironic.

Tangentially, I did not know that the Blair government authorized a commission to determine minimum wage increases. Any comments?

Pannonian

01-21-2021, 20:29

Does the world needs a country prepared to invade others for perceived slights? Is Iraq / Lybia / Afghanistan amongst others better for the intervention?

The attacks are not based on values - since there are many countries where there are ongoing problems such as Myanmar or Yemen that have yet to be bombed (unless you count selling weapons to those bombing).

Americans like to think they hold those ideals but the evidence demonstrates that this isn't the case.

Although far from perfect, the UN generally leads to a lot less deaths than America does.

~:smoking:

Does leadership only mean wars to you? China has been throwing its weight around in east Asia, Russia has been funding destabilising movements in the UK and US, neither requiring war, yet both would be curtailed or reduced with something like Clinton-era US leadership in the political field. Would you rather everyone be atomised and left to the likes of China and Russia to prey on?

ReluctantSamurai

01-21-2021, 20:30

With all the fashion statements being made at the Inauguration, this one makes me smile:

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/jan/21/bernie-sanders-mittens-not-for-sale

Bernie Sanders’ mittens may have become the unexpected must-have fashion accessory of Joe Biden’s inauguration, but those hoping to steal the Vermont senator’s look are in for a disappointment. The teacher who made them and gave them to Sanders says she has none for sale.

She went on to say: “I hate to disappoint people, but the mittens, they’re one-of-a-kind and they’re unique and sometimes in this world, you just can’t get everything you want.”

Seamus Fermanagh

01-21-2021, 20:40

Something good enough immediately is better than something perfect in the indefinite future.

This IS a totalwar site, Pan', you may as well have quoted Tamerlane.

rory_20_uk

01-21-2021, 21:18

Does leadership only mean wars to you? China has been throwing its weight around in east Asia, Russia has been funding destabilising movements in the UK and US, neither requiring war, yet both would be curtailed or reduced with something like Clinton-era US leadership in the political field. Would you rather everyone be atomised and left to the likes of China and Russia to prey on?

China is throwing their weight around Asia. Why shouldn't they be? They've put up with nukes off their coast and an American fleet parked in what they view as a rebel province for decades. Given we appear to be in a post-woke world where everyone is equally valued and so on why is what their culture does worse than what we do? I am a dinosaur and I personally (and very quietly these days) believe that cultures can and should be proponents of values they hold as "right" and declare others to be "wrong" but such old beliefs have no place any more.

I am unclear what "leadership" would stop China and Russia with their cyberwarfare given atypical warfare since the capture of the Crimea by Russia has been shown to work well... And America / Israel / the UK and many others are also at it, against both enemies, allies, their own people and NGOs. America, Europe and elsewhere purchase so much from China that without a strong Government forcing home grown industries this isn't likely to change.

~:smoking:

Hooahguy

01-21-2021, 21:55

Why does the Trump thread get a capital 'T'? Outrageous bias.
I fixed the main title but you gotta go into the advanced reply section to edit the reply within the message itself. Odd settings, I didn't make them. :sweatdrop:

I am heartened that the Democratic caucus has finally shifted a little left, when even Joe Manchin is volunteering that we need more direct transfers and trillions in stimulus above the proposed programs.
Same. I've heard that this also might be Manchin's final term before retirement so he might be willing to bend more towards the left than in the past.

No idea why Biden is making immigration reform (in Congress) a Day-1 priority, but it could be a prologue to packing every item on the near agenda from minimum wage - NO MORE TIPPED MINIMUM?!?! - to coronavirus relief into an enormous reconciliation omnibus, so we'll have to see what that looks like.
As the article I posted earlier stated, it would be an early and relatively easy win that is also very popular. Hopefully anyways. From what I can tell its not the sole thing on the agenda right now but I certainly don't blame them for wanting to move fast.

"Trump talked out of pardoning kids and Republican lawmakers" (https://www.cnn.com/2021/01/19/politics/trump-self-pardon-warning/index.html)

For once I'm genuinely surprised by Trump's behavior. Fire away, fellas.
I'm not surprised at all. The article you linked to stated that doing such pardons would make him more vulnerable legally. And ultimately, he only cares about himself.

The McConnell wing doesn't want to dump Trump because they're better than Trump, it's because the McConnell wing wants itself to preside over Republican domination. Their only use for Trump is was insofar as he can hold a pen.

For now it seems like McConnell is going to lose that battle, with some Senate Republicans already threatening his leadership if he votes to convict Trump. If he really does want to maintain control, he will have to whip some votes to convict or be relegated to a backseat position now that he's criticized Trump a bunch, drawing the ire of the Trump gang. He put himself in this bind and he has only himself to blame. Act boldly or go home.

a completely inoffensive name

01-21-2021, 22:51

a completely inoffensive name

01-21-2021, 23:07

Given we appear to be in a post-woke world where everyone is equally valued and so on why is what their culture does worse than what we do?
This just makes you look dumb. No one besides literal tankies on the left genuinely support the Chinese government or its values.

I am a dinosaur and I personally (and very quietly these days) believe that cultures can and should be proponents of values they hold as "right" and declare others to be "wrong" but such old beliefs have no place any more.
Congrats, you are an American. Even our 'realpolitik' is mainly just value based decisions on how much to strongarm other nations into aligning with the US world structure.

I am unclear what "leadership" would stop China and Russia with their cyberwarfare given atypical warfare since the capture of the Crimea by Russia has been shown to work well... And America / Israel / the UK and many others are also at it, against both enemies, allies, their own people and NGOs. America, Europe and elsewhere purchase so much from China that without a strong Government forcing home grown industries this isn't likely to change.

Setting up a Digital Security Division with our best and brightest rotated in from Silicon Valley would go a long way to improving US defenses. We have better talent than Russia and perhaps China, they are just flocking to the private sector since it is so lucrative.

Trade deficits with China serve to bring them to the table as much or greater than force projection. Greater economic integration to the world institutions forces China to play by rules that US and Europe set after WW2. This is why Trump's leaving of Paris, Iran, and WHO was so completely moronic. These are all rigged in our favor, but US conservatism today wants nothing but complete subjugation as a matter of feels over reals.

Regional trading blocks with SE-Asia to set up sanctions will only grow more powerful as China's middle class grows and cheap manufacturing shifts elsewhere. China's place as the place to make everything is not set in stone and as living standards rise, Chinese labor is getting more expensive.

Expanding international aid and presenting alternative loans to Africa and SE-Asia will help reduce Chinese soft power in their belt-and-road beneficiaries. Ultimately China is either looking to put countries in a debt trap or legally occupy ports and bases in exchange for the infrastructure.

US funding of basic science and engineering enterprises has been lacking for many decades now. Quite frankly the US has a lot of untapped scientific potential that need long term grants to unlock.

Pannonian

01-21-2021, 23:32

China is throwing their weight around Asia. Why shouldn't they be? They've put up with nukes off their coast and an American fleet parked in what they view as a rebel province for decades. Given we appear to be in a post-woke world where everyone is equally valued and so on why is what their culture does worse than what we do? I am a dinosaur and I personally (and very quietly these days) believe that cultures can and should be proponents of values they hold as "right" and declare others to be "wrong" but such old beliefs have no place any more.

I am unclear what "leadership" would stop China and Russia with their cyberwarfare given atypical warfare since the capture of the Crimea by Russia has been shown to work well... And America / Israel / the UK and many others are also at it, against both enemies, allies, their own people and NGOs. America, Europe and elsewhere purchase so much from China that without a strong Government forcing home grown industries this isn't likely to change.

~:smoking:

Russian intervention has given us Brexit and Trump, both with the aim of undermining western stability. China is engaging in old fashioned colonialism in Africa, which I don't have much detail of beyond reports, and in Pakistan, which I have read a fair bit of detail about. Offer loans to build infrastructure which they own, staffed at the top by their personnel, resulting in Pakistan both owing China money and with their infrastructure Chinese-owned, and run by Chinese.

Maybe you're ok with that, with your worldview being primarily anti-European (and it seems, anti-American). But I'm not. I'd prefer our primary partnerships to be with countries who are closer in worldview to ours, who are less likely to want to harm us out of spite or cupidity.

Hooahguy

01-21-2021, 23:54

McConnell sees his future in the party leadership is over and is looking to burn down the party rather than be a mocked backbencher. I wouldn't be surprised if he is deliberately agitating Dems to kill the filibuster and voting to convict Trump to ensure Dems get a fair shot at their agenda and hamper Trumpists from taking advantage of the strategic positioning McConnell has long fought to maintain.
I'll believe it when I see it. I dont see Mitch as being willing to burn down everything, he's not Trump in this regard.

US funding of basic science and engineering enterprises has been lacking for many decades now. Quite frankly the US has a lot of untapped scientific potential that need long term grants to unlock.
This is an interesting point for sure. Its not at the forefront of the news but China is definitely starting to catch up to the west in research and in some areas even starting to eclipse the west. AI is an example of this. Im not sure this is well known, but TikTok of all things uses an incredibly sophisticated AI algorithm thats better than anything Facebook or Google has and China keeps it a very closely guarded secret for that reason. So US leadership in this area is really needed, such as pooling resources with allies for further R&D.

rory_20_uk

01-22-2021, 00:11

Russian intervention has given us Brexit and Trump, both with the aim of undermining western stability. China is engaging in old fashioned colonialism in Africa, which I don't have much detail of beyond reports, and in Pakistan, which I have read a fair bit of detail about. Offer loans to build infrastructure which they own, staffed at the top by their personnel, resulting in Pakistan both owing China money and with their infrastructure Chinese-owned, and run by Chinese.

Maybe you're ok with that, with your worldview being primarily anti-European (and it seems, anti-American). But I'm not. I'd prefer our primary partnerships to be with countries who are closer in worldview to ours, who are less likely to want to harm us out of spite or cupidity.

Bieng against bieng in the EU has nothing to do with European countries, any more than bieng anti-Mafia means I am anti-Italian. Our world view is closest to Canada / New Zealand / Australia and the Nordics. Yes, closer to America than Russia or China.

America rejoining the Great Game is a good thing... It would be good if they could use soft power persuasion rather than killing people in droves. But this doesn't help the defence industry. China's dastardly loans and eeeevil investment has done a lot more good than Americas involvement in bombing several countries, self interested though it doubtlessly is.

America should belatedly join the TPP, Paris accord, fund the World Bank and sort itself out so next time the President talks at the UN they aren't greeted with spontaneous laughter.

Russia gave us Brexit? No... It was democracy. Of course the EU had lost every plebiscite that had been undertaken so the only real shock was Cameroon resigned rather than tweak and rerun until the right answer.

~:smoking:

Greyblades

01-22-2021, 01:40

I'm hopeful:
Trump was useful to expose lots of (US) domestic and foriegn policy issues that we were pretending didn't exist.
He made them public debate, and Biden is hopefully thoughtful/principled enough to continue the debate on these issues.
We'll all benefit from a better president, but also from a president better oriented to the things that matter.

A forlorn hope. The man is a 40 year veteran of a corrupt status quo and the status quo he will maintain. Even were his faculties in order, which now the election is over fewer people will pretend, he will do his utmost to be seen to address issues while actually solving nothing, for his stock were architect to those issues in the first place.

Antifa marched against him today. (https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9170237/Protesters-gather-damage-Democratic-headquarters-Oregon.html) The country needed a Teddy, instead they imposed a Buchanan, the pressure cooker that birthed trump will resume.

ReluctantSamurai

01-22-2021, 04:54

America rejoining the Great Game is a good thing... It would be good if they could use soft power persuasion rather than killing people in droves. But this doesn't help the defence industry. China's dastardly loans and eeeevil investment has done a lot more good than Americas involvement in bombing several countries, self interested though it doubtlessly is.

That America has played the bully in international politics for decades since the end of WWII, needs no debate. That China's "self interested" loans and "eeeevil investment" has produced positive results, is also true. But......

.....methinks you gloss over just how self-serving China's aid is, and what they do when things don't go their way. I follow a lot of Australian media, and the Aussie's seem to be bearing the brunt of China's ire, at the moment. Example:

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-01-03/heres-what-happened-between-china-and-australia-in-2020/13019242

Last year marked the first time Australia referred China to the World Trade Organization (https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-12-16/australia-refers-china-to-world-trade-organization-barley-tariff/12966728) during a trade war between the two nations, which has largely been seen as a response to Australia's calls for an independent investigation into the origins of COVID-19.

China's ambassador to Australia Cheng Jingye warned of a potential economic backlash, suggesting there could be a popular boycott of Australian goods in China if Canberra continued to push for an investigation (https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-04-28/government-calls-chinese-ambassador-boycott-coronavirus-inquiry/12191984).

Australian journalists and citizens have been detained under "security issues".

Australian export goods have been restricted on short notice:

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-11-19/australia-china-trade-do-we-need-more-alternative-markets/12864220

China is digging in its heels as the trade spat between Canberra and Beijing continues, with officials laying responsibility for the tensions solely at Australia's feet.

With no resolution in sight, many exporters affected by China's sanctions are now looking for alternative markets where they can sell their goods and services.

And perhaps a pattern for economic bullying:

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-05-13/china-import-suspension-reminder-bejing-inflict-economic-pain/12243560

The reality is Beijing has a long track record of economic coercion, and the pattern is strikingly similar across the globe: countries caught in a dispute with Beijing suddenly find their flagship industries hit with obscure regulatory roadblocks.

The aim is not to financially cripple the other country, but to remind them how easily Beijing can impose economic pain. It's an implicit threat designed to shape behaviour.

No real bombs, as of yet, but China's economic bullying is gaining in strength and frequency. Will that spill over into military action? Keep an eye on Taiwan....

spmetla

01-22-2021, 05:27

Hooahguy

01-22-2021, 07:36

Greyblades, after further consideration and consultation with other moderators I see that I may have overstepped in my moderating. I apologize and I have reinstated your post.

rory_20_uk

01-22-2021, 11:37

That America has played the bully in international politics for decades since the end of WWII, needs no debate. That China's "self interested" loans and "eeeevil investment" has produced positive results, is also true. But......

.....methinks you gloss over just how self-serving China's aid is, and what they do when things don't go their way. I follow a lot of Australian media, and the Aussie's seem to be bearing the brunt of China's ire, at the moment. Example:

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-01-03/heres-what-happened-between-china-and-australia-in-2020/13019242

Australian journalists and citizens have been detained under "security issues".

Australian export goods have been restricted on short notice:

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-11-19/australia-china-trade-do-we-need-more-alternative-markets/12864220

And perhaps a pattern for economic bullying:

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-05-13/china-import-suspension-reminder-bejing-inflict-economic-pain/12243560

No real bombs, as of yet, but China's economic bullying is gaining in strength and frequency. Will that spill over into military action? Keep an eye on Taiwan....

The rulers of China is not a "good" country by almost any metric. They are almost always self serving with the sole aim of actions to be to enable the CCP to continue.

But the world from their point of view is pretty scary: Russia is still a thing and is above them which captured territory after WW2. Allies of the USA are in Japan (who has attacked them), South Korea (who they fought against), Taiwan (a rebel province) and currently have bases in Afghanistan. Another border is India who also is also a threat (a few wars and skirmishes) and the reminder is small countries which the USA has invaded in the (to them) recent past. The rulers are in power since the populace has rising standards of living and currently are content with the deal. For this the economy needs to continually grow at rates that are otherwise unheard of... and at the moment their biggest clients are their biggest rivals. They also need raw materials from countries mainly more friendly to the USA, all of which is transported via the sea which the USA basically controls. And most of China's money is in a currency of the USA. A large province of theirs is full of people who follow a religion which historically is intolerant of other faiths and coincidentally borders countries chock full of both weapons and trained religious fighters.

The loans to Africa are difficult to solve. After throwing off the yoke of white oppression and oversight, most countries have chosen the yoke of a local which given they are also black and local is fine; some cases they're better than what the Europeans did (the King of Belgium sets a low bar here) in others worse. Even though for many years there is a prize of $1 million dollars for peacefully leaving office democratically it has yet to be collected - what is that money when you've got a country to ravage and diplomatic immunity? And the Chinese often offer money now for resources that the Chinese will remove. And added bonus as no need to educate or help the locals and of course a lot of the cash can be syphoned off. What can the West do? 50 years ago when for better or for worse we were the only game in town the IMF can give money with caveats. But no longer is this the only option. So that leaves boycott / embargo or invade - none of which are either palatable or particularly effective. China and Russia both don't like setting precedents of interfering with other sovereign states so the UN can't do anything.

The only thing that could have been done by the West is not purchasing trillions of dollars of goods from China to give them both the money to spend as well as the desire to diversify from massive dollar holdings.

~:smoking:

ReluctantSamurai

01-22-2021, 13:21

Even were his faculties in order, which now the election is over fewer people will pretend, he will do his utmost to be seen to address issues while actually solving nothing, for his stock were architect to those issues in the first place.

A repeat of the same rubbish that Biden suffers from some sort mental disorder. Didn't work for the GOP during the election campaign, and still doesn't hold water now.

You are certainly entitled to say he will solve nothing. A brash statement to make 2 days into his term. And like any president, Biden himself didn't create the mess that is America today, just like Trump wasn't responsible for the systemic problems we face here, he just amplified them.

As for the protesters....who ever said the far right-wing had a monopoly on riots? There are people at both extremes that want to further their agenda regardless of who's in office (and cast them aside when they don't meet their expectations---just check out what the Proud Boys have to say about their Boy now that he's out of office).

And where was all the tear gas and police in full riot gear for the Capital riot?

What can the West do? 50 years ago when for better or for worse we were the only game in town the IMF can give money with caveats. But no longer is this the only option.

While a military threat from China always lurks in the background, I think most countries are feeling an economic threat, like the EU with their recent investment agreement. Procuring resources and products that are less dependant on China (like what the Aussie's are pursuing), may very well be the norm going forward...

spmetla

01-23-2021, 20:07

The only thing that could have been done by the West is not purchasing trillions of dollars of goods from China to give them both the money to spend as well as the desire to diversify from massive dollar holdings.

~:smoking:

Not selling them key stakes in public or vital infrastructure is possible too. There's no need for China to have control of Piraeus harbor, there's no reason to let Huawei into telecommunications systems when they are linked to the PLA. Not moving manufacturing to China would be a good step, it would take the US and EU together though to make it happen. Right now both continue to deal with China because neither wants to lose such a good marketplace for their goods.

It's one of Trumps major failings, pulling out of TPP and putting tariffs on EU and UK and NAFTA companies/goods has created more rifts in what should have been an economic front to limit Chinese excess in its mercantilist policies.

While a military threat from China always lurks in the background, I think most countries are feeling an economic threat, like the EU with their recent investment agreement. Procuring resources and products that are less dependant on China (like what the Aussie's are pursuing), may very well be the norm going forward...

The economic threat is what will enable China to be a military threat. If everyone is dependent on China for its exports or supply chain manufacturing it will be difficult to do anything if say they invade Taiwan.
The US and EU have always used investment as a carrot to try and encourage good behavior, the Chinese use investment as a foot in the door to then get leverage to demand good behavior.

Power corrupts, too much power for the US has corrupted it, allowed it to see hard power as the easy answer (Iraq war, punitive missile strikes). However, ceding power to illiberal powers like Russia and China is dangerous though as how they use power will likely be more threatening. Just because they've not conducted colonial wars is no sign that they are a peaceful power. The US and NATO has engaged in wars essentially to try and protect the status quo of the post-WW2 world order. China has no need to engage in similar wars right now, especially as a corrupt dictatorships or police states are exactly the types of clients they want to deal with.

With the current nationalist and jingoist trend of the Chinese propaganda and internal politics I worry for what a future would entail in which they gain the ability to project hard power too. Internal propaganda blaming the US and especially the UK and Europe for its "Century of Humiliation" will possibly mean that a generation of people will come to power that want revenge for that shame. Chinese sales of cheap fetnyl to the US and European markets could be seen as revenge for forcing the Qing empire to buy British opium despite their public efforts to 'crack down' on the trade.

All this is pretty China/Russia/US specific stuff though, perhaps we need a great power contention thread as I've veered far from any Biden policies so far.

Montmorency

01-24-2021, 21:06

Rumors of McConnell's imminent demise may prove overstated.

Samurai, as much as Manchin drives you to handwringing, a challenger approaches (https://www.azmirror.com/2020/02/13/kyrsten-sinema-to-the-right-of-mitch-mcconnell-in-new-legislative-rankings/).

Democratic Sen. Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona is more conservative than Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, a loyal ally of President Donald Trump and a national conservative icon.

That’s according to a recent ideological ranking by GovTrack.us, a nonpartisan organization that tracks government data and statistics.

The freshman Arizona senator ranked 47th on the group’s annual conservative-to-liberal scale, which is based on lawmakers’ 2019 legislative records.

That puts her to the right of all other members of her caucus — as well as McConnell, who ranked 49th, and several other Republicans.

She is considered more conservative than her fellow Democratic moderates, such as Sens. Doug Jones of Alabama and Joe Manchin of West Virginia. She also ranked more conservative than Republican Sens. Rand Paul of Kentucky, Rob Portman of Ohio, Richard Burr of North Carolina, Susan Collins of Maine, Richard Shelby of Alabama and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska.

China is throwing their weight around Asia. Why shouldn't they be? They've put up with nukes off their coast and an American fleet parked in what they view as a rebel province for decades. Given we appear to be in a post-woke world where everyone is equally valued and so on why is what their culture does worse than what we do? I am a dinosaur and I personally (and very quietly these days) believe that cultures can and should be proponents of values they hold as "right" and declare others to be "wrong" but such old beliefs have no place any more.

You don't know that was always a strawman?? It doesn't take long to notice that progressives apply very firm and aggressive ethical frameworks, whether or not you would agree with any. I'm pretty sure this whole "all cultures are equal" meme was invented as a petulant retort by those who felt their own cultures criticized from the left.

I'm not surprised at all. The article you linked to stated that doing such pardons would make him more vulnerable legally. And ultimately, he only cares about himself.

A self-pardon was obviously tendentious, but not even for his kids? Come on.

The best explanation I can think of is that Trump is, or was made, very sensitive to potential 5th Amendment considerations flowing from a blanket pardon of his close co-conspirators family.

Greater economic integration to the world institutions forces China to play by rules that US and Europe set after WW2.

I've posted this before, but it is a fascinating diagram.

24279

You and spmetla might be interested in the source article/blog (http://www.exitfromhegemony.net/2019/11/03/there-isnt-one-way-of-doing-liberal-international-order-and-that-might-be-cause-for-alarm/).

Regional trading blocks with SE-Asia to set up sanctions will only grow more powerful as China's middle class grows and cheap manufacturing shifts elsewhere. China's place as the place to make everything is not set in stone and as living standards rise, Chinese labor is getting more expensive.

One factor you're missing, that I've learned of recently, is that China has a huge advantage as an economic hub. Inputs and outputs ALL along the supply/value chain can be produced or assembled there, an area with a common legal framework and good infrastructure and plentiful labor. And if some production moves to Vietnam or the Philippines, China still maintains its place as the hub of the entire region. Why ship all around the world when you can go from extraction to retail all in the West Pacific?

Apparently, the TPP was America's attempt to bypass China's development on this path by creating an alternative Asian agglomeration with itself integrated, one key upside from a business perspective (and admittedly this was an area where the TPP went too far) being that American-led economics prioritizes IP security, integrity, and rents in a way China notoriously does not. But that ship has sailed.

A relevant concept here is "economies of agglomeration," and one of America's advantages for the past ~150 years has been its own status as the premier agglomeration economy where all forms of economic activity along the industrial supply/value chain could be located under a single stable and prosperous political regime. This is seemingly also one of the objectives of the EU in integrating European economies, markets, and regulatory frameworks.

Anyway, China has decisive advantages beyond cheap(er) labor; they just used the first burst of FDI and cheap labor to bootstrap themselves into hub status, nearly a generation ago now. Ain't no going back. Remember - the Chinese littoral and riparian zone has been the densest center of population and economic activity (and often political sophistication) for almost the entire history of civilization.

And I'm not even sure the US has any enticing alternatives to present to African or Latin American - or even European! though they're still our biggest partner, for now - governments in place of Chinese investment and trade. Who wants to alienate the largest market in the world, liberal and loose-conditioned with its cash (at least in the short term), in favor of vague and measly promises from what looks ever more like a fading power? I can't imagine the level of leadership and commitment needed to make a credible attempt. To proper effect, the collapse of artificial distinctions between American domestic and foreign policy atop a comprehensive internal civilizational project (i.e. socialism).

I don't know much, but to my mind most trends point to China securing a position where it needs any given country less than they need it. That's clout. Be that as it may, industrial policy (https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/20/opinion/america-industrial-policy.html) is a swell thing that the West might want to try again.

Did anyone figure out what Serbia's PM was doing?

Hooahguy

01-25-2021, 00:32

Samurai, as much as Manchin drives you to handwringing, a challenger approaches (https://www.azmirror.com/2020/02/13/kyrsten-sinema-to-the-right-of-mitch-mcconnell-in-new-legislative-rankings/).
I'm not sure this is the most honest portrayal of Sinema, who is very pro-LGBT rights, pro abortion, pro-ACA, and anti-gun. Yes, she is definitely a moderate Dem, but to the right of Mitch? Nah.
Per your link:

The GovTrack analysis assigns scores to members based on the pattern of legislation that lawmakers cosponsor. It does not take other factors into account that may affect lawmakers’ ideological stances, such as caucus memberships, media appearances, social media posts, endorsements in campaigns or their penchant for bipartisan friendship.

McConnell’s relatively liberal score could be because, as a leader, he may not be as deeply involved in legislation as other senators are, according to GovTrack President Joshua Tauberer. And the score doesn’t reflect his efforts to move the president’s conservative judicial nominees through the Senate. That said, he added, “there’s no way to rule out that the bills McConnell cosponsors may tend to be more moderate.”
So yeah I dont really think that just going off of voting records and bill sponsorships is the best way to gauge these types of things.

A self-pardon was obviously tendentious, but not even for his kids? Come on.

The best explanation I can think of is that Trump is, or was made, very sensitive to potential 5th Amendment considerations flowing from a blanket pardon of his close co-conspirators family.
Well that's what I was talking about. Trump definitely is very aware of the self-incrimination issue.

I've posted this before, but it is a fascinating diagram.

24279

You and @spmetla (https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/member.php?u=1419) might be interested in the source article/blog (http://www.exitfromhegemony.net/2019/11/03/there-isnt-one-way-of-doing-liberal-international-order-and-that-might-be-cause-for-alarm/).
Would definitely like to see the updated version of this, as with a new administration comes different US policy positions on some of these, such as the INF treaty.

a completely inoffensive name

01-25-2021, 09:02

One factor you're missing, that I've learned of recently, is that China has a huge advantage as an economic hub. Inputs and outputs ALL along the supply/value chain can be produced or assembled there, an area with a common legal framework and good infrastructure and plentiful labor. And if some production moves to Vietnam or the Philippines, China still maintains its place as the hub of the entire region. Why ship all around the world when you can go from extraction to retail all in the West Pacific?

Apparently, the TPP was America's attempt to bypass China's development on this path by creating an alternative Asian agglomeration with itself integrated, one key upside from a business perspective (and admittedly this was an area where the TPP went too far) being that American-led economics prioritizes IP security, integrity, and rents in a way China notoriously does not. But that ship has sailed.

A relevant concept here is "economies of agglomeration," and one of America's advantages for the past ~150 years has been its own status as the premier agglomeration economy where all forms of economic activity along the industrial supply/value chain could be located under a single stable and prosperous political regime. This is seemingly also one of the objectives of the EU in integrating European economies, markets, and regulatory frameworks.

Anyway, China has decisive advantages beyond cheap(er) labor; they just used the first burst of FDI and cheap labor to bootstrap themselves into hub status, nearly a generation ago now. Ain't no going back. Remember - the Chinese littoral and riparian zone has been the densest center of population and economic activity (and often political sophistication) for almost the entire history of civilization.

And I'm not even sure the US has any enticing alternatives to present to African or Latin American - or even European! though they're still our biggest partner, for now - governments in place of Chinese investment and trade. Who wants to alienate the largest market in the world, liberal and loose-conditioned with its cash (at least in the short term), in favor of vague and measly promises from what looks ever more like a fading power? I can't imagine the level of leadership and commitment needed to make a credible attempt. To proper effect, the collapse of artificial distinctions between American domestic and foreign policy atop a comprehensive internal civilizational project (i.e. socialism).

I don't know much, but to my mind most trends point to China securing a position where it needs any given country less than they need it. That's clout. Be that as it may, industrial policy (https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/20/opinion/america-industrial-policy.html) is a swell thing that the West might want to try again.

A few things to consider:
1. COVID impacted supply chain management such that business culture began taking a more skeptical look at putting all their eggs in one basket so to speak (https://www.economist.com/china/2020/02/29/covid-19-is-teaching-hard-lessons-about-china-only-supply-chains). When a country such as China is willing to enforce entire lockdowns and terminate all production with relatively little heads up, it creates bottlenecks and disruptions for most manufactured goods many of which still linger such as today's less than normal supply of large appliances, bicycles, plastics, etc. Also long term management of the country (e.g. it's failure to adequately learn from SARS years ago) is still questionable with short term management still undesirable in ways you already mentioned.

2. To my understanding, East-Asian countries retain historical animus towards China (well towards each other in general) and are not as driven by economic ideologies as the West. Countries in the region will continue to promote their own independence as they can by minimizing their economic dependence on China and gravitating toward a more neutral player like the US or Europe as a matter of preference. I liked this passage from 'Factfulness' (page 131):

The Vietnam War was the Syrian war of my generation.
Two days before Christmas in 1972, seven bombs killed 27 patients and members of staff at the Bach Mai hospital in Hanoi in Vietnam. I was studying medicine in Uppsala in Sweden. We had plenty of medical equipment and yellow blankets. Agneta and I coordinated a collection, which we packed in boxes and sent to Bach Mai.

Fifteen years later, I was in Vietnam to evaluate a Swedish aid project. One lunchtime, I was eating my rice next to one of my local colleagues, a doctor named Niem, and I asked him about his background. He told me he had been inside the Bach Mai hospital when the bombs fell. Afterward, he had coordinated the unpacking of boxes of supplies that had arrived from all over the world. I asked him if he remembered some yellow blankets and I got goose bumps as he describes the fabric's pattern to me. It felt like we had been friends forever.

At the weekend, I asked Niem to show me the monument to the Vietnam War. "You mean the 'Resistance War Against America,'" he said. Of course, I should have realized he wouldn't call it the Vietnam War. Niem drove me to one of the city's central parks and showed me a small stone with a brass plate, three feet high. I thought it was a joke. The protests against the Vietnam War had united a generation of activists in the West. It had moved me to send blankets and medical equipment. More than 1.5 million Vietnamese and 58,000 Americans had died. Was this how the city commemorated such a catastrophe? Seeing that I was disappointed, Niem drove me to see a bigger monument: a marble stone, 12 feet high, to commemorate independence from French colonial rule. I was still underwhelmed.

Then Niem asked me if I was ready to see the proper war monument. He drove a little way further , and pointed out of the window. Above the treetops I could see a large pagoda, covered in gold. It seemed about 300 feet high. He said, "Here is where we commemorate out war heroes. Isn't it beautiful?" This was the monument to Vietnam's wars with China.

The wars with China had lasted, on and off, for 2,000 years. The French occupation had lasted 200 years. The "Resistance War Against America" took only 20 years. The sizes of the monuments put things in perfect proportion. It was only by comparing them that I could understand the relative insignificance of "the Vietnam War" to the people who now live in Vietnam.

3. While China has been an economic hub for most of human history it, along with India, was economically self sufficient pre industrial revolution and did not make concerted efforts to further integrate itself into world or even Asian markets most of the time (again, to my understanding). Its foreign policy was sending navies out periodically to enforce tributes and invasions of its closest neighbors. Keep in mind the timeline and strategy of Western colonialism in Asia, how with the exception of Portuguese Macao, Europeans ignored China's ports favoring instead trading ports across modern day Indonesia during the 16th and 17th centuries which had extremely prosperous kingdoms controlling trade between China, India, and East Africa.

4. China may not even have the densest center of economic activity by mid-century. Their population curve is currently transitioning downwards while India still has another 25-30 years of projected growth before their demographic transition towards a shrinking population hits. India will have more people than China as soon as 2027 according to the UN. China's population is aging faster than any other country and they have no effective welfare state to prepare for this (https://www.forbes.com/sites/kenrapoza/2017/02/21/chinas-aging-population-becoming-more-of-a-problem/?sh=64b1c4f8140f). They will have more people over the age of 65 as a % of their country than the US by mid-century. Chinese culture traditionally had multi-generational housing with children expected to take care of their parents and grandparents at home. If the US Social Security is considered a 'ponzi scheme' in a shrinking world, then China has a big one.

5. Data on belt-and-road investments is limited because China continues to withhold information from the world on its decision making processes, such is a big negative in itself. But the available data and analysis has led many to believe that lots of corruption and frankly bad investments are being made, essentially throwing away money that China would be better using to establish domestic welfare.

All of this is to say that China has proven more than capable at manipulation of current environments and making very planned advances towards certain policies and outcomes. But the same could be said to a certain extent of Putin's Russia. Their cyber-warfare is running circles around us, the Crimea is theirs. But the fundamentals of managing shit at home is just not there and Russia continues to decline overall. My hot take is that China has just as much chance of becoming another Russia, projecting a foreign diplomatic weight that outsizes their actual internal strength, as it does of making the 21st the 'Chinese Century'.

Pannonian

01-25-2021, 09:08

4. China may not even have the densest center of economic activity by mid-century. Their population curve is currently transitioning downwards while India still has another 25-30 years of projected growth before their demographic transition towards a shrinking population hits. India will have more people than China as soon as 2027 according to the UN. China's population is aging faster than any other country and they have no effective welfare state to prepare for this (https://www.forbes.com/sites/kenrapoza/2017/02/21/chinas-aging-population-becoming-more-of-a-problem/?sh=64b1c4f8140f). They will have more people over the age of 65 as a % of their country than the US by mid-century. Chinese culture traditionally had multi-generational housing with children expected to take care of their parents and grandparents at home. If the US Social Security is considered a 'ponzi scheme' in a shrinking world, then China has a big one.

5. Data on belt-and-road investments is limited because China continues to withhold information from the world on its decision making processes, such is a big negative in itself. But the available data and analysis has led many to believe that lots of corruption and frankly bad investments are being made, essentially throwing away money that China would be better using to establish domestic welfare.

All of this is to say that China has proven more than capable at manipulation of current environments and making very planned advances towards certain policies and outcomes. But the same could be said to a certain extent of Putin's Russia. Their cyber-warfare is running circles around us, the Crimea is theirs. But the fundamentals of managing shit at home is just not there and Russia continues to decline overall. My hot take is that China has just as much chance of becoming another Russia, projecting a foreign diplomatic weight that outsizes their actual internal strength, as it does of making the 21st the 'Chinese Century'.

Simply pointing to population may not account for everything. Is India politically stable?

Xantan

01-25-2021, 20:48

US is in a precarious position - I understand hope, but let's face the music a bit here. It's in a difficult position right now and this administration has potentially way too much on it's plate. In fact, too much on it's plate for any administration.

Hopeful, yes, doubtful, even more yes.

Montmorency

01-25-2021, 21:51

ACIN, the question is how much the negative factors matter given the advantages. The West Pacific is a basket of baskets, in a way that US-Europe or US-South America can't really ever be.

Ultimately, the idea that economic gravity will shift from China doesn't hold much more water to me than that it will from America (cf. our own instability and decaying infrastructure). Maybe, maybe not, but I don't see it as likely in our lifetimes short of the more cataclysmic climate change scenarios (in which case all contemporary geopolitics goes obsolete).

Countries on China's periphery, except maybe ones in too deep like Pakistan, are of course happy to try to balance against China with a larger patron. But that's "balancing," not an anti-Chinese axis. Countries like Vietnam and South Korea are always going to be more integrated into the Chinese sphere than we would like - as they already are. They can't afford to do otherwise.

I'm not sure that aging demographics really matter with even a modicum of tech investment and "low-value" immigration, and at any rate there's a difference between an aging country of several million and one of several billion. The baseline labor pool is simply much larger than anywhere else. And the Philippines, for example, is integrated into the existing hub, so even if somehow loads of production moved out of China to the Philippines, that would still support the overall Chinese ecosystem.

...Unless you go to Africa, the one booming population pool in the 21st century, but the lack of historical infrastructure, investment, and stability will greatly limit Africa's potential as an alternative to China, not to mention the value of having a unified regime. The silver lining is that by the same token Africa wouldn't simply become an alternative to Europe and North America from the Asian perspective either... Yet even there, Chinese investments in Africa are foresighted because they secure long-term access to some of the most desirable economic sectors and geographies in rising Africa - in a way that serves China directly while preempting superation...

Ironically, yes, China does have to fix its welfare state and medical services, which are in some ways even stingier and more restrictive than ours. Not to do so would in my ideological estimation lead to undesirable social friction. (Truly universal medical care and old-age security could be the next frontier of the CCP legitimating project if they were so inclined).

Especially dubious to me is the idea that lockdowns signal instability to investors, when short and sharp Chinese lockdowns created both more policy success and predictability than the low-foresight whackamole evident in Europe (the US doesn't even rise to that level).

3. While China has been an economic hub for most of human history it, along with India, was economically self sufficient pre industrial revolution and did not make concerted efforts to further integrate itself into world or even Asian markets most of the time (again, to my understanding). Its foreign policy was sending navies out periodically to enforce tributes and invasions of its closest neighbors. Keep in mind the timeline and strategy of Western colonialism in Asia, how with the exception of Portuguese Macao, Europeans ignored China's ports favoring instead trading ports across modern day Indonesia during the 16th and 17th centuries which had extremely prosperous kingdoms controlling trade between China, India, and East Africa.

There was always lots of trade, led by the Chinese diaspora throughout the SE Pacific. They just didn't make a habit of directly maintaining long trade routes through the Indian Ocean, which no one really did. India and the Middle East were always going to be the middlemen to the Mediterranean or Africa by simple technical reality. Before modernity at least.

I don't remember the Europeans skipping Chinese ports - see the Opium Wars. What you might be noticing is that, prior to the 19th century, European powers didn't really have a direct colonial presence in China proper. This is not because they didn't want those ports/colonies - just the opposite! - but because the Qing regime was still too strong to overcome with the as-yet-limited European presence in the Pacific. Once India was opened, it and the Pacific archipelagos were ripe to be exploited first as the easier pickings. Recall that Africa was not properly divided and colonized until the second half of the 19th century; it would be wrong to interpret that as Europeans having no use for or designs on Africa.

5. Data on belt-and-road investments is limited because China continues to withhold information from the world on its decision making processes, such is a big negative in itself. But the available data and analysis has led many to believe that lots of corruption and frankly bad investments are being made, essentially throwing away money that China would be better using to establish domestic welfare.

Hard to say because these are inherently long-term investments with prospective payoffs far into the future. Any such strategy has to include potential loss leaders like Hambantota. Needs deeply-informed analysis.

My hot take is that China has just as much chance of becoming another Russia, projecting a foreign diplomatic weight that outsizes their actual internal strength, as it does of making the 21st the 'Chinese Century'.

Little-seen observation: a suboptimal scenario for China doesn't imply a renascent one for the US or Europe, or vice versa. I think all of us going down together is the likeliest counterpart to the scenario in which China takes the US to our USSR. Maybe a 0.1% chance of the US establishing the Neo-Comintern and exporting revolutionary socialism to the Chinese periphery, aka the best case.

I'm not sure this is the most honest portrayal of Sinema, who is very pro-LGBT rights, pro abortion, pro-ACA, and anti-gun. Yes, she is definitely a moderate Dem, but to the right of Mitch? Nah.
Per your link:

So yeah I dont really think that just going off of voting records and bill sponsorships is the best way to gauge these types of things.

While you overstate the intensity or relevance of those stances, I agree that bill sponsorships and voting records are not the full measure of a politician. After all, it would have been pretty silly for anyone to claim that Harris is to the left of Sanders based on these scores, right? :creep:

Sinema is no Republican (which, e.g. makes her orders of magnitude more pro-abortion than someone like Susan Collins). I think it's clear she's been working to position herself to the right of Manchin though, and not unwillingly. The article I linked is reposted on her own website (https://www.sinema.senate.gov/kyrsten-sinema-right-mitch-mcconnell-new-legislative-rankings)!

What's striking is that she was notably more liberal in the 2000s, right? I guess we just have to hope she's flexible like many politicians are.

Breaking news (https://www.rawstory.com/kyrsten-sinema-filibuster/), funnily enough. Now look, I'm not going to single her out on the filibuster issue specifically, just because for bypassing the filibuster to be practical it would have to be in furtherance of a non-reconciliable agenda of protecting voting, ending gerrymandering, admitting new states, and expanding the whole federal judiciary. That is the subject matter of the politics of survival for Democrats, and unfortunately even as all Democrats have moved left fiscally, I don't believe the majority of the caucus yet truly understands the existential and protracted character of the ongoing conflict. So Sinema/Manchin aren't even the limiting factor in that regard.

Hooahguy

01-25-2021, 22:54

While you overstate the intensity or relevance of those stances, I agree that bill sponsorships and voting records are not the full measure of a politician. After all, it would have been pretty silly for anyone to claim that Harris is to the left of Sanders based on these scores, right? :creep:
Ok point taken :laugh4:

Sinema is no Republican (which, e.g. makes her orders of magnitude more pro-abortion than someone like Susan Collins). I think it's clear she's been working to position herself to the right of Manchin though, and not unwillingly. The article I linked is reposted on her own website (https://www.sinema.senate.gov/kyrsten-sinema-right-mitch-mcconnell-new-legislative-rankings)!

What's striking is that she was notably more liberal in the 2000s, right? I guess we just have to hope she's flexible like many politicians are.

Breaking news (https://www.rawstory.com/kyrsten-sinema-filibuster/), funnily enough. Now look, I'm not going to single her out on the filibuster issue specifically, just because for bypassing the filibuster to be practical it would have to be in furtherance of a non-reconciliable agenda of protecting voting, ending gerrymandering, admitting new states, and expanding the whole federal judiciary. That is the subject matter of the politics of survival for Democrats, and unfortunately even as all Democrats have moved left fiscally, I don't believe the majority of the caucus yet truly understands the existential and protracted character of the ongoing conflict. So Sinema/Manchin aren't even the limiting factor in that regard.
The filibuster issue is a really really tough one and I definitely sympathize with the lawmakers dealing with this. If the filibuster is removed, then the Dems basically have to guarantee they always hold at least one chamber or the presidency in every subsequent election because the second the GOP controls the trifecta, well we all know what will happen. I think it was the reason why more terrible conservative legislation wasnt passed during the first two years of Trumps term. I also have a very real fear that a lot of what the Dems pass will get struck down in court challenges, such as the expansion of voting rights which SCOTUS is probably even less sympathetic to now.

a completely inoffensive name

01-26-2021, 00:53

Simply pointing to population may not account for everything. Is India politically stable?

I don't read up on India nearly as much as China, I have no idea how well Modi is doing. Seemed to be stable enough through the 2010s, as India GDP growth outpaced China for several years.

Pannonian

01-26-2021, 01:44

I don't read up on India nearly as much as China, I have no idea how well Modi is doing. Seemed to be stable enough through the 2010s, as India GDP growth outpaced China for several years.

There's a fair bit of Hindu nationalism on the rise there, which is, if anything, even more toxic than the Han nationalism going on in China. Every bit as bad and murderous as the Islamicism going on in Pakistan. Whatever unpleasantness is going on in China, at least it's secular and not religious. The equivalent of Soviet gulags versus religious lynch mobs.

Montmorency

01-26-2021, 02:03

OK, I've kind of conditioned myself into expecting less of Democrats, but here is what they "should" be structurally reforming to secure their (and our) long-term interest:

1. Abolish filibuster
2. Admit, at a minimum, DC.
3. Voting Rights Act banning gerrymandering, maintaining all the various expansions seen in 2020 + automatic registration, reinstating federal preclearance for offenders who break the law or don't meet minimum standards. <Stuff that I'm missing ATM.>
4. Expand federal judiciary from District to SCOTUS.

This achieves the simultaneous and interlocking goals of reducing Republican structural advantages in the House and Senate (with knock-on effects for state/local politics) and preventing the Republican judiciary from unduly interfering with Democratic governance. In the long term this is necessary both to address some of the conditions that Greyblades fairly, albeit unconsciously, gestured at as having generated our current predicament, and to limit the probability of Republicans in their fascist form securing unified governments in the first place.

Because to be frank, there isn't going to be as big a difference as some seem to imagine between a filibuster-extant and filibuster-extinct scenarios. The extremism ratchet goes only one way, and only a paradigm shift (enabled by aforementioned structural reforms) is sufficient to counteract it.

If Republicans want to take an opportunity to ban abortion and unions and terminate Social Security, that just means we can Build Back Better before it's too late.

This is what I would demand from the Democratic caucus if I understood them as fungible, generic actors properly motivated by the greater good and a clear-eyed apprehension that it's better to pay the firefighters less sooner than more later to douse your infernal house.

If they have to psych themselves up to it by letting Republicans screw around for a few months, I can tolerate that, but I'm not sure it's what's going on. But I set the expectations for myself long ago when I predicted that there was no chance of deep structural change without at least 52 or 53 Dem Senators, so I'm not going to get lathered over baked-in

a completely inoffensive name

01-26-2021, 02:19

I'm not sure that aging demographics really matter with even a modicum of tech investment and "low-value" immigration, and at any rate there's a difference between an aging country of several million and one of several billion. The baseline labor pool is simply much larger than anywhere else. And the Philippines, for example, is integrated into the existing hub, so even if somehow loads of production moved out of China to the Philippines, that would still support the overall Chinese ecosystem.
Doubtful China would even go for any degree of open immigration when their ethnostate project is moving forward with multiple genocides ongoing at this moment. I don't think you can write off these issues as negligible due to bulk labor size. Chinese economy is tied into manufacturing not tech, which means the relative productivity decreases as a worker in a factory ages relatively more than a corresponding tech worker in an office. And while the labor size is that much larger, the burdens due to the much larger number of retirees is also that much larger, which is why I mention age as percentage of workers. The relative burden on Chinese society and finances to take care of elderly will be higher than in the US.

...Unless you go to Africa, the one booming population pool in the 21st century, but the lack of historical infrastructure, investment, and stability will greatly limit Africa's potential as an alternative to China, not to mention the value of having a unified regime. The silver lining is that by the same token Africa wouldn't simply become an alternative to Europe and North America from the Asian perspective either... Yet even there, Chinese investments in Africa are foresighted because they secure long-term access to some of the most desirable economic sectors and geographies in rising Africa - in a way that serves China directly while preempting superation...
The African Union has set up a 2063 plan to address the issues you bring up (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agenda_2063). 2021 will be the first year that all of Africa operates as the world's (now) largest free-trade area. It's anyone guess the long term success of Africa's self-governance and economic competitiveness, but I am optimistic.

Ironically, yes, China does have to fix its welfare state and medical services, which are in some ways even stingier and more restrictive than ours. Not to do so would in my ideological estimation lead to undesirable social friction. (Truly universal medical care and old-age security could be the next frontier of the CCP legitimating project if they were so inclined).
So when we talk about the negative factors outweighing the advantages, we have an authoritarian state setting itself up for unrest but with no political outlets to mitigate any of the angst. Despite the shock and horror of 1/6, it is quite remarkable how US citizens have neatly divided themselves into two entirely different realities and still manage to coexist (for the time) within the same political structure.

Especially dubious to me is the idea that lockdowns signal instability to investors, when short and sharp Chinese lockdowns created both more policy success and predictability than the low-foresight whackamole evident in Europe (the US doesn't even rise to that level).
The more pertinent point is that Chinese governance in general does not prioritize business interests to nearly the same degree as the West.

There was always lots of trade, led by the Chinese diaspora throughout the SE Pacific. They just didn't make a habit of directly maintaining long trade routes through the Indian Ocean, which no one really did. India and the Middle East were always going to be the middlemen to the Mediterranean or Africa by simple technical reality. Before modernity at least.
Yes, but I am addressing the sentiment behind, "Remember - the Chinese littoral and riparian zone has been the densest center of population and economic activity (and often political sophistication) for almost the entire history of civilization." which implies that what was will always be, when it is clear that that is not what what was (exactly). Such a sophisticated political structure would surely have moved to absorb the trade wealth that the city states in modern day Indonesia facilitated, cause there was long trade routes through the Indian Ocean. It was easier to move goods overseas than overland prior to industrialization. To define a region as the densest center of economic activity is misleading when it is heavily internal trade with surpluses going out as exports under a relatively isolationist political mindset. If we are talking about international trade relations and economic dominance in a geopolitical sense, that title goes to India for 2,000 years not China.

I don't remember the Europeans skipping Chinese ports - see the Opium Wars. What you might be noticing is that, prior to the 19th century, European powers didn't really have a direct colonial presence in China proper. This is not because they didn't want those ports/colonies - just the opposite! - but because the Qing regime was still too strong to overcome with the as-yet-limited European presence in the Pacific. Once India was opened, it and the Pacific archipelagos were ripe to be exploited first as the easier pickings. Recall that Africa was not properly divided and colonized until the second half of the 19th century; it would be wrong to interpret that as Europeans having no use for or designs on Africa.
I mean, Portugal had a direct presence in China and Japan *shrug* so it was possible to do. But when we say 'easier pickings', we are saying the cost of subjugating those areas was worth the wealth extracted. But the original claim is that China was the densest center of economic activity, so were Chinese ports worth fighting the Chinese navy or not? There was a two hundred year gap between the failed Dutch invasions into Chinese territory and the Opium Wars, European trade routes could be extendable into China whereas it was logistically difficult in Africa to move further inland until railroads came about. Idk, not an expert here and my point is supposed to be modest: Don't over state the historical case. Europe seemed to find it acceptable to fight amongst themselves for control over South East Asian waters rather than try to directly break open Chinese or Japanese ports.

Hard to say because these are inherently long-term investments with prospective payoffs far into the future. Any such strategy has to include potential loss leaders like Hambantota. Needs deeply-informed analysis.
Agreed.

Little-seen observation: a suboptimal scenario for China doesn't imply a renascent one for the US or Europe, or vice versa. I think all of us going down together is the likeliest counterpart to the scenario in which China takes the US to our USSR. Maybe a 0.1% chance of the US establishing the Neo-Comintern and exporting revolutionary socialism to the Chinese periphery, aka the best case.

Hey, as long as we decline slower than China in the long run, the relative strength of the US increases at the bargaining table. At some point we need to reckon with how to exist with a government that is quite frankly more evil and has perpetuated more atrocities on this earth since Genghis Khan. I'm not interested in the US holding ground or maintaining a respectable sphere of influence, the existing Chinese government is a threat to human rights worldwide.

Montmorency

01-26-2021, 03:36

The relative burden on Chinese society and finances to take care of elderly will be higher than in the US.

Depends on a number of assumptions, such as - in a raw statistical sense - how much investment per capita there would be in China vs. the US. A lot of our costs are tied up in end-of-life or palliative care that China might not prioritize, or that we ourselves might resolve somehow. Another assumption is that neither health enhancement technology nor care sector productivity will increase much. We've had this discussion around Japan's issues.

What's weird is, you're a Yang fan, so you should be more sensitive to the possibility that raw "low-value" labor may not remain in the same state forever.

The African Union has set up a 2063 plan to address the issues you bring up. 2021 will be the first year that all of Africa operates as the world's (now) largest free-trade area. It's anyone guess the long term success of Africa's self-governance and economic competitiveness, but I am optimistic.

Hmmm.

Ending all wars, civil conflicts, gender-based violence, and violent conflicts by 2020

It's not chauvinistic to point out that Africa has a lot holding it back that the rest of the world actively participates in, so changing that (e.g. getting more socialistic with how we procure resources from African countries) is necessary IMO to unlocking the continent's potential. As it is, Africa will have hundreds of millions of people living in areas among the most vulnerable to drought and famine and disease, in what is already the world's most conflict-scarred geography. We're all just taking what we can while pissing about refugees, when in reality the solutions require a global collective effort to change our ways of living. It's possible, there's just little reason to think we'll rise to the occasion.

Another option is that African states rise to the occasion and realize their national boundaries are pointless and destructive and the African Union really should be a full federal state in the service of all its constituent groups. If it takes 50 years for the AU to approximate where the EU is now as an institution/framework, it's more probable that limited goal is never reached anyway and it's all unmitigated disaster unfolding.

So when we talk about the negative factors outweighing the advantages, we have an authoritarian state setting itself up for unrest but with no political outlets to mitigate any of the angst. Despite the shock and horror of 1/6, it is quite remarkable how US citizens have neatly divided themselves into two entirely different realities and still manage to coexist (for the time) within the same political structure.

The final measure is of course how the actual business interests behave and think, to which world governments are beholden. Is there evidence on your side of the balance? Unless, again, geopolitan socialism sets China's market power on the path to obsolescence.

The more pertinent point is that Chinese governance in general does not prioritize business interests to nearly the same degree as the West.

I mentioned this in the form of IP security and rents, but not every company or sector cares enough about this issue to exit or avoid the Chinese market. Mostly it's the highest-value industries in electronics and components, military hardware, or IT that are in theory affected, all the areas in which China has prioritized domestic advancement anyway (on the back of IP theft among other things). AFAIK China has managed to balance bootstrapping domestic capacities and alienating foreign firms pretty well so far.

Ultimately, the network effects generate a lot of mass for retaining and attracting investment and operations.

One area worth studying, and that I can hardly give any sort of commentary on (let alone informed analysis), is Chinese monetary policy and aspirations, since that level of policy can have the broadest-ranging effects and signals.

which implies that what was will always be

No, but it implies hysteresis, a return to an equilibrium, in the absence of change to the relevant enabling conditions.

It was easier to move goods overseas than overland prior to industrialization. To define an isolated region as the densest center of economic activity is misleading when it is all internal trade. If we are talking about international trade relations and economic dominance in a geopolitical sense, that title goes to India for 2,000 years not China.

As I said, China was doing plenty of trade both overland and overseas, it was certainly not isolated, and I don't see why a non-policy of overt territorial absorption would change that any more than it would for an assertion that India (really the collection of Indian polities) was the center of international trade. The question, and defined terms, of what region and in what time period experienced the most 'international' maritime trade is a scholarly one that I admittedly haven't read about - and for which we are likely not prepared here. Regardless, the fact remains that China was the economic hub of the world for ever, and a deprecation of "internal" trade is senseless when almost all trade was such under some definition, and distance and scale matter. Did trade in the Roman Mediterranean not count toward the wealth and sophistication of the empire because it was a Roman sea? Shipping wine from Alexandria to London is always more intensive than doing so from Bordeaux to Cognac, independent of the contemporary traverse of suzerainties.

The whole point here is not that China's status is intrinsic but that it arises from enduring geographic and demographic conditions, and that the 20th century was an aberration in history, which most agree with anyway.

I mean, Portugal had a direct presence in China and Japan *shrug* so it was possible to do. But when we say 'easier pickings', we are saying the cost of subjugating those areas was worth the wealth extracted. But the original claim is that China was the densest center of economic activity, so were Chinese ports worth fighting the Chinese navy or not? There was a two hundred year gap between the failed Dutch invasions into Chinese territory and the Opium Wars, European trade routes could be extendable into China whereas it was logistically difficult in Africa to move further inland until railroads came about. Idk, not an expert here and my point is supposed to be modest: Don't over state the historical case. Europe seemed to find it acceptable to fight amongst themselves for control over South East Asian waters rather than try to directly break open Chinese or Japanese ports.

There's a big difference between operating a few monks and missions and dictating maritime governance and access. There is no logical connection between the state of the Chinese economy and the 'correct' targeting of European mercantilism/colonialism; of course easier pickings matters. The object was rarely to control large populations for its own sake, but to extract and utilize local resources, certainly before the late era. Nor were European powers interested in selling their goods to Chinese consumers, remember. Chinese ports primarily served Chinese markets, the governance of which was not a pressing question until the balance of power had shifted enough that the European powers could decide that undesirable impositions such as tariffs could be overcome by force.

Once there were deeply-established European colonies and naval presences in the region and the Qing state was less of a factor, pursuing Chinese ports came to make more sense also as a matter of peer competition (e.g. preferential access and naval basing).

In conclusion, the shifting needs and capacities of the European and local actors are what influenced imperialist policies, which themselves of course reflected China's declining geopolitical status.

Pannonian

01-26-2021, 04:05

Depends on a number of assumptions, such as - in a raw statistical sense - how much investment per capita there would be in China vs. the US. A lot of our costs are tied up in end-of-life or palliative care that China might not prioritize, or that we ourselves might resolve somehow. Another assumption is that neither health enhancement technology nor care sector productivity will increase much. We've had this discussion around Japan's issues.

Have you and ACIN considered that attitudes may be different in China towards what you consider to be care and social commitments? What westerners may consider to be responsibilities of the state, Chinese may see as responsibilities of the family group. What westerners may see as the state's realm may be different from what Chinese see it to be. China is not a liberal society.

Hooahguy

01-26-2021, 04:09

If they have to psych themselves up to it by letting Republicans screw around for a few months, I can tolerate that, but I'm not sure it's what's going on. But I set the expectations for myself long ago when I predicted that there was no chance of deep structural change without at least 52 or 53 Dem Senators, so I'm not going to get lathered over baked-in
McConnell seems to have caved (https://twitter.com/DavidNir/status/1353889302330150912?s=20) on his demand that Dems promise to preserve the filibuster. Maybe Sinema and Manchin will reverse down the line when they see how McConnell's words of bipartisanship are in bad faith. Not holding my breath, but we will see. I do think public pressure from their constituents can help move the needle for them on this. Though if people want to see how the moderate wing of the Senate Dems are thinking, we should be paying attention to Bennet and Coons.

ReluctantSamurai

01-26-2021, 05:26

The countries that are going to be of increasing importance in the next decade:

https://www.statista.com/statistics/268790/countries-with-the-largest-lithium-reserves-worldwide/

Lithium is used (https://www.statista.com/statistics/268787/lithium-usage-in-the-world-market/) primarily in batteries, glass and ceramics, with other uses including rocket fuel and lasers. The global lithium battery market is projected to grow substantially in coming years, from 30 billion U.S. dollars in 2017 to over 100 billion U.S. dollars by 2025. The electric vehicle market will propel the growth of the lithium market as the number of hybrid and electric vehicles powered by rechargeable lithium batteries picks up. In 2018 the top producers of lithium battery cells (https://www.statista.com/statistics/235323/lithium-batteries-top-manufacturers/) were estimated to be Panasonic Sanyo, CATL, BYD, and LG Chem. It is expected that Germany, China, Japan, and France will be leading electric vehicle producing countries.

rory_20_uk

01-26-2021, 08:44

The countries that are going to be of increasing importance in the next decade:

https://www.statista.com/statistics/268790/countries-with-the-largest-lithium-reserves-worldwide/

Turkey is ramping up production and there is to be a mine in the UK - both cases using geothermal waste water. If this works, quite a few other countries will probably follow suit.

~:smoking:

ReluctantSamurai

01-26-2021, 14:15

Samurai, as much as Manchin drives you to handwringing, a challenger approaches (https://www.azmirror.com/2020/02/13/kyrsten-sinema-to-the-right-of-mitch-mcconnell-in-new-legislative-rankings/).

https://www.politico.com/news/2021/01/25/joe-manchin-filibuster-462364

“If I haven’t said it very plain, maybe Sen. McConnell hasn’t understood, I want to basically say it for you. That I will not vote in this Congress, that’s two years, right? I will not vote” to change the filibuster, Manchin (D-W.Va.) said in an interview on Monday afternoon. “And I hope with that guarantee in place he will work in a much more amicable way.”

Seems to me that Manchin is as delusional as Biden about the willingness of the GOP to compromise, and he is definitely relishing his new found power within Congress. What do I know....I'm just an old country boy from the Wolverine State? But it seems clear to me that the GOP strategy is/will be to block-block-block until the 2022 mid-terms where they plan/hope to reclaim Congress. Say whatever you wish about Dr. No, but he's definitely as savvy as they come at politics. And anyone who thinks he doesn't have a plan to get himself back into the Senate Majority seat is delusional.

That's not to say that the effort shouldn't be made for bi-partisanship. But when that effort is snubbed by the GOP, the Dems had better grow some cohonees and forge ahead on their own while they can. And abolishing the filibuster will be one of those tools in the box. If Dems hope to avoid the historical back-slide in the mid-terms following a presidential election, then the best way to do that is pass legislation that actually helps the other 99% of Americans who aren't in the privileged elite.

Montmorency

01-27-2021, 01:55

"Chuck Schumer tried to unseat Susan Collins, and now it's personal" (https://news.yahoo.com/chuck-schumer-tried-unseat-susan-151100769.html)

Ah well, it was never going to work out anyway.

Have you and ACIN considered that attitudes may be different in China towards what you consider to be care and social commitments? What westerners may consider to be responsibilities of the state, Chinese may see as responsibilities of the family group. What westerners may see as the state's realm may be different from what Chinese see it to be. China is not a liberal society.

Sure, but I don't have a reason to believe that the Chinese are so uniquely libertarian in culture as to collectively lean towards diminishing the role of government in preventing old people from ignominiously dying of sickness and starvation.

Show me the popular movement in China that demands, "Get the government out of social security! Offload more of the cost of caring for my parents onto me!"

rofl as though Communist China didn't aspire to an "iron rice bowl (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_rice_bowl)" guaranteed by the government, prior to the market reforms.

Pannonian

01-27-2021, 03:54

"Chuck Schumer tried to unseat Susan Collins, and now it's personal" (https://news.yahoo.com/chuck-schumer-tried-unseat-susan-151100769.html)

Ah well, it was never going to work out anyway.

Sure, but I don't have a reason to believe that the Chinese are so uniquely libertarian in culture as to collectively lean towards diminishing the role of government in preventing old people from ignominiously dying of sickness and starvation.

Show me the popular movement in China that demands, "Get the government out of social security! Offload more of the cost of caring for my parents onto me!"

rofl as though Communist China didn't aspire to an "iron rice bowl (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_rice_bowl)" guaranteed by the government, prior to the market reforms.

It's more a family thing than a state thing. If you don't get the role of the family in Chinese society, you don't get Chinese thinking.

Montmorency

01-28-2021, 03:32

Heh, now that's good series writing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PCWxknzIg0o

Fox News (https://www.vox.com/2021/1/27/22250976/fox-news-ratings-drop-explained-post-trump) has lost its top spot in the cable news ratings for the first time since pre-9/11.

It had ended 2020 with record highs (https://www.reuters.com/article/us-media-news-ratings/fox-news-extends-streak-sets-cable-news-records-in-2020-idUSKBN29404F) in viewership, though CNN was already in the process (https://www.baltimoresun.com/opinion/columnists/zurawik/bs-ed-zontv-cable-news-shift-20210108-di7tkdhnjnhh5myxhqvqawzfqu-story.html) of overtaking it.

It may not yet be clear what's going on, but it sure would be ironic if Trump has inadvertently pushed more Fox viewers to CNN and MSNBC than OAN and Newsmax. Find out in coming episodes of the 2021 season.

Also, I just learned that Finland has two standards of treason. The first is essentially like that specified in the American constitutional order, but the second reflects our more colloquial use of the word.

Valtiopetos ('high treason') is not a military crime, but an offense against the very nation or its established order. Here (https://ilkkapohjalainen.fi/uutiset/ulkomaat/presidentti-niinisto-yhdysvallat-hakee-vanhaa-vaikuttamisen-rooliaan-1.11360584) is the Finnish president commenting on the Jan. 6 putsch.

It's more a family thing than a state thing. If you don't get the role of the family in Chinese society, you don't get Chinese thinking.

You'll have to be more specific, as I get what you're trying to say but you're not relating it to the real world. Welfarism is not a function of liberalism but rather, in one form or another, a universal contemporary consensus. Most people in every country* accept the proposition that the state must do something to provide for the sick, the elderly, and the less well-off; specifics may vary. Even the majority of base Republicans agree in principle, and they're quite possibly the most anti-welfarist bunch on the planet.

The Chinese state does provide for the social security of the elderly, and not on a mere family-subsidized basis. In the Maoist days, it aspired and attempted to provide more. Expanding social security or healthcare access is not something that would be culturally alien to the Chinese people, independent of any particular manifestation of policy or governmental interest/public approval therein.

If, as ACIN and many others believe, old-age care is going to become a very big social problem in China by the mid-century, one that will not be ameliorated in some non-fiscal way, then there's nothing to show that the Chinese public won't place demands on the state to do something about it, or that the CCP wouldn't be able to conceive or (ideologically) countenance expansion or reform of existing programs.

The potential limitations placed by extended families and filial piety on the growth of the sort of long-term care facilities that exist in the Anglosphere (and trust me, Anglophones of the past, within living memory, felt similarly - until they didn't) aren't a limitation on public expectations or government initiatives.

*Every "real" country let's say, I won't speak for the Vatican or Lichtenstein

I am hopeful that the Trumpist "Patriot Party" will indeed be formed. We will then get a more accurate representation of America's political spectrum with 25% Patriot Party, 15% GOP, 60% Dem.

Please note that I threw out those percentages using my anecdotal sense of things and not anything resembling meticulous research. Monty will no doubt have it parsed out fully.

? :sad:

Pannonian

01-28-2021, 04:20

You'll have to be more specific, as I get what you're trying to say but you're not relating it to the real world. Welfarism is not a function of liberalism but rather, in one form or another, a universal contemporary consensus. Most people in every country* accept the proposition that the state must do something to provide for the sick, the elderly, and the less well-off; specifics may vary. Even the majority of base Republicans agree in principle, and they're quite possibly the most anti-welfarist bunch on the planet.

The Chinese state does provide for the social security of the elderly, and not on a mere family-subsidized basis. In the Maoist days, it aspired and attempted to provide more. Expanding social security or healthcare access is not something that would be culturally alien to the Chinese people, independent of any particular manifestation of policy or governmental interest/public approval therein.

If, as ACIN and many others believe, old-age care is going to become a very big social problem in China by the mid-century, one that will not be ameliorated in some non-fiscal way, then there's nothing to show that the Chinese public won't place demands on the state to do something about it, or that the CCP wouldn't be able to conceive or (ideologically) countenance expansion or reform of existing programs.

The potential limitations placed by extended families and filial piety on the growth of the sort of long-term care facilities that exist in the Anglosphere (and trust me, Anglophones of the past, within living memory, felt similarly - until they didn't) aren't a limitation on public expectations or government initiatives.

Welfare in Chinese society starts with the family. At both ends of the spectrum, both when very young and when very old. When the immediate family does not suffice, then the extended family contributes. You cite Maoism, but that was an aberration in Chinese history, when the state replaced family. It is not looked upon with any fondness. Where the state does allow for provision, it supplements, not replaces, effort from the family.

The first paragraph above is by no means as universal as you think it is. It is extremely wide of the mark where China is concerned.

Montmorency

01-28-2021, 04:34

Welfare in Chinese society starts with the family. At both ends of the spectrum, both when very young and when very old. When the immediate family does not suffice, then the extended family contributes. You cite Maoism, but that was an aberration in Chinese history, when the state replaced family. It is not looked upon with any fondness. Where the state does allow for provision, it supplements, not replaces, effort from the family.

The first paragraph above is by no means as universal as you think it is. It is extremely wide of the mark where China is concerned.

*sigh*

This is from 2012 (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3711106/), beyond what I cautiously allowed for above.

Until recently, institutional elder care in China was rare and limited to the so-called “Three No’s”—people with no children, no income, and no relatives, who were publicly supported welfare recipients.26 Institutionalized elders were stigmatized.27 Few families could imagine placing a loved one in an institution to be cared for by strangers. Most residential care homes were run by the state, municipalities, local governments, or collectives.

In the mid-1990s China implemented reforms to decentralize the operation and financing of state welfare institutions.28,29 Since then, these institutions have shifted their financial base from reliance on public funding to more diversified revenue sources, including privately paying individuals.27

Elder care homes have proliferated, primarily in the private sector in urban areas.4,7 Although there are limited data, one recent study provides a glimpse into the growth and character of this nascent industry over the past thirty years.4 In Tianjin, for instance, there were only 4 facilities in 1980 (all government run), but there were 13 by 1990, 68 by 2000, and 157 by 2010 (20 of these facilities were government run, and 137 were privately run). Similar rates of growth were also observed in Nanjing and Beijing.4

The historical pattern of residents in elder care facilities and the sources of revenue that pay for their institutional care have also changed, as shown in Exhibit 4. In Tianjin in 2010 and Nanjing in 2009, almost all residents in nongovernment-run homes were private payers. Even in government-run homes, most residents were private payers. Welfare recipients were rare and mostly housed in government facilities.

The current mix of facilities spans a wide spectrum, ranging from “mom and pop”–style board-and-care homes providing little professional care to modern nursing homes with skilled nursing and medical services.4

As of 2010 there were an estimated 40,000 elder care facilities and 3.15 million beds in those facilities nationwide.30 On a per capita basis, China has about half as many long-term care beds per 1,000 older people as most developed countries do. Just 1.5–2.0 percent of people ages sixty-five and older live in residential care facilities in China, compared with 4–8 percent in Western countries.31,32

China’s twelfth five-year plan (2011–15) for socioeconomic development set a goal of adding another 3.42 million beds in the next five years, to boost total capacity to thirty beds per 1,000 elders ages sixty and older by 2015, from roughly eighteen beds per 1,000 elders in 2011.30

(American) Medicaid and Medicare pay for senior secondary care and assisted living in private residence.

You have an unrealistic and ossified view of Chinese culture. China is, at furthest, where we were a century ago.

ReluctantSamurai

01-29-2021, 04:05

After all the BS about the voting process this past election, you just knew THIS was coming:

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/jan/28/republicans-considering-100-bills-restrict-voting-rights

After an election filled with misinformation and lies about fraud, Republicans have doubled down (https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/dec/19/republicans-strategize-future-elections-harder-to-vote) with a surge of bills to further restrict voting access in recent months, according to a new analysis (https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/voting-laws-roundup-2021) by the Brennan Center for Justice.
There are currently 106 pending bills across 28 states that would restrict access to voting, according to the data. That’s a sharp increase from nearly a year ago, when there were 35 restrictive bills pending across 15 states.

Hooahguy

01-29-2021, 05:38

After all the BS about the voting process this past election, you just knew THIS was coming:

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/jan/28/republicans-considering-100-bills-restrict-voting-rights
The most distressing part of all of this is that even if a new voting rights act is signed into law to prevent the GOP from enacting such BS changes, you know that the courts will strike down large parts of it like they did the original VRA.

a completely inoffensive name

01-29-2021, 07:28

Yeah this is all bad and all, but we all need to buy Gamestop stock right now guys.

Hooahguy

01-29-2021, 16:59

Yeah this is all bad and all, but we all need to buy Gamestop stock right now guys.
On the off-chance that you are serious, please don't, its a bubble that is going to burst probably pretty soon.

a completely inoffensive name

01-29-2021, 20:08

On the off-chance that you are serious, please don't, its a bubble that is going to burst probably pretty soon.

It's not about the money, it's about sending a message. *joker meme*

Gotta squeeze these wall street gamblers.

Pannonian

01-29-2021, 21:10

*sigh*

This is from 2012 (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3711106/), beyond what I cautiously allowed for above.

(American) Medicaid and Medicare pay for senior secondary care and assisted living in private residence.

You have an unrealistic and ossified view of Chinese culture. China is, at furthest, where we were a century ago.

Try this more recent article (https://www.sixthtone.com/news/1006061/chinas-hidden-crisis-a-growing-elder-care-gap) on the matter, from 2020. The culture still overwhelmingly looks to family first of all, and then private supplements funded by family. Care for the elderly is a family thing in China, not a state thing.

ReluctantSamurai

01-30-2021, 02:54

Thank You Georgia for giving us this twit...:shame: She's at it again:

https://www.timesofisrael.com/marjorie-taylor-greene-blamed-deadly-forest-fire-on-rothschilds-and-space-lasers/

Yep...space lasers and the Jews....:crazy:

Montmorency

01-30-2021, 05:28

Heck yeah (https://twitter.com/brianschatz/status/1354992559601274885).

A member of congress thinks there is a Jewish Laser beam to clear space or something for high speed rail and on Sunday TV pundits will ask democrats why they can’t find middle ground on Covid relief. All of these otherwise smart people will pretend not to know the answer.

It's not about the money, it's about sending a message. *joker meme*

Gotta squeeze these wall street gamblers.

Isn't most Gamestop stock held long by institutional investors, like Blackrock (https://www.reuters.com/article/us-blackrock-investment-gamestop/blackrock-may-have-raked-in-2-4-billion-on-gamestops-retail-driven-stock-frenzy-idINKBN29W22T)? Screwing Wall Street Peter to pay Wall Street Paul...

Try this more recent article (https://www.sixthtone.com/news/1006061/chinas-hidden-crisis-a-growing-elder-care-gap) on the matter, from 2020. The culture still overwhelmingly looks to family first of all, and then private supplements funded by family. Care for the elderly is a family thing in China, not a state thing.

This stereotyping is getting a little demeaning.

Further insight (https://www.megacartoons.net/squatting-tiger-hidden-dog/) into the family-oriented culture of the inscrutable Oriental mind.

Back to reality, the Chinese culture has shifted tremendously, and it will very obviously continue to do so as all the supporting structures for this tradition erode or are replaced or pressured as time passes. Note, ACIN, that this is not in the context of what challenges the future demographics of China may pose to the Chinese government, or how it would overcome them; this is simply outlining the uncontestable insight that Chinese culture will adapt to and adopt increasing demands by the Chinese public on both public and private sectors to supplement traditional old-age care fiscally, medically, and through a variety of assisted, residential, institutional, or community care modalities.

As seen in the very article Pan links, because duh.

In 2012, there were fewer than three nursing home beds for every 100 elderly residents in Shanghai. And despite government pledges to provide thousands of extra beds by 2022, the problem remains equally acute today. Many downtown facilities have waiting lists stretching well over a year.

Shortages of in-home caretakers — who do the vast majority of care work in the city — are even more severe. A decade ago, surveys suggested Shanghai needed an extra 550,000 domestic workers to meet its elder care needs.

“My mother has three children and the three of us shared the responsibility of providing for her,” says Huang. “I can’t imagine what things will be like when I get too old to take care of myself. My child’s generation is the country’s first generation of single children. They’re going to deal with huge pressure.”

Care solutions for the elderly have only grown hundreds-fold in China since the market reforms. Clearly, as the elderly population booms and China continues to get richer and more assertive, the only plausible outcome is that they will, by the operation of some mystical and observably-declining cultural factors, cease to grow. :freak:

No, it doesn't take an expert to follow the crumbs and predict that the private industry will consolidate and rationalize and the expansion of the public safety net will at a minimum become a subject of ongoing debate. It doesn't take an expert because it happens everywhere that the elderly population booms. The Chinese are not magic space aliens, they're modern human beings. Just ask the Japanese and South Koreans how they're treating the 'family-only' model. Although, to be fair (???) to the South Koreans, they seem to be getting by in adopting the model of simply not giving a shit (https://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/asia/poor-and-on-their-own-south-korea-s-elderly-who-will--work-until-8577758). Actually, it's not wild to imagine the Chinese government endorsing such a 'solution', even in the case that SK later amends it.

For a proxy worth the comparison, Asian-American attitudes to nursing homes (the most 'extreme' option in long-term care):
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6403016/

Approximately 38% of the sample demonstrated willingness to use a nursing home. Higher odds for willingness were observed among those with advanced age, female gender, Korean ethnicity (compared with Chinese), better education, presence of a chronic medical condition, longer years of residence in the U.S., and lower levels of family solidarity.

Compared to polling on Americans in general, with the caveat that this refers to "preference" rather than "willingness":
https://www.longtermcarepoll.org/long-term-care-in-america-expectations-and-preferences-for-care-and-caregiving/

Most Americans age 40 and older (77 percent) would prefer to receive care in their own home, with far fewer preferring to receive care in a senior community (11 percent), a friend or family member’s home (4 percent), or a nursing home (4 percent). Among those who prefer to receive care in a home setting, there are gender differences in preferences for who provides that care: men would prefer to receive care from a spouse (51 percent vs. 33 percent), and women would prefer to receive care from their children (14 percent vs. 35 percent).

In conclusion Western society prioritizes individualism, whereas it is the sacred, immutable way of the esoteric Seres to uphold the collective.
:thinking2::thinking2::thinking2:

a completely inoffensive name

01-30-2021, 20:45

Isn't most Gamestop stock held long by institutional investors, like Blackrock (https://www.reuters.com/article/us-blackrock-investment-gamestop/blackrock-may-have-raked-in-2-4-billion-on-gamestops-retail-driven-stock-frenzy-idINKBN29W22T)? Screwing Wall Street Peter to pay Wall Street Paul...

Meme's aside, there are a wide range of reasons people are jumping in. Some are definitely treating it as a pump and dump. The guy who started the whole craze, u/DeepFuckingValue posted his prediction of a short squeeze over a year ago and has been posting daily screenshots showing he is still in until the squeeze absolutely kills the shorts, AKA Diamond Hands, TO THE MOON, HOLD UNTIL $1000.

But many people sucked into the memes are riding a sentiment that for the first time retail investors are able to make a real power play in the market and not be treated as two bit players. The rise of commission free apps like Robinhood has democratized financial markets to a degree I don't think people expected to happen. At the very least I don't think these hedge funds ever anticipated such a coordinated effort happening among retail.

So it's not even that some hedge funds win and some lose, the sentiment driving this is that for once regular joes can win over wall street investors at their own game and punish some for being greedy. Bulls get rich, bears get rich, pigs get slaughtered.
Keep in mind these are all middle class young people in 20s and 30s, we all got fucked in 2008 and remember how wall street was never taken to task but instead was given more of our tax dollars. The idea that wealth could actually start to move from wall street to retail is precious and is why the last few days have been a shitshow of brokers halting trades, class action lawsuits and politicians across the spectrum getting involved in the affair.

Montmorency

01-30-2021, 22:26

Maybe. but a lot of people find it hard to be sympathetic to bro-y young men (self-styled "degenerates") on Reddit with money to burn.

https://i.imgur.com/uFzzWnP.jpg

Sounded better in the original Deutsch.

Hooahguy

01-31-2021, 22:32

Definitely good to see that Dems aren't taking the 2009 approach to legislation, and have indicated (https://twitter.com/mmcauliff/status/1355961077213880324?s=20)that they will move forward with reconciliation for the Covid relief bill if the GOP wont get on board:

We cannot do the mistake of 2009 where they whittled down the program so that the amount of relief was so small that the recession lasted 4 or 5 years. And then on the ACA, when they spent a year, a year and a half negotiating and then didn't come to any agreement.

Definitely good to hear because the GOP's $600B plan that they came forward to negotiate with is a joke.

Hooahguy

02-02-2021, 03:03

I found this (https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/02/01/joe-biden-live-updates/#link-J2BXXTU4VVC33O2IXEOD427KK4) to be a pretty good infographic showing the difference between the Dem and GOP plans:

24318

With zero dollars going to state and local governments as well as zero to the child tax credit this isn't a serious proposal by the GOP and a nonstarter. I suppose they are just putting it forward for the sake of bipartisan appearances but not actually in good faith. I'm glad that Biden has clearly rejected (https://twitter.com/OKnox/status/1356411105300611078?s=20)it.

An issue that I havent seen discussed much is the impending redistricting efforts. I cant find the chart at the moment, but basically the GOP stands to really benefit, and will probably gain 6-8 seats from redistricting alone due to GOP-held state legislatures pledging to gerrymander where they can. So Dems only have the trifecta for the next two years and we need to move quickly as I have little faith that the Dems keep the House regardless of what is passed. The only factor that I can think of that could keep Dems the trifecta is how well Covid recovery goes. If it goes well, then there is a potential for holding the House, even if its a small chance.

Edit: Manchin has stated (https://twitter.com/sahilkapur/status/1356660891983478785?s=20) his support of Biden's Covid relief bill, so really all eyes are on Sinema now.

Report (https://twitter.com/seungminkim/status/1356679418018725890)

Per sources, Biden is telling Senate Democrats on their virtual lunch how he told Republican senators yesterday that their package was too small.

:rolleyes:

ReluctantSamurai

02-03-2021, 14:30

Campaigning for the 2022 Midterms has already begun:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CeDojL4cXqI&feature=youtu.be

Main article here:

https://www.politico.com/news/2021/02/02/qanon-gop-465157

Making an unusually early move to protect their narrow majority, House Democrats' campaign arm on Tuesday launched its first TV ad campaign, spotlightingsupporters of the fringe conspiracy theory — including those who stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6. It is the first step in a larger plan, orchestrated by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee's new chair, Sean Patrick Maloney of New York, to exploit the growing friction between Trump hard-liners and establishment Republicans in the GOP base, which Maloney sees as a major weak point for the party.

Party strategists are betting the right's embrace of the far-fetched conspiracy theory will be politically toxic and hamper their efforts to win back the House in 2022. Already, Democrats are seeing encouraging signs: Challengers in Republican-held districts are beginning to jump off the sidelines, citing the attack last month as a motivation for running.

ReluctantSamurai

02-06-2021, 00:29

Perhaps Manchin and Tester plan on on using the pipeline to ship vaccine??:

https://www.newsweek.com/senate-backs-keystone-xl-pipeline-democrats-snub-biden-1567048

Senators backed the symbolic amendment in a 52-48 (https://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=117&session=1&vote=00032) vote, with Sens. Joe Manchin (D-WV), the chairman of the energy committee, and Jon Tester (D-MT) voting with GOP lawmakers to back construction of the pipeline.

Take the GD money that will be wasted on this crap, and put it into Green Energy....Jeeezuz:no:

.......hmmmm, Joe Manchin voting in favor of fossil fuel? what a surprise....:inquisitive:

Montmorency

02-06-2021, 06:55

Psychoanalysis (https://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2021/02/radical-in-its-inanity#comment-5255461402) of moderates and institutionalists in government:

My theory, which is mine, is that the Senators who are resistant to this kind of thing are people who are having trouble pulling themselves away from America's civic religion.

We joke about the fecklessness and the out-of-touchness of politicians... but if you don't come from a rich background, getting into politics is hard. It's backbreaking work, with little money and little reward, and if you win local or even state office, usually the reward is a lot of work and pressure without a ton of compensation. It's only after you scratch and claw your way up that you acquire real power and influence.

Joe Manchin comes from a big family in a small, poor town. Sinema lived in an abandoned gas station for three years as a kid.

What inspires a lot of these people to invest the back-breaking effort to get into politics (among other things) is a real, true belief in the American civic religion, in the narratives and myths and institutions that surround them. These are people who look down the Mall from the Capitol, past the Washington Monument to the Lincoln Memorial, and genuinely feel a thrill of patriotism every time.

They feel that doing radical surgery to the hallowed institutions they serve in is a kind of betrayal of two and a half centuries of tradition; that there must be some better, purer way forward, or even better yet backward, to the (highly idiosyncratic and unusual) postwar Age of Bipartisan Comity, when the filibuster was only brought out by clear villains who were righteously defeated because a supermajority of Congress said "no; this will not stand."

There's a sense that changing the rules because you can't win is cheating, or debases the institution. You see this in sports; how many people absolutely blow their tops anytime the NFL or MLB proposes a rule change? There are still people who feel the designated hitter rule "defiles" the sport!

I don't think this is a conscious belief on the part of any of these folks. I think they have a very, very clear awareness that things are fucked up and bullshit; but their own faith in American institutions and our civic culture is, paradoxically, preventing them from taking steps to SAVE that culture. They look at the burning church and think "how can I make the church go back to before it was burned, the way I remember it" rather than thinking "the church IS burning. It's gonna need new stained glass windows and a new roof and a better fire suppression system and modern HVAC."

Or at least, that's my pathetic attempt at armchair analyses. I hope I'm right because the other plausible options I can think of are worse.

Personally I think it would have been more interesting to feed Trump incorrect information and see who he passes it off to.

Wouldn't most of the information a former president might be forwarded already be known to foreign intelligence services? I hear it's the methods, which a former President would not have access to, that are under particular scrutiny in spycraft.

I'm sure we will come to learn many things about the internals of the Trump administration.

a completely inoffensive name

02-09-2021, 06:20

Psychoanalysis (https://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2021/02/radical-in-its-inanity#comment-5255461402) of moderates and institutionalists in government:

Doubt all of that. If they were really so concerned with Institutions they would have learned a thing or two about the filibuster, it's ill-liberal origin, its relative scarcity except among racists and segregationists, how the current minoritarian wielding of the filibuster is even out of alignment with the Founding Fathers (hint: the senate was never meant to a '60 seat' chamber to pass legislation) (https://www.vox.com/21424582/filibuster-joe-biden-2020-senate-democrats-abolish-trump?utm_campaign=vox&utm_content=entry&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter).

It's all bullshit because they are simply afraid of two things:
1. Being accountable for legislation that would never pass cloture. They want to ride the middle and the filibuster lets them get away from taking a vote on policies that the majority of their party wants to promote but could hurt their re-election.
2. GOP will use the absence of the rule to destroy democracy as we know it.

The first is a case of being fucking cowards that love the prestige of being a Senator without actually having to make hard choices. Expose them for the cowards they are, make a decision on the floor and stand by your principles or get the fuck out of office.

The second is genuine fear, but as noted in the article it is precisely the constant lack of governing that makes fascism appealing to a public that sees Democratic government unable to accomplish anything.
"They would have been able to repeal Obamacare." Why didn't we fucking let them! If the GOP had actually snatched back the ACA in its entirety without any comprehensive plan to replace it would have been the biggest shit show in the world. Millions of people losing their healthcare is not good politics and would have been good anger for Dems to tap into. Hell, much of 2018 midterms was because of the attempt to repeal the ACA that had people watching CNN at 3am in the morning for the final vote and Sen. McCain's *thumbs down* 'no' gesture. How much longer will good people suffer from the brain worm that the GOP promotes that Obamacare is still bad and we have a much bigger and better plan we could have implemented..if it wasn't for Dems...and some RINOs....

Montmorency

02-09-2021, 06:41

Doubt all of that. If they were really so concerned with Institutions they would have learned a thing or two about the filibuster, it's ill-liberal origin, its relative scarcity except among racists and segregationists, how the current minoritarian wielding of the filibuster is even out of alignment with the Founding Fathers (hint: the senate was never meant to a '60 seat' chamber to pass legislation) (https://www.vox.com/21424582/filibuster-joe-biden-2020-senate-democrats-abolish-trump?utm_campaign=vox&utm_content=entry&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter).

It's all bullshit because they are simply afraid of two things:
1. Being accountable for legislation that would never pass cloture. They want to ride the middle and the filibuster lets them get away from taking a vote on policies that the majority of their party wants to promote but could hurt their re-election.
2. GOP will use the absence of the rule to destroy democracy as we know it.

The first is a case of being fucking cowards that love the prestige of being a Senator without actually having to make hard choices. Expose them for the cowards they are, make a decision on the floor and stand by your principles or get the fuck out of office.

The second is genuine fear, but as noted in the article it is precisely the constant lack of governing that makes fascism appealing to a public that sees Democratic government unable to accomplish anything.
"They would have been able to repeal Obamacare." Why didn't we fucking let them! If the GOP had actually snatched back the ACA in its entirety without any comprehensive plan to replace it would have been the biggest shit show in the world. Millions of people losing their healthcare is not good politics and would have been good anger for Dems to tap into. Hell, much of 2018 midterms was because of the attempt to repeal the ACA that had people watching CNN at 3am in the morning for the final vote and Sen. McCain's *thumbs down* 'no' gesture. How much longer will good people suffer from the brain worm that the GOP promotes that Obamacare is still bad and we have a much bigger and better plan we could have implemented..if it wasn't for Dems...and some RINOs....

I don't disagree with you, but the theory I reposted wasn't about institutions qua valuable institutions, it was about the personalities/backgrounds of the centrist Dems leading them to worship the Senate as they entered it as a key component of American Exceptionalism or the American Dream ("because you have to be asleep to believe it"). It's insufficient as a sole explanation, but I think it has some truth.

"They would have been able to repeal Obamacare." Why didn't we fucking let them!

HAHAHAHAHA

Dude McConnell is so incompetent he couldn't even repeal Obamacare with reconciliation.

That's just the thing, Republicans don't know how to govern, to build, only to destroy. There is no affirmative agenda they have waiting in the wings; they're totally unprepared to lead, given the opportunity.

If we think they could take advantage of a Dem first move on the filibuster by openly attempting to abolish SS (they couldn't do it in 2005), Medicare, abortion rights, whatever, then let the battle lines be drawn. Let the punks bring it on and make our day.

a completely inoffensive name

02-09-2021, 07:09

I don't disagree with you, but the theory I reposted wasn't about institutions qua valuable institutions, it was about the personalities/backgrounds of the centrist Dems leading them to worship the Senate as they entered it as a key component of American Exceptionalism or the American Dream ("because you have to be asleep to believe it"). It's insufficient as a sole explanation, but I think it has some truth.

But how can you worship the institution of the Senate and not understand the filibuster is not even an inherent part of it, more like a legislative cancer that has been growing on it slowly since the beginning. There is nothing about the filibuster that makes it inherently tied with the Senate as an institution since it was not around for the first 40 years after the Senate's conception and played no real part in legislative history until 15 years ago.

HAHAHAHAHA

Dude McConnell is so incompetent he couldn't even repeal Obamacare with reconciliation.

That's just the thing, Republicans don't know how to govern, to build, only to destroy. There is no affirmative agenda they have waiting in the wings; they're totally unprepared to lead, given the opportunity.

If we think they could take advantage of a Dem first move on the filibuster by openly attempting to abolish SS (they couldn't do it in 2005), Medicare, abortion rights, whatever, then let the battle lines be drawn. Let the punks bring it on and make our day.

What have we even been afraid of this whole time?

Montmorency

02-09-2021, 07:29

But how can you worship the institution of the Senate and not understand the filibuster is not even an inherent part of it, more like a legislative cancer that has been growing on it slowly since the beginning. There is nothing about the filibuster that makes it inherently tied with the Senate as an institution since it was not around for the first 40 years after the Senate's conception and played no real part in legislative history until 15 years ago.

ACIN, did you know that there are people who believe America is the greatest nation in the world and the Senate is the world's greatest deliberative body (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Senate#:~:text=Within%20the%20United%20States%2C%20the,%22world's%20greatest%20deliber ative%20body%22.)?

Like Senator Leahy from Vermont, who agitated to maintain Senate rules that would let Republicans block Dem judges, and promised to reinstate them if given the opportunity.

It's those people. It's a mindset.

What have we even been afraid of this whole time?

I guess all we had to fear was fear itself? At any rate, just like in those times appeasement has run its course and the moment is (over)ripe for open mobilization.

a completely inoffensive name

02-11-2021, 05:23

I guess all we had to fear was fear itself? At any rate, just like in those times appeasement has run its course and the moment is (over)ripe for open mobilization.

Following up on the article I posted from Ezra Klein, I am 80% through his book 'Why we are Polarized' and it's making a big impact on me. I highly suggest buying it on kindle and blasting through it, most of it you have already pointed out but later on there's juicy bits about how US government has only been effective at times of de facto single party rule where opposition parties had to come to the table for influence or get nothing.

Two statements that have shook my idea of good government, "campaigning is inherently detrimental to governing" and "American government works best when political competition is slim to none".

ReluctantSamurai

02-18-2021, 02:31

Montmorency

02-18-2021, 03:11

A little bit of preliminary fact-checking on Joe Biden's Wisconsin Town Hall, hosted last night on CNN:

https://www.cnn.com/2021/02/17/politics/fact-check-biden-cnn-town-hall-anderson-cooper-milwaukee/index.html

I realize the man has a lot on his plate, but if you're going to go in front of the American people, you should have the facts at your disposal.

Biden said the $7.25 per hour federal minimum wage is too low, then said soon after: "For example, if it went -- if we gradually increased it -- when we indexed it at $7.20, if we kept it indexed by -- to inflation, people would be making 20 bucks an hour right now. That's what it would be."
Facts First: This is false; the White House told CNN after the event that Biden got mixed up with another statistic about the minimum wage. Today's federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour, which took effect in 2009, would not be even close to $20 per hour if Congress had decided to link it to inflation. Adjusted for inflation, $7.25 in January 2009 was equal to $8.98 in January 2021.

Biden seems to have been referencing a typical pro-indexation argument that, had the minimum wage not dissociated from productivity growth (https://www.epi.org/publication/the-federal-minimum-wage-has-been-eroded-by-decades-of-inaction/), it would have been around $20 now. Based on those old trends.

Biden said of the US population of undocumented immigrants: "The vast majority of the people, those 11 million undocumented, they're not Hispanics; they're people who came on a visa -- who was able to buy a ticket to get in a plane and didn't go home. They didn't come across the Rio Grande swimming..."

Did he get confused about the controversy over "illegal" vs. "undocumented" ("there’s a whole range of things that relate to immigration")? Unauthorized border crossing is a criminal/civil offense, whereas overstaying a visa is not, and we have multiple programs and offices dealing with categories of asylum seekers (e.g. Temporary Protected Status).

Facts First: Biden got at least one of these statistics wrong -- in a way that made Trump look better, not worse, so Biden's inaccuracy appeared accidental, but we're noting it anyway. A White House official said that Biden's claim about "10 million doses a day" being available when he took office was meant to be a reference to the 10 million doses a week that were being sent to states as of the second week of Biden's term, up from 8.6 million a week when they took over.
The official said Biden's claim about "50 million doses" being available when he took office was a reference to the number of doses that had been distributed to states as of the end of January. That was less than two weeks into his term, but he could have been clearer on the time frame.
Biden's more dramatic claim here, that there was "nothing in the refrigerator" when he took office, has a solid factual basis, though Biden could again have been clearer about what he meant.

It fits in the same pattern, a longstanding one in the bigger picture: the unfortunate truth is that Biden has a tendency toward muddling together multiple ideas and facts in an impressionistic way when speaking generatively (remember the Democratic debates?). I can't say if it's a loss of sharpness over time.

Anderson Cooper: (55:49)
You just talked to China’s president-

Joe Biden: (55:51)
Yes, for two hours.

Anderson Cooper: (55:52)
What about the Uyghurs? What about the [crosstalk 00:55:55]

Joe Biden: (55:55)
We must speak up for human rights. It’s who we are. My comment to him was, and I know him well, and he knows me well. We are two our conversation.

Anderson Cooper: (56:07)
You talked about this to him?

Joe Biden: (56:08)
I talked about this too, and that’s not so much refugee, but I talked about it. I said, “Look… Chinese leaders, if you know anything about Chinese history, it has always been the time when China has been victimized by the outer world is when they haven’t been unified at home. So the central… Vastly overstated. The central principle of Xi Jinping is that there must be a united tightly-controlled China. And he uses his rationale for the things he does based on that. I pointed out to him, no American president can be sustained as a president if he doesn’t reflect the values of the United States. And so the idea, I’m not going to speak out against what he’s doing in Hong Kong, what he’s doing with the Uyghurs in Western mountains of China and Taiwan, the One-China policy by making it forceful.

Joe Biden: (57:04)
I said, and… He said… He gets it. Culturally, there are different norms at each country and their leaders are expected to follow. But my point was that when I came back from meeting with him and traveling 17,000 miles with him, when I was vice-president and he was the vice-president, and that’s how I got to know him so well, at the request of President Hu. Not a joke, not a joke. His predecessor, President Hu and President Obama wanted us to get to know one another because he was going to be the president. And I came back and said, “They’re going to end their one child policy, because they’re so xenophobic, they won’t let anybody else in, and more people are retired than working. How can they sustain economic growth when more people are retired?

:shrug:

Montmorency

02-27-2021, 03:41

Hooah, any word on the member-directed spending?

Expanding on what I noted in November, 2020 continued the trend of being an all-time low for split-ticket voting (https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/02/19/2020-saw-least-split-ticket-house-voting-decades/).

https://i.imgur.com/nAepJlx.gif

Hooahguy

02-27-2021, 04:16

Hooah, any word on the member-directed spending?

Not that I've heard, but to be honest I haven't been following it that closely- kinda taking a break from following politics in my free time.

Montmorency

02-27-2021, 05:27

Not that I've heard, but to be honest I haven't been following it that closely- kinda taking a break from following politics in my free time.

For (https://bipartisanpolicy.org/blog/the-power-of-the-purse-the-411-on-earmarks/) reference (https://www.rollcall.com/2021/02/23/k-street-eyes-a-return-of-earmarks-to-boost-business/).

Congressional earmarks practically built the modern lobbying business. And though the influence sector has endured a decade without them, the likely return of member-directed federal spending has sent cautious jubilation down K Street.

With earmarks poised for a likely comeback this Congress, lobbyists are eyeing new business opportunities. But they’re not expecting it to be a return to K Street’s high-flying days of yore, when lobbyists built empires out of the business of securing earmarks for clients.

Lawmakers, if they do bring back the practice of earmarking appropriations bills with the pots of member-directed spending, are likely only to allow the federal dollars to go to nonprofit organizations and local governments. And they’d likely be publicly disclosed as a way of preventing the scandal and corruption that led to earmarks’ official demise in 2011.

Still, lobbyists say even limited earmarks for nonprofits could spur new public-private partnerships, with businesses queuing up to collaborate on future projects.

“For advocacy in general, it’s going to be a positive, another avenue of advocacy for our clients and another potential way for helping clients meet their needs and working with lawmakers and working on projects in their districts and states, on bills that are must-pass bills,” said Ed Pagano, a lobbying partner at Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld and a former congressional and administration aide. “It’s another option for them to achieve their goals.”

Akin Gump is the top-grossing lobbying practice based on publicly available revenue reported under the Lobbying Disclosure Act. Over the past decade, Akin Gump and other law firm lobbying practices, such as Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck, edged out the formerly top-grossing firms such as Cassidy & Associates, which pioneered the business of earmark lobbying and had to restructure in their absence.

A Cassidy spokesperson did not provide comment. Another firm built largely around earmarking was Van Scoyoc Associates; a spokesperson for the firm declined to discuss the matter until after Congress has made a final decision and announced the parameters of the proposal.

Bottom line
Overall lobbying revenue dipped in 2011, after hitting a peak in 2010, according to an analysis of LDA reports by the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics. That drop, which has since rebounded, was likely due to a combination of factors, including the demise of formal earmarks, the trend of lobbyists to deregister and the ripples of the Great Recession catching up to K Street.

“Our clients are excited about the prospect of a return to earmarks, and we think we can be helpful to them with our advocacy there,” said Cristina Antelo, founder of the lobbying firm Ferox Strategies.

She noted that while her firm does work with some nonprofits, many of her clients have federal contracts. “For these, our lobbying on the Hill will be focused on helping the agencies fund the interests, technology and needs they have already determined they require for their own missions and that our clients can help accomplish,” she said.

Bringing back earmarks, even in a limited fashion, may also have other ripples on K Street. They may present more buy-in from rank-and-file lawmakers to back legislation they would otherwise oppose and may, therefore, increase bipartisan deals. It’s important to note, though, some Republicans already have voiced opposition to bringing earmarks back.

The politics of earmarks cuts both ways. Lawmakers who secure funding for projects in their districts or states can tout such measures as accomplishments. On the other hand, earmarks can make for fodder in opposition ads, given past scandals involving earmarks and campaign contributions. Before he left office, President Donald Trump pardoned former Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham, R-Calif., who went to jail over a scandal involving earmarks.

Dead earmarks society
Still, lobbyists see potential arguments in favor of lawmakers steering public funds.

“Congress needs to reassert its power of the purse and its oversight responsibility over the executive branch,” said lobbyist Michael Herson, who runs American Defense International. As for whether a likely return of earmarks might serve as a boost to his business, he said that “for now, there are more questions than answers.”

Paul Brathwaite of the lobbying firm Federal Street Strategies said it all comes down to the kind of earmarks lawmakers seek.

He represents a council of historically Black colleges and universities and said such entities may seek funding, in the form of earmarks, especially when it comes to improving medical treatment. He noted that there are only medical schools at four HBCUs and said expanding such operations could improve patient outcomes, including when it comes to maternal health. Black women, for example, suffer higher rates of maternal mortality than white women.

“People can ridicule earmarks, but if we identify these as national priorities, I think it’s defensible to say, ‘In 2021, women shouldn’t die because they’re having children, and we are going to try to figure out how to bring better health care access,’” Brathwaite said. “These are the kinds of investments that folks should be able to rally around and say that’s a good use of money.”

Some lobbyists remain skeptical about the process of earmarks’ possible return this Congress. Rich Gold of the lobbying firm Holland & Knight has been advocating a resurrection in congressional earmarks for years, as part of an odd-bedfellows collaboration, à la a dead earmarks society.

He said his club had put in a lot of time and effort into fixing some of the problems with earmarks and added that lawmakers “haven’t reached out to anybody I can tell who has a lot of expertise in this area.”

Another member of that dead earmarks club, Craig Holman of the liberal organization Public Citizen, said he believes earmarks are likely to return, though he doesn’t expect lawmakers to adopt his recommendations, such as banning earmarks for campaign contributors.

Prohibiting earmarks for for-profit companies, and requiring disclosure, Holman said, “does address some of the most egregious conflicts of interest.” He expects Public Citizen, depending on the details, to endorse the plan, even if it wasn’t the one he lobbied for.

“If you can remove the corruption element and conflicts of interest, you can set up a system where members of Congress will negotiate over legislation,” Holman said. “It’s been known to cross party lines. It would help reduce the polarization that has just made Congress absolutely dysfunctional.”

I just wonder what's been worked out with Manchin and cohort behind the scenes.

ReluctantSamurai

02-27-2021, 14:47

I will be interested to see what excuse the Democrats use in 2022 & 2024 to explain to voters why they didn't do whatever it took, including a VP override of the parliamentarian's exclusion of the $15/hr minimum wage, to fulfill their campaign promise. Biden is already showing himself to be rather weak-kneed when it comes to imposing his will on Congress....:no:

https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/540640-biden-disappointed-in-senate-parliamentarian-ruling-but-respects

White House Chief of Staff Ron Klain (https://thehill.com/people/ron-klain) said the administration would not try to overrule the Senate parliamentarian if she decides an increase in the minimum wage must be stripped from a coronavirus relief package. “Certainly that’s not something we would do. We’re going to honor the rules of the Senate and work within that system to get this bill passed,” Klain said on MSBNC Wednesday.

The White House said Thursday that President Biden (https://thehill.com/people/joe-biden) is “disappointed” that the Senate parliamentarian ruled a minimum wage increase could not be included in a coronavirus relief bill but said the president would respect the decision.

Hey Mr. President...you know who's disappointed? The 900,000 people who would immediately jump above poverty level earnings, and another 17 million workers who would then make at least some semblance of a real wage. And if this trend of spineless waffling by Democrats continues, and who seem to have quickly forgotten their campaign promises, your control in Washington is going to be very short-lived....

Democrats are living in fantasy land if they think they can get a minimum wage bill passed by a floor vote which would require 60 votes in the Senate.

Hooahguy

02-27-2021, 17:21

rory_20_uk

02-27-2021, 18:17

Hooahguy

02-27-2021, 18:28

I read about an interesting idea that would be able to go through the 50+1 vote approach that appears to be the only thing your Federal Government can really achieve these days and this was basically tweaking the tax system to incentivise companies to increase the minimum wage or else end up paying more in taxes - definitely a more complex approach but I guess you have to work with what you've got.
This is my thinking as well. Might even be able to get Manchin on board as well. Another path forward may be having the minimum wage adjusted to cost of living, not a flat number like $15. But to be honest, Id rather the minimum wage thing be temporarily dropped if it means passing the damn Covid relief bill. Federal unemployment increases expire in a couple weeks and the process has taken long enough. There are two other opportunities to get reconciliation bills through this year and one of the others can be used to work on a minimum wage increase, such as an infrastructure bill. Who knows.

If voters are happy with what Republicans do (and the debacle in Texas is a key example of that) then well fair enough I guess - if you would rather have occasional brownouts than an integrated power grid, pay thousands for spot electricity prices and no mechanism to get companies to invest in the infrastructure than risk "socialism" then that is a choice - one that makes no sense to me but the voters have clearly seen what happens and in the next election will be making a decision.

~:smoking:
Bold of you to assume Texan voters will remember this when 2022 and 2024 come around.

ReluctantSamurai

02-27-2021, 20:03

Except that Manchin sided (https://www.newsweek.com/joe-manchin-stands-senate-parliamentarian-new-showdown-furious-progressives-1572370) with the parliamentarian even if the parliamentarian was overruled so it would be dead on arrival anyways. Sigh.

Manchin is turning out to be the pain-in-ass I thought he was going to be, but not on issues I figured he'd flex his power on...:stare: I get the impression Biden wasn't for the $15/hr increase either...:shrug:

I'd be curious to know if Biden spoke with either Manchin or Sinema. I find it hard to believe that some arm-twisting couldn't have gotten the job done. Noone heard a peep when the GOP used reconciliation to pass the big tax cut for the rich back in 2017. Democrats had better start growing some cahonees, and soon....:inquisitive:

Montmorency

02-27-2021, 20:03

Couple things (https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2021/02/15-minimum-wage-covid-bill-overrule-parliamentarian-explained.html):

The House just passed the stimulus bill, and it includes the $15 minimum wage.

The incentive strategy rory mentioned is Sanders' method (https://twitter.com/samstein/status/1365107497086894081) (though tbf he's not the only one with ideas in this domain).

Pelosi (https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/house-narrowly-passes-massive-covid-124144050.html) claims that $15 minimum wage is "inevitable."

“It is inevitable to all of us, the $15 minimum wage will be achieved,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said on the House floor late Friday, “even if it is inconceivable to some, it is inevitable to us – and we will work diligently to shorten the distance between the inevitable and the inconceivable.”

Hooahguy

02-27-2021, 20:18

I'd be curious to know if Biden spoke with either Manchin or Sinema. I find it hard to believe that some arm-twisting couldn't have gotten the job done. Noone heard a peep when the GOP used reconciliation to pass the big tax cut for the rich back in 2017. Democrats had better start growing some cahonees, and soon....:inquisitive:
Manchin's schtick is "look how independent I am from mainstream Dems." I highly doubt any arm-twisting could bring him in line, and I'd imagine that Sinema is the same way. But here is where I think there is an opening: infrastructure, which Manchin has spoken about wanting to spend really big on. Perhaps there something can be done with the minimum wage within an infrastructure bill, coupled with re-introducing earmarks. Sadly I think the fight for raising the minimum wage within the Covid relief bill is a lost cause for the moment. Better to fall back a bit and regroup rather than dash against the rocks...

ReluctantSamurai

02-27-2021, 22:18

Manchin's schtick is "look how independent I am from mainstream Dems."

So...the Democratic version of Mitch McConnell? Except you block your own party's agenda??

“even if it is inconceivable to some, it is inevitable to us – and we will work diligently to shorten the distance between the inevitable and the inconceivable.”

News Flash Nancy Pelosi....you don't have a lot of time.:lost:

a completely inoffensive name

02-27-2021, 22:43

So...the Democratic version of Mitch McConnell? Except you block your own party's agenda??

The existing rules are the only thing keeping a Dem in WV.

Hooahguy

02-27-2021, 22:47

As frustrating as Manchin is, without him there would be no Dem control of the Senate in the first place. It sucks, but its the cards we were dealt.

Montmorency

02-28-2021, 01:35

I think the evidence so far is that the caucus is broadly united on agenda items like a minimum wage increase, but Manchin and Sinema hold the veto. Which is obvious and something I warned about before the election: it would take a miracle to pass landmark legislation with 51 Senators, let alone 50. (At least we've proven the votes for a minimum wage increase exist in the House even with a sinew of a majority.)

I just hope the conservatives are a transactional sort and that killing the minimum wage increase opens the door for the next item on the agenda.

In other news:

Summary (https://twitter.com/NumbersMuncher/status/1364029946876854272) of recent polls of how many Republicans believe the election was stolen from Donald Trump:

USA Today/Suffolk: 73%
Quinnipiac 76%
Gallup 83%
CNN 75%
Monmouth 72%
Fox News 68%

Hooahguy

02-28-2021, 01:52

It was over a decade ago, but during the ACA debate of 2009 it was a single senator, Lieberman, who killed off the public option in the bill. A single senator carries a lot of weight.

I just hope the conservatives are a transactional sort and that killing the minimum wage increase opens the door for the next item on the agenda.

Sadly I think the vast majority of them, including the "reasonable" ones, are totally fine with giving Dems zero wins.

Montmorency

02-28-2021, 02:08

It was over a decade ago, but during the ACA debate of 2009 it was a single senator, Lieberman, who killed off the public option in the bill. A single senator carries a lot of weight.

Sadly I think the vast majority of them, including the "reasonable" ones, are totally fine with giving Dems zero wins.

Just for the record, but the Dems had 59/60 Senators 10 or 11 years ago. Not limiting/scrapping the filibuster, not doing more with reconciliation, that was purely the caucus consensus in itself, partly because we had a surfeit of Manchin types. Thankfully it's not as bad anymore.

ReluctantSamurai

02-28-2021, 03:00

...it would take a miracle to pass landmark legislation with 51 Senators, let alone 50.

I will bet the farm that when the discussion comes up for a new fighter jet to replace the 1 TRILLION DOLLAR disaster known as the F-35, there will be no shortage of senator votes from both sides required to fund the new aircraft. And these same congressmen/women can't agree on bettering the employment conditions for millions of Americans by raising the minimum wage. Is it any wonder why folks hate big government?

a completely inoffensive name

02-28-2021, 07:43

I will bet the farm that when the discussion comes up for a new fighter jet to replace the 1 TRILLION DOLLAR disaster known as the F-35, there will be no shortage of senator votes from both sides required to fund the new aircraft. And these same congressmen/women can't agree on bettering the employment conditions for millions of Americans by raising the minimum wage. Is it any wonder why folks hate big government?

Defense spending is a jobs guarantee for a lot of STEM jobs. Who cares about the F-35, do any of us expect WW3 to break out between US and China and not end in a nuclear holocaust?

rory_20_uk

02-28-2021, 13:21

Bold of you to assume Texan voters will remember this when 2022 and 2024 come around.

That too is a choice. If the people there are happy to elect politicians who have not the slightest interest in sorting out the mess, and instead just want to blame renewables / democrats / socialists then the majority of voters have chosen the mess they're in - or at the very least this is not an issue that they are concerned with as others (which is one of the many flaws in FPTP for the consumer and one of the best feature for politicians).

~:smoking:

rory_20_uk

02-28-2021, 13:29

I will bet the farm that when the discussion comes up for a new fighter jet to replace the 1 TRILLION DOLLAR disaster known as the F-35, there will be no shortage of senator votes from both sides required to fund the new aircraft. And these same congressmen/women can't agree on bettering the employment conditions for millions of Americans by raising the minimum wage. Is it any wonder why folks hate big government?

It isn't a problem with Big Government, it is a problem with Corrupt Government. The only thing that benefits from shrinking government is those who already have - so big companies and high net worth individuals; unchecked local government can be equally corrupt and so strong, independent oversight should be what is sought for, not making things worse.

~:smoking:

Hooahguy

02-28-2021, 18:35

Defense spending is a jobs guarantee for a lot of STEM jobs. Who cares about the F-35, do any of us expect WW3 to break out between US and China and not end in a nuclear holocaust?
Also valuable manufacturing jobs. Which is why Bernie worked to ensure that parts for the F-35 were manufactured in Vermont.

That too is a choice. If the people there are happy to elect politicians who have not the slightest interest in sorting out the mess, and instead just want to blame renewables / democrats / socialists then the majority of voters have chosen the mess they're in - or at the very least this is not an issue that they are concerned with as others (which is one of the many flaws in FPTP for the consumer and one of the best feature for politicians).

~:smoking:
As I discussed before, the modern GOP is rooted in culture war resentment rather than actual policy, with their policy goals boiling down to "whatever will make the left cry today."

a completely inoffensive name

03-01-2021, 20:45

Massive stumble by Andrew Yang in his bid for NYC mayor. https://twitter.com/AndrewYang/status/1366420403594362883

According to multiple sources on the ground the A train does not in fact take you to the Bronx, you need to transfer at 125th street to B or D train to get there.

Clearly not a man of the people.

Hooahguy

03-01-2021, 20:51

a completely inoffensive name

03-01-2021, 21:28

I can't be the only one who thinks he is trying way too hard to appear to be a "real" New Yorker.

I'm not going to lie, I really like the guy and I enjoy his try-hard attitude towards being a people person.
Out of any politician, his personality just really keys into what I am looking for.

It doesn't really matter to me if he is just learning the NYC subway, that fact is he thinks he needs to embrace it and needs to learn and meet New Yorkers. That's a good thing you want out of a politician. Here comes Monty to scorn me, but you can have all the best policies in the world, but being a disengaged wonk with no empathic connection with constituents is bad.

Montmorency

03-01-2021, 21:33

I'm not going to lie, I really like the guy and I enjoy his try-hard attitude towards being a people person.
Out of any politician, his personality just really keys into what I am looking for.

It doesn't really matter to me if he is just learning the NYC subway, that fact is he thinks he needs to embrace it and needs to learn and meet New Yorkers. That's a good thing you want out of a politician. Here comes Monty to scorn me, but you can have all the best policies in the world, but being a disengaged wonk with no empathic connection with constituents is bad.

Yang hasn't really demonstrated advantages in either domain.

Also, no offense, but ACIN, it's demeaning to New Yorkers to think that riding the subway makes anyone a man of the people. Almost literally everyone in NYC uses the subway at some point. Bloomberg famously rode the subway to work each day.

rory_20_uk

03-01-2021, 21:45

As I discussed before, the modern GOP is rooted in culture war resentment rather than actual policy, with their policy goals boiling down to "whatever will make the left cry today."

And if making perceived "leftists" (or as the rest of the world knows then, "right of centre") cry is more important than massive electricity bills and in some cases dying of hypothermia well... that's their call.

~:smoking:

a completely inoffensive name

03-01-2021, 21:57

Yang hasn't really demonstrated advantages in either domain.

Also, no offense, but ACIN, it's demeaning to New Yorkers to think that riding the subway makes anyone a man of the people. Almost literally everyone in NYC uses the subway at some point. Bloomberg famously rode the subway to work each day.

Uhh whatever he is doing seems to be working so far: https://www.scribd.com/document/492194557/Yang-Mayoral-Topline-1-20-21
One of the best fav/unfav ratio, ranked choice poll put him as the winner at over 60% in the 10th round.

Use of public transportation is not a sufficient criteria to be a man of the people, but it is a necessary one. It's not the only thing he pushes either, he is hitting up bodegas/bakeries (which I find the most boring of his content), speaking out against anti-Asian violence which seems to be an emerging NYC topic this past week and is asking for an independent investigation into Cuomo with an emphasis on believing the women's accounts.

a completely inoffensive name

03-01-2021, 22:10

Bloomberg famously rode the subway to work each day.

Always a caveat isn't there? https://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/01/nyregion/01bloomberg.html?hp

Montmorency

03-01-2021, 22:18

Uhh whatever he is doing seems to be working so far: https://www.scribd.com/document/492194557/Yang-Mayoral-Topline-1-20-21
One of the best fav/unfav ratio, ranked choice poll put him as the winner at over 60% in the 10th round.

Use of public transportation is not a sufficient criteria to be a man of the people, but it is a necessary one. It's not the only thing he pushes either, he is hitting up bodegas/bakeries (which I find the most boring of his content), speaking out against anti-Asian violence which seems to be an emerging NYC topic this past week and is asking for an independent investigation into Cuomo with an emphasis on believing the women's accounts.

None of that is distinguishing if you pause, but yeah, I showed you some of that favorable polling a few weeks ago IIRC (the one you linked is sponsored by Yang's campaign). In a couple months things should start getting properly settled in the rankings as the campaigns proper get underway, and we'll see how the major candidates stand. Remember, the NYC mayoral clowncar is ~ the 2019 Democratic primary clowncar.

...

a completely inoffensive name

03-01-2021, 22:31

Remember, the NYC mayoral clowncar is ~ the 2019 Democratic primary clowncar.

If you go by that analogy though, the front runner everyone expected to win ended up winning once the 6 'no-hopes' finally dropped out.

Montmorency

03-02-2021, 01:44

If you go by that analogy though, the front runner everyone expected to win ended up winning once the 6 'no-hopes' finally dropped out.

You're confident Yang won't be the Sanders-analogue, or Harris-analogue, here? Needs more data.

Montmorency

03-02-2021, 06:23

Whoa

https://static01.nyt.com/images/2021/03/01/nyregion/01nycuomo-accuser2/01nycuomo-accuser2-articleLarge.jpg?quality=75&auto=webp&disable=upscale

Hooahguy

03-02-2021, 15:54

Re (https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/541137-liberals-on-fire-over-failure-on-15-minimum-wage): abolishing the filibuster:

Manchin on Monday signaled growing frustration with questions about his position.

Asked if he might change his mind on the filibuster at some point, he turned around and yelled at reporters: “Never!”

“Jesus Christ! What don’t you understand about never?” he grumbled.

No bully pulpit will change this unless we somehow flip 2 more senate seats. And more relevant to the minimum wage, there might be no choice but to go to a lower number as Manchin wants. Or perhaps index it to the local cost of living.

ReluctantSamurai

03-02-2021, 16:10

Joe Biden is turning out to be even weaker than I thought. Already he has backed off two of his campaign promises when the going got tough (the other being significant reduction of student loan debt).

First, the federal $15/hr minimum wage increase. Only twice in the last 25 years has an increase in wages been voted down:

https://ballotpedia.org/Minimum_wage_on_the_ballot

Of the ballot measures that did pass, only a handful did not recieve at least 60% of the vote. The most recent ballot in Florida calling for a raise to $15/hr, won by a 61 to 39 margin. For obvious reasons, wage increases are popular with working people.

Now we have a newly elected president being held hostage by one or two senators, despite making this statement on the campaign trail last year:

https://www.wwlp.com/news/biden-pushes-for-increasing-minimum-wage-to-15-an-hour/

“Fifteen dollars should be a minimum wage in the United States of America. Period,” Biden said.

And then doubled down by posting this on his website:

As Vice President, Biden helped get state and local laws increasing the minimum wage across the finish line – including in New York State – and has supported eliminating the tipped minimum wage. He firmly believes all Americans are owed a raise, and it’s well past time we increase the federal minimum wage to $15 across the country. This increase would include workers who aren’t currently earning the minimum wage, like the farmworkers who grow our food and domestic workers who care for our aging and sick and for those with disabilities. As president, Biden will also support indexing the minimum wage to the median hourly wage so that low-wage workers’ wages keep up with those of middle income workers.

So instead of fighting to make good on a campaign promise, Biden and several Democratic senators are simply running up the white flag. The parliamentarian issue is an out right lie used by the Democrats:

https://www.dailyposter.com/p/breaking-secret-memo-shows-how-harris

The development is not catastrophic for the $15 minimum wage provision — if Harris simply uses her power to ignore the opinion and clear the path for the measure she has long insisted she supports.

“It's been 12 years since we’ve raised the minimum wage, and if we’re going to make those promises, we have to be able to deliver on them,” Democratic Rep. Pramila Jayapal said (https://www.commondreams.org/news/2021/02/25/not-gonna-fly-jayapal-warns-democrats-against-using-advice-unelected-parliamentarian) Wednesday on MSNBC. “Because, I'll tell you what, in two years... when people vote in the midterms, you’re not gonna be able to say, ‘Well, I’m sorry, we couldn’t raise the minimum wage because the parliamentarian ruled that we couldn't do it.’ That's not gonna fly.”

It's been done in the past (ignoring the parliamentarian rule) and could be done now if Democrats had the balls to fight for what the people of America want. But Biden is starting to show his true corporate politicain colors by saying he respects the parliamentarian’s decision, partly due to pressure from business groups:

https://thehill.com/business-a-lobbying/535957-business-groups-prepare-for-lobbying-effort-against-raising-the-minimum

So in a defininte walking back of a prime campaign promise, White House Chief of Staff had this to say:

In an MSNBC interview (https://twitter.com/EugeneDaniels2/status/1365104558033240068) on Wednesday, Klain said that if the parliamentarian advises Democrats against including the minimum wage hike, the White House will not want Democrats to move ahead with it. If Harris refuses to use her power, that decision could leave workers who are paid poverty wages and toiling in hazardous conditions during the pandemic to wait indefinitely for better pay.

What a bunch of crap. Now I'm no expert on Senate parliamentary procedures, but this seems to suggest, that if the Dems had any balls, they'd at least try this:

“What would probably happen is a senator would appeal the ruling of the chair and then the full Senate would vote on whether to sustain the appeal,” it says. “The Chair’s ruling would be upheld as long as there are not 60 affirmative votes to sustain the appeal. So, if the majority could hold enough members together (less than 60 affirmative votes to sustain the appeal), the ruling that runs counter to the Parliamentarian’s advice would be upheld.”

The memo continues:

The same memo also warns against Harris accepting the parliamentarian’s advice and Senate Democrats then pretending to push for the new minimum wage as part of the deliberations. In that situation, the memo suggests Democrats would be setting the minimum wage measure up for defeat.

“If in the same scenario, the chair followed the parliamentarian’s advice (and) a senator from the majority party (in favor of the provision at issue) were to appeal that ruling, then it would also take 60 affirmative votes to overturn the chair’s ruling,” says the memo. “Thus, the majority would be in a weaker position by doing it this way, because they would need to muster 60 affirmative votes to overturn the chair.”

So instead of fighting tooth-and-nail, even if you lose in the end, you can point to specific members of your own party and hold them accountable for the debacle (ie Manchin and Sinema). The voters of America don't give a damn that you are "fighting our guts out" to get a scandal-plagued nominee (Neera Tanden) appointed to the Office of Management and Budget.

Get the federal minimum wage increased to $15/hr, Joe Biden. PERIOD.

Geezus I hate politcs....:soapbox:

Hooahguy

03-02-2021, 19:27

Except that Manchin doesnt give a :daisy: about Harris overruling the Parliamentarian. He won't vote for a $15 minimum wage. It would be a poison pill that destroys the Covid relief bill because where would the 50th vote come from? Romney? Yes, its insanely frustrating that one or two senators hold so much power but that's how it is, and no amount of ranting will change that.

Also did he back off student debt forgiveness? IIRC, he campaigned on forgiveness of up to $10k and it appears he is sticking to that.

ReluctantSamurai

03-02-2021, 20:16

Except that Manchin doesnt give a :daisy: about Harris overruling the Parliamentarian. He won't vote for a $15 minimum wage.

I realize this. Correct me if I'm wrong: Bernie puts the $15/hr raise in the bill, and it gets voted down. Now you can point to all who voted against it, including Manchin and Sinema (if she follows suit), and say these Congresspeople don't want to make life better for Americans. Then you go back, remove it from the bill, and hold another vote where the bill likely passes.

Otherwise you give Republicans the ammunition to hammer you about reneging on a campaign promise, and they can even diss Bernie for not even putting it in in the first place. Seems to me to be a lose-lose course to take. Even worse, you open the door to the possibility of the GOP getting their own bill (Josh Hawley's) onto the floor:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/sarahhansen/2021/02/26/republican-sen-josh-hawley-proposes-legislation-requiring-15-minimum-wage-for-billion-dollar-companies

It's also painfully obvious, that Manchin doesn't give a :daisy: about VP Harris, Joe Biden, or anyone else but himself. So put the bill to a vote with the $15/hr minimum wage included, let his vote be logged as a nay, then let him answer to his own constituents who I'm sure would gladly welcome a raise.

Democrats are just effing stupid.....

Also did he back off student debt forgiveness? IIRC, he campaigned on forgiveness of up to $10k and it appears he is sticking to that.

What he said was this:

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/feb/25/joe-biden-student-debt-american-students

For the record, he campaigned on two distinct planks. One: “immediate” cancellation of $10,000 for every borrower as a form of Covid relief. Two: the cancellation of all undergraduate student loans for debt-holders who attended public universities and HBCUs and who earn up to $125,000 (https://joebiden.com/racial-economic-equity/) a year. Keeping these two promises is the absolute minimum the Biden administration needs to do to keep the public’s trust.

And that whole town hall thing was a rambling disaster, IMHO....

Hooahguy

03-02-2021, 20:55

I realize this. Correct me if I'm wrong: Bernie puts the $15/hr raise in the bill, and it gets voted down. Now you can point to all who voted against it, including Manchin and Sinema (if she follows suit), and say these Congresspeople don't want to make life better for Americans. Then you go back, remove it from the bill, and hold another vote where the bill likely passes.

Theoretically its a fine plan, but I dont think it will work because Manchin doesnt really care about such messaging. He would laugh at a campaign aimed at him about his $15 minimum wage vote.

Or perhaps instead of antagonizing him in a move that won't have the desired effect anyways, we could try again on another bill that Manchin really wants like an infrastructure bill. Just my two cents.

ReluctantSamurai

03-02-2021, 21:06

we could try again on another bill that Manchin really wants like an infrastructure bill.

You do that anyway. I would not underestimate how the folks of W. Virginia might feel. All the BS rhetoric about upholding a parliamentary procedure put in place by a long-dead W. Virginia senator, pales when compared to the financial hardships they are facing...as the recent Harris interview at WSAZ-TV shows. I'm sure he already po'd by that very interview.

And besides, who's the president? Biden or Manchin? Middle-of-the-Road Joe Biden better stop kissing his ass, and start playing hard-ball, or this crap will just continue. My 2 cents....

Hooahguy

03-02-2021, 21:21

All the BS rhetoric about upholding a parliamentary procedure put in place by a long-dead W. Virginia senator, pales when compared to the financial hardships they are facing...
Manchin thinks he is working in those people's interest. He probably believes that a $15 minimum wage would decimate rural small businesses. I saw the recent poll that a majority in WV want a $15 so he is obviously wrong, but its what he believes and he clearly isnt going to budge. Biden isn't a king and the bully pulpit has limitations as we clearly see.

Seamus Fermanagh

03-02-2021, 23:00

Manchin thinks he is working in those people's interest. He probably believes that a $15 minimum wage would decimate rural small businesses. I saw the recent poll that a majority in WV want a $15 so he is obviously wrong, but its what he believes and he clearly isnt going to budge. Biden isn't a king and the bully pulpit has limitations as we clearly see.

Manchin's worries on small businesses and the $15 minimum are not without some support. Though overall views are mixed (https://www.cpapracticeadvisor.com/payroll/news/12406512/how-the-15-minimum-wage-is-affecting-small-businesses).

a completely inoffensive name

03-02-2021, 23:53

Manchin's worries on small businesses and the $15 minimum are not without some support. Though overall views are mixed (https://www.cpapracticeadvisor.com/payroll/news/12406512/how-the-15-minimum-wage-is-affecting-small-businesses).

Look, this obsession with small business has driven policy so far off course. We all like the idea of mom and pop shops, but that doesn't mean we should give them carte blanche to treat their employees in a substandard way.
There are plenty of benefits we can implement that scale with size and scope to make small and medium business more competitive with the big players. Allowing them to pay poverty wages is not one of them.

ReluctantSamurai

03-02-2021, 23:57

Biden isn't a king and the bully pulpit has limitations as we clearly see.

This isn't about being a king, it's about sending a message to Manchin. If he wants to flex his newfound gravitas to block legislation that the majority of US citizens want, and that was a major campaign promise made by Democrats, then he will be called out every single time. You keep saying Biden should wait for some nebulous transportation bill that Manchin has a strong interest in to attach a minimum wage amendment. Who's to say that any such bill comes along (and likely too late to benefit Americans in immediate need or Democratic power), and who's to say if it comes to a parliamentary issue again, that Manchin won't vote the same way?

I'll make you a friendly .org wager: Sometime in the next two years (presuming the Dems don't get some watered down version of their own), the Republicans come up with their own minimum wage bill that gets passed, therefore putting a nail in the coffin of Democratic control of both houses of Congress. I've already referenced one by Josh Hawley....JOSH HAWLEY for gods sake! The wager: a $50 contribution to the ORG.

Though overall views are mixed (https://www.cpapracticeadvisor.com/payroll/news/12406512/how-the-15-minimum-wage-is-affecting-small-businesses).

So depending on the accuracy of that:

As the above graphic depicts, the vast majority of small business owners support the $15 minimum wage increase, with only 17 percent opposing it. Yet 15.4 percent are unsure if they endorse the policy or not, which might be directly attributed to some owners not even being aware of the new policy.

[...]it's notable that 67.6 percent of small business owners are supportive of a change that will cost them several extra dollars an hour.

A combined 41.8 percent of small business owners indicated that the $15 minimum wage hike will either be "great" or make things "slightly better" for their small business. In comparison, only 27.4 percent of poll participants believed the policy change will make things either "slightly worse" or "very bad" for their operation.

In terms of those who think the impact will be negative, we proposed a follow-up question that asked them if they think their small business will survive.

These results were not as encouraging. Despite 38.69 percent of respondents thinking their small business will survive, 18.25 percent believe it will not, and 43.07 percent lack the confidence to make a decision either way.

Meh...business owners deciding on whether to grant a wage increase is never a good thing, IMHO.

Better to look at what's happened in places that have already raised minimum wages, some significantly:

https://www.yahoo.com/now/happened-places-raised-minimum-wage-194711258.html

The dire consequences the naysayers to wage increases, haven't been borne out by the facts....:shrug:

a completely inoffensive name

03-03-2021, 00:15

I'll make you a friendly .org wager: Sometime in the next two years (presuming the Dems don't get some watered down version of their own), the Republicans come up with their own minimum wage bill that gets passed, therefore putting a nail in the coffin of Democratic control of both houses of Congress. I've already referenced one by Josh Hawley....JOSH HAWLEY for gods sake! The wager: a $50 contribution to the ORG.

I'll take that wager, cause you are dead wrong and your analysis of the situation is flawed imo.

ReluctantSamurai

03-03-2021, 00:49

I'll take that wager

You're on...:2thumbsup: I hope I lose because that would mean the Democrats got off their collective lazy asses, and actually did something for the people who just put them in control of our government.

...cause you are dead wrong and your analysis of the situation is flawed imo

I certainly could be, but explain it to me anyway....:stare:

spmetla

03-03-2021, 01:44

a completely inoffensive name

03-03-2021, 01:51

I certainly could be, but explain it to me anyway....:stare:

Sure, take this statement for example:
"I realize this. Correct me if I'm wrong: Bernie puts the $15/hr raise in the bill, and it gets voted down. Now you can point to all who voted against it, including Manchin and Sinema (if she follows suit), and say these Congresspeople don't want to make life better for Americans. Then you go back, remove it from the bill, and hold another vote where the bill likely passes.

Otherwise you give Republicans the ammunition to hammer you about reneging on a campaign promise, and they can even diss Bernie for not even putting it in in the first place. Seems to me to be a lose-lose course to take. Even worse, you open the door to the possibility of the GOP getting their own bill (Josh Hawley's) onto the floor"

Forcing a pointless vote for a bill that won't pass wastes valuable time and only sows division within the party. Why would you be amenable (pretend you are Manchin) to playing the game of give and take if your own party is trying to single you out as the cause for all the world's problems. You think it holds them responsible but no one cares about individual votes. Voters care about what a party delivers, not what they attempt to deliver. And this is where most of your arguments fall apart.

Manchin holds the cards, end of story. This is political power. If he doesn't want $15 min wage in the bill, then trying to override the parliamentarian, making him look like a jackass or the bad guy does nothing but make the party look ungovernable. It makes individual senators feel insecure about the respect they command. These things matter to the human individuals who are ultimately making these choices.

The GOP always says they have a better plan and they never do. Any such plan would come from establishment GOP like Romney and would have zero support from the Trumpists who just want to burn the deep state down. It would have zero support from the Progressives in the Senate and thus never hit the floor and "give the point" to the GOP.

They always say that Democrats failed to govern, it's always a lie. "Biden had the worst first month as president of all time." -Trump at CPAC. Are you that afraid of GOP PR that you would rather waste everyone's fucking time on symbolic bullshit? Just so we can be super duper absolutely, mega, certain that the GOP are lying bastards?

It is what it is, you should be spending your rage on local campaigns/politics rather than getting mad at a big tent party for not magically unifying on all issues to push the ideal agenda in a 50/50 Senate.

a completely inoffensive name

03-03-2021, 01:58

Do you guys think it'd be more productive if they stopped trying to jam everything into gigantic bills? The COVID relief act is able to be sold on the right wing side as just a cover for 'liberal agenda' items and not really COVID relief which is why the Rs that vote nah won't be hurt much by opposing it.
Minimum wage for example, why not try to change that with a single bill devoted to just the minimum wage? Make senators and representatives vote yes or no on that single item instead of giving them x number of reasons hidden in a gigantic bill to say they are opposed.

The upcoming infrastructure bill would be nice if it just focused on infrastructure but we all know it'll have various amounts of pork and other unrelated items put in it. If it focused on just infrastructure there'd be a higher chance of it passing quickly.

As I responded to RS, who has ever been motivated to cast a vote in an election because of a Congressional 'symbolic vote'. Would it be more productive? No, cause dividing everything into many bills means most of those issues simply get dropped.
Thousands of bills are introduced every year into Congress, thousands. These mega bills are good conglomeration of mostly agreed upon policy that can be bundled together for efficiency sake.

What hurts the mega-bills is the fillibuster. It forces everything into the narrow path of 'reconciliation' and the arcane rules of what is acceptable and it allows opposing parties to sit out the game because you can't make long-term reform through reconciliation. Without the filibuster, mega-bills can encompass any and all topics for any duration of time. Which means opposition party has to come to table to influence the bill and moderate it as much as they can.

ReluctantSamurai

03-03-2021, 02:34

Forcing a pointless vote for a bill that won't pass wastes valuable time and only sows division within the party.

Forcing a pointless vote for a bill that won't pass wastes valuable time and only sows division within the party.

Bull. You force the vote to point out exactly who is responsible for millions of Americans not getting something better than slave wages for their work. As far as division within the Democratic Party, you'll have to do better than hyperbole.....

Voters care about what a party delivers, not what they attempt to deliver.

You just made my point for me, dude. How about a voter looking at this:

https://twitter.com/kamalaharris/status/1226605944072757250?lang=en

The federal minimum wage: 2009: $7.25/hour 2020: $7.25/hour That’s unconscionable. The House voted to raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour and it’s time the Senate does the same.

That was on 9 Feb of this year.

Now you see this:

https://www.theepochtimes.com/harris-wont-overrule-senate-parliamentarian-on-minimum-wage-white-house-chief-of-staff-says_3710504.html

Vice President Kamala Harris (https://www.theepochtimes.com/t-kamala-harris) will not attempt to overrule the Senate parliamentarian if she rules that a federal minimum wage (https://www.theepochtimes.com/t-minimum-wage) increase cannot be enacted through a process known as budget reconciliation, according to White House Chief of Staff Ron Klain.

Would you, as a conscientious black voter in 2024, vote for this woman for president? Doubt it. Just another politician saying one thing and doing another...a clear case of what a politician claims they will deliver and what they actually deliver.

Manchin holds the cards, end of story. This is political power. If he doesn't want $15 min wage in the bill, then trying to override the parliamentarian, making him look like a jackass or the bad guy does nothing but make the party look ungovernable. It makes individual senators feel insecure about the respect they command. These things matter to the human individuals who are ultimately making these choices.

Sure enough, run up the white flag at the first sign of resistance. Manchin doing what he's doing already shows the Democratic Party is ungovernable. A president that can't get one or two senators in line with PARTY goals. If this behavior is allowed to continue unchallenged, how many more times in the next two years are we going to have this very same discussion about another bill? Manchin isn't god even in his own state:

https://newrepublic.com/article/161242/joe-manchin-populist-grassroots-organizing

Getting Manchin to listen, Frankenberry believes, will also involve getting Manchin to understand that supporting the Democratic agenda will allow him to have a potentially historic impact on his state. “I’m reminded about how government has helped West Virginia,” he says. “You had FDR right? You had JFK. Then you had Byrd—everything is named after Robert C. Byrd in West Virginia, because of the amount of infrastructure that he helped bring West Virginia. This is an opportunity, in our view, for Senator Manchin to really make his mark and really help deliver for West Virginia in a way that will give our citizens a future.”

At least one national organization is already ready to pounce and replace him if he doesn’t. On Tuesday, No Excuses PAC, a group founded by former Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez staffers Saikat Chakrabarti, Zack Exley, and Corbin Trent, announced it would be beginning a search for challengers to both Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema in 2024—an effort it will be publicizing and supporting through ad campaigns in West Virginia and Arizona. “No Excuses PAC was started a couple of weeks ago, when Senator Joe Manchin announced his objection to sending out checks for Covid relief,” Trent says. “And we decided that was an untenable position—we’d run on it, we’d won on it, and we’d better do it. And we wanted to run some ads and letters letting folks know where he stood there.”

“If Democrats can’t get it right, then they’re going to get replaced,” he continues. “I mean, Joe Manchin went from having pretty solid victories as a senator to barely winning, this last time, in 2018. It was two or three points. What’s happening there—just like where I’m from in Tennessee, just like you saw in Louisiana, just like you saw in Missouri a couple of cycles back with Claire McCaskill—is that the Democratic Party is losing its capacity to relate to people. They’ve got no idea what the hell is going on out here in the real world.” Trent says that No Excuses intends to engage with local organizations already working on the ground in both Arizona and West Virginia and spotlight them on their podcast.

Manchin's margin of victory was a little over 3% in 2018. He's not unassailable....

The GOP always says they have a better plan and they never do.

Nope...they don't have much in the way of planning for the future...but...they mostly deliver on their campaign promises. Tax cuts for the rich, conservative judges into federal seats, tougher immigration laws, and maybe they'll get ACA repealed in the near future.

What hurts the mega-bills is the fillibuster.

And there is ZERO chance to eliminate the filibuster. The sad result of getting your ass handed to you by Republicans this last election.

It is what it is, you should be spending your rage on local campaigns/politics rather than getting mad at a big tent party for not magically unifying on all issues to push the ideal agenda in a 50/50 Senate.

So keep my effing opinion about national politics to myself, and focus on Michigan? Now you're starting to sound like Gil....:rolleyes: And is the bar set so low at the "big tent party" that we'll accept anything just because this president isn't blowing up Twitter with his BS?

Montmorency

03-03-2021, 05:07

Flaws with forcing a vote on minimum wage separately or in combination with other policy:

1. If Manchin and Sinema don't care, they're not going to vote up no matter what.
2. Forcing a vote that fails makes the predominant media narrative "Democrats in Disarray."
3. To the extent any voters are moved by the news, Sinema's and Manchin's electoral prospects would be weakened (and by this I do not mean that they will be successfully primaried by socialists).
4. Sinema and Manchin are thus personally injured and humiliated and are disincentivized from cooperating or compromising on any subsequent major legislation.

All that for a purely performative exercise sounds like a very bad deal. It isn't a way to achieve the goal of passing the minimum wage, and is indeed counterproductive.

If we were going to try this gambit on anything, I would recommend it be for exactly the cycle in which the John Lewis voting rights bill comes to the floor. If Manchin and Sinema really refuse to abolish or limit the filibuster for the sake of that existentially-crucial legislation, history may as well cement that they were the hinge on which the party and country fell.

But Biden is starting to show his true corporate politicain

Well, he did just issue one of the most pro-union statements in the history of the presidency, and appears willing to let that be reflected in executive staffing (https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2021-02-04/biden-trump-appointees-labor-relations-panel).

Otherwise you give Republicans the ammunition to hammer you about reneging on a campaign promise, and they can even diss Bernie for not even putting it in in the first place. Seems to me to be a lose-lose course to take. Even worse, you open the door to the possibility of the GOP getting their own bill (Josh Hawley's) onto the floor:

I am very confident that Republicans won't campaign on Democrats not raising the minimum wage. More likely they would campaign on saving the country from the Democratic business-killing agenda.

Would you, as a conscientious black voter in 2024, vote for this woman for president? Doubt it. Just another politician saying one thing and doing another...a clear case of what a politician claims they will deliver and what they actually deliver.

The fundamental disagreement here is, whether voters care about this type of gestural politics and buck-passing, and whether it actually moves legislation.

Remember, the goal here is to - among other things - get minimum wage increases passed. Your proposal might be emotionally satisfying to you, but it wouldn't progress any of your concrete goals.

Manchin's worries on small businesses and the $15 minimum are not without some support. Though overall views are mixed (https://www.cpapracticeadvisor.com/payroll/news/12406512/how-the-15-minimum-wage-is-affecting-small-businesses).

AFAIK the quality contemporary research on minimum wage effects dispels the century-old conservative dogmas, but I was a little surprised to see so many small business owners supportive of increases in the linked quasi-formal survey. Then again, even most Republicans support increases, so it stands to reason.

A president that can't get one or two senators in line with PARTY goals.

I mean, that's a pretty typical story in American politics (and beyond). Not even FDR or LBJ could puppeteer their copartisans, and they had a lot more slack to work with.

“If Democrats can’t get it right, then they’re going to get replaced,” he continues. “I mean, Joe Manchin went from having pretty solid victories as a senator to barely winning, this last time, in 2018. It was two or three points. What’s happening there—just like where I’m from in Tennessee, just like you saw in Louisiana, just like you saw in Missouri a couple of cycles back with Claire McCaskill—is that the Democratic Party is losing its capacity to relate to people. They’ve got no idea what the hell is going on out here in the real world.” Trent says that No Excuses intends to engage with local organizations already working on the ground in both Arizona and West Virginia and spotlight them on their podcast.

Or local voters just disagree with Democratic values and politics.

And there is ZERO chance to eliminate the filibuster. The sad result of getting your ass handed to you by Republicans this last election.

The only prospect is to whittle it down with carveouts for narrow topics (e.g. 50-vote cloture on petitions for accession to the Union), and if the Dangerous Duo have any sense they will talk out of both sides of their mouths on this issue and claim to be upholding the filibuster while admitting no choice but to weaken it in the face of Republican partisanship.

Do you guys think it'd be more productive if they stopped trying to jam everything into gigantic bills? The COVID relief act is able to be sold on the right wing side as just a cover for 'liberal agenda' items and not really COVID relief which is why the Rs that vote nah won't be hurt much by opposing it.
Minimum wage for example, why not try to change that with a single bill devoted to just the minimum wage? Make senators and representatives vote yes or no on that single item instead of giving them x number of reasons hidden in a gigantic bill to say they are opposed.

The upcoming infrastructure bill would be nice if it just focused on infrastructure but we all know it'll have various amounts of pork and other unrelated items put in it. If it focused on just infrastructure there'd be a higher chance of it passing quickly.

Our experience of the past decades has made it quite plausible that some credible pork is the only thing that will allow passage of an infrastructure bill.

ReluctantSamurai

03-03-2021, 05:40

Remember, the goal here is to - among other things - get minimum wage increases passed. Your proposal might be emotionally satisfying to you, but it wouldn't progress any of your concrete goals.

Emotional satisfaction has nothing to do with it. I am retired so minimum wage has little to no direct impact on me. But I have a lot of friends in the service industry, and a raise to $15/hr does have a major impact on them. If I were a lone voice in the wilderness crying wolf, I'd fold my cards and go home. But I'm not. Any quick perusal of media digital or otherwise shows that.

Well, he did just issue one of the most pro-union statements in the history of the presidency, and appears willing to let that be reflected in executive staffing (https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2021-02-04/biden-trump-appointees-labor-relations-panel).

Wow...I'm really impressed...:rolleyes: How much actual work did that take? He's only two months in, so there's a lot more narrative to his story yet to come. I will cut him that much slack. He has four years to write his legacy.

Montmorency

03-03-2021, 05:43

The emotional satisfaction would be in seeing a show put on which the villains - Manchin et al. - get publicly shamed, but it wouldn't get any money moving to your nonretired friends. Is what I'm saying.

ReluctantSamurai

03-03-2021, 06:13

I mean, that's a pretty typical story in American politics (and beyond). Not even FDR or LBJ could puppeteer their copartisans, and they had a lot more slack to work with.

LBJ did a pretty good job of arm-twisting to get his Civil Rights Bill passed, no?

FDR was trying to pull off a "Roosevelt Purge", as characterised by media at the time. That's not what's being advocated here...

...Manchin et al. - get publicly shamed, it wouldn't get any money moving to your nonretired friends

If money ever moves to my nonretired friends in the form of increased wages, I doubt it will be $15/hr. Of course anything above the current rate is "better", but I don't need to point out to you that in many states, even $15/hr won't be keeping up with the cost of living. Manchin is like the proverbial petulant child...if you keep cow-towing to their belligerent behavior, they keep pushing the limits of what they think they can get away with.

Seamus Fermanagh

03-03-2021, 17:43

Look, this obsession with small business has driven policy so far off course. We all like the idea of mom and pop shops, but that doesn't mean we should give them carte blanche to treat their employees in a substandard way.
There are plenty of benefits we can implement that scale with size and scope to make small and medium business more competitive with the big players. Allowing them to pay poverty wages is not one of them.

I understand your point. That IS one of the countervailing arguments regarding small businesses.

I wonder at the inflationary component of such a wage increase. Businesses, to pay the higher labor costs, must either cut costs elsewhere, raise prices, or reduce profits (or some mix thereof). Is there a viable balance point that does not create an endless loop of rising prices mandating higher living wages etc.? There are mixed views as to such a balance point in the stuff I have read.

ReluctantSamurai

03-03-2021, 20:06

I wonder at the inflationary component of such a wage increase. Businesses, to pay the higher labor costs, must either cut costs elsewhere, raise prices, or reduce profits (or some mix thereof). Is there a viable balance point that does not create an endless loop of rising prices mandating higher living wages etc.? There are mixed views as to such a balance point in the stuff I have read.

Here's an idea....:idea3: How about giving tax breaks, or some other renumeration to small businesses like our government is so gladly willing to do for large corporations? You want to kick-start the economy? Raise the minimum wage for workers, and give financial aid to the small businesses that raise impacts the most.

But of course government still believes in the "Laffer Curve" (appropriately named) kind of economics, and politicians don't receive hefty bribes, err I mean hefty donations from small businesses. The aid included in the last stimulus bill was only a drop in the bucket compared to what's needed. Big Business and the stock market doing well? Great! Small Business struggling with many closing their doors permanently? Meh...where's my latest issue of The Wall Street Journal?

a completely inoffensive name

03-05-2021, 22:25

B
Would you, as a conscientious black voter in 2024, vote for this woman for president? Doubt it. Just another politician saying one thing and doing another...a clear case of what a politician claims they will deliver and what they actually deliver.

LOL, yes! This is how out of touch you are! Because of her, how many black voters are going to get their UI benefits through August and an extra $1,400 in their bank accounts.

Listen, I'm not trying to demean you, I don't know your background but if you are like me, we have to start getting out of the white liberal bubble if we wish to get through Trumpism alive. It is our privilege that gives us the ability to seek the most 'optimal' or 'empathetic' policies, but it is selfish to let the perfect be the enemy of the good because it is not us who will suffer from wasting time on symbolic votes for $15/hr that fail rather than a real change from $7.25 to $11.

I am being absolutely serious here. It is incredibly dangerous to see so many leftist and progressive opinions undermine the Democratic party at this juncture because we only have two years to pass policy, that's it.

a completely inoffensive name

03-05-2021, 23:01

I understand your point. That IS one of the countervailing arguments regarding small businesses.

I wonder at the inflationary component of such a wage increase. Businesses, to pay the higher labor costs, must either cut costs elsewhere, raise prices, or reduce profits (or some mix thereof). Is there a viable balance point that does not create an endless loop of rising prices mandating higher living wages etc.? There are mixed views as to such a balance point in the stuff I have read.

Real economists I have been following on twitter (the kind that don't show up on tv and love math) are quick to point out that market prices for goods such as a hamburger are not typically driven by the costs of labor. They are driven by what people are willing to purchase at. There is a big difference there because taking the former idea leads one to believe that a $15 wage will lead to a $22 burger. One look at Denmark and other European countries will quickly disprove that notion.

There is an entire field of optimization that goes into 'supply chain economics' and at the same time, there is a field that basically seeks to find 'market optimal price points' that the public is willing to buy a good for with the highest margin possible for the company.

What this means in reality is that big business like McDonald's can diversify the costs of such a wage by either negotiating the price of its inputs (raw potatoes/meat) further down, removing supply chain inefficiencies, and taking some amount of loss on the profit margin of each product.

But, what you also get from a higher min wage is an increase in demand which either means a higher volume that makes up the difference in the reduced margin or a higher 'optimal market price point' (basically, I have more money, I am willing to spend an extra X cents on a burger).

Again the typical conservative response is "well why stop at $15, why not $20, or $50 minimum wage?!?!" Again, because the economists don't believe that such a wage could be fully absorbed among the various methods described above such that the labor costs do become the driving factor in the overall cost of the product.

Here is the analogy, "I went to the gas station to fill up my car and asked the cashier to charge me for $25 dollars of gas to fill my tank. The cashier asked me if I was going to ask for $25 of gas, why not 50, or a hundred? I ran out of the store crying, understanding just how financially stupid I was."

ReluctantSamurai

03-05-2021, 23:14

LOL, yes! This is how out of touch you are! Because of her, how many black voters are going to get their UI benefits through August and an extra $1,400 in their bank accounts.

I live in the predominately black city of Detroit. Most of my neighbors are black, and most of my current friends are black. What I hear from them is that the shine has worn off having a black woman as VP. It's very cool she got there, but now it's time to get real. What are you going to actually do? Well....fewer of them are going to be eligible than was the case under the Trump Administration. Black people here don't just vote for a candidate because they are black. Case in point is the Mayor of Detroit, Mike Duggan, a white man. He won the election back in 2014, and he won convincingly agaist a very popular local black businessman who had previously been a Wayne County Sheriff, and Chief of Police for the City of Detroit. Why? Because he was known as someone who got things done. So yeah....I'm outta touch....:no:

That $1400 was supposed to be $2000, and the UI benefits were originally written through September, so both got walked back. Add to that the number of people going to be eligible for the $1400 will be less than the folks who were eligible when Trump was in office. Not a good look for Democrats.

Please stop with the minimum wage thing...:rolleyes: I said from the beginning, it hadn't a chance to pass the Senate. The issue was to make sure everyone knew who voted to keep their wages sub-standard. Of course $11/hr (or any other substantial raise) is better than keeping it at $7.25/hr. $11/hr and even $15/hr still falls far short of what is needed.

Biden and Manchin should just go out behind the White House and whip them out to see whose is bigger....:duel: God I effing hate politics.....

Montmorency

03-06-2021, 00:24

LOL, yes! This is how out of touch you are! Because of her, how many black voters are going to get their UI benefits through August and an extra $1,400 in their bank accounts.

Listen, I'm not trying to demean you, I don't know your background but if you are like me, we have to start getting out of the white liberal bubble if we wish to get through Trumpism alive. It is our privilege that gives us the ability to seek the most 'optimal' or 'empathetic' policies, but it is selfish to let the perfect be the enemy of the good because it is not us who will suffer from wasting time on symbolic votes for $15/hr that fail rather than a real change from $7.25 to $11.

I am being absolutely serious here. It is incredibly dangerous to see so many leftist and progressive opinions undermine the Democratic party at this juncture because we only have two years to pass policy, that's it.

Dangerous and unproductive mindset in more than the mildest form, as it promises to squander the 2-year window we have in exchange for reducing the probability of securing further such windows.

And why is it, by the way, that no one tells centrists about not letting perfect be the enemy of good? It sure seems like their vision of perfect tends to get priority...

I live in the predominately black city of Detroit. Most of my neighbors are black, and most of my current friends are black. What I hear from them is that the shine has worn off having a black woman as VP. It's very cool she got there, but now it's time to get real. What are you going to actually do? Well....fewer of them are going to be eligible than was the case under the Trump Administration. Black people here don't just vote for a candidate because they are black. Case in point is the Mayor of Detroit, Mike Duggan, a white man. He won the election back in 2014, and he won convincingly agaist a very popular local black businessman who had previously been a Wayne County Sheriff, and Chief of Police for the City of Detroit. Why? Because he was known as someone who got things done. So yeah....I'm outta touch....:no:

What do you make of Duggan rejecting supplies of the J&J one-shot vaccine on the basis that it's not good enough for urban (here he himself emphasized urban qua distribution capacity) populations?

a completely inoffensive name

03-06-2021, 00:30

Dangerous and unproductive mindset in more than the mildest form, as it promises to squander the 2-year window we have in exchange for reducing the probability of securing further such windows.

And why is it, by the way, that no one tells centrists about not letting perfect be the enemy of good? It sure seems like their vision of perfect tends to get priority...

YOu yourself said it is a waste to be doing performative votes that accomplish nothing. So what is it Monty, pass Manchin approved bills or nothing? You can't act as if the ability to make $15/hr happen is actually there.

Centrists get priority cause the system is built to give them and conservative voices an oversized voice in the system. it is what it is for the moment, we can both acknowledge it is wrong and work with it for the time being until we get a 63+ Dem Senate.

Montmorency

03-06-2021, 00:34

On voting rights (https://www.motherjones.com/mojo-wire/2021/03/gop-lawyer-says-the-quiet-part-out-loud-in-scotus-voting-rights-case/) today:

At issue in the Supreme Court today was whether restrictive voting laws in Arizona violate the 1965 Voting Rights Act. And a Republican Party lawyer defending the restrictions couldn’t have made his intentions clearer.

Tuesday’s oral arguments in two cases—Brnovich v. DNC and Arizona Republican Party v. DNC—concerned the legality of “ballot harvesting,” a practice in which community activists collect ballots to boost voter turnout. The arguments also discussed an Arizona law that disqualified ballots cast in the wrong precinct. There’s no evidence of the voting fraud that these laws purport to limit, and voting rights activists say that the laws disproportionately limit Black, Latino, and Native American voters’ access to the polls.

So Justice Amy Coney Barrett had a simple question for the lawyer defending the GOP-backed laws: “What’s the interest of the Arizona RNC here in keeping, say, the out-of-precinct ballot disqualification rules on the books?”

“Because it puts us at a competitive disadvantage relative to Democrats,” the lawyer, Michael Carvin, responded. “Politics is a zero-sum game.”

2030 GOP: When the social inferiors refuse to make themselves available for slave labor it inflicts economic and moral damages to the virtuous classes. All laws thus unresponsive to our natural, God-given rights are therefore inapplicable.

An oldie (https://www.bradford-delong.com/2013/10/maeve-reston-reports-from-hugo-oklahom-obamacare-meets-extra-resistance-the-view-from-the-roasterie-xii-october-16-2013.html) on the reactionary Evangelical/neo-Calvinist mindset that came to dominate the Republican Party:

Maeve Reston reminds me of a conversation from 1993, reconstructed and reimagined from my memory, after an OEOB Ira Magaziner health care reform meeting:

Another Treasury Deputy Assistant Secretary: "You've lived in California; Washington, DC; and Massachusetts. You don't really understand the rest of the country--you don't understand the South; you don't understand Texas."

Me: Half my extended family lives in Florida...

ATDAS: "That's not the South..."

Me: Three of my four grandparents come from Ohio, Illinois, and Missouri...

ATDAS: "The Midwest is not the South, or Texas..."

Me: One of my great-great-great grandfathers is buried in Wichita...

ATDAS: "And Wichita is not Texas.

Me: True...

ATDAS: "You don't understand the Republicans we have in the South, and in Texas. You know of Northeastern and Left Coast Republicans. Even Midwestern Republicans--especially Bob Dole--actually think that sick and disabled people, even if they are poor, should be able to get the health care that is good for them, without having to beg. That's not the case with Republicans down in Texas. Republicans in Texas think that if you can't pay the doctor out of what is in your pocket and from the insurance policy you bought, then you need to go beg at your church. And only after you have begged at your church, and begged sincerely and abjectly enough, might your church find itself paying for you out of Christian charity--the benefit of which is to save their souls, not your body!"

Me: But...

ATDAS: "They don't like Medicaid. They don't like Medicaid because it short-circuits this process. You get treated but you don't have to beg for it. The only reason they vote for Medicaid--and Texas only votes for grinchy Medicaid--is that the rich doctors of Dallas and Houston who contribute so much to the Republican Party think that Medicaid means that they don't have to dig into the pockets of their practices to support charity care."

Me: But what if you don't have a church!

ATDAS: "Then you should go join one, shouldn't you? That's a benefit..."

YOu yourself said it is a waste to be doing performative votes that accomplish nothing. So what is it Monty, pass Manchin approved bills or nothing? You can't act as if the ability to make $15/hr happen is actually there.

The idea being to try to get as much out of him as possible, not allow him to unilaterally set the agenda as he pleases. To use your discussion of inflation as an analogy, we're trying to find an optimal price point for the buyer (Manchin et al.), not just selling 25c patties because that's what Manchin would like to see.

What there is an ability to make happen is something that the leadership can discover, it's not something to be presumed in either direction. If, within limits of methods, Manchin will never ever budge on $15 minimum wage (and I'm not even sure that is the case), then we've found it out through the process.

a completely inoffensive name

03-06-2021, 00:35

Why? Because he was known as someone who got things done. So yeah....I'm outta touch....:no:

So it sounds like they are being very pragmatic in their political choices and not at all idealistic or ideological. How about that.....

a completely inoffensive name

03-06-2021, 00:44

The idea being to try to get as much out of him as possible, not allow him to unilaterally set the agenda as he pleases. To use your discussion of inflation as an analogy, we're trying to find an optimal price point for the buyer (Manchin et al.), not just selling 25c patties because that's what Manchin would like to see.

What there is an ability to make happen is something that the leadership can discover, it's not something to be presumed in either direction. If, within limits of methods, Manchin will never ever budge on $15 minimum wage (and I'm not even sure that is the case), then we've found it out through the process.

Political power doesn't work like that Monty. 'Getting as much out' of someone involves applying available leverage to a situation as part of bargaining. What leverage does the party have over a Blue Dog Dem who happens to be Dem #50 in a 50/50 Senate and has a very tenuous position in a ruby red state?

Have you read the bio's on the guy? He has a staffer text him the national debt every morning when he goes to work. What's there to do other than ask him what number he feels comfortable voting for?

ReluctantSamurai

03-06-2021, 01:28

So it sounds like they are being very pragmatic in their political choices and not at all idealistic or ideological.

Which was precisely my point in making the statement you mocked. I don't know how black voters in other areas of the country feel, but after the corruption and scandal during the terms of several of the past mayors who were black, African-American residents of Detroit have become very pragmatic. Trust me, when 10,000 Detroit families (and I'm just picking a random # here) receive less than, or no Covid relief checks, and have their UI reduced, than what they got under the Trump Administration, they are going to be asking themselves what the hell they voted for last November...

Have you read the bio's on the guy? He has a staffer text him the national debt every morning when he goes to work. What's there to do other than ask him what number he feels comfortable voting for?

So what!?! You get the man into a meeting and discuss how to get him on board with the Democratic agenda. You don't just run up the white flag every time he objects to something. If Biden is such a good negotiator as he claims, find some common ground where Manchin gives whats good for the administration, and can get what's good for him. Otherwise, Manchin will almost single-handedly be responsible for the GOP reclaiming both Houses of the Senate in 2022, and the presidency in 2024.

Montmorency

03-06-2021, 01:39

LBJ did a pretty good job of arm-twisting to get his Civil Rights Bill passed, no?

FDR was trying to pull off a "Roosevelt Purge", as characterised by media at the time. That's not what's being advocated here...

LBJ and FDR weren't as successful in pursuing their priorities as you think, which was why a lot of legislation either had to be watered down and passed on a bipartisan basis (Southern Yellow Dog Democrats really sucked! even though they gave Democrats supermajorities). Which is not to say that the acronymic leadership was below replacement level compared to what we might have got instead. Black people only even got a proper minimum wage in 1967 (1966 Fair Labor Standards Act amendment (https://scholar.harvard.edu/files/elloraderenoncourt/files/montialoux_jmp_2018.pdf)), practically speaking, and that contained many limitations that we recognize today such as the separate tipped minimum or even deprecated provisions (?**) such as the student subminimum. (There's an interesting narrative to be derived here about how leftist-favored "universal" programs rarely actually start universal but have to be built up...) But it's important to note that to the extent individual legislators could be cajoled or threatened back in the day*, it is because loyalties, priorities, and commitments were more fluid within and between factions and parties. Nowadays it's possible to more or less pin down every legislator (or at least Senator) 'where they are', which wasn't the case until the past decade. It's hard to understate how much of a change to the process it is for votes to almost be a mathematical function rather than a very personal and impressionistic area of judgement. The "uncommitted" member is a critically endangered species.

*A lot of the action involved simply bypassing roadblocks created by ranking Southern committee members using procedural methods, rather than convincing them of anything. The hurdle today is less with procedure than with the aggregate vote

**One apparent remnant of the 1966 amendment is "a minimum of not less than $4.25 per hour for employees under 20 years of age during their first 90 consecutive calendar days of employment with an employer."

If money ever moves to my nonretired friends in the form of increased wages, I doubt it will be $15/hr. Of course anything above the current rate is "better", but I don't need to point out to you that in many states, even $15/hr won't be keeping up with the cost of living. Manchin is like the proverbial petulant child...if you keep cow-towing to their belligerent behavior, they keep pushing the limits of what they think they can get away with.

Well, we don't know anything, that I am aware of, about the private process. That is, I could understand faulting Biden with giving up too easily if this is how his interactions with Manchin unfolded:

Biden: So, minimum wage in the package
Manchin: Nah
Biden: I've done all I can

But I don't see why we should assume such a low level of commitment on Biden's part (though this is bad (https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2021/03/1400-stimulus-checks-eligibility-democrats-covid-relief-bill.html), albeit itself offset by 100% COBRA subsidy).

Under the plan passed by the House, individuals earning up to $75,000 per year and couples making up to $150,000 per year would qualify for the full $1,400 stimulus payment. The size of the payments then begins to scale down before zeroing out for individuals making $100,000 per year and couples making $200,000.

Under the changes agreed to by Biden and Senate Democratic leadership, individuals earning $75,000 per year and couples earning $150,000 would still receive the full $1,400-per-person benefit. However, the benefit would disappear for individuals earning more than $80,000 annually and couples earning more than $160,000.

That means singles making between $80,000 and $100,000 and couples earning between $160,000 and $200,000 would be newly excluded from a partial benefit under the revised structure Biden agreed to.

Theoretically there are some genuine hardball measures that might be used to drive Manchin to cooperation, such as threatening federal defunding of West Virginia in the form of highways or military bases. Going really below the belt, the President could threaten to have Manchin's family investigated for dirty dealings. I do doubt Biden would ever go so far as to consider either of these tactics. I wouldn't advocate for them either, except in service of meta-political legislation such as voting rights, new states, or even judicial reform, because this isn't the sort of winch one can apply continually before the rope breaks; Manchin would soon get angry enough to call the bluff.

Political power doesn't work like that Monty. 'Getting as much out' of someone involves applying available leverage to a situation as part of bargaining. What leverage does the party have over a Blue Dog Dem who happens to be Dem #50 in a 50/50 Senate and has a very tenuous position in a ruby red state?

Have you read the bio's on the guy? He has a staffer text him the national debt every morning when he goes to work. What's there to do other than ask him what number he feels comfortable voting for?

Other than the hardball tactics I mentioned above, the basis of negotiation in the barest sense would be to ask Manchin what he's comfortable with and try to work him up as much as you can with persuasion (arguing the case) and blandishment (constituent, personal, political, or partisan benefit distinct from the policy under negotiation). We literally discussed avoiding pre-compromise like 3 years ago.

I understand your point. That IS one of the countervailing arguments regarding small businesses.

I wonder at the inflationary component of such a wage increase. Businesses, to pay the higher labor costs, must either cut costs elsewhere, raise prices, or reduce profits (or some mix thereof). Is there a viable balance point that does not create an endless loop of rising prices mandating higher living wages etc.? There are mixed views as to such a balance point in the stuff I have read.

I doubt such inflationary pressures obtain in practice. If you mean the perpetual inflationary growth of the entire economy/currency, AFAIK it has to do with the comprehensive monetary policy in the developed world since WW2 - prior to which used to be both inflationary and deflationary cycles - not regulations such as minimum wage.

Wage push pressures of the sort the Fed tried to crush in the 70s and 80s may have some influence over inflation, but the concept of the wage push is that workers broadly speaking have enough power to bargain from management higher wages and benefits, a situation that doesn't exist but should. We evidently have better mechanisms for controlling inflation (what the targets ought to be is a whole other question) than suppressing labor. Anyway, a low government-set minimum wage doesn't do that much to increase worker bargaining power on its own because it only establishes a level playing field (in theory; removing the carveouts for agriculture and tipped occupations (https://www.epi.org/publication/waiting-for-change-tipped-minimum-wage/) would make it more so). We can settle the issue by indexing the minimum wage to inflation, which creates predictability and stability in all normal circumstances.

Indeed, I'm surprised the UK members haven't mentioned their minimum wage (though it may have undesirable features, such as the age tiering, and I'm not convinced about linking to median wages). Another point of comparison may be to UK state pensions and their triple lock (https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-02-02/u-k-s-sunak-set-to-protect-pensioners-with-triple-lock-pledge), which generously raise the state pension by the highest of three measures: annual growth in average earnings, CPI inflation, or 2.5%. Triple-locking the minimum wage, and perhaps a whole spread of financial entitlements (e.g. SNAP, Section 8, Social Security), could be conclusive for a generation, opening more space for other political goals.

Also, important question about the US economy: What is the distribution of low-wage (<$15/hr) workers among firms by size?

Finally, another one of those telling historical graphs:

https://i.imgur.com/MLMFBUZ.png

Montmorency

03-06-2021, 03:09

Recent (https://twitter.com/igorbobic/status/1367985319551922179) updates (https://twitter.com/igorbobic/status/1368001847005429763):

Wicker reports the “talk in the cloak room” currently is that Manchin has finished talking with the White House and that he isn’t going to fold

NEW: Dems have reached an agreement, per an aide. They will now offer an amendment to extend the enhanced UI benefits through September 6 at $300/week — a month less than Carper amendment.

The agreement will still make the first $10,200 of UI benefits non-taxable but ONLY to households with incomes under $150k.

Manchin is on board with this one, for the record:

“The President has made it clear we will have enough vaccines for every American by the end of May and I am confident the economic recovery will follow. We have reached a compromise that enables the economy to rebound quickly”

This deal took about 9 hours to put together. The Senate is still only on the first vote of vote-a-drama. Long night ahead.

The deliberations (https://www.politico.com/news/2021/03/05/covid-aid-bill-senate-vote-amendments-473805):

The two parties spent Friday afternoon battling for Manchin's support on changes to federal unemployment benefits, showcasing how a 50-50 Senate can instantly swing power to one holdout. Senate Democrats struck a deal on Friday over the boosted unemployment benefits in President Joe Biden’s $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief package, shortly before debate on the bill reached its peak. But Manchin (D-W.Va.) hasn't agreed to go along.

An amendment readied by Sen. Tom Carper (D-Del.) would change the bill’s boosted weekly federal unemployment payments from $400, as approved by the House, to $300. That benefit would be extended through September instead of August, and the first $10,200 of unemployment insurance would be non-taxable income to help laid off workers avoid surprise tax bills.

But Manchin is also intrigued by a proposal from Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio), which would extend the $300 unemployment benefits until July 18 — and amounts to a cut from both the Carper proposal and the House bill. Manchin spoke by telephone with Portman on Friday afternoon as the intrigue grew and the Senate stalled.

"There's bipartisan support for what Rob's trying to do. And Manchin's getting beat up by his side. They're trying to get him in line, so to speak. And he's trying to do the right thing," said Senate Minority Whip John Thune (R-S.D.). "He knows that the Portman amendment saves a lot of money and is better policy. But Democrats in his caucus obviously don’t want to give Republicans a bipartisan win on this."

Thune said he believed the Portman proposal could pass despite skepticism among some conservatives about any additional federal unemployment payments. Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) said he didn’t know where Manchin’s vote was. He said Democrats “don’t want” Portman’s amendment: “We want to get this wrapped up.”

The Carper proposal, hatched by both moderate and progressive Democrats, also links up the expiration of unemployment benefits with the current lapse of government funding at the end of September. But a vote on the measure was delayed as Sens. Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.), Jon Tester (D-Mont.) and Catherine Cortez-Masto (D-Nev.) held an animated discussion with Manchin on the Senate floor.

Sinema indicated to Manchin that he could theoretically vote for both Carper's Democratic amendment and Portman's GOP amendment in an attempt to end the stalemate. The two parties are fighting over which order to hold the amendment votes in.

Yeah, tbh he's more disappointing than I factored in. He's being outright arbitrary, you can't even glean the principle (it's not to save money, since the total package size isn't really affected).

ReluctantSamurai

03-06-2021, 05:41

Yeah, tbh he's more disappointing than I factored in. He's being outright arbitrary, you can't even glean the principle (it's not to save money, since the total package size isn't really affected).

Can you imagine watching this crap on tv---provided you don't live in Texas where you still haven't had electricity restored, or had it shut off 'cuz you can't pay the outrageous new bill---sipping on bottled water (which the local food donation center was gracious enough to give you)---because if you live in Cleveland or maybe Baltimore you're water's been shut off 'cuz you can't pay the last several inflated bills---and eating beans out of a can (which you also got from the food donation center) and wondering what world these people live in??

I guarrantee if this was about a bailout for Boeing Aircraft, or Chase Manhattan, the deal would've been done and signed into law weeks ago.....:soapbox:

God I effing hate politics......:shame:

ReluctantSamurai

03-06-2021, 14:11

One has to wonder how a lawmaker could conceive of this when arguing against a bill so desperately needed by millions of Americans:

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/ron-johnson-covid-19-relief-photoshop-battle_n_6040a359c5b6829715055f8e

Sen. Ron Johnson: "That is what we are debating, spending a stack of dollar bills that extends more than halfway the distance to the moon. And this is at a point in time when we're about $28 trillion in debt."

The suddenly fiscally responsible Senator Johnson had no trouble voting for $1.5 trillion in tax cuts for the wealthy back in 2017. Perhaps voters impacted by all of his delays should buy him a ticket aboard the Space X SN10 and send him halfway to the moon....:stupido2:

Sen. Johnson, an ex-polyester and plastics exec, has a current net worth of nearly $40 million:

https://www.salon.com/2021/03/05/sen-ron-johnson-worth-40-million-derided-as-face-of-the-opposition-to-covid-relief/

a completely inoffensive name

03-07-2021, 08:08

Very happy the bill passed the Senate today. There is a lot of good stuff that the suburbs will appreciate and I think it will only hurt the GOP to be the party that unanimously voted against it.

"92% non-COVID related" bullshit will fall apart when the family of four gets their 12k.

Hooahguy

03-07-2021, 20:57

Plus the whole "voted against Covid relief" likely won't play very well for 2022...

ReluctantSamurai

03-07-2021, 21:09

First, It's about time...:stare: The bill is less than what it should've been, but hopefully enough to help millions of Americans start to get back on their feet---and even more hopefully, back to work.

Second, I hope Joe Biden got the message loud and clear that all that campaign rhetoric about bi-partisanship, was a pipe dream. The final Senate vote, 50-49, clearly sent that message. The GOP, still firmly in the grasp of Donald J Trump, is going to do what they've always done during this last decade---block everything the Democrats try to accomplish, and bide their time until they reclaim Washington.

The "Own the Libs" theme is going to continue unless the filibuster is abolished, and the Democrats are just not united enough to get that done. With the 50 Republican Senators (and likely several conservative Democrats) voting against such a move, abolishing the filibuster is a dead issue. So on to the next circus act....:clown:

a completely inoffensive name

03-08-2021, 01:17

Manchin is hinting that he is open to reforming the Filibuster. The ideas getting floated to him right now are:

1. Reduce cloture from 60 to 55.
2. Require senator to hold the floor to filibuster, not just invoke it.
3. Remove cloture entirely and require a 40 Senator affirmative vote to continue debate.

1 doesn't really do much for Dems, but 2 and 3 set a hard time limit for the minority to delay which means the Senate becomes in practice more majoritarian.

a completely inoffensive name

03-08-2021, 01:48

Second, I hope Joe Biden got the message loud and clear that all that campaign rhetoric about bi-partisanship, was a pipe dream.

Again, I think it betrays your ignorance of politics to think this when Biden gave the go ahead to move forward with reconciliation on day 1.

ReluctantSamurai

03-08-2021, 04:11

Again, I think it betrays your ignorance of politics to think this when Biden gave the go ahead to move forward with reconciliation on day 1.

Just stop please. Having to go the route of reconciliation simply shows that the Democrats already knew they wouldn't get bi-partisan support on this relief bill. They even had to back down a lot just to get their own party support. The final vote confirms my comment: 50 Democrats yes, 49 Republicans no (one senator absent). Not a single Republican voted to pass this relief bill. And this on a bill that was desperately needed by the American public. Do you really think there's going to be any difference in the final vote tally for any significant legislation that doesn't benefit their own interests, moving forward?

It's not a matter of ignorance or knowledge. It's what my own eyes tell me.

Montmorency

03-08-2021, 04:29

Now, Sinema may have been more responsive than Manchin on some elements of the bill, as seen above, but she was still one of the eight! Dem Senators (even if some were just being opportunistic or posturing about procedure) who voted against the minimum wage increase. And of course there was this cringy McCain cosplay in the process:

https://twitter.com/Roots_Action/status/1367906192626831363 [VIDEO]

What's contemptible is that Arizona's minimum wage is already close to $15 ($12 going on $13), so Sinema can't even rely on the pretense of defending home interests.

Again, I think it betrays your ignorance of politics to think this when Biden gave the go ahead to move forward with reconciliation on day 1.

The Dems have at least been good on framing this exercise as bipartisan in the context of popular approval. It's a good rhetorical trick they should lean on more.

Manchin is hinting that he is open to reforming the Filibuster. The ideas getting floated to him right now are:

1. Reduce cloture from 60 to 55.
2. Require senator to hold the floor to filibuster, not just invoke it.
3. Remove cloture entirely and require a 40 Senator affirmative vote to continue debate.

1 doesn't really do much for Dems, but 2 and 3 set a hard time limit for the minority to delay which means the Senate becomes in practice more majoritarian.

IF there is follow-through, with 2 being the only step taken, I don't think it changes the Senate dynamics because as annoying as it is for everyone it isn't actually physically onerous for Senators to hold the floor continuously in a filibuster, especially in a rotation.

If this is part of the process, as I hoped, of Dems putting on a show while gradually degrading the filibuster, I approve.

My own variant of partial filibuster reform, to get in on the action while it's fresh: One party cannot filibuster for more than 10 of every 90 days of session; or maybe a given bill can only be filibustered once in any of its forms, in a continuous period on the floor, by a single Senator. (If the latter rule had been in place from the beginning, you know American history would have a story about an old-timey Senator filibustering themselves into a coma.)

a completely inoffensive name

03-08-2021, 07:53

Having to go the route of reconciliation simply shows that the Democrats already knew they wouldn't get bi-partisan support on this relief bill.

Second, I hope Joe Biden got the message loud and clear that all that campaign rhetoric about bi-partisanship, was a pipe dream.

Did Biden already learn the lesson or did this bill 'give him the message'. Pick one.

a completely inoffensive name

03-08-2021, 08:03

IF there is follow-through, with 2 being the only step taken, I don't think it changes the Senate dynamics because as annoying as it is for everyone it isn't actually physically onerous for Senators to hold the floor continuously in a filibuster, especially in a rotation.

If this is part of the process, as I hoped, of Dems putting on a show while gradually degrading the filibuster, I approve.

My own variant of partial filibuster reform, to get in on the action while it's fresh: One party cannot filibuster for more than 10 of every 90 days of session; or maybe a given bill can only be filibustered once in any of its forms, in a continuous period on the floor, by a single Senator. (If the latter rule had been in place from the beginning, you know American history would have a story about an old-timey Senator filibustering themselves into a coma.)

Option #2 still is onerous because most of these guys are 65+ years old and they can't really stand and talk for more than 4-5 hours in a row. Also, for every Senator that has to spend time filibustering on the floor, their committees are still adhering to their calendars and that Senator is absent during those votes. That Senator is also not campaigning or fundraising on the weekends if they get stuck with filibustering during that shift.

Problem with your idea is that it renders the filibuster into an arbitrary stalling tactic, not an actual means of vetoing legislation. Centrists will never agree to neuter the filibuster to that degree. They are merely open to the idea that for a minority to outright kill a bill requires some more effort than simply declaring that a filibuster in effect.

ReluctantSamurai

03-08-2021, 13:47

post deleted.

Seamus Fermanagh

03-08-2021, 20:03

Real economists I have been following on twitter (the kind that don't show up on tv and love math) are quick to point out that market prices for goods such as a hamburger are not typically driven by the costs of labor. They are driven by what people are willing to purchase at. There is a big difference there because taking the former idea leads one to believe that a $15 wage will lead to a $22 burger. One look at Denmark and other European countries will quickly disprove that notion.

There is an entire field of optimization that goes into 'supply chain economics' and at the same time, there is a field that basically seeks to find 'market optimal price points' that the public is willing to buy a good for with the highest margin possible for the company.

What this means in reality is that big business like McDonald's can diversify the costs of such a wage by either negotiating the price of its inputs (raw potatoes/meat) further down, removing supply chain inefficiencies, and taking some amount of loss on the profit margin of each product.

But, what you also get from a higher min wage is an increase in demand which either means a higher volume that makes up the difference in the reduced margin or a higher 'optimal market price point' (basically, I have more money, I am willing to spend an extra X cents on a burger).

Again the typical conservative response is "well why stop at $15, why not $20, or $50 minimum wage?!?!" Again, because the economists don't believe that such a wage could be fully absorbed among the various methods described above such that the labor costs do become the driving factor in the overall cost of the product.

Here is the analogy, "I went to the gas station to fill up my car and asked the cashier to charge me for $25 dollars of gas to fill my tank. The cashier asked me if I was going to ask for $25 of gas, why not 50, or a hundred? I ran out of the store crying, understanding just how financially stupid I was."

Some good points here. Costs, including labor costs, are NOT the only issue in price points. A lot of the economically challenged on the right DO over-simplify that and make a knee-jerk response of "no." And a modest increase in the buying power of the lowest two quintiles -- who perforce must spend more on their lifestyles/debt reduction efforts as a percentage of income -- is likely to enhance economic activity overall in significant ways, especially in a service/information economy.

Part of why my thinking on this is evolving. Heck, SOME degree of inflation is economically healthy. I am just wondering if this current approach is the best way to establish a good balance point for profit/economic growth/social stability etc.

Montmorency

03-09-2021, 01:54

Option #2 still is onerous because most of these guys are 65+ years old and they can't really stand and talk for more than 4-5 hours in a row. Also, for every Senator that has to spend time filibustering on the floor, their committees are still adhering to their calendars and that Senator is absent during those votes. That Senator is also not campaigning or fundraising on the weekends if they get stuck with filibustering during that shift.

Referring to the history of the talking filibuster in practice (basically always successful at stopping legislation in the 20th century), it doesn't appear to have posed a problem in those terms in the past; I'm not sure why you would expect it to in the future. The Democratic caucus will not be more patient than the Republican.

Remember that cloture is only for ending discussion (i.e. the talking filibuster) - if there's no discussion, there's no need for special procedures and the Senate can simply vote.

On 8 March 1917, during World War I, a rule allowing cloture of a debate was adopted by the Senate on a 76–3 roll call vote[28] at the urging of President Woodrow Wilson,[29] after a group of 12 anti-war senators managed to kill a bill that would have allowed Wilson to arm merchant vessels in the face of unrestricted German submarine warfare.[30] This was successfully invoked for the first time on 15 November 1919,[31] during the 66th Congress, to end a filibuster on the Treaty of Versailles.[32]

At the time of the most famous filibuster (https://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/minute/Civil_Rights_Filibuster_Ended.htm), that 75-hour jeremiad against the 1964 Civil Rights Bill (long before the era of the procedural filibuster):

Never in history had the Senate been able to muster enough votes to cut off a filibuster on a civil rights bill. And only five times in the 47 years since the cloture rule was established had the Senate agreed to cloture for any measure.

Problem with your idea is that it renders the filibuster into an arbitrary stalling tactic, not an actual means of vetoing legislation. Centrists will never agree to neuter the filibuster to that degree. They are merely open to the idea that for a minority to outright kill a bill requires some more effort than simply declaring that a filibuster in effect.

If you are correct in assessing the centrists' vision of the filibuster as a liberum veto rather than, as it originally was, an arbitrary stalling tactic, then one shouldn't bother to hope that they will compromise on procedural carveouts. The only option on the table would remain to make them irrelevant with numbers. But given the history of the filibuster (reform) so far, and Manchin's language on making it "more painful," I do think even the defenders of the filibuster will tend more toward preservation of its form than of its substance.

ReluctantSamurai

03-09-2021, 02:43

Manchin is hinting that he is open to reforming the Filibuster.

If he comes up with a proposal of his own, then perhaps he is open to reforming the filibuster. If he waits for someone to bring a proposal to him, that would smack of Manchin continuing to "hold court."

However, at this point, any talk of making changes to the filibuster, is at odds with the stance Biden has taken:

https://www.cnn.com/2021/03/08/politics/filibuster-democratic-reaction/index.html

Biden, whose legislative agenda has so far garnered no support from Republican lawmakers, continues to resist changes to Senate rules that would diminish the power of the filibuster and its 60-vote requirement.

It's a stance borne from his 36 years in the Senate, a staunch respect of its traditions and practices and an awareness that Democrats won't always be in the majority, people close to Biden say. And while it's not an unmovable view — the White House said Monday it was simply his "preference" to not change the rules — it's one that puts him at odds with members of his own party.

"Voting to me ought to be filibuster-free just like we arranged for the budget to go forward under reconciliation, civil rights laws, and voting rights laws ought to be subject to reconciliation efforts as well," Rep. Jim Clyburn, a Democrat from South Carolina who is close to Biden, said on CNN on Sunday.

Yet pressed on whether Biden could support that kind of exemption to the filibuster rules, the White House would not budge. "That's not his preference," White House press secretary Jen Psaki said. "He believes with an issue as important as voting rights, there should be a path forward to work with Democrats and Republicans to get it done, so nothing's changed on his policy on the filibuster."

We'll see whether Biden's opinion can be changed....:inquisitive:

Montmorency

03-09-2021, 06:47

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

What they're saying: "Donald Trump was my friend before the riot. And I'm trying to keep a relationship with him after the riot. I still consider him a friend. What happened was a dark day in American history, and we're going to move forward."

"I want us to continue the policies that I think will make America strong. I believe the best way for the Republican Party to do that is with Trump, not without Trump."
"Mitt Romney didn't do it. John McCain didn't do it. There's something about Trump. There's a dark side and there's some magic there."

"What I'm tryin' to do is just harness the magic," Graham told Axios' Jonathan Swan. "To me, Donald Trump is sort of a cross between Jesse Helms, Ronald Reagan and P.T. Barnum."
"He could make the Republican Party something that nobody else I know can make it. He can make it bigger. He can make it stronger. He can make it more diverse. And he also could destroy it," Graham said.

What a veritable fucking Death Eater.

a completely inoffensive name

03-10-2021, 03:13

Referring to the history of the talking filibuster in practice (basically always successful at stopping legislation in the 20th century), it doesn't appear to have posed a problem in those terms in the past; I'm not sure why you would expect it to in the future. The Democratic caucus will not be more patient than the Republican.

Remember that cloture is only for ending discussion (i.e. the talking filibuster) - if there's no discussion, there's no need for special procedures and the Senate can simply vote.

At the time of the most famous filibuster (https://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/minute/Civil_Rights_Filibuster_Ended.htm), that 75-hour jeremiad against the 1964 Civil Rights Bill (long before the era of the procedural filibuster):

If you are correct in assessing the centrists' vision of the filibuster as a liberum veto rather than, as it originally was, an arbitrary stalling tactic, then one shouldn't bother to hope that they will compromise on procedural carveouts. The only option on the table would remain to make them irrelevant with numbers. But given the history of the filibuster (reform) so far, and Manchin's language on making it "more painful," I do think even the defenders of the filibuster will tend more toward preservation of its form than of its substance.

Can't apply filibuster strategy and success from the past to today's practices. The Senate culture and political culture is just too different. The talking filibuster can still kill a piece of legislation, but the downside for the opposition is that all other business is put on hold while the Senator is speaking.
The reason why the Senate inculcates the 'both sides are bad' idea among mainstream Americans is because the filibuster has no transparency, a notice goes out that a bill has been filibustered and per the 1970s agreement the time originally meant for the bill on the floor just gets moved on to the next item. It's like it never even happened. One team wins, the other team just moves on and 'gives up'.

I'm not a fan of the talking filibuster, I would rather have them just enforce a 40 Senator affirmative vote rule. But the PR tactics do change with a talking filibuster, because even if you as a Senator don't like a particular bill, as long you talk you are holding up the entire government and your talking face will be plastered on every cable news channel while you hold up everything. No more both sides crap, people will ask why the Senate is not doing anything and people can point out it is because Senator shithead is still reading Dr. Seuss on the floor to block some minor appointment no one cares about.

Keep in mind this isn't speculation, but likely based on the current culture we have. GOP favorability was at it lowest during the Obama era shutdowns: https://news.gallup.com/poll/165317/republican-party-favorability-sinks-record-low.aspx

Montmorency

03-10-2021, 05:39

The suggestion (https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/us-afghan-letter-peace-talks/2021/03/07/c30ef2c2-7f75-11eb-9ca6-54e187ee4939_story.html) - apparently adopted by the Biden admin - of encouraging Iran to relieve our security posture in Afghanistan as part of our diplomacy in the region is an interesting one.

Can't apply filibuster strategy and success from the past to today's practices. The Senate culture and political culture is just too different. The talking filibuster can still kill a piece of legislation, but the downside for the opposition is that all other business is put on hold while the Senator is speaking.
The reason why the Senate inculcates the 'both sides are bad' idea among mainstream Americans is because the filibuster has no transparency, a notice goes out that a bill has been filibustered and per the 1970s agreement the time originally meant for the bill on the floor just gets moved on to the next item. It's like it never even happened. One team wins, the other team just moves on and 'gives up'.

I'm not a fan of the talking filibuster, I would rather have them just enforce a 40 Senator affirmative vote rule. But the PR tactics do change with a talking filibuster, because even if you as a Senator don't like a particular bill, as long you talk you are holding up the entire government and your talking face will be plastered on every cable news channel while you hold up everything. No more both sides crap, people will ask why the Senate is not doing anything and people can point out it is because Senator shithead is still reading Dr. Seuss on the floor to block some minor appointment no one cares about.

Per the 1970s agreement (https://ballotpedia.org/Filibuster_and_reconciliation_in_the_United_States_Congress) you mention, it's actually the opposite.

The two-track system
In 1964, during debate over what became the Civil Rights Act, southern Democrats filibustered for over 75 hours in an attempt to prevent the bill's passage. In an effort to remedy the issue of future filibusters, Senate Majority Leader Mike Mansfield (D-Mont.) instituted two modifications. The first was to force cloture votes on filibuster threats; the second was to implement a two-track system. This system, instituted in 1972, provided senators the option to filibuster while the chamber considers other legislation. In 1975, the Senate again revised its rules to allow for cloture to be invoked by a vote of 60 senators, with the exception of Senate rules, which then required a two-thirds vote. Some argue that the two-track rule has lead to an increase in the use of silent filibusters. During a silent filibuster, a member does not need to speak on the floor to block a vote from happening and can even filibuster by email. A senator is not required to speak in public to prevent the passage of a bill. The senator simply needs to issue a warning that there are enough votes to support a filibuster.[3][21][12]

Impact of the two-track system
According to Jacobi and VanDam, the impact of the two-track system has been profound. They write,[12][22][23]
“
The adoption of two tracks 'changed the game profoundly.' It was followed fairly immediately by a period in which there are more filibusters than ever before. There have been nearly twice as many Senate actions to defeat filibusters ... in the last ten sessions of Congress than in the previous thirty-eight sessions combined. The number of motions to defeat filibusters from the 103rd Congress to through the 112th was 888; the number from the 65th through the 102nd was 483. That the number exploded after the two-track system was adopted is not coincidental. The system of stealth filibustering 'allows [senators] to obstruct Senate business but without paying much, if any, political cost for doing so.' It has led to a Senate where an invisible filibuster by default hangs over any controversial legislation ... a Senate, in other words, where minorities reign.[19]”

Or maybe you're getting confused and assuming - wrongly AFAIK - that the two-track system treats procedural and talking filibusters differently. But in reality I don't see why a talking filibuster can't just be bypassed (for other business) under the existing two-track system, so unless the suggestion is to eliminate parallel processing at the same time as requiring talking filibusters...

Obvious question here would be, what was the Republican Congress doing while Senator Merkley filibustered the Gorsuch confirmation in 2017 (for 15 hours)?

Keep in mind this isn't speculation, but likely based on the current culture we have. GOP favorability was at it lowest during the Obama era shutdowns: https://news.gallup.com/poll/165317/republican-party-favorability-sinks-record-low.aspx

What is especially non-speculative is that the 2010 and 2014 elections were some of the best results for Republicans ever in the current party system. When has the sequence you envision ever been realized? Was Ted Cruz' career destroyed by his talking filibuster of Obamacare in 2013, or his attempt to filibuster the debt ceiling deal around the same time?

I suspect, as with other half-baked reform schemes, this raises operating costs for everyone but because of the asymmetry between the parties the effect in practice is to increase costs more for Democrats. Whereas elimination of the filibuster theoretically raises costs for both parties but the benefits are totally asymmetrical (in a good way) for the Democrats' part.

a completely inoffensive name

03-10-2021, 19:11

Per the 1970s agreement (https://ballotpedia.org/Filibuster_and_reconciliation_in_the_United_States_Congress) you mention, it's actually the opposite.
I think you are the one confused because that passage proves my point. The procedural or 'silent' filibuster is created out of the two-track system. It allows a bill which has been filibustered to essentially be removed from consideration on the floor without taking up any time, unlike a talking filibuster, with no accountability since anyone can send an email that says "this won't pass 60 votes, FYI."

Or maybe you're getting confused and assuming - wrongly AFAIK - that the two-track system treats procedural and talking filibusters differently. But in reality I don't see why a talking filibuster can't just be bypassed (for other business) under the existing two-track system, so unless the suggestion is to eliminate parallel processing at the same time as requiring talking filibusters...
This is where I think you really are confused. Can you please elaborate to me how a two-track system works during a talking filibuster? How can you entertain other business in a 'second-track' while a Senator is holding the floor hostage during a filibustering speech?

You are under the impression that somehow the Presiding Officer can conduct other business while someone is speaking but that is not how it works. If someone is actively speaking in debate they need to invoke cloture before they can move onto any other business. Again, the point of the 1970s agreement was to prevent filibusters from bringing the chamber to a halt precisely because of the 1960s civil rights filibusters that went on for multiple days. And in your quoted passage it explicitly states that once the two-track system allowed for silent filibusters the overall # of filibusters exploded.

Obvious question here would be, what was the Republican Congress doing while Senator Merkley filibustered the Gorsuch confirmation in 2017 (for 15 hours)?
In that specific case Senator Merkley's speech wasn't long enough to delay the timeline for confirmation so it wasn't technically a filibuster. But to answer the question, while he was talking the Senate floor was doing nothing for 15 hours as he had the floor. In practice, the Senators were preparing outside the chamber for the next day's cloture vote and McConnell's follow up with the Nuclear Option.

What is especially non-speculative is that the 2010 and 2014 elections were some of the best results for Republicans ever in the current party system. When has the sequence you envision ever been realized? Was Ted Cruz' career destroyed by his talking filibuster of Obamacare in 2013, or his attempt to filibuster the debt ceiling deal around the same time?

1. There was no government shutdown in 2010.
2. 2014 election happened a year after the 2012/2013 shutdown at which point the news cycle had already been replaced by Ebola, Ferguson, and the 'VA Scandal' all of which were bad optics for Dems. But the fact is during these shutdowns the public blames the GOP.
3. There are two recent instances of government shutdowns occurring in an election year: the 1995/1996 shutdown in which Clinton won re-election by 8.5 points, and the 2018 shutdown in which Dems had one of their best years ever.
4. Because of the bad optics of the 2018 shutdown, Ted Cruz went from a 16 point win in 2012 to less than 3 in 2018. Trump won by 6 points in 2020. So yeah, it proves my point.

a completely inoffensive name

03-11-2021, 02:24

A lot of the economically challenged on the right DO over-simplify that and make a knee-jerk response of "no."

As a tangential conversation to right-wing commentators getting it wrong, I've found a good resource that breaks down how the US government finances itself with these large packages.
https://www.core-econ.org/insights/usa/book/text/financing-american-government.html#introduction

After studying through this for a few hours, I think I understand the argument why 'debt doesn't matter' and why we should continue large deficit spending in the near term.

Post-2008 in the wake of near zero interest rates it seems that the Fed created a whole new tool for manipulating interest rates and is now able to 'anchor' the interest paid by the Treasury on US bills/bonds/notes by manipulating the interest on commercial bank excess reserves held at the Fed. The US government's demand for debt can now grow extremely large without a corresponding increase in the interest of those Treasuries.

The only issue at play here is what happens to the debt when interest rates increase due to inflation. Well at the point the Fed would signal future rate increase, the US government would ideally have much larger revenues due to the hot economy and plan accordingly to pay down debt before the rate increase.

But all of this is kind of silly to talk about in the first place because we are long way off from inflation when so many are not working or are not even looking for work. It seems we are very much below max employment and the levels of aggregate demand is much smaller than it could be. So for now, there is no such thing as 'too big', until we start hitting 3-4% unemployment we shouldn't be afraid of adding more debt.

I'm not an economist though, so everything I just said could be my misinterpretation of the above resource.

Montmorency

03-11-2021, 03:23

I think you are the one confused because that passage proves my point. The procedural or 'silent' filibuster is created out of the two-track system. It allows a bill which has been filibustered to essentially be removed from consideration on the floor without taking up any time, unlike a talking filibuster, with no accountability since anyone can send an email that says "this won't pass 60 votes, FYI."

You're conflating two separate things. The first is the way the current system encourages procedural filibusters, and whether or not there is any functional difference in terms of Senate action between a procedural and a talking filibuster.

This is where I think you really are confused. Can you please elaborate to me how a two-track system works during a talking filibuster? How can you entertain other business in a 'second-track' while a Senator is holding the floor hostage during a filibustering speech?

You are under the impression that somehow the Presiding Officer can conduct other business while someone is speaking but that is not how it works. If someone is actively speaking in debate they need to invoke cloture before they can move onto any other business. Again, the point of the 1970s agreement was to prevent filibusters from bringing the chamber to a halt precisely because of the 1960s civil rights filibusters that went on for multiple days. And in your quoted passage it explicitly states that once the two-track system allowed for silent filibusters the overall # of filibusters exploded.

In my understanding the invocation of cloture is strictly for the sake of the bill under filibuster and that the rules would allow just what I said (though in practice there would be no incentive for a filibustering Senator to continue speaking. Someone willing to dive into the Senate rules can offer a resolution, but in abstract it's unclear to me what the exact effective provisions of a "two-track" system would be, in response to the filibuster of the 1960s, if not this.

In that specific case Senator Merkley's speech wasn't long enough to delay the timeline for confirmation so it wasn't technically a filibuster.

...what? The measure of a filibuster isn't in its success. It was a filibuster.

But to answer the question, while he was talking the Senate floor was doing nothing for 15 hours as he had the floor. In practice, the Senators were preparing outside the chamber for the next day's cloture vote and McConnell's follow up with the Nuclear Option.

I was hoping for a source, but taking that for granted the proper test would be an extended talking filibuster, since it's no problem to wait an additional working day when you're already committed to changing the rules.

1. There was no government shutdown in 2010.
2. 2014 election happened a year after the 2012/2013 shutdown at which point the news cycle had already been replaced by Ebola, Ferguson, and the 'VA Scandal' all of which were bad optics for Dems. But the fact is during these shutdowns the public blames the GOP.

There was a lot of filibustering in 2010.

I'm not finding any polling that supports your assessment of public attitudes around the shutdown. As I can find most either blamed Obama/Dems or "both sides." At any rate, your dismissiveness here is hard to square with a conviction that obstruction will redound against the Republican Party: 'it's gonna, but it never has because reasons. But it's gonna!'

3. There are two recent instances of government shutdowns occurring in an election year: the 1995/1996 shutdown in which Clinton won re-election by 8.5 points, and the 2018 shutdown in which Dems had one of their best years ever.

4. Because of the bad optics of the 2018 shutdown, Ted Cruz went from a 16 point win in 2012 to less than 3 in 2018. Trump won by 6 points in 2020. So yeah, it proves my point.

:laugh4:

The shutdown came after the election.

Bottom line: support your theory that obstruction has hurt or will hurt the electoral prospects of Republicans.

a completely inoffensive name

03-11-2021, 04:02

:laugh4:

The shutdown came after the election.

Bottom line: support your theory that obstruction has hurt or will hurt the electoral prospects of Republicans.

Bruh, google is your friend. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/January_2018_United_States_federal_government_shutdown

a completely inoffensive name

03-11-2021, 04:26

whether or not there is any functional difference in terms of Senate action between a procedural and a talking filibuster.
There is, I have already explained it clearly. https://www.politifact.com/article/2021/mar/09/would-talking-filibuster-get-senate-moving/

Historically, a filibuster — the talking kind — would halt all business on the Senate floor until the parties were able to resolve their differences or one party backed down. To avoid having important legislation held hostage to a filibuster, Senate leaders decided they would acknowledge the filibuster, by stopping work on that bill but simply moving on to other business that wasn’t as controversial. This shift to a two-track system was intended to be constructive: It limited the damage that a filibuster could cause for the rest of the legislative agenda. But it had an unintended consequence — it became easy to filibuster, since the tiring work of talking a bill to death was no longer needed. Instead, all a minority had to do was say they were blocking a bill; that would essentially be enough to stop the bill in its tracks.

Moving back to the talking filibuster is the removal of the two-track system. The procedural or 'silent' filibuster is the two-track system, there is no incorrect conflation here cause it is the same thing. They call it the two track system because the bill itself gets moved onto a separate track from the floor as a whole, but a talking filibuster cannot have a two-track system because the talking takes up the floors agenda.

In my understanding the invocation of cloture is strictly for the sake of the bill under filibuster and that the rules would allow just what I said (though in practice there would be no incentive for a filibustering Senator to continue speaking. Someone willing to dive into the Senate rules can offer a resolution, but in abstract it's unclear to me what the exact effective provisions of a "two-track" system would be, in response to the filibuster of the 1960s, if not this.

Invoking cloture would roughly be the same under both systems, you get 60 Senators to agree to end debate on the matter. For a procedural/silent filibuster the petition can be made whenever on the floor and then there's a bunch of arcane steps like waiting a full day before moving on with the vote. It would be the same process with a talking filibuster but I don't think they would keep the bit about waiting a full day before voting on it. You can't have parallel processing on a talking filibuster and that is where your misconception is.

...what? The measure of a filibuster isn't in its success. It was a filibuster.
Lol, a filibuster by definition is a delay or prevention of the consideration of a bill through defined Senate rules however they define them. If I speak for 35 minutes on a bill that has 20 hours of debate allotted is that a filibuster? What difference does it make if he spoke for 5 minutes, 35 minutes, or 15 hours if the speech fit within the existing timeline for debate. This is just wrong.

There was a lot of filibustering in 2010. Shifting goalpost, but ok.

I'm not finding any polling that supports your assessment of public attitudes around the shutdown. As I can find most either blamed Obama/Dems or "both sides." At any rate, your dismissiveness here is hard to square with a conviction that obstruction will redound against the Republican Party: 'it's gonna, but it never has because reasons. But it's gonna!'

https://www.latimes.com/nation/politics/politicsnow/la-pn-government-shutdown-congress-polling-20131007-story.html
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-shutdown-poll-idUSKCN1OQ1FA
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/poll-major-damage-to-gop-after-shutdown-and-broad-dissatisfaction-with-government/2013/10/21/dae5c062-3a84-11e3-b7ba-503fb5822c3e_story.html
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/voters-blamed-gop-for-1995-shutdown_n_842769
https://www.npr.org/2019/01/11/684300134/most-americans-call-shutdown-embarrassing-as-it-s-set-to-become-longest-in-histo
https://millercenter.org/1995-96-government-shutdown
https://www.langerresearch.com/wp-content/uploads/1194a1GovtShutdown.pdf

Hooahguy

03-12-2021, 05:17

Bruh, google is your friend. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/January_2018_United_States_federal_government_shutdown

I think he meant this one (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018%E2%80%932019_United_States_federal_government_shutdown), which lasted from December 22, 2018 until January 25, 2019. I think the political ramifications of shutdowns on elections are overstated as I don't really see that sort of messaging on either side about it during election cycles.

In more important news, Biden signed the 1.9 trillion relief bill today, which is a pretty big deal. People seem pretty focused on the stimulus checks, but the vastness of this bill is really quite something. I'm going to quote a good article (https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2021/03/what-is-in-covid-relief-bill-stimulus-checks-biden-progressives.html) about it to list off some of the provisions:

• The average household in the bottom quintile of America’s economic ladder will see its annual income rise by more than 20 percent.

• A family of four with one working parent and one unemployed one will have $12,460 more in government benefits to help them make ends meet.

• The poorest single mothers in America will receive at least $3,000 more per child in government support, along with $1,400 for themselves and additional funds for nutritional assistance and rental aid.

• Child poverty in the U.S. will drop by half.

• More than 1 million unionized workers who were poised to lose their pensions will now receive 100 percent of their promised retirement benefits for at least the next 30 years.

• America’s Indigenous communities will receive $31.2 billion in aid, the largest investment the federal government has ever made in the country’s Native people.

• Black farmers will receive $5 billion in recompense for a century of discrimination and dispossession, a miniature reparation that will have huge consequences for individual African-American agriculturalists, many of whom will escape from debt and retain their land as a direct result of the legislation.

• The large majority of Americans who earn less than $75,000 as individuals or less than $150,000 as couples will receive a $1,400 stimulus check for themselves and another for each child or adult dependent in their care.

• America’s child-care centers will not go into bankruptcy en masse, thanks to a $39 billion investment in the nation’s care infrastructure.

• Virtually all states and municipalities in America will exit the pandemic in better fiscal health than pre-COVID, which is to say a great many layoffs of public employees and cutbacks in public services will be averted.

• No one in the United States will have to devote more than 8.5 percent of their income to paying for health insurance for at least the next two years, while ACA plans will become premium-free for a large number of low-income workers.

• America’s unemployed will not see their federal benefits lapse this weekend and will have an extra $300 to spend every week through the first week in September.

Montmorency

03-15-2021, 00:26

See Majority Leader Schumer's recent comments on Senator Collins and the 2009 stimulus for the evidence of changing mindsets among the Democratic caucus.

Every liberal agrees that (downward) redistribution of resources is one of the core functions of and justifications for the state, but I recently saw a pithier formulation: There is no argument for the government not taking money from the rich to give to the poor.

Also, we might try to operationalize social management of private wealth in analogy to atomic orbitals. There's a ground state and there are energetic states, the latter of which rapidly decay back to the ground state, with ever-greater energies required to excite and maintain the electron at successive higher orbitals. A problem with modern wealth is that it is itself gravitational rather than subject to nucleic forces, so to speak.

Bruh, google is your friend. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/January_2018_United_States_federal_government_shutdown

It would have been better had you merely forgotten the timing of the shutdown. Any suggestion that a shutdown that lasted all of two days (the Clinton, Obama, and Trump shutdowns all lasted weeks), and had zero detectable influence over tracking polling of Trump's approval or the generic ballot, could have hurt Republicans in elections almost a year later, doesn't survive scrutiny.

Moving back to the talking filibuster is the removal of the two-track system. The procedural or 'silent' filibuster is the two-track system, there is no incorrect conflation here cause it is the same thing. They call it the two track system because the bill itself gets moved onto a separate track from the floor as a whole, but a talking filibuster cannot have a two-track system because the talking takes up the floors agenda.

Alright, so to the limit of my interest in checking whether I've missed anything, I spent some time looking into the granular Senate procedures and how they interact with the filibuster, starting with Rules 19-22 of the Senate rules. I couldn't make any conclusive findings.
https://www.rules.senate.gov/rules-of-the-senate
https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/RS/98-780
Consideration, Question of (https://www.riddick.gpo.gov/UserData/SenateProcedures/Consideration,%20Question%20of.pdf#xml=http://www.riddick.gpo.gov/PdfHighlighter.aspx?DocId=33&Index=D%3a%5cWebSites%5cUserIndex%5cSenateProcedures%5c&HitCount=159&hits=1+1d+3a+67+b5+f9+12d+189+1f1+237+248+28a+2df+333+343+36a+43a+4cc+4e5+4f1+5fc+605+62e+651+668+67 e+6b9+75d+770+7de+80d+85a+88c+896+9c9+a12+a29+a32+a44+a5a+a80+b1f+b28+b31+b95+ba3+bb7+bc2+bcc+c4d+c8 7+c97+cab+ce2+d0c+e1c+e33+e60+e71+e89+e96+ea4+eae+eb8+edb+eeb+f5f+f91+fa4+11db+1225+129c+12a4+12b7+1 3fc+140b+143a+1457+146e+1498+14ad+14b5+15c6+15db+15e4+1652+1809+18e1+18f1+195e+1a2d+1b1f+1b7d+1ba9+1 bc4+1bec+1c1d+1c4f+1c6c+1c79+1c91+1caf+1cc2+1cd5+1cfc+1d0c+1d1a+1d2e+1d3b+1d8c+1da9+1dbe+1f09+1f28+1 f31+1f41+1fe9+1ff2+2151+21c8+21ee+2216+2221+228c+2323+2369+2378+238e+23b7+23b8+23c2+23e3+23f7+24f5+2 573+2689+2745+2777+2822+289b+28a4+28c5+2921+2956+2995+29f1+2a0a+2a1b+2a3f+2aaf+2ab8+2aed+2b1a+2b2e+2 b4c+2b6c+2b90+2ba2+2c29+)

I still don't know more than that in the early 70s, the system was changed to allow two items of legislation to be under consideration at the same time, when previously only one had been accepted. And moreover that a successful invocation of cloture continued to require that the matter "shall be the unfinished business to the exclusion of all other business until disposed of."

The only scenario I can envision is if, prior to the rule change, a proposal on the floor had to remain the sole unfinished business of the Senate until it was either resolved through voting or formally withdrawn - and there existed a sentiment against having to nominally withdraw legislation that was effectively defeated before a vote. That is, this hypothetical motivation behind the rule change would have been to allow the sponsors and supporters of bills stymied by filibuster to pretend that the legislation hadn't actually been successfully neutralized (by formally removing it from the calendar or whatever). When the physical operation of a filibuster is to indefinitely delay a vote through continuous debate, the old system's requirement that one party capitulate - the debater can't stop or the vote proceeds - to the other would be covered with a fig leaf.

I have no idea if this is the truth of the matter, but I can't invent another alternative to my preconception.

Which remains responsive to the context of disruptive filibusters in then-recent years. If Senate Democrats modified the rules so that one piece of legislation could come under consideration while another was being filibustered - the procedural/shadow/ghost filibuster not yet being in in practice - then an intelligent presumption would be that what they had in mind was that one bill might be brought to the table while the other was being blocked by filibuster in the old manner. If the old filibuster used to hinder other business from being taken up, what would be the point of this "two-track" system if it doesn't actually affect that very issue - if a continuing talking filibuster would still prevent other business from being taken up on account of the Senator speaking?!

Unless the postulate is, incredibly, that Democrats consciously redesigned the rules to make it easier to filibuster in a novel way (without actually filibustering) even as they claimed the opposite.

I leave the question to someone with more interest or knowledge in the Senate rules and history than I ; what's really at issue here is your unfounded opinion that obliging Republicans to talk at a bill until it dies would damage their standing with their base.

No more both sides crap, people will ask why the Senate is not doing anything and people can point out it is because Senator shithead is still reading Dr. Seuss on the floor to block some minor appointment no one cares about.

The fundamental problem this theory runs into, besides that it has never worked out that way before, is that we already know that partisans are fine with the procedural tactics of their copartisans but dislike the tactics of their opposition.

Democrats noticing that Republicans filibuster - and disliking them for it - is not an electorally-significant phenomenon. They're already Democrats.

Lol, a filibuster by definition is a delay or prevention of the consideration of a bill through defined Senate rules however they define them. If I speak for 35 minutes on a bill that has 20 hours of debate allotted is that a filibuster? What difference does it make if he spoke for 5 minutes, 35 minutes, or 15 hours if the speech fit within the existing timeline for debate. This is just wrong.

...what?

a filibuster by definition is a delay or prevention of the consideration of a bill through defined Senate rules however they define them.

Which is what

What the heck are you talking about?

What difference does it make if he spoke for 5 minutes, 35 minutes, or 15 hours if the speech fit within the existing timeline for debate.

:on_huh:

It was not within the existing timeline. That is why the Republicans changed the rules on SCOTUS nominations. I do not understand why you would believe that Mitch McConnell allotted Jeff Merkley 15 hours to debate Gorsuch's nomination - which Democrats had explicitly announced (https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/23/us/politics/democrats-filibuster-neil-gorsuch-nomination.html) they were going to filibuster ahead of time - only to change the rules the very next day preventing Merkley from continuing?

Don't make a boner.

Shifting goalpost, but ok.

The goalpost was that Republicans did not suffer electoral consequences for obstruction, which you contend they did and will again - against evidence.

https://www.latimes.com/nation/polit...007-story.html
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-u...-idUSKCN1OQ1FA
https://www.washingtonpost.com/polit...c3e_story.html
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/voter...tdown_n_842769
https://www.npr.org/2019/01/11/68430...ngest-in-histo
https://millercenter.org/1995-96-government-shutdown
https://www.langerresearch.com/wp-co...vtShutdown.pdf

Would you like to make an attempt at elucidating a causal mechanism whereby half the country blaming Republicans for a negative development would undermine Republican electoral performance among Republican voters? Including why we haven't seen it before and why we would expect to see it now

I'm not making fun of you here. If I were, I would ask you who should be picked to primary Senator Manchin from the left (https://www.wdtv.com/2021/02/25/poll-majority-of-west-virginians-support-15-federal-minimum-wage/).

a completely inoffensive name

03-15-2021, 01:57

...what?

Which is what

What the heck are you talking about?

It was not within the existing timeline. That is why the Republicans changed the rules on SCOTUS nominations. I do not understand why you would believe that Mitch McConnell allotted Jeff Merkley 15 hours to debate Gorsuch's nomination - which Democrats had explicitly announced (https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/23/us/politics/democrats-filibuster-neil-gorsuch-nomination.html) they were going to filibuster ahead of time - only to change the rules the very next day preventing Merkley from continuing?

Don't make a boner.

Dude, I'm moving on after this post FYI. I guess I have not adequately explained the flow of parliamentary procedure. But to be clear, it was not a filibuster, it did not delay anything. Schumer did say Gorsuch was a non-starter for 60 votes which is invoking the procedural filibuster. McConnell then committed to removing the filibuster rule for SCOTUS before Merkley even started talking. To go into the weeds, this is what happens usually when a procedural filibuster is invoked:

Majority leader recognizes the lack of votes on the bill to move forward. This bill under consideration is called a 'Main Motion', but with the unanimous consent of the Senate or the consent of the Minority Leader they agree to 'resolve the main motion at a future date determined' and bring another motion to the floor. The Senate is technically now entertaining multiple 'main motions' under different 'tracks'. This type of procedure is what the 1970 agreement established. This future date could be agreed upon to be whenever and if not resolved by the end of the legislative session it is then deemed dead along with the rest of all pending legislation after a successful call of 'adjournment sine die' (this is the vote to adjourn the chamber until the start of the next legislative session on Jan 3rd of even years). This is how all filibustered bills actually die, to my knowledge, without the need for the Senate to hold any sort of vote yes/no on the bill itself.

What McConnell did instead was say that he did not agree with the Minority leader (Schumer) to resolve the main motion (Gorsuch nomination) at a future date. This forces the cloture vote because the majority will need to motion to end debate and under Rule XXII that vote (cloture) requires 3/5th of the chamber. When the cloture vote failed because Schumer got all the Dems to vote no, McConnell invoked the nuclear option by having a GOP Senator call a 'Question of Order' under Rule XX. That rule basically says that a Senator can ask the presiding officer (McConnell in this case) what the procedure is and the Senate votes on a simple majority vote on whether they agree with the presiding officer or will overrule the presiding officer. In that instance a GOP Senator asks McConnell along the lines of "I thought the vote for cloture was 51 for SCOTUS appointments, please clarify." McConnell replies back 'no, it is 60'. The Senate then votes to either affirm the decision of the Presiding Officer to hold the vote required at 60 or not based on a simple majority. GOP votes to override the presiding officer, which now establishes the cloture vote at 51 which now means the cloture vote passes and they proceed with the nomination.

Now back to the original question of "was this a filibuster", if Merkley had talked for more than 48 hours then it would have delayed the cloture vote and become a filibuster for the nomination, because he started talking on Tuesday and the vote to invoke cloture/GOP vote to remove filibuster was not scheduled until that Thursday. So even after he finished talking for 15 hours, it still didn't impact the original timeline for confirmation McConnell had set. The standoff over cloture and the nuclear option was scheduled for Thursday from the beginning and that was not delayed by Merkley. (see correction below)

https://time.com/4726435/jeff-merkley-filibuster-neil-gorsuch/

Merkley’s marathon speech wasn’t technically a filibuster, as it didn’t delay anything. Democrats will mount their filibuster on Thursday when they are expected to raise the necessary votes to deny cloture, which ends debate.

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/gorsuch-opposition-oregon-sen-jeff-merkley-leads-bid-block-trump-n742816

The speech didn't delay the debate or votes.

Here is where you are getting it right, Monty:
"The only scenario I can envision is if, prior to the rule change, a proposal on the floor had to remain the sole unfinished business of the Senate until it was either resolved through voting or formally withdrawn"
This is correct and how the Senate operated before the 1970 agreement.

Basically before the agreement you could only entertain one 'Main Motion' at a time. But let me clarify this terminology about 'entertaining'. The two-track system is basically a card game here. When a bill has been filibustered and moved to a future date for resolution, it is still a 'main motion' that is being 'entertained' but by 'entertained' we just mean that the bill itself has not been revoked for consideration or formally voted upon for approval/defeat. But in practice what this means is that the bill is more or less dead and no longer under consideration unless at some point within the legislative session enough senators can agree to move forward on the cloture vote. This is usually done through agreements between Senators that when the Majority and Minority Leader bring it back to the floor there will be a number of amendments to tack on which makes the bill palatable for everyone to approve. If the Minority Leader doesn't want to bring it back for any reason it will be a bill that is 'entertained' by the chamber all the way until adjournment sine die where it will formally die.

One last point to address on your confusion about the Senate rules:
"If the old filibuster used to hinder other business from being taken up, what would be the point of this "two-track" system if it doesn't actually affect that very issue - if a continuing talking filibuster would still prevent other business from being taken up on account of the Senator speaking"

The two track system is a semi-codified gentleman's agreement that when either side feel it is necessary to filibuster that they would use this procedure instead of resorting to the talking filibuster which brings the chamber to a standstill. Both sides were in agreement at the time (1970s) that it was better to keep the chamber productive while disagreements over certain issues were becoming more polarized.

Under McConnell, he broke the un-codified part of this agreement. Which was that both sides were to use the new filibuster procedure sparingly and only in very high profile cases. Instead, he broke the norm and weaponized the procedure to deny all legislation that did not have the backing of 60 Senators.

The talking filibuster was also kept because of a few reasons:
1. Removing the talking filibuster means putting a cap on the talking time of Senators, which they felt was against the spirit of the chamber.
2. It provides leverage in a last ditch effort to kill a bill, in the sense that by performing a talking filibuster the chamber becomes very unproductive which hurts the ruling party.
3. The 1970 agreement to make this alternative filibuster procedure meant that the talking filibuster would become 'obsolete' anyway. (this didn't become true because of #2)

As you can see in Rule XIX (quoting your senate.gov link), the talking filibuster is still there:

When a Senator desires to speak, he shall rise and address the Presiding Officer, and shall not proceed until he is recognized, and the Presiding Officer shall recognize the Senator who shall first address him. No Senator shall interrupt another Senator in debate without his consent, and to obtain such consent he shall first address the Presiding Officer, and no Senator shall speak more than twice upon any one question in debate on the same legislative day without leave of the Senate, which shall be determined without debate.
As long as someone is talking and wishes to talk without interruption, they may proceed to delay anything they want as long as they keep talking or enough Senators are willing to present a motion to the presiding officer to end debate (cloture).

I hope this clarified some stuff.

Montmorency

03-15-2021, 02:42

If all that recapitulation of procedure that I already read through for your sake is merely to say that Merkley's speech was not the extent of the filibuster, that's fine, but it was part of it, because Merkley was not obliged to take that time. Senators don't have to speak for hours, and usually don't, surprising as it may be to some.

Guess what happens if Dems denied cloture? Nothing if no one was using their time; Republicans would have had it available to just take the standard majority vote! There is no such thing as a procedural filibuster that isn't backstopped with the potential to physically implement it.

So you had that backwards - a filibuster doesn't delay cloture vote, cloture is what can be motioned to overcome the filibuster! And that was the case since 1917.

For reference, here is an example (https://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/minute/Proxmire_Keeps_Senate_in_Session_Overnight.htm) of a long speech that was not part of a filibuster.

His was called a “gentleman’s filibuster,” because he promised in advance not to block a vote on the debt increase or use any parliamentary tactic other than his physical stamina.

"The only scenario I can envision is if, prior to the rule change, a proposal on the floor had to remain the sole unfinished business of the Senate until it was either resolved through voting or formally withdrawn"
This is correct and how the Senate operated before the 1970 agreement.

You find it unremarkable that, in your account, in response to pervasive filibusters, Democrats would amend the rules to make filibustering even easier?

After giving the context further consideration, I made some new connections, especially keeping in mind that the two-track system depends on the collaboration of the majority and minority leaders (or else the default unanimous consent).

Why would Democrats under Nixon create a system in which the opposing party, or more precisely its leadership, was awarded a new institutionalized veto over their quasi-permanent Senate majority?

Upon reflection, in the pre-Reagan party system, filibusters tended to originate either as intraparty disputes in the majority (e.g. civil rights obviously) or with a minority subfaction of the minority party (hard to find info on non-civil rights filibusters, but an example at a glance may be the 1928 Boulder Dam (https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1144&dat=19280529&id=cVgbAAAAIBAJ&sjid=REoEAAAAIBAJ&pg=5038,7768) filibuster). So with *that* context, it's just about conceivable that Mansfield and Dem leadership under Nixon made an incredibly :daisy: stupid, bipartisan-comity-addicted, predictably (even at the time) self-defeating and deleterious reform where the smart-brained, well-heeled elite leadership of the respective parties would collude to smooth the legislative process a little, and do nothing to actually supersede filibusters such that a little thing like Congressional majorities become sufficient to govern. It is tempting to believe, I guess, there being no shortage of instances of Democrats blithely screwing themselves one way or another. Or else cutting deals with Republicans in order to avoid putting themselves in a position to offer progressive leadership.

For another example of an intraparty dispute (https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1984/07/31/senate-halts-filibuster-on-hoover-dam-power/204af89b-e72e-4a04-9a99-2a78eb7c6f20/), here is a seemingly-progressive Reagan-era Dem filibustering another bill relating to Western dams, before being overcome with bipartisan cloture. I found it while researching the 1928 filibuster.

a completely inoffensive name

03-15-2021, 03:15

You are right, the cloture vote isn't something you filibuster, it is in fact the vote that breaks the filibuster. Error on my part, but my main argument was that the 15 hour speech wasn't a filibuster is still sound in that it didn't matter if he spoke for 15 hours or 5 minutes. It made no impact to the overall flow of the proceedings. In this instance, looking deeper, Schumer had already invoked the filibuster and per the Senate rules there is a gap between the cloture motion and when the cloture vote is performed:

Notwithstanding the provisions of rule II or rule IV or any other rule of the Senate, at any time a motion signed by sixteen Senators, to bring to a close the debate upon any measure, motion, other matter pending before the Senate, or the unfinished business, is presented to the Senate, the Presiding Officer, or clerk at the direction of the Presiding Officer, shall at once state the motion to the Senate, and one hour after the Senate meets on the following calendar day but one, he shall lay the motion before the Senate and direct that the clerk call the roll, and upon the ascertainment that a quorum is present, the Presiding Officer shall, without debate, submit to the Senate by a yea-and-nay vote the question
So again, the essence of what I am getting at here is that since the motion for cloture was submitted by GOP Senators on Tuesday following calendar day but one placed the actual vote for Thursday. Merkley then started talking for 15 hours on Tuesday using the interval time to make a big statement, but that had no effect on the proceedings. My stance here is that a bill should only be considered filibustered if there is any actual delay or success in removing the bill from consideration. Merkley did neither.

I follow up one the rest of your stuff later.

a completely inoffensive name

03-15-2021, 05:29

I was able to find my guidebook on Congressional Procedure. Skimming it right now, but will do a closer read over the next few days.
This shit is so confusing, I'm wondering if what I said above about the 1970s agreement is technically accurate.

The consideration of matters by the Senate floor requires unanimous consent or the Majority Leader makes a motion to proceed, the notification that the Majority Leader wants consideration of a matter is given in advance to Senators. Senate rules do not have any sort of motion to "move the previous question" like the the House does. That motion is a majority vote for ending debate and voting on the matter which is why the House does not have any filibusters (also House members do not have the unlimited speaking time either). The motion to proceed by the Majority Leader is itself subject to debate which can be endless unless ended by a unanimous consent agreement, cloture, or motion to table (kill).

So if I understand this correctly, the procedural filibuster is when (using Gorsuch as example again) any Dem, probably Schumer, said to McConnell, "I don't consent to this matter being considered". McConnell then has to put a motion to consider on the floor, before 1970s this motion would have to be resolved before the chamber could move on (I think?) But under two track system, the Leaders can 're-schedule' the motion to proceed on the matter for a later time to be determined and move onto another matter to be considered. Ok, so far so good. I think they actually got past the vote to consider for Gorsuch and were debating the nomination itself at this point though, but the procedure would be the same.

What actually happened (to my understanding) is that McConnell right away moved forward with a motion for cloture on the matter. My guidebook, 'Congressional Procedure' by Richard Arenberg says the following:
"It is difficult to attempt to count filibusters, because it is not always clear that a filibuster is occurring. Usually it is the cloture votes that are counted; however, cloture votes can occur when there is no filibuster. The majority leader may use a cloture vote to preclude the possibility of a filibuster or to exclude nongermane amendments."

I don't really care for that statement, I think even if McConnell moved for cloture immediately once consideration of the Gorsuch nomination began, it was directly in response to Schumer denying unanimous consent for the purpose of delaying and endlessly debating the issue. From what the guidebook is telling me, time limits on debate and votes can only be done through unanimous consent agreements, cloture, or non-debatable motions like reconciliation. So by denying unanimous consent on a time limit, that seems to be in essence to me a filibuster, right? McConnell's cloture petition on Tuesday was in response to the Dem Party's refusal to agree on time limits which seems to be a de facto filibuster, after which the time limit was set for Thursday.

Merkley's speech was just grandstanding at that point. Not only did it not delay the votes, it was not even part of nor necessary for the Gorsuch filibuster. Since the motion to consider the nomination moved forward with no time limits specified, the Dems did not even need to hold the floor with someone talking. The only way to break out of 'debate time' without unanimous consent is through a successful cloture vote, regardless of whether anyone is even talking.

Talk about arcane and confusing rules:
"By precedent and tradition, the Majority Leader sets the agenda and decides which matters to call up for consideration on the Senate floor. The majority leader's powers derive from the precedent that he or she has the privilege of prior recognition. This means that if the majority leader is seeking recognition, the presiding officer will always recognize him or her first."
Monty, do you understand what this means. Forget holding the Senate, as long as Harris is VP, she can hang out in the Senate for the entire 4 years and as Presiding Officer simply refuse to acknowledge McConnell. The executive branch could pre-emptively override Congress on any veto, even a super majority, if the VP refuses to recognize the Senate Majority Leader's requests for consideration of a matter. Technically, the Senate rules state the VP would need to recognize the first Senator to address him/her, but why couldn't that be a member of the minority party every time?

You find it unremarkable that, in your account, in response to pervasive filibusters, Democrats would amend the rules to make filibustering even easier?
Not really, even in the 1970s the parties were a lot more mixed ideologically. Dixiecrats were still a big part of the party at the time and without getting too much into the weeds, there are factors related to systemic racism that gave Southern Democrats a lock on the inner-party senior positions and Congressional committee heads.

After giving the context further consideration, I made some new connections, especially keeping in mind that the two-track system depends on the collaboration of the majority and minority leaders (or else the default unanimous consent).

Why would Democrats under Nixon create a system in which the opposing party, or more precisely its leadership, was awarded a new institutionalized veto over their quasi-permanent Senate majority?

Upon reflection, in the pre-Reagan party system, filibusters tended to originate either as intraparty disputes in the majority (e.g. civil rights obviously) or with a minority subfaction of the minority party (hard to find info on non-civil rights filibusters, but an example at a glance may be the 1928 Boulder Dam (https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1144&dat=19280529&id=cVgbAAAAIBAJ&sjid=REoEAAAAIBAJ&pg=5038,7768) filibuster). So with *that* context, it's just about conceivable that Mansfield and Dem leadership under Nixon made an incredibly :daisy: stupid, bipartisan-comity-addicted, predictably (even at the time) self-defeating and deleterious reform where the smart-brained, well-heeled elite leadership of the respective parties would collude to smooth the legislative process a little, and do nothing to actually supersede filibusters such that a little thing like Congressional majorities become sufficient to govern. It is tempting to believe, I guess, there being no shortage of instances of Democrats blithely screwing themselves one way or another. Or else cutting deals with Republicans in order to avoid putting themselves in a position to offer progressive leadership.

For another example of an intraparty dispute (https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1984/07/31/senate-halts-filibuster-on-hoover-dam-power/204af89b-e72e-4a04-9a99-2a78eb7c6f20/), here is a seemingly-progressive Reagan-era Dem filibustering another bill relating to Western dams, before being overcome with bipartisan cloture. I found it while researching the 1928 filibuster.

It is a shame how stupid in hindsight the decision was, but keep in mind post-WW2 to late 1980s was some of the least polarized times in American political history. I don't think expected people like Newt Gingrich and McConnell running the show 20 years later.

ReluctantSamurai

03-15-2021, 13:29

So...technically speaking...which one of you can be considered to be filibustering this thread?

Just kidding, of course...~D

Seriously, how many senators actually know any of this shit?

a completely inoffensive name

03-16-2021, 04:28

So...technically speaking...which one of you can be considered to be filibustering this thread?

Just kidding, of course...~D

Seriously, how many senators actually know any of this shit?

Lol, you are completely right though. I'm definitely filibustering here as I stumble my way through Senate rules.
But nothing much is happening anyway so....

As far Senators knowing this shit? Maybe like a quarter of them. Most probably just rely on the parliamentarians to get anything done.

rory_20_uk

03-16-2021, 13:09

All that matters is being reelected. Everything is secondary to that end - even doing things that benefit the country matter less than ensuring the votes are there.

I imagine that knowing the rules and implementing them matters not one jot.

~:smoking:

drone

03-16-2021, 13:56

You can be damn sure that McConnell knows the rules front and back. :yes:

a completely inoffensive name

03-17-2021, 02:42

Well, here we are. Biden supports going back to the talking filibuster.
https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/biden-supports-reforming-senate-filibuster-abc-news-exclusive/story?id=76499156

Now I need to read up on all the old school legislative tricks to give talking senators breaks or get them to relieve the floor.

Montmorency

03-17-2021, 04:42

Regarding Biden's overture, I kind of hope Dems are playing slippery-slope chess here, and that in April we'll have a Republican talking filibuster against the John Lewis Act or the PRO Act or Breyer's replacement or whatever, that will go on for a month, and Dems will finally cry uncle on bipartisanship and further negate the filibuster.

You are right, the cloture vote isn't something you filibuster, it is in fact the vote that breaks the filibuster. Error on my part, but my main argument was that the 15 hour speech wasn't a filibuster is still sound in that it didn't matter if he spoke for 15 hours or 5 minutes. It made no impact to the overall flow of the proceedings. In this instance, looking deeper, Schumer had already invoked the filibuster and per the Senate rules there is a gap between the cloture motion and when the cloture vote is performed:

So again, the essence of what I am getting at here is that since the motion for cloture was submitted by GOP Senators on Tuesday following calendar day but one placed the actual vote for Thursday. Merkley then started talking for 15 hours on Tuesday using the interval time to make a big statement, but that had no effect on the proceedings. My stance here is that a bill should only be considered filibustered if there is any actual delay or success in removing the bill from consideration. Merkley did neither.

I follow up one the rest of your stuff later.

I haven't read your longer post, but this will have to suffice for today.

So again, the issue is that you have the causality backwards. You're saying that Merkley's contribution didn't matter because it didn't interrupt cloture, when that is neither what cloture is about nor what Merkley was accomplishing. You have to recalibrate your view on the process from the modal mid-century (won't be able to use that phrase uncomplicatedly for much longer) filibusters in that the contemporary filibuster is *always* a whole-party event in a way that it pretty much never was before, say, Reagan/Gingrich-era at earliest. It's no longer just 5 or 10 people in a faction trying to intimidate a majority. Moreover, the only reason filibusters exist in the first place is that majorities allow them; at any time during a filibuster over the course of the 20th century, a majority could have done exactly what McConnell did. By your logic, none of what are recognized as famous filibusters of the era are filibusters in that the cloture threshold could have been lowered at any time, thus negating any ongoing delay. That would trivialize the very term.

The effect and intent of the operation is what makes the filibuster, not its ultimate success. The ultimate success is contingent on the actions of the people being filibustered, not those doing the filibustering.

If Merkley walked into the Senate on that Tuesday, stood at his place, and emitted a continuous high-pitched shriek for the following 48 hours, it wouldn't have mattered, because the process would have moved forward; cloture votes always take precedent over senatorial speaking privileges, which privileges are in fact the very basis of the filibuster. Filibusters such as Merkley's are why the Republicans had to move forward with cloture in the first place.

Democrats were filibustering the nomination. Merkley instantiated that filibuster for the party. Had Merkley or another Democrat not performed as he did, McConnell could simply have ordered a vote on the nomination that day and it would have succeeded by simple majority vote in the same manner as dozens of Supreme Court confirmations before it. Because Dems were filibustering, McConnell could not do that, so he motioned cloture the same day. He motioned cloture because cloture is needed to break filibusters. Because such motions take two days to "ripen/mature," the vote was held that Thursday. McConnell changed the rules so that his majority could secure cloture. That was accomplished, and Gorsuch was duly confirmed.

There is no need or purpose to invoke cloture when there is no filibuster.

Had McConnell not changed the rules, the filibuster would have succeeded in preventing Gorsuch's nomination. As it was, it happened to delay it by days (by the way, delaying the legislative calendar by days or weeks can often have significance on the agenda of the majority, whether you wish to call it filibuster or not, and delay Democrats did). Without speechifying action, there would have been no possibility of blocking or delaying the nomination anyway.

That is why Merkley's speech must be counted as part of a filibuster.

For reference, we should rely on this extensive Congressional report on the filibuster and cloture. (see CRS link subsections "Impact on the Time for Consideration" and "Impact on the Time for Consideration" for more on delays)
https://www.everycrsreport.com/reports/RL30360.html

Timing of Cloture Motions
The relation of cloture motions to filibusters may depend on when the cloture motions are filed. Prior to the 1970s, consideration of a matter was usually allowed to proceed for some days or even weeks before cloture was sought or cloture might not be sought at all. In more recent decades, it has become common to seek cloture on a matter much earlier in the course of consideration, even immediately after consideration has begun. In some cases, a cloture motion has been filed, or has been deemed to have been filed, even before the matter in question has been called up. (Because the rules permit filing a motion for cloture only on a pending question, either of these actions, of course, requires unanimous consent.) When cloture is sought before any dilatory action actually occurs, the action may be an indication that the threat of a filibuster is present, or at least is thought to be present.

There often has been more than one cloture vote on the same question. If and when the Senate rejects a cloture motion, a Senator then can file a second motion to invoke cloture on that question. In some cases, Senators anticipate that a cloture motion may fail and file a second motion before the Senate has voted on the first one. For example, one cloture motion may be presented on Monday and another on Tuesday. If the Senate rejects the first motion when it matures on Wednesday, the second motion will ripen for a vote on Thursday. (If the Senate agrees to the first motion, of course, there is no need for it to act on the second.) There have been instances in which there have been even more cloture votes on the same question. During the 100th Congress (1987-1988), for example, there were eight cloture votes, all unsuccessful, on a campaign finance bill.

It also may be necessary for the Senate to attempt cloture on several different questions to complete consideration of a single measure. The possibility of having to obtain cloture first on a motion to proceed to consider a measure and subsequently also on the measure itself has already been discussed. Cloture on multiple questions may also be required when the Senate considers a bill with a pending amendment in the nature of a substitute. As already mentioned, once cloture has been invoked on a question, Rule XXII requires amendments to that question to be germane. As with other amendments, accordingly, if a pending amendment in the nature of a substitute contains provisions non-germane to the underlying bill, and the Senate proceeds to invoke cloture on the bill, further consideration of the substitute is rendered out of order. In such a case, bringing action to a conclusion may require obtaining cloture first on the substitute and then, once the substitute has been adopted, also on the underlying bill.

In current practice, it is not unusual for the majority leader to move for cloture on the underlying bill immediately after filing cloture on the amendment in the nature of a substitute. Under these circumstances, the two-day layover required for each cloture motion is being fulfilled simultaneously for both. The first cloture motion filed (on the amendment in the nature of a substitute) ripens first, at which point the Senate votes on that cloture motion. If cloture is invoked and after the Senate votes on adopting the substitute—after the possible 30 hours of post-cloture consideration—the second cloture motion (on the bill) is automatically pending, having already met the two-day layover.

This entire process exists in order to evade filibusters. That is all there is to speak of. No filibuster, no cloture. Whether cloture is successful or not, its invocation is ipso facto the indication of the presence of a filibuster.

In principle, a truly determined minority of Senators, even one too small to prevent cloture, usually can delay for as much as two weeks the time at which the Senate finally votes to pass a bill that most Senators support.

What is more, there often are more bills that are ready to be considered on the Senate floor than there is time available for acting on them. Under these circumstances, the majority leader may be reluctant, especially toward the end of a Congress, even to call up a bill unless he can be assured that it will not be filibustered. The threat of a filibuster may be enough to convince the majority leader to devote the Senate's time to other matters instead, even if all concerned agree that the filibuster ultimately would not succeed in preventing the Senate from passing the bill.

Maybe an analytically-soothing approach would be differentiate between episodes as successful or attempted filibusters. Is that better for you? In analogy, January 6 was not a Trump coup, it was an attempted Trump coup. But just as we should refer to illegitimate attempts by government insiders to gain or maintain power through coercion as coups, we should refer to the systematic deployment of procedural loopholes to delay undesirable legislation as filibusters.

24503

The possibility of having to obtain cloture first on a motion to proceed to consider a measure and subsequently also on the measure itself has already been discussed.

'We're going to force a vote on voting to consider a vote!'

Greatest deliberative body in the world, ladies and gentlemen.:sweatdrop:

Tangential note about the talking filibuster's net costs: it advantages the filibustering faction. Only one of them needs to be present on the floor at any time, but the opponents of the filibuster must maintain a quorum in order to avoid a reset of their agenda (see also the first part of the CRS report).

a completely inoffensive name

03-17-2021, 05:35

I haven't read your longer post, but this will have to suffice for today.
Should have read it, cause you are not even characterizing my stance correctly. Also you are incorrect on some statements, see below.

Had Merkley or another Democrat not performed as he did, McConnell could simply have ordered a vote on the nomination that day and it would have succeeded by simple majority vote in the same manner as dozens of Supreme Court confirmations before it.
Buddy, this is called 'calling the previous question' and the Senate does not recognize such a motion. Ending debate and/or time limits is always done by unanimous consent or cloture for debatable motions.
You don't need to speak to instantiate a filibuster. If a party simply refuses to play along with unanimous consent, you get into endless debate time until cloture is invoked. If Merkley had not spoken, McConnell still would have had to wait the 48 hours. He still would have had to invoke cloture!

Had McConnell not changed the rules, the filibuster would have succeeded in preventing Gorsuch's nomination.
True

As it was, it happened to delay it by days.
True

Without speechifying action, there would have been no possibility of blocking or delaying the nomination anyway.
False. Once Schumer decided that the Dems would reject an unanimous consent agreement for the motion to consider Gorsuch, the filibuster was in effect. At that point McCOnnell was forced to introduce the motion, subject to endless debate time unless a future unanimous consent agreement or cloture was presented.

You Do Not Need To Speak For A Filibuster. Refusing any unanimous consent is a de facto filibuster, which is why that doc you cited explains why cloture is commonly pre-emptively placed once the motion is on the floor.
I've already agreed to that sentiment that because of how 'locked in' the Senate gets regarding endless debate times, any cloture vote is basically to defuse a filibuster (in practice). If only you read my post!

"McConnell returned fire by noting that arcane Senate rules are built around consensus and one even “requires unanimous consent to turn the lights on before noon.”" No unanimous consent = cloture required to move forward.
The Senate as an institution is based around everyone needing to agree on something for it to be done. It is precisely the perverse nature of the Senate that by doing nothing nothing gets done. No talking is needed, no fancy motions, you don't even need to be present. As long as one party refuses to agree to a unanimous consent agreement, there is no vote until cloture is successfully invoked or the bill is withdrawn.

Idk why you insist on relying on bad characterization of what I am saying and refusing to actually research the rules for yourself. You keep saying things like, "McConnell could always just have the vote if none of the Dems do anything". Which is so wrong, it is unbelievable.
It's kind of disrespectful to me, because I am here reading the Standing Rules, going over an actual textbook written by a Senate aide, revising my stance to be more accurate as I get deeper into the technicalities. You throw up a random web page and make patently wrong statements, and then spend time on a meme image instead of reading my last post? Whatever man.

This entire process exists in order to evade filibusters. That is all there is to speak of. No filibuster, no cloture. Whether cloture is successful or not, its invocation is ipso facto the indication of the presence of a filibuster.
lol dude, read someones post before you reply back to it.

Pannonian

03-17-2021, 08:50

ReluctantSamurai

03-18-2021, 12:41

Can't they combine the two and relieve on the floor?

Senators 'relieving' themselves on the floor would make it a rather emphatic way to filibuster a bill.....:creep:

~D

Montmorency

03-22-2021, 04:13

Buddy, this is called 'calling the previous question' and the Senate does not recognize such a motion. Ending debate and/or time limits is always done by unanimous consent or cloture for debatable motions.
You don't need to speak to instantiate a filibuster. If a party simply refuses to play along with unanimous consent, you get into endless debate time until cloture is invoked. If Merkley had not spoken, McConnell still would have had to wait the 48 hours. He still would have had to invoke cloture!

I am almost certain this is all wrong. If it were true, then cloture would have been universal for all legislation even before the 21st century.

False. Once Schumer decided that the Dems would reject an unanimous consent agreement for the motion to consider Gorsuch, the filibuster was in effect. At that point McCOnnell was forced to introduce the motion, subject to endless debate time unless a future unanimous consent agreement or cloture was presented.

Outright wrong. Senators have prerogatives to recognition and debate. But they must exercise them to put them into effect. If no Democrats exercise their prerogatives, then the majority leader submits a motion (such as a motion to proceed) and it needs only a majority vote. Unanimous consent measures are useful for limiting debate preemptively and by specification. They are not necessary to bring measures from the calendar to the floor.
https://fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/RS20668.pdf

"McConnell returned fire by noting that arcane Senate rules are built around consensus and one even “requires unanimous consent to turn the lights on before noon.”" No unanimous consent = cloture required to move forward.
The Senate as an institution is based around everyone needing to agree on something for it to be done. It is precisely the perverse nature of the Senate that by doing nothing nothing gets done. No talking is needed, no fancy motions, you don't even need to be present. As long as one party refuses to agree to a unanimous consent agreement, there is no vote until cloture is successfully invoked or the bill is withdrawn.

Again, what I read indicates this to be a fundamental misunderstanding of the process. From the link, following the section on unanimous consent:

Alternatively, the majority leader may instead offer a motion that the Senate proceed to
consideration of a measure, particularly if he has been unable to negotiate a unanimous consent
agreement to do so.5 Although this motion requires only a simple majority for approval, in most
parliamentary situations it is debatable. As a result, the motion to proceed is itself susceptible to
extended debate. Accordingly, even before a measure can itself reach the Senate floor, there may
be a filibuster on the question of whether the Senate should consider it at all

Second, if a request for unanimous consent meets objection, the majority leader may instead
attempt to bring the measure up by offering a motion to proceed. Inasmuch as the motion to
proceed is usually debatable, a Senator who wishes not to see the measure reach the floor may
attempt to block its consideration by engaging in or threatening to engage in extended debate of
this motion, a form of filibuster. Holds are given serious consideration by the majority leader
when negotiating the Senate’s floor agenda.

There is no need for unanimous consent to bring a motion to proceed. You have to actually debate to delay the motion to proceed. The reason holds are taken seriously by Senate leadership is that they accept the implication of willingness to debate as a deterrent.

Notably, there remains yet more room for procedural finessing (that I'm surprised Republicans haven't picked up on yet).

Under certain circumstances the motion to proceed is not debatable. In particular, the motion is
non-debatable when offered:
 on a conference report10 or amendments between the houses,
11
 on a measure considered pursuant to a rule-making statute,
12 or
 during the morning hour.13
Although a non-debatable motion to proceed could be made during the morning hour on a wide
variety of measures, it is not a frequent occurrence in modern chamber practice. When the Senate
adjourns it will routinely stipulate by unanimous consent that at the start of the next legislative
day the morning hour be deemed to have expired and, thus, no motion to proceed be in order.
Additionally, a motion made during legislative session to proceed to consider executive calendar
business (described below) is also not debatable.

This is black-letter stuff you are wrong about.

I don't really care for that statement, I think even if McConnell moved for cloture immediately once consideration of the Gorsuch nomination began, it was directly in response to Schumer denying unanimous consent for the purpose of delaying and endlessly debating the issue. From what the guidebook is telling me, time limits on debate and votes can only be done through unanimous consent agreements, cloture, or non-debatable motions like reconciliation. So by denying unanimous consent on a time limit, that seems to be in essence to me a filibuster, right?

See, here's the problem. A "procedural" filibuster is procedural because it is implicit. Because it is implicit the Senate majority has a tendency, in lacking cloture votes, to avoid running into forcing it to be explicit. This should have been your understanding before we even entered the discussion. It has been well know since the Obama era that this is the significance of non-talking filibusters.

Here's an analogy:

A talking filibuster is like punching someone in the face. A procedural filibuster is like warning someone that you will punch them in the face if they cross a line in the sand. Naturally, this line is not often tested unless one is sure about securing cloture, which is like having your buddies restrain the puncher.

If someone warns that they will punch you in the face, and you call t heir bluff, they must either punch or not. If they don't, their effort has failed and that's that. If they do, that's a filibuster in action.

That's what it's about. Punches and threats of punches. Without the action, there is no possibility of making good on the threat, and no way to hinder or injure the other party.

Senator Merkley during the Gorsuch hearings was the Democrats' arm pulling back.

McConnell's cloture petition on Tuesday was in response to the Dem Party's refusal to agree on time limits which seems to be a de facto filibuster, after which the time limit was set for Thursday.

The behavior is logical under predictable circumstances, but if we abstract everything away from typical human behavior then as I keep pointing out the following is a theoretically possible scenario:

1. McConnell fails to secure unanimous consent agreement (though he did (https://www.congress.gov/nomination/115th-congress/55) on some narrow preceding procedures).
2. McConnell motion to proceed to consider (https://www.govtrack.us/congress/votes/115-2017/s104) succeeds somehow.
3. Democrats claim an imminent filibuster of the nomination itself.
4. McConnell presides over consideration of the vote to nominate.
5. No Democrat says anything, other than to vote Nay.
6. Republican majority approves the nomination.

Not only did it not delay the votes, it was not even part of nor necessary for the Gorsuch filibuster.

Wrong on both counts, although, to be fair, the second proposition can be correct if and only if some other Democrat invoked their privilege of debate to block motions (in the scenario where McConnell doesn't change the rules).

Because Merkley was fungible, you see. Any Democratic Senator could do what he did. But it was necessary for -a- Democratic Senator to do as he did. Otherwise there is no filibuster; McConnell can bulldoze right through according to preexisting rules.

Since the motion to consider the nomination moved forward with no time limits specified, the Dems did not even need to hold the floor with someone talking.

This is just wrong. The privilege to debate resides. There is no unlimited period for debate, where everyone just sits around quietly with no one talking. The privilege must be exercised.

let me put it to you this way, ACIN. What do you think a talking filibuster of Gorsuch would have looked like, hypothetically, if you do not perceive that there was one in fact?

It's like if someone put a road block in your path, a literal roadblock, but you retorted, 'Ah, but I'll simply take a different route and drive around it! Therefore it's not really a roadblock because you're not delaying my travel. But if you said you were prepared to do it without doing anything, then that would be a roadblock.' Can't you see the contradiction?

Montmorency

03-22-2021, 04:23

You'll like this one, ACIN, county-level visualization (http://geoelections.free.fr/USA/elec_comtes/1828.htm) of presidential elections going back to 1828. Surprisingly, the developers appear to be French.

Another way (https://www.axios.com/congress-schedule-vaccinations-2f2a1aca-2204-4f54-a396-c9939fe28c05.html) of delaying Congressional business.

Between the lines: The other 25% of members have either refused to get the vaccine, have not reported getting it at home or are avoiding it because of medical conditions. Until the Office of Attending Physician is clear about this, it can't make recommendations "regarding the modification or relaxation of existing social distancing guidelines."

Congress has its own supply of the coronavirus vaccine. While it's not certain which party is most to blame for any vaccine hesitancy, the phenomenon is higher among white Republicans than any other demographic group, as Axios has reported.
“I won’t be taking it. The survival rate is too high for me to want it,” 25-year-old Rep. Madison Cawthorn (R-N.C.) told Axios in December.
Why it matters: Multiple waves of voting, meant to ensure social distancing inside the House chamber, are slowing a full legislative schedule.

It's also giving power to disrupters like Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), who's used a procedural move to further drag out the process.
Votes can take more than three times longer than pre-pandemic times.
What they're saying: Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) and Minority Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.) had a lively debate on the House floor Thursday about reopening.

"Now that we have seen from reports ... that roughly 75% of all members in this House have had a vaccination for COVID-19, there's a strong desire to get back to a regular floor schedule," said Scalise.
"It would be a lot simpler if every member had been vaccinated," Hoyer replied.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's most recent guidelines suggest avoiding "large events and gatherings, when possible."

Stunning disparity (https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/can-bidens-covid-19-relief-bill-help-democrats-avoid-a-midterm-defeat/?ex_cid=biden-approval).

https://fivethirtyeight.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/Samuels.POLLA_.0319-1.png?w=700

ReluctantSamurai

03-26-2021, 17:26

Shades of Lehman Bros?

https://www.commondreams.org/news/2021/03/24/warren-grills-yellen-over-why-9-trillion-blackrock-not-treated-risk-economy

"It isn't just banks that pose a risk to the economy. In 2008, two investment companies, Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers, failed, triggering the 2008 crash," the senator said during the hearing. As a result, she explained, Congress created FSOC and "gave it the power to designate non-bank firms as 'too big to fail.'"

For perspective, BlackRock oversees a 9 TRILLION dollar portfolio, which is larger than the GDP of every country in the world except for the US and China.

Of course the reaction from BlackRock is predictable:

By contrast, a BlackRock spokesperson told (https://www.cnbc.com/2021/03/24/yellen-supports-buybacks-warren-wants-blackrock-deemed-too-big-to-fail.html) CNBC that "we support financial regulatory reform that increases transparency, protects investors, and facilitates responsible growth," but that the firm shouldn't face the same rules as big banks

Also predictable is the potential for corporate corruption:

BlackRock alumni have accepted or are in line for top jobs in the Biden administration, including Wally Adeyemo, a former senior adviser at the asset manager who the president has picked to be deputy treasury secretary. During his confirmation process, Warren questioned Adeyemo—a longtime ally of hers—but refrained from asking whether FSOC should designate BlackRock. The Senate is expected to soon vote on Adeyemo's nomination.

Vice President Kamala Harris tapped Mike Pyle, BlackRock's former chief investment strategist, to be her top economic adviser and Brian Deese, who was the firm's global head of sustainable investing, leads [President Joe] Biden's National Economic Council.

Even before he took office, Biden faced (https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/12/16/survey-shows-americans-regardless-partisan-affiliation-dont-want-biden-appoint) pressure from progressives to refrain from appointing corporate executives, consultants, or lobbyists to his Cabinet and administration. In response to the president's selection of Deese, Sunrise Movement political director Evan Weber said (https://www.commondreams.org/newswire/2020/12/03/statement-bidens-selection-brian-deese-director-national-economic-council) that "there are many diverse, qualified people that can help Joe Biden and Kamala Harris Build Back Better who didn't choose to work at predatory (https://sunrisemovement-dot-yamm-track.appspot.com/Redirect?ukey=1IJCWbjdEllLaGBPoN1ExxrZUF_PfnNLjoyP5iK8Xw90-1398494686&key=YAMMID-25424420&link=https%3A%2F%2Facrecampaigns.org%2Fmedia%2Fpress-statements%2Fracial-justice-group-demands-biden-transition-team-rescind-consideration-of-brian-deese-for-economic-positions%2F) investment firms. The revolving door between Wall Street and the White House does no good for working people or the planet.

A portion of the Warren interview with Yellen:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qFSkCGjeMM4

Hooahguy

04-06-2021, 03:47

So this is very significant (https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/546215-senate-parliamentarian-to-let-democrats-bypass-filibuster-with-third-bill): Senate parliamentarian to let Democrats bypass GOP filibuster on two more bills

The Senate parliamentarian ruled Monday that Democrats can use special budgetary rules to avoid a GOP filibuster on two more pieces of legislation, setting the stage for President Biden's infrastructure agenda to pass in two packages with simple-majority votes.

It's a win for Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) that allows him to pass Biden's $2.25 trillion package by revising the fiscal 2021 Budget Resolution.

Really a great sign for Biden's agenda, even if Manchin is shaky on the 28% tax rate increase (which of course he is).

Montmorency

04-07-2021, 04:27

Matt Gaetz, Loyal for Years to Trump, Is Said to Have Sought a Blanket Pardon (https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/06/us/politics/matt-gaetz-trump-pardon.html?smid=tw-share)

Representative Matt Gaetz, Republican of Florida, was one of President Donald J. Trump’s most vocal allies during his term, publicly pledging loyalty and even signing a letter nominating the president for the Nobel Peace Prize.

In the final weeks of Mr. Trump’s term, Mr. Gaetz sought something in return. He privately asked the White House for blanket pre-emptive pardons for himself and unidentified congressional allies for any crimes they may have committed, according to two people told of the discussions.

Around that time, Mr. Gaetz was also publicly calling for broad pardons from Mr. Trump to thwart what he termed the “bloodlust” of their political opponents. But Justice Department investigators had begun questioning Mr. Gaetz’s associates about his conduct, including whether he had a sexual relationship with a 17-year-old that violated sex trafficking laws, in an inquiry that grew out of the case of an indicted associate in Florida.

Christ.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/melissaholzberg/2021/04/05/matt-gaetz-has-appeared-on-fox-news-nearly-180-times/

edyzmedieval

04-07-2021, 12:24

Seamus Fermanagh

04-07-2021, 22:33

Christ.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/melissaholzberg/2021/04/05/matt-gaetz-has-appeared-on-fox-news-nearly-180-times/

The indicted associate was the former tax collector for my county as well as being a putz.

Seamus Fermanagh

04-07-2021, 22:35

Presidential pardons are a weird bunch for continental Europeans like me - the power of a President to pardon whom he wants, no strings attached, is rather odd.

What's stopping a President to pardon someone who committed clear acts of corruption or other crimes, in the interest of a specific person? It's not a very good way of bypassing the judicial branch.

Public outcry and the threat of impeachment. It can be argued that such have not been that effective historically. Most presidents have used this power in a reasonably judicious manner.

Montmorency

04-07-2021, 23:03

The indicted associate was the former tax collector for my county as well as being a putz.

:creep:

Thread (https://twitter.com/BriannaWu/status/1377628298721828866): The story of how @mattgaetz became a target of the Trump justice department is even crazier and weirder than you can imagine.It involves blockchain, blatant fraud by a local tax collector, and a scheme to steal people’s government ID.This is NOT AN APRIL FOOLS JOKE.

2/ Northeast of Orlando in 2016, Seminole County replaced their tax collector with a 31-year-old friend of @mattgaetz named Joel Greenberg.I know you think you saw corruption in the Trump era, but the things Greenberg is alleged to do will truly blow your mind.

3/ First, he went about blowing $1.9 million dollars in your money hiring the groomsmen from his wedding to work for him.He then spent $384,000 of taxpayer money on body armor, guns, ammo, and a freaking drone.Then he MANDATED that his pals had to wear guns at the office.

4/ Then @mattgaetz’s friend SET UP A BLOCKCHAIN COMPANY inside the taxpayer funded office.A private blockchain company.Then he spent $65,860 of taxpayer money on COMPUTER EQUIPMENT for the private blockchain company.And wait. It gets better.

5/ HE LITERALLY SET THE OFFICE ON FIRE INSTALLING THE EQUIPMENT.Anyway.This is where it gets weird.

6/ Then, Greenberg had an opponent for tax collector. So, he ran a Gamergate style disinformation campaign against him with bots and sock puppets to get him smeared as a white supremacist.Coincidentally, he’s good friends with Roger Stone who has a history of these tactics.

7/ He also started accusing his opponent of rape through sock puppet accounts.This is where the FBI decides to get involved. They trace the IP address to his house and show up to arrest him. And you’ll never believe what they found.

8/ They find three fake IDs in his wallet, and materials to manufacture more in his office. Where did all this come from?Well, as tax collector sometimes people would have to surrender their licenses to him. He would pretend to destroy them, and would turn them into fake IDs.

9/ The is where sex trafficking charges come into the picture.In the midst of this investigation, they find out Greenberg had been using the state database to get information about girls from 14-17 years old.He would target them, and then form “sugar daddy relationships.”

10/ He would literally use the state database to get their photos, their vehicle information.After forming the “sugar daddy” relationship with these girls, he would give them gifts in exchange for “companionship.” Hmmmm. Interpret as you will.

11/ Anyway, the reason he was collecting all those IDs was to give the girls fake identification to traffic them across state lines.He then turned it into an operation for commercial sex acts.

12/ He’s in jail now, thank God. And he was indicted again on these charges yesterday. (Reminder: Innocent until proven guilty. These are allegations.)So, this brings us to @mattgaetz. In the course of investigating Greenberg, Congressman Gaetz came under scrutiny too.

13/ It was reported yesterday that Trump’s attorney general William Barr was so convinced of the credibility of the charges being brought against Matt Gaetz he started dodging any meeting where he would be present.Presumably because Gaetz would pressure him to drop it.

14/ So what did Trump’s Justice Department find on Gaetz? At the center of the investigation was a 17-year-old girl Gaetz had a relationship with. She was reportedly trafficked across state lines.These cases are frequently prosecuted and usually carry aggressive sentencing.

15/ This brings us to Nestor. The bizarre story of the child from Cuba who started living with Gaetz around the age of 12.Gaetz says he is his son, yet no records show he is adopted. It’s a very disturbing overall picture.Anyway. All this was reported by the @orlandosentinel.

16/ The case against Greenberg started with an allegation he was using sock puppets to accuse his opponent of rape. God only knows what they found on Gaetz to make William Barr continue prosecuting this case.

Impressed yet, Crandar ?

Public outcry and the threat of impeachment. It can be argued that such have not been that effective historically. Most presidents have used this power in a reasonably judicious manner.

Do we entertain any independent argument - no referencing the Federalist papers! - for allowing a head of government or state to retain such a power?

Crandar

04-08-2021, 10:51

That was impressive, I'm not going to lie. Coincidentally, we are currently in the midst of a similar scandal, where a pimp, who is also a journalist in the TV channel of an even greater pimp, was found to have illegally obtained 200.000 euros from the Ministry of Social Security, as a compensation for the Covid lockdown. He had also acquired a very heavy police protection (9 vehicles, 14 officers and an armoured BMW limousine), following his claim that he is threatened by a leftist terrorist organisation that has been defunct since 2003.

So, it's not over, there's still a long way to go, if seriously hope to overcome us in the corruption race.

Seamus Fermanagh

04-08-2021, 19:55

Greenberg, in addition to the charges noted above (which are alleged, but let's just say that I think I could run the prosecution successfully despite having never practiced law or taken a law class), has also gone on Islamophobic pro-maga rants on facebook, has attempted to get out of a speeding ticket by showing them his county tax collector badge, and had once used the lights on his SUV and that same badge to pull over a motorist (https://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/seminole-county/os-seminole-county-greenberg-officer-20171218-story.html) whom he thought was speeding.

Greenberg "primaried" the incumbent tax collecter, Ray Valdes, to take office.

Not sure if he is an unethical sleazebag with delusions of importance or an out-and-out predator. It is possible that I don't need to choose between the two.

Pannonian

04-09-2021, 22:14

Crandar

04-20-2021, 10:22

Poor little Greece can't embezzle billions (except for cases of military equipment), but we at least distributed (https://ipi.media/the-covid-19-crisis-highlights-greeces-media-problem/) quite a few millions among friendly media to "raise awareness for the coronavirus". Some of these media didn't even exist, before the publication of the list...

More to the topic, the story about Russian bounties in Afghanistan (https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-56775660) is the result of dubious intelligence information, whose value is minimal. Can't say I am surprised, such leaks are a common practice among the military/intelligence establishment, when the executive takes a decision they do not approve of. Regardless of whether someone agrees or not with the withdrawal from Afghanistan, it was shameful how quite a few Democrats and medias seized on this zany rumours to score some cheap gains.

rory_20_uk

04-20-2021, 10:40

The NYT reported that the UK government gave around 30 billion GBP to companies related to Tory MPs over covid, which puts your numbers to shame. In US terms that's around 150 billion USD (with the US approximately 5 times the size of the UK).

The Monarchy did nothing about it. The Judiciary did nothing about it. The Opposition did nothing about it. The Civil Service facilitated it.

Why did no one do anything? Self interest in the main. Even the opposition view this as a perck of power that they want to enjoy rather than prevent.

We do try to put a veneer of pomp over what amounts to systemic corruption.

~:smoking:

Montmorency

04-21-2021, 01:35

The Monarchy did nothing about it. The Judiciary did nothing about it. The Opposition did nothing about it. The Civil Service facilitated it.

Why did no one do anything? Self interest in the main. Even the opposition view this as a perck of power that they want to enjoy rather than prevent.

We do try to put a veneer of pomp over what amounts to systemic corruption.

~:smoking:

By what principle, what means, could the monarchy, the judiciary, the opposition, or the civil service do something about it?

Monarchy: ????

Judiciary: Even assuming non-separation between executive and judicial functions (which I don't believe obtains in many places, certainly not the UK), I'm not sure I have heard of a judicial system in a democratic country that goes out of its way to actively investigate and prosecute potential (mundane) crimes.

Opposition: Petition the media to investigate the Tories, who must be up to something shady?

Civil service: I haven't looked into the nature of Pann's complaint so speaking abstractly: much must depend on the legal framework and protocols for bureaucracy and government contracting, but typically there won't be much scope for government (not the UK sense of -G-overnment) to resist assignments that are not facially and overtly illegal. I also think the British, parliamentary, usage of "-G-overnment" overemphasizes the boundary between elected/appointed partisan officials and the structural organs of the state, particularly in terms of partisan alignment between individuals.

Hooahguy

04-24-2021, 19:11

Montmorency

04-24-2021, 19:13

Biden formally recognizes (https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-56874811) the Armenian Genocide.

This is going to really piss off the Turks, but Im glad he did it. Probably not the wisest geopolitical move though.

Experts Warn Acknowledgement Of Armenian Genocide Risks Drawing U.S. Into WWI (https://www.theonion.com/experts-warn-acknowledgement-of-armenian-genocide-risks-1846743063)

WASHINGTON—Urging national leaders to “tread carefully,” top experts from the Council on Foreign Relations warned Thursday that acknowledging the Armenian genocide could risk drawing the U.S. into WWI. “The mass killings of the Armenian people was a tragedy, but we fear acknowledging the ethnic cleansing of one million Armenians now would only provoke the Ottoman Empire,” said Steven A. Cook, who added that recognizing the brutal mass murder of Armenians could also upset the delicately balanced alliance system created by Otto von Bismarck. “Nothing is more important than American neutrality. President Biden was elected on a platform of neutrality, after all. The U.S. has successfully avoided entering the European conflict for over a century, and we don’t want a conflict with the sultan and his allies now.” At press time, the Senate had passed a resolution declaring war on Germany.

Seamus Fermanagh

04-24-2021, 23:37

The USA and Turkey are being "icily correct" and have been for a while now. Erdogan's Islamism and Turkish reticence to allow US forces to operate actively from NATO bases in Turkey have not built any "closeness" of late.

Plans for Turkey to stand up some of the more recent weapons systems as part of NATO are in limbo at the moment, for example.

I don't think a recognition of historical fact will worsen things all that much.

Montmorency

04-25-2021, 03:23

Giving D.C. (https://twitter.com/KevinMKruse/status/1386121674001567746) full representation in the House and Senate is such a far-fetched, left-wing pipe dream that in 1978 it had the support of Barry Goldwater, Howard Baker, Bob Dole and Strom Thurmond, as well as the endorsement of the entire Republican Party in its 1976 platform.

https://i.imgur.com/TuRBohm.jpg

Yeah, but in that era there were bipartisan consensus on crazy notions like abolishing the Electoral College.

Super tweet (https://twitter.com/whstancil/status/1380289995475275785), btw.

I'm no political strategist, but for Rs to be spending all their time reading Dr. Seuss and haranguing people to boycott baseball games while a broad Dem center-left coalition passes ambitious solutions to big public problems with 70% support behind them is an odd strategy
https://i.imgur.com/UVr5D06.jpg
prediction: it will work out just fine for the GOP
there is actually no cosmic law that says culture war issues will be superseded by Real Kitchen Table Policy in voters' brains, liberals just like telling themselves they understand the real, structural, economic root of politics because they spent too much time in grad seminars[...] here's an alternative theory: what if politics can be organized around anything, any idea, any issue, if you obsess over that issue enough, and there isn't some set of topics or concerns that are more fundamental than others and will magically win you elections

Further (https://mailchi.mp/crooked.com/big-tent-17344?e=6e84ed47af):

I’ve dwelled a lot here on the political power of culture war, and the myopia of viewing politics as akin to designing a menu of tasty policy dishes: Group affinity, tribal allegiance, shared values—these things drive politics because people desperately want to build fulfilling lives, and there’s more to contentment than a fair minimum-wage law and affordable health care. (Man shall not live by legal weed alone, or whatever.)

Democrats often miss this. They spend a lot of time trying to puzzle out why their candidates lose on tickets where their policy objectives pass by referenda overwhelmingly, but to me it just tells the culture story all over again. If voters think they can get much of what they want out of government through ballot initiative, they can vote without complication for candidates who appeal to their lizard brains, and only one party truly excels at this. Unfortunately, it's the Republican Party.

I think this—the propulsive force of tribalism, not the specific way it manifests in America today—would be part of political life under any imaginable scenario (you can’t escape human nature, etc etc) and as a result, I’d like to see Democrats press their advantages on cultural issues wherever they find them.

Montmorency

04-28-2021, 04:56

Speculation is ongoing as to whether Trump's attempts to manipulate the census cost Latino-heavy states such as Arizona, Texas, and Florida. OTOH, California and New York overshot their estimates (though that overshot may not capture emigration in the second half of the year (which itself may or may not have even happened)). Wonder if we'll ever find out.

At any rate, California lost a seat in the House for the first time in history, Florida exceeded New York's population (and representation) for the first time in history.

State 2020 Estimate 2020 Actual Difference %age (https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1IZpQnCdFJNHOP1D2NRcfyg3oVyRq15TN7SRgTC9bri0/edit#gid=0)
Arizona 7,421,401 7,158,923 -262,478 -3.5%
Texas 29,360,759 29,183,290 -177,469 -0.6%
Florida 21,733,312 21,570,527 -162,785 -0.7%
N Carolina 10,600,823 10,453,948 -146,875 -1.4%
S Carolina 5,218,040 5,124,712 -93,328 -1.8%
Nevada 3,138,259 3,108,462 -29,797 -0.9%
Colorado 5,807,719 5,782,171 -25,548 -0.4%
Oklahoma 3,980,783 3,963,516 -17,267 -0.4%
Arkansas 3,030,522 3,013,756 -16,766 -0.6%
S Dakota 892,717 887,770 -4,947 -0.6%
Wyoming 582,328 577,719 -4,609 -0.8%
Mississippi 2,966,786 2,963,914 -2,872 -0.1%
Oregon 4,241,507 4,241,500 -7 0.0%
Delaware 986,809 990,837 4,028 0.4%
Montana 1,080,577 1,085,407 4,830 0.4%
Alaska 731,158 736,081 4,923 0.7%
Missouri 6,151,548 6,160,281 8,733 0.1%
West Virginia 1,784,787 1,795,045 10,258 0.6%
New Hampshire 1,366,275 1,379,089 12,814 0.9%
Maine 1,350,141 1,363,582 13,441 1.0%
New Mexico 2,106,319 2,120,220 13,901 0.7%
N Dakota 765,309 779,702 14,393 1.9%
Idaho 1,826,913 1,841,377 14,464 0.8%
Georgia 10,710,017 10,725,274 15,257 0.1%
Louisiana 4,645,318 4,661,468 16,150 0.3%
Vermont 623,347 643,503 20,156 3.2%
Washington 7,693,612 7,715,946 22,334 0.3%
Utah 3,249,879 3,275,252 25,373 0.8%
Nebraska 1,937,552 1,963,333 25,781 1.3%
Kansas 2,913,805 2,940,865 27,060 0.9%
Iowa 3,163,561 3,192,406 28,845 0.9%
Tennessee 6,886,834 6,916,897 30,063 0.4%
Kentucky 4,477,251 4,509,342 32,091 0.7%
Indiana 6,754,953 6,790,280 35,327 0.5%
Rhode Island 1,057,125 1,098,163 41,038 3.9%
Connecticut 3,557,006 3,608,298 51,292 1.4%
Minnesota 5,657,342 5,709,752 52,410 0.9%
Hawaii 1,407,006 1,460,137 53,131 3.8%
Virginia 8,590,563 8,654,542 63,979 0.7%
Wisconsin 5,832,655 5,897,473 64,818 1.1%
Alabama 4,921,532 5,030,053 108,521 2.2%
Ohio 11,693,217 11,808,848 115,631 1.0%
Michigan 9,966,555 10,084,442 117,887 1.2%
Maryland 6,055,802 6,185,278 129,476 2.1%
Massachusetts 6,893,574 7,033,469 139,895 2.0%
California 39,368,078 39,576,757 208,679 0.5%
Pennsylvania 12,783,254 13,011,844 228,590 1.8%
Illinois 12,587,530 12,822,739 235,209 1.9%
New Jersey 8,882,371 9,294,493 412,122 4.6%
New York 19,336,776 20,215,751 878,975 4.5%

Montmorency

04-30-2021, 22:19

Ted Cruz had a pretty laughable op-ed in the WSJ (https://www.wsj.com/articles/your-woke-money-is-no-good-here-11619649421) recently, expanding on the recent adversarial rhetorical (and only rhetorical) posture that Republicans have adopted against corporations:

This is the point in the drama when Republicans usually shrug their shoulders, call these companies “job creators,” and start to cut their taxes. Not this time.

This time, we won’t look the other way on Coca-Cola’s $12 billion in back taxes owed. This time, when Major League Baseball lobbies to preserve its multibillion-dollar antitrust exception, we’ll say no thank you. This time, when Boeing asks for billions in corporate welfare, we’ll simply let the Export-Import Bank expire.

For too long, woke CEOs have been fair-weather friends to the Republican Party: They like us until the left’s digital pitchforks come out. Then they run away. Or they mouth off on legislation they don’t understand—and hurt the reputations of patriotic leaders protecting our elections and expanding the right to vote. Enough is enough. Corporations that flagrantly misrepresent efforts to protect our elections need to be called out, singled out and cut off.

In my nine years in the Senate, I’ve received $2.6 million in contributions from corporate political-action committees. Starting today, I no longer accept money from any corporate PAC. I urge my GOP colleagues at all levels to do the same.

For too long, Republicans have allowed the left and their big-business allies to attack our values with no response. We’ve allowed them to ship jobs overseas, attack gun rights, and destroy our energy companies. We’ve let them smear Republicans without paying any price.

As America’s greatest basketball player observed years ago, Republicans buy sneakers, too. We cast votes, too. And we pay attention when CEOs come after our own just so they can look good for a few editorial pages and radical activists.

To them I say: When the time comes that you need help with a tax break or a regulatory change, I hope the Democrats take your calls, because we may not. Starting today, we won’t take your money either.

In other words, 'we've been the ultimate natural-born corporate cronies, but if you do things we dislike instead of quietly exploiting the nation while funding us, we might think about criticizing you.' Note, btw, that the fetish around corporate PACs is meaningless - on either side - because current permissive jurisprudence allows effectively unlimited political spending through a variety of vehicles.

Meanwhile (https://www.businessinsider.com/mcconnell-not-talking-contributions-told-ceos-to-stay-out-politics-2021-4), McConnell reassures donors:

But McConnell rebuked any suggestions of hypocrisy Tuesday, clarifying his original statements and carving out an exception for political contributions.

"I'm not talking about political contributions," McConnell said during a stop at a Kentucky health clinic Tuesday. "I'm talking about taking a position on a highly incendiary issue like this and punishing a community or a state because you don't like a particular law they passed. I just think it's stupid."

If this alleged Facebook post were representative, maybe the only path to persuading conservative voters for the Democratic Party would be to convince them that socialism will hurt the spooks and spics and femiNazis.

24766

We need to return the ownership of these huge corporations to everyday folks, the people who do the work. It's the only way to stop their socialist agenda.

Montmorency

04-30-2021, 22:23

If this alleged Facebook post were representative, maybe the only path to persuading conservative voters for the Democratic Party would be to convince them that socialism will hurt the spooks and spics and femiNazis.

24766

Next up, gay conversion camps where the coaches suck boys' dicks straight and tatted counselors with buzz cuts and studded boots punish wayward girls with Hitachi wands.

ReluctantSamurai

05-08-2021, 01:49

President Biden in Louisiana...very cool. Now he needs to take this show to West Virginia, Arizona, and other states with conservative Dems:

https://apnews.com/article/louisiana-business-government-and-politics-462e89744cc73d2d953e1c332e36ddb9

While Biden intends to finace his proposal with higher corporate taxes, the GOP wants to finance their proposal (which is 1/4 the size) by regressive taxes:

He’s proposing to pay for his plan by undoing the 2017 tax cuts signed into law by President Donald Trump and raising the corporate tax rate from 21% to 28%. Biden contends his programs would bolster the middle class and make the country stronger than tax cuts for big companies and CEOs.

Several GOP senators favor spending $568 billion on infrastructure over five years, a small fraction of what the Democratic president has proposed — a sign of how difficult a deal might be.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky said that Republicans would rather finance infrastructure through user fees such as tolls and gasoline taxes, though he declined to specify which fees he would back.

To put Sen Manchin's BS about "bi-partisan" legislation in the spotlight, Mitch McConnell has this to say:

McConnell has also said that “100%” of his focus was “on stopping this new administration,” echoing similarly obstructionist threats he made during President Barack Obama’s term and underscoring the challenge Biden faces in trying to work across the aisle.

Not a big fan of Chris Cuomo, but he drilled Manchin during this recent interview:

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

Manchin is absolutely full of shit....:no:

Montmorency

05-08-2021, 02:26

More to the topic, the story about Russian bounties in Afghanistan (https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-56775660) is the result of dubious intelligence information, whose value is minimal. Can't say I am surprised, such leaks are a common practice among the military/intelligence establishment, when the executive takes a decision they do not approve of. Regardless of whether someone agrees or not with the withdrawal from Afghanistan, it was shameful how quite a few Democrats and medias seized on this zany rumours to score some cheap gains.

Looks like (https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/07/us/politics/russian-bounties-nsc.html) you veered too far in the other extreme.

Seamus Fermanagh

05-08-2021, 13:50

Whether there were bounties or not, or just the rumor of same, the story served its purpose.

spmetla

05-09-2021, 07:42

Montmorency

05-11-2021, 04:22

The scandal was less that there were or were not bounties but that Trump wouldn't really take Putin to task on it. The attitude of 'hey we do bad things too' was less than acceptable. It was just another example of the moral vacuum in leadership we had.

It depends on how you choose to frame it.

Do we have good evidence that Russia has been materially supporting the Taliban and encouraging them to undermine the US negotiating position? Yes.

Has Russia been paying the Taliban to assassinate specific American soldiers? Probably not (though that would make a satisfactory action movie premise).

rory_20_uk

05-12-2021, 16:19

It depends on how you choose to frame it.

Do we have good evidence that Russia has been materially supporting the Taliban and encouraging them to undermine the US negotiating position? Yes.

Has Russia been paying the Taliban to assassinate specific American soldiers? Probably not (though that would make a satisfactory action movie premise).

The USA gives money to Israel, Pakistan and Egypt (amongst others). Is the USA to be held accountable for their actions?

If China had decided to occupy Guatemala because the president they had supported invited them in I imagine the USA at the very least would be providing some material aid. Given they are to Ukraine.

The USA needs to try seeing things from the perspective of others as opposed to acting in indignation that others view their military overreach is not viewed in a positive light.

~:smoking:

Montmorency

05-13-2021, 04:00

For the posterity of those non-Americans who haven't noticed, the Republican Party as an institution has conclusively committed to rejecting unfavorable electoral outcomes as presumptively illegitimate.

Remember (https://www.huffpost.com/entry/trump-voters-think-africa_b_13732500) what it's about.

24803

The USA gives money to Israel, Pakistan and Egypt (amongst others). Is the USA to be held accountable for their actions?

Yes. Who said otherwise?

rory_20_uk

05-13-2021, 17:55

For the posterity of those non-Americans who haven't noticed, the Republican Party as an institution has conclusively committed to rejecting unfavorable electoral outcomes as presumptively illegitimate.

Remember (https://www.huffpost.com/entry/trump-voters-think-africa_b_13732500) what it's about.

24803

Yes. Who said otherwise?

So... What's the big deal about what Russia have done? They are enthusiastically joining in the Great Game where the main loosers are poor people in other countries.

When does the USA taking responsibility - or even acknowledging what they're doing going to start? Aside from the film Team America.

~:smoking:

Montmorency

05-13-2021, 22:00

So... What's the big deal about what Russia have done? They are enthusiastically joining in the Great Game where the main loosers are poor people in other countries.

It's technically a hostile military action, but in practical terms it doesn't change anything; it just reinforces the current American posture toward Russia (e.g. sanctions regime).

When does the USA taking responsibility - or even acknowledging what they're doing going to start? Aside from the film Team America.

We could change some of our behaviors in order to create more value for everyone.

Montmorency

05-17-2021, 22:15

Unless John Roberts is willing and able to persuade one of his colleagues to be more strategic, as he has in the past when there was a 5-4 Republican majority on the Supreme Court (there is now a 6-3 majority), American abortion rights will be liquidated by the end of the year - or at least, barring the worst case, in all but the 20ish most-Democratic states.
https://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/dobbs-v-jackson-womens-health-organization/

Issue: Whether all pre-viability prohibitions on elective abortions are unconstitutional.

EDIT: Incidentally, Mississippi's Supreme Court just struck down all ballot measures passed last year or scheduled, as well as the entire referendum system, because the language of the law mentions five Mississippi districts and Mississippi had four under the 2000 census (the system was put in place in 1990). Thus all ballot measures are invalidated. I mention Mississippi because that state's anti-abortion law is the issue of the Supreme Court case above.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LJ25-U3jNWM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K7fgB0m_y2I

Hooahguy

05-18-2021, 00:56

Definitely a low point in this country.

Flashback to all (https://imgur.com/THhwJkO) those (https://imgur.com/v3K9WUf) people (https://imgur.com/wWezSM5) saying that Roe v Wade and SCOTUS in general would be just fine even if Trump got elected.

:stare:

ReluctantSamurai

05-19-2021, 18:07

This is as funny as it is sad:

https://www.vice.com/en/article/k78wyz/chick-fil-a-sauce-shortage-republican-biden-blame

Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt, who is up for re-election next year, sent an email to supporters Monday pointing the finger at Biden over the chicken restaurant’s supply chain issues, which the company said earlier this month were a result of “industrywide supply chain shortages (https://www.chick-fil-a.com/).”

"Chick-fil-A has a sauce shortage. And you want to know why?" Stitt wrote. "Because of Joe Biden's radical liberal policies."

But wait....it gets better:

Last week, Sen. Ted Cruz tweeted a Breitbart article about Chick-fil-A’s sauce shortage and added: “Joe Biden is destroying America.”

“Is there no limit to how awful Biden’s America can get?” tweeted Colorado Rep. Lauren Boebert.

So Sleepy Joe is responsible for limiting not only zesty buffalo, honey mustard, and ranch dips, but ketchup packets and computer chips.....:laugh4::laugh4::laugh4:

Meanwhile, back on the ranch:

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/14/us/politics/pipeline-hack.html

Let me see.....honey mustard dip, or gasoline?

Other pipeline operators in the United States deploy advanced firewalls between their data and their operations that only allow data to flow one direction, out of the pipeline, and would prevent a ransomware attack from spreading in.

Industry analysts say many critical infrastructure operators say installing such unidirectional gateways along a 5,500-mile pipeline can be complicated or prohibitively expensive. Others say the cost to deploy those safeguards are still cheaper than the losses from potential downtime.

Knock-knock....anyone there?

Montmorency

05-19-2021, 22:29

For Capitol defendants’ (https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/capitol-rioters-trump-defense-comes-up-again-and-again-will-it-make-a-difference) attorneys, finding mitigating factors will be key in softening potential prison sentences.

Watkins, the “Q Shaman” Jacob Chansley’s attorney, said his client had Asperger’s syndrome and indicated that Chansley’s mental state — and the impact of Trump’s “propaganda” efforts — would play a role in his case.

“A lot of these defendants — and I’m going to use this colloquial term, perhaps disrespectfully — but they’re all fucking short-bus people,” Watkins told TPM. “These are people with brain damage, they’re fucking retarded, they’re on the goddamn spectrum.”

“But they’re our brothers, our sisters, our neighbors, our coworkers — they’re part of our country. These aren’t bad people, they don’t have prior criminal history. Fuck, they were subjected to four-plus years of goddamn propaganda the likes of which the world has not seen since fucking Hitler.”

One particularly remorseful defendant, Anthony Antonio, was sick with a novel disease, “Foxitis,” when he entered the Capitol through a broken window on Jan. 6, his attorney Joe Hurley argued during an initial appearance earlier this month.

BTW (https://twitter.com/morninggloria/status/1373760934674460674) conservatives, remember when I mentioned the importance of attending to people who got things right early and discarding those who never did?

https://i.imgur.com/IkjgwsD.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/9XHBdUy.jpg

Montmorency

05-29-2021, 22:12

Super-elderly liberal Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer (https://www.vox.com/22454648/justice-stephen-breyer-supreme-court-retirement-book-harvard-court-packing-voting-democracy) watched Ginsburg die last year yet has since January been vocally resisting calls to retire and be replaced.

Should we accept the proposition that public acceptance of judicial decisions is a per se good?” I asked Breyer. I provided a few examples of cases where it might be appropriate to resist the decision, such as if the Supreme Court “so dismantles our voting rights that we cease to have a meaningful ability to elect a government that is not led by the same political party the controls the Supreme Court.”

Breyer’s response to my question was twofold. The first was a warning about what can happen should the public turn away from accepting judicial decisions. “Go turn on the television set,” he warned, “and go look at what happens in countries that try to do without” a rule of law grounded in deference to judicial rulings.

Then he seemed to admit there may be circumstances where such deference should be abandoned, though only if those circumstances were truly extraordinary. “What about Hitler?” Breyer asked rhetorically, before denying that anyone currently on the Court reaches that bar — “We don’t have Hitler.”

Yeah, we're :daisy:. The 'Quixotic institutionalists' in the Democratic Party will never support a remedy to the collapsing resiliency and prospective overthrow of their precious institutions (and all else), until the very point that the availability/possibility of remedy itself is withdrawn (i.e. when "we have Hitler").

Hooahguy

05-29-2021, 22:58

Montmorency

05-30-2021, 00:31

Agreed. I bet Manchin and co. are still a fan of the filibuster despite the filibuster of the 1/6 commission. Dems are going to get crushed in 2022 and to be honest, I will feel little pity. Which of course is coming from a place of privilege but maybe it would shock the institutionalists out of their stupor.

:wall:

Texas Republicans (https://twitter.com/JuddLegum/status/1398709369391419395) are currently about to vote on an "election integrity" bill, that among other things has the following provision:

Sec.232.063. OVERTURNING ELECTION. [Nb. sic] If the number of votes illegally cast in the election is equal to or greater than the number of votes necessary to change the outcome of an election, the court may declare the election void without attempting to determine how individual voters voted.

One thing I've noticed about Democratic super-partisans, the core establishmentarians (including the hard-left ones such as they are) and can finally phrase pithily is that they have a reflexive Dayenu attitude toward any single achievement under Democrats, when the bigger picture makes it obvious that the only "Dayenu" is the one where we don't all die miserably.

I guess what I'm saying is that the Democrats have been corrupted by Semitic influences. :blush:

Montmorency

06-01-2021, 00:00

^^^
Texas Democrats are actually doing something about it.

Hooahguy

06-01-2021, 02:41

You're referring to the walkout, right? How long can that last though?

ReluctantSamurai

06-01-2021, 04:36

You're referring to the walkout, right? How long can that last though?

At least they are showing more cohonees than the chicken-$***'s in Congress and I will include the so-called progressives here, as well...:inquisitive:

Zain

06-01-2021, 16:34

Seamus Fermanagh

06-01-2021, 17:24

I am not optimistic about a Biden administration.

I am not even convinced he won the election legitimately.

It will be interesting to see what happens. Fortunately I'm a small town guy with a life that doesn't revolve around Washington D.C.

Biden did win the election, legitimately, under the extant rules thereof.

You can claim that our system is inherently illegitimate as it is sub-optimal and/or poorly designed (and advocate for a different approach); you can claim that USA voters are poorly equipped to use the system we have thereby rendering it illegitimate; you can claim that the de facto two-party approach that we have had for most of our federal elections undercuts the ideals/goals sought by many of our founders and leaves the system illegitimate. Such arguments have been made in this forum before by divers contributors.

Please refrain, however, from attempting to assert that this election was somehow mis-counted or stolen. No credible evidence whatsoever supports this. The facts are that Biden won a victory in the electoral college, as per the system in place, with no credible support for any meaningful miscount or distortion of the vote having occurred.

Zain

06-01-2021, 17:55

Biden did win the election, legitimately, under the extant rules thereof.

You can claim that our system is inherently illegitimate as it is sub-optimal and/or poorly designed (and advocate for a different approach); you can claim that USA voters are poorly equipped to use the system we have thereby rendering it illegitimate; you can claim that the de facto two-party approach that we have had for most of our federal elections undercuts the ideals/goals sought by many of our founders and leaves the system illegitimate. Such arguments have been made in this forum before by divers contributors.

Please refrain, however, from attempting to assert that this election was somehow mis-counted or stolen. No credible evidence whatsoever supports this. The facts are that Biden won a victory in the electoral college, as per the system in place, with no credible support for any meaningful miscount or distortion of the vote having occurred.

I genuinely hope you're right, but I'm not convinced that our electoral system is 100% safe from fraud. I suppose the audits will show us more in the coming weeks/months.

Pannonian

06-01-2021, 22:06

I genuinely hope you're right, but I'm not convinced that our electoral system is 100% safe from fraud. I suppose the audits will show us more in the coming weeks/months.

Er, what do you mean by 100%? The UK electoral system isn't 100% proof against fraud, and the government is introducing measures to act against it. Except that the amount of fraud is so small that the independent Electoral Commission deems it insignificant on anything but an academic level, and that measures being proposed by the government (officially since the Queen has spoken on it) do far more to shape voting. These measures, incidentally, being known to shape voting because they've been used in the US to aid Republicans in elections, and the effects are well known.

ReluctantSamurai

06-02-2021, 01:38

I suppose the audits will show us more in the coming weeks/months.

Not a single audit to date has turned up any evidence of vote tampering...not a SINGLE ONE. Some states like Georgia and Wisconsin, recounted---by hand---twice. I hope by the "audits [...] in the coming weeks/months" you are not referring to ones like the ongoing sham in Arizona:

https://www.azcentral.com/story/news/politics/elections/2021/06/01/professional-auditors-take-a-look-at-arizona-senate-audit-of-maricopa-county-2020-election/5212

A distinguishing mark of an auditor, the book says, is acceptance of responsibility to serve the public interest. The book talks at length about integrity, including performing work "with an attitude that is objective, fact-based, nonpartisan, and nonideological with regard to the entity being audited."

This witchhunt is anything but objective, and resembles the absurd allegations of "The Kraaken". Every one of Trump's cases thrown out of court...86 of them. The Maricopa Co "audit" will find nothing worth mentioning, despite it being a totally partisan gig.

I am not even convinced he won the election legitimately.

By that reasoning then, every GOP legislator elected in the five "swing" states should resign because their legitimacy can be called into question, yes? And why stop there? If there is widespread voter fraud, why limit the audits to blue states and to the presidency only? Let's investigate every single state, at every level, because surely it isn't just Democrats who cheat?!? Oh wait, the majority of cases where voter fraud was actually proven was for GOP candidates...:rolleyes:

https://www.heritage.org/voterfraud/search

And lastly this:

https://thehill.com/opinion/campaign/494189-lets-put-the-vote-by-mail-fraud-myth-to-rest

One hundred forty-three cases of fraud using mailed ballots over the course of 20 years comes out to seven to eight cases per year, nationally. It also means that across the 50 states, there has been an average of three cases per state over the 20-year span. That is just one case per state every six or seven years. We are talking about an occurrence that translates to about 0.00006 percent of total votes cast.

Montmorency

06-02-2021, 02:05

Er, what do you mean by 100%? The UK electoral system isn't 100% proof against fraud, and the government is introducing measures to act against it.

Why? Not to pile on, but for there to be a question about the presidential electoral process in these terms, the system would have to be about 0% proof against fraud.

I think there's a high likelihood of electoral fraud (https://www.gq.com/story/north-carolina-ninth-district-fraud) at scale being caught in this country.

Pannonian

06-02-2021, 07:25

Why? Not to pile on, but for there to be a question about the presidential electoral process in these terms, the system would have to be about 0% proof against fraud.

I think there's a high likelihood of electoral fraud (https://www.gq.com/story/north-carolina-ninth-district-fraud) at scale being caught in this country.

That's the point made by the Electoral Commission. They estimate maybe low double figures of fraudulent votes out of umpteen million votes in any election, which is statistically insignificant, and practically all catchable. Whereas the requirement for ID has, from the evidence of its use in the US, shown that it discourages voting by poorer sections of the population in numbers that are rather higher than low double figures. By pointing to practically non-existent electoral fraud that only exists as a bogeyman, the right gerrymander elections by discouraging votes from sections of the electorate that are expected to vote mostly left.

If you reckon this is paranoia, let me point you to a Tory-run council that used to keep public housing unoccupied because they were likely to be occupied by people who would be expected to vote Labour. The courts decided that this was misuse of public funds for the purpose of gerrymandering, and the Tory leaders of that council were ordered to repay the costs.

Zain

06-02-2021, 15:31

Not a single audit to date has turned up any evidence of vote tampering...not a SINGLE ONE. Some states like Georgia and Wisconsin, recounted---by hand---twice. I hope by the "audits [...] in the coming weeks/months" you are not referring to ones like the ongoing sham in Arizona

There is a VAST difference between a recount and a forensic audit. No audits have been conducted until now.

And if the election was fraud-free, then shouldn't everyone welcome an audit to put an end to the questions? What are they trying to hide?

Yes, audit every election 100%. Transparency leads to election-confidence.

Zain

06-02-2021, 15:33

Zain

06-02-2021, 15:37

Whereas the requirement for ID has, from the evidence of its use in the US, shown that it discourages voting by poorer sections of the population in numbers that are rather higher than low double figures. By pointing to practically non-existent electoral fraud that only exists as a bogeyman, the right gerrymander elections by discouraging votes from sections of the electorate that are expected to vote mostly left.

If voter ID is just a sham to suppress the oppressed, then so is every other form of ID. Tell that to a bank which requires ID to open an account, the Department of Transportation for requiring an ID to drive a car legally, airlines for requiring an ID to buy a ticket to fly anywhere, oh and the ID required to get into any Democratic or Republican National Convention.

Voter ID protects the citizen by assuring them that they and everyone else get 1 vote, not less than 1 by dilution of additional fraudulent votes. ALL real voters should WANT that type of voter security.

Pannonian

06-02-2021, 18:09

If voter ID is just a sham to suppress the oppressed, then so is every other form of ID. Tell that to a bank which requires ID to open an account, the Department of Transportation for requiring an ID to drive a car legally, airlines for requiring an ID to buy a ticket to fly anywhere, oh and the ID required to get into any Democratic or Republican National Convention.

Voter ID protects the citizen by assuring them that they and everyone else get 1 vote, not less than 1 by dilution of additional fraudulent votes. ALL real voters should WANT that type of voter security.

I had to deal with some government stuff recently. It required n forms of ID, which I couldn't fulfill (since my passport expired during lockdown). So I had to chase up several different departments to get one to vouch for another, with one passing me onto the next and so on.

Since voting isn't a legal requirement, how much of this would put off someone until they decided this wasn't for them? Especially since the Electoral Commission, which is party-independent, says that electoral fraud is statistically insignificant. Hang on, I'll just look up the actual figures.

2019 general election
Votes cast: 47,568,611
Fraudulent votes cast: 164

Those are the concrete facts. Vague claims of electoral fraud to bring in measures that discourage voters are a right wing trope to gerrymander elections. See homes for votes, the Tory-run Westminster council's effort to keep probable Labour voters out of their area.

Hooahguy

06-02-2021, 20:47

There is a VAST difference between a recount and a forensic audit. No audits have been conducted until now.

And if the election was fraud-free, then shouldn't everyone welcome an audit to put an end to the questions? What are they trying to hide?

Yes, audit every election 100%. Transparency leads to election-confidence.
Because the audits like in Arizona are being run by conspiracy theorists who already think the election was stolen. They arent doing a nonpartisan audit, they are trying to confirm their conspiracy theories. Its all feeding into the Big Lie, undermining faith in the electoral process thats entirely without merit- time and time again those claiming the election was stolen have been asked to show proof. They have not. All they have are "people are saying its stolen" which to me is akin to saying "well people are saying that the Earth is flat."

And when you have Trumpists clamoring for a military coup, you know we are in deep trouble as a country.

Seamus Fermanagh

06-02-2021, 21:38

I think it is overkill in terms of money usage, but a complete audit by an accredited accounting firm or the like would not bother me.

Pannonian

06-02-2021, 21:49

Because the audits like in Arizona are being run by conspiracy theorists who already think the election was stolen. They arent doing a nonpartisan audit, they are trying to confirm their conspiracy theories. Its all feeding into the Big Lie, undermining faith in the electoral process thats entirely without merit- time and time again those claiming the election was stolen have been asked to show proof. They have not. All they have are "people are saying its stolen" which to me is akin to saying "well people are saying that the Earth is flat."

And when you have Trumpists clamoring for a military coup, you know we are in deep trouble as a country.

IIRC there was a news item about these auditors refusing to make their auditing process transparent.

ReluctantSamurai

06-03-2021, 01:12

Voter ID protects the citizen by assuring them that they and everyone else get 1 vote, not less than 1 by dilution of additional fraudulent votes. ALL real voters should WANT that type of voter security.

First of all, you have to believe there's fraud so rampant that it changes the election results. That is not the case. States have been running mail-in voting for years with great success. Every non-partisan study done on election security shows that fraud is at an extremely low level. Of course there's bound to be those who try to cheat, but most of the time they are caught which speaks well for the current system. Is the current system perfect? No. Can there be improvements? Yes. And I'm not referring to the Electoral College which is a topic unto itself. Funny how election security/fraud has become such an issue since the arrival of Trump back in 2016. The issue is so front and center now, that states are using up a lot of time and resources drafting this, and drafting that, instead of paying attention to the real problems this country faces...:rolleyes:

Voter ID is a blatant attempt by Republicans to make it harder for ethnic groups, and people of color to vote...for obvious reasons. ---Full Stop---

Pannonian

06-03-2021, 02:30

First of all, you have to believe there's fraud so rampant that it changes the election results. That is not the case. States have been running mail-in voting for years with great success. Every non-partisan study done on election security shows that fraud is at an extremely low level. Of course there's bound to be those who try to cheat, but most of the time they are caught which speaks well for the current system. Is the current system perfect? No. Can there be improvements? Yes. And I'm not referring to the Electoral College which is a topic unto itself. Funny how election security/fraud has become such an issue since the arrival of Trump back in 2016. The issue is so front and center now, that states are using up a lot of time and resources drafting this, and drafting that, instead of paying attention to the real problems this country faces...:rolleyes:

Voter ID is a blatant attempt by Republicans to make it harder for ethnic groups, and people of color to vote...for obvious reasons. ---Full Stop---

In the 2019 UK election, there were 164 fraudulent votes out of 47,568,611 votes cast. The Electoral Commission, an independent body that oversees elections, says that electoral fraud is insignificant. Yet the UK government, using the argument that electoral fraud is a problem, is proposing measures against this nebulous issue that are known to discourage poorer people. To address those 164 fraudulent votes, the right proposes to effectively disenfranchise thousands who are likely to tend left.

Montmorency

06-03-2021, 02:43

Biden's calling out Manchin and Sinema. I think he's serious.
https://twitter.com/Acyn/status/1399830599871827968 [VIDEO]

@Pann It's kind of awkward to be talking about UK electoralism here. Threads aren't *that* omnibus yet.
Edit: Ah, whatever. Have at it, especially if you can make a connection to American politics.

Yes, audit every election 100%. Transparency leads to election-confidence.

AFAIK every state automatically audits federal elections prior to or shortly after certification, making the presidential election fully audited...

https://www.eac.gov/sites/default/files/electionofficials/postelection/Post_Election_Tabulation_Audits.pdf

I'm an independent. Party politics blinds us to half of the lies in this country, because both parties are guilty. Let's stop making this a red vs blue issue and see it as an American issue.

What is the evidence that both parties are guilty? Seems like a naive mindset.

If voter ID is just a sham to suppress the oppressed, then so is every other form of ID. Tell that to a bank which requires ID to open an account, the Department of Transportation for requiring an ID to drive a car legally, airlines for requiring an ID to buy a ticket to fly anywhere, oh and the ID required to get into any Democratic or Republican National Convention.

Voter ID protects the citizen by assuring them that they and everyone else get 1 vote, not less than 1 by dilution of additional fraudulent votes. ALL real voters should WANT that type of voter security.

Voter registration is the identification, and the baseline of security. Voter ID (documents) at the polling both is not what prevents fraudulent votes. Never has. In reality there has never been such a thing as widespread "voter" fraud in this country's history, though we've had plenty of electoral fraud from the top.

But if you believe strongly in a special ID only for voting and nothing else for some reason, you should want it delivered to everyone automatically, like the information cards (polling place and table) that my city mails me before every election.

Pannonian

06-03-2021, 03:15

Biden's calling out Manchin and Sinema. I think he's serious.
https://twitter.com/Acyn/status/1399830599871827968 [VIDEO]

@Pann It's kind of awkward to be talking about UK electoralism here. Threads aren't *that* omnibus yet.
Edit: Ah, whatever. Have at it, especially if you can make a connection to American politics.

I'm pointing to the common thread in populist politics, which is exclusively pursued by the right, which you can see here too. The method is to disregard experts and evidence-based arguments, and push instead some nebulous principle-based argument that would justify measures with wide-ranging effects but where the degree and range of those effects are always justified by referring back to the nebulous principle-based argument.

Even disregarding the issue I talk most about, and confining ourselves to the current discussion of electoral fraud, you can see this method in Zain's posts 230 and 232. Call for an ideal that can never be met (230), and then justify wide-ranging measures that crosses way more than the original problem (232). I cited the UK side because that's the current issue that I'm most familiar with. But the methodology of right wing populism can be seen in the arguments cited by Zain.

Looking at the same methodology, but applied in a different field, see the arguments for pushing creationism. Make the assumption that science has to be 100% satisfactory or not satisfactory at all, point to inevitable gaps in scientific knowledge, and say that since science does not 100% satisfy, it means that creationist arguments must therefore have substance. You can see this in many different issues, but with the same rhetorical method. And because we live in a free democratic society, this method is very effective, as all votes are equal, whether arrived at through weighing evidence or arrived at through the populist method.

rory_20_uk

06-03-2021, 17:55

Populist politics is certainly not the exclusive domain of the right - as we can see by the speed being anti Trans / Gay / [insert thing] occurs with it now reaching the level of "thought crimes" on both extremes - the terms Right and Left does rather over simplify things.

Accusations are as good as proof and lead to people being as far as possible edited out of a group for Intolerance. Gender? Utterly subjective and up to the person; race? Utterly subjective and up to the person (unless you are too white it seems then you're just "white") and if you disagree you are wrong. Probably Evil. And ideally should be sacked and ostracised. With some very odd boundaries: each person is individual and themselves and should be valued for them being themselves at all times and so on and so forth. But if they so much as looked at a (generally) female under 18 then they are still a monster who is preying on innocent children. End of story.

Another good one is the Thought Crime of being Silent (or even just too quiet) - in something that Stalin would be proud of, not declaiming your approval of the current thought is itself evidence of a Crime. So you can't just not be racist - you should be "anti-racist", or more generally an Ally - whilst still not being overbearing of course. If you are a non white and hold a view that is wrong, then you are a Coconut or a Banana or to be less subtle a race traitor since inclusion for some means choosing to hold the correct views.

Clearly there is a massive power disparity between the two "sides" with persons on one (in the USA at least) able to kill people with relative impunity with the other mainly having the ability to hurl a torrent of abuse. But I personally think that there is an equal will to enforce the power if it was there.

Frankly, apart from on here I mainly find myself not risking holding an opinion since whilst it is highly likely no one cares what I think or say why take the risk?

~:smoking:

ReluctantSamurai

06-08-2021, 16:38

"Mitch McConnell" 2.0 is at it again:

https://www.wvgazettemail.com/opinion/op_ed_commentaries/joe-manchin-why-im-voting-against-the-for-the-people-act/article_c7eb2551-a500-5f77-aa37-2e42d0af870f.html

The right to vote is fundamental to our American democracy and protecting that right should not be about party or politics. Least of all, protecting this right, which is a value I share, should never be done in a partisan manner.

Unfortunately, we now are witnessing that the fundamental right to vote has itself become overtly politicized. Today’s debate about how to best protect our right to vote and to hold elections, however, is not about finding common ground, but seeking partisan advantage. Whether it is state laws that seek to needlessly restrict voting or politicians who ignore the need to secure our elections, partisan policymaking won’t instill confidence in our democracy — it will destroy it.

While partisan politics is indeed destroying democracy here in the States, Manchin is most certainly helping that along.

So what might be another reason that Sen Manchin is so dedicated to the BS line of bi-partisanship, his resistance to so much of what Democrats want to get done, and this latest thumbs down to the For The People Act?

This could be a good reason:

https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/inside-the-koch-backed-effort-to-block-the-largest-election-reform-bill-in-half-a-century

A recording obtained by The New Yorker of a private conference call on January 8th, between a policy adviser to Senator Mitch McConnell (https://www.newyorker.com/tag/mitch-mcconnell) and the leaders of several prominent conservative groups—including one run by the Koch brothers’ (https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/01/25/new-koch) network—reveals the participants’ worry that the proposed election reforms garner wide support not just from liberals but from conservative voters, too. The speakers on the call expressed alarm at the broad popularity of the bill’s provision calling for more public disclosure about secret political donors. The participants conceded that the bill, which would stem the flow of dark money from such political donors as the billionaire oil magnate Charles Koch (https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/ivanka-trump-and-charles-koch-fuel-a-cancel-culture-clash-at-wichita-state), was so popular that it wasn’t worth trying to mount a public-advocacy campaign to shift opinion. Instead, a senior Koch operative said that opponents would be better off ignoring the will of American voters and trying to kill the bill in Congress.

With so little public support, the bill’s opponents have already begun pressuring individual senators. On March 20th, several major conservative groups, including Heritage Action, Tea Party Patriots Action, Freedom Works, and the local and national branches of the Family Research Council, organized a rally in West Virginia to get Senator Joe Manchin, the conservative Democrat, to come out against the legislation. They also pushed Manchin to oppose any efforts by Democrats to abolish the Senate’s filibuster rule, a tactical step that the Party would probably need to take in order to pass the bill. “The filibuster is really the only thing standing in the way of progressive far-left policies like H.R. 1, which is Pelosi’s campaign to take over America’s elections,” Noah Weinrich, the press secretary at Heritage Action, declared during a West Virginia radio interview (https://www.iheart.com/podcast/269-the-tom-roten-morning-show-70632979/episode/save-america-rally-wv-capitol-79883179/). On Thursday, Manchin issued a statement (https://www.politico.com/news/2021/03/25/manchin-voting-rights-compromise-477976) warning Democrats that forcing the measure through the Senate would “only exacerbate the distrust that millions of Americans harbor against the U.S. government.”

So it appears that Manchin CAN be pressured---but fellow Democrats just are choosing not to---because many of them are taking the same millions from corporate/industry donors, which, surprise, is part of what HR 1/SB 1 is attempting to address.

Even Fox News shredded Manchin:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G6Vz3OXIavo

“You said you oppose scrapping the filibuster,” Wallace said (https://twitter.com/Ibrahimpols/status/1401565797647007745). “The question I have is whether or not—and you say that you hope that will bring the parties together—the question I have is whether or not you’re doing it exactly the wrong way?” Wallace questioned whether it wouldn’t be a smarter strategy for Manchin to say he might consider getting rid of the filibuster because it could “give Republicans an incentive to actually negotiate.” Instead, the anchor said, “by taking it off the table, haven’t you empowered Republicans to be obstructionists?”

Manchin said he doesn’t agree with Wallace’s point of view because there are “seven brave Republicans that continue to vote for what they know is right and the facts as they see them, not worrying about the political consequences.” Seven Republicans voted to convict former President Donald Trump (https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/13/us/politics/republicans-vote-to-impeach.html). Manchin went on say that he was “very hopeful” and that he sees “good signs.”

Even when pressed by Wallace (yes Fox News actually doing real journalism!) Manchin continued his line of bi-partisan BS which is fooling noone anymore:

But Wallace again pushed back, pointing out that Republicans blocked the independent commission to investigate the Capitol riot and that Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has outright said he wants to block President Joe Biden’s agenda. “Question,” asked Wallace. “Aren’t you being naive about this continuing talk about bipartisan cooperation?” Manchin responded by saying he wasn’t naïve and criticized McConnell for “trying to block all the good things that we’re trying to do for America,” but he insisted he will “continue working with my bipartisan friends” and expressed optimism that “hopefully we can get more of them.”

Except that Republicans haven't given squat since the elections, and not a single one voted to pass a "must-pass" COVID relief bill, they want the 6 Jan assault on democracy to just go away without digging into it, and will most certainly vote to defeat HR1/SB1 and the Infrastructure Bill...:rolleyes:

I'm going to be curious how Manchin's response to the GOP assault on democracy is going to be viewed when our current governmental debacle is a part of history...:inquisitive:

Montmorency

06-09-2021, 04:35

@Seamus

It's been pointed out that we basically no longer accept racial discrimination as religious practice with any religion or denomination, yet continue to tolerate (legally and socially) formal restrictions on women in clergy and the like, or anti-abortion and anti-contraceptive policies in religiously-aligned institutions. If mainstream society has already agreed to reject racism in religion, is there any logical justification against targeting sexism in the same spaces? To put it one way, why doesn't anyone care that Biden attends a gender-segregated church?

This person (https://granta.com/violence-in-blue/) estimates around a third of all homicides by stranger in the United States are by police officer. It's probably in the ballpark given that most murders are done by friends, family, colleagues, or other non-strangers, but to really make it work you would have to categorically exclude most sorts of manslaughter (such as killing by traffic collision).

Responsive to the earlier discussion of the regulation of voting (Herblock):

https://i.imgur.com/noy1BFN.jpg

One of the great flaws of the Democratic leadership remains, in practical terms, their lack of expressive urgency. It isn't to say that they must be constantly screaming into the media in the most intemperate language - they have, after all, failed up to this point to work themselves into that stance organically - but if nothing else then...

https://i.imgur.com/WFftNoN.png

Last I heard the Congress has confirmed like one federal judge so far. Many ways for this session to turn out as 'The Tragedy of Senator Manchin the Blowhard (https://starwars.fandom.com/f/p/3343172654596143557).'

Populist politics is certainly not the exclusive domain of the right - as we can see by the speed being anti Trans / Gay / [insert thing] occurs with it now reaching the level of "thought crimes" on both extremes - the terms Right and Left does rather over simplify things.

Accusations are as good as proof and lead to people being as far as possible edited out of a group for Intolerance. Gender? Utterly subjective and up to the person; race? Utterly subjective and up to the person (unless you are too white it seems then you're just "white") and if you disagree you are wrong. Probably Evil. And ideally should be sacked and ostracised. With some very odd boundaries: each person is individual and themselves and should be valued for them being themselves at all times and so on and so forth. But if they so much as looked at a (generally) female under 18 then they are still a monster who is preying on innocent children. End of story.

Another good one is the Thought Crime of being Silent (or even just too quiet) - in something that Stalin would be proud of, not declaiming your approval of the current thought is itself evidence of a Crime. So you can't just not be racist - you should be "anti-racist", or more generally an Ally - whilst still not being overbearing of course. If you are a non white and hold a view that is wrong, then you are a Coconut or a Banana or to be less subtle a race traitor since inclusion for some means choosing to hold the correct views.

Clearly there is a massive power disparity between the two "sides" with persons on one (in the USA at least) able to kill people with relative impunity with the other mainly having the ability to hurl a torrent of abuse. But I personally think that there is an equal will to enforce the power if it was there.

Frankly, apart from on here I mainly find myself not risking holding an opinion since whilst it is highly likely no one cares what I think or say why take the risk?

~:smoking:

You sound hysterical. Take a step back. No one is coming for you.

Just apply rationality and empathy.

So it appears that Manchin CAN be pressured---but fellow Democrats just are choosing not to---because many of them are taking the same millions from corporate/industry donors, which, surprise, is part of what HR 1/SB 1 is attempting to address.

I'm pretty confident Manchin isn't in this for the donations, not to mention that it's not credible that conservative lobbyists have something to offer him that liberal ones, or the DSCC, or the White House, don't. The likelier scenario is he's a true believer in what he's propounding, the ideology of the status quo. (It doesn't hurt that he is now the most-sought and most-valuable Senator in the country.)

If Manchin had a pecuniary motive from any angle (for himself, for his office/campaign, for his state, what-have-you), and Sinema along with him, then legislation would already have been signed by Biden.

Pannonian

06-09-2021, 12:02

ReluctantSamurai

06-09-2021, 12:52

I'm pretty confident Manchin isn't in this for the donations, not to mention that it's not credible that conservative lobbyists have something to offer him that liberal ones, or the DSCC, or the White House, don't. The likelier scenario is he's a true believer in what he's propounding, the ideology of the status quo.

Couldn't disagree with this more. One has to ask why Manchin is taking his stance on bi-partisanship the way he has.

Either he's just totally ignorant of the facts, which is highly unlikely, or he has his own agenda to pursue, that includes demolishing his own party's chances at continuing to hold executive and congressional power. I choose the latter. When poll after poll show overwhelming popular support, even from Republicans (at times) for much of the legislation being proposed by the Biden Administration (including in his own state of W. Virginia), he continues to bloviate about this notion of bi-partisanship which isn't there.

About conservative lobbyists not having anything to offer? How about this:

https://aninjusticemag.com/senators-sinema-and-manchin-are-rewarded-handsomely-for-being-against-the-15-minimum-wage-4e5b478ac492?gi=86f57dd2c9e8

Syndicated journalist and former top Bernie Sanders advisor David Sirota, along with Andrew Perez and Joel Warner report (https://www.dailyposter.com/p/sinema-and-manchin-headlining-event-93a) that after their vote to kill the $15 minimum wage amendment in Biden’s must pass Covid relief bill, the two will join disgraced Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel to headline a conference for an anti-Union corporate lobbying group, the National Restaurant Association. A group that just so happens to have been lobbying intensely (https://lda.senate.gov/filings/public/filing/3485521e-0553-410a-87ca-8c47a5c2b395/print/) against a minimum wage increase.

Do you really think that the above mentioned Heritage Action et al, didn't offer up bribes...errr I mean campaign donations, when they made their appearances in West Virginia?

It doesn't hurt that he is now the most-sought and most-valuable Senator in the country

You can't really believe that as a reason? Because his value will greatly diminish if the Dems get swept out of Congress in 2022. He would be furthering his own personal case if he voted for legislation that would enhance the Democrats staying in power, rather than helping the GOP by blocking changes to the filibuster, and voting against important pieces of legislation. If/when the GOP reclaims Congress in 2022, Manchin will be relegated to being just another conservative Democrat in the Senate...just like he was before the 2020 elections.

Nah....in the end, Manchin is just another dirty corporate politician taking millions from lobbyists and business while screwing the people of this country in the process.

Seamus Fermanagh

06-10-2021, 04:28

Montmorency

Our Bill of Rights prohibits Congress from making laws establishing a religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof. Biden is free to worship, or not, as his conscience dictates. The voters are free to find this comforting, annoying, disqualifying, or irrelevant and may exercise their franchise with this assessment factored into their decision.

If enough of the public chooses to avoid the Catholic Church, over time that will have an impact. Feel free to call for the Church's castigation as a sexist organization -- you would not be the first. At a minimum, my daughter has beaten you to it.

Xantan

06-11-2021, 13:32

DOJ seized information from Apple & other sources about Congress Democrats

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/10/us/politics/justice-department-leaks-trump-administration.html

WASHINGTON — As the Justice Department investigated who was behind leaks of classified information early in the Trump administration, it took a highly unusual step: Prosecutors subpoenaed Apple for data from the accounts of at least two Democrats on the House Intelligence Committee, aides and family members. One was a minor.

All told, the records of at least a dozen people tied to the committee were seized in 2017 and early 2018, including those of Representative Adam B. Schiff of California, then the panel’s top Democrat and now its chairman, according to committee officials and two other people briefed on the inquiry. Representative Eric Swalwell of California said in an interview Thursday night that he had also been notified that his data had been subpoenaed.

Prosecutors, under the beleaguered attorney general, Jeff Sessions, were hunting for the sources behind news media reports about contacts between Trump associates and Russia. Ultimately, the data and other evidence did not tie the committee to the leaks, and investigators debated whether they had hit a dead end and some even discussed closing the inquiry.

Viking

06-12-2021, 08:40

You sound hysterical. Take a step back. No one is coming for you.

Just apply rationality and empathy.

This appeal to trust the program is not an appeal to rationality, but an appeal to faith disguised as an appeal to rationality.

Montmorency

06-14-2021, 03:28

Nah....in the end, Manchin is just another dirty corporate politician taking millions from lobbyists and business while screwing the people of this country in the process.

In my opinion this is a deeply-flawed attitude among much of the Left, this assumption that other people don't just believe things (which is, frankly, an assumption at least as common among the far-Right in my experience).

The theory that Manchin is bought off by right-wing lobbying groups entails the causal effect of an inducement in the first place, which is to say that Manchin was going to vote to implement Biden's agenda until he was brought against it. But why would Manchin need financial inducements (that he never even sees as an individual) to perform as he evidently already wants to and always has, in keeping with his whole political career, style, and orientation? And why wouldn't it be far easier to sway him with blandishments in the other direction, with the far greater fiscal reserve of the federal government at hand?

If Manchin were merely venal, a few billion dollars in infrastructure investment to his state would be enough to secure his vote. And in parallel, it has often been noted that if Republicans were merely venal then the country wouldn't be so dysfunctional and on the precipice of a delusional fascism.

https://i.imgur.com/D9eH1b8.jpg

You don't do that for the money.

Also look at Stephen Breyer refusing to retire because he fears his retirement will be the event that politicizes the Court. Look at all the garden-variety liberals out there who agree exactly with him (and with Manchin for that matter). Are they all getting an inducement? Well then, maybe if George Soros stopped wasting all his funds on protesters and climate researchers he could compete...

Here (https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/06/aduhelm-drug-alzheimers-cost-medicare/619169/) is what it looks like when it's for the money:

Earlier this week, the Food and Drug Administration overruled—to much criticism—its own scientific advisory committee and approved the Alzheimer’s treatment Aduhelm. The agency made this decision despite thin evidence of the drug’s clinical efficacy and despite its serious side effects, including brain swelling and bleeding. As a result, a serious risk now exists that millions of people will be prescribed a drug that does more harm than good.

Less appreciated is how the drug’s approval could trigger hundreds of billions of dollars of new government spending, all without a vote in Congress or indeed any public debate over the drug’s value. Aduhelm’s manufacturer, Biogen, announced on Monday that it would price the drug at an average of $56,000 a year per patient, a figure that doesn’t include the additional imaging and scans needed to diagnose patients or to monitor them for serious side effects.

The federal government will bear the brunt of the new spending. The overwhelming majority of people with Alzheimer’s disease are eligible for Medicare, the federally run insurance program for elderly and disabled Americans. If even one-third of the estimated 6 million people with Alzheimer’s in the United States receives the new treatment, health-care spending could swell by $112 billion annually.

To put that figure in perspective, in 2020, Medicare spent about $90 billion on prescription drugs for 46 million Americans through the Part D program, which covers prescription medication that you pick up at your local pharmacy. We could wind up spending more than that for Aduhelm alone.

Most of the costs will be borne by taxpayers. But Medicare beneficiaries will take an additional hit. Because Aduhelm is an infusion drug that will be administered in doctors’ offices and clinics, not taken at home, it will be covered by Medicare Part B—not Part D. Under Part B, beneficiaries pay 20 percent of the costs of their care, which, for a single year of Aduhelm treatment, will be at least $11,200. Although most seniors have supplemental plans to cover these out-of-pocket expenses, prices for those plans are sure to spike, whether they’re on Aduhelm or not. That would be quite hard on seniors, many of whom live on fixed incomes.

States will also come under pressure. Some patients prescribed the drug will be under 65 and won’t be eligible for Medicare. But they may be eligible for Medicaid, which state and federal governments jointly fund. Plus, about 12 million people nationally are eligible for both Medicare and Medicaid (they’re called “dual eligibles”), meaning that the states are responsible for covering much of their out-of-pocket costs. As a result, states could face hundreds of millions of dollars in unanticipated Medicaid spending.

That’s an especially big problem because, unlike the federal government, states aren’t allowed to run a budget deficit. To pay for Aduhelm, they’ll have to either raise taxes or (more likely, given today’s political environment) cut spending on education, infrastructure, and health care. That dynamic played out after the 2013 FDA approval of Sovaldi, a cure for people with chronic hepatitis C. Despite Sovaldi’s stunning efficacy, its price tag and the prevalence of hepatitis C in the Medicaid population posed severe budgetary challenges for states, many of which rationed access to the drug. The similarly priced Aduhelm is approved for an even larger patient population, but unlike Sovaldi, it’s not a cure. States could be stuck paying for a patient’s Aduhelm year after year, rather than simply once.

The thread (https://twitter.com/DavidOAtkins/status/1400171933660958729) is on point:

People keep looking for materialist reasons for these things.

What I've learned from 20 years in politics is that while corruption is a thing, most of the time people genuinely believe in what they're doing.

And many of them are vain, ego-driven and horribly misguided.

If Sinema were acting on behalf of corporate paymasters she would be much more circumspect.

She glories in this stuff because she has a libertarian individualist worldview, doesn't like party loyalty or partisanship and enjoys flaunting that as part of being quirky. /2

People keep hoping it's somehow deeper or darker than that because there would be order to the universe. But it almost never is.

Think back to high school. Think about the incredibly stupid reasons your friends did things.

Nothing changes from HS. Not even for Senators. /end

Coda: ironically, this means when it comes to picking primary candidates you should select less for structural things than for personality types.

Risk-taking team players make the best legislators. Careful operators make mediocre ones. Vain, quirky ones are the worst.

Manchin (and Sinema) has some level of party loyalty though, as he could become even more notorious, sought-after, and influential by keeping his affiliation mercenary - and thus putting the Senate majority in play. Another example of ideological and social rather than pecuniary factors at play.

Montmorency

Our Bill of Rights prohibits Congress from making laws establishing a religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof. Biden is free to worship, or not, as his conscience dictates. The voters are free to find this comforting, annoying, disqualifying, or irrelevant and may exercise their franchise with this assessment factored into their decision.

If enough of the public chooses to avoid the Catholic Church, over time that will have an impact. Feel free to call for the Church's castigation as a sexist organization -- you would not be the first. At a minimum, my daughter has beaten you to it.

What I'm really asking here is why is it now considered - as I perceive it to be - socially-proscribed for a religion to be openly formally racist, while this is not the case with open formal sexism? (I mean, I think I know the answer, but it's an interesting thought exercise in the primordiality of sexism.)

This appeal to trust the program is not an appeal to rationality, but an appeal to faith disguised as an appeal to rationality.

Trust what program? It's an appeal to recognize the illusory and knee-jerk nature of the plaintively-stated anxieties.

ReluctantSamurai

06-14-2021, 14:25

In my opinion this is a deeply-flawed attitude among much of the Left, this assumption that other people don't just believe things

Joe Manchin does believe in things...those things have the depiction of dead presidents on them. What he doesn't believe in is keeping our democracy alive by voting for legislation that benefits the common citizen rather than his corporate donors.

The theory that Manchin is bought off by right-wing lobbying groups entails the causal effect of an inducement in the first place, which is to say that Manchin was going to vote to implement Biden's agenda until he was brought against it.

Whoever said it was right-wing lobbyists? I merely brought up a single individual case where the National Restaurant Association influenced Manchin and Sinema both to give them what they wanted...a defeat of the $15/hr minimum wage. I would hardly call the NRA (not THAT NRA) a right-wing lobbyist group.

But why would Manchin need financial inducements (that he never even sees as an individual) to perform as he evidently already wants to and always has, in keeping with his whole political career, style, and orientation? And why wouldn't it be far easier to sway him with blandishments in the other direction, with the far greater fiscal reserve of the federal government at hand?

Here's about 822,000 reasons why:

https://www.jacobinmag.com/2021/04/joe-manchin-biden-infrastructure-bill-lawyers-donations-corporate-law-tax-breaks

In total, lawyers and law firms represent the second largest source of donations to Manchin’s campaign committee and leadership PAC after securities and investment businesses, totaling more than $822,000 in contributions since 2015, according to data compiled by OpenSecrets (https://www.opensecrets.org/members-of-congress/joe-manchin/summary?cid=N00032838&cycle=2020). And all of these lawyers have a major stake in what happens with Biden’s new tax plan.

Biden’s new tax proposal would undo the Republican tax breaks — at least partially. The plan would raise the corporate rate to 28 percent, but it appears the other fringe benefits enabled by the GOP’s tax code would remain in place. Compared to Obama-era rates, many firms would still enjoy a significant tax break, and for lawyers earning more than $163,000, the corporate tax rate will remain much lower than the marginal tax rate.

But even this limited attempt to undo the Trump tax breaks could fail if Manchin succeeds in his opposition — a development that would benefit the lawyers and law firms that have bankrolled his campaign.

Manchin isn't the only one, of course:

The legal services industry has become one of the top contributors (https://www.opensecrets.org/federal-lobbying/industries/background?cycle=2020&id=k01) to Democratic lawmakers and candidates, especially in 2020, as lawyers abandoned the Republican Party (https://news.bloomberglaw.com/us-law-week/snubbing-trump-lawyers-doling-more-cash-to-democrats). President Biden received more than $57 million (https://www.opensecrets.org/industries/recips.php?ind=k01&cycle=2020&recipdetail=P&mem=N&sortorder=U) from the industry in 2020. Thirteen Senate Democrats, including former presidential candidates Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders, each received more than $1 million (https://www.opensecrets.org/industries/recips.php?ind=k01&cycle=2020&recipdetail=S&mem=Y&sortorder=U) that same year, and the top twenty recipients of law firm cash in the House are currently all Democrats.

That group includes Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ), a conservative Democrat who has sided with Manchin in opposition to Biden’s tax overhaul, telling Axios (https://www.axios.com/scoop-moderate-democrats-buck-biden-tax-hikes-4a0cacb8-4417-40ae-86f6-07e71763344f.html), “We need to be careful not to do anything that’s too big or too much in the middle of a pandemic and an economic crisis.” Since being elected to Congress in 2017, Gottheimer has received more than $1.5 million (https://www.opensecrets.org/members-of-congress/josh-gottheimer/summary?cid=N00036944&cycle=CAREER&type=I) in contributions from lawyers and law firms, more than almost any other member of the House.

But it doesn't stop there:

https://www.commondreams.org/news/2021/06/08/manchin-only-moved-corporate-donors-says-bowman-koch-backed-group-lobbies-against

A dark money group funded by right-wing billionaire Charles Koch has been actively lobbying Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin to keep up his opposition to the For the People Act, a sweeping voting rights bill that would expand ballot access and crack down (https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/policy-solutions/annotated-guide-people-act-2021) on the kind of secretive spending that has made the deep-pocketed Koch network such a powerful force in U.S. politics.

CNBC reported (https://www.cnbc.com/2021/06/08/joe-manchin-is-opposing-big-parts-of-bidens-agenda-as-the-koch-network-pressures-him.html) Tuesday that Americans for Prosperity recently "launched a website (https://americansforprosperity.org/west-virginia-values/?fbclid=IwAR0yKpW5svhBUv6WvPHNzOMlQOQd0NEk-zllkYO3wTWo_W5QYTSOy6kee9g#aplb_rep_4) titled West Virginia Values, which calls on people to email Manchin 'to be The Voice West Virginia Needs In D.C. — Reject Washington's Partisan Agenda.'"

"It then lists all of the items Manchin has promised to oppose, including the idea of eliminating the filibuster, the For the People Act, and packing the Supreme Court," CNBC noted. "It then shows everything the group believes Manchin should oppose, including Biden's infrastructure plan and the union-friendly PRO Act."

Judging by Manchin's strident Sunday op-ed (https://www.commondreams.org/news/2021/06/06/might-well-be-titled-why-ill-vote-preserve-jim-crow-manchin-panned-over-op-ed) vowing to vote against the For the People Act when it reaches the Senate floor later this month, the Koch-backed group's lobbying efforts are having their intended impact.

Ted Ellis, director of coalitions for Americans for Prosperity's government affairs team, praised Manchin as courageous for refusing to join every other Democratic senator—and a majority (https://www.commondreams.org/news/2021/05/03/confirming-gop-fears-poll-shows-people-act-popular-republican-voters) of the U.S. electorate, including Republican voters—in supporting the For the People Act.

Who are the AFP, you might ask, and why is the director of said AFP giving such high praise for Joe Manchin?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Americans_for_Prosperity

Americans for Prosperity (AFP), founded in 2004, is a libertarian conservative (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libertarian_conservatism) political advocacy group (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advocacy_group) in the United States (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States) funded by David Koch (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Koch) and Charles Koch (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Koch). As the Koch brothers' primary political advocacy group, it is one of the most influential American conservative organizations.

But let's continue:

The legislation [For the People Act] is also backed by more than two-thirds of West Virginia voters, according to a recent survey conducted by Represent.US.

"A wise man once said that it takes a lot of courage to stand up to your enemies but that it takes even more courage up to stand up to your friends," said Ellis. "And that's what Joe Manchin is doing right now. He's displaying, I think, a lot of courage and we should applaud that."

High praise indeed from the Koch Bros...:rolleyes:

Manchin (and Sinema) has some level of party loyalty though, as he could become even more notorious, sought-after, and influential by keeping his affiliation mercenary - and thus putting the Senate majority in play. Another example of ideological and social rather than pecuniary factors at play.

Mercenary. Exactly. Those two, and the rest of the corporate Democrats are motivated by one thing----money.