Biden Thread

[Montmorency]

Prior to this I was ignorantly under the misapprehension that Democrats were mainly hamstrung by the lack of a significant majority to overcome the fillibuster and fix some of the issues. But it in fact appears to be the case that they are quite pleased to not have the ability to do something that they have the luxury of loudly declaiming knowing they'll never have to follow through.

I mean, none of the Biden agenda contains any dramatic measures with regard to racial or gender issues (other than, for example, very modest family leave policy* which is only controversial by the standards of 100 years ago, and is an idea beloved by the very urban/suburban professionals you identify as hypocrites on other issues). Edit: So "they are quite pleased to not have the ability to do something that they have the luxury of loudly declaiming knowing they'll never have to follow through" isn't an accurate takeaway, or not in this regard. (To add, BBB does not AFAICT contain any mandatory or well-incentivized abridgements of common local zoning rules favoring single-family housing (good for property values, bad for density and affordability).



*I can't recall, but by now it's either out of negotiations entirely or reduced to 4 weeks.


My point is just, most Democrats in DC are at least not like Kyrsten Sinema, who has publicly withdrawn prior stances on taxation and Medicare administration following overt advances by business groups, only to declare:

However, she will criticize her party for its complicity in setting unachievable, sky-high expectations, just like the Republicans who promised to repeal Obamacare under former President Donald Trump. A $3.5 trillion social spending bill, sweeping elections reform, a $15 minimum wage and changes to the filibuster rules were always a long shot with Sinema and Manchin as the definitive Democratic votes in the Senate.

“You’re either honest or you’re not honest. So just tell the truth and be honest and deliver that which you can deliver,” Sinema said. “There's this growing trend of people in both political parties who promise things that cannot be delivered, in order to get the short-term political gain. And I believe that it damages the long-term health of our democracy.”

There's talking a big game while foreclosing any followthrough!

[Montmorency]

First-world country.

@spmetla

Before it all came crashing down, Archi Duenas’ gun-stealing scheme was relatively simple, county prosecutors wrote in a memo. He just couldn’t go on vacation.

Duenas, manager of the gun store at the Los Angeles Police Academy, had been reprimanded over the years for tardiness and sloppy record keeping, but he never took time off, according to the memo. As the store’s closing supervisor, he was there each night to lock up — and hand count the inventory.

If someone else had been assigned that count, they might have discovered that dozens of guns were missing and that Duenas was stealing them and selling them for cash, prosecutors wrote in the memo. But since he was always there, the Los Angeles Police Revolver and Athletic Club was apparently none the wiser.

This went on for years, prosecutors wrote, facilitated by a lack of oversight and safety protocols that are considered standard in other gun stores.

Then, in February 2020, Duenas’ bosses told him he had accrued the “maximum allowable leave hours” and had to take time off, prosecutors wrote in the memo. When he did, another manager finally made the startling discovery: Boxes meant to have guns in them were actually empty.

The resulting investigation quickly led to Duenas’ arrest. But it also uncovered a larger scandal inside the LAPD: The clientele for Duenas’ stolen weapons included cops.

There are also dueling claims by some of the accused officers that they have been scapegoated by overzealous investigators despite doing nothing wrong and being victims themselves — not only of Duenas’ deception but also of years of negligence on the part of the LAPD to ensure proper management of the gun store, which it directed officers to use.

That alleged neglect, according to a pending claim against the city from one officer, came despite the fact that the LAPD was aware for years of “prior negligence and mismanagement issues related to the sale, tracking, and documentation of firearms and firearm transactions” by gun store personnel.

The case raises red flags about the LAPD’s oversight of the gun store and its ability to investigate its own officers. It also offers an eye-opening window into the gun culture within the LAPD and the degree to which LAPD officers are allegedly profiting off the sale of firearms — including “off roster” guns that police officers have special access to despite their being declared unsafe for commercial sale in the state.

Investigators alleged LAPD officers, including several who are still on the job, knowingly purchased stolen weapons from Duenas, bought and sold much larger numbers of firearms in questionable ways, and dangerously stored loaded guns in places accessible to children, according to internal police records.

Top commanders, meanwhile, have been accused by the captain who initially oversaw the investigation of purposefully impeding the work of her detectives and assisting those in their crosshairs, including by forcing investigators to interview a high-ranking captain whom they suspected of wrongdoing before they were prepared to do so, and by ushering that same captain into his home — armed and in uniform — while investigators with a warrant were searching it, internal LAPD records show.

“The facts speak for themselves,” wrote Capt. Lillian Carranza, who oversees the LAPD’s commercial crimes division, in an April email to other top officials. “There have been several attempts to shut down this investigation.”

To be fair, while the problem is especially acute in the US, the whole "developed" world will eventually need to come to grips with its relationship with the delegation of unaccountable power and violence to armed state agents. This capacity and the institutions it builds for itself is ultimately the sort of thing referred to in the aphorism that "Government is like fire, a dangerous servant and a fearful master" - though oddly enough the sort of people who tend to invoke this phrase apply it almost always to the likes of food-safety regulations rather than the security arm of the state.



We knew last November that Dems would probably lose the House, but by now it's all but confirmed that 2022 will be a 2018-style wave, but against the Democrats. The gerrymandering disparity alone would be decisive once all states complete redistricting - these represent fewer than half of Congressional districts so far. The 2020 gerrymanders are proving to be much more effective than even the unprecedented 2010 gerrymanders. The Democratic commitment to neutral districting in states they have influence over is ironically unilateral disarmament in the absence of a comprehensive constraint. Even as states like Illinois and Maryland pursue more favorable Democratic gerrymanders, most of the gettable seats are left on the table by way of bipartisan power-sharing and non-partisan committees - largely implemented over the past decade. In this regard maybe it's better to stand by good government and rely on negative radicalization of the masses; the battle for the Republic won't be decided by such marginal tactics (as countergerrymandering) anyway.



Conservative Democrats are not just damn fools for failing to support electoral reform and gerrymandering bans - let alone DC statehood - they are outright Vichy collaborators, to revive a Bush-era epithet.

To sweeten the deal, the abortion marketplace in the United States is about to get quite tight.

[spmetla]

To be fair, while the problem is especially acute in the US, the whole "developed" world will eventually need to come to grips with its relationship with the delegation of unaccountable power and violence to armed state agents. This capacity and the institutions it builds for itself is ultimately the sort of thing referred to in the aphorism that "Government is like fire, a dangerous servant and a fearful master" - though oddly enough the sort of people who tend to invoke this phrase apply it almost always to the likes of food-safety regulations rather than the security arm of the state.

Well, the recruits for these positions are typically people that want this type of power. It's always been the dilemma of who's to guard us from the guards? Just like the military, the police need to try and recruit from a wide spectrum of the population that's just restricted by the specific job requirements, certainly one of the benefits to mandatory service/draft.

For the police though, there's certainly room for reform in the US, one of the major things would be not using the police for so many things. If State and County police departments further compartmentalized the roles of police into separate things. Should the police really be in charge of firearms registration and such? I get enforcement and seizures of illegal firearms but surely police are too short handed to something like this. State level firearms departments or ATF of a sort might be better suited.

Think the policy of civil forfeiture in the US would be one of the many aspects that need to be fixed as it pretty much rewards policy overstepping their bounds with no real recourse by citizens.

[Hooahguy]

I think people are finally starting to realize that the media is not exactly unbiased in either way. 2020 made me realize that the media thrives on chaos, and 2021 only reinforced that view.
See this graph:


Article link

In 2020, Trump presided over a worst-in-world pandemic response that caused hundreds of thousands of unnecessary deaths; held a superspreader event at the White House and got covid-19 himself; praised QAnon adherents; embraced violent white supremacists; waged a racist campaign against Black Lives Matter demonstrators; attempted to discredit mail-in voting; and refused to accept his defeat in a free and fair election, leading eventually to the violence of Jan. 6 and causing tens of millions to accept the “big lie,” the worst of more than 30,000 he told in office.

And yet Trump got press coverage as favorable as, or better than, Biden is getting today. Sure, Biden has had his troubles, with the delta variant, Afghanistan and inflation. But the economy is rebounding impressively, he has signed major legislation, and he has restored some measure of decency, calm and respect for democratic institutions.

We need a skeptical, independent press. But how about being partisans for democracy? The country is in an existential struggle between self-governance and an authoritarian alternative. And we in the news media, collectively, have given equal, if not slightly more favorable, treatment to the authoritarians.

Sentiment analysis ranks coverage from entirely negative (-1.0) to entirely positive (1.0), and most outlets are in a relatively tight band between -0.1 and 0.1. Overall, Biden was slightly positive or neutral for seven months, ranging from 0.02 to -0.01. That plummeted to -0.07 in August — a lower number than Trump hit in all of 2020 (or 2019) — and has been between -0.04 and -0.03 ever since. Trump never left a narrow range of -0.03 to -0.04. (The data set doesn’t go far enough back to make a comparison to Trump’s first year in office.)

Lets also take this little article from Axios: McConnell: No legislative agenda for 2022 midterms

Until the media begins to treat the severity of the current situation, American democracy is doomed. Whether we like it or not, the media helps shape perceptions. Like how many of the "Democratic infighting" stories are actually just stories of different factions arguing over legislation? Which is what should be happening in a health democracy- groups of people debating over policy, seeking for common ground. But its being presented as mortal enemies fighting within a coalition. Meanwhile the GOP has dropped any pretense of governance and seeks power for the sake of power and that's not being handled with the appropriate severity by enough people.

I also agree with Monty, the nonpartisan redistricting panels might look like a good and noble idea on paper, but unless every state has them, they were a terrible idea that shot Dems in the foot. But I guess its a bit late to change any of that, isnt it.

[Pannonian]

Are there any areas where Manchin votes with the Democrats against the Republicans?

[Montmorency]

Are there any areas where Manchin votes with the Democrats against the Republicans?

He's voted to accede most of Biden's judicial and administrative nominations, the son of a son. Without him we would have nothing at all, is the reality of life on the legislative edge. And we almost certainly lose his seat in the 2024 election regardless.

But Manchin is a stock character in bourgeois democracy. The fundamental problem is that people can't get the sense to vote better elsewhere, or even in sheer recognition of the collapsing state of the country and the depredations upon it. Also, this excerpt from Levitz on Manchin recently:

Democrats had hoped the enhanced CTC’s impending expiration would work as a forcing mechanism for Build Back Better’s passage. After all, the whole “do many temporary programs” strategy is premised on the idea that Congress simply cannot resist extending social benefits once they’re in place. Faced with a choice between acceding to the leadership’s demands or allowing West Virginia families to lose their monthly benefits, Manchin would feel compelled to cave.

But this doesn’t seem to be the case. On the contrary, Manchin reportedly sees the enhanced CTC’s expiration as a feature, not a bug. And the senator’s indifference to extending the program doesn’t just reflect his own peculiar ideological hang-ups. It’s also indicative of the fact that overwhelming public support for the policy has failed to materialize. Democrats have been sending hundreds of dollars every month to each of the roughly 40 percent of U.S. households that have kids under 18, yet in an NPR/Marist poll released last week, only 17 percent of voters said their family had ever received a monthly payment. Roughly half of the enhanced CTC’s beneficiaries don’t even know they have been benefiting from the program. But Democrats are counting on this constituency to be so politically powerful and mobilized that a future Republican Congress would have no choice but to extend the enhanced CTC. If direct monthly payments have failed to create a self-sustaining constituency, there is little basis for believing that less universal (and/or more dysfunctional) programs like the Democrats’ current child-care and paid-leave plans will do so.

I've been on this beat throughout 2021. We can't aspire to a self-governing polity when so many people don't even understand enough to vote themselves the treasury.

[Montmorency]

Good summary of Manchin's 2021.

Sometimes it's funny enough to bring you to tears:

In recent months, Manchin has told several of his fellow Democrats that he thought parents would waste monthly child tax credit payments on drugs instead of providing for their children, according to two sources familiar with the senator’s comments.

Continuing the child tax credit for another year is a core part of the Build Back Better legislation that Democrats had hoped to pass by the end of the year. The policy has already cut child poverty by nearly 30%.

Manchin’s private comments shocked several senators, who saw it as an unfair assault on his own constituents and those struggling to raise children in poverty.

Manchin has also told colleagues he believes that Americans would fraudulently use the proposed paid sick leave policy, specifically saying people would feign being sick and go on hunting trips, a source familiar with his comments told HuffPost.

@Seamus Fermanagh

I don't have great respect for the rural White myself, but this is altogether too much.