3223
3224
3225

Manchin looks like he’s going to give Biden a wedgie.

Also, it appears Romney is using his church-issued communicator to radio in to LDS HQ.

3226

Bernie said a few days ago he wouldn’t support any bipartisan deal without an ‘ironclad’ agreement to pursue further action via reconciliation. I wonder if his buy-in means anything in that context. Edit: In the interview I heard, he actually said ‘leadership is very clear’ on that point. He also said ‘I will not accept a smaller bill at the expense of something larger.’

3227

Is that Sinema?
Does Sinema have a prosthetic leg?

3228

I’m seriously confused by what’s going on there as well. Here’s an image of her from March of this year:

image
image896×566 118 KB

Did I miss something?

3229

DID YOU EVER WATCH V THE MINISERIES? IT IS THE LIZARD PEOPLE SHEDDING THEIR FAKE SKINS SHEEPLE.

3230

Sinema broke her foot this month running a marathon. Though that’s a weird temporary…something?

3231
3232

Mystery solved!

3233

I LIKED THE LIZARD PEOPLE THEORY BETTER

3234

Sinema could still be a lizard person.

3235

About the “bipartisan” (read: Dem capitulation) deal, lemme guess: no new/raised taxes, no climate change stuff, CERTAINLY no new child/elder care stuff, user fees out the wazoo, blah blah blah.

Did I miss anything?

3236

Of course it requires party unity, but the new / raised taxes can certainly be addressed in reconciliation. See @Gordon_Cameron ’s comment.

3237

What folks need to get through their heads, especially far left progressives who aren’t seeing everything they want, is this:

The key to getting increased power in government, is to make government actually work and do stuff that people then like. That’s the pathway to increased Democratic control.

If the Democrats were to refuse to compromise, and let the GOP drag stuff out forever, then the GOP wins… because the GOP doesn’t want anything done. They actually want the government to fail and do nothing, because they get a double win by saying, “look, government sucks” and, “Look, the Democrats suck!”

If the Democrats can pass something like a major infrastructure bill, even without all the climate change stuff, they can then use this as a huge strategic win. They can say, “Look, the GOP controlled government and did nothing. We are fixing America’s infrastructure, and creating a ton of blue collar jobs.”

That will result in a win in 2022, and then they can do even more.

3238

I think that deep down, Biden knows that the GOP will renege on the deal – maybe even at the last minute – and that the Dems will use it to finally:

a) push his bill through using reconciliation, and
b) finally move forward with plans for ending, or significantly altering the filibuster

3239

If it does result in a win in 2022 (despite all the state-level election fuckery and the 24/7 right wing propaganda machine), then yay.

Some of us are exasperated at the fact that climate change is something that gets endlessly kicked down the road because, while an immense danger to our way of life, it moves slowly enough that it is not really visible to the short-term cycles of politics and finance. In other words, if not now, when?

3240

I agree with this- if we can get 52 Senators, we might be able to kill the filibuster,

As for Climate change- getting nothing is better than Republicans making it worse.

We’re going to have to rely on the order above justice crowd growing more radical as they enter a more progressive newspace. We need the progressives to start working on making folks more radical as time goes on.

3241

That’s a no from me, dawg.

3242

I have no idea if this results in a win for 2022, and I have no idea if this passes.

But Democrats should embrace the shit out of it. Because the voters Democrats want to attract and keep in the fold – those suburban, purple-thinking voters – they fucking love themselves anything that feels “bipartisan.” And they generally see Democrats as the party willing to make accommodations to being bipartisan. Like, a bipartisan infrastructure deal provides an asymmetric political reward here with voters bunched towards the middle, with the benefit to Democrats far outstripping the benefit to Republicans. Which is a result of the corner Republicans have painted themselves into over the last 20-30 years.

And finally, my general setting having not looked too deeply at the nuts and bolts inside the bullet points at the top of this bill are that in general in a legislation deal, if everyone is angry they didn’t get a pony, then that bill probably has more good than bad in it.