The Politics Thread

[Vee]

The bipartisan bill is an afterthought to me; it's not important. It's for show to the Beltway and Manchin. The meat of what should be that bill will be in the reconciliation package - that's a foregone conclusion. The House knows that, the GOP knows that which is why they hope to derail it. And Pelosi has made it clear she won't consider putting through the bipartisan bill until the reconciliation package is agreed upon and guaranteed passage. That's why it's what really matters. It doesn't actually matter which package it gets delivered in: If it goes through, and I think it will, it's still a major infrastructure victory.

Edited June 25, 2021 by Vee

[Vee]

 

Case in point:

 

 

This is not going to happen. Both are on record for reconciliation and Pelosi/Schumer/Biden have all made their positions very clear. IMO the GOP has moved into a kill box no matter what. If they all pull out of the deal, Biden still has had his Rose Garden moment where he can say to the bipartisan happy talk gang in the Beltway 'we had a deal, I tried', and then move to pass just the reconciliation package. It also is an instructive lesson to Manchin/Sinema, just like putting S1 on the floor was; that incident swayed a lot of Senators on the fence re: filibuster reform who are now speaking publicly. This whole ridiculous session has been instructive. It's not 4-D ches; I think Biden wants and has hoped for both deals. But I think he also knows what will play out if the GOP backs out. He's already done his diligence.

 

[DRW50]

Schatz's tweet is an illustration of what weighs me down about all of this - it is being framed as an outrageous betrayal of "moderate" Republicans. Even if Manchin and Sinema go along, the story veers away from being about infrastructure and becomes about how wrong it is that Biden and Democrats don't want to work for the common good, and what happened to bipartisanship when Biden ran on it, and all the other garbage. And this is even assuming Manchin doesn't cave, even though this is the situation he created in the first place. 

 

It's just a needless quagmire brought on by his ego and it means they are having to scrape through and will struggle to sell any of the benefits to the public. 

[Vee]

That version of the story isn't going to play to anyone but their base and a handful of Beltway pundits. They have tried many times to push GOP narratives in the last five years, and each time they've proven they don't matter. All that will matter to the larger public is the results. The public didn't care about the Beltway whining about bipartisanship with the Rescue Plan, and they won't care now.

Edited June 25, 2021 by Vee

[marceline]

 

The events of this week have shown just how ridiculous "Do Something" Twitter is.

 

Sandy is melting down.

 

 

[Vee]

 

 

 

[Vee]

 

[dragonflies]

 

[Vee]

 

Meanwhile:

 

 

[Vee]

On a lighter note:

 

 

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[Vee]

 

[Vee]

 

[Vee]

 

[DRW50]

Around and around and around and around:

 

 

I guess what he said on Thursday was saying the quiet part out loud and now after Manchin, Sinema, and the so-called Republican "moderates" got on the line, we have to go back to these games. All it really accomplished was a bunch of negative headlines yesterday and giving the media another chance to try to portray his administration as bumbling. The whole theater he is being made to perform is just ridiculous at this point.

[Wendy]

 

It's just politics. It's not so dire! Biden's doing just fine.