2/11 News Roundup & OT
Senate Budget Committee Interviews Neera Tanden for OMB
From Slate:
Kennedy was the final, and typically showiest, Republican to question her. He suggested that there may be a perception that “if you took Wall Street, turned them upside down, and shook ’em, you’d fall out of their pockets.” When he said that “you called Sen. Sanders everything but an ignorant slut”—Graham, in the background, followed up with “I wouldn’t’ve said ‘ignorant’ ”—Tanden showed her anger for the first time, saying, “That is not true, Senator.”
Kennedy then asked her repeatedly whether she meant the insults she tweeted when she tweeted them.
She tried a few different dodges between reiterations of the question. “I really feel badly about them, Senator.” “Social media is a terrible discourse.” “I feel terribly about them.” “I look back at them, I said them, I feel badly about them, I deleted tweets.”
She finally relented.
“Senator, I must have meant them,” she said. “But I really regret them.”
More news, tweets, videos, etc in the comments. Sure Happy It’s Thursday!
Thursday tip jar…
Good morning Benny.
I sure hope Neera’s nomination falls apart. But it probably will go through.
It will be a close vote. I’m not certain if Bernie will be the deciding vote or not. I suspect Bernie will allow her through.
All Dems will vote for her. Possibly a few Republicans. Tanden is a nasty piece of work but there are worse cabinet nominees than her, e.g., Vilsack for Agriculture and Raimondo for Commerce
I can’t agree. Tanden is as disqualifying for OMB as Trump was for the presidency.
1000%. Or as Petey is for Transportation post.
Petey does have Polly from NYC as his second in command so all well be well.
Actually Pete has more analytical skills than Tanden. He has to be mindful of ensuring that the policies are inclusive.
We know his policies won’t be though – he didn’t give a damn about inclusion as Mayor.
Buttigieg is probably Biden’s worst cabinet pick for this reason, though neoliberal stooge Tanden is not far behind. Both should be rejected.
Ugh and triple ugh!💩🤮
Yeah we will have to disagree. I think Trump (and his appointees) are exponentially worse than Tanden who will just be implementing whatever budget policy the Biden administration comes up with. (That’s where the problem will lie.) He may not like her, but Bernie will be able to work with her.
FYI. Here’s the departing OMB director and what Bernie thought of him.
Just another religious freak dimwit for Jesus. 🤮💩
so frustrating.
Biden Administration Urges Supreme Court to Uphold Affordable Care Act
If it weren’t for the pre-existing conditions, I almost wish it would get thrown out. It would force Congress to rewrite a bill to include at the least a public option. Instead, Biden is pushing more subsidies for COBRA,which is a shite program. I remember I got laid off in the late 1980’s, and was offered COBRA. I refused it because it would have exceeded in premiums what I got for unemployment.
COBRA is useless to the middle class and lower most of us cant afford it.
New relief bill includes $20B for tribes
What a bunch of chickensh1t! These RWingers would be jumping up and down if all this funding was targeted at their beloved charter/private/religious schools.
I guess RFK Jr didn’t take Facebook’s threat to ban all anti-vaxx posts very seriously. I wonder if he will take them to court?
How a leading anti-Trump group ignored a crisis in its ranks
Figures.
US jobless claims fall slightly to 793,000 with layoffs high
The number of Americans seeking unemployment benefits fell slightly last week to 793,000, evidence that job cuts remain high despite a substantial decline in new confirmed viral infections.
Last week’s total declined from 812,000 the previous week, the Labor Department said Thursday. That figure was revised higher from the previously reported 779,000. The numbers point to a still-elevated number of layoffs. Before the virus erupted in the United States in March, weekly applications for jobless aid had never topped 700,000, even during the Great Recession.
One recommendation: M4A
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2021/02/11/medicare-all-only-way-forward-concludes-lancet-panel-study-detailing-death-and
Julia Rock/Andrew Perez/David Sirota
WaPo is a main culprit here. No surprise given its owner
https://jacobinmag.com/2021/02/media-larry-summers-covid-relief-stimulus-checks-congress
One of these “manufactured consent” items which has particularly annoyed me in recent weeks is the repeated assertion in numerous mainstream news sources that 67 votes are needed to convict Trump in the impeachment trial and that unless Democrats get 17 Republicans to vote for conviction Trump will be again be acquitted.
For example, here’s a non-paywalled quote from USA Today:
There are many more examples out there of the media saying this, and it is not correct. It does not require at least 67 members to support conviction for Trump (or anyone else) to be impeached.
There are currently 100 members of the senate, so if the requirement were that 2/3 of the senate membership needed to vote for conviction then the number would indeed be 67. But neither the constitution nor the senate rules on impeachment say that it takes 2/3 of the senate membership to convict.
What the constitution says is that it takes 2/3 of the members who are present. And there is no requirement, either in the constitution or in the senate rules on impeachment, that all members be present for the trial. (Senate leadership can choose to require members to be present, but they do not have to do so and are free to permit members not to attend.)
For example, there are many Republican senators who claim they believe the current impeachment trial is unconstitutional. I think they should have been encouraged to boycott the trial on grounds of conscience. No one should take part in or be forced to take part in an something they believe to be unconstitutional. And if, say, 19 GOP senators had chosen to boycott the trial (or chosen to be absent for other reasons, such as health or feeling a need to quarantine) there would have been 81 senators present, meaning the number of votes needed to convict would then be 54.
I don’t think many people realize that if the vote had been taken back in January immediately after the house voted to impeach that the number of votes needed to convict would not have been 67. It would have been 66 (because, prior to confirmation of the Georgia senate run-off election results, there were only 99 senators).
Similarly I don’t think most people realize that if several senators are absent on the day of the conviction vote due to Covid or other reasons that the number needed for conviction would be less than 67. And that’s due to the media repeatedly misrepresenting the number of votes needed to convict as being 67, i.e. 2/3 of the entire senate membership, rather than the actual requirement which is 2/3 of the members present.
The media getting that fact wrong once or twice due to carelessness (and an assumption that all 100 senators will be present for the vote) might be understandable; the media consistently getting it wrong is shameful and to me it’s a glaring example of what’s wrong with the mainstream news media today. I have not seen a single mainstream media news article which correctly reports that the number of votes required for an impeachment conviction is 2/3 of the members present.
For those who’d like to check the accuracy of what I’m saying, the relevant section of the constitution is in article I, section 3 of the US constitution:
And here is a link to the senate rules on impeachment. Rule XXIII is the rule concerning the trial vote, and like the constitution it repeatedly refers to “Members present”, not to the entire senate membership.
Birdies…please read NL’s insight here. ^^^^^
NL is precisely correct. +100! Don’t get me started about the malfeasance of the craporate media! 🙁
I feel like Roberts gave air to the illigetimacy of the trial by not presiding. I understand the technicality but that very technicality is a talking point used far and wide to dismiss the whole trial.
Pot Stocks Are the Next GameStop. It Won’t End Well.
This is from Barron’s.
All of the pot stocks are non-US.
This one is actually annoying and not the same as the Gamestop shortsqueeze. I had cashed in on my little AMC throw in and put those ‘earnings’ into a couple of those tickers as long term ‘investments’ and now everything is being pumped and dumped. Before the word got out was up 300%, now along will come more intervention.
don’t know who’s OT to post to. here’s one.
This one is more of an open thread. Mine is an essay.
yours says open thread, though, an interesting lead, and it was up first. no matter, this is the one. :o)
I wasn’t able to reply or leave a comment on your essay, but, from your essay:
you:
This NYT article focuses on the fact that the new construction projects are luxury condos (me: as opposed to the affordable housing that is needed):
One in Four of New York’s New Luxury Apartments Is Unsold
by NeoDem logic Biden could get away with just padding the first two Trump stimulus checks to 2k.
Don’t give them any ideas 😉
Such a scammy bait and switch. Biden already had zero credibility with me, but how can believe a thing he says after this? Talk about tripping on the starting line.
Benny, I’ve been getting your messages. I emailed back that it was my inbox they were landing in.
Is there anything else I should do?
I haven’t been sending any to you. @liepardestin can you help out?
Apparently not. The message I emailed to him came back.
Hello all, Ive had this issue in the past but cannot recall how it was resolved, Ill do some digging around and see if theres something I can do!
Turd wayers weigh in, which is what Tyson is referring to.
Good morning all, stay safe out there! Dallas is a mess, i went sideways a couple times on the way to work due to ice, apparently there is a 100+ car pileup in Ft Worth.
Please be very careful, LD! Snow and cold don’t bother me. Ice is another story. It can not be emphasized enough how destructive and dangerous it is!
We’re due to get heavy sleet on Tuesday and I am not going to leave the house! Ice is the only thing that gives me the scares while driving.
In a previous job i had to drive all size box trucks that didnt need a CDL to drive and have driven thru all road conditions in WI. The only one that scared me was freezing rain, i tried to avoid going out at all costs in that crap its down right dangerous.
OMG.
Literally no one in the real world will care if the parliamentarian gets overruled. So Republicans will scream. Who gives an F. $15 is wildly popular. Let Manchin explain to his voters in WVa why they don’t deserve a $15 minimum.
https://www.politico.com/news/2021/02/11/biden-minimum-wage-increase-468565
Byedone is a RWinger. Progressives will have to muscle up and kick his butt on certain issues. Obviously, the $15 minimum wage is one of them.
Delay, delay, delay. That is clearly part of the strategy, prolong the suffering to the point that people will take whatever shit is shoveled. Progressives must apply as much pressure as possible to get things done now.
https://www.salon.com/2021/02/11/the-rights-hatred-of-aoc-isnt-just-racism-and-sexism-it-sums-up-the-entire-toxic-trump-era/
https://www.npr.org/2021/02/11/966498544/a-scary-survey-finding-4-in-10-republicans-say-political-violence-may-be-necessa
AEI is RW to the max. You can bet they will back the FRightwingnut fringe!
what the founders said, iirc.
Yet if someone fighting for social justice spray paints a wall they should be gassed, shot and thrown into unmarked vehicles and spirited away, and that okay with those people I’d bet.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/donald-trump-remorse-capitol-riot-b1800784.html?utm_source=reddit.com