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Nesters, With our number of commenters (and less to open the Nest) dwindling down to almost a trickle, I decided to make it an open thread for the week.
If someone would care to start another thread another day this week (and put on the headline for how long) I can change the date to reflect the end of this thread.
Summer is here, Bernie is not running, so unless anyone has any objection to have a weekly open thread on Mondays and last through Friday (this week is longer due to the holiday weekend), I think we can still connect with it that way.
The downside is if the comments get over 100, folks find it laborious to go through all of the comments, but otherwise, it’s pretty manageable.
if it gets to 100 csn always do 5/22 -5/28- 2.0 ;), supposed to be a gorgeous holiday weekend here so i’ll be outside as much as possible. 🤞🤞🤞 that the weather guru’s are actually right for a change
We will be in the Catskills. Nice forecast here also. Actually, it’s been a very dry May here in upstate NY. The gardens could use some rain.
Aint Supposed to Die A Natural Death
And I’ll be in NYC this weekend, though I’m coming up for an extremely heartbreaking reason – the death of one of my childhood friends. Haven’t been to NY since the pandemic so I’ll get to enjoy old friends and family.
Hear, hear, Ms. Benny!! Condolences, Aint. We’ll be at the casa. Not going anywhere near a beach cos it will be nuts! Hubster has one of his oldest BFFs flying in from Costa Rica so no telling what that’ll bring, for him anyway. 🙂 I’ll be home with the two Boogers. Most of my friends are on trips or getting set to depart. If needed for Nest duty, you all let me know! 🙂
this mf started raising rates after 5 straight years of undershooting the inflation target, when there was still no whisper of price increases, and going into an election year to boot
My friends and family know that my wife @leeladaou and I have been caring for our ailing parents. It's been tough to do that and focus full time on a presidential campaign.
Daou is not the only one to leave the campaign; deputy manager also resigned.
RFK leads popular polling after Biden, who still isn’t reaching in the upper 40’s. If the debt ceiling passes with major cave-ins, or defaults, Biden is likely to land in the Carter lane politically.
RFK is certainly not the answer. Further, people, further. We need to chart a course into the future, and stop trying to relive the past. Especially with some crazy anti vaxxer.
He’s got the attention of the GOP who don’t like Trump nor Biden. But it’s very early. I also suggest reading down thread Eyeround’s perspective about RFK, Jr’s campaign.
Sorry…the flake on a book tour is Marianne Williamson. And as far as I’m concerned Peter Daou is the Kiss of Death. I remember that character far too well from the 2016 Clinton campaign.
Peter Daou became radicalized after the Clinton Campaign (ie Robby Mook) failed to deliver for the election. However, he’s not Williamson’s manager anymore. I don’t blame him for trying to make a living, I don’t know how he and his spouse make ends meet, personally.
EyeRound
Happy Summer greetings to all the Birdies from someone who loves you but does a lot of “lurking”! I think RFK Jr’s campaign is an incredibly bright spot in America’s political landscape. (He sees so many issues the way I do, but that’s not the point.) He’s critical, but not downbeat–wants to treat American democratic government as the great experiment that it could have been and could be if it hadn’t gone so far into corruption. Many of his positions I don’t comprehend, but I’ve been amazed following his interviews online when I can hear his reasoning it makes sense. RFK Jr’s campaign is like a light at the end of a very dark tunnel. He’s drawing a line between the economy and the government and that line needs to be put back in place and held. Anyway, too much to write here, but I think one upshot is that JFK Jr is, taking up Bernie’s historical legacy. He doesn’t sound like Bernie all the time, but there’s a continuation: Dean – Occupy – Bernie – and now we move forward while remembering “backward” into the candidacy of RFK Jr. I’ll end this by noting that much about his campaign is bridging the right-vs-left divide. Establishment pols fear that bridge because if it works the corporate-run government loses. Many thanks to everyone here. TPW posts are a lifeline for me!
This is a person who is quite likely to end up on some third way party line, possibly throwing the election to Trump or worse. This is not a thought that we should even be entertaining. Kennedy’s stance on science and medicine is enough of a problem to cause a much bigger problem: lots of people will never, ever vote for him. I sure know I won’t.
No more dynasties, anyway! Haven’t we all had our bloody fill of that?
We have learned that Republican voters are never going to vote for anyone but their anointed candidate, and that will be the most fascistic candidate they can find, in an attempt to recreate Trump’s vote totals. Haven’t we? The thought the there will ever be some moderate candidate that everyone will love is kumbaya bs. It’s a lovely thought that has no earthly place in the world. Or, worse, someone trading on a 60 year old name. That reflects a longing to turn back the clock, in the same way as conservatives. And, frankly, the thought of it makes me ill.
EyeRound
Please don’t be ill!! RFK Jr is using that 60-year-old name to propose a government that directly calls out corporations and their profit-driven actions. Corporations today are all-powerful, right? Not quite. . .there’s the government and don’t forget it. In one sense, the lockdowns prove this point–the government can and did close down most business (corporations). It did that–took crazy-Rupert Trump to do it, but there it is. That’s power that rises from the people (and abused by Trump) not from money.
If the man has no respect for science then he can’t possibly govern well. He also can’t be trusted, there is no logic to his thought processes. People will say anything to get themselves elected.
EyeRound
RFK’s stance on science has been largely misrepresented by the MSM. He’s anti-corporate takeover of government, not anti-vax. He thinks as I do that all we’ve got to fight corporate greed is the government. And the government we have now has been corrupted and needs to be fixed, if there’s time left to do so. On vaccines RFK says it’s up to you/each person to judge whether you take any vaccine or not. What worries him is that government is now being run by corporations–and that this is censoring or trying to control personal, bodily integrity where the government does not belong. At the same time government is doing the wrong job while not doing its right job. One very important job is to protect the public from wildcat, irresponsible, profit-driven corporate-devised injuries. The covid-vaccine was mandated and that shouldn’t have happened. In the same vein the lockdowns caused more havoc than they prevented. Looking back to the recent history of vaccines he notes a spate of public health problems accelerating at the same time that pharmaceutical companies making vaccines were given, by Congress, a “hands-off” freedom from liabilities that might arise due to the vaccine. There was, he notes, a correlation of rising public health problems and pharma companies getting more and more vaccines approved by the government. Why did our government fail to look into this correlation? Why were no agencies studying the correlation to see if there’s a causation? Pharma corporations are going to pursue profit first–that’s what they do. (RFK says it’s straight-out evil, but we can’t simply put an end to corporations.) What we can do, and a good government does do, is wake up, look seriously at all the relevant factors–health problems arising, legal environment of pharma–where there is a correlation. And then search for the cause(s). We have to restore the red line that separates government from the economy. Because we know that pharma, like any other corporation, must put profit ahead of human life and welfare and that modus operandi may be bringing on great harm if it’s not checked. Stopping the profit-motive from causing harm, curbing corporate greed is a right job of government, so why didn’t our government do it? RFK focusses on government agencies as a first source of government malfeasance. To your other points, at this point in time a third-party run is not what RFK wants–he considers himself a Democrat but the Democratic Party has sold out and that needs to be addressed and cured. I agree with your sense of a third-party being a threat–maybe the legacy Democratic party sees this as well. For the present, let the Dems live with the threat. As for the Kennedy dynasty, yes, it is a family of political actors and the name recognition counts for a lot. (You might get the wrong message on this if you live in Louisiana 🙂 ) The Kennedy family, however, does not see eye-to-eye on issues, though. I think he is the most interesting, intriguing presidential candidate to come down the pike in recent times and I hope his campaign lands well. Apologies for the length of this post! PS I don’t expect that Trump voters are going to vote non-Trump. But I also don’t think that all R’s are Trump voters.
Thanks for your comments, Eyeround. And also to Paul ADK. There’s obviously a difference in opinion here, but I think you’ve gotten the ball rolling in a discussion that will be visited more than once!
We welcome all lurkers. TPW is a small site compared to DailyKos and caucus99%, etc., but we Birdies/Nesters are loud (some of us like me), informed, educated, active and proud American voters/citizens. We all met when Liepar Destin/LD started the site as the Bernie News Report (BNR) 8 years ago. 🙂 Benny and jcitybone have really done the yeoman/woman work of keeping our Nest Open. I, orlbucfan, take up the rear so-to-speak.
EyeRound
Thanks for the reminder! Also didn’t mean to leave out jcitybone! I’ve also been around here since, I think, Liepar established these pages years ago. (But I was never part of DKos.) I just wanted to say how much I appreciate this site!
I think Trump ran on draining the swamp, too. The problem isn’t topographical. It’s about consistently putting forward a point of view and a plan that people buy into enough to replace the con artists they’ve been voting into office.
EyeRound
Agree–Trump ran on draining the swamp and you could say that RFK Jr has a similar campaign. But Trump got elected and then proceeded to replicate and energize the swamp–Tillerson, straight from Exxon, appointed Sec of State; State Dept employees fired wholesale and not replaced; Post Office, IRS defunded, and so on. RFK by contrast directly points out that the agencies are controlled by corporate money, especially in their top brass people and in their funding sources. Agency heads are practically appointed by the president. He says get these bought-out agency heads out of office and appoint people who are dedicated to the betterment of America, which is not co-terminus with the betterment of corporate greed. In other words, politically the “left” is almost meeting “right” here, as you point out, but there’s also a world of difference. Trump wanted to capitalize out of government corruption; RFK Jr wants to cure it. Just briefly, RFK Jr does not support the war in Ukraine (like Trump). He does support a woman’s right to choose (polar opposite of Trump). I’m thinking of RFK syphoning off the progressive vote; the Black vote; and a good chunk of the Repub. vote in a presidential race. If I’m right, the Biden team is sh!+ting bricks right now and they can be expected to pull out all the stops to “disappear” RFK Jr.
Many of the same sources that are questioning RFK Jr’s candidacy have also pointed out Biden’s many flaws. I’m not a Republican, and I’m not a Biden corporatist, but I will never vote for anyone that Trump wanted in his administration. Kennedy has way too many warts for such a consequential election.
Bernie is about to be Rachel Maddow’s first guest tonight. Probably will be an extension of this tweet from yesterday:
Speaker McCarthy wants to take away nutrition assistance from 1.2 million women, infants and children while giving a $1.8 trillion tax break to people who inherit over $1 billion. That socialism for the rich, rugged individualism for the rest ideology is beyond unacceptable.
.@chrislhayes on what's behind the GOP debt fight: "The Republican calculus is simple: Spend like there's no tomorrow when you're in power because it helps you politically. When you're out of power, do everything possible to stop Democrats from spending in order to hurt them" 1/2 pic.twitter.com/X6Sx0zq4Yi
— All In with Chris Hayes (@allinwithchris) May 23, 2023
Way to state the obvious, Comcast! Now, if MSNBC would act like a NEWS station instead of a disinformation outlet, we might actually learn something NEW from them.
I heard last year that the payments aren’t due until close to the end of this year. Now, which piece of coordinated sh1t cranked all this up? The bought media+Nutso GOPukes+bought off DINOs? That combo has been going down since Raygun, and it just gets more and more nauseating. I know a lot of folks in my age group are just over it! 💩💩🤮 They keep their boob tubes turned off.
The talking heads need something to scare the masses with as solving the numerous problems we have are bad for ratings Plus its a “slow” time politically as the summer travel season is in gear. The congresscritters will come up with an 11th hour solution with the news networks using a count down clock for drama.Whatever they come up with i doubt the middle class and lower will benefit by it…
Even the streaming services are being taken over by corporate interests, if they weren’t there to begin with. There are very few that aren’t. If I’m interested in something I try to get to as much of the source material as possible. And then I make up my mind.
Jeffries truly proving his left critics right when hes is willing to side Republicans instead of ignoring them all together and using the powers the party has. Pathetic
— Starstruck by most people in my life (@NYSoviet) May 23, 2023
Apparently, @marcorubio, it turns out, on second thought, it actually *is* worse to wear real Catholic costumes and molest children than it is to wear PRETEND Catholic costumes and NOT molest children. https://t.co/TUjR2KU5JH
Political journalism is in crisis. Over the past few months, BuzzFeed News, FiveThirtyEight, Vice and a number of other outlets that specialize in political news have substantially cut staffing and coverage. Even CNN and The Post have laid off journalists. And the political media is struggling to cover an increasingly radical Republican Party without seeming to be on the side of the Democrats.
But there is good news, too. Several new or expanding outlets are addressing some of political journalism’s long-standing shortcomings: insufficient coverage of state and local government and of people who aren’t White and upper-income; an over-prioritization of elections over policy; a failure to recognize that the courts are a central front in today’s political conflicts.
And this matters. I don’t care about the state of political journalism just because it’s my field. The coverage decisions and priorities of news outlets affect the behavior of elected officials and the lives of everyday citizens. Good political journalism is vital.
Here are seven outlets that are reimagining political journalism in smart ways:
1 The American Prospect
If you want to understand what’s happening inside the Biden administration and the broader Democratic Party, the Prospect is a must-read. The magazine focuses on policy, not elections. But it’s not boring or overly wonky. The Prospect smartly explains how major industries, electoral considerations, and particular politicians and strategists drive policy decisions.
The Prospect generally shares President Biden’s ideology, but the magazine isn’t just reflexively praising Democrats and bashing Republicans like MSNBC. It often delves into Republican strategy and fissures among Democrats.
“A lot of what we do is uncovering the structures of power that are just outside the spotlight. We’ll tell you how power works and what powerful people are wielding it, from Washington to the corporate boardroom,” said David Dayen, the Prospect’s executive editor.
2 Balls and Strikes Return to menu Until recently, many news outlets treated the judiciary, particularly the U.S. Supreme Court, as a high-minded institution not caught up in the partisan battles dividing the rest of the country. But there has been a push to tell a different, more accurate story: The judiciary is partisan and political, too. And the Republican Party in particular has stacked the courts with appointees who carry out its policy goals.
Balls and Strikes, which is an arm of the progressive group Demand Justice, most embodies this style. One of the site’s stories last year criticized NPR legal reporter Nina Totenberg’s close ties with then-Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Antonin Scalia, arguing that a journalist is supposed to scrutinize those in power, not befriend them. Articles on the site have also shown the crucial role largely unknown conservative lawyers and activists play in pushing cases that result in right-wing rulings.
“Our coverage is premised on the reality that interpreting the law is an inherently political act with real-world consequences, and that a given outcome is not just or desirable or legitimate simply because a person wearing a robe managed to string together a few sentences about, ‘why the law compels it,’” said Jay Willis, the site’s editor in chief.
3 Bolts
When there is a high-profile incident involving race or the police, the news media tends to descend on a given city for weeks, write a lot of stories and then move on. Not Bolts. The magazine recognizes that voting rights, gerrymandering, policing and other issues that often play out at the state and local level are increasingly at the center of American politics. A recent Bolts story not only explained how Atlanta police have arrested protesters who object to a massive police training facility being built there, but described similar actions being taken against activists across the country.
“There’s a large audience looking to delve into the local weeds of power and policy beyond where they live,” said Bolts founder and editor in chief Daniel Nichanian. 4 The Guardian US
The U.S. edition of the London-based Guardian is one of the few outlets that does these three things at once: covers up-to-minute news like the New York Times or The Post; openly acknowledges its left of center ideology; writes about politics without the “insider” approach (unnamed sources, an obsession with consultants and strategy) that makes so much political coverage hard to parse if you aren’t already an expert.
The results are great. A recent five-part series on Ron DeSantis described his policies as Florida’s Republican governor in detail, used blunt, non-equivocating language (stating that one of DeSantis’s goals is to “dilute Black political power”) and didn’t spend much time speculating about his poll numbers.
“We often describe our perspective as an outsider perspective or a global perspective. We’re not doing the latest inside scoop from the corridors of Congress. We’re looking at American politics with an eye to what matters to the rest of the world and the rest of the country,” said Guardian US editor Betsy Reed.
5 Hammer & Hope
This magazine was created by some of the activists and intellectuals who have been at the center of the Black Lives Matter movement. So Hammer & Hope takes it as a given that anti-Black discrimination still exists in America and concentrates on what should be done to address it.
For example, the magazine had tenant organizers in Kansas City, Mo., write a piece explaining their strategies to reduce evictions. In another article, leading BLM figures debated why the movement was not as successful as it hoped in getting policies on policing and other issues changed in the wake of the massive 2020 protests.
“We want to make a firmly practical difference by creating a space for discussing and circulating tactics and strategies around actual struggles,” said editor and co-founder Jen Parker.
6 Popular Information
Neither the grocer Kroger nor the restaurant chain Olive Garden was offering all of its employees paid sick leave during the early stages of the covid-19 pandemic. Many companies have broken their promises not to donate to Republican members of Congress who refused to certify the 2020 election results. Cameron Sexton, the GOP speaker of the Tennessee House of Representatives, purchased a house in Nashville through a trust, perhaps trying to obscure that he and his family may functionally live in Music City, not Sexton’s home district about two hours away.
Those are all stories that were extensively covered by other media outlets but were first broken by Popular Information. The site’s founder and editor, Judd Legum, was the research director for Hillary Clinton’s 2008 presidential campaign, in charge of digging up negative information about both Clinton and her opponents. Legum’s background has helped him carve out a unique role. He focuses on finding scandals, unlike most political writers. But he publishes regularly, unlike the investigative reporters at most large news organizations, who might only write a few times a year.
“If I identify a story that involves a lot of monotonous work to pursue effectively, that’s a good story for Popular Information,” said Legum.
7 States Newsroom
Local newspapers are shrinking, and most national media outlets mostly cover Congress and the president. That has left a huge and important void as both parties increasingly enact their policy agendas at the state level.
Enter States Newsroom. Over the past six years, the company has founded news outlets focused on state government in 34 states. They are usually quite small, only four to five staffers and a handful of contributing writers. But because so much is happening at the state level and there are so few reporters in most capitals, these operations are extremely valuable. I subscribe to the newsletter for the Kentucky Lantern and read it every day.
“In many states, we have more reporters in the capital year-round than any other news organization,” said Chris Fitzsimon, the director and publisher of States Newsroom.
I should emphasize that the Associated Press, CNN, the New York Times, NPR, the Wall Street Journal and The Post remain the preeminent news organizations in America. Those six have huge numbers of journalists, consistently accurate coverage and try to reach people across geographic and ideological lines.
But political journalism is much less rigorous and well-staffed at the state and local levels, and those six big outlets also have their weaknesses. We need more political journalism, but we also need better political journalism. And amid all the bad news about the news, that better political journalism is emerging.
This is Perry Bacon Jr’s opinion in WaPo. I’ve posted it here as I’m happy to see The American Prospect at the top of the list, but he listed 4 digital ones I’m unfamiliar with: Balls & Strikes, Bolts, Hammer & Hope, and States Newsroom. States Newsroom is worth a look as twitter will continue to chase out organizations who post negative things about corporations pulling the political levers. I’m looking to see where else to find current political news that may offer some free articles or good summaries on a microblog, such as Post.news or Mastodon. I’ve been on Bluesky’s waiting list for a month, and I anticipate it will be later this summer before they open the floodgates.
The state of publishing has been disrupted in general, and I know with business information, one pays a lot more for a lot less content, all modules, which is what the Substack is beginning to look to me. I’ve mentioned to Ryan Grim at The Intercept (which I donate to each month) that I still don’t see the value proposition for consumers to see “notes” which is Substack’s alleged answer to twitter, but if you already subscribe to a few things on substack, trotting out a note once every week or so to highlight the one article you’ve penned, is not as current as The American Prospect.
The Guardian is hit or miss, but Bernie and David Sirota’s The Lever , occasionally post op-eds there.
For my own lenses for political journalism, I also think The Lever does solid reporting, as does The Intercept, The Nation, and Propublica.
One thing I’ve been trying to do whenever a good opportunity arises on twitter or mastodon, is to reach out to the editors who tweet out their content. Sometimes it’s just a technicality, but I’ve noticed Dayen, Cooper, and Grim will engage with their readers occasionally on twitter, including me.
Quite different from Kos, who says boneheaded things to attract attention.
The news sites I’m connected to are “The Lever,” “The American Prospect,” “Naked Capitalism,” and “In These Times.” I check out the NYT cos Hubster has the subscription, and I like their Arts sections. I also get big laffs out of their comment threads. 😂👍
I don’t do the microblogs cos I am not a cyber expert. Plus, I’ve been a political junkie for so long I have my preferences like everyone else.🙂 The comment threads are a source of laffs for me. We all need that in this day and age.🙄
Last year, Republicans & too many Democrats voted for an $80 billion increase in the Pentagon. We now spend $877 billion on the military while we have the highest child poverty rate of almost any major country. Any deficit reduction plan must include major cuts to the Pentagon.
an argument that congress has no power to "regulate the internal affairs and operations of the Supreme Court" runs very quickly into the little problem that the supreme court cannot operate without congressional appropriations and that it owes its structure to statute https://t.co/yhGA4GBjwX
What a lot of horse hockey. Unfortunately, this ahole Crow has been tied in to the Powell Memo bunch who have plotted and wrecked our country quietly and patiently since 1965.💩💩
From the moment Joe Biden announced his candidacy, the biggest risk the country faced from a potential Biden presidency was that he would wind up in high-stakes negotiations with Republican congressional leaders, and those Republicans would fleece him blind.
For the past several months, Biden insisted that he wouldn’t ever be in that room, because he simply wasn’t going to negotiate with Republicans over lifting the debt ceiling. But he also poured cold water on invoking the 14th Amendment or minting a trillion-dollar platinum coin, which handed Republicans all the leverage. Biden has claimed to believe he has the authority to use the 14th Amendment, but today entered a suit saying the opposite. Biden also had the chance to lift the debt ceiling at any point from January 2021 until last December when Democrats still controlled both houses of Congress. Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., recently told Politico not doing so is one of his biggest regrets.
Instead, Biden went into negotiations with congressional Republicans — without a serious offer of his own. He made a few half-hearted suggestions that a better way to cut the deficit is to target hedge fund managers and the super rich. But when Republican House Speaker Kevin McCarthy objected, he dropped it. Talks continued at the White House between McCarthy and Biden Monday evening. But with Biden now negotiating the size of the cut, Democrats’ only hope is that Republicans can’t agree on what they’ll accept and they fail to seize the moment.
All of this is reminiscent of the last time Biden, as vice president, intervened in high stakes Capitol Hill negotiations. Afterwards, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid ordered the White House to never send him down again. He did such a bad job that he got a worse deal out of Minority Leader Mitch McConnell than McConnell had already agreed to give Reid. I covered this moment in my last book, “We’ve Got People”, which was excerpted in The Intercept.
It all came at the end of 2012, and the circumstances were similar. President Barack Obama had just stomped Republican Mitt Romney at the polls in a post-Occupy campaign that centered on economic inequality. Democrats picked up two seats in the Senate, expanding their majority to 53 and adding Elizabeth Warren to their ranks. Though Democrats won more House votes nationwide and picked up a net of eight seats, Republicans held onto the House narrowly.
The major tax cuts pushed through by President George W. Bush were set to expire at the end of 2012, creating what was called a fiscal cliff. If Congress did nothing, taxes would go up on everybody. Harry Reid told me in an interview for “We’ve Got People” that going over the cliff was precisely his plan. Reid said: “I thought that would have been the best thing to do because the conversation would not have been about raising taxes, which it became, it would have been about lowering taxes.”
In other words, let all the rates go up, and then bargain with Republicans to reduce taxes just for the middle class and the poor. McConnell similarly knew the difficult position going over the cliff would put him in, and in talks with Reid, he agreed to let rates on people making more than $250,000 per year go back up.
Reid felt like he had successfully pushed McConnell to the brink; McConnell had a strong sense that Reid intended to go over the cliff and put Republicans up against a wall. It was now Sunday, December 30, 2012, and Democrats only had to hold out until Tuesday to find themselves in a dramatically improved political position, as the dawning of the new year would mean the tax cuts expired and automatically reverted to pre-Bush levels. At that point, it would be Republicans who would be left pleading for rate cuts.
In desperation, McConnell reached out directly to Vice President Joe Biden, calling him on the phone and explaining that Reid was refusing to be reasonable. Over the course of the day, McConnell and Biden struck a deal. A senior Republican aide told me: “Biden gave Republicans everything they wanted in exchange for fixing the fiscal cliff problem.”
Just like today, the fiscal cliff problem was only a problem because Biden allowed it to be. Reid would have been happy to drive the car off the cliff, and then fight it out amid the wreckage.
In the same way, Biden could have just ignored the debt ceiling, invoked the 14th amendment, declaring the debt ceiling unconstitutional, and dared Chief Justice John Roberts to blow up the global economy. McCarthy himself would publicly complain but be privately relieved that he had gotten through this moment with his speakership intact. Future presidents would thank Biden. If future Congresses wanted to rein in spending, they could rein in spending. But they could not threaten the global economy to do it.
On the morning of New Year’s Eve back in 2012, Reid was still feeling good about his position, still ignorant of what Biden had given away. Then McConnell took to the Senate floor and announced that he’d been in talks with the vice president, they were progressing well, and he was hopeful that they’d have legislation to move by the end of the day.
As details of the deal began leaking out, progressive Democratic senators were floored. A large group of them — including Sens. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, Sherrod Brown of Ohio, Jeff Merkley of Oregon, Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island, Al Franken of Minnesota, and Tom Harkin of Iowa — stormed over to Reid’s office.
The deal was awful, they told Reid, and it had to be stopped. Reid told them what had happened, that it was out of his hands and that McConnell had gone around him to Biden. He said he was working on improving it and would be in touch throughout the day.
None of the senators had any business scheduled — it was New Year’s Eve, after all — so Sanders invited them back to his office in the Dirksen building. The Hart building has a popcorn machine, so Harkin asked his staff to bring some by. The crew ended up spending several hours together in Sanders’s office, thinking through potential strategies of opposition and waiting to hear from Reid.
Instead, one senator’s phone rang, and it was Joe Biden, calling to sell the deal he had cut. In classic Biden fashion, he offered a 10- to 15-minute soliloquy, a meandering argument that largely boiled down to: You can trust me; I’m your friend; this is a good deal. The senator could barely get a word in before the conversation ended.
Moments after he hung up, another cellphone rang, and it was Biden again. Unaware that the group was all together, Biden proceeded to call each of them, one after the other, delivering the same spiel.
Ultimately, it fell to Reid to drag the progressive senators into line. Once it was clear that the White House was on board with Biden’s deal, and McConnell was all in, that meant that there would be at least 70 or 80 votes for it. The progressive bloc could vote no, but it would only send a message of discord and have no effect on the outcome, Reid told them, coaxing them to support the deal he himself loathed. In the end, all the progressive senators except Harkin voted for the deal. It passed 89-8.
Years later, Reid still regretted how it went down. He told me: “If we’d have gone over the cliff, we’d have had resources to do a lot of good things in the country — infrastructure development — but it didn’t work out that way.” Letting all the tax rates go back to pre-Bush levels would have yielded the Treasury around $3 trillion over 10 years. Without the deal, taxes on dividend payments to the rich would have been set at 39.6 percent. Under the terms of the deal, they would be set at 20 percent, meaning that the super-wealthy would be paying lower tax rates on their passive dividend income than many working people would pay on their wages. It helped fuel the inequality that keeps getting worse, and added trillions to the debt at the same time.
Now Biden has another chance to be in the room, and so far, he’s getting outmaneuvered by Kevin McCarthy.
@ddayen As many of us have forgotten the Gephardt Rule (or perhaps didn't know it existed), here's a link to an explanation from last December: https://t.co/Yq9r4LKXof This is to add to your commentary. Thx for the updates!
Nesters,
With our number of commenters (and less to open the Nest) dwindling down to almost a trickle, I decided to make it an open thread for the week.
If someone would care to start another thread another day this week (and put on the headline for how long) I can change the date to reflect the end of this thread.
Summer is here, Bernie is not running, so unless anyone has any objection to have a weekly open thread on Mondays and last through Friday (this week is longer due to the holiday weekend), I think we can still connect with it that way.
The downside is if the comments get over 100, folks find it laborious to go through all of the comments, but otherwise, it’s pretty manageable.
if it gets to 100 csn always do 5/22 -5/28- 2.0 ;), supposed to be a gorgeous holiday weekend here so i’ll be outside as much as possible. 🤞🤞🤞 that the weather guru’s are actually right for a change
Likewise with the Benny’s we are traveling slightly NW and it promises to be a nice weekend weather wise.
We will be in the Catskills. Nice forecast here also. Actually, it’s been a very dry May here in upstate NY. The gardens could use some rain.
And I’ll be in NYC this weekend, though I’m coming up for an extremely heartbreaking reason – the death of one of my childhood friends. Haven’t been to NY since the pandemic so I’ll get to enjoy old friends and family.
Hope your trip is a safe one.
Hear, hear, Ms. Benny!! Condolences, Aint. We’ll be at the casa. Not going anywhere near a beach cos it will be nuts! Hubster has one of his oldest BFFs flying in from Costa Rica so no telling what that’ll bring, for him anyway. 🙂 I’ll be home with the two Boogers. Most of my friends are on trips or getting set to depart. If needed for Nest duty, you all let me know! 🙂
My condolences’ as well Aint
T and R x 7, Ms. Benny!! 🙂 You and yours getting set for the long Holiday Weekend? We are getting rain down here. Hip-Hip-Hooray!! 🙂
Daou is not the only one to leave the campaign; deputy manager also resigned.
RFK leads popular polling after Biden, who still isn’t reaching in the upper 40’s. If the debt ceiling passes with major cave-ins, or defaults, Biden is likely to land in the Carter lane politically.
RFK is certainly not the answer. Further, people, further. We need to chart a course into the future, and stop trying to relive the past. Especially with some crazy anti vaxxer.
This isn’t really a campaign, anyway. It’s a flake, on a book tour. We need a president, not another carnival sideshow.
He’s got the attention of the GOP who don’t like Trump nor Biden. But it’s very early. I also suggest reading down thread Eyeround’s perspective about RFK, Jr’s campaign.
I see him as a DINO light version of cult-45 not quite as bad
Sorry…the flake on a book tour is Marianne Williamson. And as far as I’m concerned Peter Daou is the Kiss of Death. I remember that character far too well from the 2016 Clinton campaign.
Peter Daou became radicalized after the Clinton Campaign (ie Robby Mook) failed to deliver for the election. However, he’s not Williamson’s manager anymore. I don’t blame him for trying to make a living, I don’t know how he and his spouse make ends meet, personally.
Happy Summer greetings to all the Birdies from someone who loves you but does a lot of “lurking”! I think RFK Jr’s campaign is an incredibly bright spot in America’s political landscape. (He sees so many issues the way I do, but that’s not the point.) He’s critical, but not downbeat–wants to treat American democratic government as the great experiment that it could have been and could be if it hadn’t gone so far into corruption. Many of his positions I don’t comprehend, but I’ve been amazed following his interviews online when I can hear his reasoning it makes sense. RFK Jr’s campaign is like a light at the end of a very dark tunnel. He’s drawing a line between the economy and the government and that line needs to be put back in place and held. Anyway, too much to write here, but I think one upshot is that JFK Jr is, taking up Bernie’s historical legacy. He doesn’t sound like Bernie all the time, but there’s a continuation: Dean – Occupy – Bernie – and now we move forward while remembering “backward” into the candidacy of RFK Jr. I’ll end this by noting that much about his campaign is bridging the right-vs-left divide. Establishment pols fear that bridge because if it works the corporate-run government loses. Many thanks to everyone here. TPW posts are a lifeline for me!
Thanks for your perspective, Eyeround. We’ve missed seeing your posts!
I’m glad to see democracy in action, that’s what we are here for.
This is a person who is quite likely to end up on some third way party line, possibly throwing the election to Trump or worse. This is not a thought that we should even be entertaining. Kennedy’s stance on science and medicine is enough of a problem to cause a much bigger problem: lots of people will never, ever vote for him. I sure know I won’t.
No more dynasties, anyway! Haven’t we all had our bloody fill of that?
We have learned that Republican voters are never going to vote for anyone but their anointed candidate, and that will be the most fascistic candidate they can find, in an attempt to recreate Trump’s vote totals. Haven’t we? The thought the there will ever be some moderate candidate that everyone will love is kumbaya bs. It’s a lovely thought that has no earthly place in the world. Or, worse, someone trading on a 60 year old name. That reflects a longing to turn back the clock, in the same way as conservatives. And, frankly, the thought of it makes me ill.
Please don’t be ill!! RFK Jr is using that 60-year-old name to propose a government that directly calls out corporations and their profit-driven actions. Corporations today are all-powerful, right? Not quite. . .there’s the government and don’t forget it. In one sense, the lockdowns prove this point–the government can and did close down most business (corporations). It did that–took crazy-Rupert Trump to do it, but there it is. That’s power that rises from the people (and abused by Trump) not from money.
If the man has no respect for science then he can’t possibly govern well. He also can’t be trusted, there is no logic to his thought processes. People will say anything to get themselves elected.
RFK’s stance on science has been largely misrepresented by the MSM. He’s anti-corporate takeover of government, not anti-vax. He thinks as I do that all we’ve got to fight corporate greed is the government. And the government we have now has been corrupted and needs to be fixed, if there’s time left to do so. On vaccines RFK says it’s up to you/each person to judge whether you take any vaccine or not. What worries him is that government is now being run by corporations–and that this is censoring or trying to control personal, bodily integrity where the government does not belong. At the same time government is doing the wrong job while not doing its right job. One very important job is to protect the public from wildcat, irresponsible, profit-driven corporate-devised injuries. The covid-vaccine was mandated and that shouldn’t have happened. In the same vein the lockdowns caused more havoc than they prevented. Looking back to the recent history of vaccines he notes a spate of public health problems accelerating at the same time that pharmaceutical companies making vaccines were given, by Congress, a “hands-off” freedom from liabilities that might arise due to the vaccine. There was, he notes, a correlation of rising public health problems and pharma companies getting more and more vaccines approved by the government. Why did our government fail to look into this correlation? Why were no agencies studying the correlation to see if there’s a causation? Pharma corporations are going to pursue profit first–that’s what they do. (RFK says it’s straight-out evil, but we can’t simply put an end to corporations.) What we can do, and a good government does do, is wake up, look seriously at all the relevant factors–health problems arising, legal environment of pharma–where there is a correlation. And then search for the cause(s). We have to restore the red line that separates government from the economy. Because we know that pharma, like any other corporation, must put profit ahead of human life and welfare and that modus operandi may be bringing on great harm if it’s not checked. Stopping the profit-motive from causing harm, curbing corporate greed is a right job of government, so why didn’t our government do it? RFK focusses on government agencies as a first source of government malfeasance. To your other points, at this point in time a third-party run is not what RFK wants–he considers himself a Democrat but the Democratic Party has sold out and that needs to be addressed and cured. I agree with your sense of a third-party being a threat–maybe the legacy Democratic party sees this as well. For the present, let the Dems live with the threat. As for the Kennedy dynasty, yes, it is a family of political actors and the name recognition counts for a lot. (You might get the wrong message on this if you live in Louisiana 🙂 ) The Kennedy family, however, does not see eye-to-eye on issues, though. I think he is the most interesting, intriguing presidential candidate to come down the pike in recent times and I hope his campaign lands well. Apologies for the length of this post! PS I don’t expect that Trump voters are going to vote non-Trump. But I also don’t think that all R’s are Trump voters.
Thanks for your comments, Eyeround. And also to Paul ADK. There’s obviously a difference in opinion here, but I think you’ve gotten the ball rolling in a discussion that will be visited more than once!
And take it from a campaign volunteer vet, that discussion will heat up this summer and fall. 👏👏
I hope you and Benny are right! I visit TPW a lot. Thanks to both Benny and Obf for keeping these web pages going!!
We welcome all lurkers. TPW is a small site compared to DailyKos and caucus99%, etc., but we Birdies/Nesters are loud (some of us like me), informed, educated, active and proud American voters/citizens. We all met when Liepar Destin/LD started the site as the Bernie News Report (BNR) 8 years ago. 🙂 Benny and jcitybone have really done the yeoman/woman work of keeping our Nest Open. I, orlbucfan, take up the rear so-to-speak.
Thanks for the reminder! Also didn’t mean to leave out jcitybone! I’ve also been around here since, I think, Liepar established these pages years ago. (But I was never part of DKos.) I just wanted to say how much I appreciate this site!
I think Trump ran on draining the swamp, too. The problem isn’t topographical. It’s about consistently putting forward a point of view and a plan that people buy into enough to replace the con artists they’ve been voting into office.
Agree–Trump ran on draining the swamp and you could say that RFK Jr has a similar campaign. But Trump got elected and then proceeded to replicate and energize the swamp–Tillerson, straight from Exxon, appointed Sec of State; State Dept employees fired wholesale and not replaced; Post Office, IRS defunded, and so on. RFK by contrast directly points out that the agencies are controlled by corporate money, especially in their top brass people and in their funding sources. Agency heads are practically appointed by the president. He says get these bought-out agency heads out of office and appoint people who are dedicated to the betterment of America, which is not co-terminus with the betterment of corporate greed. In other words, politically the “left” is almost meeting “right” here, as you point out, but there’s also a world of difference. Trump wanted to capitalize out of government corruption; RFK Jr wants to cure it. Just briefly, RFK Jr does not support the war in Ukraine (like Trump). He does support a woman’s right to choose (polar opposite of Trump). I’m thinking of RFK syphoning off the progressive vote; the Black vote; and a good chunk of the Repub. vote in a presidential race. If I’m right, the Biden team is sh!+ting bricks right now and they can be expected to pull out all the stops to “disappear” RFK Jr.
Many of the same sources that are questioning RFK Jr’s candidacy have also pointed out Biden’s many flaws. I’m not a Republican, and I’m not a Biden corporatist, but I will never vote for anyone that Trump wanted in his administration. Kennedy has way too many warts for such a consequential election.
Bernie is about to be Rachel Maddow’s first guest tonight. Probably will be an extension of this tweet from yesterday:
I’ll post the video tomorrow.
As a little change in pace, here’s an article on Killer Mike from Sunday’s NYT: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/18/arts/music/killer-mike-michael.html
As all Birdies know, Mike was an ardent supporter of the Bernster. I’m not into hip-hop, but I still found it interesting.
nor me on the hip hop but the younglings seem to like it.
Way to state the obvious, Comcast! Now, if MSNBC would act like a NEWS station instead of a disinformation outlet, we might actually learn something NEW from them.
Are you referring to the C(linton) N(ews) N(etwork)? The other big joke is No Labels.
my opinion of the current state of the major news outlets owned by Craprate intrests
Ain’t that the sad truth! 🙁
Exactly!
CNN has gone completely around the bend. It’s not even about the Clintons anymore, it’s more of a rival now for FOX and OAN.
But let’s face it… all media outlets that are corporately owned are oligarchic and not to be trusted. Not about anything.
Seldom watch CNN anymore. They lost my viewership for the most part after the 2016 cycle. Pathetic.
I heard last year that the payments aren’t due until close to the end of this year. Now, which piece of coordinated sh1t cranked all this up? The bought media+Nutso GOPukes+bought off DINOs? That combo has been going down since Raygun, and it just gets more and more nauseating. I know a lot of folks in my age group are just over it! 💩💩🤮 They keep their boob tubes turned off.
The talking heads need something to scare the masses with as solving the numerous problems we have are bad for ratings Plus its a “slow” time politically as the summer travel season is in gear. The congresscritters will come up with an 11th hour solution with the news networks using a count down clock for drama.Whatever they come up with i doubt the middle class and lower will benefit by it…
Me, too. Hubster says his money is on default. We’re hunkered down and $$set$$.
Even the streaming services are being taken over by corporate interests, if they weren’t there to begin with. There are very few that aren’t. If I’m interested in something I try to get to as much of the source material as possible. And then I make up my mind.
Good advice in general.
It’s a start.
7 News Outlets Reimagining Political Journalism in Smart Ways
This is Perry Bacon Jr’s opinion in WaPo. I’ve posted it here as I’m happy to see The American Prospect at the top of the list, but he listed 4 digital ones I’m unfamiliar with: Balls & Strikes, Bolts, Hammer & Hope, and States Newsroom. States Newsroom is worth a look as twitter will continue to chase out organizations who post negative things about corporations pulling the political levers. I’m looking to see where else to find current political news that may offer some free articles or good summaries on a microblog, such as Post.news or Mastodon. I’ve been on Bluesky’s waiting list for a month, and I anticipate it will be later this summer before they open the floodgates.
The state of publishing has been disrupted in general, and I know with business information, one pays a lot more for a lot less content, all modules, which is what the Substack is beginning to look to me. I’ve mentioned to Ryan Grim at The Intercept (which I donate to each month) that I still don’t see the value proposition for consumers to see “notes” which is Substack’s alleged answer to twitter, but if you already subscribe to a few things on substack, trotting out a note once every week or so to highlight the one article you’ve penned, is not as current as The American Prospect.
The Guardian is hit or miss, but Bernie and David Sirota’s The Lever , occasionally post op-eds there.
For my own lenses for political journalism, I also think The Lever does solid reporting, as does The Intercept, The Nation, and Propublica.
One thing I’ve been trying to do whenever a good opportunity arises on twitter or mastodon, is to reach out to the editors who tweet out their content. Sometimes it’s just a technicality, but I’ve noticed Dayen, Cooper, and Grim will engage with their readers occasionally on twitter, including me.
Quite different from Kos, who says boneheaded things to attract attention.
The news sites I’m connected to are “The Lever,” “The American Prospect,” “Naked Capitalism,” and “In These Times.” I check out the NYT cos Hubster has the subscription, and I like their Arts sections. I also get big laffs out of their comment threads. 😂👍
Funny, I seldom look at the reactions – prefer to those on microblogs.
I don’t do the microblogs cos I am not a cyber expert. Plus, I’ve been a political junkie for so long I have my preferences like everyone else.🙂 The comment threads are a source of laffs for me. We all need that in this day and age.🙄
Amen, brother Sanders.
How about major cuts to the worthless War Department and the tRump tax cuts for starters? Senile Joe and the DINOs would stroke out.
Isnt it amazing that tha Pentagon”found” 3 billon dollars that they lost to send to Ukraine in weapons.
What a lot of horse hockey. Unfortunately, this ahole Crow has been tied in to the Powell Memo bunch who have plotted and wrecked our country quietly and patiently since 1965.💩💩
I love Jon Hamm, but I think his voiceover is not right for the commercial. However, it’s good that Hamm is showing his progressive stripes.
I don’t know—I think getting Jon Hamm to do the voiceover brings more attention yo the ad.
I’m certain that’s the intent. For me, it seemed overkill. But it’s true that Jon Hamm hails from St. Louis.
Is he running for the House or Senate? The Senate needs young, Progressive blood desperately. The House is getting there. 🙂
Lance Kunce is fairly young, and yes, for the Senate.
Ryan Grim
Biden is at his moment of maximum risk. Look out.
Just adds more ammunition to folks like me who didn’t and won’t vote for Byedone. On top of the cognition issue, he’s RW, and a liar.