Problem Democrats and Getting Things Done

found online by Raymond

 

     [Image from CBS This Morning]

From Infidel753:

I should start this post by putting in a word or two for Joe Manchin, who has been getting a lot of flack lately. On a couple of issues, he’s raised legitimate points.

The money being spent on sending covid-19 relief checks to the entire population would be better spent if it were targeted to those with the greatest need (I made a similar point here last year). A person like myself still doing a regular job from home, whose income is unaffected by the pandemic, doesn’t need to get $2,000 in free money from the government, and a person out of work struggling to pay several months of rent and health insurance needs a lot more than $2,000 to actually get out of that hole. It would make more sense to take the same money and funnel it entirely to people in the latter category so we could give, say, $12,000 to each unemployed person, while not wasting money on people like me who still have a normal income.

Similarly, while I fervently support raising the minimum wage to $15 to bring the US more into line with developed-country norms, Manchin has a point that in less-developed parts of the US, $15 might be too high for the local economy to absorb in the same time frame that the more-developed regions need to have it. Perhaps the federal minimum wage could be indexed to the cost of living in each state in some way, or incentives created for each state to raise its own minimum wage to an appropriate level. It’s a legitimate issue.

This being said, the position he and Sinema have taken against eliminating the filibuster is a potentially crippling problem.

The filibuster isn’t an issue for the Biden covid-19 relief plan because that’s being passed via reconciliation. However, at the moment, it appears that not one Republican senator will vote for it. This is legislation which is supported by 83% of the US public (obviously including a lot of Republican voters) and which Standard and Poor says would hugely benefit the economy. If not one Republican senator will vote for that, what are our odds of getting ten of them to support voting-rights protections or a healthcare public option or reining in the Supreme Court? Obviously pretty much zero.

And the Democrats need to get at least some of these things done — in twenty months. That’s the time from now until the 2022 midterm election.

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Ted Cruz: Proof You Can Get Away With Anything if You’re Ridiculously Hot

found online by Raymond

 

Hyper-Attractive Ted Cruz explains need for better tan     [Image from Ted Cruz for President]

From Reductress:

The average citizen takes one look at those big, grey eyes and automatically gives him the benefit of the doubt. Any loving father would take his daughters to Mexico within 24 hours of them asking, even though international flights typically require quarantine periods during the deadly pandemic he’s allegedly fighting, right? Wrong. This is called Pretty Privilege and it has dangerous consequences.

Ask yourself: ‘If Ted Cruz wasn’t drop dead gorgeous, would I take an issue with the fact that he abandoned the state he represents to visit the country he wants to put a wall around?’

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A Half of a Million Dead

found online by Raymond

 

     [Image from ABC News]

From Our favorite Earth-Bound Misfit:

That’s been the COVID-19 death toll in this country, so far. That’s more than the American combat deaths in World Wars I and II. That’s more than killing everyone in Winston-Salem, NC twice over. That;s about the toll if everyone in Ft. Lauderdale, FL; Newport News, VA; and Pasadena, CA all died. As the BBC observed, if there was a minute a silence for every individual who perished in this pandemic, it would take into 2022 before everyone who has died so far was honored.

It didn’t have to be this way.

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Federal Judge Threatened By Russian Bots

found online by Raymond

 

Judge James Robart     [Image from the Rotary Club of Seattle]

From Hackwhackers:

In a 60 Minutes” segment last night on the attempted assassination last July of Federal District Judge Esther Salas, in which her son was killed and husband seriously wounded in their own home, the crisis of security for Federal judges was explored. Over the past 5 years, coinciding with the Trump era, there was an increase in threats against Federal judges of 400% according to the report, to some 4,000 last year. The report noted that the FBI found evidence that the killer involved in the Salas murder was also targeting Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor.

An ominous revelation, but one which shouldn’t surprise us, involved the case of Federal Judge James Robart. After issuing a temporary restraining order against white supremacist autocrat Donald “Mango Mussolini” Trump’s anti-Muslim travel ban, Trump attacked the judge twice on Twitter, resulting in thousands of threats against the judge.

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Trump Regrets Not Naming Ivanka, Eric, and Don Jr to Supreme Court

found online by Raymond

 

     [Image from MSNBC]

From Andy Borowitz:

“Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, and Barrett are the worst people who have ever worked for me,” he said. “And that includes Scaramucci.”

When the Supreme Court was deciding whether New York prosecutors could obtain his tax returns, Trump said, “none of those three boneheads even called to ask me what they should do. No gratitude whatsoever.”

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The Real Reasons Cruz Returned From Mexico (Satire)

found online by Raymond

 


From Ted McLaughlin at jobsanger:

Senator Ted Cruz committed a giant political blunder. While his fellow Texans were suffering without heat in a below zero winter storm, Cruz and his family flew to Cancun in Mexico (where it was a balmy 80 degrees. He returned after one day there, saying he just took his family there and really wanted to be in Texas to help his constituents. No one believes that. He returned because he was being roasted in the media (and had become a joke on social media).

With her tongue firmly planted in her cheek, Eva Raggio of the Dallas Observer has “discovered” the real reasons Cruz returned from Mexico. She writes:

Through some relentless independent research, however, we were able to find the real reasons Cruz returned to Texas.

  1. He’d forgotten to bring his “I really don’t care do you? “ jacket.
     
  2. His all-inclusive hotel didn’t include free porn.
     
  3. He got an alert for an Amazon package arrival and didn’t want to risk it getting stolen.
     
  4. He was really on a secret plastic surgery trip but the doctors said they could not make him look “more like Stormy Daniels.”
     
  5. He forgot he left his garage door open.
     
  6. He couldn’t find a Taco Bell in Mexico. Or any “Tex-Mex.”

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Why We Need To Kill the Lincoln Project

found online by Raymond

 

From Joe Hagstrom in MadMikesAmerica:

Aside from being heroes to MSNBC, the Lincoln Project was for the most part a waste of time and donor money that could have been better spent on guns and yachts.

It’s good for George Conway’s ego that he got to be glorified for speaking the truth about Trump but in the end, Trump still got 74 million votes. It didn’t change anyone’s mind. The big shot Republicans that hated Trump before the Lincoln Project. But with loyalty being the first commandment of the republican party, it was proven once again that 95 to 97 percent of Republicans will vote for the Republicans no matter who it is.

Now if George and his Lincoln Project pals really wanted to get Republicans to do something about Trump they would have named their little band of do-gooders the Jefferson Davis Project and claimed Trump was spending too much time fighting pedophiles and Satanist cannibals when he could be fighting to reestablish slavery.

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Biden Calls Out ‘Limbaugh Malarkey’ on Senate Floor in Old 90s Clips

found online by Raymond

 

Biden and friend talk about Rush on Senate floor     [Image from CNBC Television]

From Tommy Christopher:

In a very Biden-esque moment that highlights his friendship with then-Senator John McCain, the pair cracked wise about each other during a 2004 committee meeting on Passenger and Freight Rail Security.

Addressing the two Delaware senators, McCain said “We usually take the oldest and the ugliest first Senator Biden, so we’ll take you.”

To laughter, Bide replied “I appreciate that, thank you very much Mr. Chairman. I promise that I will not say anything nice about you today to have Rush Limbaugh get all excited again.”

He also managed to work in another “malarkey.”

More recently, Biden was asked about Limbaugh’s Medal of Freedom during a CNN town hall last February. The then-candidate ostentatiously crossed himself, then expressed a mixture of compassion for Limbaugh’s illness and condemnation of the man.

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When Debunkers Need Debunking:
Accuracy In Media

found online by Raymond

 

     [Image from Accuracy in Media]

From The Propaganda Professor:

Just as Media Research Center could be considered the reactionary counterpart of Media Matters For America, AIM could be called the reactionary counterpart of FAIR (Fairness and Accuracy In Reporting). And both acronyms are quite appropriate; while FAIR really does generally promote fairness, AIM has an ideological aim. (And speaking of interesting and appropriate coincidences, notice how its logo looks like a sideways Q.) In typical right-wing Orwellian fashion, “accuracy” doesn’t really mean accuracy at all — AIM has been known to continue pushing narratives even after they’ve been conclusively shown to be false. AIM’s aim is not only to “expose” those who do not follow the narrative, but to harass them and encourage others to do so.

And this kind of venom is directed toward other non-reactionary people outside the media as well.

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