USA News and Discussions

User avatar
caltrek
Posts: 6509
Joined: Mon May 17, 2021 1:17 pm

Re: USA News and Discussions

Post by caltrek »

How Mark Meadows Ended Up in the Middle of the Fight Over January 6
by Michael C. Bender and Siobhan Hughes
December 16, 2021

https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-mark-m ... 1639672775

Introduction:
(Wall Street Journal) WASHINGTON— Mark Meadows emerged as a central figure in a congressional probe into the Jan. 6 assault on the U.S. Capitol after he turned over texts and emails that contained details on then-President Trump’s effort to overturn the election result—and that showed Mr. Meadows was on the receiving end of a barrage of messages and calls from allies trying to halt the pro-Trump riot.

The House this week voted to hold Mr. Meadows in contempt of Congress after he declined to comply with a subpoena to testify in front of the panel investigating the riot. Now, the Justice Department must decide whether it will bring charges against him.

Mr. Meadows had earlier cooperated with the committee, submitting thousands of documents, including texts and material from a private email account. The records he turned over have opened up a window into a network of Republican objectors and their strategies for trying to overturn the election result, and this week’s public disclosure of some of his texts on the day of the attack drew new attention to the Jan. 6 probe.

“These text messages leave no doubt that the White House knew exactly what was happening here at the Capitol,” said Rep. Liz Cheney (R., Wyo.), the vice chair of the Jan. 6 committee.

The heightened interest from congressional investigators comes as Mr. Meadows’s once-close relationship with Mr. Trump faces strains. Mr. Meadows, 62 years old, who was Mr. Trump’s fourth and final White House chief of staff, was initially a key adviser in the former president’s post-Washington political strategy. He was largely responsible, for example, for orchestrating Mr. Trump’s surprise endorsement in April for North Carolina Senate candidate Ted Budd, a U.S. House lawmaker, according to people familiar with that decision
caltrek's comment (an imagined dialogue):

Mark Meadows: Pssst...publisher. Would you be interested in publishing my kiss and tell book about my time in the Trump White House?

Publisher: Sure, for our cut of the profit.

Mark Meadows: Agreed

Congressional Committee: In the interests of self-defense and for the preservation of our democratic institutions, please once again appear before us and supply relevant records.

Mark Meadows: I'm sorry, that would be a violation of Executive Privilege.
Don't mourn, organize.

-Joe Hill
User avatar
caltrek
Posts: 6509
Joined: Mon May 17, 2021 1:17 pm

Re: USA News and Discussions

Post by caltrek »

Joe Manchin Officially Torpedoes Build Back Better
by Stephanie Mencimer
December 19, 2021

https://www.motherjones.com/author/stephanie-mencimer/

Introduction:
(Mother Jones) It’s official. Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) said this morning on Fox News that he won’t support the Build Back Better bill, effectively killing the Democratic Party’s $2 trillion sweeping domestic policy proposal. “I tried everything humanly possible. I can’t do it,” he said. “This is a no on this legislation. I have tried everything I know to do.”

Manchin has been hinting for months that he wouldn’t support the centerpiece of President Joe Biden’s agenda, raising opposition to its overall price tag as well as measures that would have extended a poverty-busting child tax credit and paid family leave, imposed a methane fee on emissions from fossil fuel producers, and expanded Medicare to cover hearing aids for the elderly.

Democrats responded on Sunday with outrage and despair. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) told CNN’s Jake Tapper that Manchin “will have a lot of explaining to do to the people of West Virginia, to tell him why he doesn’t have the guts to take on the drug companies, to lower the cost of prescription drugs, why he is not prepared to expand home healthcare.” Sanders suggested that Democrats bring the bill to the Senate floor for a vote to force Manchin to put his “no” vote on the record. “Let Mr. Manchin explain to the people of West Virginia why he doesn’t have the guts to stand up to powerful special interests,” he told Tapper. “If he doesn’t have the courage to do the right thing for the working families of West Virginia and America, let him vote no in front of the whole world.”

The bill is loaded with extremely popular provisions designed to shore up the “care economy” to support families from birth to death, with expanded child care assistance, universal preschool and help for people caring for aging family members. The bill set aside money for pandemic prevention and would also devote $550 billion to combatting climate change. Most of it would be paid for with higher taxes on the ultra-wealthy.
Don't mourn, organize.

-Joe Hill
User avatar
caltrek
Posts: 6509
Joined: Mon May 17, 2021 1:17 pm

Re: USA News and Discussions

Post by caltrek »

Manchin Can’t Support Democrat's $2 Trillion Bill, Potentially Dooming It
December 19, 2021

https://www.courthousenews.com/manchin- ... ooming-it/

Extract:
(Associated Press via Courthouse News) Manchin's choice of words seemed to crack the door open to continued talks with Biden and top congressional Democrats over reshaping the legislation. But the West Virginia senator all but said the bill would die unless it met his demands for a smaller, less sweeping package — something that would be hard for many Democrats in the narrowly divided Congress to accept.

The bill would provide hundreds of billions of dollars to help millions of families with children by extending a more generous child tax credit, creating free preschool and bolstering child care aid. There is more than $500 billion for tax breaks and spending aimed at curbing carbon emissions, which experts consider the largest federal expenditure ever to combat climate change.

Other provisions would limit prescription drug price increases, create hearing benefits for Medicare recipients and bolster aid for the elderly, housing and job training. Nearly all of it would be paid for with higher taxes on the wealthy and large corporations.

In an unusually hardball response to a lawmaker whose vote is crucial in the 50-50 Senate, White House press secretary Jen Psaki called Manchin's announcement "a sudden and inexplicable reversal in his position" and "a breach of his commitments" to Biden and congressional Democrats. She pointedly said that Manchin, whose state is among the nation's poorest, "will have to explain" why many families will have to cope with higher health and child care costs the bill is intended to address.

Psaki said in a statement that Manchin had "in person" given Biden a written proposal last Tuesday that was "the same size and scope" of a framework for the bill that Democrats rallied behind in October. That outline had a 10-year cost of $1.85 trillion.
Don't mourn, organize.

-Joe Hill
User avatar
caltrek
Posts: 6509
Joined: Mon May 17, 2021 1:17 pm

Re: USA News and Discussions

Post by caltrek »

Senate Powers Through Nomination Votes in Marathon Session
by Rose Wagner
December 17, 2021

https://www.courthousenews.com/senate-p ... n-session/

Introduction:
WASHINGTON (Courthouse News) — The Senate burned the midnight oil Friday as Democrats pushed for a slew of nominees to executive and judicial positions to be confirmed, but pushback from Republicans and the lack of a bipartisan deal led to gruelingly long votes and a handful of confirmations before midnight.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer had lobbied throughout the week for Republican leaders to cut a deal with his party and quickly confirm around 20 of President Joe Biden's nominees, or face late-night votes and a congressional agenda that could bleed into many senators' planned vacations.

Republican Senator Ted Cruz of Texas had indicated early in the week that he would be open to allowing the confirmation of more than a dozen of nominees to ambassadorships if Democrats would agree to a vote to sanction Russia's Nord Stream 2 oil pipeline, a policy he's been pushing for and had originally attempted to tack on to Congress' annual defense spending bill.

But hours of drawn-out votes came and went Friday without a formal bipartisan deal to expedite the process and the number of voting senators dwindled from nearly 80 lawmakers early in the day, to 70 by midnight.

Around 1 a.m., lawmakers settled on a deal to approve a package of nominees early Saturday and schedule a vote for mid-January to address the Nord Stream 2 pipeline.
Don't mourn, organize.

-Joe Hill
User avatar
Yuli Ban
Posts: 4631
Joined: Sun May 16, 2021 4:44 pm

Re: USA News and Discussions

Post by Yuli Ban »

And remember my friend, future events such as these will affect you in the future
User avatar
Yuli Ban
Posts: 4631
Joined: Sun May 16, 2021 4:44 pm

Re: USA News and Discussions

Post by Yuli Ban »

People don’t understand how power works. Republicans are in the minority & are still managing to defeat Democrats because they’re ideologically driven & are engaged in a raw power struggle. Liberals keep talking about processes that will go out the window the instant GOP takes over.

The fact that Democratic policy is popular with millions more people & they also represent millions more people but still can’t manage to pass key legislation is a reflection of their failure & weakness over many years. Folks keep counting senators but missing the bigger issue.

If you can’t wrestle your policy thru in a time of crisis when you have backing of millions more people than your opponent, it’s because you either don’t really want it or you’re poorly organized. GOP managed to take “CRT” from obscurity to legislation nationwide in rapid speed.

That’s because Republicans have high levels of coordination between their top donors, their grassroots & their media universe. Because it’s all white. The white corporate Dem leadership is adversarial toward its own grassroots & keeps its base at arms length.

That’s why Dems wasted time & energy publicly criticizing “defund the police” instead of doing things like making sure media was flooded with images of working class West Virginia folks saying they need BBB. They don’t fight. But they’ve convinced so many of you to accept whatever they do.

We got wall to wall coverage of CRT. Liberals don’t even operate at that level of coordination & strategy. They allow Republicans to frame all the issues & then they position themselves as the compromise. The only time they suit up & go hard is to attack their own left flank.

And that’s bananas because in this case it was the left flank trying hardest to help Biden succeed on everything that was politically popular including lowering Rx drug prices. Centrist Dems are the ones who sank the agenda & possibly the future hopes of the entire party.
Democrats could’ve been poised to control govt for generations to come but they betrayed all the key constituencies they need for that to happen, including young people. The left flank didn’t do that, the centrists did. And Biden is making it worse by not using exec pen or podium.
Again, again again: make Manchin repeatedly take public votes against needed relief for suffering Americans and make him choke on it.

Announce no more negotiations. Take the bill up to $15 trillion and put it to a vote every day. Add a trillion to it every time it fails earmarked for West Virginia specifically. Address the nation every night telling them what Manchin and Sinema and Republicans are voting against.

This is exactly what he said about the last 5 amounts, which is how he got the "sweeping" bill down to 1.7 trillion bill in the first place. He has no credibility; stop pretending he does.

Remove his leverage. $15 trillion. No negotiations.

Just let's acknowledge that Joe Manchin is not supporting the bill until the thing that passes is no longer even recognizable—at which point Republicans will STILL call it socialist overspending and blame it for every problem that occurs every change they get.

Change the story.

Every day vote on it. Every day address the nation and explain another thing that's in it. Get high-quality producers to make engaging 15 minute video explainers about the issue and air them.

Then name everybody who voted against it, and how much they're being paid to do so.

Announce very clearly that Joe Manchin has proved himself untrustworthy as a negotiator, & therefore there will be no negotiations.

Don't make the story about procedural helplessness. Make the story about their unwillingness to do their fucking jobs.

Announce that every time the bill gets blockaded it gets bigger, and then do it. Every single day another explainer goes up about another problem and how the bill solves it. Get Tom Hanks to narrate them.

Explain that voting for Republicans in 2022 means none of this happens.
And every time—every time—read their fucking names. The Republicans blockading it, and Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema.

Explain that if any 2 of them decide to do their fucking jobs, then all these things can happen immediately.

And now it's a $20 trillion bill. No negotiations.

Call it the Do Your Fucking Jobs bill.

Keep addressing the nation. Keep making explainers, professionally produced, and air them. Flood the media with snippets that raise awareness.

Change the narrative. Tell the citizens:

Joe Manchin doesn't have power. You do.

Explain again and again exactly why Joe Manchin will not be involved in negotiations. Explain that he will be given no power to change what is in the bill. The only thing he can do to stop this daily cavalcade is to vote for it.

And now it's $21 trillion. No negotiations.

"In 2022 you can make all these things happen. Vote in overwhelming numbers for people who will do their fucking jobs and vote "yes" for the Do Your Fucking Job Bill."

"Joe Manchin doesn't have power. You do."

I mean this is just beyond parody at this point.

Stop letting him do this. Just stop. Acknowledge the reality that what Manchin is doing is not negotiating, and stop negotiations.

Make his unwillingness to do his fucking job his problem.

My point isn't that Democrats are likely to do this.

My point is, it's a total canard to suggest there aren't things they could be doing.

Stop playing the same bad hand badly. Change strategy. Shift leverage. Get creative. Use what you have, and make a new story.

What the Democratic leadership is doing is teaching obstructionists and nullifiers that their tactics are effective.

What they need to do is teach them that their tactics will carry a heavy penalty.

You do that by imposing a heavy penalty for such tactics.

This seems obvious.
One penalty that would be effective for obstructionists and nullifiers is to acknowledge them for what they are, and as a result cut them out of the decision making process.

You don't intend to work with us? OK, we'll seek alternate routes. You're out. You can't get back in.

"We won't get the bill passed that way."

We're not getting it passed this way. If you're going to fail at least fail with a powerful offense, and better to risk failure than to ensure it.

Give them nothing. Punish their tactics. Make it hot for them until they do their jobs.
Can one liberal explain to me how Biden has so little power as the President he can't fulfill a single campaign promise without Joe Manchin's approval, but Trump had so much power as the President that we were inches away from dictatorship?

A lot of folks saying it's about how Trump had a few more Senators, they definitely don't seem to realize how much can be done without Congress.

And why do Dems & media liberals constantly message against their own agenda, parroting GOP talking points on the combined cost of all the policies over 10 years, to make it sound as expensive as possible, while rarely talking about what the policies would actually do for people?

It's hard not to feel like Dems were never committed to a policy agenda in the first place, and their only real agenda is to fundraise as much as possible and maybe get elected sometimes.

Also, reminder that the Democrats had 60 votes in the Senate not too long ago, and their signature accomplishment was a health care plan designed by a right-wing think tank that penalizes people for not buying private health insurance.

You really do have to behold the genius of how Obama, his media allies, and the right-wing fake outrage machine colluded to convince liberals AND conservatives that this right-wing pro-corporate health care reform was actually very progressive and basically socialized medicine.

I mean, if that perverse obfuscation is the high point of what we can even expect from a Dems supermajority, then it's hard not to think electoralism is doomed until we literally start over with a constitution written by people who believe in democracy instead of by slave owners.
I've had almost 100 people tell me to take a civics class or that I'm "living proof of our broken education system" yet most of these smug pricks don't even have the critical thinking skills required to imagine the official story from party leadership might not be the whole truth.

Or the intellectual curiosity to look into what the party leadership's real financial interests and incentives are, or the imagination to think we deserve a better system.

Or the awareness to see that a system which only listens to the needs of corporations and the rich isn't "democratic" just because it adheres better to some 250 year old norms (and a constitution designed by slavers) in 2021 than it did under Trump.
And remember my friend, future events such as these will affect you in the future
User avatar
Yuli Ban
Posts: 4631
Joined: Sun May 16, 2021 4:44 pm

Re: USA News and Discussions

Post by Yuli Ban »

And remember my friend, future events such as these will affect you in the future
User avatar
BaobabScion
Posts: 102
Joined: Tue Jun 08, 2021 11:41 pm

Re: USA News and Discussions

Post by BaobabScion »

Yuli Ban wrote: Mon Dec 20, 2021 9:31 pm (...)
Yuli, make sure to give credit when you quote something. It's like you just quoted a whole article, and I have no clue where or who it came from.
User avatar
Yuli Ban
Posts: 4631
Joined: Sun May 16, 2021 4:44 pm

Re: USA News and Discussions

Post by Yuli Ban »

That's just it: it was in itself an unsourced quote
Basically I quoted a quoted quote
And remember my friend, future events such as these will affect you in the future
User avatar
caltrek
Posts: 6509
Joined: Mon May 17, 2021 1:17 pm

Re: USA News and Discussions

Post by caltrek »

I think the author of the quoted quote is on to something in differentiating between centrist Democrats and the more progressive minded wing of the party. This also goes back to an unwillingness on the part of the party establishment to take on Republican incumbents, particularly in rural states. This started to change in the last election, but it was a matter of too little too late. Yes, there is a basic problem in the structure of the current system that rural states with relatively fewer voters can block initiatives otherwise supported by a majority of the voting population. Instead of just bellyaching about that situation, more resources and a more sensitive policy orientation is needed to reach those rural voters and convince them that there is something in it for them. Political resources, especially in the form of money, needs to be mobilized in the urban areas and redeployed into the rural areas. Candidates need to be developed and supported to challenge the conservatives now in place. Critical to that will be passage of federal legislation that will ensure the right to vote and eliminate the more extreme voter suppression measures being promulgated in many red states.
Don't mourn, organize.

-Joe Hill
Post Reply