So it’s been quite a week for the Democrats with the passage of the bipartisan infrastructure bill and the real possibility of the larger social spending bill. The unemployment numbers last week were great news, and for those who have money in the stock market, the Dow hit a new record high.
This/these Democratic legislative victory/victories were the work of the greatest Speaker of the House of all time, Nancy Pelosi, and her best student, Pramila Jayapal. With sticks, carrots, logic, reason, and a little pressure they put together a bipartisan coalition to complement the bipartisan vote in the Senate.
By the way, I did not have Jayapal on my short list for next SOTH should the Democrats hold the House in 2022, but I absolutely do now. She’s great–she doesn’t get flustered, she sticks firmly to the point she wants to make, she’s upbeat, and she is committed to getting things done.
Once the bipartisan infrastructure bill gets implemented it’s going to be a daily cavalcade of ribbon cuttings and ground breakings in towns and cities across the nation. And 13 House Republicans are going to be able to take part in the festivities without being called out for lying about taking credit for something they actually voted against.
And with those votes those 13 House Republicans helped their party in the mid-terms by taking away an issue their Democratic opponents would have used against them. Given that we don’t know what’s going to happen next November, you would think that Kevin McCarthy would be happy with these representatives. Well, he’s not.
Being a Republican these days is about doing whatever you can to hurt Joe Biden and the Democrats so those 13 reps are in a lot of trouble with McCarthy, and with all of the most deranged members of the GOP. The calls immediately came out to punish the traitors and to strip them of any power in the House. And the knives are out for McCarthy and the GOP whip Steve Scalise for not being able to keep their caucus together.
That just seems like such a weird reaction from people are…politicians. It was a good political move for those 13 reps to vote with the Democrats, and now they’re going to be punished for it. I suppose I should feel a little sorry for them, but I’m not. I like schadenfreude as much as the next person.
The Republicans had their hands full too, but not with historic legislation. First Josh Hawley made masculinity the central value of the party with a weird statement about how video games and pornography were making men effete. I don’t even know what to say about it apart from assuming a lot of elected Republican seem to need a lot of therapy.
Then Paul Gosar tweeted out an awful video in which he attacked Biden with knives and killed Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez. And the Republicans were completely fine with that because that’s also what they are also all about: being truly, and unapologetically, awful.
And that’s not the end of the stuff coming from Gosar’s unhinged mind. There were other offensive and murderous videos in the pipeline:
An account claiming to be the creator of the video shared an unfinished video in which Gosar is seen as a character from another anime called “Death Note” in which the main character has the power to kill people by writing their names in a journal. Gosar is seen killing Biden, Osacio-Cortez and Rep. Bennie Thompson, the Mississippi Democrat who chairs the House Homeland Security Committee. Gosar’s congressional Twitter account follows the supposed “team” member account.
I wasn’t kidding when I said that a lot of these Republicans need a therapist.
Given the battle of the sexes that undergirds this post, I’ll give Bryan Ferry the last word:
A propos Rep. Gosar, he’s just the latest in a line of Republican Representatives to have a go at Rep. Ocasio-Cortez. First there was Marjorie Taylor Greene stalking Ocasio-Cortez, then later Ted Yoho confronted Ocasio-Cortez on the steps of the Capitol with some rude language. Neither one of them suffered any reprisals from their caucus, and it’s a safe bet that Gosar won’t get any treatment comparable to the 13 Republicans who voted to do something instead of doing nothing.
Searching hard for the amusing thing about all this, it boils down to the protestations by some Republicans that they never for a moment dreamed that a leopard would eat their face.
i’ve been worried for a white that someone will try to kill her, and Gosar’s behavior only makes that fear worse.
Definitely support Jyapilfor either SOTh of House minority leader, deoending on how stupid the voters are next year
Reservations on how “great” passing the bi partisan bribe to the thuglicans will play out.
1) as AOC stated the bill that passed on Fridy is as much a corporate/fossil fuel subsidy bill as anything else. It was written as a companion, bribe, bill to the Build back Better bill. Fossil fule gets upwards of $25 Billion in additional welfare. With out the passage of the Build Back Better bill it locks the US into an ever escalating amount of carbon pollution
2) On Infrastructure it rewards thuglican donor interests with even more money. Most of the improving the internet and expanding it goes to AT&T, Comcast and rest of big media corporations with little, if any, of the finacial benefits accrueing to citizens. Exception is subsidies to rural broadband users that are mostly demented donnie, Qanon nutcases thus facialiting even better delivery systems for conspiracies, Qanon and facebook to propagandize those knuckledraggers.
3)The pave over america part of the bill will fix roads and bridges thus further sudsidizing trucking industry and large building corps (Haliburton?)
4) Upshot is that, except on the margins, benefits of the bill go to thuglican donors who will then tithe to thuglican party in 2022 and 2024.
( test of hypothesis is Jackson Mississippi water system –
https://mississippitoday.org/2021/11/08/jackson-water-crisis-infrastructure-bill-federal/
Remember when Mississippi got Katrina money to “rebuild” they paid to fix Hailey Baurbors private home, some of the “good” neighborhoods and building a Casino. Willing to bet on history repeating itself)
A basic rule of negoitations is that if one side is not willing to just walk away and the other side is it becomes an excercise in greater and greater bribes to keep the other side at the table.
Now that the thuglicans know that the corporate D’s will continue to do their dirty work by betraying and marginalizing the progressives they will just keep steamrolling them over and over.
Since thuglicans, and corporate D’s, are so dedicaited to CBO scores I would hope that the Defense budget and “Black Budget” ( CIA, NSA and other nefarious orgs) be subjected to the same scrutiny where only Budgetary and deficits metrics apply.
Alas I have my doubts.