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Open thread June 22, 2021

Dan Crawford | June 22, 2021 7:56 am

Tags: open thread Comments (16) | Digg Facebook Twitter |
16 Comments
  • EMichael says:
    June 22, 2021 at 8:53 am

     

    Kyrsten Sinema’s Filibuster Stand:If Democrats Pass Bills, GOP Can Just Overturn Them Later

     

    The Arizona Democrat argued in an op-ed that preserving the Senate minority rights is more important than passing legislation amid threats to democracy.

    https://www.huffpost.com/entry/kyrsten-sinema-filibuster-op-ed-senate-democrats_n_60d15159e4b00425580c80d2

     

     

    Sinema does not want to be a Senator any more.  And the same people that made her one will make sure she never wins another election.

  • Jim Hannan says:
    June 22, 2021 at 11:15 am

    I think Kyrsten is angling for an invite to “Dancing with the Stars”.

    • run75441 says:
      June 22, 2021 at 9:26 pm

      Jim:

      I am sorry, I can not upvote you. Good remark though.

  • Fred C. Dobbs says:
    June 22, 2021 at 1:14 pm

    Arizona Democrats just boosted Sen. Kyrsten Sinema’s ego by a notch, urging her to reform instead of killing the filibuster.

    The 36 state lawmakers who signed a letter to Sinema are tacitly conceding that it is useless to keep demanding her to end the legislative rule that Republicans are using to block major legislation.

    Instead, they opted for a gentler approach to remind her how critical the voting rights bill known as the For the People Act is to protect election integrity and improve voting access. …

    https://www.azcentral.com/story/opinion/op-ed/elviadiaz/2021/06/09/if-kyrsten-sinema-wont-reform-filibuster-maybe-get-republican-votes/7626655002

    If Kyrsten Sinema won’t end the filibuster, can she convince 10 GOP senators to defect?

     

    “We are calling upon you with respect and urgency to stand up in this crucial moment for our state and for our country and make the promise of our democracy real for us all.” — House & Senate Dem members urge

    @SenatorSinema

    to reform the filibuster & pass the #ForthePeopleAct.

    https://twitter.com/AZHouseDems/status/1402699793286144000

  • Fred C. Dobbs says:
    June 22, 2021 at 4:33 pm

    Are the Arizona state legislators urging Krysten Sinema to support the notion to change the filibuster rule from ’60 votes to stop debate’ to ’41 votes to continue debate’?

    … from the Casey School of Public Policy’s Michael Ettlinger, is simple, clever, and fair: He proposes that we “allow any group of at least 41 senators who represent more people than the other 59 senators to block legislation—but if they don’t represent more people they can’t block.” … 

    https://newrepublic.com/article/161067/fine-keep-filibuster-kill-60-vote-requirement-instead

  • Fred C. Dobbs says:
    June 22, 2021 at 5:35 pm

    But it still faces a filibuster.

    Manchin supports advancing the For the People Act

    NY Times – June 22

    Senator Joe Manchin III of West Virginia said Tuesday he would vote to open debate on Democrats’ signature voting rights bill, uniting the party in the face of certain defeat as Republicans vow to block the legislation from advancing.

    Mr. Manchin, who had been the sole Democratic holdout on the measure, last week released a wish list of substantial changes to the bill, including eliminating provisions that would create a public campaign financing program and neuter state voter identification laws. Democrats signaled they were open to incorporating his proposals.

    “These reasonable changes have moved the bill forward and to a place worthy of debate on the Senate floor,” Mr. Manchin said in a statement released by his office Tuesday afternoon. “This process would allow both Republicans and Democrats to offer amendments to further change the bill. Unfortunately, my Republican colleagues refused to allow debate of this legislation despite the reasonable changes made to focus the bill on the core issues facing our democracy.” …

  • Fred C. Dobbs says:
    June 22, 2021 at 5:43 pm

    NYT: President Biden on Tuesday urged the Senate to pass the voting rights bill and “send it to my desk.”

    “We can’t sit idly by while democracy is in peril — here, in America,” Mr. Biden wrote on Twitter. “We need to protect the sacred right to vote and ensure ‘We the People’ choose our leaders, the very foundation on which our democracy rests.” … 

    “We can argue what should be done to protect voting rights and safeguard our democracy, but don’t you think we should be able to debate the issue?” Senator Chuck Schumer, Democrat of New York and the majority leader, said on Monday in a last-ditch appeal to Republicans to let the bill proceed.

    Mr. Schumer is left with one option to try to pass the legislation: blowing up the legislative filibuster. Progressives, who have clamored to do so since Democrats won a narrow Senate majority in January, argued that the vote would help make their case. But a handful of moderates, led by Mr. Manchin and Senator Kyrsten Sinema, Democrat of Arizona, have rejected those appeals.

    With the path forward so murky, top Democrats are framing Tuesday’s vote as a moral victory. The White House endorsed a compromise framework proposed last week by Mr. Manchin under the assumption that it would be enough to persuade him to vote yes.

  • Fred C. Dobbs says:
    June 23, 2021 at 6:21 am

    All 50 GOP senators opposed the sweeping elections overhaul, leaving a long-shot bid to eliminate the filibuster as Democrats’ best remaining hope to enact legal changes.

    Republicans Block Voting Rights Bill, Dealing Blow to Biden and Democrats

    WASHINGTON — Republicans on Tuesday blocked the most ambitious voting rights legislation to come before Congress in a generation, dealing a blow to Democrats’ attempts to counter a wave of state-level ballot restrictions and supercharging a campaign to end the legislative filibuster.

    President Biden and Democratic leaders said the defeat was only the beginning of their drive to steer federal voting rights legislation into law, and vowed to redouble their efforts in the weeks ahead.

    “In the fight for voting rights, this vote was the starting gun, not the finish line,” said Senator Chuck Schumer, Democrat of New York and the majority leader. “We will not let it go. We will not let it die. This voter suppression cannot stand.”

    But the Republican blockade in the Senate left Democrats without a clear path forward, and without a means to beat back the restrictive voting laws racing through Republican-led states. For now, it will largely be left to the Justice Department to decide whether to challenge any of the state laws in court — a time-consuming process with limited chances of success — and to a coalition of outside groups to help voters navigate the shifting rules.

    Democrats’ best remaining hope to enact legal changes rests on a long-shot bid to eliminate the legislative filibuster, which Republicans used on Tuesday to block the measure, called the For the People Act. Seething progressive activists pointed to the Republicans’ refusal to even allow debate on the issue as a glaring example of why Democrats in the Senate must move to eliminate the rule and bypass the G.O.P. on a range of liberal priorities while they still control Congress and the presidency.

    They argued that with former President Donald J. Trump continuing to press the false claim that the election was stolen from him — a narrative that many Republicans have perpetuated as they have pushed for new voting restrictions — Democrats in Congress could not afford to allow the voting bill to languish.

    “The people did not give Democrats the House, Senate and White House to compromise with insurrectionists,” Representative Ayanna Pressley, Democrat of Massachusetts, wrote on Twitter. “Abolish the filibuster so we can do the people’s work.” …

  • EMichael says:
    June 23, 2021 at 7:46 am

    This vote to continue debate thing is silly.  It is somehow predicated on tiring people out and coming up with a vote when they are not present on the floor.

    Somehow it overlooks the simple fact that Dems would all have to be present all the time, while Reps could actually work in shifts.

    Waste of time.

  • Michael Smith says:
    June 23, 2021 at 1:44 pm

    The Media’s Continued Fascination of One Donald J. Trump.

    As media becomes more and more “boring” there is considerable ince time for news outlets to begin reporting from the sidelines again as Trump ramps up his 2024 campaign. Here in Texas, we already have people donating and flying Trump 2024 flags, Texans For Trump is all too often. As the Democrats yell at each other whether or not to break the filibuster, the Republicans are quietly consolidating power, and not so quietly changing the rules. 

    As the rules are changed to make a highway to federal government have fewer speed bumps, the media will also start focusing yet again on the shenanigans coming from Trump rallies in the coming future. 

    I say all of this because we have seen this before. The “no way he can be the nominee” folks who supported Hillary were then blindsided. The moderate democrats noticed one consistent thing that in 2015 looked like theater, but turned out to have predicted the outcome of 2016. Media coverage. 

    The salacious nature of incendiary comments is ripe for click bait articles and headlines from both Fox and CNN. On one side the “can you believe he said ____” is then critiqued into crazy town to be put with all of the warped arrows in a closet. On the other side there is a “what he really means is” and is dutifully explained to whip up fear that leads to polling. 

    My prediction is that the 2024 race will be Biden vs. Trump 2.0 where Biden will have 4 exhaustive years of presidential engagement, whilst the media whips up a frenzy and Trump begins to gain support at the Republican party works at the state level knowing that it will take years for SCOTUS to intervene in some of this new legislation that will guide the next election. Media coverage, highways with no off ramps, fear, and a stagnant economy with high unemployment is ripe for a demagogue takeover…once again. 

  • Fred C. Dobbs says:
    June 23, 2021 at 10:59 pm

    Senators to meet with Biden on Thursday after potential breakthrough on a bipartisan infrastructure bill

     

    https://www.nytimes.com/live/2021/06/23/us/joe-biden-news/senators-to-meet-with-biden-on-thursday-after-potential-breakthrough-on-a-bipartisan-infrastructure-bill

    A bipartisan group of centrist senators will head to the White House on Thursday to brief President Biden on their infrastructure framework after lawmakers said they had signed off on an outline for how to fund and finance billions of dollars for roads, bridges and other public-works projects.

    After two lengthy meetings with White House officials on Wednesday, a few senators said they had struck an agreement on the overall framework for an infrastructure plan and would personally update Mr. Biden as they worked to finalize some details. Lawmakers and staff declined to offer any details about the apparent breakthrough, but a previous outline drafted by the group of senators — five Republicans and five Democrats — would provide for $579 billion in new spending as part of an overall $1.2 trillion package spent over eight years. 

  • EMichael says:
    June 24, 2021 at 10:29 am

     

     

    White man in Ohio gets 3 days in jail for voting twice.

    https://www.dailykos.com/st…

    Black woman in Texas gets 5 years in jail for voting when she was not permitted to vote.

    https://abcnews.go.com/US/t…

    But wait! There’s more.

    He knew he was committing a crime. She did not know she was committing a crime.

    Surely a coincidence that this happened in states that trump won twice.

  • Fred C. Dobbs says:
    June 24, 2021 at 4:23 pm

    Biden signs on to a bipartisan infrastructure compromise, but says it must be accompanied by a larger package 

     

    https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/24/us/politics/biden-infrastruture.html

     

    President Biden struck an infrastructure deal on Thursday with a bipartisan group of senators, signing on to their plan to provide about $579 billion in new investments in roads, broadband internet, electric utilities and other projects in hopes of moving a crucial piece of his economic agenda through Congress.

    “We have a deal,” Mr. Biden said outside the White House, standing beside a group of Republicans and Democrats after a meeting in the Oval Office where they outlined their proposal. “I think it’s really important we’ve all agreed that none of us got all that we wanted.”

    Mr. Biden’s endorsement marked a breakthrough in his efforts to forge an infrastructure compromise, but it was far from a guarantee that the package would be enacted. Both the president and top Democrats say the plan, which constitutes a fraction of the $4 trillion economic proposal Mr. Biden has put forth, can only move together with a much larger package of spending and tax increases that Democrats are planning to try to push through Congress unilaterally, over the opposition of Republicans.

    “If this is the only thing that comes to me, I’m not signing it,” Mr. Biden said during remarks in the East Room of the White House. “It’s in tandem.”

    Still, he signaled optimism about the success of the compromise, calling it a major win for his economic agenda, for America’s competitive stance against China and for democracy itself.

    “This agreement signals to the world that we can function, deliver and do significant things,” he said, standing with Vice President Kamala Harris.

    Mr. Biden noted that the deal includes about two-thirds of the funding that he had called for in several parts of his American Jobs Plan, in areas like clean power and environmental resilience. He also took on liberals in his party who had criticized the negotiations, casting the outcome as both a sign of what is still possible in an increasingly polarized Washington and a first step in a process that could also include a larger budget reconciliation bill that would likely pass with only Democratic votes.

    “It’s hard,” Mr. Biden said of bipartisan compromise, “but it’s necessary, and it can get done.”

    It’s not clear, though, that the bipartisan plan — a product of five Republicans and five Democrats — will muster the support of at least 60 senators to overcome any filibuster. And the two-track strategy promises to be a heavy lift for Democrats in a Congress where they have only the thinnest of majorities, and moderates and progressives have very different priorities.

    Still, if it succeeds, the bipartisan plan would, for the first time since President Barack Obama’s 2009 economic rescue plan, pump significant federal investments into the nation’s crumbling infrastructure — not only roads, bridges, and transit, but broadband, waterways and coastlines eroding as the planet warms.

    Under the plan, $312 billion would go to transportation projects, $65 billion to broadband and $55 billion to waterways. A large sum, $47 billion, is earmarked for “resilience” — a down payment on Mr. Biden’s promise to deal with the impact of climate change. … 

  • Fred C. Dobbs says:
    June 24, 2021 at 4:34 pm

    Three reasons why Biden’s infrastructure deal is a long way from done 

    https://www.bostonglobe.com/2021/06/24/nation/three-reasons-why-bidens-infrastructure-deal-is-long-way-done/?event=event25

    The image and the words coming from the White House certainly looked and sounded promising on Thursday afternoon. There was President Biden, flanked by a bipartisan group of senators declaring in front of reporters that “we have a deal.”

    For the majority of Americans who wanted some kind of infrastructure bill (including former president Donald Trump) it certainly sounded like good news.

    However, Biden’s remarks conveyed a tone that this is a done deal. The Dow Jones Industrial Average leaped up 200 points minutes after the announcement.

    Here is the thing: At the moment it remains more likely that this bipartisan deal will fail than succeed. And even if it does pass,it will be a while before Biden signs it. … 

    Here are three reasons why: 

    There aren’t the votes in the Senate … 

    There probably aren’t the votes to pass it in the House … 

    The major detail in the matter is not resolved 

    All of the public handshaking on the deal is about spending, a place where there was significant room for compromise. The sticking issue for the past few months has been how to pay for it all. Democrats said they wanted to raise taxes on the rich. Republicans ruled that out immediately. It still remains unclear how this deal is paid for, but when that eventually comes out, the legislation will likely lose more votes.

    In the end, the bipartisan bill may pass, particularly if more progressive members agree with the idea that they will pass both the bipartisan deal and the rest of the Biden proposal in a later bill. But there is a long way to go. 

  • Fred C. Dobbs says:
    June 24, 2021 at 6:28 pm

    Crystal Mason was sentenced to five years in prison for casting an illegal provisional ballot during the 2016 presidential election. The ballot was never counted.Credit… 
      

    On Election Day 2016, Crystal Mason went to vote after her mother insisted that she make her voice heard in the presidential election. When her name didn’t appear on official voting rolls at her polling place in Tarrant County, Texas, she filled out a provisional ballot, not thinking anything of it.

    Ms. Mason’s ballot was never officially counted or tallied because she was ineligible to vote: She was on supervised release after serving five years for tax fraud. Nonetheless, that ballot has wrangled her into a lengthy appeals process after a state district court sentenced her to five years in prison for illegal voting, as she was a felon on probation when she cast her ballot.

    Ms. Mason maintains that she didn’t know she was ineligible to

     

    https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/03/us/texas-provisional-ballot-appeal.html?smid=tw-sharevote. … 

     

  • Fred C. Dobbs says:
    June 25, 2021 at 1:25 am

    Republican lawmakers in Ohio pushing for more “safety and security” at the ballot box can now point to a clear example of voter fraud in the November 2020 presidential election.

    Unfortunately for them, it involves another Republican.

    Edward Snodgrass, who is a Porter Township trustee, has admitted to forging his dead father’s signature on an absentee ballot and then voting again as himself, court records and other sources revealed.

    Snodgrass was busted after a Delaware County election worker questioned the signature on his father’s ballot. A subsequent investigation revealed the ballot had been mailed to H. Edward Snodgrass on Oct. 6 — a day after the 78-year-old retired businessman died. … 

    https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/republican-official-ohio-faces-charge-voting-twice-november-election-n1271985

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