The debate over the reality of bi-partisan legislation goes on and on but it will never come to any kind of reasonable conclusion simply because the Republicans don’t want to see any kind of success by the Democrats, and passing a bill that actually helped someone would look like Democratic achievement. Moscow Mitch would never abide that.
Of course the big problem with almost everything right now is Joe Manchin. He knows that the only way for a Democrat to continue to hold a seat in GOP heavy West Virginia is to act like a Republican. The fact that this comes as a surprise to so many Democrats is inconceivable.
Manchin has never lied about any of his positions. He has said from the start that he will never vote against the filibuster. In his opinion it is the leveling element in our legislative process. It isn’t, but that isn’t the only thing Manchin is wrong about. And he isn’t the only one who wants to keep the filibuster. Biden doesn’t want to vote against it. Claire McCaskill has pointed out a number of times that the Democrats kept Trump from passing idiot bills by using the filibuster. So let’s stop worrying about the filibuster. It’s not going to happen, at least not now. Let’s worry about important stuff like a national voter support act or infrastructure, both of which are being held up by the GOP using the bullshit excuse of them needing to be bi-partisan. If we wait for GOP votes neither bill will ever pass. Moscow Mitch tells us that every time he opens his fetid mouth.
The GOP loves to babble about bi-partisan even as they use it to stop good legislation. A reporter from Politico was on with Kasie Hunt on Wednesday raving about how Chuck Schumer’s China bill had bi-partisan support. What that bill has is legitimate support from both sides because both sides agree with its aims. That’s only accidentally bi-partisan because both sides are getting what they want without negotiation.
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Washington erupted last week when the justice department announced plans to open investigations into former AG Bill Barr and the Trump White House over their actions against Democratic congressmen who were outspoken against the Trump administration.
This coupled with the NYS AG’s investigations into Trump business practices and tax returns has GOP advocates up in arms over a perceived Democratic culture of revenge.
Nothing could be further from the truth, but then the Republicans are still having a great deal of trouble with the concept of “truth.” The reality is, a nation built on concepts of democratic process and justice under the law demands this kind of accountability. The reason being an old fashion concept called fairness. Yup fairness! Remember, “it’s just not fair?’”
I do. It was a very important part of my youth. Being fair or playing fair all came from the same place that bred “common sense.” It was part of the basis of democracy and it was a reality in our lives. It was what we believed in and what we understood would make the world we lived in be a better place. Interestingly enough it was part of what kept politicians in line. Any politician known to be unfair, was as good as dead. That concept has faded over the years, which is why we got Trump. There have always been fakers and scam artists (cue Joe McCarthy), but none of them got to be president.
In the many years since my youth, concepts like fairness and common sense have been disappearing and just getting lost in the scramble for more. In the four years of the Trump administration they were shoved aside and trampled on by people who had no common sense and cared nothing for fairness, only for how they could get more for themselves.
There is no question that our nation has been overlooking the loss of these attributes, has kind of let them slide off the table, but there is also no question that there are millions who are hungry for their return and the holding of Donald Trump and his criminal associates to a standard of accountability for the awful things they did while in power is the ultimate act of fairness.
It is not revenge. It is accountability. For four long dirty years Trump and his covey of criminal degenerates plundered our country, ignoring laws, truth and any sense of right or wrong. Well, it’s time to pay the piper and the Biden administration must hold them accountable or the Biden administration will be acting in the same unacceptable manner, that the Trump administration did.
The basic premise of our legal system is that everyone is the same under the law. Let’s see if our justice department can make that stick.
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Senator Mike McCaul, (R-TX) was on the tube this Sunday, attacking Joe Biden for meeting with Putin before Putin has shown any regret for the recent cyber-attacks. McCaul claims that Biden is giving Putin stature by having this meeting. What was Trump doing when he met with Kim? At least Putin is the president of a major power. Kim runs a little pirate operation in Southeast Asia.
I think Biden needed to meet with Putin because he had to personally let Putin understand the dangers that his programs are inciting. Biden needed to tell Putin, in very specific language, that if he continued to push, we would push back. Trump, who was obviously in some kind of thrall to Putin, never did this but Biden had to undo the harm that Trump did and make sure that Putin knew that there was a new sheriff in town.
What Biden understands is that Russia is economically a third world nation with a lot of nuclear weapons. He had to consider that reality and also to Putin’s need to be considered a world leader. He had to remind Putin that he can’t win a war with the west and that if he instigates one it will destroy him and his country so his path forward must be guided by cooperation not by his current strategy of being an irritant.
It’s unclear why a guy as smart as we think Putin is, can’t comprehend that the best path for his nation to grow economically is to cooperate with the rest of the world instead of getting them pissed off at him.
He inherited a nation that was ripped apart and disgraced. Its only asset was its oil, which has now fallen into disfavor and economic disaster. He has seemingly come to the incorrect conclusion that being an international irritant will help him fix his problems. It was Biden’s job to set him straight.
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Once more Louie Gohmert (R-TX) is trying to prove he is the stupidest guy in the post Neanderthal world. Not satisfied with being the dumbest guy in congress, Louis went for the big ring this week when he asked the National Forest Service’s Jennifer Eberlie if her organization or the Bureau of Land Management would be able to alter the earth’s or moon’s orbit in order to adjust the climate. No you can’t make this shit up. In fact no one wants to.
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There’s been a lot of noise lately about all the anti-voter legislation being passed in various red states by the Republicans. Maybe it’s more noise than is warranted. Why would I say that? Well, I looked at the polls about the infrastructure bill and the federal voting bill and various pieces of gun legislation, along with climate change bills and I see 60, 70 and 80 percent approval by the American people, so why the problems of getting those bill passed? Maybe it’s because of the 50 GOP Senators and a House that has only a small Democratic majority. So how did that happen? How are huge percentages of Americans being denied their needs by the very people they voted into office? What does this tell us? It says quite clearly that huge percentages of the American people are too dumb to vote. They have been proving this for years by voting for people who do not want to do what the voters need them to do. So how did that happen? It happened because many voters, enough to get fifty GOP clowns into the Senate, don’t know what the hell they want or what’s most important for them. It means that people who need the jobs that will be provided by the infrastructure bill or the child care necessary to attend those jobs voted for idiots like Jim Jordan because he promised to keep immigrants from crossing the border, immigrants we need to fill jobs that Americans are spurning. It means that America’s voters are voting for assholes who know how to scream “socialist” without those same voters knowing what socialist means.
We don’t have the ten more Democratic Senators to pass the legislation that huge majority of voters want because those same voters, stupidly enough, voted for GOP candidates who promised that they would keep minorities from taking hold of the country and they would help White Supremacist movements rather than people who need jobs, healthcare and childcare. In my book that makes these clowns too stupid to vote.