There is no room for compromise in the Senate on voting rights legislation and it's driving the chamber to "nuclear" fight.
Sens. Klobuchar and Blunt are chummy, effective Rules committee leaders but have a "fundamental disagreement" on this, AK says https://t.co/OJw6mAcuGU
— Burgess Everett (@burgessev) March 23, 2021
Category: Bipartisan Wet Dream
Of course
Joe Manchin just took an important filibuster reform off the table https://t.co/HXQynywV1Y via @voxdotcom
— Suburban Guerrilla 💙 (@SusieMadrak) March 17, 2021
Piece of work
Gossip on the Hill is that @SenatorSinema told Schumer she was only getting pro-filibuster calls last week.
This weekend, AZ Indivisible groups filled her DC and state office voicemail. 447 calls and counting. Let's hit 1,000 today: Text Arizona to 977-79 or call 1-877-847-4809 pic.twitter.com/ryWVjQAIfb
— Sarah Dohl (@SarahDohl) March 1, 2021
What a stupid mistake this would be
Dems considering lower income threshold to reduce number of people who get checks.
— Arthur Delaney (@ArthurDelaneyHP) February 3, 2021
Last checks started phasing out at $75k for individuals; Dems looking at $50k, per source (confirming @JStein_WaPo reporting yesterday) w/ @igorbobic https://t.co/98q0Fb7p8U
Bipartisanship
Which used to be considered a bad idea!
Hi, please find the unroll here: So I’ve been wanting to do this thread for a while and as usual, I’m hoping people who know more than me, academics… https://t.co/XjhXcCtoDT Have a good day. 🤖
— Thread Reader App (@threadreaderapp) January 23, 2021
Listen
👀 WATCH 👀
— Alex (@aroseblush) January 25, 2021
🤦🏻♀️🐴 ‘You’re getting punked’: Michael Steele unloads on Democrats for 'ceding power to McConnell' 🐴🤦🏻♀️https://t.co/GhA1t65422
Sigh
The Democratic Party is failing to persuasively explain why the Senate shouldn't even consider Amy Coney Barrett, and it's failing to make a persuasive case against Barrett herself. Republicans are clearly winning this battle. Democrats are blowing it. https://t.co/I1qCIBf9JK
— Mark Joseph Stern (@mjs_DC) October 7, 2020
I agree with @mjs_DC (unsurprisingly). You have to fight tooth and nail against her, and show just how illegitimated this whole process is. Then make the turn that the only way to restore legitimacy to the court is through expansion.
— Elie Mystal (@ElieNYC) October 7, 2020
The GOP politicians are making deficit noises again
And we need to make sure that Democrats denounce it.
We need to make sure they understand in no uncertain terms that we don’t want any more austerity bullshit — not if they want our votes.
The battle for Social Security and Medicare begins today
It seems that I spend years of my life fighting to protect Social Security and Medicare, and here we are again as the GOP unleashes their new plan. From Josh Marshall:
Unlike the Bush-era plan to partially phase out Social Security and replace it with private investment accounts, this plan takes a different approach. Through a variety of mechanisms, this plan simply cuts benefits and introduces means testing. To look at specific cuts, changes in eligibility and so forth look at pages 2 and 3 on this official Social Security Administration scoring document analyzing the plan. The benefit cuts appear to hit everyone but are weighted toward more affluent recipients.
[..]
The plan with this new GOP bill is to proactively solve this problem entirely with cuts and really big cuts. Out over 75 years, the GOP proposal has the Trust Fund growing substantially out into the infinite horizon. In other words, a lot of the cuts are more than are necessary to pay for all benefits even if you leave the ‘cap’ in place.
I will say that this new bill is different and I think not as bad (extremely low bar) as the partial phase out of Social Security which President Bush tried to push in 2005. Because you have the same essential mechanisms in place. This is a huge benefit cut. Benefits could later be raised again if there was the political will to do so. The means testing component probably does more to endanger the future of the program in political terms.
The last day of session before Christmas break, and a Friday afternoon? Let’s not forget that every single House member is up for reelection in 2018, and none of them ran on cutting Social Security.
So I think something else is happening. This looks like a Trojan horse, used to manufacture a new “emergency” in Social Security funding. Polls and focus groups always show the same thing: No one will consider any kind of reform or privatization unless they think it’s the only way to save it.
You can see where that sense of crisis is useful. Remember, the goal has always been to get that money into private accounts, where Wall Street makes money and charges us hefty fees.
Make sure you call your reps Monday and tell them no.
Automatic registration ‘cheapens the work’ of civil rights heroes
https://youtu.be/aJe1Hqb5ZMU
You really have to watch this interview. Blocking automatic registration is a good way to put obstacles in the way of people who are likely to be Democrats. See? They really don’t believe in democracy:
Automatic voter registration has recently emerged a key tool in increasing the United States’ anemic voter turnout. The process is simple: Whenever an eligible citizen interacts with a government agency (typically the DMV), she is registered to vote unless she declines. Although automatic voter registration is a nonpartisan initiative, it tends to be favored by Democrats and opposed by Republicans, who believe they fare better in low-turnout races; two Republican governors have already vetoed Democrat-sponsored automatic voter registration bills in Illinois and New Jersey. Now Alabama Secretary of State John Merrill, a Republican, has joined the opposition. Asked a question about automatic voter registration, Merrill declared that the practice “cheapen[s] the work” of civil rights heroes and that “just because you turned 18 doesn’t give you the right” to vote.