Well, they tried to, but he won, and now they are all going to cozy up to him as long as he keeps winning

The DNC backstabs those folks if they run for President, but would have no problem backing a certain victory for a Senate seat.

Yeah yeah, I know. Trading their votes for the promise of a vote in the future is kinda dumb. But then, there is this nugget buried here:

There is also a negotiation to reinstate all of the federal workers Trump laid off during the shutdown, the report adds.

That might just be worth it, because it would be Congress passing something that puts direct constraints on what the President can do, and daring him to veto it.

Edited to add: don’t sleep on the 3 spending bills that are being negotiated too. This effort looks like a continuing resolution that extends most agencies through the end of the year, but those 3 bills constitute full appropriations for agriculture, military construction and legislative agencies. And it looks like Democrats may have won back some funding for programs that the House budget gutted. This is all from the NYT, if I happen to find a non-paywall link I’ll add it

What do you mean? Making a backroom deal to get the Next One Up across the finish line is exactly how they operate

Hmm, I think even 4 retiring every day seems to be a lot…

I guess there are over 14,000 controllers normally, so if 20 retire a week that’s a turnover of about 1000 per year, or about 7%, just through retirement. That seems high.

But at 20 a day, we might have run through that number just during the shutdown.

My pet theory is that Schumer will agree to not run again, and AOC will take over his seat without primary opposition, as long as she promises to not run against Newsom for President.

wrong

The OBBB was passed through the budget reconciliation process, which allows it to be passed in the Senate without a cloture vote, but also limits it to strictly budgetary items. It is a budget bill, full stop. It has to be I order to be passed through the Reconciliation process.

The current shutdown has nothing to do with the budgetary process, it has to do with a lack of appropriations.

I don’t block many people, but I am blocking you, because you are a troll.

And then give the facts.

The problem is that even facts are even subjective for these people. It’s always been that way.

I remember that after 9/11 I had a coworker who was convinced the problem was with Islam itself. “I’ve read their book”, he would explain to everyone who was within earshot, “They want to kill all the infidels. Their religion is incompatible with our country”. He held that as a fact, just as sure as the fact that the sun sets in the west, and that God gave him the right to bear arms.

To many people in this country, Muslim = Terrorist, no further questions asked. You can’t argue with that. Not because they are right, but you literally can’t argue with someone who thinks God gave them those incorrect facts.

No, the budget was passed as the One Big Beautiful Bill. It was passed without Democratic support because the Senate used the Budget Reconciliation process to bypass the filibuster. But now, the Senate cannot again use Reconciliation to pass any of the two competing appropriations bills. (And as far as I know, neither bill actually performs the appropriations from the budget, and just keeps current spending levels in place, with the Democratic bill adding the healthcare fix.)

The OBBB includes provisions that fucks over healthcare. The House appropriations bill kept those things in place. The Senate rejected it, then the House stopped working.

We have no concept here of triggering an election. All of our Federal elections are for set terms, no matter what. We don’t have any notion of a “no confidence” vote in government. If we did, I bet it would fail every time.

It’s even worse than that. They passed a budget, but need a separate vote for actually authorizing the money to be spent.

Congress set it up this way, on purpose, so that small-government types would have an additional opportunity to negotiate shit that’s already been negotiated.

I don’t think I have voted for the eventual winner in the Democratic primary since Obama in 2008. But the current primary process is broken, and only exists to rubber-stamp the establishment candidate. And remember that in 2008, Obama was not the establishment candidate, his win was not expected. If anything, the party has made the primary process even more of a game since then.

Having said that, though, if Newsom is the primary winner I will hold my nose and vote for him, because he will still be better than any Republican. (And if Trump is still alive by then, we will know that whoever gets the nomination will be in his pocket, anyway).

I would fix the Democratic Party primary process by doing it all in one month. Four weeks in May or June, 12 to 13 states per week, rotating by region. Fuck all these states who think they are special by having “first in the nation” primaries or caucuses, where the one Podunk town with 13 registered voters gets to be in the news every 4 years. Every state is important.

Oh, and do it on Saturday. Let the media cover it like it’s fucking March Madness.

He and Putin will start their own Friendship Union.

We can call it FU2

Donald Trump doesn’t understand

They could have stopped there

But only for Republicans, Democrats actually get to face consequences.

It’s not that being a pedo is OK, it’s that being a Republican is the magic “Get Out Of Jail Free” card. Republican pedos are protected at all costs, Republican racists are just “kids being kids”, Republican insurrectionists are “Political Prisoners”.

It must be really bad if

s/Donald Trump/Bill Clinton/g

couldnt fix it

My quick take is that all that stuff mattered when people had to go out to find other people: to parties, bars, concerts, and other public places. They had to actively attract people to initiate a conversation. Now all those third places are dying, and most couples meet online, which means they have done all the superficial selection stuff already, which changes the game.

Silly Rabbit! Rules are for Liberals!

12,000 members is hyperbole, but Congress should be bigger. They used to increase the size of Congress with every census and reapportionment. But about 100 years ago, they couldn’t agree on how to do it, so they just didn’t. And it has stayed at 435 ever since.

From https://thirty-thousand.org/house-size-why-435/

By keeping the size of Congress fixed, the average population in each district gets higher and higher. But small states still get at least 1 representative! This increases the power of small states (who already get 2 Senators) even further.