Senate passes Covid relief bill after the Dems finally convinced Manchin to get on board. It's amazing how much power that dude currently wields. Basically anything the Dems try to pass over the next few years will have to go through him, and no doubt he'll get his way every single time.
Manchin basically torpedoed the Democratic bill.
Thanks to him, I’m going to get less unemployment money and no tax break. I wasn’t going to get a stimulus check, but losing out on the extra unemployment is a bummer.
I’m curious what the expanded Affordable Care Act subsidies look like. Every news article basically has the same quote, but no specifics.
Here's a story that slipped through the cracks amidst all the shenanigans surrounding the Covid relief bill. The GOP are going all out trying to suppress the vote in Georgia. This is brutal.
Republican lawmakers in Georgia muscled legislation through the state House on Monday that would roll back voting access, over the objection of Democrats and civil rights groups gathered at the Capitol to protest.
The bill comes after record turnout led to Democratic wins in Georgia’s presidential election and two U.S. Senate runoffs.
House Bill 531 passed the lower legislative chamber by a vote of 97-72. It now goes to the state Senate for more debate.
The far-reaching bill would require a photo ID for absentee voting, limit the amount of time voters have to request an absentee ballot, restrict where ballot drop boxes could be located and when they could be accessed, and limit early voting hours on weekends, among many other changes.
Quote:
“It’s pathetically obvious to anyone paying attention that when Trump lost the November election and Georgia flipped control of the U.S. Senate to Democrats shortly after, Republicans got the message that they were in a political death spiral,” Democratic Rep. Renitta Shannon said.
“And now they are doing anything they can to silence the voices of Black and brown voters specifically, because they largely powered these wins.”
Dozens of protesters gathered just outside the Capitol on Monday in opposition to the bill, chanting “say no to voter suppression” and “protect the vote.”
“Today, before the eyes of this country, Georgia is poised to pass some of the most egregious, dangerous and most expensive voter suppression acts in this entire nation, rolling back years of hardball progress and renewing our own reputation for discrimination,” the Rev. James Woodall, president of the Georgia NAACP, said at the rally.
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Percentage of Democratic Senators who voted for the Republican CARES act in March 2020: 100
Percentage of Republican Senators who voted for the Democratic COVID Relief Plan in March 2021: 0
One of these groups, flawed though they are, is actually interested in helping people. The other group cares exclusively about power
Democrats are generally interested in helping, but they are so so SO frustrating because they somehow manage to f--k it up even when they have the power and the mandate to do good things. It's unbelievable watching it sometimes.
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-James
GO FLAMES GO.
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I don't think you can blame them for it.. It took until 2020 to recover from passing the ACA, and you could argue they still haven't considering Dem success is only federal; they haven't recovered from the state losses still.
People want change, but people hate change and will vote against it even if it helps them.
__________________ Uncertainty is an uncomfortable position.
But certainty is an absurd one.
I think they did take one lesson from the ACA that you can see in the Covid bill: don't waste time trying to get Republicans on board. Basically everything that sucks about Obamacare can be directly linked to taking conservative ideas in order to woo Republicans into voting for the bill.
Ultimately, the Democrats learned that effort is a huge waste of time, and I think one of the Democrats who was front-and-centre to learn that lesson was Biden. Now, is that the only lesson to be taken from the whole experience of the ACA? No, of course not, but if the Democrats spend the next two years not waiting for Republicans, they may not do phenomenally well in the 2022 elections, but at least they'll get some stuff done.
Completely unrelated to the current handwringing going on, but I was reviewing an interview for a podcast and the guest was an Egyptian living in Germany who had previously spent 18 years in the United States after fleeing his homeland because of political persecution. The interview was about pizza of all things but the interviewer asked how he enjoyed living in Germany versus living in the United States? The response was quite startling. The guest stated he much preferred Germany because he was free there. He stated the United States is no longer free and is subject to the whims of the political elite who no longer represent their constituents. He stated that in Germany the representatives are forced to represent the people, that the fear of a return to fascism holds all representatives to such a standard that the will of the people is always served. He went on to explain that the United States has turned into a fascist state, not much different from the Egypt he fled. It was shocking in that it was stated so matter of factly and with such clarity that it really just stopped me in my tracks. It's one thing to think these things privately, but when you hear it from someone with such a story it is really unnerving. Doesn't really align with any of the issues under discussion, just a personal story to share.
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Completely unrelated to the current handwringing going on, but I was reviewing an interview for a podcast and the guest was an Egyptian living in Germany who had previously spent 18 years in the United States after fleeing his homeland because of political persecution. The interview was about pizza of all things but the interviewer asked how he enjoyed living in Germany versus living in the United States? The response was quite startling. The guest stated he much preferred Germany because he was free there. He stated the United States is no longer free and is subject to the whims of the political elite who no longer represent their constituents. He stated that in Germany the representatives are forced to represent the people, that the fear of a return to fascism holds all representatives to such a standard that the will of the people is always served. He went on to explain that the United States has turned into a fascist state, not much different from the Egypt he fled. It was shocking in that it was stated so matter of factly and with such clarity that it really just stopped me in my tracks. It's one thing to think these things privately, but when you hear it from someone with such a story it is really unnerving. Doesn't really align with any of the issues under discussion, just a personal story to share.
Wow, could you share what podcast that was? I'd be interested in listening to it.
__________________
"Calgary Flames is the best team in all the land" - My Brainwashed Son
Republican Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds on Monday signed into law a controversial bill aimed at limiting voting and making it harder for voters to return absentee ballots, her office announced Monday.
The legislation, which passed both Republican-controlled chambers of the state legislature last month, will reduce the number of early voting days from 29 days to 20 days. It will also close polling places an hour earlier on Election Day (at 8 p.m. instead of 9 p.m.).
The bill additionally places new restrictions on absentee voting including banning officials from sending applications without a voter first requesting one and requiring ballots be received by the county before polls close on Election Day.
Quote:
Democratic election attorney Marc Elias similarly called the law "the first major suppression law since the 2020 election" in a tweet and noted that litigation could be forthcoming.
The law is part of a larger effort by GOP legislators across the country -- including the battleground states of Georgia and Arizona -- to roll back voting access in the wake of the 2020 election.
Completely unrelated to the current handwringing going on, but I was reviewing an interview for a podcast and the guest was an Egyptian living in Germany who had previously spent 18 years in the United States after fleeing his homeland because of political persecution. The interview was about pizza of all things but the interviewer asked how he enjoyed living in Germany versus living in the United States? The response was quite startling. The guest stated he much preferred Germany because he was free there. He stated the United States is no longer free and is subject to the whims of the political elite who no longer represent their constituents. He stated that in Germany the representatives are forced to represent the people, that the fear of a return to fascism holds all representatives to such a standard that the will of the people is always served. He went on to explain that the United States has turned into a fascist state, not much different from the Egypt he fled. It was shocking in that it was stated so matter of factly and with such clarity that it really just stopped me in my tracks. It's one thing to think these things privately, but when you hear it from someone with such a story it is really unnerving. Doesn't really align with any of the issues under discussion, just a personal story to share.
What freaks me out is the underdiscussed role of evangelicals in championing a Fascist state
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"WHAT HAVE WE EVER DONE TO DESERVE THIS??? WHAT IS WRONG WITH US????" -Oiler Fan
"It was a debacle of monumental proportions." -MacT
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Wow, could you share what podcast that was? I'd be interested in listening to it.
Unfortunately the content didn't make the final cut. It's a podcast that is very much apolitical and focused on quirky subjects, so a piece of commentary like that just wasn't aligned with the content expected. It's too bad because this was by far the most interest part of the podcast itself, which was about plant based pizza.
Unfortunately the content didn't make the final cut. It's a podcast that is very much apolitical and focused on quirky subjects, so a piece of commentary like that just wasn't aligned with the content expected. It's too bad because this was by far the most interest part of the podcast itself, which was about plant based pizza.
So.... how were you listening to it?
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