My insurance does not force me to have physicals, but it is free and I get credits for doing so. Having an annual physical greatly reduces overall costs and improves health, so requiring one should not be that big a deal. I understand that people hate to have these things "forced" on them and want the freedom to be as unhealthy as possible, but it costs all of us money.

So it begins. Requiring two copies of your id is going to make it much harder for poor people to vote, and not make a single thing safer.
Legislation introduced to require photo ID for absentee voting in Georgia

I look forward to the daily 1pm ET press briefing. However, I know I'll get tired of the novelty of a normal press briefing after 4 years of WTF. And the questions I want answered right now are really more for the coronavirus task force.

Here's a "non-commie" pic of Jen Psaki.

If she's not a commie then explain the red hair.

I think we know Edward's vote on hot or not.

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Don't be shy ... go ahead and create a HoN thread :)

I know Tarcone will be first to vote (btw - she is married and have at least 1 kid ... if that matters)

WOn't do shit to stop fraud but will discourage people from voting. Perfect GOP bill.

I always find it kind of amusing they even do an approval ratings less than a week into the job. At this point it will pretty much be Trump voters disapprove and Biden voters/Trump haters approve.

yeah but you just know that's all trump cares about and it will piss him off :)

Trust me, this was not lost on me LOL. He is fuming over this.

Just more evidence the election wasn't stolen

Jesus.

On National Holocaust Remembrance Day Prager University tweets:

The free market will set you free

:D :banana:

Kapitalismus macht Frei

Is Biden using the "kiddie" desk to sign all those executive actions? It doesn't look right and would have hoped they learned something after that awful Trump pic.

Some stirrings about how Biden may use reconciliation to force the $1.9B through and GOP saying that's not a good sign of bi-partianship.

I am hoping that Biden is reaching out to key GOP and asking "what pork do you want for the $1.9B?". First big test of his bi-partianship skills.

Until the GOP is willing to hold Trump, MTG, Gaetz, Brooks, et al accountable for the things they have said and continue to say FUCK unity. You can't have one side screaming about unity while members of their own caucus advocating shooting the speaker in the head.

It is impossible to have people with attitudes like that and have unity and bi-partisanship.

It probably is impossible to have unity and bi-partianship with the most radical right (and left) but there are plenty of others to work with.

I voted for Biden and his message of bi-partianship. So willing to give him some room on the "pork" route (or other machinations) first and see what happens.

Wrong.

If the moderate ones don't hold the radical ones accountable they are complicit and the radical ones will escalate and grow.

And fuck that both sides crap. The far left wants healthcare for all, clean air, and income equality while putting a stop to black kids getting shot by cops. The far right wants to murder members of congress and thinks Biden is a baby eating satan worshiper.

I have yet to hear what the GOP wants. The dynamic cannot be Dems keep going to GOP senators for months and months asking what it will take to get 10 of them to sign onto the bill.

10 GOP Senators need to say what they want and ask for it to be included in the bill. They have a ton of leverage right now.

Biden & team should be doing this? Isn't this how it was done before and (many time) in private one-on-one discussions? Pork is a proven incentive.

Yes. There should be back and forth, and I hope that there is a lot going on behind the scenes that we aren't seeing.

What the Dems can't wait around for is a GOP Senator saying "There is something you can do to this bill to get my support, but I cannot tell you directly what it is. To learn the answer, you must solve the following riddles three . . . :

The problem is that neither side wants the other to have any legislative victories and have not in a long time. The GOP, when they have the slightest majority, legislates like they are coming off of landslide wins and have a mandate. The Democrats, whether they have a filibuster proof majority or a razor thin one, always seem to try to compromise and end up pissing off the Republicans and annoying their own base causing them to lose interest in voting for them.

Look no further than the Affordable Care Act, where Dems had all three branches of government and (briefly) a filibuster proof majority in the senate. The Democrats tried to compromise, ended up with a program that looked like one the Republicans wanted (and led the debate on) in the 90s rather than universal coverage, and then no Republicans voted for it (and spent the next ten years trying to eliminate it).

I find that she looks better in videos than she does in still images.

One thing they want is time to see what effects the last trillion dollar stimulus has had before passing another package that is twice as large. That's not unreasonable IMO.

Much better to over play the game and keep the ball in the air, than to wait and see if your shot was good enough and let it drop. Getting things moving again from the bottom is much more inefficient than just keeping everything running well enough in the short term until it does.

Which is totally reasonable. I disagree with it. But it is reasonable

But then the framing isn't "Biden needs to work with GOP to get something to pass." The framing becomes "GOP won't sign on no matter what b/c they fundamentally disagree with spending the money, so should the Dems do it anyway"

And we are missing a bikini shot.

What would that mean in practice? Six months? A year? Other metrics?

Meanwhile, we're almost at a year of every week unemployment claims being higher than the worst week of the Great Recession. 2/3 of the economy is fine, but the remaining third is suffering a catastrophe, a third that generally doesn't have much visibility in our system. I'd be fine with more targeted relief, but too much is far better than too little at this point.

edit: Albion is right, too, what does the GOP want? Get 10 GOPers together and offer a counter-proposal. Without that, they can stop bad faith process complaints.

White House Covid senior adviser Andy Slavitt: “I want to call out seven states that have already provide first vaccinations to more than 10% of their populations: Alaska, West Virginia, New Mexico, Connecticut, North Dakota, Oklahoma, and South Dakota. Well done.”

— Jake Tapper (@jaketapper) January 29, 2021

I love that the WH is praising the states doing well without regard to whether they have D or R governors.

I'm glad we're both focused on the important things of this presidency :p

Such a contrast

Well ... it is Tarcone's fault by pointing out he has a ginger fetish (nothing wrong with that) so was trying to accommodate him.

Just saw a woman who is a friend of a friend say she misses Kayleigh and Psaki is just horrible.

It will never cease to amaze me how people can see the same thing and take away two totally opposite conclusions.

That old axiom, 'we see what we want to see'

and dola, I saw a friend post today that she just realized that Enrique Tarrio identifies as Afro-Cuban, so how can the Proud Boys possibly be a white supremist group.

While I won't dispute them being a white supremist group, I always did find it curious that the Proud Boys would follow an Afro-Cuban named Enrique Tarrio. It's like 2 and 2 not adding up to 4.

There are things in this stimulus bill that needs to go now. The money for schools to reopen was needed months ago. The money for the states, for the vaccine, rental assistance, are all months late. None of these things were in the last bill, so how is waiting going to help? Plus, the campaigns promised the increased stinlulus check. Want to lose elections? Don't fight for what you promised.
There are many other things that can be bipartisan. This should be bipartisan, but the GOP doesn't care about the people that are suffering. The bill needs to pass right mow.

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What's more interesting is that he might be an informer for the Feds.

I guess like Rachel Dolezal identifying as black :crazy: :confused:

Agree 100% with this and the comment on the vaccination tweets. On this, my answer is yes, they should do it anyway if they can. Problem is they don't have the votes to just do it anyway, which ends up throwing it back on 'should there be a negotiation about what lesser package they can pass, or should they vote for what they want and have both parties go on the record with their support/opposition'?

This close after an election, I don't think it matters much. If they don't get some Republican support, nothing will happen because of the moderates.

Apparently Biden delayed his Fri announcements/executive actions on immigration. Haven't seen anything on MSM as to why.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/biden-i...rders-delayed/

Could it be because the court injunction has messed up some of his plans?

SI

That could be it. DACA was already done on a prior day but the reuniting families is a pretty important one so wouldn't want to delay too much.

Isn't the difference that she lied about being black and falsely represented herself as one whereas Tarrio did not hide being a minority Latino.

It does seem contradictory that he could be a "leader" of the Proud Boys.

No enough details right now to really compare & contrast right now but I view this as a good sign.

10 Senate Republicans seek meeting with Biden on Covid relief - POLITICO

It was meant more as a parallel to presenting an image of being something you are not. She did lie, but later insisted that she "identified" as a black woman. Hence the comparison.

10% of what Biden is asking for doesn't count as working together. I'm sure the GOP would have laughed at a similar tax cut proposal when they were working on the Trump tax cuts.

I'm pretty sure that is bad wording. I have to believe it is more than $160B (vs 1.9T) as a starting point.

The article says the rest of the costs haven't been scored by the CBO

SI

My bad, actually it was another article I was reading about it:
https://www.cnn.com/2021/01/31/polit...den/index.html



SI

Yes it is $600 billion according to Cassidy which seems really low something closer to $900 billion would be a fair consideration.

It would be just like the Democrats to fuck up the easiest fucking thing they could ever do.

The Democrats are Lucy, Charlie Brown, and the football all at once, somehow.

SI

From what I am reading, the proposal includes $1,000 stimulus to targeted at a much lower income threshold. I can see drop the thresholds by some, but dropping the amounts is a no-go.

Going into February 2nd, and the Republicans still hold the committee chairs in the Senate. Can you guys tell me more how McConnell lost that standoff? Democrats have no backbone.

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Losing Schiff in congress would be a big loss.

Rep. Adam Schiff is quietly lobbying Gov. Gavin Newsom and his allies to appoint him California’s next attorney general, according to people familiar with the matter. https://t.co/Z2zo33hgWt

— Axios (@axios) February 3, 2021

https://twitter.com/briantylercohen/...150296576?s=19

Dunno if this is allowed in the we hate Congressional Democrats circle jerk ;)

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I don't know about circle-jerk. This is a good thing, while it is February 3 and the GOP still hold committee chairs. You saying that is a good thing? Show of strength?


edit: In a reverse situation, how long would it have taken McConnell to force the presiding resolution through even if he had to nuke the filibuster to do it? One day? 12 hours?

Forever, if he had the same situation in a 50-50 setup where a couple of Republicans didn't support nuking the filibuster. I still haven't seen anyone explain what Schumer is supposed to do differently.

Yep. They also got Manchin and Sinema to agree to send Biden's $1.9 tril bill through reconciliation (including the additional payments Manchin wasn't sold on a few weeks back). And I believe Schumer just announced the committee assignments to the caucus yesterday, so I'm sure that's part of it. Not to mention nothing has been held up yet.

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Schumer announces a vote on organizing resolution today.

Watching the Dems be (1) competent and (2) not scared is a strange and new experience for me.

I could get used to it.

Because it's the Dems, I'm waiting for what stupid things they gave up to get this. Like that evenly split committees can't advance legislation or something Wily E. Coyote like that. It's still the Dems we're talking about.

SI

Love this. Q-Cal, LOL.



Kevin McQarthy

Psaki's briefing yesterday did seem to "diss" Space Force. There was a follow-up question today and she was curt in her reply.

I think this is the first mistake I've seen her make. I can see this snowball some and she should get Biden to chime in to help.

Space Force goes from silly to sinister when you discover that Q folks see it as the force that will arrest and execute the Satanic pedophile Dems.

Maybe she made fun of it because it's a colossal joke to anyone in or around the military.

So we had a press secretary who lied about the size of the inauguration crowd his first presser, then one who was completely combative with the press and literally just praised the POTUS, then one who didn't actually do a press conference for 9 months, then one who lied like crazy, defended the indefensible, and was even more combative with the press then the earlier one.

But, yeah, Psaki got a little curt so Biden better bail her our. GTFO with that.

Yes I agree that is a ridiculous take. Fuck space force.

Ding ding ding bingo.

Disagree. Right decision for the long-term. Glad Biden read my email.

Of course, on Twitter even the members of Space Force mock Space Force.

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I mean, they have "space camouflage " uniforms. How can anybody take that seriously?

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They wear camos because it'll be a while before we have a space fleet. But in the meantime, check out what they do on earth (see pics).

U.S. Air Force - Space Force

So they do what NASA largely does, but we pay for two agencies to do it. Yay.

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That seems lean by government standards.

Yeah it is just another agency to toss money at defense contractors. Also was set up to humor Trump.

Some actual swamp draining

"Biden’s new Pentagon chief purges Trump loyalists — including one who called Obama a ‘terrorist leader’
Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin announces ‘immediate suspension’ of former appointees, including several known for their incendiary online rhetoric"
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/w...-b1797057.html

"Biden Ousts All 10 of Trump’s Union Busters From Powerful Labor Panel"
Biden ousts Trump’s union busters from the Federal Service Impasses Panel.


SI

Romney's child benefit proposal is a really good beginning for negotiations. I hope Dems take it seriously.

Is that change to child tax credits during income tax filing or something else?

As a software developer, I can feel the stress at the IRS and tax software companies regarding all these changes so close to the beginning of filing season.

Maybe the Space Force is actually protecting us from Goa'uld attacks?

Would you risk defunding Colonel Jack O'Neill and his team? He has saved earth time and again!

SI

I definitely would not risk it. The work that SG1 has accomplished, everyone on Earth should be more than thankful for their service. Now, that Senator Kinsey guy though...what a piece of work.

Biden to stop US participation in Yemen. I don't really like it because it seems to weaken SA as our proxy vs Iran in the region but have to believe the Biden administration has played through the scenarios ... so good with it for now.

I do hope Biden has the master plan for the region including "incentives/stick" for SA normalization with Israel, reducing the radicalism there, and limiting Iran's influence.

https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2...s-parents-4200

Bidens plan already had a $3000 fully refundable credit, but just for this year. This is $1200 more for children under 6, then the same $3,000 from ages 6-18. Romney's plan caps out at 5 kids. Romney's plan also kills the earned income tax credit, the childcare tax credit, and welfare for needy families.

Romney is a moderate Democrat at heart. I know he can't switch parties and get elected out there, but it's always felt weird.

Romney is a conservative. But an actual conservative, not a MAGA head.

That makes him a Democrat in 2021. But I understand why he is staying in his party to try and save it.

Greene removed from House committees

That's right Greene! GTFO!

Yeah, his dad was a conservative in the old way as well. Conservative didn't used to mean anti-government or anti-poor people. George Romney introduced the state income tax to Michigan. Think a "conservative" would do that today?

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Can you believe that there was a time when conservatives thought taxes should be raised if spending was increased to balance the budget?

When George HW Bush, who was no liberal, partially lost a Presidential re-election because he raised taxes after saying he wouldn't. Because the debt was far greater than he realized.

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Read. My. Lips. It was in my lifetime.

SI

The more I read about Romney's plan, the more I like it. The programs and tax credits cut are more than made up for in the benefits of the "UBI for kids."

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From everything I have seen, it is a good faith proposal, and I hope that the Dems treat it as such.

We are NOT having enough babies in this country to support me in my old age. And since it does not look like we are going to be opening the borders anytime soon, encouraging folks to have kids is the next best thing.

Encouraging babies is the worst thing for climate change.

Oh I remember that. Back in the time when I actually was a conservative, and inspired by people who actually believed such things. That brand of conservatism is dead, practically speaking.