Yeah dude, using leverage to get a vote is what is fucking up the country. Not some Senator willing to fuck over 32 million people while his family kicks back in their mansions made by illegally price gouging life-saving medicine.

The company his daughter was the CEO of (Mylan) settled with the SEC and Justice Department in 2017 and 2019, then merged with another company, and no longer exists. She got a golden parachute and resigned last year. There’s not a whole lot to leverage there.

Always good to see the smartest guy in the room totally missing the point

Has the statute of limitations passed on criminal charges? If not, let's roll.

Woke up this morning wondering if the BLM protests are still going on in Portland. Didn't read anything other than some protesting in Pearl district because of Biden's immigration policies (?).

So is the BLM stuff done with or are there still protestors out in force?

Just so everyone knows, Biden is 100% responsible for higher gas prices and ruining everything that is 100% American that you know and love, like low gas prices, that are constitutionally guaranteed.

Biden is in a tough spot but don't disagree on his approach. SA is too important "right now" (need some more time for oil independence). Khashoggi was not a US citizen, was not a permanent resident, and the crime was not on US soil.

I don't think there's been any organized protesting affiliated with BLM for a few months.

Sell all your Cuomo stock.

NEW/BREAKING: @NYGovCuomo offers another statement on sex harassment allegations.

"I now understand that my interactions may have been insensitive or too personal and that some of my comments, given my position, made others feel in ways I never intended."

— Jesse McKinley (@jessemckinley) February 28, 2021

I guess he should've doubled down and said that all his accusers were too ugly for him to "assault". That would've been the "strong" reply.

It is so hard now a days to tell when someone is "done" or not, politically. I think Coumo is done.

‘Our system basically crashed like a computer:’ Jackson Public Works Dir. said progress made in restoring water to residents

This is as good a place to put this as any. Another American city's water system has been compromised.

For all the jokes over the last four years about "Infrastructure Week," we really actually have a desperate need for wartime-level infrastructure spending. It would have been great to have.

It's a lot cheaper (and more humane for those who care about such things) to update bridges, water systems, levees, electrical grids, etc. before they break than to fix them after they collapse.

It is amazing how these take down everyone (which they should) but Trump only because he uses the most Neanderthal response possible.

Or, Republican voters don't care.

I feel like the nursing home scandal should have ended his career.

Yeah it should have, especially as much grandstanding as he did, but this is the dagger.

I think he may have figured a way to weather one scandal or the other. I think it is both that dooms him.

https://www.cnn.com/2021/03/01/polit...tax/index.html

This won't even come close to closing the deficit much less paying for all the stimulus bills but the grownups in congress do need to start discussing how to pay for this whole mess.

The answer is a default by 2050+ when debt-to-GDP is an untenable 200%. The can will continue to be kicked down the road.

Guess Biden took a hit here but probably a minimal hit.

The only way it's ever being "paid off" is being able to cede parts of the world to China so Americans can spend $2-300 billion on the military instead of more than $700 billion per year and not have the global economy take a hit from not having the "World's Police" protecting the sea lanes. Until that's open for discussion along with the tax hikes and benefit cuts brought up by both sides, deficit talks are just a waste of time.

Biden has agreed to greatly speeding up the phase out for the 1400 dollar checks. Now the phase out for single filers goes from full at 75k to 0 at 80k and for joint filers, full at 150k to 0 at 160k.

I don't understand how Manchin thinks this is beneficial policy or politics.

I do not even understand the point of the phase out at all. They are arguing over less than half of 1% of the entire bill. Take the political win and kick the spending can down the line like everything else in this bill.

yaaas yaaas

Dems take some semblance of control and immediately it becomes time to worry about deficits. Straight from the playbook.

Also, a lot of the Dem gains came from suburban former GOPers who were freaked out by the Trump show.

It seems like taking checks away from couples making between $160k and $200k cuts right at your new allies.

Makes no sense to me.

Sounds like they are following the Dem roadmap to losing the mid terms.

Nail, meet head. Right or wrong, this'll get spun as a betrayal of those who switched parties to help Biden get elected. It mystifies me how a major political party can repeatedly display such awful political instincts.

I don't understand why the scale they had with the first bill, or even the second, needed to be changed. I do like that they added dependents over 16, but the trade off is terrible.

Not only are they changing the cutoff point, they are not taking into account the number of dependents to adjust the scale. A couple making $160k is much different than a family of 5 making $160k. And who's to say a couple making $200k isn't living check to check and needs the stimulus money? Or that they wouldn't put the money back into the economy, which is the overall goal, right?

Hold your broad brush there Bob Ross. I've been complaining about this country's fiscal irresponsibility since the Bush administration.

Not a fan of the change, but it also seems like every media outlet is saying "moderate Democrats" as opposed to just Manchin. Unfortunately it looks like it was a group of Senators and there were concerns about getting to 50. 50-50 in the Senate is annoying.

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He's trying to play the role of moderate Democrat that brings the two sides together for bipartisan legislation. In reality he's doing exactly what the GOP wants by taking popular legislation and watering it down to the point that public support will stsrt to turn.

It's how Dems lose.

Manchin I kind of understand. He represents a very very Red state. West Virginia went 39 points for Trump. Every county in the state voted for Trump. The progressive who tried to primary Manchin in 2018 won the 2020 nomination for Senate and lost by over 40 points. He's generally walking a tightrope on every single vote.

It's Sinema I don't get. Arizona is trending more and more blue by the second.

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Is it the whole party or just a few people who are forcing their hand. Is the worse political instinct to hold out for the people making 160-170 and delay relief during a pandemic?

I don't like the change, but I'm not sure there was a better choice given the situation.

Just read that the change will save 12 billion in a 1.9 trillion dollar bill. It isn't about the savings, i's about limiting who gets checks, which is just terrible politics.

I think Manchin is sincere(and I do think this is being led by Manchin) but I don't understand why he thinks this is the better bill. It doesn't save enough money to matter and it's going to piss off a lot of high propensity voters.

I think that it's just a very weird place for the moderate Dems to draw a line in the sand.

Let's say that you did this and you got some GOP votes in exchange (Romney, etc.). OK, maybe it is worth it to make the bill formally bipartisan. But I am hearing nothing about this bringing any GOP onto the bill.

Let's say that you really are a fiscally conservative Dem, and you say that you won't support the bill unless the price tag is < $1 trillion. OK, maybe it is worth it to save the government a trillion dollars. I might agree or disagree, but that's a real change you are fighting for.

Or let's say that it is something that no one will notice or care about. Some technical change to the rate at which the federal government will reimburse local fire departments to upgrade old equipment or something. OK. Then it's maybe a kind of a small potatoes change, but no one will notice or care.

Here, it just seems like the absolute worst of all worlds politically:

(1) Does not bring any GOP on board.
(2) Does not save any real money compared to the size of the bill.
(3) Is SUPER visible. Hell, I imagine that a distressing number of Americans think that the stimulus checks are the only thing in the bill.

I just don't understand the optics here at all.

I like and vote for Manchin, but I think he is being self serving to/for West Virginians vs all Americans. I think that's unfortunate and bad policy.

WV's average household income is less than $73K per year (3rd lowest in the nation and almost $25K lower than national average per Average Income by State, Median, Top & Percentiles [2020] - DQYDJ) so he isn't going to be stepping on a whole lot of toes by changing the terms here or get penalized by his voters. I don't like what he's doing and whoever runs against him from the GOP is still going to call him a communist or socialist. There are better battles to have than this one and I think this one is going to cost the party nationally.

This exactly. If it makes it feel more bipartisan and you pick up 5-10 GOP senators, I can at least understand. Manchin is still going to be tagged as a big spending, socialist, communist, Democrat Senator, that voted for this giant $1.9B bill, by whatever Republican runs against him. His best hope is that while the democrats are in power, they govern well and govern responsibly and demonstrate that government can be effective. If the country is humming along due to good governance (in contrast to the Trump years), everyone wins except the Republicans that want to show that government doesn't work and needs reduced/eliminated.

“Manchin, this is colossally bad for our Party. What in the name of Zeus’s BUTTHOLE are you thinking??? We ain’t got time for your foolishness. You need to get with the program, pal, or you’re never gonna get X, Y, and Z that you’ve always wanted for WV.”

It ain’t that hard. Manchin isn’t the only one allowed to strongarm.

Dude, it’s only $1.888 trillion now. They’ll never make it stick with that drop in price tag.

It has to be some sadomasochostic impulse to lose.

Like Democrats cleaned up in the suburbs and are now going to kick them out of getting a check.

The bills is popular with Republicans. Same with minimum wage. He isn't taking a moderate stance at all. Its just a far right one.

Shit, Trump was calling for $2k checks months ago.

what bills is popular with Republicans?

The stimulus for one.

60% of Republicans Support Biden's $1.9 Trillion Stimulus: Poll

The way I'm reading it is that there's nothing Manchin cares about enough that they can take. As long as he's been a Senator, whatever pet things he wants he's either already gotten or wasn't likely to get in a divided Senate anyway. This would work with a first-term Senator probably, but not likely here.

I am assuming that they (and we)are going to give this level of scrutiny to the worthiness of the other recipients of the benefits of the bill. If that is the case the bill should be signed by the next president.

There is still a slight republican advantage in registered voters here and a good chunk of them are hard to the far right. (35% red to 32% blue with 30% independent) and the independents generally lean slightly conservative, so she has to massage that group.

There is a lot of migration here from California and those Dems are generally very progressive and she won't lose them because they won't vote red, so she will continue to target indys and the republicans that crossed party lines because they were sick of vitriol of Trump and co.

It has served her well, so I doubt she changes. When she was in a house she also voted with republicans more than any other democrat with the exception of maybe 1. Not sure of her voting record in the Senate, but probably similar.

Fox and Friends has a complaint with Biden.

Happy (real) inauguration day!