They’re going to try the same thing in PA next year. Off cycle primary for only local races with a shitty deceitfully written anti-abortion amendment on the ballot. Can’t wait to see what happens.

Yeah, Jon Stewart is the GOP's Kryptonite it seems. They remember what he did to Tucker Carlson years and years ago (although, like any other cockroach, Carlson has come back from the dead), and no one wants to volunteer to see if Stewart has his "One Punch Man" evisceration skills still.

Stewart before was calling out in a funny way. Now, he's just going to do the metaphorical equivalent of stabbing incessantly.

Sounds like Sinema just wants some minor changes that shouldn't keep the IRA from passing.

She wants to keep the hedge fund loophole of course.

Yeah, it's ridiculous, but it won't stop the bill.

dola

I'm in St. Augustine this week and it's interesting how the GOP primaries are all about who will best please DeSantis. Every commercial is about how much he does or doesn't like the candidate.

So you saw that electrical storm the other night?


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Bribing Senators pays off for hedge funds.

NEW: DEMOCRATS REACH DEAL WITH SINEMA ON TAXES.

“We have agreed to remove the carried interest tax provision, protect advanced manufacturing, and boost our clean energy economy in the Senate's budget reconciliation legislation." She will move forward after parl review.

— Tony Romm (@TonyRomm) August 5, 2022

I'm happy that they made a deal. But it's kind of weird that they didn't put them both in a room to work all this out in the first place.

Whatever. One step closer to a good law passing. Not as good as it could be. But good.

This is actually a good idea.

ALSO NEW: Democrats will now seek a 1 percent excise tax on stock buybackshttps://t.co/4hH6WXrXl0 https://t.co/WQTsScpTja

— Tony Romm (@TonyRomm) August 5, 2022

I just saw that and immediately thought of you, Rainmaker. Thought you might like that.

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Yeah. At one point my wife's face lit up and I said what happened and she said the whole sky lit up behind me.

Am I going to get a rebate for the Chevrolet electric car I bought last month? GM was out of rebates previously

These people are sick and I'm pretty sure they royally fucked up...

What’s clear from this is that republicans (like IN state Rep. Davisson) haven’t thought through the implications of these anti-choice bills

pic.twitter.com/EsqGz1XvdU

— Molly Jong-Fast (@MollyJongFast) August 5, 2022

"Can you rephrase the question?"

"Can you provide a definition of 'failing to thrive' where the fetus is perfectly fine so I can provide an easy answer?"

"Can you use it in a sentence I can easily respond to?"

"Lastly, could you provide an opening for me to vaguely bring god into this and use as an answer?"

Re: Kansas referendum

After reading a bunch of analyses on the topic, the conclusion I'm coming to is that it turns out that an outright ban was the tipping point to make people sit up and notice.

Prior to Dobbs you had plenty of polls indicating that abortion rights just weren't the highest-importance issue for a large part of the electorate, including Democrats. The polling we're seeing after Dobbs, however, has very much changed. It's charged up Democrats and shifted opinions among Independents and even a small cadre of Republicans.

Which probably shouldn't be surprising given human nature and the fact that a lot of Americans really don't pay that much attention to political minutae.

On the first point, I'd posit that for most folks there's a difference between rights being restricted and rights being abolished. As long as the GOP was mainly doing the former, a lot of people couldn't bother themselves to care too much.

On the second point, I'd guess a huge number of Americans didn't really understand how GOP legislatures were restricting abortion access so dramatically. But then you have a huge news story like Dobbs and it suddenly hits home.

It remains to be seen if this carries Democrats home in this fall's mid-term election cycle, but the Kansas result (which included unprecedented turnout and huge voter registration numbers) definitely surprised a lot of people who watch this kind of thing professionally.

I thought this was an interesting analysis of the ads that ran in Kansas:

What messaging worked in Kansas? Let's look at the ads from the winning "NO" team...

— Bill Scher (@billscher) August 3, 2022

It puts the GOP in a tough position. True pro-lifers believe that abortion is the murder of a child. So it makes sense that they wouldn't allow any exceptions to an anti-abortion law. And they will demand that purity of their GOP reps.

But that puts them at odds with the majority of voters.

If the GOP could pass a law that says something like "Abortion is illegal unless a doctor certifies that it would be in the medical best interest of the mother," that would completely undercut the parade of horribles that the Dems are using to motivate voters.

But a true pro-lifer would never accept that law b/c it would, in their view, allow some otherwise preventable murders.

Yeah, hopefully this will be the kind of thing that hoists the GOP by its own petard.

The analysis I read on 538 pointed out that the % of the electorate who is for abortion being illegal in ALL cases is very small. So basically Dobbs just might have been the straw that broke the camel's back. A majority of the electorate is OK with restrictions, decidedly NOT OK with illegal-no-exceptions.

If you read the ad analysis, it's interesting that they ran a mix of ads highlighting the extreme (no exceptions for rape, incest, etc.) and anti-government mandate messaging. Theoretically, some of the anti-mandate stuff may have pulled from the GOP support, likely those who may not view the abortion issue on strictly religious terms.

Senator Warnock is saying that his $35 cap on insulin is in the bill. That really is huge.

https://twitter.com/chuckgrassley/st...ATUaOmOkL_B0FA

I am not kidding when I say that I respect the level of IDGAF it takes to say “put Republicans back in charge because Mitch McConnell does not mess with my vacation schedule.” Respect.

Things that make you go "hmmmmmm..."

You have to wonder if @Sen_JoeManchin and @SenSchumer put the carried interest provision in their draft just so @SenatorSinema could shoot something down before signing on to the bill.

— David Axelrod (@davidaxelrod) August 5, 2022

https://www.washingtonpost.com/busin...ort-july-2022/

what in the actual fuck is going on with the economy? Good/bad, whatever

It seems to be doing decent for the average worker which is making economists and rich people incredibly mad because it's leading to an increase in wages.

I don't think she is making those decisions. Someone joked that you should just negotiate directly with the lobbyists who are giving her money and save the time.

That's not a joke, that's reality.

Retire right now Chuck and you can have all the reunions you want for what's left of your life.

That's why Roberts was always content to just keep grinding away abortion rights with things like limited bans and more procedural stuff like admitting privileges that really stops abortions but requires paying attention to the details

SI

Brings to the mind the old saw about boiling a frog. If you do it slow enough, the frog never notices its danger until it's too late to hop out. If you turn up the heat too fast, the frog will instantly jump out. And in this case, the frog (being women and folks who support theoretical abortions, even if it with some restrictions) jumped out and realized that yeah, they're not interested in degree. It's right and wrong to them.)

Remember when Chris Coons decided not to call witnesses during the impeachment trial because he wanted to get home for Valentine's Day?

The is still in, but the f-ing parliamentarian has ruled it doesn't fit reconciliation. So the Democrats are forcing the Republicans to vote it out of the bill. It looks like they will. Republicans will never miss the chance to stand in the way of anything that will benefit the poor.

Insulin has been around a while and don't really understand why there are not generics to lower the cost.

I know pharma's will tweak formulas to extend their patents but assume 2022 - 20 years insulin formula still works well.

I'm guessing this problem exists for numerous other drugs.

So how about the government provide incentives for generic companies to expand their portfolios, or to increase number of generic companies. You'd think this will save on Medicare and Obamacare costs also.

better to incentivize, dictate, or just let full free market capitalism decide?

In this case....with a life saving drug that certain people are required to have....dictate.

Sure enough, the Republicans blocked it though it was only three votes short of breaking the filibuster. Mit Romney once again proves he is a POS.

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I really think that the R's just go around and draw short straws to see who will put in some token votes, and who will vote against, just so it looks like it was sort of supported by some, but ultimately opposed in general. Like you can't tell me Hawley wanted to support that part of the bill.

This is one I'm perfectly happy to Both Sides. That has happened for a long time on both the Dem and GOP side - like Lieberman took the fall for the Public Option but if it wasn't him, it was going to be Max Baucus or someone else who was highly paid by the insurance industry. For the longest time John McCain (Lindsay Graham, too) was allowed to be the "maverick" vote on so many things that didn't matter - though I think his thumbs down vote on the ACA repeal was personal and not planned.

SI

At least the insulin cap is still in on the medicare side.

Except a lot of people won't live to get Medicare because if this bill.

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Only 3 companies make it and they have banded together as a cartel to fix the price. It is also illegal to import it from other countries so there is no competition.

Can’t they just declare diabetes a public health emergency and bypass a lot of the pricing rules? I also read something about how an off label monkey pox treatment requires a 27 page application and that type of stuff is total nonsense.

Legislative cosplay is all it is.

In 2020, @SenJoniErnst warned about the “heartbreaking” consequences of high insulin costs and called on lawmakers to “come together” to lower them.

Ernst voted against the insulin copay cap today. pic.twitter.com/AY2RzCWJQ0

— Dan Diamond (@ddiamond) August 7, 2022

My preference is incent. Assuming we can break from the special interests & lobbyists, I can see a heavily subsidized generics industry really help bring costs down with the most popular drugs (after the 20 year patent wears off).

I don't think it'll necessarily help with less (currently) impactful diseases like Monkey Pox though.

Yes, they can do that. They can also starting importing it from overseas and flood the market with it.

Can't have dems getting credit for saving lives with their legislation this close to mid terms.

Our only-in-America political system:

A 57-43 vote to cap insulin prices fails.

A 57-43 vote to exempt private equity subsidiaries from the minimum corporate tax rate succeeds. pic.twitter.com/ReUFRWlMGT

— Steve Morris (@stevemorris__) August 7, 2022

Conservatives are countering the obstruction to the insulin price cap by attacking Biden for killing the EO that Trump issued that would have put a cap on insulin prices.

The key difference is the Trump EO would have had almost zero impact at all. It was only for very low income families that are seen at Federally Qualified Health Centers. Only about 9% of people in the country are seen at a FQHC and then you factor in the fact that you would have had to make 350% under the federal poverty line and it was an EO that wasn't really going to help anyone.

However, when presented with something that would have helped with insulin prices the pro life party made sure it didn't succeed.

Reading through all of the proposed amendments, Republicans really didn't want that IRS expansion to go through. They also tried really hard to ram through that SALT cap for at least one year. That would mostlt screw people in Blue states, plus could be called a middle class tax increase.

I don't know enough about the district to predict anything, but the primary for Ilhan Omar is surprisingly tight right now.

Inflation's over.

I'm sure it isn't, but the CPI came in at 0.0 for July. I hope nobody here was betting on another .75 rate hike.

Well the Inflation Reduction Act certainly worked fast. They haven't even passed it yet and they already got it down to zero :-)

Congrats Joe (and Schumer, Pelosi).

Too bad everyone else is too busy talking about the other stuff. Great win and potentially/probably the domestic landmark for what your admin will be remembered for (unless you get a chance to replace 2 Supremes in the next 2 or 6 years).

Jim Jordan is going to be speaker of the house, isn't he?

These are some crazy numbers, even crazier when you think this is the total registered voters in an entire state. Two Senators for less than 300k registered voters.

Wyoming voter registration as of 8/1:

Republican: 207,674
Democratic: 39,753
Unaffiliated: 33,769https://t.co/OUhzyXEWpv

— Steve Kornacki (@SteveKornacki) August 16, 2022

If we're not going to change the 2 sen/1 state thing, we might really look at how we define states. It's not like you can't redefine them, other countries reorganize every now and then (thinking France, India at the least). Heck, WV.

Probably can't "unstate" a place (really, is there any reason half the NW shouldn't just be one big state?) but I'm not sure there's a reason outside of a political one why we can't have more of them.

As I've said to YD (who has ties to WY), it's pretty silly when you can have a state with 600,000 people, but then LA county has 10M. Which is a more important position, governor of the former or commissioner of the latter?

My favorite solution would be to just abolish the Senate and switch the House to a PR-vote with party lists, neatly doing away with all the negatives we have by having a) states and b) districts.

But another fun option would be to just give every state that has a population greater than the median state (Louisiana) an extra senator per million population over the median state, which would end up giving you:

Louisiana: 0
Alabama: 0
South Carolina: 0
Minnesota: 1
Colorado: 1
Wisconsin: 1
Maryland: 1
Missouri: 1
Indiana: 2
Tennessee: 2
Massachusetts: 2
Arizona: 2
Washington: 3
Virginia: 4
New Jersey: 4
Michigan: 4
North Carolina: 4
Georgia: 5
Ohio: 6
Illinois: 7
Pennsylvania: 7
New York: 14
Florida: 16
Texas: 21
California: 31

68

29

42

The Senate will never get fixed because it would require every state to sign off and there's no advantage for Wyoming to do so.

This new rule regarding OTC availability of hearing aids for mild hearing loss is big. It's one of those things that makes so much sense, you wonder why it took this long to happen. It seems like the hearing equivalent to being able to buy readers in the store, while more severe issues still require a prescription.

There's a lot for Dems to learn from in the Fetterman campaign. While the specific issue, Oz being from NJ, isn't replicable, the idea of refusing to fight on GOP terms and always turning things back to the ground that is more favorable is. The way they've taken Oz's inflation attack and turned it into yet another example of Oz being out of touch is brilliant.

I've really liked Fetterman since I started seeing some about him a couple of years ago. Maybe he can't stand up to national scrutiny or maybe he doesn't have national political chops, but it seems like he has a story and local political ability that should be able to catapult him onto the national Democratic stage as a strong voice for working class Rust Belt voters (ala the Joe Biden coalition). It's not like the Dems have a deep bench right now so they should be doing everything they can to amplify his voice.

SI

I’m going to vote for Fetterman regardless, but Oz’s attack on Fetterman being propped up by his rich father through his 40s is a decent weak spot.

I feel like Tim Ryan should be winning by 5-10 points but he’ll probably get killed. JD Vance’s fake rehab centers is an issue that should piss off people.

Maybe but there's a big difference between using privilege to actively helping your community like Fetterman was doing as opposed to being a spoiled brat who contributes nothing like some in his circumstance.

Give a choice. Either reform it or start adding new states.

Oz is such a bad candidate, he got a grocery store to post shit about him and endorse Fetterman.

Yep. Just add DC.

It is still curious to me why Biden and the Dems are not placing more blame on Trump refusing to have a peaceful transition of power for their problems.

That look! And he held it until Manchin looked at him. Ha!

President Biden hands Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) the sole pen he used to sign the Inflation Reduction Act. pic.twitter.com/X2t8EelgHP

— The Recount (@therecount) August 16, 2022

The RNC has started canceling Senate ads in Arizona, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania.

Wait- what? Um.. why?
2022 Senate Election Forecast | FiveThirtyEight

538 has all those races really close and we're months out from the election.

SI

Sounds like the GOP is having fundraising issues.

GOP Senate Campaign Arm Is Pulling Ads in Three Key Races - Rolling Stone

People are mostly donating to Trump and he isn't exactly generous with his money. I still don't understand why they are so firmly behind a guy that's lost the popular vote twice, lost the house, lost the Senate, and stands to keep them from winning the Senate back and will likely make the house closer than it should be for the GOP. Take away the Trump name and he's a huge failure as a politician in nearly every measurable way.

How do they get away from him though?

I think that forecast goes out a ways and has results from before the primary was decided. Don't know about Wisconsin, but recent polls have Fetterman and Kelly up quite big.

I'm guessing they have better polling than we have access to, but Oz seems to be sinking every day and Masters is about as extreme a candidate we've ever had run for Senate.

They like his policies.

GOP Lawmaker Chokes up Over Teen Affected by Abortion Ban He Voted for

This is the shit they've signed up for.

LMFAO priceless!

The reasoning is so when the Justice department hands down charges and people start getting arrested they aren't part of the equation. If trump was in office he would already be asking Barr for their public executions. I agree that a bit more public pressure would be better than playing the "We'll see " game.

100% this shit is only starting. Fuck that guy. He really ought to grovel , in person, to this 19 yr old woman, at her feet, while she passes the baby, in a toilet, on the floor of the House.

There is also the girl in I believe Louisiana whose unborn baby has no skull and she is being forced to deliver.

Not as big as you might think. Limited power range (only for mild to moderate) and, more importantly, the physical fit isn't customized for the individual customer - making them even less effective. Nor will it benefit most hard-of-hearing individuals - the majority of them have hearing loss outside those boundaries.

Yeah, like readers.

I think I fall into the category of people this would help. My wife's been bugging me for years to get my hearing checked and my response has always been - "Why? I know I have hearing problems and all they're going to do is try to get me to buy some expensive hearing aid that I won't wear enough to justify the cost." But if I can go to a local store and try one out, I might consider using it with a minor financial commitment.

I've got tinnitus on my left ear. It's like background static. It sucks but just have to live with it.

Maybe he could also vote on the current bill they are considering instead of abstaining.

The words spewing from his mouth mean nothing. But at least, by abstaining, he'll be able to sleep knowing he's done "the right thing". What a worthless piece of shit.

This is me. I actually got tested and it was determined I need them, but the doctor said as long as it wasn't effecting my life I could wait on them. They were about 7K so I was like, yeah, I can wait. If I can get a paid for a couple hundred and just have them at the house I would do it.

Missed a golden opportunity there to respond with "What?"

My wife, daughter and I got "request for absentee ballots" in the mail yesterday. Cover note said I was "above average" in voting.

I guess this is good to encourage get out the vote.

Depending on where you live, you may want to check that those are legitimately from your an actual government agency, and not a nefarious organization looking to confuse you into suppressing your vote.

Good point. It does look official to me but was kinda surprised getting them (but then I don't get AJC paper or digital anymore to keep up with local news consistently).

I've always voted in person except one time when I got absentee because I was going to be at a conference.

Anyone else in GA get them?

I haven't. I don't even think I did for the primaries. Are they even still legal to send out after that last voter law?

That above average part would never be in something from election officials.

Yeah, I was wondering about that statement.

I tossed them. I'll monitor AJC and see what's going on.

Well, unless you were from Lake Woebegone.

‼️NORMAN BOOK BAN- A close source tells me an English teacher has already been removed at Norman High for providing students a qr code link to the Brooklyn Library and informing them there are free e-books there. This caused further fallout among other teachers in the district...

— Wendy Suares (@wsuares) August 23, 2022

Suspending teachers for making students aware of a library.

And tens of millions of Americans are going to cheerfully vote for more of this in a few months while non-ironically saying words like "liberty" and "freedom."

If you are happy that your political choice also happens to be the preferred choice of white supremacists and both of you are talking about Christian nationalism and replacement theory in your party meetings that really, really ought to give you some pause, unless you're cool with them in your party and if that's the case, just call your party (and yourself) what it is.

I fear for my daughter who is just starting out life as an elementary school teacher in KY. One false move and her career is at least temporarily derailed.

She's also pursuing a masters in curriculum and I'm not sure that's the best option. Seems like those are the people who will have the bullseye on them for creating "woke" agendas.

Some articles on Biden's forthcoming decision on student loan forgiveness and (arguably) impact on inflation.

I'm thinking it'll be capped at $10K (which is consistent with what Biden has campaigned on). A May WP article said possible cost of $230B. I do think this will be negative overall re: inflation.

As a compromise, I'm hoping he'll continue to freeze student loan repayments for now but not commit to forgiveness. Tell it as it is "I want to help you but this will add to inflation, so we will revisit this after inflation is beat".

My Brother in law, whom I have referenced before, is super high up in banking. Almost ceo level. Thinks student loan forgiveness would be the best stimulus we could have for the economy.

I get it's a stimulus (e.g. more money to be spent in the economy) but is it really wise during times of high inflation.

As him if he is factoring inflation? I would like to hear his POV.

Beat approach I've heard politically:

1, Forgive $10k for those making under $125k
2. Extend the freeze through February 2023
3. Say that a real legislative solution is required that also focuses on reducing costs going forward, and you look forward to working with Congress on crafting one.

That basically doesn't piss off the anti-forgiveness crowd too much, but it also gives a little sugar to the debt holders AND gives them a reason to come out in November.

Don't know if that's the best policy, but it is smart politics.