🤢 I think it was @danpfeiffer who said, it's not that Gaetz is a successful Republican who happens to be a horrible person -- he's a successful R *because* he's a horrible person. Those are the qualities that yield success on the right.
The US right has basically become an enormous & extremely efficient Asshole Discovery & Elevation Engine. They no longer care about policy & aren't trying to accomplish anything in particular. The assholery is the point now, the end goal.
That's why Gaetz is so transparently eager to get out of Congress & into RW media. There, he can just focus 100% on being an asshole without the nagging distractions of, y'know, governing & whatnot.
The Qanon crowd -- which, you may recall, is convinced there's a cabal of pedophiles in DC -- has reacted to the Gaetz news with ... denial. They don't care about GOP pedos & sex traffickers. Or Catholic priests. Or Boy Scout leaders. Only imaginary Ds!
"Biden admin officials say [Trump's tax cut] increased incentives for companies to shift profits to lower-tax countries, while reducing corporate tax receipts in the US to match their lowest levels as a share of the economy since WWII." Are these not facts that can be verified?
Seems like the fact that it's true is more relevant than the fact that Bidenites say it. nytimes.com/2021/04/07/bus…
"Members of the Business Roundtable, which represents corporate chief executives in Washington, said this week that Mr. Biden’s plan for a global minimum tax 'threatens to subject the U.S. to a major competitive disadvantage.'" 🙄
Just going to enjoy a moment of uncomplicated pleasure in @ezraklein telling me that the Democratic Party has more or less conceded that I'm right about everything. nytimes.com/2021/04/08/opi…
Sure, others were right too. You can go to their feeds if you want to hear about that.
"They view the idea that a carbon tax is the essential answer to the problem of climate change as being so divorced from political reality as to be actively dangerous."
I know I should probably be trying to decode the 12D chess or whatever, but I'm distracted by all the mistaken assumptions, bad history, poor reasoning, & preening vanity here. washingtonpost.com/opinions/joe-m…
I'm trying to resist yelling about this piece for all eternity, but the key question Manchin doesn't address is, why, if small/rural states are already over-represented in the Senate, we *also* need a 60-vote supermajority requirement.
Or why the public would trust a Senate that passes legislation less than one that can't.
Must-read investigative journalism from @JaneMayerNYer (if that's not redundant) shows that the right is in a bit of a panic about HR1, the voting rights bill, because it's wildly popular with the public, even a majority of Rs. newyorker.com/news/news-desk…
Hey @JoeManchinWV? This is how they're talking about the voting rights bill in private:
"Instead, a senior Koch operative said that opponents would be better off ignoring the will of American voters and trying to kill the bill in Congress."
Do you want to be complicit in that?
Imagine sitting around having this discussion and never thinking, "gosh, I wonder if maybe we're horrible fucking people?"
And I chose to launch a new venture during exactly this period, so I'm haunted by the thought that I should be doing *more* than usual, showing enthusiasm, cranking stuff out, getting the thing going. Hustling! But it's like squeezing a rock for blood.
Today on Volts: I take a closer look at my favorite parts of Biden's infrastructure plan, from a new Grid Deployment Authority at DOE to a plan to retrofit a million affordable residences. (If you don't want to read, you can listen!) volts.wtf/p/the-coolest-…
Luv 2 send out an email with "$10 billion" instead of "$10 trillion" in the very first paragraph. Thank goodness things like that don't haunt me.
Hard to pick a favorite part of the jobs bill, but if forced, I might choose this: “a new Grid Deployment Authority at the Department of Energy ... to spur additional high priority, high-voltage transmission lines.” ⚡️⚡️⚡️🤟