I am really enjoying the "surprise me!" nature of the Democratic agenda, where all we know is that it costs trillions, is due tomorrow, and is called a reconciliation bill. This kind of quality messaging maintains voter interest and keeps the opposing party on its back foot. Image
Why pass up a chance to call it the "Universal Preschool Act" or "Paid Family Leave Act" or "Free Community College For All Act" when you can call it the "$3.5 Trillion Reconciliation Bill"
If Democrats tried to give away ice cream to children it would be called the Pediatric Aseptic Aerated Milk Solids Distribution Scheme and the ice cream trucks would announce their presence with loud klaxons
"Build Back Better" is some half-assed thing you say to a person whose entire life's work lies in smoking ruins at their feet, so of course we picked that as our slogan Image

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More from @Pinboard

27 Sep
Is there good expository writing anywhere about what would actually happen if the Treasury respected the 'debt ceiling' and defaulted on some payments for a few days?
I'm struggling to reconcile the averred cataclysmic consequences of a U.S. default (electrons would become unbound and the earth turn into plasma) with why Democrats won't take simple unilateral measures like minting the coin, amending senate rules, or ignoring the debt law.
If it's just a case of default kicking Wall Street in the nuts for a bit, then I'm all for calling this bluff. But I'd like to read something informed about the systemic effects of floating US treasury checks for a few days
Read 4 tweets
27 Sep
I've been encouraging people to look at the mechanisms of the January 6 investigation independent of the merits of the case. Today a weird new twist, the US Post Office (!) runs its own intelligence arm which is apparently up in everyone's online business politico.com/news/2021/09/2…
The issue with half of government closely monitoring online "extremism" is that for most of our history, extremism was defined as stuff that today seems pretty laudable. The mass dredging of social media in this investigation is a troubling sign of things to come for all protest.
I see apparently intelligent people throw around words like sedition, insurrection, and even treason in the January 6 context with little care that these terms are defined at the discretion of the state. Shed a tear for the Jan 6 bumblers because the next time it may be you.
Read 4 tweets
26 Sep
Large aircraft carriers live in an interesting twilight zone. They would be instantly sunk in any real conflict, but we've grown fond of usin them as mobile airports for use against third world powers. There hasn't been a carrier engagement against real opposition since WWII
A contentious debate over whether large warships are vulnerable against air attack was settled over the course of six hours in 1941. We're likely to get an equally brisk and definitive answer about large ships vs. missiles when two major powers go to war. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinking_o…
In the meantime, we keep building the things, part of a dysfunction in the American military where all the major weapons systems are obsolete, designed to fight wars we never had, and being used at fantastic expense to blow up Toyota Hiluxes that look like they're up to something
Read 11 tweets
25 Sep
One thing I feel my group and many others demonstrated in 2020 was that there's no relationship between political giving to state house races and the outcomes of those elections. In fact, there's some evidence it backfires. Hold on to your wallets with both hands.
I normally hate to pee on other people's fundraising, but I think it's important to make new mistakes rather than repeating old ones. And we've seen in state after state that pouring any amount of national money into state legislative races just doesn't work.
The political spending cycle is spinning out of control, and as everyone runs out of ways to spend money upballot, the money is moving downballot. At the same time, those races have become nationalized (and therefore tethered to political identities local spending can't shift)
Read 8 tweets
24 Sep
Biden is now throwing his own border patrol staff under the bus for enforcing his border policy. politico.com/news/2021/09/2…
The pattern with Biden on immigration has been one of constant mendacity—whether it's lying to himself or to us isn't clear. He lied about the (nonexistent) legal barriers to processing SIV applications stateside, he lied about undoing Trump policies, now he's lying about Haiti.
In this case, first they went after the horses, and now they're going after the border agents who were riding them. But the people responsible are those who have set this policy, not the people who are being made to enforce it. Who knew Biden could out-lie Trump on immigration?
Read 4 tweets
23 Sep
This claim is such a profound misunderstanding of how corporate campaign finance works. For one thing, the money goes to the campaign, not the senator personally, and for another, not a single incumbent senator has any difficulty fundraising these days.
The article mentions that Sinema has raised $923,065 from various nefarious interest groups, which is approximately 5% of her 2018 campaign budget. She could flip all of her political positions and raise the same funds from PACs and corporations that back the other stance.
Make no mistake, the current system of campaign funding and PACs is institutionalized corruption. But the idea that senators are somehow beholden to their $5,000 corporate donors is ridiculous and obscures the real way power and influence flow in Washington.
Read 5 tweets

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