If the MAGA bunch throws McCarthy out, what’s their option? They never got more than 20 votes for an alternative. They are full of sound and fury, signifying pretty much nothing. I think he’s calling their bluff right now.
If you live in Nancy Mace’s district or in S. Carolina write or contact her office to let her know you disapprove and that your vote will not be available to her going forward.
Well stated, Robert. I am unhappy about sons of what has been reported in the deal BUT eager to see some closure for now. The entire episode has to be yet another wake up call for voters who can recognize that our the Rs tried, once again, to position themselves as the righteous team concerned about the debt when, in fact, they contributed to it during every Republican presidency.
As for Paxton he has apparently spoken on one of the right wing media outlets or podcast defending himself by making the bold claim that the Republicans would not be in office if he hadn’t taken steps to suppress votes, etc. These folks continue to tell us openly what they have done and what they plan to do. Let’s be sure voters are fully “woke” when they go to the polls in 2023 & 2024.
Elizabeth Holmes. Does anyone else think this is a travesty? A joke on our justice system? Trump, and all his cronies, are still free to defraud their supporters and cheat on their taxes, etc. while Elizabeth Holmes is going to work in a prison factory learning new skills. Yes, she needs to be penalized for her fraudulent activities, none of which killed anyone (and how many deaths is Trump responsible for?), but wasting her talents in a prison factory?
“We try to help our ladies obtain work in the factory which focuses on their strengths so they may develop additional marketable skills,” the prison’s handbook says.
Her undisputed brilliance, which went astray, could be put to such good use: teaching young women in various systems (foster care, delinquent homes, etc.); starting and running a school for entrepreneurs. So many things she could do, and we as a country could profit from, but no, we will pay as taxpayers to keep her in prison for 11 years. I'm disgusted.
I don't get it. Why do we agree to call these people by their self-aggrandizing names. 'The Freedom Caucus'. Why not call them what they are: the anti-democracy caucus; the fascist caucus;
Language influences perception. Public language shapes debate. Do we have to be complicit?
It is a pleasure to have a positive, thoughtful view of the work of President Biden.
The untenable position of having almost no progressive majority in the Senate and a weak Speaker of the House with a seditious Republican majority is frightening. We can only hope that any remaining Ripon Republican Representatives will stand up and support (a) voting for the debt ceiling and (b) ousting Mr. McCarthy and supporting a moderate Democratic Speaker.
Thanks for this.?I have been ruminating off and on about how I am so over stupid. Why are we still being held hostage to these cranky, nefarious characters anyway?
Excellent look at the implications of what’s happening in the Texas GQP. Tragically, DeSatan is taking the path of barreling down on the worst of the GQP’s agenda, and firmly believes that an autocrat is what America needs. His promise to “eliminate leftism and woke ideology to the trash heap of history” is exactly what your newsletter is talking about. He will so destroy voting if he were to win that the Democrats may never come back again. Imagine if he had taken his background and intelligence and wanted to be the Republican who introduced the new approach to the Party’s success……..alas. That is not who he is. He is all in on amassing as much power as possible by abusing the loopholes of the Constitution, and bullying those who are under his leadership to get what he wants. We must do everything possible to keep him away from any further power. I was secretly wishing that another Republican would have taken the lane of the future in running for president. That person will lose this time, but so will anyone trying to unseat Trump or even DeSatan. But perhaps it would have been the icebreaker to start normal Republicans (an oxymoron?) in thinking about how to prepare for the next election. They have all, instead, embraced hopes of winning any of the tiny Trump base and then picking up some others somehow. But the tiny Trump base is apparently very happy trashing democracy and the rights of others. I pray that DeSatan will not somehow make inroads with Republican voters who think he is the “normal” Trump. He is not! He believes he is the Victor Orban of America in a nice suit and with a trophy wife.
It is amazing sometimes to see how you and HCR dovetail on the same subject as has happened today. I try to be a realist at the same putting anger into action. In reading the extracts from the WWII pamphlet on the definition of fascism produced by the US Army I have to wonder if Florida and Texas are the red flags of our nation. Can such fascist strangleholds be broken I must ask? Here in Massachusetts we have been a one party state for decades. Yes, we have had Republican governors in this Democratic Party stronghold but they would not be recognized as such by our Southern friends and so we remain the most liberal state in the nation. We do so by the will of a highly educated citizenry who know Oprah Winfrey from Amanda Gorman. We joke that you can hold a Republican Convention in a corner booth at Schraff’s. The obverse appears true for Florida and Texas. What toehold can liberals ever hope to gain there where oppression has firmly taken root bolstered an apathetic and undereducated citizenry? I hope I am wrong and wish our valiant friends there good luck.
Once again, Robert Hubbell quietly and succinctly summarizes the way the sane and responsible majority must deal with the unhinged flamethrowers in the GOP House. Given the narrow Republican control of the House and the further control of that slim majority by a half dozen truly certifiable far right members, compromise between carefully-devised and thoughtful policies with the truly Looney Tunes Congress members in the GOP caucus is an unfortunate necessity. Fortunately, the Biden administration’s skillful maneuvering (and the general nuttiness of our opponents) has tended to produce compromises that advance 90% Democratic goals, 10% the unhinged demands of the MAGA crowd. This is the absolute best we can hope for until, against all odds, in 2024 we add about a dozen Dems in the House and 3-4 more Democratic Senators. Despite flagrant gerrymandering, constant attempts to restrict access to the ballot and the continuing tsunami of scurrilous lies from the right-wing propaganda machine, we can do this. It may take 2-3 election cycles to achieve this, but demographics, the validity and reasonableness of our positions--and the polar opposite of theirs, and time are on our side--IF we remain eternally diligent. But it can--and I believe will--be done.
Those of us who are 'represented' by Republicans need to be on the phone to them strongly advocating their public support for the Fiscal Responsibility Act. The more of them that we can get on board in public, the harder it will be for the Nut Job Caucus to hold things up.
Paxton's impeachment is a positive sign, his conviction and permanent removal from office, however unlikely, will be an indication of the vulnerability of the Texas Death Star.
3 phone calls, my Rep's office answered as they usually do, the two Senators had voice mail, also as usual. Since my area code and ZIP don't match, I gave full info.
Agree with you, Dave! I'm calling my reps today (blessedly all D's) to voice my support for Biden/no-default debt ceiling. Please, EVERYONE, call your reps and senators today or tomorrow. They are keeping tabs, literally!!
I keep saying: best president of my lifetime, which began in Eisenhower!
And very encouraging Today's. It's going out to my email list of 70-plus, plus on FB, on the timeline of a friend who's in France and has been very discouraged about the political situation in the US.
I'm SICK of the extremists who have taken over the GOP creating a crisis and pretending it's the Democrats' fault. They are arsonists who set a fire, then prevent the firefighters from coming in to put out the blaze.
There should never have been a question or an issue about paying the nation's debts.
Default would immediately torpedo the USA's status (with the U.S. dollar as the standard in the world economy) and plunge the nation and global economies into recession or worse.
I am for President Biden invoking the 14th Amendment and eliminating the debt ceiling altogether IF there is any more obstruction by McCarthy and his puppet masters.
I’m with you 100percent. This is infantile behavior. It has nothing to do with either patriotism or governance and everything to do with arrogant ignorance and selfishness.
Too many articles have been written suggesting that McCarthy needs all 218 GOP votes to push through a "compromise" on the debt ceiling. Why? The few idiot Republicans who will live in infamy by voting for Americans to default on its obligations - will be replaced by votes from Democrats.
Yes, some "progressive" Democrats will object to any form of negotiation - but I just read there are 98 Democrats already committed to voting yes. What am I missing here?
Am I the only one who thinks that this “compromise” between President Biden and Speaker McCarthy contains some very thought out side deals? The debt ceiling needs to be raised. Biden is firm on that, and he should be. McCarthy agrees but certainly knows just how many naysayers and chaos perpetrators he has to deal with - recall, it took 15 votes to achieve that Speakership; it is his career pinnacle. How would a wise and seasoned politician deal with that situation not to mention that ego- why not guarantee the Speaker that the Democrats will back not only the passage of the compromise, but, importantly to the Speaker, that they will also back the Speaker in keeping his job should anyone move to vacate. Bottom line, we are miserable dealing with a Republican majority in the House, but that very wise and seasoned politician may have pulled this off. Let us not forget the State of the Union address when President Biden deftly walked the same naysayers and chaos perpetrators into his trap to secure no funding changes to Medicare and Social Security. Let’s get behind this. We’re in wise and seasoned hands. I’m with Robert Hubble on this. It’s time to let President Biden work his magic.
We don't know what commitments McCarthy has made to whom in the Republican caucus to become speaker, but apparently one such commitment is to withhold any bill that doesn't have 100% support from the Republicans. If so, he has conflicting interests. Imagine that!
Imagine what Congress could be discussing. Little stuff like bringing clean drinking water to all Americans, child labor, corrupt House members, bought and paid for Extreme Court justices...little things...like public health and the integrity of public servants. Imagine...
It certainly appears that President Biden has deftly steered us away from the fiscal cliff that too many Republicans were only too anxious to drive us over. That he did it with little fanfare and bluster is both a testament to his skill as a leader and a sharp contrast with the top two Republican contenders for the presidency in 2024.
The duplicity of the Republicans regarding the debt should not be overlooked. Since the beginning of FDR's term, during which he was faced with economic recovery from the Great Depression followed by WWII, to present day, Republican presidents have been in the White House less than half of the time, but have been responsible for almost two thirds of the national debt incurred in that period on an annualized basis. Their playbook is to run up the debt while they're in power and then blame the Democrats for not cleaning up their messes.
But for now, closing the deal is the most important thing on the agenda. To do that, both sides need to be able to claim victory without vanquishing each other. In other words, they gotta play nice. Let's watch over the next few days as the House and Senate work to defuse the homemade time bomb set by McCarthy to appeal to the Raucous Caucus. Once the deal is done, we'll have two years to head off the next such action.
We must use those two years wisely, and make sure that we elect people who are truly representative of our interests and protective of our democracy. We need to live within our means, to be sure, but we need to share both the burden and the benefits equitably. And we must demand that our representatives play fair and act in good faith.
Yes! We do need to demand folks play nice and fairly. Yet, make no mistake about it, for some time now Republicans have not been playing by the same rules. They make them up as they go, much like HCR described in her exceptional report of Fascist practices.
I have felt the Dems have been slow to recognize the Rs weren’t interested in playing by any rules except “take no prisoners.”
It is imperative that we double our efforts to get out the vote, to rid ourselves of a good number of MAGA folks in Congress as well as those who just go along to hold their positions. It is time for Dems to call them out and for Rs to begin to stand up for democracy rather then go along to retain their perch in the theater of the absurd.
If the MAGA bunch throws McCarthy out, what’s their option? They never got more than 20 votes for an alternative. They are full of sound and fury, signifying pretty much nothing. I think he’s calling their bluff right now.
If you live in Nancy Mace’s district or in S. Carolina write or contact her office to let her know you disapprove and that your vote will not be available to her going forward.
Well stated, Robert. I am unhappy about sons of what has been reported in the deal BUT eager to see some closure for now. The entire episode has to be yet another wake up call for voters who can recognize that our the Rs tried, once again, to position themselves as the righteous team concerned about the debt when, in fact, they contributed to it during every Republican presidency.
As for Paxton he has apparently spoken on one of the right wing media outlets or podcast defending himself by making the bold claim that the Republicans would not be in office if he hadn’t taken steps to suppress votes, etc. These folks continue to tell us openly what they have done and what they plan to do. Let’s be sure voters are fully “woke” when they go to the polls in 2023 & 2024.
Elizabeth Holmes. Does anyone else think this is a travesty? A joke on our justice system? Trump, and all his cronies, are still free to defraud their supporters and cheat on their taxes, etc. while Elizabeth Holmes is going to work in a prison factory learning new skills. Yes, she needs to be penalized for her fraudulent activities, none of which killed anyone (and how many deaths is Trump responsible for?), but wasting her talents in a prison factory?
“We try to help our ladies obtain work in the factory which focuses on their strengths so they may develop additional marketable skills,” the prison’s handbook says.
Her undisputed brilliance, which went astray, could be put to such good use: teaching young women in various systems (foster care, delinquent homes, etc.); starting and running a school for entrepreneurs. So many things she could do, and we as a country could profit from, but no, we will pay as taxpayers to keep her in prison for 11 years. I'm disgusted.
I don't get it. Why do we agree to call these people by their self-aggrandizing names. 'The Freedom Caucus'. Why not call them what they are: the anti-democracy caucus; the fascist caucus;
Language influences perception. Public language shapes debate. Do we have to be complicit?
It is a pleasure to have a positive, thoughtful view of the work of President Biden.
The untenable position of having almost no progressive majority in the Senate and a weak Speaker of the House with a seditious Republican majority is frightening. We can only hope that any remaining Ripon Republican Representatives will stand up and support (a) voting for the debt ceiling and (b) ousting Mr. McCarthy and supporting a moderate Democratic Speaker.
Perhaps I believe in fairies and Peter Pan.
Thanks for this.?I have been ruminating off and on about how I am so over stupid. Why are we still being held hostage to these cranky, nefarious characters anyway?
Excellent look at the implications of what’s happening in the Texas GQP. Tragically, DeSatan is taking the path of barreling down on the worst of the GQP’s agenda, and firmly believes that an autocrat is what America needs. His promise to “eliminate leftism and woke ideology to the trash heap of history” is exactly what your newsletter is talking about. He will so destroy voting if he were to win that the Democrats may never come back again. Imagine if he had taken his background and intelligence and wanted to be the Republican who introduced the new approach to the Party’s success……..alas. That is not who he is. He is all in on amassing as much power as possible by abusing the loopholes of the Constitution, and bullying those who are under his leadership to get what he wants. We must do everything possible to keep him away from any further power. I was secretly wishing that another Republican would have taken the lane of the future in running for president. That person will lose this time, but so will anyone trying to unseat Trump or even DeSatan. But perhaps it would have been the icebreaker to start normal Republicans (an oxymoron?) in thinking about how to prepare for the next election. They have all, instead, embraced hopes of winning any of the tiny Trump base and then picking up some others somehow. But the tiny Trump base is apparently very happy trashing democracy and the rights of others. I pray that DeSatan will not somehow make inroads with Republican voters who think he is the “normal” Trump. He is not! He believes he is the Victor Orban of America in a nice suit and with a trophy wife.
It is amazing sometimes to see how you and HCR dovetail on the same subject as has happened today. I try to be a realist at the same putting anger into action. In reading the extracts from the WWII pamphlet on the definition of fascism produced by the US Army I have to wonder if Florida and Texas are the red flags of our nation. Can such fascist strangleholds be broken I must ask? Here in Massachusetts we have been a one party state for decades. Yes, we have had Republican governors in this Democratic Party stronghold but they would not be recognized as such by our Southern friends and so we remain the most liberal state in the nation. We do so by the will of a highly educated citizenry who know Oprah Winfrey from Amanda Gorman. We joke that you can hold a Republican Convention in a corner booth at Schraff’s. The obverse appears true for Florida and Texas. What toehold can liberals ever hope to gain there where oppression has firmly taken root bolstered an apathetic and undereducated citizenry? I hope I am wrong and wish our valiant friends there good luck.
Once again, Robert Hubbell quietly and succinctly summarizes the way the sane and responsible majority must deal with the unhinged flamethrowers in the GOP House. Given the narrow Republican control of the House and the further control of that slim majority by a half dozen truly certifiable far right members, compromise between carefully-devised and thoughtful policies with the truly Looney Tunes Congress members in the GOP caucus is an unfortunate necessity. Fortunately, the Biden administration’s skillful maneuvering (and the general nuttiness of our opponents) has tended to produce compromises that advance 90% Democratic goals, 10% the unhinged demands of the MAGA crowd. This is the absolute best we can hope for until, against all odds, in 2024 we add about a dozen Dems in the House and 3-4 more Democratic Senators. Despite flagrant gerrymandering, constant attempts to restrict access to the ballot and the continuing tsunami of scurrilous lies from the right-wing propaganda machine, we can do this. It may take 2-3 election cycles to achieve this, but demographics, the validity and reasonableness of our positions--and the polar opposite of theirs, and time are on our side--IF we remain eternally diligent. But it can--and I believe will--be done.
Great comment to get us up and out the door this morning. Thanks 😊
Well said!!
Those of us who are 'represented' by Republicans need to be on the phone to them strongly advocating their public support for the Fiscal Responsibility Act. The more of them that we can get on board in public, the harder it will be for the Nut Job Caucus to hold things up.
Paxton's impeachment is a positive sign, his conviction and permanent removal from office, however unlikely, will be an indication of the vulnerability of the Texas Death Star.
3 phone calls, my Rep's office answered as they usually do, the two Senators had voice mail, also as usual. Since my area code and ZIP don't match, I gave full info.
Texas: the Death Star State. I like it. Seems to fit the facts.
Agree with you, Dave! I'm calling my reps today (blessedly all D's) to voice my support for Biden/no-default debt ceiling. Please, EVERYONE, call your reps and senators today or tomorrow. They are keeping tabs, literally!!
I keep saying: best president of my lifetime, which began in Eisenhower!
And very encouraging Today's. It's going out to my email list of 70-plus, plus on FB, on the timeline of a friend who's in France and has been very discouraged about the political situation in the US.
I'm SICK of the extremists who have taken over the GOP creating a crisis and pretending it's the Democrats' fault. They are arsonists who set a fire, then prevent the firefighters from coming in to put out the blaze.
There should never have been a question or an issue about paying the nation's debts.
Default would immediately torpedo the USA's status (with the U.S. dollar as the standard in the world economy) and plunge the nation and global economies into recession or worse.
I am for President Biden invoking the 14th Amendment and eliminating the debt ceiling altogether IF there is any more obstruction by McCarthy and his puppet masters.
I’m with you 100percent. This is infantile behavior. It has nothing to do with either patriotism or governance and everything to do with arrogant ignorance and selfishness.
Too many articles have been written suggesting that McCarthy needs all 218 GOP votes to push through a "compromise" on the debt ceiling. Why? The few idiot Republicans who will live in infamy by voting for Americans to default on its obligations - will be replaced by votes from Democrats.
Yes, some "progressive" Democrats will object to any form of negotiation - but I just read there are 98 Democrats already committed to voting yes. What am I missing here?
Am I the only one who thinks that this “compromise” between President Biden and Speaker McCarthy contains some very thought out side deals? The debt ceiling needs to be raised. Biden is firm on that, and he should be. McCarthy agrees but certainly knows just how many naysayers and chaos perpetrators he has to deal with - recall, it took 15 votes to achieve that Speakership; it is his career pinnacle. How would a wise and seasoned politician deal with that situation not to mention that ego- why not guarantee the Speaker that the Democrats will back not only the passage of the compromise, but, importantly to the Speaker, that they will also back the Speaker in keeping his job should anyone move to vacate. Bottom line, we are miserable dealing with a Republican majority in the House, but that very wise and seasoned politician may have pulled this off. Let us not forget the State of the Union address when President Biden deftly walked the same naysayers and chaos perpetrators into his trap to secure no funding changes to Medicare and Social Security. Let’s get behind this. We’re in wise and seasoned hands. I’m with Robert Hubble on this. It’s time to let President Biden work his magic.
The power of the Speaker to withhold bills from the floor is what you have overlooked.
Good point. But why would a "speaker" withhold a bill that he is introducing - that he had actually helped create? A slew of crazy amendments?
All good points and I don’t understand any of this. I am beyond fed up with these creeps.
We don't know what commitments McCarthy has made to whom in the Republican caucus to become speaker, but apparently one such commitment is to withhold any bill that doesn't have 100% support from the Republicans. If so, he has conflicting interests. Imagine that!
What a ridiculous self imposed dysfunction.
Imagine what Congress could be discussing. Little stuff like bringing clean drinking water to all Americans, child labor, corrupt House members, bought and paid for Extreme Court justices...little things...like public health and the integrity of public servants. Imagine...
Trying to govern from a minority position to impose policies with no prospect of majority appeal gives a different perspective.
Agree➡️ “This Biden guy … he’s good at politics.”
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/5/29/2172027/-The-many-levels-of-genius-in-Pres-Biden-s-negotiating-strategy
Kathy, thanks for the link to the Daily Kos article. I may cite to it in tonight's newsletter.
It certainly appears that President Biden has deftly steered us away from the fiscal cliff that too many Republicans were only too anxious to drive us over. That he did it with little fanfare and bluster is both a testament to his skill as a leader and a sharp contrast with the top two Republican contenders for the presidency in 2024.
The duplicity of the Republicans regarding the debt should not be overlooked. Since the beginning of FDR's term, during which he was faced with economic recovery from the Great Depression followed by WWII, to present day, Republican presidents have been in the White House less than half of the time, but have been responsible for almost two thirds of the national debt incurred in that period on an annualized basis. Their playbook is to run up the debt while they're in power and then blame the Democrats for not cleaning up their messes.
But for now, closing the deal is the most important thing on the agenda. To do that, both sides need to be able to claim victory without vanquishing each other. In other words, they gotta play nice. Let's watch over the next few days as the House and Senate work to defuse the homemade time bomb set by McCarthy to appeal to the Raucous Caucus. Once the deal is done, we'll have two years to head off the next such action.
We must use those two years wisely, and make sure that we elect people who are truly representative of our interests and protective of our democracy. We need to live within our means, to be sure, but we need to share both the burden and the benefits equitably. And we must demand that our representatives play fair and act in good faith.
Yes! We do need to demand folks play nice and fairly. Yet, make no mistake about it, for some time now Republicans have not been playing by the same rules. They make them up as they go, much like HCR described in her exceptional report of Fascist practices.
I have felt the Dems have been slow to recognize the Rs weren’t interested in playing by any rules except “take no prisoners.”
It is imperative that we double our efforts to get out the vote, to rid ourselves of a good number of MAGA folks in Congress as well as those who just go along to hold their positions. It is time for Dems to call them out and for Rs to begin to stand up for democracy rather then go along to retain their perch in the theater of the absurd.
I've taken to referring to the House Republicans as, "The Alternative Fact band, McCarthy and the MAGAts!"