Sell out the poor. Oh, and cut the IRS budget so that they can’t go after billionaire tax cheats:
Biden and McCarthy agreed to offset additional reductions in domestic spending by clawing back and redirecting other money. That included funds set aside to help the IRS pursue unpaid taxes, which Republicans long have opposed, according to two other individuals who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe the sensitive negotiations. The two men also agreed to rescind some money previously authorized to combat the coronavirus pandemic.
Biden and McCarthy also agreed to several provisions unrelated to federal spending and the nation’s fiscal health. They came to terms around new rules that would ease permitting around energy projects. And they brokered a deal around a key GOP demand: new work requirements on low-income Americans who receive food assistance under the program known as SNAP, one of the individuals said.
Once again, it’ll be up to Democrats to swallow hard and accept this deal. They flat-out shouldn’t, despite the cheerleading from Daily Kos. You can bet, though, that LBR, Carper and Coons will, with Coons fulsomely praising the bipartisanship of it all.
Groundhog Day. New groundhogs, please.
Dysfunctional Senator Disgraces Herself. BTW, didja know that her chief caregiver is–Nancy Pelosi’s daughter?:
When Senator Dianne Feinstein entered a hearing room this month to reclaim her seat on the Senate Judiciary Committee after a monthslong absence, she was accompanied by a phalanx of aides.
Two staff members settled the 89-year-old California Democrat into a chair at the dais as the assembled senators greeted their ailing colleague with a round of applause. When Ms. Feinstein spoke — during a vote on one of several of President Biden’s judicial nominees whose approval had awaited her return — she appeared to read from a piece of paper handed to her by a female aide seated behind her.
“I ask to be recorded as voting in person on the three nominees considered earlier, Mr. Chairman, and I vote aye now,” she said.
The aide knelt next to her and whispered into her ear in between votes — popping up repeatedly from her seat to confer with the senator, at one point clearing away the paper Ms. Feinstein had read from and presenting her with a folder that appeared to contain background information about the nominees.
Oh, the Nancy Pelosi thingy? You see, Pelosi supports Adam Schiff. Were Feinstein to resign, Gov. Newsome has pledged to fill the seat with a Black woman, likely Rep. Barbara Lee. So, even here, Machiavellian machinations are being employed. Along with Pelosi’s daughter.
DeSantis Vs. Constitution. With any other Supreme Court, the results would be pre-ordained:
This “war on woke” serves as the central justification and argument for DeSantis’ bid for the GOP nomination. By challenging the supposed liberal tilt in American culture as expressed in schools, the media and the corporate workplace culture, this “war,” and the legislation behind it, shows DeSantis as a culture fighter who gets things done.
But there’s one big problem for DeSantis’ war: the U.S. Constitution.
Broad swathes of DeSantis’ anti-woke agenda — from restrictions on the teaching of social science about race in colleges and universities, to bans on corporate diversity training to limits on public protests — have been temporarily suspended by judges who found them very likely to be in violation of the first and 14th amendments.
In suspending these laws, federal judges called them “positively dystopian” and the defenses presented in court “wholly at odds with accepted constitutional principles.” The suspended provisions of the laws may yet be upheld as they move through appeals courts and, possibly, U.S. Supreme Court review, but, at the moment, DeSantis’ offensive against the “woke mind virus” has been partially reversed.
One of the laws partially suspended is the pillar of DeSantis’ war: The Individual Freedom Act, popularly known as the Stop WOKE Act, prohibits the promotion or advancement of eight concepts related to race in public schools, colleges and universities and in private-sector corporate trainings. The definitions of the prohibited concepts are based on a Trump administration executive order banning government contractors from engaging employees in certain diversity training programs.
Excellent article. Even the Supreme Court will likely think twice about ruling these laws constitutional.
Headline From Today’s News-Journal. A ‘subscribers-only’ article at that: All you need to know about Nicola Pizza’s new location in Lewes. Uh, I’ll take a stab at it. They sell pizza. They have a new location in Lewes. You’re welcome.
What do you want to talk about?