DL Open Thread: Friday, February 26, 2021
Not All Suicides Are Unfortunate. Serial exploiter of female gymnasts commits suicide after being charged. I really think the entire sport of female gymnastics needs to be reconsidered. Sexual abuse, delaying of puberty, anorexia, mental manipulation. Too many horrible bi-products. Is it ultimately good for the participants? I mean, besides the parents with stars and dollar signs in their eyes?
What Is It With Rethugs And The LGBTQ Community? Georgia seditionist tried to adjourn House to stop consideration of LGBTQ rights. Rand Paul loses his shit over nomination of openly trans nomination. You know who they’re afraid of? Themselves. Or maybe their kids.
The Real Reason We’re Not Gonna Get The $15 Minimum Wage:
But Democrats don’t even have their own ranks in line behind a $15 minimum wage. Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) opposes the policy, instead supporting a two-year phase-in of an $11 an hour wage, tied to inflation. Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) also came out against a $15 minimum wage.
REV: That’s what I was talking about yesterday. We can possibly upgrade from Sinema in a primary. But we’re stuck w/Manchin unless we get a bigger margin in the Senate.
Interior Secretary Nominee Deb Haaland Can Make A Huge Difference. That’s why all the fossils with fossil fuel ties are so afraid of her. Especially Wyoming Sen. John Barrasso:
John Barrasso of Wyoming, the ranking Republican on the committee, said he was “troubled by many of Representative Haaland’s views”, which he characterized as “radical”.
Barrasso, who has questioned whether humans contribute to the climate crisis, also complained about a tweet in which Haaland said Republicans don’t believe in science. What he didn’t say was that the oil and gas industry has bankrolled his political career and he is personally invested in a company that transports a sizable portion of US natural gas.
From 2015 to 2020, Barrasso’s campaign and leadership political action committee, or Pac, took in more than $480,000 from the pacs of oil and gas companies, more than from any other industry, according to data analyzed by OpenSecrets.org.
Not to mention, another energy-dependent senator called Haaland a ‘whack job’.
Which reminds, me–I really think that Jennifer Granholm is gonna kick butt at the Department of Energy.
Is The Republican Party In Its ‘End Stages’? This piece makes a compelling case that the Rethugs are most like ‘the Communist Party of the Soviet Union of the late 1970s’.
I can already hear the howls about invidious comparisons. I do not mean that modern American Republicans are communists. Rather, I mean that the Republicans have entered their own kind of end-stage Bolshevism, as members of a party that is now exhausted by its failures, cynical about its own ideology, authoritarian by reflex, controlled as a personality cult by a failing old man, and looking for new adventures to rejuvenate its fortunes.
No one thinks much about the Soviet Union in the late 1970s, and no one really should. This was a time referred to by the last Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, as the vremia zastoia—“the era of stagnation.” By that point, the Soviet Communist Party was a spent force, and ideological conviction was mostly for chumps and fanatics. A handful of party ideologues and the senior officers of the Soviet military might still have believed in “Marxism-Leninism”—the melding of aspirational communism to one-party dictatorship—but by and large, Soviet citizens knew that the party’s formulations about the rights of all people were just window dressing for rule by a small circle of old men in the Kremlin.
Talented Delaware Judge With Musical Skills Passes Away. Retired Superior Court Justice led quite a remarkable life. An excerpt:
In addition to his work on the bench, Judge Young was well-known for his work outside of court, particularly his comedic songwriting abilities, according to the Administrative Office of the Courts.
Judge Young authored “The Trial of Elinor Ruttee,” a musical celebrating 300 years of court on The Green in Dover; “Macbeth: A Family Musical; “A Tale of Two Cities: The Rock Opera”; “Moby Dick: A Maritime Musicale”; “An American Tragedy: A Comedy”; “Madame Bovary: Ho, Ho, Ho; “The Crucible: Plymouth Rocks”; “The Public Enemy: Runnin’ Wild”; and “The Tennessee Waltz.”
Nearly all performances involved members of the DSBA, and proceeds of the shows were donated to charity, particularly the Combined Campaign for Justice, which provides legal assistance to the indigent.
“He had a rare combination of historical knowledge of musical theater and an ear for everything interesting before 1975 and a stubborn tenacity to have things done the way he wanted them done,” said Family Court Judge James McGiffin, who frequently performed with Judge Young.
“He had a large measure of creative and comedic genius,” Judge McGiffin added.
Judge McGiffin described Judge Young as a “robust person” who “left a marvelous legacy. He raised two very successful sons (Jeff and Randy) and there was nothing in his life that was as important as his family.
Wayne Kursh, Delaware’s Road-Racing Maven, To Retire. He’s been around for so long that even I ‘ran’ in a couple of 10K’s he organized a l-o-o-ng time ago. A really good person who was able to do what he loved. And raised so much money for great causes. I don’t look for a sedentary retirement for him and Barb. Barb was one of the leading advocates for at-risk youth in Delaware, and has made a huge difference in people’s lives. Good people.
What do you want to talk about?
The silver lining is Manchin suports an $11 wage *indexed to inflation.* If we manage to pass that, then indexing will become the norm for future attempts to raise the minimum wage.
$15 an hour or fight, especially the elimination of “the tipped wage”, pay people a living. In a nation that pisses away near a trillion a year on a bloated and obscene military would it be that hard to pay the people that actually work a living? Would it be that hard to restore the taxes of the rich to a historical level of 50% or more? Sorry, it’d my birthday and I’m no a tear.
“This week, Republican Sens. Mitt Romney of Utah and Tom Cotton of Arkansas unveiled their counterproposal on the minimum wage: raising it to $10 an hour over a five-year period, with an additional mandate for businesses to use E-Verify to crack down on the hiring of undocumented workers. ”
Manchin wants $11 indexed, and is presumably not opposed to E-Verify, so maybe there is an opportunity for compromise.
I don’t understand the liberal allergy to E-Verify. I’m a bleeding-heart liberal but also a pro-labor Democrat. My position is: rapid citizenship for those here now, coupled with universal E-Verify to turn off the jobs magnet. Employers should have to bid up wages for legal workers instead of holding out for exploitable undocumenteds.
And Mr. Potato Head is losing the “Mr.” in a bid to become more inclusive.
https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/mr-potato-head-getting-gender-204021906.html
By the end of the day, Marjorie Taylor Greene will no doubt assert that Hasbro has caved to the LGBTQ community.
I wonder what the band Mr. Mister will change its name to.
Nope, Nope, Nope?
Yes, I’m aware Manchin & Sinema are a no. I don’t think Biden is “covering for” them.
Biden is a weak, care-taker boss. A frail placeholder. He’s covering for himself.
I’m old enough to remember when there was an emergency in the liquidity of banks and they were bailed out in a week. Of course old Hammerin’ Hank Paulson had to bend the knee, literally. Begging is for banks not people. So, I guess this emergency doesn’t rate. You just get the Biden compassion show for a half million COVID deaths. Lots of candles, he feels your pain, &c.
On a note related to Biden’s grief, anyone have inside info on Beau letting the DuPont heir walk after raping his kid? Looking to reexamine the Robert Richards case. But I can’t interview Beau. Anyway, you know how to reach me.
“Yes, I’m aware Manchin & Sinema are a no. I don’t think Biden is “covering for” them.”
Maybe, but I think they are all happy to hide behind the parliamentarian.
Yeah, I think that’s right. Except everyone knows the parliamentarian can be overruled, sacked, replaced, &c.
Sort of like how Biden says he can forgive $10,000 in student loans but not $50,000. Everyone knows this is a lie. I prefer not to play into it.
Already explained. Public support is strong for $10K, weaker for $50 K, underwater for total relief.
What part of this puzzles you?
Haha. I’m not puzzled. It’s like saying I can drive the car to the supermarket but not the pharmacy. Biden claims he has authority to do one and not the other. He has authority to do both.
You live by polls and your take on public support. I don’t. Stop making me care about polling.
It’s not about caring about polling. It’s about explaining his position. He has the authority but not the will. This is why.
People lie because they aren’t going to admit that polls are driving the decisions. Do with that what you will.
This was handled at the time: The pedophile du Pont is developmentally challenged. That’s not publicly acknowledged but a careful reading of the record makes it plain. Putting a simpleton in jail for life might strike you as justice served, but not me, and not most people with a functioning conscience.
And, like it or not, a $15 minimum wage is not legitimately part of a Covid relief package, because the need for it existed before the pandemic and will continue once it’s over. Ramming it through would cause repercussions, just as ramming through Obamacare did. Sure, we got a lot of people onto health insurance, but at the cost of losing seats in Congress — seats the Democrats cannot afford to lose in 2022.
Including the minimum wage increase would give cover to Republicans who currently are on the wrong side of public opinion about Covid relief without a plausible reason — why hand them one? Given the opposition of two Democrats — and I’m sure Coons would join them if necessary, so it’s not going to fly anyway — it can only serve to hold up the needed Covid relief. Delivering those checks is a clear win. Concentrate on that.
I guess when you have extenuating personal circumstances you get treated like a human being. I’m sure Beau applied this to everyone not just a well-connected DuPont.
Reconciliation is for budgetary stuff. It’s not restricted to COVID relief. They did reconciliations before COVID. They’ll do it after.
I like your new Apologia & Excuses tour. Is it due to the pandemic or the aging process or what?
This went far beyond Beau.
The issue isn’t reconciliation, it’s about a clean covid bill.
It’s due to the fact that your take on most things is simplistic, and you lack history and context and don’t seem to care.
I fight bullshit in all its forms. Do with that what you will.
lol
Things I Can’t Make Up. I can scarcely believe that this is real:
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/cpacs-golden-trump-statue-highlights-gops-literal-idolization-of-ex-potus
The South Dakota attorney general was reading a Biden conspiracy theory on his cell phone when he struck and killed a pedestrian. If you haven’t been following this story, the scumbag didn’t call 911 right away, and at first claimed he thought he hit a deer.
https://www.rawstory.com/jason-ravnsborg-2650812730/
They found the killed pedestrian’s eye glasses in the front seat of the murderers car, meaning the man’s face penetrated the windshield.