DL Open Thread: Friday, November 10, 2023

Government Shutdown Next Week?  You’d forgotten all about that, hadn’t you?  So had I.  But it’s almost upon us:

At odds with one another on spending, House Republicans abruptly scrapped their legislative work on Thursday and left Washington with little progress toward funding the government and no plan to avert a shutdown next week.

Instead of revealing a path forward to keep the government open, Mr. Johnson spent the week trying and failing to push through two individual spending bills that collapsed for lack of G.O.P. support. It was yet another reflection of the rifts among House Republicans that have made their tiny majority ungovernable, leading to the ouster of their last speaker and so far confounding his successor, who is far more conservative and less experienced.

“We have a lot of people that want to pass things with Republicans only,” said Representative Tom Cole of Oklahoma, the chairman of the Rules Committee and a senior member of the Appropriations Committee. “That’s one thing when there’s 240 or 250 votes. When it’s 220 and you’ve got as many individual personalities — and to be fair, different interests and different districts — that’s a risky game to play.”

Yo, Joe, Stop Flooding Arms Into Gaza And, While You’re At It, Tell Us Just What You’re Sending:

President Biden faces growing pressure from allies in Congress to publicly disclose the scope of U.S. arms being funneled to Israel, as the enormous civilian death toll in Gaza draws international condemnation and increasingly unsettles Democrats.

Contrary to its military aid program for Ukraine, which saw the Pentagon release recurring fact sheets about the volume of U.S. arms transfers, the administration has not made public the quantities of weapons it is sending to Israel. The administration is also pushing for the authority to bypass notification requirements to Congress that apply to every other country receiving military financing.

Much of Israel’s arsenal derives from the United States, which provides the country $3.8 billion every year, making Israel the world’s largest cumulative recipient of U.S. aid. The Biden administration has asked Congress for an additional $14 billion in assistance for Israel as a part of the White House’s $106 billion foreign aid request, which also includes proposed funding for Ukraine and Taiwan. The massive package has yet to pass amid differing views between House and Senate GOP leadership.

When engaged in an indefensible war, you must keep the facts hidden from the public.  Right, Joe?

Joe Manchin Will Not Run (For Senate) Again.  Maybe he’ll front the No Labels ticket? Pundits predict gloom and doom for Democrats:

Joe Manchin will not seek reelection to the Senate, a move that essentially cedes his seat to the GOP in deep-red West Virginia and removes one of Congress’ most prominent centrist voices in either party.

The Mountain State Democrat won his seat in 2010 and hung on since then thanks to a moderate brand that’s given him one of his party’s most conservative records. As he prepared to face popular West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice (R) in a potential Senate race next fall, however, the incumbent senator decided to pack it in after reaching the peak of his influence over the last three years.

You can climb off that ledge.  The polls indicated he was likely a sure loser to Jim (There’s No) Justice, West Virginia’s richest man and biggest polluter.   Not to mention, Manchin used his influence to destroy or weaken Democratic initiatives.  While it’s a daunting map for the D’s, can still end up with a 50-50 Senate, maybe 51-49, with strong candidates emerging in Texas and, yes, Missouri, where Josh Hawley is pretty much disliked by everybody.  Me?  I won’t miss Manchin for a fucking second.

When You’ve Lost Peter Thiel…:

Already, he has endured the wrath of Trump. Thiel tried to duck Trump’s calls for a while, but in late April the former president managed to get him on the phone. Trump reminded Thiel that he had backed two of Thiel’s protégés, Blake Masters and J. D. Vance, in their Senate races last year. Thiel had given each of them more than $10 million; now Trump wanted Thiel to give the same to him.

When Thiel declined, Trump “told me that he was very sad, very sad to hear that,” Thiel recounted. “He had expected way more of me. And that’s how the call ended.”

Months later, word got back to Thiel that Trump had called Masters to discourage him from running for Senate again, and had called Thiel a “fucking scumbag.”

Why did Thiel support Trump?:

“‘Make America great again’ was the most pessimistic slogan of any candidate in 100 years, because you were saying that we are no longer a great country,” Thiel told me. “And that was a shocking slogan for a major presidential candidate.”

He thought people needed to hear it. Thiel gave $1.25 million to the Trump campaign, and had an office in Trump Tower during the transition, where he suggested candidates for jobs in the incoming administration. (His protégé Michael Kratsios was named chief technology officer, but few of Thiel’s other candidates got jobs.)

“Voting for Trump was like a not very articulate scream for help,” Thiel told me. He fantasized that Trump’s election would somehow force a national reckoning. He believed somebody needed to tear things down—slash regulations, crush the administrative state—before the country could rebuild.

He admits now that it was a bad bet.

“There are a lot of things I got wrong,” he said. “It was crazier than I thought. It was more dangerous than I thought. They couldn’t get the most basic pieces of the government to work. So that was—I think that part was maybe worse than even my low expectations.”

Why did he agree to this interview?:

But the impetus for these conversations? He wanted me to publish a promise he was going to make, so that he would not be tempted to go back on his word. And what was that thing he needed to say, loudly? That he wouldn’t be giving money to any politician, including Donald Trump, in the next presidential campaign.

Betcha he goes back on his word.

What do you want to talk about?