Mostly seems to depend if Sinema's urge to be the main character wins out again. (She did supposedly approve the revenue-raising parts, which are where she most often throws wrenches, because not raising taxes on the rich is apparently her principled position.)
Yeah, I think it will. Like Minivet said, Sinema is the main question mark. House Dems quickly lined up behind it.
Some environmental groups are grumbling a little about the lease sale provisions, but those basically just reinstate sales that were canceled for lack of industry interest so they're unlikely to lead to much actual drilling. And overall the environmental provisions will be hugely positive, so no major group is likely to oppose the bill entirely.
Sinema is what worries me. That this will be her McCain moment.
Any chance it picks up a Republican vote?
5: Doubtful. Even Susan Collins has her hackles up because it's only a foul when Dems go back on deals.
The way Manchin and Schumer apparently pulled a fast one on McConnell to get this done is incredible. It's no wonder Republicans are pissed.
Yes, that was gratifying. Great fake-out.
6: When is that woman going to retire? That seat could go blue without an incumbent. No guarantee, of course. Fucking LePage is running again and might win with northern, rural votes, but meh.
Also - why wasn't Sinema included? Does Manchin get anything to help West Virginia transition to clean energy?
10: I think it's impossible to get Sinema to show up to anything. She's totally checked out except to corporations.
If Schumer and Manchin really did pull a slick move to get the previous bill past McConnell before coming out with this, I'm delighted.
If I had to bet, I think the bill will pass, but this is not reassuring: https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/3579387-democrats-waiting-anxiously-for-sinemas-verdict-on-tax-and-climate-deal/
There's been some speculation that the carried interest provision was included so it could be cut out to get Sinema to buy in. I don't know how accurate that is but it would fit with the general theatrics.
It all makes me loathe her so much.
15: For a while now all the hate has been focused on Manchin, and Sinema had been mostly forgotten. Now that Manchin has apparently left the Dark Side, all the anger and loathing is directed at her. Somehow, I imagine this makes her happy.
12: That would be cool, but I'm sticking with my theory that Manchin just hates alliteration.
I would like to remind many, many people on the Internet of their early praise of Sinema and her colorful plumage.
18: To be fair, she has legitimately changed her policy positions over the years. In retrospect it's clear that her positioning has always been about maximizing attention and power for herself, but there were times when that lined up with good policy advocacy.
What's your point, O Dangerously Close to Being Sexist One?
but there were times when that lined up with good policy advocacy.
But this is all reasonably good politicians. They're always angling for power and attention, almost by definition, and the best you hope for is that their path aligns with the common good. What makes her different is her giant bait-and-switch.
21: Absolutely. She's a particularly distinctive case of a common pattern, and she happens to have come along at a moment in political history where that became hugely important because she ended up in a pivotal position.
Moving right to win statewide in Arizona was a totally reasonable thing to do at the time she did it. Continuing to move right as the state moves left is not nearly as good an idea for her own career as she seems to think it is, but it gives her a huge amount of power in a 50-50 Senate so she's on top of the world for now. It speaks volumes about her character that she's unwilling to use that power to do anything particularly helpful, but plenty of other politicians have similar character flaws that would come out if they were in that unusual situation.
Every Democratic senator is in that situation. She's not collecting pork for her state, and she's definitely not representing them at all anymore. She's just in it for personal grift at this point. There's really nothing special about her situation compared to any other potential 50th vote. She's just a shithead.
It takes a prodigious number of screw-ups to get to where you won't get renominated by your own party, but she managed it.
Yeah, true. Anyone else could do what she's doing now but no one else is (except Manchin sort of but he's in a very different position in lots of ways). Personal venality and brazenness does seem to be a key driver for her to an unusual degree.
26 to 24, but it pretty much works to 25 too.
It's like she looked at criticisms of McCain for being a grandstanding fake moderate and decided that's what she wanted to be too. In fact that's probably what literally happened.
20: It is not all that sexist to point out that Sinema's colorful wigs haven't saved any human right or public good from the bacon-faced heartland legislators and their bloodthirsty constituents.
29: "Bacon-faced" is a racial slur!
(I miss Mitch posting "RACIST")
(it was a more innocent time)
30: It's really more of a class slur.
A reactionary imperialist counter-revolutionary slur.
29: Sinema occupying that seat, which was by no means a given, has absolutely been crucial to Dems managing a slim majority in the Senate and staving off whatever horrors a GOP Senate would be subjecting us to. That's true of every Dem senator, but she's representing a competitive state that was strongly Republican until very recently. Her fashion sense (which I think is great) is neither here nor there.
Bacon Faced Fellows of Brazen Nose, Broke Loose
https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/811525
Did you know about this, Flip?
I'm sure there will be some drama associated with Sinema's either coming on board, eroding it, or blowing it up. Maybe 14 is correct, but holy shit the carried interest loophole is such total fucking shit.* Is Gottheimer and his little band of vandals going to cause some shit as well? Since I don't think it touches the state tax deduction stuff.
If it does blow up** after all of this build-up, it will be really, really fucking bad and the press will go "withdrawal from Afghanistan" level of nuts.
*Am reminded of 2010 when Blackstone fuckwad Steve Schwartzman compared the push to end it (which did not happen of course) to Hitler invading Poland.
**Sinema probably regrets "using up" the McCain thumbs down on the relatively limited evil of keeping the $15 minimum wage out of the Covid relief stuff (and I am not sure she was even the deciding vote). But probably just a practice run.
At least Andrew Yang will never be a Senator. Maybe.
Is Gottheimer and his little band of vandals going to cause some shit as well? Since I don't think it touches the state tax deduction stuff.
I haven't seen a quote anywhere from Gottheimer himself, but the link in 2 has this:
Even House Democrats who had previously threatened to draw a hard line unless the package included relief for state and local taxes, known as SALT, are quickly signaling that they will fall in line.
"We needed to see SALT in any bill that reopened the 2017 tax bill, that had other tax impacts on our middle-class constituents. This doesn't do that. This is a bill on a completely different set of issues," Rep. Tom Malinowski (D-N.J.) said. "None of us said we were not going to vote for any bill coming out of the Senate unless it deals with SALT."
I am concerned that Sinema is teeing up a dramatic thumbs down on the floor. An important part of that would be refusing to take a position until that point, so if she does that it'll be a warning sign.
Senator Menendez wants in on the action, "Anybody can be Joe Manchin," he said. "I can be Joe Manchin right now."
I picture Joe Manchin responding, "You don't have the balls to be Joe Manchin."
Then all hell breaks loose.
We have the same bucket that Gomez is using to clean the blood off the floor in season two of Only Murders in the Building.
Cinema's gonna screw us all. She's holding out for a gynormous bribe, and she'll get it. Perhaps part of it in secret offshore bank accounts. But for sure, she'll hold out for the big-ass bribe (ahem and harrumph: I meant "campaign contributions to her leadership PAC").
I'm not even sure Manchin won't screw us, too. They're both such shameless greedy shits.
38: Ah, that sounds good. On the other hand from ABC correspondent yesterday:
Majority Leader Chuck Schumer told Democrats behind closed doors this morning, passing the reconciliation bill "will require us to stick together and work long days and nights for the next 10 days."
"It will be hard. But I believe we can get this done," per democrat in room
I'm told Sen. Markey praised Schumer for the climate provisions in the package, per a democrat in the room.
Many Democrats leaving the meeting breathing a sigh of relief that there's a deal w/ Manchin
Per multiple Democrats in the room, it does not appear Sen. Sinema showed up.
Not that the current topic isn't interesting, but we're 40 comments in and I want to post this somewhere around here... Megan, would you like to tell us something?
Yeah, Sinema is going to turn this into a show all about herself. Whether that sinks the deal, probably.
Axios headline: Sinema indicates she may want to change Schumer-Manchin deal
https://www.axios.com/2022/07/30/sinema-schumer-manchin-deal-democrats
I really hate Sinema. She seems to be a genuinely terrible person.
44: I think this came up earlier. There were two CA independence groups of note in early Trump days, one with clear ties to Russia since near the beginning, another unconnected and unsullied.
I kind of assumed that Sinema knows she's done in politics and that Ruben Gallego is going to flatten her like some sort of varmint in the middle of Route 66, but I keep seeing reporting suggesting that she thinks this sells because it's some sort of cargo cult replication of what she thinks made John McCain so popular in the state. It's baffling to think about.
This whole thread has not been reassuring.
49: Was it just last week we were certain that there was going to be no climate bill passed at all? Now I think we all agree it could happen. A rare increase of hope!
I keep seeing reporting suggesting that she thinks this sells because it's some sort of cargo cult replication of what she thinks made John McCain so popular in the state.
The media-poisoned view of John McCain that ignores that he kept the base mostly happy.
This just feels so much EXTRA lucy-with-the-football. Like as a narrative arc, it doesn't make sense for it to go any other way. Why do anything to mitigate the destruction of the planet when you can finagle a dramatic plot twist?
Keeping your hands off your genitals, the final frontier.
I would just like to express my annoyance that rich people can get $7500 for an electric car but poor people can't get $900 for an e-bike.
You can't buy an electric car anyway. At least not to drive home.
You can get a Bolt, but the Bolt is so slow to charge that you can't really use it for distance travel without more planning than I'm capable of.
I've been drooling over those electric Hyundais and also the new VW bus. But I just scored a hand-me-down 2010 Ford Focus w/ 122K miles when my mom gave up her keys, so the electric bus will have to wait. The Focus has air conditioning, which is a nice feature.
According to the news, you can easily steal a Hyundai if you download Tik Tok for the instructions. But I'm sure there's a hidden catch.
I just remember all the commercials about "you wouldn't download a car". My thought was always, "Is that really an option?" Now, maybe it is.
53: I highly recommend his 1979 memoir Second Wind: The Memoirs of an Opinionated Man Hardcover (with Taylor Branch). Probably the best memoir from a sports figure I've ever read.
ok whos going to calculate when the 1/2 age +7 rule approves of MMing to Uhura
Seeing reports that she wants carried interest out and some manner of drought relief in. does lend credence to the ploy described in 14 in fact being the case.
66 me. I guess if you are going to pander, pander to people who can really make t worth your while in the long run.
Ah I see addressed in a current thread.