Tag: Congress

Could Someone Please Confirm this Bit of US Senate Minutiae?

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According to this account, the power of the Senate Majority Leader is a matter of tradition in the US Senate, and so the president of the Senate (the Vice President of the US) can simply recognize some other member of the body to bring a motion to the floor.  (A quick Google finds similar arguments here.)

This is intriguing, but I do not think that this is particularly realistic.

Joe Biden pines for the “good old days” of the Senate, and I don’t think that Kamala Harris would be particularly interested in presiding over the Petri Dish for narcissistic sociopaths that is the US Senate 4 days a week, but it would be useful to raise this possibility on the down low, and when questioned, issue a non-denial denial, to move things along.

This would be analogous to what happened during various showdowns about the US debt limit, the Obama administration denied that it was going to use seigniorage (the platinum coin of arbitrary value) to make an end run around Republican demands, but it does appear that the buzz around the concept did moderate reactionary intransigence:

Even if the Democrats don’t win control of the Senate, there is a wayto strip Mitch McConnell of his power for good: priority recognition.

According to Article I, Section 3, Clause 4 of the Constitution, the Vice President is also the President of the Senate. The Majority Leader is not a position that exists anywhere in the Constitution. The reason that the Majority Leader has near-dictatorial powers to control floor votes is because of a tradition that dates back to 1937. The tradition is that the Vice President gives the floor leaders priority recognition. Most notably, this is not a rule in the Senate.

As President of the Senate, Vice President Harris could give any senator priority recognition. That senator could then decide on all legislation that is brought before the entire Senate. Even with a minority in the Senate, Vice President Harris could simply give Chuck Schumer priority recognition. He could decide what is voted on and what isn’t.

This would change everything. Without Mitch McConnell to hide behind, the moderate Republican Senators would be forced to vote down every Cabinet member, bill, resolution, everything that Harris would want done. Without McConnell, anything even remotely popular with at least two [Republican] senators would pass. Including getting a cabinet assembled.

Given that Mitch McConnell is indicating that he will be even more obstructionist and intransigent about Biden than he was about Obama, the threat of this sort of action needs to be on the table as a subtext at the very least.

1 Part COVID Plus 1 Part Trump Fatigue Equals………

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The motion to end debate on gold-standard whack job Judy Shelton failing today.

Charles Grassley is out, having tested positive for Covid-19, and Rick “Bat-Boy” Scott was quarantining after having been exposed to someone who tested positive, so there were not enough votes to approve her:

Judy Shelton’s nomination to the Federal Reserve Board of Governors was blocked in the Senate on Tuesday, with bipartisan opposition to the controversial economist and GOP absences prompted by the coronavirus imperiling her candidacy.

The vote had been expected to be razor-thin for Shelton, who was nominated by President Trump despite her past criticism of the central bank and her unorthodox views of monetary policy. But after the vote was scheduled, two Republicans, Sens. Rick Scott (Fla.) and Charles E. Grassley (Iowa), announced they were quarantining themselves after being exposed to the coronavirus and could not attend. (Grassley on Tuesday evening announced he had tested positive for the virus.) Two Republican senators voted against advancing Shelton on Tuesday; a third GOP senator who does not support her, Sen. Lamar Alexander (Tenn.), was not in attendance for the vote Tuesday.

The last-minute shifts proved too much for Republicans to overcome, at least for now. Although the GOP holds 53 seats in the Senate, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) was able to muster only 48 Republican senators to end the filibuster on Shelton’s nomination. In the end, he voted against moving the nomination forward as well, a procedural move that allows him to bring up Shelton’s nomination at a later time.

………

Apart from Lael Brainard, Trump has put every other Fed governor in his or her current post. But the seven-seat board has been operating with two vacancies for a few years, and Trump has struggled to get his final nominees through. In 2019, two of Trump’s picks, Stephen Moore and Herman Cain, withdrew their bids after intense scrutiny for their past remarks and views about women jeopardized their chances at confirmation.

Oh, right.  Nominating someone whose qualifications for the position was that he ran a pizza chain.  I remember that now.

Shelton’s nomination was particularly controversial given her calls for a return to the gold standard, which the nation fully abandoned in 1971. She advised Trump’s 2016 presidential run and has been outspoken against the Fed as an institution. She also was criticized for altering some of her views to appear in closer agreement with Trump’s aggressive push for lower interest rates, which some senators worried would insert politics into Fed decisions.

………

Underscoring how critical every Republican vote will be in the waning weeks of this year, McConnell urged senators during a private party lunch Tuesday to be careful and healthy so the GOP-controlled majority can finish work that remains to be done, such as confirming nominees to the circuit courts, according to three people directly familiar with his closed-door remarks.

Am I a bad person for hoping that the chef at this party was brewing a case of Coronavirus, and coughed all over the food?

In perhaps an indication of the Republicans’ middling enthusiasm for Shelton, no GOP senators spoke on the Senate floor in favor of her nomination on Monday or as of Tuesday afternoon. McConnell praised the slate of judicial nominees that the Senate was on track to confirm, but said nothing about Shelton directly.

His counterpart, Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.), was not as tight-lipped.

“Judy Shelton is not only unqualified for the job; she is a threat to our economic recovery and doesn’t belong on the Fed,” Schumer said Tuesday. “And thanks to the bipartisan coalition that opposed her nomination today, she isn’t any closer to being there.”

The election is over, Trump has the attention span of a gnat on a meth binge, and the business elites are not impressed by Shelton.

It’s no surprise that the Republicans are not going to the wall for this one.

The Poor Showing in the House Races

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6 incumbent house Democrats have been defeated.

The caucus memberships, and politics, of the 6 losers are interesting:

  • Kendra Horn, Caucuses: Blue Dog, New Dem
  • Collin Peterson, Caucuses: Blue Dog
  • Xochitl Torres Small, Caucuses: Blue Dog, New Dem
  • Debbie Mucarsel-Powell, Caucuses: New Dem
  • Joe Cunningham, Caucuses: Blue Dog, New Dem
  • Donna Shalala: Caucuses: None that matter, but ineluctably tied to both Clintons, and facilitated a union busting campaign while president of the University of Miami.

I was hoping that it would be one more, but the contemptible Cheri Bustos pulled out a squeaker. 

The policy of the DCC, DNC and DSCC to actively support conservative Democrats, even where it does not match the electorate is a losing proposition.

Do not give to these organizations.  Give to the candidates directly, via Act Blue or the like.

First Hint that Today Will Not Be a Good News Day

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Nancy Pelosi has announced that she will stand as Speaker of the House again if the Democrats keep control of the Senate.

Because the increasingly geriatric and unimaginative Democratic Party establishment (There is no Democratic Party establishment) sees that we need less imagination, and even more geriatric leadership.

Please, just make it stop.

Also, if you are in her district, vote for Shahid Buttar, and if you are not, maybe phone bank for him.

Nancy Patricia Pelosi  will you please go now!
The time has come.
The time has come.
The time is now.
Just go.
Go.
Go!
I don’t care how.
You can go by foot.
You can go by cow.
Nancy Patricia Pelosi will you please go now!

Of Course She Did

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Lisa Murkowski has reversed course, and has announced that she will vote to confirm Judge Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court.

She doesn’t care, her next election is in 2022, and she figures that it won’t be a problem then.

I will remind you what I say about the “Centrists” in both parties:

A liberal (moderate) Republican will:

  • Talk about the need to work across the aisle.
  • Plead for moderation.
  • Chastise his party for extremism.
  • Sometimes vote against his party.
  • When the vote is close, and it is important, he will vote with the Republicans.

A moderate (conservative) Democrat will:

  • Talk about the need to work across the aisle.
  • Plead for moderation.
  • Chastise his party for extremism.
  • Sometimes vote against his party.
  • When the vote is close, and it is important, he will vote with the Republicans.

Long Overdue

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I’m not a big fan of Representative Tulsi Gabbard, but her proposal to allow defendants to use a public interest defense in cases of releases of classified information is an idea long overdue. 

Prosecutions under the Espionage Act frequently resemble a kangaroo court, particularly in Judge Leonie Brinkama’s court, where she has consistently made a vigorous defense by the defendant impossible.

Still, I’m waiting for the other shoe to drop about it, because I do not trust Gabbard:

Legislation proposed in Congress would amend the United States Espionage Act and create a public interest defense for those prosecuted under the law.

“A defendant charged with an offense under section 793 or 798 [in the U.S. legal code] shall be permitted to testify about their purpose for engaging in the prohibited conduct,” according to a draft of the bill Hawaii Representative Tulsi Gabbard introduced.

Such a reform would make it possible for whistleblowers like Edward Snowden, Reality Winner, Terry Albury and Daniel Hale to inform the public why they disclosed information without authorization to the press.

The legislation called the Protect Brave Whistleblowers Act is supported by Pentagon Papers whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg.

“If this long-overdue revision of the 1917 Espionage Act had been law half a century ago, I myself could have had a fair trial for releasing the Pentagon Papers in 1971: justice under law unavailable to me and to every other national security whistleblower indicted and prosecuted since then,” Ellsberg declared.

………

As noted, government employees or contractors prosecuted under the Espionage Act would be allowed an “affirmative defense” under the Protect Brave Whistleblowers Act that they engaged in the “prohibited conduct for purpose of disclosing to the public” violations of laws, rules or regulations, or to expose “gross mismanagement, a gross waste of funds, an abuse of authority, or a substantial and specific danger to public health or safety.”

………

However, the Espionage Act Reform bill appears to do more to prohibit the Justice Department from prosecuting journalists. It specifically ensures “only personnel with security clearances can be prosecuted for improperly revealing classified information” and aims to protect the rights of members of the press that “solicit, obtain or publish government secrets.”

“When brave whistleblowers come forward to expose wrongdoing within our government, they must have the confidence that they, and the press who publishes this information, will be protected from government retaliation,” stated Gabbard.

I like the bill, though my preferred solution, adopting the Swedish concept of Offentlighetsprincipen (openness) as an explicit constitutional right.

Anything that provides more accountability and exposure to the US state security apparatus is a good thing.

Signs of the Apocalypse

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Sen. Ted Cruz is appearing virtually. He has tested negative for COVID but has been self-quarantining after coming into contact with Sen. Mike Lee…who tested positive and delivered his in-person maskless opening statement in the hearing room.

— Hallie Jackson (@HallieJackson) October 12, 2020

We Are Doomed

OK, imagine a situation where there are two people in a similar situation.

One behaves responsibly, and the other acts likes an asshole.

One of the people is Ted Cruz, and the other ……… Isn’t Ted Cruz.

And finally, the asshole in this situation ……… Isn’t Ted Cruz.

If this is not an end of the world scenario, if not an end of all existence.

At the very least, Thanos is snapping his fingers like Frank Sinatra right now.

And the Senate Democrats Cave

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Remember what I said about the Democrats needing to slow down the Senate by refusing consent to adjourn?

They caved, because these folks are worthless bags of excrement:*

The Senate on Monday left town until Oct. 19 after President Trump and three GOP senators tested positive for the coronavirus.

The decision by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) to adjourn the Senate, absent brief pro forma sessions, is the first time the GOP leader has decided to keep the chamber out of town due to the virus since they reconvened in early May after a weeks-long break.

Even though the Senate will be out of town until Oct. 19, the Senate Judiciary Committee is still expected to start a days-long hearing for Judge Amy Coney Barrett’s Supreme Court nomination on Oct. 12.
………

Democrats also argued McConnell’s move to adjourn the Senate, even though they are sticking to their Supreme Court timeline, was hypocritical.

But they did not block him from adjourning on Monday.

Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.), the only Democratic senator to speak on the floor on Monday, asked McConnell to extend the Senate break through Election Day.

Oh, they asked.

I’m sure that this will be followed by a very strongly worded letter.

F%$# that.  The Senate Democrats are completely worthless.

*No offense to bags of excrement intended

We’ll See How Serious Senate Dems Are About Blocking Bennett Tomorrow

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Because Mitch McConnell is trying a maneuver that requires unanimous consent to accelerate the confirmation process, which means that only one senator objecting would require him to bring back the whole Senate, including those Senators quarantining after their exposure to Covid-19.

If the Democrats are serious about stopping her, and my guess it that they are NOT, they can throw a monkey wrench in the plans of Mitch McConnell and his Evil Minions™.

They won’t of course, because they are worthless cowards:

The first rule of Democratic Fight Club should be: Don’t ever do what Mitch McConnell wants you to do. On Monday, we will see if Senate Democrats understand that rule yet. They will have a rare opportunity to use their power to try to complicate McConnell’s plan to confirm Donald Trump’s third Supreme Court nominee, Amy Coney Barrett.

………

Here is the basic summary of what’s going on: Democrats have the power to potentially block McConnell’s attempt to maintain maximum control of Senate proceedings in order to keep their Supreme Court confirmation plan on track. That scheme was outlined in a McConnell press release yesterday saying he wants to secure a consent agreement to temporarily adjourn the Senate.

McConnell wants this adjournment resolution because keeping the chamber open might allow Democrats to use the normal legislative process — as they recently did — to complicate the GOP’s plans while Republican senators are either campaigning for reelection or under COVID quarantine (three have already tested positive for COVID, and there is evidence that a number of GOP senators could have been exposed to the virus).

Adjournment also would allow Republicans to stall any potential progress on a pandemic relief package for the next two weeks.

If Democrats are able to vote down McConnell’s adjournment resolution, they could use their leverage to demand an adjournment resolution that defers the Supreme Court confirmation hearings and moves forward a pandemic relief package. At the very least, they could force Republican senators to leave the campaign trail and stay in Washington to cast procedural votes — which would only help Democratic senate candidates in their races.

………

The key thing to understand is this: McConnell desperately wants unanimous consent for his adjournment resolution, because he doesn’t want to force Republican senators to fly back to Washington to actually cast votes — and because of both the election campaign schedule and the COVID outbreak, he doesn’t have a clear sense of how many could actually make the journey. That uncertainty potentially gives Democrats the power to block McConnell’s adjournment resolution. As long as a majority of senators present are Democrats, they could vote it down.

It also adds days to the time required to make this motion, and any delay plays to the advantage of the Democrats.

I get that they have some fondness for the “collegiality” of the Senate, but, as been shown over the past at least 20 years, collegiality is a one way state, and never inconveniences the Republicans.

Shut it down.

………

In this particular case, if Democrats deny McConnell unanimous consent, vulnerable GOP senators in key battleground states may have to leave the campaign trail, because Republicans would potentially need every vote they have while three of the party’s senators are out with COVID. If Democrats gather enough of their caucus to the senate floor, they may be able to vote down an adjournment resolution on a roll call vote.

………

To be sure, Republicans’ reckless behavior in creating a COVID super-spreader event at the White House has turned the U.S. Capitol into a potential coronavirus hot zone right now (which is even more reason to halt the entire Supreme Court confirmation process!). Democratic senators going into that hot zone to try to procedurally stall Barrett’s nomination is not without some risk, even though masks and PPE can make the risk more manageable.

………

Of course, gumming up McConnell’s adjournment resolution is not a singular panacea. However, it can be one move in a larger series of maneuvers that makes it as difficult as possible for Republicans to get their way — and playing for time in such a fluid environment is critical.

For at least the past 30 years, the endless refrain of the Democratic Party has been, “We won’t support organized labor, or stop subsidizing companies moving jobs overseas, or stop the banks from doing you like a drunk sorority girl, but think of the Supreme Court.”

Well, your excuse for not doing sh%$ has been called.  Your butt needs to cash this check that your mouth has been making for decades.

Good News, and Bad News

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The Massachusetts primary was today, and Ed Markey beat Joseph P. Kennedy III in the Senate race:

Senator Edward J. Markey, who rebranded himself from dutiful career politician to fierce progressive warrior over the course of a volatile 11-month campaign, won the Democratic primary for Senate on Tuesday, fending off a challenge from a much younger Representative Joseph P. Kennedy III, whose increasingly bare-knuckled offensive failed to capture the imagination of Massachusetts voters.

Kennedy called Markey to concede around 10 p.m. and the Associated Press called the race soon thereafter.

The Malden native had achieved a singular feat: He beat a Kennedy in Massachusetts.

Kennedy was significantly more conservative than Markey, and had little to run on beyond the family name, but he was leading by double digits for much of the race.

On the downside, the three most conservative members of the Massachusetts Congressional delegation, including the Dem’s biggest opponent of Medicare for All, and biggest supporter of the Carried Interest Loophole in Washington, DC, Richard Neal won their primaries:

U.S. Rep. Richard Neal of Massachusetts, the powerful chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, held off Democratic challenger Alex Morse in Tuesday’s primary after an acrimonious campaign that included allegations of sexual misconduct leveled at his younger opponent.

The contest was one of four in Massachusetts where U.S. House candidates were competing Tuesday for the chance to represent their party in the November general election.

In the 6th Congressional District, U.S. Rep. Seth Moulton, a Marine Corps veteran who saw combat in Iraq and mounted a brief campaign for president last year defeated to fellow Democratic challengers — Jamie Belsito and Angus McQuilken.

………

In the state’s 8th Congressional District, which stretches from portions of Boston south to Bridgewater, Robbie Goldstein, a 36-year-old South Boston resident, lost a challenge to longtime incumbent Rep. Stephen Lynch. 

Molton is a member of the corporate stooge New Democrat caucus, and Lynch is an anti-abortion conservative.

While progressives did not win every primary challenge, they won some big ones, and none of the incumbent progressives so far have lost a race, so I’ll call the glass half full.

This is Not a Calm Man

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The largest of recipient of corporate PAC money among the Democrats in Congress, Richard Neal has a primary in a few days, and it is pretty clear that he is crapping his pants over this, as shown by his campaign has sent a cease and desist letter threatening a libel suit to media outlets to suppress ads by his primary opponent.

This is not someone confident of the outcome of the primary:

Facing a spirited progressive primary challenge, U.S. Rep. Richard Neal, D-Mass. is pressuring a local television station to pull down an ad criticizing his reliance on corporate PAC money, according to a letter obtained by TMI from Neal’s attorney. Neal’s attempt to block Democratic primary voters from seeing the ads about his campaign financing comes at the very moment his reelection bid is being bankrolled by donors from industries with business before his congressional committee.

Justice Democrats’ super PAC, the group behind the ad, spent at least $150,000 to have the 30-second television spot run through the entire Democratic National Convention. The ad alleges that Neal “took more money from corporations than any other member of Congress” and says he “hasn’t held a town hall in years.” The group says the station has not pulled down the ad.

………

“You have full power to reject the ad for any reason,” wrote Neal’s attorney Brian Svoboda of the Democratic powerhouse law firm Perkins Coie to WWLP-22News, a local NBC affiliate. “To attack Representative Neal’s reputation in his community, the ad purposely confuses the illegal corporate contributions of which it falsely accuses him, with the entirely legal contributions he actually received from PACs — i.e., entities which receive voluntary, personal contributions from corporate and union employees, shareholders and their families, and make lawful contributions from those funds.”

Neal’s counsel called the commercial “defamatory” and implied that the station could face legal consequences: “Because you need not run this ad, you enjoy no immunity from liability for its false claims, and are fully responsible for the defamation and any other torts that might result from their dissemination.”

………

In February, Sludge reported that Neal had been the largest congressional recipient of money from corporate and business-affiliated political action committees (PACs) in 2019. Neal has received nearly $2 million from these PACs this cycle, and it accounts for more than 53 percent of his total fundraising, according to OpenSecrets. On Tuesday alone, Neal received donations from a slew of corporate PACs including $2000 from Allstate’s PAC, $2,500 from Microsoft’s PAC, and $2,500 from WalMart’s PAC, according to federal records reviewed by TMI. 

The most recent polls have Neal up by less than 10%, and undecideds tend to break for the challenger, so I do understand why his campaign is freaking out.

This has been an amazingly good year for primary challenges by progressives, and taking out Neal, who is the head of the Ways and Means Committee, would still be a big f%$#ind deal.

A Toxic Combination of Stupidity and Entitlement

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This is my volunteer, Martina Velasquez, who was shoved & accosted. #DebbieMustGo https://t.co/OGVWym6tH4

— Jen Perelman For Congress (@JENFL23) August 16, 2020

Worse than a Crime, a Mistake

I am talking about the Queen of stupidity and entitlement, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, who is alleged to have assaulted a 16 year old girl who was canvassing for her primary opponent.

Even if the campaign worker WEREN’T a minor, it’s stupid for a candidate to get into an argument with an opponent’s campaign worker.

You just walk away.  It’s like wrestling with a pig:  You get dirty, and the pig loves it.

My guess is that this was primarily a screaming match, though a police report was filed, though the kid, Martina Velasquez, declined to file charges.

My guess is that it was a “Karen” moment with excessively overbearing personal space which could probably be described as shoving, but it does make me wonder if DWS’ internal polling is not a as strong as she would like, because this Karen is losing her sh%$ completely.

Vacation Cancelled

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Speaker Nancy Pelosi is recalling the US House of Representatives early from its summer recess in a bid to protect the US Postal Service from efforts to block funding and suppress mail-in voting in November’s election.

Several states were also considering taking legal action to stop the service being run down to a level where it cannot deliver enough mail-in ballots in November, when almost half the country is expected to vote by post because of the coronavirus pandemic.

Pelosi said the House would return later this week to vote on a bill prohibiting the USPS from changing its operations or service levels from what it had in place at the start of 2020. Previously, the House had not been scheduled to vote until 15 September.

She said late on Sunday that Donald Trump was trying to sabotage the election by manipulating the postal service, and called postmaster general Louis DeJoy “a complicit crony” by bringing in changes that degrades the service and delayed mail.

………

Her comments echoed those of Bernie Sanders, who told NBC’s Meet the Press on Sunday that Trump’s attacks on mail-in voting and his administration’s efforts to block funds for the US post office amounted to “a crisis for American democracy” ahead of the November presidential election.

Needless to say, Mitch McConnell has no plans to bring the Senate back into session, because he doesn’t give a sh%$.

It’s Primary Night

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Ilan Omar defeated the (former) union busting lawyer* whose campaign finance shenanigans were such that the Minnesota DFL filed an official complaint against him.

It wasn’t even close:

Rep. Ilhan Omar on Tuesday soundly defeated a well-funded primary challenger, the latest in a series of victories for liberals looking to secure their foothold in Congress and move the Democratic Party further left.

 The Minnesota Democrat was leading Anton Melton-Meaux 57 percent to 39 percent with 96 percent of precincts reported when the race was called, putting to bed weeks of speculation that her career on Capitol Hill could be cut short by an opponent who argued Omar was more interested in fame than representing her district.

 Residents of the Minneapolis-area district, however, chose the Somali refugee and first Muslim woman in Congress over Melton-Meaux, who raised a staggering $3.2 million last quarter from Omar critics around the nation. The race had become one of the most expensive House primaries this year, with each candidate bringing in north of $4 million.

On the less sane side of things, the crazy Q-Anon lady won her primary runoff in Georgia.

Florida man, meat Georgia woman:

In Georgia, however, Republicans didn’t have the same luck and in fact were up late into the night fretting over whether they should have done more to stop Marjorie Taylor Greene, who was running to replace retiring Rep. Tom Graves (R-Ga.).

Greene, who runs a construction company, has endorsed the QAnon conspiracy theory, which includes the idea that Trump is a messianic figure fighting the so-called deep state and that he alone can be trusted. She has also made a series of racist, anti-Semitic and Islamophobic comments in videos first reported on by Politico in June.

In one, Greene suggested that Black people “are held slaves to the Democratic Party.” She also called liberal investor George Soros a Nazi and filmed a campaign ad depicting her cocking a semiautomatic rifle while warning antifa, a loose collection of activists who oppose fascism and have sometimes embraced property damage and violent protest in recent years, to “stay the hell out of northwest Georgia.” Facebook removed the ad from its website.

Seriously, our politics are beginning to draw unflattering comparisons to Wiemar Germany.

*Mr. Melton-Meaux was a partner in the Jackson Lewis law firm, which has union busting as one of its core competencies.†
†Their other core competency is defending sexual harassers and bigot employers, and he has written extensively on how non disclosure agreements (NDAs) are a good thing and that #Metoo is a “Scarlet Letter” for employers.‡
‡Yeah, he also suggested that Black Lives Matter protesters should be protesting the quality of public schools instead of protesting being murdered in the streets and treated like dogs, because charter schools are not going to fund themselves.

Another Progressive Upset

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What’s more, he came in 3rd, despite out fundraising all of his opponents.

It’s unlikely that Marquita Bradshaw will win the general, this is Tennessee, after all, but it is clear that status quo Democrats are in a place that is not resonating with the voters.

I think that a lot of this comes down to Bernie Sanders energizing the base.

I don’t think that Sanders will run in 2024, but I would like to see AOC run.

She will be 35 in October of 2024, and so she would be constitutionally qualified:

A political novice, Marquita Bradshaw pulled out a surprising victory on Thursday to secure the Democratic nomination for Tennessee’s U.S. Senate race, paving the way for her to take on Bill Hagerty, the winner of a bitter Republican primary battle.

“The progressive movement is undeniable,” Bradshaw tweeted to her followers. “Thank you all so much for your support and this victory. It’s time to put hardworking people first.”

The Memphis Democrat faced four challengers: Robin Kimbrough, James Mackler, Gary Davis and Mark Pickrell. Bradshaw won the race with 35.5% of the vote. Kimbrough had 26.6% and Mackler had 23.8%. Davis and Pickrell trailed with each winning less than 10% of the vote.

………

Still, Bradshaw beat out a better-known and better-funded challenger. Previously, Mackler ran briefly in 2018 for former U.S. Sen. Bob Corker’s seat until former Gov. Phil Bredesen joined the race. He bowed out and endorsed Bredesen.

This time around, Mackler received Bredesen’s endorsement and had already been running a campaign aimed at the two leading Republican candidates. He had the backing of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee.

………

Bradshaw is an organizer for and involved with local and statewide efforts of the environmental group Sierra Club. Through those efforts she has focused much of her attention on environmental justice, and how, she said, people of color are disproportionately impacted by environmental policy. It’s something she would focus on in the Senate.

“We started this campaign by listening to voters and taking in empirical data in order to shape policy,” she said. “We included them in that process and we got feedback. Moving forward, we can do this together.”

Since she announced her campaign, Bradshaw raised $8,420, according to her most recent Federal Election Commission filing. Comparatively, Mackler raised $2.1 million to run in the race. In that time, he has spent $1.5 million.

Needless to say, I expect that Bradshaw will be “Ghosted” by the DSCC, because controlling the Democratic caucus in the Senate is more important to Chuck Schumer and his Evil Minions™ than it is to control the Senate.

Stupid and an Asshole to His Staff

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PLAYBOOK PM: After we reported that @replouiegohmert was positive, we got an email from a Gohmert aide. pic.twitter.com/x31CSOdkLf

— Jake Sherman (@JakeSherman) July 29, 2020

The big news is that Louie Gohmert has tested positive for Covid-19, and the distinguished gentleman with nothing between his ears but a shock absorber is blaming the few times he wore a mask for catching the disease.

This guy is stupid. Really stupid. Really, really, really, really stupid.

That’s not what matters in Congress.

Hubert Humphrey was generally considered to be one of the smartest men, if not the smartest man, in the Senate during his tenure there, and he was also known to be hamstrung by low quality staff.

In comparison, Teddy Kennedy was known for his ability to recruit and sustain an absolutely first rate staff, and arguably got a lot more done, despite generally not being considered a particularly noteworthy intellect.*

A significant portion of Louie Gohmert’s staff HATE him.

If they didn’t, you would not see leaks like this.

If his staff views him with this level of hostility, he cannot deliver, either on the national level, or in his district.

While this does not make him vulnerable to a Democratic Party challenge in the general election, TX-1 has a PV of R+25, it does mean that an enterprising Republican could successfully challenge him in the primary.

H/t Atrios.

*My father mentioned this in his recollections of discussions with Alaska Senator Ernest Greuning now and again.

Stating the Obvious

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Notwithstanding her fund raising prowess, and her ability to manage her caucus, Nancy Pelosi has neither the vision nor inclination to translate her abilities into meaningful policy. (The link is a must-read review of a biography of the Speaker of the House.  It’s also a good read,

Simply put, when the Democrats have power, they need more than to clap sarcastically.

If the Democratic Party is to succeed in the long term, policy, the Democratic Party establishment (There is no Democratic Party establishment) will have to stand for real policy.

Pelosi’s devotion to hack careerism is a detriment to the party and to the nation.

Ditch Mitch

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Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnel, never does anything unless it presents an opportunity to screw ordinary people to favor his patrons.

Case in point, Moscow Mitch wants to take away the rights of ordinary people to benefit big business in the next stimulus package:

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) outlined new details Monday of what he wants to see in the next and potentially final coronavirus relief package, including a five-year liability shield for businesses and a possible new round of stimulus checks aimed at workers making $40,000 a year and less.

………

“I can’t comfortably predict we’re going to come together and pass it unanimously like we did a few months ago — the atmosphere is becoming a bit more political than it was in March,” McConnell said. “But I think we will do something again. I think the country needs one last boost.”

………

McConnell has consistently said the next bill will include liability protections for businesses, health-care providers, universities and schools. He offered a time period for these protections on Monday, saying he envisioned a “narrowly crafted liability protection” for activities related to the novel coronavirus that would kick in December 2019 and last through 2024.

“Unless you’re grossly negligent or intentionally engaged in harmful behavior, you shouldn’t have to be penalized by getting sued on top of everything else, so that’ll be in there, I guarantee it,” McConnell said.

………

The new markers McConnell laid down will make the next round of negotiations even tougher than the last ones, especially as the election nears and partisan tensions rise. In addition to his comments on liability protections, McConnell has privately stressed to top administration officials that the price tag on the next bill should not exceed $1 trillion.

So basically, McConnell’s pet lobbyists want to take away the right to sue, and McConnell is doing back-flips for them.

This man is a cancer on the Body politic.

Today in Wicked Bad Ideas

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Congress is looking to staple the National Science Foundation (NSF) to commercial interests, because it is so blazingly obvious that the problem with science in the United States is clearly that there are not profit incentives, said no one ever:

A bipartisan group of US senators and representatives has introduced legislation in Congress that would significantly change the operation of the National Science Foundation (NSF). Proponents of the bill say that the proposal aims “to solidify the United States’ leadership in scientific and technological innovation through increased investments in the discovery, creation, and commercialization of technology fields of the future”. To do so, the so-called Endless Frontier Act would expand the NSF’s remit, rename the organization and provide more than $100bn in support. The proposal has gained approval from many, but some have objected that it may undercut the NSF’s main objective, which is to fund basic scientific research.

Those behind the bill – four prominent US congresspeople – say that its introduction stems from the perception that international competitors, and particularly China, threaten to overtake the US technologically. “To win the 21st century, we need to invest in technologies of the future,” says Ro Kahana, a Democratic congressperson from California. “That means increasing public funding into those sectors of our economy that will drive innovation and create new jobs.”

Chuck Schumer, a New Yorker who leads the Democratic minority in the Senate, says that the US “cannot afford” to continue to underinvest in science while still “lead[ing] the world” in advanced research. That view is backed by Republican senator Todd Young of Indiana. “By virtue of being the first to emerge on the other side of this pandemic, the Chinese Communist Party is working hard to use the crisis to its advantage by extending influence over the global economy,” he claims. The new act, adds Republican representative Mike Gallagher of Wisconsin, who is the fourth member of the group introducing the legislation, “is a down payment for future generations of American technological leadership”.

………

Yet the proposal has drawn some criticism. Former NSF director Arden Bement told Science of his concern that the bill could indicate to Congress – which appropriates agencies’ funds – that investments in the bill’s innovative technologies override the importance of the NSF’s core mission of funding fundamental, curiosity-driven research. But Bement’s successor France Córdova, who completed her six-year term as NSF director in March, argues that current-day science involves more seamless integration between fundamental and applied research.

Gee, ya think?

One of the causes of inequality in our society are the extensive and intrusive subsidies provided by the government to private industry,  things like this initiative, and the expansion of IP provisions.

This is bad for science and bad for the economy.