Tag: Legislation

Good News from Illinois

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Not a common phrase, particularly with regard to legislation and politics, but post Bruce Rauner, it does look promising.

The state legislature has passed, and governor has signed, a law banning local right-to-work ordinances:

In a complete 180, the new Governor of Illinois J.B. Pritzker has signed a bill into law that would make local Right to Work laws illegal in the state. The new law, which takes effect immediately, was passed with overwhelming support from the State Senate and the State Assembly. It had been previously blocked by the Republican Governor Bruce Rauner.

The change comes after four years of anti-union policies coming out of the Governor’s mansion. Rauner was not only a major proponent of local Right to Work, but he was also a catalyst for encouraging Mark Janus to sue his union, AFSCME so that he would not have to pay fair share fees.

The need for the ban came after Lincolnshire, a northern suburb of Chicago, passed a local Right to Work law in 2015. The law created a legal gray area for Lincolnshire employees since Illinois is a free bargaining state. The new law also brings state law into line with lower court rulings that have affirmed the states right to determine whether local employees should pay agency fees.

Pritzker, much to my surprise, has also proposed amending the state constitution to allow for a progressive income tax.

Here’s hoping that this initiative is successful as well.

The Best Argument for Forfeiture Reform is an Argument for Forfeiture

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Case in point, retired police chief Robert Stevenson who argues that reforms to asset forfeiture will make it too hard for the police to steal your money:

One of the worst defenses of civil asset forfeiture has been penned by retired police chief Robert Stevenson for the Michigan news site, the Bridge. It’s written in response to two things: pending forfeiture reform bills in the state legislature and the Supreme Court’s Timbs decision, which indicated forfeiture may fall on the wrong side of the 8th and 14th Amendments.  

………

First, Stevenson argues that cops should be able to take money they feel deeply in their hearts is derived from drug dealing even if it can’t find any evidence linking the person carrying it to a crime. 

………

That part comes in his second argument for forfeiture — one that says even if cops have all the evidence they need to push for a conviction, they still should just be able to take the cash instead. 

I have always thought that the first step in reforming a larcenous asset allocation system is to ensure that the proceeds do not remit back to the courts and the cops who make the decision. (I would suggest scholarships to state schools)

There are probably other reforms after that, but once law enforcement stops making money from the process, the incentives to abuse the process are much reduced.

Corruption Much?

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In their infinite wisdom, Congress is planning to outlaw government offering free online tax filing, because Turbotax gives lots of campaign donations:

Just in time for Tax Day, the for-profit tax preparation industry is about to realize one of its long-sought goals. Congressional Democrats and Republicans are moving to permanently bar the IRS from creating a free electronic tax filing system.

Last week, the House Ways and Means Committee, led by Rep. Richard Neal, D-Mass., passed the Taxpayer First Act, a wide-ranging bill making several administrative changes to the IRS that is sponsored by Reps. John Lewis, D-Ga., and Mike Kelly, R-Pa.

In one of its provisions, the bill makes it illegal for the IRS to create its own online system of tax filing. Companies like Intuit, the maker of TurboTax, and H&R Block have lobbied for years to block the IRS from creating such a system. If the tax agency created its own program, which would be similar to programs other developed countries have, it would threaten the industry’s profits.

“This could be a disaster. It could be the final nail in the coffin of the idea of the IRS ever being able to create its own program,” said Mandi Matlock, a tax attorney who does work for the National Consumer Law Center. Experts have long argued that the IRS has failed to make filing taxes as easy and cheap as it could be. In addition to a free system of online tax preparation and filing, the agency could provide people with pre-filled tax forms containing the salary data the agency already has, as ProPublica first reported on in 2013.

This is unbelievably f%$#ed up.

And Now it Goes to the Floor

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Net neutrality legislation just cleared the Commerce Committee, beating back Republican attempts to emasculate the bill.

I expect that there will be a further push by lobbyists before it hits the floor, and after that, it has to go to the Senate, so I am not optimistic.

Between big cable, the Baby Bells, and the other rat-f%$#ers out there, I do not expect it make it through the legislative process unscathed.

Yemen War Powers Resolution Passes House

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Trump has strongly opposed this, so a veto is likely, but the War Powers Act resolution requiring a US withdrawal from Yemen is the proverbial big f%$#ing deal:

The effort was a top priority for House Democrats after they took control in January amid a worsening humanitarian crisis on the ground in Yemen, where Iran-backed Houthi rebels have sought to overthrow the country’s government, prompting a Saudi bombing campaign that has lasted nearly four years.

It also reflects broad dissatisfaction on Capitol Hill with Trump’s foreign policy — in particular, his posture toward Saudi Arabia in the aftermath of the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

“The president will have to face the reality that Congress is no longer going to ignore its constitutional obligations when it comes to foreign policy,” said Rep. Eliot Engel (D-N.Y.), the chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

The situation in Yemen is appalling, and the actions, politics, and ideology of our erstwhile ally, the House of Saud, is even more appalling.

Our continued support for the maniacs in Riyadh serves no one but a handful of psychopathic royals.

The Bright Side to Brexit

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A controversial directive introducing sweeping changes to copyright enforcement across Europe has been approved by the European parliament, despite ferocious campaigning led by Google and internet freedom activists.

The European copyright directive, voted in by 348 MEPs to 274 against, is best known for two provisions it contains: articles 11 and 13, referred to as the “link tax” and “upload filter”, respectively, by opponents.

The latter has been the main focus of campaigning. It requires websites that host user-generated content to take active measures to prevent copyrighted material from being uploaded without permission, under the penalty of being held liable for their users’ copyright infringement.

Article 11, the “link tax”, includes new requirements aimed at making companies like Google pay licensing fees to publications such as newspapers whose work gets aggregated in services like Google News.

Supporters say it prevents multinational companies from freeloading on the work of others without paying for it, but critics argue that it effectively imposes a requirement for paying a fee to link to a website.

Publishers and artists have pushed for the clauses, arguing that they would put an end to widespread infringement on sites such as YouTube and Instagram, while companies including Google and Amazon have attacked the measure as unworkable in practice, and overbearing to the extent that it may force them to close services in Europe.

When the link tax hit Spain, Google stopped carrying Spanish news links, and Spanish media has yet to recover from the loss of viewers.

The automated filters called for in Article 13 don’t work.

They filter out content that is not covered by copyright.

This is going to be a complete clusterf%$#.

New Jersey Does the Right Thing

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I know that this sounds like a typo, but the Garden State has passed a law banning cashless shops and restaurants.

This has increasingly become an issue as shops have gone cashless in order to refuse service to the unbanked and homeless:

On Monday, New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy signed a bill banning cashless retail stores and restaurants in the Garden State. Murphy’s signature makes New Jersey the second state in the US to ban cashless stores, after Massachusetts banned them in 1978.

More recently, New Jersey’s move follows that of Philadelphia, which banned cashless stores earlier this month. Philadelphia’s legislation was a reaction to a growing number of stores that only accept credit cards or require customers to pay with an app, like Amazon’s new Amazon Go stores.

Ars contacted Amazon for comment on the new law, but the company did not respond.

Much like Philadelphia’s new law, New Jersey’s law makes an exception for parking garages and car rental companies, where a credit card is required upfront for incidentals. There is also an exception carved out for some airport stores, according to NJ.com.

Proponents of cashless stores say that they prevent theft, speed up customer convenience, and are generally more modern. Opponents say that cashless stores unfairly disadvantage people who don’t or can’t have credit cards and who don’t want the fees associated with prepaid debit cards.

According to NJ.com, State Assemblyman Paul Moriarty said in a statement that “Many people don’t have access to consumer credit, and any effort by retail establishments to ban the use of cash is discriminatory towards those people.”

It’s a good start.

Many of the so-called “innovations” coming out of tech seem to have as an unspoken selling point the ability to discriminate.

We’ve seen this in AirBnB, Uber, Lyft, etc.

I’d like to see this on the ballot in California.

A Victory for Human Decency

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Thanks, Bernie

For the first time in longer than I can remember, The Senate has voted to stop US involvement in the war in Yemen:

The Senate on Wednesday again rebuked President Trump for his continued defense of Saudi Arabia after the killing of the dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi, voting for a second time to end American military assistance for the kingdom’s war in Yemen and to curtail presidential war powers.

The 54-to-46 vote, condemning a nearly four-year conflict in Yemen that has killed thousands of civilians and inflicted a devastating famine, sets the foundation for what could become Mr. Trump’s first presidential veto, with the House expected to overwhelmingly pass the measure, possibly this month. The vote also might be the opening salvo in a week where Senate Republicans have the opportunity to hit back at the president’s aggressive use of executive power. On Thursday, the chamber will vote on a resolution that would overturn Mr. Trump’s declaration of a national emergency to secure funding for his border wall.

“The United States Congress is going to reassert its constitutional responsibility over issues of war that have been abdicated for presidents, Democrats and Republicans, for too many years,” said Senator Bernie Sanders, independent of Vermont.

………

Supporters of the Yemen resolution have faced a long and grueling road to get the legislation onto the president’s desk. The Senate — led by the resolution’s authors, Mr. Sanders, Mr. Murphy and Mr. Lee — first passed the measure 56 to 41 in December, but Paul D. Ryan, the House speaker at the time, refused to take up the resolution.

………

The resolution is a rare use of the 1973 War Powers Act, which gave Congress the ability to compel the removal of military forces absent a formal declaration of war. Those powers, created after the Vietnam War, have almost never been used, as lawmakers have demurred from intervening in politically delicate matters of war, peace and support for the troops.

Bernie Sanders has been the a point man on this, and he has been relentless.

He gets sh%$ done.

Campaign Finance Data Point

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Round up the Usual Suspects

Pharma & Insurance Gave $43M to the 129 House Democrats Not Backing Medicare for All

—Grit Post

What is distressing is not that this is corrupt as hell, but that it is all completely legal.

These folks are desperately in need of a thorough primarying:

Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Washington) recently rolled out House Democrats’ version of a Medicare for All proposal that would ensure all Americans have guaranteed healthcare.

 The bill (H.R. 1384) has an impressive 106 co-sponsors, and has been called “the most ambitious Medicare-for-All plan yet” by Vox, which also reported the benefits the House bill contained were even more significant than the companion bill Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont) first introduced in his chamber. Under Jayapal’s plan, private, for-profit health insurance plans would be eliminated, and all Americans would be covered by a government-administered single-payer healthcare plan.

 Additionally, Rep. Jayapal’s bill — the Medicare for All Act of 2019 — calls for a two-year transition from the current system to the one she proposes, rather than a four-year transition, as Sanders proposed. The House bill would put everyone under the age of 19 and over the age of 55 on the single-payer plan after one year, and then everyone in between the following year.

 ………

However impressive 106 House Democrats co-sponsoring the bill may be, that number falls short of the 218 votes needed for a bill to pass the House of Representatives with a majority vote. Even though there are 235 House Democrats, 112 of the 129 House Democrats currently not listed as co-sponsors on Rep. Jayapal’s bill would need to come on board in order for the bill to be able to pass the chamber and go to the Senate.

………

Using campaign finance data made publicly available by the Center for Responsive Politics, Grit Post calculated that donors in the insurance and pharmaceutical industries gave a combined $43,740,947 in career campaign donations to the 130 House Democrats who have not yet signed on as co-sponsors to Rep. Jayapal’s bill. House Democrats received anywhere from $9,570 in financial support from pharma and insurance to $3.2 million, depending on the member.

From the Book of St. Jesse of Unruh

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If you can’t take their money, drink their booze, screw their women and look them in the eye and vote against them, you don’t belong here.

—Jesse Unruh, former Speaker of the California Assembly and State Treasurer

I could not help but reflect on Unruh’s quote when I read Politico wringing its hands over Elizabeth Warren getting thousands of dollars in Silicon Valley and then calling for the Breakup of Amazon, Google, and Facebook.

While I still favor Bernie Sanders, I have to say that Elizabeth Warren has taken Jesse Unruh’s advice to heart, and I approve:

While Sen. Elizabeth Warren was railing against big tech companies, she was taking their money — plenty of it.

The Massachusetts Democrat, who is powering her presidential campaign with a bold proposal to break up the likes of Amazon, Google and Facebook, in September accepted a $2,700 contribution from Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook’s chief operating officer. But Sandberg, whose donation went unnoticed at the time, was just the biggest name from Silicon Valley to give to the senator: Warren took at least $90,000 from employees of Amazon, Google and Facebook alone between 2011 and 2018.

The figure includes only donors who gave at least $200 over either of her two Senate campaigns; and just those who listed their employer. Warren is carrying over millions of dollars she raised for the Senate in the last cycle to her 2020 presidential run.

While the donations flowed to Warren’s committee, she was accusing Google, Amazon as well as Apple of using their powerful platforms to “lock out smaller guys and newer guys,” including direct competitors. She’s also criticized the huge sums Silicon Valley firms spend on federal lobbying and taken on Amazon and others over their treatment of workers.

Now, Warren has put the trust-busting message front and center in her presidential campaign. In a blog post last week, which she repeatedly referred to at the tech industry conference South by South last weekend in Austin, Texas, Warren called for unwinding Facebook’s acquisition of WhatsApp and Instagram; Amazon’s consumption of Whole Foods and Zappos; and Google’s takeovers of Waze, Nest and DoubleClick. Warren later confirmed that her plan would apply to Apple, the biggest player in tech and one of the world’s biggest companies.

“Either they run the platform or they play in the store,” she said over the weekend. “They don’t get to do both at the same time.”

I approve.

I Did Not Expect This

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The House passed a bill closing the gun show loophole:

The House on Wednesday passed the Bipartisan Background Checks Act, which would require background checks for all firearm sales, including those sold at gun shows and online.

Why it matters: This is the first gun control bill that Congress has considered in nearly 25 years. Gun control has been near the top of the Democratic agenda since the party took back control of the House in November’s midterms, galvanized by recent mass shootings and student-led activism.

Details: The bill, HR 8, also prohibits firearms transfers by a person who is not a licensed dealer. However, it does exclude “gifts to family members and transfers for hunting, target shooting, and self-defense,” according to the House Judiciary Committee website.

To be completely honest, I did not believe that the Dems would have the guts to do this.

Also:  F%$# the NRA.

She Could F%$# Up a 2 Car Funeral

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I am referring, of course to Theresa May, who just lost ANOTHER crucial Brexit vote in Parliament.

Her level of incompetence is such that it invokes that old punch line, “You don’t come here for the hunting, do you?”  (Yes, I am suggesting that she might be failing on purpose. )

The vote was non-binding, but it wasn’t even close:

Prime Minister Theresa May has suffered another Commons defeat after MPs voted down her approach to Brexit talks.

MPs voted by 303 to 258 – a majority of 45 – against a motion endorsing the government’s negotiating strategy.

The defeat has no legal force and Downing Street said it would not change the PM’s approach to talks with the EU.

………

The voting figures showed it was not just hardline Brexiteers that failed to support the government – a number of Tory Remainers also declined to vote, as more than a fifth of the party in the Commons failed to back the government.

Five Conservative MPs – Brexiteers Peter Bone, Sir Christopher Chope, Philip Hollobone, and Anne Marie Morris, and the pro-Remain Sarah Wollaston – even voted with Labour against the motion.

It seems that every time that Donald Trump does some remarkably stupid sh%$, Theresa May thinks, “Here, hold my beer.”

It Would Be Nice to See this Validated in the Courts

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In what is an extremely rare rebuke, the House of Representatives voted to invoke the War Powers Act to prevent further aid to the House of Saud’s brutal war in Yemen.

It’s good policy, and good politics:  The actions in Yemen are indefensible, and it shows  Trump’s pretense of opposition to foreign wars to be false.

While I do not expect this to go very far in the Senate, it does a good job of jamming Trump and the Republican Party up.

Well played.

A Feature not a Bug

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It now appears that the removal of erotic services ads on Craigslist have increased the instance of violence against women:

Under the guise of targeting sex traffickers, FOSTA has both done damage to Section 230 protections and sex workers’ literal lives. The law has yet to result in any credible, sustained damage to human trafficking, but that hasn’t stopped the bill’s supporters from trotting out debunked numbers anytime they need a soundbite.

There will likely be no studies performed by the government to determine FOSTA’s actual impact on sex trafficking, but plenty of academics are offering evidence that pushing sex work further underground is endangering the lives of sex workers. This is just the icing on the stupid, life-threatening cake as multiple law enforcement agencies — including the DOJ itself — pointed out passing FOSTA would make it more difficult to hunt down traffickers.

A study released in 2017 showed the introduction of erotic services section on Craiglist tracked with a 17% drop in female homicides across many major cities. Craigslist spent a few years being publicly vilified by public officials — mainly states attorneys general — before dumping its erotic services section (ERS). This didn’t stop sex work or trafficking, but it did shift the focus away from Craiglist as everyone affected found other services to use.

A newly-released study [PDF] (via Sophie Cull) shows there’s been a corresponding increase in female homicides since the point Craigslist dumped ERS. Online services — enabled by Section 230 — helped sex workers stay safe by reducing or eliminating a few of the more dangerous variables.

This is not a surprise.

The effects were predicted when FOSTA was being debated.

F%$# Me. I Agree with Joe F%$#ing Liebarman

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For most of the nation’s history, the most common way to read court filings was to travel to the courthouse itself, pull up a desk in the clerk’s office, and leaf through them by hand. This was hardly a convenient system, especially if you lived in a far-flung rural area or lacked the resources to travel to a nearby courthouse for the task. But it was still an impressive one. Public access was a core principle of the American federal judiciary, which absorbed both the Founders’ disdain for secretive British courts and their belief in the democratic virtue of open legal proceedings.

Then came the Public Access to Court Electronic Records system in the 1990s. In theory, the federal courts’ electronic docket system—known universally as PACER—allows anyone with an internet connection to call up the motions, briefs, orders, and appendices for virtually any federal court case. The interface has not evolved with the times. In an age of sleek, minimalist web design, PACER is a clunky and nonintuitive portal into the courts’ inner workings. What’s more, it’s overcharging its users.

Now a medley of legal advocacy groups, media outlets, and former politicians and judges are asking the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals to rein in excessive PACER fees. Some of the organizations argue that the current payment structure violates federal e-government laws that prohibit unnecessary fees. Others see the fees as a threat to judicial transparency and openness. What’s ultimately at stake is the ability for Americans—including journalists and defendants—to fully participate in the nation’s legal system.

Three legal nonprofit groups—the National Veterans Legal Services Program, the National Consumer Law Center, and Alliance for Justice—filed a class action lawsuit against the federal government in 2016 to challenge PACER’s fee structure. They argued that by charging more than the marginal costs to keep the system functional, the judiciary had run afoul of a federal law dedicating PACER’s fees solely to that purpose. “Instead of complying with the law, the [federal judiciary] has used excess PACER fees to cover the costs of unrelated projects—ranging from audio systems to flat screens for jurors—at the expense of public access,” they told the district court in 2016.

“Anyone who wants to be able to access the documents that are essential to understanding the way our court system works has to pay these fees,” Brianne Gorod, the chief counsel at the Constitutional Accountability Center, told me. The organization filed a friend-of-the-court brief on behalf of former Senator Joe Lieberman, the 2002 law’s original sponsor. “What that means is that one’s ability to access these documents—to read the briefs that the courts use when making decisions, to understand why courts are doing what they do—is going to turn on one’s financial situation.”

F%$# me.

I am on the same side as Joe Lieberman.

I feel so dirty.

Oh, Snap!

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The Illinois Supreme Court just reversed a state appeals court decision, and said that 6-Flags amusement park is liable for collecting biometric data, specifically fingerprints.

This may not sound like a big deal, but it also means that companies like Facebook and Google are liable as well:

The Illinois Supreme Court on Friday upheld consumers’ right to sue companies for collecting data like fingerprint or iris scans without telling them how it will be used — a ruling that could have widespread implications for tech giants like Facebook and Google.

The unanimous ruling came in a lawsuit filed against Six Flags Entertainment Corp. by the family of a teenager whose fingerprint data was collected in 2014 when he bought a season pass to Great America, the company’s Gurnee amusement park. The lawsuit alleged violation of the 2008 Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act, which has gained attention as biometric data are increasingly used for tasks such as tagging photos on social media and clocking in at work.

The law requires companies collecting information such as facial, fingerprint and iris scans to obtain prior consent from consumers or employees, detailing how they’ll use the data and how long the records will be kept. It also allows private citizens to sue, while other states let only the attorney general bring a lawsuit.

Here’s why Facebook and Google care.

The Illinois Supreme Court on Friday ruled unanimously against Six Flags Entertainment Corp. in a lawsuit filed by the family of a teenager whose fingerprint data was collected in 2014 when he bought a season pass. (Mark Kodiak Ukena/Lake County News-Sun)
Ally MarottiContact ReporterChicago Tribune
Privacy Policy

The Illinois Supreme Court on Friday upheld consumers’ right to sue companies for collecting data like fingerprint or iris scans without telling them how it will be used — a ruling that could have widespread implications for tech giants like Facebook and Google.

The unanimous ruling came in a lawsuit filed against Six Flags Entertainment Corp. by the family of a teenager whose fingerprint data was collected in 2014 when he bought a season pass to Great America, the company’s Gurnee amusement park. The lawsuit alleged violation of the 2008 Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act, which has gained attention as biometric data are increasingly used for tasks such as tagging photos on social media and clocking in at work.

The law requires companies collecting information such as facial, fingerprint and iris scans to obtain prior consent from consumers or employees, detailing how they’ll use the data and how long the records will be kept. It also allows private citizens to sue, while other states let only the attorney general bring a lawsuit.

The opinion, which overturns an appeals court ruling in favor of Six Flags, has the potential to effect biometrics lawsuits playing out in courtrooms across the country. Defendants in those cases, including Facebook, have argued that individuals shouldn’t have the right to sue if no real damage occurred after they handed over their biometric information. But the state Supreme Court ruled that violation of the law is damage enough.

“This is no mere ‘technicality,’ ” as the appellate court suggested, Chief Justice Lloyd Karmeier wrote in the opinion. “The injury is real and significant.”

………

The Illinois law is one of the strictest in the nation and has turned the state into a hotbed of lawsuits over alleged misuses of biometric data. Privacy experts say protecting that type of information is critical because, unlike a credit card or bank account number, it’s permanent.

Besides Facebook, companies across a wide range of industries — from other tech giants such as Google, Snapchat and Shutterfly to Chicago-based United Airlines, grocery company Roundy’s and InterContinental Hotels’ Kimpton chain — have faced allegations in Illinois involving improper use of biometrics.

Indeed.

There was already one bill being mooted to emasculate the Illinois law, and I expect to see more of that, along with federal court challenges, because, after all, there is money to be made and campaign donations to be made.

How Does it Feel to be Nancy’s Bitch, Donnie?

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President Trump agreed on Friday to reopen the federal government for three weeks while negotiations continued over how to secure the nation’s southwestern border, backing down after a monthlong standoff failed to force Democrats to give him billions of dollars for his long-promised wall.

The president’s concession paved the way for the House and the Senate to both pass a stopgap spending bill by voice vote. Mr. Trump signed it on Friday night, restoring normal operations at a series of federal agencies until Feb. 15 and opening the way to paying the 800,000 federal workers who have been furloughed or forced to work without pay for 35 days.

The plan includes none of the money for the wall that Mr. Trump had demanded and was essentially the same approach that he rejected at the end of December and that Democrats have advocated since, meaning he won nothing concrete during the impasse.

So much winning.

My guess is the evidence that the air traffic control system was on the brink of collapse, just before the Superbowl, and I’m sure that his rich friends would not be amused if they were chilling their heels at Hartsfield-Jackson airport.

Trump is Being Owned by Pelosi Right Now

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Trump has blinked, making an offer to extend DACA status and TPS status for 3 years in exchange for wall funding.

Pelosi turned it down flat:

President Trump on Saturday offered Democrats three years of deportation protections for some immigrants in exchange for $5.7 billion in border wall funding, a proposal immediately rejected by Democrats and derided by conservatives as amnesty.

Aiming to end the 29-day partial government shutdown, Trump outlined his plan in a White House address in which he sought to revive negotiations with Democrats, who responded that they would not engage in immigration talks until he reopened the government.

Trump proposed offering a reprieve on his attempts to end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program and temporary protected status (TPS) for immigrants from some Latin American and African nations, in exchange for building hundreds of miles of barriers on the southern U.S. border and hiring thousands of new law enforcement agents to be deployed there.

………

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) dismissed the proposal as a “non-starter” and vowed that Democrats would pass legislation in the coming week to reopen the government, putting the onus on the Republican-led Senate to follow suit.

“The president must sign these bills to reopen government immediately and stop holding the American people hostage with this senseless shutdown,” Pelosi said. Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) also said he opposed the plan.

It’s pretty clear who is the tougher negotiator.

Pelosi knows the political dynamics of this situation, and she knows to count to 218, and Trump can do neither.

This Just In: Jeremy Corbyn Can Count

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Jeremy Corbyn has been opposed to a a 2nd referendum on Brexit ever since the process started.

There have been a few motivations ascribed to to this with Corbyn’s mild Euroskepticism (true) and the suggestion that that the EU is fundamentally a neoliberal institution that is structured to dismantle the modern social safety net (also true).

Well, now we have what seems to be a more likely explanation, that Jeremy Corbyn understands the political dynamics involved.

There are two very clear data points:

As Labour Party leader, these have to be a part of his considerations.