Your intermittent update on how Build Back Better negotiations are going.
A group of House Democrats from both the progressive and moderate wings of the party came together Monday to remind reporters that, yes, they still want to pass climate legislation.
Joe Manchin is turning into a not serious negotiator. And if something can’t be cobbled together, again, then this is his failure. He will be made to own it.
And, y’all, when you shred them into tiny pieces, give a shout to Ukraine!
Their boys and girls, sons and daughters, are fighting Russian oppression right now, hand-to-hand.
Make no mistake. Democrats are for freedom and liberty
Ukraine is not Russia.
Unfortunately, it feels like we’re dealing with the dog who started the house fire when he inadvertently tore an electrical cable out of the wall chasing a rat comity. He’s responsible for the fire, but you can’t ever make him understand what he did.
Manchin’s comments on the SCOTUS vacancy have been encouraging and supportive of the fast track process, which is exactly what we need from him.
We might have a shot at a scaled down BBB that focuses on ACA fixes, Rx coverage and tax changes. That would be a huge deal and would help provide a nice narrative for Ds going into the midterms.
“remind” indeed. The entire country is acting as if Biden’s presidency is dead and buried. It’s not even 18 months old.
This is the problem with minority rule. Nothing is going to happen until the incumbent hydrocarbon producers get what they want, and they can’t say what they want. On the Manchin end of the spectrum you have coal. While the Sierra Club has done a great job reducing the number of coal-fired plants in the US, China still gets 55-60% of its power from coal. And those emissions are then imbedded in our imports, which account for 20-30% of the US carbon footprint. A great question for Congress. How come the EU can act but not the US? That’s very low hanging policy fruit.
More progressive, perhaps, but also kind of sketchy, is this vague blather about hydrogen. Most American politicians cannot even bring themselves to say “blue hydrogen”, even if it puts them in close company with Vladimir Putin’s favorite subject these days.
And then there is the most unpleasant topic of all. Energy should be cheap and abundant, like in Star Wars or Star Trek. Dilithium, portable fusion reactors, H3 – none of these technologies are happening yet. As we see in Pakistan, things just shut down because energy supplies are dwindling and prices are too high.
Transitions are stressful, and may fail. We are supposed to transition to a green economy by 2040 but what I see is still not enough charging stations here in CA for my electric car, very low push to create modern energy neutral housing and tear down the thousands of square miles of crappy residential housing. Very little public transit outside a few cities.
A lot of this is due to lack of vision. Disneyland had a section called Tomorrowland when I was a kid. It included the Monsanto House of the Future exhibit which ran from 1957 to 1967. Even if wrong in some respects it provided a model to glom onto. Maybe the Democrats could just take a neighborhood in say Rockville or Arlington and make it 2040 ready. Maybe it’s a bad vision, but it would at least fuel conversation. 18 more years of CNN and NYT stories about Congressional foot-dragging just won’t cut it.
No one ever guaranteed that the human species would have a happy ending. Of all the species that have ever existed on Earth (that we know about), 99.9% have become extinct. We’ve always been bucking the trend. The Earth and the Universe don’t give a shit. We either shape up or fade out well before our time.
Judging from the pick-up trucks with black & blue flags running around my town, “technologically advanced” is a very generous term.
Maybe we can all stop pretending that Manchin will sign onto any bill that isn’t the “Dig more coal out of the ground Act” and the Biden administration can get serious about resurrecting the Clean Power Plan or equivalent via executive action.
You know, whenever I see or hear anything about Katie Porter, I think about how totally relevant, and Presidential, she is. She’s like our very own home raised Golda Meir (but for leading this country, not Israel’s.) She is smarter than the Dickens, and she is experienced , and moral, and compassionate toward our planet, and our future and our children, like nobody’s business. HOORAY! K.P. For Prez, whenever she wants.
Good grief. I have mentioned this in the past.
So, why not put together a “gang of 20” after the Gang of Fourteen during the George W. Bush administration of Democrats plus John McCain that was used back when the Republicans were the ones trying to get rid of the filibuster and the Democrats were the ones fighting to save it. Let Kyrsten Sinema lead the Democrats side, Susan Collins lead the GOP side. Let the message be “energy innovation is the key to a strong economy, a strong defense and a strong nation” with pictures of American flags and soldiers riding in tanks and all that. Keep the caucus who is more interested in bashing oil companies and other capitalists than actually getting a climate bill passed - you know who they are - far away from the process. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/aoc-deletes-tweet-celebrating-crash-in-oil-prices-you-absolutely-love-to-see-it/
Do this and you don’t need Manchin or even reconciliation to pass an even bigger climate package than was in the original BBB.
President of California or any deep blue state? Sure! Of the entire country which is 75% non-progressive? Not so much.
And part of that narrative should be “elect more than 52 Democrats to the Senate and a majority in the House and we’ll doo all the important stuff that we were blocked from doing this term”.
Don’t see why you would rather use reconciliation and be stuck dealing with a guy trying to protect jobs in his coal state instead of, I don’t know, doing what is necessary to pass a bipartisan bill so you won’t have to. Seriously, a lot of Republicans know that the rest of the world is investing heavily in renewables and if we don’t also, we will get left behind. A lot of them also know that this could mean jobs for their states and districts (so long as they don’t represent fossil fuel states). If they are positively engaged with the right pitch they would be willing to make a deal just as they did with the BIF (which lest we forget, Manchin’s counterpart from West Virginia was the lead GOP negotiator). Has anyone even considered that approach instead of wishing that Manchin could somehow be transformed into a 45 year old California progressive (who would never get elected to statewide office in West Virginia anyway)?
Use the BIF as the template for getting a renewable energy bill done and you won’t need Manchin. Don’t know why your sideis averse to even trying. Or actually I do know the reason: you guys are a bunch of ideologues that do not even want a bill that is capable of getting 10 Republicans to support it. You want a bill that every GOPer hates and to use reconciliation to cram it down their throats. What statesmanship …
Or Democrats could move to the center a bit in order to get a bigger majority. It worked in the past. The not too recent past in fact. Instead Democrats are determined to have California and Massachusetts impose their ideology on everyone else in the country.
Threatening us with a good time eh?
I’ve just closed my eyes again
Climbed aboard the dream weaver train
Driver take away my worries of today
And leave tomorrow behind
Ooh, dream weaver
I believe you can get me through the night
Ooh, dream weaver
I believe we can reach the morning light
The “fossil industry”?.? How did Chuck Grassley and Difi get drawn into this?
BTW. This statement makes absolutely no sense.
How about someone who has principles, ethics, education, and intelligence? And throw in compassion for ordinary families, of all colors and ethnicities? I imagine that there are a few voters all across the country who are not on the “California Progressive” spectrum/slate that might respond to that platform.
I grew up dirt poor, in a completely Republican Progressive state (La Follette Wisconsin.) Ever hear of that? I’m a socialist/environmentalist. Always have been. What is it that you represent?