A lot of things happened. Here are some of the things
After hours of negotiations with progressive and centrist Democrats on Thursday that dragged on late into the night, House Democratic leadership ultimately decided to pull the plug on the planned vote for the bipartisan infrastructure bill (which was always an arbitrary deadline).
I’m not gonna prognosticate on this, but it looks like Jayapal et al are still in there punching, Sinema’s looking hated at home in AZ, and Manchin shouting “god bless you” from the taffrail of his fucking yacht is not great optics. So…
This is an extremely positive development. It suggests that the common wisdom: that the Dems would reach some deal because the consequences of failure would be too dire, may be true. Sen. Manchin’s 1.5 trillion starting point doesn’t surprise me. If he gave a number, I always assumed it would be under 2 trillion. If a number in the 2.5 trillion range could be reached I think there would be ‘dancing in the streets’! 
- Problem Solvers Caucus co-chair Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-NY), who predicted that he and his fellow moderates would be “drinking a nice glass of champagne” yesterday, seemed less sunny late last night after he left a meeting with Pelosi.
The Romney campaign had champagne cooling too, back in 2012.
If you ever wondered how low Rump will go to push some kind of propaganda filled event
Rump invited a Marine on stage at his rally in Georgia on Saturday, and the ex-president heavily implied that the man was the one in the hugely viral video who lifted a baby over a wall at Kabul airport. Introducing Lance Cpl. Hunter Clark to the crowd, the former president said: “We’re also honored to be joined by one of the Marines who bravely served in Kabul during the withdrawal… and helped evacuate children over… the airport wall. You saw him. He did a great job.” Then, Clark claimed he was “the guy that pulled the baby over the wall,” saying it was “one of the greatest things I’ve ever done in my entire life.” However, in a statement given to CNN, a spokesman for the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit said Clark was not in the famous footage. “Regarding the viral photo that began circulating around August 20, 2021, the Marine identified in that particular image was not LCpl Clark,” said Kelton Cochran, adding that Clark is under investigation for his appearance at the rally.
Has the Problem Solvers Caucus ever solved a problem?
Sen. Blumenthal asks Facebook “Will you commit to ending Finsta?”
Facebook’s safety chief has to explain that Finsta is slang for a fake account. pic.twitter.com/jMYy5AIZjY
— Eric Morrow (@morroweric) September 30, 2021
Congress should just order Facebook to use smaller tubes, that way misinformation would have a more restricted flow into the Nile.
BIF is Big Infrastructure Framework. I had to look it up. Use of the term seems like inside baseball, but what do I know.
This morning memo covers so many issues that it is difficult to comment. I’d rather see each item listed separately so we can have a discussion among the 10 or 15 people who comment in the early minutes after a post anyway. Here, there are so many issues to comment on that it seems like ping pong ball bouncing off walls. Or maybe it’s me.
Time to carry on and look for my slippers. The season is changing.
Donald Trump may be the most dishonest pol of the modern era. Whether something is true or not is totally irrelevant to him. His only metric is whether something is useful or not.
Why is anyone surprised?
In other news, last night at Target, I had a customer strongly suggest that I’d look better and be better without the mask. First time a customer has had any negative opinion about my mask wearing (I wear a Moo mask from the farm and I typically get one or two compliments a night on it). Although I could’ve blamed Target for my wearing one, I decided to go with the fact that I’d been on an airplane and in two airports on Saturday (my return to the farm) as the reason I wore one. Customer didn’t seem impressed (‘oh, is that a thing?’).
Anyway, first time dealing with a true moron. Older white guy, of course.
Old white men are more dangerous than the plague.
One thing you learn in the course of a life is how birds of a feather really do flock together. A psychiatrist for a private therapeutic high school I interviewed once said I could go out on the mezzanine and look down at the dining hall and I’d see that the kids had basically sorted themselves out at the tables by maturity level. With Trump, it’s an utterly shameless desire for attention. If you wanted to falsely claim you were a hero, Trump’s orbit would be exactly the place to do it. I saw at least two headlines yesterday about how his administration was notably dishonest. Really? No shit. His whole life will play out as a buffoonish liar growing ever more irrelevant. Mine will play out never entirely understanding how so many didn’t see him for what he was. So it goes.
In defense of the situation, the store posts at the door that masks are required of the unvaccinated and otherwise compromised.
Less that half the customers I waited on this week were masked. The vaccination rate here in the suburban Twin Cities area is in the mid 50% (I have to consider MN because we’re on the border and I do see quite a few MN’ers in the store - driver’s licenses and the like).
I have a hard time believing only vaccinated are predominantly shopping.
He’s a con man. He can make the more especially weak-minded see what he wants them to see. Cognitive dissonance kicks in when the reality of what they’re seeing is presented to them. Can’t be - he’s not like that - he’s g-d… all that nonsense.
The only problems they have solved to-date are those they created.
I don’t understand the GQP: a lot of them like BIF, but because, well…reasons, MqQarthy & Co are whipping against it. If they’d pulled 100 R votes for the BIF, Nancy could have held her vote and passed the bill. In passing the bill, she would have taken away all the leverage Jayapal and her caucus have to force passage of the reconciliation bill with the climate change and social programs more-or-less intact. Sinema would have been free at that point to announce, “Okay, I got my cake, and I’m not all that fond of ice cream, so…fuck you all. I’m not voting for any of that stuff.” All we end up with is an anemic “bi”-partisan infrastructure bill, crafted by GQP Senators (from the left wing [the merely bat-shit crazy wing] of the GQP) and Manchin (who aside from voting for Schumer for Majority Leader might as well a Republican) and Sinema (and who knows what she is, besides being a narcissist with terrible fashion sense).
And look, if all we get out of Manchin (I’m assuming he can drag the badly dressed narcissist along) is $1.5T, it’s still the biggest social support program ever passed. Don’t misunderstand, I’m hoping that the final number gets to $2.5T or so, but 40% of a loaf is way better than none.
I’ve had the third Pfizer, the booster, and still don a mask almost everywhere indoors I go. I view it as a sign of respect for those around me.
“A large system of ocean currents in the Atlantic – which includes the Gulf Stream – has been disrupted due to human-caused climate change, scientists reported in a new study published Thursday. If that system collapses, it would lead to dramatic changes in worldwide weather patterns.“
So, when this soon happens, my finger will be pointing at these low ball clowns whose inaction will cost way more than 3.5 trillion.
FIFY
