Sunday School 6/20/21

 Today, two of my least favorite senators were in the classrooms: Lindsey Graham (R-Trump) who talked with Chris Wallace on Fox News Sunday, and That Guy from Vermont, Bernie Sanders (I-'m Never Gonna Be a D), who chatted with Dana Bash on CNN's State of the Union, which is where we'll start.

Bash set the stage this way: work continues trying to find a bipartisan agreement on infrastructure, while at the same time, TGFV, who's the Senate Budget Committee chair, is working towards a reconciliation bill that won't need any of the Rs. And, the $6T package (yep - that's trillion) has some of the big policy goals Dems favor, but the price tag is scaring some of them, too.

Bash asked TGFV if he had Biden's approval to go big - way big. He said that Biden's given them a "serious and comprehensive blueprint" of where they want to go, and while there's an admittedly important inclination to "get bogged down in numbers,"

we got to look at what the needs are of the American people, what's going on right now. And what is going on right now, obviously, as everybody knows, very rich are doing phenomenally well. Corporate profits are soaring. And yet we have -- in terms of real wages for working people, it's lower today than it was 48 years ago. Half of our people are living paycheck to paycheck.

And then he ticked off the issues: childcare; housing; climate; paid medical leave; corporations not paying taxes; rich people not paying taxes.

So, all that the president is doing, all I am doing is taking a look at reality for working families, understand their needs have been ignored for decades. Now it is time to create good-paying jobs, millions of good- paying jobs, addressing health care, housing, infrastructure.

And about those Ds who are feeling queasy, is he willing to cut the price tag or edit the laundry list? He said the process is just beginning, and he plans on talking to everyone and trying to hammer things out, but again,

... I think that there is general agreement that the time is long overdue that we address many of the long-neglected problems facing the middle class and working class of this country.

TGFV does not support the bipartisan infrastructure bill, Bash noted. He said the bill "provides spending in some important areas," but the money is not adequate. He does think that raising taxes on wealthy people is ok, but that "raising the gas tax, or a fee on electric cares, or maybe privatization of infrastructure," which have been mentioned, are "bad ideas." He said he'd have to see how the bill is paid for, and added, again, the laundry list of his priorities which he clearly considers are everyone else's priorities.

And I can't help thinking, as I do every time he's interviewed, that he seems to forget that he lost - twice - to a less progressive candidate. And yet, he always seems to think that he's in the driver's seat. And if he's the one to kill a bipartisan infrastructure bill, he'll have proven that he's not president for a reason.

Down the hall, Chris Wallace asked Sen. Graham, one of the Group of 21 (10 Ds and 11 Rs) who have a $1T infrastructure plan, "how close are you to a deal with the White House? And what's the effective deadline for reaching an agreement?" Graham said that the group is willing to add more new money to the plan, whereas the previous group was not willing to do that. He also said that it's up to Biden, really.

...I am hopeful if the White House and Joe Biden stay involved, we can get there. I would just say this: President Biden, if you want an infrastructure deal of a trillion dollars, it's there for the taking. You just need to get involved and lead. 

Graham's thoughts on compromising on infrastructure with the Dems, knowing that they're seemingly willing to go forward unilaterally with the $6T behemoth spending plan? 

That could be very problematic. I'm going to sit down and talk with my colleagues. But $6 trillion being spent through reconciliation is more money than we spent to win World War II. Infrastructure to me is roads and bridges and ports -- and electrical vehicles are fine. I don't want to raise taxes to pay for it. 

Well, except for things like the federal gas tax, which he said hasn't been adjusted for inflation since the 90s. He's also OK with using unspent COVID money to fund an 'infrastructure bank' but Wallace didn't ask for details on that, or even on what that money was originally intended for in any of the COVID relief packages. And, Graham threw in the talking points that are required every time an R gets in front of a microphone.

And what they're calling infrastructure, the liberal left, to me, is not remotely related to what's traditionally been called infrastructure. It's just -- it's just a power grab by the Democratic Party in every area of our lives. 

Because affordable broadband and eldercare and whatnot didn't exist back in the day? Because investing in medical infrastructure for our aging population, or broadband for our poor children are just ways for the Dems to grab power? And adjusting a tax for inflation is a good idea, but fixing the minimum wage which is even older is a bad one? Who are these people?

Moving on to voting rights, Wallace asked Graham whether he'd support the Manchin plan, which is a heavily stripped-down version of SR-1, the For the People Act. Manchin's proposing making election day a holiday, at least 15 days of early voting, banning partisan gerrymandering, and requiring a voter ID. 

Graham doesn't "like the idea of taking the power to redistrict away from state legislators," because 

You're having people move from red -- blue states to red states. Under this proposal, you would have some kind of commission, redraw the new districts, and I don't like that. I want states where people are moving to have control over how to allocate new congressional seats. 

So, he's a no on the plan, just as he's a no on SR-1 

In my view, SR-1 is the biggest power grab in the history of the country. It mandates ballot harvesting, no voter ID. It does away with the states being able to redistrict when you have population shifts. And it's just a bad idea and it's a problem that most Republicans are not going to sign -- they're trying to fix a problem most Republicans have a different view of. 

Wallace did do some fact-checking on Graham's statements, but it didn't matter. And then, he asked if the Rs run the risk of the moderate Dems throwing in the towel on bipartisanship and joining calls to change the filibuster.

Graham says he hopes not, noting that the two parties are close on police reform, and on infrastructure as they discussed, and that he's willing to work with Manchin. He also said when the Rs had Former Guy and majorities in both the House and Senate, there were "a bunch of Democrats" willing to sign a letter protecting the filibuster. They're hiding somewhere now, Graham thinks, but he's adamant on one thing.

Never once did I go to Joe Manchin or any other Democrat and say, if you don't do some of the things I want, I'm going to agree with Trump to change the rules. I'm not going to be extorted here. I'm asking no more of my Democratic colleagues then I ask of myself. It was very unpleasant to be beat on every day by the president of the United States, President Trump, and his allies, to try to change the rules in the Senate to have their way. I said no because it's bad for the Senate. I hope these Democrats understand it's bad for the Senate to change the rules, and I don't want to be extorted. I've got to give two or three things before they will not change the rules. I don't like that at all. I didn't do that to them and I wish they would not do this to me. 

Unasked? 

• Why aren't more Rs willing to compromise? 
• Where is the Grim Reaper on all of this, encouraging his party to work together so that the rules could be protected? 
• Why are the Republican so against these proposals which have broad support conceptually, even if not broad support on the money? 
• Why, specifically, are the policies being proposed the wrong ones? Not the spending part, the policy part? How are these needs going to be met otherwise?

Sigh. See you around campus.

Sunday School 3/14/21: Extra Credit

As promised, here are some of the other classroom conversations from yesterday. 

Stacey Abrams, of the voting rights group Fair Fight, was in a couple of classrooms, including Meet the Press with Chuck Todd. He asked if HR-1, the House's massive voting-rights-plus-more bill, should be pared down to get past Senate filibuster rules, or if the focus should be on eliminating the filibuster. 

Abrams said the US Constitution gives the House and Senate "the sole responsibility... to regulate the time, place and manner of elections." She'd rather have Republicans join the fight, but if not, "I would say that an exemption to the filibuster for the purposes of protecting our democracy is not only logical, it is fundamental to who we are." 

She said "the whole of our democracy" needs to be defended and protected, and that 

the Senate has to believe it has the responsibility and the ability to act. And that is why my focus is on making certain that the exemption to the filibuster be the necessary front and center conversation, so we can get something done to protect our democracy.

Of the Georgia bills, Abrams said they're not about protecting the right to vote, the bills "are nothing more than a pretext for returning to Jim Crow and stopping voters that they (don't) want to hear from." 

Georgia's Lt. Gov Geoff Duncan was next. He said 

Republicans don't need election reform to win. We need leadership. I think there’s millions of Republicans waking up around the country that are realizing that Donald Trump's divisive tone and strategy is unwinnable in forward-looking elections. We need real leadership. We need new focus, a GOP 2.0 that includes moderates in the middle to get us to the next election cycle.

He's "one of those Republicans that want more people to vote." He believes Republican ideas help people, that "an overwhelming number of Americans" think the Rs are better on the economy, and keeping communities and the country safe, and so he wants more voters, not fewer.

You know, this started shortly after the November elections, when all the misinformation started flying up. And quite honestly, it hurt Republicans in any sort of conversation around election reform. We lost credibility. Those were ten weeks that we can't take back. January 6th was a pivot point for this country and for this party. 

Finally, on the investigation into Trump's "possible" interference (we all heard the call, right?), Duncan said, "I think the best thing we can do is to continue to focus ahead on our jobs at hand. And district attorneys and lawyers and whatnot can do their job."

In the CNN SOTU classroom, Jake Tapper talked with Rep. Veronica Escobar (D-TX) about the nearly 4000 children that are in custody at the southern border, and asked her if what we're seeing now is a "crisis," which is what she called it back in 2019 when there were fewer children in custody.

In a nutshell? No. That was a crisis; what we have today is "an enormous challenge. And it's unacceptable." It's gotten better - she also said pre-COVID, the last time she was there, kids had been in shelters for months, some up to a year, but now it's down to about a month.

Tapper asked her about Mexicans seeing Biden as "the migrant president," according to Mexican President Lopez Obrador, and whether that's helping create the mess at the border. She said focusing on that

... obscures the bigger picture that many of us, myself included, have been talking about for years. The flows -- the flow of humanity ebbs and flows. There - as I mentioned, in April, we began seeing - in April of 2020, under the harshest of conditions, a Trump administration and COVID, we still saw people arriving at our front door.

She believes Biden will "address the root causes of migration," and that we'll keep having the conversation again and again "until we have leaders in this hemisphere who are willing to work together."

George Stephanopoulos talked infrastructure with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on This Week. Pelosi said this has always been bipartisan, "except when they oppose it with a Democratic president, as they did under President Obama, and we had to shrink the package." She's asked her committee chairs to reach across the aisle and find common ground.To 

This is about broadband. It's about water systems. It's about mass transit, it’s about good paying jobs all over the country. It’s also about schools and housing and the rest. Good paying jobs across the country. And not only that, once those jobs of building are done, it's about promoting commerce, creating good -- so it’s -- the goal is to promote good growth creating good paying jobs as we protect our planet and are fiscally sound.

To pay for it, taxes are in the mix, along with several other options, because "we want to be fiscally sound as we go forward."

And this is job creating which creates revenue that comes back to the Treasury, unlike what the Republicans did with their tax scam in 2017 which gave 83 percent of the benefits to the top 1 percent and indebted our children to the tune of nearly $1.9 trillion -- recognize the figure, in debt, added to the national debt. So they should be the last people to be talking about what is too expensive for the American people as we meet their needs.

Always so helpful, the Speaker, isn't she?

We'll end where we started, with the filibuster. Sen. John Barrasso (R-WY) also talked with George, and said there's nothing wrong with the 'talking filibuster,' when a Senator had to hold the floor to block a vote. The issue is "how many votes does it take to get moving forward with legislation?" 

You know, we have a 50/50 Senate. That's what the American people sent to Washington with the vice president breaking the tie. You know, George, that ought to be a mandate to move to the middle. So we ought to do things that actually can get broad, bipartisan support like the infrastructure bill that came out of my committee last time. That's the best way to get things done. If you get things that are one vote, and the vice president breaking a tie, harder for America to buy into that thing. The major pieces of legislation for our country historically have been done in a broad, bipartisan way.

Good lord, I'm thinking like Barrasso? Which one of us has lost our way? George Tried to bring him back to the filibuster, and got basically the same answer.

I don't mind talking. I think the people ought to be able to stand and express their views. The question is, is it 50 votes or 51, or is it 60? And the current number is 60. We've had this going on now for over a century. And the idea is to get bipartisan buy-in to bills. If there are parts that are very partisan, they ought to be left out. Focus on the areas on which we can agree. On most items, I think you can agree on 80 percent of the things. So let's leave out the 20 percent which are the hot button issues and move the country forward on issues on which we agree.

What's your takeaway from this week's classroom visits? 

See you around campus - I'll be wearing a mask, still and hope you will be, too. 

TGIF 3/5/21

Can you believe it's Friday again, already? 

Let's dive right in with the bad week list, and get that out of the way.

• Texas Gov. Greg Abbott declared his state open - fully, freely, masklessly, crowdedly open - this week, saying that there are vaccines (!!) that will protect his constituents. He did say that people are urged to "continue wearing the mask" but that it was time to have the government stop running their lives. 

• Texas Gov. Greg Abbot also said that "the Biden administration is recklessly releasing hundreds of illegal immigrants who have COVID" into Texas, and that the administration must "IMMEDIATELY end this callous act that exposes Texans and Americans to COVID." That second statement is kind of silly, I think. I mean, if we just urge them to wear a mask, everything's going to be just fine, right? And who says they have COVID anyway? And are they also rapists and murderers and drug dealers, or just virus carriers? 

• Federico Klein, a former Trump campaign worker and later, a "special assistant in the Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs" in the State Department, was arrested for participating in the January 6th insurrection. Klein was seen on police body cam video "jamming a riot shield into doors at the Capitol," and was "heard on video trying to encourage others to clash with police." He's been charged with assault on police officers, interfering with law enforcement, obstruction, and other charges. MAGA, or something.

• Andrew Cuomo, my Sonofa Gov, has had a horrible week. Pick your favorite search ending and search Andrew Cuomo news, and you'll have an idea. 

Voters had a decidedly mixed week, depending on what you read and, heaven forbid, on your own opinions, should you have them - please say you have opinions on this! Take a look:

• Former lynching target Mike Pence had an op-ed about election integrity, which attacks HR1, the House voting rights act. Mostly, he says, it's full of changes making it harder for all kinds of people - the living, breathing kind I'm fond of, and the other kind, too - to engage in political speech. Not only that, but

Every single proposed change in HR 1 serves one goal, and one goal only: to give leftists a permanent, unfair, and unconstitutional advantage in our political system.

• Compare that "one goal only" that Pence talked about to the goal expressed by the Arizona GOP in a virtual appearance before the Supreme Court earlier this week. When asked by Associate Justice Amy Coney Barrett about "the interest of the Arizona RNC " in keeping certain disqualification rules on the books, attorney Michael Carvin was disarmingly honest. 

Because it puts us at a competitive disadvantage relative to the Democrats. Politics is a zero-sum game. And every extra vote they get through unlawful interpretation (of the Voting Rights Act) hurts us. It's the difference between winning an election 50-49 and losing an election 51-50.

As the linked article notes, "credit the Arizona Republican Party for at least admitting that these bills aren't about ensuring the integrity of Arizona's elections and they certainly aren't about ensuring democracy." 

• There are over 200 bills under consideration in red states that will, at least in the eyes of the opposition, suppress voting rights. That includes changes to Georgia's election laws that will, among other things, make it a misdemeanor  to hand out food and drinks to voters standing in line to vote. That's taking the 'zero sum game' to a whole nother level, don't you think?

I'll have a separate post on HR 1, which was passed by the House without a single Republican vote. There's a ton of stuff in it, some good and some bad - and the chances for it to make it out of the Senate, scathed or unscathed, are less than stellar.

Now, for the good week list.

• In a really cool use of technology, a 300-year-old sealed letter was 'read' after it was virtually opened. The letter, from 1697, was found in a postmaster's trunk. Historians and techies are both excited by the prospects.

• A townhouse development that didn't happen in an Atlanta neighborhood  allowed for something better: a 7-acre free 'food forest" which contains 2500 edible and medicinal plants, in an area where the nearest grocery store is a half-hour bus ride away. The article notes are there are 70 free food forests in the country now.

• Let's end with a good news story about the pandemic, to help wipe out the foolishness from Texas. Dolly Parton, who donated $1M to the Vanderbilt University Medical Center to help fund an early trial of the Moderna vaccine, got her first dose of the vaccine this week. And, to encourage others to do the same when it's their turn, she updated one of her classic songs. 

That's it for today - TGIF, everyone.

TGIF 9/25/20

Yippee -- it's Friday! Let's make our lists, OK? Good week folks over here, bad week folks over there. 

Starting with the president and his decision that will come tomorrow, unless it's today, but more likely tomorrow, but sometime before the day after tomorrow, we'll hear who will be the person on whom the onus of ensuring a Trump victory in a contested election will fall.  

Will it be Catholic mid-westerner Judge Amy Coney Barrett? She's said to be the front-runner, but it might be Cuban-American Floridian Judge Barbara Lagoa, about whom Trump has said,

"Well, she's excellent. She's Hispanic. She's a terrific woman, from everything I know. I don't know her. Florida; we love Florida. So, she's got a lot of things. Very smart. 

She's got a lot of things, including a Florida address, and we know how important that is to Trump. Heck, he'd nominate a ham sandwich if he thought that would get him votes...

Sticking with the election, and Florida, where we know the president has already promised to invest $13 billion of taxpayer money in Puerto Rico in order to encourage Puerto Rican transplants to vote for him help rebuild the island nation from the devastation he previously helped with paper towels, we learn that there are two kinds of vote-buying: the kind that don't get investigated, including blatant presidential actions, and the kind that do, including Michael Bloomberg's raising of $20 million or so in funds to pay the fines of released felons who would otherwise not be able to vote. Now, there are a few things that we should pay attention to here:

• An estimated 80 percent of felons in Florida are too poor to pay off their fees and fines, meaning they would be unable to vote. Most owe between $500 and $5,000.
• The Florida Rights Restoration Coalition, a non-partisan group, collects money to help felons pay off their court costs, fees, and fines - and it's legal to do that in Florida. court fees, fines or restitution.
• Florida has a law that says, "No person shall directly or indirectly give or promise anything of value to another intending thereby to buy that person’s or another’s vote.”

Now, is there any guarantee that any of these former felons are even going to register to vote, much less consider the payment of their fines as a bribe in order to coerce them into voting for Joe Biden and not Donald Trump? Nope.  That said, Bloomberg's focus on this particular voting bloc, along with his promise to invest $100 million to help Biden win Florida, are complicating the situation. 

And, it's also interesting to note that the aforementioned Judge Barbara Lagoa agreed with the decision that the repayment of fees and fines, added by the Republican legislature after the state overwhelmingly voted to allow former felons to vote, was legal.  I guess she does have a lot of things, as Trump said. 

Sticking with legal stuff, a federal judge has barred the administration from ending the 2020 Census next week, and has instead said they must continue counting through October 31st. The decision, which comes after the Administration has been all over the map in terms of extending or ending the count, who gets counted, and so on, was cheered by both local governments, who rely on a full and accurate count to get their fair share of federal funding, and by civil rights groups fearful that their constituents would be undercounted.  Here's Marc Morial, president of the National Urban League, on the decision:

The court’s decision affirms our contention that changes to the census schedule will irreparably harm the integrity of the 2020 Census and result in a devastating undercount of vulnerable communities. Career officials at the Census Bureau opposed the shortened schedule precisely for these reasons, and to avoid the perception of political manipulation, and we are confident that integrity and equity will win out over the partisan vandalism that threatens our democracy.”

"Partisan vandalism" is a great term for what's going on, isn't it? 

There was some good news out of Washington, though. The president, in one of his customary blowhard moments, refused to commit to a peaceful transition of power, saying we'd have to see what happens or some such nonsense. At the same time, he said

Get rid of the ballots and you'll have a very peaceful - there won't be a transfer, frankly. There will be a continuation. The ballots are out of control. You know it, and you know who else knows it better than anyone else? The Democrats know it better than anyone else. 

In response, the Senate passed a non-binding resolution - by unanimous consent - in which the Senate affirms "its commitment to the orderly and peaceful transfer of power called for in the Constitution of the United States" and supports the concept that "there should be no disruptions by the president or any person in power to overturn the will of the people of the United States. 

 Yay, them - but how sad that it's even necessary to consider the need for something like this...

And finally - back to partisan vandalism and vote buying -  I'll close with this tweet from Kayleigh McEnany, the president's press secretary.

I can only surmise that the millions of Medicare beneficiaries in Florida will not be receiving these payments, because it's illegal to buy votes there...

TGIF, everyone.

Meanwhile Back in Albany (v27)

Nathaniel Brooks/NY Times photo

In Thursday's post, the first in a series on our Sonofa Gov's State of the State, we looked at the accomplishments of the Cuomo administration, covering a whole lot of bases.

Today, we start looking at what's on the new progressive agenda Andrew Cuomo and the Democratic majorities in the Assembly and Senate plan on bringing to us.

Some things have already been delivered, as the legislature got right to work as soon as they were sworn in. Here's what was called for in the SOTS:

• Reproductive Health Act
• Comprehensive Contraceptive Coverage Act
• Criminal Justice Reform
• Updating the SAFE Act
• Voting Reforms
• Passing the Equal Rights Amendment
• Child Victims Act
• Dream Act
• Legal Adult Use Cannabis
• Campaign Finance Reforms
• Green New Deal
• Sports Betting
• Pro-Labor Protections
• Tax Reforms
• Rent Regulation Reform
• Continuing the Build New York program
• MTA changes

Cuomo appreciated that there's a lot of stuff in that wish list.

It's a lot. No doubt about it. But there's been a lot that has been bottled up for many, many years that we couldn't get done. And in many ways I feel the state is now liberated with the Senate Democratic Caucus and we can get these things done and we can get them done together and pass a new budget and I believe we can get them done within the first 100 days to show this state a new reality.

Some of it already has been done, or will be done soon. Let's take a look.

Meanwhile Back in Albany (v25)

Nathaniel Brooks/NY Times photo

New York is about to get a taste of the Democratic trifecta when the Legislature gets to work on Monday.

First up? Voting and campaign reforms, according to news reports. For example, here's how the NY Times set the stage:

For years, the ways in which voters in New York have been stymied by the state's antiquated voting laws have stood in start contrast to the state's liberal reputation...But with Democrats now in control of both chambers of the State Capitol and the governor's office, things are about to change.

And here's how the Tribune News Service  presented it:

The Legislature will look to hit the ground running beginning Monday with passage of a number of long-anticipated voting and campaign reforms, including the closure of a controversial loophole that allows companies to give virtually unlimited amounts of campaign cash.

The voting reform package will be the first major undertaking by the Assembly and Senate, which are now controlled for the first time in a decade by the Democrats. The package and a host of other issues set to be taken up in the next few weeks have all been routinely blocked in previous years by Republicans, who long controlled the Senate.  

Let's take a look at the plans.