Friday, May 28, 2021

We’re finishing off the last full week of May. This month has passed pretty quickly, it seems. I wonder if that’s just something that happens when you get older. Anyhow, the News.

To the surprise of absolutely nobody, the Senate failed to pass the bill designed to put together a bipartisan 9/11-type commission to investigate what all went down on January 6, when Trump supporters threw the Great American Temper Tantrum because they don’t understand how things work and had no manager to call. The bill passed the House by a fairly hefty margin and had a lot of support from both parties. Indeed, it was co-written by a Republican and had made concessions to please Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell.

However, as time for the vote got closer, McConnell put in a ton of effort to make sure the bill died. Regardless, it got a majority vote of 54-35 with plenty of Republican support. However, as it fell under the filibuster, it needed 60 and thus didn’t make it out of cloture. So there will be no bipartisan effort to investigate the GATT or who in the GOP was actively involved, not 10 nongovernmental individuals with five chosen by each party, nothing like that. Speaker Nancy Pelosi said the House will put something together to look into it made up of mostly Democrats and from now on, the GOP can go skip rope.

Interestingly, eleven Senators didn’t even bother to show up for the vote. This includes Tennessee nutjob Marsha Blackburn, Okie peabrain Jim Inhofe, and that kooky Krystin Sinema of Arizona. It’s one thing to vote against taking responsibility, but to not even have the spine or respect for your constituents to show up for the vote is something else entirely. West Virginia drama queen Jim Manchin had the brass ones to pretend to be outraged at the GOP refusing to take any responsibility since although he’s been in office since 2010, he’s just now started paying attention.

As we’ve noted before, getting rid of the filibuster is high up on the Democratic Christmas list, particularly from voters. Manchin and Sinema have been the holdouts within the party, making it hard to do anything about it. Critics of the filibuster, however, are already pointing to today’s vote as a primo example of why it should be readjusted if not outright eliminated. In olden days, running a filibuster would require more than just saying “we’re going to run one so you might as well not bother,” and the significant bipartisan vote in favor of the commission is proof it was a popular bill.

The flip of this is it seems the Biden Administration is getting tired of the GOP’s bullshit and plans to get an infrastructure bill passed with or without their input. The White House sent a $1.7 trillion proposal to the House, down from the original $2.3 trillion, and House Republicans responded with a plan that promised less than thirteen percent of that once all was said and done. The GOP plan is also nowhere near as comprehensive as Biden’s plan, which includes money spent on elderly healthcare and expanded broadband, among other things.

One worry the Republicans claim to have is how the bill with deepen the $28 trillion debt the U.S. is running right now. Granted, they only care about debt when they’re not in the White House. Granted, they had no problem with the 2017 Trump tax cuts that promised $1.8 trillion in revenue but has had the exact opposite effect, just as every trickle-down tax cut has since they became a thing.

Finally, we’ve learned more about Wednesday’s shooting at a San Jose trainyard, as well as the names of the victims. Another person died, bringing the kill count up to eight. The victims were all male but beyond that, there seemed to be no pattern. Shooter Sam Cassidy was just an asshole who’d talked about shooting up his workplace for years, according to his ex-wife. He was due to face a disciplinary hearing the day of the shooting for making racist remarks to co-workers. I’m sure that comes as a shock to everyone.

Have a nice weekend.