Quick programming note: The email that went out this morning was actually Wednesday’s edition. I don’t know why it didn’t go out when I clicked the “send” button; but apparently my signing in this morning jiggled the wires enough that it went out then. So you’re getting a double dose today.
ALSO, due to certain professional obligations, I will be away from the internet most of the day on Monday. I also have a softball quadruple-header on Sunday, so the odds of me writing Monday’s edition are quite low. Apologies in advance. (I know this is a fake newsletter that I do for free as a hobby, but I have a Rain Man-like need to maintain a schedule.)
It’s All Over but the Crying, Just Settle on the Type of Crying
Progressive Democrats have not yet abandoned their quixotic quest to pass a 3.5 trillion dollar infrastructure bill even though the votes nor the mechanisms for such a bill even exist. They are determined to squeeze water out of this rock. I understand that math has never been their strong suit, but you’d think they could at least count to 51. (Or in this case, 48.)
Just to recap: back in August, the Senate passed President Biden’s infrastructure proposal in an impressively-bipartisan (particularly these days) fashion, garnering 19 Republican votes. 19! Including Mitch McConnell! It was a huge win for the Biden administration and looked like it was going to give his agenda a great deal of momentum.
But never missing an opportunity to miss an opportunity, progressive House Democrats demanded that another, much larger (and less popular) 3.5 trillion dollar infrastructure bill be passed before the Senate bill using the so-called reconciliation process; essentially holding the Senate bill hostage.
Now, reconciliation is quite an arcane and byzantine process, so I’m not even sure I could explain it correctly. Nor do I want to try. But long story short, in budgetary matters, it is possible to “reconcile” two bills from the House and Senate without making the bill subject to the filibuster; meaning the final bill can pass with only 51 votes. Progressive Democrats wanted to use this mechanism to cram through an additional two trillion dollars in infrastructure spending.
There are a few problems with this. First, it removes all incentive for any Republicans to support either bill. If Democrats are just going to cram through whatever they want through brute legislative force, what was the point of those hard-won negotiations over the summer? Normally in these cases, Nancy Pelosi could pick up enough Republican votes to make up for any petulant progressives refusing to vote against it. But now that progressives are seen as trying to sneak this elephant through the back door, Republicans are united in opposition to it.
Which leads us to the second problem: This doesn’t even have unanimous Democrat support. Even if Nancy Pelosi held her entire caucus together — which she doesn’t even want to do — there are two Democrats in the Senate (Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema) who are simply not on board. And no amount of progressive fit-pitching is going to get them on board.
But even if Democrats could get Manchin and Sinema on board, they have simply been out maneuvered by Mitch McConnell. Again. Back to the reconciliation thing, I’m not entirely sure why, but reconciliation can only be invoked a certain number of times per Congress. And from what I understand, Democrats only get one more bite at that apple. Enter: the debt ceiling. The United States government has something like two weeks before it is statutorily forbidden from incurring more debt, which means that all revenues would have to prioritize servicing existing debt. Which means a whole bunch of government spending would have to stop. Needless to say, that is a situation Democrats — given that they control both chambers of Congress and the presidency — would like to avoid. And they can, and they can do so without a single Republican vote. They just have to use [drum roll] …reconciliation! But the trick is, if they use it to raise the debt ceiling, they can’t use it for infrastructure. Mitch McConnell knew that, and he has no reason to assist Democrats in passing their agenda through surreptitious means, so he’s forcing them to make a choice. But it’s an offer they can’t refuse.
So, in summary, progressives don’t have the votes for their bill in the House; they don’t have the votes in the Senate; and even if they did, they don’t have the option of using reconciliation to avoid a filibuster. They simply don’t have the cards. So they have two choices — they can either say “good game” and move on and let the 1.5 trillion dollar bill pass (which is still a huge victory!), or they can torpedo the entire Biden legislative agenda, usher in Republican control after 2022, and make Trump 2024 much more likely.
I honestly have no insight into what they’re going to do; but if they choose the latter, they are worse at politics than I ever imagined. This is worse than Republicans after Obama’s reelection. “We can force Obama to repeal Obamacare, we just have to shut down the government to show him we mean business!” No you don’t, and no he won’t. But at least in that case, they were throwing a wrench in the agenda of the other party. Progressive Democrats are bringing down their own president. They’re Edward Norton punching himself in the face in Fight Club. It’s just baffling.
The Importance of Enunciation
So I have weekly speech therapy sessions with an associate of my, uh, main? chief? lead? speech therapist; and lately I’ve been working on vowels. Just as a quick explanation, one of the main drivers of my stuttering behaviors comes from my disdain — and therefore avoidance — of getting stuck on vowel sounds. My voice gets all reedy and nasally, it lasts way longer than it should, and I absolutely haaaaate the way it sounds. We started referring to it affectionately, or whatever the opposite of affectionately is, as “the bleating sheep.”
It’s sort of like Jim Breuer doing his Goat Boy bit on SNL back in the 90’s:
Anyway, so this week I’m doing my session with the associate therapist, doing my best to not avoid vowel sounds (because the only way to reduce struggling on vowels is to do it until I don’t hate it anymore!). And he was giving me some feedback, in which he said “That one wasn’t quite a bleeding sheep, but you kinda stabbed the sheep a little.”
It seemed like an odd thing to say, so I clarified: “Did…did you say ‘bleeding’ sheep?”
“Yeah, bleeding sheep.”
“I feel compelled to clarify that the verb is bleating. B-L-E-A-T-I-N-G.”
“Ohhhh, that makes so much more sense.”
“Wait have you been saying ‘bleeding’ this whole time?” [It’s been months]
“Yes! And now I have to change all of my gruesome metaphors!”
We had a nice laugh. Those poor sheep.
Normally I wouldn’t say anything, but I felt like I had to defend my honor a little. I’ll grant that I sometimes sound like a sheep, but a sheep making normal sheep sounds throughout the course of a normal sheep day. Not a sheep that’s being tortured. That’s where I draw the line.
Trient-Weekly Trivia
Wednesday’s, or this morning’s, answer:
Category: Jewish History
Clue: The National Library of Israel has an archive on this unjustly accused French officer; including his marriage contract.
Alfred Dreyfus
Today’s clue:
Category: Prime Numbers
Clue: Most human cells contain this many pairs of chromosomes.
Dispatches from the Homefront
Yesterday morning my daughter had an honest-to-God Terrible Twos meltdown. She needed to get dressed in order to leave for school; but she quite adamantly, in her words, “didn’t want to wear clothes.” Luckily she’s still at the age where she doesn’t actively resist having clothes put on her.
I imagine this is only the first of many times I will insist she put on more clothes before leaving the house; but I also imagine this was probably the easiest with the least amount of yelling.