The Democrats Will Also Shit Themselves.

[Mongrel]

Doesn't mean "Let's give the nazis money because it's easier to run against nazis." is a strategy anyone should be running.

[Upthorn]

But it's a time-honored tradition at this point!
And it's optimal for fundraising!

Letting them win makes it work even better!

[beatbandito]

Doesn't mean "Let's give the nazis money because it's easier to run against nazis." is a strategy anyone should be running.

I'm starting to think the democrats are bad at this.

[Thad]

Democrats hold the Senate.

Georgia is still headed toward a runoff, which will determine whether the majority is 50-50 + Harris or 51-49.

In the likely event that Republicans take the House, a Democratic majority in the Senate is mainly useful for confirming Biden's nominees for the executive and judicial branches. For the most part, even the Shitheel Democrats have voted to confirm his nominees; Gigi Sohn at the FCC is an exception.

If the Democrats do manage to keep the House -- unlikely but still possible at this point -- then a 51st seat in the Senate would have the advantage that neither Manchin nor Sinema by themselves could block legislation, they'd both have to oppose a bill to block it.

Manchin sucks but he's more or less a rational actor; if he opposes a bill he will give a reason why he opposes it and it's sometimes possible to negotiate with him. Sinema sees attention as an end in itself, and therefore will sometimes sandbag her party simply because she can.

[Cait]

And it would mean that competent leadership could play Prisoner's Dilemma with them, if they only need Manchin OR Sinema to pass something.

[Thad]

Pelosi has announced she's stepping down from leadership.

Favorite to replace her seems to be Hakeem Jeffries, which ain't great. He's as corporatist as they come and he's been pretty openly contemptuous of progressive Democrats. He would not be my first choice.

Not that I expect the minority leadership to be terribly important over the next two years. Or even the majority leadership. We're looking at a razor-thin majority for an opposition party; about all the House is going to do for the next two years is hold hearings about Hunter Biden's laptop.

[Thad]

Congressional leaders clear the way for a bipartisan bill to avert a railroad strike

Pelosi said she planned to bring a bill to the House floor Wednesday morning.

"It's not everything I would like to see. I think that we should have paid sick leave," she said.

"And I don't like going against the ability of unions to strike. But weighing the equities, we must avoid a strike," Pelosi added.

So yeah the party of labor and the pro-labor president are throwing labor under the bus, so that's cool.

[Crick]

Won't they just... strike anyway?

[Thad]

If this passes, it becomes illegal for unions or workers to strike.

Of course you can't physically force people to come into work; they can just not show up. But the unions can be sanctioned for supporting or coordinating it, it'll no longer be considered collective bargaining, and the workers' contracts won't protect them from being fired for it.

[Thad]

The bill's passed the House, but progressives successfully worked a sick leave deal into it.

I still think strike-breaking is entirely the wrong move, but at least it's a better bill now than it was yesterday.

[Crick]

Oh shit! I'm glad they got sick leave, but yeah, this is far from "the union party"

[Thad]

In more positive news: Michigan poised to replace Iowa as early Democratic presidential state

Good. I said after the clusterfuck of the 2020 primaries that maybe this would finally convince people to stop treating Iowa like it was important, but I didn't expect it to happen in such an immediate and concrete way.

Michigan is a good choice. It's bigger, more diverse, and more representative of the country as a whole than Iowa.

[Crick]

Let them have it. Caucusing is broken and frustrating.

[pacobird]

In more positive news: Michigan poised to replace Iowa as early Democratic presidential state

Good. I said after the clusterfuck of the 2020 primaries that maybe this would finally convince people to stop treating Iowa like it was important, but I didn't expect it to happen in such an immediate and concrete way.

Michigan is a good choice. It's bigger, more diverse, and more representative of the country as a whole than Iowa.

oh god damnit

[Thad]

Senate blocks the House's sick leave amendment, because of the fucking filibuster. I hate this shit.

[Thad]

Sinema's latest "look at me, look at me" move is to announce she's now an independent.

This won't have any immediate effect since she's still going to caucus with the Democrats (and between the new 51-49 majority and the Republicans taking the House, her vote will be less important in the next Congress than it was in this one anyway), but basically it means she knows she can't win a Democratic primary but is going to run for reelection anyway.

People are worried she'll act as a spoiler but I'm not so sure that's how it'll play out. I think a very likely scenario is that the AZGOP runs another lunatic and Sinema ends up drawing more votes from the Republican side than the Democratic.

[Grath]

Nation Shocked to Learn That Kyrsten Sinema Had Been a Democrat

[Thad]

Looks like the AZ Democratic Party ain't having it.

Here is a screenshot of the text of the statement. I could not find it in plain text. The official Arizona Dems website posted it as a link to a tweet of a screenshot of text, because we are in Hell.

[Mongrel]

I think a very likely scenario is that the AZGOP runs another lunatic and Sinema ends up drawing more votes from the Republican side than the Democratic.

Porqé no los dos?

[Thad]

...are you suggesting a bisexual former Democrat who voted to convict in both Trump impeachment trials is going to win a Republican primary in Arizona?

Republicans only like her slightly better than Democrats do. The reason she just switched to independent is that she knows she can't win any party's primary.