Angie Wong: Journalist
The Final Countdown – 7/14/23 – “I Am Not a Fed” Epps Sues Fox
Angie Wong: Journalist
Not since Joe Lieberman has a single phony Democratic senator mnanaged to dupe so many naive progressive and centrist Democrats into looking like fools as he undermined a president’s not-that-ambitious agenda. Joe Manchin has killed Build Back Better and dashed Democratic hopes for the foreseeable future.
Democrats are fighting internally between their progressive and centrist wings over infrastructure bills, one for actual buildings, the other one for actual human beings. Interestingly, two right wing senators control what comes out of the US Senate even though they are only a tiny minority. Over in the House of Representatives, on the other hand, the small minority progressive squad is dismissed as the small minority that they are. What both assumptions have in common is that right wing politics are always considered normative.
Bernie Sanders proposed a monthly stimulus of $2000, hardly a king’s ransom when you consider that tens of millions of people have lost their jobs entirely. Instead, Joe Biden promised $2000, one time, and then reduced it to $1400 after taking into account $600 paid out by Donald Trump toward the end of his term. Now he’s caving in to moderate Democrats like Joe Manchin of West Virginia and subjecting the payments to increased means testing. The patient, the American economy, is dying. But there’s no sense of urgency whatsoever on the part of the White House or the US Congress.