Covid relief bill-round two? (starting with Pelosi to Trump on Twitter)

By artappraiser on Tue, 12/22/2020 - 8:37pm |

Pelosi listened to Trump's tweeted video and responded by retweeting with proposal; all at link

Potus found a taker! https://t.co/TruEOR2T5E
— Maggie Haberman (@maggieNYT) December 23, 2020

URL:

https://twitter.com/SpeakerPelosi/status/1341557535732604935?s=20

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All I have to say is that Trump has had 7 months - literally since the Heroes Act passed - to engage in COVID relief talks. But he never did.

To threaten a veto is purely to make people he's angry with - GOP - miserable and to stay in the news.

Ok I'm going back on vacation.
— Leigh Ann Caldwell (@LACaldwellDC) December 23, 2020

(NBC reporter on Congressional beat)

by artappraiser on Tue, 12/22/2020 - 9:06pm

as to Trump's video statement:

Being a spokesperson for President Trump is always perilous. Today is just the latest example. https://t.co/8EmRIHMH25
— Tamara Keith (@tamarakeithNPR) December 23, 2020

by artappraiser on Tue, 12/22/2020 - 9:10pm

Lindsey Graham and AOC:

Appreciate the fact that Speaker Pelosi supports President @realDonaldTrump's idea to increase direct payments to $2,000 per person.

The American people are hurting and deserve relief. I know there is much bipartisan support for this idea.

Let’s go further.
— Lindsey Graham (@LindseyGrahamSC) December 23, 2020

I hope Speaker Pelosi will agree with President Trump that Big Tech needs to be reined in by winding down Section 230 liability protections.

I have reason to believe this combination will lead to President Trump supporting the NDAA and COVID19 omnibus bills.
— Lindsey Graham (@LindseyGrahamSC) December 23, 2020

Let’s go big for the American people.
— Lindsey Graham (@LindseyGrahamSC) December 23, 2020

Let’s do it. @RashidaTlaib and I already co-wrote the COVID amendment for $2,000 checks, so it’s ready to go.

Glad to see the President is willing to support our legislation.

We can pass $2k checks this week if the Senate GOP agrees to stand down. https://t.co/GprwrUPali pic.twitter.com/nFFs1ExqCK
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) December 23, 2020

For people asking about the insane & corrupt tax giveaways in the deal (ex. the “3 martini lunch” trash ) much of that gross stuff is actually the omnibus.

It’s a little confusing, but basically there’s 3 major components to the COVID deal:
1. Rule
2. Omnibus
3. COVID relief
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) December 23, 2020

For context, it actually took 3 votes to pass this COVID bill.

1st vote: The Rule (process vote)

The rule vote cleared the way for the bill to be brought to a vote so soon after text dropped.

It passed, which is one reason why the vote happened so fast. (I & others voted NO)
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) December 23, 2020

2nd vote is the Omnibus.

What’s that? Basically the “deal” is centered on tying COVID relief to funding the gov(aka Omnibus).

They were tied together so pols who were against COVID relief (checks, SNAP, UI, etc) could trade for their horse write-offs etc in the Omni. Gross, no?
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) December 23, 2020

It’s gross but also true!

The dilemma many were dealing w/ was: bc these things were tied together, it made clean COVID relief impossible. You can largely thank Mitch for that. I’m not saying this is all 1 party but fr he’s awful.

Anyways the Omnibus has most of the gross stuff
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) December 23, 2020

The omnibus is actually a collection of legislation that funds each federal agency (Homeland Security $ + Enviro $ + NASA $, etc).

There are many agencies, so the 2nd vote was the omni w/ DHS, DoD, Fin Services & a lot of the “pork” leg people are objecting to (I also voted NO)
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) December 23, 2020

The THIRD vote had the actual COVID relief: the too-little $600 checks, $300 in UI, SNAP,etc.

There were also some omnis tacked on, but less controversial. (I initially voted PRESENT on this bc this process is so F’d up, but then YES bc my families are so hungry. Wanted to )
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) December 23, 2020

Anyways, that’s a very loose breakdown (at least process-wise) of how it went down.

Process is important because it’s how pols get overwhelmingly corrupt and unpopular things into legislation. They can’t campaign on it, so many use process & obscure deals to sneak things in.
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) December 23, 2020

by artappraiser on Tue, 12/22/2020 - 11:27pm

Chuck Schumer:

I’m in. Whaddya say, Mitch? Let’s not get bogged down with ideological offsets and unrelated items and just DO THIS! The American people deserve it. @senatemajldr https://t.co/L1b5rUkc7h
— Chuck Schumer (@SenSchumer) December 23, 2020

by artappraiser on Tue, 12/22/2020 - 11:58pm

but:

Amy Klobuchar just went on MSNBC to call raising the stimulus to $2,000 per person "an attack on every American" and suggests Congress override Trump's veto. pic.twitter.com/mEdDUY9dNu
— jordan (@JordanUhl) December 23, 2020

by artappraiser on Wed, 12/23/2020 - 12:01am

Bernie Sanders:

That's great! I first introduced a bill to provide a $2,000 direct payment with @SenKamalaHarris & @EdMarkey 7 months ago. Now, Mr. President, get Mitch McConnell and your Republican friends to stop opposing it and we can provide working class Americans with $2,000. Let's do it. https://t.co/fKvqBsqM0k
— Bernie Sanders (@BernieSanders) December 23, 2020

edit to add: Ed Markey retweeted Bernie's tweet and added this one:

$2000 payments. And make them monthly.
— Ed Markey (@EdMarkey) December 23, 2020

by artappraiser on Wed, 12/23/2020 - 12:18am

You can't hypnotize a turtle
— (@__Arthur_Dent__) December 23, 2020

we'll soon see whether "art" is right?

by artappraiser on Wed, 12/23/2020 - 12:13am

Me watching as @SpeakerPelosi and @realDonaldTrump continue to one-up each other until we all get $69,6969 checks: pic.twitter.com/etzTPUJL1n
— VP of C.U.M. LLC (@2for1paninis) December 23, 2020

by artappraiser on Wed, 12/23/2020 - 12:23am

House Democrats responded to President Trump's call to increase stimulus payments to $2,000 per adult by saying they're ready to bring the measure to the floor by "unanimous consent" this week. https://t.co/ODFykiiDZJ
— Axios (@axios) December 23, 2020

by artappraiser on Wed, 12/23/2020 - 12:32am

insightful liberal pundit chat on some things really going on here, big picture, including a squeeze on the GA Senate race:

McConnell and Senate R’s have gone to extreme lengths to avoid confronting Trump. But Trump is going to force the issue. He won’t stop until there’s an actual make or break moment.
— Chris Hayes (@chrislhayes) December 23, 2020

He's imploding the Republican Party.
— Dan Sherwood (@sherwood_dan) December 23, 2020

It's in the Dems interest to hasten this moment.
— Jeet Heer (@HeerJeet) December 23, 2020

So @KLoeffler @sendavidperdue are you in for $2K?
— Mark Feinberg (@MarkLFeinberg) December 23, 2020

Every question asked of the GA GOP senators tomorrow will be if they support Trump's $2k stimulus check...they'll have to dodge the question and that'll help the Dems in that race. This could be the moment that the democrats actually have a chance to win those races now.
— Steeler247 (@steeler247) December 23, 2020

I think some of you guys are giving Trump way too much credit for tactical decision making. He’s angry at McConnell and wanted to make his life difficult. There’s nothing else to it.
— Devon Villacampa (@DevonVillacampa) December 23, 2020

Honestly, I think he just wants to force GOPers to declare loyalty to Trump uber alles. He wants to know who puts Trump above everyone and everything else. This is a good way to force them to do that. “Me or McConnell? Make your stand.”
— Aggie Says WE DID IT!! (@ThxForAllDaFish) December 23, 2020

by artappraiser on Wed, 12/23/2020 - 1:05am

One funny thing is that Trump also released a 14-minute video ranting about the election being stolen from him and urging his supporters to rise up and demand it be un-stolen and it has barely registered.
— Josh Barro (@jbarro) December 23, 2020

by artappraiser on Wed, 12/23/2020 - 1:08am

Bad staff work.

"[A]dministration officials had negotiated the bill with lawmakers in the final days without explicitly securing Trump’s approval, aides said. He had largely been distracted with overturning the results of the presidential election."https://t.co/qcquB8ynTK
— Brian P. McKeon (@bpmckeon64) December 23, 2020

also

It’s absolutely clear that @realDonaldTrump does not know how a bill becomes a law.
— Ted Boutrous (@BoutrousTed) December 23, 2020

by artappraiser on Wed, 12/23/2020 - 1:15am

The best speech of Trump's Presidency: https://youtu.be/-wdsOEKp4Og

by Orion on Wed, 12/23/2020 - 2:29am

It's a terrible speech. Even if we assume his examples aren't spin they're demagoguery designed to appeal to his ignorant right wing base. Except for the aid to Egypt the rest of his examples of foreign aid are in the tens of millions. One billion is one thousand million. Again excepting the 3 billion to Egypt adding all his examples together you get maybe one billion, out of a 900 billion dollar bill. And likely most of that aid is to help those countries deal with the covid crisis. Putting aside humanitarian reasons to help these poor countries deal with an extraordinary and expensive crisis there are pragmatic reasons to help these countries to limit deaths to remain stable. This is especially true with the aid to central and south American countries where instability can affect us with radicals fomenting revolution to increased immigration and the spread of disease to the US.

eta: It's actually 1.3 billion aid to Egypt, not 3 billion. If we were to take all the money listed in Trump's speech and gave it to Americans each person would get about 7 dollars, so $607 instead of $600

by ocean-kat on Wed, 12/23/2020 - 7:51pm

The Egypt money is prolly to pay back Egypt's loan/gift to Trump's campaign in Oct 2016, no?

by PeraclesPlease on Wed, 12/23/2020 - 2:19pm

And on things like arts and humanities that are being mentioned as "wasted", i.e Smithsonian, Kennedy Center. Would like to point out that while in the past that might have been a very valid argument (i.e., cut the subsidies it's a luxury we can't afford, they need to get by on much less.) right NOW it's totally different. Those kind of places don't get some money pronto, LOTS more people are going to lose their jobs. They are desperate, they've already laid off lots. If you think they shouldn't be subsidized, fine, but you better have other kind of jobs available or employees of such places are going to be on those food lines too. It's stimulus same as any other to be able to keep your job at the air & space museum, whether it's a janitor or a curator. A lot of these places are no different situation than restaurants, they are used to getting income from volume of visitors and they've either been closed or reduced 75%.

by artappraiser on Wed, 12/23/2020 - 6:01pm

Useful counterpoints. Made me think right away: careful of the populist "chicken-in-every-pot" game:

The relief bill is actually good and the discourse around it has been a disgrace, underselling the good it will do and the harms that will come if it's not enacted. It's hardly "just $600." https://t.co/QqwxcHQpIl
— Josh Barro (@jbarro) December 23, 2020

by artappraiser on Wed, 12/23/2020 - 12:35pm

to my own point:

Yes, this might be a problem. https://t.co/luiB1XXNP5
— Charlie Sykes (@SykesCharlie) December 23, 2020

by artappraiser on Wed, 12/23/2020 - 12:52pm

Andrew Yang retweeted this new tweet by Pelosi

Mr. President, sign the bill to keep government open! Urge McConnell and McCarthy to agree with the Democratic unanimous consent request for $2,000 direct payments! This can be done by noon on Christmas Eve!
— Nancy Pelosi (@SpeakerPelosi) December 23, 2020

followed by this tweet of his own:

Mitch McConnell has the power to be a real life Santa Clause - or Grinch - for tens of millions of Americans. Listen to the President Mitch. #StimulusChecks2000
— Andrew Yang (@AndrewYang) December 23, 2020

by artappraiser on Wed, 12/23/2020 - 12:56pm

$2000 for everyone, let's do it.

by Orion on Wed, 12/23/2020 - 2:28pm

UPDATE, what happened at The House today:

House Democrats tried to quickly pass the relief bill by a unanimous consent request Thursday morning,l. House Republicans objected, instead, they tried to unanimously vote to revisit the foreign aid funding included in the omnibus bill, Democrats objected. Full vote on Dec. 28. pic.twitter.com/YwVPQYe7oe
— Joshua Rodriguez (@Joshuajered) December 24, 2020

The Chair ruled on both bills that they cannot entertain the request unless it has been cleared by the bipartisan floor and committee leaderships.
— House Press Gallery (@HouseDailyPress) December 24, 2020

House is blocked from taking up $2,000 direct payment checks because of House precedent constraining Hoyer’s request unless it has the clearance of “the Minority Leader.” GOP blocked from its propsoal to re-open State Apps bill because it needs the blessing of the majority
— Chad Pergram (@ChadPergram) December 24, 2020

House Forma Session done for the day. Hoyer to hold press conference shortly on standoff with the President. House will try to approve $2,000 checks Monday. Bill likely goes before Rules Cmte Monday, then the flr. Watch to see how many GOPers align w/Trump in Monday vote
— Chad Pergram (@ChadPergram) December 24, 2020

After Republicans block $2000 direct payments for covid relief as demanded by the president, @SpeakerPelosi says she will call House back to take recorded vote Monday Dec 28th. pic.twitter.com/EjMmwvrcRx
— Kelly O'Donnell (@KellyO) December 24, 2020

by artappraiser on Thu, 12/24/2020 - 1:17pm

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