Saturday, August 06, 2022

The post beneath this one deals with Prescription Drug Pricing. Rather than further updating it, this adds thoughts.

The Hill, about Sanders' will to amend -

Some Democrats say they could support Sanders’s new proposals, but they might not survive if they endanger the larger bill’s chances of passage, as Manchin and Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) have drawn bold red lines around certain measures. 

That line of crap gets really, really tiring. We must consider 50 + the Harris VP vote, against 50 Republicans. Manchin and Sinema are "decisive." The foot draggers can hide behind the two lightning rods, standing shorter while saying, "Lightning could hit."  Continuing the quote -

“I obviously will very likely agree with Senator Sanders’s bills, but we can’t do anything to endanger this base bill,” Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) told The Hill on Thursday when pressed about Sanders’s comments. “And we’ve got to be very alert on that, because we’ve heard very clearly that a lot of our Democratic partners are not willing to support that.” 

“The outcome I’d like is for us to vote on the bill and get on with it really,” Sen. Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii) told The Hill. “So, as much as I like Bernie and all that, I don’t know what his amendment is. It depends on what it is, I might vote for it.” 

Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Md.) also acknowledged the razor-thin majority Democrats has to work with in the Senate to pass the bill, while urging for the party to remain unified as they close in on the finishing line.  

“I think we recognize at the end of the day; we need 50 votes to pass this bill, and we’ll have a strategy for that to be effective,” Cardin told The Hill. “So, we recognize we may have some challenges with amendments, but at the end of the day, we all have to come together.”

Bernie will have his say about what would be a real bill, then the little fella gets passed, after Republicans stake out a hate of it - well short of any lightning strike. Joy then prevails, the Dems did something, people get ready, November approaches. 

And that margin, even + Harris; if we get a few more seats in November so that we can pass nationwide "bodily autonomy for all" legislation [abortion availability nationwide up to 20th week]. Fear and loathing looms should we not do so.

 Meanwhile, Republicans will tire out the invented word, Bidenflation, and make thinly disguised male white power noise, [no tiki torch night parades shouting of Replacement Theory as "we will not be replaced," something with instead a smile, well dressed seemingly affluent suburb-looking types featured, like you and I but affluent looking in the way we'd like to be, and sugar words while demeaning CRT and immigrants of color, or speakers of a different romance language than WE use].

That last paragraph - fleshing it out by example will be a future post.

Of interest, Biden is the bad one, the official GOP whipping boy these days, and not Nancy Pelosi, who's been run against often enough to say let's change. Meanwhile, some will simply have withdrawal pains to where they cannot totally let go of at least a little bit of Pelosi trashing, via Newt or otherwise.

Of interest using that blog as a barometer, two clearly missing words: abortion rights. They pick the words they want to insinuate into people's minds. Propaganda aplenty, but not a word in defense of those Court anti-women anti-free choice rabid judicial activists which Trump and Leonard Leo, the Federalist Society and McConnell installed. Nothing about the Trump insurrection against the right to vote and have voting determine election outcomes, nor about Big Pharma, minimum wage, or any other reform. 

Bidenflation they howl - Gas pump prices are high because of "Biden's socialism?" Not because of a concentrated ill-regulated market of a handful of oligopolistic giant firms running on naked greed and manipulating supply and demand much as the banks are doing with housing via controlled release of foreclosed homes, but - blame socialism? Get real. 

Socialists don't own the gas pumps. Nor the banks. Nor hospitals. Price gougers do. Irresponsible in how they behave, but they own all the pumps, set the pump prices, and offer at their prices take it or leave it. Pay or run out. Kroger and Safeway set supermarket pricing. As they like. Take it or be hungry. Another concentrated band of organized vendors in concert set how medical services are rationed. Take it or suffer or die. You don't like high automobile prices? Walk. 

Biden and the government do not own gas pumps, retail outlets, or hospitals and clinics. So how then do Biden or socialists gain responsibility for consumer pricing moves? Because Newt Gingrich says so? Think.