It's About The Trust, Stupid

What an awful way to write legislation

Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, D-Ariz., and Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., board an elevator after a private meeting between the two of them on Capitol Hill on Thursday, Sept. 30, 2021 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post via Getty Images)

It’s going to be a busy week; we’re getting juicy new details about Vladimir Putin’s kleptocracy, and an even more extraordinary look at the “MAGA Trashiest Police Report in History,” which raises the always scintillating question, “Is Corey Lewandowski a murderer or does he just pretend he is to get chicks?”

Because these things come in bunches, we are also getting details about the mega-grift of the now defunct media company, Ozy, and pointed reminders about the awfulness of Facebook.

Meanwhile, Dems are continuing their brinksmanship on infrastructure/reconciliation, and activists are behaving badly in bathrooms.

Happy Monday.

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Lets start with a trip in the way-back machine to the distant past — in this case 2017, when Senator Michael Bennet (D-Colorado) and his Democratic colleagues proposed the No Hearing, No Vote Act - a bit of non-deplorable legislation that would require any bills going through the fast-tracked reconciliation process, to have at least one committee hearing and be reported out by at least one committee before the full Senate could vote on it.

In other words, no hearing, no vote, because Bennet explained, "We need to have an open and rigorous discussion about” bills that would affect things like health care.

Republicans, of course, buried the bill under several tons of no-f’ing-way.

Fast forward to… now.

Republicans are proposing… wait for it.. the exact same bill.