I think it's necessary to keep the roles of the players in creating this legislation clear and distinct. I find it perfectly credible that Trump has no idea what's in the bill. In fact, I doubt that the legislators who passed it have a clue either. This is the agenda of the Project 2025 masterminds - you know, the ones Trump knew nothing about - the implementation of their vision for the country. Trump's role was PR agent and political closer. All he cares about is the win. In fact, this reinforces his plausible deniability if the public reacts badly to the impact on their lives. Not unlike his comments that he has no idea who made the call to pause shipments of approved military resources to Ukraine or that he has no way of knowing if cuts to NWS played a part in the Texas flood disaster, this what he does. He doesn't know, but he makes it a point to interject that this was "Biden's setup," not his. Push the deal, yet maintain your distance, and claim victory.
He meaning Trump is a weak excuse for a man. He knew what he was doing and for that reason alone the American people will remember him and not in a very favorable way into the future.
I apologize for doing this, but fans of Jonathan here- and I am a huge one- may also want to read today's Bulwark article by Rahm Emanuel. He lays out quite a Grand Plan for Dem's, to show them their path forward out of the execrable TrumpCare, through the Big Bill's damage to our country's healthcare. There was no comment section for Rahm's article. Forgive me for commenting indirectly. IMO, his article is very astute, although I know not all of you will buy the idea of what will amount to universal healthcare, while still giving insurance companies a stake.
Once again, Mr. Cohn has done a superb job of explaining and putting into context an issue that otherwise doesn’t interest me very much. So many important stands here well-explained and tied together. Congressional process, like the Constitution, and so much of our statutory governance law, turns out to be another area where major reform is needed to prevent tyrannical abuses, this time by the legislative majority.
When will we quit believing the GOP Congressionals are wanting to stand up but just don’t have the spine, or fear being ‘primaried’? They are, quite obviously, in on the destruction of democracy. They talk one way and act another, just part of being a distraction. They are ‘in’ for the long haul. Project 2025 is REAL. They are following the plan right in front of us and we can’t see it? We wait for them to smell the coffee while they prepare the koolaid.
Ever since the 1990s, when decades of Democratic government dominance were undermined, the holy grail of the GOP has been to enable permanent Republican dominance. It no longer has anything to do with political ideology (if it ever did - as Stuart Stevens and others have pointed out, It Was All a Lie) and it certainly has nothing to do with good governance or a truly brighter future for America. It's all about "Republicans" using every available means (gerrymandering, obfuscation, prevarication and above all, LIES) to hold on to political power. In the age of Trump and mindless MAGAt fealty to the greatest con man of all time, elected officials see Trump loyalty as the surest way to preserve their individual political power (and "relevancy"). The Trump-friendly electorate drinks the Koolaid dispensed by Trump, his appointed lackeys, GOP Congress members, and the shamelessly corrupt right-wing media (all driven solely by narrow self-interest), because they see it as the best way to preserve the hollow comfort they derive from keeping their tribe in power, which is their holy grail. Now that this shameless bill has been passed and signed, Trump will move on to his next tower of misrepresentations and the spineless idiots will dutifully follow. The whole process of government is so polluted by tribalism and personal ambition, particularly on the right, I'm not sure if the obvious damage this legislation will do, will ever come home to roost on the GOP. Their next "prime directive" will be to fabricate a structure of inuendo and lies to prospectively smear the Democrats before the mid-term elections and to divert attention away from the disastrous effects of their legislation - which will be greater in red states than anywhere else. I don't think it is Trump hyperbole to say that today's GOP is the most corrupt political organization in the history our country.
The article forgot one important fact----the GOP has the majority! Period! If you can't convince any in the GOP to vote 'no,' then Dems are going to lose! And that's what happened. No. 2 has scared them to death about the primary and so they follow him like idiots. Terri Quint
“leaving open the question of whether he did not know how to answer the criticism or simply did not know what the GOP bill would actually do.”
May I suggest a third possibility? He lied. They knew he was lying. He reassured them he wasn’t lying. They still knew he was lying. They didn’t care and passed it anyway.
After one of the Trump arm twisting sessions, I read a quote from one of the reps. He effectively said that Trump told him not to worry about Medicaid cuts because he would issue an EO if it got out of hand. Did I imagine this?
Found it. It was not about Medicaid, but I'm sure the details aren't important.
Press Pass, July 3rd - “The reason we have credibility, they know we’ll vote ‘No,’” Ralph Norman (R-S.C.) said Wednesday shortly before voting “Yes.”
This morning on CNBC, the host asked Norman what changed for him overnight, noting that the bill had not been altered. “We met with President Trump,” Norman said. “What’s different is, President Trump is going to use his powers to, like on the subsidies, to make sure that it’s—a lot of these subsidies won’t remain in effect, you know, from here on out.” Read that again: The specifics of the law don’t matter; President Trump will just refuse to enforce the parts Norman doesn’t like.
"Even then, Republican leaders had some sense (though perhaps not enough) that the full scope of their agenda would alienate a lot of voters..."
No problem. Just rig elections. And if you still lose - good luck getting Vance to do the right thing like Pence - throw another insurrection that will make 1/6/21 look like the "tourist visit" that MAGA liars claimed it was. And THAT, my fellow Americans, is why we need to spend less effort worrying about the Big Ugly Bill, deportations, etc., and get busy to make absolutely certain the MAGA cult does not get away with the evil it doesn't even pretend that it won't do!!!
Biden deserves a bunch of potshots. He had an objectively awful presidency, the final witness of which was the fact that he was too unpopular to run for re-election (the real reason Democrats wanted to replace him for the last two years of his presidency). 37% approval presidents don't get re-elected.
Just because Trump sucks, and sucks much worse, doesn't mean Biden/Harris didn't suck too. That, and Democrats trying to gaslight them otherwise, is ultimately why the voters brought Trump back.
No one trusts trump he is a liar from the word go and always will be. He has no principals and does not care about the damage he has inflicted on the American people.
Objectively awful? No! The reason Trump has been fast and furious with EOs, deregulation and reversing court precedents is to overturn the positive direction set by Biden, especially relative to infrastructure, energy and environmental policy. Thoroughly debated and carefully constructed legislation, specifically designed to benefit red states, to build support for the objectives, has been gutted to benefit special interests and to turn America back decades. This is a gift to key global competitors, in particular China, who will forge ahead in the critical areas where we fall back. The loser in all of this is our country, in terms of influence in and leadership of global policy and the clear good of the country.
I agree that some of that policy was effective, especially the infrastructure spending, but if you are too unpopular to run for reelection, your presidency was awful. Period. I’m not saying Biden was a bad president (Harris was a bad VP though), but that he had the worst presidency since Jimmy Carter. 9% inflation and doubling of interest rates is objectively awful, and things we haven’t seen in 45 years. There’s no spinning that. Then there was the hapless foreign policy.
Also, when you’re unpopular and in debilitated mental and physical condition, you cannot lead. And, Biden did not lead.
Nevertheless, we can debate it all day, but the final judgement is clear. The people brought back a failed, boorish, despicable convicted felon in response. How good could Biden’s presidency have been?
In response to your final question, I think you overestimate the level of knowledge of facts, the ability to process nuance, and general critical thinking skills of the vast majority of Americans. That he was too old and shouldn't have run (maybe ever) isn't the measure of Biden's presidency. His actions didn't cause the inflation or interest rate rises. His handling of the COVID recovery was very good. While the inflation rate fell steeply, prices never did, which is what people mean when they refer to inflation. And, finally, while I saw Harris as choice for running mate a pander - another Biden specialty- tell me who was a great VP? We'll have to disagree on the quality of presidents since Carter. It's mostly a matter of who did less damage.
Biden didn’t cause the inflation, other than the unnecessary Covid bill he championed and passed in March 2021. That does not pass if Mitch McConnell is majority leader. But, if you’re going to blame the great recession on Bush (as the left always tries to do), then Biden gets the blame for inflation that occurred on his watch.
Who was a good VP? George HW Bush and Al Gore were both excellent VPs. Bush was the best of my 60 year lifetime. I think Dick Cheney was an effective VP, as was Joe Biden. Harris was awful, ala Dan Quail, because nobody had any faith in her/them, either as competent in their roll, or as successors to their presidents. They also caused more than their fair share of embarrassment to their administrations. And yes, she was the literal poster child for pander and DEI hire.
A single factor can't be extracted as THE cause for inflation. Trump also handed out checks, the COVID supply chain impacts were devastating. I agree that Biden's COVID stimulus contributed, but it can also be argued that the amazing American economic recovery overall would not have been so robust without it. If course McConnell would have blocked it, just as he shamelessly blocked Obama's SCOTUS appointee. Bush I was a competent politician, but (as every human) imperfect. Ditto Cheney. Their records on Iran-Contra and the Iraq War can't be sidestepped. Gore, yes, very good. A big difference is the level of genuine trust and partnership established by the President, which didn't happen with Biden. But Harris didn't lose because of her performance as VP, any more than noteworthy performance helped Gore. And Cheney is the poster boy for manipulative, dishonest behavior. It's all in the nuance.
Not sure where you're finding the potshot at Biden, it read to me more as a critique of the media and what they chose to cover than the former president. Either way, Jonathan Cohn and JVL are two different people, this isn't the triad
"Back then, he didn’t get his wish. This time around, he did."
The "wish" being only vengeance against Obama, for the act foolishly named after him. Trump doesn't care if Medicaid is cut to zero or the spending is doubled, as long as his id and ego are fed every second.
This isn't Donald Trump's bill, just like the 2017 bill wasn't his. He couldn't have cared less what was in it. This is a soft version of Ayn Rand's bill. Other than the ICE money, this bill is an establishment Republican's wet dream. This bill could have been written by Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell.
All the CoC-country club GOP policies are permanent, while all the populist bullshit (no tax on tips or OT, the senior credit, the child tax credit extension, etc.) expire with Trump's presidency. This will force Democrats (if somehow they miraculously manage to win the presidency and Congress in 2028) to make the hard choices to either perpetuate GOP policy or raise taxes on a lot of the very people who vote for Democrats. You can almost see Mitch McConnell's sly grin as you contemplate it.
I have a radical suggestion. However much the article concerns the convicted felon TACO, moving forward, can we please resist the urge to post a picture of him?
What is this, Daily Kos? I read that site sometimes just to see what life is like in a purple world, and they are always triggered in the comments by pictures of Trump. Relax. Vile as he is, his picture can't really hurt you.
"And how much should Trump's success alter our preconceptions about what effective leadership looks like..."
There are various types of leadership, and here let's contrast the leadership that a builder of something good but very hard/controversial must demonstrate vs. the leadership that the head of a gang of vandals, or jewel thieves, must demonstrate. Because Trump and the Congressional Republicans are the latter case. If you're a vandal, or a jewel thief, and all you want to do is destroy, or confiscate, the wealth of a republic (say), and the owners of the establishment (the republic) are distracted, then you need only some degree of coordination (the bonding glue being greed), move quickly and stealthily, and then smash and grab away. Ah, you've got a tax cut there, mate! Ah, some ICE funding for Miller there, hooray. Ah, that's a beaut, some Medicaid cuts there, mate. Quick, let's scram before the public finds out!
Liked for "...the bonding glue being greed". That is probably the best explanation for Trump's election in 2016 and his return in 2024. There aren't enough MAGA cult members to elect a president. But the rest of his voters are hoping to "get something" that they know they won't get from Democrats. These voters are as transactional as Donald Trump himself.
I think it's necessary to keep the roles of the players in creating this legislation clear and distinct. I find it perfectly credible that Trump has no idea what's in the bill. In fact, I doubt that the legislators who passed it have a clue either. This is the agenda of the Project 2025 masterminds - you know, the ones Trump knew nothing about - the implementation of their vision for the country. Trump's role was PR agent and political closer. All he cares about is the win. In fact, this reinforces his plausible deniability if the public reacts badly to the impact on their lives. Not unlike his comments that he has no idea who made the call to pause shipments of approved military resources to Ukraine or that he has no way of knowing if cuts to NWS played a part in the Texas flood disaster, this what he does. He doesn't know, but he makes it a point to interject that this was "Biden's setup," not his. Push the deal, yet maintain your distance, and claim victory.
He meaning Trump is a weak excuse for a man. He knew what he was doing and for that reason alone the American people will remember him and not in a very favorable way into the future.
I apologize for doing this, but fans of Jonathan here- and I am a huge one- may also want to read today's Bulwark article by Rahm Emanuel. He lays out quite a Grand Plan for Dem's, to show them their path forward out of the execrable TrumpCare, through the Big Bill's damage to our country's healthcare. There was no comment section for Rahm's article. Forgive me for commenting indirectly. IMO, his article is very astute, although I know not all of you will buy the idea of what will amount to universal healthcare, while still giving insurance companies a stake.
Once again, Mr. Cohn has done a superb job of explaining and putting into context an issue that otherwise doesn’t interest me very much. So many important stands here well-explained and tied together. Congressional process, like the Constitution, and so much of our statutory governance law, turns out to be another area where major reform is needed to prevent tyrannical abuses, this time by the legislative majority.
When will we quit believing the GOP Congressionals are wanting to stand up but just don’t have the spine, or fear being ‘primaried’? They are, quite obviously, in on the destruction of democracy. They talk one way and act another, just part of being a distraction. They are ‘in’ for the long haul. Project 2025 is REAL. They are following the plan right in front of us and we can’t see it? We wait for them to smell the coffee while they prepare the koolaid.
Ever since the 1990s, when decades of Democratic government dominance were undermined, the holy grail of the GOP has been to enable permanent Republican dominance. It no longer has anything to do with political ideology (if it ever did - as Stuart Stevens and others have pointed out, It Was All a Lie) and it certainly has nothing to do with good governance or a truly brighter future for America. It's all about "Republicans" using every available means (gerrymandering, obfuscation, prevarication and above all, LIES) to hold on to political power. In the age of Trump and mindless MAGAt fealty to the greatest con man of all time, elected officials see Trump loyalty as the surest way to preserve their individual political power (and "relevancy"). The Trump-friendly electorate drinks the Koolaid dispensed by Trump, his appointed lackeys, GOP Congress members, and the shamelessly corrupt right-wing media (all driven solely by narrow self-interest), because they see it as the best way to preserve the hollow comfort they derive from keeping their tribe in power, which is their holy grail. Now that this shameless bill has been passed and signed, Trump will move on to his next tower of misrepresentations and the spineless idiots will dutifully follow. The whole process of government is so polluted by tribalism and personal ambition, particularly on the right, I'm not sure if the obvious damage this legislation will do, will ever come home to roost on the GOP. Their next "prime directive" will be to fabricate a structure of inuendo and lies to prospectively smear the Democrats before the mid-term elections and to divert attention away from the disastrous effects of their legislation - which will be greater in red states than anywhere else. I don't think it is Trump hyperbole to say that today's GOP is the most corrupt political organization in the history our country.
The article forgot one important fact----the GOP has the majority! Period! If you can't convince any in the GOP to vote 'no,' then Dems are going to lose! And that's what happened. No. 2 has scared them to death about the primary and so they follow him like idiots. Terri Quint
The GOP seems to have operated on the old maxim: if you can’t dazzle ‘em with brilliance, baffle ‘em with bullshit.
“leaving open the question of whether he did not know how to answer the criticism or simply did not know what the GOP bill would actually do.”
May I suggest a third possibility? He lied. They knew he was lying. He reassured them he wasn’t lying. They still knew he was lying. They didn’t care and passed it anyway.
After one of the Trump arm twisting sessions, I read a quote from one of the reps. He effectively said that Trump told him not to worry about Medicaid cuts because he would issue an EO if it got out of hand. Did I imagine this?
Found it. It was not about Medicaid, but I'm sure the details aren't important.
Press Pass, July 3rd - “The reason we have credibility, they know we’ll vote ‘No,’” Ralph Norman (R-S.C.) said Wednesday shortly before voting “Yes.”
This morning on CNBC, the host asked Norman what changed for him overnight, noting that the bill had not been altered. “We met with President Trump,” Norman said. “What’s different is, President Trump is going to use his powers to, like on the subsidies, to make sure that it’s—a lot of these subsidies won’t remain in effect, you know, from here on out.” Read that again: The specifics of the law don’t matter; President Trump will just refuse to enforce the parts Norman doesn’t like.
"Even then, Republican leaders had some sense (though perhaps not enough) that the full scope of their agenda would alienate a lot of voters..."
No problem. Just rig elections. And if you still lose - good luck getting Vance to do the right thing like Pence - throw another insurrection that will make 1/6/21 look like the "tourist visit" that MAGA liars claimed it was. And THAT, my fellow Americans, is why we need to spend less effort worrying about the Big Ugly Bill, deportations, etc., and get busy to make absolutely certain the MAGA cult does not get away with the evil it doesn't even pretend that it won't do!!!
Love JVL, but he just can’t help find a way to take a pot shot at Biden.
It’s an itch he always has to scratch.
Biden deserves a bunch of potshots. He had an objectively awful presidency, the final witness of which was the fact that he was too unpopular to run for re-election (the real reason Democrats wanted to replace him for the last two years of his presidency). 37% approval presidents don't get re-elected.
Just because Trump sucks, and sucks much worse, doesn't mean Biden/Harris didn't suck too. That, and Democrats trying to gaslight them otherwise, is ultimately why the voters brought Trump back.
No one trusts trump he is a liar from the word go and always will be. He has no principals and does not care about the damage he has inflicted on the American people.
Objectively awful? No! The reason Trump has been fast and furious with EOs, deregulation and reversing court precedents is to overturn the positive direction set by Biden, especially relative to infrastructure, energy and environmental policy. Thoroughly debated and carefully constructed legislation, specifically designed to benefit red states, to build support for the objectives, has been gutted to benefit special interests and to turn America back decades. This is a gift to key global competitors, in particular China, who will forge ahead in the critical areas where we fall back. The loser in all of this is our country, in terms of influence in and leadership of global policy and the clear good of the country.
I agree that some of that policy was effective, especially the infrastructure spending, but if you are too unpopular to run for reelection, your presidency was awful. Period. I’m not saying Biden was a bad president (Harris was a bad VP though), but that he had the worst presidency since Jimmy Carter. 9% inflation and doubling of interest rates is objectively awful, and things we haven’t seen in 45 years. There’s no spinning that. Then there was the hapless foreign policy.
Also, when you’re unpopular and in debilitated mental and physical condition, you cannot lead. And, Biden did not lead.
Nevertheless, we can debate it all day, but the final judgement is clear. The people brought back a failed, boorish, despicable convicted felon in response. How good could Biden’s presidency have been?
In response to your final question, I think you overestimate the level of knowledge of facts, the ability to process nuance, and general critical thinking skills of the vast majority of Americans. That he was too old and shouldn't have run (maybe ever) isn't the measure of Biden's presidency. His actions didn't cause the inflation or interest rate rises. His handling of the COVID recovery was very good. While the inflation rate fell steeply, prices never did, which is what people mean when they refer to inflation. And, finally, while I saw Harris as choice for running mate a pander - another Biden specialty- tell me who was a great VP? We'll have to disagree on the quality of presidents since Carter. It's mostly a matter of who did less damage.
Biden didn’t cause the inflation, other than the unnecessary Covid bill he championed and passed in March 2021. That does not pass if Mitch McConnell is majority leader. But, if you’re going to blame the great recession on Bush (as the left always tries to do), then Biden gets the blame for inflation that occurred on his watch.
Who was a good VP? George HW Bush and Al Gore were both excellent VPs. Bush was the best of my 60 year lifetime. I think Dick Cheney was an effective VP, as was Joe Biden. Harris was awful, ala Dan Quail, because nobody had any faith in her/them, either as competent in their roll, or as successors to their presidents. They also caused more than their fair share of embarrassment to their administrations. And yes, she was the literal poster child for pander and DEI hire.
A single factor can't be extracted as THE cause for inflation. Trump also handed out checks, the COVID supply chain impacts were devastating. I agree that Biden's COVID stimulus contributed, but it can also be argued that the amazing American economic recovery overall would not have been so robust without it. If course McConnell would have blocked it, just as he shamelessly blocked Obama's SCOTUS appointee. Bush I was a competent politician, but (as every human) imperfect. Ditto Cheney. Their records on Iran-Contra and the Iraq War can't be sidestepped. Gore, yes, very good. A big difference is the level of genuine trust and partnership established by the President, which didn't happen with Biden. But Harris didn't lose because of her performance as VP, any more than noteworthy performance helped Gore. And Cheney is the poster boy for manipulative, dishonest behavior. It's all in the nuance.
Not sure where you're finding the potshot at Biden, it read to me more as a critique of the media and what they chose to cover than the former president. Either way, Jonathan Cohn and JVL are two different people, this isn't the triad
"Back then, he didn’t get his wish. This time around, he did."
The "wish" being only vengeance against Obama, for the act foolishly named after him. Trump doesn't care if Medicaid is cut to zero or the spending is doubled, as long as his id and ego are fed every second.
This isn't Donald Trump's bill, just like the 2017 bill wasn't his. He couldn't have cared less what was in it. This is a soft version of Ayn Rand's bill. Other than the ICE money, this bill is an establishment Republican's wet dream. This bill could have been written by Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell.
All the CoC-country club GOP policies are permanent, while all the populist bullshit (no tax on tips or OT, the senior credit, the child tax credit extension, etc.) expire with Trump's presidency. This will force Democrats (if somehow they miraculously manage to win the presidency and Congress in 2028) to make the hard choices to either perpetuate GOP policy or raise taxes on a lot of the very people who vote for Democrats. You can almost see Mitch McConnell's sly grin as you contemplate it.
“…it’s just a lot harder to find Republicans who will defy Trump.”
It’s just a lot harder to find Republicans with a soul. Like vampires, Trump/Miller/Bondi have sucked the collective Republican soul dry.
I have a radical suggestion. However much the article concerns the convicted felon TACO, moving forward, can we please resist the urge to post a picture of him?
What is this, Daily Kos? I read that site sometimes just to see what life is like in a purple world, and they are always triggered in the comments by pictures of Trump. Relax. Vile as he is, his picture can't really hurt you.
"And how much should Trump's success alter our preconceptions about what effective leadership looks like..."
There are various types of leadership, and here let's contrast the leadership that a builder of something good but very hard/controversial must demonstrate vs. the leadership that the head of a gang of vandals, or jewel thieves, must demonstrate. Because Trump and the Congressional Republicans are the latter case. If you're a vandal, or a jewel thief, and all you want to do is destroy, or confiscate, the wealth of a republic (say), and the owners of the establishment (the republic) are distracted, then you need only some degree of coordination (the bonding glue being greed), move quickly and stealthily, and then smash and grab away. Ah, you've got a tax cut there, mate! Ah, some ICE funding for Miller there, hooray. Ah, that's a beaut, some Medicaid cuts there, mate. Quick, let's scram before the public finds out!
Liked for "...the bonding glue being greed". That is probably the best explanation for Trump's election in 2016 and his return in 2024. There aren't enough MAGA cult members to elect a president. But the rest of his voters are hoping to "get something" that they know they won't get from Democrats. These voters are as transactional as Donald Trump himself.
"3 Collins is the only GOP senator who voted no on both repeal in 2017 and the health care cuts in 2025."
That says it all right there. Collins for President.
I'll just be happy of she wins re-election to the Senate.