POS BFB in da’ House: Be Water, My Friend
[NB: check the byline, thanks. /~Rayne]
“Dripping water hollows out stone, not through force but through persistence.”
― Ovid“A river cuts through rock, not because of its power, but because of its persistence.”
― James N. WatkinsI said empty your mind, be formless, shapeless, like water.
Now you put water into a cup it becomes the cup.
You put water into a bottle it becomes the bottle.
You put it into a teapot it becomes the teapot.
Now water can flow, or it can crash.
Be water, my friend.
― Bruce Lee
After passing in the Senate yesterday, the POS big fugly bill is back in the House for reconciliation where the Senate version is struggling to pull together adequate support for passage across the GOP caucus.
The Freedom Caucus in particular is unhappy with the $3.3 trillion increase to the deficit over the next decade this POS legislation represents.
Trump and J.D. Vance have been calling all the intransigent GOP members trying to coerce their support for the bill, threatening them with primaries.
No word whether Elon Musk and/or his America PAC have been making similar calls offering campaign contributions in exchange for their NO votes.
The situation is fluid. It could change rapidly.
You, too, need to be fluid and make like water. Be persistent. Keep calling your representative and let them know you want them to vote NO on this wretched bill.
Remind them, too, they are part of a co-equal branch of government and should not cow to another branch ― especially a branch which is supposed to “shall take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed,” not order other branches around.
Call the Congressional switchboard: (202) 224-3121 or use Resist.bot or 5Calls.org.
Most especially you with GOP reps: Contact them, use the alternative methods if their voicemail is full.
You can also use FaxZero to send a free fax to your rep: https://faxzero.com/fax_congress.php
Shame on the reps who don’t accept faxes when it’s possible to do so digitally — no fax machine required.
Shame? I don’t think these people feel shame. All they understand is power.
They don’t understand that, either. Power works better when it’s soft, not when it’s a club used to beat everyone you don’t like.
I don’t think it has to do with power in this case, based on the sample of reps in my state who don’t have faxes.
Somebody told them they didn’t need them or they weren’t going to pay for the phone line/machine/paper, and they believed what they were told. Bullshit — faxes are digital information just like other phone signal. No dedicated machines/paper/maintenance required, just a line.
Cruelty is the currency of the Republican party.
Isn’t it odd ( in a twisted but brilliant way) that every vote or action is organized like a serial cliffhanger to maximize impact on the news cycles? If only Democrats could get anywhere close to that organized.
It’s not a feature, it’s a bug. Team Trump has several reasons for forcing this vote now, including the debt ceiling and the economic data being released this week. There’s nothing else competing now that SCOTUS has wrapped for the term and is out for the holiday.
The holiday itself has been leverage: Trump insisted GOP leaders hold Congress in session and not allow a break for the holiday and in-district work until the bill passed.
The corporate media has nothing else to cover in DC given the impending holiday, intensifying attention.
Stop crapping on Democrats for this bug; they got things done quietly and efficiently with a minimum of hullaballoo. That’s the way governance is supposed to work, not this fucking three-ring circus intended to take the US back to the 1950s.
“ The corporate media has nothing else to cover in DC given the impending holiday, intensifying attention.”
This, not the Democrats, is the root of the problem.
Borrowing from the intrepid Acadian Daniel Lanois:
Danke punaise… such a beautiful song (and album).
Fits quite well in Rayne’s post.
cheers, Verrückte Pferd
Never thought I’d see Daniel Lanois quoted at Emptywheel. One of my favorite albums of all time.
ya hang out here long enough….
I phonebank, asking people to call their reps and urge a Save Medicaid vote. Yesterday. Today. Tomorrow.
I’d love to have some company.
https://www.mobilize.us/workingfamilies/event/759686/
My R rep’s mailbox is full. Nobody is answering the phone, and he doesn’t give a shit. For my rep, this bill was done deal when it was proposed. He’s all in for more ICE on the streets and concentration camps, and doesn’t care that 1/3 of his constituents are on medicaid. The sad truth is that he’ll almost certainly be re-elected.
This is why using Resist.bot and 5Calls or fax if the rep has one are effective — no full voicemail box obstructing messages, they can’t ignore the messages piling up with the alternative approaches.
Know what your district’s rating is and what the demographics are. I suspect even an R+11 may be at risk this term, which is why anti-democratic orgs are trying so hard to interfere with voting in the next elections.
Ex. Rep. Ralph Norman, R SC-05, was one of the holdouts. He’s in an R+11* district but the same district elects Democrats to other roles, which means there are enough Democratic voters to flip his seat. Now he’s caved to Trump, which means the left should be recruiting and fundraising hard in that district RTFN to execute a flip.
*This district has already dropped from R+12 in 2022 to R+11, suggesting a trend.
The last time this district had a Democrat as a rep was 1981
IOW in my adult lifetime.
One of the things Howard Dean’s original 50-state strategy was intended to address was the lack of prepared Democrats and infrastructure in each state and each district. Right now it’s essential to have both ready to go everywhere. We can’t bemoan the persistence of GOP wins when we have failed to provide alternatives, and I know there are districts all over the US which have failed to stand up a candidate. I live in one of those districts which has struggled for the last two decades to field a candidate each term. The district looked red, voted red. And yet the seat flipped this last term, in no small part because both the infrastructure and the candidate were there.
Be water. Be persistent. Complaining about it won’t fix it.
Rayne nailed it.
not a feature a bug.
verschlimmbesserung , a German word meaning an attempted improvement that makes things worse.
I prefer Scheißhaufen-glanzschleifen
= polish a turd
Hah! Besser, aber nicht eins zu eins. Aber egal, es ist gerade ein dunkel Tag in amurka.
The theater has truly gone full absurd this time – until the next time when it is aways absurd and will continue to be so.
Which does not imply we should do nothing. Maybe we who call in, stand on a street corner, FAX, write letters will break through. But not today. But one day so never give up.
There’s the early acting from Senators: Hawley, Murkowski, Collins (always a drama queen) but also Paul and I begrudgingly give Tillis a shout out though he had to say he would not run for re-election to truly be free. Perhaps a D pickup in 20206. It came down to Paul, Collins, and Tillis with Collins getting a Hall Pass to vote Nay.
The House gutless early actors are too many to list or remember, but it’s the usual bad actors. Name them if you can.
In the end its was – so far anyway this last vote was procedural – but ONLY ONE FREAKING R voted nay – Brian Fitzpatrick of PA-1 after about nine were hand wringing for the cameras. Where was MTG – oh yes – YEA. I expected no less. It is crappy off main street theater.
So, you KNOW where this is going. Where it always was going to go. Because until the MAGAts feel the pain there will be no change – and even then the lure – and threatened vengeance – of the cult is very strong.
https://www.govtrack.us/congress/votes/119-2025/h189
I’m going to warn you about demoralizing others after I have made repeated calls to take action.
Before you publish a comment, consider whether it suppresses others’ interest in resisting by sustained action.
A focused acknowledgment and critique putting the blame where it belongs — solely on the GOP and Trump — would be more effective than opening about absurdity and vacillation about action.
I (not so) respectively disagree.
“Which does not imply we should do nothing. Maybe we who call in, stand on a street corner, FAX, write letters will break through. But not today. But one day so never give up.”
Maybe it’s time to move on including removing my monthly financial support.
Respectively, I resemble that remark.
“Maybe” you said. Re-read your comment and ask yourself if the first two grafs were necessary.
Never surrender.
https://www.theyfoughtback.com/
“People have this myth stuck in their heads that Jews went to their deaths like sheep to the slaughter. But this is where the real story begins… Jews did not go as sheep to the slaughter… They fought back.”
— Professor Richard Freund
The Warsaw Uprising comes to mind. And I’m sure there were people who “worked to rule”, delaying things as much as they could.
After her utter betrayal, I have no words for Senator Murkowski except:
YOU ARE A COWARD, SENATOR. SHAME ON YOU!
The list of Republicans to blame and hate is long but the names at the top are the senators who acquitted Trump for his insurrection, starting with Mitch McConnell.
I am seething right now. I am doing all I can to avoid contact with my next door MAGA neighbors.
At this time, I like to think of myself as a Southern California puma/mountain lion. As when there is a mountain lion attack and it is revealed the mountain lion had been stalking its prey for miles- focused, relentless attention. Not necessarily loud, some times silent, but never not engaged, never giving up, ready to pounce. Meow, b-tches.
Dear first-time commenters:
The topic of this thread is about legislation in U.S. Congress, specifically H.R. 1 which has been under debate in the House for a couple days.
STAY ON TOPIC or risk having your post tossed in the bin.
AltText: “How did Trump convince some Republican holdouts to sign onto his budget bill?
By signing autographs and handing out merch.
There are Republican members of Congress selling out their constituents in exchange for souvenirs.
The 2026 midterms are on the horizon. Do not forget this.”
Selling their constituents down the river for trinkets? Cheap.
OK, well, now that the OBBB has passed (ugh), I just got an e-mail from Trump’s SSA, which starts with these 2 paragraphs:
The Social Security Administration (SSA) is celebrating the passage of the One Big, Beautiful Bill, a landmark piece of legislation that delivers long-awaited tax relief to millions of older Americans.
The bill ensures that nearly 90% of Social Security beneficiaries will no longer pay federal income taxes on their benefits, providing meaningful and immediate relief to seniors who have spent a lifetime contributing to our nation’s economy.
So…my question to anybody who knows (because I haven’t read the 900+ pages myself) is:
Who qualifies to be in the “nearly 90%” group being referred to here? And, by implication, who is in the “[around] 10%” group being excluded from this new tax break?
Hmmm…just found some info on this that doesn’t directly answer my question above but is relevant nonetheless:
Senior Tax Deduction (2025–2028): Deduct up to $6K from taxable income if earning under $75K ($150K for couples); Phases out completely above $175K ($250K for couples); Does not affect Social Security taxes
Found this at the wonderfully concise “What the Fuck Just Happened Today?” news summary website:
https://whatthefuckjusthappenedtoday.com/
They’re pretending that many people on Social Security get enough to be out of the bottom 25%.
Average payment is less than $2000 a month.
You can check out AARP Facebook page for an explanation.
Basically how SS is taxed has not changed but there are now deductions for people over 65 that can offset any federal income tax owed on SS
[Welcome back to emptywheel. Please use the SAME USERNAME and EMAIL ADDRESS each time you comment so that community members get to know you. You attempted to publish this comment as “Trixie64” triggering auto-moderation; it has been edited to reflect your established username. You’ve also changed your email address which can also trigger auto-moderation. We don’t even ask that you use a working/valid email address, only that you use the same one each time. Please check your browser’s cache and autofill; future comments may not publish if username and/or email address do not match. /~Rayne]
Which disappears in 2028. This is designed to lock the Democrats into extending this SS tax cut during an election year. It’s a blatant political exercise.
But what really gets my goat is this messaging is full-on propaganda paid for by SS, and Goebbels would be proud that his playbook is in full force with this administration. We are watching government agencies being successfully converted into political tools.
Rayne,
I have a comment stuck in the bin. I don’t think there was anything amiss about it. Please let me know.
[Sorry, but there’s no comment from you in the bin – just this comment. Please try again. /~Rayne]
That is passing strange, as the five-minute countdown clock ran its course and was followed by the message “Your comment is awaiting moderation.”
Anyway, this gives me a chance to amend and expend it.
I live in SE Asia ten years after taking early retirement, but am still in regular contact with some asylum officer’s I worked with.
I worked in domestic and international refugee resettlement programs for 16 years and then another 18 years as an asylum officer—hired over the phone because of my refugee work experience by the first director and organizer of the Asylum Corps who had been with the Office of the UNHCR and recruited 45 percent of applicants from outside the INS (the Asylum Corps original home) seeking to place as many people as possible with refugee work experience.
And now I can easily imagine asylum officers being replaced by Gestapo agents—I mean ICE personnel—and the Asylum Corps becoming the “Fire Station” of Fahrenheit 451.
For the past few months a couple of items have been circulating my thoughts in response to unfolding events.
One is the Frank Zappa’s song, “Concentration Moon,” from the 1968 LP We’re Only in it for the Money, in connection with the liner notes that make reference to Franz Kafka’s In the Penal Colony and to the Japanese internment camps—which is when and how I learned of them. The song can be heard at Internet Archive: https://archive.org/details/were-only-in-it-for-the-money/03+Concentration+Moon.mp3.
The other, related to USAID and Medicaid cuts, is the National Socialist eugenics policy of terminating the lives of many with various handicaps in the “Some Life is Just Not Worth Living” (Lebenunwertes Lebens) program that had its intellectual origins not in Germany but in the United States.
And then in the face of that, the assertion of Jesus to “love your enemies,” full stop, and Martin Luther King, Jr’s call for “non-violent direct action” in “Letter from a Birmingham Jail” that seeks restoration, not retribution, over the opposition and notes Reinhold Niebuhr’s reminder that groups tend to be more immoral than individuals.
The full letter can be read here: https://www.africa.upenn.edu/Articles_Gen/Letter_Birmingham.html
I just emailed my back-bench Dem congresscritter, after getting an email explaining why he voted against this mess, to say that he doesn’t need to explain – it’s all the ones (in both houses) who voted for it, knowing that it’s going to hurt their own districts, especially the ones who did it for autographs and tchotchkes.
Just stumbled across a WSJ editorial (as in, by the actual editorial board), headlined “About those ‘millions’ losing Medicaid” – scare quotes very much in the original. Subhead: “Most of them are illegal aliens or don’t even work part time.” In other words, subhumans whose health and survival we can ignore. It’s a fraction of an inch away from an Onion headline, like so many headlines in recent years.
Further down, an opinion piece by some loser or other headlined (approximated from memory) “What kind of authoritarian doesn’t tell people what to do?” The writer was oh so pleased with his sarcastic premise that Trump is the first authoritarian to not only not regulate people, but remove regulations imposed by predecessors. Because, again, only certain parties count as people – wealthy capitalists and corporations. Not a hint in the piece that the author is even aware of the administration’s constitution-stretching-and-shredding efforts to impose both policy preferences and Trump’s personal wishes on pregnant people, LGBTQ kids and their families, political activists, companies, law firms, schools, scientists, hospitals, critical politicians, etc.
On the plus side now Barron Trump can snag one of those highly coveted factory jobs.