In The Shadow Of Mt Hollywood

Back in August, I was frustrated that nothing was happening in the news, but at least I could justify it, because it was August. But as of this morning's headlines, still nothing. The big event is the death of fully vaxxed Colin Powell from COVID. But right after that, a major aggregator has Washington Post Deputy Editorial Page Editor Ruth Marcus getting trolled for mask-shaming some dude in an elevator. Nothing's happening. So this may be one reason for a steady stream of speculation about who's pulling President Biden's strings, mostly focusing on Barack Obama . Most recently, commentators have noted that Obama is campaigning for McAuliffe in Virginia when Biden would probably be a net negative there. The problem is that if Obama were in fact pulling Biden's strings, it's hard to imagine that Biden would be doing as disastrously as he is. But Obama himself reportedly said , “You know who really doesn’t have it? Joe Biden.” Obama may be campaigning for M...

But the clip above shows he's been paying attention. I've been focused on the putative Oct 31 deadline to pass BBB via reconciliation, but Rove speaks to the bigger picture: by the White House schedule, the debt ceiling extension, governmnent funding, the BIF, and the BBB must all be passed by December 3. He makes the point that Sen Schumer doesn't want to use reconciliation to pass the debt ceiling extension, because this leads to a "vote-a-rama". CNN explains this : Usually in the legislative process, lawmakers can use a series of procedural maneuvers to avoid voting on amendments. But in a budget reconciliation process -- which Democrats are using to advance their sweeping package -- you can't do that. Lawmakers cannot hold a final vote on a reconciliation bill until all the amendments have been "disposed of," or in simpler terms, "voted on." The practice involves votes on a series of amendments that can -- and usually do -- stretc...

Further to yesterday's post, I'm still not seeing any willingness by congressional leftists to recognize a need to make serious reductions in their reconciliation package to get anything through, although President Biden is now making noises in that direction President Joe Biden publicly conceded Friday that the dollar amount of the proposed $3.5 trillion reconciliation bill was going to shrink during a speech at a child care center in Connecticut. 'We're not going to get $3.5 trillion, we'll get less than that. We're going to get it. And we're going to come back and get the rest,' he said, addressing a room partially filled with Democratic lawmakers. But this suggests to me that there's no serious coordination taking place between the White House and congressional Democrat leaders. He went on to say, But the question is how much of what is important will we get into the legislation. I’m of the view that it’s important to establish the...

So now I'm seeing that the Democrats plan to finish an agreement on the BIF and the BBB by October 31 . Both the House and Senate have been on recess this past week , with key figures like Speaker Pelosi and Sen Sinema in Europe. The House and Senate do return next week, but the House will be working only four day weeks until the 31st, while the Senate will at least be wrorking five day weeks. Although I had earlier seen December 3 as a deadline, November is going to be pretty much of a loss, with both houses in holiday recess for two weeks. But a Washington insiders' newsletter says , We’ve pointed this out before, but Democrats truly are nowhere when it comes to finishing this reconciliation package. The “serious progress” that has been made is not really evident to us, or to the lawmakers involved. → Democratic leaders on the Hill have been unable to reach agreement on a topline number. This is key to everything and is at the heart of their stalemate. → Progre...

The controversy over United Airlines's vaccine mandate has brought to the fore a key question for people who request exemptions based on religious or conscientious grounds. United's original policy states: "Given our focus on safety and the steep increases in Covid infections, hospitalizations and deaths, all employees whose request is approved will be placed on temporary, unpaid personal leave on October 2 while specific safety measures for unvaccinated employees are instituted," said United's memo to employees. "Given the dire statistics...we can no longer allow unvaccinated people back into the workplace until we better understand how they might interact with our customers and their vaccinated co-workers." Although the employees' unions were slow to react, six individual employees did file a class action suit against the company, which is covered in a lengthy, obtuse, and poorly organized piece in Breitbart News . United Airlines orig...

I'm skeptical of stories that pilots and other staff at Southwest are pushing back against the effectively non-existent vaccine mandate by calling in sick. First, the union, and other corresponding unions, make it clear that any such effort is an illegal action and by definition can't be organized. Second, there are other possible explanations for the crunch, and third, people have only so much sick time to use this way. However, this doesn't mean workers covered by collective bargaining agreements don't have recourse. The same Southwest pilots union that says it isn't behind a sickout has filed suit against the airline . The Southwest pilots association filed a motion for a restraining order against the airline on October 8. “Several times since August 30, 2021, Southwest Airlines has taken new unilateral actions which violate the status quo between the parties in further violation of the Railway Labor Act,” the motion states. “Most recently, on Octobe...

Two weeks ago, the news was that Vice President Harris had brought in a crisis managemet team to help her public image. LORRAINE VOLES was one of two hires, along with former Obama speechwriter ADAM FRANKEL, reported by both the Washington Post and CNN over the weekend. Both worked for the vice president during the transition, and “offered to be of assistance,” an official from the White House said. A Harris aide said Voles and Frankel began their new roles in August. Although the White House official didn’t use the word “crisis,” Voles is well known as a public relations and crisis communications expert. She most recently led crisis communications at George Washington University and at Fannie Mae, after serving as a strategist and adviser to HILLARY CLINTON’s 2006 Senate reelection race and 2008 presidential bid. In the late ‘90s, she helped AL GORE craft his message as vice president. Now she’ll help Harris with long-term planning, her policy agenda and with “organizational d...