In The Shadow Of Mt Hollywood

I followed the deveopments in the BIF-Framework Democrat crisis in the House all day yesterday, but I found conservative media, aggregators, and blogs remarkably absent. The Hill, Politico, and NPR were, however, on the case, at least as far as individual developments were concerned. As of yesterday's post, things had just begun not to happen. The problem was that on Wednesday, Speaker Pelosi had been unable to deliver on a House vote passing the bipartisan infrastructure bill. As a result, Thursday was represented as a last-ditch effort to pass it, either to give President Biden some sort of trophy to take to Glasgow, to give the party prestige going into the November 2 elections, or not to embarrass the president, or for the sake of his entire presidency. According to Politico, President Joe Biden left Thursday for his second trip abroad with his massive domestic agenda -- and, by his own admission, his entire presidency -- hanging in the balance on Capitol Hill. . . ...

As I write this, President Biden has delayed his departure for Rome and as far as I can tell is in the process of addressing House Democrats on a whole new economic package that will somehow achieve a Democrat consensus when months of work on the BBB couldn't achieve this. This vignette shows where things actually stood yesterday afternoon as prospects for a vote on the BIF-cum-framework evaporated: Democrats have already nixed a contentious plan to tax the wealth of roughly 700 billionaires, Rep. Richard Neal (D-Mass.) confirmed Wednesday, after moderate Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.V.) voiced concerns earlier in the day over the proposed provision in President Joe Biden’s spending package. . . . The senator’s comments came less than six hours after Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), chair of the Senate Finance Committee, released legislative text for the proposed billionaire income tax, which would have required billionaires and Americans making more than $100 million annually to pay a ...

Yesterday, the media was buzzing about "framework.' As of this morning, it's not worth mentioning. I went to all kinds of effort to parse out what it meant, but suddenly this morning, it's a big never mind. Why? In addition, yesterday I was linking to stories from the weekend and early this week that there could be a vote on the BIF "as early as Wednesday", which is today, but this morning, there's not a peep about a vote. I've been suggesting for days that this wasn't going to happen. Here's the frammis. As of yesterday, I pieced it out that the "framework" was some sort of executive summary or something of the BBB bill -- that is, the theoretical version of the bill acceptable in some reduced form to Sen Manchin --- without the legislative language. In other words, a sorta-kinda temporary placeholder for the actual bill. But why would such a thing be needed? This wasn't really made clear until later yesterday, when detail...

On a day when the media was still preoccupied with Alec Baldwin, I seized on one of the few grains of potential information I could find. After Sen Manchin's breakfast with Sen Schumer and President Biden Sunday with no statement, Manchin did tell reporters something inscrutable yesterday : Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) said Monday that he believed Democrats "should" be able to get a deal on a framework agreement for President Biden's social spending bill this week. "Having it finished with all the t's and the i's and everything you know crossed and dotted that will be difficult from the Senate side because we have an awful lot of text to go through, but as far as conceptually we should, I really believe," Manchin told reporters on Monday. Manchin added that Democrats "should be" able to reach a deal on a framework this week, adding that "it really should be" finished. I guess it depends on what the meaning of "shoul...

On September 29,. Roll Call ran this headline: Infrastructure vote still on despite reconciliation stalemate Speaker Nancy Pelosi said late Wednesday that the House will move ahead with a Thursday vote on the bipartisan infrastructure bill, despite massive uncertainty that Democrats can pass it. “The plan is to bring the bill to the floor,” the California Democrat told reporters after she and Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer met with President Joe Biden at the White House. Asked whether she would have the votes needed to pass it, Pelosi promised nothing. “One hour at a time,” she said. On September 24, this story ran on Geen Wire: Pelosi confirms vote ‘next week’ on reconciliation package House Speaker Nancy Pelosi confirmed today she’ll bring a multitrillion-dollar reconciliation bill to the chamber floor next week that makes major investments in combating the climate crisis. The California Democrat’s announcement could end the intraparty standoff over ...

The photo above appeared on one of the aggregators with the caption Cruella de Fauci . What's actually been on my mind for some weeks, as an Aristotelian who looks for causes, is why Dr Francis Collins, Director of the National Institutes of Health and Dr Fauci's boss, chose to announce his retirement when he did. The news cycle at the time had been relatively benign as regarded Fauci, Dr Walensky, and Collins himself, but my guess is Collins was fully aware of FOIA and similar requests for records regarding US funding of Wuhan gain of function research. as well as the Tunisian puppy experiments . The White Coat Waste Project, the nonprofit organization that first pointed out that U.S. taxpayers were being used to fund the controversial Wuhan Institute of Virology, have now turned its sights on Anthony Fauci on another animal-testing-related matter — infecting dozens of beagles with disease-causing parasites to test an experimental drug on them. . . . Accordi...

Via ABC News : A deal within reach, President Joe Biden and Congress’ top Democrats edged close to sealing their giant domestic legislation, though the informal deadline appeared to slip as they worked to scale back the measure and determine how to pay for it. Negotiations were expected to continue into the weekend, all sides indicating just a few issues remained unsettled in the sweeping package of social services and climate change strategies. No agreement was announced by Friday's self-imposed deadline to at least agree on a basic outline. Biden wants a deal before he leaves next week for global summits in Europe. Biden met at the White House on Friday with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer joined by video call from from New York, trying to shore up details. . . . Pelosi hoped the House could start voting as soon as next week, but no schedule was set. President Biden will be in Rome to meet with the pope on Friday, October 2...