I Guess Halloween Is A National Holiday

I noted last week that the conservative blogs and aggregators have been generally out to lunch covering the BIF-BBB crisis in the House. The only media that've done a consistent job have been Politico and The Hill, as long as you can filter out their wishful thinking. One question the conservatives haven't taken up at all is the obvious one: with the vote last Thursday a didn't happen, what's next? This morning's headline in The Washington Examiner, though, is Biden and Democrats divided over Thomas Jefferson's legacy.

I guess they took the weekend off to stock up on candy for the trick-or-treaters, huh? Where's Byron York? I had to go to The Hill to find any substance at all:

House Democrats are looking to pass both the social spending and bipartisan infrastructure bills as early as Tuesday, a leadership aide told The Hill.

. . . An aide for Democratic leadership told Axios that committees were notified by House leaders that they had to finish any changes on the spending bill by Sunday and that the House Rules Committee could meet as soon as Monday to mark it up.

But it's hard to imagine this is anything but wishful thinking. According to Politico,

The Democratic Party is desperately trying to figure out just how solid Joe Biden’s $1.75 trillion social spending framework really is.

Different factions of the party are arguing that the outline the president presented this week is not final, hoping to add back in still-disputed provisions on immigration reform, taxes, Medicare expansion, paid leave and prescription drug prices before the social spending package gets a vote.

The House has already released hundreds of pages of legislation to fully articulate Biden’s vision, the bulk of it devoted to climate change action and the social safety net. Yet even after the House passes its version of the bill, which could happen as soon as next week, some Democrats insist that it’s not the final word.

In other words, even if Speaker Pelosi imposes a cutoff on legislative language for a House version of BBB, she has no control over the Senate -- and indeed, no control over her own progressive caucus. The word is that they threw her out of their Thursday morning meeting last week:

Multiple sources confirmed to The Uprising that Pelosi was “kicked out” of the meeting by Progressive Caucus Chairwoman Pramila Jayapal.

“She got kicked out and said she was leaving anyway,” a Democratic staffer, who was granted anonymity to discuss the confidential meeting, said of Pelosi.

This suggests to me that Pelosi is simply continuing her "we're gonna work all weekend" story even as it steadily sheds its last vestiges of credibility. The problem is that there's simply no deal so far. The progressives and Sen Sanders aren't happy with the cut down "framework" and want things put back in. Sens Manchin and Sinema have made no specific commitment. President Biden has actually undercut Speaker Pelosi's effort to impose a settlement. Again, Politico:

As Biden prepared for the high-stakes meeting with House Democrats on Thursday, Jayapal made an urgent plea on a call with White House chief of staff Ron Klain: Don’t send the president to pressure liberals to vote Thursday on the Senate’s infrastructure bill without a more progressive social spending bill that’s fully done.

Klain pushed Jayapal, who leads the Congressional Progressive Caucus, to vote for the infrastructure bill during the call, according to a source familiar with their conversation. Jayapal responded that she wanted to avoid sending Biden off to Europe on Thursday with a failed vote, according to multiple Democrats.

What happened next is a dizzying fall of dominos. Biden didn’t directly ask House Democrats to pass his bipartisan infrastructure bill, leaving Pelosi to make the request. Then Jayapal’s progressives dug in against the infrastructure vote that the speaker wanted to tee up — using the president’s lack of a request for cover.

In other words, it's highly doubtful that, even if Pelosi is able to get a House BBB bill with full legislative language that echoes the "framework", the progressives will buy into it. They'll demand more, which Sens Manchin and Sinema will veto. It's too early to call a cap on the dealmaking.

But the House is in session only for the first week in November, when it takes the following week off for a Veterans Day recess. Then it goes home again for Thanksgiving after only four days the following week. I question whether anything can be finalized in that period of time.

It's harder and harder to avoid thinking Speaker Pelosi is a lame duck. She knows this as well.

So, Why Did The Vatican Limit Coverage Of Biden's Visit?

There hasn't been a whole lot said about Biden's visit to the Vatican, in part I'm sure because by limiting press availability, that was the Vatican's plan. What's leaked out is puzzling. I was particularly taken by this video excerpt, apparently taken by the Vatican and released after the fact:

It partly depicts Biden in a reception line, clearly confused about how this sort of thing works and, taken aback that people are shakng hands with the Holy Father before they get to him, throwing his arms up in a clear "whatever" gesture and later withdrawing his hand and raising it in a strange fist. Dr Jill, who seems to be in the habit of closely monitoring Joe during his public appearances, notices this with a certain hint of anxiety behind her fixed smile.

What strikes me as most peculiar is that I spent formative years in Washington society being groomed by a socially ambitious mother. I've been in reception lines with ambassadors and cabinet secretaries. (My guardian angel whisked me off to LA before this could take full effect.) This sort of routine is just muscle memory, especially for someone like Biden, who spent nearly his whole adulthood in that environment. Yet he acts like a 14 year old, disappointed that he's not Number One. Napoleon handled this stuff better; Hitler simply bypassed it.

Raymond Arroyo suggested something similar on Fox:

Fox News contributor Raymond Arroyo said Friday that an awkward moment between President Joe Biden and Pope Francis showed why the Vatican did not want to broadcast the meeting.

Arroyo joined Fox News host Harris Faulkner to discuss Biden’s meeting with the pope as well as the Vatican’s last minute decision not to televise the event.

. . . “I think the Vatican was concerned that a live meeting, video of a live meeting, might expose Biden to a gaffe. No telling what he might say, and you heard some of the blarney about drinking and whiskey and being an Irishman. They wanted to tamp some of that down,” he continued.

The question yet again is whether this is a result of cognitive decline or whether he's always been that way. Having dealt with relatives with whom this was an open question, in the end, it's just hard to tell. After all, I knew those people when I was a toddler and started out believing that, like all adults, they were perfect. As I grew up and matured, I began to see serious questions of character and judgment. Did they emerge at just a certain age, or had they always been there?

Up to 2020, Biden's public profile had been a mediocre senator in a safe seat, and then vice president. The media never really focused on him, other than the plagiarism episode that ended his 1987 presidential bid, which was revealing in hindsight -- but nobody ever saw him as anything but a wannabe until he wasn't. My guess continues to be that he's always been that way.

It looks as though the Vatican made the best of a bad situation. But then, they have millennia of experience at doing just that. And don't neglect that the Vatican has the best intelligence operation anywhere, with agents in every town and village.

Just In Time For Halloween

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.

. . . "When the President gets off that plane, we want him to have a vote of confidence from this Congress," House Speaker Nancy Pelosi told fellow Democrats in the meeting, stressing she wanted a vote on a bipartisan infrastructure package by the end of the day -- and imploring her her members "don't embarrass" Biden by voting down the package as he heads overseas.

According to The Hill,

In an exceptional interaction Thursday, Pelosi walked into a strategic meeting of the [Congressional Progressive Caucus], only to leave a short time later without speaking to the group.

[CPC Chair] Jayapal emerged not long afterwards to explain the group’s position. With a number of issues still unresolved in the social spending bill — and parts of the text yet to be written — Jayapal said liberals are sticking with their initial strategy, even if it means bucking leadership to delay the vote on the bipartisan infrastructure framework, often referred to as the BIF, until next week.

“There are ... too many 'no' votes for the BIF to pass today. However, we are committed to staying here until we get this Build Back Better Act done, get the legislative text,” Jayapal said after huddling in the basement of the Capitol with other members of the CPC.

Nevertheless, Pelosi waited intil very late in the day to delay the vote. Politico summed up,

THERE’S ALSO THIS LITTLE PROBLEM: BIDEN DIDN’T SELL IT. This entire episode looks similar to what happened in late September, when House Democratic leaders hoped Biden would come to the Hill and say to progressives: Vote for this damn BIF, and vote for it now.

But once again, he didn’t. And progressives picked up on that.

“He did not ask for a vote on the BIF today,” Congressional Progressive Caucus Chair PRAMILA JAYAPAL (D-Wash.) said right after the meeting. “The speaker did, but he did not. He said he wants votes on both bills."

The Hill summed up this morning:

Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) early Thursday evening delayed a vote on a separate $1 trillion infrastructure measure, despite having pushed hard to pass the measure earlier in the day.

The delay — the second postponement for the bill — was a rare exhibition of weakness from the Speaker, who prides herself on both her vote-counting abilities and her capacity to sway recalcitrant members of her caucus.

Wait a moment. "Rare exhibition of weakness"? She hasn't been able to get anything done since summer. The consensus is that the past week is just a replay of the end of September, when she had to delay precisely the same vote, calling on precisely the same Capitol visit from Biden, with precisely the same holdouts, despite weeks of precisely the same optimism on the Sunday talks. The establshment media is now saying she can maybe fix this somehow and try again next week. In other words, yet another do-or-die, last-ditch effort.

Except that with the "framework" for the BBB now in writing and key programs left out, it's Sen Sanders who's threatening to withdraw his Senate vote on the BBB. What's emerged this week is that neither Speaker Pelosi nor President Biden turns out to be capable of unifying the Democrats and delivering on promises. Meanwhile, they're wasting time and energy trying more do-overs, when it's increasingly plain that neither Pelosi nor Biden has the credibility to push the program forward.

What was that about doing the same thing over and over while expecting a different result?

Never Mind

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 long-term capital gains tax on unrealized profits.

So they're writing legislation at the very last minute and negotiating over it in public, running things up the flagpole and pulling them down again within hours. That's the status of the BBB -- Manchin has an immediate veto power over anything that might be proposed, except that Sen Sanders and the House progressives have a re-veto power over the BIF. According to Politico,

One Democratic source close to progressive lawmakers said Thursday morning that they had concerns that Sinema and Manchin still have not yet committed to voting for the [BBB] bill. This source added that Sanders has told House progressives he supported their position to hold off on advancing the infrastructure bill unless it and the social spending bill at the same time through their chamber.

. . . And they’re getting support from liberal allies in the Senate.

“A framework is part of getting to a final bill, but I’m not OK with the infrastructure bill being passed out of the House until we actually have a bill in the Senate,” said Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.).

According to NPR,

Biden is expected to travel to the Capitol building to address the House Democratic caucus at 9am and then address the nation at 11:30am ET.

This is a developing story.

The aggregators have been very spotty in covering this at all, but think about it. The president delays his departure on a junket, where he'd much prefer to be, in order to address House Democrats and then address the nation. At least in Biden's mind and those of his handlers, this is a full-blown crisis. You don't normally address the nation on short notice unless, say, the cities are burning down or the stock market has crashed.

Think of everything he's ignored, or paid lip service to at best, but a stalemate over a fantasy political agenda is a full-blown crisis. As an Aristotelian who looks for causes, I've got to ask why.

As NPR says, this is a developing story.

OK, So Here's What "Framework" Was

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 details of a meeting among Democrat legislators Monday evening gradually leaked out:

Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-WA) on Monday evening signaled she would continue to stall President Joe Biden’s massive spending agenda until her demands are met.

Jayapal told reporters she and her caucus remain as holdouts until both the $3.5 trillion reconciliation package and the $1.2 trillion “bipartisan” infrastructure are voted upon immediately after one another.

So there we are. This was the circumstance last summer, and despite the happy talk over the last two months about "progress" and how they're "this close" to a deal, it looks like nothing has actually changed. The House Progressive Caucus wants the BIF and the BBB voted on together, because they continue to feel they need the leverage of holding the BIF hostage to the BBB. Except the BBB is still up in the air and nowhere near ready for a vote, because nobody knows what will be in and what will be out yet. The story goes on,

Democrat leadership has floated the idea of voting on the “bipartisan” bill with only a framework in place for the reconciliation package. But allowing one measure to pass without a vote on the other would reduce the leverage the far-left has worked to maintain.

As a result, Jayapal flatly said a framework agreement on the reconciliation package would not suffice, demanding instead the reconciliation package be written and voted upon along with the “bipartisan” bill.

The demands to have the reconciliation package written could take weeks longer. Only parts of the package are reported to be written. The legislative text of the package is important to the far-left because it would guarantee certain radical provisions would be included.

So the "framework" is no longer a thing, having lasted as an idea for only a few days until as of Monday night it became clear to the Democrat leadership that there wasn't going to be a vote today, framework or not. So the media has quietly dropped it and gone back to Alec Baldwin.

But as of even yesterday, it was somehow urgent that there be a vote on the BIF "as early as Wednesday". As I'd surmised in scoping out the necessary timeline last week, President Biden leaves tomorrow for his junket to Rome and Scotland, so anything that must be finsished needs to be finished essentially by today. The reasons given are that he needs to have some sort of trophy to take to the global warming conference in Scotland, which he now hasn't got, and he needs some sort of prestige going into next week's elections in Virginia and New Jersey, ditto.

In fact, it appears that those in the know had understood that nothing had changed in the legislative calculations for months. I'd surmised this, but I had no inside sources to confirm it. The question I have is why the journalists who did have such sources never mentioned it. Instead, they allowed a charade to be played out for as long as they could.

Here's another question: much was made of a Sunday breakfast meeting among Sens Manchin and Schumer and President Biden. The assumpton seems to have been that they could potentially hash out a deal, but nothing came of it, other than Manchin's remarks a day later that a framework "should" emerge by the end of the week, except even if it does, it won't make any difference now. But where was Sen Sinema in this meeting? Doesn't she have her own independent issues over the BBB?

Last we heard, she's not necesssrily even returning Biden's calls. I'm not sure why Manchin did show up. That meeting was just for show. Manchin fully understood this and humored Biden for his own reasons. Sinema didn't bother.

I think the media across the board is negligent in reporting how bad the situation is for the administration. Among other things, I think they've completely underplayed what the insiders must know about Pelosi's incompetence and likely her own medical issues. Stein's Law: that which cannot conktinue must stop.

What Means "Framework?

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 "should" is. From my tech days, a common expression was "should work", meaning that if you've got a problem, you talk to your colleagues, read the manual, and check with the support desk, they'll give you a solution that should work, except that tech being tech, there's always a gotcha, and it might well not work, in which case you're on your own.

Then there's the sense that if someone finds someone's's wallet with cash and ID, he should return it with the cash to its owner. If you're driving on a road with a 50 mph speed limit and you see a sign saying reduce speed to 25, you should slow down. If the weather report says rain tomorrow, you should take an umbrella.

But on top of that, what's a "framework"? In context, it looks like Manchin is referring to a revised outline of the BBB bill that, while not in final legislative language, is acceptable to Manchin and would receive his critical vote. Should be done by Friday. Yeah.

As far as anyone knows, Manchin's conditions inclulde a top line something like $1.5 or $1.75 trillion, elimination of financial incentives for utilities to convert away from fossil fuels, and inclusion of the Hyde Amendment, which would contnue to prohibit federal funding of abortion. It appears to have been clear to all parties for some weeks at least that these are Manchin's terms for his vote. But according to Politico, as of last weekend,

Democrats believe a top line agreement is unlikely to come from Sunday's meeting given how much work is left, but things are moving fast enough that House leaders now may hold a vote on the Senate's bipartisan infrastructure deal as soon as Wednesday, according to multiple sources. That legislation has been caught up in the House, held by progressives who want a commitment from Manchin and Sinema on the rest of Biden's agenda.

While Democrats are hopeful that the president and the two senators can hash things out and strike a framework for the legislation aimed at climate action, child care, health care and education, they are somewhat far apart. Manchin is insisting on his $1.5 trillion number, and the White House and Democratic leaders are aiming to go as high as $2 trillion after initially pursuing a total of $3.5 trillion. Both sides may need to show some flexibility down the stretch, and if Manchin comes up to a higher number, it could save a program or two from being cut entirely from the package.

The slimming of the legislation is threatening to derail two long-held Democratic priorities: paid leave and Medicare expansion for dental, vision and hearing. Neither Biden nor progressives in the Senate have signed off on eliminating those, though that could become necessary to win Manchin's support and strike a quick deal.

It sounds as though Manchin's remarks to reporters yesterday were basically a nice way of saying he's still waiting to hear what he wants to hear. It also sounds as though he understands a "framework" is not the legislative language, which can't possibly be ready by the presumptive House vote tomorrow, Wednesday. This piece at the RedState blog is the only update on the stalemate I've found, and it cites a Twitter thread from CNN reporter Manu Raju:

On that topic, Steny Hoyer, the number 2 person in the Democrat House poured cold water on claims of leverage from the Bernie Sanders wing.

The RedState piece concludes,

In the end, these comments on negotiations show a party in chaos. Their coalition has crumbled, and those that have no leverage refuse to admit that reality. That’s a recipe for stalemate, and that’s exactly what we are currently seeing. The idea that a deal gets done before the end of the month, which is the White House’s goal, is probably a fantasy at this point.

I'm Still Skeptical

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 fate of a separate, $1 trillion infrastructure bill on Monday, Sept. 27. Moderates say that measure needs to be voted on by that date, but progressives said they’d tank it if they don’t have a reconciliation bill to vote on with it.

But it’s still not clear what, exactly, the House will be voting on next week, as negotiations with the Senate continue over key policy provisions as well as the current, $3.5 trillion top line.

A month later, we're getting deja vu all over again: Pelosi on Trillion Dollar Spending Bill: 'I Think We Are Pretty Much There Now'

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., announced on Sunday that Democrats would reach an agreement this week on President Joe Biden's proposed spending bill.

"We have 90 percent of the bill agreed to and written. We just have some of the last decisions to be made," Pelosi said, according to The Hill.

When asked if a deal could be struck before Biden leaves for Europe on Friday, Pelosi replied, "I think we are pretty much there now," adding that the scaled-back plan, scheduled for Oct. 31, is still set.

As of yesterday,

Deadline driven, President Joe Biden brought two pivotal senators to his Delaware home Sunday for talks aimed at resolving the disputes that have stymied the Democrats’ wide-ranging social safety net and environmental measure at the core of his domestic agenda.

Beyond the domestic timetable, Biden is pressing for progress so he can spotlight his administration’s achievements to world leaders at overseas summits that get underway this week.

. . . The White House said Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., came to Biden’s home in Wilmington, where he was spending the weekend, for the session but did not immediately provide a statement detailing what was discussed.

Indeed. We're seeing the exact same pattern we had last month, with Speaker Pelosi giving happy talk about what's going to happen tomorrow or next week, while the one key player, Sen Manchin, is keeping quiet. So why do the Sunday talks keep letting her get away with this over and over?

Meanwhile,

Pelosi appeared surprised when CNN’s “State of the Union” host Jake Tapper asked about whether she would run again for her congressional seat, which she has held since 1987.

“I do want to ask about your own future in Congress. Are you going to run for reelection?” Tapper asked.

“Oh, you think I’m going to make an announcement right here and now?” she responded.

As someone once said, she's a highly overrated person. It's harder and harder to keep the secret. I also get the sense Sen Manchin detests President Biden, but that's another story.