The Last Believer In Götterdämmerung

It appears that on the local, state, and congressional levels, the results of last week's elections effectively ended the fantasy that there could be a rapid enactment of a Great Reset that would make the 2022 midterms irrelevant -- or if indeed the voters did exact revenge at the ballot box, it would be something past the end of the world and also irrelevant. I've been calling this the Götterdämmerung strategy, and naturally, it isn't adult thinking, And the November 2 elections did focus the minds of many adults. According to the Washington Post,

Progressives gave up a lot of ground when they agreed to vote for the $1.2 trillion bill to improve the nation's infrastructure in exchange for a later vote on their top priorities.

Now, some of them are pretty pessimistic about the chances of getting their top priorities included in the larger, roughly $2 trillion social spending bill the leadership and moderates promised would follow. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) was only able to push through the infrastructure package after Democrats took a drubbing in last week's off-year elections and President Biden personally stepped in to lobby members.

Privately, aides to some Congressional Progressive Caucus member [sic] described their members as being downcast about passing the reconciliation bill in its current form.

"We're incredibly pessimistic and it's hard to project strength and fortitude as each caucus we are all a part of individually ran us all over on Friday night," a staffer for a progressive caucus member told The Early.

What we're seeing from such reports is that people like the progressive caucus have been forced to recognize that the policy objectives of the Götterdämmerung strategy can't be achieved prior to the 2022 midterms as they had hoped.

But so far, the ones who've gotten this message have been those directly affected by short-term politics in local, state, and congressional elections. President Biden isn't up for election in 2022. I don't believe he's cognitively deficient -- at least from the specific effects of aging -- but he does appear so far to be stubbornly unaware of the potential effect of last week's elections on his own effectively Götterdämmerung agenda, now or after 2022.

For instance, he's still looking at closing another oil pipeline:

At a time when gas prices are soaring and people are demanding answers from the Administration about what they are going to do to help out the problem, the idea that they would be looking into the question of shutting down another pipeline is pure madness. As we noted, this isn’t shutting down a prospective pipeline — this would be shutting down a pipeline that provides more than half the propane used for heating in northern Michigan. Line 5 has been operating since the 1950s and is a major energy supplier to Michigan and the region. It delivers oil from western Canada across Wisconsin, the Great Lakes, and Michigan, and into Ontario.

Biden has already implemented policies that increase fuel costs, which are inflationary, as well as enacting vaccine mandates that will affect the supply chain by firing truckers, as the industry points out. He's able to enact these via executive orders and doesn't need legislative approval, which would be increasingly difficult to obtain in the current environment, especially with Sen Manchin's influence.

The problem for Biden is that the Götterdämmerung agenda is deliberately meant to reduce fossil fuel consumption without, however, replacing the fossil energy with equivalent renewable sources. Thus it simply increases energy prices overall, which increases the price of everything and lowers living standards across the board.

The electorate isn't stupid and fully recognizes this. For observers, the question is simply whether Biden is doing this because he doesn't know what he's doing, or he's doing it because he likes hurting people. Frankly, based on what we're learning about the big guy, I lean toward the latter. A factor that exacerbates this is that Biden, weak of character and even dissipated himself, is at the mercy of his unelected and ideologically driven handlers. But apparently even these are beginning to show some concern:

There must have been some sort of emergency meeting last night at the White House, because Biden administration officials have simultaneously shifted into spin overdrive as news about inflation, energy prices and supply chain issues continue to worsen.

. . . Don’t worry, according to this administration, it’s all been invented by the media (that largely helped carry Biden into office on their shoulders).

On one hand, the economic news can't help but get worse. On the other, too much evidence is continuing to build up, in my view, that Biden isn't suffering from dementia, but other determining character issues must inevitably come out, for instance in the simmering Ashley diary story.

Let's go, Brandon!

What's Happening In This Picture?

On Sunday, I linked to a story in the UK Daily Mail that reported on the Duchess of Cornwall's apparent bewilderment at President Biden's flatulence at a soiree following the Cop26 conference in Glasgow. Something kept bothering me about that story that hasn't gone away.

Consider this. The Duchess of Cornwall, who had been Prince Charles's mistress of long standing prior to their 2005 marriage, has kept a low public profile despite her formal status as Princess of Wales. However, given the state of the queen's health and her age, it's become inevitable that sooner rather than later, the duchess will be the royal consort, with a standing equivalent to Prince Philip. In other words, she'll be a national figure of high dignity and prestige, and I assume she's preparing to ease into that role as we speak.

I've got to think that under those circumstances, even remarks attributed to her by unnamed sources but carried in the UK press must have some level of sanction by the royal family's press office. And as far as I know, the palace hasn't done anything to dissociate the duchess from those remarks.

What's going on? My wife thinks the UK, as well as other US allies on the Afghanistan mission, still resents Biden leaving them high and dry in his precipitous withdrawal. I would guess that's a good part of it, and quite possibly HM Government is tacitly OK with those remarks as well.

But the photo above, from the same Daily Mail story and showing the big guy clapping Prince William on the shoulder with a facial expression suggesting he's just delivered the punch line to an off-color joke, raises just as much concern. I don't normally follow the rules of etiquette for meeting the royal family, but at the back of my mind I had an idea you're not supposed to touch them. Indeed:

[I]t does seem that touching the royals is pretty much off-bounds. Whether by directive or convention, most people restrict themselves to a handshake as opposed to a hearty back slap or bear hug.

Former Australian premier Paul Keating felt the wrath of public opinion and was dubbed the "Lizard of Oz" for touching the Queen's back during a royal tour to Australia in 1992, in what was seen as a purposeful snub and a representation of his country's republican desires.

But apparently there is in fact some flexibility here; the link mentions that Michelle Obama hugged the queen on a state visit. But the other problem I see is the big guy's facial expression. Let's allow that plastic surgery and Botox stiffen the face and limit normal animation, but it's hard to avoid thinking he's projecting an oddly incongruous sense of high cameraderie, again as if they're both roaring at a dirty joke. The prince's face is away from the camera, but I suspect he's smiling politely while smoothly disregarding the hand on the shoulder.

I would go so far as to wonder if, the possible effect of Botox aside, the big guy is blotto, or more descriptively, s***faced. Just sayin'. That might explain as well the extended fart in front of the duchess, and it might even lend some credence to the so far completely baseless rumor that the big guy had an episode of incontinence during his private audience with the pope. But speaking of the Vatican, on October 30 I linked to Raymond Arroyo's remarks on why they limited coverage of the big guy's visit:

“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.

As I say, the Vatican has the best intelligence network in the world.

Completely unrelated, Vice President Harris is in Paris apparently trying to patch things up.

Looking At The Vax Mandate Lawsuits

The coverage of the Fifth Circuit's ruling to stay temporarily the Biden OSHA rule mandating vaccinations for employees of firms with over 100 workers has been remarkably shallow. The basic outline is this:

An appeals court ruled on Saturday to temporarily halt President Biden’s coronavirus vaccine mandate for businesses with 100 employees or more.

The ruling came from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit after Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (R) filed a challenge to the mandate requiring employers with over 100 or more employees to get vaccinated or undergo frequent testing directly with the court.

The challenge included the states of Louisiana, Mississippi, Utah and South Carolina.

. . . OSHA’s rule includes sending agents to inspect businesses to determine if they are abiding by the mandate. If a business is found to not be in compliance, a company could be fined $136,532.

Paxton argued in the announcement of Texas’s challenge that the mandate goes outside of OSHA’s “limited power and specific responsibilities” and is “flatly unconstitutional.”

The court agreed, finding "grave statutory and constitutional issues” with the mandate and ordering The Biden administration to respond to the group's request for a permanent injunction by 5 PM today. However, I really had to dig to find the legal reasoning behind the suit and the court's action. This is just further basis for my long-held view that reporters on any spot on the political spectrum have the mental capability of promising eighth graders.

It turns out that the Texas argument is very similar to the US Supreme Court's ruling last August 26 blocking the CDC's extension of an eviction moratorium.

The ban on evictions, a two-month order, was issued by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The pause covers parts of the United States that are experiencing what the CDC calls "substantial" and "high" spread of the coronavirus.

. . . The court's majority said the CDC exceeded its authority with the temporary ban.

The majority opinion says that the CDC for its order relied on "a decades-old statute that authorizes it to implement measures like fumigation and pest extermination."

"It strains credulity to believe that this statute grants the CDC the sweeping authority that it asserts," the majority writes, adding: "If a federally imposed eviction moratorium is to continue, Congress must specifically authorize it."

This decision appears to be based in turn on long-established doctrine that regulatory agencies can't issue regulations beyond their scope. The CDC regulates public health measures. It can't suddenly be put to enforcing an eviction moratorium. The Texas argument, which the circuit court agreed with, is that OSHA generally regulates physical workplace safety, not public health. If Congress wants to expand OSHA's mandate, it must change the existing law.

An additional factor, not mentioned in the Texas case, is that the Secretary of Labor has announced that truckers are sorta kinda exempt, since they work alone in their cabs and don't interact with others. But this is pretty clearly an arbitrary political move intended to prevent mass firings of truckers, which would further disrupt the supply chain. Truckers must interact with other people at shippers' and destination locations, as well as on the road at truck stops.

So far, it appears that almost all of the numerous lawsuits filed against the OSHA vaccine mandate rely on the above doctrine. This is likely reasonable, since it's based on arguments toward which the current US Supreme Court has already been friendly.

However, it leaves aside the question of the HIPAA Privacy Rule, which requires that employee medical records not be accessible by corporate management. This exists on one hand to prevent employees' medical records of, say, HIV or abortion being used against them, but now a medical record of vaccination must be provided to the same employer in one arbitrary circumstance. In addition, more general rules requiring, for instance, fast food workers or bouncers to see confidential medical records for entry to a business are also a problem that isn't addressed in these lawsuits.

We'll have to see how this develops.

No, It Isn't Cognitive Decline

I ran into three vignettes over the weekend that I think provide some insight into the big guy's mental state. The first, via Drudge, is from the UK Daily Mail: Camilla 'hasn't stopped talking about' hearing the President 'break wind' during chat at Cop26 climate summit in Glasgow

An informed source has told The Mail on Sunday that Camilla was taken aback to hear Biden break wind as they made polite small talk at the global climate change gathering in Glasgow last week.

'It was long and loud and impossible to ignore,' the source said. 'Camilla hasn't stopped talking about it.'

The photo above from the story is at least confirmation that this could have taken place. Indeed, the expression on the duchess's face, not to mention the big guy's, suggests it might even have occurred as the shutter snapped.

Curious, I did a web search on flatulence and discovered it isn't normally indicative of an underlying medical condition but can be controlled through diet or via over-the-counter remedies like Beano. What's the story with President Biden?

Naturally, I'm neither a doctor nor a dietician, but in the context of what we already know about him, I would say it's something like the Louis XIV syndrome.

Louis XIV suffered from serious digestive problems from swallowing food without chewing. This caused Louis XIV to break wind very frequently which filled whatever room he was in with horrendous odor. To deal with his digestive problems, Louis XIV was prescribed with laxatives for years. He would frequently visit the toilet up to 15 times a day due to the laxatives.

Notwithstanding, King Louis was definitely a babe magnet. Charming and attractive women sought his company, presumably seeing deeper qualities beyond the stench. My sense of President Biden is that he understands that whatever he does, the press and the political establishment will cover for him, and this is yet another example of the circumstance.

The second vignette is the very strange story of the FBI raids on the residences of James O’Keefe and others connected with Project Veritas as part of an investigation into a possibly stolen diary said to have been kept by President Biden's daughter, Ashley.

O’Keefe says he was approached by a tipster he didn’t know who offered him the diary (or a copy) but who also said they were negotiating a sale of the diary to another site. O’Keefe said Project Veritas tried to verify the diary was real and that the things discussed in it had really happened but ultimately could not do either. “At the end of the day, we made the ethical decision that because in part we could not determine if the diary was real, if the diary in fact belonged to Ashley Biden, or if the contents of the diary occurred, we could not publish the diary in any part thereof,” O’Keefe said.

Project Veritas attempted to give the diary to an attorney for Ashley Biden who refused it and then they wound up giving it to law enforcement so it could be returned to its owner.

The provenance of the manuscript, according to the stories on line, is very similar to that of Hunter Biden's laptop: apparently it was left behind when she moved out of an apartment and made its way to alternate media sources who shopped it around. If true, like the Hunter Biden laptop, this is abandoned property and not stolen. Indeed, once it came to O'Keefe's attention, he attempted to return it to Ashley Biden's attorney and finally gave it to law enforcement himself.

The issue is whether any crime occurred at all, but even if it did, why the FBI would be involved. As various commentators have said, that the FBI would be chasing it down is strong reason to conclude it is authentic. The original site that published it presents it as scans of original handwritten pages. It doesn't appear to have been transcribed at all. Entries suggest someone represented as Ms Biden is trying to recover from indefinite forms of childhood sexual abuse that do apparently include inappropriate showers with her father.

What we do know of the big guy's conduct includes bizarre public invasions of young girls' personal space, hair sniffing, inappropriate touching of adult women, and naked swimming in front of female secret service agents. None of the implied allegations from his daughter's diary comes, if authentic, as a complete surprise. Again, the impression this gives is that Biden has been more or less in the background through most of his public career, but nevertheless has developed a habit of impunity, with a sense that the establishment and press will cover for him.

The problem is that if this investigation results in an indictment, the whole story will definitely come out. There is some deeply flawed judgment involved here, but not cognitive decline. There's a clear sense of actions, potential consequences, and things that apperently need to be kept from public view that we would not see in a case of dementia or disorganized thinking.

The third vignette is the episode of shouting at a reporter who questioned why the big guy called reports of negotiations to pay illegal immigrant families compensation for enforcement actions "garbage":

I would characterize this as "shame rage", anger at being caught in an untruth, but he's also fully aware that if he blows up at the reporter directly, it will look bad. So he just shouts and gestures. This is organized behavior. It isn't intelligent, and it displays poor judgment, but it isn't cognitive decline.

However, I don't think this will go without its own consequences. By the way, this guy has gone to weekly Roman Catholic mass all his life, it would seem. Something's really wrong here, but it isn't medical.

Sen Manchin Is The De Facto Interim Legislative Leader

It seems to me that the key takeaway from last night's legislative maneuvering is that the winner was Sen Manchin, who succeedced in using Tuesday's election outcomes to nudge Speaker Pelosi off the position she articulated on Wednesday that the outcome would not change her legislative agenda, which was presumably to link the BIF with the BBB and pass both at the same time. By Friday, it had become plain that this would be impossible, and the House leadetship was forced to cobble up a last-minute Plan B, which amounted to passing the BIF first with Republican support -- a Manchin prescription -- while deferring action on the BBB, eventually to go to the Senate, where Manchin's agenda will also prevail.

Speaker Pelosi used up a great deal of time, energy, and political capital allowing the House progressives to wag the dog on the legislative agenda, but accomplished nothing. As Matt Lewis put it on Yahoo News,

After a long on-again, off-again back-and-forth standoff over whether they would muster the votes to pass President Biden’s bipartisan infrastructure bill, progressives finally folded like a cheap suit late Friday night and passed it, in exchange for almost nothing.

Consider how progressives’ demands have shifted these last few months. They went from saying they would pass a bipartisan infrastructure bill only after the Senate passed a $3.5 trillion social spending bill to passing that bill in exchange only for an agreement for a House bill on a half-sized $1.75 trillion package if the Congressional Budget Office agrees it would pay for itself and knowing that there’s little chance even if that happens that it will make it through the Senate intact.

Progressives and Nancy Pelosi can dress this up however they like. But the trade House Democrats made was passing a mainstream, popular bill that will become law, in exchange for some progress on a sprawling progressive bill that won’t—at least not anytime soon and certainly not without major overhauls.

. . . The corollary to progressives folding is Joe Manchin winning. That’s the other headline, based on the likelihood that infrastructure week has finally arrived, after all this time. Despite all the criticism and harassment and pressure, he never budged.

Clearly a Democrat, Lewis offfers additional insight from that perspective:

It’s baffling to me why progressives ended up holding out just long enough to help torpedo Democrats’ chances in the Virginia governor’s race—and then acceded to this vote just days later. My only theory is that they feared being blamed for the loss (which explains why Jayapal started signaling the decision to back down on Monday), but couldn’t get the votes in before Friday.

At minimum, it sounds like this is the end of the Götterdämmerung strategy. On Thursday, my view was that it was unchanged, for now, but this suggests I was already thinking it was on shaky ground. But this transcript of Speaker Pelosi's weekly press comference Thursday illustrates her current state of mind and the extent of the bigger problem:

So, we are getting some Byrd and privilege. I think mostly we're getting privilege scrub because privilege scrub is deadly to a bill. Byrd? Well, it's important. You have to take it out, but a privilege violation can take you out. So, we're, again, getting that as we go along as well. But when we pass a bill, then they will see it in its aggregate and make some –

Q: Any concerns that any of this is, quote, ‘messaging’ because they have to take some of those things out regardless, no matter what you send over? And you said you weren't going to send a messaging bill.

Speaker Pelosi. No, no. We're not sending a messaging bill. But we want to be sure that what we send is not Byrd-able or Byrd bath or privilege scrub. They're the two exercises in case – bathing exercises we're engaged in, and we're getting a good response.

Stein's Law: That which cannot continue must stop. As someone said, Speaker Pelosi is a highly overrated person. If Sen Manchin is able to step into the vacuum until another adult can take over, so much the better. Something like this needs to happen at the White House, too.

They've Been Working All Weekend For Months

As I write this morning, the reports are that Speaker Pelosi intends to hold a vote on the BBB today, having postponed it from yesterday. This, of course, is what we've been hearing since September -- a "vote as early as [insert day]", followed by an imperious but belated notice from the speaker that "I'll let you know" when they have the votes, which never quite turn up. Last week, President Biden visited the House to beg the full Democrat caucus for their votes, but that didn't work.

The word was the leadership blamed him for not begging them hard enough, so as of last night, he was calling individual holdouts to beg all the more.

President Joe Biden, having failed twice to convince House Democrats to back his legislative agenda, resorted Thursday to personally calling lawmakers to beg them to vote for the $1.75 trillion Build Back Better Act.

I don't see Joe Biden as a closer. The establishment media has been perpetually optimistic about these impending votes, despite their track record of never quite taking place. Buried deep in its story about what might happen today, Politico provides a certain amount of detached analysis:

Several moderate Democrats chafed at the idea of voting on a bill with several provisions that are dead on arrival in the Senate — one of the clearest requests they’d had from the start, alongside a warning that such a vote would invite GOP attack ads.

As far back as this summer, moderate Reps. Stephanie Murphy (D-Fla.) and Josh Gottheimer (D-N.J.) warned party leaders they wouldn’t back legislation that hadn’t cleared the Senate’s political tripwires — namely, Manchin and Sinema — as well as the budgetary ones that would determine whether the bill could pass the upper chamber without a filibuster.

Those anxieties intensified after the party’s battering in Virginia and other down-ballot races on Tuesday, when the most vulnerable Democrats watched culture-war issues consume even suburbs that have trended blue.

“It seems like we're making the [social spending bill] more complicated and something that's harder to pass,” said Rep. Scott Peters (D-Calif.). He's one of the dozen-plus beleaguered moderates who have urged leadership to pivot their attention to the Senate-passed infrastructure deal, rather than ramming through a rushed bill.

. . . Even if House Democrats' swing doesn't whiff, some saw the push for Friday's vote as already insufficient.

“If there was supposed to be a rush, the rush should’ve been before Tuesday’s election,” said Rep. Filemón Vela (D-Texas), one of nine moderates who demanded an infrastructure vote in September.

But in fact, there was a rush to get a vote last Thursday, when the plea went out to preserve the president's prestige going into his trip to Rome and Scotland, and he delayed his departure to beg in person -- despite the tradition that presidents don't go to Capitol Hill unless the votes are already in hand.

However, I think the real reason for last week's rush was to get the vote before the results from Tuesday's election further spooked the moderates. Here's how I think of this right now:

• The moderates still aren't locked in, and they're indeed now spooked. If they vote "yes", they're locked into that unpopular vote going into a tough 2022 campaign, not even assured the BBB will pass the Senate, given Sen Manchin's reservations.
• President Biden's prestige is insufficient to change their minds, and I can't imagine how excruciating a personal call from the big guy must be, given his awkward stammering, gaffes, and misspeaks.
• Especially given Tuesday's outcomes, the likelihood of losing the Democrat House majority next November is even greater, which also increases the likelihood of Speaker Pelosi's retirement. Her impending lame duck status limits her ability to take revenge for "no" votes, which had been the source of her power in the past.

Add to this Rep Jayapal's remarks this morning:

Congressional Progressive Caucus Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) said on Friday that it’s worth Democrats passing the party’s sweeping social spending and climate change package even if they lose the House in next year’s midterm elections.

. . . "Of course it's worth it if we're making people's lives better,” Jayapal said.

Rep Jayapal, along with the other progressives, has a safe seat. She'll keep her job no matter what. The moderates, not so much. Her statement makes it clear that the leadership is willing to sacrifice them for this vote, which is simply another side of the Götterdämmerung strategy. Some people will in fact survive the end of the world, just not the suckers. Updates on the process so far indicate there are still moderate holdouts:

Rep. Jared Golden (D-Maine), a centrist who represents a district carried by former President Trump, emerged from Pelosi's office reiterating that there should be a CBO score.

Asked if there will be a vote on Friday, Golden said: "That's a good question. I don't know."

Golden may be a tough get for Democratic leaders on the social spending package anyway.

For now, I think the existing pattern will repeat, and no vote will take place.

For Now, The Götterdämmerung Strategy Is Unchanged

Meaningful statements from President Biden and Speaker Pelosi about the outcomes of Tuesday's elections have been slow to emerge. Asked early Wednesday about whether the results changed the agenda for the House, Speaker Pelosi said, "No". And according to the AP,

Biden looked at the results and suggested no reset was necessary for his White House.

He spoke with certitude of the many factors grinding on Americans — the lingering pandemic, rising costs at the gas pump, uncertainty about the economy — as problems that would go away if he could just get his agenda passed.

“If I’m able to pass, sign into law my Build Back Better initiative, I’m in a position where you’re going to see a lot of those things ameliorated quickly and swiftly,” the president said.

And,

“I’m not sure that I would be able to have changed the number of very conservative folks who turned out in the red districts who were Trump voters,” Biden said. “But maybe. Maybe.”

Voter surveys tell a different story. Three-quarters of voters said drawn-out negotiations in Washington over Biden’s governing agenda were an important factor in their vote. Those voters were more likely to back Youngkin, according to preliminary results from AP VoteCast, a survey of Virginia voters.

According to The Hill,

House Democrats said Wednesday they were switching tactics [but not strategy] and plowing ahead with a vote on President Biden’s sweeping social spending and climate package later this week, without getting a commitment from key Sen. Joe Mnchin (D-W.Va.) that he will support the legislation

. . . A Pelosi spokesman also confirmed that votes will be held this week and that the Speaker plans to bring Build Back Better to the floor first. But she has vowed to hold votes on Biden’s agenda in the past, only to run into opposition from her own party that forced her to delay the votes.

The difference this time seems to be that Pelosi is restoring paid family leave to the House version of the bill, something Manchin will not support in the Senate. This is presumably in the hope of getting the House progressives to support both the BBB and the BIF, with Sen Schumer left to clean up the discrepancy later. However, as I write this Thursday morning, I see no indication that the promised votes, already delayed from Tuesday, will occur by tomorrow, and next week the House is in recess. Pelosi's track record is not good here.

The bottom line appears to be that a 2022 defeat in the midterm elections has always been baked into the Democrats' Götterdämmerung strategy, and from the start, their intent has been to run up the credit cards in anticipation of the end of the world, when they wouldn't see the payments falling due. The defeats on Tuesday simply confirmed the wisdom of this strategy in their view.

Interestingly, the Republicans are looking past the end of the world.

The National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC), the campaign arm for House Republicans, announced an expansion to the list of Democrat House seats they hope to flip in the upcoming midterm elections, where the majority in the House of Representatives are on the line.

. . . In May, the NRCC expanded their list of offensive seats by ten seats, which brought their total to 57 vulnerable Democrats at the time. Since then, multiple Democrats have either decided to run for higher office or have announced retirement, ultimately leaving the House and ruining House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s (D-CA) chances of keeping a Democrat majority in the House.

But the problem continues to be that the credit cards could be declined well before the world ends. A commentator who's been off the screen for some years, Mickey Kaus, suddently reemerges:

There’s a remote—but increasingly less remote— possibility that Dems will wind up with neither of their two big spending bills: 1) the bipartisan “BIF” hard infrastructure (bridges, roads, etc.) bill and 2) the partisan Dem social spending laundry list, aka “Build Back Better” (BBB).

. . . Still an unlikely scenario, as it’s always been almost inconceivable that the Democrats would screw things up so badly they’d end up passing nothing. But this achievement is now within reach, and if it happens, it looks like there will be an obvious fall guy: Ron Klain, President Biden’s chief of staff.

I;ve been going at the current political situation from the standpoint of character issues, especially a serious lack of competence among the key players combined with the Dunning–Kruger effect, and I'm inclined to believe the outcome of achieving nothing is more liely than Kaus thinks.