If they had the votes they would be voting

Brother is coming for a visit, arriving tomorrow and staying the weekend. I won’t post in the meantime. Some weirdness out of Michigan. In December the state House ended the session in confusion. In a not-quite evenly divided House Republicans refused to show up. Then a Democrat also refused to show up. House leadership saw a stalemate and canceled the rest of the session. In the chaos nine bills, which had been approved by both House and Senate, were not forwarded to the governor for signature or veto, in spite of that demand being spelled out in the state constitution. With the New Year the House switched from Democrat to Republican. New House Speaker Matt Hall has kept the bills on the House clerk’s desk. Rick Pluta of Michigan Public reported that Democrats filed a lawsuit to get Republicans to act. That case was before the Michigan Court of Claims early this week There is no ruling yet, with plenty of space to appeal. Senate Democrats say that bills must be forwarded to the governor. While the constitution does not give a deadline there is and understanding (at least by Democrats) the implied intent is to do so with all possible haste. Failure to do so means “every bill then can be held hostage,” as Dem attorney Mark Brewer said. Speaker Hall said a “previous legislature cannot dictate the actions of the current legislature.” He also said this is a legislature issue and courts should not be come involved. But if the two chambers are locked in their position (as they are now) who has the right or ability to to get the other chamber to act as they should? Overall, who can compel a recalcitrant Republic Party to act like grownups? Whatever the ruling it will be appealed to the state Supreme Court. Back in 2004 Michigan was one of a dozen states to add a ban of same-sex marriage to the state constitution. I suppose I should be glad the amendment passed by a smaller margin than most other states. That amendment became void when, in 2015, the federal Supreme Court ruled the ban unconstitutional and couples could enjoy marriage equality. That amendment is void, but it it still there. Pluta also reported that on Tuesday state Rep Josh Schriver called on the US Supreme court to reinstate the national ban on same-sex marriage. Justices Alito and Thomas have been calling for the right case to come to them. If the Supreme do overturn same-sex marriage this Michigan amendment immediately becomes valid again. As part of his rebuttal, Sen. Jeremy Ross, who is gay and has sponsored bills to add LGBTQ rights, said of the new bill, “This was just as buffoonish as I expected it to be.” Schriver had a handful of cosponsors, which stuck around only until they had to face the cameras. His bill will go to the Government Operations Committee. It’s reputation is known as the graveyard for disfavored legislation and Hall has said he will never bring the legislation to the floor. If the Supremes do withdraw federal recognition of marriage equality Michigan will have to put an appeal amendment on the ballot and explain why voters need to vote for it. Kos of Daily Kos discussed the reports that the nasty guy and Ukrainian President Zelenskyy have agreed to a mineral rights deal. Other sources say Zelenskyy will be in Washington tomorrow to sign it. The nasty guy is well known for his extortions. Even so, Kos thinks this is “Ukraine’s best bet to win the war.” It’s good because giving up $0.5 trillion of mineral rights, out of estimated $15 trillion, is a worthwhile price – so long as it produces significant military aid. The vast majority of the wealth is in areas occupied by Russia. And future US administrations will have no problem ripping it up if they feel it gets in the way of Ukraine’s development.

As for the mineral rights deal, we don’t know many of the details. Apparently, Trump dropped his $500 billion asking price, and Ukraine didn’t get the security guarantees they wanted (i.e., NATO membership). Also, there doesn’t appear to be a specific promise of new American weapons and aid. But if Trump wants some of those minerals, those Russian-occupied lands need to be liberated, and Trump said that the deal would give Ukraine “the right to fight on.” Also, when asked if American supplies to Ukraine would continue, Trump said, "Maybe until we have a deal with Russia. ... We need to have a deal. Otherwise, it's going to continue."

A problem with Ukraine aid is it is being seen more as charity and a harder political sale in donor countries. But with this deal aid is now can be seen as a transaction. That will sell better with conservatives. Peter Olandt of the Kos community found the full text of the agreement on the Kyiv Independent and read through it. And he concluded:

This isn’t a deal. This is a deal to make a deal. And this deal to make that deal has absolutely no measurables attached to it. No timelines, numbers, or anything approaching something to hold either party accountable if the “Fund Agreement” never gets completed.

Yet, Olandt considers this brilliant:

Ukraine and the US have been seen to make a deal together. Both sides can point to this deal and say “Hey, we made a deal!” Trump gets to pretend he did something. Zelensky gets precious time for Russia to collapse while hopefully keeping at least some US benefits going. If the deal wasn’t made, Trump could get all huffy, make a deal with Russia, and blame Ukraine for not making a deal first. But since Trump has “made a deal with Ukraine” he will hopefully tone down his man-crush on Putin for a bit and continue to both let previously agreed upon arms go to Ukraine while letting Ukraine (with European help if needed) buy the more essential US goods. Any time Trump drifts towards Russia, Ukraine can privately or publicly point to this deal and ask “Hey, didn’t we have a deal?” How much of an effect this will have on Trump, who knows.

That Fund Agreement shouldn’t actually appear. As long as it is unfinished the nasty guy at least needs to pretend to uphold his side. Emily Singer of Kos reported House Republicans passed a budget blueprint. It directs House committees to cut expenses by $2 trillion to partly offset the $4.8 trillion in proposed tax cuts with each committee getting a target to meet. Cuts of this size will affect popular programs. For example, the House Energy and Commerce Committee is to cut $880 billion, expected to come from Medicaid. Various Republicans say the word Medicaid isn’t in the bill and accuse Democrats of lying. Democrats counter that the entire rest of the committee’s budget is only about half of $880 billion. So, yeah, the plan is for Medicaid to be cut by a lot.

“The quick math on the House budget shows a stark equation: The cost of extending tax cuts for households with incomes in the top 1%—$1.1 trillion through 2034—equals roughly the same amount as the proposed potential cuts for health coverage under Medicaid and food assistance under the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program,” Sharon Parrot, president of the left-leaning Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, wrote in a blog post. “Under what set of values does a budget target those who struggle to pay their bills for severe cuts, while giving an annual tax cut averaging $62,000 for those who make $743,000 or more a year?” she continued. “The tax cut for these wealthy households is greater than the annual family incomes for most of the 72 million people—1 in 5 people in the U.S.—who have health coverage through Medicaid.”

Even with cutting the budget by $2 trillion the proposed tax cuts would add $24 trillion to the federal debt over 10 years – pushing it to $60 trillion. In response to Musk searching for waste, fraud, and abuse in the federal budget Jon Stewart does a minute long segment where he is able to find a great deal of what Musk is looking for and he did it in just seconds. All that is in the form of subsidies to oil and gas companies that make big profits, tax deductions only the rich can take, and the F-35, an aircraft that can never meet all its requirements when the next war will be fought by drones. Morgan Stephens of Kos reported:

On Tuesday, 21 engineers, data scientists, and product managers who worked for what was once known as the United States Digital Service submitted a mass resignation letter in response to Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency interloping in federal jobs and agencies. In the joint letter, obtained by the Associated Press, staffers from the USDS wrote, “We will not use our skills as technologists to compromise core government systems, jeopardize Americans’ sensitive data, or dismantle critical public services. We will not lend our expertise to carry out or legitimize DOGE’s actions.” They also alluded to nameless DOGE bros wearing White House visitor badges infiltrating their office and grilling the nonpartisan staffers. The staffers told reporters these young men were rife with technological inefficiency, fandom for Musk, and ideological partisanship. ... “We swore to serve the American people and uphold our oath to the Constitution across presidential administrations,” the USDS employees wrote. “However, it has become clear that we can no longer honor those commitments.”

Singer reported:

More and more Republican lawmakers are being confronted by angry constituents at town hall meetings across the country. The opposition continues to grow to the chaos President Donald Trump and co-President Elon Musk have unleashed on the federal government with the so-called Department of Government Efficiency.

Constituents have basic questions: Are you going to vote to restore funding? When are you going to wrest control back? When are you going to put Musk under oath and demand he explain what he’s doing? The House had a nine-day break. Democrats met with constituents. Republicans mostly hid. When they did see constituents they claimed the anger was a campaign from the left. Oliver Willis of Kos reported that the “savings” reported by Musk and DOGE is lies.

DOGE’s falsehoods are one of the most visible products of the Trump and Musk co-presidency, and the public is beginning to sour on it. Recent opinion polling shows that much of the public holds DOGE, Musk, and their actions in low esteem. But so far, Trump shows that he has no intention of stopping his assault.

Mark Sumner, a Kos emeritus, wrote about Musk’s assault on science and research. He listed about $100 million reduction on each of biotech, life science, and social science research. There are also studies he halted that have already been paid for. That means zero savings and considerable damage. Sumner asks the important question: Why is Musk destroying science? He lists some reasons. + Fascists love the ignorant so they can dominate public knowledge and obliterate shared understanding so people don’t know how to improve their lives. + Musk wants to be seen as the only source of miracles. Sam Altman of The New Yorker wrote:

Elon desperately wants the world to be saved. But only if he can be the one to save it.

+ Musk is an accelerationist. He believes society will collapse and the best thing for the ruling class is to hasten the fall. Sumner also wrote that Musk warns of “temporary hardships” on the way to his paradise, though he and his cohort won’t feel any pinch. The rest of us will feel mild discomfort to death by firing squad. Walter Einenkel of Kos reported that DOGE’s focus on probationary employees is hitting military families hard. A military spouse has to move every 2-3 years, as the military member does. Frequently the only job the spouse can get is a government job. Each change of job means the new one has a 1-2 year probationary period, so much of their time is as a probationary worker. And Musk is targeting them because they have fewer rights than regular employees. About three weeks ago Steven Dennis tweeted:

One way to think about the DOGE effort is it's an outgrowth of 20 years of hardliner conservatives frustrated by their inability to get the votes in Congress to do what they want to do. Deleting the Department of Education is not a new idea, but they don't have the votes to do that. Same with CFPB, USAID, food stamps, Medicaid, the Affordable Care Act, and on and on. Steven Dennis' maxim: If they had the votes, *they would be voting.* ... Sending in Elon Musk & 'Big Balls' to do what they can't get Congress to do becomes far more appealing to hardliners.

Because Congress has been so tied in knots Obama and Biden turned to using executive orders to make progress. So now governing is about what SCOTUS let the executive get away with. Lately, they’ve been allowing getting away with a lot. A few days ago I wrote about a cartoon in which the person on stage took being pelted by eggs as a compliment. Clay Jones saw the opposite. His cartoon posted on Kos shows a Republican member of Congress being pelted by eggs. He says, “Yikes! They’re mad enough to throw $8 eggs!”