Engaging in the theatrics of negotiation

After two Sundays of gay love stories where there isn’t much story I wanted something different. My Sunday movie was The Philadelphia Story from 1940, starring Katherine Hepburn, Cary Grant, and James Stewart. I saw this one on some list of the top 100 greatest movies. I see it is also on lists of greatest romantic comedies and funniest movies. It also earned James Stewart an Oscar for Best Actor. The story opens with Dexter (Grant) about to go on a golf outing and Tracy (Hepburn) breaks a golf club over her knee. He pushes her over. Two years later Tracy is about to remarry, this time to George. Since she is part of the high society of Philadelphia, the editor of Spy magazine connives to get Liz the photographer and Macauley (Stewart) the writer along with Dexter to be “guests” at the wedding. Liz and “Mike” are only doing it because they like food on the table. Dexter is trying for blackmail. Soon it is obvious that George may not be the groom when the wedding happens the next day (that’s also a good guess because the name of John Howard, who plays George, does not appear on the movie’s poster). While I wasn’t laughing much during the movie (a hazard of watching a movie alone) I read through the quotes and was reminded how witty many lines are. I quite enjoyed it. Greg Dworkin, in a pundit roundup for Daily Kos, included some good quotes about the debt ceiling fight. First is from Dari Pfeiffer from “The Message Box” on Substack.

The debt ceiling reports from the legacy media are nothing short of horrendous. And confusing. Much of it is laundering the viewpoints of the GOP leadership aides upon which Capitol Hill reporters depend for scoops. Their “journalism” excuses the irresponsible position of Republicans and puts all of the onus of preventing default on Joe Biden and the Democrats. I don’t blame anyone for being confused.

Second, from a tweet by Catherine Rampell:

I wish more of the coverage of debt ceiling negotiations focused less on internecine political dramas and more on the global economic consequences of default, as well as what House Republicans are actually demanding in exchange for not defaulting.

From Political Playbook is a quote I summarize as the Republicans keep adding new demands for concessions to raise the debt ceiling. And E.J. Dionne of the Washington Post:

That issue is at the heart of this needless and destructive battle. House Republicans decided to hold the economy hostage to slash assistance for low-income Americans while protecting tax cuts for the wealthy. That’s a factual statement, not a partisan complaint.

Finally Dworkin quoted Jamelle Bouie of the New York Times:

As [Donald Yacovone, author of the book, “Teaching White Supremacy: America’s Democratic Ordeal and the Forging of Our National Identity,”] explains, pre-Civil War textbook production was dominated by writers from New England. Some Southerners had, by the 1850s, become “increasingly frustrated with the ‘Yankee-centric’ quality of the historical narratives.” They wanted texts “specifically designed for Southern students and readers.” In particular, Southern critics wanted textbooks that gave what they considered a fair and favorable view to the “subject of the weightiest import to us of the South ... I mean the institution of Negro slavery,” as one critic put it.

Leah McElrath has a comment about the Republicans adding new demands:

Because the Republicans aren’t actually negotiating. They’re engaging in the theatrics of negotiation to give themselves plausible deniability so they can falsely claim “we tried” when they proceed to push the nation into default and crash the global economy.

Stacey Vanek Smith of NPR discussed the consequences of defaulting on the national debt. The major points: * The reputation of the US always paying its debts would be in tatters. That causes our interest rates to go up. Our huge debt would get bigger really fast. Some think think this is the kick Congress needs to get spending under control. * But defaulting on the debt does not reduce spending (see rising interest rates), it just stiffs the creditors. That idea confuses who gets hurt. * The government wouldn’t have cash to run basic operations and government workers wouldn’t get paid. * Default would shock financial markets and might cause a panic – if a bank holds government debt and they aren’t getting paid, how sound is the bank? The financial system freezes and there is no more borrowing. Businesses stop investing. This could look like the Great Recession of 2008 except it is self-inflicted. * This won’t be like Greece or Argentina defaulting because the US is the biggest economy and a lot of countries hold billions in US debt. Recovery is possible, but it will be a long, painful journey. So let’s not do that. Mike Stanfill of Raging Pencils tweeted a cartoon:

Why, in the name of all that is sacred and profane, would you House Republicans conjure a budget that will not only damage the economy but severely hurt your own damn voters? So we can blame it all on Biden.

The Associated Press, in an article posted on Kos, reported that in Ohio an amendment to the state constitution has been approved to be put on an August special election. Republicans of the legislature see a coming amendment to assure access to abortion, likely on the November ballot, so they got this amendment on the ballot first. What this August amendment will do is raise the threshold for approving any future amendment from 50% to 60%. That makes the abortion amendment much harder to pass. This AP article has at the top a photo taken earlier this month of the huge crowd of people in the state Capitol both supporting and opposing the August amendment. What is annoying to those who want to keep abortion access is this amendment is the only thing on the August election. Only strongly motivated people will vote, which will give the edge to Republicans. The parties will now work to craft the messages voters will see on the ballot. The likely Republican message, as the article says, may be “as a constitutional protection act aimed at keeping deep-pocketed special interests out of Ohio’s foundational documents.” Oh? Republican deep pockets aren’t behind the push to ban abortion? Sheesh. The Democrat position will likely be “to paint the 60% threshold as an assault on Ohio's long history of direct democracy.” Nick Anderson of Kos comics shows an octopus labeled “GOP” with its arms wrapped around voting rights, academic freedom, LGBTQ rights, reproductive freedom, book bans, courts, and Dem cities. The octopus says, “You can see I love freedom from my flag lapel pin.” Rob Rogers tweeted a cartoon showing a border wall with a sign:

Welcome to the USA Where we can (and will) violate your civil rights, abortion rights, voting rights, immigration rights, LGBTQ rights and your right not to be killed in a mass shooting!

The father of an immigrant family says:

So much for fleeing an oppressive regime!

Ron DeathSantis has officially announced he is a candidate for the Republican nomination for president. Last week Mark Sumner of Kos wrote that we’re about to have a Florida Man primary. Both DeathSantis and the nasty guy are each trying to be more conservative than the other. When one moves right the other will move further right. Sumner wrote:

Both may momentarily agree, but only on issues where they can’t think of a more extreme position. But these two guys have a real instinct for the awful, so they won’t be pinned down for long. If America is lucky, the result will destroy the Republican Party for a generation. But no matter what, everyone is going to get hurt. ... Remember all those stories in the past about “the Overton window” and the steps by which the Republican Party worked to make radical ideas more acceptable to the public? Forget them. Overton was defenestrated years ago. Trump and DeSantis will simply stake out new positions that are more and more (and more, and more, and more) awful. Then they’ll turn around and sneer at the other one for failing to be sufficiently horrific. Maybe this game of authoritarian leapfrog will lead the GOP off a cliff. It seems a likely conclusion. But it’s just as likely to leave behind a long list of positions, and millions of Americans to support them, that are so much worse than anything already expressed, that we can’t imagine them from our warm, comfy place here in the oh-so-stable and reasonable 2023. This “Florida Man” primary is going to hurt. Pray that the ones it hurts most are Trump and DeSantis.

Back in 1996 I repeated a joke about presidential candidate Bob Dole. My friend and debate partner almost fell over in laughter. Yes, we’ve been friends for longer than that. Now a similar joke is being applied to DeathSantis. I’ll let you click to read it for yourself. Hunter of Kos has a fine report on Disney and DeathSantis that took me a moment to figure out where it was going. Hunter wrote it after the news that Disney canceled a $1 billion development in Orlando over a legal feud with DeathSantis. That development would have housed 2,000 employees.

A company source involved with the decision cited the feud with DeSantis, noting that the cancellation of Imagineering's planned relocation of 1,000 employees from California to Florida would make it difficult for current Orlando-based engineers to provide engineering and repair assistance to the DeSantis campaign. "It's hard enough to stay on top of every animatronic figure in every ride in our Orlando parks," said the source. "The company decided it couldn't afford to keep sending imagineers to repair DeSantis every time his campaign hauls him to Iowa or other key campaign states."

Up to now I’ve been tagging posts about DeathSantis with “Florida.” Now that he is a candidate he needs his own tag. Monique Teal of Kos wrote that the Supreme Court is supposed to be the last line of defense of our fundamental freedoms. But she included a long list of rights the court has overturned, followed by a long list of scandals – 83 ethics complaints against Kavanaugh before he was confirmed! There’s also all the games Republicans played to stack the court. Because of all that Democrats have introduced a bill to add four more justices to the Supreme Court. My reaction to that was: Finally! That should have been done a couple years ago! Actually, it was done a couple years ago. This bill was first introduced in 2021. And went nowhere.