Taking it coming and going

It's not enough that the fed can print trillions of dollars and just hand it over to the banks. That insulting little $1200 scrap you thought you were getting in return for letting them do that, yeah well the bank can take that too.

This week, the $1,200 CARES Act payments Congress approved in response to the coronavirus crisis will begin to appear in Americans’ bank accounts. The funds will be wired to eligible recipients who previously authorized the IRS to post their refunds (or Social Security payments) through direct deposit. This will speed relief far more quickly than having the IRS mail a check, which could take up to five months.

But the money may not make it into the hands of those who need it to pay bills, buy food, or just survive amid mass unemployment and widespread suffering. Individuals might first have to fend off their own bank, which has just been given the power to seize the $1,200 payment and use it to pay off outstanding debt.

Do we know how profoundly fucked we are? Has it even begun to sink in a little bit?

I really don't think it has.  This week, the news is still trying to get you to focus your hopes on the "Phase 4" relief bill.  Ooh maybe they'll finally get it right this time!  If there even is a  Phase 4, they definitely will not get it right. All of this is just play acting.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer said Monday that they won’t agree to the Trump administration’s insistence on more money for small business loans unless their demands are met for additional funding for hospitals, state and local governments and food stamp recipients.

But Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said the Democrats’ demands should wait for another day, while the small business program needs more money now.

“We’ve committed to small businesses. We should top up that program now,” Mnuchin said at a briefing of the White House coronavirus task force. “I know the Democrats want to talk about more money for hospitals and states. Right now, we’re just sending the money out to the hospitals and states. They haven’t come close to using that money.”

The time for Pelosi and Schumer to fight for those things was before they gave the Republicans everything they wanted in the "CARES Act" bailout. Instead they got nothing and now they have nothing to bargain.  Mnuchin is asking to "fix" the SBA program (which does need fixing!) but that isn't something Republicans are going to make a deal with you over. Certainly not over anything that matters.

As far as the right is concerned, they are "winning" the COVID disaster.  The corporate-financial sector can print as much money as it ever needs or wants forever while scores of Americans are about to be force-marched back to work under the most precarious and dangerous conditions they've faced in a long time with no expectation of relief from anyone in power.  Mitch McConnell isn't about to bargain that away.  The time to force him to do that was before you gave him everything he wanted up front. 

If Democrats actually wanted the stimulus to be better they would have fought for a better stimulus. But, really, Democrats only want to appear as though they would have liked a better stimulus. The game now is have a fake fight over a bill that might not even happen so they can say later that they "fought" for you.

Prospects for resolving the congressional standoff are unclear as there appear to be few if any negotiations occurring between the two sides.

“Small businesses, hospitals, frontline workers and state and local governments across the country are struggling to keep up with this national crisis. They need more help from the federal government and they need it fast — our nurses, doctors and health-care workers need it as much as anyone else,” Schumer and Pelosi said in their statement.

“Further changes must also be made to the SBA’s assistance initiative, as many eligible small businesses continue to be excluded from the Paycheck Protection Program by big banks with significant lending capacity,” they said. “Funding for Covid-19 SBA disaster loans and grants must be significantly increased to satisfy the hundreds of billions in oversubscribed demand.”

Pelosi and Schumer had demanded an additional $150 billion for cities and states, $100 billion for hospitals and health-care systems and an additional 15 percent increase in benefits for food stamp recipients.

In truth, though, they don't give a shit.  Otherwise they wouldn't be trying to open negotiations at $150 billion for states and cities when the National Governor's Associations is already (all nice and bi-partisanly) asking for $500 billion. 

Nevermind that, though. In a few weeks, we will have "reopened the economy" and the conversation will already be about how soon we can cut off everyone's unemployment and force them back to work. And while that's happened we'll still be asked to thank Nancy and Chuck for having tried so hard to help.

Why do Americans hate media elites?

Can't imagine why that would be.  Probably because they see too much "Fake News" that should be censored or something.  Or maybe it's something else....

.@FareedZakaria on Syria strikes: "I think Donald Trump became President of the United States" last night https://t.co/dLipRu6SZu

— New Day (@NewDay) April 7, 2017

bombing is fun, MSNBC edition  pic.twitter.com/qbtiBrpWLB

— Adam H. Johnson (@adamjohnsonNYC) April 7, 2017

See also Pareene from about a month ago.

Here’s what you have to understand about the sort of people who become anchors, nonpartisan pundits, centrist columnists, and cable news political correspondents: They didn’t sign up to be the resistance. They don’t want Donald Trump to fail. They want him to “pivot” and “act presidential.”

Yeah, there are guys (and it is guys, for the most part) out there who spend their whole careers trying to be Dan Rather staring down Nixon or Cronkite turning on Vietnam—or even just Tim Russert making some elected mediocrity stammer with a patented “tough question”—but mostly these guys want to be witnesses to Great Men Making History. They want to Respect The Office Of The Presidency.

Here’s another thing you should understand about these guys: The only thing the elite Washington press corps likes more than a bipartisan commission on debt reduction is a stack of flag-draped coffins.

Bonus: Why do Americans hate elite establishment Democrats?  Can't imagine why.  

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-New York, said, "Making sure Assad knows that when he commits such despicable atrocities he will pay a price is the right thing to do." 

He added: "It is incumbent on the Trump administration to come up with a strategy and consult with Congress before implementing it. I salute the professionalism and skill of our Armed Forces who took action today."

 Also

(CNN)Hillary Clinton called on the United States to take out Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad's Air Force on Thursday, days after a chemical attack killed more than 70 people in the war-torn country. 

Heckuvajob, Freddie

Donald Trump had some things to say about Black History Month today.

Among those he mentioned was Frederick Douglass, an abolitionist and former slave who died in 1895. Trump cited Douglass as “an example of somebody who’s done an amazing job and is being recognized more and more, I notice.”

He's right, you know. Frederick Douglass really did do an amazing job.

At a time like this, scorching irony, not convincing argument, is needed. O! had I the ability, and could reach the nation's ear, I would, to-day, pour out a fiery stream of biting ridicule, blasting reproach, withering sarcasm, and stern rebuke. For it is not light that is needed, but fire; it is not the gentle shower, but thunder. We need the storm, the whirlwind, and the earthquake. The feeling of the nation must be quickened; the conscience of the nation must be roused; the propriety of the nation must be startled; the hypocrisy of the nation must be exposed; and its crimes against God and man must be proclaimed and denounced.

So with that in mind, remember to keep after your Senators and tell them this is such a time as Douglass described in his Fourth of July speech. Keep calling them. Keep showing up at their offices and their homes.

We are presently one GOP no vote away from stopping Betsy DeVos. If you have a Republican Senator, ask them to join their colleagues, Senators Murkowski and Collins.

If you have a Democratic Senator, tell them you aren't going to tolerate anything other than full rejection of Trump's cabinet and judges. There is nothing in it for them but shame. 

In payment for Democrats being so nice and good, and voting to confirm this suit filled with cockroaches to the highest court in the land, Republicans will make the next Democratic nominee into the biggest screaming pinko terrorist butt-buddy to ever walk the earth. They will portray that person, most likely a semi-conservative career prosecutor or the like, as a grave threat to the Republic and come up with endless rationales for delaying and finally denying his or her confirmation, and after they do that they’ll take victory laps at CPAC so the frog-fuckers who vote for them can shower them with praise for saving the land.

That will be your reward, Democrats, for “doing the right thing” by Republicans. Would that any of you were half as interested in doing the right thing by your constituents, or by America. Would that you felt as strongly about doing the right thing for us. Would that that kept you up at night.

We need "the storm, the whirlwind, and the earthquake" to keep them up at night. That is our job now. 

Extreme vetting

Senate Democrats aren't as completely helpless as, I suspect, many of them would like to be.  There are things they can do to obstruct the fascists. 

But it’s also fair to say that, by nominating a poorly qualified and ethically challenged Cabinet, Trump forfeited his right to a speedy confirmation process, and Democrats should therefore slow it down to facilitate the adequate vetting that Trump and Senate Republicans are determined to avoid by rushing the process before all the questionnaires and filings are submitted. Four days of scrutiny on the Senate floor per nominee, even after the committee hearings, is a reasonable standard for fulfilling the Senate’s constitutional responsibility of advice and consent.

Democrats can also withhold their consent from every piece of objectionable legislation McConnell tries to advance. With 48 senators in their caucus, they have the votes to block most bills. But even when Democrats don’t have the votes, they can force McConnell to spend time jumping through procedural hoops. This is the insight McConnell deployed against Reid to manufacture the appearance of gridlock, forcing him to use the cloture process more than 600 times.

But this would mean backing off of the sanctimonious adherence to norms and decorum that often substitutes for ideology with these plutocrats. If only we had a politics that connected people's concerns directly to their elected representatives without 50 levels of donor-fed technocratic institutional bullcrap. Instead we have.. whatever Chuck Schumer is