Linky Friday: Please Allow Me to Introduce Myself

Andrew Donaldson

Born and raised in West Virginia, Andrew has since lived and traveled around the world several times over. Though frequently writing about politics out of a sense of duty and love of country, most of the time he would prefer discussions on history, culture, occasionally nerding on aviation, and his amateur foodie tendencies. He can usually be found misspelling/misusing words on Twitter @four4thefire and his food writing website Yonder and Home. Andrew is the host of Heard Tell podcast. Subscribe to Andrew's Heard Tell SubStack for free here:

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15 Responses

  1. Michael Cain says:

    Jay Inslee, whom everyone expects to announce as the “climate crisis” candidate, visited New Hampshire this week and has been taking advantage of his status as a sitting governor. He has: (1) announced he will be pardoning some thousands of people whose marijuana-related crimes are no longer illegal in Washington, removing those convictions from their records; (2) announced that Washington will pay unemployment benefits to federal workers who are not getting paid; and (3) proposed the state add a public option to their state health insurance exchange, anticipating that private insurers will abandon as many as 14 rural Washington counties next year.Report

  2. Marchmaine says:

    [LF12] Derision and Hope you can believe in.

    Maybe not as good as the original… but about what I’m expecting from Team Blue in 2020.Report

  3. Saul Degraw says:

    Biden is too old. Bernie is too old. Warren might be too old. I like Brown but he should stay in the Senate and not let a Republican pick his successor. Beto might be a good VP but I wouldn’t have a problem voting for him for President. I’m split between Harris (favorite daughter), Warren, and Gillibrand (homestate favorite daughter)Report

  4. Jaybird says:

    That’s around 20 people. And the cycle is young yet.

    (I imagine that, at the end of the cycle, we’ll have had 30 people talk about running in 2020.)

    Assuming that that particular 20ish people are the only ones and someone like Jeb! doesn’t switch parties and steal the Democratic nomination, I think it’s safe to say that 8 of these people are dead in the water right now. They will have an exploratory committee and the exploratory committee will tell them “ha! yeah. no.”

    I’m pretty sure that we happy few here could agree wholeheartedly on 7 of those 8 and we’d have a handful of petulant bickering over the eighth.

    The problem is that remaining dozen. Of that dozen, half will make it three months and *THEN* they’ll burn out.

    Leaving us with six.

    I’m pretty sure that we happy few here could agree wholeheartedly on 5 of those 6. A handful of petulant arguments over the sixth.

    But coming out and naming those five? At this point? That seems unfair to the other 15.Report

  5. North says:

    Whelp, Trump folded. I knew this was going to happen sooner or later when the votes came in and more Republicans defected to the Dem version than vice versa. I am pleased it happened so quickly.
    Pretty good bit of work for Speaker Pelosi; doubt she’ll have to worry about many naysayers for a good little while.

    Big question: Does trumps numbers recover now that the shut down is over or do they stay at this level as people relieved the shut down is over are replaced in the disapproval column by those who’re angry he folded?Report

    • dragonfrog in reply to North says:

      Is this still the three weeks thing, or did he sign a longer term one? If the former, do you figure he’ll quietly sign a permanent funding bill that’s effectively no different within the next three weeks?Report

      • Saul Degraw in reply to dragonfrog says:

        It’s three weeks but he folded today because of substantial delays at major airlines and because the flight attendants threatened a general strike in solidarity with TSA. It seems unlikely that he will try again because shut down airlines are bad examples.Report

      • North in reply to dragonfrog says:

        Yeah it’s still a temporary bill that only funds through to February but let’s be real here. Pelosi and Schumer could have a collective stroke and they still wouldn’t agree to any one sided concessions. If Trump comes up on the February deadline with no wall funding (unless he suddenly starts offering something substantive in return) and says to the GOP “Let’s do this again!” They’re probably going to revolt. It is even odds whether Trump chose to fold today or if McConnell told him that it’s over and Trump being allowed to announce it was simply a face saving measure.Report

        • Michael Cain in reply to North says:

          Are we betting on the compromise? I’ll take “$10B for wall funding, with strings that don’t allow construction any time soon except where barriers already exist, in exchange for permanent status for the Dreamers”, Alex. The budget will be a CR for the rest of the year and increased debt ceiling, because McConnell just wants to approve Cabinet officers and their sub-officers, and federal judges, dedicated to rolling back the regulatory state, making the ACA unsustainable, and expanding Casey.Report

          • North in reply to Michael Cain says:

            I wouldn’t oppose that bet. That’s the kind of deal Pelosi and her Party would agree with and Trump could try and spin. The wild card is the Senate of course. The GOP doesn’t give a damn about the wall and they certainly don’t want to trade something of value to the Dems (Dreamers) for something of no value to them. So far the Trump immigration trolls have kept anything from moving forward like that.Report

        • Morat20 in reply to North says:

          He seems to be going with “National Emergency” as his back-up plan, judging by his rambling and kinda insane press conference today.

          Which…good luck. He’s spent the last month basically making sure he has the weakest possible hand when it comes to the inevitable court case,.

          It takes skill to pre-emptively prove a negative (“Congress is opposed to authorizing this funding”), while also making sure everyone is clear that the emergency is very specifically the means, not the cause. And of course, that the goal is to usurp the power of the purse.

          He’s literally spent the last month clearing away any grey areas he could make a case on. That’s some serious skill.Report

          • North in reply to Morat20 says:

            I’m no legal eagle but noone I’ve read who is seems to think Trump has a shot in hell at getting the wall built with a National Emergency declaration. A) not even conservative lawyers seem to think it’s legally even outside of the laugh track zone and B) the money Trumps talking about poaching is spoken for and mainly by Republican constituents. They aren’t going to let him snag their pork for his wall that they don’t even want.Report

      • Yeah, sounds like the House bill with minor changes (ie, date). (Reports say it also has the renewal of the Violence Against Women Act in it.) Passing the House bill with the necessary changes would be the easiest thing procedurally — the House can vote to accede to the Senate’s changes upon receipt of the bill. Also makes it an easy sell for Pelosi: “It’s our bill with the date changed to reflect the delay in passage by the Senate.”Report

    • Morat20 in reply to North says:

      Pretty sure it was the sudden slowdowns at the airports. Not that Trump cared, but it matters a whole lot to Senators.

      His shutdown was always doomed to failure, it was just a matter of what the tipping point is.Report