i don’t think the axios reporting is entirely off base if you have house members out here soft launching an abolish-the-senate position lmfao

The Senate exists for the same reason that the ACA doesn't have a public option: it was negotiated to placate the necessary votes. Slave states were nervous about being beholden to public will so we massively over-elevated state representation. www.law.cornell.edu/constitution...

I don't know what the Senate is going to do. But if they do in fact fold in exchange for nothing, they will be living up to past performance. To expect the Senate to carry out the will of the American people is to misunderstand why it was created in the first place.

Marisa Sweeney is also basically Bluesky age (41). I feel like a dispensary-owning millennial anti-machine turboliberal yoga teacher who annihilates an obscure Republican state legislator on a budget of $5 and a prayer is right up this website's alley

would people be into this?

and, again, 2025 included the Republican caucus's lone Hispanic member losing to a vegan nutritionist and dispo owner with no campaign money and no party backing in NYC's version of Orange County in part by getting curb-stomped in the district's Hispanic enclave

Jill Tokuda do you want a promotion

we've gone from "this is clearly a planted story, real ball knowers don't fall for this" to "this has been an ongoing thing in the senate and has been known by house leadership for a week and they're pretty upset about it"

2027 is going to be a bloodbath for the New Jersey GOP that makes 2025 look solid, is my prediction right now

I would respect House Democrats a lot more if they started planning primaries against the Senate Surrender Caucus tbh. like Joe Neguse would wax Hickenlooper 60-40

yeah it's blowing my mind that Ritchie Torres and Matt Yglesias both loudly think the reported cave is extremely stupid

decided Booker needed a message a little stronger than my usual (emotional range from "pointed disappointment" to "restrained anger")

beginning to envision a world where the younger centrists decide to ruthlessly knife the somehow-even-worse old centrists

This seems significant

anonymous sourcing is how most of journalism works and you are genuinely fucking stupid if you do not understand this. if journalism was limited to what people are willing to say with their names attached the public would know nothing that hasn't already happened.

Bloomberg and CNN have both reported it now but this pathetic Bluesky pro-Schumer Kremlinology will never die, huh

the repeated willingness of Senate Democrats to not so much backstab their House colleagues as fling their own wet shit in the House Dems' faces is something to behold

cnn has confirmed the axios story but keep bleating that it's just axios bs guys

oh for fuck's sake "in exchange for a promised December vote" how did the DC funding restoration go, Chuck???

been doing some light reading about the aftermath of the korean dictatorship and I think it's really important that we repeat this to ourselves, to our friends, to our neighbors, to our politicians

No kings, only this queen

ran out of room

the aim of the american constitutional structure is twofold: to prevent major change without consensus and to have a workable system of self-government. supermajority rules for ordinary business might promote consensus (i think this is wrong btw) but they make government unworkable!

congress is a russian nesting doll of counter-majoritarian structures. seems to me that there's no need for a supermajority rule on top of that!

one thing i find crazy-making is the idea that getting rid of the filibuster would make congress a purely majoritarian institution. bicameralism itself is counter-majoritarian! equal state representation is counter-majoritarian! the fact that senate elections are staggered is counter-majoritarian!

If I have to see this face again when I open the news I may have some sort of complete mental breakdown.

Chappell Roan as Ms. Frizzle: -canonically lesbian -redhead -flair for the dramatic -flamboyant style

Underrated aspect of killing the filibuster is making pundit hacks at Cook Political p-p-p-piss their pants

Talarico's response is so cool though. "Jesus followed strippers, and are we not commanded to live like Him?" beastmode lmao

so the DSCC is responsible for the Talarico story, right

oh so these people do pay attention to who politicians follow on social media, they just don’t care that the vice president follows a bunch of actual neo-nazis

1) oh it's cool that spiders exhibit social behavior up to and including the creation of spider cities 2) STOP TOUCHING THAT

If you’re wondering what a “least weasel” is, they absolutely live up to the name. This is the least amount of animal you can have that can still meet the bar for “is weasel”

I love that the Boston cop slide never got fixed and now people just willingly go down it in tribute. It’s basically a national landmark at this point

he did call desantis a desperate eunuch. got to hand it him there

all of this is also true for sexism. you tell me you think women are biologically less smart and i’ll suspect that i could probably convince you to drink your own piss

bring back maligning racism as the mark of a stupid person. prejudice is the mark of an idiot. if you believe that shit i bet you also don’t wipe your ass

apropos james watson’s death i had an idle thought today about how stupid race/iq stuff sounds. “buh if your skin is darker you are biologically less smart” is a thing only a dumbass can believe

he won an absolute majority in a 3 person race. the 100k or so people in those neighborhoods don't all have substacks.

we are 10 years into the dem base being raging mad about threats to democracy while dem elites have been entirely sanguine, had to be constantly harassed into even pretending to give a fuck, and then half-assing their way through defending democracy. we need new politicians so fucking badly.

i do want to point out that this does challenge the ironclad conventional wisdom that no one gives a shit about democracy

gerontocracy is bad, however, she has enough of a spine of steel that it's legit worth keeping her for life lmao

she's so cool

no better way to get from Queens to Manhattan

America has a massive prison system & we use it all wrong

so there's the kind where you bill for procedures you didn't do, and then there's the kind where you do unnecessary procedures without the consent of a sedated patient for extra money, and I think I've seen both from the same guy?