Nancy Pelosi Is Running out Clock on Stimulus-COVID 19 Relief Negotiation

Two weeks out to Election Day, and Pelosi Postures

Update: Yahoo News: reports: White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows said the White House increased its stimulus offer as the Tuesday deadline to get a deal through before the election looms.

"We've increased our offer up to almost $1.9 trillion," Meadows told reporters on Monday morning. "[The president] is willing to give some additional money in terms of direct payments, he's willing to give some additional money in terms of PPP to restaurants and hotels and small businesses."

Update: Nancy Pelosi sets fake 48-hour deadline to kill stimulus bill.

Updated - A problem for American families battling the COVID 19 Pandemic amid a ravaging economy is Nancy Pelosi, Donald Trump and Mitch McConnell do not have to live with the consequences of their actions.

Suppose stimulus-relief negotiations produce nothing.

So what? 

Pelosi, Trump, and McConnell are going to be fine.

They don't sweat deductibles for their healthcare.

All three are millionaires anyway, so they can bail anytime they want, and they're still set, even if the American people did not pay for their pensions.

That is why last week's CNN interview of Nancy Pelosi on the stimulus talks is so jarring.

Pelosi is blatant in her willingness to walk away, and it's clear Pelosi, and not just Pelosi, could not care less what happens to the American people. 

More Democratic representatives are publicly expressing their disgust.

In the interview, Queen Nancy spoke extensively of her respect for Wolf Blitzer and stated Blitzer showed disrespect of Congress and Committee chairs. 

But viewers are left wondering where the American people fit in.

The latest news this weekend on the stimulus talks is not cause for optimism.

Pelosi does not get it, and she remains willing to walk away.

A press aide tweeted the American people will get nothing, or the White House must change its $1.8 Trillion offer.

The Speaker and Secretary Mnuchin spoke at 7:40 p.m. by phone tonight for just over an hour. While there was some encouraging news on testing, there remains work to do to ensure there is a comprehensive testing plan that includes contact tracing and additional measures to...(1/3)

— Drew Hammill (@Drew_Hammill) October 18, 2020

Mitch McConnell said the Republican-led Senate would "consider" a deal reached between the White House and Pelosi, reports The Hill.

But Pelosi and Trump seem content to drive American families over a cliff.

Oh, for Nancy's edification, the American people care even less about House Committee chairs than they do about the Queen's respect for Wolf Blitzer.

Said Pelosi last week to Wolf Blitzer, "You evidently do not respect the chairman of the committees who wrote this bill."

I know I don't.

Writes Andrew Yang:

I wish that Congress felt the impact of their failure to pass a relief bill as deeply and personally as the families that need relief.

— Andrew Yang🧢🇺🇸 (@AndrewYang) October 17, 2020

Hey, Nancy, Take the Deal; Are You Crazy?

Update: See Congress Has Another Chance to Pass a Stimulus, Democrats need to take it, (Harris, Slate).

Nancy Pelosi is deranged, the real thing.

Faced with the obliteration of the recovery, such as this recovery is, Pelosi is stubbornly refusing to take a $1.8 trillion stimulus, out of concern that this would be a political victory for the president.

Even Wolf Blitzer, no progressive is he, was taken aback by Pelosi's refusal to just take the deal Trump has offered, (Cillizza, Microsoft News).

Here's Blitzer questioning Pelosi:

Blitzer: Even members of your own caucus, Madam Speaker, want to accept this deal, $1.8 trillion, Congressman Ro Khanna for example. But let met just quote Ro Khanna, a man you know well. I assume you admire him. He's a Democrat.

And he just said this. He said "People in need can't wait until February, $1.8 trillion is significant and more than twice the Obama stimulus. Make a deal, put the ball in McConnell court."

So what do you say to Ro Khanna?

Pelosi: What I say to you is, I don't know why you're always an apologist. And many of your colleagues, apologists for the Republican position. Ro Khanna, that's nice. That isn't what we're going to do and nobody's waiting till February.

Listen to the CNN interview, Nancy Pelosi is a crazy person, truly. And this unhinged Speaker is the only person standing in the way of getting $1.8 trillion out of Trump and Mitch McConnell during the COVID pandemic.

Guess Joe Biden's position. Dead silence from the Democratic Party nominee.

See also:

In Wisconsin We Don't Care about the 25th Amendment; Pelosi Is Out-of-touch Playing Gratuitous Politics

Madison, Wisconsin — People in Wisconsin are worried about their families, and small-business failure to come on a gargantuan scale.

So, instead of hammering out another COVID stimulus, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D) is playing games with rhetoric about the 25 Amendment, continuing a ridiculous personal spat with the president.

In three months Trump is gone, and no Cabinet member is going to sign on to a declaration that he is unfit.

Meanwhile, every economist is issuing dire warnings about that families, landlords, restaurants, taverns, professional-service, essentially everyone except the top few percent are facing catastrophe.

So, Nancy Pelosi gets to insult the lunatic in the White House that he is even more unfit. How does this help us? 

This is a colossal waste of time that tells us, in the words of Krystal Ball, "noone is this town [D.C.] actually gives a shit about the people who are most impacted."

Pelosi is self-absorbed, possessed of an inflated sense of her own personal importance, with a deep need for excessive attention and admiration, and a lack of empathy for what Americans are going through, (Mayo Clinic).

Sound like someone else in high public office?

I'm under no illusions about the White House, but Pelosi needs to focus: We matter, not her, and not her need for gratuitous insult during high national crises.

@SpeakerPelosi: "Tomorrow, by the way, tomorrow, come here tomorrow. We're going to be talking about the 25th Amendment."

Full video here: https://t.co/5q4HIglmaZ pic.twitter.com/8Jeim87yJM

— CSPAN (@cspan) October 8, 2020

Bi-partisan Refusal to Pass COIVD Stimulus Clinches It — Americans Don't Count with Dems and GOP

Veep debate shuns COVID relief bill

Parties Unmasked

 

Update: Madison, Wisconsin — Just heard the Joe Biden TV spot exclaiming "It's a simple proposition, we're all in this together." 

Biden is lying.

It's major lie. Unless you are pouring serious money into Congress and the parties, you are out; you do not count with the Republican and Democratic parties.

Even the most obtuse member of Congress realizes how devastating the recession, COVID 19 and business-as-usual are to families and most Americans.

The COVID 19 relief-stimulus bill did not even come up last night in the veep debate, noone wants to talk about it.

But Democrats and Republicans do not care. They don't, you are not a member of their D.C. club, and you may as well curse the coming Wisconsin Winter.

One would think after Trump walked away from COVID relief talks, that all of Congress would be howling, constantly raising hell, harassing us about this injustice with the frequency of a Mike Lindell My Pillow commercial. 

Outside of a few tweets and a statement or two, instead, we get dead silence and no action from Pelosi and Schumer. 

 

Krystal Ball laid it out yesterday: 

 

I will never forgive Trump for abandoning Americans right now. He was the only person who solely held in his hands the power to get this done. 

 

I don't want to let Pelosi off the hook here either. She decided for electoral gain, she would rather Americans have nothing than to give Trump any kind of a win. 

 

Now, she's probably correct politically. But it is an unconscionable, and frankly psychopathic position. 

 

Trump's position is both politically idiotic and psychopathic cruel. The bottom-line of this recession, which has ultimately dictated the lack of response, is that noone is this town actually gives a shit about the people who are most impacted.

 

This was the most unequal recession of all time, devastating the bottom half of the country, and leaving unscathed, or even benefiting the top echelons of society. If ever you wondered how much the people here actually care about you, you now know in absolutely uncertain terms — they don't.

Now, watch, (because observing and commenting is about all we can do with the two parties), as the United States sinks into another Great Recession, if we're lucky.

Disgust with Trump and Pelosi Grows; They Both Don't Get It

'If ever you wondered how much the people here [in D.C.] actually care about you, you now know in absolutely uncertain terms — they don't.'
- Krystal Ball

The COVID Coronavirus imperils the economy with a synchronized assault engineered by the president, with, it bears noting, a big assist from House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D).

Trump and Pelosi seem like partners in a sick game in which Americans lose.

You won't get this from the New York Times or Washington Post, but Krystal Ball of Hill TV just blew the whistle on the whole Washington D.C. dance.

By the way, Joe Biden responded to Trump, late as usual, and his statement is fluff, nothing.

The President turned his back on you. pic.twitter.com/oeI8dck2LL

— Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) October 6, 2020

Said Krystal Ball this morning:

I will never forgive Trump for abandoning Americans right now. He was the only person who solely held in his hands the power to get this done. I don't want to let Pelosi off the hook here either. She decided for electoral gain, she would rather Americans have nothing than to give Trump any kind of a win. 

Now, she's probably correct politically. But it is an unconscionable, and frankly psychopathic position.

Trump's position is both politically idiotic and psychopathic cruel. The bottom-line of this recession, which has ultimately dictated the lack of response, is that noone is this town actually gives a shit about the people who are most impacted. 

This was the most unequal recession of all time, devastating the bottom half of the country, and leaving unscathed, or even benefiting the top echelons of society. If ever you wondered how much the people here actually care about you, you now know in absolutely uncertain terms — they don't.

Watch the Hill TV segment below.

Trump to Country: Nothing, No Stimulus, No Direct Payments, 'Im Ending COVID Relief Talks'

Biden Fails to Respond

Update: Economy nears tipping point as Trump sends new erratic, contradictory intentions on aid.

The news hit Tuesday mid-afternoon in a Tweet, Donald Trump is pulling the plug on America.

Reports the New York Times:

President Trump on Tuesday abruptly ended talks with Democrats on an economic stimulus  bill, sending the stock market sliding and dealing a final blow to an intensive set of on-again-off-again negotiations to deliver additional pandemic aid to struggling Americans before the November elections.

Mr. Trump announced that he was pulling the plug on the effort in a series of afternoon tweets in which he accused Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California of 'not negotiating in good faith' and urged Senate Republicans to focus solely on confirming his nominee to the Supreme Court in the coming weeks.

This means struggling families get nothing, small businesses get nothing, renters get nothing, small landlords get nothing and are left with no means of recouping months of no rent from tenants, states and municipalities get nothing, for starters, as the COVID Coronavirus imperils the world economy with a synchronized failure engineered by the president of the United States.

"Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell warned earlier Tuesday that the economic recovery remains fragile seven months into Coronavirus pandemic without further economic stimulus," reports the AP.

Trump ended his no-relief Tweets in all capitals: "THE BEST IS YET TO COME!"

Meanwhile Joe Biden tweeted eight times in the hour after Trump in communications in which the Democratic Party nominee failed to note, comment or advocate in any way on Trump's walking away from COVID relief. 

Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said he supports Trump's decision.

Moratorium on Residential Evictions Should Come with Landlord Subsidy Fast

In late Oct, Pres Donald Trump issued a sweeping moratorium on residential evictions through the Centers on Disease Control and Prevention.

The moratorium seems a rare bold, public health initiative. 

It's not and it exemplifies policy not even approaching half-measure value on a still-growing crisis.

What a massive stimulus bill should do to address this swath of policy is send federal money directly to landlords to pay for tenants in need of help.  

The subsidy could can be free, or payback without interest or whatever. This would solve the problem for the tenants, the landlords, the banks and the coming worst-yet liquidity crisis. 

In context, the moratorium is dishonest. Tenants in need are just pushing off eviction until after Jan 1 because after that they’ll be expected to come up with a pile of money for back-rent, penalties and they won’t have it.

If Trump were smart, he'd push, as he is able, a major stimulus legislation that includes a residential landlord stimulus.

But comprehensive public policy solving crises is not what Trump, Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer and Joe Biden do.

They all play political games and likely Democratic Party officeholders will receive a new memo advising Dems to blame everything on the Russians.

Krugman Gives GOP an F, Obama an Incomplete

Paul Krugman hopes the stimulus bill works and is disgusted with the Republicans.

One might have expected Republicans to act at least slightly chastened in these early days of the Obama administration, given both their drubbing in the last two elections and the economic debacle of the past eight years. ... (T)he rhetorical response of conservatives to the stimulus plan — which will, it’s worth bearing in mind, cost substantially less than either the Bush administration’s $2 trillion in tax cuts or the $1 trillion and counting spent in Iraq — has bordered on the deranged. ...

There’s still time to turn this around. But Mr. Obama has to be stronger looking forward. Otherwise, the verdict on this crisis might be that no, we can’t.

One thing do know is that Obama certainly has moves in place to get around or through the Republicans' obstruction plans.

Herbert on the Republicans

From Herbert in the Times:

Republicans in Washington have behaved like a milling crowd standing in the way of firefighters trying to respond to a devastating blaze. The best that can be said for the party is that a few senators seem to have been able part the crowd enough to let the rescuers begin to inch forward.

President Obama addressed Republican inflexibility on Thursday night when he said at a gathering in Williamsburg, Va., 'Don’t come to the table with the same tired arguments and worn ideas that helped to create this crisis.' He added that without swift action on the stimulus bill, 'an economy that is already in crisis will be faced with catastrophe.'

The report of January’s enormous job losses came roughly a dozen hours later. It was the latest in a long and hideous pattern of employment woes, much of it resulting from the G.O.P.’s obsession with destructive supply-side economic voodoo.

On the front page of The Times on Friday was an article that said the number of women on the nation’s payrolls is poised to pass that of men for the first time in American history. This is not because women have been doing so well, but because men have been doing so poorly.

As I was reading the article, I thought of all the guys who used to listen to Rush Limbaugh while driving to or from work but are now tuning in from their living rooms because the benefits of the G.O.P.’s right-wing, tax-cutting ideology never trickled down to them and they are now jobless.

Krugman Wants Recovery

Go Krugman!

A not-so-funny thing happened on the way to economic recovery. Over the last two weeks, what should have been a deadly serious debate about how to save an economy in desperate straits turned, instead, into hackneyed political theater, with Republicans spouting all the old clichés about wasteful government spending and the wonders of tax cuts.

For an idea what Krugman is writing about: An e-mail from The National Republican Trust PAC —‘Stimulus': Your Money for Illegals, Welfare Recipients, Arts, and Sex suffices. They urge a "Republican filibuster" to stop the economic stimulus bill in the name of: Ronald Reagan.

These boobs should join forces with some of the obey-the-Party types I've encountered; they have much in common.

John Boehner's Bad Faith

Republicans will do anything to protect their political orthodoxy.

And that includes extending the depth and length of a dangerous recession.

Paul Krugman has a typically clear-eyed column on the issue this morning that is a true public service.

As the debate over President Obama’s economic stimulus plan gets under way, one thing is certain: many of the plan’s opponents aren’t arguing in good faith. Conservatives really, really don’t want to see a second New Deal, and they certainly don’t want to see government activism vindicated. So they are reaching for any stick they can find with which to beat proposals for increased government spending.... So as a public service, let me try to debunk some of the major antistimulus arguments that have already surfaced. Any time you hear someone reciting one of these arguments, write him or her off as a dishonest flack.