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13 Republican Congressmen Save Pelosi, Biden on $1.2T Infrastructure Vote
Six Democrats voted against the $1.2 trillion Bipartisan Infrastructure Plan (BIF) late Friday night, which should have killed the legislation. Instead, 13 Republicans rode to Nancy Pelosi’s rescue and voted yes. The BIF passed the Senate nearly two months ago, so the legislation will head straight to the White House for the President’s signature.
Here are the Republicans for Pelosi:
- Rep. Don Bacon (R–NE)
- Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (R–PA)
- Rep. Andrew Garbarino (R–NY)
- Rep. Anthony Gonzalez (R–OH)
- Rep. John Katko (R–NY)
- Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R–IL)
- Rep. Nicole Malliatokis (R–NY)
- Rep. David McKinley (R–WV)
- Rep. Tom Reed (R–NY)
- Rep. Chris Smith (R–NJ)
- Rep. Fred Upton (R–MI)
- Rep. Jeff Van Drew (R–NJ)
- Rep. Don Young (R–AK)
Despite Democrats not having the necessary support, the final vote was 228-206 thanks to these 13 Republicans. Each should be primaried, at least those who aren’t retiring. And it’s time for Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R–CA) to be removed as House Minority Leader since he has demonstrated brutal incompetence.
For the record, here are the six Democrats who voted against the bill:
- Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D–NY)
- Rep. Cori Bush (D–MO)
- Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D–NY)
- Rep. Ilhan Omar (D–MN)
- Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D–MA)
- Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D–MI)
Yes, but my point was that “welfare” isn’t often thought to include things like that. “Welfare” was what people got by a check in the mail or whatever, and was bascally cash that could be spent on anything. “Food stamps” aren’t the same. Although they can be used to buy candy and soda etc, but not cigarettes, drugs, guns… at least not directly.
Give each criterion a possible value of weak, medium and strong. The outcome that meets all criteria and which meets the most number strongly (or the least weakly) wins.
Welfare payments have graduated to the digital currency world we now live in, just like most other transactions.
Here’s an aside: Many people get more “food stamp” money than they can use. Hence, I sometimes get solicited by people who want to sell me their benefits at below cost, so that both of us make out in ripping off the government. Another scenario I see are friends sharing their extra food stamp benefits with each other. You’ll see a person buying four gallons of milk along with a few sundry items. That’s because milk is a staple item that multiple friends would normally buy. Instead, the friends chip in a buck or two for the one who buys the item for them through the government credit card.
The only problem with this is that a panel of academic experts will likely be just about as political as the politicians themselves. They are human, too. And they are not elected by the people.
I can’t speak for your experiences, but what I saw in Phoenix was people – and often their children – who needed food but sold their food stamps at a discount because they wanted drugs or beer or liquor or cigarettes more.
Here’s my idea for drawing congressional districts: every ten years after the census, find the center of population mass in each state. Draw spoked lines from there to the border that evenly distribute the population in each piece of the pie (they will not be the same size, since population will vary geographically). You can’t get more apolitical than that. But no one ever listens to my evil genius ideas. . .
Again, maybe not perfect, but still might be better than what we have now.
Except it will be declared somehow unconstitutional since it doesn’t create majority-minority districts to “adequately” represent their “interests.”
We’re all a minority of one when it comes to representation.
I don’t understand this “majority-minority” concept. Someone please fill me in.
If you have a state with 40% green people and 60% purple people and five districts, you can easily arrange for two districts green and three districts purple. The two green districts would (each) be maj-min, because in both districts, the majority is a minority of the combined districts (the state).
You can carefully arrange that no district is maj-min, by ensuring that each district is 40% green and 60% purple. No green representative. (Assuming winner take all, and no person will ever vote for the other stripe).
There is even a way to get three green districts out of five, even though there are only 40% green voters in the state. Green abandons two districts to purple, migrating to bulk up the green pop in the remaining three. These are still “majority minority” districts, even though they have connived to capture control of the state, as 40% is still a minority.
BIDEN IS A “DISAPPOINTMENT”
Food stamps are definitely welfare.
I worked with a guy in OKC who bought food stamps from people for exactly those reasons.
Academics? Absolutely not. Academics can provide valuable information, but should not be in the position of recommending legislation. And yes, there is a legal issue. Leaving the districts unchanged is not an option when the latest census gives our state one less representative.
I’m not against the use of computer algorithms, but we can’t pretend the process is not political because of that.
They would probably be more political than the politicians themselves. After all, they deal with politics every day.
It’s gotten more difficult in recent years. First there was the requirement to have a food stamp ID card in order to use them, and the name had to match your photo ID etc, and now with the EBT debit cards they can’t just “give them” to someone else like they could with paper..
Okay, I might be even more confused now.
First of all, what are “green people” and “purple people?” (I’ve heard of Purple People Eaters but not this) Are you euphemistically talking about Black people and White people? If so, is this written into law?
Okay, I now understand the mathematics of how to arrange the different colors of people into majority-minority districts or otherwise, but how does this relate to the redistricting or gerrymandering of Congressional districts? Is there some law that says you have to have minorities in the majority in a district?
That’s why I now see food stamp recipients paying at the register with their friends who will be getting the excess benefits. The friend then takes their items out of the bag and puts them into his own bag.
The presumption seems to be that if a minority group is a minority in every district, somehow it was intentional.
And that if the minority group is the minority group in every district, then they NEVER get “one of their own “to represent “THEIR interests” and that just can’t be allowed.
https://ballotpedia.org/Majority-minority_districts
And the periodic “Farm Bill” has as much to do with farming as the “Infrastructure Bill” has to do with infrastructure.
If the number of state representatives does not change, is there a problem?
Not that I’m aware of, but I’m not sure if states really have the option of not redistricting if there are significant population shifts. I don’t happen to know.
That link explains a lot. I didn’t know that the Federal Courts have mandated that Congressional Districts be drawn up by race. This is unbelievably preposterous and it sounds totally in violation of the 15th Amendment of the Constitution. No wonder I saw a few comments saying that the Supreme Court mandated gerrymandering. Well, I guess the whole point is moot since gerrymandering is actually required by Court Order. Who’d of thunk it?
All foreseeable to anyone not blinded by Trump hatred.
They must redistrict. “Each congressional district is expected to be equal in population to all other congressional districts in a state.”—Wikipedia.
Everybody seems to be forgetting that academics skew, not only to the left, but to the radical left.
Once the radicals take over a faculty, they make sure that no dissenters are ever hired; or, if somebody slips through, are never granted tenure, so they can be let go at the end of their current contract. And if a faculty member’s views evolve in the wrong direction (e.g., because of a religious reawakening), they sideline him and try to drive him out.
Also, what usually seems to happen when a “nonpartisan” redistricting scheme is adopted is that one of the Republican judges turns out to be a Democrat in sheep‘s clothing; or that the non-partisan tiebreaker always votes with the Democrats. (Democrats know that if they lie under oath, Democrats and RINOs in the justice system will always let them off the hook.)
When you see any organization, group, think tank, proposition, or bill labeled “non-partisan” or “bipartisan,” know immediately that Democrats are behind it.
Part of this you have heard over and over from me.