James' World 2

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A group of ten Republican senators has made a $600 billion counteroffer to President Biden’s $1.9 trillion economic-rescue plan. The media has treated this negotiation as a mere formality, the prelude Biden will briefly entertain before getting down to the business of passing a real bill through budget reconciliation.

That may be so. But there is a chance the two sides can actually make a deal. And the best way to do that is to enhance its flexibility so that the Democratic fear of spending too little and the Republican fear of spending too much can both be resolved.

Democrats are haunted by the experience of 2009 and are determined not to repeat its errors. Congressional leadership bound itself to a 60-vote threshold that required getting support from at least two Republican senators, who in turn bargained down the size of the bill out of an arbitrary belief that a trillion dollars was too much to spend. The economic contraction wound up considerably deeper than economists realized at the time, and the administration had trouble getting votes for more stimulus later, and the slow growth that resulted punished Democratic members of Congress.

The lesson many Democrats have drawn is that they have to ensure that Biden doesn’t get saddled with a stimulus that’s underpowered. “The only thing we cannot accept” is a bill that is “too small or too narrow,” says Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, who cites the lessons of 2009. “Democrats can’t assume we will have bite after bite at the apple, particularly with Republican state legislatures working overtime to entrench minority rule through redistricting,” Oregon Senator Ron Wyden tells Greg Sargent. “The only surefire way to prevent economic sabotage is to pass the bold economic relief that’s needed now.”

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Photo: ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS/AFP via Getty Images

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For all of GOP representative Marjorie Taylor Greene’s protestations (repeated Friday in a defiant statement) that she’s a victim of “cancel culture” and the “radical, left-wing mob” and the “Fake News media,” the controversy surrounding the freshman congresswoman is entirely of her own making. Before (but not long before) she ran for Congress in 2020 — after switching districts to find somewhere her heavy bankroll could gain her instant viability — Greene unburdened herself at extraordinary length on social media, particularly Facebook, on various fringe topics. At first, observers mostly noticed her utterances explaining and embracing the QAnon conspiracy theory. Additional digging has since uncovered statements that make a mere stipulation that her and Trump’s enemies are Satan-worshiping pedophiles seem tame. They include, per Intelligencer’s Jonathan Chait:

• Muslims don’t belong in government.

• 9/11 was an inside job.

• Shootings at Parkland, Sandy Hook, and Las Vegas were staged.

• “Zionist supremacists” are secretly masterminding Muslim immigration to Europe in a scheme to outbreed white people.

• Leading Democratic officials should be executed.

The most recent Greene view to be unearthed comes via Eric Hananoki. Just over two years ago, Greene suggested in a Facebook post that wildfires in California were not natural. Forests don’t just catch fire, you know. Rather, the blazes had been started by PG&E, in conjunction with the Rothschilds, using a space laser, in order to clear room for a high-speed rail project.

The now-congresswoman from the 14th district of Georgia has continued to burnish her reputation for insanely irresponsible extremism, most recently by becoming the wildest of wild supporters of Trump’s election-coup scheme and his underlying (and lying) claims the 2020 election was stolen.

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Right now she is unbloodied and unbowed. Photo: Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Imag

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With Donald Trump banned from Twitter and suspended from Facebook, the political temperature on social media is noticeably cooler. The (relative) tranquility may not last long, with Facebook considering whether to reinstall the former president at some point in the future. On the latest Pivot podcast, Kara Swisher and Scott Galloway discuss the implications of this decision, and the wisdom of outsourcing it to an outside entity.

Kara Swisher: Facebook’s oversight board is taking on its first major case. It’s been doing a bunch of them, but this is the big one. Last week Facebook asked the recently formed board to review the company’s decision to suspend Donald Trump’s account. Twenty people will now decide whether to let Trump back on Facebook and Instagram, after a suspension period. The board is also being asked to consider a question that goes far beyond Trump’s account, and look at their world-leader policy in general.

As a reminder, Facebook announced they’d be launching this “Supreme Court” in 2019. It is a star-studded panel of people that I’ve called the United Nations — only less effective. It should be bigger than 20, but they haven’t named everyone to it yet. It’s funded by Facebook, but Facebook has no control over it. It’s an independent body, and they’re going to take the big case because Mark can’t make the decision himself, or take responsibility for it. So they’re foisting it on them. Ben Smith did a great column on this. And Nick Clegg is doing his fantastic song and dance about how they need new solutions to these problems, which I call “running your own company,” but whatever. What do you think about this, Scott?

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Yellen, a Democrat, was confirmed by the Senate 84-15, with broad bipartisan support. All 15 no votes came from Republicans.

The Senate Finance Committee unanimously approved Yellen’s nomination last week, with Democrats and even Republicans touting her qualifications despite GOP opposition to much of President Biden’s economic agenda.

She is the third of Biden’s Cabinet nominees to be confirmed, following Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin. Yellen brings a wealth of policy experience to her new position. She served as chair of the Federal Reserve from 2014 to 2018, making her the first woman to hold that position, and was head of the Council of Economic Advisers during the Clinton administration.

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© Getty Images Senate confirms Yellen as first female Treasury secretary

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