Another historic Biden pick for the Federal courts:
https://vtdigger.org/2021/08/05/biden-names-justice-beth-robinson-to-federal-appellate-court/
Hold on to your hats. This is from David Brooks.
If Joe Biden stands for one idea, it is that our system can work. We live in a big, diverse country, but good leaders can bring people together across difference to do big things. In essence Biden is defending liberal democracy and the notion that you can’t govern a nation based on the premise that the other half of the country is irredeemably awful.
The progressive wing of the Democratic Party is skeptical: The Republican Party has gone authoritarian. Mitch McConnell is obstructionist. Big money pulls the strings. The system is broken. The only way to bring change is to mobilize the Democratic base and push partisan transformation.
…
But underneath that circus, there has always been another layer of politics — led by people who are not as ratings-driven, but are more governance-driven. So over the past 20 years or so, while the circus has been at full roar, Congress has continued to pass bipartisan legislation…
…Matthew Yglesias and Simon Bazelon call this the “Secret Congress” — the everyday business of governing that works precisely because it isn’t on cable TV.
…
If they could do that, the filibuster wouldn’t be a big deal to begin with.
The Biden approach needs to either get us a new VRA or it can’t be viewed as a success.
I don’t think half the country is irredeemable but a bunch of influential people are working on making our entire democratic system irredeemable and our system thus far is failing to respond. This is a tall order to heap on Biden’s plate but that’s just reality.
Schumer filed for cloture on the infrastructure amendment-palooza, Saturday vote to overcome any filibuster. 17 Republicans expected to support. If that goes well, final passage maybe this weekend.
Meanwhile Kevin Drum is not impressed:
Is it literally peanuts? I figured that would come in the farm bill.
Maybe. Peanuts are the currency used in some regions, notably Georgia. Current exchange rate is 150 peanuts = 1 quatloo.
I don’t think any of us is fooled. 
…
Overcoming Mr. McConnell’s obstruction will require all 50 Senate Democrats to stick together, to swallow hard with necessary compromises — and of course, the same is true for House Democrats, who cannot afford to lose the votes of even four of their members.
…
My bold.
What are the chances of this? I’d say zero.
I’d say the chances are pretty good.
I would love to be wrong!
It’s great that we’re spending money, but Democrats since Clinton haven’t had the political testicles to force the rich to pay for tax increases. So we have the classical ecological problems of complexity, complicated by increasing levels of inequality, corruption, and so forth. The elites have more and more influence over a supposedly ‘democratic’ system, which in reality is merely ‘republican’ and less concerned with socioeconomic balance. And that’s one reason - among a number - that I’m pessimistic. I think we’re 2-4 election cycles (2-year cycles) away from becoming an illiberal republican form of ‘democracy’.
Frankly, I don’t think that there will be much left to obstruct for the rest of this session. Aside of voting rights, Democrats don’t have that many big ticket items on their legislative agenda. They still need to get the annual appropriations bills that fund the federal government through. Republicans might try to obstruct those, but forcing a government shutdown has been a mixed bag for them in the past. Given the recent polling that shows them in pretty good standing for the election, the last thing Republicans should want to do is risk a shutdown that could be pinned on them. Of course, that doesn’t mean that Cruz/Hawley/Cotton won’t try to force a shutdown to further their own Presidential ambitions.
Biden’s nostalgia for bipartisanship is going to be his Waterloo. He’s trying to pet a bunch of Komodo Dragons, and he’s going to get devoured.
We still don’t know how the endgame will go, but Biden is currently not strategically choosing bipartisanship over agenda items like taxing the rich.
The bipartisan part of this was basically supposed to be peanuts - it was supposed to be the most uncontroversial stuff that wasn’t even really a new spending bill - so that everyone could have fun feeling bipartisan.
Biden should be judged on what happens to the reconciliation bill where he (and no one else among the Democrats) are trying to make bipartisanship happen.
Yeah, the devil is in the details (bolding mine).
Sometimes I seriously doubt if Merrick Garland and the Justice Department are doing absolutely everything they possibly can to address the voter suppression issue. Investigating Phoenix’s policing practices in realtion to the homeless is a good thing, but because he’s not firing out more suits left, right and centre, I wonder if he’s dropping the ball. Obviously I’m missing something.
It’s probably Congress’ job to protect voters against suppression at this point, and as long as we’ve got Senators committed to moderation and compromise in the face of naked hostility toward democracy, we’re doomed. There are unfortunately a few congressional Dems who think petting reptiles is going to work out for us – either that or they just don’t give a fuck one way or the other as long as they get to retire as multimillionaires.
I’m more and more coming to the position that Merrick Garland was the wrong choice for Attorney General. I have the utmost respect for the man.
But he has a judge’s temperament – measured and meticulous, carefully mulling over an issue before rushing into a position. That’s not a bad thing, but the AG isn’t supposed to be a judge – he or she is supposed to robustly advance the Administration’s positions on legal matters and the enforcement of federal laws.
I completely get the desire to name someone beyond ethical reproach as AG after Sessions and Barr, but Biden really needs more of a bulldog willing to aggressively AND ethically confront Republican undermining of our Constitutional order. He’s moving in the right direction – last month he announced an increase in the voting rights staff at Justice – but why just now when Republican legislatures have been tearing down voting rights for months?
Wonder if parallels can be drawn between Garland and Mueller, both playing by the book maybe a little too much?
A lupin for Garland’s thoughts on the temporarily decamped Texas house democrats.
Apparently there’s six practice investigations in clties like Louisville and Minneapolis.