Dear President Biden,

Last night, Joe Manchin wrote an op-ed saying that compromise in the Senate is still possible under the current filibuster rules, and that he’s committed to crafting bipartisan legislation the whole nation might support.

To my mind, that is like suggesting we build a concrete airplane to the future, but Manchin says it can be done. He says he see the way forward. So here’s my humble suggestion: Hire him, very publicly, as your pilot. In fact, you should go even further. Hire Joe Manchin as your legislative pilot, and book his whole family tickets in First…

Here’s a theory on why the boss has been silent.

The elemental construct of a post-Trumpian world is upon us, and is very simple: Democrats wish to govern, and make life better for the vast majority of our people, so as to justify the continuation of our reign. Republicans, on the other hand, hope to stoke a culture war of sufficient volatility, so that — once their dark messiah returns from the fetid swamplands — he can reap the political winds and return them to positions of authority. Only time will tell which strategy will find purchase with the electorate.

…

The Senate will likely pass the $1.9 trillion Covid Relief Bill in the next few days through budget reconciliation. Later in the year, the Dems will come back to do a second bill — an infrastructure bill — also on the reconciliation line. That’s a rare opportunity, as you normally only get one a year, but the last Congress punted on doing a budget for fiscal year 2021, so technically — this one is really THAT one, and the next one, in the fall, will be for fiscal year 2022. …

It’s past midnight, so the insurrectionists made it into their second day, but it all has the feel of a sinking ship. Some Congressmen and Josh Hawley will ride it to the bottom.

Good riddance.

I’m actually kinda glad that Hawley joined the Pennsylvania objection, as it gives me the chance to write a bit before bed, assured that I’ll wake up tomorrow one day closer to the end of both the Trump Regime, and the whole Trumpian Era.

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What’s on my mind right now, before knocking off for the night, is my dad. I just received…

The big news today is, of course, President Trump putting the screws to Georgia election officials in an effort to overturn his massive, huge, embarrassing loss to Sleepy Joe Biden. As he may have finally committed a big-boy crime, that story assuredly deserves the headlines it’s receiving. But spare a moment for Ted Cruz, too. He deserves some attention for his most recent skullduggery.

Yesterday, the preternaturally icky Junior Senator from Texas wrote a letter for the full Sedition Caucus, suggesting that we resolve the “disputed” election of 2020, by creating a committee based on the one that drafted the…

The Amazon blub about Kyle Smith’s 2004 novel “Love Monkey” reads:

“Many men aim high; Tom Farrell dares to be average. While his friends accumulate wedding rings, mortgages, and even, alarmingly, babies, Tom still lives alone in his rented apartment with nothing but condiments and alcohol in his refrigerator. He spends Saturday mornings watching cartoons and eating Cocoa Puffs out of an Empire Strikes Back bowl, and devotes the rest of the weekend to his other favorite hobbies: sports and girls. His credo, to think and act like a thirteen-year-old boy at all times, has worked well enough to land…

Media reaction to Donald Trump challenging the recent election results seems, so far, to be one of annoyed bemusement with a touch of gathering anxiety. The recent moves by the President to replace the civilian leadership at the Pentagon with diehard partisan loyalists, and reports of some Republican state legislators considering sending an alternate slate to the Electoral College, should send a chill up every spine. Still, it is a reasonable bet that Joseph R. Biden will be sworn into office on January 20, 2021.

That, however, will not end the existential threat posed to American democracy by Republican attempts…

Since we seem to be sidling up to an attempted coup d’état by the current occupant of the White House, it might behoove us to remember the last time one was attempted in the history of the United States.

In 1934, a group of fascist American industrialists who hated FDR, progressives, liberals and Democrats attempted to recruit former Marine Corps Brigadier General Smedley Butler — a soldier’s soldier if ever there was — to lead an army of 500,000 veterans of WWI in a march on Washington where they would depose the elected government and declare martial law. …