Posts Tagged ‘reality’

Scott McKay at the American Spectator Gives an Exercise in Realty about the House, Senate and the “Big Beautiful Bill”

Posted: May 26, 2025 by datechguy in Always look at the bright side of Trump, politics
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As I’m not writing regularly anymore it’s not often that I read a piece and think: “I wish I wrote that.”

But Scott McKay’s piece at the American Spectator (via Hotair headlines) certainly fits the bill.

You see it’s all about the reality of the math.

It’s irritating to have to bring this up, but the Republicans have a 220-215 majority in the House and a 53-47 majority in the Senate which isn’t really 53 votes given that Lisa Murkowski, Susan Collins, Thom Tillis, Mitch McConnell, Bill Cassidy and a few others seem to do everything they can to torpedo the conservative agenda. For the most part, they’re ineffective in that respect, because none of them are all that willing to be the one vote that kills a bill or a nomination. They know there will be consequences for that, and they don’t have the courage to face those.

Nevertheless, that 53? It plays like 51. And the 220 plays like 215; luckily, 215 was all the Big Beautiful Bill needed on Thursday morning.

You have the number of votes that you have. Then there is the reality of the the filibuster:

Mike Johnson couldn’t send a clean, stripped-down budget bill through the House, though that would have been easier, and the budget aspects of the bill might have been better. Know why? Because codifying Trump’s agenda through legislation in 2025 means everything has to be attached to a must-pass bill.

As in, budget reconciliation.

You have to force the agenda through an omnibus bill if you want to pass it, because Democrats will reflexively filibuster everything the rules allow them to.

There is zero chance of passing a bill in the senate that requires more than 50 votes and JD Vance. Which means it has to be done in a single bill.

And then there is a reality:

The point is that while this thing could have been quite a bit leaner from a budget perspective, assuming it gets through the Senate and Trump signs it, Congress will have then codified the bulk of Trump’s agenda by the middle of the summer and there won’t be all that much to do for the rest of the year other than to shrink the federal government.

Which isn’t a bad place to be in.

And if you can’t understand why Vought would be so sanguine about the bill even though it doesn’t seem to be very aggressive in chopping down on federal spending, this is likely why.

Some of this is speculative, I’ll grant. But again, this is an ongoing process. And we are dealing in the world of what is possible with the Congress we have.

Within that world, this is a win. Sure, it’s probably not a beautiful win. It’s a 50-yard field goal with one second left to eke out a victory, and the team didn’t cover the spread.

But in the end it will be codified into law and let me remind you of something I said 15 years ago during the Scott Brown special election back in 2010:

…in an attempt to stop Obamacare. In a broadcast by 73wire with Stacy McCain and Ali Akbar (Brown’s new media guy) we talked about the healthcare bill and there was an interesting exchange. I stressed how important this election was because it was necessary to stop obamacare BEFORE it was passed prompting the following:

Ali: “And if it does pass, we will repeal it!”

DaTechGuy: “No we won’t.”

It was very telling that Ali (who is a really smart young man) didn’t argue the point with me and changed the subject.

It was six long years before there was a chance to get rid of Obamacare, and when that chance came John McCain with the applause of every Democrat in the Senate cast the vote to save it.

There is a lot that COULD have been in that big beautiful bill if we had more votes to spare in the House or the Senate but there is plenty IN that bill that the left loathes and that we have wanted to get done for a while.

Once those things are law it will be tough for Democrats to get the votes to repeal them. They’ll need the house and the senate and a President ready to sign and they’ll need majorities where even Democrats in swing districts will go along and you remember what happened last time swing dems did so.

Thus came the Stupak Amendment and the fig leaf he provided while proving disastrous to him and his followers was a Godsend to others as he said later:

“I had a number of members who thanked us after because they could vote no.”

But Stupak fig leaf would quickly wither. His seat and 62 others for democrats would not survive election day and even more shocking to the left the New GOP majority would remain even after the re-election of President Obama

I think putting the dems in this position is a good idea.

Gen Z an Unemployable Army of the Entitled? My Degree of Shock Is Underwhelming

Posted: December 27, 2024 by datechguy in business, culture
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Harvey: When l get off this boat, l’m going to get my father to put you all in jail. You’re all kidnappers.,,,

Captain Disko: Well, l guess there ain’t nothing else for it.

Harvey: …l’ll bet they put you all in jail. ln jail for the rest of your lives, and l’m going to do it, too.[ Disko waps him upside the head knocking him down to the ship’s deck] You Hit me?!

Captain Disko: Now you just sit there and think about it. 

Captain’s Courageous 1937

As we near the last days of the blog as a business venture I think back on all the stories I’ve covered. There have been a lot of stories I’ve seen that have surprised or shocked me.

This is not one of them.

As many recent graduates face complaints about how they fit into the workplace, employers report increasing hesitancy in hiring them, according to a report by the education and career advisory platform, Intelligent

You mean all that expensive DEI education is not translating into job skills?

The report, which was based on a survey of nearly 1,000 hiring managers, found that one in six employers were reluctant to hire Gen Z workers mainly due to their reputation for being entitled and easily offended.

Moreover, more than half said that this generation, which refers to people born between 1997 and the early 2010s, lacks a strong work ethic, struggles with communication, doesn’t handle feedback well, and is generally unprepared for the demands of the workforce.

Amazing! Who would have thought that people who had to have counselors if the wrong person wins an election or if someone who disagrees with them politically speaks on a campus is completely useless in the real world.

Holly Schroth, senior lecturer at the Haas School of Business at the University of California, Berkeley, explained that Gen Z’s focus on extracurricular activities to boost their college competitiveness rather than gaining job experience has led to “unrealistic expectations” about the workplace and how to deal with their bosses.

And even worse, they don’t come equipped with safe spaces!

Do a web search of “Gen Z” and “polite” and you’ll find a wave of stories on how this generation has no idea how to act around actual human beings.

So treating your kids as your friends and buddies instead of being the parent and spanking them then they need it produces useless idiots.

Who knew eh?

Five Assorted Thought’s Expressed via Tweets & Replies Under the Fedora: What About Stacy? Don’t know much about History…, Those were the days, Good News Bad News, Staying Bought

Posted: October 28, 2024 by datechguy in blogs, election 2024, elections, elections, politics, under the fedora
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Reilly Gains notes a reason for the cheers for Elon, I note something missing

Stacy McCain still being banned from Twitter reminds me of Molly Norris still in hiding for her life. Both outraged me at the time and I’m still pissed off by the pair.

The only reason why the slave trade died was the British government put their navy on stopping it and actually paid cash to captains per slave freed. African nations at the time hated that. Rather than needing a civil war they paid compensation to slaveowners to make things work and those loans they took to do so were only recently retired.

I’m old enough when people actually knew history.

I always find it sad with I see Anne Applebaum drinking the koolaid. Her Black book of Communism was an important work and recorded things that history might have lost from the Soviet archives and a service to humanity.

But that’s not a guarantee against Trump derangement syndrome.

You actually have to watch the video this is clipped from for full context but the good news is the black woman recognized that the white girl has gone over the line and scolds her for it. Given they’re Kamala fans that’s signifies hope. The bad news is that the girl who is apparently an organizer for Kamala is now going to have to carry this stupid act for as long as there is an internet which is forever.

It’s really a bad thing when your politics becomes your religion because fanatics are dangerous.

Also a lot of people seeing this remember being young and stupid and thank God that cell phone camera and the internet weren’t around when they were young.

I’m going to include two tweets in this last section first from the Lincoln Project

and the 2nd from Rick Wilson who draws his pay from a different source than he once did.

I don’t get all that upset about these guys. You know left PACS are paying their bills and they aren’t going to make a dime from GOP candidates anymore so they’re just earning the bucks for being the paid actors that they are. This is the script or at least the outline and they’re just saying lines.

There are two types of people who don’t see the writing on the wall. The people who have made politics their religion like the niche market who still watch CNN that Jake Tapper was pandering to here:

and the people who are paid to pretend not to see it. They will be talking about a Democrat wave sweeping the country right until the day that High Brazil sinks under the waves and beyond if the cash keeps coming.

A Conservative is a Liberal Mugged by Reality. Ana Kasparian edition

Posted: October 12, 2024 by datechguy in culture
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In fairness my title not withstanding I don’t think we can call Ana Kasparian a “conservative” at least not yet.

But the key line from this tweet speaks volumes:

Kasparian says she was picking up her dog’s poop when a homeless man came up from behind her and grabbed her hips. He allegedly had an er*ction and started thrusting. When she shared her story, liberals accused her of “painting a wrongful picture of the homeless community” with some people calling her racist even though she didn’t say what race the man was.

You see when your politics becomes your religion you can’t allow actual reality. The assault on Ms. Kasparian, to interfere with your narrative, particularly if said narrative might be considered of use to your political opponents. And if a person even a liberal person is not able to sustain this narrative because they decide being sexually assaulted is outside their comfort zone, well that person is a heretic who must be expelled.

Cue Tom Baker:

There is nothing like being pushed out of your bubble by reality and then shunned by those still within it when you try to interact.

What is the reality of the fear of a single woman next to the cause?

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