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I want to take a moment to unpack the positioning, politics and parliamentary rules behind this confrontation over including the minimum wage hike in the COVID relief bill. It’s quite complicated. And at least some of the advocacy is significantly misleading.
The Senate parliamentarian has ruled that the minimum wage hike doesn’t qualify to include in a reconciliation bill – i.e., one that cannot be filibustered. Parliamentarians can be fired or overruled. But there’s a major hitch. At least two Senators – Manchin and Sinema – say they don’t support overruling the parliamentarian or including the minimum wage in the COVID relief bill. Indeed, neither currently supports hiking the minimum to $15 at all. (There’s some question about that with Sinema. But Manchin is clear and he’s enough.)
Where Things Stand: Hit-And-Run AG Was Reading A Right-Wing Website While Driving, Investigators Say We’ve been following closely this week as new details have emerged about a hit-and-run by South Dakota’s attorney general. A Republican politician, who was charged with a mere misdemeanor after being involved in the fatal accident, is now facing a bipartisan impeachment push as it starts to look as if his “I thought I hit a deer” story might be Swiss cheese.
Where Things Stand: The Value Of Playing The Antifa Card The antifa card has been dealt repeatedly this week. And it’s only picking up more steam among the GOP as a vague but ready excuse for all manner of things.
Tucked into a recent Politico report on Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell’s decision to push back on the House’s bid to conduct a bipartisan review of the Jan. 6 insurrection was a clue as to the staying power the actually-it-was-antifa lie will have.