As negotiations over the next coronavirus relief bill drag on, our elected officials appear to primarily be sparring over a difference of $200 or so: According to the Washington Post, Democrats remain steadfast in their insistence that the next bill should reinstate the extra $600-a-week unemployment benefit, while Republicans are generally lobbying for something closer to $400 a week.
“I’m confident that we will have an agreement. The timing of it I can’t say because I don’t know, it just depends,” said Nancy Pelosi today, which will surely be heartening for the 51 million Americans estimated to be currently unemployed.
Republicans, of course, are insisting that the additional $600 a week disincentives Americans to return to work, despite the fact that hiring continues to slow during the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression. But one crucial group, according to the AP, is willing to compromise: The Republican Senators who will shortly be up for re-election and, much like the people they are supposedly representing, may soon be out of a job.
As the AP reports, a number of vulnerable Republicans are being uncharacteristically generous in their positions:
Sen. Martha McSally, who has fallen behind in polls in Arizona, is breaking with conservatives to endorse a temporary extension of a $600-per-week supplemental benefit. Republicans up for reelection such as John Cornyn of Texas and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina are demanding results before returning home to campaign. And Sen. Susan Collins is in overdrive, backing help for cash-starved states and local governments — and Maine’s shipbuilding industry.
As always, it’s heartening to be reminded that the life of a constituent is only as valuable as the bubble they fill in at the voting booth.
[AP]
Sean Hannity’s nonsense Latin subtitle has disappeared from his book, no doubt at some cost to the TV host’s publisher: As the heroic classics student Spencer Alexander McDaniel wrote in May, the words intended to translate to “live free or America dies” actually read to a student of the language more like “let’s live or he … passes away from America for the detriment of a free man.”
“The words in Hannity’s motto are real Latin words,” wrote McDaniel, “but, the way they are strung together, they don’t make even a lick of sense,” though he did note that the translation was what appeared if you tried to use Google Translate.
The text on Hannity’s book jacket now reads Vivamus liberi ne America pereat, which actually does translate to a sentence in English: Let us lie free so that America will not die. There has been, so far, no public admission of this mistake.
Sally Yates has joined the rest of the nation in being rather exasperated with the world-historically unlikeable Ted Cruz:
- In an interview with Fox and Friends today, President Trump said the coronavirus “will go away like things go away,” falsely claiming children are “almost immune” to covid-19. [Fox]
- Inspector General Stephen J. Akard is out after only three months on the job. [New York Times]
- Joe Biden will not be traveling all the way to Milwaukee for the DNC out of concern for his health, which is just great, thanks for asking. [CNN]
- But with $280 million in advertising dollars the Democratic presidential nominee with be sure to be looking, from a distance, very alive. [Los Angeles Times]
- The GOP lobbyists working on Kanye West’s presidential campaign are exactly who you would expect. [New York Times]
- The husband of the Los Angeles County District Attorney Jackie Lacey has been charged with three misdemeanors after pointing a gun at Black Lives Matter protestors. Unlike the last people who made the news for pointing a weapon at protestors, this man is Black. [Los Angeles Times]
- Reformist candidate and former public defender Laura Conover won her bid to become the next prosecutor in the county that contains Tuscon, Arizona. [The Appeal]
- Kirsten Gillibrand, Elizabeth Warren, and Maxine Waters have introduced legislation to made The Fed responsible for racial equity. [Washington Post]