Biden's Dinner With Schmucks!

Biden is giving Republicans one last chance to back his coronavirus relief package before he and the Democrats go at it alone.

BLACK LIVES MATTER

PROTECT BLACK WOMEN! 

WEAR A DAMN MASK! SAVE A LIFE!

HOLD THEM ACCOUNTABLE NOW!

GOOGLE'S BLOGGER IS TRASH!

The Republicans are going to get a wake up call in 2022 if they don't pull their heads out their asses. They better get use to the new norms.

Former president Donald J. Trump still has a hold on the Republican Party and it could be a huge problem going into the Biden presidency. 

President Joe Biden unveiled his coronavirus pandemic relief bill and is hoping that Congress quickly pass the $1.9 trillion package. It will offer survival funds to those affected by the coronavirus pandemic.

Biden is hoping to wrangle up some Republican support to aid the Democrats in passing legislation.

It appears the Republicans are resorting to their old hypocritical and shameless ways.

They want to be budget hawks and fiscally conservative again now that a Democrat is in the White House. They want to tell Biden that they'll only support it if there's major concessions and restrictions to the legislation. Two Democrats are signalling they could oppose the bill which is leading to a campaign to force them to hold the line.

It's the same old tired ass shit we've grown accustomed to. 

I would love to hear Republicans tell a constituent that they're not giving them relief in the middle of a global pandemic, a hunger crisis, an unemployment crisis, civil unrest and a deadlier weather season.

The insurrection didn't change their minds about extremism. 

The 2020 loss of their standard bearer didn't change their minds.

I guess if the Republicans are going to continue to deny a Democratic president a legislative victory, a Supreme Court justice and the messaging war. White nationalist politicians are so wrapped around their guns, bibles and antipathy towards others who don't act like them. They're too blind to see that we're all dying out here.

We're approaching 500,000 Americans dead from the coronavirus. We're heading into a death population as big as of Kansas City, Milwaukee, Baltimore, Portland, Atlanta and Raleigh.

Susan Collins wants to entertain the notion that $1,000 in relief can feed a family.

Biden decides to invite 10 moderate Republicans to the White House to strategize on how he will get his package passed. Led by Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME), the Republicans who are willing to work with Biden say that they're hoping that he makes concessions and not force a single party vote.

The move comes as Democrats in Congress this week are taking the procedural steps necessary to pass a relief bill without any Republican support, using a brute-force legislative tactic called budget reconciliation that would allow them to circumvent a GOP filibuster. 

And it follows a week in which Republicans were vocal that they felt left out of negotiations on the bill, and the White House was using aggressive pressure tactics to ensure moderate Democrats were on board with their coronavirus plan.

The group of 10 Republicans, which is led by Collins announced a $600 billion plan Sunday. They revealed more details of the plan Monday, including $1,000 per person stimulus checks and $300 per week boosted unemployment benefits through June 30.

In advance of today’s meeting with President Biden, our group unveiled the details of our sixth Covid-19 relief proposal. We look forward to discussing the proposal with the President at the White House this afternoon.https://t.co/MErliN2meG

— Sen. Susan Collins (@SenatorCollins) February 1, 2021

"In 2020, Members of the House and Senate and the previous Administration came together on a bipartisan basis five times to direct the resources of the federal government toward combatting the urgent COVID-19 pandemic," the senators said in a letter to the White House. "Each of these laws received the support of members from both political parties."

Susan Collins, Mitt Romney and Lisa Murkowski are urging Biden to not rush legislation through.

They added: "With your support, we believe Congress can once again craft a relief package that will provide meaningful, effective assistance to the American people and set us on a path to recovery."

Biden then invited the Republicans to the White House Monday to discuss their offer and the broader effort for coronavirus relief. The senators in the coalition if paired with all 50 Democrats could provide enough votes to overcome a filibuster by other Republicans. The group also includes Sens. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska; Bill Cassidy of Louisiana; Mitt Romney of Utah; Rob Portman of Ohio; Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia; Todd Young of Indiana; Jerry Moran of Kansas; Mike Rounds of South Dakota; and Thom Tillis of North Carolina.

But the statement from White House press secretary Jen Psaki -- especially when contrasted with the letter from the Senate Republicans -- makes clear there is still a large gulf between Biden and even this group of moderates. 

"With the virus posing a grave threat to the country, and economic conditions grim for so many, the need for action is urgent, and the scale of what must be done is large," Psaki said. "As leading economists have said, the danger now is not in doing too much: it is in doing too little. Americans of both parties are looking to their leaders to meet the moment."

Even if Biden and Republicans do come to a compromise somewhere between their respective proposals, it's not clear that plan would be able to round up support from all 50 Senate Democrats, who are pushing for bold and immediate action. Congressional Democrats this week will introduce budget resolutions in each chamber, the first step towards the once-per-fiscal-year parliamentary gambit of budget reconciliation. Using that, they can pass a bill with no GOP support, though it may take weeks. 

The White House is doing a messaging war in Joe Manchin's state of West Virginia.

"We are in the midst of a once-in-a-century crisis. It requires a once-in-a-century effort to overcome it," Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) said last week. "The dangers of undershooting our response are far greater than overshooting it... So the Senate, as early as next week, will begin the process of considering [a budget resolution, a potential first step to pursuing] a very strong COVID-relief bill."

Schumer said his "preference" for a bill to have bipartisan support" but said, "if our Republican colleagues decide to oppose this urgent and necessary legislation, we will have to move forward without them."

Schumer's office did not respond to a request for comment from Fox News on Sunday night asking his thoughts on the moderate Republicans' plan or if there are any dealbreaker priorities that must be included in a compromise bill for Schumer to support it.

Meanwhile, it's not clear that Democrats could get Biden's plan through the Senate if they used reconciliation. Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV), a moderate whose power increased significantly when the Senate reached a 50-50 party split, essentially giving him a veto on any Democratic bill, has expressed skepticism of the $1.9 trillion Biden plan. 

Manchin organized a call last week on which a bipartisan group of senators specifically raised questions about the need for $1,400 stimulus checks for wealthy Americans, which is included in Biden's plan. 

The White House is mounting a campaign to pressure Kyrsten Sinema to support relief.

Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ), is another moderate who Democrats are not sure they can count on as a vote for Biden's stimulus plan. She and Manchin were the two Democrats who doubled-down their support of a filibuster last week, handing Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), a win in his effort to preserve the minority protection in the Senate amid Democratic calls to scrap it. 

Perhaps most telling about Sinema's and Manchin's perceived stances on coronavirus relief is that Vice President Kamala Harris last week did interviews with local television stations in both Arizona and West Virginia, emphasizing the need to quickly pass a coronavirus relief package. 

"[Biden's 'American Rescue Plan' is] about opening schools back up in a safe way, it’s about getting support for small businesses, getting relief for families. So many people have been unemployed for almost a year at this point," Harris said in an interview with WSAZ, a station in the Huntington/Charleston, West Virginia market. "The president and I feel very strongly that these are the moments when we are facing a crisis of unbelievable proportion [and] that the American people deserve their leaders to step up and stand up for them." 

Notably, the White House did not give Manchin a heads up that Harris would be taking her case directly to his constituents. 

"I saw [the interview], I couldn’t believe it. No one called me [about it]," Manchin later told WSAZ. "We’re going to try to find a bipartisan pathway forward, but we need to work together. That’s not a way of working together."

Schumer warns that they'll go alone if Republicans try to block COVID-19 relief.

Manchin's office did not respond to a request for comment from Fox News on Sunday night. 

Smart move from the White House. Go directly into West Virginia and Arizona ahead of Manchin, Capito-Moore and Sinema. Make the pressure to pass legislation fall on them.

Manchin who is up for reelection in 2022 has no choice. He's got nothing to lose. 

Does Joe Manchin want to be responsible for telling West Virginians that he can't do nothing for them if they lose their homes, their jobs and their family members to a deadly pandemic? Does this white southern Democrat want to say to his Black constituents in Parkersburg, Charleston, Huntington, Beckley, Wheeling and Bluefield that there's nothing he can do about police reform? Does he want to tell constituents that he would doesn't want solar and green jobs in West Virginia? I mean coal mining is not as big as it was back in the 20th Century. With investors moving towards eco-friendly energy, does this white southern Democrat want to continue to promise coal jobs when he knows they're not coming back?

Does Kyrsten Sinema want to be responsible for telling Arizonans that she can't do nothing to help those who are discriminated because they're LGBTQ? Does she want to tell Hispanics/Latinos and immigrants which makes a large base of the state's population that a lily white bisexual senator can't help them become a part of the American dream? Does a lily white bisexual senator want to tell her Black constituents that just because she seen Black Lives Matter protests in her city of Phoenix, she can't do nothing about police reform? Does she want to tell Arizonans that losing your homes, your jobs and your family members to a deadly pandemic is just politics? Does this lily white bisexual senator want to tell the people of Phoenix, Glendale, Tempe, Tuscon, Flagstaff, Yuma, Nogales and the many reservations that she is an ineffective lawmaker?

We ain't got time for principles. We need to get shit done now!