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Certainty: The NFL knows who its greatest player of all time is.
Uncertainty: The near-term and forever future of the Biden legislative agenda and ability to fight the pandemic.
To be clear, I don’t really know the answers to the questions below.
But I am compensated for pretending to be sure of that about which I cannot possibly be definitive.
But since all y’all must be armed with cast-iron certitude, here you go:
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WHAT IF THE BIDEN ADMINISTRATION STARTS TO NEGOTIATE THE $1.9 COVID RELIEF PRICETAG DOWNWARD IN ORDER TO WIN TEN SENATE REPUBLICAN VOTES?
Answer: The left would say “We didn’t work our fingers to the bone to get Joe Biden elected in order to let [INSERT NAME OF THE TENTH MOST “MODERATE” REPUBLICAN SENATOR HERE] determine America’s present and future!” and/but Biden would never find the tenth vote after an endless series of goalpost movements.
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WHAT IF THE DEMOCRATS TRIED TO PASS A SKINNY BILL BEFORE THE IMPEACHMENT TRIAL BEGINS THAT INCLUDED SIMPLY MORE MONEY FOR VACCINE DISTRIBUTION AND SOME VERY TARGETED RELIEF FOR LOWER-INCOME FAMILIES?
Answer: It would pass if there were a snap secret ballot in both chambers of Congress, but in the real world it would create massive bipartisan, bicameral complexities that would imperil the prospects of the larger package that Democrats insist is vital.
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WHAT IF THE BIDEN ADMINISTRATION RELIES ON JOE MANCHIN TO BRING ALONG ENOUGH REPUBLICAN SENATORS TO MAKE BIPARTISAN DEALS ON MATTERS SUCH AS COVID RELIEF, IMMIGRATION, AND INFRASTRUCTURE?
Answer: Joe Biden would effectively be deciding to shoot and bury his presidency, without even a proper funeral.
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WHAT IF THE DEMOCRATS ABANDONED THE SEARCH FOR TEN REPUBLICAN SENATE VOTES AND SWITCHED TO RECONCILIATION TO PASS A BIG COVID RELIEF PACKAGE?
Answer: They would quickly learn that Democrats, with their narrow majorities and, thus, lack of margin of error in the House and Senate, are just as capable of scuttling Biden’s plans as are the Republicans.
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WHAT IF CHUCK SCHUMER CAVED AND AGREED TO PRESERVE THE FILIBUSTER AS PART OF REACHING A SENATE ORGANIZING AGREEMENT WITH MITCH MCCONNELL?
Answer: The left would finally erupt full force and begin to question Biden’s commitment to real change.
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WHAT IF JOE BIDEN PITCHED AN AMERICA-FIRST “BUY AMERICAN” EXECUTIVE ORDER?
Answer: Well, this is actually what the president plans to do on Monday. It will worry U.S. allies, be largely ignored by a skeptical/bored press corps, and fail to make a meaningful positive impression with all but the most bought-in labor folks.
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WHAT IF THE BIDEN ADMINISTRATION SCALES BACK ITS IMMIGRATION BILL TO DROP THE PROVISIONS REPUBLICANS OBJECT TO?
Answer: It would make immigration reform neither comprehensive nor that much more likely to pass.
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WHAT IF THE HOUSE IMPEACHMENT MANAGERS MAKE A COMPELLING CASE AGAINST FORMER PRESIDENT TRUMP?
Answer: Absent some major new evidence, it would not produce close to ten Senate Republican votes for impeachment, let alone seventeen.
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WHAT IF THE SUPREME COURT IS ASKED TO WEIGH IN ON THE CONSTITUTIONALITY OF A SENATE IMPEACHMENT TRIAL FOR A FORMER PRESIDENT?
Answer: The chances of the judicial branch telling the Senate what it can and cannot do to hold a former executive branch official accountable are greater than you might think (although I am not prepared to say the justices would halt or overturn the proceedings because predicting what the SCOTUS will do is too challenging even for this exercise).
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WHAT IF MITCH MCCONELL SEES THERE ARE NOT ENOUGH REPUBLICAN SENATORS IN FAVOR OF CONVINCTING DONALD TRUMP BEFORE HE SAYS HOW HE PLANS TO VOTE?
Answer:
THE PRESIDING OFFICER: “The clerk will call the roll.”
THE CLERK: “Mr McConnell?”
MCCONNELL: “NO.”
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DO THE MEMBERS OF TEAM BIDEN HAVE SOME SORT OF THREE-DIMENSIONAL CHESS, THINK-SEVEN-STEPS-AHEAD-BY-LOOKING-AROUND-CORNERS PLAN TO DEAL WITH THIS GRIM SITUATION?
Answer: If they do, they are cleverly keeping their smart scheme a tightly held secret for now.
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ESSENTIAL READING
A. Although the coverage of Sarah Huckabee Sanders’ Monday entrance into the Arkansas gubernatorial contest suggests she’s on a glide path, note, per the Associated Press, that two super serious candidates, Lieutenant Governor Tim Griffin and Attorney General Leslie Rutledge, are both already planning to make the race.
B. Want to know where the media stands on the Schumer versus McConnell rules battle?
Read this not-a-surprise-but-still-significant paragraph from the Washington Post:
Much of the current conflict over the Senate rules comes courtesy of veteran Republican Sen. Mitch McConnell (Ky.), who transitioned to minority leader Wednesday after six years as majority leader.
C. As a presidential candidate in 2016, Marco Rubio displayed far less political acumen than he actually possesses.
As a potential 2024 candidate, at a time when his party is grappling with, as we say in South Florida, L'énigme de Donald, the Sunshine State’s senior senator has clearly thought through how to at least talk about the challenges better than most of his colleagues/rivals, as in his “Fox News Sunday” appearance:
CHRIS WALLACE: Is -- going to switch subjects on your now -- is the GOP still the party of Trump for the foreseeable future? And do you see it at some point over the next three, four years moving away from President Trump?
RUBIO: The GOP is the party that nominated Donald Trump. And the reason why it did and ultimately got him elected and he got 75 million votes is because you have tens of millions of Americans that feel this economy isn't working for people like them, that feel socially displaced, even like strangers in their own country, and who believe that both of the parties, at least traditionally, and all of politics doesn't understand or care about any of this, that they don't matter to people.
Donald Trump did not create those things. He -- he got elected because of those things. He got 75 million votes because of those things. And those factors, those feelings that are out there among tens of millions of Americans didn't leave when he left on Wednesday. They're still there. That's why he got elected and that's what I hope we'll be a party of.
Now, I hope we can do it in a way that keeps the people who believe we're fighting for them and brings back some of the people that perhaps didn't vote for Republicans or didn't vote for the president because they may not like, you know, the way it was said or the way it was done. I think that's quite possible. And I think that's the future of the Republican Party because, frankly, on that I think depends the future of the country.
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