 So I want to talk about Bernie Sanders budget resolution, which he's trying to pass using budget reconciliation This isn't what we wanted admittedly, right? I wanted Bernie Sanders to be president so we can have Medicare for all and a green new deal Not that we'd automatically get those things if he was simply president, but you know if he were president I know that that's what he would be pushing for but as chair of the budget committee He's doing everything in his power to at least move us closer towards those goals And what he's prepared with this 3.5 trillion dollar budget resolution Is transformative like it's not a panacea. It's not the end all be all but it would save potentially tens of thousands If not hundreds of thousands to millions of lives By expanding Medicare expanding coverage to include dental vision and hearing that would make a meaningful difference in so many American lives by actually taking money and investing it in clean And renewable technology that doesn't mean that we're getting a green new deal But doesn't move us closer towards a green new deal by at least trying to mitigate climate change to an extent Yes, now is all of this enough? No, but it's really important And I'm so sad that not a lot of leftists seem to be paying attention to what's taking place in congress because This moment right now is really really important We're not going to get another window of opportunity like this to act in quite some time If the GOP is successful at getting what they want, which is A power grab They're on the verge of gerrymandering their way back to power Which is going to last at least for 10 years So if we have a far-right party controlling at least one branch of government nothing that anyone From the center right to the far left wants will get accomplished Because the republican party a far-right extremist party can block all of that So we're not going to have another opportunity to expand medicare or have universal pre-k Or free community colleges It should be all colleges, but free community colleges or at least some money towards climate change If that happens, so we have to use this unique and limited window of opportunity that we have to do that But unfortunately, I see so much talk on the left of drama and infighting such a hyper focus on loud mouths And you know obnoxious personalities, but who gives a shit about any of that the reason why Us leftists care about politics at all. I'm assuming is because of policy And we have an opportunity to push for policy That would be incredibly sweeping But we're kind of just all in our own insular bubbles and we're not paying attention When we could be using this moment to make calls To members of congress who are trying to torpedo what bernie sanders is trying to accomplish And it's really frustrating, but part of the issue isn't necessarily just You know stubborn headedness from the left and them not caring about anything but drama and infighting It's also relatively difficult to follow Because the situation as it relates to you know, uh congressional day-to-day activities and lawmaking It's hard to follow because it changes so swiftly So let me try to get you caught up and explain Why this is important and tell you who the bad actors are Who are trying to stop us from making at least a little bit of progress Which even if it's minimal is still going to be substantial. So basically last month I talked about how the senate passed their bipartisan infrastructure proposal Now the reason why this past is because they got individuals like kirsten cinema and joe mansion along with some so-called Moderate republicans on board. Why were they on board you ask? Well, it's because they shut progressives out of the policymaking process and they allowed kirsten cinema and joe mansion and these individuals to kind of shape that legislation So it's basically infrastructure, but it's also a corporate giveaway and that's why they support it So Since progressives were shut out They were pissed rightfully so and democratic party leadership acknowledged that they were pissed because they shut out a Substantial wing of the party From you know trying to have some sort of sway over infrastructure So the promise was since you didn't really have much of a say In the infrastructure process We're going to let you get some of the things that you wanted In a budget resolution which bernie sanders is preparing and which they will pass using budget reconciliation Which means they just need a simple majority. They don't need the 60 votes We don't have to get rid of the filibuster to the past this We just need 50 votes and then the vice president Kamala Harris will be the tie breaking vote now due to pressure from progressives Nancy Pelosi refused to allow a vote on the bipartisan infrastructure bill in the house Until the senate passed the 3.5 trillion dollar budget resolution Now that resolution has to contain progressive priorities Otherwise they're not going to have the votes in the house to pass the infrastructure deal So that's why Nancy Pelosi isn't taking it up because it's going to fail if it's not progressive enough She knows this and the congressional progressive caucus has vocalized the fact that many members will withhold votes If they don't see a lot of proposals that they want in bernie sanders budget resolution Now nine right wing democrats in the house led by representative gothheimer threatened to withhold votes for the budget resolution If Nancy Pelosi held strong and she didn't bring the bipartisan infrastructure deal up to a vote Which is uh bad for progressives because it strips away leverage from them and also from Nancy Pelosi in this instance And let's right wing democrats also butcher the budget resolution Which Nancy Pelosi doesn't want to happen because she wants the infrastructure deal to pass when it comes to a floor vote in the house But it's not going to happen if progressives don't see that they're getting any Policies that they want pass through the budget resolution And so if they already stripped out the things that progressives wanted from the bipartisan infrastructure deal Well, once the house passes bipartisan infrastructure if it is the case That the senate doesn't pass, you know, uh bernie sanders budget resolution Well, then there's there's zero leverage left the senate can then pass Whatever and you know progressives have no say it's kind of take it or leave it Everything is kind of off the table now individuals like joe manchin and kirsten cinema have already stated that they're not going to support the $3.5 trillion budget resolution that bernie sanders wants to pass using budget reconciliation So if the house votes on the bipartisan infrastructure deal Before the senate votes on a budget resolution They give up all of their leverage and they give right wing democrats Everything they give them the power to gut bernie sanders budget resolution So you have to hold the infrastructure proposal hostage If you're even going to have a chance at forcing kirsten cinema and joe manchin To be the 49th and 50th votes required to pass a budget resolution Using reconciliation with any progressive priorities whatsoever. So that's kind of where we're at right now And the nine democrats are as follows caroline bordeaux philomon vela jared golden vincerie gonzalez henry quayar jim acosta ed case curt schrader and josh gotheimer as mentioned before now These individuals they're the ones who are trying to Strip leverage away from progressive democrats. So these folks should be public enemy number one for the left We should be calling their offices and demanding that they back down But you might not have to do too much because I have an update to the story. That's pretty encouraging Uh, but the reason why these right wing democrats are trying to torpedo everything effectively if if they don't get what they want is Not necessarily because they're principled or they have some ideological disagreement with the rest of their party It's because they're bought and paid for them So as david cerota points out in an article for the daily poster democratic obstructionists are bankrolled by pharma and oil and they raked in over three million dollars Collectively so that's why they're doing what they want because if the progressive wing of the party gets what they want And bernie sanders budget resolution actually passes with a lot of money to fight climate change That's bad for big oil if prescription drugs become more affordable as a result of bernie sanders budget resolution That's bad for big pharma. So they're just doing the bidding of their donors That's all you need to know they're corrupt period and shamelessly so But the good news is that for once the democratic party establishment is actually fighting back At the people who are trying to torpedo their own agenda Possibly that's subjective. So as politico's sarah ferris reports democratic party Sandrists say the d triple c is threatening to withhold fundraising if they oppose biden priority Now whether or not the d triple c is tacitly threatening to withhold money for their reelection campaigns If they don't play ball It's it's really up to interpretation But the mere fact that the d triple c is trying to make it so democrats prioritized policy going into the midterms As opposed to some like bullshit wedge issue or or issue about trump that really is refreshing But nonetheless ferris explains multiple house democratic sandrists have fielded calls from their caucuses campaign arm That they took as a warning they would be cut off financially if they opposed their party's 3.5 trillion dollar budget framework According to two people familiar with the conversations that pressure campaign has included democratic congressional campaign chair Sean patrick maloney who has phoned members in recent days to warn that their majority is in jeopardy if they derail biden's broader spending priorities But some of those sandrists who received calls from either maloney or his staff who already faced some of the toughest races in the country Next november said they also took his comments to mean that their own fundraising help from the party would be at risk And while they said there was no direct threat to withhold d triple c funds Those democrats said the warning was implied Well at no point did the chairman or others threaten resources according to a person at d triple c Familiar with the discussions who declined to speak on the record because the calls were private Now if the d triple c wasn't actually trying to implicitly threaten these nine corporate democrats Um, they really they really should and they should be more explicit They should actually cut off folks who are sabotaging their entire party's agenda and you've got to understand here What they're trying to do like i give bernie sanders credit But what he's trying to do is take all of the more progressive elements of biden's platform that he ran on Not that there was a lot But he's taking the most progressive things that biden ran on taking biden's agenda and just throwing it all together And trying to pass it in one fell swoop and now the democratic party establishment All of their support for corporate democrats and the primaries is coming back to bite them in the ass Because the same corporate democrats who they propped up over progressives They're now threatening to torpedo their entire agenda and randgren pointed this out in a great tweet saying democratic leaders pushed henry quay arm Over jessica ssnarrows in texas pushed ed case over kanayala ing in hawai caroline bordeaux over nabila islam in georgia now pelosi and her leadership team are watching all three threatened to blow up the party's entire agenda And that's just it like this is about Joe biden trying to deliver something before the midterms democrats trying to deliver something before the midterm So they have something to run on and also this is about nancy pelosi Who is likely realizing that she's not going to be speaker of the house again assuming republicans retake the house in 2022? She's she's done right. So this is her trying to secure her legacy. She's lost support from progressives You know, she has basically um not delivered much with her time In office and power and so I think this is like their last ditch effort and they realize this and now All of their pushing of corporate democrats over progressives is kind of blowing up in their faces And I wanted to blow up in their faces and I want them to be shamed for this But at the same time I don't want to blow up in their faces because if it blows up in their faces Then we also lose as well because the reason why I think that nancy pelosi ultimately is fighting these nine democrats is because The progressives are the ones who are holding these votes hostage I mean, there's these nine democrats here, but there's more progressive democrats who are threatening to withhold votes If they don't get what they want in bernie sanders budget resolution Now the good news is that these nine corporate democrats it doesn't really seem like they're going to be successful here Now we don't necessarily Like we can't say that with certainty yet. I can't say confidently that it's over But this is what david dayen of the american prospect points out via twitter They seemingly have backed down So the prospect has learned that several of the nine conservative house democrats who insisted to nancy pelosi That they would not vote for a budget resolution without a vote on the bipartisan infrastructure package First have flipped there are no longer nine democratic holdouts among the possibilities under discussion is a vote on two separate rules One for the budget resolution and one for the bipartisan bill now as david dayen adds Sounds like pelosi offered the gothheimer gang a deal they rejected and pelosi took out the major concession to the gothheimer gang And put it up for a vote now there was talks of a deal between nancy pelosi and gothheimer He was supposed to take that back to the other nine democrats The situation is a little bit unclear because we don't have specific details about what was in that deal So it seems like they rejected the deal and some of them are caving But what's really important is that uh ryan grim in an article for the intercept with sarah sarota pointed out that this Really was a rebellion that was doomed to fail from the beginning Simply because so many democrats including fellow corporate democrats. They just can't stand gothheimer So they write josh gothheimer reported to congress after winning a 2016 election to represent new jersey's fifth congressional district And the ribbing at the weekly new jersey delegation meetings began immediately Yet five years later the hazing much gentler than it might be in a high school sports team Hasn't stopped members of the delegation simply couldn't bring themselves to stop giving gothheimer a hard time Whether it was representative albia cirrus putting a stopwatch on his phone whenever gothheimer arrived to time How long it took him to leave never very long or representatives bill pasquale and donald norcross Mocking him for barely being a democrat the hazing has gone on for five years The reason is simple gothheimer's colleagues simply do not like him And that would be trivial gossip of concern to nobody outside a congressional cafeteria If it wasn't having a real world effect right now on the prospect of the biden administration Enacting both its bipartisan infrastructure plan and the accompanying 550 billion in infrastructure spending during a house democratic leadership call on sunday night pelosi mocked gothheimer's effort as amateur error Pledging to push ahead despite his threats to stop the legislation pelosi is not known for miscounting votes Suggesting that she is confident that enough of gothheimer's eight co dissenters will not stick with him She's known to work the phones relentlessly and leaves little to chance So you've got to take into account a bunch of things here The democratic party establishment and joe biden they want the budget resolution to pass and they want the infrastructure deal to pass And nancy pelosi She knows this is her last term as speaker most likely So how bad would it look if this relatively new member of congress who's hated by everyone Blew up the entire party's agenda. That would look horrible, right? So there's a lot riding on this and um You know, this is about her securing her legacy as ryan grim talks out And this is about democrats trying to prove they're at least somewhat competent before the midterms come up because right now it's not looking Too great seeing that they haven't accomplished that much So, I mean at the end of the day what we have to do is we need to follow this It's really difficult to follow I understand if you know, you're not following the day-to-days of congress But if you can keep up with it by following, you know, the intercept And uh, the american prospect and the daily poster and common dreams I would encourage you to do that because These new stories Gives us basically cues as to who we should be putting pressure on gothheimer Very clearly isn't someone to exert pressure on Because he's he's like the ringleader, right? But you could focus on the other individuals kerr trader in my state of oregon We can exert pressure on him and exert pressure on the individuals who we can actually break And we have the advantage right now right now progressives have leverage And they know that kirsten sinoman joe mentioned want that bipartisan infrastructure deal to pass Because that's what they want to take home to uh their constituents. That's what they want to brag about So we have to maintain leverage hold that over their heads and make sure that they also agree to pass Our proposals Otherwise, we're not going to give them what they want So I hope that the left really focuses on this and pays attention to this and assists bernie sanders and the left In any way that we can with pressure campaigns or even protests because this is really important This is not just about a win for progressives This is about a concrete difference that we can make in the lives of millions of americans in a plethora of ways So, you know, this is important and I hope that people really start to pay attention to this