Today's Big Stuff 10.28.21

10.28.21

It’s Thursday. There are five days until this year’s elections and 376 days until the midterm elections. Speaker Pelosi calls for an infrastructure vote today as Biden releases a new framework, the White House looks to go big on climate and no, Virginia, Trump ain’t coming to see you.

Note: Helllllloooooo, you sexy patriots!!! We really need to find a way to type the word “hello” in Lionel Richie’s voice. Then we’d be even sexier patriots! Actually, that’s impossible. So are y’all as ready for the weekend as we are? Yeah, totes. We’re currently looking for some stuff to do (other than knocking on doors and sending texts for next week’s elections). We were gonna watch the World Series. We’re not now. In fact, we’d rather cut out our own eyes and shove them up our hot asses.

Woah!!! TBS, you’re right about being hot but where the eff did that come from?! Well, in case you missed it, the miserable piece of shit who let hundreds of thousands of Americans die and tried (and is still trying) to overthrow the U.S. government is attending Game 4 on Saturday. And so yeah, fuck baseball. We are done. We’re not sure why those tone-deaf dumbasses felt they needed the Badyear Blimp at their game, but they’ve lost us as fans.

Truth be told, we always like basketball more anyway. Or hockey. Or football. Or whiffle ball. Or kickball. Or pickleball. Or tennis. Or badminton. Fuck it. We’re getting into cricket. Yeah that’s right, cricket. We don’t know the first goddamn thing about cricket, but here we are — cricket’s new super fans. And then we’re getting into underwater basket-weaving. Or remember Martin Short and Harry Shearer and that old sketch about synchronized swimming. We’re way into that now. Hell, give us a goddamn sack race with no sack. Give us fucking ball in a cup or no, you know what, no, just take a good ol fashioned Louisville Slugger and smack us right in the goddamn face with it because that’s exacty what baseball is doing to America. What a bunch of fucking assholes. Go Cricket! More: Vimeo

Note two: Feels good to get that off our newsletter chest. Also, we’re sorry we’re running a little late today. We were trying to figure out what’s happening on Capitol Hill. We still don’t actually know, but we’re much better positioned now to pretend like we do.

Note three: Tucker Carlson went full-on Jan. 6 truther last night. Just batshit fucking crazy stuff even for that bow-tied buttlick. Seems like maybe the rest of the MSM should stop ignoring the dangerous and deadly rhetoric coming out of Fox even if they are all buddies. More: Mediaite

Note four: Speaking of Nazis, Ted Cruz loves him some Nazi salute. If you do one, he’ll kiss your ass. But it’s much easier just to call his wife ugly. More: The Daily Beast

Note five: Oooh, Devin Nunes is going through some things. More: SacBee

Note six: Texas lawmakers are afraid of so much shit. Immigrants, Black people voting, women having control of their own bodies. And books. Yeah, they are really fucking afraid of books. What a bunch of chickenshit wimps. More: NBC News

Note seven: There have been a few stories this week that really made us laugh, but this might be our favorite. Mostly because we just love it when anyone anywhere tells the worst president in the history of this country that no he’s not special and yes his shit does stink. It stinks bad. More: Washington Post

Note eight: We haven’t forgotten about Charlottesville. We’re damn glad the justice system hasn’t either. More: CNN

Note nine: Wasn’t Missouri a purple swing state like five fucking minutes ago? Now their Senate candidates are all about incest. More: STL Today

Note 10: You know, sometimes we wonder if we’re part of the problem here. We cuss a lot. We make a lot of jokes about how much Republicans suck donkey nuts. We once did a whole thing about how Mike Pence’s real name is Mouth Penis. But then we see the Wall Street Journal giving Trump space to lie like a motherfucker and we remember that we are in fact the best and most responsible news organization in the world. More: Washington Post

Note 11: Apparently Republicans are awful and trying to end democracy because our parents got divorced. More: Huff Post

Note 12: We are going to be super serious for a second — get a colonoscopy. And get a real doctor to do it. Don’t make the same mistake we did a few weekends ago at the club. Ok we failed at being serious for a second, but we love y’all and this shit is important. More: Axios

Note 13: Did y’all watch Republicans rough up Garland yesterday? Yeah, how bad are we at this that months after those fuckers tried to overthrow the government, we’re the ones on defense? Maybe we should have just had Robert Mueller pee in a dixie cup and then the cup could’ve been Attorney General. Sorry. We don’t like being so hard on Garland. But he needs to step the eff up. More: CNN

Note 14: Maybe Democrats and cable news should talk more about how crazy violent Trumpers are. Would that be ok with y’all? Or should we watch a few more news stories about CRT and Afghanistan? Maybe a couple more days on Alec Baldwin? More: LA CBS

Note 15: So we’re gonna talk about the framework the White House released this morning in the news section, but we wanted to say this — it ain’t cool to tell Democrats they’re stupid for wanting paid family and medical leave or any of the other priorities we worked our asses off for and were told we were getting. We get that everyone wants to be savvy political geniuses, but it’s ok to be pissed off that these promises were not kept. We’re not in a damn cult. That’s the other side. More: CNN

Note 16: Does anyone remember the song “Strawberry Wine?” For some reason we’ve had that shit stuck in our head for days.

Note 17: Ok, you beautiful freedom fighters, let us get to the news. We hope y’all are having a kick-ass week, and we hope you spend this weekend helping Democrats win elections instead of watching what used to be our national pastime. We love y’all, and we’re just kidding about hitting us in the face with a bat.

State of play

Ok, so busy morning. First, the White House released a $1.75 trillion plan for social spending. Because of Manchin and Sinema, it cuts a lot of important shit that we care about, and we’re pretty fucking pissed off about it. That said, it would be huge and transformative. Lots of money for climate, universal pre-K and lots of good healthcare shit. Biden went to Capitol Hill today to ask Congress to back it, telling them that his whole presidency depends on whether this shit passes. However, there is still no guarantee that the Senate will pass this shit. Manchin and Sinema are still being awful and still being noncommittal and trying to force a vote on infrastructure without any guarantees on the social spending bill. Speaker Pelosi is calling for a vote on infrastructure today regardless. Biden stopped short of doing the same, and it’s unclear whether the progressive caucus will go along. And really, who can blame them? Would you trust Manchin and Sinema at this point? Yeah, we wouldn’t either. More: CNN, Washington Post, Huff Post

Go big or the planet dies

The White House is planning to roll out some big climate action announcements, whether Congress comes along or not. With Biden preparing to head to Rome today for the G20 and then Glasgow for a UN Climate Summit, the White House is eager to show the world that the U.S. is capable of leading on this. And because Joe Manchin sucks and works for Big Coal, the White House is having to get creative. More: Associated Press, CNN

LOL

Yesterday was pretty hilarious. It really got under Trump’s gross orange skin that we’ve all been making fun of him for being too chickenshit to come to Virginia, so he put out a statement saying he was coming to Arlington very soon. Which is so fucking funny because you just know that Glenn Youngkin pissed himself when he saw it. But like so much of what Trump says, this appears to have beena lie too. He ain’t coming to Northern Virginia. People hate him there. Still, he’s welcome to come. We’ll even pick his ass up in the TBS-mobile. More: Washington Post

Today’s clips

The House Democrats at most risk of losing their seats in the 2022 midterm elections are urging their colleagues not to jettison a set of popular programs from President Biden’s economic and social spending package, warning that failing to deliver on these promises to voters could pave the way for Republicans to regain control of Congress. More: Washington Post

A coalition of right-wing MAGA candidates, including multiple Trump-backed candidates, are seeking to take control of elections in states across the U.S.—and one says they’re formally working with a group of conspiracy theorists, as well as with a QAnon influencer who some in the conspiracy movement believe is John F. Kennedy Jr. in disguise. More: Vice

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