I wouldn’t necessarily believe this if it came from another source, but David Corn of Mother Jones is pretty reliable, and this behavior fits the priors of someone who would associate with No Labels:
In recent days, Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W. Va.) has told associates that he is considering leaving the Democratic Party if President Joe Biden and Democrats on Capitol Hill do not agree to his demand to cut the size of the social infrastructure bill from $3.5 trillion to $1.75 trillion, according to people who have heard Manchin discuss this. Manchin has said that if this were to happen, he would declare himself an “American Independent.” And he has devised a detailed exit strategy for his departure.
The article says Manchin laid out the steps he would take to send a message that would back Schumer off during the present negotiations. It also says Manchin laid his cards on the table with the president:
Manchin told associates that he was prepared to initiate his exit plan earlier this week and had mentioned the possibility to Biden. But he was encouraged by the conversations with Sanders and top Democrats that occurred at the start of the week and did not yet see a reason to take this step. Still, he has informed associates that because he is so out of sync with the Democratic Party he believes it is likely he will leave the party by November 2022.
Manchin has repeatedly said that he has a significant philosophical difference with most of his fellow Democrats. He has told reporters that he believes major programs in the Build Back Better bill would move the United States toward an “entitlement mentality” and that he cannot accept that.
Maybe this explains why there seems to have been recent progress toward the “acceptance” phase of the BBB negotiations. Pawpaw Black Lung’s entitlement mentality is steering him away from compromise and toward the catastrophe of a McConnell-led Senate if his demands are not met, so they will be met.
The article doesn’t say, but I assume that if the infrastructure bill goes down, so does the Dems’ senate majority. Manchin’s donors want that bill.
So, it looks like the bipartisan infrastructure bill will pass along with a $1.75T BBB bill with no climate crisis mitigation provisions that would harm Manchin’s portfolio, and that will be that. Unless someone else decides to play the drama llama card — a possibility we cannot rule out.
Open thread.
Alison Rose
Fuck Joe Manchin.
Baud
I have no idea what this means.
Bnut
@Alison Rose: Pass, I’m sure he’s a selfish lover.
mrmoshpotato
@Alison Rose: Gotta check the stock of rusty farm implements.
Percysowner
This has always been the implied threat by Manchin. We really needed to beat Collins or win another 2 Senate seats last time, to compensate for Manchin and Sinema, but you play the hand you are dealt.
Baud
FTA
Aimai
This was always obvious. Manchin has always been threatening to go nuclear or things would never have gotten this bad. What’s worse is this is obviously not the last extortion from this bastard.
Baud
Hard to know how much of this is simply Joe Manchin putting this story out there in order to promote Joe Manchin’s image.
UncleEbeneezer
And yet, WV residents are totally ENTITLED to jobs in a dying industry that is killing the planet. What an abject piece of shit.
Yes, Americans should be ENTITLED to Child Care, Pre-K, Family Leave and a world not destroyed by Global Warming!
Kent
The party label is actually not that relevant. Neither Bernie Sanders nor Angus King are Democrats. Which party you choose to caucus with is actually the important thing.
Baud
The other thing is that this story helps Democrats explain things to disgruntled voters who will want to know why the Dems couldn’t do more.
Cameron
@Baud: The “detailed strategy” is to keep moving the goalposts, then vote against whatever you’ve pretended to agree to. Classic Mitch McConnell.
marklar
In a 50-50 Senate, it doesn’t matter what the “Average” Democratic position is. What matters is the Median perspective of all 100 Senators. We could have 49 Elizabeth Warrens, Bernie Sanders, or Raphael Warnocks, which would shift the mean far to the left, and it wouldn’t be any different.
If we want anything to pass, we need whatever Manchin will support. If we want better legislation to pass, we need to shift the median. That won’t happen until at least 2022.
To give Biden his win and have any chance of that happening, we need to give Manchin his win right now.
Cameron
@UncleEbeneezer: But entitlements would turn this country into a Stalinist hellhole like….Denmark! Or…Finland! The horror!
Old School
I say to let Manchin resign from Democratic leadership before doing anything else.
Ladyracterinok
Manchin—-GOOD GRIEF, CHARLIE BROWN….You keep expecting Lucy not to move the ball!!!
Betty Cracker
The thing that depresses me the most about this story is it further dents the extremely tattered hope that Manchin would agree to a filibuster carve-out to save voting rights, even though today his own bill that he insisted on negotiating with Republicans who won’t support it anyway is being introduced. I was 99% sure he wouldn’t agree to that after the pro forma demonstration that Republicans aren’t interested in voting rights. The filibuster has served Manchin’s donor-constituents well. But now I’m 99.9999% sure it won’t happen. Which probably makes me an optimist!
VOR
We recently learned of the aid provided to Joe Lieberman by Republicans when he ran as an independent after losing the 2006 Democratic primary. It’s not unreasonable to ponder whether similar things are being offered to Manchin. Giving Mitch control of the Senate would kill everything.
As Krugman keeps pointing out, the number of people in WV actually employed in the coal industry keeps declining and is now a pretty small percentage of the total WV workforce. There has to be some way to give WV some green energy jobs for displaced coal workers.
Omnes Omnibus
A year ago, who would have been ecstatic over the idea of the infrastructure bill plus $1.75T for BBB? If we can get it, we promote the hell out of it and charge into the 2022 election season as damned successful.
Brachiator
I came too late to the threads where this was discussed, but wanted to add a few thoughts.
I have recently seen conservative pundits flat out lie about the child tax credit, claiming that this was a new credit coming from the Biden administration, or that it was welfare to the unworthy, and that sending free checks to the unworthy would discourage them from getting jobs.
But here’s some background.
Trump increased the credit to $2,000 as part of his shitty tax cut for the wealthy.
Note that no one, Democrat or Republican, ever included means testing as part of the credit. It was assumed that helping children was good public policy.
The checks people are receiving are an advance payment on half of the projected credit. Those eligible will receive the rest when they file their tax returns.
But note that previously there was a delay of several weeks before tax returns with a refundable child tax credit were paid. This was because of fraud prevention measures demanded by Republicans and implemented by the IRS. This meant further delays before people who needed the money would get it.
Currently, the enhanced credit will be available only for the 2021 tax year. Republicans and conservative scum want to kill the enhanced credit because they know that it will help people. The Biden administration would like to make the credit permanent. A compromise would be to allow the credit for 5 years. Once people see what a positive difference it makes, they might come out and support it more strongly in the future.
Considerations of means testing are bullshit and should be fought. The credit has been helpful to families and helps people to work harder, boosting the economy. Every reliable study of current credits and stimulus payments have shown a reduction in child poverty. When something works, you should keep doing it.
Betty Cracker
@VOR: Manchin doesn’t give a crusty fuck about coal miners.
JoyceH
TAKE the slimmed down BBB program. There’s still a lot in there that we didn’t have before, and same with the BIF. Get both of those out there pumping money into the economy, run on the jobs and great stuff, and Biden do as much as he can about climate with executive orders. And hang onto the House and Senate at all costs!
And let’s deep six the myth that a president can only accomplish ‘big things’ in the first two years of his term. IF we can hang onto Congress and improve the numbers there (which isn’t impossible with the GOP getting crazier by the day), THEN you’ve got a Mandate to do the stuff you wanted to do in 2021.
trollhattan
A great aspect of pretending to have values is that it’s extremely easy to walk away from them. He does not give shit one about spending, deficits, federal programs, any of it. What he wants is people kowtowing to him. Sound like anybody familiar?
Put another way: this fucking guy.
trollhattan
@Betty Cracker:
TBF he likes the idea of coal miners, toiling away underground and being manly, while acquiring silicosis. OTOH what have miners ever done for him? Screw those guys.
Jeffro
Let Manchin have his win for now, provided that with it, he agrees to a filibuster carve-out for voting rights. If he has to line his own pockets instead of help mitigate climate change for generations to come, he can at least do his part to help American democracy survive another decade.
And then the moment we don’t absolutely need his blessed 50th vote, fuuuuuuuuuuck him. I don’t know if that will be late on Election Night 2022 or whatever, but fuuuu-uuuu-uuuu-uuuuck him.
Old School
@Omnes Omnibus:
True, but the dollar amount isn’t the biggest issue from my point of view. Corn’s article is lacking in what Manchin is willing to fund.
Most of the Biden’s proposals over a 5-year period rather than 10 years? Sure, if that’s what it takes. Eliminating everything that will help the poor and middle class? That’s a different issue.
scav
There’s a lot of entitlement issues out parading themselves about. The right to environment-harming jobs in dying industries, the right to bare people-endangering faces, the right to law-defying employment without consequences (especially in law-enforcement) . . .
TCS
Now would be a smart time for 1 or 2 Republicans to make an announcement similar to that of Manchin. That would get everyone’s attention and make themselves instant big swinging dicks.
UncleEbeneezer
@Omnes Omnibus: Sure. And I’ll get to that mental place soon, but for now I think we are all allowed to be pissed at this jackass.
David Fud
This was always in the cards given the most Republican state with a Democratic senator. Whether it is interest in his portfolio, interest in acting “independent” from the party he caucuses with, a PR blitz to convince his fellow West Virginians that he is not a tool of the NY Dem Schumer, or some mix therein, he is not going to be in alignment with the rest of the party.
It was never in the cards, not from day one. And the rest of the country, instead of spending their time implicitly bashing WV voters, need to elect more and better Dems in places where that is possible.
Take your winnings, Dems, and get whatever of your agenda accomplished that you can. There never was a bully pulpit from which Dems could magically change things. There never was enough of a majority to ram through an agenda of the Millennials, not until we elect many more of them.
The full transition to a environmental and more social democratic agenda will happen, but not today. Take you winnings and run on them, Dems, and elect more Dems by pointing out what you could have done with more Dems.
For the love of all things, don’t just curse the Republicans (and the wobbly Dems) if we can’t make the case to the American people. The horse (the voters) is almost always leading the cart (the politicians). Sinema might be a special case of an irrational politician, but for the most part they know the score. We are lucky to even have the Dems in charge in the Senate, which is due to Manchin, who could have switched parties at any time he chose, and would be celebrated for it in his home state.
Might not be popular to not yell at Manchin, but I am simply glad to have him voting for Schumer. Any other votes he delivers are gravy (unfortunately).
Sure Lurkalot
@Betty Cracker: Thank you. To make any assumption that Manchin cares about anything but his donors or bank balance assumes facts not in evidence. Bullshit about an “entitlement society”. Who’s more entitled than this asshat?
zhena gogolia
@David Fud: Well said.
ETA: Nevertheless I reserve the right to refer to him as Pawpaw Black Lung (h/t Betty C.).
Cameron
The ability to sell a 1.75-dollar BBB will depend a lot on what’s in it. We have some idea of what’s in the larger package; anybody have an idea of what’s in the smaller one?
rikyrah
Phuck this trifling trick.
Manchin gotta be made irrelevant.
Period.
David Fud
@zhena gogolia:
Sounds great to me. Henceforth, I dub him Sir Pawpaw Black Lung with my commenting bully pulpit.
Woodrow/asim
A (assumed) rebuttal from the Senator to Corn’s reporting just popped on my feed, minutes ago: https://twitter.com/LisaDNews/status/1450886267579904005
(She’s PBS NewsHour, for some context.)
Omnes Omnibus
@UncleEbeneezer: Be pissed all you want. This is where everyone should have been from the moment we had a 50/50 senate. It’s all in what you measure against. The $3.5T was never going to happen. This could.
prostratedragon
@VOR: There has to be some way to give WV some green energy jobs for displaced coal workers.
Manchin does not care about this. It would only matter to him if he needed their votes, and likely he’s not running again in 4 years.
JoyceH
@TCS:
It BAFFLES me that this hasn’t happened yet! There are still a few GOP moderates left in the Senate, why are they voting in lockstep with McConnell?
I HOPE there’s some back room negotiating going on. What do Mitt Romney and Lisa Murkowski owe to the GOP? Heck, Murkowski won as a WRITE IN candidate after she was defeated in a primary, she knows she doesn’t need the GOP to win. And Romney is a Mormon in Utah; I’d think he’d be pretty bulletproof there. Surely they don’t LIKE the McConnell Agenda?
Mary G
@Omnes Omnibus: That’s my take $1.75 trillion when Obama had to settle for $900 million in a similarly dire situation for the country? Whoo hoo. With a razor thin majority no less.
Matt McIrvin
@David Fud: We can make the case to the American people. We just can’t make the case to the WHITE American people, and because of structural constitutional biases, the minority of Americans who are a majority of white people have a veto over everything.
Gravenstone
@Baud: i.e. He’s planned the appropriate series of news conferences and talking head appearances to milk his infamy.
Betty Cracker
@Old School: You’re right that Corn’s article lacks those details, but reading the writing on the wall (statements from climate hawks, etc.), it sounds like Manchin has nixed the Clean Electricity Payment Program, which was the bulk of climate crisis mitigation in BBB, and gave carbon taxes a thumbs-down. Pretty much anything that dings his coal baron status, in other words.
zhena gogolia
Somewhat OT, I’ve been soothing myself by watching Soviet TV news broadcasts from the late 1980s. I love their calm tone. The one I’m watching now has Gus Hall visiting Gorbachev.
Old School
@Woodrow/asim: So presumably, Manchin doesn’t plan on threatening to become independent. It’d be nice to get clarification on the other parts of the article.
gene108
@Baud:
You have much greater faith in voters being rational than I do.
At this point, I think most voters, whether Democrat or Republican, choose to vote or sit at home based purely on emotion.
The 2010 and 2016 elections totally eroded my faith in the electorate’s better angels.
Manchin may well have looked at his 2024 re-election chances and decided an independent who caucuses with Republicans will guarantee his re-election chances.
The Senate is a helluva drug. Very few people quit voluntarily, even if their old and senile.
James E Powell
Breaking my silence on this subject to say that he is an asshole but we are stuck with him and the sooner we cut some kind of deal on our president’s plan and get it passed, the sooner we can take this particular asshole out of the news. We have shit to do.
Old School
@Betty Cracker: Which is frustrating, but probably doesn’t cut the package down to $1.75 trillion.
prostratedragon
@Old School: Fly fishing. I do not trust the bastard.
Alison Rose
@Bnut: I’m gay and ace, I meant it very very figuratively, trust me :P
Omnes Omnibus
Okay, so Manchin has now called bullshit on this rumor.
gene108
@Omnes Omnibus:
How do you stay so optimistic?
Woodrow/asim
Fear. Fear — of disempowerment, of irrelevance…and yes, actual physical threats — is a powerful motivator.
These, by and large, are people born to a certain level of comfort and power. Not to make too much a point of it, but they aren’t people born to the kinds of lives that Biden, or even Pelosi (who is “political royalty,” but of a different kind) came up in.
I’m sure they know the flow of money and power — esp for Mittens, whose fortune is dependent on other capitalists — shuts down when they push too hard against the current orthodoxy. And that’s a powerful motivator for going along. Push too hard, and everything shuts down, including Meet the Press and so-called “mainstream” access. Losing your seat would only be the beginning.
But I submit that’s only part of it. I suspect the real lesson of Jan 6th was to show that people will kill over breaking the orthodoxy — something I strongly suspect a lot of these people suspected, and allowed that fer to drive their decision-making.
Add to that the usual discussions of epistemic closure, and you end up with the GOP side of Congress in terrifying lockstep, weighted under a host of factors that we have limited visibility into.
.
.
PS I mean, Mittens is still weird, even by those lights. Remember when he actually came out in the early days of the COVID pandemic and, unprompted, said we should send everyone a one-time check? I mean, that went nowhere, but it’s a sign he’s still got a tiny bit of his Dad in him, to this day.
UncleEbeneezer
@Omnes Omnibus: The price tag isn’t what bothers me, I always assumed we’d end up in this range. It’s that Manchin is being an even bigger a-hole than expected with regards to tanking efforts to save the planet, and also pushing racist “entitlement” bullshit. We can/should hope for better from Democrats and be pissed when they fail us.
Baud
@gene108:
The voters are the way they are. Changing the culture is a very slow process, but it can happen. I still think we’re better off with some accomplishments in hand than with standing our ground in the hopes that we’ll get something more desirable later on.
JMG
Manchin’s response to the Mother Jones story was “It’s bullshit.” Be kind of hard to walk that denial back.
Baud
@Omnes Omnibus:
Honestly, that makes me think even more that the original story was a Manchin special all along. Have this out there, and then denounce it.
Mag
Whether Manchin stays or leaves the Democratic Party, I do not see how the Democratic Party holds on to the Congress after 2022. He will not break the filibuster to even protect voting rights, so structurally the elections are rigged to the Republicans. (I also doubt Biden will be re-elected in 2024 at this rate either.)
The Democratic Party as a whole would be better without him; but the Democrats are being gerrrymandered into the Washington Generals of politics. Senators like Manchin (and Sinema) are making it possible (through inaction) now.
Baud
@Betty Cracker:
Isn’t that a good thing? Last I heard, the carbon tax was exceedingly unpopular.
Sid_Viscous
So how many buddy-buddy phone calls has Manchin recently had with that sanctimonious slug Joe Lieberman? 10? 25? Daily?
Betty Cracker
@Baud: I have no idea what its popularity is, but carbon tax was the alternative policymakers turned to when Manchin nixed the Clean Electricity Payment Program. So if you want to do something about the climate crisis, no, it’s not a good thing.
Danielx
@Alison Rose:
Seconded.
Omnes Omnibus
@UncleEbeneezer: We can and should hope (and work) for better Dems, but right now this is what we have. Getting upset about it doesn’t accomplish anything. Take what we can get and then work for more.
Baud
@Betty Cracker:
Up till now, we were frustrated because the BBB was popular, and Manchin and Sinema were standing in our way. I don’t want to do something that would make the BBB unpopular. That said, it’s a moot point. We’ll have to rely on the EPA and hope 2022 is the year that voters wake up.
Bill Arnold
@Baud:
A proper carbon tax matching the (slow) urgency of the global heating crisis would be (well) upwards of $1000 per ton of carbon (divide by 3.67 for CO2), and that is not being discussed. (Bituminous West Virginia coal is very roughly 80 percent carbon.)
Any votes for another deadly pandemic? A regional thermonuclear war? A pure global economic collapse? Etc?
randy khan
I think it’s important to recognize that one reason that Manchin matters so much is that even “moderate” Republicans like Susan Collins basically will not break from what McConnell demands of them under any circumstances. Collins should be all over these bills for the benefits they’d bring to Maine, and negotiating to get more goodies. But she’s not.
In any event, the correct end game is to take whatever we can get from Manchin and Sinema, because the win matters, and then we can work to elect enough more Dems in the Senate that they don’t matter.
Fair Economist
Manchin leaving the party would be a political win-win. We could legitimately tell voters we couldn’t get climate change legislation through because we were stabbed in the back by a coal baron. He has a better chance being elected as an independent. I doubt it will change how he votes on anything.
Omnes Omnibus
@gene108: I am a straight white guy. I also really don’t expect more than that we muddle through.
Kay
@Cameron:
Bernies medicare expansion, ACA subsidy funding, Medicaid funding, child care and pre-k and child tax credits
Climate change tbd
Danielx
Be it noted that the power tools required to remove glued down flooring are noisy as shit.
gwangung
@Betty Cracker: If you can’t get carbon taxes in very blue and very green Washington, then you won’t get them anywhere.
NotMax
@zhena gogolia
Once again our Five Year Plan has been a glorious success! Tractor production is up, up, up!
And now here’s our very own happy homemaker Ludmilla, with tips for all you wives on how to fillet and cook a tractor.
Omnes Omnibus
@Baud: That wouldn’t surprise me.
Shalimar
$3.5 billion was already way down from the campaign proposal. What the fuck is so magical about half of an arbitrary number?
lowtechcyclist
@Omnes Omnibus:
If I knew it wouldn’t do much at all about climate change? I’d have been upset then, and I’m disappointed now.
Yeah, I’ll do my best to pretend this shit is Shinola, in the hopes that we get to try again in 2023 with a Dem Congress that has a couple more Dem Senators. The odds are against it, but what’s left?
So the prospect that we will simply never get around to doing anything substantial about global warming before it’s too late is a very real one, and it just got a good deal more real.
I’ve got a 14 year old. I can’t be happy about our system failing him yet again.
Baud
@Shalimar: Do you have a link to the campaign proposal? I don’t remember specific numbers being floated.
And the number isn’t “magical.” It simply represents a positive step that will help a lot of people.
Cameron
@Kay: Thanks!
Kay
@Cameron:
It shouldn’t be hard to sell. If they get prescription drug negotiation they could run just on that- it’s really popular.
They’ll have the best possible hand to go into the midterms with with the exception (and it’s a big exception) of voting rights- if they get it done.
Voting rights are really a must-do, IMO. It’s not just the small d democratic aspects- it’s really genuinely important to the D base. They want that.
Betty Cracker
@randy khan: I trust Schumer & Co. are wooing “moderate” Republicans. I hope they’re outright offering bribes since that seems to be perfectly legal. But you’re right — so far, they have an enviable level of party unity.
Baud
@Betty Cracker: We were more unified when we were in the opposition too. It’s harder when you want to do something affirmative, especially with such tight margins.
Baud
@Kay: We should know about voting rights soon enough.
Immanentize
@NotMax: Reminded me one of my favorites (w/John Candy):
Tibor’s Traktor
Kay
I bet he said it and is now denying it. Remember a couple of weeks ago when he made his big pronouncement on voting rights and then had zero Republican votes? He’s a bit of a blowhard, in addition to all his other horrible traits.
He hasn’t really benefitted from his celebrity. He looks worse every day.
Immanentize
@Baud: It was Bernie Sander’s proposal — never Biden’s. But IIRC, Bernie lost.
What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?
@Betty Cracker: Exactly, he cares about the white collar jobs associated with the coal industry because that’s where his family makes its money. And those are the people he hobnobs with. If he cared about miners now is the time to get a generous income support + transition job training in the reconciliation bill for coal miners. But that’s not who he cares about.
I’m guessing Biden has pointed out to him that he could ease the transition away from coal (for both miners and the CEO/Financial set) by negotiating NOW. But, if he doesn’t and Biden has to use Executive action to address climate change, that won’t come with the extra money for those programs. It’ll be the pain with nothing to ease it rather than the same amount of pain with a cushy bailout fund.
Things the executive can do to make things uncomfortable for the coal industry – have mine safety inspectors crawling all over every mine in WV looking for any and all violations and levying the maximum penalty for each. Plus EPA regulations to make it virtually impossible to keep coal fired electricity plants up and running. Executive action can continue to kill off coal (which is dying out anyway) the hard way. Manchin could be using his clout to cushion the blow, but he’s not, because he doesn’t really care about any of the people that are going to be hurt.
Bruce K in ATH-GR
If I were a West Virginian, I’d call Manchin’s office, and the first words out of my mouth would be :”I’d like to apologize in advance to the horse Senator Manchin rode in on, for all the unkind things I’m about to say.”
The Moar You Know
This never could have ended any other way. Any Dem senator can veto anything out of any bill they’d like. That’s the problem with a zero-vote majority.
Old School
@Baud:
I don’t think the Biden campaign ever attached a price estimate, but here’s an analysis of the plan from Moody’s in September 2020 that estimated the spending at $7.27 trillion over ten years.
Ksmiami
@lowtechcyclist: to be honest, the Chinese announcement that they’ll no longer underwrite new coal production has a hell of an impact- possibly more than the bill carve outs itself. And we are only in inNing 2 of the EV Revolution so things will start to happen to mitigate climate change. The world will move on..
Omnes Omnibus
@Ksmiami: Who are you and what have you done with Ksmiami?
Cermet
Well, one fights the war in the senate with the army that one has; get the 1.75 T and 1 T and hope for the best. In the midterms, make sure that as$ licking bastard and the Arizona air head both go down; even if the Senate changes hands. Use dem money to cut them off at the knees. Better to teach future as$ holes that a price will be paid – that’s how the thugs keep their low life looney fascist in place.
catothedog
@David Fud:
Well put.
-Elect better democrats from blue states
-Replace red state/reps and senators.
That is the only winning strategy, and it is the proverbial slow boring of hard boards. There is no Amazon prime for political change.
Time, effort and perseverance despite setbacks, for many election cycles. We will regress, and will have to regain. My take is at least 12-16 years
Baud
@Cermet:
They ain’t up until 2024.
hueyplong
@Kay: We have no real way of knowing. Maybe he said it as part of the last portion of the negotiating dance, has now gotten what he wants, and is denying it as part of staying in.
Whatever, take what we can get, pass it, don’t complain loudly (because we’ll be in “accomplishments” mode) and wait. If the day ever comes when he can be gutted like a fish due to possessing sufficient votes to do things without him, do it.
Until then, his highest and best use is keeping McConnell the minority leader.
germy
janesays
@Baud: It means, “Give me exactly what I want, or I’ll make Mitch McConnell the Senate Majority Leader and you will get absolutely nothing done and no judges confirmed for the rest of the current congressional term.”
The shitty thing is… he really does have the power to do that, and Democrats really have no choice but to cave to his demands on this. It’s either that or get nothing at all and lose control of the Senate.
Baud
@germy:
?
dww44
@Omnes Omnibus:
Thanks, I support your ideas and your optimism. We have to elect more Democrats to the Senate next year. We must focus on that.
geg6
@VOR:
This has nothing to do with coal workers. This has to do with lining Joe Manchin’s pocket.
This guy is such a piece of shit. We have to elect more Dems in the Senate. My own state is ripe for a pick up now that Toomey, that mother fucker, is going.
Betty Cracker
@The Moar You Know: Maybe it’s naive, but I don’t think it’s a good thing to blithely accept that pols will corruptly serve themselves and/or their donors instead of their state’s and/or the nation’s interests. It lowers the political cost.
The Dangerman
Dear Joe,
Fuck you. Go join the Republican party. By the way, good luck in your next primary you ignorant fucking piece of shit.
Signed,
Seriously, fuck you.
janesays
@Cermet: Manchin’s not getting re-elected regardless of what happens – that seat is going red in 2024. It’s a presidential election year, which means that either Donald Trump or his chosen lackey will be the GOP presidential nominee, they will win that state by more than 30 points, which will make it impossible for Manchin to win re-election, as he would need significant crossover votes to beat his opponent. Nobody in West Virginia who votes for Donald Trump is going to also vote for the guy who voted twice to remove Trump from office. It’s not happening.
To be clear, this isn’t me saying that we should primary Manchin in hopes of replacing him with a better Democrat, this is me saying that we need to assume we’ll be losing that seat no matter what in 2024, and plan accordingly to try to pick up a seat somewhere else to make up for the loss.
Not one dime should be spent by progressives on helping Manchin in 2024. Even if he was worth saving, his race is a lost cause.
janesays
@The Dangerman: I mean, we can primary him all we want, but we’re not going to be getting a more progressive senator in that seat. The only Democrat who could possibly win West Virginia in a presidential election year is Joe Manchin, and I don’t think even he can pull it off.
The seat is as good as gone.
artem1s
The Rolling Coal lobby is going to be a thing until it isn’t. Just like Big Tobacco. This threat sounds to me like they may be on their last legs in WV (WY will take longer). Manchin may also be indicating he won’t run again. It would be far too easy for the GQP to challenge him from the right if he doesn’t get to use the Dems fundraising apparatus. It won’t matter to him which party primaries him so might as well get someone ready to run who is far more in tune with current WV interests. It sucks for Biden’s current agenda, but seriously, this could be an opportunity to finally get rid of this troublesome pest.
UncleEbeneezer
@Omnes Omnibus: Every organizer and activist I know and work with, needs to vent their/our frustrations. It’s part of the process of mentally reseting so we can go about doing the work. If you don’t need to do that, good for you. But many of us do. Doesn’t mean we aren’t going to canvass, phonebank, lobby, write postcards etc. We can and will do both.
UncleEbeneezer
@germy: I heard Jayapal interviewed the other day and was amazed at her optimism and level-headedness. Hopefully she is right. Glad to have her on our side.
James E Powell
@Mag:
I have asked you a million times not to exaggerate.
If we’re the Washington Generals, how did we manage to go 2 and 0 in Georgia?
Geminid
For some reason the President’s Chief of Staff, Ron Klain, does not ask me my opinions. But if he did, I’d tell him that once the BBB legislation is passed, the White House should put out a fact sheet on what the administration is doing on clean energy and energy conservation. This would include program changes by the Departments of Energy, Agriculture, Defense, and Transportation. Also, the clean energy components of the physical infrastructure bill as well as initiatives that survive in the BBB legislation. I hear a lot of talk that if we don’t get the full set of clean energy programs in the BBB bill we are doing nothing for the environment, and this is just not so.
Are we doing enough? Even if all the proposed environmental features of the BBB bill were passed we wouldn’t be doing enough, even with the efforts many states and the private sector are making. So I’d say, collaborate with with Congressionalleadership on a set of well calculated proposals, make Republicans take votes next year and then make them pay at the next election. Polls show that combating climate change is a popular issue, and Republicans are on the wrong side of it.
Betty Cracker
In other news, it sounds like a gator may have gotten Brian Laundrie, that suspect in the van-life blogger’s murder. I don’t know the Myakkahatchee Creek Environmental Park where “partial remains” were found today, but the Myakka River is the most gator-infested river I’ve ever seen. I’m used to the large lizards, and canoeing there freaked me out. Only did it once
ETA: Now I have “Polk Salad Annie” stuck in my head…
James E Powell
@randy khan:
And the press/media will never confront her about her slavish devotion to the fanatics in her party.
JustRuss
A multi-millionaire Senator who got his start working in his family’s business has no business whining about entitlements.
Ben Cisco
FIDO.
That is all.
laura
Get the deal done and then get to selling the benefits to the public immediately and constantly.
In the meantime, the 1/6 Commission, New York and Georgia, the increasing numbers of civil litigants and hopefully Merrick Garland are giving the public an airing of tfg’s filthy linen. Is every single Republican going to remain a tick on that orange dog’s belly, or will some sense massive public revulsion for the corruption, the crime and either leave the party or leave the office? I’m hoping that the logjam breaks before 2022 and those two Dem Senators are suddenly significantly less relevant.
Cautiously optimistic but still in a defensive crouch.
JoyceH
@Mag:
We will never get rid of gerrymandering so long as the GOP are the only ones doing it and the Democrats virtuously abstain. They’re redrawing the maps right now. The blue states that don’t have independent commissions need to gerrymander the crap out of their states, to reduce or eliminate the number of red seats available there and counteract the loss of blue seats in red states. The ONLY way to get the GOP onboard with independent redistricting is to beat them at their own game, because there really are more of us than there are of them.
Baud
@UncleEbeneezer:
I hear you, but in the world of social media, the venting can often make the work that much harder. IMHO.
Omnes Omnibus
@UncleEbeneezer: I guess that the problem I have is that people seem to be mourning a $3.5T bill that was never on the cards. With Manchin and Sinema being the assholes they are, $3.5T was a marker not a realistic goal.
David Fud
@Matt McIrvin:
I get that. I do. We also can’t then complain about democracy and all that. White supremacy is causing us all kinds of problems. But if we can un-addict them from their herrenvolk dream, we will lose until we fully outnumber them (assuming we hang on to our democratic republic in the meantime).
In other words: I hear you, but wishful thinking is no replacement for reality. Generals don’t fight with the armies they wish they had, as an icky Republican military appointee once said.
laura
@Betty Cracker: it’s never not time for some Tony Joe White.
Ksmiami
@Omnes Omnibus: Eh Money talks, BS walks… Sometimes the market does behave rationally with the Rt incentives.
MikefromArlington
Biden should go tell him to go fuck himself on tv and join the party of Trump. That would make his constituents delighted.
dww44
@janesays: I don’t fully subscribe to writing off the State of West Virginia to total Republican dominance. It wasn’t that long ago that we had Jay Rockefeller as a Democratic Senator from there. The state was a huge win back in 1960 for JFK. West Virginia could and should be a Democratic stronghold. Our messaging has been weak there and the GOP’s messaging has not. But the more extreme they get, the better our chances will be. Maybe our blog master might weigh in here.
Our real problem is the beaucoup dark money that gives us members of Congress beholden to them and not to the people they represent. Money is truly the root of all evil and is too much tied to the levers of power. Our political system is awash in dark money and our country is awash in guns. Fix those 2 problems and we fix a lot.
Omnes Omnibus
@MikefromArlington: Remind me how that helps us do anything.
Betty Cracker
@laura: “A wretched, spiteful, straight-razor totin’ woman…”
cain
@JoyceH: Yeah, but from here on in – he’s fucked in the Democratic Party. Once we get a few more senate seats, you can bet all that shit is coming right back and fuck him.
All he’s done is delay the inevitable. But honestly, the voting rights bill is probably the one that we are going to need most of all – otherwise if we lose both houses we are never going to get them back.
Kay
@MikefromArlington:
This Biden constituent would love that :)
We don’t get enough funny stuff.
hueyplong
@Betty Cracker: For reasons I cannot explain, I still possess the 45 of Polk Salad Annie.
cain
@gene108:
Because it’s better than bemoaning – deal with the political reality of today. If we can move even an inch forward than that is a win. Eventually, we will get there even if we have to plod are way while fighting off the sickness introduced by that clown Reagan, may a million devils fuck his ass.
Seanly
Fuck Manchin, fuck Sinema, fuck all the stupid voters that keep McConnell and folks like Manchin & Sinema in these positions.
That said, half of BBB plus the $1 trillion in infrastructure is a good start. And Biden needs the good press from getting something passed.
And the entitlement mentality already exists in the USA. It’s in the rich and well-off in the USA.
Kay
There’s an entire group of elite political actors who absolutely believe the best approach is not telling Americans anything, ever. They shove any more shit under that rug they’re gonna need a bigger one.
janesays
@dww44: Nothing’s permanent and realignments happen all the time, but there is absolutely no reason to believe that West Virginia will be competitive for Democrats anytime in the next decade.
We have about as much of a chance of being competitive there in the near future as Republicans have of being competitive in California in the near future.
hueyplong
@Kay: One test of her good faith is to substitute Benghazi for Jan 6 and see whether the answer changes.
japa21
@Omnes Omnibus:
You and a few others of us have been saying that for a while. People keep comparing this to the Obama stimulus and the ACA and the disaster that 2010 became. Two big differences this time, if done right.
1. A lot of what does get passed will have immediate impact, unlike the ACA. People will see the benefits.
2. (This is on the hopeful side) Dems will promote the positive and point out that not a single Republican supported this, n matter what they say in their ads. This means both incumbent and new candidate Dems have to do exactly the opposite of 2010, where the GOP controlled the discussion. Very few Dems ran on the ACA and most avoided talking about it.
Hopefully, there will also be a third, very important component.
The final product will leave a lot of disappointed people who might wonder why they should even vote. The Dems need to actually use that disappointment. “Hey, we hear you. The vast majority of us wanted more as well, and we still do. Fight with us, elect more Dems, specially in the Senate, and watch us roar.”
Betty Cracker
@Kay: Unfortunately, it sounds like AG Garland might by one of them, according to Adam Schiff in a podcast interview:
Source: Business Insider
Shakti
Welp.
Leto
@Betty Cracker: you don’t have to take any random third parties word that Manchin killed the Clean Energy Program. Here’s Rep Jayapal saying that on NPR yesterday. Also killed? Free 2 year community college. My wife, who works with the finance office of a local community college, has been fielding calls for weeks from the normies asking where their free community college is, because Biden promised it. It’s something he specifically ran on, people expected it, but fucking Manchin. It absolutely will not matter that a single shitstain cut it, Biden and the Dems will receive all the blame for failing to deliver. Manchin is taking a fucking hatchet to Biden’s BBB plan.
https://www.npr.org/2021/10/19/1047400894/rep-jayapal-on-negotiations-between-biden-and-house-democrats-over-build-back-be
Cameron
@Betty Cracker: MMMM……gator tail ‘n rice, w/human stuffing.
chris
@trollhattan: Doing a re-read of “Absolution Gap” by Alistair Reynolds and happened upon your nym. Any connection or is there another Trollhattan reference? Either way..when I saw it in print I said HA!..Thats where that came from…
janesays
The actual electoral results of the past several cycles suggests the exact opposite. Compare how Trump did in 2016 and 2020 there with how McCain and Romney did there in 2008 and 2012. The most extreme wingnut of the bunch won by the biggest margins. It’s absolutely MAGA country, epitomized.
When we tried to run a fairly progressive candidate there last year for the U.S. Senate, she got absolutely annihilated. She lost by an even bigger margin in that state than Biden did.
MikefromArlington
@Omnes Omnibus:
so what if he leaves. Doesn’t change the way he votes.
Only matters if he caucuses with the Republicans.
Kay
@Betty Cracker:
I don’t have any faith in the DOJ. It isn’t just Garland. It’s been like this for years. They simply don’t hold powerful people accountable in the same way they go after ordinary people. I think it’s a culture-systemic. They don’t make waves. A two tier system of justice is really corrosive to the rule of law. When they all natter on and on about these “institutions” what is it they think they’re protecting?
Maybe just stop thinking about “protecting” it. Don’t even worry about it. Just do the job. The rest will take care of itself. Stop saving it and instead make it worth saving.
janesays
@MikefromArlington: Which is exactly what he would do.
Brachiator
It’s amazing how many conservatives approve of an entitlement mentality when it comes to big business.
I wonder if Manchin understands that the Republicans would totally screw over West Virginia if they regain power.
Betty Cracker
@Kay:
Amen to that.
We might see another example of the two-tiered system soon. Michael Cohen when to jail for the Stormy Daniels payoff. In a week, it will be too late to charge Individual-1 for his part in the crime. I’m not a lawyer, but how does it make sense to send the lackey to jail and let the boss skate? It’s bullshit.
Leto
And the Manchin Voting Rights bill goes down in flames just like his Sandy Hook bill. So let’s see: can’t pass a watered down Sandy Hook bill to protect children, can’t pass a watered down Voting Rights bill, gutting Biden’s agenda, 50.6% majority Trumpov voter… I see why we need this guy.
https://www.npr.org/2021/10/20/1040238982/senate-democrats-are-pushing-a-voting-rights-bill-republicans-have-vowed-to-bloc
Mary G
This guy is growing on me:
Betty Cracker
@Leto: Klobuchar sounds pissed. SMITE them, Amy!
taumaturgo
While the democrats preserve the filibuster, the GQP used it to nuke Manchin’s voting rights bill. Good job democrats.
Shakti
@Brachiator: Manchin understands, don’t think he cares. My condolences to the WV Juicers.
Tazj
@hueyplong: I was just going to say that. That’s what so many Republican politicians and pundits have been saying all along. Yes, January 6th was bad but it’s over now. Real Americans have other concerns, they don’t care about that stuff anymore.
Of course, there is some small truth to that, people have other worries.We have many problems to solve in this country but never mind the fact that Republicans offer no solutions except tax cuts. However, it shouldn’t matter if this isn’t at the top of the list of most Americans.The government needs to investigate what happened to maintain its integrity and protect itself and the people against future incursions.
We all know if any number of people were even tangentially associated with Democrats participated in an attempted coup like January 6th we’d never hear the end of it. Like you said with them it’s Benghazi forever! I expect investigations into the Afghanistan withdrawal to be never ending if Republicans ever regain power.
Ben Cisco
@Brachiator:
He understands and is onboard with it. He’s done everything except hire a skywriter to spell out in big-ass letters, “I DON’T REALLY CARE”
Leto
@Betty Cracker: she can be pissed, but everyone knew this was coming months and months ago. Republicans won’t vote for any reforms, and the insurgents in the party won’t change any of the filibuster rules. As soon as Manchin was out in a leadership role on this, there was only one outcome possible. To say there was any other outcome was to ignore his entire legislative history. Waves come in, waves go out…
Baud
@Leto:
It’s true, and it suggests to me that we should stop making big promises. People expect instantaneous success on everything, and it’s simply impossible to deliver.
Ksmiami
@Ben Cisco: I hope we find him and his houseboat at the bottom of the Potomac…
Leto
@Ben Cisco: Manchin had constituents of his paddle out in little plastic kayaks to his fucking yacht (his YACHT), begging him to pass Biden’s BBB, begging for help for WV’inans. After laughing at them, he basically told them to fuck off. Yet this is the best we can do. Just another day in America.
geg6
@Kay:
If I was Sunny Hostin, I would have replied, “Like you and the Shrub did with the ‘Bin Laden Determined to Attack’ report? And how’d that work out for you?”
Enhanced Voting Techniques
Yes, people need to go take a look at the otherside if their feeling beat up. The GOP is in an outright panic their voters won’t show up next year to the polls. It’s sure is damn pisser we aren’t getting more action on the climate thanks the to Blue Dogs (it’s like we have burry every fucking rich boomer so something can be done) but any kind of win will reinforce the Dems fix shit, the Repugs just break it.
Kay
@Betty Cracker:
They’re the curators of the Museum Of Justice.
I was watching “Succession” last night- it’s about a crooked oligarch- and he was frantic as a result of a DOJ investigation- looking into countries without extradition treaties. I thought – I wish. I wish they were scared. If this were real life he’d be on Fox telling them to fuck off, and two years later they’d announce some gross backroom deal.
Leto
@Baud: “Democrats 2024: don’t expect anything” that’s a bumper sticker message if I ever saw one.
Cameron
So can we finally put that ManchinMeme to bed that says, “Sure, he’s a moderate/centrist/WTFever, but on the really important stuff he votes with us?”
‘Cause I’m starting to believe that’s not actually true….
Ksmiami
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: the whole GOP platform is government sucks: elect us and we will make everything worse.
Baud
@Leto:
We can make small promises. The average voter doesn’t seem to have the will for a long term fight.
geg6
@taumaturgo:
No, good job Manchin. His refusal to tank the filibuster tanked his own bill. A self-own, if you will. If he would go along, so would everyone else.
Ksmiami
@Cameron: he’s a douche canoe. I hate to say I told y’all but I told y’all… anyway hopefully a deal gets done and we can run on more and better Democrats for more and better progress
Steve in the ATL
@Betty Cracker:
At least there’s a small upside to this tragic situation
Omnes Omnibus
Leto
@Baud: “Dems 2024: Dream Small!” I feel like they should be paying you for these slogans
senyordave
@Ben Cisco: He’s done everything except hire a skywriter to spell out in big-ass letters, “I DON’T REALLY CARE”
I think Melania Trump has a designer jacket that Manchin can borrow that would embody his political philosophy (except for his re-election – that he cares about).
Ben Cisco
@Leto:
Like I said, don’t know how much clearer he could have made it.
Gotta FIDO (Fuck It and Drive On). Not easy, and aggravating as hell, but the only option that me and my people have.
Cameron
@Leto: “They have tiny hands – we have tiny dreams!”
prostratedragon
@Immanentize: Adman Cliff Freeman recently died. Part of his legacy is this monument to hilarious cultural insensitivity:
They are truly blessed who can say, “Thank goodness those are not my people!”
Omnes Omnibus
@Ksmiami: Not one person commenting on the blog would disagree with you that Manchin is a douchecanoe. If you think that anyone would, you have fundamentally misunderstood what non-doomers have been arguing.
Baud
@Omnes Omnibus: online Dems characterizing average voters. Who knows if its true?
Ben Cisco
@senyordave:
Thing is, Dave, I don’t think he does. He knows he’s done – no one on the left with the sense the sense God gave an amardillo will trust him after this, and the GOP will jettison him as soon as he’s no longer useful. He don’t need the bread AND can make more away from the office…
Benw
@chris: I’ve read Revelation Space and Chasm City and liked both. Should I keep going with the next couple books?
cain
@Betty Cracker: The dude probably killed someone else or maybe dug up a grave – went to that alligator infested creek – threw the body there and ran off and faked his own death.
Cameron
@prostratedragon: That was one of my favorite all-time commercials.
Baud
@Leto: Dream whatever you want to dream. Some things take time and dedication. A large part of the reason we’re in the mess we’re in is because people give up whenever we hit an obstacle. If our side doesn’t have the cultural capacity for the long game, then advantage GOP, because their voters surely do.
Martin
@UncleEbeneezer: That’s a misread. Manchin could have gotten anything that coal worker wanted. Buying them out 100% – full retirement and health benefits for every worker would have been fairly inexpensive in the grand context of this bill, and I’m sure it’s been offered and rejected by Manchin. Manchin is looking out for the interests of the owners, not the workers. Buying out the workers kills the industry and the owners get nothing. That’s his objection. It’s an entitlement for the workers.
Leto
@Omnes Omnibus:
@Baud:
I know we’ve spoken about this before, but I don’t think the average voter pays that much attention. Idk, guess it depends on where they are in life. New job? Just married? Spouse and little kids? Just tying to hang on in these pandemic times? Idk. Maybe they catch some brief stuff on the morning commute? Skim some headlines? Maybe listen to NPR? Or AM radio? Maybe catch a part of the evening news, local/national? They have other just as important shit going on in their lives and just want shit to work.
janesays
@Leto: Here is why (unfortunately) we need that guy, at least for now…
https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/biden-senate-democrats-make-history-judicial-confirmations-n1281970
If McConnell is back in charge, we get virtually zero judicial confirmations through. By having Manchin as a nominal Democrat, we get the majority, and we get to fill judicial vacancies.
Which is insanely important, as we’re seeing right now in so many ways.
WaterGirl
@Betty Cracker: Assuming we get these two bills passed… and that the reconciliation bill has to ditch a lot of climate change action…
I can see Joe Biden declaring a climate change emergency and then he gets to do a whole bunch of stuff for climate with the emergency powers that come along side the declaration of emergency.
But we have to get these two bills passed first.
Josie
@Ksmiami: “I hate to say I told y’all but I told y’all…”
Do you really think we needed you to tell us what we have all known from the beginning? Seriously? Don’t give yourself airs.
ETA: Anyone with a clue about politics understands why we need him at this time. The rest is just noise.
prostratedragon
@Cameron: Impossible not to feel guilty as you roll around on the iiving room floor.
Baud
@Leto: I agree. The average voter just sees the negative headline in the media, and then sees the same negative headlines in social media from both liberals and conservatives. Maybe our inability to fulfill all of our promises will cost of us some votes, but we should be promoting the bill to people who will benefit and explain to them that a stronger Democratic party can produce even more. They’ll accept that or they won’t but that’s the pitch.
Bobby Thomson
@Percysowner: Collins is the one seat I have no doubt was stolen in 2020
Baud
@Bobby Thomson: How was it stolen? I’ve seen zero evidence of that.
raven
@Ksmiami: you are such a fucking drag. . .
Ksmiami
@Josie: no there was a large contingent that said Manchin would be there at the end for the Dems. He’s not. Voting rights are being extinguished and that’s the whole game. Without voting rights, nothing is secure.
Brachiator
@Leto:
The problem is that they expect Congress to stop paying political games and do a bipartisan dance. They believe the simplistic stories about gridlock. For some reason they ignore McConnell when he declares that he will try to stop anything the Democrats try to do.
Old School
@Baud:
I’d like to have a bill pass before I worry about how to promote it.
Baud
@Old School: Of course.
chris
@Benw: Heck yeah…I’ve read everything he has written. I recommend him unreservedly. Brit SciFi is my favorite in general. The Inhibitors trilogy (Ab Gap is #3 in it) is great too.
zhena gogolia
@Betty Cracker: OMG, Carl Hiaasen better get on this.
We’re reading Squeeze Me, and it’s hilarious.
Mallard Filmore
@Baud:
Maybe we could have a venting thread, and it could be easily ignored by those that don’t want to see it, by starting it right before getting BigFooted by an important story.
I would certainly contribute. I have lots to complain about.
Baud
@Betty Cracker:
Gator justice.
Jeffro
@Betty Cracker: She would be an absolutely ruthless Dem president, and I am here for ruthless. More than here, actually.
schrodingers_cat
@Baud:Mainers can be pretty insular, you are not considered a real Mainer unless your grandparents were Mainers. Gideon is half Indian so she lost.
Baud
@schrodingers_cat: I didn’t know she was half Indian (as in India, right?).
I agree with your assessment, but I wouldn’t call that “stolen.”
Leto
@janesays: we’ve filled 18 out of 110 spots. Those are 18 important spots. Trumpov appointed 220 in four years. Are we going to get to appoint anymore? Maybe. We should be jamming them through as fast as we can. We basically have two years to do it. So like the gutted BBB/voting rights bill, I guess 18 is better than nothing.
http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2021/01/13/how-trump-compares-with-other-recent-presidents-in-appointing-federal-judges/%3famp=1
Omnes Omnibus
@Ksmiami: Nothing is over yet, ffs. All of this shit is still in play.
Ksmiami
@schrodingers_cat: I thought she lost because she only appealed to coastal residents
Josie
@Ksmiami: I don’t remember a large contingent saying that. What we have said is that, until we can elect more Dem senators, he is all we have between us and Majority Leader McConnell. And he actually has a pretty decent voting record, considering the state he represents. Anyone who expects more has been kidding themselves.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Brachiator:
I was told today by some idiot 60-something customer she doesn’t want “Big Government paying people not to work/supporting everyone”. Or something.
I sarcastically replied, “Yeah, I guess we should just give it to plutocrats instead”.
She didn’t quite get what I meant. She then asked, “So what, you think the government should control everything?”
I relied, “I don’t even know what that means.”
She says, “The government should pay people not to work is what I meant.”
“I think the government should do everything in it’s power to help people, yes. Raise taxes on the very wealthy to pay for it.”
The best part was her trying to claim that rich people would then move to other countries that “wouldn’t tax them to death”.
“That wouldn’t happen”, I replied as she left.
I wish I would’ve told her but didn’t at the time that:
I swear a lot of people are fucking entitled and stupid
Ruckus
@Betty Cracker:
Manchin cares only about his bank account. He sees his taxes being raised/his monetary position not growing quite as far as possible if better is done for the majority. So yeah, not one crusty fuck.
In his state he is a wealthy man. Not necessarily at the top of the heap, but far enough up on that heap that he’s doing a lot better than fine. And he’s invested in keeping coal going till the end of his life, because that’s what he knows. He’s a coal made man.
Ruckus
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
Some of them are just fucking stupid.
Peale
Honestly, I think its time for WV to catch the car. Wanna be a coal state? You want that child tax credit? Well to get it here’s a pick and there’s a hole in the ground and don’t come back until you give us a ton. And if you’re unable to work, we’ll pull your kids from school to work down there in your place. You want those old manly glory days. Well you got em.
Mag
@James E Powell: Ask again in 2022 and 2024 after the elections in Georgia are run under the new Republican “reforms”. My point is the rules are being changed by the Republicans so the Georgia outcome won’t happen again.
Ksmiami
@Omnes Omnibus: you don’t really believe that rt? Look I never expected much except for a mostly ended pandemic and for Biden to not be Trump, but I’m a loyal Dem and I don’t need much convincing. It’s our flaky voters that need to see progress and as far as I can tell Manchinema just wasted time and our momentum as well as an assist from flabby ass Garland in making the party look weak. Don’t know how this helps win more elections
trollhattan
@Betty Cracker:
The script writers would be sent back for a rework if they had proposed that ending for the dude. Too ’70s.
“Okay, how about python gets him then both are eaten at the same time by a giant gator? That 2000s enough for ya?”
OTOH if it did happen like that, a proper end to literal murderous trash.
Cameron
@prostratedragon: Very nice.
Ksmiami
@Ruckus: makes you wonder why these guys go into public service since it’s so obviously not to serve the public…
Kay
@trollhattan:
It’s just crazy. I did think he was dead, though. Just not eaten by an alligator!
Baud
@Ksmiami: If the bills pass, the economy should be strong, workers will still have leverage for the first time in a long time, and the bills help a lot of people. And the GOP will still be treasonous. Those are pretty good conditions for us to be in, all things considered.
Ksmiami
@Mag: the good news is a lot of maga antivaxxers are dying so….
Ben Cisco
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
And right there is the sword those halfwits will fall on every time. They will lay down and roll over for those fuckers every single time.
trollhattan
@prostratedragon:
Genius! I remember that ad like it was yesterday and we used “svimwear” constantly in conversation. Right up there with the Joe Isuzu campaign (IDK who created those).
Ksmiami
@Baud: I agree and hope that the bills pass etc. But we’ll see what happens when McConnell launches the debt ceiling grenade in December. I mean I wish we could tell the media that the GOP is just a terrorist organization at this point
Bobby Thomson
@Baud: most voters couldn’t tell Manchin from Manson. All they know is Democrats are in control. The theft of those Senate seats (and I am NOT satisfied that the day-of voting was secure) is going to be very costly.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Bobby Thomson:
You don’t know that
The Moar You Know
There’s a dogwhistle that would render deaf any poor dog.
Yutsano
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
You forgot number four: even if they leave the country they are still liable for any foreign earned income. And from what I understand that is pursued, but that’s Burnsie’s side of the house.
NotMax
This is one of those times I can appreciate arthritis.
Precludes hand wringing and pearl clutching.
;)
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
@Ksmiami: A) Its not good news to those people’s families. You wishing for these people’s death is disgusting. B) Cities were the first to get hit with COVID deaths, back when they didn’t even know how to effectively treat it. The rural areas are finally catching up. It won’t make much difference in the end.
Bobby Thomson
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
@Ben Cisco:
Is that supposed to be a downside? Cause I’m having a hard time seeing it as anything other than something to be celebrated. Also, too, the countries that won’t tax them are not the ones they want to move to, for obvious reasons.
Another Scott
In non-S&M news, … TheHill:
Good, good.
Cheers,
Scott.
Bobby Thomson
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): I mean, it already has been, and I don’t see anything getting any better between now and the next congressional election.
Ben Cisco
@The Moar You Know:
“Naw, that’s a Foghorn. Leghorn, that is. That’s a joke, son!”
(Laughing to keep from doing the other thing)
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: Yes Indian from India. Her father is a pediatrician who was born in India.
I wouldn’t call it stolen either. I agree with you. Furrowed brows won it fair and square.
hueyplong
@raven: “you are such a fucking drag. . .”
Now, now. Surely you got a chuckle out of “I hate to say it, but….”
schrodingers_cat
@raven: We used to have a more interesting trolls back in the day before the blog went all goody goody with stickers, puppies and kittens.
Baud
@Another Scott: Allowed, but recommended? I have Pfizer, but I’m going back and forth on whether to boost with Moderna.
Another Scott
Schumer’s comments on the vote today:
Good, good. Keep pushing. Let there be consequences for them saying NO.
Cheers,
Scott.
NotMax
@Another Scott
Phrasing!
:)
Ksmiami
@Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony: I’m not wishing for anyone’s death but in reality, GA just announced that deaths have outpaced births and at this point it’s the unvaccinated Magas who make up most of this statistic. They are unreachable
Another Scott
@Baud: I assume there will be clarifying instructions. TheHill piece ends with “Developing…”
Cheers,
Scott.
Omnes Omnibus
@Ksmiami: Maybe the horse will learn to sing. Nothing is over until it is actually over. What you are watching is a negotiation.
Do you know more than Rep. Jayapal?
Benw
@chris: cool thanks!
The Moar You Know
@Baud: Wish I’d had that option two weeks ago, I had Pfizer and would have preferred a Moderna booster. Would have preferred a Moderna series in the first place but wasn’t going to be too fucking picky about it back then. Moderna’s immunity numbers hold up in a way that Pfizer’s simply are not.
Dan B
@Ruckus: Doesn’t Manchin’s son work for a coal company? And his daughter raised epi-pens to outrageous prices. Between them they want to automate coal to eliminate miners and to ramp up the opioid crisis to sell more epi-pens. Their mantra is fool the rubes. That’s what Manchin did to the kayakers. He told them he was doing what was best for WV. They weren’t buying it.
JoyceH
@cain:
My assumption all along has been that Laundrie was never in that natural area. What, he’s gonna go, ‘just strangled my fiancee and came home without her – now what I need is a nice refreshing hike in a swamp’? I think his family got him out of the country as soon as possible and placed his car and claimed he said he was going hiking.
Ruckus
@Old School:
If this is $1.75B over 5 yrs instead of $3.5B over 10, I’d bet it accomplishes as much as the other bill would have but makes JM look like a good guy by cutting the bill in half. Part of the problem we’ve been having for the last what 30 yrs is swinging from conservative bullshit to the minimum that dems can force the assholes into. If this is $1.75B over 5 yrs, for things that we’ve been unable to accomplish over the last 30 yrs, that is actually a pretty big thing. That second half still has a chance.
Ben Cisco
@Another Scott:
Ironic, because we’re looking at a rerun right about now…
hueyplong
@Bobby Thomson: “most voters couldn’t tell Manchin from Manson.”
Pretty sure Charlie was shorter, but I get the point.
trollhattan
@Baud:
“I’m-a Pfizer man” [said as if I were plugging Dapper Dan].
Baud
@The Moar You Know: I assumed that was because the Modern does is stronger. I haven’t seen anything about relative effectiveness after a booster. Probably too soon for that.
prostratedragon
@Kay: Pursued by a bear?
trollhattan
@hueyplong:
So far as I know Charlie also had zero yachts.
Geminid
@Baud: A strong economy next year (and I believe it will be) will create a political landscape very different from that in 2010. That is why Republicans dug their heels in on the $1.9 trillion American Recovery Act, and their leadership tried to stop the physical infrastructure bill.
hueyplong
@trollhattan: Yes, sadly, the evidence set forth on this blog seems to indicate that Charlie was a little bit more self-aware.
Ksmiami
@Omnes Omnibus: and now Sinema says no to the bbb funding mechanism – Rt on cue. FFS end this charade
Dan B
@Baud: I had Pfizer and the booster really laid me low for a day and kept my shoulder sore for five days. The first day was sore and the following five were much worse. I believe the first two Moderna were a much larger dose and the booster is half that. I believe the Pfizer is the same amount as the first two.
Betty Cracker
@JoyceH: That’s what we figured at first too. The Laundrie family took a very fishy camping trip near Tampa before the girl’s parents reported her missing, and we speculated they booked passage on a boat to a country with no extradition treaty.
But supposedly they found a backpack and other crap that belonged to him today, plus “partial remains” in an area that had been flooded, so now I’m thinking a gator grabbed him. Or maybe he died of exposure. It would be tough to survive 30 days in the wilderness, even if for an experienced person.
Anyhoo, DNA will clear it up I guess.
Ksmiami
@Ruckus: the only place a conservative should be hanging from is a lamppost…
Ruckus
@Dan B:
I got all of this except the epi pens for the opioid crisis. I googled it and see some point to your mention but epi pens are for allergic reactions. I have a box of 2. Of course they are past their expiration date now and I doubt the VA is going to give me another set. I can’t imagine anyone in the midst of an opioid overdose is going to be able to use an epi pen. But then I have zero experience.
Ruckus
@hueyplong:
A bit thinner as I recall as well.
p.a.
If Garland is really throwing out an anchor on Jan 6 & drumpf UncJoe should invite him for lunch and say get moving on this or resign.
In my happy space reside journalists who ask the Manchins, Moscow Mitches, etc why the states they rep are still at the bottom of the human development index for US states after decades of their representing them. A fella can dream…
Omnes Omnibus
@Ksmiami: But you aren’t wishing for anyone’s death….
Ruckus
@The Moar You Know:
@Baud:
The Moderna shot was a larger shot, which is why the time was longer between the first 2. If the mRNA vaccines and their affect actually vacate the body then boosters would be required. But if I recall most vaccines lose effectiveness over time, and as we are still in a pandemic mode/situation because so many idiots refuse to be vaccinated, we need boosters to remain effective in fighting the disease. I seem to recall getting boosters for other vaccines when the disease clearance ratio was not good enough. Many years ago.
Another Scott
Uncle Joe speaking now on BBB – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b-bSfJXjc8Q
Cheers,
Scott.
SpaceUnit
I’m late to the thread, but it seems to me that Manchin clearly ain’t playing for the home team. He gives Dems the appearance of controlling the senate but prevents them from passing any meaningful legislation. He’s basically a spoiler.
Hell, if this guy were acting in good faith he’d just go ahead and vote for the spending bill, which his constituents aren’t really concerned with anyway. Spending bills are too dull a subject. It would be really good for his state though, and Fox News would stop talking about it entirely the minute it passed and move on to some shinier object. Then Joe could go ahead and grandstand about cancel culture or Antifa or confederate monuments or critical race theory and the people of WV would love him for it.
It could be a win-win but he’s not having it.
Another Scott
@Another Scott: “These are FACTS. These are FACTS!”
He’s had his RedBull! :-)
Cheers,
Scott.
Ruckus
@Dan B:
Moderna was larger, I wouldn’t characterize it as much larger. I thought I heard Pfizer was 100mcg and Moderna was 125mcg. And yes the Pfizer booster was the same as the first shots, I specifically asked the doc giving me my booster.
Scout211
@Ruckus:
Pfizer is 30 mcg per shot and Moderna is 100 mcg per shot.
Link
Old School
@Another Scott: Glad that Biden is out there promoting the bills.
Martin
@Baud: There’s evidence that mixing is beneficial. The vaccines work at least in somewhat different ways. Think of it as hiring a spanish language translator and then needing a 2nd one. Maybe make the 2nd one from Mexico if the first is from Spain. Doesn’t mean either is better than the other, but they bring slightly different tools to the task.
Ruckus
@Scout211:
Just looked it up and corrected my post. At least I thought I did.
Pfizer was .3mL and Moderna was .5m
I used the FDA site for my shot sizes.
Nora Lenderbee
@Ruckus: Yeah. Epi-pens might be useful for someone having an allergic reaction to Oxycontin, but the “opioid crisis” is a crisis of addiction, not allergies..
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Ben Cisco:
I know, right? Never fails
Scout211
@Ruckus:
Moderna booster is 50 mcg, the original shot is 100 mcg. Pfizer is 30 mcg each for three shots.
Gvg
@trollhattan: gators don’t normally catch adults. They will eat a dead person however. If it is him, I think it was suicide.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Bobby Thomson:
I thought that too at first, but then again I assume rich people could move to Monaco. Isn’t that some low/no income tax state?
@Yutsano:
They’d have to give up their US citizenship, I think, wouldn’t they?
JoyceH
@Old School: I’ve started collecting Bidenisms. “Not a joke.” “And by the way…” “but guess what?”
Ruckus
@Nora Lenderbee:
Yep. If you have been taking larger and larger doses of a drug because your body is/has gotten used to it and the high doesn’t satisfy then you take more. Till you over dose and kill yourself. Epipen doesn’t cure stupid, it stops anaphylaxis, which is a common severe reaction to an allergy or a drug that you are allergic to. I seem to be rather allergic to a lot of medications but none have given me anaphylaxis. And even my worst bee sting, my first, which required an ER visit didn’t give me anaphylaxis. The reaction is supposed to be worse in subsequent stings. I’ve managed to get to an ER within 5 minutes after that first one.
zhena gogolia
@JoyceH: “Not a joke” always cracks me up.
Dan B
@Scout211: Glad you found the info. I remembered the first two Moderna as much larger than the Pfizers. Is the concentration the same?
Ruckus
@Scout211:
Pfizer FDA fact sheet
Moderna FDA fact sheet.
taumaturgo
@geg6: You’re splitting hairs. Last I check there is D after his last name, same with Sinema and they are not the only corrupt D backtracking on BBB. BTW, corporations got a huge win, Trump tax cut is staying in place, no carve-outs, no means-testing. Good job D.
206inKY
@marklar: Yes, exactly right. Anything else is magical thinking.
Salty Sam
I’m beginning to think that “The Media” might not be the neutral journalistic enterprise I was taught about…
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Ruckus:
Yup
Edmund Dantes
@Baud: this is a bullshit characterization. Plenty of people have been fighting this stuff for 20-30-40 years. It’s not oh they hit a roadblock and give up.
Cameron
@Betty Cracker: https://youtu.be/fgoyvd9j6ZM
Betty
@UncleEbeneezer: He doesn’t care about those people. He cares about maintaining his own business. He has now called David Corn’s story “bullshit”.
evodevo
@Betty Cracker: Yeah…from what I understand from a friend who knows, when a gator gets you, it’s iusually attacking near a body of water, and its tactic is to drag prey out into and under the water and drown it, then stash it under the bank till it ripens a little, making it easy to tear pieces off. there wouldn’t have been anything left on land, only underwater. If the guy died on land, THEN maybe a gator might have chewed off a piece and made off with it, leaving the rest behind for other scavengers. Wait a minute, this sounds like an episode of Dexter…
sab
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): US citizens, unlike citizens of a lot of other countries, are supposed to pay taxes on their worldwide income no matter where they live. Ditto for green card holders, who for US income tax purposes are taxed like American citizens. There are some limited exemptions for foreign earned income. There is a deduction or a credit for foreign taxes paid on foreign income to prevent double taxation.
There are probably a lot of expats who don’t know they have to pay (dual nationals living abroad mostly, with strong foreign ties) but they do.
No One You Know
@David Fud: I’d like to believe you.
I find myself growing tired of buying democracy as a small donor while the big donors can buy ownership of an entire issue at once. Manchin and Sinema are symptoms and enablers of a much larger problem.
Are voters as important as donors once the elections are called? Apparently not, in some states (and state houses).
janesays
@Leto: You’re assuming the Senate is definitely lost in the midterms… while I think the House is definitely in jeopardy, I’m not so sure the Senate isn’t winnable for us. We obviously need to defend Kelly and Warnock’s seats, but we also have several pickup opportunities – Pennsylvania, North Carolina, and Wisconsin all come to mind.
Cameron
@Another Scott: Facts? Who gives a FF about facts? He lost the election and he’s killing patriots by denying them their right to proper COVID treatment with ivermectin and zinc? He needs to STFU (and I don’t mean Simon T. Frazier University) right now and try to be graceful when welcoming Donald Trump to the White House as the legitimate President BY THIS WEEKEND! (OK, I should have had more capital letters.)
Chris Sherbak
@janesays: This is it exactly. What keeps getting missed is that Manchin and Sinema have been there for all Exec appointments and judges: do we think McConnell would let a trans woman be Asst. Sec. for Health? As long as we have those still waiting to do – and I have a feeling Manchin and Sinema are keenly aware once that’s all done their use (and leverage) drops to nill – we need them and, frankly, if we want any other recon bill it will need to pass their approval. Nothing else will pass even with their assent as long as it’s not reconcilement and subject to the filibuster. Them’s the cards we’re dealt. I just am not convinced the Infra bill is worth all this – if we can’t have BBB with something to crow about (if even the Dems will do that, cf Drum) it’s not worth it. (Maybe there enough stuff in Infra? I dunno. Seems all the good stuff was moved to BBB.)
Brachiator
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
She is wrong. See my note earlier in this thread. The child tax credit helps keep children out of poverty. Both parties have supported this in past years. Republicans lie about it now.
Biden also wants to increase the Earned Income Tax Credit, which REWARDS PEOPLE WHO WORK.
The only credits which pay people not to work may be those available to some businesses and farmers.
You mean, like conservatives trying to control women’s reproductive rights?
There is some truth to this when government gets totally stupid. Listen to the Beatles song “Taxman.”
But this is not a problem when the tax system is fair and the rich don’t evade reasonable taxes.
Bottom line. The economy has grown when there have been modest tax increases. And Biden wants to go after tax cheats. Seems reasonable to me.
sab
@janesays: Also too Ohio. We already have a Democratic senator, and a pretty solid candidate in Tim Ryan and the GOP side so far is looking underwhelming and mostly kind of nuts. Statewide office holders in Ohio tend to appear reasonable even if they actually are not (Rob Portman, DeWine and Kasich, for example.) The real obvious nutjobs or firebreathers do lose to Democrats.
Chief Oshkosh
@Kay: It’s totally self-serving. She’s a war criminal and should be making small rocks out of big rocks right along side her man-baby work-husband. If the American public were ever shown the truth, nearly every Republican, right down to fucking dog catcher, would be in prison.
Ruckus
@No One You Know:
Nominated for Very Good Comment.
Money wasn’t supposed to buy you a bigger stake in the USA. Wink wink.
Ksmiami
@SpaceUnit: he’s a dick and the more he’s in the public eye, he gets more repulsive not less…
Chief Oshkosh
@Kay: You keep banging on this, and…
…I’m right there with you. I wish I was as articulate and perseverant.
Thank you.
Ksmiami
@Omnes Omnibus: average Americans no- the GOP leadership however…
Azhrie139
Burn it all down
Ksmiami
@Azhrie139: it’s getting to that point. The Democrats need to go to the fucking mat.
Ksmiami
@Chief Oshkosh: America is a failed state tbh
Chief Oshkosh
@Baud: Totally disagree that their voters play the long game. Their MONEY guys play the long game. The voters are simply re-programmable meat bags (per a Republican operative) who are constantly kept on the boil by money streaming into the gas line, keeping the burner flame on High.
SpaceUnit
@Ksmiami:
Yeah. I’m praying that we can pick off a couple senate seats next year and make the asshole completely irrelevant.
David Fud
@No One You Know:
It has always been our democratic republic to lose, as Benjamin Franklin might say. I would prefer to keep it (and feel strongly about it), but at this point I am fairly skeptical about the crowds of easily manipulable Americans that are addicted to white supremacy. It also occurs to me that a majority minority probably couldn’t start an effective democracy and a majority minority country with an angry new minority is unlikely to keep one as well.
So, I guess I have crossed over to the dark side of pessimism. I hope that I am wrong. Outside of the demographics, the details of how we are spiraling into a fascist state is for historians. It could be that Millennials will save us all electorally, but at this point I don’t have a good plan on how to fix our democracy that is reasonable and credible. There are so many broken things and so much to do that no normal person can do it. It implies we have to have a massive breakdown and crash like the Depression or the breakdown of the Syrian state.
We need things to go right for a while, and I don’t see how that happens. I am cringing at what I am leaving for my children.
?BillinGlendaleCA
Sen Manchin doesn’t seem to know that the American Independent Party exists, it was founded by George Wallace.
Ksmiami
@SpaceUnit: Tim Ryan, Cortez maestro, fetterman, demings, etc get money
billcinsd
@Cameron: Manchin is the new Joe Lieberman, with us on everything except the …
laura
@Betty Cracker: @laura: “A wretched, spiteful, straight-razor totin’ woman…”
It’s not often that I’m so well and accurately described- and all my friends and loved ones would surely recognize me as such. ?
dww44
@Ksmiami: This is not true. Per the state Department of Public Health, while 118 of 159 counties recorded more deaths than births, statewide there were 19275 more births than deaths, the majority of them confined to the Atlanta metro area and a few coastal counties.
Another Scott
@Ksmiami: It was a few weeks ago, and it was Alabama.
NPR
HTH.
Cheers,
Scott.
LadySuzy
@Omnes Omnibus: I don’t believe Manchin. His big plans have been leaked, and the “surprise” effect he wanted is gone. Moreover, he looks like an hostage taker, and if everything goes south he will be the one who will be blamed, not the President.
Manchin must be pissed. But I’m concerned that now that his threats are public, he will feel he doesn’t have the choice but become independent right away.
Give it a week maximum.
LadySuzy
I’m concerned Manchin will give some bad ideas to Sinema.
Gosh… when Joe Biden became president, I had the fantasy that since Life owed so much to him …. he, and the country with him, would finally have some luck.
J R in WV
@SpaceUnit:
Manchin plays for the Coal, Oil, and Gas team. Big carbon gotta win or Manchin loses. Fuck his grandchildren, he doesn’t care about them, they can starve in the famines after all the crops fail with the rest of us, he’ll be long gone by then. That’s what he is thnking.