There’s an article in WaPo called “Inside the last-ditch effort by Democratic women to pressure Manchin and salvage paid family and medical leave” that’s mostly infuriating, but this part made me laugh:
Manchin, meanwhile, privately expressed to Democratic lawmakers, White House officials and paid-leave advocates a series of evolving concerns specifically with the proposed benefit program, according to five people familiar with his thinking, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe private negotiations.
At times, the senator from West Virginia said a paid-leave program could invite fraud, likening it to those who tried to collect unemployment even when they were not eligible. In some conversations with lawmakers and advocates, he asked about work requirements, even though employment is a condition for one to take leave in the first place, some of the sources said.
Alrighty then. Open thread!
Pets Are Contacting Me About The Calendar!
John S.
Evolving concerns = Paw Paw Black Lung done made up his mind, and no pesky facts are gonna get in his way!
Nelle
“He can’t move an inch from the glare of his own personality–his fame.” Virginia Woolf.
I thought of this in relation to Trump, but think it also applies to Mansion and Cinema.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I try to avoid thinking that everyone I don’t like in politics is stupid. Manchin, like Sinema, has had some pretty unlikely success in poltics, but….
Also, Manchin’s terror of the Undeserving Poor getting some “hand out” is unfortunately pretty widespread
Baud
Best of luck to the Democratic women.
PaulB
It would be nice if there were work requirements and means-testing on the tax breaks to the wealthy.
oldster
As appalling as Manchin is, the really appalling thing is that he is better than the left-most Republican Senator, and far better than any Republican from West by god Virginia who would replace him.
So, we work for more Dems in more states so that he is no longer the pivotal vote.
It’s nauseating, but that’s reality.
taumaturgo
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Another big lie propagated by conservative Christians and awfully refuted by the opposition.
Baud
I can’t believe people don’t want to work while on leave. Next thing you know, soldiers aren’t going to want to fight while on leave.
Suzanne
I just get so unbelievably filled with rage when I read shit like this. Obvs dood is stupid. But, like, fuck, what’s the worst that happens, people get a short amount of paid time to take care of their families?! That’s fucking work. Only the kind of cosseted, entitled, fluffed-for-decades mediocrity like Joe Manchin would not be aware of that. Carrying, birthing, and adopting children is difficult and strenuous. Caring for an ill family member or close friend is difficult and strenuous. Both activities require a huge amount of emotional and physical labor. Only an asshole who has never done either thing would be concerned that this would enable laziness.
Ryan
OMG he’s such a tool!
Baud
@oldster:
Exactly.
SpaceUnit
I’m currently enjoying indefinite leave from all sorts of high-paying jobs.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: There’s an older generation of men whose wives never worked, and they don’t get it.
Mike E
Moving Goalposts ought to be the name of Manchin’s houseboat.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Matt
He doesn’t even pay attention to the specifics of policies anymore, he’s just repeating off-the-shelf “make the policy worse” slogans.
Baud
Cal Cunningham’s affair seems like small potatoes now, don’t it?
Baud
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
I’m concerned about women who pretend to give birth in order to mooch off hard working Americans.
Baud
@Mike E:
It’s a yacht.
thebewilderness
I thought for some time that he was simply lying, but now I suspect dementia.
Suzanne
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
This is exactly right. And those dudes never really appreciated what their wives did for them all day, how much of basic societal functioning only took place because of this enormous amount of unpaid labor.
Baud
@Suzanne:
History of the U.S.
Suzanne
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I will note that Spawn the Youngest is 2 years and 4 months old, I have lost all the baby and pandemic weight (and more), and I still have wrist and shoulder pain from the postpartum swelling that requires me to wear a wrist brace to sleep.
sab
@Suzanne: Some men who live on yachts just don’t care to understand what life is like for working women who can’t cash in on overpriced epipens.
dr. bloor
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
In fairness, he does see a metric butt-tonne of it whenever he’s back in his home state.
dr. bloor
@Mike E: Eh, he should just rename it the Joe Lieberman.
Chetan Murthy
@thebewilderness: Nope.
@Matt:
This. He’s trying to wreck it as much as possible. That he turned down even the parts that could help his state, is the tell.
Suzanne
@Baud: TRUFACTS.
I remember discussing this with a social conservative, and he kept saying that churches used to do all these things that progressives now want government to do, and I was like, “Dude, who do you think really did that work? Not paid church employees. Women. Women members made those hot meals and took them to neighbors who were housebound, and organized church preschools, and maintained those vegetable gardens and sewed those quilts and ran fundraiser bake sales and, and, and.”
Fuck Joe Manchin.
Mike E
@Baud: He wasn’t a good candidate. That rests solely on NC’s schlerotic, has-been Democratic Party. I met him before the revelations came to fore and he honestly didn’t impress me. Kay Hagen (RIP) didn’t either but she rode Obama’s coattails to office where she couldn’t muster a memorable term to survive reelection. John Edwards’ saga is well-noted also, and you can say the Dems are hard-pressed to field a decent statewide candidate… prepare yourself to be disappointed, sad to say.
sab
@Dorothy A. Winsor: I sure miss the days when I worked 8+ hours after commuting two, and then came home to cook dinner, and spent every weekend cleaning up after the boys/men in my house who did no housework except for their own laundry
ETA And that is a huge improvement over my first husband who did nothing in the house and expected me to stop off at the grocery on my way home from work at 8:30 pm when I had left the house that morning at 4:30 am.
Suzanne
@sab: I used to work at an architecture firm owned by this guy who was the stereotypical architect dude of his generation. He went to Yale, worked for a very famous architect for a while, then progressed to buying a firm with inherited money and running it with his name on the door. Dude is in his mid-60s and has no plans to stop working because he loves it. Which, fine. But the younger cohort — both women and men — struggle with wanting to be present for their families, and he gave some of them shit about it. It wasn’t until his daughter had a baby with special needs that he finally admitted that he didn’t really realize how difficult it was.
Like, fucker, I know you think that you’re smarter and better than everyone who works for you, but you’re not. People have been telling you that this is hard. You haven’t been listening. I’m so sick of people not being aware enough of other people’s lives that they cannot see something until it happens to them.
UncleEbeneezer
Make Manchinema Irrelevant Again 2022
eclare
@Suzanne: Abso-fucking-lutely. Growing up my mom volunteered for everything, church stuff and non-church stuff, like Meals on Wheels.
Baud
@UncleEbeneezer:
Is there a reason we didn’t go with Sineman or Sinemanchin?
Both seem easier to pronounce.
Kay
This country is backward on issues that primarily benefit women. Other countries beat us on a lot of these measures. You can’t stay stuck in 1993 and expect to keep up with the other wealthy countries.
I assumed paid family leave would be one of the first things cut- we don’t even take basic “survival level” care of women when they have children- our maternal mortality rate is awful:
We have about 20 years of catching up to do just on survival of mothers during and immediately after pregnancy. Backwards. WAAAAY behind.
The postpartum period is 42 days after birth. So the paid leave period. Hmmm. I wonder if our developing nation level standard for family leave has anything to do with all these dead mothers.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Chetan Murthy:
Hasn’t Manchin always been the vote we needed?
Chetan Murthy
@Baud: Cinemansion.
Chetan Murthy
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Well, from what I understand, he was …. until he wasn’t anymore. As Wash says, “curse your sudden but inevitable betrayal!”
Baud
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
Huh? We absolutely need his vote. That’s the problem.
Betty
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: My understanding is Joe is a legacy politician based on his father’s position.
Betty
@Dorothy A. Winsor: His wife is quite active, given a p!um assignment by Biden which bought him zero loyalty.
Lacuna Synecdoche
WaPo via Betty Cracker @ Top:
Sounds like an Orwellian way of saying, “Asshole keeps moving goalposts.”
Betty
@Suzanne: Nuns also too, whose numbers are ever dwindling.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Baud:
It was more of a reference to what Omnes would say months back about Manchin always coming through for us in the end with his vote. It doesn’t seem like that’s the case here, because of his continuously bringing up BS “concerns”, watering down BBB. Plus, his refusal to create a carve-out for voting rights
Kay
Why doesn’t he look at a state with family leave? New York. Christ, he can go there and ask people.
Like 90% of the “questions” and “concerns” conservatives have could be addressed if they’d do the tiniest bit of work before opening their mouths.
I love how this “I have questions!” bleating puts the entire onus on other people to deliver information to conservatives who are sitting on their ass, formulating “questions”. They’re the people you work with who ask a question after the presentation when the answer was IN the presentation. “Go look it up” never occurred to Joe Manchin or his entire staff?
Ruckus
@Suzanne:
Very good rant. Sorry that it’s all true.
JM is a wealthy, powerful person. With values that should make that far less of a problem for the people that he supposedly represents. But like a lot of wealthy powerful people he really exists to protect himself and others in his circle, that he can not see outside of. Self interest is fine, without it survival would be a far more used word. Self interest at the expense of the people that said, by their vote, to work for us and we will pay you far more than we make to protect us have that same self interest. But greed almost always gets in the way, as it seems to have in most if not all republicans. (and a few democrats as well)
Baud
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
Well, if anything passes, it’ll be because he voted for it. He’s infuriating, but he’s not acting as badly as any Republican yet, despite the rhetoric you see on the Internet.
Ruckus
@Kay:
He doesn’t want to actually know the answer is why he never asks. Because then he’d have to admit that he’s not doing the job he was hired to do but the one that is only in his narrow self interest.
Sure Lurkalot
@Suzanne:
Also fuck the idea of funding the needs of a country and its people by philanthropy.
Baud
I hope Manchin caves on family leave so Kasie Hunt won’t have to interview suburban women.
smith
That brain-dead comment about a work requirement shows that he thinks of paid leave as welfare, not a job benefit. That’s half a step removed from the thinking of RW employers who can only conceive of employees as costs.
Kay
The only advances women have made in the US in the last 30 years have been in college degree attainment, an achievement women did entirely thru their own initiative and against the headwinds of declining public contributions to higher education and increasing costs.
In fact, if anyone figures out a public program might primarily benefit women it’s basically DOA. That’s a dealbreaker.
Kay
@Ruckus:
You know, it’s a lie that there are no bad questions. There’s a whole set of questions people should have to find the answers to themselves. How entitled and lazy do you have to be to demand other people drop information into your mouth like they’re feeding you grapes?
Omnes Omnibus
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): He always has come through in the end. And he hasn’t voted against it yet, has he? Jesus, let the process play out. I’ll be as pissed as everyone else if either of these jackasses tank this. But they haven’t yet.
Lacuna Synecdoche
… One particularly diplomatic advocate mollified Manchin by assuring him that the law would require any employee requesting work leave to inform their employer – thereby ensuring that anyone receiving work leave would be employed.
Republicans responded by saying they couldn’t support any bill that unconstitutionally required employees to tell businesses when they would be taking leave, or any bill that required any socialist unconstitutional informed consent from employers before granting leave.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Baud:
@Omnes Omnibus:
Fair enough. I hope you’re both right
Kay
I don’t care what any of you say, it is fucking weird that Chuck Schumer is rarely mentioned in this deal. I don’t recall this…. absence of a congressional leader in a major deal as long as I’ve been watching politics. Is he around anywhere? Got anything going on? He knows Joe Biden can’t do his job for him, right?
Citizen Alan
@Baud: Don’t remind me of that (literal) fucker. When I think about all the set-backs this nation has suffered because Democratic men couldn’t keep their damned pants zipped up, I want to scream.
Suzanne
@Ruckus: What just kills me is that Manchin is failing at the core task of representative governance, which is understanding the lives of your constituents. What are their lives like? What are the constraints on them? What do they want for their lives? What stands in the way of that? What risks do they face? I bet Joe Manchin couldn’t answer those incredibly basic questions successfully for anyone other than a rich white dude. How can you be so fucking clueless? Like, have you read a book, ever?
trollhattan
@Baud:
Hoo dat? I know Cal Worthington (r.i.p. and also many dogs Spot).
Cameron
@Kay: I don’t think there’s any way he can reach either Manchin or Sinema. I’d rather see nothing about him than see 4-foot-high headlines in Our Liberal Media proclaiming “Schumer’s Total Defeat At The Hands Of The Terrible Two!!!!!!”
Ksmiami
@Suzanne: he’s such an entitled, pathetic ass… and don’t get me started on Sinema.
Ksmiami
@Kay: Like Garland, Schumer isn’t up to the job. Sorry
Lacuna Synecdoche
@Baud:
Because Manchinema provided the dubious extra frisson of being a pun on Machinima – a term for animated creative content, usually satirical, formed with 3D game engines and the like.
It also was also used for the name of a YouTube channel, Machinima.com that focused on machinima, gamer culture, and memes, which eventually grew to be pretty scammy, leading it to be mostly shutdown at this point.
Ksmiami
@Omnes Omnibus: wtf. They have helped tank Biden’s approvals, are putting Dem seats and overall messaging in danger and wasting everyone’s time. Seriously just fuck them: declare a climate emergency (looking at you mid-Atlantic) and spend trillions rebuilding infrastructure that way. I actually think Americans prefer a strong man over messy governance anyway- then Biden should just be that
Hoodie
Over many years of being involved in law firm management, I have repeatedly witnessed a mentality in some folks that can be described as “we can’t do nice things because someone I don’t like or understand may get away with something.” Of course, some of that is projection, but some of it can be traced to a reality distortion similar to innumerate perspective on risks like air travel or getting vaccinated, i.e., nothing is worth doing unless it can be done perfectly and any possibility of failure from a particular action is viewed in a vacuum instead of a context of countervailing risks. In this case, for example, Manchin is more worried about the possibility of a few people ripping off parental leave than the millions who will be helped and the general contribution this can make to overall productivity. This mentality can be particularly pronounced in folks who are a favored position in a relatively impoverished context, and thus are more worried about losing what they have than they are committed to improving the community as a whole. Its not surprising that Manchin exhibits these traits, given his background as a big fish in a small, oxygen-starved pond.
Ksmiami
@Suzanne: why is he there other than self-enrichment and vanity?
Omnes Omnibus
We fundamentally disagree. But thanks for being honest. I think there are a good number of people on the left who don’t really believe in democracy anymore than those on the right. I think all of you are wrong.
Ksmiami
@Omnes Omnibus: it’s not my preference but our Senate is like Rome in 147 CE. Just completely ass-backward and useless in a Democracy
Cameron
@Omnes Omnibus: I think there is a significant percentage of Americans who would be happy with authoritarian/totalitarian government, and a significant percentage who are indifferent. I don’t agree with either of those positions, but the number of people who hold them isn’t zero.
Betty Cracker
Even though Manchin deserves to be punched in the dick by a kayaking single mom with chronically ill parents, I’d trade either of my senators for him faster than a pharma exec can jack up the price of an EpiPen. And whoever eventually replaces him will be worse.
The sad truth is we are an exceptional nation. Exceptionally backward, stingy and dysfunctional. Gotta keep trying to change that. No other choice!
Baud
@Lacuna Synecdoche:
Thanks!
KSinMA
@Suzanne: Thank you.
Cameron
@Betty Cracker: You’re not a fan of Nosferatu and Scooter?
Tehanu
@Suzanne: You and me both. However Manchin started out in life, for the last 40 years he’s been catered to, looked up to, sucked up to, and generally led to believe that he’s a Great Man above the petty concerns of the hoi polloi – and if in all that time he’s lifted a finger to do anything except tell other people what to do, I’d fall over dead with shock.
trollhattan
@Hoodie:
Remember fucking Ronny Reagan and the “Cadillac-driving welfare queen”? That mentality really caught on.
Hell, a few years back I recall hearing either Huck or Newt (basically the same guy) dispense an anecdote about somebody going through the drugstore drivethru to get their Obamacare drugs while in a BMW.
Heaven forefend. (and never you mind I can pick among a dozen under $2k bimmers on Craig’s List should I be the adventurous type).
Baud
@Ksmiami:
This is an Internet fantasy and a dangerous one because people will believe it’s something real.
Lacuna Synecdoche
@Cameron:
I think it’s safe to say that percentage is probably identical to Donald Trump’s share of the vote in 2020 – 46.9%.
Lacuna Synecdoche
@Baud: Willkommen.
Kristine
:@Suzanne:@Sure Lurkalot
Yup. You can’t budget for philanthropy. You’re always a bad divorce or economic downturn away from loss of funding.
Conservatives also like it because of the control aspect. Folks don’t get help unless they follow your rules.
Ruckus
@Kay:
I’m pretty sure there is no solid answer to that question because it varies, degenerate by degenerate. But JM mets whatever the requirements are for entitled, wealthy assholes.
And for those who say that’s all well and good but JM is actually on our side. And yes he sort of is. But he also sort of isn’t. He’s the kid in class that always argues that 2+2 does not always equal 4. And he somewhat correct in that we should ask how much is this going to cost and what do we have to do to pay for it. But the system is rigged in that those are questions that should raise the questions of how are our citizens taxed and shouldn’t the far more able to pay, who have benefited dramatically from the system to make a lot more than those who need the boost up, have to pay what is unarguably their fair share, while indeed they pay far less than the people that provided them with their massive excess wealth.
dopey-o
will no one think of the Undeserving Rich?!!!
oh wait, Mancinema have that covered.
smith
@Baud: It’s also wandering way far into Green Lantern territory. Why doesn’t Biden just make Manchin and Sinema behave? The answer is simple — it’s because he doesn’t in fact have the power to make them do anything. Pushing these ideas feeds the all-too-common myth of presidential omnipotence, which sets the stage for willing acceptance of genuine dictatorial rule.
Omnes Omnibus
@smith: People are expecting it of Schumer too. In the end, Sinema and Manchin are in a position of power at this moment and we can’t push them to hard lest they wish us into the cornfield.
Ruckus
@Suzanne:
One can be that clueless if they only look in their own direction. JM obviously does not mingle with his constituents any more than he absolutely has to get them to vote for him. Which BTW is what most national politicians actually do. And I’d bet that if most of them did mingle it would make a lot of people not like them because they can not equally talk to everyone, because everyone does not have the same needs, some have more and some have less and some are so needy that it’s likely that no one can help them.
Ruckus
@Hoodie:
I’m trying to say the same thing but you did it so much better.
Thank you.
smith
@Ruckus: I’m pretty sure Manchin sees his constituents as the Job Creators, those paragons of capitalist virtue, who will suffer dreadfully if paid leave is required. The people who might take that leave, not so much.
Ksmiami
@Baud: we are already in make believe land. Trump as President confirmed it.
cope
@Chetan Murthy: Ot we can play with first names and get Joekyr. Joker…get it? Joker. I’ll see my way out now, thanks.
smedley the uncertain
@Baud: Manchinema : I like the flavor of macinations and enema
Bonnie
Manchin, as part of the Federal Government, has a very nice paid leave program. Does he use his in a fraudulent manner? He seems to be insulting all Federal Government employees that maybe he thinks they are the ones committing fraud. He really has become a loathsome man. Time for him to retire.
J R in WV
Perhaps Mr Manchin should be asked to set aside 6 hours every day next week for interviews with a V hostile FBI team of lawyer agents, along with his daughter. No defined point, just wandering interview questions that would be hard to answer. Just a warning shot across the bow, as it were.
Same for Ms Siniema? Sure, why not!
ETA: Where were you on Jan 5th at 1:30 pm? etc, for the next 3 days every half hour… Then a lunch break before more questions…
ETA2: And his wife, who was appointed to a prestigious Appalachian Commission chair job with both a large annual salary AND a billion $$ spending budget, which could urge some folks to seek kickbacks from people receiving huge contracts from the App. Commission. Just asking questions, folks, No accusations so far.
Ksmiami
@Bonnie: I don’t understand these guys that go into public service just to enrich themselves- I dunno maybe they could just start a hedgefund and stay out of government. He’s just completely lost the plot and Sinema never had it to begin with
SFAW
@Omnes Omnibus:
So? Susan Collins voted against Kavanaugh when his nom came to the floor of the Senate. In case that’s too abstruse a point: she had a chance to kill his nom in committee, and didn’t. [If memory serves, she did so because she got “promises” from Traitor Turtle, but I might be mixing that vote up with another of her kabukis.]
In other words: his homeopathy with the bill, while (eventually) allowing it to pass, is neutering some key programs which would conceivably help Dems bigly across the country.
Maybe he can get some sweet tax breaks for Mylan, in exchange?
But, yeah, he’s better than a Rethug.
SFAW
@Omnes Omnibus:
You didn’t used to be this dickish. WTF is going on?
Or is this just a variation of “Anyone who says ‘things are really fucked up’ is an Eeyore, and I fucking HATE Eeyores with the heat of 100 bazillion suns, and will demonstrate that whenever I get a chance”? [I haven’t put you in the Anti-Eeyore Brigade in the past, and not doing it now, but I see parallels.]