The Exception that Proves the Rule, or Something

 

So, I think the takeaway from the 49-51 vote that failed to codify Roe has to be taken with a grain of salt--did you expect something else? It's a failure, but in the classic silver-linings sense, it's just demonstrative of one way to not succeed. What we have is only one out of 50 Democratic senators voting against your right to bodily autonomy, and every single one of the Republicans voting against it.

Manchin is an exception. The rule is: absolutely don't rely on a situation when only Joe Manchin doing the right thing stands between you and success. The only answer I get solving for that is--more not-Manchin Democrats in office. 

This also means: don't vote for a Republican unless you actually want a country where one's body is policed (Fugitive Uterus Act, anyone?) for unsanctioned reproductive activity (or inactivity, as the case may be). If people will just take very seriously the implications of this vote, it signals something bad for the GOP--a chalk outline, perhaps. 

Just Admit You Didn't Want To

 

Sen. Joe Manchin III on Sunday said that he could not vote to proceed on Democrats’ roughly $2 trillion spending package, dealing a potentially fatal political blow to the final piece of President Biden’s economic agenda. https://t.co/6MFbuz3w7L

— The Washington Post (@washingtonpost) December 19, 2021

"I can't do it." Huh. "I tried everything humanly possible." Hah. "I can't get there...this is a no."

Sure. I didn't see any gag on Sen. Manchin's mouth or leg irons on his legs preventing him. I'm not aware of any spell he was under that might have turned him into a toad if he voted for the bill. The thing he couldn't do was look his good lobbyist friends and his good fundraising friends in the eye and say, "I'm just going to do something that benefits my constituents." 

It would have been entirely humanly possible. He didn't want to do it. Now, there is some part of me that would love if three Christmas ghosts got on his case about this to change his mind in a Dickensian heart-warmer, but I don't think I see it. But if he didn't want to, and wasn't ever going to want to, he could have said so then, and he could admit it now. 

UPDATE:  How is he supposed to eeexxxxxpppllliaaainn it to West Virginia?

But sure, Joe Manchin is just representing his constituents. Got it. pic.twitter.com/xteA0uLjy0

— Brian Tyler Cohen (@briantylercohen) December 19, 2021

Um. I don't know. Tell them they are right and it is good? He's been ridiculous this whole time.

UPDATE:  Wow. The message from the White House comes about as close to calling a member of the Presiden'ts own party a damn liar as they professionally could. 

Speaking of A Hostile Work Environment....

 

Activists with Sunrise Movement confronted Joe Manchin this morning outside of his yacht on his way to the Capitol, in protest of his opposition to the Build Back Better social spending bill.

They followed him to his car, and then surrounded his car too. Some images: pic.twitter.com/IvDuEyXu0H

— Jennifer Bendery (@jbendery) November 4, 2021

Just recently, Sen. Manchin referred to his relationship with his colleagues on the Hill as a "hostile work environment" due to all of the partisanship. I seem to recall back in January there was a situation where the work environment was really hostile, and extremely partisan, and well, Manchin's reaction to that was "Why can't we all just get along?" or similar. 

So while I think he's completely wrong, I guess I'd give him points for consistency? As in "consistently wrong about what to do about all this". He's been complaining about how he really wants to see his party come down and do more negotiating (they have come down--they have negotiated!) and wants to see the impact of legislation on the debt and inflation and all this.... 

But when I see him and Sen. Sinema huddled with Mitch McConnell, the partisan motherfucker who denied President Obama a SCOTUS appointment and for a whole year and started ramming through Trump's pick in weeks, well....I think back to times when things were so much more bipartisan. (If there were such times, they were not ever in my lifetime, and I was born in Nixon's first term.) 

Anyway, I have been at times critical of the tactics of the Sunrise Movement because I think they might not be especially persuasive in their tactics and I sometimes question who and how they confront--because generally Democrats are trying to do something about the environment, but it's the GOP that really obstructs meaningful structural change. And as you can see in the above confrontation.... 

Joe Manchin has a really, really nice car.

Take the Uzi from the Babies

 

"I write to inform you that I will not provide such assistance again if your all-Democrat government drifts into another avoidable crisis," Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell said in a letter to President Biden. https://t.co/gqHCTeHiGq

— CNN (@CNN) October 9, 2021

While I don't think Democrats should need to be reminded that this is what the Republican Party is now, a shameless band of terrorists who definitely would throw the country into economic turmoil for petty political reasons, McConnell is doing just that. The entire tone is ridiculous. Of course we're going to hit the debt ceiling again and it will need to be raised again. It isn't something the Democrats did, it's the nature of paying for government to continue. McConnell is taking a page from the Trump book and acting as if the mildest criticism of his tactics is a deep and terrible breach of some imaginary comity that--

Holy fricking Jiminy Crickets, he has done as much as anyone else to erode. I don't know know what Manchin and Sinema need or what sweet nothings are being drizzled into their shell-like aural protuberances, but enough is enough. This is a threat: give up on your whole Democratic agenda or we sink the country. 

You can't negotiate with these folks. You shouldn't. There's no political upside. It leaves you nothing to run on. Take the UZI from the babies. McConnell as good as said "Don't trust us."  So don't. 

Kill the filibuster. Deliver the goods. And let McConnell know it was his own fault that it had to be this way. 

The Debt Ceiling Has to Go

 

So, did you all just see this giving birth to a prize watermelon effort that was put forward to just get a two-month extension on the debt ceiling, an artificial thing that shouldn't even exist because of course a nation who prides itself in the full faith and credit of its honorable debts pays those shits? 

Well, if you visit this blog, of course you did. And if you are a long time visitor, you know why I'm heated--we are past time to abolish  the stupid debt ceiling vote since it is absolutely a necessity and has become a political football. 

And it stays incredibly stupid after all this time: after some stupidly arbitrary legislative interval, responsible people have to once again explain that this is about paying the bills already due, like deciding whether to make your car payment or put at least the minimum on your credit card bill, like we haven't already been through this bullshit before. And the political grandstanders will act like that's not what it is, but say some dumb shit about how it's about new spending, which is nonsense, because of course there will be new spending. Like in a household, you have a mortgage payment and maybe a car loan, but that doesn't mean you don't still buy groceries or pay to fix the roof leak, right?

Take the Hint, Dems

 

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said that "the era of bipartisanship is over" in remarks earlier today. pic.twitter.com/hC0zBRnLEL

— POLITICO (@politico) June 8, 2021

Mitch McConnell is the guy who said earlier this year his job was to 100% block the Biden agenda. This was the guy who did the same thing to Obama, and denied him a SCOTUS pick. This guy right here, who says in the clip above, that the era of bipartisanship is over, and if you want the time of death--shit, that thing has been buried. He doesn't want to pass any kind of voting rights bill, any more than he wanted to even bring up voting security legisalation before the 2020 election. He doesn't want any kind of infrastructure or jobs bill that will, in his mind, hand President Biden a win.

He doesn't want it. And if the filibuster is at 60 votes, you get less than 10 Republicans for anything. And if the filibuster was set down to 55 votes, you'd be lucky to get 2 or three. That's how he wants it, and he gets it.

That's not to say you won't sometimes pass bills with Republican support or get certain cabinet or judicial appointments filled. It isn't to say some of the more moderate Senate Republicans will always toe McConnell's line--but I don't see how sticking to the ghost of bipartisanship helps.

And here's the thing--McConnell killed it, so you don't even have to feel guilty. Someone gets in your face about whatever happened to bipartisanship--you know who to point to. 

That was how he wanted it. That's how he should get it.