“It’s just absolutely horrific,” Sen. Joe Manchin told reporters Tuesday, responding to the massacre at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas. “You all know where I stand—I’ll do anything I can.” Except, of course, vote to end the filibuster on legislation to save lives. Because, he said in the same interviews, “The filibuster is the only thing that prevents us from total insanity.”
Like law enforcement standing by for an entire hour while little children were calling 911 begging for help? That kind of total insanity?
Also, this:
It feels “different” this time, he says, attempting to pretend he has any human feelings by invoking his grandchildren. It’s different this time. Except it was also different for Manchin after Sandy Hook.
“I can do something,” an emotional Manchin told parents who lost children in the attack, CNN reported back in 2013. He told Andrea Mitchell on MSNBC that Sandy Hook “has changed me.” He told Joe Scarborough on MSNBC that “seeing the massacre of so many innocent children has changed everything,” he said. “Everything has to be on the table.”
Three years after Sandy Hook, Manchin
observed the tragic anniversary with a statement. This time he made no promises about being the guy to can do something. Instead, it was thoughts and prayers. Literally.
“Today, Gayle and I join all West Virginians and Americans across the country in remembrance and in sending our thoughts and our prayers to the families who lost their loved ones in the horrific tragedy in Newtown,” the statement read. “As we keep these families in our thoughts, let us recognize their endless bravery and kindness. Three years later, the grieving process for these families does not get any easier. Today, we pray for these incredibly courageous families to get through this indescribably difficult time.”
Many of those Sandy Hook families don’t want to hear that one more fucking time, nor do they want any of the families who’ve had to join their horrific club to hear it.
Nicole Hockley, who set up the lobby group Sandy Hook Promise after her son died in the attack, wrote in USA Today: “How many children have to die before politicians stop caring as much about their political careers as they do about their constituents and the lives of the children? These shootings are everywhere.”
“I’m sick at what you are going through today,” Mary Ann Jacob, who was working as a librarian at Sandy Hook that day, said to the people of Uvalde on Twitter. “I am transported back to the firehouse that we were brought to after the shooting at our school almost 10 years ago. I’m so sorry those deaths did not change our world. I’m broken hearted.”
It’s different this time, though, Manchin insists.
“I’ve never been more encouraged by more activity from my Republican colleagues and Democrat colleagues,” Manchin said. “I can remember after Sandy Hook, I didn’t have anybody coming to the table.” Except for the 48 Democrats who voted to advance his bipartisan background checks bill in 2013, a bill which Republicans successfully filibustered.
It’s not different this time. The same game is being played all over again. Mitch McConnell has deputized Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) to act in the role he gave Pat Toomey in 2013—pretend to work with Manchin and a group of Democrats. So they can look like they’re doing something while time and other events push the horror to the background for the rest of the nation.
And continue to do nothing until the next time, when they say that everything is really changed this time, again.
