Actually, I don’t think that Joe Machin can be humiliated because he is like a Republican in one regard: he has no shame. But that is not stopping Moscow Mitch from publicly slapping Joe Manchin’s left cheek. Mitch has loudly and proudly stated that he and his Republican caucus are against the John Lewis Voting Rights Act. This is after Biden ended the bad faith meetings he had with Mitch’s creature Shelley Moore Capito over the infrastructure bill. But it appears that Senator Chuck Schumer is going to have repeatedly strike Manchin’s right cheek in public to try and snap Manchin out of his delusional thinking on bipartisanship.
It’s the only real political play left for some in the Senate Democratic caucus to make Manchin see the light, but who knows if it will work?
And although I am not in Joe Manchin’s head, his statements over the last several months about why he continues to support the filibuster are just plain old lies. The biggest is that the filibuster fosters bipartisanship. Manchin is acting like he wasn’t around the last 10 years in the U.S. Senate. How much evidence does he need to see of Republican duplicity and their ultimate political strategy of winning power at any costs? And the use of the filibuster is there weapon of choice.
And Manchin isn’t a nut like Sinema. Both are attention whores, but Sinema makes even less sense than Manchin. It’s possible Manchin is delusional in his thinking, but I don’t get the vibe of the same unseriousness we all experience with Sinema.
Rachel Maddow had a great line that encapsilated our reaction to Manchin’s reaction over the killing of a bipartisan Jan 6th Commission. Reporters claimed that Manchin was “shocked” that the 10 brave patriotic Republicans in the Senate didn’t magically appear to kill the Republican filibuster against the Jan 6th Commission. Maddow looked into the camera and said, “I’m shocked that you are shocked.”
So Republicans in the Senate vote in unity against the COVID relief bill. They stop the formation of a bipartisan commission to investigate Trump’s little insurrection. His state colleague Capito gives Biden nothing to work with in the infrastructure talks. And Manchin still holds tightly to “We need a bipartisan infrastructure bill!”
Therefore, Manchin has decided to continue this charade by being part of a group of 20 “bipartisan” senators who will hash out a deal on infrastructure. Too bad the group is off a terrible start:
A bipartisan group of 10 senators is trying to build support for a new infrastructure plan to revitalize U.S. roads and bridges without raising taxes, three lawmakers said on Wednesday, a day after President Joe Biden rejected a separate Republican proposal.
Revamping America's infrastructure is a high priority for Biden, but his proposal has run into trouble in a Congress only narrowly controlled by his fellow Democrats, making Republican support pivotal.
Republican Senator Mitt Romney told reporters that members of the group have reached "tentative conclusions" on their plan. It is expected to total nearly $900 billion. Biden had been pushing for a much higher figure, initially $2.3 trillion, but later lowered to $1.7 trillion.
"We're not raising taxes," Romney told reporters. "We're going to be talking to other members to see if this can get enough support for this to have the necessary votes to be successful."
This was Capito’s same talking points. Who is part of this Senate of Fools?
The group includes Republicans Romney, Rob Portman, Bill Cassidy, Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski and Democrats Kyrsten Sinema, Jon Tester, Joe Manchin, Mark Warner and Jeanne Shaheen.
I’m betting that Warner and Shaheen are at least some of those “moderate” Democrats who cannot give up the filibuster. They use Manchin as a heat shield. But we cannot know for certain because you have to be a Cool Kid (Media or member of Congress) to know .
Oh, and this not raising taxes does not rule out “user fees.” As for the rest:
Portman said the group is looking at funding mechanisms for their proposal that could face Democratic resistance including unspecified user fees and tapping into funds for COVID-19 pandemic-related unemployment payments to individuals that some states have returned to the U.S. Treasury.
I think I see a pattern. As talks drag on, Republican demands get worse. Hey! Didn’t they do this during the ACA?
And here is another kicker to that group:
For now, Democrats still are: After Biden closed talks with Capito, he opened up new ones with Republican Bill Cassidy, whose group includes GOP moderates like Mitt Romney, as well as conservative Democrats Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema. As Politico reported, that group may be more likely to come to an agreement among themselves. But the members, lacking influence in their respective parties, are also less likely to be able sell that deal back to their respective caucuses. “There is no way Manchin and Sinema are going to cut a deal that represents the view of the caucus,” a Democratic senator told CNN after a lunch Tuesday. “It’s just not going to happen.”
This confirms what former senator and usesless centrist Claire McCaskill said of Joe Manchin in particular. No one in the U.S. Senate follows Manchin’s lead. No one.
As for other important bills, as stated above Moscow Mitch pissed all over the John Lewis Votings Right Act.
A mere two days after Joe Manchin expressed confidence that Republicans would work with Democrats on voting rights legislation and that meaningful compromise was still possible in this bitterly polarized Washington, Mitch McConnell shot down the West Virginia senator’s bipartisan dreams…
But McConnell, setting the tone for the rest of his caucus, made clear that this bill wouldn’t have Republican support, either: “There’s no threat to the voting rights law,” McConnell told reporters. “I think it’s unnecessary.”
Manchin won’t support the For The People Act, but he said that he was for the John Lewis Voting Rights Act! He got Murkowski to support him on this effort! Yippee! One Republican Senator!
Reminder of Manchin’s ability to lead and persuade. Moscow Mitch let Manchin talk with Republican Pat Toomey about a very weak gun control bill. They crafted a bill that really only did universal back ground checks. It had overwhelming public support. When it was brought up for a debate, it died an ignoble filibuster death.
Therefore, it now is painfully obvious to Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer to show the nation and Joe Manchin that Republicans are not to be negotiatied with. There is no bipartisanship for even publicly popular measures. And Schumer will have to prove this by placing on the Senate floor several bills. And all of them will die by Republican filibuster.
As the Satanic Snapping Turtle Mitch said:
Manchin’s inability to see that has already weighed down Democrats’ efforts to govern—and it’s only going to get worse as they move on big-ticket priorities that McConnell has preemptively condemned as “extreme left-wing provisions.” “As you look toward what [Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer] has in mind for June,” McConnell told reporters Tuesday, “it’s pretty clear the era of bipartisanship is over.”