Manchin Wins, for Now

After a lot of meetings yesterday, reportedly including one-on-ones with Manchinema, President Biden told Dems yesterday that the Build Back Better reconciliation bill would have to be cut back to something in the neighborhood of $1.75 trillion to $1.9 trillion. And then today David Corn reported that Manchin is planning to leave the Democratic party if he doesn’t get his way on the bill. David Corn isn’t always reliable, but the possibility of jumping parties has been the trump card Manchin is presumed to be keeping up his sleeve.

So that’s probably it. Game over, for now.

 

7 thoughts on “Manchin Wins, for Now

  1. Ok, tell me again that this game ain't rigged.

    Because it sure looks rigged from my seats – way in the back, in the cheapEST seats!

    So tell me again. 

    But this time, tell me how it ISN'T rigged?!?

    I didn't hear anything.

    Can't do that, huh?!?

  2. The corporately owned media are saying that the Dems have given Manchit "no corporate tax raises".

    The corporately owned media are saying that sEnema has said she wants "no individual tax raises".

    Stephanie 'Wall Stree' Ruhle has a segment on her MSNBC program that talked at length about 'inflation' and how President Uncle Joe's programs will cause inflation to spiral.

    Of course C U N D is correct, the 'game' is rigged.

    The Dems will then try to get the lobbyist written $1.5T bill a vote. It has lots of money for corporations and nothing for the working classes. Whether it passes will be determined by whether Wall Street will pressure MoscowMitch to pass it. If that does pass, President Uncle Joe and the corporately owned democrats will claim a ‘huge’ victory and hope that the working classes don’t see that they have been screwed again.

  3. What the fresh hell?

    Manchin is reported to leave the Democratic party if he doesn't get his way?

    I suspect he was never in the party to begin with, ideologically.

    I will take January in the pool when he declares himself a Repug.'

    "I've never been in the Democratic party. I have always been a Republican.'

    The Ministry of Truth workers will have their work “cut out” for them.

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  4. From Biden at his town hall last night:

    Biden: Compromise has become a dirty word — but bipartisanship and compromise has to still be possible.”

    The irony here is we're talking "bipartisanship" within the democratic party.  Sinema and Manchin represent in this case and others, the republican opposition, allowing republicans the luxury of sitting back quietly and without any cost, to enjoy the show as their dirty work gets done for them.  The GOP has been monolithically opposed to everything for some time now, for purely political purposes, so while I wouldn't say compromise and bipartisanship across party lines is impossible, saying things like "it has to be possible" as justification for continuing to go down that path and coming away with nothing, is not sustainable.  Its already creating skepticism among democratic voters.  I had hope that Biden had learned that lesson as Obama's VP, but apparently not.

    Reporter: In multiple instances, he cited the opposition of two moderate senators, Joe Manchin III (D-W.Va.) and Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.),

    I wish they'd stop calling them "moderates."  They're not holding these positions to achieve a true middle ground.  They're representing donors that have interests that are in complete opposition to the majority of voters, and these so-called moderates often times take an it's my way or the highway approach when it comes to the interests of their donors exclusively ahead of the voters.  There's another term for that and its not moderate.

    Biden: Manchin, his argument is, ‘Look, we still have coal in the state, you’re going to eliminate it eventually, we know it’s going away, we know it’s going to be gone. But don’t rush it so fast that my people don’t have anything to do,’

    Translation:  I got a coal company that I've made millions from, and I want to continue to make millions of dollars for me and my family until the last nugget of coal is pulled from the ground, climate change be damned.  Biden knows this.

    Thanks to republican policy defenders within its own ranks, a simple democratic  majority is not enough for the party to push through the interests of its own voters.

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  5. In a binary world you have only zeros and ones.  Fractions are not allowed.  Moderate loses all meaning.  Republicans are almost pure zeros now.  The new age Republicans who sway with the whims of the guy who "lost" the last election.  

    There are many ways to be a conservative, and one can even work and study at a conservatory of music. Do you think they have a committee that decides which pieces of music are worth conserving and those that are not?  Or are they like the Republican party and just let one person, like let the guy that lost the last election decide what should be conserved?  

    In this binary world of politics, almost nobody is a pure zero or pure one.  On the issues almost everyone has a mix of ones and zeros. The Republicans are trying to achieve a party of pure zeros, no more McCain mavericks.  Only pure zero ditto heads allowed at least in the Senate and the Supreme Court.  The House did have a few "loose cannons" who voted Steve Bannon in contempt of congress.  At least a few of the have some sensible ones in their preponderance of zeros.  

    Oh for the olden days of the analog.  I remember when it could be a little before a quarter till noon.  You only wanted to make a bold statement like that if your watch was above average.  Otherwise you probably wanted more wiggle room.  

     

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