If I can’t play, I’m taking my ball and going home MLB testicular cancer survivor Mickey Morandini
When it comes to West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin, I have always tried to apply the Ronald Reagan dictum of A man who votes with you 80% of the time is not an enemy. While a sometimes pain in the ass, Manchin was nonetheless a fairly reliable blue vote from a red state.
I am not a psychiatrist, don’t even play one in blogdom, so I have no idea what slight, real or perceived, led Manchin to his intemperate comments on FUX News yesterday. But I do know that he stepped on his crank. With golf cleats. And being an egomaniac, he of course responded to White House criticism with another whiny retort today.
At this point, even Manchin knows he went a bridge too far. The Build Back Better Act has a 68% popularity in West Virginia, higher than Manchin’s. Biden is furious, and Jen Psaki spanked him in a statement. Manchin’s “NO” declaration has his own constituents pissed off at him. Not only that, but his rejection of the bill will stop a tax stipend on December 31st that will cost West Virginia coal miers 50% of the funding they were receiving for their black lung treatment.
Manchin desperately needs a way off of the ledge he has wandered onto, and so far, the Democrats aren’t having any. The House progressives are slamming him for having forsaken his word, the most important thing a Senator has. And Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer is assuring all and sundry that he will call the bill to the floor for a vote, forcing Senators to make a choice.
But there is an off ramp available for Manchin. Schumer never said that the BBB Act vote would be the first vote in the new year. Schumer is planning on calling the voting rights legislation up first, which will include a reform of the Senate rules on the filibuster, likely meaning a talking filibuster with 40 minorioty asses in seats. Manchin has already publicly expressed support for this option. This would not only open the way for the Manchin brokered voting rights, but for the John Lewis Voting Roghts Act.
And therein lies Manchin’s salvation. He can vote for the filibuster change, and tha passage of the voting rights legislation. Once that’s done, the Democrats can negotiate with Manchin to strip a few things from the BBB act that he can’t stomach, and then he votes to pass the reformed bill.
Welcome to the Potomac Two Step. Manchin overstepped, the party will give him a spanking, and allow him a way out of the wilderness. And unless I miss my guess, Manchin will take it. He will push himself once again in front of the cameras, and the party will let him lick his nuts. Because Manchin is damaged goods, and he’s going to need the party’s help to rehabilitate himself. Don’t despair yet. Welcome to politics.
Pelosi remains confident. A good sign. The MSM is having a field day. Manchin, in his childish anger ran right into a patch of poison ivy. He is a lepper, for the moment. Too, he has exposed himself to have the same hate for the poor as any good Republican. I don’t know that he will have the smarts to do the right thing now, but he might. He looks and sounds as stupid as dirt.
I am so hoping the Dems manage to pick up at least 4 Senate seats next year (without losing any of their current seats). That way, come January 3, 2023, Schumer (or whoever gets the Senate Majority Leader post) tells Manchin, “You’re done. You will not have ANY committee chair posts–you will not have ANY committee assignments. You screwed us over and now you’re paying for it. Go ahead. Join the GOP. Just remember what usually happens when a Democrat joins the GOP: They’re welcomed to the Party but when the next election comes along, they’re kicked to the curb.”
Sigh. We can all have pleasant fantasies.
Want to make them realities? WORK FOR THEM. After first of the year, there’ll be no shortage of opportunities to do just that vis-a-vis elections. Hopes and actions always go farther than hopes and prayers.
I think Manchin’s getting huffy so he can jump ship (houseboat excluded) Wasn’t it just last week McConnell said he’d welcome him into the fold? Then,suddenly after so much alleged “good faith” dealings with the WH he kills BBB. The Dems get to be the villains for pushing him from his DINO pillar and he can be the victim all independently wealthy servants of the people long to be?
I agree with Murfster on the issue of changing sides. His political career will be over. The repubs initially will welcome him, then replace him.
To do such a doofus thing on such a giant stage, Manchin’s judgement was skewed by someone else, the rapid flip from chats with Biden, {a REAL president}, statements to the public on just as large a stage, as the public was READY for the BBB, it made perfect sense that, NOT funding all the fix-ups and advantages to working poor and health expenses and monthly rents or mortgages holding sway over providing full meds to children or other family members …
Which rotten money system offered him something he could not refuse? He is well known for favors to the coal industry and other dirty money … hmnn, let’s have all the facts on this bird brain … if you tell the president all is well, then only hours later no-go, the President AND OUR Congress have every right to know who/what got to Manchin … OR is he just as stupid as he sounds?
The second one…like his fossilized counterparts in the GOP, he forgot what decade this was and overplayed his hand. He is now being publicly flogged for that and rightly so.
If you find yourself with time on your hands, do kindly call Manchin’s DC office to let you know what you expect of him. It’s fun and it helps keeps the pressure on him. The number is 202-224-3954
I apologize in advance for not writing to a first-order idiot. Stepping on his crank with cletes may have given him that superb pain he required, but for me, it just reinforces his idiot stature. Kick him out, West Virginia, he is just a rich, stupid man.
He is a crook
What. he does not care. This Bill will help people.