You know, I’ve been doing this a long time, and I’ve loved it. Politics is normally a zero sum game. Somebody wins, somebody else loses. Somebody gains, somebody else loses. And every once in a thousand years or so, they hit the political sweet spot, and everybody pretty much wins.

That being said, I have, almost from the start, had a serious problem in even trying to wrap my head around the reasoning for turncoat Democrats Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema’s almost inexplicable stance on filibuster reform for the voting rights legislation before the Senate.

Look, politicians in general are the most self centered, self serving humans on the planet, that’s why Trump fits in so naturally. While they talk a great game for the plebians at home, when they make a decision, it is based in political self interest, and gains them somehow. Their treachery they’ll try to explain later.

But when it comes to the voting rights legislation, I just can’t seem to get a handle on Manchin and Sinema. I mean, on the Build Back Better Act, it was simple. Manchin’s portfolio is replete with fossil fuel stocks, and he’s from a coal state. The BBB act wanted to phase out coal, and end subsidies for fossil based fuels, which could cost Manchin hundreds of thousands of dollars a year from his personal portfolio. I could get his resistance.

And the same thing is true for Sinema as well, she is totally transparent. She is buried so deep in the pocket of Big Pharma that if you ever threw her into a clothes dryer, she’d get caught up in the lint filter. And the BBB Act wanted to free up Medicare and Medicaid to negotiate drug prices directly with drug companies, and allow the import of approved Canadian drugs, such as insulin. A no brainer there.

But what the fuck?!? We’re talking about voting rights here fer Crisslake’s! Where in the hell is their political or personal self interest in resisting voting rights? What possible hidden interests do they have that are bettered by them denying voting rights to American citizens? There aren’t any. As far as I can tell, there are nobody but neo-Nazis, Klansmen,
Republicans that benefit from the denial of voting rights. There is no obvious political or personal reason for either Manchin or Sinema to obstruct voting rights!

Y’all know me. I’m seldom at a loss for words. But in this case, I cannot find a single reason to explain the resistance of Manchin and Sinema for voters rights. Even their bullshit claims of Senate traditionalism ring hollow. Neither Manchin nor Sinema has ever spent a day in the Senate that wasn’t controlled by O’Connell obstructionism, using the filibuster as the centerpiece.

There is only one answer I can think of, and I hate to say it. Manchin is from a solidly red state, one with strong confederate ties. And Sinema is a Senator from a traditionally red state that, if I remember correctly, was the last state to recognize MLK Day as a national holiday. I can only conclude that their inherent, ingrained racism is clouding their judgement. May God have mercy on their souls. Because nobody else will.

 

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18 COMMENTS

  1. Since they profess to be Christians I say Goddamn the both of them. Goddamn them to HELL! Along with every Republican who is fighting tooth and nail against voting rights. Torquemada would recoil in horror at the punishments I wish they’d endure in the Hell they believe in.

    • As usual, my NC brother, I agree. Completely. I know we’re supposed to pray for our enemies, but I’m not that good a Christian.

      • I significant part of my ongoing grief over the death of John Lewis is that I siimply cannot fully honor him because while I know in my heart he would want me to forgive even those who so actively fight the progress he worked (and suffered) for I just can’t do it. There is no forgiveness in my heart for these people. In fact there exists something of which I know he’d disapprove. I hold these people in utter contempt, and hate them with an intensity I can’t put into words that would adequately express it.

  2. “Manchin is from a solidly red state, one with strong confederate ties.”

    Um, Murf? Might want to reconsider that line to explain the “inherent, ingrained racism” bit. West Virginia seceded from Confederate Virginia during the Civil War largely because it was the section of pre-Civil War Virginia which had almost relatively few slaves.

    • You are partially correct but not entirely about WV. Yes, that section of Virginia split off but there was plenty of Confederate thinking even then. And over time it became ingrained racism widespread throughout the state. I lived there for over ten (closer to eleven years) after dropping out of the beltway rat-race in 2003. In so many ways I felt like I’d moved back to my native southern Illinois, and one of those things was the weird mix of pockets of tolerant people mixed in with a wider bunch of poor and working poor pissed off white people who viewed anyone non-white as “the other” and/or “takers” which was rich. I say that because when you listen to white people coaching each other on how to work the system for “welfare” type stuff while out of the other side of their asses bad-mouthing non-whites as “takers” it makes your head spin.

      There is an awful lot of racism in WV (as in southern Illinois where I spent my first 26 years) and it’s been that way for many generations. It’s ingrained both in cities and small town/rural places there. It’s also worth remembering something you noted – like Moscow Mitch’s Kentucky unlike confederate states WV’s percentage of minorities is close to the national average. Manchin (and Sinema too) don’t have to worry much about increased black/minority turnout which gives them more room to grift and sell their votes on key legislation and policy.

  3. They’ve been spending all their free-time attending high-dollar REPUBLICAN fundraisers. They have been bought by that sweet, sweet, sweet Koch money.

  4. What really frosts my cookies, is that the repubs will abolish the filibuster the next time they are in power. You know they will do it in a heartbeat. There’s no good reason for their obstructionism, besides loyalty to the other side.

    • Of course, they will. This whole debate w/ Manchild and Cinema is so phony. The fact that the rethugs were shaking Cinema’s hand after the vote said it all. She’s too stupid to realize they are just using her and that her career is effectively over.

  5. If the fascists take over, & a culture that has had the most freedoms rebels, as we will, as the hope of freedom has yet to be killed here, or anywhere else, we will remember who did what, & who our true enemies were. In my low moments, I remind myself of the scene in the last Tolkien movie where Aragon enlisted the spirits of dead warrior kings & gave them a chance to fulfill their oaths. I remind myself Abraham Lincoln stands with me. Dr. King stands with me. Harriet Tubman stands with me. Ghandi stands with me. All the famous & unknown who stood for right over might stands with me. Jesus stands with me. Some of you stand with me, & no matter how different we are as people, if u stand with those I’ve mentioned, then I stand with you. Never give up hope. Dylan sang in Idiot Wind, “there’s a lone solider on the cross. Smoke pouring out of a boxcar door. U didn’t know it, u didn’t think it could be done. In the end he won the war after losing every battle.” Let’s go win this damn war & give our children a better world.

  6. Joseph, I hate to be so simplistic but I can see no other answer than “follow the money”. These two have made it quite clear they are getting money for their shenanigans. It is a given manchin is gone in his next election. I think it is also a given sinema will be also. They are trying to grift as much as they can get during the interim.

  7. It’s been obvious from the get-go, with all the foot-dragging, the poor excuses, the elaborate excuses, everything Manchenema has done to waste our precious time, to keep Dems from accomplishing much of anything especially anything, god forbid, to do with allowing more people to vote. Repugs know they fare better when fewer people vote. These two asses are in the pocket of repugs and their billionaire cronies who don’t want clean energy or fair prices for Rx drugs. They know they have us screwed because one or the other could jump ship, join the repugs (all of Manchin’s protests to the contrary) and we’d be back under McConnell’s thumb again. Which may happen anyway with the mid-terms, short of a miracle. It’s just so damned frustrating to see the shadow of Mordor on the horizon. You’d think in the 21st f*king century we’d be so far beyond the medieval minds that seem to be running things in the background.

    • Actually, the Senate is looking pretty good. None of our four vulnerable senators is facing any serious rethug competition. We only need two pickups (to make S&M irrelevant) and we have many places where we have a chance – Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, North Carolina. We may even have a shot in Iowa w/Grassley running for reelection at 88, and Marco Rubio is not looking unbeatable in FL.

      The House is where most of my concern lies. They say there are more Biden districts after redistricting, but the rethugs only need 5 seats to install the next Speaker, which Kevin McCarthy has not yet figured out won’t be him.

      • We had Tillis on the ropes down here in NC. But it turned out Cunningham couldn’t keep his dick in his pants and so we’ve been stuck with Tillis and a 50-50-50 Senate. What a difference that might have made, but ole Cal didn’t learn a goddamn thing from John Edwards’ and his fall into disgrace. If I ever meet Cal Cunningham I hope no one with “delicate ears” is around because I’ll be cussing him out like I would have done in my days as a grunt in the Corps!

  8. What really baffles me is the sense of false security in an unhinged, narcissistic, dictator wannabe. Hitler wiped out the rich connected conservatives in Germany that gave him power. Think being a billionaire saves you? Maybe they should talk to a few exbillionaires in Russia, now sitting in prison cuz Putin either found them threatening or he just wanted their industry for himself. I’m sure Trump is more trustworthy than Putin. Sure. Go ahead general Custer. Go on down into the bighorn.

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