Well, here we go again. On Tuesday, the house passed the John Lewis voting advancement act. Once again we are confronted with the specter of the gruesome twosome of the filibuster, Joe Manchin and Kyrstin Sinema.
Both of them are full of cow pucky. They both support the filibuster, but for completely different reasons. Sinema supports the filibuster as the bulwark against future GOP abuses when they have power, and Manchin supports the filibuster with the mistaken belief that it requires legislation to be more moderate to gain enough bipartisan support to pass. They are both wrong.
Let’s start with Sinema. To begin with, she is a hypocrite of the highest order. When she ran for senate as a Green Party candidate, she was balls to the wall to nuke the filibuster. Now that she’s there, and the filibuster is controversial, she’s seeking the limelight. I previously wrote that you don’t need to filibuster bills too toxic to pass. Which is, at this point, all the house GOP is capable of producing. Her argument is both fatuous and specious.
Now, on to the Man of Law Manchin. Manchin purports to believe that the filibuster forces more compromise in order for legislation to pass. Nothing can be farther from the truth, and Manchin himself is a shining example.
In the “Brewski” Brett Kavanaugh confirmation process, Manchin provided the only Democratic yes vote to confirm him. In doing so, he made himself a pariah in the Democratic party.
Let me ask you a question. If Supreme Court confirmations in the Senate still required a 60 majority cloture vote to proceed, would Manchin have bothered to cast that vote knowing that no other Democrat would vote to confirm? Of course not, it would be an exercise in futility. The fact that it only took 50 votes to confirm Kavanaugh allowed Manchin to make the vote bipartisan.
Here’s a perfect example. How many bills have the Democrats proposed that have drawn interest from more centrists GOP Senators like Murkowski, Collins, and Romney. But because there weren’t 7 more Republicans to join them, there was nothing to gain for them to side with the Democrats on a vote doomed to failure. If the threshold was 51 votes for passage, it would be far more likely that moderate GOP Senators would cross the isle with votes they knew would pass a bill.
Now, neither of these examples touches touches directly on the voting rights legislation currently before the Senate. But, it does show the fallacy of the arguments of both Senators in favor of the filibuster. If they’re not going to stand for voting rights, then what is the point? Their state GOP’s will only vote them out of office the next time around, regardless if whether they’ve won or lost. Come on guys!!!! It’s time to shit or get off of the pot.
Manchin and Sinema love power. They have it now. Schumer needs to take them into his office and tell them that either they support the party or they lose their most-senior committee assignments. Make them go to the bottom of the list again.
Manchin and Sinema are DINOs…Democrats in name only! Someone needs to take them aside ans tell them that from now on they will tow the line with the rest of the party, or they will be taken to the woodshed!
As Democrats, we don’t demand that sort of ideological purity. It means that at times certain Senators can be a royal pain in the rear, and some days it’s Manchin while others it’s Bernie. But in the long run, I think we get more from being a big tent party than we lose.
I feel like Sen Sinema has proven herself too unpredictable to serve the people of Arizona well. I think you should be able to know when your elected representative is going to stand up and stand with what voters want, and when they aren’t. She’s all over the place, and her reasoning doesn’t make a lot of sense.
I think it’s time for a qualified challenger to start building a primary war chest. Or is it early? It’s pretty early, but I assume you have to start years in advance. Whatever…there are like half a dozen Democrats I’ve ever suggested get primaried out. I’m tired of her irresponsibility and ego…I honestly don’t care if it’s a progressive or. Operate or centrist who primaries her, Arizonans deserve some alternative choices.
Time for the rest of the party to grow a set of balls as big as Nancy’s. We didn’t go to Normandy to discuss politics or to try & talk them out of their evil shit. If we acted like these folks, England would have fallen & we’d had a vacation home for Hitler on Martha’s vineyard.