Biden Is Right To Call The State Of Voting Rights An Existential Threat. But The Walk Must Be As Aggressive As The Talk.

[samsinister]

A reasonable point. But, like, WHEN, then? It gets late early out there.

[gr]

But The Walk Must Be As Aggressive As The Talk.

Jesse, you have any brilliant ideas?

[eggrollian]

The Marcellus shale is a 100 trillion-cubic-foot gas resource that has a lot to do with Manchin’s behavior. It provides the best hydrocarbon argument in the shift away from coal, but there is a real danger that gas demand and prices will fall in a decarbonizing future where the fossil fuels stay in the ground.

So far Manchin has been allowed to get away with conflating coal and gas, but they are different fuels. Blue hydrogen is not great, but assuring it a future in WV may be the answer, a least for a couple decades. That could then be piggybacked on to a green hydrogen agenda.

This Powerful Democrat Linked to Fossil Fuels Will Craft the U.S. Climate Plan

[jonney_5]

@sparrowhawk

One issue with this essay, I agree we need to find creative solutions because the status quo cannot stand, but invoking Lincoln and LBJ is misleading. Both had supermajorities (Lincoln mainly because the Southern states had no representatives in Congress anymore). Using the bully pulpit was enough because they could wrangle the votes they needed from within that large pool of votes.

Working with the thinnest of majorities is a completely different beast and there really doesn’t seem to be any straightforward way like “the bully pulpit” to get similar results when 1 or 2 members of your party can hold the whole process hostage to their own whims. It’s just a different ballgame, as much as we might wish it were synonymous.

Very true.

But we should have went in on voting rights before the infrastructure headache.

I think it would have need easier to find a filibuster carveout on Voting rights before the bickering we have had

[sparrowhawk]

That would require buy-in from Manchin that voting rights really are on the table and need to be addressed and I’m not certain he’s invested in that. I think he’s much more likely to be moved on infrastructure (and he’s already being pretty dodgy on that topic).