Not a clean one, either. Not in how they treated the planet, and not in how they treated their employees.
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Dear Senator Manchin, You had your chance. You got the attention you so desperately crave. Now, kindly fuck off. Signed, Everyone with a brain
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I have confidence in your ability to multitask.
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They never seem to make a bogeyman of people exploiting the capitalist system to multiply riches and manipulating the political system to reduce taxation on high incomes or high wealth.
Obviously they can’t and it wouldn’t make a difference if they tried to take that tact. Rethugs and conservatives of all stripes really don’t believe that the wealthy are the boogeymen because they believe that these are the beneficent providers of goods and services. The so-called “job creators” who we must provide fealty to (or else!).
IMO, it’s very much a piece of the idea that the wealthy should take care of those "less fortunate’ and not the Government.
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Yeah I read the article and it doesn’t strike me as a slam-dunk proof that Manchin is entirely a puppet of wingnut billionaires. The fact is he is indeed from West Virginia. The possibility is that he’s more or less genuinely the most conservative Democrat in the chamber. He may possibly harbor the same views as well-meaning but overly rosy-viewed friends and neighbors. I didn’t read anything to disprove any of that but I do remember all the people who screeched in horror and rage about Hillary giving talks to Wall Streeter audiences. Even the most transparent and progressive politics involves the balancing of the interests of various groups. It’s possible to be cynically naive, folks. Nice try though.
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Hillary never proposed gutting critical voting rights legislation after giving those speeches.
Joe Manchin proposes policies that exactly fit with what the Wall Street bozos want.
ETA: I have been presented with evidence my entire life showing politicians having comfortable, jovial, off-the-record calls, meetings, and dinners with American oligarchs where they express solidarity with business concerns. At what point does the mountain of evidence that politicians like Manchin primarily care about the needs of the oligarchs outweigh the notion that they are genuinely a product of and concerned with the needs of the non-oligarchs who elect them? Money buys a lot of eyeballs when it’s election season, and talk is cheap. I look at Manchin’s actions and the people with whom he is chummy.
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Nice try indeed!
I voted for HRC, would have loved her as President.
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The boil it down - Manchin does not have to be a racist to vote like one - which appears to be his intent.
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And maybe they like what he already was as the most conservative Democratic senator. He might be a puppet, I don’t know, but I didn’t see proof of that in there. This billionaires all the way down thing always struck me as a little facile. And that phone discussion is not quite as revealing or cynical as, say, the famous Romney 47 percent presentation. I just don’t think it proves much at all except that all of them give their funders an ear, and that’s how it’s going to be until we decide to change it.
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I have to say that the crux of the matter is, leaving No Labels aside, he has repeatedly said he supports the John Lewis VRA.
Now he wants changes to even that.
So he doesn’t even support that.
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Rachel last night went through the story of how Trump was bitchin’ and about Juneteenth, and that he didn’t know what it was. Then he asked his black USSS agent if he knew, and yes he knew and proceeded to explain it to Trump. Then one of the WH aides pointed out that in the last three years the WH had tweeted out a message on Juneteenth. All of this so fucking Trump. He’s suspicious of anything he doesn’t know, doesn’t like anything that doesn’t affect him personally-in a good way, and then takes credit, once again for others’ work.
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Yes, we all remember those “compassionate conservatives.” Front page NYT story about Bezo’s deep compassion today.
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I’d be more inclined to look to ALEC, which could churn out a bunch of poison pills on short notice for Joe to present as ‘his proposals.’ (ed.)
As the article makes clear, Manchin has no history of dealing with this kind of legislation. Presumably that means he isn’t retaining someone on staff who could do so effectively on relatively short notice. So, as you indicate, fairly, it had to come from somewhere.
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It still bears repeating:
“Fuck you, Joe Manchin.”
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And yet those that hand out the money can’t for vote for the candidate that they are handing money to, nor can the businesses, organizations, and the like.
I’m just waiting for Republicans to announce a bill to give the franchise to corporations, because you know they’re people too.
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this democracy stuff is so inefficient
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I have these moments all steady and strong
I’m feeling so holy and humble
The next thing I know, I’m all worried and weak
And I feel myself starting to crumble
The meanings get lost, and the teachings get tossed
And you don’t know what you’re gonna do next
You wait for the sun but it never quite comes
Some kind of message comes through to you
Some kind of message comes through
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I’m doing everything I can to help more Dems get elected in the Senate so Joe can go back to irrelevance in his golden years.
I just hope we can fight through the anti-democratic measures being enacted in statehouses everywhere so we can have fair elections in 2022. That’s why I’m especially focused on passage of S.1 and the JLVRA now.
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That worked in places like Endicott and Johnson City, New York, where E-J’s owners built hospitals and parks and schools for their workers, and built family-priced housing to sell them so they could build livable communities instead of just laborer ghettos.
It didn’t work where the wealthy always found reasons to blame the poor and refuse to help them.
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Just a year or so ago, Justice was the top name in a list published by the Charlottesville, VA, Daily Progress of the biggest scofflaws with outstanding, unpaid real estate tax assessments in either the City of Charlottesville or the surrounding Albemarle County (I don’t remember which; they’re separate jurisdictions). In other words, the richest man in West Virginia owns a string of apartment complexes and/or commercial buildings in or around Charlottesville and simply refuses, year after year, to pay his taxes on them.
Sound like someone else who recently held a high political office in the USA?
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