How disingenuous of rich Mitch threatening Democrats about passing an agenda that will allow all Americans irrespective of political affiliation to vote in every election like people in a purported democracy are allegedly supposed to do.
If not Mitch and the GOP will enact their minority rule agenda just like he’s done for the past twelve years serving the interests of the GOP’s real corporate base, the 0.1%, white Evangelicals, neo-Confederates, neo-Nazis, and white supremacists.
This makes me wonder if Krysten Sinema is currently involved in a hot romance with an extreme right-wing Arazonian Republican of either gender.
It’s past time for the Democrats to grow a collective spine and end or otherwise change the filibuster so they can pass voting rights and other helpful aspects of their agenda.
I’m a little surprised he didn’t include massive voting restrictions, because the Anti-HR1 will be the first bill out of a republican senate unencumbered by the filibuster.
He tried the top-down approach through his circle of friends and then pivoted to populism as the alternative was open revolt from too many idle hands. On the whole, more effective than Hoover (not saying much), but saving the capitalists took priority over saving capitalism, IMHO.
ETA: the other big clue is the number of terms served. This all but requires a populist approach.
I watched McConnell’s comments with great amusement.
He’s crying now because he seems to know that Manchin and Sinema are on board with Schumer to change the filibuster. All those threats about grinding the Senate to a halt do not work when you’re in the minority. Schumer can simply end debate. McConnell dismantled Senate norms. He’s no defender of the Senate. Durbin called him out by saying, ‘If I’ve become skeptical of the filibuster, it’s because of your abuse of it’ or something to that effect.
The big reveal in McConnell’s statements is that his own intel tells him the Dems are about to do away with the filibuster. McConnell won’t get a crack at absolute power (w/a trifecta) until 2025 (if at all).
I’ve stated for a while that the filibuster we have today is semi-permeable. It can be applied on any measure (except reconciliation) or broken on any measure if the Majority Leader has 51 votes. Reid did it for lower court judges. McConnell expanded it to SCOTUS. The filibuster threshold for exec branch appointees is 51 votes. McConnell made a mistake by invoking a 2 week filibuster of the operating resolution to start this Congressional term. That has given Schumer more resolve to persuade his caucus that they will hang together or hang separately. They must make progress and with the GOP unwilling to do anything of substance, the filibuster must be broken. Manchin appears aligned now after getting torched by his own Gov for playing DC games on the COVID bill.
He seems to forget that the majority can make life quite annoying for the minority if they pull the crap. And then ram things through in the middle of the night when Johnson falls asleep
Mitch puts me in mind of the sputtering, ineffectual King Lear:
I will have such revenges on you both,
That all the world shall–I will do such things,–
What they are, yet I know not: but they shall be
The terrors of the earth. You think I’ll weep
No, I’ll not weep:
I have full cause of weeping; but this heart
Shall break into a hundred thousand flaws,
Or ere I’ll weep. O fool, I shall go mad!
If HR1/S1 passes, there won’t be a Republican senate, and certainly not a Republican House with gerrymandering outlawed and same-day registration and all the other small-d democratic goodies in that bill. It’ll be the death knell for today’s Republican party. And if we let them block it, it’ll be the death knell for the Democratic party. So we damn well better pass it.
O, sir, to wilful men,
The injuries that they themselves procure
Must be their schoolmasters. Shut up your doors:
He is attended with a desperate Trump train;
And what they may insurrect him to, being apt
To have his ear abused, wisdom bids fear.
Dems can not only change the rules for procedural votes at the same time as changing (or eliminating) the filibuster, they can also improve the procedure. One easy way to forestall the tactics MM is threatening would be to install push-button voting devices for procedural votes that allow electronic voting to happen concurrently within, say, a one-minute window. The (electronic) tallying would be immediate, accurate, countable, and publicly reviewable – a better procedure all the way around than voice votes
