In a new letter to Senate colleagues, Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) fingered Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) as a cause of “deep discontent and frustration” but promised to at least force senators to vote on the record for both reconciliation and voting rights.
The RWNJ media should be in the room with the senators…apparently they are enchanted with death and dirt.
Shocker. Disappointing as hell but everybody knew he was Lucy holding the football all along.
At least there’s no more pretending. May Senator Houseboat’s section of the Potomac host endless high-speed DJT boat parades.
Why are we torching Biden? Is this just a Democratic myopia. We never seem to be able to focus on the real enemy. Manchin needs to suffer for this. Republicans need to suffer for this.
Joe Manchin remains dead to me.
I get that Manchin is needed to keep the Senate in the hands of Democrats. And that makes him super powerful. But does he really not care about the country? So many people worked so effing hard to get the Senate in D control, and then Manchin has to use those efforts for his own vain glory. It is so disappointing to see.
Manchin was never going to vote yes. He worked with McConnell to string out his no vote to fuck Biden over to the max.
It was really up to Biden to know he couldn’t trust the guy.
No doubt Biden has a horrendous challenge because of the 50-50 senate. And it is sad that the GQP has become sooo smelly rotten, but conditions like this are ripe for a leader that can break through the BS and lead us all back to being proud to be an American. That is what he campaigned on and that is what we expect. HE MUST LEAD! It really is the end of democracy if he fails.
This is disgusting. If true, he should just resign if he thinks citizens are so bad. Or vote for drug treatment plans. Or paid vacations.
From the Daily Beast:
…according to HuffPost, Manchin was heard in Congress discussing another problem he has with Biden’s domestic spending plan—that it would give low-income parents money that they might waste on drugs. Two unnamed sources said to be familiar with the alleged comments told the site that the senator was heard speculating that parents might buy drugs with monthly child tax credit payments instead of providing for their kids. He is also reported to have said that Americans might fake an illness to claim paid sick leave to go on hunting trips. According to HuffPost, Manchin’s purported comments “shocked several senators.” His office declined to comment on HuffPost’s report.
We voted on BIF, because BBB was assured on his word.
Sure Manch Fucked JB on this one, and perhaps it’s not fair to torch JB, but it’s also fair to say JB shouldn’t have made assurances without knowing 100% the bounds in which Manch was willing to go.
Manchin is only hurting his constituents, a lot of things in the BBB bill help them, including things that will convert them to an economic future that would life a lot of West Virginians out of poverty. And, they know it, there was an interview with a WV Trump supporter who was mad about Manchin’s antics, so he’s not helping himself with the conservatives in his state. He’s also opened himself up to real problems, as the people who have been holding back about his conflicts of interest, especially with his daughter and drug pricing, don’t have a reason to anymore.
Manchin may have a good point that putting a bunch of programs in with temporary funding means they get cut by Republicans so it’s better to fully fund them and make them permanent, which would make it a choice of doing fewer things. But, that’s not a reason to scrap everything, and the politics of trashing his party on Fox after making deals with the president and other Democrats just stinks. And, he’s holding back voting rights that will help all Americans vote, and avoid sabotaging his party in the next two elections. Put those together, and he’s moved himself from being the most powerful Democrat in the nation to a pariah that they will only tolerate when they have to. It was just a stupid move…and, Sinema should be pissed as this falls onto her as well, and Democrats are now even less likely to trust her and more likely to push a primary challenge.
We’ll see what happens from here…he may try to crawl back, but it’s obvious from the statement from the WH yesterday that they don’t trust him anymore. He won’t get any special favors either, and if he starts sabotaging Biden appointments in response he’s really done in the party. I just don’t understand what he thinks the benefit is for him here.
Now Biden needs to start playing hardball (the way the GQP always do) and start conveniently eliminating coal subsidies and other perks that WV voters enjoy…and make it explicit that it’s in retaliation for Manchin’s bad faith.
Let there be a hue and cry from his constituents to put some pressure on Manchin, though given how deep in the pockets of the fossil fuel industry he is, I’m not sure it would matter much…
Classic poverty scolding like only an entitled out-of-touch rich guy can do.
I would guarantee that Biden did get 100% assurances from Manchin that BBB would pass, otherwise he would never have given the OK to go ahead with the first bill. The statement from the WH by Psaki was not released without Biden’s approval, and that statement was one of the biggest torchings of a politician in the president’s party that I’ve ever seen. Biden is obviously pissed at Manchin, both in his behavior and in the heinous way he announced his opposition…you can bet that the relationship between them will be much different going forward. I don’t think Manchin realizes how much he screwed himself by doing this…a DoJ investigation of his daughter’s company after Democrats win a couple new Senate seats in 2022 might make him understand.
Wrong and stupid logic…
If a parent is going to use the tax credit for drugs, then they were always going to prioritize drugs over providing to their children… at least with the check, it’s possible they afford both. In the end more gets to the children.
And that privilege belongs only to people with sick leave for companies that already provide sick leave?
Sounds like we have several semators that have never met Manch… who knew?
And lastly…
The true test of the worth of any social program is whether is is good enough to abuse… if it is not good enough to abuse, it is not good enough to help the people who need said program.
And Psaki’s statement was out pretty damn fast, too – within a few hours on a Saturday morning.
I would hope so, but the one potential negative about JB’s long Senate tenure is that he may have taken a soft assurance on faith that the senate still operates like it did when JB was a senator…
I hope not but it’s a possibility we can’t outright dismiss.
Agreed… and it was solid
I wouldn’t go that far, but yes, the tone has changed.
Yeah… I’m more mad that the WH is surprised. We all saw this coming…
Only in the democratic party… I think his calculation is he can get away with it because he can switch parties and McConnell with play nice until reelection time…
If Manch is out anyway, then he will throw his lot in with Republicans because they will better have his back in retirement as a rich white guy
Biden is far to careful and old school… nice to think, but never happen.
We aren’t winning much with voting rights fixes, repubs will steal everything not nailed down.
I guess this means that Manchin understands his constituents. You know, the ones who gave Trump a 39% margin in WV. Manchin’s comment, if reported accurately, says more than he intended to say.
