Today’s The Day: Schumer Moves Forward With Vote To End GOP Filibuster Of Voting Rights Legislation | Talking Points Memo

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#41

First, let’s frame this correctly. The #1 reason why Biden looks weak is Manchin, Sinema and the handful of “moderates”. People expect negotiation and they already know Democrats fight with each other. But they (and we) didn’t see betrayal coming. I think I’m 100% accurate when saying no president of any party in the history of the republic has had a legislator in the same party work so hard to destroy their incoming agenda.

Once this vote is taken, Manchinema will have “Pearl-Harbored” Biden, literally sinking most everything of value. Whatever lefties planned to run on is gone.

My hope is that Biden recalibrates and starts to govern as if he’s lost the Senate. Because in reality lefties have a 48-52 minority.

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#42

Yup. Total minority party. He’s got nothing passed in that lousy damned place, should just write it off entirely.

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#43

And if only that were the message that people hear as relentlessly as ‘Another bad day for Biden’, there may be some hope. But the message will always be around Biden’s failure. Always.

@castor_troy, I believe the reference is on Voting Rights and the rest going forward. Not what has already happened.

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#44

Look at the top line on judges. We really want to burn the bridges and ensure that zero judges are confirmed this year?

Or the next lines on finances. Gov’t is funded thru Feb 18th. You really want to see it all shut down, in the middle of a pandemic?

Because that’s the results of casting sinema and manchin into the roaring flames with Mike’s Pants.

Maybe stop the panic, realize that for all the public rhetoric, sinema and manchin have voted with the party on a ton of important things.

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#45

OT:

Maybe people aren’t so awful:

Betty White Challenge Sees Animal-Rescue Groups Flooded With Donations - WSJ

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#46

"In 2021, the economy added 6.4 million jobs—a gain of 4.5 percent, or more than three times the average job growth of 1.4 percent from 2015 to 2019." https://t.co/FVOzwyZU5u

— ryan cooper (@ryanlcooper) January 19, 2022
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#47

Something you clearly have no idea how to do.
It’s time for you to sit all the way down.

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#48

McConnell may be sincere when he sends his sock puppet, Thune, out to say they won’t abolish the filibuster. That legislative trick enables the GOP to knee-cap every Dem President, while at the same time keeping the worst of the GOP legislation from ever passing.

The GOP doesn’t want to take a vote on their social agenda. Banning abortion or rolling back gay marriage would be political unpopular. And they can easily hide behind Democratic filibusters of those bills, while the GOP SCOTUS judges do all of the dirty work. Also, the GOP needs those fights over social issue in order to fundraise.

Dems worry greatly about the GOP Senate sending a bill banning abortion to a GOP president. On the other hand, forcing Republicans from purplish states to actually vote on rolling back rights for women, or gay folks, or cutting social spending, is a bet worth taking. Let’s see if Republicans from states outside the South are ready to start voting like state reps from Alabama.

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#49

So how is this statement wrong?

I don’t see this comment or anything in the statement made above as saying to throw Manchinema in the fire. I do agree with the commenter that if/when voting rights goes down in flames as it appears ready to do, it will have been those two that made it happen.

No one is saying anything about judges in this statement made. This is legislation being discussed, not appointments. And given that GQP’ers are starting to get behind stalling nominations as well, because there’s blood in the water in their view for the administration, maybe Biden does need to change tack and govern without the support of the Senate. Again, this isn’t nominations we’re talking about here - it’s legislation and the administration’s agenda (which is publicly supported widely but being ignored by the minority party).

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#50

And I may sprout wings and fly.

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#51

Here’s the deal. Once Senate debate on a measure ends, you can pass the bill with a simple majority vote. So if you’re willing to outlast the other side, you don’t need cloture. This could take weeks, as other Voting Rights bills did, but we have a few tools that help.

— Sheldon Whitehouse (@SenWhitehouse) January 19, 2022
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#52

It’s the thing as a whole, including this critical nugget:

Really? There was some big shit passed, even if nothing but normal funding bills pass this year, that the economy took off like a rocket with bold bills last year is a testimony to just how much Dems did accomplish.

So we fall short on a couple of bills this session. That’s not the end of the world, not like if this voting rights bill fails you’re suddenly going to have your ballot torn up in front of your face when you try to go cast it.

Sure, BBB fails, some folks won’t get this or that benefit, which they don’t currently get, so mostly it’s a nothingberder.

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#53

I like Whitehouse. Especially his temperament and even-keel. What I really like is that he knows McConnell and the GOP Senators are reprobates…and treats that menace like one which is understood, analyzed and emotionlessly dealt with.

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#54

And his brain.

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#55

Maybe Manchin and Sinema aren’t the reason why Biden’s approvals are so low. Has anyone tried to pry that information out of the numbers? It would be useful to know what voters are thinking. I know what I’m thinking - things don’t feel as if they are well in hand. I don’t know why that is the case but it is. And feelings are everything in this Dionysian Age.

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#56

Afghanistan. Poll numbers dropped right then and have been relatively steady since.

If Putin does his part of the bargain they hashed out of a soft invasion of Ukraine that we get to play in as well, that’ll boost things right back up.

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#57

If I had Scrooge McDuck money, I would give 100% of it to the best Democratic Party political messenger on earth to deal with the GOP.

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#58

Mrs. Eggrollian is fed up with my persistent yammering about “minority rule.” I guess I’ll keep quiet, but it’s the coming issue if we hope to be the electoral autocracy so many of our representatives aspire to.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/01/19/joe-manchin-filibuster-voting-rights-minority-rule/

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#59

Yeah I think that’s right. I don’t think that Manchin and Sinema are pulling Biden down as much as events are and have pulled his numbers down. He can overcome that, too, since it’s not about the intractability of Congress.

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#60

He’s at a 49% aggregate approval, according to CNN.

The GQP has worked overtime to make sure that people feel that things are unsettled. It’s part of their obstructivist agenda.

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