Every day the Democrats don’t kill the filibuster, enshrine voting rights and wipe the debt ceiling off of the table is one more day that they look weak and ineffectual.
Every day that some corporate owned POS like Manchin rails on about the cost of entitlements or whines about the debt is a day that the Democrats are losing the mostly ignorant public.
You can say everything you want to about this is how the sausage is made, and we need guys like Manchin, and quit being a Debbie Downer - but the simple fact is by not being decisive and actually getting it done, the Dems are losing ground. And the plain truth of it is, just like the ACA, we are being hurt most by Democrats who are serving their corporate masters. We keep insisting on playing by rules the GOP tossed out of the window years ago, and because our messaging is so poor, and because we have zero discipline, instead of looking honorable we look like suckers.
I will be 70 in 3 months and I have finally had an epiphany about the dreaded Democrats in disarray stories that make me want to tear my hair out - they are written day after day by the hacks in the media because they are the easiest story in the world to write - and they are easy to write because there is some truth in there.
I have spent my life voting for Democrats like Sinema who turn around and gut everything I believe in once they are elected and I am fucking sick of it.
Exactly. “Centrists” love infrastructure and would be greasing the skids for both bills or have a firm set of line items from the progressives they can’t stand behind, but this is just blanket abetting of the R agenda.
While Manchin/Sinema refuse to kill the filibuster, this falls 100% squarely on Moscow Mitch and his band of GQP miscreants. IF they did what the Dems did the past three years - and what Republicans themselves had done in the past, there wouldn’t be a double whammy. Linking these two together came straight from their idiocy.
I’ll spot you the Bakken in Montana, but most of the new development has been crap like tar sands, 33% as efficient as other sources. They don’t drill miles offshore for the fun. And the point is that it isn’t a certainty which is kind of a bad idea for something that’s the backbone of your economy and way of life (which it certainly is for 90% of the world’s population). If we didn’t subsidize the crap out of petro industry, we’d be paying $20/gallon for gas (like we should).
MANCHIN is appealing directly to seniors who have MEDICARE and MEDICARE ADVANTAGE PLANS… There are ads on tv , like ‘leave my MEDICARE& MEDICARE advantage ’ alone’… these ads work.
OT but this BP agent (after he is fired) should get the very same treatment he meted out to defenseless folk with that rein used as a whip. Even swing it around as a threat is unacceptable.
This is so wrong. Process these folks. Get them shelter and food. A little decent treatment isn’t wrong. That BP agent’s horse gets better treatment than these refugees.
I know a bit about poverty having volunteered for years with a senior assistance outfit here in Tucson. I have seen folk one shaky step from the streets. We bring them veggies and fruit every two weeks so at least they have a source of food. We look after around 130 people. This group effort is my small contribution
With groundwater in Saudi Arabia a state secret, it is hard to say how good or bad a job they are doing. We know projects like growing irrigated wheat in the middle of the desert were shut down in 2015, probably a good idea. Demographically, the country has also changed tremendously. In 1950 the fertility rate was above 7, but today is below the global average and close to many advanced economies. SInce water can be converted into crops such as alfalfa, wheat or even dairy products, Saudi can import water in the embodied forms. This trend has changed farming dynamics e.g. in California and Arizona.
I agree and Biden was right to condemn it. The Border Patrol agency needs a thorough housecleaning and some of those guys on horseback should be fired, not just reprimanded.
That said, most of those Haitians will probably still be deported to Haiti, because they don’t qualify to ask for asylum when they’ve been resident for years in another country. It’s important to uphold the current immigration laws, otherwise we hand Republicans the gift of “open borders” like they’re always claiming we want.
Beat me to it, also. It heartens me to see so many people thinking the same. I would call them conservatives, because that’s what they are. The Republicans are now to the right of that - authoritarians. Calling our Dems “moderate” is giving people the false idea that they’re reasonable and willing to compromise. They really aren’t.
No. He’s being disingenuous, incendiary and logically incoherent. Insolvency means unable to pay which of course is false as Manchin’s next statement, which is merely hyperbolic and partially false rather than an outright lie, rather unreflectively reveals; i.e., cuts will likely occur although they will not be extensive in 2026, perhaps a within a decade after that unless reform takes place in the next five years or so.
The 2019 report of Medicare’s trustees finds that Medicare’s Hospital Insurance (HI) trust fund will remain solvent — that is, able to pay 100 percent of the costs of the hospital insurance coverage that Medicare provides — through 2026. Even in 2026, when the HI trust fund is projected to be depleted, incoming payroll taxes and other revenue will still be sufficient to pay 89 percent of Medicare hospital insurance costs. ...
The 2026 date does not apply to Medicare coverage for physician and outpatient costs or to the Medicare prescription drug benefit; these parts of Medicare do not face insolvency and cannot run short of funds. ... CBPP [emphasis in original]
