[News] Post a Political News Story

Ongoing discussion of the political news of the day. This thread is for 'smaller' stories that don't call for their own thread. If a story blows up, please start a new thread for it.

Veloxi wrote:

Well, it's been a good run y'all, but I think I'll either vote Plague or Asteroid for 2024.

We've already got a plauge. Asteroid will be quicker.

Stengah wrote:

We've already got a plauge. Asteroid will be quicker.

Yeah, but plague has the advantage of incumbency.

Evil people. History will not look kindly upon Sinema and Manchin (or any of the current crop of Republicans in the QOP).

I'll believe it when I see it. By that, I mean the Republican not participating in these debates.

Robear wrote:

Evil people. History will not look kindly upon Sinema and Manchin (or any of the current crop of Republicans in the QOP).

Er... not if they're writing the history books.

Crap. I guess they’re laying the groundwork for Trump to avoid debates entirely, knowing how awful he did last time and how his lazy preparation and declining cognitive abilities are likely to be even worse in 2024.

If it’s DeSantis or someone else, they’ll probably do the debates, but the right wing spin machine will have their audience angry and pre-convinced that the deck is stacked against them. If they lose badly, the focus will be on how biased the moderators are, and the mainstream media has to address it, shifting the narrative focus away from the poor debate performance itself.

Kyrsten Sinema Dooms Democrats’ Voting Rights Push With Speech

f*cking Democrats.

strangederby wrote:
Kyrsten Sinema Dooms Democrats’ Voting Rights Push With Speech

f*cking Democrats.

f*cking Republicans. Last I counted there were 50 of their senators opposing the voting rights bill.

firesloth wrote:
strangederby wrote:
Kyrsten Sinema Dooms Democrats’ Voting Rights Push With Speech

f*cking Democrats.

f*cking Republicans. Last I counted there were 50 of their senators opposing the voting rights bill.

This. Not even the Republicans who voted for Trump's impeachment are willing to salvage what's left of the American experiment. The partisan BS has become so normalized that Sinema and Manchin receive all the attention. They're evil, for sure, but Romney and co should receive the same treatment.

#NotAllDemocrats

Replace Republicans with Democrats, replace Democrats with Progressives.

#ButAllRepublicans

Look, I'm pissed too. I mean, super pissed. Manchin and Sinema have torpedoed a lot of important sh*t this past year, because they are self-centered evil sh*tbags who are gleefully taking advantage of the fact that the Democrats currently have a plurality but not a majority in the Senate. I'm pissed because it is a near certainty that -- as expected -- the Democrats are not going to be able to even come close to fixing the damage that the prior 4 years did, much less make any substantial progress on improving things beyond where we were when the keys were handed over in Jan 2017.

But (and I can hear the whataboutism rocketing at me already) we wouldn't be in this godsdamned mess if even a handful of Republican senators were legitimate patriots with some semblance of a spine who knew that sometimes doing the right thing for the greater good means disappointing the constituents who voted for you.

I am far, far from an apologist for the Democrats. Just ask any of a number of folks around here, several of whom directly argued with me about my support for Sanders and disillusion with the Democrats in 2016 and 2020 (hell, I got so sick of the frequent passive-aggressiveness and outright bullying which was allowed to happen here that it was a significant factor in my roughly 2-3 year hiatus from GWJ. It's one of the reasons I have my PM's disabled.).

So please believe me when I say that right now, despite how legitimate our frustrations with the "liberal" party in the US may be, we are in a fight for our democracy and there really is only two sides: the Republicans, and everyone else.

Personally, I think it's all but assured at this point that all 2020's election did was buy us four years -- maybe -- of time. I have a hard time imagining any scenario in which 2024 doesn't see us with either a Republican dictator-in-making elected or the US tearing itself apart with civil conflict (expect a lot of debating over whether it's "really a war" or not).

Wait do people really PM about D&D? WTF I thought we were better than that here...

It's not frequent, but it's definitely been a thing on occasion.

strangederby wrote:

#NotAllDemocrats

Yeah. Exactly. Nevermind the roster of Democrats who support Manchin and Sinema and hide behind them.

Yeah because Manchin and Sinema are SO popular with Democrats, like ever...

fangblackbone wrote:

Yeah because Manchin and Sinema are SO popular with Democrats, like ever...

Not with the people, but with the other Senators it’s a different story.

Sorry DS, I just don't see it. I see absolutely no one coming to either of their defenses. I don't think they've been on the in crowd in the senate.

I know Mark Warner said he was "friends" with Manchin but that when asked whether the rumor that he was a Manchin whisperer, he flat out denied it. He only said that Manchin means what he says.

If that is the best evidence, its incredibly weak.

Tester is a moderate and in the same "D in a very red state" situation. But I'd find it hard that Tester would follow anyone. Or that he would be buddies with Manchin.

Much of the rest of the party is just doing politics. This is how you do politics.

The worst kept secret in Washington? A cadre of Democrats oppose nuking the filibuster.

It’s worth noting that part of what makes this maddening is the carve-outs for Supreme Court appointments (who can completely veto legislation), cabinet officials, the debt ceiling, and other action. So literally one of the few things the Senate can do at this point with a majority is actually deliberate and vote on legislation.

So opposition to the nuking of the filibuster is equivalent to worshipping Manchin and Sinema?
In principal I AM against nuking the filibuster aside from the abnormal situation we are currently in:
-Where sticking to established norms is not going to prevent the GOP from nuking it on a whim when they are in power.
-Where filibusters are phoned in by any single senator for any reason
-Where the voting rights act was gutted when we needed to strengthen it
-Where state GOP is disenfranchising (honestly) millions of Americans since everyone benefits from things like mail in ballots and early voting and election holidays
-Where the GOP is lock stock obstructions to the point of violence and endorsing it

"Support and hide behind" is not the same thing as "worshipping." Keep those goalposts where they are. You asked for examples of Democratic senators supporting and hiding behind them on the matter of the filibuster and got it.

Wait, woah. Supporting the filibuster to whatever degree does not equal supporting Manchin and Sinema nor does it mean hiding behind them.

Manchin and Sinema are grandstanding. Support for that in light of the dire state our democracy is in is a lot closer to "drinking the kool aid" than not. The stakes are too high for it to be counted as mere bluster. And on top of that, this isn't the first or only time this year.

I also seriously doubt that senators supporting the filibuster means at the cost of federal voting rights legislation. As mentioned before, these filibuster proponents seemed to back down when it comes to the debt ceiling. I have yet to see anything to believe the only ones who won't back down for voting rights are Manchin and Sinema.

Lastly, Republicans support these federal voting rights but are castrated by McConnell.

9

fangblackbone wrote:

Lastly, Republicans support these federal voting rights but are castrated by McConnell.

The biggest most important difference between the parties. Republicans regardless of their actual belief follow orders.

fangblackbone wrote:

Lastly, Republicans support these federal voting rights but are castrated by McConnell.

"I was just following orders!"

Farscry wrote:
fangblackbone wrote:

Lastly, Republicans support these federal voting rights but are castrated by McConnell.

"I was just following orders!"

Befehl ist befehl!

farley3k wrote:

9

fangblackbone wrote:

Lastly, Republicans support these federal voting rights but are castrated by McConnell.

The biggest most important difference between the parties. Republicans regardless of their actual belief.

Those people exist? I thought they were all smart enough to know that more people voting is against their interests.

fangblackbone wrote:

Lastly, Republicans support these federal voting rights but are castrated by McConnell.

If Republicans actually supported federal voting rights they'd cross the aisle and vote for them. But they won't. Not even the so-called moderate Republicans. These are adults with agency (oodles of it considering they're Senators), not thralls of McConnell.

farley3k wrote:

The biggest most important difference between the parties. Republicans regardless of their actual belief follow orders.

That's the thing, though. Republicans aren't supporting voting rights because they've been told to do so.

They aren't supporting voting rights because they believe that Democrats are stealing elections. They got high on their own supply of lies and hate.

For example, I just saw an online ad for yet another Republican running for US Senate in my state who's decided to up the crazy that the two most covered Republican candidates spew daily. In the ad he openly accused Democrats of "giving free stuff" to Black people in exchange for votes, which was also why Democrats were against building the border wall (i.e., Dems are helping millions of undocumented immigrants illegally vote).

I don't know if Republican politicians personally believe these things (my gut is yes), but those beliefs are definitely the core of the Republican Party now and are passionately held by Republican voters.

And even if there were Republicans with a shred of decency and integrity who put the nation in front of their party, Republicans have repeatedly shown they will attack and exile them.

So they're not really following orders. Rather they're enthusiastically going along with things because they really believe the bullsh*t or they're pathetic cowards who'd rather hold onto their position than vote their conscious and be torn apart by conservative media, their party, and their voters.

And in a bit of decent news for the day, DirecTV just announced that its not renewing its contract with OAN and come April the pro-Trump conspiracy channel will be removed from its channel lineup.

Losing DirecTV is going to be a potentially crippling blow to OAN because none of the other major cable providers carry the channel.

Of course cutting OAN loose is just AT&T saving face from last year's reporting that it basically bankrolled the creation of OAN in hopes of pulling a Fox News and capturing some of the lucrative crazy conservative market.

Does it really matter what Republicans "believe"? I don't care whether they vote the way they do because they believe in it or McConnell told them to or if it was the Great Gazoo whispering in their ear. At the end of the day what matters is what they do, not what they feel in their tender little hearts.

It was an important distinction before Trump, you could negotiate with the cowards, at least. Offer them something that'd please their base in exchange for their vote on something that'd upset them. But Trump solidified the crazies, and now any deviation is punishable by exile. McConnell wields that power, but Trump is the one that makes it possible.