Joe Manchin has certainly surprised me
Prior to Biden’s presidency, my opinion of Joe Manchin was that he often talked a good line – for a while – and then caved at the last minute. That was my perception, anyway.
So my prediction was that this was what would happen going forward. He would cave on the filibuster and all the rest, and the Democrats would be able to pass their incredibly radical agenda with his help if not his rhetoric.
But he certainly has hung in there on opposing ending the filibuster, and he’s done likewise on a number of other votes including this most recent one about allowing debate on the Democrats’ radical abortion bill. And yet he’s never become a Republican and I’m almost certain he never will, which means that at least for this session of Congress the Democrats continue to hold the majority and the power to set an agenda that goes with it.
I can only assume that Manchin is as steadfast as he is because he understands, profoundly, that “Biden” and “his” gang are the dire enemies of the Democratic Party—at least as Manchin knows it—and also of the country…once again, as he knows it.
He’s not wrong.
I heard someone on Fox Business (I think Larry Kudlow) saying that Manchin is trying valiantly to save the Democrat Party. In the process, he’s saving the country from some of the worst excesses his party proposes. I wish he would go farther in realizing how destructive these people are, but I’m grateful for what he has done.
Also don’t forget that Manchin is reading his state, now reliably red and pro Trump (as he should be). He must do this if he expects to run again.
The Dems’ real agenda advances because of Manchin, not in spite of him. He is doing exactly what his party needs him to do, and I have no doubt is being handsomely rewarded for doing so. Sinema the same. They provide public cover for the others on issues the Dem base cares, about so that the individual Dems can service their clients and patrons. The Republicans do the same and have their designated mavericks too.
What the parties actually fight over is not the right to legislate. It’s the right to appropriate. The appropriations are how you become valuable to your patrons and clients. Legislation gets the air time but the money is in the appropriations, both figuratively and literally.
Victor D. Hanson on why Manchin is standing fast against the Democrats, who have made it their policy, in their bizarre “wisdom”, to embark on the systematic destruction of his country:
“Imagine the unimaginable”—
https://jewishworldreview.com/0522/hanson051222.php
H/T Powerline blog.
The Dems’ real agenda advances because of Manchin, not in spite of him.
What’s their ‘real’ agenda?
If you don’t mention it, it will all go away….(especially with all those magnificent distractions swirling all over the place…):
“Democrats Silent As Republicans Rip Into Secret Royalty Checks To Fauci, Hundreds Of NIH Scientists”—
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/democrats-silent-republicans-rip-secret-royalty-checks-fauci-hundreds-nih-scientists
Though maybe the lurid Tinkerbell currently catapulted to the head of “Biden”‘s Minitrue is pirouetting on all cylinders in a desperate effort to transform Fauci’s corrupt, criminal, murderous agenda into “Disinformation”…(hence the silence):
‘Head Of Biden’s ‘Ministry Of Truth’ Previously Compared Free Speech To “Fairy Dust”‘—
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/head-bidens-ministry-truth-previously-compared-free-speech-fairy-dust
Key grafs:
‘…Nina Jankowicz, recently appointed DHS ‘disinformation czar,’ made the comments while providing oral evidence regarding the implementation of the UK’s controversial Online Safety Bill, which will ban legal content which has “the potential to cause harm.”
‘After agreeing that the government should set minimum speech standards which ban “misogyny,” Jankowicz blasted alternative social media platforms for supporting “freedom of expression and fairy dust.”…’
Frederick:
That certainly is an interesting idea except that the “agenda” doesn’t move. When evidence of such a move is revealed let me know. It must be another feint?
he didn’t vote for the big bill, but he voted for lisa cook at the fed, bedoya at the ftc, and jackson for the supreme court, cook wants to euthanize fossil fuels, I don’t trust skunk head anymore than I can throw him,
On those NIH payments, my husband has several patents to his name. He was working for large companies at the time the patents were awarded, and the companies owned the patents, and any income earned therefrom. If he’d also taken payments from outside sources for his work, he’d have been fired very quickly.
@Art DecoWhat’s their ‘real’ agenda?
Appropriations and accommodating rent-seekers. Spend the taxpayers’ money and steer legislation to build their networks of patronage and clientage. They don’t build their fortunes on their < $200 K salary.
Some percentage of the D's in Congress would build socialism if they could; just as some R's would move the country in a more conservative direction if they could. But there's a large mass of them, most likely a numerical majority, who are in Congress primarily to help their friends and themselves make money, and the party platform and the politicking are in service to that end.
Just as the Globetrotter and Generals move the ball around the court, but they are not really playing basketball. They are a theatrical performance and not actually on different sides. The difference is that the media doesn’t pretend it’s a real game.
That infamous hidden agenda that nobody is aware of.
Manchin appears to be an old school liberal.
To imagine that the democrat leadership do not have an agenda that they do not publicly acknowledge is to be, at best willfully blind.
To continually post bromides is, willfully whatever.
The Democrat leadership may think their agenda is unknown or hidden, but folks who read and post here are not willfully blind or duped by the Dems IMO.
Appropriations and accommodating rent-seekers.
Can you point to a piece of evidence which says a majority voting on the procedural preliminaries do not actually care about the content of the bill?
Perhaps Manchin intends to run for President.
@Art Deco:Can you point to a piece of evidence which says a majority voting on the procedural preliminaries do not actually care about the content of the bill?
That wouldn’t tell you anything about the truth or falsehood of what I said, because I never said that “a majority… do not actually care”.
Even if they care only about getting paid, they nonetheless care about the content of this bill. Both venality and ideology are at play, and each politician has a different proportion; and maybe none of them are at 0 or at 100.
There’s obviously no intrinsic relationship between Leftish politics and support for the sort of thing in Schumer’s bill, or you can’t explain European abortion laws, which are considerably more restrictive even than Mississippi’s.
There’s a spectrum of Dems, and I’ll label three points for you. It’s trivial to do the same for Republicans, obviously:
1) Worshippers of Moloch who want to maximize the number of abortions and the lateness at which abortion can be legal.
2) Politicians who personally care about the abortion issue in itself, at varying degrees of pro-choiciness, which you could measure by weeks of pregnancy if you wished.
3) Politicians who care about the issue only in so far as it helps them keep their seat and make money.
All I am saying is that the median Dem Congressman or Senator is somewhere between 2) and 3) inclusive. The median is not found between 1) and 2).
The ones found between 1) and 2) put the system of patronage-by-appropriation in danger. It’s exactly the same situation on the Republican side, of course.
There are people who benefit from the narrative that politicians representing half the country are fiends who hate us and will hurt us if they are elected. These people are not voters.
Art asks, “Can you point to a piece of evidence which says a majority voting on the procedural preliminaries do not actually care about the content of the bill?”
When members are not given the time to examine a bill but vote for an essentially unseen bill anyway, it is a virtual certainty that they do not care and prima facie evidence of an utter indifference to what is contained in the bill.
@Davemay
Sundance called Manchin “The next Democrat and Lincoln Project presidential candidate for ¹2024…”
“¹If the mid-term 2022 ends up being a wipe out for the leftist communists in the Biden administration, Joe Manchin will be their 2024 candidate.”
https://theconservativetreehouse.com/blog/2022/05/11/interesting-joe-manchin-questions-dia-berrier-and-dni-haines-about-whether-ukraine-can-win-dia-confirms-we-are-in-a-proxy-war-with-russia/#more-232940