WEDNESDAY, MARCH 24, 2021
Bizarro World meets Manchin: It's amazing how badly a person can be misled and misinformed by watching "cable news."
As a case in point, consider Rachel Maddow's upside-down performance last night concerning the 2013 Manchin-Toomey proposal.
Maddow's account of this event lasted at least ten minutes. In the course of her bizarre presentation, she reactivated her angry, sarcasm-loaded loathing of Joe Manchin (D-WVa). She also completely misinformed her viewers about the failed attempt to pass gun legislation in the wake of the Newtown killings.
Alas! MSNBC no longer creates transcripts of TV shows like Maddow's. The channel has also cut way back on the amount of video it makes available.
Presumably, MSNBC has taken these steps to make it harder to critique crazy performances by cable stars like Maddow. And make no mistake—last night's performance was about as crazy as it gets.
Maddow's rant about this brief historical episode lasted at least ten minutes. To see roughly one-third of her presentation, you can visit her program's site.
If you watched the whole presentation last night, you were given the impression that Maddow's most loathed politician, Senator Manchin, joined forces with Republican Senator Pat Toomey to thwart the public's will for gun reform in the wake of the Newtown killings. The three-minute tape her site provides carries this crackpot headline:
How Joe Manchin and a broken Senate squandered U.S. will for gun reform after Sandy Hook
That isn't what happened at all. With links to news reports below, here's what actually happened:
The murders at Sandy Hook Elementary occurred in December 2102. By the following month, President Obama and Senate Democrats had proposed an array of gun reform measures.
One such measure would have created universal background checks for gun sales. That would have replaced the prevailing (crackpot) system, in which a gun buyer needed a background check if he was buying his gun at a gun store, but not if he was buying his gun at a gun show across the street.
Obviously, that system made (and makes) no sense. Obama had proposed a law requiring universal background checks, even if you were just buying a gun from your uncle or your grandmother.
By April of 2013, it was plain that Obama's proposal wasn't going to make it through the Senate. The Manchin-Toomey proposal was a slightly scaled-back measure—a measure which was supported by almost all major Democrats from Obama and Biden on down.
Repeat: Barack Obama supported the Manchin-Toomey proposal; the NRA opposed it. When the proposal was voted down in the Senate (actually, when it failed to clear the sixty-vote bar), all but five Senate Democrats voted in favor of the proposal.
(One of the five was Majority Leader Harry Reid. He supported the proposal, but voted against it as a procedural maneuver.)
All but four Senate Democrats supported Manchin-Toomey. All but four Senate Republicans opposed it—voted against it.
In other words, Manchin-Toomey was heavily favored by Democrats. It was kept from getting sixty votes due to near-unanimous opposition from the GOP, with Ted Cruz braying loudest.
Last night, Maddow spent at least ten minutes conveying the opposite impression. She snarked and sighed and directed her vast sarcasm at the man she currently loathes.
Assuming even minimal competence (we don't), her presentation would have been astoundingly dishonest. We assume that Maddow may have believed the things she said. We regard her as that incompetent.
If you watched that presentation last night, you got to see where tens of millions of corporate dollars, mixed with vast celebrity, will sometimes take certain people. You also got to see how vastly people can be misled by watching cable news.
(This was hardy a first for Maddow. Her rap sheet is clownish and long.)
Below, we'll offer several links helping you see what actually happened. The overview, though, is this:
Obama and Biden supported the Manchin-Toomey proposal. So did almost all Senate Democrats.
The NRA opposed Manchin-Toomey. When Manchin-Toomey failed to get sixty votes, the NRA exulted.
The four Senate Dems who opposed the measure came from bright red, pro-gun states. Those senators later lost their seats. This helps explain why there are only 50 Senate Dems today.
The fact that Manchin has managed to hang on in West Virginia explains why Mitch McConnell isn't still running the Senate. But just try telling that to Maddow! She lives in a novelized realm.
One last time:
Manchin-Toomey was a last-gasp attempt to pass an expansion of background checks. It was favored by Barack Obama and by almost all Senate Dems. It was aggressively opposed by the NRA.
If you watched Our Own Rhodes Scholar last night, you were treated to an angry, demonological presentation which seemed to say precisely the opposite. If MSNBC was a journalistic enterprise (it isn't), the cable star of whom we speak would have been sat down a long time ago.
This is the world in which we all live. Here in Our Town, it can be extremely hard for many of us to get clear on this point.
Let's take a trip back in time: It's hard to believe how crazy Maddow's presentation was last night. (Unless you regularly watch her at work, in which case her presentation was basically par for the course.)
At any rate, what was the history of Manchin-Toomey? We'll give you three (or four) easy links:
On April 10, 2013, the New York Times reported the last-minute emergence of the Manchin-Toomey proposal. This was the basic overview:
STEINHAUER (4/10/13): Senator Joe Manchin III so craved a pro-gun-rights Republican as a partner for a bill to expand background checks on gun buyers that he took to buttonholing senators on the in-house subway that ferries them from their offices to the Capitol, making his pitch while his colleagues were trapped with him in the tiny car.
Repeatedly rebuffed, Mr. Manchin, a conservative West Virginia Democrat, decided to call on his friend Senator Patrick J. Toomey, the Pennsylvania Republican known almost exclusively for his conservative fiscal positions. On a recent Amtrak trip from New York to Washington where they happened to intersect, Mr. Toomey agreed to listen.
On Wednesday the two gun owners, long favorites of the National Rifle Association, came together in a last-ditch effort on a background check compromise that opened the door to a rare Congressional consideration of gun law changes, beginning Thursday. While their agreement ensures only that the measure will reach the Senate floor for debate, it rescued gun law changes sought by President Obama and gun control groups from an early defeat.
Duh! Obama's proposal for universal background checks was on its way to defeat. Manchin-Toomey emerged as an attempt to fashion a slightly scaled-back proposal which might have a chance to pass.
Five days later, the New York Times discussed the measure again. Once again, the paper noted that the measure was designed as "the best hope" of fashioning a bipartisan measure which might hope to pass:
STEINHAUER (4/15/13): Mr. Manchin and Mr. Toomey have written an amendment intended to substitute for the background check component of the current bill, which has attracted scant support from Republicans. Mr. Manchin and Mr. Toomey’s bill has far more exemptions as well as pieces that strengthen gun rights in some ways, and is seen as the best hope for a foundation of a bipartisan consensus measure.
O'KEEFE AND RUCKER (4/17/13): Background checks for all gun buyers, long considered the most politically palatable of Obama’s proposals, were the linchpin and last week had seemed poised for passage after a pair of pro-gun senators, Joe Manchin III (D-W.Va.) and Patrick J. Toomey (R-Pa.), announced a compromise deal.Yet even a late flurry of meetings between senators and Sandy Hook Elementary School parents was not enough to bend the will of Democratic centrists and more moderate Republicans. Although they had been open to expanded background checks, many of them voted no.Obama sounded exasperated that senators were not more responsive to public opinion and did not offer what he considered worthy explanations for why they voted down the measures.The president lashed out at the National Rifle Association for having “willfully lied” about the background-check proposal to stoke fear among gun rights supporters that Congress would violate their Second Amendment rights or create a federal gun registry.And he laid the blame squarely on Republicans, although four Democrats also opposed the bill.
"Presumably, MSNBC has taken these steps to make it harder to critique crazy performances by cable stars like Maddow."
ReplyDeleteMore likely, it was a cost-cutting decision.
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Democrats voting against the bill:
ReplyDeleteBaucus (MT)
Begich (AK)
Heitkamp (ND)
Pryor (AR)
Reid (UT)
Why would these Dems lose their seats over voting with the NRA, against gun control in a red state?
anon 2:24, your point makes sense. However, that 4 of them lost their seats to Republicans shows how fragile democratic senators' electability is in red states.
DeleteBut it also shows that this vote had little to do with keeping their seats. They voted with the NRA and still lost.
DeleteSomerby's obsession with Maddow continues. This is in contrast to his approving comments about Carlson and others.
ReplyDeleteSomerby's main problem with Maddow is that she's actually successful, not a pathetic Trumptard like him.
Maddow is unwatchable, though that's my opinion. You keep pounding this stupid lie that TDH is a "Trumptard." In your twisted sense of reality, it is inadmissible to acknowledge that anything that someone like Carlson ever says could possibly be correct. You could try to argue that what TDH said was substantively wrong - instead of seeming to loathe him simply because he didn't 100% denounce people you don't like (and who TDH similarly doesn't favor). Your comments are mindless, and tedious.
Delete“In your twisted sense of reality, it is inadmissible to acknowledge that anything that someone like Carlson ever says could possibly be correct.”
DeleteWell, about that, AC. In dismissing a defamation lawsuit against Fox/Carlson, a judge agreed with Carlson’s employer (Fox News) as follows:
“Fox News won a court case by 'persuasively' arguing that no 'reasonable viewer' takes Tucker Carlson seriously”
https://www.businessinsider.com/fox-news-karen-mcdougal-case-tucker-carlson-2020-9
From the story:
‘US District Judge Mary Kay Vyskocil agreed with Fox's premise, adding that the network "persuasively argues" that "given Mr. Carlson's reputation, any reasonable viewer 'arrive[s] with an appropriate amount of skepticism' about the statements he makes."
"This 'general tenor' of the show should then inform a viewer that he is not 'stating actual facts' about the topics he discusses and is instead engaging in 'exaggeration' and 'non-literal commentary,'" the ruling said.’
Somerby is a Trumptard. That's been demonstrated here repeatedly. And there are arguments saying that Somerby is wrong nearly every day too. You cannot have missed them. Centrist is summarizing that.
DeleteFor example, Somerby says that 4 Dems voted against the Manchin-Toomey bill, but there were 5 (including Reid). Only 4 lost their seats, Reid kept his. But saying that only 4 voted against it is inaccurate, a mistake made by Somerby.
Delete"... it is inadmissible to acknowledge that anything that someone like Carlson ever says could possibly be correct."
DeleteThe next Right-wing argument made in good faith will be the first.
Somerby was right to point out that Jake Tapper was overstating and sensationalizing about Covid deaths on his show. Somerby was right and Tapper was 100% wrong in his "prediction". And many of the moronic Somerby trolls were wrong about it too.
DeleteMy God, talk about being wrong every day. Read the idiot commenters here whose heads are totally up their ass every day for years and years.
That one insane bitch spends 5 hours a day on this site writing reams and reams of complete nonsense. Yo girl, go see a doctor. You're damaged!!
DeleteSomerby spends 5 hours a day on this site writing reams and reams of complete nonsense. Does he perhaps need to see a mental health specialist? I'd call him a bitch but I don't know what his pronouns are.
DeleteYou are a valiant and dedicated Somerby protector and I hope he appreciates your efforts.
DeleteAnonymous 5:29pm,
DeleteLook who’s talking!
Anonymices pull their hair out six days a week over every blog, making scathing personal comments in multiple posts.
I go for months without posting. I’m recovering from a klutz injury and have had some free time, but now I think I’ll keep reading and responding to the posts.
I don't think he was talking about you.
DeleteHow many bitches are there around here? :D
DeleteAC/MA, I have no TV so I never watch Maddow or Carlson. I do think that someone like Somerby who attacks Maddow ferociously for 10 years at least (often lying about it) and only refers to Carlson approvingly is a hard core malevolent Trumptard, whose only redeeming feature is that anyone who's not mentally deficient realizes that Somerby is not a liberal.
DeleteIn late 2019, Somerby denounced all Dem primary candidates as awful - Biden, Sanders, Gabbard, Bullock. Only a malevolent Trumptard would try and concern troll.
Definition of dissident
Delete: disagreeing especially with an established religious or political system, organization, or belief
"It's amazing how badly a person can be misled and misinformed by watching "cable news.""
ReplyDeleteIt would've been amazing, for anyone who was asleep in the last 4-5 years.
You really need to stop being amazed (or pretending to be) at your zombie cult's goebbelsian media. It is what it is. Live with it, dear Bob. We all do.
Not to mention Google burying information too.
DeleteМао - русский тролль
Delete"The fact that Manchin has managed to hang on in West Virginia explains why Mitch McConnell isn't still running the Senate."
ReplyDeleteThis is untrue. First, the fact that every single Dem now in the senate held onto their seat is why Mitch McConnell is no longer majority leader, but more importantly, the fact that Ossof and Warnock won their seats is why Mitch McConnell is no longer in power.
Every time Somerby attributes this to Manchin, in an effort to shore up his importance and defend his conservatism, he tells this lie.
There is no point in electing a Democrat who is going to vote and otherwise behave like a Republican. If Manchin is going to obstruct Democratic initiatives, it is still necessary to find one more vote, and Manchin deserves no thanks for that.
This is the same as the argument that the Dems would attract more voters if they moved to the right. That might be true, but they would be able to enact fewer of their priorities if they became a right-centrist party instead of holding to the values of the left.
Just think, if the Dems had just supported Trump, we might have won Tennessee, and wouldn't that have been cool!
Manchin is a Dem Senator in a state that Trump won by 38 pts. Dems should thank their lucky stars that he goes along with them as often as he does. He deserves every thanks that the Dems can give him.
DeleteSomerby is a Trumptard, and his professed concern for Manchin is only because he hates Maddow, as all Trumptards do. But for like a stopped clock, he's right once that Manchin is indispensable for the Dems.
"Manchin-Toomey was a last-gasp attempt to pass an expansion of background checks. "
ReplyDeleteSomerby fails to mention that Manchin-Toomey undercut other Democratic proposals, in an effort to attract Republican support. That support was impossible due to NRA lobbying, so Manchin-Toomey never had a chance and was a spoiler for the stronger proposals. Somerby says that those other proposals never had a chance, but neglects to tell us that this one didn't either. It was a sell-out that compromised for nothing, since Republicans still failed to support it.
Digby discusses this today:
"In the midst of overwhelming national grief and horror he [LaPierre] went to Washington and declared that not only was the NRA not going to acquiesce to the demands of the political establishment and the public, but he was also going to double down. He defiantly declared:
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun. What if, when Adam Lanza started shooting his way into Sandy Hook elementary school last Friday, he’d been confronted by qualified armed security? Our children— we as a society leave them every day utterly defenseless, and the monsters and the predators of the world know it and exploit it.
And that was the end of that. The Republicans backed out, the Democrats backed down [Manchin-Toomey] and the status quo was preserved."
LaPierre should be called before Congress to explain why four Minneapolis Police Officers weren't shot in the head last May 25th.
DeleteManchin may be a Dem in a red state, but he is useless as a Dem if he doesn't vote for and support Dem initiatives. He will perhaps receive little pressure within his own state to do this, but when Maddow and other national figures exert pressure on Manchin, it gives him cover for voting Dem in his red state. He needs that pressure to explain his votes to his constituents.
ReplyDeleteMaddow is doing what is necessary to support Manchin's Democratic votes. To the extent that Rachel mobilizes voters in his home state to contact him about legislation, Manchin can more easily vote with the Dems.
However, I think Rachel has a point when Manchin wouldn't support the Relief bill despite the support of the Republican governor and other Republicans in WV. Somerby needs to explain what that was all about, before calling Rachel Maddow names.
If there is anyone here who's retired and with nothing to do; and who also watches TV shows like "Northwoods Law" and "Lone Star Law" will see Conservation Officers regulating guns used by hunters. Including limiting the number of bullets in the gun.
ReplyDeleteAutomatic weapons have only one purpose; kill people.
Guns you use to hunt or those with hand guns for self defense make sense to me. Automatic Rifles? Not so much.
The first 4 Words in the 2nd Amendment are: "A well REGULATED militia ... REGULATED!
The founding fathers never dreamt of Automatic Rifles killing scores of people in the hands of the general public.
Abolish the filibuster and we can enact gun control.
ReplyDeleteAlthough I'm hardly a fan of Manchin, I also found Maddow's incessant critique totally off the rails. Her bile should be directed towards the Republicans who are the true villains here.
ReplyDeleteIt is hard for me to see why a Democrat who behaves like a Republican isn't just as much of a villain as a Republican.
DeleteSomerby could have saved time and just written "I hate successful lesbians" instead.
ReplyDeleteUniversal background checks sounds reasonable. However, do they actually make a difference? What does the experience show?
ReplyDeleteYes, neither of the young men in these last two shootings would have been able to buy a gun, had there been such checks in place.
DeleteIf they cannot get a gun when they feel most like shooting people, then the impulse may pass and they have a chance to avoid becoming killers. Just as with suicide, there is a chance for intervention (or for their mental state to change) if they don't have the means to complete the act.
David - thanks to highly immoral and corrupt Republican politicians and lobbyists, the government wasn't even allowed to study the issue until last year.
Deletehttps://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-03882-w
If I type in “Seatbelts sound reasonable but do they really work?” that means I have my doubts, despite the information being readily available on the internet. Now if someone points to the data and I am still wondering about the efficacy of seatbelts then I am not only lazy but a dumbass.
DeleteHere is Rachel Maddow talking about Joe Manchin, with a transcript:
ReplyDeletehttps://www.politicususa.com/2021/03/23/rachel-maddow-joe-manchin.html
I think that what she is saying is entirely reasonable.
Off topic: Shrink Bandy X. Lee, who Bob often referred to has been canned for unprofessional conduct.
ReplyDeleteYale Psychiatrist Who Declared Trump Mentally Unfit Has Been Fired, and She’s Suing
“your repeated violations of the APA’s Goldwater Rule and your inappropriate transfer of the duty to warn from the treatment setting to national politics raised significant doubts about your understanding of crucial ethical and legal principles in psychiatry”
Cancel culture.
DeleteFired at the behest of that stanchion of academic political impartiality, none other than the widely esteemed Alan Dershowitz.
DeleteRe: Cancel culture
DeleteEvery Right-wing accusation is a confession.
@12:05, Yale is not run by right wingers.
Deletemh - she was fired for misbehavior in her field, not for alleged bigotry or saying a wrong word.
"Yale is not run by right wingers."
DeleteThanks for the laugh.
We should at least shut down their Business and Law schools until we can figure out why they are turning out so many thugs.
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