Has Manchin's "no" turned into a "maybe?"

TUESDAY, DECEMBER 21, 2021

Also, star's clowning disappears: Has Manchin's "no" turned into a "maybe?" 

That seems to be Kevin Drum's assessment. For ourselves, we have no real idea.

It all depends on whether Manchin is negotiating in good faith. We don't know if he actually is—and there's no way for us to find out.

Meanwhile, should Biden "take Manchin's deal right now?"

That is Jonathan Chait's advice. For ourselves, we would quickly agree—if there actually is a Manchin deal, and if it's actually being offered in good faith.

The way this thing has dragged on and on has turned into a bit of a clown show. Here's the truest thing anyone said during this long ordeal:

I don't fault any of them who are much more progressive or more liberal. God bless 'em! And all we have to do, for them to get theirs—elect more liberals!

That was Manchin, saying what liberals and progressives need to do to get certain types of bills passed. 

His statement makes achingly perfect sense. Yesterday, though, we showed you the punishing logic of Senate math. Under current arrangements, it's very hard to elect a liberal / progressive Senate.

Indeed, it's hard to elect a Democratic Senate. The system tilts against that.

We hope that Manchin's deal exists. If it does, we hope it gets passed.

Meanwhile, we wanted to show you what Rachel Maddow said and did in last Wednesday night's opening segment. At MSNBC, the results are in, and this is what has happened:

As of last Friday, the slacker channel had only posted transcripts up through last Monday night. For that reason, the transcript of last Wednesday's program wasn't available yet.

Yesterday, the slacker channel finally added more transcripts—but good God! They posted transcripts for last Friday night's programs, but they passed over—completely skipped—Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday nights!

It looks like transcripts for those nights won't be appearing. There goes the chance to discuss the appalling thirteen minutes of clowning (and sloppy though crowd-pleasing misstatement) with which Rachel opened her show.

First, Maddow's site didn't post the video of that appalling segment. Now, there's going to be no transcript! Our assessment would be this:

Rachel is a very good person with extremely bad judgment and extremely bad instincts. Down through the years, she has turned into a stone-cold clown. She's extremely good at "selling the car," but she's stunningly self-indulgent.

Our tribe is completely unable to see this. In this way, we're a lot like The Others are with their favorite stars at Fox.

Our further analysis: Our further analysis would turn on the famous phrase from Conrad: "the fascination of the abomination."

It seems to us that Rachel is gripped in a certain way by that fascination. We may explain that some day.

For now, just go to the site and look:

At the One True Liberal Channel, three solid days of missing transcripts! Star's clowning disappears!


7 comments:

  1. "We hope that Manchin's deal exists. If it does, we hope it gets passed."

    Oh dear. Deals are made by institutions and people with power and financial interests, dear Bob.

    And, for better or worse, Mr Manchin is nowhere near the circles where decisions worth 2 trillion dollars are made. Mr Manchin will vote the way he's told, by the powers that be.

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  2. Use ai to transcribe it.

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  3. Of course a deal is still open. If the Administration offers a deal that Manchin believes is good for the country, Manchin will support it.

    IMO there's a chance that inflation could sidetrack a new version of BBB. If the numbers rise even higher than current 6.8%, then some Dem politicians will be concerned enough to hold back on a big increase in spending. I hope.

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    Replies
    1. I too support halving the defense budget. Just like you and Manchin.
      Supposedly, that's the bipartisanship the corporate-owned Right-wing media craves. Of course, if that was true, we'd be reading about gutting the defense budget every single day.

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    2. David,
      In your opinion, what is keeping Manchin from proposing the 100% Estate Tax rate?
      Some say it's because he can't get Republicans to support common sense initiatives. Others say it's because his statement that giving people money makes them lazy is just bullshit he says so he doesn't have to help the nation's vulnerable.
      What say you?

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  4. Manchin is a true believer in the corporate line. He's the guy at your work who insists that your pants be black and not gray because that's what the manual says. And for Manchin and his powerful financial backers, the manual says screw democracy.

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    ReplyDelete