Hall of mirrors update open thread

by liberal japonicus

All the angles are here

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2021/dec/02/facebook-owner-meta-takes-down-chinese-network-spreading-fake-covid-posts

Discuss that or something else!

Comments

[Donald]

Manchin kills the BBB

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/19/us/politics/manchin-build-back-better.html

I wonder to what extent he is just a front, the guy, along with the Arizona moron, willing to take the heat for doing exactly what corrupt corporate— excuse me, moderate— politicians wanted. The last thing that crowd wants is some sort of clear demonstration that government can improve the lives of ordinary people with policies that are clearly liberal— building bridges is fine, even Republicans usually favor that except when they are being nihilists.

Forget about climate change. Only impractical radicals care about that.

[Donald]

The Democrats should just nominate a Sinema- Manchin ticket for 2024. I mean, you can’t have a fossil fuel company paired up with the pharma ceutical corporation as your nominees, but this as close as you can come to cutting out the middleman. She can be the face of young dynamic leadership while we have the comfort of knowing that a seasoned veteran like Manchin is there to back her up. All the boxes are checked. Speaking of which, the checks should come pouring in, though there might need to be some creative accounting to stay within the law for corporate contributions. I can write the campaign literature.

Might as well be pragmatic. It’s not like progressives have anyplace to go.

[cleek]

Forget about climate change. Only impractical radicals care about that.

if Biden and the rest of them didn't care about climate change, they wouldn't have been fighting to keep it in the bill for the past umpteen million weeks.

[bobbyp]

lefty loons: "We need to tie the BBB to the Infrastructure bill, and pass them together. It is our only leverage."

Moderates: "Nah. You don't have the votes. You are making the perfect the enemy of the good. There will be unintended consequences..."

Joe Manchin: "I have THE vote."

Squaring circles continues to be difficult.

Today is not a good day. Here's hoping it will get better.

[cleek]

Reconciliation
50 votes
Manchin is an ass.

this isn't hard. not everything is a conspiracy.

[bobbyp]

Reconciliation. Yup.
50 votes. Yup.
Manchin is an ass. Undoubtedly.

not everything is a conspiracy.

With all due respect, I urge you to consider that too much straw is a fire hazard.

[wj]

not everything is a conspiracy.

Left or right, if the things you see as obviously correct don't get done, obviously there must be a conspiracy involved in thwarting it. It's simply unthinkable that lots of people simply disagree with you on what is the One True Way.

[Donald]

Conspiracy is an overused lazy word. Thinking that the WTC was brought down by CIA explosives is a conspiracy. Thinking that some centrists are secretly happy that Manchin stopped the bill is not quite the same thing as imagining the WTC was wired with explosives and tens of thousands of people never saw it happen.

Anyway, I don’t really care to have the usual conversation about one true paths, etc…. Moderates have spent decades adopting a Centris right Republican framework on what is politically and economically pragmatic, so we get crap like the piece below about deficit hawkishnesss just days after the Senate passed a gigantic Pentagon spending bill. This is a stupid country and moderates have done their part in making it so. Lefty puritans sometimes do so as well, but mostly on tactics.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/19/business/biden-agenda-ambitions.html

[Ufficio]

A conspiracy theorist is someone who sees conspiracies where none exist. Is there a term for someone who sees accusations of conspiracies where none exist?

[wj]

someone who sees accusations of conspiracies where none exist?

Is this

I wonder to what extent he is just a front, the guy, along with the Arizona moron, willing to take the heat for doing exactly what corrupt corporate— excuse me, moderate— politicians wanted

somehow not an accusation of a conspiracy? Especially when Manchin's behavior is adequately explained by a combination of personal financial interest and a personal desire to (as he reasonably might see it) get reelected in a very conservative state.

[nooneithinkisinmytree]

That Manchin dropped the last of his anti-America carpet bombs on FOX News is the pretty poisonous bow on the enormous pile of dogshit he's been emitting from both ends since his evil compatriots 1/6/21 attempt to violently overthrow the U.S. Government.

He profits mightily from the inflation in human-killing carbon-based energy assets ... metallurgical and power plant coal .... but no one else except his vermin constituents is permitted to participate in the windfall.

If both sides are going to do it, then both sides need to have the goddamned fucking worst done to them.

Obviously, his floating living quarters' close adjacency to a pier over water has him sucking whatever corrupt Republican and Trump Mafia dick he needs to pleasure to avoid swimming with the fishes in cement waders.

Fuck this country.

[nous]

Is it Groundhogs Day again again?

Nothing new to add because nothing has changed.

Look to alternative institutions for any actions that can be taken to build a less catastrophic future.

[bobbyp]

Is this somehow not an accusation of a conspiracy?

You might want to take that up with whomever wrote those words, rather than generalizing it to everybody who disagrees with you.

Just a thought.

[nooneithinkisinmytree]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZHh0V7UjVXI

[Michael Cain]

This is straightforward. Since January, Manchin has consistently said he wouldn't vote for a bill that included significant spending on climate change. The media largely stopped asking him about it -- I suppose they figured there was a secret deal, or why else would Schumer put someone who publicly opposed the Dems' signature environmental policy in as chair of the Energy committee? Doesn't matter what Manchin might have been saying on other aspects of the BBB. It was dead as long as it had $400B of climate change spending in it, and I've said so repeatedly.

[Nigel]

Fnckin Manchin.
So basically has just been engaged in an extended filibuster, via bad faith negotiation.
Fncker.

[cleek]

With all due respect, I urge you to consider that too much straw is a fire hazard.

i'm pretty sure you used it all up @11:44

[Donald]

I am happy to claim to be a conspiracy theorist by the definition wj and others use— I think there are likely to be a number of moderate politicians who are glad to have Manchin and Sinema take the heat. I can’t prove it. It might be wrong. But lumping this notion in with the other kinds of things called conspiracy theories is silly. People in politics tell lies. Shocking, I know. Much of politics is about hypocrisy, often about extremely serious things. Right after the November election a lot of moderates were blaming the progressives for the loss in Virginia, which was odd if everyone was in agreement about the desirability of the BBB except Sinema and Manchin.

Anyway, with me embracing the conspiracy theorist label in this case ( without claiming to know it for certain), perhaps the intellectually serious pragmatists in the thread can pocket this concession and move on. I am in fact a conspiracy theorist by wj’s standards, which I find ludicrous. If you follow human rights issues it is beyond obvious that people in politics in both parties regularly lie their fracking heads off. It is more of a shock when they don’t.

[wj]

I think there are likely to be a number of moderate politicians who are glad to have Manchin and Sinema take the heat. I can’t prove it. It might be wrong.

There is, I submit, a difference between being glad that someone else's actions are providing cover for you. Thus allowing you to avoid having to stand up and admit to your position. And actually conspiring to have one person take some action on behalf of others.

That there are those who are relieved that Manchin is taking the heat for them, I do not doubt. But that there was a conspiracy, I beg leave to doubt -- at least until someone comes along with actual evidence.

[Tony P.]

wj,

Which Dem Senators do you have in mind who are "relieved that Manchin is taking the heat for them"?

And just for curiosity, are there Republicans you can think of who are grateful to Manchin for keeping them from having to vote against BBB?

My suggestion is: let those Dems and those Reps get together as a third party (The Mods) and be done with it. The country and the world might move several steps closer to hell as a result, but moderately and without unseemly squabbling.

--TP

[wj]

Which Dem Senators do you have in mind who are "relieved that Manchin is taking the heat for them"?

I was responding to the characterization of "moderate" Senators. I'm not sufficiently into the Senate personnel to have names at my fingertips. (Somehow, the nut cases -- Hawley, Cruz, etc. -- come more rapidly to mind. ;-)

[wj]

And just for curiosity, are there Republicans you can think of who are grateful to Manchin for keeping them from having to vote against BBB?

Rather similarly here. Although Collins does leap to mind. And, perhaps, Romney.

[bobbyp]

Rather similarly here. Although Collins does leap to mind. And, perhaps, Romney.

The idea of Collins or Romney voting for BBB is simply farcical.

51 Senators are dead set against BBB. 50 of them are fucking Republicans.

Remember that the next time you hear anybody blubbering on about bipartisanship.

[Tony P.]

wj,

Your perennial faith (or hope in, or maybe charity toward) the shameless Susan Collins is touching. Though I will say: she does fit my definition of a Moderate(TM).

--TP

[wj]

The idea of Collins or Romney voting for BBB is simply farcical.

And I never said that they would have. I said that they they might well be glad that Manchin was making it so that they didn't have to vote against it. Which was the question I was asked.

[Tony P.]

Is taking refuge in Manchin's shadow the new definition of Moderate(TM)?

I get what you're saying, wj. The likes of Susie and Willard would vote against a BBB if it came to the floor, because they're Republicans and their one "principle" is opposing everything Democrats propose. But showing their true colors would ding their Moderate(TM) marketing schtick. So, you seem to say, they're probably grateful to Manchin for giving them cover.

Just like the Moderate(TM) Democrats you postulate but can't name.

It's beginning to sound like you think cowardice, or hypocrisy, or something, is a defining aspect of "moderation".

--TP

[bobbyp]

But showing their true colors would ding their Moderate(TM) marketing schtick.

No need to worry. The filibuster provides them all the cover they would need.

[wj]

It's beginning to sound like you think cowardice, or hypocrisy, or something, is a defining aspect of "moderation".

The fact that some moderates are cowards does not make cowardice the defining characteristic of moderates. Any more than the fact that some on the left are violent and totally detatched from reality outside their own tiny bubble makes such lunacy the defining characteristic of progressives. It isn't, as you well know.

For that matter, the fact that various RWNJs stule themselves as "conservatives" doesn't make being a racist reactionary fascist (any or all of those) the defining characteristic of conservatives.

[Michael Cain]

51 Senators are dead set against BBB. 50 of them are fucking Republicans.

More as a discussion point than anything, no one has offered Manchin a BBB that strips out the $450B climate change spending. Granted, such a bill appears to be DOA in the House -- Pelosi lacks the votes to pass just the social spending parts without the climate change. It may be DOA in the Senate as well -- I don't know how many of Schumer's caucus are adamant that climate change has to pass this year.

[JanieM]

But showing their true colors would ding their Moderate(TM) marketing schtick.

Sorry, TP, it is not possible to ding Collins's Moderate(TM) marketing schtick. She has been pulling this scam for so long that it is bullet-proof.

[Hartmut]

I guess it will take switching the navy to coal again with an exclusive contract for WV mines Manchin has financial interest in. Maybe also adding some punitive taxes for renewables (that part could even get some GOP support given that they try that on the state level now and then.).

[wj]

I guess it will take switching the navy to coal again with an exclusive contract for WV mines Manchin has financial interest in.

But perhaps Manchin's interest is not in coal per se. In which case, it might be sufficient to provide him with equally lucrative interest in some renewable energy concerns. Especially since he is already aware that, even absent green energy efforts, the coal business is shrinking. And at an increasing rate, too. Just a thought.

[Donald]

“ And actually conspiring to have one person take some action on behalf of others.”

Wj, if that is all you are saying I have even less interest in debating it. I don’t think people usually have to get together and point out the obvious. If Sinema and Manchin are willing to be the bad guys, then there is no reason for anyone to call them up and say “ keep it up so I don’t have to”. It’d be dumb. You’d be handing them a weapon to use against you. Only an idiot would trust either of them.

Most of my “ conspiracy theories” are of this type, Politicians and government spokesmen don’t have to get together most of the time to plan on who is going to sprout nonsensical crap about human rights ( the issue I follow the most). I could tell them what to say, because everyone knows what you are supposed to say and what will get you in trouble. Ilhan Omar regularly treads over the line, as she did last June, triggering a bunch of completely farcical BS from politicians in both parties. Some of them apparently did get together, but it was hardly necessary. The crap writes itself.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/jun/10/ilhan-omar-democrats-harassment-silencing-israel-hamas-taliban

[liberal japonicus]

It seems that the word 'conspiracy' is the crux that all this is built on, but it feels like the word itself is pretty amorphous. I'd think that offering Manchin some sort of lucrative alternative interest in order for him to support the climate change portion of BBB seems to fit my definition of 'conspiracy', but it seems that it isn't a conspiracy if it supports keeping moderate safe from becoming a bad word.

A while back, I posted about Weber and his notion of 'elective affinities'. I think that's what Donald is thinking and I tend to agree with him. With elective affinities, you have to consider the forces that are keeping them in place. With those forces, the question then becomes can they be changed/educated? And if not, what then?

Moderate(tm) is a pretty solid shtick, but so was liberal. If defining examples of moderation become Manchin and Collins, I'd say keep away from the word, it's too late to save it.

[Nooneithinkisinmytree]

John Cole, not Coal, former Red State Board member, and the only fucking conservative movement apostate I will spare in the coming savagely violent Civil War, fucks Manchin up his corporate, bought subhuman ass:

https://www.balloon-juice.com/2021/12/19/just-cut-the-bullshit-joe/

All is lost. Bullets in flight are protected free speech.

You watch.

[wj]

If Sinema and Manchin are willing to be the bad guys, then there is no reason for anyone to call them up and say “ keep it up so I don’t have to”.

Sorry, Donald, but you are simply ignoring what the word "conspiracy" means. Conspiracy requires that there be communication on the topic. Otherwise, all you have is a bunch of people with similar intetests. At most, you have a set of people for whom someone else is "a useful idiot." They may be delighted at his actions. But if they didn't discuss those actions with him, they simply do not meet the definition of a conspiracy.

I'd think that offering Manchin some sort of lucrative alternative interest in order for him to support the climate change portion of BBB seems to fit my definition of 'conspiracy'

Actually, what it is is bribery. If several people discuss giving him said bribe, and one or more do so, that is a conspiracy. But the bribe itself isnt.

[liberal japonicus]

Actually, what it is is bribery. If several people discuss giving him said bribe, and one or more do so, that is a conspiracy. But the bribe itself isnt.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bmS9XUyX27k

[bobbyp]

a conjunction of interests is not necessarily a conspiracy. Pointing out these interests and noting how they may align to affect policy outcomes is not engaging in conspiracy thinking.

It is not engaging in conspiracy mongering to point out that there are a good number of Dem Senators who are hesitant to simply get rid of the filibuster. Take it away DiFi. There are a couple who apparently won't even state their opinion one way or the other. To assert that those who are so hesitant are given political cover by the likes of Manchin and Sinema is to simply state the obvious.

Here's a list, but it may be a bit dated these days.

And not desiring to leave without throwing out a bit of straw, I take this opportunity to wish all of you a happy holidays.

[wj]

Merry Christmas
Happy Hanukkah
Good Solstice

Or whatever holiday you celebrate

[Donald]

Wj, you are the one who brought in the phrase “ conspiracy theory” and pointed to my earlier post as an example. I don’t care what you choose to call it. I think it plausible that some centrist politicians are happy to let Manchin and Sinema take the heat. I don’t think the fear of deficits is sincere, given that the immense Pentagon budget was increased over what Biden asked for by overwhelming margins. I don’t think centrists ( or some of them) want liberal social programs that would help ordinary people.

Call this a CT or not— it doesn’t matter to me.

[wj]

I don’t think the fear of deficits is sincere, given that the immense Pentagon budget was increased over what Biden asked for by overwhelming margins.

In most cases, I agree with you on that. Although their reaction to the Trump tax cuts is probably a better indicator.

I don’t think centrists ( or some of them) want liberal social programs that would help ordinary people.

My sense is that this dislike is more characteristic of today's reactionaries** than of centerists. (Or even real conservatives.) There is disagreement over how best to help ordinary people. And, in some cases, over how much help is optimum. But not that help is appropriate.

** The concept of populist reactionaries hurts my head. But that somehow seems to be the mindset of a lot of the MAGAots.

[Donald]

I’m going to rant a bit on the phrase “ conspiracy theory” because it is a major pet peeve of mine.

The usual political sophisticate says that conspiracy theories are silly because large groups of people can’t keep a secret for very long. It leaks. I am not sure that is always true, but anyway, it is frequently irrelevant because of the emperor’s new clothes effect. Some officially promulgated truth might be openly false but large groups of people sometimes have an incentive to proclaim a falsehood as true, or else to avoid talking about it.

I heard recently that a church I used to attend ( not Catholic, btw) is being sued by some former choirboys. You can guess why. Personally I knew nothing about what was happening, but the claim is that some people in authority in the church had to have known. So I don’t know in that particular case what the truth was but it would not surprise me if the allegations are true and it was covered up. At least that was the case in countless other similar instances, in churches, church schools, Hollywood, the Charlie Rose Show, Epstein, etc…. Some people know and cover it up, some people suspect, and some people are ignorant and in many cases there is a conspiracy going on to keep it that way. It is a big secret until all of a sudden it isn’t, but a lot of people knew all along.

Currently the NYT is exposing a conspiracy by the military to cover up the number of civilians it was killing. In this case anyone paying attention has known for years something like this was going on, but it has been mostly ignored. But investigators have been going to villages and bombed out cities and finding that the number of civilians killed vastly exceeded the number admitted by the military. The drone strike in Kabul was typical. Virtually every word of the official story was false but in that case the NYT could do an investigation and forced them to back down. It isn’t that the military is deliberately killing civilians. ( Sanctions do that, indirectly, but with deniability. We are in the process right now of starving people in Afghanistan.). They just jump to conclusions, because mother wrong people and claim to do thorough assessments afterwards and they lie about that.

Ilhan Omar questioned Secretary Blinken last June about war crimes and he said that Israel and the US have mechanisms to investigate their own actions. This is a literal truth which in reality is total bullshit, because in practice the mechanisms work to cover up the truth most of the time. Omar said that victims of Israel,the US, the Taliban, and Hamas need some way to get justice. Immediately politicians in both parties starting shrieking about the terrible impropriety of comparing democratic countries with terrorist organizations. Which is a complete non sequitur, since democracies going back to Athens are perfectly capable of committing war crimes, sometimes openly with popular support and other times “ secretly”, like the emperor with his wonderfully stylish invisible attire.

So yeah, anyway, when the evidence supports it I am a conspiracy theorist or at least open to it. In Manchin and Sinema’s case, I think a sensible centrist politician might secretly cheer them on, but keep his or her distance. There wouldn’t be any reason to call them and “ conspire”. It isn’t crazy to imagine politicians getting together and doing that, but I would doubt the wisdom of anyone who would trust Sinema or Manchin on anything.

[Donald]

“ mother wrong people “

Weird autocrrrect.

I meant that they bomb the wrong people.

[wj]

Donald, there is no real question but that conspiracies happen. (The efforts by Trump and his supporters to overturn the last US election definitely qualifies, for example.) But the number of actual conspiracies is vastly smaller than the number of imputed ones. So my feeling is that, if someone proposes that a conspiracy is responsible for something bad which happened, the burden is on them to provide some evidence for that accusation. I'm willing to be convinced; but absent clear evidence I am extremely skeptical.

[nooneithinkisinmytree]

Well, the people who bomb the wrong people abroad and who shoot the wrong people in America were mothered, and it was definitely wrong to mother them.

[nooneithinkisinmytree]

Their mothers should be arrested and executed for wrongly mothering:

https://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2021/12/tell-me-flattering-lies-or-the-country-gets-it

Or maybe their mothers belong on ventilators so the plugs can be pulled:

https://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2021/12/the-republican-party-is-pro-covid

It starting to look like a conspiracy by a cabal of mothers to murder America by infiltrating by stolen elections their evil spawn into our institutions.

[nooneithinkisinmytree]

Manchin's mother's bad birthing decisions have inflated the price of Maseratis into the stratosphere.

Meanwhile, decent mothers will be denied the child tax credit by the mother of all vermin murderers, Joe Manchin.

And meanwhile, I'm down ten grand in the first hour of the stock market this morning as Manchin condemns all of us to economy-strangling deflation.

The coal miners in West Virginia are denied the black lung funding in the BBB.

They can eat the dust of Manchin's Maserati speeding off to conservative Hell.

[wj]

From nooneithinkisinmytree's link:
"Breyer has told several people who’ve made unofficial efforts to push him to retire that he thinks the confirmation process shouldn’t be political"

I doubt anyone here would disagree with this as an ideal. (Or as the general practice in the last century.) But today? However regretably, that's just not the world we live in.

[hairshirthedonist]

So my feeling is that, if someone proposes that a conspiracy is responsible for something bad which happened, the burden is on them to provide some evidence for that accusation. I'm willing to be convinced; but absent clear evidence I am extremely skeptical.

But you wouldn't be equally skeptical of a plausible proposition and one that is plainly ludicrous, would you?

[Snarki, child of Loki]

When there's an entire "system" to propagandize, cover up, classify, and prosecute leakers of war-crimes: yeah, I don't think you can call it a 'conspiracy'.

You *could* call it "standard operating procedure", however.

[nooneithinkisinmytree]

Breyer: "shouldn't be political"

This is merely another of the dreamscape lies we noble Americans fondle ourselves to sleep with regarding the palpable dog shit we've lived and breathed since the founding of this country.

There is not a single Supreme Court Judge nomination and confirmation in history that was not a political act.

It just that this big Lie has become more obviously brazen as the malignant conservative movement and its dupes on the other side move their lying lips under fake innocent eyes.

Tinkerbell is an ideal.

[russell]

Breyer has told several people who’ve made unofficial efforts to push him to retire that he thinks the confirmation process shouldn’t be political

and I am Marie of Romania

[cleek]

Breyer has lost his marbles

[cleek]

or maybe Manchin is just a conservative.

Publicly, his biggest gripes are about the cost of the bill. But privately, Manchin has told his colleagues that he essentially doesn’t trust low-income people to spend government money wisely.

In recent months, Manchin has told several of his fellow Democrats that he thought parents would waste monthly child tax credit payments on drugs instead of providing for their children, according to two sources familiar with the senator’s comments.

[Tony P.]

... he thought parents would waste monthly child tax credit payments on drugs instead of providing for their children ...

I wonder whether Manchin spoke from an intimate knowledge of his own constituents. Or was it out of mere bigotry? I know: maybe it was from intimate knowledge of his constituents' bigotry?

--TP

[hairshirthedonist]

What's the threshold for the percentage of parents who would blow the money on drugs above which you wouldn't support the child tax credit? Does Manchin have one in mind? What's his prediction for the actual percentage of parents who would spend the money on drugs? Does he have such a prediction?

I'm sure some number of parents would do that, so I would agree that it's north of zero percent. Beyond that, I have little idea. I'm not sure where to put the support threshold, either. Is he? Seems like he should be.

[wj]

... he thought parents would waste monthly child tax credit payments on drugs instead of providing for their children ...

One wonders if he would favor some nice draconian penalties for those, specifically those of his constituents, who are found to be doing so.

[nooneithinkisinmytree]

The word "deplorables" comes to mind.

Guy with Maserati I expect is rubbing shoulders with his armed druggie constituents daily, I'd expect.

How many current and former coal miners in West Virginia, whose bodies are savaged by decades of hard labor rely on opioids to lessen the chronic pain of providing coal to Manchin's customers.

[Girl from the North Country]

Breyer has told several people who’ve made unofficial efforts to push him to retire that he thinks the confirmation process shouldn’t be political

and I am Marie of Romania

Me too. FFS.

[Hartmut]

My wild guess: in absolute per capita numbers rich people spend significantly more on controlled substances than the have-nots Manchin is so suspicious of. Quality has its price after all (and I assume that this weighs more than the volume discount rich brats can negotiate).

[Ufficio]

Maybe this wouldn't have flown with the CPC and there's no exact dollar figure given, but was climate spending the actual sticking point?

https://www.washingtonpost.com/us-policy/2021/12/20/manchin-biden-child-tax-credit/

[nooneithinkisinmytree]

From a business/stock market site:

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/should-one-millionaire-senator-really-be-able-to-send-millions-of-children-back-into-poverty-11640031053?siteid=bigcharts&dist=bigcharts

[wj]

The link asks: "Should one millionaire senator really be able to send millions of children back into poverty?" Clearly not.

But then, one might with equal justice as whether a (supposedly) millionaire ex-President should be able to successfully lure multitudes into sedition? And, if he eventually succeeds, far worse poverty for even more children.

Manchin may be despicable, but he is nothing like the worst case among our national politicians.

[bobbyp]

Fortunately, the number of these types of so-called leftistsis miniscule (I hereby invoke the wj no true conservative standard).

On the other hand, has Joe Biden gone and made the perfect the enemy of the good?

What say you, moderates?

[nooneithinkisinmytree]

"Manchin may be despicable, but he is nothing like the worst case among our national politicians."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jHPOzQzk9Qo

[Ufficio]

Hell, he's only the 51st worst Senator.

[wj]

Fortunately, the number of these types of so-called leftistsis miniscule (I hereby invoke the wj no true conservative standard).

An entirely reasonable invocation. Although I do wonder whether the number is really that miniscule. Perhaps it is merely the lack of a massive propaganda channel (ala Faux News) to amplify their voices.... But a blessing for you either way to have their loudness constrained.

[wj]

Hell, he's only the 51st worst Senator.

Say, rather, 52nd. For I'd say that Sinema achieves worse.

[bobbyp]

Hell, he's only the 51st worst Senator.

What? He's below average?

[Russell]

What was Manchin thinking:

https://talkingpointsmemo.com/prime/inside-the-manchin-blow-up

American governance is at the mercy of petulant children.

[Pro Bono]

While the world goes to hell in a handbasket, all I have to say is that conventional orthography demands "minuscule".

[nooneithinkisinmytree]

I'm seeing this:

https://digbysblog.net/2021/12/20/dont-look-away-its-still-important/

The entire America media's amygdala is addicted to the Trump cocaine hits, joining the Republican Party standing in line for cheap highs.

It will be thrilling for them when all of us start killing each other.

Plus they won't have to pay those pesky travel expenses to Rwanda, the Balkans, Syria, or Laos to fulfill their blood lust ratings.

[Donald]

“ I'm willing to be convinced; but absent clear evidence I am extremely skeptical”

You’d have to read various articles about US air strikes, but it is pretty cut and dried, almost boringly obvious. The US was claiming extraordinary levels of precision in killing large numbers of terrorists and hardly killing civilians at all. Even without reporters going in and interviewing people on the ground the crackpot position would be to believe them without compelling evidence— the common sense position, even before the investigations, is that they were lying. But as it happens, people keep investigating, as with the Kabul drone strike, and yes, as anyone in contact with reality would expect, on this subject the US government is completely full of crap.

On the main topic of conversation here, Manchin, my feelings are about the sort of thing Thullen writes. So I won’t go into detail.

[Donald]

Twitter link from the NYT reporter.

https://twitter.com/AzmatZahra/status/1472590479988600834

[bobbyp]

Pro Bono,

Your perspicacity is exceeded only by your jocoseness.

:)

[bobbyp]

Remember this well, folks. There are 50 asshole GOP US Senators who resolutely DEMAND that we don't even have a public DEBATE on BBB.

So much for the "world's greatest deliberative body". What a joke.

[wj]

So much for the "world's greatest deliberative body". What a joke.

But, bobby, reactionaries always live in the (imagined) past. Why would these be any different?

[CharlesWT]

There are 50 asshole GOP US Senators who resolutely DEMAND that we don't even have a public DEBATE on BBB.

My impression is that nobody is having a public debate on bills. The leadership presents legislation and everyone else is expected to stfu and vote on it.

[cleek]

note that the filibuster is technically a refusal to stop public debate on a bill (thus preventing it from coming to a vote).

or, it was. now it's just a vestigial remnant of that procedure.

[Michael Cain]

note that the filibuster is technically a refusal to stop public debate on a bill (thus preventing it from coming to a vote).

The filibuster can be applied to any debatable motion in the Senate. The motion to proceed -- ie, to begin debate on a bill -- is debatable, so subject to filibuster. This is the tactic that's being used on the voting rights bills, to block Democrats from being able to even bring the bill(s) to the floor. The Republicans know how unpopular some of what the state legislatures they control are doing is, and don't want it played out on CSPAN daily for the mainstream media to pick up.

[nooneithinkisinmytree]

"On the main topic of conversation here, Manchin, my feelings are about the sort of thing Thullen writes. So I won’t go into detail."

Donald: I, and I expect many others here, would not mind if you took over my entire portfolio of complaints.

Besides, as of the other night, after keeping my mouth shut for two years, and after just recently attending a family wedding wherein anti-vax folks in attendance were so glad to see me (including the mother of the bride who has been a new age ditz since forever and skipped all childhood vaccinations for her kids; happily, the bride two years ago took it upon herself to finally be vaccinated for the full complement of normal people vaxxes, plus the Covid vax later), I am venturing into meat world kvetching, as the other night I was sitting and eating at the bar of a really good restaurant in Denver near closing and a younger fellow, who apparently fancies himself to be a sort of conservative elite intellectual type, was nattering away for 20 minutes about the utter ineffectiveness of masking to prevent viral transmission, and then he made the fatal move of too loudly telling the very pleasant young female masked bartender that her mask was useless, so I, from several seats away, demanded the stats on his position, and let him get two sentences into it and told him to shut his f*cking mouth and I'd be happy to finish the conversation, larded with f&ck bombs, out on the sidewalk.

I'm not proud of my behavior, and I wouldn't be surprised if the next time I enter the place, I'm asked to leave, but I've had it with silence in the face of this torrent of murderous shit (fuck their religious sentiments, fuck their first amendment rights, fuck their constitutional rights; mine are louder) and I will not stand down against these liars.

It was slightly satisfying to watch him go slack-jawed and the blood drain from his face.

By the way, I know and am friendly with many of the staff and a couple have divulged to me that nearly every single person who works there contracted the virus during the first wave in 2020 before masking, and of course vaccination, became a rational thing to practice.

Natch, the evil ones are way ahead of me.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/antivaxxer-crowds-are-now-attacking-cheesecake-factories-reis-and-panera-bread

Eating out is not going to be much fun for them or me, going forward.

So, maybe I'll give up my day job here.

Detail away.

[nooneithinkisinmytree]

Aren't deliberative bodies like sharks: They die if they stop deliberating.

[nooneithinkisinmytree]

I'm so happy for them:

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/super-rich-americans-feel-relief-201510271.html

I hope they aren't going to pour their champagne on our heads from their ivory balconies.

See how even the alleged liberal media have gelded themselves to blame Joe Biden, who has the good grace to believe there is any fucking good grace left in his enemies.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/joe-biden-wanted-to-be-a-dealmaker-he-may-have-just-failed?via=newsletter&source=DDMorning

I repeat:

You may have the conservative movement, or you may have America.

Pick one. The other dies.

[nooneithinkisinmytree]

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2021/12/21/2070423/-Missouri-Cop-Pulls-Over-School-Bus-Driver-For-Wearing-A-Mask

Yet another case for all Americans to be heavily armed, I suppose.

[russell]

I've had it with silence in the face of this torrent of murderous shit

I'm basically there as well.

If people don't want the shot, fine, just make sure you don't put other people at risk. If you're gonna make a big point out of it and give everybody who is trying to be responsible a ration of crap about it, a ration of crap will be on its way back to you.

Enough is enough.

[nooneithinkisinmytree]

Punk pussy murdering Rittenhouse needs big armed galoots to protect him from unarmed Americans asking questions:

https://talkingpointsmemo.com/morning-memo/kyle-rittenhouse-speak-turning-points-conference

There is no such animal as a rhetorical kill shot:

https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/fauci-call-out-jesse-watters-fox-kill-shot-ambush

There are only kill shots.

Deport Rupert Murdoch in a coffin.

[nooneithinkisinmytree]

The entire medical workforce in America should walkout today and never return unless all Republicans and conservatives are denied entry by force of arms into all medical facilities across the country.

They can find a quack in a van down by the river and trade a chicken and a dozen bullets for the vet cures.

https://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2021/12/america-gone-mad

[nooneithinkisinmytree]

More murder on the way:

https://www.mediamatters.org/steve-bannon/steve-bannon-defends-great-jesse-watters-violent-rhetoric-against-fauci-were-getting

Hey, conservatives. You out there? You own weapons, right?

Odd that the guns are so silent given all of the other contexts you might boast of using them to deadly effect.

[nooneithinkisinmytree]

Vax rhymes with Tax.

It's as simple as that for the simple-minded.

[russell]

so, this popped up in my news feed. It's more or less of a piece with the last couple of links from nooneithink.

my own personal experience of this particular time is that I share a nation and a community with a hell of a lot of people who are enraged, insane, and prone to violence. By "insane" I mean detached from reality. Unreachable by reason or logic, or even simple appeals to their own humanity. It seems a reasonable definition of insanity, to me.

I have no idea what to do about any of that. I keep hoping the freaking fever breaks, but that does not appear likely.

I'm obliged to live among people who may break weird and start assaulting and killing people if they don't get their way.

This is an impossible situation. It can't continue. What conclusion it comes to is not really up to me, I'm just gonna have to live with it, whatever it is.

These people are insane. I don't know how else to describe them.

And I and people like me are obliged to live among them and hope for the best.

FUBAR

[nooneithinkisinmytree]

As a companion piece to Russell's link, John Quiggen of Crooked Timber, who has had a sunny disposition in the past regarding trends, now despairs:

https://crookedtimber.org/2021/12/21/getting-it-wrong-on-the-future-of-democracy/#more-49407

[nooneithinkisinmytree]

via Balloon Juice:

https://www.lawfareblog.com/merrick-garland-needs-speak

[Girl from the North Country]

These people are insane. I don't know how else to describe them.

And I and people like me are obliged to live among them and hope for the best

There was a time when I would have encouraged you to emigrate, unrealistic (and no doubt an infuriating thought) though that may have been. We're sane here on guns of course, but our democracy is not all that healthy either right now. Canada? I don't know, I am feeling pretty pessimistic about most of the world at the moment, I'm sorry to say.

[Tony P.]

Things Democrats should talk about as if they've already been proved beyond a reasonable doubt:

1. He, Trump conspired to steal the Presidency.
2. He had co-conspirators in Congress.

Stop pussy-footing around with committees, courts, or other formalities. Call them traitors as casually as you'd call grass green. If their MAGAt acolytes complain, call the MAGAts snowflakes, and double down on the first thing. Say it to reporters, say it on the record, say it in public. Don't stop saying it. Repetition, not proof, is what seeps through apathy and congeals into something like a zeitgeist.

I would also like Democrats to keep harping on what benefits Republicans and Manchins are depriving you, the voter, of. No more "We could not make a deal", but "You're being robbed by these assholes". Don't say it stridently, say it as casually as you'd mention which way water flows. Just keep saying it.

If reporters or pundits challenge you for saying these things, treat them like you'd treat a second-grader: "I'll explain when you're more grown up".

Maybe this amounts to nothing more than kicking up sand and yelling "Jehovah! Jehovah!" when you're already condemned to stoning for blasphemy, but I say it's no more useless than reasoning politely with idiots and fascists.

--TP

[Michael Cain]

There was a time when I would have encouraged you to emigrate...

While you weren't speaking to me, I'll note that I am just too old and not quite rich enough, with no automatic by virtue of relatives, to have an emigration path. My wife's case is worse, as even a cursory medical exam will come up with long-term care before very many years.

One of the regular commenters is apparently prepared to take to the barricades to try to save the entire country. I'm more inclined to let Indiana (for example) go to hell in its own way -- but convince the Indiana state legislature that they would be better off if they let Colorado and neighbors go off on their own.

Yeah, lunatic fringe. OTOH, a ton of private money going into the goal of being 100% carbon-free energy by 2040 or so out here.

[Snarki, child of Loki]

Michael,
considering how good RWNJ's are at letting neighbors live the way they prefer, you might have to move to Hawai'i.

There are worse fates, it's true.

[Russell]

Re: emigration:

I’m in the same boat as Michael Cain - too old, not rich enough for that not to matter.

There are places I’d probably enjoy moving to, but TBH it pisses me off that it’s even something I’d need to consider.

I was born here, have spent my entire life here. This is my country. I’m not inclined to leave because of a bunch of flaming knuckleheads.

I have no idea how that’s gonna play out.

I do have friends who have secured citizenship in other places via documented family histories. Germany, Italy, Canada, maybe Ireland. They might go.

How ridiculous is it that this is even something that needs to be discussed.

[Russell]

I'm more inclined to let Indiana (for example) go to hell in its own way -- but convince the Indiana state legislature that they would be better off if they let Colorado and neighbors go off on their own.

This makes sense to me.

If we can’t figure out how to live together, let’s part ways. If folks want to live under the likes of Trump, let alone the rest of the (R) bootlickers, fine with me. You go your way and I’ll go mine.

And yes, there are blue people in red states and red people in blue states. Folks can move if they don’t like it where they are, or they can get off their @sses and change things where they are.

But I’m basically fine if this is the beginning of the end of the great American experiment. If (R) governance is the direction this is heading in, Trump or no Trump, I’m done with it.

[wj]

Some, it's come to this: I finding for myself seeing upsides of something from QAnon post:

What do you think of the QAnon theory that Trump is still in the Oval Office, and had plastic surgery to look just like Joe Biden, with the "real" Joe Biden being in prison somewhere, while a Donald Trump impersonator goes to rallies and such?

I think this is a great theory! Now the QAnon people no longer have anything to complain about! They have “stolen back” the election. From now on, they can also support everything that Joe Biden says or does - since he is “really” Donald Trump. As for that guy running around claiming to be Donald Trump, throw him in jail for tax fraud or something

No reason the idea is less sensible than other QAnon insanities.

[JanieM]

wrs as usual.

I too was born here etc. etc. I too am without the exact right configuration of immigrant ancestors to get citizenship in, say, Italy, and I too am too old, and not rich enough, to emigrate by other pathways. Sometimes a little part of my thought train turns back to the days when I had an Irish girlfriend and had every intention of living over there eventually, at least part-time. Catholic Ireland even got SSM before the good old USA.

Oh well.

If we're pushed out of our homeland, or not pushed out but end up ruled by the fascist assholes who are threatening and scheming to take over, we won't be the first. That's no consolation, but I've been trying to face the fact that it's part of our, or at least my, past privilege to have imagined that I was less at risk of such a fate than other people.

I grieve most of all for the next generations, but then I remember that fascist governance may not end up being the worst thing they face.

I also wonder sometimes if our bloggy obsession with politics might not be blinding us to other levers we might pull to change the course of events....