Biden / Harris Focused Discussion

[CostinR]

Manchin is against using reconciliation anymore, did you miss that? that's why democrats have to go through all this negotiation for infrastructure.

Manchin is against Democrats pushing things on a purely partisan basis in the Senate and he's more or less forcing both sides to negotiate in good faith even though both of them don't really want to.

Whether or you can get an infrastructure bill signed by Biden out of those negotiations is another matter.

Because unlike you I simply see history repeating itself for the democrats with nothing being learned. What does this accomplish in the end? let's say you are right we coddle and love Manchin with all our hearts. Without the voting rights bill democrats will lose both house of congress and possibly 2024 so all this progress will be for naught. There's no redo here these laws solidify the GOP minority rule for decades to come.

Democrats will lose both houses of Congress because Americans have shown, time and time again, that every time someone goes for a pure party line thinking voters are going to punish them, or do you forget Democrats passed Obamacare on a pure party line vote and voters gave them hell for it?

Biden won the primaries against the wishes of the left wing of the Democratic party and then proceeded to win the election against Trump. Trump who embraced the most idiotic redneck thinking during COVID on masks, social distancing and lockdowns.

Democrats lost over a dozen seats in the House while gaining 3 seats in the Senate. The House which has been marked by more and more political extremism while the Senate has not. By all means having people like AOC and many others crying over "defund the police" worked brilliantly!

[Rasulis]

The FBI recovered a huge chunk of the Colonial Pipeline ransom by secretly gaining access to Darkside's bitcoin wallet password

The DOJ said that it had recovered $2.3 million worth of bitcoin out of the $4.4 million ransom that Colonial had paid to Darkside, the group behind the hack.

How did the government pull it off?

The FBI had what was effectively the password to a bitcoin wallet that Darkside had sent the ransom money to, allowing the FBI to simply seize the funds, according to the DOJ.

To be precise, the FBI recovered 67.3 bitcoins which at the time the ransom was paid were worth 3.4 million. Not a bad job under this administration. Who is soft on crime and Russia again?

[Draco-Onis]

Why on earth do you think that attacking him would do any good? What do you imagine his reaction to be, exactly?

Because coddling these people doesn't work, that's always been the democratic approach to this conundrum every single time.

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You realize there's space between "coddle and love" and "shit on" right? That it's a continuum? That shitting on vulnerable senators is just going to make them less likely to be re-elected by depressing (D) turnout in their states?

And again, they're still passing legislation via reconciliation. The "For the People" act wouldn't have been passed without it. Whatever they use it on next year wouldn't either (if I had to guess, that one will address infrastructure if a deal isn't made by then).

If you look at the recent NV (I think it was nevada, might have been new mexico) special, dems are out-performing their 2020 pace (small sample, so keep that in mind). If dems don't fall to infighting, they're unlikely to lose the house. The senate contests are basically for MO, GA, OH, FL, and PA. Only one of those is held by a dem. I fully expect GOP turnout to be down because trump isn't on the ballot, and fully expect dem turnout to be up b/c of how pissed they are at the restrictions. I expect dems to flip PA and hold GA. Not much hope for OH/FL/MO (unless greitens gets the GOP nom). I get being mad at the restrictions, but it's not a foregone conclusion (anything but), and shitting on the people who help you maintain control of the chamber is just not a great idea. It doesn't benefit dems at all (just like ostracizing cheney didn't help the GOP with it's moderates and independents).

Like I said before I have seen this movie over and over again, we go through this cycle and each time the country is worse off than before. Whenever republicans gain power they rig the system more and more while democrats sit on their ass and talk about "bipartisanship". Maybe I am just a jaded old man who has seen this too many times, hopefully for both our sakes I am very wrong and democrats don't get screwed. However I do not see how republicans lose when they now have so much power in a lot of states, they can directly or indirectly throw out votes without reason.

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Yes, there is being an asshole and just being a plain piss nickle. I will agree you need to be tough, but there is a better way to go about such a thing when it comes to this.

And democrats have historically failed at it.

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As much hate as Manchin deserves, at least Democrats control committees and can bring up things like judges for nominations. Good luck getting that done with McTurtle as Majority Leader.

Okay that's a fair point, I guess we should resign ourselves to the bare minimum and just cram as many judges as possible. If you take a longer view of things and these laws do their job these judges won't matter since republicans will have decades to put even more judges on the bench. Let's also be frank these Jim Crow laws are not the end they will keep adding more of them to stack the deck if they lose.

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Democrats will lose both houses of Congress because Americans have shown, time and time again, that every time someone goes for a pure party line thinking voters are going to punish them, or do you forget Democrats passed Obamacare on a pure party line vote and voters gave them hell for it?

Biden won the primaries against the wishes of the left wing of the Democratic party and then proceeded to win the election against Trump. Trump who embraced the most idiotic redneck thinking during COVID on masks, social distancing and lockdowns.

Democrats lost over a dozen seats in the House while gaining 3 seats in the Senate. The House which has been marked by more and more political extremism while the Senate has not. By all means having people like AOC and many others crying over "defund the police" worked brilliantly!

Democrats lost seats in the house the same reason they always do they are bad at marketing. The sales pitch for Biden was that he was going to be a miracle candidate and beat Trump by a landslide however he won by the same slim margin Trump did and lost seats in the house. We should thank Trump for helping us out in Georgia and losing those two seats otherwise we would have been screwed. There is too much emphasis on the whole defund the police and ignoring the facts of the matter, even when the GOP got pummeled in the house in 2018 they kept a considerable amount of seats. These laws they have now are even more effective than the ones that kept them from getting wiped out.

You can quibble about messaging but there was no defund the police in 2018.

[Dontrike]

Manchin is against Democrats pushing things on a purely partisan basis in the Senate and he's more or less forcing both sides to negotiate in good faith even though both of them don't really want to.

If Manchin paid attention to the last 20 years, or at minimum the last 4, he'd see that the GOP are not interested in that. Also, people being able to vote isn't something you should say is "partisan" no matter what. It's exactly what should happen.

There will be no "forcing" negotiation when one side literally wants none and wants the other dead.

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The FBI recovered a huge chunk of the Colonial Pipeline ransom by secretly gaining access to Darkside's bitcoin wallet password



To be precise, the FBI recovered 67.3 bitcoins which at the time the ransom was paid were worth 3.4 million. Not a bad job under this administration. Who is soft on crime and Russia again?

Maybe it's a bad thing to say, but I really don't care that a rich person's virtual wallet got taken and recovered. At all. There are far bigger things, and important things, they can and should be focusing on.

[postman1782]

If Manchin paid attention to the last 20 years, or at minimum the last 4, he'd see that the GOP are not interested in that. Also, people being able to vote isn't something you should say is "partisan" no matter what. It's exactly what should happen.

There will be no "forcing" negotiation when one side literally wants none and wants the other dead.

Especially considering, his own constituents in his state, including Republicans want some of the bills being proposed. Including the new voting rights bill, the policing bill, getting rid of the filibuster, and the infrastructure bill. All of those have a mostly 70-80% popularity rate, just for West Virginians. But this fucker wants bipartisanship, something that we will never get with Republicans, they haven't done that, really, since before Newt Gingrich.

[Ivanstone]

Democrats will lose both houses of Congress because Americans have shown, time and time again, that every time someone goes for a pure party line thinking voters are going to punish them, or do you forget Democrats passed Obamacare on a pure party line vote and voters gave them hell for it?

1. The GOP added numerous amendments to the bill and symbolically voted against the ACA because....
2. They knew that there was going to be deep, deep spending at every level of the 2010 election so the GOP could seize control of the redistricting process.

[Smitzelplix]

So it looks like Manchin was all for the For the People Act when Democrats didn't have control, but now that Democrats have control he's against it.

Joe Manchin cosponsored the voting-rights bill in 2019 that he's now blocking on the grounds that the GOP doesn't like it

[Edge-]

So it looks like Manchin was all for the For the People Act when Democrats didn't have control, but now that Democrats have control he's against it.

Joe Manchin cosponsored the voting-rights bill in 2019 that he's now blocking on the grounds that the GOP doesn't like it

It also has overwhelming support within his state, something like 70%+ approval.

He's just being a shitheel who enjoys all the attention, power, and influence he has right now. Which is why I hope Democrats pick up a seat or two in 2022 so they can go back to ignoring Manchin.

[Smitzelplix]

It also has overwhelming support within his state, something like 70%+ approval.

He's just being a shitheel who enjoys all the attention, power, and influence he has right now. Which is why I hope Democrats pick up a seat or two in 2022 so they can go back to ignoring Manchin.

That's what I want too, I want Manchin to become irrelevant so if he keeps doing this the rest of the Dems could just do the "Oh no! Anyway" meme to him every time he wants to block something.

[Edge-]

https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/...gender-pay-gap

Republicans in the Senate killed an equal-pay bill to reduce gender wage disparities. 49/50, but it needed 60 to pass the filibuster.

Biden and Democrats need to come out swinging that Republicans want women paid less than men, and that they're abusing the filibuster for capricious moves like this rather than protecting peoples rights or any of the lofty things it's allegedly supposed to do.

[Milchshake]

BAck in August when the site was going through Veepstakes Fevor. Many people were gushing about Val Demings.

Well she just announced her run to go after MArco Rubio's seat.

Democratic Rep. Val Demings announces challenge to GOP Sen. Marco Rubio
“I’ve never tired of standing up for what I believe is right," Demings said in her video announcement. "Now I’m running for the United States Senate because of two simple words: never tire.”

[Gestopft]

He's just being a shitheel who enjoys all the attention, power, and influence he has right now. Which is why I hope Democrats pick up a seat or two in 2022 so they can go back to ignoring Manchin.

In the meantime, Sam Seder had the best solution for pressuring Manchin: Biden should threaten to send AOC and the Squad to go to WV and campaign for him :P

[Shadowferal]

In the meantime, Sam Seder had the best solution for pressuring Manchin: Biden should threaten to send AOC and the Squad to go to WV and campaign for him :P

Now there's a damn good idea!

[PACOX]

In the meantime, Sam Seder had the best solution for pressuring Manchin: Biden should threaten to send AOC and the Squad to go to WV and campaign for him :P

That would be liberals would have to acknowledge the usefulness and threat of progressives. That would never happen.

[shimerra]

That would be liberals would have to acknowledge the usefulness and threat of progressives. That would never happen.

You do understand the person you quoted is saying that Biden should threaten to have them campaign for Manchin because they'd cause him to lose, not win, don't you? Pretty sure one of your main complaints is exactly that Dems in the country do think progressives are a threat. A threat to them winning seats. And I don't think there's a lack of "acknowledgement" of that belief in the party.

[Themius]

So progressive!!!!! Super progressive!! How much FDR!!!

https://thehill.com/regulation/court...imination-laws

DOJ says it can 'vigorously' defend exemption to anti-LGBT discrimination laws for religious schools

Oh hey Biden's DOJ allowing billions to go to religious schools who break federal laws hell it isn't just the DOJ saying "the law is the thing we should try to change it."

Nope they say we can vigorously defend this discrimination

[Edge-]

So progressive!!!!! Super progressive!! How much FDR!!!

https://thehill.com/regulation/court...imination-laws



Oh hey Biden's DOJ allowing billions to go to religious schools who break federal laws hell it isn't just the DOJ saying "the law is the thing we should try to change it."

Nope they say we can vigorously defend this discrimination

Not great, but it's a standing law now so the DoJ has an obligation to defend it. For a more nuanced take with context, Slate has a good explainer - https://slate.com/news-and-politics/...imination.html

I don't think anyone is happy about this, but it is what it is.

[Themius]

Not great, but it's a standing law now so the DoJ has an obligation to defend it. For a more nuanced take with context, Slate has a good explainer - https://slate.com/news-and-politics/...imination.html

I don't think anyone is happy about this, but it is what it is.

You sure about that? It's one thing to say "this is the law and we don't entirely agreee"

They went with vigorously defending the discrimination and

However, the Justice Department — which is charged with upholding federal law — opposed such a move, saying in its filing Tuesday that it shares the same "ultimate objective" as the schools in the case "to uphold the Religious Exemption as it is currently applied."

You say no one is happy but maybe you're exaggerating how progressive these people really are... stepping in to defend Trump... stepping in to prevent Betsy Devos from having to go to a deposition, literally calling it ridiculous to expect a former cabinet member to have to agree to a deposition never mind the fact she disregarded the law and stole money from people. She's a former cabinet member folks!!! she's special.

[Themius]

They’re evaluating the situation with the First Amendment in mind…

The other two issues I mentioned here shows a pattern. And making everything a first amendment issue is pretty much what always happens when it comes to protecting the rights of people who wish to discriminate

[Milchshake]

They’re evaluating the situation with the First Amendment in mind…

When the Very Online Brain can't read past a headline.

They leave out some important context, namely that DOJ is stepping in to preempt a bunch of radical Christian colleges from stepping in and making very bad arguments. Pam Karlan has been clear about applying Bostock widely to Title IX.


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Radicalized Gamers: 0