Does Chuck Schumer like being punched in the face repeatedly? It’s a serious question. This is almost a masochistic exercise now. They know Manchin is a ‘no’ on nuking the filibuster, but they’re going to try to tweak the rules anyway in the hopes of passing their elections bill that will federalize all races and tilt everything in the Democratic Party’s favor. They also know Build Back Better as written is dead as well. Build Back Better is dead as is this filibuster ploy, so why is Chucky wasting time. Does he have nothing else to do? At this point, Manchin is just torturing Democrats as he keeps delivering kill shots to all their best-laid plans. Oh, and Build Back Better talks between Manchin and his colleagues are dead as well. There is no more talking (via Politico):
Mere hours after Senate Majority Leader CHUCK SCHUMER laid out his most forceful argument yet to change Senate rules and create a filibuster carveout for voting rights, Sen. JOE MANCHIN doused him with cold water. The West Virginia Democrat told reporters minutes ago that a carveout would be a “heavy lift.” Basically, if you do that, he said, “you eat the whole turkey.” He wants any rule changes to be bipartisan.
Womp, womp.
“For us to go it alone … it comes back at you pretty hard,” Manchin said, specifically mentioning Democrats’ move years ago to circumvent the filibuster and confirm lower-level judges — then seeing Senate GOP Leader MITCH MCCONNELL come back and do the same to jam SCOTUS nominees through several years later.
THAT’S NOT ALL, FOLKS — Manchin also told reporters that BBB talks have pretty much stalled. “There is no negotiation going on at this time,” Manchin said. Senate Majority Whip DICK DURBIN said as much this morning, noting that Democrats probably won’t return to BBB work until after addressing voting rights, a debate that’s likely to extend through Martin Luther King Jr. Day.
Durbin just told us that BBB is paused until after the senate deals w voting rights. That pushes work on the bbb until the last few weeks of January.
— Jake Sherman (@JakeSherman) January 4, 2022
Senate Democrats could best be described as the Black Knight at the bridge in Monty Python and the Holy Grail. They have no arms and no legs. They’re just a torso, a pile of meat that Manchin can simply walk around. Sure, they can yell at him. He can simply ignore their tantrum and keep on walking which is exactly what he’s done. There are no left-wingers in West Virginia. Every county went for Trump. Biden couldn’t even clinch 30 percent of the vote here in 2020. Trump won it by nearly 40 points. Manchin can ignore the death stares from the likes of Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) who I’m sure doesn’t scare the West Virginia Democrat in the slightest. The rest of the national Democratic Party establishment can also holler, but they will not sway Joe Manchin. He can ignore them as his state is decidedly NOT Biden country. The only way to make this move even more entertaining is if Manchin switches parties which would mean Mitch McConnell would become majority leader again.
Oh, sweet mother—that would be great.