Manchin is catching some blowback from his constituents for his position on this as well. Unfortunately, the chance of getting a more liberal candidate from WV in the current political climate there is close to nil. Most vote for him solely on name recognition, and dont know or care about policies and positions. In my politically active lifetime, WV went from reliably blue to the Trumpiest of red, and I struggle to see how that changes. Young and educated people flee the state at first chance (see, well, me) and leave an increasingly bitter, angry, reactionary, old white voting populace who would happily starve themselves to keep minorities of all stripes from getting help. Sad, it is a beautiful state and i love it dearly, but can’t even bring myself to visit there now.
Delusional thinking Joe…
I have seen quite a bit of words typed about this, and I think it’s a combo of a lifelong senator, but also a sense that getting rid of it entirely would by a Pyrrhic victory. Especially when there are many, many ways to make the filibuster require effort that aren’t yet being applied. The COVID relief bill showed that Republicans are lazy, and making at least 40 of them be on call 24 hours to keep the filibuster up would kill it in all but name. They would rather have their beauty sleep than earn brownie points by blocking appointees.
I think keeping the filibuster, but making it so the minority has to talk to keep it up is the way to go. That way, there is visibility either way… if the minority is objecting for good reasons, it’s visible. And if they are objecting for bad reasons, it’s visible too. But the minority does not rule.
Yep. No more mere threats of filibuster, make them show up to vote. Then let debate continue, and keep up pressure. Make them keep 40 senators in chamber, as once they don’t have the votes then the debate can be gavelled as done.
Ending the filibuster would also make Biden (and the Democratic senate) be forced to move on policy which they also don’t particularly want to do. They don’t want policy to be what they have to run on in 2022, they want normalcy and politeness.
Biden administration labels China top tech threat, promises proportionate responses to cyberattacks
The Biden administration has named China as the most threatening nation the United States faces, on grounds that it can combine its technological and other capabilities like no other.
That assessment was offered in a new Interim National Security Guidance [PDF] issued on Wednesday, in which the administration also outlines plans to seek more regulation of advanced technologies and an intention to strike back after cyberattacks.
[…]
Boy you two are a barrel of laughs… doubly so if you’re Venezuelan /s if it wasn’t obvious.
Beau over on Youtube had pretty much the same reaction recently.
Meanwhile, the reaction from the GOP seems to be repeating their same old lines. Got an email from my rep calling the recent relief legislation “a $1.9 Trillion monstrosity” and wailing about more excessive spending by Democrats. 
Hopefully, we’ll see less undermining and more participation in moving government (and the country) a more positive direction in the future. In the meantime, there’s a lot of work and oversight to be done. The opposition has made it clear they have zero interest in assistance or accountability for their past actions.
Give it a couple of months and they’ll be having a photo op with the Secretary of Transportation, like my rep did after lambasting the ARRA in public while quietly lobbying the department for funds to build our not-quite-boondoggle of a highway bypass.
Indeed, Biden has done little to relieve the massive suffering caused by US policies and sanctions imposed on poor people around the world because their governments don’t bend the knee to our corporate interests or those of certain allies.
Starving people and preventing medical and other necessary supplies from reaching them is nothing new for either party establishment.
Madeline Albright: “We think the price was worth it” when asked about the deaths of 567k Arab children under five years old due to our Middle East meddling. ‘We Think the Price Is Worth It’ — FAIR
I’m waiting for some progress-ive moves in Cuba, Venezuela, and Iran, to say nothing of Palestine.
edit-Fixing an omission
At the same time Biden is condemning anti-Asian violence, his administration is committing it by deporting Vietnamese refugees.
Hieu Huynh, a 49-year-old refugee who arrived in the U.S. in 1980 with his family, and Tien Pham, who spent years in a refugee camp and resettled in San Jose, were two out of an estimated 33 ICE detainees on the flight scheduled to leave on March 15.
VietRISE, an O.C.-based community organization, put together a caravan and rally in Westminster Park on March 14 that drew about 100 people. Over four days, people called, emailed and tweeted at the Biden administration hoping to stop the flight.
Local organizations such as the Orange Mobile Home Coalition, Palestinian Youth Movement, Korean Resource Center, Los Alamitos Community United church, El Centro Cultural de Mexico, Chinatown Community for Equitable Development, Vietnamese Solidarity Action Network and the California Healthy Nail Salon collaborative joined the rally.
“Deporting Vietnamese refugees is anti-Asian violence,” the group chanted on Sunday afternoon.
Ok, this sucks:
For crying out loud, it’s legal in DC!
First off, what is the point of deporting someone who has been in the country for 40 years? That makes no sense.
Second, don’t these folks qualify for DACA? They were kids when they arrived in the US.
So raising taxes on someone making $400,000/year to a level that is still lower than it was before Trump and McConnell’s tax cuts is a bridge too far because it would create a “hardship”, but it’s also just too much to ask that we raise the wages of people making less than $20,000/year (tops). Reminds me of this ludicrous whopper from the WSJ when they were whining about Obama wanting to raise taxes.
“You ain’t in it” indeed.
(As a side note, I love that I managed to track that down just by searching for “wall street journal income tax graphic”.)
Agreed, but with one caveat: we need universal single-payer healthcare. The one thing that turned Elizabeth Warren from a Republican to a liberal Democrat was the research she did into bankruptcy and foreclosure, finding that even upper-middle class people in the US were affected by catastrophic health care costs, to the point where even wealthy people could lose everything with one major disease.
