BREAKING: "Absolutely."@staceyabrams says she could support @Sen_JoeManchin's voting rights compromise.pic.twitter.com/54X5mwZT9D
— John Berman (@JohnBerman) June 17, 2021
Stacey Abrams is a warrior for justice.
The deal isn’t done: We need the #ForThePeopleAct & #VRAA. We must continue to advocate for federal laws that meet the needs of our citizens who are under attack by restrictive, anti-democratic state actions. We celebrate progress but our work continues. #HotCallSummer 2/2
— Stacey Abrams (@staceyabrams) June 17, 2021
This dude prefers ‘just us’…
Here's Blunt's quote
When “Stacey Abrams immediately endorsed Sen. Manchin’s proposal, it became the Stacey Abrams substitute, not the Joe Manchin substitute.”
*-early tweet misspelled Stacey, apologies
— Burgess Everett (@burgessev) June 17, 2021
One drop of black blood …
— Richard Sharpe (@Sharpe222) June 17, 2021
I believe Blunt is retiring, which is no doubt why McConnell shoved him to the front here. Not that it would take much persuasion!
S.1 is a blatant power grab to take over our election system & maintain one-party rule. It’s not about voting rights or election reform.
It’s about Democrats keeping themselves in power. pic.twitter.com/bhO2vMp8vB
— Senator Roy Blunt (@RoyBlunt) June 17, 2021
Elizabelle
The projection in Blunt’s tweet. It could power a multiplex. Several multiplexes. Lotsa screens.
jl
Manchin better get on the stick with a way to get something done.
He’s up for reelection in 2024, right?
He thinks he can be reelected in what I think will be essentially a referendum on Biden’s first term, whether Biden runs or not, when
nothing got done
Manchin will be reason nothing got done
Manchin ran after bipartisanship for 4 years and got repeatedly punked by the GOP
Manchin will look like a weak fool, and his party delivered very little improvement for his constituents.
Cheryl Rofer
BC in Illinois
I wonder what would color Roy Blunt’s opinion like that.
Lord Fartdaddy (Formerly, Mumphrey, Smedley Darlington Mingobat, et al.)
Jesus Christ…
They don’t give a shit any longer. They believe that they’ll never have to run in a competitive election again, so they don’t mind letting everybody see their contempt for democracy.
Steeplejack (phone)
This is nuts. Not unexpected, but still nuts. Thank you, Fox News!
dmsilev
A “blatant grab to take over our electoral system” would probably start with “all states with population under 3 million are hereby declared redundant and must merge for the purposes of Senate and Electoral College allocations”.
dmsilev
@Steeplejack (phone): Look, it’s simple. Republicans are Red people, and Vladimir Putin in many ways wants to bring back the Soviet Union which was of course Red. Those voters are just speaking out in favor of color coordination.
debbie
Is this the same Joe Manchin? This feels like that Star Trek parallel universe storyline.
Rommie
If they are against free and fair elections, then they are for rigged ones? What part(s)? It’d be something if our Press would press them for answers. They might find the GOP only cares who *counts* the votes, like a Mr. JS said a while ago. It’s not like there are ample examples of rigged voting during Reconstruction or anything to show it’s happened before.
Kent
Manchin and Capito had a one-in-a-century chance to make life-changing improvements to their state which is ranked dead last of the 50 states in terms of infrastructure and a lot of other measures.
But no, they pissed away the chance because….REASONS.
Fuck them and their state. Here in WA we have a reasonably competent state government and the economic resources to improve infrastructure on our own. Unlike WV, most blue states don’t really NEED Federal assistance for this sort of thing. All this is going to do is continue to widen the gaps between prosperous blue states and declining red states. In another couple decades, West Virginia is going to look like Honduras.
I expect he will never get tired of being McConnell’s bitch. Because he is pretty damn good at it.
Lacuna Synecdoche
Sen. Roy Blunt via Anne Laurie @ Top:
Generic Republican Senator Summary:
prostratedragon
“Old New,” Tomeka Reid; the Tomeka Reid Quartet
Sure Lurkalot
@Steeplejack (phone): Putin, Trump. I thought I had bad taste in men.
Turgidson
It’s almost boring at this point how accusations are always confessions with this wretched cult of goons, crooks, morons and ghouls.
Steve in the ATL
@Lacuna Synecdoche: even though I live in Georgia, I had totally forgotten that Stacey Abrams is one of our senators. Silly me.
Ruckus
@Cheryl Rofer:
That looks like it’s working well. First he’s got the right sized container to the entire republican party’s good deeds, best wishes and democracy ideals into, as long as he doesn’t mind a bit of room leftover.
dmsilev
From the “call the WAAAAAmbulance” files. California today updated the safety rules for mask wearing in the workplace, allowing fully vaccinated workers to forgo masks if they want under many circumstances.
However, some are unhappy with this:
Suck it up, plague rats. Enjoy the “scarlet C” on your foreheads.
Ruckus
@Rommie:
They don’t think they need elections, their betters will just appoint people who agree with them. They are far better than fine with that.
Spanky
Manchin was hoping to play the Last Reasonable Democrat long enough to get himself re-elected. Stacey Abrams just called his bluff.
Steve in the ATL
@Ruckus: how’s retirement treating you? How many episodes of “matlock” and “murder she wrote” did you watch today?
JoyceH
Seeing over on Twitter that a federal judge has ordered all the lawyers who signed onto Sydney Powell’s Kraken lawsuit attempting to overturn the election in Michigan to appear at a sanctions hearing.
CaseyL
If the topic is GOP Venality, then this is on topic:
Remember the Kraken?
Judge Linda Parker, of the US District Court Michigan, has issued an Order for every single attorney who signed off on Sidney Powell’s lunatic court case there to be in court on July 6 at 2:00 PM for a sanctions hearing.
I can’t link to the tweet, but the hearing will be public, and available on Zoom (!).
Here is the zoom link, as best as I can type it:
https://www.zoomgov.com/j/1619532475?pwd=dGUveHR6ZjZVb0zvd3dmKzZRUmZLUT09
Password: 324507
ETA: I see Joyce H got there while I was copying the Zoom link. ?
jl
@Spanky:
” Manchin was hoping to play the Last Reasonable Democrat long enough to get himself re-elected. Stacey Abrams just called his bluff. ”
Wonder if Manchin is pissed at Abrams for supporting his proposal.
Danielx
@Steve in the ATL:
That is gratuitous cruelty.
On the other hand, that’s how jackals roll.
WaterGirl
@Steeplejack (phone): And they believe that is something to brag about!
“We like the corrupt autocratic leader of one of American’s enemies better than we like our own President, who is from the other party.”
Ken
I’m sure Blunt was going to vote for Manchin’s proposal, right up to the moment Abrams came out in favor of it.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Steve in the ATL: Wait, you get 3 Senators?
jl
@Kent: I saw an article reporting that on average Blue states which had more stringent covid control measures are in better economic and budgetary shape than those Red states that had less stringent measures (which is most of them).
Not sure that means more stringency caused enough reduction in disease to boost economy over what it would have been otherwise. Blue states also tend to have more progressive state tax systems and higher proportion of high income population. With the ‘K’ nature of covid economics, and recovery from pandemic (higher income professionals did OK financially, while a lot of lower income got hammered) that might be the reason.
Last I heard, California is in much better shape than expected. I’m pretty sure we didn’t do better because of more stringent control measures. In terms of health and mortality, CA is middle of the pack, and our very stringent control measures were also very inefficient. Less health gain for stringency pain than other blue states.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@WaterGirl: That’s not new, they liked Putin more than Obama too.
Edmund Dantes
@Ken: which is the same trick they will play with the bipartisan infrastructure bill.
I was for the general framework, but then X detail was finalized. Now I have no choice to vote against it.
Betty
@jl: I understand he is not running. Which makes his behavior all the more maddening.
jl
@Betty: I had not heard that. How reliable is your info? But I’ll keep that in mind.
One unfortunate explanation is feathering his, and maybe his relatives’) future lobbying job.
rikyrah
??????
CBS Evening News (@CBSEveningNews) tweeted at 2:51 PM on Thu, Jun 17, 2021:
President Biden got down on one knee to greet Opal Lee, an activist who has been advocating for Juneteenth to be established as a national holiday, ahead of the bill signing at the White House. https://t.co/Hsyjh7eAR2
(https://twitter.com/CBSEveningNews/status/1405614124202143749?s=03)
WaterGirl
@jl: As far as I can tell, that’s speculation. Manchin has not made an announcement that he is not running.
Cameron
@JoyceH: Wonder if they’re all going to use her defense that no sane person would believe the nonsense she was spouting. Not sure that will work all that well.
jl
Interesting story on a reason for vaccine hesitancy that I had not heard of before.
” More than half of unvaccinated Americans would prefer to get a COVID-19 vaccination at their doctors’ office, according to the results of a new national survey.
The survey results also underscore the ongoing problem of vaccine hesitancy, showing that about a third of Americans don’t plan to get a shot and 70% of the unvaccinated are hesitant to get one.
The preference to be vaccinated in a medical office was three to five times higher among unvaccinated Americans than were other strategies such as vaccinations at retail pharmacies or drug stores, community health centers, public health clinics, drive-up clinics, and large public vaccination sites.
In addition, the survey found that one of three people who expressed hesitancy about vaccination preferred to hear about the vaccine from their doctor. This recommendation would be more important to them than hearing from vaccinated friends and family members, hospitals, religious leaders, or elected officials. ”
Doctors’ Offices Are Preferred COVID Vaccine Sites for Unvaccinated
Ken Terry, Medscape, June 17, 2021
https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/953326
Some of the results maybe be due to Republicans making excuses for refusing the vaccine, but I don’t think that the partisan differences are large enough to drive it.
” In fact, 60% of Republicans expressed this preference, compared to 53% of Democrats and 47% of independents…. Other markers of respondents’ interest in getting a shot in their doctor’s office included being a rural resident, a woman, and over age 65 years”
The research was done by the African American Research Collaborative and the Commonwealth Fund. This kind of research should have been done long ago by CDC. The best performing countries, for example Norway and Finland, have long had a surveillance system on population attitudes and preferences.
Anyone know if there is a program to get the vaccines to doctors offices.
jl
@WaterGirl: Thanks for info.
Frankensteinbeck
@Rommie:
Most of the press intuitively understands them. Only the votes of white men who drive pickup trucks are truly American. Everyone else is a special interest group. As such, ensuring that those white men get what they want is not undemocratic.
kindness
I could support Joe Manchin’s dream world too but the reality is there won’t be 10 Republicans who will also support Joe’s ideas and without changing the filibuster dramatically Joe’s plan is DOA. Now that is the conversation I want to hear Joe Manchin discuss. He won’t till it hits him square in the face. He’s pretty determined to live in that dream world he’s built around him.
Lacuna Synecdoche
Question a Reporter (maybe Rachel Scott, the ABC Congressional Correspondent?) should ask Sen. Roy Blunt:
In other words, make the fucker explain his racist dog-whistle rhetoric.
jl
@kindness: The Democrats have gotten down on bended knees to get the GOP on board. And the GOP have repeatedly kicked them in the face. Now it looks like the GOP is starting to grind their faces in the dirt. (Edit: and maybe next step after that is to piss on them)
Democrats need to change their approach or they are going to look like weak loser fools for 2022 and 2024. Which would produce bad results.
TKH
@jl: So the majority of the unvaccinated, we are supposed to believe, would rush to get the vaccine by a mechanism that is not available. Did I get this right?
I can tell you they do it through doctor’s offices in Germany and the physicians really wanted to get involved, but they did not know what they had bargained for. It is logistically difficult, the paperwork (important for participation in civic life) is bogging them down, the customers are unpleasant when they do not get the shot they want at the time they want it. And so on.
With delta on the horizon, rather storming over it, efficiency as measured in doses per unit time ought to be the most important criterion. But that of course requires that getting it done were the most important thing.
Another Scott
@Kent: When Byrd was master of the Senate, he sent lots and lots of pork home. Money for roads, money for a big IRS center, ATF data processing, etc., etc., was directed by him to his home state.
My old boss said that the biggest employer in the state was the transportation department (with the implication being because they got federal money from Byrd).
About 2/3 of the state is named after him now.
Manchin should remember that, but he doesn’t seem to care…
Cheers,
Scott.
Lacuna Synecdoche
@jl:
I don’t know. But I suspect one of the logistical hurdles – one that would be expensive to fix – is that many, perhaps most, doctors don’t have the kind of refrigeration equipment required for ultra-cold storage of the Pfizer or Moderna vaccines, especially in bulk.
neldob
@prostratedragon: merci for that.
debbie
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
Then they should move there.
debbie
@rikyrah:
Fuck that first response. He knelt so as to be at her level (she was sitting).
Suzanne
I would love to have a thread about for right-wingers are losing their minds that Megan Rapinoe and other accomplished women are replacing the Victoria’s Secret Angels.
debbie
@jl:
There is here (Columbus, OH). I believe my GP is administering them to the patients she can wrangle into getting them.
debbie
Misreading.
Ksmiami
@jl: they look ridiculous like they want to lose… Fuck Manchin and Sinema forever
Shakti
@Another Scott:
My deceased long term rep, Bill Young, got the endorsement of the local paper in his last election over his Democratic challenger because of 1)his seniority and 2) all the jobs he brought to his district over the years, including the local VA. He also made a point of sending out typed letters to people in response to phone calls.
Otherwise The St. Pete Times tended to endorse Democrats.
I’m not sure “bring pork to your state” even really holds for Senators, tbh. Scott famously turned down transportation monies Congress allocated to Florida and the voters gave him the office of governor and a Senate seat. Nelson consistently pushing for the space program didn’t help him when Scott ran for his seat.
Cole probably can detail all of the pork Manchin brought to WV over the years.
KsSteve
My analysis of Manchin news today:
1 Joe’s in favor of voting rights bill with some amendments.
2 Joe’s opposed to changing the filibuster rules to enable passage of same
3 Joe opposes any voting rights bill.
I’m available this Sunday AM to explain this complicated concept to Chuck Todd if needed.
Kropacetic
What forms of ID would Manchin’s compromise allow?
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@jl:
Manchinma are the ones holding this up. I mean, what are you supposed to do with a guy who maligns the “far left” in a closed door meeting with No fucking Labels? Or the woman who curtsied and made a thumbs down when voting no on raising the federal minimum wage to $15?
Cameron
@Kropacetic: Anything that shows you’re a Republican.
lowtechcyclist
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
Massachusetts managed that trick back in the mid-1960s.
Subsole
@Cheryl Rofer: *brandishes a de-shelled tortoise*
Behold, a man!
MontyTheClipArtMongoose
@CaseyL: it’s not a krakenhouse. it’s a krakenhome.
Arclite
That’s some serious fucking projection right there.
The Moar You Know
@dmsilev: California may allow it. My CA employer has no intention of doing so. We will be wearing masks until we have 100% vaccination compliance from every single person that enters our offices and that is the end of the matter.
Right now, we are waiting for the FDA formal full approval of the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines (not the EUA they are currently under) and when that happens we’re going to start firing people for not being vaccinated. And not just in CA. I personally can’t wait. We got some motherfuckers that need to be taught a lesson.
Of all things, this hardass attitude is coming from ownership that are otherwise 100% on the Trump train. I guess being old and having a medical background makes you immune to certain kinds of bullshit.