Trump And MAGA Republicans Now Own The Border Mess

Republicans have been shouting about the "open border" for months. They have called undocumented immigration an "invasion". They have claimed that other countries are dumping their undesirables on the U.S., and blamed the border mess for drugs like fentanyl entering the country. 

Most of that is nonsense, but it has worked with the general public. Over half of the public now considers the southern border to be a crisis. Republicans had hoped to use that "crisis" to march to victory in the 2024 election.

The idea was to claim they had solutions for the border crisis, and those solutions were opposed by Democrats and President Biden. They thought they had cleverly laid a trap for Democrats (who they assumed would oppose the GOP border solutions). But the GOP has fallen into its own trap!

In a negotiation with some Senate Republicans, the Democrats gave Republicans nearly everything they had been asking for. The negotiated bill would impose severe restrictions on those immigrants trying to enter, would give money to the Border Patrol for more employees and equipment, and even contained provisions to completely close the border. And President Biden said he would sign the bill.

The immediate reaction was that this was victory for Republicans. The very conservative Wall Street Journal called it a good bill and urged Republicans to pass it. The Border Patrol Union (which endorsed Trump is the last election) agreed and came out in support of the bill's passage.

But then something happened. That something was Donald Trump. Trump's main campaign issue was the border issue. If a bill passed that made the situation at the border much better, he thought that would hurt him in the election by taking his best campaign issue away. He ordered his congressional cohorts to kill the bill. 

Now enough Senate Republicans oppose the bill (even though it gave them most of what they've been demanding). It turns out that their fear of a reprisal from Trump was more important than a solution to the border mess.

The GOP-controlled House is also following Trump's orders. House GOP leaders said if the bill somehow passed the Senate, it would die in the House. They wouldn't even give it a vote. Instead, they planned a bit of political theater.

They wanted to impeach Homeland Security Secretary Mayorkas. They thought that would help place blame on Democrats for the border and keep their base happy. But even that failed. The impeachment vote failed by a 214 to 216 vote.

Thanks to this failed bit of political theater and the opposition to a border bill (which contained the provisions they had been clamoring for), congressional Republicans have given up the moral high ground and exposed themselves as hypocritical liars.

Trump and his MAGA Republicans now own the border mess. And you can bet the Democrats will make sure the voters know that!

The Senators Voting For And Against The Debt Ceiling Bill

 

Five Significant Bills Were Passed & Signed In 2022

In spite of continual GOP chicanery, President Biden and Democrats were able to get some good bills passed in 2022.

From MSNBC.com:

As two years of full Democratic control come to an end, here are five of the most significant bills passed in 2022.

A sweeping climate, health and tax bill

The Inflation Reduction Act represents the largest attempt in U.S. history to combat climate change with a $369 billion package of clean-energy funding covering cars and homes and businesses. It also aims to curb methane emissions and sets aside money for communities heavily affected by air pollution and other climate-related issues.

The legislation contains new measures to lower prescription drug costs, including a provision that empowers Medicare to negotiate prices with the pharmaceutical industry, a new $2,000 yearly cap on out-of-pocket costs for prescriptions through Medicare, and a $35 monthly insulin cap for Medicare beneficiaries. It’s funded by a potpourri of new taxes, including a 15% corporate minimum tax. 

There’s more funding for IRS tax collection included in the bill, too.

It passed with the slimmest of margins — a vote of 51-50 in the Senate, winning over every Democratic senator and requiring Vice President Kamala Harris to break the tie, and 220-207 in the House. Not a single Republican voted for it.

A new election law aimed at preventing another Jan. 6

The massive government funding bill that passed Friday included a major election reform package designed to prevent future presidential candidates from stealing elections.

The Electoral Count Reform Act will revise the 1887 Electoral Count Act to make clear the vice president cannot discount electoral votes. It’ll raise the threshold for objections from one member of each the House and Senate to one-fifth of both chambers. It’ll also prevent competing slates of electors and simplify state certification with mechanisms to assure the rightful winner is certified.

The bipartisan package, led by Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, and Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., is aimed at closing gaps in federal law that former President Donald Trump and his allies sought to exploit to stay in power after losing the 2020 election. It’s designed to protect U.S. elections going forward and prevent another Jan. 6.

The toughest new gun law in nearly 30 years

The Safer Communities Act — a bipartisan bill led by Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., and John Cornyn, R-Texas — include grants for states to pass “red flag” laws designed to block people who could pose a threat to themselves or others from purchasing or owning a firearm.

It beefs up background checks of 18- to 21-year-olds, opening the door to examining juvenile records. It attempts to close the “boyfriend loophole” by keeping firearms away from dating partners who are convicted of abuse. The law also clarifies which gun sellers are required to register as licensees and thus forced to conduct background checks on potential buyers.

The action in Washington came in response to mass shootings in Buffalo, New York, and Uvalde, Texas, that occurred 10 days apart and killed a combined 31 people, including 19 schoolchildren.

A law to improve U.S. competition with China

The CHIPS and Science Act is both a major piece of legislation and a message that the U.S. doesn’t intend to fall behind China when it comes to global competitiveness. 

The law — which grew out of a bill first negotiated by Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and Sen. Todd Young, R-Ind. — makes a whopping $280 billion investment in U.S. semiconductor manufacturing, research and development, and tax breaks for the production of chips.

The White House and congressional defenders have described it as an essential step to revitalizing the struggling U.S. manufacturing industry and making a downpayment in the American workforce. It’s another bipartisan success story for this Congress, representing a rare point of strong consensus between the two parties: that the U.S. must combat China’s rising influence on the world stage.

Enshrining same-sex marriage

One of the final acts of the Democratic-controlled Congress was to pass a law that codifies federal protections for marriages between same-sex and interracial couples.

The Respect for Marriage Act — led by Sen. Tammy Baldwin, D-Wis., the first openly gay American elected to the Senate — forces the federal government to recognize legally performed same-sex marriages and to ensure couples full benefits “regardless of the couple’s sex, race, ethnicity, or national origin.” It will not require states to grant marriage licenses against state law, but same-sex couples will enjoy the benefits if they get married in a different state.

The legislation came about after the new 6-3 conservative majority on the Supreme Court voted last summer to overturn Roe v. Wade, prompting critics to fear that it could do the same to same-sex marriage rights. The new law provides a backstop against that possibility. 

It reflects growing U.S. support for legal same-sex marriage and was a celebratory moment for Biden a decade after he upstaged his then-boss, President Barack Obama, by jumping out ahead of him to declare his support for same sex marriage as vice president.

Graham's Abortion Bill Is Ridiculous And Dangerous

 The following editorial is by the editorial board of The Washington Post:

Only months ago, Sen. Lindsey O. Graham wanted states to write their own abortion rules. Now, he has changed his mind: States should still write their own abortion rules, but only if those rules are harshly restrictive.

The South Carolina Republican introduced a bill Tuesday that would impose a nationwide ban on abortions after 15 weeks — with the narrowest of exceptions for ending pregnancies that result from rape or incest and for procedures necessary to save the life of the mother. The hypocrisy is obvious coming from a legislator who insisted in May that the Supreme Court, when it handed down Roe v. Wade in 1973, committed a “power grab” by depriving local officials of the ability to decide when and whether abortion should be legal. Yet there was Mr. Graham on Tuesday, announcing his desire for Congress to grab the power to set abortion policy from those very local officials.

Unsurprisingly, his news conference was full of falsehoods and nonsense. Flanked by women — “This makes me look better already,” he quipped — Mr. Graham claimed his bill would place the United States “in line with the science and the civilized world.” Yet the science behind his arbitrary 15-week threshold is dubious; there’s no consensus on when a fetus begins to experience pain, the point at which Mr. Graham says abortion should be restricted. And his assertion that “47 of the 50 European countries” have similarly strict abortion rules is bogus. These societies Mr. Graham apparently considers “civilized” may have strict gestational limits on paper. But in practice, most of their legal regimesgoverning pregnancy termination are forgiving. Generally, exceptions for things such as economic hardship and fetal abnormalities mean that women can get abortions after topline time limits pass, so long as they surmount some bureaucratic obstacles.

What’s more, even if a hard-and-fast 15-week rule would align the United States with its peer democracies, Mr. Graham’s bill would not impose a consistent, nationwide policy. His legislation would allow conservative states to continue setting standards as draconian as they desire — which they’ve already started to do. Laws such as Mississippi’s, under which abortion is banned almost entirely, would be permissible. Those types of strictures don’t put the United States in line with most of Europe; they put it in line with parts of the developing world, many of them not democracies at all, where maternal mortality rates are soaring, just as researchers predict they could here.

Republicans have claimed ever since the Supreme Court’s June ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization that the decision merely makes room for a flourishing of a different kind of choice, whereby voters can choose through their representatives the abortion rules under which they want to live. Mr. Graham’s proposal presents an alarming alternative vision, in which there is little individual or community choice at all. In a tepid response to the bill, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) indicated that other Senate Republicans are more reluctant to abandon their previous position.

For now, that is. The politics of abortion post-Roe are only just shaping up. Antiabortion crusaders will pressure GOP lawmakers for national restrictions for years to come. The real test of Republicans’ oft-stated commitment to federalism is only just beginning.

Will Sinema Again Kill A Bill That Most Americans Need?

The Inflation Reduction Act, agreed to by 49 Democrats and President Biden, is a bill that Americans need. But it will need 50 votes (plus the vote of Vice President Harris) to pass the Senate. The lone holdout among Democrats is Krysten Sinema of Arizona. She has refused, at least so far, to say whether she supports the bill or not.

Here is what the editorial board of The Washington Post has to say about this:

Senate Democrats have overcome obstacle after obstacle in their push to pass a reconciliation package, and this week they’re close to the finish. Unless a final something — or someone — stands in their way.

Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) reportedly wasn’t included in talks between Sen. Joe Manchin III (D-W.Va.) and Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) as they hammered out the details of the surprise Inflation Reduction Act announced last week. The deal, nonetheless, is largely in line with the preferences she laid out in past negotiations: from its relatively modest reforms to prescription drug pricing to action on climate to the 15 percent corporate minimum tax rate estimated to raise $313 billion. Indeed, that the legislation neglects broader hikes on the highest-income Americans is itself a form of concession. There is, however, a big exception. The closure of the carried interest loophole has been a boogeyman for Ms. Sinema from the beginning. But it is in the bill before her today — and for good reason.

The carried interest loophole is essentially a way for fund managers to make a lot of money and pay the government very little back because the share of the fund’s profits they receive for their work is taxed at a top rate of just under 24 percent — dramatically less than the 37 percent top rate for ordinary income. This giveaway is so valuable that many have it to thank for the bulk of their fortunes. The Wall Street Journal reported last week that Blackstone Inc. Chief Executive Stephen Schwarzman received somewhere around $150 million in carried interest compensation last year; two other executives at the company received close to $92 million and $77 million. There’s simply no excuse for any lawmaker who purports to care about economic justice or equality to oppose eliminating the carried interest loophole.

Yet all the same, Congress — many of whose members benefit from the donations of the deep-pocketed — could allow this scandal to persist, especially if Ms. Sinema demands it. She shouldn’t. Republicans have been making hay in recent days of an analysis by the nonpartisan Joint Committee on Taxation, claiming that the reconciliation would raise rates on those earning less than $400,000 per year, contrary to President Biden’s pledges. This is mostly meaningless. The theory that some of the new 15 percent minimum tax on corporations would be passed on to employees and to shareholders doesn’t change the reality that the bulk of the burden would fall on the richest and the bulk of the benefit would redound to those worse off: whether it comes as help affording medicine or health care or as an investment in slowing global warming.

Ms. Sinema shouldn’t sink this bill, most of whose contents she has indicated in the past that she supports. And she shouldn’t sink it because she opposes closing the carried interest loophole. That provision unambiguously aids those who need help most, at the expense only of those who need it not at all.

Senate Passes "Gun" Bill - But It Won't Reduce Gun Violence

 

On Thursday night, the Senate passed its gun bill (the Safer Communities Bill) on a 65 to 33 vote. The bill now goes to the House, where it is expected to pass, and then to President Biden (who has said he would sign it).

Politicians are celebrating the passage, and telling Americans the bill will save American lives. I believe they are wrong. The bill is not a lifesaver, but a bit of political theater designed to get votes in November.

The bill did do one thing that was badly needed -- it provided more money for treatment of the mentally ill. The mentally ill have been shortchanged for decades, and hopefully, it will allow many more to get the treatment they need. But don't expect that to reduce gun violence. Most of the mentally ill are not dangerous, and most people committing gun violence are not mentally ill.

The bill also provides money to help states create and administer red-flag laws. But it does not mandate those red-flag laws, and most red states will not pass such laws.

The bill also allowed the examination of juvenile records for background checks, and closed the "boyfriend" loopholes in the background check law. Neither of these actually mean anything, since the bill does NOT close the loopholes in the background check law. Anyone who cannot buy a gun from a registered gun dealer can still get one at a gun show or from a private individual.

The Seante could a passed a bill that really would reduce gun violence. They could have closed the loopholes in the background check law. They could have banned assault-style weapons. They could have banned high capacity ammunition magazines. They could have raised the age to purchase a gun. They could have created a federal red-flag law. They could have extended the waiting period for buying a gun. 

But they did none of those things (all of which are supported by a significant majority of Americans). So don't be fooled. The Senate bill was just a bit of feel-good political theater, accomplishing nothing.

This chart is from the Gallup Poll -- done between June 1st and 20th of a national sample of 1,015 adults, with a 4 point margin of error.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren Has A Bill To Fix The Supreme Court

The Supreme Court has problems, especially when it comes to ethics. Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Massachusetts) has introduced a bill to fix that. Here is how she describes it in an e-mail to her supporters:

Public trust in the Supreme Court has collapsed to historic lows — and it isn’t hard to see why.

A truly radical draft opinion is poised to overturn decades of settled law on abortion rights. Justice Clarence Thomas failed to recuse himself from a case on the attempted coup that his wife participated in. Justices accept lavish international trips and fail to file basic financial disclosure reports.

And it’s not just the top of the judicial branch: ethics scandals have plagued our federal courts for decades. Clerks have accused federal judges of sexual misconduct with little to no recourse. Judges and justices alike sit in cases in which they own individual stock in the parties — and in cases that could directly affect their spouses.

The judicial branch needs real ethics reform, from top to bottom. I’ve got a plan for that: Last week, Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal and I introduced the Judicial Ethics and Anti-Corruption Act. 

From banning federal judges from owning individual stocks to overhauling the broken judicial recusal process, my bill would help root out corruption and restore public trust in the federal judiciary. But first, we have to fight side by side — as a grassroots movement — to get this bill through Congress.

Corruption is toxic to our democracy. But just this week, the Supreme Court’s conservative supermajority opened the floodgates for more corruption across the rest of the federal branches: They ruled that campaigns can blow past limits on raking in donations after elections specifically to pay off the candidate’s personal loans to the campaign.

Justice Elena Kagan ripped the majority a new one in her dissent: “Political contributions that will line a candidate’s own pockets, given after his election to office, pose a special danger of corruption…In striking down the law today, the Court greenlights all the sordid bargains Congress thought right to stop.”

We need to fight back against those types of “sordid bargains” — including in the federal judiciary.

Here are a few big pieces of how our bill would give Americans confidence that their judges are held to the highest ethical standards and are free from conflicts of interest:

• Banning federal judges from owning individual stocks and securities, commercial real estate, trusts, and other investments.


• Strengthening restrictions on judicial gifts and privately funded travel. 


• Imposing the existing Code of Conduct for U.S. Judges on the Supreme Court — the only court in the country not currently subject to an ethical code. 


• Improving disclosure of judicial speeches and case assignments, while mandating the livestreaming of court proceedings and new judicial workplace surveys. 


• Requiring Supreme Court Justices to issue written recusal decisions whenever a litigant requests recusal and forcing the Judicial Conference to issue advisory opinions with their recusal recommendations. 


• Closing the loophole that allows judges to escape accountability by retiring from the bench, strengthening disciplinary authority for the Judicial Conference, setting up expedited impeachment procedures for federal judges, and allowing the public to file complaints against Supreme Court Justices — like all other federal judges — through a new Supreme Court Complaints Review Committee.


• Limiting the ability of courts to seal records that contain important information for the protection of public health or safety, often concealed at the urging of massive corporations.

Look: Congresswoman Jayapal and I aren’t new to this issue.

We’ve also put out the most ambitious anti-corruption plan since Watergate — targeting corruption across the federal government.

And we’ve called on Chief Justice John Roberts to clean up the judiciary — including after the revelations about Justice Thomas’s recent failure to recuse himself, and after a report that over 131 federal judges violated federal law and ethics guidelines by overseeing cases involving companies in which they or their family members owned individual stock.

But Chief Justice Roberts has simply failed to act. So we’ve got a plan to do it for him.

Ted, beyond this bill, there’s more we can do to restore faith in an independent judiciary committed to the rule of law. I’ve been pushing to expand the Supreme Court by four or more seats to rebalance this institution that’s been hijacked by right-wing extremists. But let’s make progress by tackling corruption.

There’s real momentum behind the Judicial Ethics and Anti-Corruption Act — 19 of our colleagues in Congress, and a multitude of national organizations are already on board. But now we need to show that the American people are raising their voices on this. 

House Bill To Legalize Marijuana Is Dying In The Senate

 

Marijuana is probably the safest drug in the world -- safer than alcohol, tobacco, and nearly all over-the-counter medications being sold. Yet, it continues to be illegal to possess in most U.S. states. A large majority of Americans want it legalized and taxed, and the House of Representatives has passed a bill that would do that. Sadly though, it looks like that bill is dying a slow death in the Senate.

Here's much of what Hayes Brown had to say about this at MSNBC.com:

Eighteen states around the country, and the District of Columbia, have fully legalized weed; only four still ban products with THC, the compound that gets users high. A record share of Americans — 68 percent — supports full legalization, Gallup found last year. Even 50 percent of Republicans surveyed were in favor of legal weed. But at the federal level, marijuana is still considered a Schedule I drug, treated much the same as cocaine and heroin.

The dichotomy between what the public wants and what federal law restricts makes less and less sense as time goes on. The dissonance is both a practical limitation on the burgeoning legal marijuana industry and, more philosophically, an erosion of the supremacy of federal authority over state law.

The Marijuana Opportunity Reinvestment and Expungement Act, which passed on a mostly party-line vote in the House, would bring federal law in line with popular sentiment by decriminalizing marijuana and setting up a federal tax on cannabis sales. Critically, it would also address the gaping racial disparity in marijuana convictions, setting up a process for people’s criminal records to be expunged.

But that won’t be the legislation that’s eventually presented to the Senate. Instead, Schumer is working on his own proposal, which he first announced last year. The draft Cannabis Administration and Opportunity Act runs along the same lines as the MORE Act, but Schumer and his co-drafters — Sens. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., and Cory Booker, D-N.J. — are hoping to craft a bill that will get buy-in from their full caucus.

That’s looking trickier than you might assume given the popularity of reform measures. At least two Democratic senators — Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire and Joe Manchin of West Virginia — have expressed skepticism about full legalization. Given the likelihood of a Republican filibuster, that would require Schumer to get at least 12 GOP votes to move forward any comprehensive bill.

Sorry to be a buzzkill, but we’ve seen how well that strategy has worked on issues like voting rights and police reform. And the outreach that would be needed to actually make the case to Republican senators has been limited, according to MJBizDaily, which reports on the business of marijuana.

Schumer originally hoped to introduce the latest version of his bill by the end of this month. Now that timeline has slipped back to sometime “before the August recess,” Marijuana Moment reported, which doesn’t exactly inspire hope that this is a top priority.

There are slightly better odds for getting a narrower bill, known as the Secure and Fair Enforcement Banking Act, to President Joe Biden’s desk. The SAFE Act would finally give banks a federal green light to work with dispensaries in states with legal weed, which has hindered the ability of licensed businesses to operate. Like the MORE Act, this bill has passed the House multiple times, but, in this case, it has passed on a bipartisan basis. And, encouragingly, the Senate version has nine GOP co-sponsors on board.

“The issue I’m emphasizing with Sen. Schumer, I think, is a unifying issue,” Sen. Dan Sullivan, R-Alaska, told MJBizDaily. “This is also a safety issue. The way businesses have to carry around tens of thousands of dollars in cash because they can’t bank is really dangerous.”

That sounds like a solid first step that’s worth taking — but it’s a policy shift that would benefit businesses more than people, which has me hesitant to fully back the SAFE Act as a standalone bill. Schumer has likewise been cool on any bill that doesn’t deal with the legacy of the racist intent behind America’s drug laws. The result, though, is that versions of the SAFE Act and other, smaller reforms have been stripped out of multiple spending packages, including the most recent defense appropriations bill and the omnibus government funding bill that passed last month.

I understand Schumer’s desire to wrap all of the issues surrounding marijuana into one package. But, to be blunt, despite the clear need for reforms, any chance of a comprehensive legalization bill passing in the Senate is looking more and more like a pipe dream.

Warren's Statement On Congress Owning/Trading Stocks

There is a movement in Congress to ban the ownership or trading of stocks by members of Congress. One of the people pushing this is Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Massachusetts). Here is what she had to say about it in an e-mail to her supporters:

I think this is pretty basic, but apparently it’s a newsflash to some people in Washington:

The American people deserve to have complete confidence that members of Congress are making decisions based on what’s best for the country — not what’s best for those lawmakers’ own personal finances.

So we need to ban members of Congress from owning and trading individual stocks. 

I’m coming out with a new bill to do exactly that — and it’s already got bipartisan support. Now, to get it over the finish line, we need to show that the American people are demanding action.

Remember: Not so long ago, Republican Senators Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue played down the danger of COVID-19 in public while privately trading stocks to profit from the pandemic. They both lost their re-election campaigns, but the potential for conflicts of interest still lurks around Capitol Hill — and we’ve got to clear it out.

Now, let’s be clear — I’m more than ready to go even further than this plan. My larger bill to root corruption out of Washington would ban Cabinet secretaries, federal judges (including Supreme Court justices), and other top officials from owning and trading individual stocks.

But this bipartisan plan, focused on Congress, is a straightforward first step. And there’s real momentum behind it right now.

Here’s how the ban would work:

• After a short transition period, members of Congress and their spouses won’t be allowed to own or trade individual stocks.
• Instead, they can put their money in conflict-free investments like diversified mutual funds.
• And if they break the rules, they’ll have to pay a $50,000 fine per violation.

It’s clear and sharp. It says that senators and representatives shouldn’t be able to write laws to enrich themselves. And anyone who isn’t ready to follow these basic rules can pick a new line of work.

I’ve been working on this issue for years, and I believe we’re closer than ever to making it happen. Republicans and Democrats are working together to say enough is enough. Now is the moment for everyone to raise their voices.

Thanks for being a part of this,

Elizabeth 

Progressives Gave Manchin Complete Control Of BBB Bill

Democrats and media talking heads are celebrating the passage of the bipartisan infrastructure bill. I understand why. The bill was badly needed by the country, and it gives the illusion that Democrats can get things done in Congress.

But I'm not at all sure the passage right now was a good thing, because of the effect it will have on the Build Back Better Bill. The BBB bill might even be a more important bill, because it would help millions of Americans. It would make the economy fairer to working and lower middle class workers -- making their lives easier, and even pulling many out of poverty.

I don't doubt that Democratic moderates in the House will keep their word, and pass the bill in about 10-14 days. But then the bill will go to the Senate -- and that's where the real problem begins.

When Democrats won the White House and control of both houses of Congress, many progressives saw the opportunity to finally pass transformative legislation -- legislation that would close the wealth and income gap, and give most Americans a path to the middle class.

They really wanted a $10 trillion bill (over 10 years), paid for by higher taxes on the rich and corporations. But they know they had to compromise to get the legislation passed. They negotiated their bill down to $6 trillion, then to $3.5 trillion, and finally to $1.7 trillion. No one can say the progressives weren't willing to compromise. They compromised far more than those in the party opposing the bill.

The biggest opponents were Joe Manchin and Krysten Sinema -- Senate Democrats. President Biden told progressives that he believed Manchin and Sinema would vote for the $1.7 trillion version of the bill, but neither has actually publicly said they would vote for it -- and Manchin has been very vocal about opposing elements of it.

The only real power that progressives in the House had was their refusal to pass the infrastructure bill until the BBB bill was also passed (and both Manchin and Sinema want infrastructure passed, because they had negotiated it with GOP). But by passing the infrastructure bill before the BBB bill, and without getting public assurances from Manchin (and Sinema), the progressives have given up the only leverage they had.

Now Joe Manchin has complete control over the Build Back Better bill, and he can do what he wants with it (because Democrats can't pass it without his vote).

Let's be clear about one thing. Joe Manchin is not a moderate. He's a conservative -- and conservatives do not care about making things easier for anyone (but the rich and corporations). They want the status quo to remain intact. And Manchin's statements show that is what he wants. He doesn't want transformative change.

He will undoubtably try to amend the House version of the BBB bill, and he has the power to do that. The 50 Republicans will be happy to help him cut large portions out of the bill. They won't vote for it in the end, but they'll love to help Manchin make it a much worse and less effective bill.

Manchin doesn't like paid family leave, so he'll likely cut it from the bill.

Manchin has millions invested in fossil fuels (especially coal), so he'll likely cut out the climate change portions of the bill.

Manchin's daughter is the CEO of a Big Pharma company, so he'll likely cut out the negotiating of drug prices.

And he probably won't stop there. He's already said the bill would create an entitlement society.

I don't think he'll directly kill the BBB bill (although he might), but what's left of the bill after he puts it on his chopping block will certainly not be transformative. It will be a sham that doesn't help anyone much (except maybe for the rich and corporations who will not be forced to pay for a transformative bill).

The Build Back Better bill is now on life support, and "Doctor" Manchin is in charge of its health. That's not good!

Democrats Need To Better Explain "Build Back Better" Bill

The chats above and below are from the CBS News / YouGov Poll -- done between October 6th and 8th of a national sample of 2,054 adults, with a 2.6 point margin of error. 

It shows that most adults do not fully understand what is in President Biden's "Build Back Better" bill. Only about 10% say the know a lot of the specifics in the bill, and another 33% say they have a general sense of the bill and some of its specifics. Obviously, the Democrats need to do a better job of explaining what the bill would do (and stop the argument over the bill's cost).

The good news is that, according to the charts below, at least some of the bill's parts are getting through the Republican lies. And that includes how the bill would be paid for. Most people support the plan and how it would be paid for.

In Rich Nation, All Citizens "Entitled" To Economic Fairness

 In the negotiation on the Build Back Better bill, Manchin is sticking to his cap of only $1.5 trillion over 10 years. And he's starting to sound more and more like a right-wing politician. Now he says the United States is in danger of becoming an "entitlement society", like that would be a bad thing. But in a nation as rich as the U.S., aren't all citizens entitled to economic fairness? Should the rich be the only people to benefit from our economy?

Here is some of what Zeeshan Aleem says about Manchin's position at MSNBC.com:

Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia has mostly been cagey about what he wants trimmed from President Joe Biden’s sweeping Build Back Better Act. One of just two Democrats holding up the bill in the Senate, he’s said he wants to shave $2 trillion off the reform package that could seal much of Biden’s policy legacy, yet he has offered little in the way of specifics.

But according to a recent Axios report, Manchin has finally at least made a broad gesture toward how Democrats might go about cuts: He said they must choose only one of three major policies in the bill intended to help families — the expanded child tax credit, paid family medical leave or subsidies for child care. The other two should be killed. . . .

It also seems to dovetail with his recent criticism that America is at risk of becoming an “entitlement society” should it pass too much social spending meant to assist households economically. The subtext of his demand is that America can’t remain America if people feel they have rights to services like child care.

All of that is a shame. All these policies are not just worth demanding as rights, but they also make for smart economic policy.

Manchin has fixated on aggressively shrinking the top-line figure, as if there’s something inherently menacing to the economy about passing a $3.5 trillion bill. But to describe it as self-indulgence is odd: The bill would involve spending just 1.2 percent of our projected national income over the next 10 years on a range of social policiesthat would help reduce the size of the many holes in our social safety net, and much of it would be financed through taxes on corporations and the rich. In turn, that would allow for more participation in the workforce and increased economic productivity.

As a number of Nobel Prize-winning economists, including former chief economist for the World Bank Joseph Stiglitz, have pointed out, concerns from Manchin and some centrists and conservatives that the package could cause unmanageable debt and inflation are not well-founded. It would do the opposite. "Because this agenda invests in long-term economic capacity and will enhance the ability of more Americans to participate productively in the economy, it will ease longer-term inflationary pressures," they wrote in an open letter in September. . . .

Amidst a tense back-and-forth with Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., over the bill, Manchin this week saidhe thinks this bill could tilt the U.S. away from being “a compassionate, rewarding society” and toward becoming an “entitlement society.”

That’s a backward way of thinking about these matters. The U.S. is a major outlier among affluent nations in how little it spends on providing social services for families. Most advanced capitalist nations spend far more on social services including child care, child allowances and paid family leave, and these are not societies racked by slothfulness and inefficiency. Instead, many have seen the benefits of policies such as robust family paid leave have a small impact on employers, level the playing field, improve child development and boost long-term economic growth.

Manchin fears the idea of Americans feeling “entitled” to certain arrangements with the government when it comes to child care. But talk of entitlement is often a loaded buzzword wielded by conservatives to undermine a concept that’s very dear to Americans: rights. In this country, we constantly talk about rights tied to civil liberties such as freedom of speech or freedom from warrantless searches. In a country as affluent as America, it seems quite sensible to extend discussion of rights to the economic sphere as well. . . .

In a democratic country with extraordinary wealth distributed extremely unequally like ours, it is reasonable to demand that every child has access to the resources and care needed to start a good life.

Democrats should not back off of Manchin’s entitlement fear-mongering. Instead we should be asking him: What’s wrong with believing that every child has a right to a decent life?

Democrats Are Just Being Democrats - The Bills Will Pass

The news media has been rife with stories about the war (rift) in the Democratic Party. They look at the top-down Republican Party (where Trump gives the orders and everyone marches in lock-step), and assume the the Democratic Party just do the same. But that has never been how things work in the Democratic Party.

The Democratic Party is a big tent party. It has liberals, moderates, and conservatives -- and it includes people of all colors and religions (including no religion). It is natural for such a wide assortment of people to disagree -- and they do frequently. As a life-long Democrat, I remember butting heads with fellow Democrats many times -- on issues and candidates. I also remember shaking hands (or hugging) those same Democrats after a decision has been made, and working with them. That's what Democrats do.

And it's what they've always done. Decades ago, Will Rogers said he wasn't a member of any organized party -- he was a Democrat. There's some truth in that. Democrats argue, and it can look disorganized -- but they also get things done.

Republicans run people who disagree with them out of their party. Democrats don't. They fight, and then make-up -- and march together in unison.

And since that's what it is like for the base, it should come as no surprise that it works the same way for our elected officials. Some are elected from blue states or districts, and some are elected from purple states or districts -- and every now and then some are elected from red states or districts. And they will represent the people that elected them. 

That is what is happening now. The moderates and progressives are arguing about what should be in the Build Back Better bill, and what it should cost (and how it will be paid for). That is normality for the Democratic Party, and it is also normal for them to negotiate a solution. That negotiation is happening right now.

There will be a consensus solution. It won't be everything the progressives want, and it will be more than the moderates want, but it will be acceptable to both -- and it will be a huge benefit for the people of this country.

I believe that, because I've seen it happen time after time.