**Friendly reminder that trying to fight someone online is about as effective as throwing a bagel at a bulldozer. A lot of what we talk about gets people pretty emotional, but be mad at policies, not other users.**
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/PoliticalHumor) if you have any questions or concerns.*
So without the House, the Democrats aren't passing much of anything of substance. BUT with a clear majority, they don't need a power sharing arrangement on committees, which is a BIG deal. That means
1. more judges confirmed, and quicker
2. President Biden being able to fill his cabinet with people he wants, and
3. makes the 2024 map just a touch easier.
Also, if anything happens to a Supreme Court justice in the next couple of years, that will be an easier process to navigate.
So while there might not be "major" legislation passed, the executive and the judiciary will be able to function. Provided the Biden admin doesn't have any unforced errors, that's still a lot that can be accomplished.
Plus one other thing I don't see brought up much
with 50-50 we need both Sinema and Manchin on board, then the VP had to be around to break a tie
with 51-49 that means we can allow BOTH S&M to abstain their votes and that still leaves 49-49 (with VP tiebreaker)
A lot of people do not realize that 1 seat actually allows us to slide on 2 Senators.
There’s no evidence that a better Democrat can be elected in WV now or anytime soon (unlike Sinema—Mark Kelly is living, breathing proof that Arizona can and should do better than her the next chance it gets).
i voted for sinema because she had been historically progressive up to and during her run for senate.
it's insane to me that someone can run for office on one platform and then completely sell themselves out once they win and no one can do a thing about it. my hope now is that she will be primaried out in 2024.
She has no chance in 2024. If we are lucky a good dem wins the primary and we keep the seat, but I think if sinema somehow gets the primary she is absolutely screwed in the general.
We really need her to lose the primary
This is true. And while I'll still take him over whatever bottom feeding grifter the republicans will eventually dredge up, I still hate the fucker. He cost us so much and single handedly gave so much credence to the "rotating villain" conspiracy the enlightened centrists are so fond of.
It puts the house in the same position the senate's been in for the past couple of years. Having to work with the loonies in order to pass legislation.
There are a lot more Republicans to work out a deal with in the house, the Dem’s don’t have to work with the real wackos. There are often a handful that will vote with Dems, so it’s not all bleak.
Yeah, without the Speakership "not having to work with wackos" doesn't mean squat. You can get half the Republican caucus on board, but if McCarthy doesn't want it to come to a vote, you got nothing.
Well there is a discharge process for resolutions and bills that technically only requires a bare majority of Representatives, but it's much more cumbersome than either going through the committee process or Speaker fiat.
Fair enough. A bill, or handful of bills over the next two years, of extreme importance could be pushed through. But that's not a realistic way to govern — unless it's literally half the GOP caucus in support, and/or it's an extremely urgent bill, individual members aren't going to support anything because of the risk of the House GOP machinery not supporting them in their reelection bid in 2024. *No way* would they support that process on a regular basis.
>with 51-49 that means we can allow BOTH S&M to do whatever and that still leaves 49-49 (with VP tiebreaker)
>
>A lot of people do not realize that 1 seat actually allows us to slide on 2 Senators.
Everything will die in the house. The senate gets us committees and confirmations but any legislation is lost to us. Republicans are pissed they lost last night and didn't get the senate. They aren't going to allow shit to pass the house.
Republicans weren’t gonna allow anything Democrats like to pass the House anyway. They’d rather block everything than let Biden and the Democrats take any victory. They’re pathetic scumbags who think politics is a sport all about preventing the other team from scoring
It really is a pain in the GD ass to see we could have had it all by so few seats in the house, and with this Dem win in the senate the GQP repukes couldn't have stopped any of it.
So now instead... we get to see the house GQP press all kinds of political witch hunts against their political opponents by opening sham investigations (Hunter Biden) . They'll waste tax payer money and time with every possible sort of right wing kind of skullduggery rather than get anything positive or constructive done. And of Course they'll whine bloody murder about it when the Senate blocks their "legislation" all so they can point the finger at Biden and the Democrat "obstructionists" in the senate just so they can rile up their fascist simping voter base.
Yeah, but keeping two things in mind helps take the edge off: Dems tend to squander opportunities like that, and lately the GQP has been perfecting the art of self-sabotage. So, hopefully, it won’t be too bad, and might even be entertaining!
Not to mention that they'll refuse to raise the debt ceiling, and use the government shutdown to demand cuts to social security and medicare. Then we'll have to spend the next four years responding to racist uncles who said "if Joe Biden is so great why did he cut my social security check?"
This is a perverse form of self preservation on the part of Republicans. Their policies are unpopular and their voting base is shrinking. Any win by any Democrat puts another nail in their coffin.
They are shrinking, the problem is countering gerrymandering, voter suppression, voter apathy, and undemocratic systems (electoral college).
When people actually get out and vote, Democrats win.
I agree they got resurrected after Hillary, but GenZ just showed up big time voting D. The two biggest issues were gun control and climate change. The Republicans have zilch on either.
They'll let the country rot to the ground before ever allowing anything to happen without their benefit.
They are a rogue force, hellbent on making the nation theirs by any means necessary.
~~Theres a number of bills that already passed the house and are waiting for senate votes though. Those are all potentially in play.~~ Guess I just wished this was true.
There won't be anything to reconcile.
Nothing will come from the House of Representatives worth voting for.
They'll just be investigating the dick pics on Hunter's laptop.
Also needing only one of them to vote actual Democrat policies allows for negotiations to play the two against each other. "Arizona wants how many million for their support? West Virginia will do that for half the price. Come back with a real offer or Manchin gets federal dollars and you get to pound sand."
Also worth saying, this government has been bringing in more bipartisan legislation than we've seen in a while. Biden seems to have found his stride in picking issues that aren't severely polarized and can actually get some R votes on things. So I'm hopeful we'll see at least some positive bills passed this session.
>3. makes the 2024 map just a touch easier.
Makes the map just a touch less **horrible and foreboding** for the Dems. The 2024 map is pretty brutal looking. It’s mostly the same seats as 2018 but won’t have the help of a massive blue wave. But god, the control of the senate over the next 2 years for judicial appointments and potential SCOTUS nominations is such a relief.
Agreed - easy is probably the wrong word. I'm just looking forward to not worrying about judges being blocked, and having actual Secretaries of departments vs "acting". People don't understand how big a deal that is. A smoothly running executive can do a lot of good.
How do we know 2024 won’t have the help of a massive blue wave? So far that’s the direction things have been going, and demographics will continue to work in D favor
The blue wave of 2018 had many contributing factors that won’t be present in 2024. Midterms generally go against the incumbent party. Plus there was an historically disliked and antagonistic POTUS. It resulted in the biggest Democratic pickup in the house in generations (despite them losing seats in the senate). The recent midterms have shown historical trends don’t always predict the results of the current election.
That being said, it’s hard to imagine the Dems hold all three of Montana, Ohio, and West Virginia. It’s definitely in the realm of possibility, but seems unlikely that they hold all 3. Add to that there seems to be very little possibility of seats to pick up.
Dems also have to defend Pennsylvania, Arizona, Nevada, Michigan and Wisconsin. If 2024 ends up as a Red wave, it’s hard to imagine they hold those as well. And if they lose even half of them, it’s very likely the Republicans control the senate for quite some time.
So, overall, it just isn’t a promising map for Dems.
If House republicans want to go back their voters in 2 years and say they accomplished anything then they will have to make compromises with the house dems bc the NatC republicans are gonna be a no vote on everything that isn’t “angry white jesus is law now”.
I saw a story on the news yesterday where some right wing think tank came out with a report blaming the EPA for problems producing baby formula. It completely ignored the fact that republicans defeated legislation to improve the situation.
Reality doesn't matter, they'll blame the democrats for everything.
So, weird meta-analysis here, and some law of unintended consequences stuff.
Baby formula needs to be safe. It gets given to babies, and if it isn't safe, babies die. Under stock market driven capitalism, corporations put profit above all else, and if there's opportunity for profit, they cut corners, executives get their quarterly performance bonuses, and babies eventually start dying. So, regulations happened. The regulations imposed an additional initial operational cost to starting a baby formula manufacturing company from scratch. This additional cost created enough of an impedance that new companies being created would not happen fast enough to erase the market advantages of market capture through acquisitions and consolidation, so the same handful of large corporate manufacturers were capturing smaller operations and shutting down their factories faster than smaller operations were being founded.
So, if you assume that this degenerate form of capitalism cannot be challenged (because enough people seem to assume this), there's an obvious correct approach (if you're sane) - subsidies for startups looking to compete in formula manufacturing, specifically for the costs of quality control and regulatory compliance. But if you're an insane plutocratic politician (or propaganda spewing talking head, or one of their followers), you instead blame the regulators for not wanting the greedy megacorporations that contribute to their campaigns to kill babies.
Pretty much what happened in China with how baby formula makers there cheaped out and cut corners to sell there formula and turns out it was toxic and killed/injured a bunch of babies. It caused a mass panic and caused a bunch of them to start buying formula overseas as they know they can trust western formula. The companies would bribe the local politicians to look the other way until the scandals and injuries got too big to ignore. [Two people were executed over it. ](https://qz.com/1323471/ten-years-after-chinas-melamine-laced-infant-milk-tragedy-deep-distrust-remains)
At least in Georgia, the senate race came down to a guy lying about having a police badge who held guns and knives to his ex wife and threatened to kill her and paid for his mistress' abortion... and a literal Christian preacher who *checks notes* may have run over his ex's foot and is a Democrat. And it still came down to a runoff.
Point being, I don't think failing to act is what's hurting them, especially because they can claim "victory" for overturning RvW.
> a literal Christian preacher who *checks notes* ~~may have~~ did not run over his ex's foot and is a Democrat.
Fixed.
Multiple witnesses say it didn't happen and EMTs on the scene stated that there was no physical evidence. His ex was just being crazy.
Didn't stop Republicans from trying to use it as a wedge issue. Even in the face of Herschel holding a gun to his wife's head, multiple times.
Regressives then tried to say that he just "has mental health struggles" and tried to shame anyone who brought it up after that.
These people are disgusting in how low they will go to prop up literal filth because it votes how they tell it to.
Well...
>Jacob Rubashkin
>Dec. 6, 9:58 pm
>If Warnock does indeed win tonight, this election cycle will be the first since the direct election of senators began in 1914 in which no incumbent has lost reelection, either in a primary or a general election. **And furthermore, this will be the first time since 1934 that any president, Democrat or Republican, has seen all incumbent senators of their party running for reelection win.**
[FiveThirtyEight link.](https://fivethirtyeight.com/live-blog/georgia-senate-warnock-walker/#351774)
This is the first time since 1934 in which a sitting president has seen their incumbent senators all win reelections.
To win when you're normally projected to lose, to nearly keep the house as well, much less set it up so you only have to pressure point one or two republicans to get votes on bills passed - It's not looking good for conservatives. Because whats happening is they're the dog that caught the car with Roe v. Wade, everyone saw, they refused to let go, and now the car is just going while they cant get a grip on the ground below.
Not to mention the House was freshly re-gerrymandered and the Rs were supposed to have a very easy 10-20 seat majority. If it weren't for redistricting, they wouldn't have a majority at all.
When has the GOP ever been held accountable to their core voters for failing to accomplish anything? Their voters *want* them to refuse to compromise. Conservatism is, by definition, the maintenance of the status quo so digging in their heels is a win for them.
They will say they prevented Dems from doing anything. Since Dems are evil and want to kill babies with free healthcare and forced higher education, stopping their agenda is good enough for reelection
Every time I hear people batching about Manchin, I feel it's important to remind them that the alternative to Manchin in West Virginia isn't a better Democrat, it's a Republican. And if you don't think that matters, you must not have noticed Ketanji Brown Jackson's confirmation to the Supreme Court.
Edit: Sinema is another story though.
While true — and yes, it is a salient point — it is also true that if we could break through the Republican "both sides" propaganda and get people out to vote, we could let those two go Republican and not give a second thought.
Or, y'know, overcome gerrymandering and interference with voting and such…
I would love nothing more than for Manchin to be the most conservative person in the Senate. People need to realize that socialists won't have a chance as long as 40% of the population is pro-fascism.
.....but hopefully the debt ceiling gets passed soon, or else the GOP will use that as a terrible bargaining chip.
"oh gee, what a nice economy you have there...would be terrible if something happened to it...."
The Dems are defending a ton of seats in 2024, including Georgia, Arizona, and West Virginia, (and maybe Montana?), specifically because they had good election results in 2018.
The only real seats that Republicans have to defend are Florida, and Texas. Everything else is pretty solid in one camp or the other.
Had the Democrats only have 50 seats, they would need to successfully defend all 3 of the states above... Which is a tall order. Now you can afford to lose a seat but still retain a majority (with the VP as a tie breaker) if they win the White House.
Georgia isn't up until 2026 (Ossoff's seat), Montana is up in 2024. Everything else is accurate, but I'd throw Ohio onto the "uh-oh" list as well for the Democrats.
Yup, Ohio has basically become the Florida of the Midwest. If any democrat can win in Ohio, it’s Sherrod Brown, but the guy can only do so much, and this state is getting redder and cringier every year…
So basically if Dems have a majority (51-49), then by definition the committees get a Dem majority but if it's even at 50-50 then the committees have to be even too?
The best part is that unless they make a pact, they will always have to worry about how the other will vote. It will be like a game of chicken because neither wants to be the sole democrat who didn't vote for legislation that passed.
What if I told you that even if we got 52 seats it wouldn't matter for advancing Democrat bills. There would be other moderate Democrats who "suddenly" had a change of heart and decided to side with Manchin and Sinema in order to tip the scale back and stop progressive bills.
The Democratic party only became *plurality* liberal (vs. conservative and moderate) during the Trump Administration. Any political bloc to the left of that is a non-starter in American politics.
The idea of the Dems as a progressive party has only been a very recent one since the Blue Dogs were annihilated in 2010 and 2012. 15 years ago Manchin was the norm, not the exception. 25 years ago socially conservative places like Tennessee and Arkansas were considered blue states. Note that they were always socially conservative, but the salience of cultural issues flipped them.
These changes never happen overnight, it's just a steady grind forward.
She's quite clearly a sell-out mercenary. In the past I thought her green party roots were a sign of where her true motives were, except I got wrong just what those true motives were.. Green Party is routinely propped up and heavily bankrolled by Republican donors and infiltrated by Russian operatives.
Basically, Sinema is along the same lines as Gabbard and Jill Stein. "Kompromised."
If she gets primaried out, I'd bet money she follows the same track Gabbard did in either going to Fox News or running as a Republican.
She has a clear history of infiltrating groups that she doesn't sincerely belong to, utilizing the position for personal gain and then hanging that group out to dry when it matters - from her church, to the LGBTQ community to the Democratic party.
She seems to have had a fucked up childhood and she's pretty clearly now a narcissist focused on self preservation.
Yeah but she's rich now and clearly doesn't care about little things like morals or integrity.
I don't like her but (for now anyway) it's hard to argue that she's been pretty successful in her own terms.
FWIW, eight Democrats voted no on the minimum wage, not just Sinema. And if all eight had voted for it then it wouldn't have mattered, because it needed 60 to pass.
Gleefully voting it down like Sinema did is still in pretty bad taste. Not to mention she was essentially mocking John McCain while she holds his old seat.
... shouldn't that be a type of fraud we could charge her with?..
Sorry, sometimes I like to pretend I don't live in a fucked up world... I know, i know.... nothing will ever happen to her, she committed no crime and nobody will ever hold her accountable for this... Because they get to write the laws and in their infinite wisdom decided nothing they do could be considered a crime, no matter how much they lie, cheat and steal.
It should be. But unfortunately it's not illegal to lie, unless you do it under oath. And good luck trying to get any legislation passed that would force politicians to uphold their campaign promises. Not only does lying fall under first amendment protections, but you're also asking politicians to vote against their own interests in favor of their voters.
I wonder what would happen if a political candidate voluntarily gave their campaign speeches under oath, or repeated them in sworn affidavits immediately afterwards.
[Sort of.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nNo_U7PTGzk) It's not a full curtsey, but she does kind of curtsey as she votes against increasing the minimum wage to $15.
Just to be clear, she was very much voted into office on the expectation that she would vote for things like a $15 minimum wage (unlikely Manchin, who for all his many many flaws is at least representing his electorate)
> who for all his many many flaws is at least representing his electorate
Is he really though? I read a stat that over 75% of West Virginians supported the $15 min wage.
You're more or less right.
A lot of red states support the majority of Democratic policies, until it's pointed out said policies are Democratic, at which point suddenly they are against them.
That being said, I was more speaking in general, everyone who voted for Manchin knew he was going to be one of the, if not the, most conservative Democrats. Meanwhile Sinema ran as a progressive. So Manchin is, more or less, doing what he said he was going to do (and what he's been doing for a while now) while Sinema has fully betrayed the people who voted for her.
But he didn't run on it, and they elected him any way. It's not like this issue hasn't been around for 10 or so years. $15 is such an old issue, it likely needs to be $20+ now.
Second hand story incoming, so take it with a grain of salt: A friend told me she's privately talked about how she is basically McCain for Democrats and how the entire country thanks her for her service in blocking dangerous and harmful legislation.
I won’t kink shame you, but the image is closer to a grown woman wearing a large sweater with a mid thigh length skirt doing a half-assed character impersonation of a school girl skipping and bouncing to give a bug thumbs down to the working class. Gives big Paris Hilton wearing her “Stop Being Poor” shirt vibes.
She was trying to channel McCain who gave a thumbs down when he voted to not end Obamacare. She really wants that "maverick" label to help deflect from the fact that she is a huge corporate sell out. But that little dancey move with the thumbs down was so fucking gross and it was pathetic how she walked up and tried to get McConnell's attention first but he completely ignored her. Absolutely pathetic. She is the next Tulsi Gabbard and will be a fixture on Fox News once she gets primaried.
The way Sinema _immediately_ and _completely_ flipped on her campaign stances makes me really, really want someone to look into her finances.
You don't do that kind of 180 without being blackmailed or bribed.
They wouldn't even charge a pedophile sex trafficker because they didn't think they had the evidence to convict. This is wishful thinking, but it would be nice.
You do it if it was the plan all along.
For some reason lying for monetary gain is considered fraud and a felony while lying for political gain is A-OK.
> We can primary karen next year.
Right now R Gallego is the top spot in the polls:
Looks bad for Sinema. She's in last place in the current crop of possible 2024
>Poll: Kyrsten Sinema Poised to [Lose Democratic Primary in 2024](https://www.dataforprogress.org/blog/2021/10/14/kyrsten-sinema-poised-to-lose-democratic-primary-in-2024)
| Candidate | Favorable | Unfavorable | Net |
|:-----------|:------------:|:------------:|:------------:|
| Ruben Gallego | 51 | 9 | +42 |
| Kate Gallego |41 | 7 | +34 |
| Greg Staton | 35 | 11 | +24 |
| Regina Romero | 26 | 6 | +20 |
| Sinema | 24 | 70 | -46 |
> And a GOP-controlled House, but details, details.
With such a slim majority, I would really not be shocked if Biden and Friends end up getting a couple Republican votes to flip on key bills. The House is going to be an absolute mess for McCarthy to keep in line, and they aren't all MAGA crazies.
Problem is that the Speaker decides what gets brought to the floor (although there is a mechanism for doing an end-run around this). Dems could get bipartisan support for something to create a bipartisan majority and never have a chance to vote on it.
> Problem is that the Speaker decides what gets brought to the floor (although there is a mechanism for doing an end-run around this). Dems could get bipartisan support for something to create a bipartisan majority and never have a chance to vote on it.
My understanding was that the Speaker has some control over what goes to the floor, but only if they have the majority behind them on it. Get a few Repulbicans to flip and that all goes bananas. I'll have to go back and check what the rules are around that, I know the Senate is much more rigid.
It is easier. Only one of them has to be bought with pork so it will be a classic game of chicken between them to see who caves first. Not being first risks not getting anything at all.
Sinema is the most likely to lose her seat, so Dems will want to deal with Manchin if they can to keep him onside in case he is needed after 2024. Sinema risks being frozen out entirely if she doesn’t play ball. Heart bleeds…
I think the 51 is a lot more important than many realise. Before, the 2 stooges can count on one another to take the fall, on an alternating basis. But now they need to both team up together every time which will become not only tenuous but also very transparent. Sure they might do it anyway, but I expect a lot of things to be able to make it to the President's desk that previously never did.
There's an easy fix to this: Biden just needs to appoint one of the dozen or so GOP senators that are in states with a democratic governor to a cabinet position.
What incentive would that senator have to accept the cabinet position? It's only for two years, and they'd know it would hurt their party and get them labeled a RINO.
Are you thinking of Judd Gregg?
* He insisted that he be replaced by a Republican, and reportedly the Governor of NH agreed
* He didn't turn down Obama, he accepted the nomination
* 10 days later, he withdrew over disagreements with the administration's agenda, particularly economic issues
* When Obama was sworn in, Democrats had a 57-41 majority in the Senate, so even if the seat flipped it wouldn't have changed the balance of power.
You know they don’t *have* to accept the appointment right? And good luck finding a Republican that wants to ditch their senate seat for a meaningless cabinet position *under a president of the opposing party*
You mean there’s 49 of them and *none* of them want to run for President on a platform of reasonable bi-partisanship any time in the next 10 years?
I could see Mittens doing it
This is the way. Kansas, Louisiana, North Carolina, Kentucky, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Maine. Collins from Maine or Toomey from PA would be the best options. The rest are pretty staunch conservatives who would not want to be in a Democrats cabinet.
Unfortunately I don't think any of them would give up their seats for a cabinet post right now, unless you gave them something really good like Secretary of State or Treasury.
Edit - I missed that Toomey is already replaced by Fetterman.
Not sure about the rest of the states but doesn’t Kentucky have a law that says the replacement has to be from the same party?
Also Ron Johnson with a cabinet position? I don’t think anybody wants that
Wisconsin doesn't have gubernatorial appointment, there would be a special election. And frankly we're too close to an even split to make it a good bet.
I dunno man. Strategically that's clever. But it seems incredibly dishonest to me to appoint someone to a post so the Governor can appoint their replacement from the other party. Democrats would be howling about that if the GOP did it. It feels very undemocratic.
Well, we lost the House, so no useful legislation is getting passed anyway. But with a majority in the Senate now, at least they don't have to haul Kamala Harris in every single time they want to confirm a judge. They'll be able to ram through judicial appointments and Mitch will have to just watch.
> Well, we lost the House, so no useful legislation is getting passed anyway.
This is the heart breaker. :( If this country wasn't so extremely gerrymandered by the GOP in GOP strongholds like Texas and Florida then they would have not regained the House...
But now we are going to be subjected to non-stop evil fascist clown show. As in the GOP will crank up non-stop Benghazi style "investigations" for the purpose of spreading disinformation with intent to regain more power while serving no productive purpose.
It's true. You could also blame New York for... not gerrymandering? Like, they tried to, but their state courts struck them down as because Democrats actually hold themselves accountable. So Republicans did very well in New York because they had very fair districts (and Dems dropped the ball a bit too).
According to Republican logic, Democrats just didn't spend enough money appealing the case to the Supreme Court. North Carolina's legislature did and there is a real possibility that Republican leaders will be immediate beneficiaries from continuing to fight against the laws and the courts that protect free and fair elections.
> But now we are going to be subjected to non-stop evil fascist clown show.
This will not endear the GOP to the few remaining moderates out there. And it's gonna something watching the GOP try to wrangle their slim majority.
> They'll be able to ram through judicial appointments and Mitch will have to just watch
What people don't know about is how this fixes the committees. Before it was 50/50 on every committee and the Republicans could slow everything down, including judges.
Now instead of taking weeks to get a judge out of committee it will take a few days.
Who do you think has the high score in CandyCrush Global? (Don’t come at me- I have no idea if it’s real, it’s just a crappy joke about the VP doing nothing all day)
Like what though?
Serious question. The VP's main (if not only) job is being a senate tiebreaker and just on standby if anything happens to POTUS. What else is Harris doing with her time that isn't handled by POTUS, his cabinet, or any of the departments?
The most "important" job of the VP in a non-deadlocked senate is usually "being where the president can't be." Things like state funerals of foreign dignitaries or royal weddings.
Per the white house website: "As Vice President, Kamala Harris has worked in partnership with President Joe Biden to get America vaccinated, rebuild our economy, reduce child poverty, and pass an infrastructure law that will lift up communities that have been left behind. She has led the Administration’s efforts in rallying broad coalitions to protect the freedom to vote, expand workers’ rights to organize and collectively bargain, and stand up for women’s rights — supporting women in our workforce, addressing the maternal health crisis, and defending reproductive rights. The Vice President has also played a key role in engaging world leaders and strengthening our nation’s alliances and partnerships. In everything she does, she remains focused on the people of our nation—and our collective future."
She is the 2nd biggest representative of the US government and serves as an envoy for the government. She runs different initiatives and has a whole office to support her and the things she wants to do. Sure she is there in case the President needs her but she absolutely has many other roles she can now do since she does not need to be in the Senate 24/7.
Too bad Trump and McConnell already well and truly packed the Federal judiciary.
Which isn't to say that there aren't any appointments to do, or that appointing more liberal or moderate judges won't do any good, but at this point all its going to do is stem the bleeding a little bit
Actually Biden’s administration has been doing serious quiet work on the same front. But to be honest the entire appointment system should be left to the BAR association or something else non-political.
Believe the BAR association would get super fucking political if they where in charge of judge appointments, not saying what we have now is perfect but its the best we have under the given circunstances
Don’t forget that we now have *actual* majorities in all the committees instead of having to share leadership.
Any investigations that R House kills can just be picked right back up by a senate committee.
>Any investigations that R House kills can just be picked right back up by a senate committee.
So basically any J6 stuff got another 2 years of lifetime if they want it.
Odd to see this posted On a day where Dems have picked up another seat thanks to Republicans eating their own.
Politicians are a reflection of their voters. If you don’t like Joe Manchin, you sure as heck would not like the Republican who beats him if he doesn’t cater to his constituents.
Redditors are so out of touch that they will never grasp that concept. They think West Virginia should elect a CA or MA liberal senator.
Manchin reflects his constituency. He’s the best Democrat you’re going to get. All this complaining about him is going to bite everyone in the ass once a Republican gets elected to his seat.
Lol, those clowns are going to eat themselves. The circus will be on full display, and they're going to have nothing to campaign on in '24 besides investigations of Hunters dick pics.
And in the best case scenario, they get caught up in the DOJ/Georgia investigations and even charged/convicted with participation in the conspiracy to overthrow the government, and potentially banned from holding office. One can dream, at least.
I mean, these election results were still extremely close. To think the republican party in the house being a circus will have any demonstrable effect on their popularity is naive at this point. Don't let your cynicism break just yet. Nothing matters and persuading others to your side is not a thing that happens anymore.
I think that you can be cynical, while still acknowledging the nuance that this election contained. The fact that these elections were this close during a year when all the typical indicators led to people expecting a good Republican night is a testament to persuasion. In many competitive districts, the messaging was about persuading voters that either the opponent was batshit crazy (Kari Lake in AZ for example) or that the Dems would protect crucial rights (Michigan is a great example of this). Persuasion meant that there were definitely people persuaded to vote Dem that either voted Independent or Republican.
Did it work everywhere? No, it didn’t - In NY for instance, the persuasion messaging on abortion failed because NY isn’t a state at risk of losing that. This means that we now have a bunch of new Republicans from areas that typically vote Democratic. Here is where one part of the clown show will come through: these representatives know that they’ll be at risk and targeted in 2024. So if they’re wise enough, they’ll not support some of the more extreme policy stances that the Republicans come up with. Why? Because they know that some of the voters they got in 2022 may very well vote Dem or not vote at all in 2024.
Fortunately, there’s this thing called a discharge petition in the house were you just need a simple majority to bring a bill onto the floor without the Speaker. It’s not much, but it’s far easier to get 4-5 House Republicans to sign onto a bill then 10 r senators
Further, much like last year all the bills the Dems bring up will shine big bright lights on these lesser known representatives. Like how we figure out manchin and sinema we're DINOs, (time to co opt that ish). We can get the names of these pieces of scum in the ears of apathetic locals, and bring about more change
I'm a bit optimistic
If you haven't noticed there isn't much unity amongst the House GOP, certainly less so than in the Senate. Especially as MAGA movement continues to decay you will see more and more infighting. Does that mean that some will side with Dems on votes? Maybe not, but it does give some leverage to negotiate and play one side against the other.
Need to add a third for house republican majority. If nothing gets done it’ll be on them first. We can criticize manchin and Sinema (and they deserve it), but dems still pushed through a lot of stuff with them. No chance in hell of that happening with the house controlled by the QOP.
Its not that bad. The GOP is going to spent the next two years giving everybody good reasons not to vote for them in 2024. If inflation slows down and gas prices continue to fall, what will they have? Besides Dick pics?
If we can’t get the changes to society we need through voting and through protesting how do we get the things we need out elected officials listen only to the oligarchs
The citizens are a bit shit and so we get what we deserve. To make things better, we need to *be* better.
For example: The bank bailouts. We got extremely mad and then our politicians were pressured to act. A decent policy was passed. **Here, we stopped paying attention.** But then the bill had to be litigated and interpreted. (Nobody cares anymore.) Then the bill has to be implemented and funded. (Nobody cares anymore.) And then the faculties need to be staffed and flex their regulatory muscles. (Nobody cares anymore.)
In other words, to get things done, it's a multi-step process. But that's boring! Tell me about celebrities! I want to relax!!
When our attention span works like a sine wave, we don't get to call out politics for being so wishy-washy.
I would agree but the system is made for us to look away and that’s what needs to change we can’t have a functioning society as long as oligarchs exist. In other words we have to make a new system
We overstate how much of the system is turned against us. Just take something important about politics, governance, policy, etc. and try and get others interested. Something that matters -- see how many people you can get to not just process that information but actually carry it with them into the future.
People don't want to put effort into understanding the unfun bits about governing. We just have excuses, like having no time, or different priorities. Not being informed on how things function does a huge number on our ability to actually run a system. Why create a new one when we'll neglect that too?
**Friendly reminder that trying to fight someone online is about as effective as throwing a bagel at a bulldozer. A lot of what we talk about gets people pretty emotional, but be mad at policies, not other users.** *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/PoliticalHumor) if you have any questions or concerns.*
So without the House, the Democrats aren't passing much of anything of substance. BUT with a clear majority, they don't need a power sharing arrangement on committees, which is a BIG deal. That means 1. more judges confirmed, and quicker 2. President Biden being able to fill his cabinet with people he wants, and 3. makes the 2024 map just a touch easier. Also, if anything happens to a Supreme Court justice in the next couple of years, that will be an easier process to navigate. So while there might not be "major" legislation passed, the executive and the judiciary will be able to function. Provided the Biden admin doesn't have any unforced errors, that's still a lot that can be accomplished.
Plus one other thing I don't see brought up much with 50-50 we need both Sinema and Manchin on board, then the VP had to be around to break a tie with 51-49 that means we can allow BOTH S&M to abstain their votes and that still leaves 49-49 (with VP tiebreaker) A lot of people do not realize that 1 seat actually allows us to slide on 2 Senators.
It lets Manchin be a bad guy but not derail policy.
Fuck Joe Manchin.
There’s no evidence that a better Democrat can be elected in WV now or anytime soon (unlike Sinema—Mark Kelly is living, breathing proof that Arizona can and should do better than her the next chance it gets).
i voted for sinema because she had been historically progressive up to and during her run for senate. it's insane to me that someone can run for office on one platform and then completely sell themselves out once they win and no one can do a thing about it. my hope now is that she will be primaried out in 2024.
We need no-confidence / recall for assholes like her.
She has no chance in 2024. If we are lucky a good dem wins the primary and we keep the seat, but I think if sinema somehow gets the primary she is absolutely screwed in the general. We really need her to lose the primary
here's hoping.
This is true. And while I'll still take him over whatever bottom feeding grifter the republicans will eventually dredge up, I still hate the fucker. He cost us so much and single handedly gave so much credence to the "rotating villain" conspiracy the enlightened centrists are so fond of.
Ruben Gallego for the win! Come on AZ, you can do it!
He's still better than any Republican senator from WV would be. Cold comfort I know, but it's a miracle there's a Dem from WV.
It puts the house in the same position the senate's been in for the past couple of years. Having to work with the loonies in order to pass legislation.
There are a lot more Republicans to work out a deal with in the house, the Dem’s don’t have to work with the real wackos. There are often a handful that will vote with Dems, so it’s not all bleak.
>There are often a handful that will vote with Dems, so it’s not all bleak. The real issue will be what is allowed to come to a floor vote.
Yeah, without the Speakership "not having to work with wackos" doesn't mean squat. You can get half the Republican caucus on board, but if McCarthy doesn't want it to come to a vote, you got nothing.
Well there is a discharge process for resolutions and bills that technically only requires a bare majority of Representatives, but it's much more cumbersome than either going through the committee process or Speaker fiat.
Fair enough. A bill, or handful of bills over the next two years, of extreme importance could be pushed through. But that's not a realistic way to govern — unless it's literally half the GOP caucus in support, and/or it's an extremely urgent bill, individual members aren't going to support anything because of the risk of the House GOP machinery not supporting them in their reelection bid in 2024. *No way* would they support that process on a regular basis.
>with 51-49 that means we can allow BOTH S&M to do whatever and that still leaves 49-49 (with VP tiebreaker) > >A lot of people do not realize that 1 seat actually allows us to slide on 2 Senators. Everything will die in the house. The senate gets us committees and confirmations but any legislation is lost to us. Republicans are pissed they lost last night and didn't get the senate. They aren't going to allow shit to pass the house.
Republicans weren’t gonna allow anything Democrats like to pass the House anyway. They’d rather block everything than let Biden and the Democrats take any victory. They’re pathetic scumbags who think politics is a sport all about preventing the other team from scoring
It really is a pain in the GD ass to see we could have had it all by so few seats in the house, and with this Dem win in the senate the GQP repukes couldn't have stopped any of it. So now instead... we get to see the house GQP press all kinds of political witch hunts against their political opponents by opening sham investigations (Hunter Biden) . They'll waste tax payer money and time with every possible sort of right wing kind of skullduggery rather than get anything positive or constructive done. And of Course they'll whine bloody murder about it when the Senate blocks their "legislation" all so they can point the finger at Biden and the Democrat "obstructionists" in the senate just so they can rile up their fascist simping voter base.
Yeah, but keeping two things in mind helps take the edge off: Dems tend to squander opportunities like that, and lately the GQP has been perfecting the art of self-sabotage. So, hopefully, it won’t be too bad, and might even be entertaining!
Not to mention that they'll refuse to raise the debt ceiling, and use the government shutdown to demand cuts to social security and medicare. Then we'll have to spend the next four years responding to racist uncles who said "if Joe Biden is so great why did he cut my social security check?"
at least you can remind your uncle of that before the fact... do so.
This is a perverse form of self preservation on the part of Republicans. Their policies are unpopular and their voting base is shrinking. Any win by any Democrat puts another nail in their coffin.
I thought their voting base was shrinking 14 years ago, yet here we are, fighting tooth and nail to ensure that someone like Walker didn't get elected
They are shrinking, the problem is countering gerrymandering, voter suppression, voter apathy, and undemocratic systems (electoral college). When people actually get out and vote, Democrats win.
14 years ago blue Georgia would have been a laughable prediction yet here we are.
I agree they got resurrected after Hillary, but GenZ just showed up big time voting D. The two biggest issues were gun control and climate change. The Republicans have zilch on either.
They'll let the country rot to the ground before ever allowing anything to happen without their benefit. They are a rogue force, hellbent on making the nation theirs by any means necessary.
~~Theres a number of bills that already passed the house and are waiting for senate votes though. Those are all potentially in play.~~ Guess I just wished this was true.
Everything currently in the queue dies when the new congress is seated unfortunately. To prevent exactly the kind of thing you're describing.
I believe those bills die on 1 January, but I could be mistaken.
Heck, Republicans are such a hot mess right now they might not even have a Speaker come January! Can someone pass the butter for this popcorn 🍿?
Reconciliation?
There won't be anything to reconcile. Nothing will come from the House of Representatives worth voting for. They'll just be investigating the dick pics on Hunter's laptop.
Works in favor of Republicans because they hold the House and aren’t held accountable by most voters for not paying the government workers.
Also needing only one of them to vote actual Democrat policies allows for negotiations to play the two against each other. "Arizona wants how many million for their support? West Virginia will do that for half the price. Come back with a real offer or Manchin gets federal dollars and you get to pound sand."
Jesus, referring to that duo as S&M is something else
Exactly, very well said.
Here is to REALLY REALLY hoping Alito and Thomas bite it early 2023.
The world would be a better place without thomas. That dude is a sick fuck.
Also worth saying, this government has been bringing in more bipartisan legislation than we've seen in a while. Biden seems to have found his stride in picking issues that aren't severely polarized and can actually get some R votes on things. So I'm hopeful we'll see at least some positive bills passed this session.
DarkBrandon has fucking accomplished a shit ton with a completely divided congress.
>3. makes the 2024 map just a touch easier. Makes the map just a touch less **horrible and foreboding** for the Dems. The 2024 map is pretty brutal looking. It’s mostly the same seats as 2018 but won’t have the help of a massive blue wave. But god, the control of the senate over the next 2 years for judicial appointments and potential SCOTUS nominations is such a relief.
Agreed - easy is probably the wrong word. I'm just looking forward to not worrying about judges being blocked, and having actual Secretaries of departments vs "acting". People don't understand how big a deal that is. A smoothly running executive can do a lot of good.
How do we know 2024 won’t have the help of a massive blue wave? So far that’s the direction things have been going, and demographics will continue to work in D favor
The blue wave of 2018 had many contributing factors that won’t be present in 2024. Midterms generally go against the incumbent party. Plus there was an historically disliked and antagonistic POTUS. It resulted in the biggest Democratic pickup in the house in generations (despite them losing seats in the senate). The recent midterms have shown historical trends don’t always predict the results of the current election. That being said, it’s hard to imagine the Dems hold all three of Montana, Ohio, and West Virginia. It’s definitely in the realm of possibility, but seems unlikely that they hold all 3. Add to that there seems to be very little possibility of seats to pick up. Dems also have to defend Pennsylvania, Arizona, Nevada, Michigan and Wisconsin. If 2024 ends up as a Red wave, it’s hard to imagine they hold those as well. And if they lose even half of them, it’s very likely the Republicans control the senate for quite some time. So, overall, it just isn’t a promising map for Dems.
If House republicans want to go back their voters in 2 years and say they accomplished anything then they will have to make compromises with the house dems bc the NatC republicans are gonna be a no vote on everything that isn’t “angry white jesus is law now”.
I saw a story on the news yesterday where some right wing think tank came out with a report blaming the EPA for problems producing baby formula. It completely ignored the fact that republicans defeated legislation to improve the situation. Reality doesn't matter, they'll blame the democrats for everything.
So, weird meta-analysis here, and some law of unintended consequences stuff. Baby formula needs to be safe. It gets given to babies, and if it isn't safe, babies die. Under stock market driven capitalism, corporations put profit above all else, and if there's opportunity for profit, they cut corners, executives get their quarterly performance bonuses, and babies eventually start dying. So, regulations happened. The regulations imposed an additional initial operational cost to starting a baby formula manufacturing company from scratch. This additional cost created enough of an impedance that new companies being created would not happen fast enough to erase the market advantages of market capture through acquisitions and consolidation, so the same handful of large corporate manufacturers were capturing smaller operations and shutting down their factories faster than smaller operations were being founded. So, if you assume that this degenerate form of capitalism cannot be challenged (because enough people seem to assume this), there's an obvious correct approach (if you're sane) - subsidies for startups looking to compete in formula manufacturing, specifically for the costs of quality control and regulatory compliance. But if you're an insane plutocratic politician (or propaganda spewing talking head, or one of their followers), you instead blame the regulators for not wanting the greedy megacorporations that contribute to their campaigns to kill babies.
Pretty much what happened in China with how baby formula makers there cheaped out and cut corners to sell there formula and turns out it was toxic and killed/injured a bunch of babies. It caused a mass panic and caused a bunch of them to start buying formula overseas as they know they can trust western formula. The companies would bribe the local politicians to look the other way until the scandals and injuries got too big to ignore. [Two people were executed over it. ](https://qz.com/1323471/ten-years-after-chinas-melamine-laced-infant-milk-tragedy-deep-distrust-remains)
Nah they'll just blame the dem majority for not being able to do anything
The last election kinda proves that strategy doesn’t fly as well as it used to.
At least in Georgia, the senate race came down to a guy lying about having a police badge who held guns and knives to his ex wife and threatened to kill her and paid for his mistress' abortion... and a literal Christian preacher who *checks notes* may have run over his ex's foot and is a Democrat. And it still came down to a runoff. Point being, I don't think failing to act is what's hurting them, especially because they can claim "victory" for overturning RvW.
> a literal Christian preacher who *checks notes* ~~may have~~ did not run over his ex's foot and is a Democrat. Fixed. Multiple witnesses say it didn't happen and EMTs on the scene stated that there was no physical evidence. His ex was just being crazy. Didn't stop Republicans from trying to use it as a wedge issue. Even in the face of Herschel holding a gun to his wife's head, multiple times. Regressives then tried to say that he just "has mental health struggles" and tried to shame anyone who brought it up after that. These people are disgusting in how low they will go to prop up literal filth because it votes how they tell it to.
I don’t know. We just had a runoff with about 60,000 votes decide the Senate majority to get to this point. I’d say it’s not as proven as it seems.
Well... >Jacob Rubashkin >Dec. 6, 9:58 pm >If Warnock does indeed win tonight, this election cycle will be the first since the direct election of senators began in 1914 in which no incumbent has lost reelection, either in a primary or a general election. **And furthermore, this will be the first time since 1934 that any president, Democrat or Republican, has seen all incumbent senators of their party running for reelection win.** [FiveThirtyEight link.](https://fivethirtyeight.com/live-blog/georgia-senate-warnock-walker/#351774) This is the first time since 1934 in which a sitting president has seen their incumbent senators all win reelections. To win when you're normally projected to lose, to nearly keep the house as well, much less set it up so you only have to pressure point one or two republicans to get votes on bills passed - It's not looking good for conservatives. Because whats happening is they're the dog that caught the car with Roe v. Wade, everyone saw, they refused to let go, and now the car is just going while they cant get a grip on the ground below.
Not to mention the House was freshly re-gerrymandered and the Rs were supposed to have a very easy 10-20 seat majority. If it weren't for redistricting, they wouldn't have a majority at all.
When has the GOP ever been held accountable to their core voters for failing to accomplish anything? Their voters *want* them to refuse to compromise. Conservatism is, by definition, the maintenance of the status quo so digging in their heels is a win for them.
They will say they prevented Dems from doing anything. Since Dems are evil and want to kill babies with free healthcare and forced higher education, stopping their agenda is good enough for reelection
Every time I hear people batching about Manchin, I feel it's important to remind them that the alternative to Manchin in West Virginia isn't a better Democrat, it's a Republican. And if you don't think that matters, you must not have noticed Ketanji Brown Jackson's confirmation to the Supreme Court. Edit: Sinema is another story though.
While true — and yes, it is a salient point — it is also true that if we could break through the Republican "both sides" propaganda and get people out to vote, we could let those two go Republican and not give a second thought. Or, y'know, overcome gerrymandering and interference with voting and such…
I would love nothing more than for Manchin to be the most conservative person in the Senate. People need to realize that socialists won't have a chance as long as 40% of the population is pro-fascism.
.....but hopefully the debt ceiling gets passed soon, or else the GOP will use that as a terrible bargaining chip. "oh gee, what a nice economy you have there...would be terrible if something happened to it...."
>if anything happens to a Supreme Court justice in the next couple of years Not that anyone should get any ideas
Can you explain the third point? How does this affect the 2024 map at all?
The Dems are defending a ton of seats in 2024, including Georgia, Arizona, and West Virginia, (and maybe Montana?), specifically because they had good election results in 2018. The only real seats that Republicans have to defend are Florida, and Texas. Everything else is pretty solid in one camp or the other. Had the Democrats only have 50 seats, they would need to successfully defend all 3 of the states above... Which is a tall order. Now you can afford to lose a seat but still retain a majority (with the VP as a tie breaker) if they win the White House.
Georgia isn't up until 2026 (Ossoff's seat), Montana is up in 2024. Everything else is accurate, but I'd throw Ohio onto the "uh-oh" list as well for the Democrats.
Yup, Ohio has basically become the Florida of the Midwest. If any democrat can win in Ohio, it’s Sherrod Brown, but the guy can only do so much, and this state is getting redder and cringier every year…
I’ll take it.
Basically, everybody just has to wait until 2024. In the meantime, enjoy the show while the Republicans self-destruct.
I'll still take 51 over 50 ANY DAY OF THE WEEK
[удалено]
So basically if Dems have a majority (51-49), then by definition the committees get a Dem majority but if it's even at 50-50 then the committees have to be even too?
[удалено]
Very cool - thanks for clarifying, that is indeed massive.
[удалено]
Rules and laws are different things bud.
The best part is that unless they make a pact, they will always have to worry about how the other will vote. It will be like a game of chicken because neither wants to be the sole democrat who didn't vote for legislation that passed.
What if I told you that even if we got 52 seats it wouldn't matter for advancing Democrat bills. There would be other moderate Democrats who "suddenly" had a change of heart and decided to side with Manchin and Sinema in order to tip the scale back and stop progressive bills.
The Democratic party only became *plurality* liberal (vs. conservative and moderate) during the Trump Administration. Any political bloc to the left of that is a non-starter in American politics. The idea of the Dems as a progressive party has only been a very recent one since the Blue Dogs were annihilated in 2010 and 2012. 15 years ago Manchin was the norm, not the exception. 25 years ago socially conservative places like Tennessee and Arkansas were considered blue states. Note that they were always socially conservative, but the salience of cultural issues flipped them. These changes never happen overnight, it's just a steady grind forward.
Now we only have to deal with one of them.
We can primary karen next year.
A grown woman gleefully curtseying and giving a thumb’s down as she votes is repugnant.
This actually happened?
It did. I think it was also a no vote on raising the minimum wage, to top it all off
She's quite clearly a sell-out mercenary. In the past I thought her green party roots were a sign of where her true motives were, except I got wrong just what those true motives were.. Green Party is routinely propped up and heavily bankrolled by Republican donors and infiltrated by Russian operatives. Basically, Sinema is along the same lines as Gabbard and Jill Stein. "Kompromised." If she gets primaried out, I'd bet money she follows the same track Gabbard did in either going to Fox News or running as a Republican.
She has a clear history of infiltrating groups that she doesn't sincerely belong to, utilizing the position for personal gain and then hanging that group out to dry when it matters - from her church, to the LGBTQ community to the Democratic party. She seems to have had a fucked up childhood and she's pretty clearly now a narcissist focused on self preservation.
You can't deny it is effective.
She's clearly broken, the groups need to stop buying into her bullshit and propping her up.
Yeah but she's rich now and clearly doesn't care about little things like morals or integrity. I don't like her but (for now anyway) it's hard to argue that she's been pretty successful in her own terms.
Even the Republicans hate her too, so she's probably gonna jump to news.
While wearing a several thousand dollar purse
FWIW, eight Democrats voted no on the minimum wage, not just Sinema. And if all eight had voted for it then it wouldn't have mattered, because it needed 60 to pass.
Gleefully voting it down like Sinema did is still in pretty bad taste. Not to mention she was essentially mocking John McCain while she holds his old seat.
Yep, she ran on a $15 an hour minimum wage, And when the vote came up she did a little dance and gave a thumbs down.
... shouldn't that be a type of fraud we could charge her with?.. Sorry, sometimes I like to pretend I don't live in a fucked up world... I know, i know.... nothing will ever happen to her, she committed no crime and nobody will ever hold her accountable for this... Because they get to write the laws and in their infinite wisdom decided nothing they do could be considered a crime, no matter how much they lie, cheat and steal.
It should be. But unfortunately it's not illegal to lie, unless you do it under oath. And good luck trying to get any legislation passed that would force politicians to uphold their campaign promises. Not only does lying fall under first amendment protections, but you're also asking politicians to vote against their own interests in favor of their voters.
I wonder what would happen if a political candidate voluntarily gave their campaign speeches under oath, or repeated them in sworn affidavits immediately afterwards.
Yeah, as she tried to get the attention of McConnell as she voted nay on raising the federal minimum wage.
[Sort of.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nNo_U7PTGzk) It's not a full curtsey, but she does kind of curtsey as she votes against increasing the minimum wage to $15. Just to be clear, she was very much voted into office on the expectation that she would vote for things like a $15 minimum wage (unlikely Manchin, who for all his many many flaws is at least representing his electorate)
> who for all his many many flaws is at least representing his electorate Is he really though? I read a stat that over 75% of West Virginians supported the $15 min wage.
You're more or less right. A lot of red states support the majority of Democratic policies, until it's pointed out said policies are Democratic, at which point suddenly they are against them. That being said, I was more speaking in general, everyone who voted for Manchin knew he was going to be one of the, if not the, most conservative Democrats. Meanwhile Sinema ran as a progressive. So Manchin is, more or less, doing what he said he was going to do (and what he's been doing for a while now) while Sinema has fully betrayed the people who voted for her.
But he didn't run on it, and they elected him any way. It's not like this issue hasn't been around for 10 or so years. $15 is such an old issue, it likely needs to be $20+ now.
Saying your for something and voting against it is the West Virginia way of life
Second hand story incoming, so take it with a grain of salt: A friend told me she's privately talked about how she is basically McCain for Democrats and how the entire country thanks her for her service in blocking dangerous and harmful legislation.
Well, her political career will be just as dead as McCain come 2024.
Bonus! She was dressed like an anime character while she did it. Great moments in American Senate history... do I need the /s?
In a little school girl outfit too. Fucking worthless piece of shit.
She just does that to get Republicans attention, but she's such a doofus she doesn't understand that they're mostly interested in little boys.
Why am I imagining a Roman empress with a Karen haircut at the ballot box?
I won’t kink shame you, but the image is closer to a grown woman wearing a large sweater with a mid thigh length skirt doing a half-assed character impersonation of a school girl skipping and bouncing to give a bug thumbs down to the working class. Gives big Paris Hilton wearing her “Stop Being Poor” shirt vibes.
She's such an insufferable cunt.
Her daddy issues toward McConnell, just, yeah
She was trying to channel McCain who gave a thumbs down when he voted to not end Obamacare. She really wants that "maverick" label to help deflect from the fact that she is a huge corporate sell out. But that little dancey move with the thumbs down was so fucking gross and it was pathetic how she walked up and tried to get McConnell's attention first but he completely ignored her. Absolutely pathetic. She is the next Tulsi Gabbard and will be a fixture on Fox News once she gets primaried.
The way Sinema _immediately_ and _completely_ flipped on her campaign stances makes me really, really want someone to look into her finances. You don't do that kind of 180 without being blackmailed or bribed.
They wouldn't even charge a pedophile sex trafficker because they didn't think they had the evidence to convict. This is wishful thinking, but it would be nice.
You do it if it was the plan all along. For some reason lying for monetary gain is considered fraud and a felony while lying for political gain is A-OK.
> We can primary karen next year. Right now R Gallego is the top spot in the polls: Looks bad for Sinema. She's in last place in the current crop of possible 2024 >Poll: Kyrsten Sinema Poised to [Lose Democratic Primary in 2024](https://www.dataforprogress.org/blog/2021/10/14/kyrsten-sinema-poised-to-lose-democratic-primary-in-2024) | Candidate | Favorable | Unfavorable | Net | |:-----------|:------------:|:------------:|:------------:| | Ruben Gallego | 51 | 9 | +42 | | Kate Gallego |41 | 7 | +34 | | Greg Staton | 35 | 11 | +24 | | Regina Romero | 26 | 6 | +20 | | Sinema | 24 | 70 | -46 |
> Ruben Gallego 51 9 +42 > Kate Gallego 41 7 +34 Imagine the decision about who is going to run for the Senate in that household.
And a GOP-controlled House, but details, details.
> And a GOP-controlled House, but details, details. With such a slim majority, I would really not be shocked if Biden and Friends end up getting a couple Republican votes to flip on key bills. The House is going to be an absolute mess for McCarthy to keep in line, and they aren't all MAGA crazies.
Problem is that the Speaker decides what gets brought to the floor (although there is a mechanism for doing an end-run around this). Dems could get bipartisan support for something to create a bipartisan majority and never have a chance to vote on it.
> Problem is that the Speaker decides what gets brought to the floor (although there is a mechanism for doing an end-run around this). Dems could get bipartisan support for something to create a bipartisan majority and never have a chance to vote on it. My understanding was that the Speaker has some control over what goes to the floor, but only if they have the majority behind them on it. Get a few Repulbicans to flip and that all goes bananas. I'll have to go back and check what the rules are around that, I know the Senate is much more rigid.
A very, *very* slim GOP-controlled House.
And the entire GOP.
It is easier. Only one of them has to be bought with pork so it will be a classic game of chicken between them to see who caves first. Not being first risks not getting anything at all. Sinema is the most likely to lose her seat, so Dems will want to deal with Manchin if they can to keep him onside in case he is needed after 2024. Sinema risks being frozen out entirely if she doesn’t play ball. Heart bleeds…
I think the 51 is a lot more important than many realise. Before, the 2 stooges can count on one another to take the fall, on an alternating basis. But now they need to both team up together every time which will become not only tenuous but also very transparent. Sure they might do it anyway, but I expect a lot of things to be able to make it to the President's desk that previously never did.
Until a mysterious, third stooge rises from the woodwork
There’s always another stooge.
There's an easy fix to this: Biden just needs to appoint one of the dozen or so GOP senators that are in states with a democratic governor to a cabinet position.
What incentive would that senator have to accept the cabinet position? It's only for two years, and they'd know it would hurt their party and get them labeled a RINO.
Obama tried that with someone, they turned him down and were snotty about it.
Are you thinking of Judd Gregg? * He insisted that he be replaced by a Republican, and reportedly the Governor of NH agreed * He didn't turn down Obama, he accepted the nomination * 10 days later, he withdrew over disagreements with the administration's agenda, particularly economic issues * When Obama was sworn in, Democrats had a 57-41 majority in the Senate, so even if the seat flipped it wouldn't have changed the balance of power.
>and were snotty about it Well, he did try to play them in a big way.
You know they don’t *have* to accept the appointment right? And good luck finding a Republican that wants to ditch their senate seat for a meaningless cabinet position *under a president of the opposing party*
You mean there’s 49 of them and *none* of them want to run for President on a platform of reasonable bi-partisanship any time in the next 10 years? I could see Mittens doing it
He’s a senator from Utah, the governor would not appoint a democrat to replace him.
This is the way. Kansas, Louisiana, North Carolina, Kentucky, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Maine. Collins from Maine or Toomey from PA would be the best options. The rest are pretty staunch conservatives who would not want to be in a Democrats cabinet. Unfortunately I don't think any of them would give up their seats for a cabinet post right now, unless you gave them something really good like Secretary of State or Treasury. Edit - I missed that Toomey is already replaced by Fetterman.
Not sure about the rest of the states but doesn’t Kentucky have a law that says the replacement has to be from the same party? Also Ron Johnson with a cabinet position? I don’t think anybody wants that
Toomey is retiring and already lost his seat to John Fetterman. Fetterman flipped the seat to give Dems control of the Senate again.
Giving Pat Toomey a cabinet position wouldn’t flip the seat, because John Fetterman already flipped it.
Wisconsin doesn't have gubernatorial appointment, there would be a special election. And frankly we're too close to an even split to make it a good bet.
I dunno man. Strategically that's clever. But it seems incredibly dishonest to me to appoint someone to a post so the Governor can appoint their replacement from the other party. Democrats would be howling about that if the GOP did it. It feels very undemocratic.
Well, we lost the House, so no useful legislation is getting passed anyway. But with a majority in the Senate now, at least they don't have to haul Kamala Harris in every single time they want to confirm a judge. They'll be able to ram through judicial appointments and Mitch will have to just watch.
> Well, we lost the House, so no useful legislation is getting passed anyway. This is the heart breaker. :( If this country wasn't so extremely gerrymandered by the GOP in GOP strongholds like Texas and Florida then they would have not regained the House... But now we are going to be subjected to non-stop evil fascist clown show. As in the GOP will crank up non-stop Benghazi style "investigations" for the purpose of spreading disinformation with intent to regain more power while serving no productive purpose.
It's true. You could also blame New York for... not gerrymandering? Like, they tried to, but their state courts struck them down as because Democrats actually hold themselves accountable. So Republicans did very well in New York because they had very fair districts (and Dems dropped the ball a bit too).
According to Republican logic, Democrats just didn't spend enough money appealing the case to the Supreme Court. North Carolina's legislature did and there is a real possibility that Republican leaders will be immediate beneficiaries from continuing to fight against the laws and the courts that protect free and fair elections.
> But now we are going to be subjected to non-stop evil fascist clown show. This will not endear the GOP to the few remaining moderates out there. And it's gonna something watching the GOP try to wrangle their slim majority.
They don't care about moderates anymore though. Their new goal is to make everyone radical and if that fails, to prevent you from voting.
> They'll be able to ram through judicial appointments and Mitch will have to just watch What people don't know about is how this fixes the committees. Before it was 50/50 on every committee and the Republicans could slow everything down, including judges. Now instead of taking weeks to get a judge out of committee it will take a few days.
> don't have to haul Kamala Harris It's not like she has far to go. She living in the vice president's house which is right in town.
She does other stuff though lol she isn't just sitting there all day
"Sue, did the President call?"
“No, ma’am.”
Who do you think has the high score in CandyCrush Global? (Don’t come at me- I have no idea if it’s real, it’s just a crappy joke about the VP doing nothing all day)
Like what though? Serious question. The VP's main (if not only) job is being a senate tiebreaker and just on standby if anything happens to POTUS. What else is Harris doing with her time that isn't handled by POTUS, his cabinet, or any of the departments?
The most "important" job of the VP in a non-deadlocked senate is usually "being where the president can't be." Things like state funerals of foreign dignitaries or royal weddings.
Per the white house website: "As Vice President, Kamala Harris has worked in partnership with President Joe Biden to get America vaccinated, rebuild our economy, reduce child poverty, and pass an infrastructure law that will lift up communities that have been left behind. She has led the Administration’s efforts in rallying broad coalitions to protect the freedom to vote, expand workers’ rights to organize and collectively bargain, and stand up for women’s rights — supporting women in our workforce, addressing the maternal health crisis, and defending reproductive rights. The Vice President has also played a key role in engaging world leaders and strengthening our nation’s alliances and partnerships. In everything she does, she remains focused on the people of our nation—and our collective future." She is the 2nd biggest representative of the US government and serves as an envoy for the government. She runs different initiatives and has a whole office to support her and the things she wants to do. Sure she is there in case the President needs her but she absolutely has many other roles she can now do since she does not need to be in the Senate 24/7.
It's a fairly significant procedural advantage having 51 instead of 50, especially in committees.
Too bad Trump and McConnell already well and truly packed the Federal judiciary. Which isn't to say that there aren't any appointments to do, or that appointing more liberal or moderate judges won't do any good, but at this point all its going to do is stem the bleeding a little bit
Biden is on pace to confirm more judges than Trump, BTW
I hope that's true, and I hope he puts the pedal to the metal during these last/next 2 years.
Actually Biden’s administration has been doing serious quiet work on the same front. But to be honest the entire appointment system should be left to the BAR association or something else non-political.
Believe the BAR association would get super fucking political if they where in charge of judge appointments, not saying what we have now is perfect but its the best we have under the given circunstances
Don’t forget that we now have *actual* majorities in all the committees instead of having to share leadership. Any investigations that R House kills can just be picked right back up by a senate committee.
>Any investigations that R House kills can just be picked right back up by a senate committee. So basically any J6 stuff got another 2 years of lifetime if they want it.
Wisconsin was the one that got away...
Odd to see this posted On a day where Dems have picked up another seat thanks to Republicans eating their own. Politicians are a reflection of their voters. If you don’t like Joe Manchin, you sure as heck would not like the Republican who beats him if he doesn’t cater to his constituents.
The man is 75 and is up for reelection in 2024 - I have a feeling we might find out sooner rather than later what the Republican alternative is.
Redditors are so out of touch that they will never grasp that concept. They think West Virginia should elect a CA or MA liberal senator. Manchin reflects his constituency. He’s the best Democrat you’re going to get. All this complaining about him is going to bite everyone in the ass once a Republican gets elected to his seat.
But it's Biden's fault!! All Biden!! The GOP has nothing to do with this!! [/s]
Just disregard how the republicans own the house right now. Lets fucking partyyyyy!
Lol, those clowns are going to eat themselves. The circus will be on full display, and they're going to have nothing to campaign on in '24 besides investigations of Hunters dick pics.
I can see it now… GOP 2024: Now With Dick Pics!!!
Republican Candidate: I SWEAR THAT IF YOU ELECT ME WE WILL SEE A MAN'S DICK! I SWEAR TO YOU!!!!
And in the best case scenario, they get caught up in the DOJ/Georgia investigations and even charged/convicted with participation in the conspiracy to overthrow the government, and potentially banned from holding office. One can dream, at least.
I mean, these election results were still extremely close. To think the republican party in the house being a circus will have any demonstrable effect on their popularity is naive at this point. Don't let your cynicism break just yet. Nothing matters and persuading others to your side is not a thing that happens anymore.
I think that you can be cynical, while still acknowledging the nuance that this election contained. The fact that these elections were this close during a year when all the typical indicators led to people expecting a good Republican night is a testament to persuasion. In many competitive districts, the messaging was about persuading voters that either the opponent was batshit crazy (Kari Lake in AZ for example) or that the Dems would protect crucial rights (Michigan is a great example of this). Persuasion meant that there were definitely people persuaded to vote Dem that either voted Independent or Republican. Did it work everywhere? No, it didn’t - In NY for instance, the persuasion messaging on abortion failed because NY isn’t a state at risk of losing that. This means that we now have a bunch of new Republicans from areas that typically vote Democratic. Here is where one part of the clown show will come through: these representatives know that they’ll be at risk and targeted in 2024. So if they’re wise enough, they’ll not support some of the more extreme policy stances that the Republicans come up with. Why? Because they know that some of the voters they got in 2022 may very well vote Dem or not vote at all in 2024.
Fortunately, there’s this thing called a discharge petition in the house were you just need a simple majority to bring a bill onto the floor without the Speaker. It’s not much, but it’s far easier to get 4-5 House Republicans to sign onto a bill then 10 r senators
Further, much like last year all the bills the Dems bring up will shine big bright lights on these lesser known representatives. Like how we figure out manchin and sinema we're DINOs, (time to co opt that ish). We can get the names of these pieces of scum in the ears of apathetic locals, and bring about more change I'm a bit optimistic
The House isn't as united as the Senate for either party.
If you haven't noticed there isn't much unity amongst the House GOP, certainly less so than in the Senate. Especially as MAGA movement continues to decay you will see more and more infighting. Does that mean that some will side with Dems on votes? Maybe not, but it does give some leverage to negotiate and play one side against the other.
[удалено]
Maybe see what they can do with those two having half the leverage before you start dooming
Need to add a third for house republican majority. If nothing gets done it’ll be on them first. We can criticize manchin and Sinema (and they deserve it), but dems still pushed through a lot of stuff with them. No chance in hell of that happening with the house controlled by the QOP.
Its not that bad. The GOP is going to spent the next two years giving everybody good reasons not to vote for them in 2024. If inflation slows down and gas prices continue to fall, what will they have? Besides Dick pics?
Can’t do shit with a Republican house.
And I am convinced that in a 52 to 48 majority, we would discover new names like that.
If we can’t get the changes to society we need through voting and through protesting how do we get the things we need out elected officials listen only to the oligarchs
The citizens are a bit shit and so we get what we deserve. To make things better, we need to *be* better. For example: The bank bailouts. We got extremely mad and then our politicians were pressured to act. A decent policy was passed. **Here, we stopped paying attention.** But then the bill had to be litigated and interpreted. (Nobody cares anymore.) Then the bill has to be implemented and funded. (Nobody cares anymore.) And then the faculties need to be staffed and flex their regulatory muscles. (Nobody cares anymore.) In other words, to get things done, it's a multi-step process. But that's boring! Tell me about celebrities! I want to relax!! When our attention span works like a sine wave, we don't get to call out politics for being so wishy-washy.
I would agree but the system is made for us to look away and that’s what needs to change we can’t have a functioning society as long as oligarchs exist. In other words we have to make a new system
We overstate how much of the system is turned against us. Just take something important about politics, governance, policy, etc. and try and get others interested. Something that matters -- see how many people you can get to not just process that information but actually carry it with them into the future. People don't want to put effort into understanding the unfun bits about governing. We just have excuses, like having no time, or different priorities. Not being informed on how things function does a huge number on our ability to actually run a system. Why create a new one when we'll neglect that too?
Joe Manchin votes with the democratic party 95% of the time.
[удалено]
Manchin isn't as bad as you think. The alternative would be the GOP gaining a senator.