Manchin Lied About The Filibuster On Meet The Press Today

There's no way to know if the British tabloid report in today's Daily Mail is true or just made up. Rachel Sharp reports that Trump is blaming Kushner-in-law for his November loss. Sounds like Trump-- who always blames everyone but himself for whatever goes wrong in his life. "[S]ources close to Jared," she wrote, "say Kushner has 'checked out of politics' because he is 'done' with Trump's false rhetoric of widespread election fraud.

Two sources close to the men told CNN the apparent rift has been initiated by Trump who is telling insiders Jared is to blame for his election loss.

'We know the boss isn't going to blame himself,' a source said.

Jared was notably absent from Trump's list of advisers accompanying him to his CPAC appearance where he teased a third run for the White House and continued to push false claims he won the election.

His son-in-law was also missing from a meeting late last week where Trump brought together his top advisers to plan his political future including the 2022 midterms.

...While Trump publicly refused to concede, Jared was reportedly urging him behind closed doors to admit defeat. Trump ignored these pleas.

We'll never be through with Trump. Most simple-minded Republicans will continue to worship him, even after he's rotting in hell or drooling on himself in as assisted living suite. And what's the alternative for Republicans? Cheap second-hand replicas like high school drop-out Lauren Boebert (CO), college flunk-out Mad Cawthorn (NC), drug addicted QAnon sociopath Margie Greene (GA)? Villain of the boys' locker room Gym Jordan (OH)? Crackpot dentist Paul Gosar (AZ)? Or how about the supposedly "normal" Republicans... like self-described "Grim Reaper," Mitch McConnell?

Before sunrise today, Doyle McManus penned a column for several outlets explaining how Biden and the Democrats could-- if they want to-- outfox McConnell as he keeps using the filibuster to block the agenda they ran on. McManus noted, for example, that McConnell "promised to use the filibuster to block the election reform bill, which is seen as favorable to Democrats because it would make voting easier. He has made clear he won't be shy about filibustering other pieces of President Biden’s agenda as well, including a $15 minimum wage, immigration reform and proposals to curb climate change. So Biden and his Democrats face a choice: Do they watch helplessly as McConnell, a master of obstruction, blocks the new president's priorities? Or has the moment come to finally scrap the filibuster, a time-dishonored piece of Senate tradition that many senators (and at least one former senator, Biden) say should be preserved?"

An increasing number of Democratic leaders, including former President Obama, former Senate leader Harry Reid of Nevada and Senate Rules Committee Chair Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota have called for scrapping the rule. So have many progressive leaders, frustrated that a seemingly arbitrary hurdle stands in the way of Biden’s most ambitious proposals.

But that won't happen. Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer of New York doesn’t have 50 votes lined up to change the rule.

At least two Democratic senators, Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, say they are dead-set against scrapping the filibuster.

“Jesus Christ,” Manchin shouted last week at reporters who asked if he might change his mind. “What don’t you understand about ‘never’?”

Manchin and Sinema have several reasons to dissent from their party. They’re both centrist mavericks, not progressives. Both say they like the idea of forcing the Senate to seek bipartisan compromise. Both may reasonably be suspected of enjoying the fact that the rule makes them more powerful.

And they both represent relatively conservative states; they aren’t going to change their views because progressives on Twitter denounce them as DINOs-- Democrats in name only. So Biden and Schumer need to take their views seriously.

But there's another solution: Reform the filibuster instead of scrapping it.

Offer Manchin and Sinema what they say they want: a Senate where centrists like them have a chance to negotiate compromises more often.

The filibuster, as currently practiced, doesn't achieve that goal. Under McConnell, it has made the chamber a graveyard for legislation.

In a narrowly divided, polarized Senate, the 60-vote rule is probably too high. In a 50-50 Senate, it requires 10 mavericks to defy their party’s leader, and these days there aren’t that many free spirits on either side.

Norman Ornstein, an expert on Congress at the American Enterprise Institute, recently offered several ways to fix the rule without scrapping it. One would be to simply lower the filibuster threshold to 55 votes instead of 60. Another would be to flip the way the rule works and require 40 senators to show up to stop a bill, instead of putting the burden on 60 to move it forward.

“The point is to restore the original idea of the filibuster-- to foster more debate,” Ornstein told me. “Right now, the burden is all on the majority. If you want more bipartisanship, the probability you’ll get it will increase if there’s an incentive to actually legislate.”

If Biden wants to save his agenda from gridlock, he may need to invite Manchin and Sinema to the Oval Office, remind them that he shares their love of Senate tradition and enlist them in a campaign to foster more bipartisan compromise-- beginning with changes to the filibuster rule.

The video below shows Chuck Todd interviewing Manchin on Meet the Press this morning. Manchin flat-out lied about the filibuster, an invidious tool of 20th century racism, by insinuating it was part of the constitution or something the founding fathers came up with. That's absolutely false; the founding fathers, if anything, were firmly behind a simple majority passing legislation. In the few instances they thought there should be more than a simple majority, they put it in the Constitution-- they created a Senate that needs a two-thirds majority to ratify a treaty, for an impeachment conviction, to expel a member, to override a presidential veto or to propose a constitutional amendment. That's it! Despite Manchin's gaslighting to the contrary, the founding fathers wanted legislation passed by 51 members, not 60-- and the minority party having a voice is not the same as the minority party having a veto. Manchin is a low-grade idiot and Todd knows it and should have asked him about that, not given him a stage to lie to the viewers.

Alexander Hamilton, Federalist Papers, No. 22:

"To give a minority a negative upon the majority (which is always the case where more than a majority is requisite to a decision), is, in its tendency, to subject the sense of the greater number to that of the lesser... The necessity of unanimity in public bodies, or of something approaching towards it, has been founded upon a supposition that it would contribute to security. But its real operation is to embarrass the administration, to destroy the energy of the government, and to substitute the pleasure, caprice, or artifices of an insignificant, turbulent, or corrupt junto, to the regular deliberations and decisions of a respectable majority. In those emergencies of a nation, in which the goodness or badness, the weakness or strength of its government, is of the greatest importance, there is commonly a necessity for action. The public business must, in some way or other, go forward. If a pertinacious minority can control the opinion of a majority, respecting the best mode of conducting it, the majority, in order that something may be done, must conform to the views of the minority; and thus the sense of the smaller number will overrule that of the greater, and give a tone to the national proceedings. Hence, tedious delays; continual negotiation and intrigue; contemptible compromises of the public good. And yet, in such a system, it is even happy when such compromises can take place: for upon some occasions things will not admit of accommodation; and then the measures of government must be injuriously suspended, or fatally defeated. It is often, by the impracticability of obtaining the concurrence of the necessary number of votes, kept in a state of inaction. Its situation must always savor of weakness, sometimes border upon anarchy."

James Madison, Federalist Papers No. 58:

"It has been said that more than a majority ought to have been required for a quorum; and in particular cases, if not in all, more than a majority of a quorum for a decision. That some advantages might have resulted from such a precaution, cannot be denied. It might have been an additional shield to some particular interests, and another obstacle generally to hasty and partial measures. But these considerations are outweighed by the inconveniences in the opposite scale.

"In all cases where justice or the general good might require new laws to be passed, or active measures to be pursued, the fundamental principle of free government would be reversed. It would be no longer the majority that would rule: the power would be transferred to the minority. Were the defensive privilege limited to particular cases, an interested minority might take advantage of it to screen themselves from equitable sacrifices to the general weal, or, in particular emergencies, to extort unreasonable indulgences."