Jul 16, 2022Liked by Robert Reich, Heather Lofthouse
Manchin is an unashamedly corrupt awful man. He won't even let a mild health care bill get through. I suppose he calls himself a Democrat because originally that got him votes in West Virginia. A more heartless deceitful man you may find, but his in effect making himself the obstacle and enjoying it -- for of course he does -- is another sickening spectacle.
Manchin is dirty. He is a double dealer and displays everything that is unacceptable in a politician. He needs to either declair the party he really represents or get out.
If Merrick Garland is unwilling to take the ball and run with it, regardless of midterms, he should be removed from office and replaced. If a crime has been committed and evidence is available, it's his responsibility to acquire it, either through request or subpoena, AND DO HIS %@#%ING JOB.
Manchin is cut from the same cloth as Mitch McConnell. Time for Biden/Democratic leadership to make it clear to him that to the extent any form of benefits to W. VA can be reduced/cut, they will be but then again the Dems always bring a knife to a gun fight.
There is nothing the Democrats can do to Manchin. If they upset him he can just switch parties. Manchin and Sinema are just like the Dixiecrats of old, nominal Democrats. Biden's Democrats never had an actual majority. Dems stand a chance of getting a real majority by defeating some Republicans in the midterms. And no this is not Biden or his Party's fault. This is on us, the citizens, the voters.
As I’ve stated in the past, West Virginians repeatedly have prioritized jobs, healthcare, childcare, housing, and tax reform as vital to their well-being. I expect that majorities in other red states have expressed similar priorities. It further is of note that workers affiliated with the United Coal Miners Union are itching for the training to help them make the transition from the fossil fuel industry to clean energy jobs.
Hence, it is beyond comprehension that Biden and Democratic leadership have failed to go make the argument in West Virginia, and also in the red parts of Mississippi and Alabama, and in other states and say, “This is what we have tried to deliver and these folks have voted against it.” Simply put, Democrats have to be willing to engage in war. The other side has shown that it will do whatever is necessary to attain power. Therefore, it is incumbent upon Democrats, receipts in hand, to say to the country, “America, when they didn’t care about you, we did.”
To amplify the efforts of at least 48 Senate Democrats who have engaged in serious discussions in an honest effort to arrive at compromises that would have improved life for tens of millions of working people, it remains all-important that leadership engage everyday people nationwide and ask, “Who do you want here—somebody who doesn’t want to expand the child tax credit or those who do?” “Somebody who doesn’t want to provide affordable, quality childcare and universal Pre-K or those who do?” Doesn’t want to make investments in housing, in elder care, and in climate or those who do?”
The point I repeatedly emphasize is that Democrats, replete with receipts, have an extraordinary narrative, if only they would deliver it.
Hey remember that time the GOP had the House, Senate, and Presidency but couldn’t achieve anything because of one or two RINOs actually owned by liberal donors? Yeah, neither do I. This is one of the reasons voters are sick of Dems…at the end of the day, either they’re just not very good at this game or they really are bought and sold and designed to serve as a pretend opposition party.
Irascible! Can I spell it? Do I have to look it up? I learn so much here! Thank you both, Robert and Heather for another thoughtful coffee klatch! I just yesterday was telling my husband (who doesn't want to look) that Manchin has more power than the President!
I want to take a moment to add that relentless humanitarian Robert Reich is and has been a national treasure and touchstone for so many of us across many increasingly-perilous American decades. Thank you, Robert, for your continued scholarship, your voice and mind of reason, and all the students and people you have taught and inspired for so many years!
Robert has helped make it crystal clear to so many that the accelerating dangers and challenges in our democracy (including nation-harming and life-threatening wealth and income inequality) are due to selfish profiteers and their opportunistic accomplices who are PURPOSELY dividing and conquering us with lies, misinformation and culture wars in order to profit off of the destruction of our societies, our environments, and our democracy and its institutions.
Our U.S. government is supposed to be protecting We the People as a whole, our lives and communities, a livable planet for earthly life, our international friendships and endeavors with other nations, and also doing their fair share to help our fellow people globally from all who are harming us nationally and globally! That is part of the modern-day social contract we well deserve and have every right to expect as American citizens and U.S. residents and interdependent Earth inhabitants.
As Robert said here, we have every reason to be FRIGHTENED at our nation's current high level of government corruption. We must therefore strongly prioritize helping each other to overcome many harmful (and often evil and mindless) profiteers via our accelerating demands and actions for them to be held accountable. Despite our increasing fear and heartbreak and any feelings of despondency or even paralysis due to more system shocks, we must NOT accept continued impunity for government corruption and societal harms which are largely due to the complicit and weak appeasers across our governments who are NOT doing the basic jobs they were entrusted to do which are getting increasingly harder because of their continued failures.
We ALL well deserve and absolutely need much more honest and beneficial U.S. and state governments; anti-corruption laws and steadfast enforcement; strong corporate regulation; and all our shared international human rights in the U.S. and worldwide which were adopted after WWII for very good reason (https://www.ohchr.org/en/what-are-human-rights).
Therefore, please keep demanding accountability and beneficial laws; voting and volunteering against all obstacles; and rising together and refusing to accept corruption and the violation of our human rights and well-being. Mixed economies that have provide for robust and beneficial public enterprise as well as well-regulated private enterprise (such as through more benefit corporations with a triple bottom line of profit with environmental and social goals) are the best option for democracy.
Don't give up on each other nor our spectacular fellow earth beings who evolved to this point in earth history and all need us more than ever right now!
(Glad I could share and vent my feelings and thoughts in this space. We all need outlets after all we are dealing with daily.)
AAAAAAAAH! I am a seventy-five-year-old woman and I am irritable!!! Just a little story to make a point: During the 2016 election, days before the actual election, James Comey said he carefully measured the advisability of releasing a statement that the FBI had re-opened its investigation into Hillary Clinton’s use of a private server for her emails, because announcing that the FBI was investigating something was against general policy—the FBI preferred not to talk about active investigations one way or another. Still, he made the announcement. He said FBI was examining a laptop owned by Anthony Weiner, which shortly thereafter turned out to have nothing incriminating on it. But Comey’s last minute bombshell that Hillary’s action was again under investigation certainly colored the contest a mere handful of days before people voted. Comey said he did not want to withhold that information for fear of charges he was being partisan and withholding information people needed before the election. Instead, what he did was seriously impact people’s opinions and choices at the polls for absolutely no good reason. Hardly keeping the FBI OUT of the contest, he instead threw the power of FBI in against Hillary.
NOW, we hear the same measuring and weighing might be going on with Merrick Garland as he considers charges related to Donald Trump as we approach a new election…but this time, he maybe considering NOT bringing charges in order to avoid influencing the election.
AAAAAAAAAAAHHH. The way to run the DOJ without influencing the election is to run the DoJ without regard to the election. Do what needs to be done without regard to whether the optics are dicey. DO WHAT IS NEEDED WHEN IT IS NEEDED.
I know if the DoJ subpoenas Trump or moves toward holding him accountable, that would be good for “my” side. But in the end, that’s not the point — the point is that CONSTANTLY treating powerful people as though they deserve more consideration than the rest of us is what sours people against government. Donald Trump does not deserve for the DoJ worry about what “messages” it is sending. I’m not so naive as to think those thoughts won’t continue to hold sway — OPTICS! — but we here on the street are da- -ed tired of Mr. Trump waltzing away from every bad thing he does, from insurance fraud to tax evasion to the seditious attempt at a coup against our government. We wish people in Washington and New York and everywhere else would do their jobs honestly and with clarity, and stop dancing around the optics. [Maybe Georgia will move according to the facts and not the optics — one can hope]
Whose side is he on? Such an ass, elections need to have consequences, and one such consequence needs to be a new Democratic Senator from West Virginia. Primary his ass!!! More Democratic Senators are needed to blunt that asshole’s impact.
Blocking BBB to save us from inflation is a farce. They (the two Dem frauds in the Senate) know it. I'm not citing an informed economist, but this logic seems counterintuitive. Taxing the wealthy a bit more and taking a cut of record corporate profits from post COVID gouging, while realistically advancing the critical need for green energy, will not add to inflation in any significant way. Doing nothing, the clear muddy it up Republican plan, is to just blame and block Dems. That certainly isn't working to any good.
Taxing the upper end of the wealth scale, the few who are benefiting from inflation, is a more rational way to address inflation fairly, while we build back better from a post COVID and post Trump world. The president is asking congress to bet on America and its people to make that happen. If that's a bad bet then what's left to hope for in this country?
Apologize in advance for the sports analogy below:
There is one thing worse than a loser and that is someone who declines to compete because he might lose. And that is how I see the Democratic leadership. Just one example: With literally truckloads of evidence that Trump reportedly broke the laws for decades in his New York read estate dealings, the NY Democratic AG ended the investigation, he said, because he was 'not sure he could win'. His two top investigators who worked on the case for years promptly quit. That AG is worse than a loser.
I competed for years as captain/coach/ strategist, (never mind the sport) and we took plenty of losses, at first. The way I handled a loss was to have an immediate after-action meeting and invite criticism and suggestions from the crew. They went away looking forward to the next chance to win. And we got better and better. I now have a nice display case of trophies. This is why I CANNOT STAND the Democratic leadership ! I was a Democrat since before the Battle of the Conrad Hilton. But no more. I will still vote Democratic, bu I cannot stand to call myself a Democrat anymore.
Manchin is an unashamedly corrupt awful man. He won't even let a mild health care bill get through. I suppose he calls himself a Democrat because originally that got him votes in West Virginia. A more heartless deceitful man you may find, but his in effect making himself the obstacle and enjoying it -- for of course he does -- is another sickening spectacle.
Manchin is dirty. He is a double dealer and displays everything that is unacceptable in a politician. He needs to either declair the party he really represents or get out.
I can't understand how there aren't at least two Republicans (of 50 human beings) who care about what they leave their children's children.
If Merrick Garland is unwilling to take the ball and run with it, regardless of midterms, he should be removed from office and replaced. If a crime has been committed and evidence is available, it's his responsibility to acquire it, either through request or subpoena, AND DO HIS %@#%ING JOB.
Manchin is cut from the same cloth as Mitch McConnell. Time for Biden/Democratic leadership to make it clear to him that to the extent any form of benefits to W. VA can be reduced/cut, they will be but then again the Dems always bring a knife to a gun fight.
There is nothing the Democrats can do to Manchin. If they upset him he can just switch parties. Manchin and Sinema are just like the Dixiecrats of old, nominal Democrats. Biden's Democrats never had an actual majority. Dems stand a chance of getting a real majority by defeating some Republicans in the midterms. And no this is not Biden or his Party's fault. This is on us, the citizens, the voters.
Why don’t the WVa Democrats censure him or throw him out of the party?
As I’ve stated in the past, West Virginians repeatedly have prioritized jobs, healthcare, childcare, housing, and tax reform as vital to their well-being. I expect that majorities in other red states have expressed similar priorities. It further is of note that workers affiliated with the United Coal Miners Union are itching for the training to help them make the transition from the fossil fuel industry to clean energy jobs.
Hence, it is beyond comprehension that Biden and Democratic leadership have failed to go make the argument in West Virginia, and also in the red parts of Mississippi and Alabama, and in other states and say, “This is what we have tried to deliver and these folks have voted against it.” Simply put, Democrats have to be willing to engage in war. The other side has shown that it will do whatever is necessary to attain power. Therefore, it is incumbent upon Democrats, receipts in hand, to say to the country, “America, when they didn’t care about you, we did.”
To amplify the efforts of at least 48 Senate Democrats who have engaged in serious discussions in an honest effort to arrive at compromises that would have improved life for tens of millions of working people, it remains all-important that leadership engage everyday people nationwide and ask, “Who do you want here—somebody who doesn’t want to expand the child tax credit or those who do?” “Somebody who doesn’t want to provide affordable, quality childcare and universal Pre-K or those who do?” Doesn’t want to make investments in housing, in elder care, and in climate or those who do?”
The point I repeatedly emphasize is that Democrats, replete with receipts, have an extraordinary narrative, if only they would deliver it.
Hey remember that time the GOP had the House, Senate, and Presidency but couldn’t achieve anything because of one or two RINOs actually owned by liberal donors? Yeah, neither do I. This is one of the reasons voters are sick of Dems…at the end of the day, either they’re just not very good at this game or they really are bought and sold and designed to serve as a pretend opposition party.
Irascible! Can I spell it? Do I have to look it up? I learn so much here! Thank you both, Robert and Heather for another thoughtful coffee klatch! I just yesterday was telling my husband (who doesn't want to look) that Manchin has more power than the President!
I want to take a moment to add that relentless humanitarian Robert Reich is and has been a national treasure and touchstone for so many of us across many increasingly-perilous American decades. Thank you, Robert, for your continued scholarship, your voice and mind of reason, and all the students and people you have taught and inspired for so many years!
Robert has helped make it crystal clear to so many that the accelerating dangers and challenges in our democracy (including nation-harming and life-threatening wealth and income inequality) are due to selfish profiteers and their opportunistic accomplices who are PURPOSELY dividing and conquering us with lies, misinformation and culture wars in order to profit off of the destruction of our societies, our environments, and our democracy and its institutions.
Our U.S. government is supposed to be protecting We the People as a whole, our lives and communities, a livable planet for earthly life, our international friendships and endeavors with other nations, and also doing their fair share to help our fellow people globally from all who are harming us nationally and globally! That is part of the modern-day social contract we well deserve and have every right to expect as American citizens and U.S. residents and interdependent Earth inhabitants.
As Robert said here, we have every reason to be FRIGHTENED at our nation's current high level of government corruption. We must therefore strongly prioritize helping each other to overcome many harmful (and often evil and mindless) profiteers via our accelerating demands and actions for them to be held accountable. Despite our increasing fear and heartbreak and any feelings of despondency or even paralysis due to more system shocks, we must NOT accept continued impunity for government corruption and societal harms which are largely due to the complicit and weak appeasers across our governments who are NOT doing the basic jobs they were entrusted to do which are getting increasingly harder because of their continued failures.
We ALL well deserve and absolutely need much more honest and beneficial U.S. and state governments; anti-corruption laws and steadfast enforcement; strong corporate regulation; and all our shared international human rights in the U.S. and worldwide which were adopted after WWII for very good reason (https://www.ohchr.org/en/what-are-human-rights).
Therefore, please keep demanding accountability and beneficial laws; voting and volunteering against all obstacles; and rising together and refusing to accept corruption and the violation of our human rights and well-being. Mixed economies that have provide for robust and beneficial public enterprise as well as well-regulated private enterprise (such as through more benefit corporations with a triple bottom line of profit with environmental and social goals) are the best option for democracy.
We will also only survive and thrive much better together with proper respect for everyone's necessary protections, opportunities and rights including to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment (https://www.unep.org/news-and-stories/statements/statement-inger-andersen-un-recognition-right-healthy-environment) as well as much-needed rights of nature (basic info & top organization links at: https://www.invisiblehandfilm.com/what-are-rights-of-nature/).
Don't give up on each other nor our spectacular fellow earth beings who evolved to this point in earth history and all need us more than ever right now!
(Glad I could share and vent my feelings and thoughts in this space. We all need outlets after all we are dealing with daily.)
AAAAAAAAH! I am a seventy-five-year-old woman and I am irritable!!! Just a little story to make a point: During the 2016 election, days before the actual election, James Comey said he carefully measured the advisability of releasing a statement that the FBI had re-opened its investigation into Hillary Clinton’s use of a private server for her emails, because announcing that the FBI was investigating something was against general policy—the FBI preferred not to talk about active investigations one way or another. Still, he made the announcement. He said FBI was examining a laptop owned by Anthony Weiner, which shortly thereafter turned out to have nothing incriminating on it. But Comey’s last minute bombshell that Hillary’s action was again under investigation certainly colored the contest a mere handful of days before people voted. Comey said he did not want to withhold that information for fear of charges he was being partisan and withholding information people needed before the election. Instead, what he did was seriously impact people’s opinions and choices at the polls for absolutely no good reason. Hardly keeping the FBI OUT of the contest, he instead threw the power of FBI in against Hillary.
NOW, we hear the same measuring and weighing might be going on with Merrick Garland as he considers charges related to Donald Trump as we approach a new election…but this time, he maybe considering NOT bringing charges in order to avoid influencing the election.
AAAAAAAAAAAHHH. The way to run the DOJ without influencing the election is to run the DoJ without regard to the election. Do what needs to be done without regard to whether the optics are dicey. DO WHAT IS NEEDED WHEN IT IS NEEDED.
I know if the DoJ subpoenas Trump or moves toward holding him accountable, that would be good for “my” side. But in the end, that’s not the point — the point is that CONSTANTLY treating powerful people as though they deserve more consideration than the rest of us is what sours people against government. Donald Trump does not deserve for the DoJ worry about what “messages” it is sending. I’m not so naive as to think those thoughts won’t continue to hold sway — OPTICS! — but we here on the street are da- -ed tired of Mr. Trump waltzing away from every bad thing he does, from insurance fraud to tax evasion to the seditious attempt at a coup against our government. We wish people in Washington and New York and everywhere else would do their jobs honestly and with clarity, and stop dancing around the optics. [Maybe Georgia will move according to the facts and not the optics — one can hope]
Whose side is he on? Such an ass, elections need to have consequences, and one such consequence needs to be a new Democratic Senator from West Virginia. Primary his ass!!! More Democratic Senators are needed to blunt that asshole’s impact.
Can Pelosi and Schumer at least censur Manchin?? There must be some response for his treachery.
Blocking BBB to save us from inflation is a farce. They (the two Dem frauds in the Senate) know it. I'm not citing an informed economist, but this logic seems counterintuitive. Taxing the wealthy a bit more and taking a cut of record corporate profits from post COVID gouging, while realistically advancing the critical need for green energy, will not add to inflation in any significant way. Doing nothing, the clear muddy it up Republican plan, is to just blame and block Dems. That certainly isn't working to any good.
Taxing the upper end of the wealth scale, the few who are benefiting from inflation, is a more rational way to address inflation fairly, while we build back better from a post COVID and post Trump world. The president is asking congress to bet on America and its people to make that happen. If that's a bad bet then what's left to hope for in this country?
Apologize in advance for the sports analogy below:
There is one thing worse than a loser and that is someone who declines to compete because he might lose. And that is how I see the Democratic leadership. Just one example: With literally truckloads of evidence that Trump reportedly broke the laws for decades in his New York read estate dealings, the NY Democratic AG ended the investigation, he said, because he was 'not sure he could win'. His two top investigators who worked on the case for years promptly quit. That AG is worse than a loser.
I competed for years as captain/coach/ strategist, (never mind the sport) and we took plenty of losses, at first. The way I handled a loss was to have an immediate after-action meeting and invite criticism and suggestions from the crew. They went away looking forward to the next chance to win. And we got better and better. I now have a nice display case of trophies. This is why I CANNOT STAND the Democratic leadership ! I was a Democrat since before the Battle of the Conrad Hilton. But no more. I will still vote Democratic, bu I cannot stand to call myself a Democrat anymore.