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lizkat

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From everything I've read Manchin would get replaced by a Republican if he lost an election, but if he does and you're saying that will still make the representative unpredictable I say that's still better because you'd have to assume the rep is Trumpy and anything they do outside that predictability would be a positive for the left. With Manchin currently you can assume the worst for the left and that's exactly what you are going to get.

Saw a clip last night of McConnell saying point blank that the era of bipartisanship is over. That's probably been over for McConnell for at least the past decade, but even with him saying that directly now I'm sure Manchin is going to cling even more to his dream (or whatever evil motive he has) of bipartisanship because he's a self serving asshole who, like Trump, wants to abuse his position to the fullest and put himself above all other interests.

tbh I don't know what Manchin has in mind past trying to walk the fence and keep his Senate seat with the help of pro-Trump voters. I just don't get how he figures to do best by his own state in the competition for deployment of federal funds when he's in Biden's face on the filibuster. Unless the Dems don't mean to pull the trigger on the filibuster anyway... which is possible.

After all, when power swings the other way again the Dems will not be happy to see assorted right-wing legislation make it to law on a simple majority in the Senate... even for all their current talk of the filibuster being antidemocratic.. Not so long ago, Democrats argued that the filibuster protects the rights of minority opinion. Accusations of a "tyranny of the majority" tend to get put about in a very partisan era only when a vote is very close, rather than when a party manages to round up 60 votes to get something across the line.


Of course one may argue that NEITHER party can erase the history or hypocrisy of how the filibuster has been used from time to time. But in my mind it's not outrageous for the Senate to have a rule that for certain categories of legislation, of significant potential impact on the entire nation, for 60 votes to be the bar that must be met for the bill to become law. It only guarantees that dissent will be heard.

Nothing guarantees that a minority party won't abuse the privilege, and over our history both parties have done that and turned filibusters into assorted circuses or just blatant obstruction. Not sure that's worse than asking the Senate to round up a larger plurality of votes on major legislation. It may only seem so to partisans when they're on the upside of a very close majoritarian vote but 60 votes looks like too high a mountain to climb.

Bottom line in the case of Biden's proposed legislation, it behooves the Dems to sell in the plan itself to the citizens, get them to consider the proposals rather than just the Republicans' knee-jerk objections to it. Sixty votes is not out of the question on his budget plan, if you believe the public polling about Biden and his administration so far.... and if you believe that Senators on the R side of the aisle actually do answer to all the voters in their respective states.

I think that's the sticking point nowadays for the Dems... it's not clear that more than a handful of Republican Senators (not even 10 of them?) are responsive to the will of the people in their states, rather than to the RNC's decision to ignore policy issues and make allegiance to Donald Trump its sole platform.

The question then becomes whether the voters in those states will signal to Senators that they want the policy issues debated on merit else the Senate seats become more vulnerable. The question of a 60-vote rule and filibuster's existence or nonexistence are not going to resolve that.
 

Chew Toy McCoy

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"When you tell the world you are going into space, but in the past told your gov't you lost money & need a tax break."

https://www.twitter.com/i/web/status/1402327203602255872/

The outrage over this hasn’t lapsed. Both the government and news media protect the rich mostly by not talking about it or treating it like it’s as newsworthy as a firefighter rescuing a cat from a tree, a short mention before they move to more important issues like cancel culture and the latest quote from a Trump supporter politician.
 

Chew Toy McCoy

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tbh I don't know what Manchin has in mind past trying to walk the fence and keep his Senate seat with the help of pro-Trump voters. I just don't get how he figures to do best by his own state in the competition for deployment of federal funds when he's in Biden's face on the filibuster. Unless the Dems don't mean to pull the trigger on the filibuster anyway... which is possible.

After all, when power swings the other way again the Dems will not be happy to see assorted right-wing legislation make it to law on a simple majority in the Senate... even for all their current talk of the filibuster being antidemocratic.. Not so long ago, Democrats argued that the filibuster protects the rights of minority opinion. Accusations of a "tyranny of the majority" tend to get put about in a very partisan era only when a vote is very close, rather than when a party manages to round up 60 votes to get something across the line.


Of course one may argue that NEITHER party can erase the history or hypocrisy of how the filibuster has been used from time to time. But in my mind it's not outrageous for the Senate to have a rule that for certain categories of legislation, of significant potential impact on the entire nation, for 60 votes to be the bar that must be met for the bill to become law. It only guarantees that dissent will be heard.

Nothing guarantees that a minority party won't abuse the privilege, and over our history both parties have done that and turned filibusters into assorted circuses or just blatant obstruction. Not sure that's worse than asking the Senate to round up a larger plurality of votes on major legislation. It may only seem so to partisans when they're on the upside of a very close majoritarian vote but 60 votes looks like too high a mountain to climb.

Bottom line in the case of Biden's proposed legislation, it behooves the Dems to sell in the plan itself to the citizens, get them to consider the proposals rather than just the Republicans' knee-jerk objections to it. Sixty votes is not out of the question on his budget plan, if you believe the public polling about Biden and his administration so far.... and if you believe that Senators on the R side of the aisle actually do answer to all the voters in their respective states.

I think that's the sticking point nowadays for the Dems... it's not clear that more than a handful of Republican Senators (not even 10 of them?) are responsive to the will of the people in their states, rather than to the RNC's decision to ignore policy issues and make allegiance to Donald Trump its sole platform.

The question then becomes whether the voters in those states will signal to Senators that they want the policy issues debated on merit else the Senate seats become more vulnerable. The question of a 60-vote rule and filibuster's existence or nonexistence are not going to resolve that.

I saw an interview with Manchin on Fox. Not sure who the host was, but unbelievably even the Fox news host suggested he was going about things the wrong way. By Machin blabbing all over the place about voting against Democrat bills he’s completely removed Republicans’ incentive to be bipartisan. They can just kick back and watch him kill bill after bill.

Selling the bills to the citizens? The right’s media won’t do that, and even if you took Trump out of the equation, Senators are loyal to the party before their constituents. Blanket obstruction from the right existed before Trump. The best you can hope for is they get voted out of office because once they are in they are going to put party as the priority over everything else. Same thing happens on the left. The only time you’ll ever hear them site their constituents’ desires is when it falls in line with the national party message. My personal favorite was Pelosi saying Democrat voters don’t want change right after Democrats got crushed the 2016 elections. With the Democrat party it’s always about people being obstructed or too lazy vote. They won’t entertain the possibility that people purposely didn’t vote for them, be it not giving them a reason to vote for them or a history of broken promises and pipe dreams.
 

lizkat

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The outrage over this hasn’t lapsed. Both the government and news media protect the rich mostly by not talking about it or treating it like it’s as newsworthy as a firefighter rescuing a cat from a tree, a short mention before they move to more important issues like cancel culture and the latest quote from a Trump supporter politician.

Maybe the media should write more often about how the IRS tends to over-audit returns from categories like waitstaff and hair salon workers making like 25k or less, seeking to nail them for having under-reported tips.

It's a fact that the very rich and the working poor or those with earned income tax credits (the latter requiring an inherently more complicated tax return, so more subject to error even when not fraudulent) are most often audited, and now thanks to the Pro Publica investigation, we know that the extremely wealthy among the "rich" can often manage to slip net adverse personal effects of the highly audited wealthy category.

For Americans "in the middle" - say $100-200k income, upper middle class-- the audit rate is lower based on an assumption by the IRS that more of their income is documented by W2s or 1099s --so there's less room to fudge on the income side-- and they tend also to take the standard deduction based on their adjusted gross income.


Poor taxpayers, or those earning less than $25,000 annually, have an audit rate of 0.69% — more than 50% higher than the overall audit rate. It also means low-income taxpayers are more likely to get audited than any other group, except Americans with incomes of more than $500,000.

Audit rates sharply spike for taxpayers with an annual income of more than $500,000. In fact, wealthy taxpayers with annual income of at least $10 million have the highest audit rate of all groups, at more than 6%.

“Statistically, the people over $10 million still have the highest percentage, but their rate of audit is declining,” DiBenedetto says.

With the reduction in IRS staff, all income groups have seen a decline in their audit rates, although the rich have enjoyed a sharper reduction than the poor. For instance, Americans with annual incomes of more than $10 million have enjoyed a 75% decline in audit rates since 2013, according to the most recent data from the IRS. The audit rate for taxpayers earning less than $25,000 has dipped about 30% during the same period.
 

Chew Toy McCoy

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Maybe the media should write more often about how the IRS tends to over-audit returns from categories like waitstaff and hair salon workers making like 25k or less, seeking to nail them for having under-reported tips.

It's a fact that the very rich and the working poor or those with earned income tax credits (the latter requiring an inherently more complicated tax return, so more subject to error even when not fraudulent) are most often audited, and now thanks to the Pro Publica investigation, we know that the extremely wealthy among the "rich" can often manage to slip net adverse personal effects of the highly audited wealthy category.

For Americans "in the middle" - say $100-200k income, upper middle class-- the audit rate is lower based on an assumption by the IRS that more of their income is documented by W2s or 1099s --so there's less room to fudge on the income side-- and they tend also to take the standard deduction based on their adjusted gross income.


My taxes are very basic. I rent, am not married, and don't have kids. It takes me less than half an hour to do my taxes using the TurboTax app on my iPhone, done it for years. This year it determined the federal government owes me $336. Fine, great. Then they decided to audit me and determined I actually owe them $261. WTF? Like I said, my taxes are very simple and everything is done digitally from my W2 info being transferred to Turbotax to them sending it to the IRS. How could that even happen? And given how the IRS works, I'm sure this is going to red flag me for future audits like I'm some kind of major tax dodger who can't be trusted.
 

SuperMatt

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Some @$$hole wants to be the first & foremost TF Guy

https://www.twitter.com/i/web/status/1402401369915600904/
Does Manchin just stick his fingers in his ears when Mitch talks?

Does he really think that if the Dems “take the high road” and keep the filibuster, that Republicans will honor that when they get the Senate back? The same party that said it’s not right to seat a SCOTUS justice too close to the end of a president’s term, only to flip and force through Amy Coney Barrett? Dems need to accomplish something! Manchin! Wake the F up!!!
 
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Does Manchin just stick his fingers in his ears when Mitch talks?

Does he really think that if the Dems “take the high road” and keep the filibuster, that Republicans will honor that when they get the Senate back? The same party that said it’s not right to seat a SCOTUS justice too close to the end of a president’s term, only to flip and force through Amy Coney Barrett? Dems need to accomplish something! Manchin! Wake the F up!!!
Something is really going on with Manchin, this is now beyond anything I could explain away with different values and principles.
His behavior is so absurd and politically self-destructive I have to think someone has dirt on him or on his family, because no fucking was for this to make any other sense.
 

Chew Toy McCoy

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Does Manchin just stick his fingers in his ears when Mitch talks?

Does he really think that if the Dems “take the high road” and keep the filibuster, that Republicans will honor that when they get the Senate back? The same party that said it’s not right to seat a SCOTUS justice too close to the end of a president’s term, only to flip and force through Amy Coney Barrett? Dems need to accomplish something! Manchin! Wake the F up!!!

This is 100% on Democrats. Mitch basically said "That thing I've blatantly been doing my entire political career I am now fully admitting to then and going forward." And you'll STILL have Democrats going "I think we can find an acceptable compromise." because way too many Democrats are nice guy carpets who can't distinguish between nice guy policy and being a nice guy wet blanket easily rolled over.

If Democrats really believed they are correct and on the right side of history then they should be just as willing as Republicans to risk burning the whole system down in pursuit of it. At this point in history anything less than that is just prolonging a victory for Republicans.
 

SuperMatt

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This is 100% on Democrats. Mitch basically said "That thing I've blatantly been doing my entire political career I am now fully admitting to then and going forward." And you'll STILL have Democrats going "I think we can find an acceptable compromise." because way too many Democrats are nice guy carpets who can't distinguish between nice guy policy and being a nice guy wet blanket easily rolled over.

If Democrats really believed they are correct and on the right side of history then they should be just as willing as Republicans to risk burning the whole system down in pursuit of it. At this point in history anything less than that is just prolonging a victory for Republicans.
There are 48 out of 50 Democrats willing to kill the filibuster… so when you say “democrats” it really comes down to 2 specific democrats. And I promise you, if we get back to 51 Republicans, there will be 51 Republicans ready to kill the filibuster as soon as there is something they want to pass.
 

SuperMatt

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TF Professor:

https://www.twitter.com/i/web/status/1402322898073767938/

He compared accusations of sexual misconduct towards professors to McCarthyism or the Tulsa race massacre. He actually wrote that the reason for the Tulsa race massacre was a false accusation against one black kid. Holy crap Einstein, that was the PRETENSE for it. This dude is a computer science professor, head of the department.

TL;DR: Accusations of sexual misconduct towards white male professors in 2021 is what caused the Tulsa race massacre 100 years ago.
 
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SuperMatt

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Is anybody surprised that TF guy was lying when he said he was sorry for his billions spent on extreme partisan politics?

 

JayMysteri0

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JayMysteri0

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I'm starting to realize for some, feelings must be like a warm blanket. You somehow 'touch' their feelings, and people act like you stole their blanket & they've been violated.

https://www.twitter.com/i/web/status/1403356399841775620/

So it means it's time to invoke their privilege and do something about it.

F- other people's feelings while you do it with absolutely not right to do so.
 

JayMysteri0

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FFS

When one group wants something ( CRT ) specifically taught in school because it involves a history they don't care to acknowledge, you know it's about feelings. Feelings that have to be acknowledged over history and current day events, to remind you why they don't want something specifically taught.

https://www.twitter.com/i/web/status/1403492157256654851/

This is an escalation of things since a group didn't win an election, it must be because the count was wrong. Now it's if Black kids become valedictorian, it must be because the system was wrong. Because of feelings, the group that mocked 'participation awards' have become the biggest criers for them themselves.

A high school in Mississippi is facing accusations of racism for naming two white students co-valedictorian and co-salutatorian after the school had already announced a valedictorian and salutatorian, both of whom are Black.

After West Point High School students Ikeria Washington and Layla Temple were named valedictorian and salutatorian, respectively, the white parents of two students met with the superintendent of West Point’s school district and raised complaints that the school had not properly calculated criteria to determine the two designations, according to a New York Times report.

After consulting the school's student handbook, West Point's school district's superintendent named the two white students as co-valedictorian and co-salutatorian several days later.

Burnell McDonald, the superintendent, told Mississippi Today that race did not play a role in the decision to name a second valedictorian and salutatorian, but instead attributed it to the high school guidance counselor not being given accurate information on how to calculate the designations.

However, in interviews with the New York Times, the families of Ikeria Washington and Layla Temple, expressed frustration and confusion with the outcome. The New York Times also reported that the families are considering suing.

A spokesperson for West Point's school district was not immediately available for comment.

According to the Times, the initial grade calculation was based on quality point average, which gives extra weight to grades from advanced placement courses. The second calculation was based on unweighted grade point average.

https://www.twitter.com/i/web/status/1403528274869903376/
 
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