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US Politics: Maniac Manchin


A Horse Named Stranger

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36 minutes ago, Ormond said:

I really don't think there are enough people dumb enough to do this in any election where there is a "D" by the name Trump. Maybe in western Nebraska this could work since our state senators are elected on a "nonpartisan" basis with no party designation on the ballot, but even that's a stretch given how much media attention would be focused on a Democrat with the name Trump running in such an election.

I am joking, but not entirely. There's a Democratic member of the Arizona legislature that almost certainly first got elected because his name is Cesar Chavez; though that's a bit different since the name and the alignment match up. There's also been multiple cases of people with names like John F Kennedy and not campaigning at all doing surprisingly well. There was one race in either 2018 or 2020, I think in Texas though I'm struggling to find the news story about it, where someone like that won their primary even; lost the general election though.

Find some person named Trump, get them to run as a Republican in a lower tier race, but not campaign or say anything ever; and I'd be very curious as to what vote share they ended up getting.

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2 hours ago, DireWolfSpirit said:

Maga era political races are at this point so dumbed down that we are at a point where we should just run a bunch of "planted" candidates across the red south.

They could campaign as maga idiots, tossing all the red meat bait to the voters, get elected, then promptly switch to dropping all the inbred and white supremacy positions and finish their terms as adult Democrats. Like an army of Manchurian soldiers we could unleash into the red state contests.

If the red staters will only elect haters, maybe we need to flood the market with our own fake haters?


Three near-identical Boris Vishnevskys on St Petersburg election ballot
Real Vishnevsky battling two doppelgängers who seem to have changed their appearance as well as their names

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/sep/06/three-near-identical-boris-vishnevskys-on-st-petersburg-election-ballot

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Russian opposition politicians are used to finding spoiler candidates with identical surnames running against them in order to confuse voters at the polls. Now it appears that the impersonators are changing their faces as well.

That’s what Boris Vishnevsky, a senior member of the liberal Yabloko party, is facing in his district in St Petersburg before municipal elections later this month.

Vishnevsky already knew that two of his opponents had changed their names so that they were also called Boris Vishnevsky, an update on the common tactic of nominating a “double” to split the vote and deliver victory to another candidate.

But when a district voting poster was revealed on Sunday, it showed something far more shocking: three nearly indistinguishable Boris Vishnevskys, all balding, greying, and sporting matching goatees. As a Facebook friend of Vishnevsky’s pointed out, the simplest way to spot the real Vishnevsky is that he was the only one who bothered to wear a tie.

 

 

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15 hours ago, DMC said:

I don't know if that's true.  I also don't know if Manchin wants to risk changing parties and then obviously being heavily primaried as a Republican if he runs again.  It is a risk, I'm not denying that, but it is also a legit card to play.

I agree--stripped of the committee, and then having to switch parties, hoping McConnell would help him out, then all the fallout from this in his own state is a huge calculation of risk most of us would assess as "not worth the risk."

I also don't see Republican control of the Senate as any different than it is now. No Supreme Court Justices? What's it matter at this point? With Manchin and Sinema, Biden's not getting his plans through anyway. Mitch could try to hold until Biden was out of office, I guess, but the chances of the Senate flipping again before the next Republican pres is a pretty high risk. And, let's be honest, the moment to hold the line on the Supreme Court was five years ago.  

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25 minutes ago, Centrist Simon Steele said:

I also don't see Republican control of the Senate as any different than it is now. No Supreme Court Justices? What's it matter at this point? With Manchin and Sinema, Biden's not getting his plans through anyway. Mitch could try to hold until Biden was out of office, I guess, but the chances of the Senate flipping again before the next Republican pres is a pretty high risk. And, let's be honest, the moment to hold the line on the Supreme Court was five years ago.  

It's not just about SCOTUS though, other federal judges matter a great deal as well. So far Biden has gotten 9 new judges confirmed, with another 30 nominated and at various points in the Senate process. Almost none of these judges would get through a Republican senate. And there's another 57 vacancies waiting for a nominee. 

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53 minutes ago, Fragile Bird said:

Just for your info, the market correction has started. Expect to see a very volatile market for a couple of weeks, I think. September, ah, September!

Not unexpected, but not pleasant either, the overnight China meltdown. :(

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57 minutes ago, Fragile Bird said:

Just for your info, the market correction has started. Expect to see a very volatile market for a couple of weeks, I think. September, ah, September!

I really don't think this is the market correction. I think this is a specific reaction to the China situation, which really isn't the same thing at all. 

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1 minute ago, Kaligator said:

I really don't think this is the market correction. I think this is a specific reaction to the China situation, which really isn't the same thing at all. 

Which is, of course, possible.  People have been predicting A Big Crash for a long time though.  The only certainty is that it will come.  Markets go up and markets go down, long live the market ... I guess? :dunno:

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2 hours ago, Fez said:

I am joking, but not entirely. There's a Democratic member of the Arizona legislature that almost certainly first got elected because his name is Cesar Chavez; though that's a bit different since the name and the alignment match up. There's also been multiple cases of people with names like John F Kennedy and not campaigning at all doing surprisingly well. There was one race in either 2018 or 2020, I think in Texas though I'm struggling to find the news story about it, where someone like that won their primary even; lost the general election though.

Find some person named Trump, get them to run as a Republican in a lower tier race, but not campaign or say anything ever; and I'd be very curious as to what vote share they ended up getting.

Hey, I've seen this movie. Eddie Murphy in 1992's "The distinguished gentleman."

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1 hour ago, Kaligator said:

I really don't think this is the market correction. I think this is a specific reaction to the China situation, which really isn't the same thing at all. 

Last week Jim Cramer was telling viewers that historically speaking, Sept. 17 kicks off September volatility, and he talked about taking profit in some stocks that had seen a very strong summer. The reasons for volatility, corrections or whatever happens are almost always different every time. At the end of August I had posted about the number of new highs made in the S&P during the month, something that has happened before market crashes in the past. People have been predicting a volatile September for some time now. No one knew that events in China would have an impact on the market back in August.

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Lawyers for Trump Organization CFO Allen Weisselberg expect ‘other indictments

New tax dox found in a basement.

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. . . .Vance’s prosecutors revealed in a closed-door conference that they discovered new documents in a Trump Org. honcho’s basement, Skarlatos said. Prosecutors handed over that new batch of paperwork to the defense prior to the hearing.

“When we were back in chambers, it was represented to us by the District Attorney this package includes documents that were found in co-conspirators’ basements that are tax documents that go directly to the issues,” said Skarlatos.

Merchan set the next court date for Jan. 20, 2022. The judge expects trial to begin in roughly one year.. . . 

 


https://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/manhattan/ny-allen-weisselberg-trump-organization-indictments-manhattan-trial-20210920-7xdqglslkfclxeky6jm6mhug3i-story.html

 

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21 minutes ago, The Great Unwashed said:

Are we sure that Sinema et. al. aren’t really Republicans?

Sinema & House moderates threaten to tank their own bill if it doesn’t come up for a vote and pass next week.

Progressives didn’t learn the lessons Republicans have been teaching about brinkmanship; moderates did.

That's a bit unfair. Sinema has a lot of odd positions, but she's not a Republican, and the House moderates just want their infrastructure deal locked in. Manchin though has more in common with old school moderate Republicans than your average liberal progressive. 

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21 minutes ago, Zorral said:

The greatest anxiety is if Evergrande defaults and the US government defaults as well -- doesn't raise the federal debt ceiling -- that's all she wrote, folks.  So ya, scary.

 

These aren't related and the latter will not happen under sane leadership (it didn't even under insane debt/bankruptcy-obsession leadership).

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5 minutes ago, Week said:

These aren't related and the latter will not happen under sane leadership (it didn't even under insane debt/bankruptcy-obsession leadership).

You have no idea how much I am wishing you are correct!  On the other hand, maybe you do.  These times are too interesting.

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21 minutes ago, The Great Unwashed said:

If the only way to get your deal locked in is to threaten to tank both deals, along with your majority in the House and Senate, then I’m kind of thinking they’re being worse than Republicans right now. 

Sinema isn't threatening to tank the first bill, she can't anyway it already passed the Senate and there's nothing more for her to do. What she said was that if the House votes down the first bill on Sept 27 she's done with reconciliation and won't support the second bill.

Meanwhile AOC says that she and about 45 other progressives will vote down the first bill on Sept 27 if the reconciliation bill isn't already passed.

Now in theory these two positions aren't incompatible. The problem is that, for a variety of reasons, Democrats have moved way too slowly and it seems very unlikely that the reconciliation bill will be ready to vote on by Sept 27.

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2 hours ago, The Great Unwashed said:

If the only way to get your deal locked in is to threaten to tank both deals, along with your majority in the House and Senate, then I’m kind of thinking they’re being worse than Republicans right now. 

As Fez pointed out, both wings of the party are threatening this.

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Moderate Democrats are starting to treat progressive Democrats like Republicans treat the Democratic Party - governing like shit & then expecting the people you’ve been treating like enemies to bail them out.

It honestly reeks of desperation, so I wonder which donors have these corporate shills by the short & curlies. Whomever it is, I hope they make it painful for these duplicitous fucks.

Idk about that, and it's a two way street. It's been an issue for a while now as both factions are having an increasingly hard time working with one another, with moderates largely getting their way at the micro level. I understand why progressives want to put their feet down and fight it out, but I don't think it's wise to do it on this issue, especially when you consider what the likely outcomes of that will look like.

 

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old adage appears to be true: democratic party really can snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.

 

My personal suspicion is there will be a lot of closed room back and forth last minute bickering that results in a 'deal' with ill feelings all the way around,.  But that's just me... 

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