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Also, there are no "good" Republicans. Hence McConnell's ability to keep them in line with his agenda.

If there WERE, Sinema and Manchin's votes would be moot.

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Charlie, Jim Jeffords left the party not because his constituents were demanding answers, but because he no longer wanted the Republican party to hold the majority (when factoring in Cheney's vote). Susan Collins was one of the senators who tried to get him to reconsider.

I am not Senator Sinema's constituent. I can certainly understand the frustration they are experiencing.

Here we are, verging on the precipice of a collapse of democracy, and Sinema is essentially guaranteeing the failure of a Biden Agenda, pretty much guaranteeing that Trump wins the presidency in 2024.

People want answers. They should be able to demand them of their elected officials. Period.

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Charlie- I find over time that your poscast has degenerated into a series of tropes with you constantly proclaiming, "I got out early, but the Democrat party are still to blame. The crazies left in the REPUBLICAN (yes I can hear you capitalize it whenever you pronounce it reverently,) have lost their way, but you must protect us from the Tucker Carlson attack droids.

Repetitive, and you never have any useful suggestion except that the Democratic Party must become the old Rethuglican party.

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Oh, subscribers can now comment on posts, like over at The Dispatch. Sweet!

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The problem i see with the "moderates good/progressives risk blowing everything up" take -- here, in the Charen podcast, and in the Tim Miller podcast -- is all of you are presuming good faith on the part of the wrong people -- and I say this as a long-time centrist Democrat. I have nothing but good things to say about Manchin, even though we will not get strong enough climate action until we, as he suggested, elect more liberals to the Senate. But he's negotiating, and he's generally in the right place on the tax stuff, which I consider more important than most of the spending stuff in the BBB bill. But Gottheimer engaged in a transparent, Mark Penn-driven, ploy to jam Nancy Pelosi in order to try to pass the infrastructure bill without giving assurances on BBB, so he could preserve tax breaks for Marc Lasry (who hosted a Gottheimer fundraiser I attended before Gottheimer was first elected, after which I felt the need to take a shower because Gottheimer was so slippery and smarmy) and kill drug price negotiation for his Big Pharma donors. Similarly, Sinema is untrustworthy and flaky -- see her evolution from 2011 to today -- and is all about doing the same thing on the Senate side that Gottheimer is trying to do in the House. The mailers her donors have prematurely sent out touting her influence on the "bipartisan" infrastructure bill while not mentioning BBB are proof positive that she's trying to pull a Gottheimer.

I am not a fan of everything in BBB. I am more centrist than progressive, but I do not ascribe virtue to centrists by virtue of their positioning on the political spectrum. I am definitely opposed to harassing anyone -- even Sinema -- in public, just as I was to MAGA types harassing Mitt Romney, Lindsey Graham, and others. I am well aware of the Jeffords risk. But I firmly believe that the progressive caucus is being more constructive than Gottheimer and Sinema (though not necessarily than Manchin), and that you guys are missing the boat in dumping on them.

BTW -- I really wish that the Ds would start making the conservative case for the key aspects of BBB: that in the absence of negotiation, Big Pharma is ripping off the taxpayers and can act just like Martin Shkreli in its dealings with Medicare; that baseline portable health care and decent child care can break "job lock" and unleash economic potential; that green jobs are as important for being jobs that are suitable for skilled laborers as they are for being green; etc. But I think that the media -- including you guys, Charlie, Mona, and Tim -- are as responsible for the bad portrayal of BBB as the Dems, because you're too focused on a number and not willing to discuss substance. It drives me nuts that every time a Democrat (like Priscilla Jayapal on Sunday) tries to start talking about "the price is a function of what we include, so let's focus on what's in and what's out" you get Dana Bash trying to get the focus onto a number, which can then be recycled into more dumbed down horserace/Dems internal disarray coverage, which then becomes the dominant discussion and disserves the public.

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First, props for balancing the assessments of R and D a bit. Sincerely appreciated.

Next, I expect (or maybe just hope) that an amendment to the ECA is going to be one of the big recommendations of the 1/6 Commission. I feel like that would be a better launch for it than trying to start now.

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C'mon man, that wasn't hard to find.

"Republicans are trying to force Democrats to raise the debt ceiling on their own through reconciliation, a budget process that lets them bypass a filibuster. Republicans believe that will force Democrats to raise the debt ceiling to a specific number, rather than suspending it to a certain date, which would be a tougher political vote."

https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/575159-mcconnell-respectfully-tells-biden-its-time-for-democrats-to-raise-debt

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founding

Yeah, I'm a little tired of the Manchin/Sinema cheerleading. The two of the reasons we are where we are right now is Manchin/Sinema and their refusal to negotiate earlier over the reconciliation bill and their refusal to even consider small modifications to the Senate filibuster in order to pass legislating protecting federal elections.

Rep. Jayapal and her progressive caucus have been begging to negotiate the reconciliation bill and have said repeatedly that the $3.5 trillion (itself a concession to the conservatives) is a starting number for negotiations. There is no $3.5 trillion or bust position among the House progressive caucus leadership. There is only the coyness of the conservative Democrats refusing to publically state any demands other than passing the bipartisan bill now.

On voting rights, which The Bulwark has been extremely strong on, they are the ones letting Mitch McConnell singlehandedly stop any progress on protecting our democracy. And if, as many writers here have written, democracy is in as much danger as we believe it is then you do whatever it takes to protect it up to and including removal of the filibuster even if just for these bills.

Refusal to even threaten the filibuster by Manchin and Sinema may also end up leading to the nation defaulting on its debt for the first time ever since McConnell wants to not only dictate who should pass the debt ceiling bill (Democrats only) but also how the bill should be passed (the tedious and lengthy reconciliation process).

I am open and happy to give them practically whatever they ask for, but they have to start actually asking for something. Enough of them already.

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This is still a baffling take. It's not progressives that are the issue here. Progressives are on the same side as the president, and there are more of them. Yesterday you compared them to the Freedom Caucus, but the Freedom Caucus isn't made up of 50+ members. As for Sinema, it's unclear what she actually supports, because all the things that are in the bill that are currently before her are things she ran on! All of them! She was posting tweets about things in the very bill she now says she doesn't support less than six months ago!

As for people harassing her, she was doing the same thing to others before she became a senator, because before she was one, she was an activist who did the same things herself!

I'm also confused by your take on who's fault it is. Because generally, if everyone is on board and one person is like 'actually I don't feel like cooperating' then you don't go 'well the majority needs to change.' You didn't do that when trumpists were a minority in your party. You weren't like 'clearly we should all be like ted cruz' when he shut down the government in 2010.

The facts are this: if you run on something, publicly support something, and then when the time comes to do the thing you ran on and supported, you decide not to support it, you deserve all the scorn you get. Because you're now throwing a wrench in the plans. And for what?

Sinema isn't trying to accomplish anything. She's got no other bill she wants. She's not like 'well here's a bill I would like instead.' She's just being a contrarian. There's no point in supporting her, because she's not FOR anything. She's got no end game that isn't just soaking up donor money. Speaking of, she left friday before the vote to go have dinner with some. because priorities.

She's basically the liberal version of Josh Hawley. Loud, contrarian, and entirely full of themselves while accomplishing nothing.

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founding

Sorry I have nothing substantive to add to this debate other than to say this Morning Shots edition was extra extra...I don't know when Charlie finds the time to write all of this superior content--alone worth the price of Bulwark membership.

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Democrats can raise the debt ceiling themselves. They have the votes. Blaming McConnell is just political theater and a scapegoatting technique that McConnell is too savvy to fall for.

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Our inability over the last twenty years to pass immigration reform is the fault of Kyrsten Sinema. I definitely didn't see that one coming.

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I'll say I love your opinions Charlie (don't always agree) but if you are talking about what is happening on Twitter.com you are losing your way. Twitter is not real life and stop using it as a guide to how real life is taking place. It is a distraction and sometimes fun time-waster, but that is it.

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Get off your high horses. If Sinema cares about "saving the Democracy" herself she can get her head out of her ass and compromise with *her own party*. Manchin as well though he appears to be doing so slowly but surely. He just seems to be maximizing his leverage along the way.

If they wanted to "save our Democracy" they both could have tackled literally fixing our Democracy first but that was too much as well. The jury is still out on whether they actually intend to do anything about that after the Republicans laugh in Manchin's face when he shops his "moderate" bill on the subject.

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The Electoral College act as presently written allows the electoral votes of one state to be invalidated by representatives from other states.

If the States’ own representatives or state governments do not present an objection and ask congress to adjudicate, Congress has no business inserting itself.

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founding

If judicial confirmations and budget resolutions are important enough to the functioning of the country that they can't be filibustered why the hell don't Democrats just...change the rules so that anything related to the full faith and credit of the United States can't be filibustered? Seems like this is a bigger deal than some random judge.

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