The Filibuster is a Lie

Photo by Joël de Vriend on Unsplash

The Intercept obtained leaked audio from Joe Manchin speaking to a group of billionaires about the filibuster and other issues. And the most important part of that conversation is that the filibuster is a shield for these powerful billionaires that protects them from progressive legislation. Legislation that is part of the Democrats stated agenda.

Manchin is basically saying, look I’m nominally a Democrat, and if you want to help me and other Democrats pretend we’re not working for you, you have to convince the Republicans who work for you, to do their part.

You might ask, did he really openly say that? Let me try and give you some pull quotes to back up my thesis.

“I need to find three more good Republican senators that will vote for the commission, so that at least we can tamp them down, where people say Republicans won’t even do the simple lift, common sense, of basically voting to do a commission that was truly bipartisan.”

“You would like to think that Roy’s retiring, and some of you all who might be working with Roy in his next life could tell him that it would be nice and help our country, that we’re going to be very good at getting him to change his vote…”

And here’s a quote from Joe Lieberman, the man who almost single-handedly sabotaged the public option and most of Obama’s agenda. I…