Manchin And Sinema Grab Beers, Pop Emergency Slide, Yell F**K ALL Y'ALL In Senate Exit
Haha, no National Labor Relations Board majority for Democrats, haha.
Sens. Joe Manchin (Manchin Party, West Virginia) and Kyrsten Sinema (The Sinema Party, Arizona), voted yesterday against confirming Lauren McFerran for a second term as chair of the National Labor Relations Board. As the Associated Press explains, if McFerran had been confirmed for a second five-year term, “it would have cemented a Democratic majority on the agency’s board for the first two years of the incoming Trump administration. Now, Trump will likely be able to nominate McFerran ’s replacement.”
For the Roadblock Twins, it was a final (?) fuck-you to the Democratic Party they both abandoned after years of dog-in-the-manger intransigence and pettifogging that always managed to give a political boost to Republican goals like preserving tax cuts for the rich, making sure poor people never get ahead, aggressively watering down efforts to curb climate change, and allowing Republicans in state legislatures to suppress votes.
OK, fine: They both insisted their constant shooting down of Joe Biden’s policy goals was very principled intransigence and pettifogging, not at all about personal ambition, ties to big corporate donors, or even any personal desire to thwart Biden, but about standing up for bipartisanship and the grand traditions of the Senate. Even if it means fucking over working people, who should stop being so selfish and partisan anyway.
Manchin has made a very performative point in the last year or so of not voting to confirm any Biden nominee who doesn’t have at least one Republican vote — you know, to encourage bipartisanship and comity — so his “no” wasn’t much of a surprise, just shittiness as usual.
But Sinema’s even showing up to work was a very rare occasion, since she hasn’t been present for any Senate votes at all since before Thanksgiving. The final vote was 49-50, meaning that if Sinema had simply stayed home, Kamala Harris could have provided the tiebreaking vote; she was standing by to do just that. Obviously, fucking over workers, unions, President Biden, and of course her former party, was simply that important to her, though the latter double-bird-flipping may have simply been icing on the oligarch-enabling cake.
In turns of timing, however, Sinema’s was only the 49th vote against confirming McFerran; Manchin arrived late in the vote to pound in that final nail.
In fact, as Rolling Stone explains, this was some Very Special Fuckery on behalf of Donald Trump and corporate interests:
McFerran is the current chair and one of three Democrats serving on the NLRB, which enforces labor law as a federal agency. Ordinarily, the board has five members, each nominated to a five-year term by the sitting president, but there are only four at the moment, including one Republican. Cutting McFerran’s tenure short allows the GOP to gain a three-member majority instead of preserving a Democratic advantage through 2026.
How bad is this, in terms of labor rights? As The Fucking News points out, it’s pretty bad, considering what the NLRB has accomplished during Biden’s term:
Bloomberg reports that the NLRB issued almost 20 precedent-setting rulings during McFerran’s term, protecting workers’ rights on the job and shielding them from corporate attempts to thwart them from unionizing.
Some of the NLRB’s changes in the last four years include barring companies from forcing workers to attend anti-union propaganda meetings. And ending non-compete agreements which prevent workers from moving to better jobs (and which also block companies from hiring those people).
All of these policies are now likely dead meat. So if you wanna compete, workers, you better fucking do it in the next month.
Same thing for you Amazon and Starbucks workers still trying to form unions. You’ve got about a month left until the NLRB joins the fight against you.
Also too, be sure you go read the full story at The Fucking News, which also has some choice, appropriately obscene words on the fact that McFerran’s confirmation got virtually no coverage in Big Media — if only she’d shot a dog or published an enemies list! — and for that matter, very little coverage in lefty media either. The piece makes this compelling observation, which Yr Wonkette endorses 100 percent, because yeah, us too!
Progressives don’t have media that crusades to win positions for the McFerrans or [Federal Trade Commissioner] Lina Khans of the world the way Fox crusades to win positions for, well, its former staffers. Is there any video-based “progressive” outlet doing that kind of thing?
Yes, TFN and a handful of others bang the drum about people like Khan (the FTC chair), and races like the upcoming DNC chair, but believe it or not, TFN doesn’t drive the media narrative! (Yet.)
And we don’t even have a political apparatus doing it.
Think about the emails and texts you’ve gotten asking for money. Why is that network never used for shit like this? People. Want. To. Fight!
Hell, it wasn’t even clear that Schumer would bring it to a vote! Sanders and a bunch of wonky, American Prospect-reading policy nerds pushed it. But they pushed it alone. Instead of with millions of voters at their back.
And no, the fact that Air America Radio didn’t catch on back in 2004-2010 doesn’t mean that progressive media can’t work, only that it may have been the wrong moment and medium. At least we got Rachel Maddow out of that. Yes, it’s true that progressives are a lot harder to herd than the authoritarian-inclined Righties who watch Fox News, but goddamn it, the media model we’re struggling with now isn’t getting progressive messaging in front of enough people who can be motivated to make any kind of noise at all.
Grr, the frustrating and inconclusive end.
[AP / Rolling Stone / The Fucking News]
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Brief OT:
𝐁𝐢𝐝𝐞𝐧 𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐦𝐮𝐭𝐞𝐬 𝐫𝐨𝐮𝐠𝐡𝐥𝐲 𝟏,𝟓𝟎𝟎 𝐬𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐞𝐬 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐩𝐚𝐫𝐝𝐨𝐧𝐬 𝟑𝟗 𝐩𝐞𝐨𝐩𝐥𝐞 𝐢𝐧 𝐛𝐢𝐠𝐠𝐞𝐬𝐭 𝐬𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐥𝐞-𝐝𝐚𝐲 𝐚𝐜𝐭 𝐨𝐟 𝐜𝐥𝐞𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐲
President Joe Biden is commuting the sentences of roughly 1,500 people who were released from prison and placed on home confinement during the coronavirus pandemic and is pardoning 39 Americans convicted of nonviolent crimes. It’s the largest single-day act of clemency in modern history.
https://apnews.com/article/biden-pardons-clemency-4432002d67334e6716c2776fd73f3cc8
Angry, but not surprised.
Manchin and Sinema like few others embody self-interest above all reason.
If Manchin had any sense, he'd have gotten the hell out of coal energy and found a more long-term profitable venture to grift. And Sinema? She wouldn't know a smart long-term investment if it was literally dangled in front of her.
Have fun circling the drain, asswipes.