Last Call For Finally Joining The Fray

President Biden is finally realizing that without the end of the filibuster, that his entire legacy is in danger, and we will never have free and fair elections in GOP states. He's finally realized that he's the last card in the deck to be played to convince Manchin and Sinema to go along, or it's all over.

With a make-or-break vote looming in the Senate on a sweeping voting-rights and anti-corruption bill, President Joe Biden and his advisers have said in recent weeks that Biden will pressure wavering Democrats to support reforming the filibuster if necessary to pass the voting bill.

According to three people briefed on the White House’s position and its recent communications with outside groups, Biden assured Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi that he was ready to push for filibuster reform. Biden’s pressure would aim to help Schumer convince moderate Democrats to support a carveout to the filibuster, a must for the party if it’s going to pass new voting protections without Republican votes. According to a source briefed on the White House’s position, Biden told Schumer: “Chuck, you tell me when you need me to start making phone calls.”

The Senate returns to work this upcoming week, and Majority Leader Chuck Schumer intends to call a vote on the For the People Act, the most ambitious reform bill in decades and the Democrats’ best shot at countering the wave of state-level GOP voter suppression laws this year. But to get the bill out of Congress, Senate Democrats will almost certainly need to change the filibuster, the procedural tactic used by the minority party to block many types of legislation.

Publicly, there are two centrist Democrats who have stated their opposition to changing or abolishing the filibuster, Sens. Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona. Activist groups and fellow Democratic senators say Manchin and Sinema are the likely 49th and 50th votes both on any voting-rights legislation and especially any filibuster reforms. Sources say both senators are likely targets for when Biden launches his final push to pass a compromise version of the For the People Act.

“I think there’s a clear recognition the president will have a role to play in bringing this over the finish line, and if in order to do that, we need [filibuster] rules reform, then so be it,” says Rep. John Sarbanes (D-Md.), who helped write the original version of the For the People Act. “I think Joe Biden with his long history and experience in the Senate can see that.”

A White House spokesman declined to comment on any private conversations between Biden and congressional leaders. The official said that Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris have been “deeply involved” with the push to pass new voting protections. “The president and vice president have been very clear that this is a crucial priority and senior White House staff across many departments are constantly working on it,” the official said.

Even with a lobbying blitz from Biden, the path to passing the For the People Act is a tricky one. A group of senators will soon release a compromise version of the For the People Act intended to satisfy Manchin’s concerns about earlier versions of the bill. Sources familiar with the compromise bill say it will focus on shoring up voting rights against GOP suppression laws, crack down on dark money and partisan gerrymandering, and create new policies to stop attempts at election subversion like what happened after the 2020 presidential election.

But even if the revised bill earns the support of all Democrats, it won’t be enough to overcome the filibuster. Schumer will not only need to prevent a single defection on the bill itself but also convince — with Biden’s help — all 50 Democrats to create a carveout in the filibuster for voting-rights-related legislation.

 

Carveout rules already exist for nominations and budget reconciliation thanks to the GOP, but of course this will be sold as the end of the Republic, and most likely it will fail.

We'll see if this moves Manchin and Sinema at all. My fear is that it won't and the entire $3.5 trillion Good Package will fall along with it, and doom the Democrats and our country for decades.

As E.J. Dionne notes, failing to enact these measures in the weeks ahead could very well doom the American experiment.

Yes, the stakes are that high. The horror of what so many Republican-dominated state governments have done — most recently in Texas — to restrict access to the ballot and undercut the honest and nonpartisan counting of ballots presents Democrats with only two options: Act uncompromisingly at the national level to ensure democracy everywhere, or accept that many states in our union will, in important ways, cease to be democratic.

Killing a strong voting rights bill means accepting, to evoke Abraham Lincoln’s declaration on slavery, a nation half-democratic and half undemocratic.

Here again, the clarity of the hazard is pushing even reluctant Democrats to action. Manchin and Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) have said repeatedly that they would not overturn current filibuster rules to enact a voting rights bill.

So Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) issued Manchin a friendly challenge: Offer a proposal that you could vote for and find 10 Republicans to support it.

Manchin accepted the challenge, and as soon as this week, a group of Democrats including Manchin and Sens. Amy Klobuchar (Minn.), Jeff Merkley (Ore.) and Raphael G. Warnock (Ga.) could introduce a bill rooted in his ideas.

If Manchin can find 10 Republicans to support it, he will deserve canonization for having performed a miracle. If he can’t, will he and Sinema stick with their refusal to alter the filibuster and thus make themselves complicit in the death of a bill as important to democracy in our times as the original Voting Rights Act was in 1965?

Call me naive, but I do not believe that Manchin, Sinema and Biden want to be associated in history with those who failed to stand up for democracy at the hour of maximum danger. In a little over a month, we’ll know where they stand.

 

Unfortunately, I believe the opposite. I believe that by 2024 my vote will not only be meaningless, but punishable.

Our Little White Supremacist Domestic Terrorism Problem, Local Edition

As the rest of the country was observing the 20th anniversary of 9/11, here in Northern Kentucky, right-wing radio host Eric Deters organized a Trump rally on his farm which attracted hundreds of delusional nutjobs screaming about how 2020 was stolen in a state that Trump won by 26 points.

On the 20th anniversary of 9/11, thousands of former President Donald Trump's supporters flocked to a farm a half-hour south of Cincinnati.

Among the pastures and bales of hay, banners directing expletives at President Joe Biden adorned trucks and fences.

This was a celebration organized by former lawyer Eric Deters, a conservative firebrand, podcaster and self-described "legal outlaw." He's no stranger to controversy. A judge in 2020 banned him from the Hamilton County courthouse for comments Deters made on his podcast, "The Bulldog."

Deters didn't see anything wrong with organizing a Trump pep rally on 9/11. It was the first Freedom Fest, something he told the crowd he wants to hold annually on his 138-acre farm in the rural outpost of Morning View, Ky., just south of Independence.

Speaking Saturday night were former Trump advisor and Fox News personality Kimberly Guilfoyle, who is currently dating Donald Trump Jr., and Fox News personality Tomi Lahren.

People came from all over the region, as far away as Batavia and Fairfield, united in their fealty to Trump, distrust of the COVID-19 vaccines and belief in the debunked myths surrounding the 2020 election and Trump's discredited claims of a stolen election. No evidence exists of widespread voter fraud.

"We're the outcasts of the country these days," said Bill Albright.

The 57-year-old traveled from his home in Batavia with his girlfriend Kathi Brinegar. They gripped flag poles on the hillside where Deters had built a stage and amphitheater, the wind whipping their large flags that said "2020 was rigged", "Unmasked, unmuzzled, unvaccinated, unafraid," and "Joe Biden sucks."

In the crowd were several members of the Proud Boys, wearing their yellow and black colors and polo shirts. The Proud Boys group is designated a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center. Both the SPLC and Anti-Defamation League describe the Proud Boys' all-male membership as known for anti-Muslim and misogynistic rhetoric.

During the speeches, one man in the Proud Boy colors flashed the 'OK' symbol, which the Anti-Defamation League and other civil rights groups say has been co-opted into a white supremacist symbol.

Hundreds of motorcycles thundered over the rolling hillsides and parked in front of the stage, forming a barricade between the stage and audience.

One of the bikers, Dwayne Turner, 51, of Goshen, told The Enquirer he was on the Capitol steps in Washington, D.C. during the assault on the Capitol on Jan. 6. He said he didn't enter the Capitol, though.

He traveled to D.C. that day for Boots on the Ground Bikers for Trump organization to provide security for different groups.

"I was right on the steps," Turner said. "They made it out more than what it really was. The mainstream media has made it out to be an insurrection, to me it was a few people who were pissed off."

But many of the people who were at Freedom Fest said they weren't part of any group. About 100 cars and motorcycles, most decked out in pro-Trump, anti-vaccine regalia traveled up Ky. 17 for about 10 miles to Deters farm in a caravan.

Shari Reynolds, dressed head-to-toe in stars and stripes, walked among the cars pulled over at Pioneer Park in southern Covington. She was getting the caravan to Deters' farm into order, telling cars to put their blinkers on.

She said the caravan just kind of came together.

"It takes one person to organize somebody and you tell one person, and then you tell one person," Reynolds said. "The worst thing you can do is be silent."

Reynolds, 51, and her husband Patrick, 38, of Deer Park, like many of the thousands at Freedom Fest believe Trump won the 2020 election and distrust the media.

So then where do they get their information?

"I don't have any news sources," Patrick Reynolds said.

"Just research," Shari Reynolds said.

They do see news stories, Patrick Reynolds said, but "you have to research the information."

The keynote speakers, Lahren and Guilfoyle, in their speeches hit on the usual talking points, railing against vaccine mandates, praising Trump, slamming Biden and blaming "cancel culture" for silencing conservatives.

The media wasn't popular at Freedom Fest.

"The media has become so consumed by their own agenda that they've lost sight of their responsibility to report, to inform and to serve, but they sure do love their little fact checks," Guilfoyle said. "I could say Kentucky is a beautiful state, magnificent, and they would fact check me."

 

So you've got all the enduring, classic hits: Trump really won, we're the outcasts here even though Trump got 62% of the vote, the media is lying to us, along with white supremacist assholes like the Proud Boys in the crowd.

 

Believe me when I say that this is a nationwide cult now, and deprogramming them will take decades. It took decades to program them, you see.

Even right here in Northern Kentucky.

This is why I'm taking the calls to violence by Republican governors over Biden's mask mandate seriously. That's why I'm treating the potential threat of violence at the "Justice For J6" rally next weekend seriously.

These people are cultists. And cultists can do dangerous, deadly things.

Sunday Long Read: Hit And Run...For Office

Vanity Fair's Tom Kludt gives us our Sunday Long Read this week as the trial of South Dakota Attorney General Jason Ravnsborg begins for the death of Joseph Paul Boever. Ravnsborg hit and killed Boever with his car on a dark night along a country highway last year with such force that Boever's head went through the windshield and his glasses were found in the vehicle. But Ravnsborg refuses to step down despite the growing calls for his resignation, and through it all a family grieves.

The diamond-shaped signs are hallmarks of the South Dakota highway, doubling as memorials and warnings. For more than 40 years, the state has placed them at the sites of motorized fatalities, making them disquieting roadside counterparts to the billboards summoning travelers to Wall Drug and other tourist enclaves. There is a bright red X near the uppermost tip and a pair of all-caps messages that force drivers to reckon with their own mortality: “THINK!” commands one side of the sign; “WHY DIE?” asks the other.

The “THINK signs,” as they are known locally, are installed by county highway departments, typically within days of the crash. It isn’t clear how many dot the flat terrain. The South Dakota Department of Transportation says it doesn’t keep records of where the signs are located or for whom they were erected, but that often isn’t required for anyone who has ever lived here. Everyone has a THINK sign story, and everyone knows the story behind the one situated on Highway 14 just outside of Highmore, South Dakota. Adorned with flowers and a wooden cross at its base, the sign there stands in memory of Joseph Paul Boever.

On September 12, 2020, Boever’s truck went into the ditch at around 7:30 p.m. and smashed into a bale of hay. He summoned his cousin Victor Nemec to the scene, and after surveying the damage incurred by the pickup’s front bumper, the two decided to retrieve it in the morning. Nemec recalled dropping off Boever, 55, at his home in Highmore and hearing him say he was going to bed. But shortly before 10:30 p.m., Boever was back in the area, armed with a flashlight and walking along the north shoulder of the road. Family members don’t know exactly why he was there.

South Dakota Attorney General Jason Ravnsborg was heading toward Pierre that night, capping off what had been a demanding week of travel. Earlier in the evening, Ravnsborg (pronounced “ROUNDS-berg”) was in the town of Redfield to speak at a Lincoln Day dinner. It was the second Republican event Ravnsborg attended in as many days, having appeared at a Lincoln Day dinner in Rapid City held on September 11. Ravnsborg’s two-hour journey from Redfield to Pierre started out routine enough. He called his father, a nightly ritual ever since his mother passed away three years earlier. The call dropped, a common occurrence in a state blanketed by dead zones. And he listened to a broadcast of the Minnesota Twins game, a classic soundtrack for laconic summer drives through the upper Midwest.

As he passed through Highmore, Ravnsborg considered stopping for gas before opting to press on for the final 46 miles to Pierre. It was around there, he said later, that he turned the radio off after hearing the Twins collect the final out in their win over division rival Cleveland several minutes earlier. At 10:20, according to cell phone data obtained by the investigators, he unlocked his phone and signed into his Yahoo email account. From there, Ravnsborg scanned headlines before landing on an article published by a right-wing website about “Riding the Dragon,” a documentary billed as an exposé into the “secret world of Joe Biden and his family’s relationship to China and the sinister business deals that enriched them at America’s expense.” At 10:22, prosecutors determined he locked his phone. A minute later, Ravnsborg veered into the right shoulder, where Boever was walking, sending his head through the windshield.

What happened in the moments before the crash and in the subsequent 12 hours has consumed South Dakota’s political class, and even caused a rift between two Donald Trump allies. Governor Kristi Noem, a Republican star and potential 2024 contender, urged Ravnsborg, a self-described “pro-life, pro-2nd Amendment, pro-business” conservative, to resign. And yet Ravnsborg continues exerting his power in deep red South Dakota and beyond, from joining a 17-state legal effort in December to overturn Trump’s 2020 defeat to teaming up last month with Republican attorneys general hoping to declare a New York state concealed carry gun law unconstitutional. Meanwhile, his predecessor has announced plans to run for attorney general again next year, despite Ravnsborg still being eligible to seek another term.

The case has stirred up questions about how investigations are handled in South Dakota, where virtually everyone is linked by fewer than six degrees of separation. Ravnsborg’s freedom may not be on the line, as prosecutors opted for less severe misdemeanor charges rather than, say, manslaughter. He is expected to plead no contest to two of the three charges, according to a source familiar with the matter, which could allow him to avoid a two-day trial that is scheduled to kick off Thursday. But although he has dodged the most dire of legal consequences, Ravnsborg’s future as a public figure may forever be clouded by a tragedy that has confounded residents, rocked the political establishment, and left a grieving family divided in its pursuit of clarity and justice.

 

A man is dead, killed by a power GOP politician, and we all know that the politician is not only going to get away with it, but most likely win a second term as the most powerful officer of the court in the state. A man whose job is enforcing the laws and keeping the order of the state is himself going to skate on taking another man's life and suffer no consequences whatsoever.

 

It comes at the expense of the people who put them in power.  Always.

 

This is the one-party corruption that Republicans seem to think Democrats have, but don't. Democrats get rid of their monsters, like Cuomo.

 

Republicans re-elect them.

 

That's the difference.