DL Open Thread Sunday, June 13, 2021

Delawareans should do a slow burn every time the national media call out Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema for siding with Republicans. Everyone knows that another handful of Democratic senators share their not-so-progressive leanings, but most represent either red state or states with strong, functioning Republican parties. Only Delaware has two Democratic senators who both vote against progressive priorities without any legitimate fear of losing re-election. Good for the Daily Beast for finally calling them out in a story that might be headlined “Profiles in Cowardice.”

A handful of roll call votes this year shows how the scrutiny on Manchin or Sinema can obscure broader shared sentiments in the caucus. In March, the six Democrats who joined Manchin and Sinema in voting against a $15 minimum wage were Sens. King, Hassan, Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH), Chris Coons (D-DE), Tom Carper (D-DE), and Jon Tester (D-MT).

Influential GOP pollster Frank Luntz, recently outed as a fraud by former employees, authored a memo in 2019 in which he warned a conservative lobbying group that “across partisan lines, there is a deep and growing anger that the wealthy are gaming the system” (others would call it “gaining awareness” of this obvious truth) and that the public was strongly in favor of raising taxes on the rich, limiting corporate executive pay, providing tuition-free college and universal health care, and paying all working people a “living wage,” even when they’re not working. Luntz’s proposed solution: Conservatives should stop using the word “capitalism” and start saying “economic freedom,” argue that hard work and good ideas are what create massive wealth, rather than political, legal and economic advantages, and change the education system — presumably to promote pro-capitalist ideology. In other words, the lies will continue unabated.

None of that matters, because the fate of the GOP is tied inextricably to the Last Guy, Captain Fatass, who maintains total control of the party despite slipping popularity even among the faithful. The latest sign of that truth, which the media is furiously trying to cover up because fear of Trump is their only means of getting eyeballs, is his belly-flop at the North Carolina GOP convention. First he broke protocol by endorsing someone for the Republican nomination for a Senate seat. Then he suffered the humiliation of seeing that candidate finish a well-beaten second in a straw poll of the convention’s attendees. In fealty to Trump, the North Carolina GOP didn’t announce that until several days later.

Shit-where-his-brains-should-be Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Mustelidae) has been suspended by YouTube — just think of the mentality of people who would watch the RoJo YouTube channel — for once again pushing hydroxychloroquine as a Covid-19 treatment. So when I say he’s slow, I don’t just mean his lack of mental acuity, I mean he lags behind even the other members of his backward-looking party.

Did you know that Bill Gates — yeah, the billionaire with the happy pants — owns more U.S. farmland than any other individual? He does, and some people are calling him a hypocrite on climate over it.

You might have missed it, because the media showed no interest in it, but the Keystone pipeline that triggered years of protests is now dead (it’s difficult to both-sides an issue when one side is just oil barons and a few hundred would-be employees). Now eco-warriors have turned their sights to another pipeline from Canada known as Line 3, currently in the process of being replaced. It presents some of the same ecological concerns as the Keystone pipeline, and major protests against it have already begun.

The Delaware Democratic Party leadership is now white-male-free: New party chair Betsy Maron becomes the first woman to lead the party, and Coby Owens and Debbie Harrington, the first and second vice-chairs, are the first African Americans to hold those positions.

The floor is yours.