re: #150 No Malarkey!

Yep. We’ll see if Manchin is willing to move on filibuster reform after months of bad faith negotiations with the GQP over infrastructure.

another take, from electoral-vote.com

…it sure looks like the Senator is playing the long game here. By rebelling against his party on some high-profile issues (like the minimum wage) and “fighting” to save the filibuster, the Senator sets himself up to “surrender” and to be dragged, kicking and screaming, into weakening the filibuster. “It was the only option left, I’m afraid,” is what he will say.
…
It is clear that, like Manchin, Biden is setting himself up to “reluctantly” support changing the filibuster. … Biden can maintain his “opposition” to changing the rules and then, if they are changed, can claim that he certainly would not have changed things if he were still in the Senate, but it is up to the Senate to make its own rules and he doesn’t have any say in that as a a member of the Executive Branch.
…
The main audience for Manchin’s and Biden’s performances, right now, is actually Mitch McConnell and his Republican colleagues in the Senate. McConnell is very good at reading between the lines, and he is now on notice that if he and his caucus continue with their obstructionist ways, the filibuster could be partly or wholly on the chopping block. What they do with that implicit threat will dictate how Manchin and Biden proceed.