 Well this week's rage bait just dropped and it is a CNN interview with two so-called moderate senators Joe Manchin and Lisa Murkowski. Does it not look like she's tickling him in this photo? They're just the best of friends. Now in this interview with Jake Tapper, they're both going to overtly suggest that they're basically better than all of their colleagues in DC because they're above the fray. Unlike their hyperpartisan colleagues, they actually thoroughly weigh out the decisions that their respective party makes. Except, they're lying. What these two individuals are, are fake moral grandstanders. They like to engage in political theater, usually for about two months at a time. And then ultimately they'll do what we all predicted that they would do, side with the Republican Party. The only difference between these two is that she has an R in front of her name and he has a D in front of his name. And you might think that this is a little bit of an oversimplification, but it's not. They have the same corporate donors, which is why their actions almost always line up. Lisa Murkowski, for example, she will for months act as if, oh my god, I just don't know if I can go along with my party and what the president is doing with regret to Donald Trump. You know, she'll pretend as if she just thinks it's a betrayal to confirm a Supreme Court justice a week before this election. After her party argued that we shouldn't confirm Supreme Court justices in election years and this is bad. We shouldn't do this because it's a little bit hypocritical, but then she doesn't. So these two are just so insufferable, but they're going to imply time and again, they're above the frame. But that's not really why I'm showing you this because the insufferableness is so much that you may want to bang your head against the desk as you watch this. So be prepared for that. But we actually had a little bit of insight from Joe Manchin of all people and he tells us about the leadership style of Chuck Schumer, which is really important. Now he responds to a primary challenge, but really what he says about Chuck Schumer here speaks to a broader issue that I have with the Democratic Party and their leadership in general. So let's go ahead and take a look at the video. You've been warned that this is very insufferable. So yeah, we're working like the Dickens. We have to work harder now to be together, to work on things together, basically book our leadership maybe at times. We've been very fortunate, you know, our leadership Schumer. He understands what we're trying to do. He's been absolutely positive. If you get something done to it, I'm going to over and talk to Mitch. Mitch has been supportive of things that we're doing now. So basically they understand and I think they all want us to work together. And like I said, it should not be miserable. And I'm not going to be in a miserable situation when I have good friends I can work with. Yeah, but now you're under fire. It's not the same thing, obviously, but it's you're under fire for not supporting changing the filibuster rules so as to pass the election reform bills. Bernie Sanders has said he supports a primary challenge to you and to Senator Cinema. Schumer has not said that he is endorsing you. We've talked about that and everything. And I told Chuck and I were talking the other day and I said, Chuck, basically the best thing to say that I would think in a situation like that. But, you know, they're going to support. I know no way shape or form will Mitch McConnell or Chuck Schumer not support their their caucus. Right. It just doesn't happen. Now, with that being said, I just said, you know, sometimes you tell me, Jake, I want to be for you. I can be for you against you. What helps you the most? Yeah, it might be in Chuck's situation. He'll say, John, before you're against what would help the most with that? You know, you put a little levity to that, but I don't put any sock in that. I've had a primary. I've been running since 1982. I've never run on a post. But I'll be there for you, Joe. You're going to endorse me if he's running. I'm endorsing him. Say, there we go. Wow. Congratulations, Joe Manchin. You just got the endorsement of Lisa Murkowski. Wow, that's incredible. High five. That's that's great. What a valuable endorsement that that definitely is cause for celebration. I honestly hate them so much. If there was some way that you can harness my rage and anger that I feel after watching that clip, you can power an entire U.S. city for like three years. It's just they're they're the worst. So obviously, everything that they're saying is bullshit. They both behave the same way legislatively because they have the same exact corporate donors. But what Joe Manchin says there is really interesting. He says that when it comes to the leadership style of Schumer, Schumer is supportive. Schumer is supportive of his pursuit for bipartisanship, even if that hinders the Democratic Party's agenda. Let's just stop for a moment. Put this into perspective. The Democratic Party leader knows how unreasonable the Republican Party is, but yet he supports someone in his caucus pursuing bipartisanship, even if functionally, that is going to lead to obstruction. Even if he knows the inevitable result is obstruction, he allows this to happen. And apparently, you know, Schumer says to Manchin that he can either before you or or against you, whichever is more politically beneficial. So in other words, what he's saying here is that Chuck Schumer if he needs to be the liberal boogeyman for Manchin, he'll do that. He'll come out and he'll attack Joe Manchin and say, hey, Joe Manchin. Listen, listen to you. I'm really disappointed in you. He'll put his glasses like this, but in actuality, it's all political theater. It's all fake. Everything in D.C. fake. I mean, we had President Biden at the National Prayer Breakfast run by Franklin Graham, by the way, talk about how Mitch McConnell is his friend and how he's a man of his word and he's a man of honor. So to politicians in D.C., nothing matters. It's all a show. It's all fake. It feels like they're all just perpetually trying to gaslight us. So that's really, really interesting, right? I feel like people should already know this or at least be tuned in a little bit to the fact that we're being bullshitted by politicians in both parties or in cahoots with one another. But that is kind of an explicit admission right there that Chuck Schumer, a Democratic Party leader, is letting him do what he wants, even if he knows what the result will be. It's astonishing, really, that they admit this now. Another quick clip that I want to show you. I've got a couple of clips to go through, so be prepared, is Build Back Better. Watch Joe Manchin's response to Jake Tapper's question about Build Back Better. Have you talked to President Biden about Build Back Better in any way forward to a smaller bill? We've had a conversation, but we really didn't get into that because right now our main concern is to get a budget. You want a budget bill first? We have to get a budget bill first. The bottom line is the budget bill, we just talked to the military. We had a security meeting, all of us there, and a geopolitical unrest that we have, especially with Ukraine and Russia and with all of Europe and all of our NATO allies. And the military was there, and they were asked point blank. What challenges do you have if we stay with the CR continuing resolution? We're working off of basically the last year of the Trump administration's budget. Yeah, one thing I want to say. They need help. They want a budget. Wait a second, you're talking about Ukraine and Russia. How are we going to pay for this? How are we going to pay for the continued escalation, sending troops to the border, arming Ukraine? This all costs money. What about inflation? What about the deficit? What about the debt? How are we going to get the money for this? Joe Manchin, these are all considerations that you bring up when it comes to housing people during a pandemic. Feeding people, making sure people actually can survive. But yet when it comes to escalating tensions with a nuclear power, no questions whatsoever. Isn't that interesting? Not even a concern whatsoever, a shred of worry for the deficit here. Interesting. Interesting. Now, I want to talk about the Supreme Court nominee because look at the conversation here. The entire framing of this is just so, so skewed to the right. It's frustrating. And they're not addressing the elephant in the room, not even Jake Tapper, who, in theory, you'd think would want to do journalism and maybe put things in a perspective. But no, take a look. This is just infuriating. The president of Biden right now is trying to decide who is going to nominate to the U.S. Supreme Court. And I'm wondering if how important it is, you think for him to pick somebody that can definitely get bipartisan support. He doesn't necessarily need it, right? But for instance, there's a candidate, a not possible candidate from South Carolina who Lindsey Graham has said very positive things about it's an opportunity, I would think you would think, for him to put his money where his mouth is in terms of bipartisanship and unity. Exactly so. It goes back to his words at the prayer breakfast. How are we going to unify? What is it that we need to do? Well, one of the signals that he can send is putting forth a nominee for the Supreme Court that will gain a level of bipartisan support. And when I say a level, I think it has to be more than just one because as much as that is, it does not necessarily mean that you have that broader support. Not just Susan Collins or you. Well, seriously, there are many, many, exceptionally well qualified African-American women who could move forward into this position. So Mr. President, I'm asking you to look through those critically and not pick the one that would be to the furthest left, but to pick that one, that individual, who will enjoy some level of bipartisan support. Do you have someone in mind? I think that that sends a signal to the public that maybe the courts are not as political as the legislative and the executive branch. Because right now, the country is starting to believe they're losing faith in their courts. They're looking at them as nothing more than an adjunct of elected bodies because of the partisan nature. So demonstrate, demonstrate some bipartisan support. Wow, wow, the audacity of Lisa Murkowski. Understand what she's saying here. She's saying that after my party nominated three hyperpartisan far-right extremists to the Supreme Court, the Supreme Court has been delegitimized and now people view it as a partisan institution. So in order to restore faith to the Supreme Court, well, it's incumbent on Democrats to not nominate an ideologue to the Supreme Court, not pick someone who's too far left. After my party delegitimized this institution, it's up to Democrats to restore faith in the Supreme Court. Funny how that works. Jake Tabard doesn't even think, oh, maybe I should call her on this and speak to the hypocrisy after she voted to confirm two of these hyperpartisan far-right extremists. Nope, see how that works? Well, now after we got what we wanted with a far-right Supreme Court majority, now Democrats really need to try to rein it in and make it seem as if this court isn't too ideological. Sorry, dumb fuck, the cat's out of the bag. It's ideological and we've lost faith in the court. So now the best thing that we can do, the best chance that we have at undoing the damage that your party did, and Joe Manchin did because he voted for Kavanaugh, is to nominate someone at the ideological opposite end of the spectrum judicially to kind of counter that right-wing influence. And when it comes to a so-called bipartisan choice, the only reason why Republicans like Lindsey Graham are excited about someone like J. Michelle Childs, who's a US district court judge that Biden may nominate, is because this is an anti-labor advocate. James Clyburn is pushing her and one of his main pitches is that, oh, well, she'll get bipartisan support. Ask yourself, why will she get bipartisan support, Clyburn? Why is that? Well, let's look at why specifically here. So as Julia Connelly of Common Dreams explains, Childs name has been pushed by House Majority whip James Clyburn, whose endorsement of Biden during the 2020 presidential primary was seen as instrumental in winning him the nomination. Clyburn has called for the president to nominate Childs, a former partner at prestigious South Carolina law firm, Nexen Pruitt, which has warned against the passage of the Protecting the Right to Organize Act legislation that would strengthen worker protections and is a part of Biden's signature economic agenda at the firm, Childs represented employers in nearly two dozen labor cases. Childs nomination could secure Republican votes. Clyburn has told news outlets in recent days, but progressives argued that Biden, who has pledged to nominate a black woman to the Supreme Court, should choose one of many highly qualified black women who have experience fighting against, not on behalf of corporate power. So that's what bipartisanship gets you. And really, we should just by default ignore anything that James Clyburn says perpetually. So he keeps making these terrible nominations and recommendations, and we know why that's the case. It's because James Clyburn is a representative of corporate America. So anyone who he thinks is a good choice, by default, you have to assume is a bad choice who is in the pocket of big business. And that is indeed the case with J. Michelle Childs, who's against the Pro Act. Unionization at a minimum is supposed to be what the Democratic Party should be endorsing, but they have members of their own leadership, James Clyburn, openly pushing for an anti-union Supreme Court justice. Why? Oh, so we can get these extremist Republicans on board. I mean, Jesus fucking Christ, insufferable, absolutely insufferable. Now, there's a fourth clip that I could show you, but I think we'll just forgo it, because I think you kind of get the gist of this. But essentially Jake Tapper is gonna ask why bipartisanship is so difficult to achieve in DC? And Lisa Murkowski is going to pretend as if it's these outside groups, who are pushing these rigid ideological and partisan agendas. So she implies maybe it's dark money, maybe it's big money, but is she fighting to get money out of politics? Of course not. So this whole interview here, it really represents everything that's wrong with the United States and why politics is so bad right now, why our country is so dysfunctional and why we're on the cusp of collapse currently as a society. In truth, there actually is bipartisanship because both parties are aligned on economic issues and the bipartisan infrastructure deal is an example of that. It passed easily with both parties supporting it because it appeased donors in both parties. But here's why this situation is so bad, right? In response to growing political unrest and extremism, which is the product of desperation thanks to neoliberal lawmakers bleeding workers dry, the GOP has chosen to lean into the culture war almost exclusively and over time, this has continued to radicalize their base to the point where the only way to appease their far right evangelical anti-science authoritarian voters now is to just go after democracy itself. And as Republicans shift to the far right, Democrats follow them to the right in an effort to court the moderate state they believe Republicans might be losing. So they think, ooh, Republicans are shifting to the right. Maybe we'll follow them a little bit to the right to win those moderates over. But as they shift to the right to follow Republicans to court these moderates, they lose the left. They lose their own base. And they know this, they see the polls showing how popular progressive policy proposals are but they do this anyway because they prefer moderate voters in their base over the left because moderates aren't gonna give a shit if Democrats give tax cuts to the wealthy. Moderates won't care if Democrats deliver an economically conservative agenda and pursue austerity. Moderates are the preferred base of the Democratic party because that means that the expectation will be diminished. I see if you have the left in your base exclusively and even center-left people in your base there's always this expectation to pursue policies that will be offensive to their donors. I mean healthcare reform, you can't even do anything with that unless we're pumping more money from the government taxpayer dollars into this private health insurance system because anything might cut into corporate profits, profits of the health industry donors that very much fund the Democratic party. I mean in 2019, we learned that the health industry was really pursuing Biden as kind of the last effort to fight off the threat of Medicare for all and they were successful in that. And now Biden got an office and after promising a public option is doing nothing. So the Democratic party, they have to pretend as if they can't get things done. It's either Joe Manchin, Kyrsten Sinema, it's the parliamentarian. They have to pretend as if they can't do anything. Biden has to pretend as if he can't use his pen to sign executive orders because anything that they would do that would actually help people would offend their corporate donors. And that's what they care the most about, corporate donors. So you might be thinking if Lisa Murkowski is going to hint at dark money being the issue, which I mean if that's what she's implying then sure she's onto something then why wouldn't Jake Tapper ask about that? You know, the commodification of literally every single aspect of our life is destroying this country. Maybe we should talk about getting money out of politics but Jake Tapper isn't going to ask that. Why? Because the same donors who fund those two corrupt politicians that he's interviewing also pay for advertisements on CNN. So everybody in America is currently just trying to figure out what's going on. Why is everything so bad? Everyone knows that something is bad but nobody can really diagnose the underlying systemic causes here that's driving the instability and the collapse of democracy in the United States. The media won't educate anyone and politicians are keeping you in the dark because they love this gravy train. So that's why everything is so bad. And interviews like this really kind of shine a spotlight on how bad this system is and why it's so bad because we pretend as if the issue that's wrong here is a lack of bipartisanship and if Democrats and Republicans just teamed up more often then things would be better. Now remember that the onus is always on Democrats to work with Republicans and not vice versa. But you know, that's the implication. Politicians just have to team up and get along and then everything will be copacetic except no, they don't. That's not the way that things should be functioning because bipartisanship more often than not fucks over workers because both parties are economically aligned. So when we see interviews like this, you know, notice that this is nothing more than damage control for the establishment. You know, and nobody's getting educated from this clip. What exactly did you learn from this clip that Lisa Murkowski and Joe Manchin are insufferable? Well, we already knew that but that's the one thing that we learned. So, you know, nothing changes. You know, everything stays the same. Nobody knows what the fuck is going on when they tune into mainstream media which is supposed to be educating them and the country continues to circle the drain. And we lead to political environments like this where nothing can get done unless both parties are teaming up to fuck over you and bleed you dry even more. So yeah, welcome to America in 2022. It is a late-stage capitalist dystopian hellscape and this is going to continue to be the case unless people actually wake the fuck up.