Manchin Betrays "His" Party Again, Votes AGAINST Abortion RIghts

The U.S. Senate just voted down a Federal abortion rights bill that was passed by the House of Representatives. The vote was 49 for to 51 against. All 50 Republican Senators plus nominal Democrat Joe Manchin of West Virginia voted NO. So no Federal law to protect abortion rights. Forced child bearing or dangerous illegal abortions will now be the fate of millions of poorer women in the U.S. in the coming years, as theocrats and reactionaries and male supremacists, operating through the GOP (Gang Of Plunderers) bring the U.S. closer to the dystopia of Margaret Atwood's "The Handmaid's Tale."

Democratic Senate leader Charles Schumer of New York staged the vote to force every Senator to go on record as to where they stood on the abortion issue. He stated this as the reason. Because the vote would have been moot in any event because it needed 60 votes in the 100 seat Senate to overcome the filibuster rule.

The Democrats could change that rule, as they have 50 Senators and the Vice President, Democrat Kamala Harris, breaks ties in the Senate. A simple majority is all that is needed for rule changes.

But Manchin and fellow DINO (Democrat In Name Only) Kirsten Sinema of Arizona oppose altering the ridiculous filibuster rule. That rule, by the way, was invented by racist Southern Democrat Senators. It has nothing to do with the constitution or statutory law. It is simply a Senate RULE that the Senate created for itself. (It used to be even worse, requiring 67 Senators to bypass it. It was modified to 60. Another modification made judicial nominations exempt from this minority veto.

Obviously Manchin voted the way he thought would be approved of my the voters of his benighted state. Apparently the backward hicks of the poor state of West Virginia think having more unwanted children is the way to a more prosperous and humane future. This is a state that opposes Federal programs that help the people there. It's a state that wants its children and their children and their children to work in coal mines. This is a state of stubbornly ignorant people unwilling to change one bit.

"Progressive" Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg Protects Donald Trump From Criminal Liability

 A New York Grand Jury in the borough of Manhattan has been dismissed without bringing charges against the target of its inquiry, Donald J. Trump. When a Grand Jury is disbanded without bringing charges, this means no charges will be brought, absent extraordinary public pressure.  As American grand juries are tools of prosecutors totally under prosecutors' control, the failure to indict Trump for his crimes reflects the decision of Alvin Bragg, elected just last year masquerading as a progressive. 

Several months ago, two attorneys in the Manhattan district attorney's office who were leading the investigation of the criminal Trump, resigned in protest, asserting that Bragg was blocking them from bringing charges. Bragg responded by publicly lying that he was determined to pursue the already years-long investigation that his predecessor, the smarmy Cyrus Vance Jr.), had dragged his feet on for years. Vance, son of a U.S. secretary of state and born into an elite, privilege class of U.S. brahmins, is himself a man with a history of protecting "elite" sexual criminals like movie mogul Harvey Weinstein and French poohbah and ruling class luminary Dominique Strauss-Kahn  (who forced a hotel maid to perform oral sex on him, a habit of his as he believes he is entitled to free sexual services from the working class). Vance is a man steeped in class privilege who extends the privilege to even obviously criminal members of his own class. He is also cowardly. Not only did he drag out the "investigation" of Donald Trump for years, handing the hot potato to his successor, the ambitious and self-serving Bragg, but Vanee ignored his own staff and failed to prosecute two of Trump's children,  Ivanka Trump and Donald Trump Jr. for fraud in 2012, instead taking a "campaign contribution," i.e. a legal bribe. 

Trump himself has been under the gun for fraud for committing numerous felony violations in his financial statements. Bragg for his part lied and kept up a charade of going after the career criminal Trump until the very moment the Grand Jury was excused.

For decades, the New York city and state political and judicial elites (which are one and the same, as the judges are political clubhouse members) protected the career criminal Donald Trump, for two reasons: He gave them money, and he was a member of the elite ruling money class.

Now we have a hustler as the most important local prosecutor in New York State, heading an office that even pursues international investigations. Bragg is a operator who knew what mask to wear to get elected in Manhattan in the year 2021, a year of ferment and discontent with the establishment power structure following the murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis, Minnesota police in 2020. Being "black" added to the illusion he wished to create of being progressive, as there is a prejudice in the U.S. that African-American are innately progressive. This prejudice, like all prejudices, ignores obvious facts, like the large number of reactionary blacks clearly visible in public view, from Supreme Court "Justice" Clarence Thomas to various politicians to a variety of media "commentators" who are part of the ubiquitous reactionary propaganda chorus which baths Americans in a twisted worldview from birth to death.

In the midst of incessant Ukraine war propaganda, Bragg's weaselly act protecting Trump has gone barely noticed by the Blatherariat here. Well timed, Con Man!

Are Alvin's eyes set on higher office? "I don't like to BRAGG, but I'm a pretty slick dude!"

Establishment news media have widely reported what the New York City tabloid The New York Daily News calls an "abdication" by Bragg. See "Bragg's abdication: The Manhattan DA looks set to let Donald Trump walk," May 1, 2022.