Outgoing members of Congress pull no punches in parting shots

A new Congress will be introduced in a matter of days, and a myriad of outgoing lawmakers have made their concerns and questions for their and the country’s future known.

Some had advice for the upcoming Congress. Others were thankful they were leaving. Most were frustrated with political parties, partisanship, or the slow going process in the chambers. Here’s what they said.

Sinema withstood a torrent of attention at most every turn during her time in Congress, and found praise from both Republicans and Democrats. The political independent, who sometimes caucused with her former Democratic Party, drew a hard line on the filibuster and spoke her mind.

In an exit interview with Semafor, she did more of the same. Sinema says a Senate Democrat reached out to her after the election to apologize and said she was right about protecting the filibuster. “I was surprised about that one,” she said. “I was very surprised. And I appreciate it.”

She mentioned that she didn’t understand why she was viewed as an enigma in her time with the Senate, saying whoever thought that “wasn’t paying attention” and that she believes she was “highly predictable” because she didn’t say things she didn’t mean.

Sinema drew a lot of criticism from the left at times during her Senate career, most recently for blocking President Joe Biden’s reappointment of a top labor board nominee. She responded to it by saying she doesn’t “give a sh*t.”

Ultimately, she’s thankful to be leaving after six years in the House and Senate each. On if would return to politics she said, ““No … We’re good.”

Sen. Joe Manchin (I-WV)

Manchin, who spent his last months in the Senate as an independent following frustration with his own party, didn’t differ much from...

“If not for Sinema and Manchin America would be deep into dictatorship. The evil behind the 2020 coup meant for it to be permanent. The dissent of these two on the Filibuster saved America. Two votes. Scary it got so close.”

I wonder if anyone here can even explain what you mean in the above. I agree with you and can specifically cite the reasons, but others here just seemed to be happier to take the country off the cliff while yelling RINO, RINO, RINO, I HATE RINOS!!!

“You’re a good guy Bob but explain it instead of insulting some.”

Ok, sorry, it was only a relative few but man they were either the best trolls here (even better than the Zeepers) or they really believed that the best hope for the country was to allow the Democrats to totally destroy it first (hint, it took the Russians 75 years to shake off Communism, China is at 76 years and counting - so that timeline is a bit long for me, my kids, and even my grandkids).

After the Nov. 2020 election, the US Senate was 50 to 48 Republican with 2 undecided seats in Georgia (no one got 50%, so a runoff). All the Republicans had to do was win either seat in the December Runoff.

In both cases, in November, the Republican had more votes than the Democrat (but, again, under 50%, thank you Libertarians, by the way). But Trump voters were raging about the obvious cheating that went on and that no one in the GOP doing anything about it (in fact, they were usually discounting the cheating...they just wanted Trump out), so they ‘sent the GOP a message’ by sitting out the runoffs (500,000 less Republicans voted in the runoff than in the General), and the Democrats took both seats.

That made the US Senate 50-50, with Harris as the tiebreaker - a Democrat Senate. With that, Schumer said that he would nuke the Filibuster to pass House Bill 1 (legalized and required the same election cheating processes used in California, such as ballot harvesting, late voting, etc.). And the Democrats would Pack the Courts, just to make sure that House Bill 1 would not be overturned. The Republicans would be out of power for DECADES.

But Manchin and Senima stopped Schumer, DEAD-COLD, by refusing to go along with nuking the Filibuster - so the Democrat plan to NEVER have a fair election again was stopped, and God willing that crap doesn’t raise its ugly head again (although Schumer, again, repeated the same plan if the Democrats swept in 2024).

Some here were just fine with letting Schumer have his way - and I’m convinced that many of them weren’t trolls, they were just mad as hell...I guess too mad to even think logically?

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