More of the conversation from TPM Reader MM …

I agree with PT that the Dems didn’t “drive themselves into a cul-de-sac”, because they had no real choice.

But I disagree with much of the rest of his analysis. First, and most obviously, it is manifestly untrue that Manchin and Sinema haven’t learned the lessons of the past 30 years: they learned those lessons quite well. Their goals are simply at variance with, or at best skew to, many or most of goals of the rest of the Democratic caucus. Should they be Democrats? Nothing could matter less. It says ‘D’ after their names, and without them we wouldn’t even have these issues to worry about and argue over.

Matt Gaetz’s buddy is not just cooperating with the feds, he’s making allegations that “take us to some places we did not anticipate,” a prosecutor told a judge yesterday.  

The Department of Justice asked the Supreme Court today to temporarily block the enforcement of the unprecedentedly dangerous and restrictive abortion ban in Texas, filing an emergency appeal with the high court on Monday to protect the rights of women, and people who can become pregnant, in the red state.

It’s the second attempt by the DOJ to legally challenge the abortion law, which not only bans abortions post six-weeks in Texas, but also was crafted to be uniquely difficult to challenge in court. It enlists private citizens, instead of state officials, to deal with its enforcement. It’s a Wild West law that offers a $10,000 bounty to members of the public who successfully bring lawsuits against abortion providers and/or anyone who might “aid or abet” in the process of getting an abortion post-six weeks, including someone as far in the periphery of the act as a cab driver who might drive a woman to a clinic.

From TPM Reader PT …

I don’t think it’s fair to say that the Democrats “drove themselves into a cul-de-sac” on the reconciliation bill because that assumes, or implies, that the Democrats had other options. It also makes the Democrats, writ large, responsible for the fact that two (!) of their Senators haven’t managed to learn the lessons of the last 30 years.

Perhaps it’s worth replaying the tape to see how we got here.