This again? After months of categorically ruling out any changes to the Senate legislative filibuster, Manchin is now saying any changes to the filibuster would be a “heavy lift” and that his “absolute preference” is to get Republican buy-in for making changes that would prevent Republicans from preventing any Democratic legislation other than budget reconciliation bills from coming to a vote. (Got that?) This comes after Democrats seem back to negotiating over the President’s Bill Build Back better bill which died back in December but is now back as some kind of zombie legislative discussion with Joe Manchin. The only thing that makes me think this might be kind of something real is that Mitch McConnell thought it was necessary to roundly denounce the idea today.

So is this real? Are we back to this?