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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsRolling Stone: Manchin's Coal Corruption Is So Much Worse Than You Knew
The senator from West Virginia is bought and paid for by Big Coal. With his help the dying industry is pulling one final heist and the entire planet may pay the priceManchins influence comes from the fact that in an evenly divided Senate, he is the swing vote that can make or break legislation. He presents himself as a pragmatic man from a hardscrabble state who is always trying to do the right thing. He values good manners and civility, and sometimes seems to be channeling the folksy charm of another famous West Virginian, test pilot Chuck Yeager, who was immortalized in The Right Stuff.
The truth is, Manchin is best understood as a grifter from the ancestral home of King Coal. He is a man with coal dust in his veins who has used his political skills to enrich himself, not the people of his state. He drives an Italian-made Maserati, lives on a houseboat on the Potomac River when he is in D.C., pals around with corporate CEOs, and has a net worth of as much as $12 million. More to the point, his wealth has been accumulated through controversial coal-related businesses in his home state, including using his political muscle to keep open the dirtiest coal plant in West Virginia, which paid him nearly $5 million over the past decade in fees for coal handling, as well as costing West Virginia electricity consumers tens of millions of dollars in higher electricity rates (more about the details of this in a moment). Virginia Canter, who was ethics counsel to Presidents Obama and Clinton, unabashedly calls Manchins business operations a grift. To Canter, Manchins corruption is even more offensive than Donald Trumps. With Trump, the corruption was discretionary you could choose to pay thousands of dollars to host an event at Mar-a-Lago or not, Canter tells me. In contrast, Manchin is effectively taking money right out of the pockets of West Virginians when they pay their electric bills. They have no say in it. Its one of the most egregious conflicts of interest Ive ever seen.
Manchins grift is emblematic of generations of political leadership in West Virginia. Im always struck by the difference between coal country and the rest of the state. Unmined places like New River Gorge (now a national park) hint at the spectacular beauty of West Virginia before the coal barons arrived; up in Morgantown, you see a thriving city that is not entirely built with money from mining and burning black rocks. But much of the state is a landscape of corporate exploitation, a place that has been pillaged by outsiders who have sucked out its gas and mined its coal and built mansions in Newport, Rhode Island, and the Hamptons, but left little behind beyond black lung and broken labor unions. The people I have met in coal country in my many visits over the years are tougher than the blade of a bulldozer, smart, self-reliant, deeply connected to the natural world. But the poverty and quiet distress is heartbreaking. If fossil fuels brought prosperity to a place, West Virginians would be dancing on gold-paved streets. Instead, West Virginia is the second-poorest state by median income, and near the bottom of virtually every social indicator of well-being, from obesity to opioid addiction to education. The few well-paying coal jobs that are left are disappearing fast. In 1950, there were 120,000 coal workers in the state; today there are only around 13,000 workers, less than two percent of the states workforce.
Despite the relentless hardship, Manchin figured out a way to do pretty well for himself. Joe Manchin will absolutely throw humanity under the coal train without blinking an eye, says Maria Gunnoe, director of the Mother Jones Community Foundation and a longtime West Virginia activist. My friends and I have a joke about his kind: Theyd mine their mommas grave for a buck.
So it was no surprise to Gunnoe that during an appearance on Fox News a week before Christmas, Manchin knifed President Bidens first-term agenda by announcing that he could not support the $1.8 trillion Build Back Better Act: I have tried everything I know to do to support this, he told Fox host Bret Baier. Never mind that the bill includes billions of dollars in programs that would help West Virginians struggling with poverty and hardship, or that without the tax breaks and other clean-energy measures in the bill, Bidens goal of cutting U.S. greenhouse-gas emissions in half from 2005 levels would be all but impossible to achieve. And without U.S. leadership on climate, the chances that the nations of the world will reduce emissions fast enough to hold warming at 1.5 C, which is the threshold for dangerous climate change, is virtually zero. If Build Back Better goes down, says John Podesta, a Democratic powerbroker and former special adviser to President Obama who has been deeply involved in international climate negotiations, then we are completely fucked.
Achilleaze
(15,543 posts)and
r
niyad
(113,279 posts)onecaliberal
(32,852 posts)Two months ago. Now I guess its okay.
Blaukraut
(5,693 posts)When you have his Democratic colleagues, even under condition of anonymity, saying they don't trust him, it should be allowed to call him out here, too.
onecaliberal
(32,852 posts)Blaukraut
(5,693 posts)onecaliberal
(32,852 posts)Got it.
dchill
(38,481 posts)BeckyDem
(8,361 posts)Celerity
(43,333 posts)If any and all legitimate (and this certainly is legitimate) criticism of Manchin and/or Sinema was banned, I would not be long for the board. I do not play robotic 'toe the party's most rightward line possible, be it right or wrong' games. Many here do not, thank dog. That goose-step mentality is for the Rethugs to manifest, as they only seek to destroy and then rule the resultant wasteland.
Conversely, a small, overly vocal group here desperately wants that further rightward lurch to become the party's principal modus operandi, ie move as rightward as possible, purge as much of the left as is possible. They adore punching left, and abhor pushback against the furthest right of the party. Proggy punch-ups and kickabouts, all good, yet even fairly mild dissent towards and exposure of a Manchin or Sinema type, always bad.
Notice the main yips and yaps from certain quarters about tax policy in the 2 infrastructure bills were not about the fact that the majority of the hideous Trump tax cuts for the rich have been left intact, no no no. The main whingeing was about ensuring that the massively regressive, far too high SALT Cap increase was allowed in. A cap raise, as it stands, that goes (hundreds of billions in tax cuts) 96% to the richest 20 per cent, and 56 per cent straight to the richest ONE per cent (it takes a minimum of around $12 million in net worth to qualify as a 1%er) of Americans. The bottom 80% of Americans will see little (a few near the top of that 80%) to fuckall (almost the entire group) in tax breaks.
onecaliberal
(32,852 posts)And I also said he was voting how his owners wanted him to vote.
Working people are surfs to the weather and as you can see even when democracy is at stake, they cant be bothered to do the moral and right thing. What a fucked up
Place to be. We really ARE the shithole country that can afford to care for its people but instead allows 50 people to have more money than 100 million people. And for heaven sakes dont say it out loud.
OMGWTF
(3,955 posts)Celerity
(43,333 posts)of it, as you draw a swarm of posters with multiple typologies and many different motivations and any chance for any sort of cogent debate is soon gone.
brush
(53,774 posts)as well for monthsand his daughter's questionable connection toe the Epi-Pen rip-off business.
AZLD4Candidate
(5,688 posts)Zell Miller and Joe Lieberman come to mind from years ago.
Joe Manchin and Sinema come to mind now.
stage left
(2,962 posts)If so, I voted not to hide your post. I think we should be able to express our opinion about the actions of any politician as long as we don't post a foaming at the mouth diatribe.
ShazzieB
(16,389 posts)OldBaldy1701E
(5,126 posts)FakeNoose
(32,634 posts)I knew it too but I didn't have the moxy to post it like you did.
Thank you friend!
CentralMass
(15,265 posts)UTUSN
(70,686 posts)barbtries
(28,789 posts)I'm working but will try to get to it later, though I have a feeling the title tells me all I need to know. All his bluster about insisting on bipartisanship is just bullshit.
NoMoreRepugs
(9,417 posts)Ray Bruns
(4,093 posts)certainot
(9,090 posts)radio station propaganda operation that's been kicking our ass for 30 years.
all they have to do to win majorities in both houses in 2022 is stop ignoring it - use the MIT AI prototype to analyze and expose it - - protest and boycott the crap out of it until the radio ad industry has to break it up to avoid most of their advertisers from deserting it.
republicans would lose manny many races without it, and manchin and sinema would lose their leverage even as they saw it coming
CatWoman
(79,301 posts)Fiendish Thingy
(15,601 posts)Historic NY
(37,449 posts)If Biden doesn't go to WV to sell his plan to the people, its lost.
onecaliberal
(32,852 posts)UTUSN
(70,686 posts)After all, BEGALA says he's a "good Democrat".
Nay
(12,051 posts)as a way to just take over everything? From dogcatcher to cops to state reps to . . . senators? Now they have run and won supposedly Democratic nominations for office. That's how bad it has gotten.
2naSalit
(86,577 posts)CrispyQ
(36,461 posts)How does he look them in the eye on their birthdays? I simply don't get how any of these republicans with grandchildren vote against climate change. Are they really that craven? I guess so.
not fooled
(5,801 posts)will allow them to buy their way out of the worst consequences.
CrispyQ
(36,461 posts)that we (meaning the entire species) lack the imagination to visualize just how much the environment is going to change over the next few decades. I live down the road from a grass fire that took out an entire subdivision in a few hours. In December, no less. Just outside Denver. That was a high end neighborhood, too, desirable for the open space around it. The very thing that destroyed it. I know it's kind of like looking at an accident as you pass by, but I wish there were some drone footage of how fast the fire spread across those open plains. It must have just been Whooooooooossssssshhhhh. It was so dry. So windy.
And because the costs of global warming are manifesting themselves one diverse disaster at a time, spread out geographically and temporally, the actual magnitude of the cumulative impact becomes even harder for most people to grasp.
XacerbatedDem
(511 posts)"A planet, if you can keep it."
olegramps
(8,200 posts)LudwigPastorius
(9,139 posts)current election cycle.
It's all on OpenSecrets.org.
KS Toronado
(17,220 posts)In one a year we can ignore Manchin, even give him some payback.
OMGWTF
(3,955 posts)Elect more and better Democrats and make this disingenuous coal whore irrelevant.
KS Toronado
(17,220 posts)in 3 or 5 years would be nice. IMHO
TheBlackAdder
(28,189 posts)KS Toronado
(17,220 posts)and just like the FailedCoupGuy, it's all about them and not what's good for everybody.
Magoo48
(4,708 posts)What do we do about it?
Celerity
(43,333 posts)corrupt AF daughter. Biden is too decent of a human to go there I wager.
Nay
(12,051 posts)HUAJIAO
(2,383 posts)should be going after REPUBLICANS. !!
None of them NOT A ONE has voted for Biden's proposal(s).
They are democracy destroying traitors but also destroying the economy
TheRickles
(2,061 posts)marieo1
(1,402 posts)He is NOT a democrat...........he is part of the gang of corporate leaders that think only of themselves. Why would he not support President Biden's 'Build Back Better'? Manchin should get out of the political arena. He thinks he can fool all of us by calling himself a Democrat!!! We Democrats know better. I remember the 'Epi Pen thievery!! He and his family are all alike!!
czarjak
(11,269 posts)ZonkerHarris
(24,223 posts)llashram
(6,265 posts)so much corruption/truth about this DINO
Meadowoak
(5,545 posts)And you can take that to the bank.
Evolve Dammit
(16,725 posts)Blue Owl
(50,355 posts)burrowowl
(17,639 posts)colsohlibgal
(5,275 posts)The way to do away with this is Public Funding Of Elections. Its that simple.
RayStar
(417 posts)For the love of money people will do almost anything.
moondust
(19,978 posts)understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it.
Upton Sinclair
Never argue with a man whose job depends on not being convinced.
H.L. Mencken
librechik
(30,674 posts)Bayard
(22,062 posts)Trying to appease this asshole is useless. We take things out of this bill that really need to be there, hoping to win his approval, and he still turns his nose up at it.
Put everything back in the bill that has been laid aside. Then, call out the Dem version of Guido to visit Mr. Manchin and twist his arm. Yes, Biden is too nice. He's a good man. This situation has gotten to the point where it requires someone(s) with a mean streak, and absolute focus.
Who would fit the bill?