Joe Manchin
February 12, 2022 — Paul Mirengoff
When the latest inflation numbers came out this week, Joe Manchin used the occasion to again denounce appropriating trillions and trillions of dollars in new spending. This comment, of course, was a shot at the Democrats’ build back better proposal. I suggested that this boondoggle was on life support. But now, after all these months, the White House seems finally to be listening to Manchin’s concerns over inflation and the
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February 10, 2022 — Paul Mirengoff
The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) reports that the Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers (CPI-U) increased 0.6 percent in January on a seasonally adjusted basis. Over the last 12 months, the all items index increased 7.5 percent. That’s a 40-year high. I’ll take the BLS’ word over my impressions. However, I feel like the prices I’m paying have risen more than 7.5 percent in just six months.
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January 19, 2022 — Paul Mirengoff
Alabama’s great football coach Nick Saban, a native of West Virginia, has signed a public letter urging Joe Manchin to support the Senate bill that would force the views of liberal Democrats regarding voting on the states. Saban and Manchin are said to be friends. The letter was also signed by West Virginia-connected sports figures Jerry West, Paul Tagliabue, Oliver Luck, and Darryl Talley. Saban added an important footnote to
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December 20, 2021 — Paul Mirengoff
As Democrats continue to trash Joe Manchin, we learn that they have succeeded in confirming the highest number of federal judges in the first year of a presidency in four decades. The Senate has confirmed 40 judges this year. That’s more than twice the number in Donald Trump’s first year. This couldn’t have happened without Joe Manchin. Without Manchin, the West Virginia seat he holds would be occupied by a
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December 20, 2021 — Steven Hayward
The wheels are coming off the Democrat school bus that Kamala Harris bragged about back when she was calling Joe Biden a racist. First up, there’s not enough popcorn to take in watching the left freak out about the “treachery” of Joe Manchin. The New Republic’s Michael Tomasky, just to take one example, is demanding to know why Manchin is betraying his home state of West Virginia, while Bernie Sanders demands
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December 19, 2021 — Scott Johnson
Referring to our hope for the defeat of the Democrats’ Bummer Beyond Belief bill, I wrote earlier this year that if you’re relying on Joe Manchin, you’re in a bad spot. As the Senate has adjourned for the year, I want to acknowledge that I was wrong. Manchin stood fast. Manchin didn’t cave. Manchin was the man. If he caves in 2022, I won’t be surprised, but I thought he
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December 9, 2021 — Scott Johnson
The minders in the daycare operation at the White House sent their ward out on the road yesterday to sell his money-is-no-object-for-socialism plan in Kansas City yesterday. The White House has posted the text of his remarks here. Something tells me that President Biden’s “social infrastructure” inside the White House is lacking. The verbal road went on forever, or seemed to. Putting the mangled numbers to one side, I found
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November 18, 2021 — Paul Mirengoff
Today, the House started debating the more than $2 trillion spending package that Democrats hope ultimately to push through the Senate in some form via reconciliation. By agreement, a vote in the House couldn’t take place until the Congressional Budget Office completed its analysis of whether the bill is fully paid for. Now, the CBO has spoken, paving the way for a vote. It estimates that enacting the legislation “would
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November 11, 2021 — Paul Mirengoff
The Washington Post reports that “the White House was thrown on the defensive Wednesday by an inflation report that showed the largest annual increase in prices in three decades.” The inflation report, says the Post, “trigger[ed] fresh criticisms of President Biden’s legislative plans on Capitol Hill and rais[ed] questions about what the administration can do to stem the politically perilous tide of rising prices.” Here’s one way Team Biden can
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November 2, 2021 — Paul Mirengoff
The Virginia gubernatorial race is the big news of the week. The outcome of the race, whatever it is, will remain Topic A for a while, as it should. However, the struggle of congressional Democrats to pass their two spending bills — infrastructure and reconciliation — is the big news of this Autumn, and continues to provide headlines. Yesterday’s development, reported by the Wall Street Journal, was Sen. Joe Manchin’s
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October 20, 2021 — Steven Hayward
Mother Jones magazine, which is quite left but actually serious about doing good reporting, has a story out today that has everyone buzzing—Joe Manchin is thinking about leaving the Democratic caucus in the Senate, and becoming an independent. I expect this means he would caucus with Republicans, because otherwise he’d likely have to surrender his chairmanship of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee. From MJ: In recent days, Sen.
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October 12, 2021 — Paul Mirengoff
Back in 2009-10, when the Democrats controlled 59-60 Senate seats, they were pleased as punch to pass a $1 trillion stimulus package and the “camel” known as Obamacare. Sure, some Dems wished for even more stimulus money and the “horse” of single-payer health insurance. But there was no serious resistance to settling for less and few public complaints about not getting more. Twelve years later, with the Dems controllingly only
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October 11, 2021 — Scott Johnson
Last Thursday evening Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell rounded up the Republican support necessary to raise the debt limit until December. Senator McConnell’s assistance did not earn any gratitude from Senator Majority Leader Chuck Schumer. Schumer took to the Senate floor to excoriate Senate Republicans for creating a “risky drama.” What had been avoided, Schumer said, was “a first-ever, Republican-manufactured default on the national debt.” “Republicans played a dangerous and
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October 8, 2021 — John Hinderaker
Joe Biden’s catastrophic slide in the polls has robbed him of the persuasive power that more successful presidents enjoy. We see this in the way the deep split in the Democratic Party is playing out: Biden wants to tip the scales toward the far left, but he lacks the ability to do so. Thus he casually lets it be known that Kyrsten Sinema isn’t returning his phone calls: While it
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October 5, 2021 — Paul Mirengoff
When conservatives attack the Democrats’ attempt to pass an enormous reconciliation package, we focus on the cost and the left-wing agenda items the Dems are imposing, some of which have little to do with what is properly the subject of budget reconciliation. These are valid attacks and they resonate not just with strong conservatives, but also with those on the center-right. When Joe Manchin criticizes the $3.5 trillion reconciliation package,
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October 5, 2021 — Scott Johnson
Following remarks on raising the debt ceiling yesterday — remarks whose gist was that Republicans are bad — President Biden took a few questions from the press (White House transcript here). Republicans are guilty of using “procedural tricks” and “elaborate procedural schemes” that call for numerous votes. It’s “a Republican stunt”! Republicans are “playing Russian roulette with the U.S. economy.” Bad! The stalking of Senator Sinema in the ladies’ room
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October 4, 2021 — Paul Mirengoff
Groucho Marx was a big fan of Gilbert and Sullivan. He often played recordings of their comic operettas at home to the annoyance of his wife. One day Groucho said to her, “did you know that Gilbert couldn’t stand Sullivan and Sullivan couldn’t stand Gilbert?” The long-suffering woman replied, “it doesn’t surprise me, I can’t stand either one of them.” That line came back to me when I read the
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