Joe Manchin

Dark night of the coal

Featured image President Biden said Friday during a speech in California on the CHIPS Act that coal plants cost too much money and that his administration will “be shutting these plants down all across America and having wind and solar.” Biden said he recently visited “the site of the largest old coal plant in America” in Massachusetts, which cost “too much money.” “No one is building new coal plants because they can’t »

Goodbye, Manchin Tuesday

Featured image West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin sold his vote to pass the Ignorance Is Strength a/k/a Inflation Reduction Act to Chuck Schumer in exchange for Senate Majority Leader’s promise to include permitting reform on oil and gas projects in the must-pass continuing resolution to fund the government. I called it Manchin’s Wimpy deal. Schumer got his hamburger on the promise that he would pay Manchin in the currency of “permitting reform” »

Man(chin) down

Featured image Yesterday we noted how West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin has played the fool for the Democrats’ tax, climate, and spending bonanza in the absurdly named Inflation Reduction Act. You can’t help but get the feeling that the Democrats are conducting a social science experiment. They are testing voters to ascertain if they’re paying attention. West Virginia voters appear to be paying attention. Drawing on a recent Triton poll, RedState’s Mr. »

Art of the deal, Wimpy style

Featured image West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin signed off on the absurdly named Inflation Reduction Act in lieu of the full Build Back Broke bill that represented the left’s shopping list. Manchin was reported to have signed off on the bill with a Wimpy deal that recalled Popeye’s friend Wimpy. Wimpy adopted the motto “I’ll gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today.” Not a good deal. It was a recurring joke »

The wheedle & the damage done

Featured image In his Wall Street Journal morning editorial report email, Paul Gigot usefully summarizes the damage done in the absurdly named “Inflation Reduction Act” that the Senate is approving via the reconciliation process: The Washington press corps prefers to cover politics over policy, so it’s mostly ignored the details in Sen. Joe Manchin’s tax-and-spending deal with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer. The Journal opinion pages have tried to fill that gaping »

The Manchin version illustrated

Featured image In his morning email blast the great Michael Ramirez pairs his cartoon of the day (below) with my post “The Manchin version.” We are thinking along the same lines, but Michael gets the job done more effectively in fewer words. He titles this one “Buried” and comments in his message: “The Schumer-Manchin Inflation Reduction Act raises taxes, spending, and the prospect of an extended recession but does little to reduce »

The Manchin version

Featured image FOX News has posted the video of Harris Faulkner interviewing Senator Joe Manchin about the fraudulently titled Inflation Reduction Act that he and Senator Schumer have concocted and put into a package to be passed via the reconciliation process. I have embedded the video below. Faulkner touched on the surface of Manchin’s misrepresentations regarding the substance of the bill, although she was insufficiently prepared to challenge them in any detail. »

The uses of burn pits

Featured image The Democrats staged one of their classic dramas with their so-called burn pit legislation. The Senate voted last night to pass the bill to expand health care benefits for veterans exposed to burn pits during their military service. The final vote was 86-11. President Biden can now sign it into law. I took it from the appearance of Jon Stewart to act up and promote the bill in Washington that »

Say it ain’t so, Joe

Featured image Yesterday Senators Schumer and Manchin announced they had arrived at an agreement on a slimmed down Build Back Better spenderama and tax package. This one is absurdly renamed an inflation fighter. How shameless can you get? How stupid do they think we are? The Hill reported on the deal late yesterday afternoon here. Roll Call reported on it here. Politico talked with Manchin for the story “Manchin’s latest shocker: A »

The next build back better

Featured image 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 »

Manchin still balking at spending trillions as inflation hits 40-year high

Featured image 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. »

Nick Saban calls on Manchin to support voting bill

Featured image 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 »

Why Democrats are lucky Joe Manchin is in the Senate

Featured image 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 »

Are Democrats Totally Losing Their Grip?

Featured image 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 »

The Joe Manchin experience [UPDATED by PAUL]

Featured image 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 »

Biden pitches Middle America

Featured image 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 »

Pelosi drives spending spree bill towards vote [UPDATED]

Featured image 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 »