#manchin

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What can possibly explain Manchin’s and Sinema’s votes against voting rights last Wednesday? Why did they create a false narrative that the legislation had to be “bipartisan” when everyone -- themselves included -- knew bipartisanship was impossible?

Why did they say they couldn’t support changing the filibuster rules when only last month they voted for an exception to the filibuster that allowed debt ceiling legislation to pass with only Democratic votes?

Why did they co-sponsor voting rights legislation and then vote to kill the very same legislation? Why did Manchin vote for the “talking filibuster” in 2011 yet vote against it now?

Part of the answer to all these questions can be found in the giant wads of corporate cash flowing into their campaign coffers. 

But if you want the whole answer, you need to look at the single biggest factor affecting almost all national politicians I’ve dealt with: Big egos. Manchin’s and Sinema’s are now among the biggest.

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Before February of last year, almost no one outside West Virginia had ever heard of Joe Manchin, and almost no one outside of Arizona (and probably few within the state) had ever heard of Kyrsten Sinema. Now, they’re notorious. They’re Washington celebrities. Their photos grace every major news outlet in America.

This sort of attention is addictive. Once it seeps into the bloodstream, it becomes an all-consuming force. I’ve known politicians who have become permanently and irrevocably intoxicated by it.

I’m not talking simply about power, although that’s certainly part of it. I’m talking about narcissism – the primal force driving so much of modern America, but whose essence is concentrated in certain places such as Wall Street, Hollywood, and the United States Senate.

Once addicted, the pathologically narcissistic politician can become petty in the extreme, taking every slight as a deep personal insult. I’m told that Manchin asked Biden’s staff not to blame him for the delay of “Build Back Better,” and was then infuriated when Biden suggested Manchin bore some of the responsibility. I’m also told that if Biden wants to restart negotiations with Manchin on “Build Back Better,” he’s got to rename the package because Manchin is so angry he won’t vote for anything going by that name.

The Senate is not the world’s greatest deliberative body, but it is the world’s greatest stew of egos battling for attention. Every senator believes he or she has what it takes to be president. Most believe they’re far more competent than whoever occupies the Oval Office.

Yet out of one hundred senators, only a handful are chosen for interviews on the Sunday talk shows, only one or two are lampooned on SNL, and very few get a realistic shot at the presidency. The result is intense competition for national attention.

Again and again, I’ve watched worthy legislation sink because particular senators didn’t feel they were getting enough credit, or enough personal attention from a president, or insufficient press attention, or unwanted press attention, or that another senator (sometimes from the same party) was getting too much attention.

Several people on the Hill who have watched Sinema at close range since she became a senator tell me she relished all the attention she got when she gave her very theatrical thumbs down to increasing the minimum wage, and since then has thrilled at her national celebrity as a spoiler.

Biden prides himself on being a member of the senatorial “club” for many years before ascending to the presidency and argued during the 2020 campaign that this familiarity would give him an advantage in dealing with his former colleagues. But it may have worked against him. Senators don’t want clubby familiarity from a president. They want a president to shine the national spotlight on them.

Some senators get so whacky in the national limelight that they can’t function without it. Trump had that effect on Republicans. Before Trump, Lindsay Graham was almost a normal human being. Then Trump directed a huge amp of national attention Graham’s way — transmogrifying Graham into a bizarro creature who’d say anything Trump wanted in order to keep the attention coming.

Not all senators are egomaniacs, of course. Most lie on an ego spectrum ranging from mildly inflated to pathological.

(via Joe Manchin Says He’s Thinking ‘Seriously’ About Leaving the Democratic Party - The New York Times)

(via Democrats lack votes to end filibuster for abortion protections)

guess who is still willing to fuck over the US for MONEY!

these TWO

The corruption of senator manchin has been evident for a long time, but nothing has been done about it. He’s made and continues to make a lot of money on his ownership of a coal mine, but as a Senator he’s allowed to do that with proper disclosure. But should he be allowed to be the Chair of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, which has the power to advance or kill legislation designed to address climate change, which may be against his financial interests? Why is he still in that position? It’s Senator Schumer’s problem, as Majority Leader of the Senate.

Now this story from Truthout that he and his wife have been steering millions of dollars in federal, state and private moneys to enhance the nature preserves surrounding the condo they own in West Virginia. What sort of perverted mind believes this is ok? So long as my land is protected and pretty, and nature is preserved and conserved, and I can enjoy it, all is good. What about you? Tough shit.

Note the reference in the excerpt, below, telling us that President Biden appointed manchin’s wife to the Appalachian Regional Commission, which has substantial say in what happens in those woods. WTF?

Excerpt from this Truthout story:

The Intercept finds in an article published Monday that, together, Joe and Gayle Manchin have directed over $15 million into the Canaan Valley in northeastern West Virginia, where they have owned a condo in the town of Davis since 2011.

The condo, around which Joe Manchin goes fishing, is surrounded by nature preserves like Blackwater Falls State Park and the Canaan Valley National Wildlife Refuge. It is one of several properties owned by the couple which, together, are worth between $4.5 million and $12.8 million as of 2020.

In 2018, the senator secured $7 million in legislation written by the Senate Appropriations Committee, of which he is a member, to rebuild the Canaan Valley National Wildlife Refuge’s visitor center less than a mile away from his property. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, which works to preserve the valley and stock waterways that Joe Manchin fishes in, uses part of that visitor center as offices, Daniel Boguslaw writes for The Intercept.

The senator again funneled money into the reserve this year, securing $8 million to build a new water treatment plant in the valley through his spot on the powerful Appropriations Committee.

Gayle Manchin, meanwhile, last year got $25,000 for water analysis projects in the valley and, in May, got a $1.2 million grant awarded to the area to build trails around the region. She was nominated by Joe Biden last year to co-chair the Appalachian Regional Commission, which oversees millions of dollars in grants.

Photos of the two areas that received a bundle of money from us, all arranged by manchin:

Blackwater Falls State Park:

Canaan Valley Nation Wildlife Refuge: