Manchin was, kind of desperately, looking for someone or something to blame for the brutal dismantling of the Democrats' Build Back Better agenda-- but everyone knows that it was him and Kyrsten Sinema, along with a handful of corrupt, reactionary Blue Dogs in the House (No Labels' "Unbreakable 9," led by Josh Gottheimer, Ed Case and Kurt Schrader).
So why is Manchin looking for someone to blame? Is he ashamed-- or even afraid-- of how West Virginians will react when they understand how much of what they were hoping for he cruelly destroyed? You bet he is. Yesterday, he was whining about paid family leave, one of the programs he vetoed-- and one immensely popular among voters. He tried claiming, falsely, that he supports paid family leave and blame it on the Senate rules. "I'm working on paid leave. I support paid leave but not in this bill in the way it's presented because they had to-- they really had to adjust the paid leave to fit in to reconciliation In this bill you can't get it done because of the constraints we have." That's another bold-faced lie from a bold-faced liar, who is claiming falsely that paid family leave won't "pass muster" with the parliamentarian.
Why is he bothering to make up stories that are so easily debunked? Yesterday Data For Progress released a new poll, completed Monday that shows that voters support the Build Back Better Act 61-32%. Almost all the opposition comes from Republicans. (Just 33% of Republicans support the legislation.)
Even in West Virginia, a late August poll of likely voters, showed 68%-25% support for the bill. Among Democrats that was 90% to 4% and there was even a big margin (+22%) among Republican voters.
As for Manchin's scumbag allies in the House, 5 of the worst-- Ed Case (Blue Dog-HI), Kurt Schrader (Blue Dog-OR), Josh Gottheimer (Blue Dog-NJ), Stephanie Murphy (Blue Dog-FL) and Jared Golden (Blue Dog-ME)-- sent Pelosi this letter to, once again, obstruct passage of the Build Back Better legislation. This might be a good time to ask you to visit the Blue America Primary A Blue Dog page here. Last night, Sergio Alcubilla, the Honolulu progressive taking on Ed Case told me that the incumbent "does not speak for his constituents when he says he is doing his due diligence to properly serve them. If he was, he would know how important the BBB Act would be for families in Hawai‘i who need affordable child care, who would benefit from paid family leave, and for our kūpuna (seniors) who need help with medical costs not currently covered by Medicare. He would not be trying to delay President Biden and weaken the Democratic agenda. Instead, he should just honestly say that his corporate and wealthy donors need more time to find out how this will impact their bottom line. Investment in our infrastructure goes hand-in-hand with investment in our people. That was the plan in the beginning and should be the plan moving forward. We cannot let Rep. Ed Case and the signers of this letter confuse us with their intent. If they really wanted to serve their constituents, they should be asking what they can do to make sure BBB passes, not how they can delay it further."
joe manchin is a boilerplate worthless feckless corrupt narcissist neoliberal fascist pussy democrap... maybe moreso than most... by a little. Yes, that means he's a sadist. you are correct.
and he was funded and supported and re-elected by the party and $cummer to be in the $enate and to do exactly what he is doing... thwarting all the pretend progressive shit they talk about but never fucking *DO*.
If it wasn't him, it would be the next one in line. They have 48 who would willingly do the deed.