Catching Up With The Dynamic Duo Of Prima Donna Democratic Divas Undermining The Democratic Agenda (Continued)

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News has been occurring so fast and furious over the past few weeks that these prima donna Democratic divas undermining the Democratic agenda hope that you were too distracted to have seen this reporting on what these corrupt corporate Demcorats have been doing. Ah, but I save everything and will get around to it, eventually.

Next up, West Virginia hillbilly coal baron Sen. “Mazarrati” Manchin.

Are you missing those monthly child tax credit payments you were receiving until the end of last year? You have 50 Senate Republicans and Sen. “Maserati” Manchin to thank for the end of your child tax credit payments.

This wealthy coal baron doesn’t believe that you and your kids need any federal assistance, even though this program reduced child poverty by almost 50% last year. But don’t ask him to give up his federal coal subsidies – corporate welfare is sacrosanct, dontcha know.

I don’t know how to set up one of those web sites where you can send a sarcastic “thank you” note to senator “Maserati” Manchin for short-changing America’s children, but someone really should do that (and include all 50 Republican senators).

The Hill reported back in January, More than 30 million families to lose child tax credit checks:

Millions of families this weekend will stop receiving monthly child tax payments for the first time in months after Congress failed to pass an extension of the expanded credit.

As lawmakers struggle to revive talks to renew the expansion, more than 30 million families that have been receiving the monthly payments since July will not see another round on Saturday.

Democrats temporarily expanded the child tax credit in early 2021 as part of a sweeping coronavirus relief package enacted under President Biden.

Under the expansion, Democrats removed work requirements for the credit, raised the maximum credit amount and allowed those eligible to access half of the credit amount through monthly payments.

Many Democrats and advocates have called for the expanded credit to be made permanent, touting it as significant contributor to reducing child poverty by allowing those in the lowest-income households to access the full amount, as well as a means to help provide relief to middle-income families.

Democratic leadership aimed to pass the extension as part of a larger social and climate spending plan known as the Build Back Better Act, a cornerstone of Biden’s economic agenda.

But those efforts hit a roadblock amid opposition from Sen. “Maserati” Manchin (D-W.Va.), a key holdout who has expressed concerns about the expanded credit in addition to the overall package in its current form. Manchin has cited rising inflation as one of his reasons.

“I cannot vote to continue with this piece of legislation. I just can’t. I tried everything humanly possible. I can’t get there,” Manchin declared on “Fox News Sunday” in December. “This is a ‘no’ on this legislation.”

Democrats have expressed hope that the tax credit and larger talks can be revived and expect negotiations to pick up in the weeks ahead.

Why would you think this? Did you not learn anything from being burned by this prima donna Democratic diva’s bad faith? This is a false hope, as “Maserati” Manchin made clear last week. Manchin delivers grim news for Biden’s Build Back Better plan: ‘It’s dead’:

Sen. “Maserati” Manchin of West Virginia offered a grim pronouncement on the status of President Joe Biden’s remaining domestic agenda, saying on Tuesday that the Build Back Better act is “dead,” underscoring how the sweeping proposal to expand the social safety net has hit a wall with no clear path forward even as Democrats hope to eventually pass some kind of scaled-back version of the legislation.

Manchin’s objections to the legislation have been the central obstacle to progress for Democrats with the West Virginia moderate dealing a major blow to the proposal late last year by saying he would not vote for it, effectively ending months of painstaking bad faith negotiations. Now, as lawmakers turn their attention to a number of pressing agenda items, including an upcoming government funding deadline on February 18, Manchin is making clear that he does not believe restarting negotiations onBuild Back Better is a top priority.

Asked on Tuesday about the status of Build Back Better, Manchin responded, “What Build Back Better bill? There is no, I mean, I don’t know what you all are talking about.”

Pressed by CNN on whether he has had talks on the proposal, Manchin said, “No, no, no, it’s dead.”

When asked later to elaborate on his comment that the legislation is “dead,” the West Virginia Democrat said, “If they’re talking about the whole big package, that’s gone.” On the possibility of supporting a smaller package, he said, “We’ll see what people come with. I don’t know.”

Don’t fall for his bad faith bullshit again. He’ll just string you along for months that you don’t have to waste, only to announce that he will not support any bill that he never intended to support in the first instance. Cut this Vichy Democrat appeaser of the Sedition party loose. No more negotiations with this bad faith collaborator with the enemies of democracy.

Manchin once again raised concerns over inflation and said that passing a government spending bill [by February 18] “has to be done first.” He also pointed to bipartisan efforts to reform the Electoral Count Act as a priority, saying those talks are “on a hot track now.”

While the Electoral Count Act does need to be reformed, it is no substitute for protecting the right to vote in Manchin’s own Freedom to Vote Act, and the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act. Think of it as coming to the theater during the last act of the play. All the election shenanigans have already occurred, and the Congress certifying the Electoral College vote is the very last ministerial act – Congress could be certifying an election result obtained through voter suppression and intimidation, and voter disenfranchisement. And the Electoral Count Act only applies to presidential elections, it does nothing to protect the right to vote in federal, state and local elections.

[A]fter Manchin’s declaration in December that he did not support the BBB proposal in its current form, Democrats have had to significantly reduce the scope of their ambitions and have instead expressed hope they can still pass key elements of the plan even if that means ultimately having to go forward with a far narrower package that would force them to discard other priorities. President Joe Biden has described the effort as passing “big chunks” of Build Back Better.

But Manchin has already set a high bar to passing a scaled-back version, previously saying that they are “starting from scratch” and will need to deal with pressing national issues — like the pandemic, inflation and the federal debt — before addressing a cornerstone of the White House’s agenda.

On Tuesday, Manchin further elaborated on his concerns and priorities.

“My main concern is inflation. The high costs to everyone in my state and around the country I hear from,” he said, “And also the geopolitical unrest we have in Ukraine. That’s going to be a big cost, some sooner than later. And on top of that: Covid. We have to see which way Covid goes, and what affect its going to have on our economy. Those are still the driving forces.”

This is a man making up excuses. Did he not do the required reading of the report from the Joint Economic Committee? HOW THE BUILD BACK BETTER ACT WOULD REDUCE INFLATIONARY PRESSURE AND CUT COSTS FOR FAMILIES. Of course not. “Maserati” Manchin is full of shit. And Ukraine? Seriously Dude?

Just like the other half of the dynamic duo of prima donna Democratic divas, Kyrsten Sinema, Joe Manchin reaps thousands from GOP megadonor after backing off BBB deal:

After he announced in December he would not be supporting President Joe Biden’s Build Back Better Act, Sen. Joe Manchin’s political action committee received the maximum allowable contribution from billionaire Republican donor Ken Langone.

The Hill reported late Friday that the wealthy investor, who supported former President Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign, gave $5,000 to Manchin’s Country Roads PAC less than two weeks after the right-wing Democratic senator from West Virginia said he would not join his party in supporting the president’s agenda.

Langone’s wife also contributed $5,000 to the PAC, while other political donations the megadonor made around the same time went to the Koch family-backed Americans for Prosperity Action and the Senate Leadership Fund, a GOP super PAC.

As Common Dreams reported in November, Langone praised Manchin’s “guts and courage” for standing in the way of the Build Back Better Act’s passage and promised to hold “one of the biggest fundraisers” he’s ever hosted to support the senator.

Manchin in recent months demanded that the Democrats remove the Clean Electricity Performance Program from the Build Back Better Act, dashing plans to put the U.S. “electric sector on a path to zero emissions,” as one lawmaker said. He also refused to support paid family leave and an extension of the expanded Child Tax Credit, which has helped tens of millions of families afford rising grocery bills, child care, and other essentials, before ultimately stalling negotiations over the package in December.

In a 2018 book titled I Love Capitalism, Langone wrote about his objection to popular policies pushed by progressive lawmakers including “free college tuition” and “single-payer healthcare.”

Oh, that’s gone too thanks to “Maserati” Manchin and his rich Republican friends.

https://twitter.com/katierogers/status/1490688217447911429

Although right-wing Sen. Joe Manchin’s financial conflicts of interest have been well-documented, a new video released last week details how the West Virginia Democrat’s “brazen” corruption has derailed his party’s immensely popular economic policies. New 5-minute video summarizes Joe Manchin’s ‘brazen’ corruption:

Not only did Manchin take more than $1 million from corporate-tied PACs last year as he watered down and obstructed the Build Back Better Act (BBB), but he “repeatedly timed his key attacks on [President Joe] Biden’s agenda to occur at events with his largest corporate donors,” according to pro-worker media group More Perfect Union, which summarizes its research in the following five-minute video.

“It’s more than just receiving corporate checks, though he gets a lot of those,” says the video. “Manchin executes policy decisions that corporations peddle to him and nothing exemplifies that more than the way he’s fought the Build Back Better bill for working families.”

“Time and time again at critical junctures during the debate over Build Back Better,” More Perfect Union continues, “Manchin attended corporate events in West Virginia and stood with executives to declare his opposition to working-class legislation, all while setting personal records for corporate fundraising.”

For instance, just as Congress was set to reconvene last summer to advance BBB, “Manchin threw up a giant roadblock,” states the video. Sitting with Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.) at an early September event at the West Virginia Chamber of Commerce, Manchin claimed that it was time to “hit the pause button” on federal spending—hundreds of billions of dollars in Pentagon funding not included.

Companies in attendance that day included coal firms Dominion and First Energy, which helped Manchin—chair of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee—claim the title of Congress’ top recipient of fossil fuel cash this election cycle.

In addition to receiving campaign contributions from fossil fuel executives, Manchin makes nearly $500,000 per year—roughly three times his congressional salary—from investments in his family’s coal empire, raking in more than $5.2 million since joining the Senate in 2010 while refusing to answer questions about his ties to the industry.

Pharmaceutical giant Mylan—which was led by Manchin’s daughter, Heather Bresch, from 2012 to 2020—was also at the West Virginia Chamber of Commerce event in September. Bresch played a direct rolein Mylan’s EpiPen price-gouging scandal during her tenure as CEO.

The event was moderated by Suzanne Clark, president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

Not only did the Chamber play a pivotal role in the corporate lobbying blitz that sabotaged BBB, but it also paid for “a monthslong radio, billboard, and TV ad campaign to support Manchin,” the video points out.

“Another conservative group, run by [former Vice President] Mike Pence’s chief of staff, Marc Short, spent $400,000 per week on ads bolstering Manchin’s position,” according to More Perfect Union.

As Common Dreams reported last week, Manchin has also been rewarded by GOP megadonor Ken Langone for undermining BBB.

In an example of support he’s received from the corporate media, More Perfect Union points out that immediately after the conclusion of the event at the West Virginia Chamber of Commerce, “Manchin had a column ready to be published in the corporate-friendly editorial pages of [Rupert Mutrdoch’s] Wall Street Journal. The Journal, meanwhile, has churned out a stream of near-daily editorials to laud Manchin and get his back.”

That early September panel in his home state was not the last time Manchin weaponized his widely debunked fears regarding what he has called the nation’s “brutal fiscal reality” to justify his effort to torpedo BBB.

While BBB originally proposed investing $3.5 trillion over 10 years to strengthen the nation’s social safety net and expand clean energy, Manchin and fellow right-wing Democratic Sen. Kyrsten Sinema(Ariz.) continued to chip away at the bill until they had cut it roughly in half.

Although it wasn’t until December that Manchin announced on Fox News that he “cannot” vote for BBB—abandoning his own counteroffer to the Biden White House about two weeks later—he had admittedmonths earlier that his goal was to get the widely criticized bipartisan Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) passed first, which would give him and other conservative Democrats the leverage necessary to spoil more ambitious plans to hike taxes on the rich to fund an improved welfare state and climate action (i.e., bad faith sabotage).

Manchin was the chief architect of the energy portions of the IIJA, which contains $25 billion in potential fossil fuel subsidies as well as $11.3 billion in funding that is expected to benefit his family’s coal brokerage.

When Biden signed the IIJA into law in November—after the House passed it before the Senate passed BBB, over the objections of progressives who warned that decoupling the two pieces of legislation would give corporate Democrats veto power over the stalled bill—Manchin “won the ultimate prize,” states More Perfect Union.

The new video depicts additional meetings Manchin had with top corporate donors or leaders, which were usually followed by an attack on BBB. It was while standing with anti-union Toyota executives, for instance, that Manchin in November announced his opposition to incentives that had been proposed to promote union-made electric vehicles, calling BBB’s labor provisions “un-American.”

Not long after, the West Virginia Democrat made clear his opposition to the proposed ban on offshore drilling in BBB. As More Perfect Union notes, that came just days after Enterprise Products—an oil and gas pipeline company that happened to be Manchin’s largest donor in 2021 as well as his son’s employer—”had announced that it was seeking approval to build the nation’s first offshore oil terminal big enough to serve the largest class of supertankers.”

The prima donna Democratic diva Senators are old-fashioned corrupt politicians who sell their votes (their souls) to the highest bidder, corporate donors driven by greed. They have been bought and paid for with corporate money.