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Joe Manchin Gets Exposed, Huge: Part of a Secret Koch Lobbying Effort to Block Biden Agenda

Senator Joe Manchin and, to a lesser extent, Senator Kyrsten Sinema are two Democrats that are largely holding back all the work put in to elect Joe Biden and shock the world by electing two senators out of Georgia to give the slimmest margin of power over the senate. As to changing the rules to only require a majority to vote for a bill, Manchin has single handily kept alive the single worst rule in American democracy.

Manchin says he doesn’t want to ruin the Senate history of bipartisanship and working together. How’d that “bipartisanship” go on the January 6th investigation, Joe? And that history only goes back to the Civil Rights movement, to block Civil Rights legislation.

Joe is full of sh*t. He is drunk on power, being the second most powerful man in Washington. Except, he didn’t get that way on his own, CNBC [1]  has now exposed him for what he is, an easily manipulated politician out for his own election prospects, and Tea Party/MAGA pawn. The Koch network has worked hard, lobbying behind the scenes, to manipulate Manchin into ushering in the Koch agenda. From a “Americans for Prosperity” statement (It should be “The Wealthiest Americans for Gross Prosperity”:

“A wise man once said that it takes a lot of courage to stand up to your enemies but that it takes even more courage up to stand up to your friends,” Ted Ellis, director of coalitions for Americans for Prosperity’s government affairs team, told the audience. “And that’s what Joe Manchin is doing right now. He’s displaying, I think, a lot of courage and we should applaud that.

He is NOT Joe Biden or Chuck Schumer’s friend. They cannot get one single piece of legislation passed unless it’s a GOP-MAGA bill. Right now, Joe Manchin is standing up for his “friends,” he is doing the Tea Party/MAGA business.

“Our grassroots are critically important and it would be difficult to say that they are more important anywhere than West Virginia right now because of the dramatic impact that our grassroots have in West Virginia in encouraging Senator Manchin to stand strong on this point,” Casey Mattox, vice president of legal and judicial Strategy at Americans for Prosperity, said during the presentation.

How very true. Buying one man has bought them control of the Senate. Ah, so Manchin isn’t so brave after all. He is standing with his voting friends in West Virginia.

And the single worst part is that it’s horrifically anti-democratic, without even bringing up the fact that the 50 Democratic Senators represent 40 million more Americans than the 50 Republicans. Kamala Harris, the tie-breaking vote represents seven million more Americans. If we had seen one tiny ounce of bipartisanship in the last 12 years from the GOP, perhaps it could somewhat be justified.

But Joe Manchin alone just blocked a real investigation into January 6th and Joe Biden’s infrastructure plan, that doesn’t sound like democracy to us, nor does it sound like debate. It sounds like a Koch operative.

Ellis is listed on a recent lobbying report as one of the Americans for Prosperity officials who in the first quarter of 2021 lobbied against the For the People Act and Biden’s $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief plan. The lobbyists targeted House and Senate lawmakers.

There it is. Joe Manchin is effectively blocking exactly what the people voted for, and he’s doing it to prevent the Democrats from passing a thing. Because the one thing we know about Mitch McConnell, he never, ever, ever, debates and compromises. How did that compromise on SCOTUS judges go, Joe? Pretty quick u-turn on the McConnell means of getting SCOTUS appointees passed, yes? How did you do on that one, buddy?

Here is another Americans for Prosperity line (Tea-Party, MAGA)

“Unfortunately, this bill and the tactics some are using to pass it would make it harder to work together – chilling debate, worsening partisanship, and setting up a false choice between voting rights and free speech. We’re for both. Like the ACLU, our concerns focus on the portion that targets the First Amendment. And we’ll continue to defend those rights.”

THERE IS NO DEBATE. IT IS BLOCKED.

We believe they are talking about opening up the law prohibiting suing Facebook and Twitter for policing their platform. But the argument works perfectly well on any single bill. The Senate Democrats proposed the January 6th investigation. The Republicans objected and asked for a half dozen changes. The Democrats gave the GOP every single change they requested, in other words, there was a debate! Compromise! The compromise was to give the GOP everything. And the GOP voted no anyway. That should tell Manchin everything he needs to know. But he doesn’t care about debate, senate rules, or any of that. He knows that he won’t be reelected in West Virginia if he follows the Biden plan. Thus, they will elect a Republican. But since Joe functions as a Republican, it actually doesn’t even matter.

Even worse? Joe damned well knows that the second that Republicans have the majority, that rule is gone forever. McConnell will flush it like a bad burrito.

Nice job, Joe. You may have a “D” next to your name but we see more “R-M-T” next to your name.

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Peace, y’all
Jason
[email protected] and on Twitter @JasonMiciak