OMG This explains it all.

[BigBearJohn]

https://www.rawstory.com/manchin-for-the-people/

Sen. Joe Manchin, the West Virginia Democrat famous for his vow to maintain the Senate filibuster and thereby scuttle much of President Biden's agenda, recently published an op-ed opposing the For the People Act, Democrats' whopping voting-rights bill. That article strongly echoed talking points from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce — and appeared shortly after the influential pro-business lobby resumed donations to Manchin's campaign after nearly a decade.

Manchin, who co-sponsored the sweeping voting rights legislation in 2019 and has supported filibuster reform in the past, became the first Senate Democrat to oppose the bill this week while reiterating his opposition to changing the filibuster, a key roadblock to voting reform. Skeptical members of Manchin's party have questioned the reasons for his opposition, especially after after a recent poll found that a majority of West Virginia voters support changing the filibuster rules and that 79% of the state's voters — including a large majority of Republicans — support the For the People Act.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., suggested that Manchin's opposition to the proposal and filibuster reform may really be about measures in the bill aimed at cracking down on lobbyists and dark money.

"This is probably just as much a part of Joe Manchin's calculus than anything else," she told MSNBC on Tuesday. "You look at the Koch brothers and you look at organizations like the Heritage Foundation and conservative lobby groups that are doing a victory lap ... over the fact that Manchin refuses to change on the filibuster. And I think that these two things are very closely intertwined."

[lagomorph777]

1. Manchin needs to feel more financial pressure from our side.

...as well as mass protests and maybe a dash of Kompromat.

[KS Toronado]

19. Yes, DAILY MASS PROTESTS against Manchin may be our best hope

to get him to wake up and smell the roses. Surround him every day, morning, noon, & evening whenever he's
out in public. And make sure TV cameras are rolling from news organizations that will air their footage on the
evening news. Come on people of WV & DC start this with dates, times, & locations and people from across the
nation will follow. I will.

[global1]

2. Can We Find A Cache Of Money To Replace Any Monies That Manchin Would Lose.....

jf he stiffs the U.S. CofC and the big money lobbyists.

If this is just about fund raising for Manchin - if another source of money is available to replace any of the monies he's currently getting to turn his back on the Dems - maybe he could be convinced to vote with the Dems and nix the filibuster.

Seems like everything these days boils down to money. When they say its the root of all evil - it really means that in relation to politics.

[Pinback]

8. You'd think a few million $ in the bank would be enough of a cushion

that a public servant could focus on public service.

[OldBaldy1701E]

58. In this greedy country?

According to these animals, there is no 'cushion'. There is no limit to the amount one wants or what one has to do to get it. Manchin is above that line that says he has to worry about anyone or anything. So, what 'pressure' are we going to apply that is going to affect someone who is practically unaware of most of the population? Only the people in his district can vote him out. If they cannot figure out what is going on, then it is because they don't want to.

[quakerboy]

55. Probably not legally.

Im sure the campaign funds are helpful in directing him, but id be shocked if that was the only financial incentive involved.

Can we offer him and his family lucrative jobs for life?

[treestar]

3. Interesting about the WV voters

Are they pressuring their other Senator, presumably a Republican, and Manchin?

[Goonch]

4. ;-{)

[dalton99a]

15. +1.

https://democraticunderground.com/100215506081

[orangecrush]

5. Kick

[ShazamIam]

6. Mitch McConnell's announcement just Machin's, "princpled," position dumber than a laughing donkey.l

[Initech]

7. So who's paying him? Time to follow the money!

[KS Toronado]

14. Charles Koch

[OMGWTF]

31. Here's the short list of common household goods that the evil Koch empire makes

Use this and share it. I've been giving out this list for over 15 years.

KOCH BROTHERS PRODUCTS TO BOYCOTT:

American Greetings Cards
Angel Soft toilet paper
Brawny paper towels
Dixie plates, bowls, napkins and cups
Mardi Gras napkins and towels
Quilted Northern toilet paper
Soft ‘n Gentle toilet paper
Sparkle napkins
Vanity fair napkins
Zee napkins
Georgia-Pacific paper products and envelopes
Lycra
Stainmaster Carpet

[KS Toronado]

32. Thank You, I'll help spread the news.

[calimary]

63. Good to know. Thanks!

[papa3times]

9. AOC is correct

as usual.

[czarjak]

10. Birchers win! THE Birchers win!

[spanone]

11. K&R

[George II]

12. "This is probably....." Hey, they both work in the same building. Why doesn't she just ASK him?

[Layzeebeaver]

13. Because is doesn't always work like that in politics

or business
or personal life

[Politicub]

16. It's one thing for him to not support the bill and embrace the filibuster...

but Manchin did not stop there. Instead, he made a PR campaign out of his opposition. This was a slap in the face of Democrats. His “I’m a fair-weather democrat” campaign started long ago, but reached a crescendo with the publishing of the op-ed in WV, followed by a media tour with appearances on the political talk shows on Sunday.

He will not back down after all of the publicity he made about his filibuster love.

Yes, I’m glad we have a thin majority. As a show of thanks, we should prostrate ourselves at his feet and thank Manchin for the crumbs he has dropped. May the lord open, and all that.

I’m done with debasing myself by defending him.

[twodogsbarking]

17. The "Line in the Sand"

Go AOC.

[kimbutgar]

18. Maybe some rich donor should ask manchin how much they need to donate to him to support

Hr1 and end the filibuster.

Manchin needs to give an asking price for his votes. Wouldn’t it be funny if someone brought up the chamber of commerce donation on live tv and ask him his asking price?

[BobTheSubgenius]

20. I doubt VERY much that "these two things" are coincidental.

What a sorry impasse the system has come to. When some personal ambition and venality can derail an entire agenda that is sorely needed. It's amazing to me how some people are willing to be remembered.

[SergeStorms]

21. If theres one thing the GQP doesn't want....

it's cutting the legs off the "dark" money. Repealing Citizens United would be the worst outcome for America's wealthy.

If their wealth can't buy the government they want, what good is it?

[mountain grammy]

22. Manchin is paid off

Disgusting

[LastLiberal in PalmSprings]

41. Follow the money. n/t

[NoMoreRepugs]

23. Bit of a stretch here - BUT when a single individual holds the key (or at least it seems that way)

to the future of our Democracy it would appear there is something DRASTICALLY wrong with the system in place.

[I_UndergroundPanther]

38. And something is drastically

Wrong with him.
Like no shame,no guilt and no empathy.

Greedy fuckers I just hate them.

[Captain Zero]

24. DARK MONEY MANCHIN

Sure fits easily on a protest sign.

[peppertree]

28. ↑ Thread winner.

[MiHale]

25. Money over Constituents...

Probably money over beliefs
Money over democracy
Money over logic.

[PatSeg]

26. Shit

Not surprising of course, but still it is infuriating.

[JudyM]

27. So all the people who made that *tremendous* effort to GOTV in GA

… not to mention the rest of us, are just outta luck…

[Demsrule86]

29. So get the dark money out of the bill and make it about fair elections...the money will

need to be addressed when we have a more favorable SCOTUS situation.

[seta1950]

30. Why

Why is the chamber of commerce against voting rights, why is being pro business automatically mean you’re anti voting rights????

[KS Toronado]

34. Because the chamber of commerce tend to be run by reQublicans

and they can't win elections without cheating. Just ridding the U.S. of gerrymandering as HR1 is written,
would cost them plenty of seats in the house and senate.

[homegirl]

33. Go For It

A recall campaign in West Virginia!

[drray23]

49. you can not recall United State senators.

only some elected state officials and this depends on the state .

[homegirl]

62. Thank you for

passing on that important information. Learn something new every day.

Only option is to hound them out of office. Challenge them at every public appearance, sit down occuparions of their offices and postcard campaigns.

[tiptonic]

35. Just wondering

Just wondering how much, of the 'campaign contributions' is in rubbles.

[littlemissmartypants]

36. And...wait for it... he's also a racist...

Joe Manchin Cares More About ‘Bipartisanship’ Than Fighting Jim Crow
The senator says he won’t back a crucial voting rights bill because it’s too “partisan.” What he means is that white conservatives don’t like it.

By Elie Mystal
JUNE 8, 2021

Snip...
Manchin is enabling the disenfranchisement of Black and brown voters solely on the grounds that white conservatives don’t want those people to vote. That alone is enough for him. He doesn’t need a policy or principle to stand on; he doesn’t need to evaluate or understand why white conservatives are against equality. The mere objection of whites is apparently all Manchin needs to make his decision.

That’s how Jim Crow works, in a nutshell. History focuses on the evildoers who come up with the racist policies and the bad intentions behind them, but it ignores the role of white people like Manchin who value comity over justice. You cannot have a system of political apartheid without the help of such white people. You cannot disenfranchise a minority without a bunch of people in the majority hiding behind process and a false promise of peace in order to justify injustice. Manchin’s essay is an important part of upholding white supremacy because he treats it like it doesn’t exist.

Manchin thinks he can get away with this not because West Virginia is predominately white but because he intuits that most white people in West Virginia probably don’t care about stopping white supremacy. They likely don’t think that disenfranchising Black people is that big a deal—certainly not big enough to oust a senator. Manchin might get primaried, but if he loses it will be because he failed to deliver an infrastructure package, not because he thinks the 15th Amendment is just a suggestion.

Unfortunately, this has always been the true strength of white supremacist policies: They can’t be stopped unless enough white people give a damn. And there are never quite enough. In this case, a single white senator feels empowered to block an entire popular bill aimed at securing the most basic right in a democracy and doesn’t even feel the need to give a good reason as to why.

Snip...

Much more at the link.

https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/manchin-voting-rights/

Excellent opinion piece, imo.

❤ pants

[Joinfortmill]

37. We need to get all this $$ out of politics.

[panfluteman]

39. Joe Manchin Doesn't Give a Flyin' F*** About What His Constituents Back Home Think

However, what is foremost on his mind is: Where's my dark money coming from? If this voting rights bill, or something very much like it, doesn't pass, and quickly, American democracy is sunk.

[demtenjeep]

40. soon he will be changing the little letter

by his name

[Red Mountain]

42. He is a sad excuse

for what his people need.

[LanternWaste]

43. She made quite the conclusion from a spurious correlation.

Seeing as how she's far too professional and bright to rest merely on empty slogans, I'm almost quite confident she'll soon provide evidence to support her charge.

[H2O Man]

44. She's right, of course.

Recommended.

[Kid Berwyn]

51. You should see how well his daughter is doing.

Manchin Family Values
Fred Gardner
Counterpunch.org, June 10, 2021

Excerpt...

After some superficial improvements (a stronger spring, clearer instructions) that supposedly justified raising prices, Mylan began its big marketing push in 2009. With almost 90% of the market, their key goal was to get every school in the US to keep EpiPens on hand. Children face the highest risk of a fatal response because many never been exposed to the substance they’re allergic to. Adults generally know what they’re allergic to and try to avoid exposure or carry the antidote.

As Governor of West Virginia, Joe Manchin had appointed his wife to the state Board of Education in 2007. By 2012 Gayle Conelly Manchin would be president of the National Association of State Boards of Education, an official-sounding-but-private outfit that lobbies state boards to adopt policies favored by Association members. In 2016 USA Today (a paper that doesn’t get enough credit for serious muckraking) reported that Mrs. Manchin had “spearheaded an unprecedented effort that encouraged states to require schools to purchase medical devices that fight life-threatening allergic reactions.

“The association’s move helped pave the way for Mylan Specialty, maker of EpiPens, to develop a near monopoly in school nurses’ offices. Eleven states drafted laws requiring epinephrine auto-injectors. Nearly every other state recommended schools stock them after what the White House called the ‘EpiPen Law’ in 2013 gave funding preference to those that did.”

Snip...

Heather’s brilliant career was launched after Joe Manchin introduced her to the CEO of Mylan. Although her claim to have a Master’s Degree in Business Administration was exposed as a lie, her fast rise to the top was unimpeded. Heather had something better than a degree, she had real audacity. And so she quadrupled the price of a drug that several million US Americans must have on hand and buy every year. (Somebody ought to confirm that epinephrine degrades significantly in a year. It might be a pseudo-scientific marketing device like Dial Soap’s famous “Rinse and repeat.”)

Heather’s salary rose from $2.5 million in 2007 to $18.9 million in 2015. She was then 45 years old and would have become the poster child of Pharmaceutical Industry Greed had it not been for Martin Shkreli, who raised the price of the anti-parasitic drug Diapram from $13.50 to $750. Then the publicity-welcoming “pharma bro” won the auction for the world’s only copy of a hip-hop album by Wu-Tang Clan. Shkreli was sentenced to seven years and may still be doing time for securities fraud, but presumably, he got to enjoy “Once Upon a Time in Shaolin” before the 2-CD rarity was seized by the feds.

Heather is married to a corporate lawyer named Jeffrey Bresch whose firm represents, in addition to numerous Fortune 500 companies, the Pennsylvania Republican Party in its challenge to the validity of votes mailed in on Election Day in 2020. (But that’s another story). Heather retired at age 50 in 2020 after arranging Mylan’s merger with Upjohn. The first woman to head a Fortune 500 Pharmaceutical company, her accomplishments included Mylan’s acquisition of Abbott Laboratories and a transfer of corporate headquarters to the Netherlands, bringing the merged companies’ tax rate down from 24% to 21%. The moral of the story is: you don’t really need an MBA to be a successful corporate executive.

Continues...

https://www.counterpunch.org/2021/06/10/manchin-family-values/

[H2O Man]

53. A mere coincidnce --

but I don't believe in coincidence.

I love that AOC is willing to put the cards on the table. I love "the Squad," as they represent people like me.

[Kid Berwyn]

54. Me, too.

We’re called human beings.



And why we’re Democrats.

[Hotler]

45. That and envelopes of cash in dimly lit parking garages. nt

[Hassin Bin Sober]

46. Should rely on small donations. Like this guy:

[The Wizard]

47. Under the influence

of Koch.

[The Wizard]

48. Democrats

have to gain 3 more Senate seats. Right now Manchin alone determines the future of our constitutional democracy.

[burrowowl]

56. At least!

[Lithos]

50. manchin needs to be taken a few pegs down

Someone needs to suggest an investigation into dark money and him is about to happen...

See the whites of his eyes - turn yellow. Along with his pants and the floor....

L-

[dflprincess]

52. On the other hand he may have co-sponnsored it in 2019 because he knew

there was no way McConnell would let come to a vote. He could look good but not have to act.

[YoshidaYui]

57. so dark money has him by the balls....

where is the nuclear option when you need it??

[Roisin Ni Fiachra]

59. Sickening.

[MarcoZandrini]

60. Joe Manchin is.....

.....Koch whore. There, I said it.

[BlancheSplanchnik]

61. So disgusted with manchin, I could jump through a plate glass window.

🤬🤬🤬