It didn’t get much immediate news coverage, but West Virginia Democrat senator Joe Manchin sat with his GOP senate colleagues (between Senators Roger Wicker and Mitt
Romney) during senile president Joe Biden’s State of the Union address a week ago, engendering quizzical stares from members of both parties.
People probably shouldn’t read too much into the friendly political gesture, though. Apparently, RINO senator Romney asked the oft-wayward Democrat to sit with him during the oration, and Manchin said afterwards that he was “showing unity, working together. Showing the whole world we're together in standing behind Ukraine.” Sure, Joe. Nothing quite like wearing a Ukrainian flag pin on your lapel and positioning yourself among your party’s sworn opponents -- and Mitt Romney -- to show where you stand on things.
Maybe Joe was just being honest with his boilerplate explanation of the move. If Manchin had really hoped to send Chucky Schumer, Nancy Pelosi and senile Joe Biden a message, he would’ve powwowed with Ted Cruz and then traded pleasantries with Mitch McConnell as the two of them threw popcorn balls at the speechmaker, just like they might’ve done as kids at the movie theater when the motion picture wasn’t holding their attention.
What was significantly more meaningful that night was Manchin’s lack of outward support (applause?) for elements of senile Joe’s “Build Back (More) Better” program that the president described and called on Congress to pass during this session. Every president lays out his agenda and instructs Congress to do the right thing by legislating his wish-list, so what Biden did wasn’t unusual in the moment.
But it also provided Manchin the national forum to say “no” once again to the socialists in attendance (which was almost every other Democrat, including Pelosi and Biden’s gal pal veep Kamala Harris seated behind him). Nothing’s changed as far as Manchin is concerned on BBB, which means that Biden’s dreams of blowing open the doors of the federal treasury to dig for spare cash for things like federal universal childcare and climate change boondoggles won’t become reality.
Nor will Biden’s and nearly all Democrats’ fantasies about dumping more federal dollars into healthcare subsidies or taking over the pharmaceutical industry and drug pricing come to fruition.
The fact that Manchin alone shot down all of their aspirations to get Biden’s proposals moving again must’ve left a collective bad taste in every other Democrat’s mouth. To then see West Virginia Joe sitting with flip-flopper Mitt and a smattering of establishment Republican senators really put the icing on the proverbial cake. Perhaps it’s a good thing that Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and “The Squad” were confined safely in the upper gallery that night, or she/they might’ve caused an embarrassing scene… which each of them excels at.
Enough has been said and written about what senile Joe said last week in his big moment. In some respects, the truth challenged pol even tried “plagiarizing” Donald Trump’s Make America Great Again agenda by calling on citizens and Congress to buy American, revive domestic manufacturing and to fund -- not defund -- the police. It was almost as though the president’s speechwriters looked back on Trump’s own presentations and figured out what they could “borrow” without attribution.
Who would’ve thought? Senile Joe the conservative populist! Not!
One aspect of the evening was patently predictable. Biden blamed corporate commodities gouging for our country’s exploding inflation and rapidly escalating gasoline prices. It was the same old song and dance, but what else would you expect from a mentally faltering dunce who doesn’t know the first thing about economics? Ramsey Touchberry reported at The Washington Times:
“Democrats have rolled out a new messaging strategy on why costs at the pump continue to rise: price gouging. With inflation at its highest level in four decades and the war in Ukraine threatening even higher gasoline prices, Democratic leaders are increasingly leaning into the notion that price gouging is the culprit.
“’The bottom line is this: The real problem with increased gas prices is gouging and monopolies,’ Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer, New York Democrat, told reporters [last] week. ‘You’re going to hear a lot more from us on those issues in the near, near future.’”
You can bet that’s the truth. Schumer isn’t often caught in the same vicinity of facts and honest statements, but when he says Americans will soon hear from Democrats pontificating and demagoguing a successful private sector industry, he means what he says! It’s Chucky’s typical tactic of demonizing productive people simply for providing a product or service that ordinary folks want or need. If the price goes up somewhere, it’s all about naked greed, not some misbegotten public policy handed down from the seat of power!
Democrats don’t have an answer for higher fuel prices, so they’re trying to isolate and bludgeon the sellers. To simply suggest increasing energy production is taboo in Democrat-land. In times of plenty they scapegoat drillers and coal miners for over-supply, which drives prices down and, lord forbid, encourages people to have warmer (or cooler) homes and drive more! This heats the planet! Polar bears beware! Beachfront property owners head for higher ground, because the rising oceans are gonna swamp those million-dollar mansions!
In times of scarcity and higher prices, by contrast, the sticker shock at the pump is attributable to avarice! The oil companies are making profits! Scoundrels! Their shareholders (which includes a lot of Democrats, by the way) are seeing a return on their investments! They should voluntarily restrain themselves whenever Democrats say they should!
How long would a corporate board last if shareholders and investors got wind that they were purposely trying to lose money because the political leadership decreed they weren’t allowed to earn profits when prices went way up for everyone? Don’t all oil companies sell the same products, more or less? Does anyone buy one company’s gasoline over another’s because of a corporate mission?
Nope. If you’re like me, you pick the stations that have the best prices and go there. If all of the competitors agreed to hike prices simultaneously, that’s a heck of a collusion trick. There must be more to it.
Touchberry additionally reported, “The [gouging] charge offers Democrats some cover from voters’ anger over inflation in a tough election year, but there is no evidence that U.S. oil and gasoline companies have [banded] together to excessively raise prices and take a bigger bite out of Americans’ pocketbooks. Rather, energy market strategists have long warned that inflation and supply issues would create a volatile global market and could cause gasoline prices to far exceed $5 per gallon. The national average for a gallon of regular gasoline was $3.73 as of Thursday, according to AAA. That’s an increase of more than 30 cents from a month ago and roughly $1 from a year ago.”
It's more than just gasoline, Democrats. Gas stations are only the most visible manifestations of inflation. Walk down the aisles at your local grocery store and you see the impact of higher supply chain and energy rates as well. Beef costs have shot up noticeably -- and they were already straining the budget to begin with. Last week I purchased seven beef back ribs and it was close to $23. $3+ for one beef rib?
I remember buying an entire rack of ribs not too long ago for less than $10. Good quality, too.
Most super market products have increased $.30 or more in the past few weeks alone. Are the grocery store chains gouging too? In my neck of the woods, should I approach the managers of Harris Teeter, Food Lion, Publix, Walmart, Whole Foods and Trader Joe’s and ask them whether they’ve been having lunch together lately? With government regulators everywhere, how could they get away with “fixing” prices on everyday necessities? What do they do, agree to boost prices on bacon and cheese but hold the line on tomato sauce and breakfast cereal? The Democrats’ theory doesn’t make any sense.
It doesn’t take a genius to recognize these changes hurt the hourly wage earners and folks on fixed incomes the most. If gas reaches $5 a gallon, it may mean there’s no incentive to drive an hour to work on a project when your excess income is combusted in the engine and then expelled out the tailpipe?
I wish some establishment media journalist would ask Joe Manchin whether the energy companies in his state are “gouging” their customers. The West Virginian could do a lot of good by holding a press conference to refute Chucky’s and senile Joe’s and Nancy P’s false claims of collusion and gouging.
How dumb do they think we are, anyway? Senile Joe says passing BBB would alleviate inflation because it would “reduce costs” for middle and low income earners. How? Sending a subsidy check doesn’t lower anyone’s costs. If anything, it just disguises real inflation and papers over the problem while adding to the federal budget deficit and national debt.
Only in Democrat-land does the solution to inflation entail borrowing more money and sending checks to people to cover increases in prices. If a private company were run like Democrats do the government, it would be out of business within a month. It’s well past time to quit listening to phony buck-passing about “gouging” and collusion.
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