h/t Breitbart – President Biden’s insensitive comments about the imminent shutdown of coal have triggered a fiery response from coal state Senator Joe Manchin (D-WV).
President Biden’s comments are not only outrageous and divorced from reality, they ignore the severe economic pain the American people are feeling because of rising energy costs. Comments like these are the reason the American people are losing trust in President Biden and instead believes he does not understand the need to have an all in energy policy that would keep our nation totally energy independent and secure. It seems his positions change depending on the audience and the politics of the day. Politicising our nation’s energy policies would only bring higher prices and more pain for the American People.
Let me be clear, this is something the President has never said to me. Being cavalier about the loss of coal jobs for men and women in West Virginia and across the country who literally put their lives on the line to help build and power this country is offensive and disgusting. The President owes these incredible workers an immediate and public apology and it is time he learn a lesson that his words matter and have consequences.
Source: Senator Joe Manchin’s Twitter Account
President Biden appeared to leave no doubt about his feelings towards coal, in his statements which triggered the response from Joe Manchin;
… “I was in Massachusetts about a month ago on the site of the largest old coal plant in America,” Biden said at an event in Carlsbad, California, on Friday. “Guess what? It cost them too much money. They can’t count. No one is building new coal plants because they can’t rely on it. Even if they have all the coal guaranteed for the rest of the existence of the plant.
“So it’s going to become a wind generation. And all they’re doing is it’s going to save them a hell of a lot of money and using the same transmission line that they transmitted the coal-fired electric on, we’re going to be shutting these plants down all across America and having wind and solar power, also providing tax credits to help families buy energy efficient appliances, whether it’s your refrigerator or your coffee maker, for solar panels on your home, weatherize your home, things that save an average, experts say, a minimum of $500 a year for the average family.” …
Read more: https://www.foxbusiness.com/politics/biden-says-coal-plants-all-across-america-will-shut-down-replaced-with-wind-solar
President Biden’s press secretary responded to Manchin’s demand for an apology, by suggesting Biden’s words had been twisted.
Statement by Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre
President Biden knows that the men and women of coal country built this nation: they powered its steel mills and factories, kept its homes and schools and offices warm. They made this the most productive and powerful nation on Earth. He came to the White House to end years of big words but little action to help the coal-producing parts of our country. Working closely with Senator Manchin, a tireless advocate for his state and the hard-working men and women who live there, President Biden has helped get this part of the country back to work: the unemployment rate in West Virginia was 6.2% the last month before Joe Biden took office; now it is down to 4%. The President’s plans are already bringing new energy and manufacturing jobs to the region, and in the years ahead, will continue to create new jobs with projects like hydrogen energy generation. In fact, through the Working Group on Coal and Power Plant Communities, President Biden has already delivered more than $23 billion to energy communities across the country.
Read more: https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/speeches-remarks/2022/11/05/statement-by-press-secretary-karine-jean-pierre-2/
The President’s remarks yesterday have been twisted to suggest a meaning that was not intended; he regrets it if anyone hearing these remarks took offense. The President was commenting on a fact of economics and technology: as it has been from its earliest days as an energy superpower, America is once again in the midst of an energy transition. Our goal as a nation is to combat climate change and increase our energy security by producing clean and efficient American energy. Under President Biden, oil and natural gas production has increased, and we are on track to hit the highest production in our country’s history next year. He is determined to make sure that this transition helps all Americans in all parts of the country, with more jobs and better opportunities; it’s a commitment he has advanced since Day One. No one will be left behind.
As far as I know Manchin didn’t get his apology. And I for one don’t accept the assertion that Biden’s words were twisted.
In my opinion coal workers could reasonably interpret President Biden’s words as neglect, if not outright hostility towards coal – a position Manchin appears to support. Biden’s statements about the unreliability of coal seem clear enough, even if Biden’s claims are completely absurd.
The reality is there is nothing unreliable about coal. Coal created the modern world. Coal powered the US manufacturing golden age, and could do so again. Coal lifted Asian nations from starving peasant economies into industrial and manufacturing superpowers, in less than a human lifetime.
Given the correlation between coal use and prosperity, it seems no accident that Biden’s attacks on coal are sending the American economy backwards, with rampant inflation, food and energy bills sucking the wealth out of ordinary Americans. Just as coal lifted us all into modernity and prosperity, abandoning coal could achieve the opposite.
There are plenty of hungry people out there, billions of people who earn a few dollars a day or less, who go to bed hungry and malnourished. Some of those people live in nations which were once wealthy. Places like Venezuela, once one of the wealthiest nations in South America, which lost everything in just a few decades, thanks to political incompetence and corruption.
History teaches us prosperity is fragile. All it takes is a series of bad rulers, sometimes just one bad ruler, to undo the progress of generations. At any moment a key economic support could collapse under the weight of Biden’s political hostility, maybe something we aren’t even aware of, and bring down everything which depends on it. The entire economy could come tumbling down in a heap. This could happen with very little warning – the rotten tree looks sturdy until it falls before the storm.
America could end up going down the same path as Venezuela, unless something is done to mitigate and repair the economic damage being caused by Biden’s war on prosperity and affordable energy.
RE only makes power prices higher. We’ve all seen the graph with power prices vs percent renewables. It takes more resources, more man-power, and still requires some form of backup. Fastest way to convert a first world economy into a third world dumpster fire.
Yes the bullshit about comparative costs of wind & solar vs coal, gas & nuclear continues unabated.
The Guardian says this –
HOWEVER – to compute the real cost of continuously supplied solar generation, you have to multiply your cost answer by 2, because you only get the product for half a day at a time. If you’re lucky.
Because of the curvature of the Earth, you only get full capacity for 4-6 hours a day at most with static panels. Outside of that window the light strikes at an angle that lowers the efficiency greatly.
Correct, and it’s not just the incident angle. In mornings and afternoons the lower angle means the sun light must travel through more of the atmosphere which scatters light and reduces intensity. So even with solar tracking, the panel out declines with increased angle away from direct normal.
If you have solar tracking, the individual panels must be further apart, in order to prevent the panels from shading each other.
The sun also moves up and down in the sky as we move from one season to another. It’s closest to directly overhead during the summer, and it’s at it’s lowest in the sky during winter.
And you have to add in the cost of storing enough to get thru the rest of the day and you have to add in the cost of generating that amount that is stored. Solar is cheap if you leave out all the bits that make it expensive. Same goes for wind.
Solar averages about 20% of name plate capacity, so you need at least 5 times that and a way to either store the energy or back it up with on demand energy generation.
So you have to have enormously expensive storage on a scale that doesn’t exist or pay for 2 different electrcal generating systems,
Renewables such as wind and solar will never be as dependable or cost-effective as fossil fuels. Not to say they aren’t go for some applications, but not for powering the grid.
You can never design it on averages though. You have to design it to the worst case, ie going to zero output.
Agreed
Tests by Qld Uni (on some 5 of their own sites over the state) and data from govt. sources put the solar capacity over years more like 16%. If you are going to round it, do it downwards to 15% and not up to 20% which greens always exaggerate. The capacity of on-shore wind farms over the years is just under 30%. Yes, wind and solar is unreliable
On Wednesday 2nd November wind, during storm Claudio which had gusts of wind at 70mph, generated 53% of electricity in England, Scotland and Wales. It was a new record and lasted for all of half an hour!
Expect the industry, griff (if he returns) and the BBC to trumpet that figure in the future without giving any kind of context
Add to this is the fact that over the longer lifetimes of coal, gas and nuclear, you would have to replace the solar at least once, if not twice. Those major capital costs need to be taken into account when correctly comparing the costs of energy sources.
Plus you have to maintain 100% backup for the wind and solar in addition to (re)building it three or four times in the lifespan of a typical coal or gas or nuclear plant.
You never get half the 24 hours day powered. Any of the minute by minute production charts show this, you are lucky to get 5 to 6 hours of full production, with long tails and a relatively short peak.
The average for roof top solar in Australia is 4.1 hours (17% capacity factor mainly due to sub optimal alignment of cells)
Considered by who?
Only 2?? It doesn’t produce a lot around sunrise and sunset either because of the low angle in the sky and very few solar plants (can’t really call them farms) use sun tracking mounts because of the expense. So roughly 9-3pm for a decent amount of power % and them you have to factor in cliudy or rainy days. And backup for a measely 4hrs is equivalent to onshore wind prices. And its weeks of storage that will be needed not hours. One study shown here on WUWT mentioned a hypothetical grid with 8x wind and 8x solar compared with current grid capacity in order to have a completely insane fake-sustainable grid (it’s not sustainable or green if one is replacing gas and coal with power sources dependent on limited resources and devices that find it hard to last a couple of decades – wind turbines and solar panels are not sustainable, they are disposable!)
I really hope the Democrats lose any legislative majority. As is, it will take years to undo the damage to energy policy done in Biden administration thus far.
If Manchin was truly sincere, he would change parties.
Manchin lost all credibility when he went along with the Inflation Enhancement Act. I hope that West-by-God-Viginians have figured out by now that his talk is cheap and his actions are devastating. In 2024 he needs to be sent into retirement. We don’t need any more RINOs in the Senate.
So numbers of coal miners and coal electricity production increased when Trump was president?
Another failed Trump policy of all talk and no action, but sucked in his fan base big time
Give it up fool! Nothing you or anyone says or does can drive a wedge between Trump and his supporters. Only Trump can do that.
We miss Trump’s policies.
To reduce the coal powered electricity and numbers of miners !.
A big lie was his policy to Make Coal Great Again
Too funny
Are you really as immature and desperate as your posts make you seem? It was the drop in natural gas prices that caused a shift from coal to natural gas. That drop was caused by an increase in the supply of natural gas, which was caused by frakking.
So it was Trump who created frakking? After all, it was frakking that reduced the cost of natural gas and it was that drop in price that caused power generators to shift from coal to natural gas.
You utter desperation to find something bad about Trump, even when it makes no sense or has any relationship to actual history, is starting to make you look even dumber than ever.
Trump promised to reduce regulations, and he did.
Look, I have no more love for RINOs than you do, but we certainly could have used just one more RINO in the senate the past two years, because without that one more RINO, the Dems got to set the Senate’s legislative agenda thanks the VP’s tie-breaker vote giving them the majority. And if the Senate remains at 50-50 after Tuesday, we’ll be wishing we have just one more RINO than as well.
Ideological purity does you no good if it leaves the levers of power in the other party’s hands. Sometimes you have to hold your nose and allow the RINOs to exist when the alternative is letting the other side have all the power.
Yes, one puts up with RINOs if the alternative is electing a Socialist or Democrat. (Yeah, I know that’s redundant). It takes time, but eventually primaries can weed out the pretenders.
John, I don’t think that there’s any logic to accepting Romney in one of the most conservative states, but a Susan Collins in Maine makes some sense.
West Virginia may not be Oklahoma, but it sure is more conservative than most states. West Virginnyans can certainly do better than Manchin and that’s the difference. If he defeats the Republican candidate, then let him vote like a DINO.
What’s the difference between a Democrat, and a Republican who votes with the Democrats whenever the vote is important?
The difference isn’t in the individual, it’s in which party controls the legislative agenda in the chamber. If we had a couple more RINOs instead of democrats in the Senate right now, we wouldn’t potentially be waiting for the unoff in Georgia to decide who controls the Senate (again!)
While I’d prefer proper conservative Republicans, what good does that do if they only make up a minority of the chamber and thus have no control over deciding what the important votes that get to the floor are?
Well, Manchin need not switch parties to vote against the Eco-Nazi stupidity. He never should have allowed himself to be greased up by Schumer only to get screwed over with respect to what he was “promised.”
I’m actually glad the democrats refused to pass the “permitting reforms,” since it was a two-fer; it taught Manchin a lesson about trusting the scum in his own party, and it prevented said “permitting reform” to be used to cram wind and solar down people’s throats – since you know THAT is what they really intended it for.
“Well, Manchin need not switch parties to vote against the Eco-Nazi stupidity.”
True, but if he did switch parties (and doing so switched control of the chamber), there’d be no Eco-Nazi stupidity for him to vote on one way or the other. Control of the legislative agenda would prevent those bills from ever coming to the floor in the first place.
Biden is wrong , but then at the end of Trump’s term there was 5000 less coal miners than when he became president.
Total terawatt hours of power from coal fell also during Trump’s war on coal…..which just continued the decline since peak at 2006-8. The recession kicked that off in that period
You are really and ignorant and just plain stupid political hack.
Coal was loosing out to gas during the Trump years due to technical and economic reasons – low priced and abundant fracked gas burned in super- efficient CCGT plants. Trump’s administration was trying to put in requirements that utilities have long reserves on hand – which would force them to keep some coal capacity since it’s easier for dense coal.
Coal has gone from $50 to $350 a tonne pre to post covid, in fact all sources of energy have gotten more expensive – even wind and solar, and your boy Biden can’t even be blamed for that, as he’s just an empty sock puppet spouting off stupidites while the big boys out of the diaper phase, in Beijing and Moscow and and other places, are calling the shots and making the big plays.
I say that.
But Trump promised to make Coal Great again- he didnt ( and couldnt)
“From West Virginia to Wyoming, coal country overwhelmingly voted for Donald Trump and his message that he will bring coal jobs back.”
If Biden makes empty promises then we look at Trumps done in the same vien.
You are the hack when you dont widen your putdowns. Go on say Trump was a moron and promised coal renewal he couldnt deliver
And once again, when reality doesn’t support the garbage Duker is trying to sell, he just makes it up.
Just ignore the hack. There’s no reasoning with it.
Oh Biden and his fellow Eco-Nazis in congress can definitely be blamed for that, since it’s their collective efforts to strangle oil and gas exploration, transport, and refining that have driven up prices.
And Duker’s gradual conversion into griff 2.0 continues.
He takes a lie, distorts it, then repeats it over and over and over again.
It was the drop in price of natural gas due to frakking that caused the drop in coal production.
Your desperate attempt to find something to blame on Trump is truly amusing.
And it says nothing good about any intelligence you may have left.
Manchin is still a Big Labor union guy and will probably never give up the Big Labor gravy train.
The same Manchin that signed the fake inflation reduction act renamed to trick people into thinking it does the opposite of what it will really do.
One of those things is killing coal and he knows it but is acting dumb now so as to not take any blame.
Manchin forced the proposed Recon Bill from $3 trillion down to just over $300 billion, a 90% cut. As a Democrat he had to let them have something. He is a hero.
I fail to see how you could see him as anything but a fool.
He thought he could finagle a pipeline for his capitulation to the party. They stabbed him in the back and we are all stuck with the boondogle he voted for.
If he was concerned for his constituents he would have voted no, period.
That sounds like the outcome from overpriced cars on the car lot going for much less in order to make the sucker (customer) feel good about the deal. Meanwhile the same was going on with extra trillion-dollar stimulus programs and overdue pause (slumber) on interest rates to combat the 2-month long COVID-19 recession. Some things are not meant to be declassified or inspected, like the origin of COVID-19 from “imported frozen seafood” and blown-up pipelines in the Baltic Sea. Debate-has-ended climate science is no better.
It could have been zero if he doesn’t cave. He is no hero.
Correct David. Politics in a democracy is not black and white, it is all gray, It doesn’t matter which side you are on, the only way of getting an outcome is some form of compromise. Biden is clearly going senile and the Democrats seem crazy on a lot of things and if I were an American I’d vote Republican. Manchin has good timing on this, he doesn’t have to switch sides because his comments will echo for a couple of days, just when it counts.
He’s not up for election until 2024.
Sshhhh, let them continue to agree with each other.
The full monty of liberal democratic voters on display.
Hero?
This is what he voted for:
Biden’s Climate Law Is Ending 40 Years of Hands-Off GovernmentFor America to decarbonize, it must reindustrialize.
https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2022/08/climate-law-manchin-industrial-policy/671183/
Since the law emerged from a surprise compromise between Senator Joe Manchin and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer last month, most attention has been paid to the fact of the bill itself: that it is a climate bill, that America’s sorry environmental record has begun to reverse.
+++++++++++++++++
Your position is that, despite an option to vote against the worst bill in history and not letting it wreck the country at all (which is actually what most people assumed was coming from him), he instead, at the last minute as a democrat, decided to put his party first and play politics and used his clout to lower the extent of the record damage.
Hero would have been NOT changing his position to vote for the bill which is intended to transform US energy from reliable fossil fuels that are greening up the planet, switching to diffuse, intermittent renewables, like wind the energy source from environmental hell, destroying landscapes, ecosystems, killing birds/bats and supported by crony capitalism and government hands outs like the ones coming from the fake inflation reduction act that he could have stopped if not caving in to his party.
He “had to let them have something”? Why? Where is this written down, ordained into law, inscribed in stone?
You didn’t “have to” make such an inane excuse.
If he was a hero, he would have killed the bill entirely. He was in a position to do that.
He sold the country out in exchange for a pipeline that the Democrats never had any intention of approving.
Your $300 billion is extremely unrealistic, very wishful thinking too.
The main objective of the bill is to accelerate the death of fossil fuels, with coal being already well on its way, having numerous nails in the coffin.
The US Climate Bill Is a Bigger Deal Than Most People RealizeClimate spending thanks to the Inflation Reduction Act may end up as high as $1 trillion, says political science professor Leah Stokes.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-11-03/the-us-climate-bill-is-a-bigger-deal-than-most-people-realize
Laws and budgets do not compel appropriations. Still possible for Rs to agree agree only to a limited continuing resolution.
Yes they do as a practical matter. If a party has a filibuster and veto proof majority of course they can do what they wish
He votes 88.9% of the time with the anti-American, pro-corruption, pro-criminal party of which he is a member. Some “hero.”
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/whos-more-in-lockstep-republicans-with-trump-or-democrats-with-biden
He was elected by WV voters as a Democrat , not your idea of an ‘independent’
I realize that, but he also claimed to be a moderate (which he’s not). He’s gone along with most of the crazy emanating from the Democrat Party these days and helped advance their disgusting policies. He’s going to lose big time in 2024.
So far to the right are you. You know what ideology that brings you close too ?
Character assassination does not become you. And you have very little idea of how “far to the right” I am, since all you know of me is a commenting name and a couple of internet comments. Suffice it to say you are wrong.
Your beloved Democrat Party has moved far, far, far to the left in reality. Educate yourself (this is from a left-wing organization): https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2014/06/12/section-1-growing-ideological-consistency/
If you dont think Manchin is a moderate its proof you are very right wing ‘Independent’ handle is laughable , how many of those do you have
Go to the Capitol to break democracy did you ?
You truly inhabit the fever swamps, don’t you?
You are so far to the left, that you probably think Mao was a conservative.
Once again, a socialist claims that anyone who isn’t a communist or a socialist is far to the right.
When Duker first started posting here, he claimed that he was a lifelong Republican, who voted for Trump, twice.
“Every other Democrat, except for one, voted with Biden more than 90% of the time. That one, of course, was Sen. Joe Manchin”
In other words, he’s the least bad Demonrat in the Senate.
“I realize that, but he also claimed to be a moderate (which he’s not). “
Based on his voting record, he’s the closest thing to a moderate among the 50 Demonrats currently in the chamber.
When your entire caucus has veered so far left, anyone even slightly to the right of that is a moderate in comparison.
Exactly. It’s the same as saying Joe Biden is “moderate” compared to Bernie Sanders. When Nancy Pelosi became speaker of the House of Representatives, she was on the far left wing of her party. Now she’s to the right of the average House Democrat, a scary proposition indeed when you understand just how extreme and anti-American these people are.
88.9% voting in goose-step with Biden, Mr. “We’re going to end fossil fuels,” is no “moderate.”
He was a hero then, then became turncoat on the Inflation Enhancement Act.
Benedict Arnold was also once a hero.
Manchin has voted lockstep for every crazed democrat bill in the Senate, and now he wants an apology.
This was nothing but the first PR for his 2024 re-election campaign.
Carlo:
I am no Manchin fan, but IIRC he did resist two awful bills for which I give him great credit:
No to ending the Filibuster [with Sen. (D) Sinema] – this prevented the Dems from packing the Supreme Court & prevented Washington DC from becoming a State.
No to federalizing local elections.
In 2024 W Virginia needs to send Sen. Manchin.into retirement.
Why shouldn’t DC become a state.
It wouldn’t even be the smallest pop state.
Do you hate constitution so much and the 14th amendment equal protection.
Yes the federal area can be shrunk to a small area around capitol and white house
DC was shrunk a previous time, and in 2020 McConnell shrunk the supreme Court to 8 seats
Did you ever ask yourself why the founders didn’t put the National capital in a state in the first place? Of course not!
Your comment is nonsensical. If you shrunk DC to just the federal areas with no one living in them, why would you want it to become a state? For the record, I agree about shrinking it – give the rest back to Maryland the way Virginia’s parts were given back in the 1850s, and then the people living there will be represented by Maryland’s members of Congress.
Of course, this will not happen because the real reason for the political disagreement is Democrats want two more senators (no, they don’t care even a little about voting rights) and Republicans don’t want to make Maryland unwinnable for them for the foreseeable future.
And your comment about McConnell and the Supreme Court is factually and constitutionally ignorant.
The the new federal area would be distinct from the existing DC which would become a state with more people ( 690,000) than Vermont and Wyoming
Im sure the founders never envisaged the federal district without representation would be more people than some states. This corrects that.
Mc Connell did reduce the size of the court, by not having hearings on a nominee for nearly a year.
Nothing in constitution about only having 9 Justices or the method I favour of retiring them to senior status after 75 like other federal judges and their seat replaced
You contradicted your previous comment about shrinking it to the White House, Capitol, the Mall, etc. Nothing in the Constitution says the Senate has to confirm judges the president nominates, and in fact they have refused to do so on many occasions. That is not “reducing the size of the court,” in your ridiculous formulation.
D.C. is represented by many people – most members of Congress live there, in fact. It’s also heavily subsidized by the federal taxpayer. However, I agree it’s not a good idea for so many people to have no direct vote for members of Congress, so my previously stated solution of returning all the populated areas to Maryland is a good idea you would agree, yes?
DC isn’t a state, it barely qualifies as a city. Give it back to Virginia.
The supreme court only has 8 seats? What color is the sky in your world?
They will if the Republicans don’t put up a totally corrupt scumbag like they did last time.
Exactly Carlo!
And with the red wave coming, thanks to the worst president in history, he wants to be associated with the winners/people agenda even though his record says the complete opposite.
Disingenuous even by politicians very low standards.
At least we know where people like Bernie and AOC stand with their insane, extreme left positions that they make no apologies for and act consistent with what they believe in.
Manchin is a slimy snake, pretending to be whatever fits his personal, self serving political agenda, with actions that contradict his disingenuous words.
This is just a blatant example.
OK, maybe I’m being too hard on Manchin because at least he might be willing to take actions in the future to help Rs restore energy policy sanity.
Machin switches party soon. Like Nov.9.
Just what is needed in the Senate, another RINO.
He isn’t a Republican.
God I hope not. WV deserves a real conservative.
Hopefully the Republicans turn him away at the door.
I am no fan of Manchin.
However, if the Red Wave fails to materialize, and the Senate is still 50/50 after the election, then I would welcome Manchin as a Republican with open arms.
Even if he doesn’t vote Republican all of the time, being in the majority on committees, running the agenda, etc. is a huge power to have flipped over to R.
The only plus to this eventuality would be that Cackles Camulus no longer gets to break tie votes on a routine basis, but this will change in January, so the plus is minimal.
If the Senate is still 50/50, there’s no chance in h*ll of Manchin switching parties. He knows that he will never be welcome in the Republican party after this year. Also the Democrats will undoubtedly hang further concessions that will never happen in front of him to keep him in their party.
Also, staying in the Senate will make him a swing vote on every vote. As a Republican he would just be 1 vote out of 51.
Can’t add can you. He still would be swing vote if he party hoped to GOP
Another one! “hopped”, perhaps?
You didn’t actually read my comment, did you. Your reply bears no relationship to what I said.
It’s basic math, perhaps when you finally graduate from the 3rd grade you be able to figure it out.
With Manchin as a Democrat, the Senate is 50/50 and Manchin is a swing vote.
WIth Manchin as a Republican, the Senate is 51/49, the Republicans have a two vote majority and Manchin is just one of 51, and a not well liked one at that.
MarkW, I’m afraid you failed the basic math here. Manchin’s “swing status” doesn’t change by changing parities. The out come of the vote stays the same regardless of which party he belongs to. either he votes with the dems (Machin+49 vs 50) with the cackling one breaking the tie, or he votes with the republicans (49 vs 50 + Manchin) and the cackliing one can stay home that day. The power of his switching has nothing to do with the necessity or not of his individual vote, it’s in which party controls what bills get voted on.
I agree it’s unlikely Manchin would switch parties, regardless of the numbers in the chamber. Otherwise he would have done so in the past couple of years when he was being attacked by his own party for his stands on various issues.
That said, If the Senate is still 50/50, the Republican party would welcome him with open arms to get him to switch (McConnel has had the conversation with him many times over the years). It’s when the senate is not 50/50 that the GOP would be less enthusiastic about his switching (though they’d still welcome him, as they do whenever anyone switches a seat into their column, particularly when the margin between the two parties in the chamber is so small, as it will still be even if the red wave fully materializes)
As for being a swing vote, if the senate is still 50/50, switch won’t lessen his swing vote status any. It would be the same as he was as a Demonrat. Only instead of refusing to vote with the Ds, enabling the Rs to kill the bill, it would be the opposite, refusing to vote with the Rs and enabling the Ds (via Kamala tie breaker) to kill the bill. The power of his switching or not isn’t in his swing vote status (as that wouldn’t change, his swing votes would effectively still end up with the outcomes of either 49+Manchin+VP/50 or 49/50+Manchin), it’s in which party get control of the Senate legislative agenda.
Republican senators also can switch sides .
That happened mid term during the GW Bush presidency when control flipped to Dems, but Cheney still had a casting vote
Yes they can, but that wasn;t the topic at hand. the topic at hand is Machin, the likelyhood of him doing so and what that would mean.
If West Virginia has a Recall Process the citizens there should start it. They where bent over and without Vaseline they were boogered.
Unfortunately, there is no law providing us the ability to recall leftist scum like Senator Manchin. At least his term is up in 2024 and I believe many of my neighbors now see through his fake “moderate” persona.
What does Machin (whomever he/it is) have to do with Manchin? Darn! It must be SO difficult to edit one’s post prior to posting.
Biden’s gaffes have to be walked back daily, and often he does not even understand himself what he is saying, so ignore KJP’s desperate attempts to explain.
The Dems policy has been clear for years, regarding all fossil fuels. Biden might not actually shut the coal plants himself, but the effect of his policies will have the same effect.
“…he does not even understand himself what he is saying…”
Very sad to watch, but obviously accurate.
Frankly I find it hilarious and I don’t have the slightest sympathy for him. The karmic payback is delicious. He’s been a vicious partisan hack, and corrupt perv all of his worthless career.
He meets the standard definition of a psychopath-on steroids.
In addition, that of a liberal of today.
Your guy is going down like Al Capone, by not paying his taxes……pity Alcatraz is closed but maybe like Martha Stewart he can go to a Fed prison farm
Lol…not paying his taxes. I suppose you think he uses Turbo Tax.
You may be Simon.
Who said anything about turbo tax.
He lied about various matters that affected his tax rates. Its a crime
I just love the way socialists define anything they disagree with as a lie.
Just ignore the hack
Laughable.
The best you can do is attempt to discredit Trump with an unproven accusation.
Usual left wing smear tactics. You can’t grasp the simple concept of innocent until proven guilty, can you?
HotScot,
The Marxist parrot (Awwk, global warming. Awwk, Republicans evil. Awwk, climate apocalypse!) isn’t capable of rational thought, much less higher concepts like justice and science!
The modern Marxist indoctrinator removes most rationality along with the sense of humor.
Hello , we have a far right mouth piece who just thinks using slogans and buzz words makes him knowable.
Guess who was a great buddy of an actual marxist Kim Jung Un ( love you long time)
his other buddies like Putin and Xi are merely leninists ( who run party-state systems)
Trump!
You really do believe whatever your boy tells you to believe.
Ignore the hack
The investigations are ongoing. Indictments have been issued.
Just takes the right people to talk and Big Donny will be indicted quickly
Theres also other investigations into his stealing of federal records
In the world of the left, if the dear leader says you are guilty, then you are guilty.
You really don’t keep up with the news, do you?
Regardless, the current case is about how to interpret tax law. In the past, such cases never resulted in jail. Unfortunately, Democrats are famous for criminalizing any descent to their rulings.
PS, being charged is not the same thing as being conviceted, except in the kind of left wing paradise you desire.
Not sympathetic for Biden. Sad for the nation as a whole to see this result.
Yes, statewide blackouts of the Texas grid from fossil fuel plants must not be allowed to happen again. /sarc
At least NPR and the NYT did not blame it on “imported frozen seafood” or the UK/USA blowing up pipelines in the Baltic.
Destroying a reliable and effective energy grid and driving the population into penury would still be considered enemy action.
Coal powered electricity production has been falling since 2007 and the recession, the other reason is fracking producted lots of natural has
Your claims are complete nonsense
It really is amazing how socialists actually seem to believe that everything happens because someone in Washington wanted it to happen.
How much did electricity production from coal increase under Trump?
It fell of course and fewer coal miners as well.
At least Biden is being honest that mining is reducing while Trump was telling big lies
Lies 😉
As you mentioned earlier, coal use fell as fracked gas increased.
You can squirm all you want but the plain fact is, under Biden energy costs are rising dramatically. Even your feeble efforts can’t pin that on Trump.
“All it takes is a series of bad rulers, sometimes just one bad ruler, to undo the progress of generations.”
We are now enduring the pain and loss of President Obama’s third term. It didn’t happen as planned after the 2016 election, but after 4 years of much better ideas about energy and climate, we are back to the bleak prospects of anti-fossil fuel insanity. We vote on Tuesday to try to regain the initiative.
I had talked to a young relative and said sorry to him for leaving him a poorer country during the Obama maladministration. I couldn’t believe Obama was re-elected due to his divisive actions and destruction of our society. I couldn’t see the appeal to a race-baiter and his desire to ruin our energy infrastructure. I couldn’t believe there were that many idiotic voters.
I think the election process has been corrupted long before the 2020 fiasco. The 2020 corruption was just better co-ordinated with many more methods and financing than previous years.
We have to all vote, if nothing else to make it harder for them to cheat.
Obama was re-elected because the GOP nominated that RINO Mitt Romney to run against him. Romney spent all his time chasing the approval of the New York Times then they threw him under the bus and called him a murderer.
Like nominating Dole against Clinton’s second term.
Get real. The primaries chose Romney, 10 mill votes to the nearest rivals 4 mill
You hate democracy and voting don’t you
Hahaha
You really don’t know how politics and voting work, do you?
An election worker in Indiana was rejected for pre-selecting the straight Democrat ticket for voters and for pressuring other voters to not vote for Republicans. His excuse was that Republicans are racists.
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/democrat-poll-worker-ejected-pre-selecting-straight-dem-ticket-voting-machines-report
Never happened
It was the Republican activists who were getting too close to voters and the machines. He rightly got them to move away
Rightly 😉
Never happened
Love it. “Anything I don’t like never actually happened.”
Must be nice to live in your own reality.
You dont even know how polls workers operate . Its physically possible to know or even tell them how to vote.
Seems you havent heard of how voting is done . Its a secret when at the voting machine
Fox news is the source . Thats so funny but the gullible lap it up. Not that regular news is much better but still they are mostly honest
“I don’t like the source so it’s a lie”
Either you have never been in a voting booth, or you are setting new records for delusional thinking.
And once again, Duker just makes it up when he’s got nothing else.
The great crime of election coverage by the Press is allowing them to focus on individuals instead of Party planks. In this case it’s planks written by Progressive radicals. The voters don’t even realize they are still paying for the bailout of Illinois, NY, and California with inflation and permanent price increases.
Manchin is not the only Democrat that should be doing the blasting. This channeling of policy debate has got to stop.
There are things I don’t agree with Republicans on, but the Democrats have gone full retard on energy, and energy is key to our economy and indeed our nation’s security. So I’m voting on energy, even if I have to put clothespins on my nose.
The Democrats have gone full retard on issues all over the place.
Critical Race Theory
Gender assignment surgery for minors
Abortion up to the moment of birth
gun control
Letting criminals out of jail
defunding the police
Single payer for health care
Raising taxes on the productive and using that money to buy the votes of those who don’t want to work.
Whites are racist
Republicans are Nazis who want to destroy democracy and bring back slavery.
etc.
How much did Trump increase coal output for power generation?
A lot?, A bit or the actual result was a fall like the previous decade
Trump lies is the simple answer ,as well as not paying his taxes
Trump lies but he sure had great policies .
Somehow, despite Trump being called a warmonger, Ukraine happened only a year into Biden’s time in the Whitehouse. Gas prices doubled, inflation skyrocketed and Illegal immigration became an invasion.
Biden has persistently lied about gas prices, inflation and illegal immigration.
As you have never seen Trump’s Tax return, you have no idea if Trump paid his taxes or not.
It would be even more interesting to understand how Biden became a multi millionaire on a politicians salary. But you’ll never ask that question, will you?
Remember his threats to Iran if they retaliated , they went ahead and Trump let it go, such a peacemaker when US bases bombarded
Putin invaded Ukraine on his own timetable , unless you are saying he had secret dealings with Trump.
of course taking Russian money for business deals will land Trump in jail as its breaking sanctions. So sad .
And once again, when at a loss for anything intelligent to say, Duker just makes up new sh*t.
Should someone send a tow-truck? You seem to be hard-stuck!
HOw many times are you going to repeat that lie?
Don’t you have sufficient intelligence to come up with new lies? Or perhaps you are simply waiting for Biden to give you new instructions?
I find it amusing that the democrats can make an undeniable statement in plain English, and in the next breath state that they didn’t say what they just said. They’re also adept at doublethink.
“Our goal as a nation is to combat climate
change and increase our energy security
by producing clean and efficient American
energy. Under President Biden, oil and
natural gas production has increased, and
we are on track to hit the highest
production in our country’s history next
year.”
So…they claim that the goal is to combat climate change, but then go on to laud the administration’s highest-ever fossil fuel production. Huh? Which is it, then?
And by the way, domestic fossil fuel production naturally increases almost every year anyway, it isn’t one guy in the Oval Office magically pulling levers making that happen.
And where exactly does year over year “Production” figures turn if the hundreds of millions of barrels of oil robbed from the strategic reserves are factored out?
She can’t even get through the first sentence without an internal contradiction. “Combat ‘climate change'” and “increase our energy security” are mutually exclusive.
Call a spade a spade; it’s hostile.
Ironically it was the reliability of coal that broke the UK Miners Strike for Thatcher.
Having built up a huge stockpile in the two years before the strike began, and with the non-striking Nottinghamshire supplying part of the requirements the strike ended with only about half the stockpile used. Unfortunately Thatcher then laid the foundations for the war on coal in the UK by blaming it for climate warming, unfortunately when she changed her mind it was too late and the Pandora’s Box of Climate Change had released all kinds of demons
The climate warming bandwagon had begun rolling before Thatcher mentioned it.
joe manchin can never be trusted. he will change his spots again at precisely the right moment voting for more destructive legislation in the senate.
And Manchin was not fooled or tricked. The deal Manchin made with Schumer was to vote for the bill under the condition that he & Schumer would pretend he was tricked. WV needs to let him know it is time for him to retire “to spend more time with his family” instead of trying to be re-elected.
It’s easy for a politician to look like he is fighting for you and to turn on you when it counts.
Politicians only look like they are working for the benefit of the citizens they (supposedly) represent during the election cycle, after which they represent the money and powers that enrich them and give them power. The fourth branch of government ensures their fealty to the totalitarian state by threat, both implied and direct. We citizens are merely serfs that can be used or disposed of at the whim of the state. Remember the “democracy” they talk about is not the same concept we citizens believe it to be when we cast our vote.
I can’t understand how even a democrat could believe a democrat.
Greased palms.
Well said, and thank you.
I used to think of coal as dirty, at least compared to oil and nuclear. But I’d rather live next to a coal power plant than a wind or solar farm. Wellll…. I’ve never lived next to any of them, so that’s all theoretical.
I used to live across a valley from the local crematorium. When the wind was in the right direction we’d get a light dusting of fine ash blowing in through the open windows. A coal fired power station would be preferable to getting people in your food!
A coal fired power plant has much better filters.
Not burning that extra Trump coal that never happened.
At least Biden is honest in saying coal production will continue to fall
The moron will continue to lie to coal miners
Meanwhile oil production next year is on target to exceed the 2019 peak
We loved Trump policies.
How did his policy not work then
Maybe you loved his policy of surrender to the Taleban when his minions signed the Doha capitulation.
Is there anything you know that is actually true?
The Doha accords did not involve capitulation. That was your hero’s doing.
I guess this is today’s lie, that you intend to repeat over and over again.
Tomorrow Biden will come up with another lie for you to obsess over.
Let us just reference Obama in 2008. He said that under his plan, electricity would necessarily sky rocket.
Like he was proud of it. Shows the total lack of thought of the people that voted for that USA hating ass.
Seems that China and India (and Indonesia, Viet Nam, etc.) didn’t get the memo about coal being “unreliable”.
It never ceases to amaze me that on the one hand these muppets acknowledge that fossil fuels powered the worlds development for centuries, but suddenly now they have become unreliable and expensive for some reason which is never elaborated.
“Our goal as a nation is to combat climate change…”
No it’s not.
Well, Senator Manchin, the Democrats have stuffed it in your ear a couple of times this year, haven’t they? When are you going to get smart enough to do what Tulsi Gabbard did and walk away from those America-hating Marxist Democrats?
No, he’s one of them. He votes party line 88.9% of the time. His “moderate” reputation pushed by our domestic propaganda industry is almost all BS.
88.9% is moderate in comparison to the rest of the Senate Demonrats who voted the party line 90+% of the time. When the rest of your party is that far to the left, just being a little bit to the right of them is enough to look moderate in comparison.
Relativism didn’t stop The Inflation Enhancement Act, did it?!
Never said it did. But it did stop some of the Democrats other large spending bills, such as the multi-trillion dollar build back better boondoggle.
The one problem with these he voted with leadership x% of the time, is that 90% of votes are relatively meaningless procedural, or votes on things like National Potato day. Those kinds of votes almost always get nearly 100% support.
Fair comment. Although it’s easy to see who the real moderates are by comparing percentages. For example, during the Trump years Susan Collins (R-Maine) supported his position 65% of the time (https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/congress-trump-score/) compared to some of her colleagues at 90-100%. That Manchin at ~89% was the least-insane Democrat speaks volumes.
That’s not an apology
President Biden has issued a warning that all US citizens need to take full notice of.
The economy is on the ballot on Tuesday. And if you want to save the economy, you need to vote Republican.
Energy security is on the ballot on Tuesday. And if you want energy security, you need to vote Republican.
Fuel poverty is on the ballot on Tuesday. And if you want to avoid energy insecurity, you need to vote Republican.
Electricity blackouts are on the ballot on Tuesday. And if you want to avoid electricity blackouts, you need to vote Republican.
Americans not only need to vote, they need to take ten people along with them to vote as well. If it means providing transport for elderly relatives and friends, do it!
Persuade your children of voting age to go with you and cast their vote!
Call friends and implore them to vote Republican and if needs be, offer them a ride to the polling station to vote even if it’s at 3am.
These mid-terms have never been more important, not just for America, but for the civilised west as well.
A Red Wave won’t happen without a huge effort!
Contact your dead relatives and see if you can get them to change their votes from Democrat to Republican this time.
And THAT message needs to be POUNDED endlessly by the Republicans until people get it.
Your “right” to kill off your own offspring won’t mean much when you’re FREEZING TO DEATH AND STARVING TO DEATH IN THE DARK.
Who does Manchineel think he’s fooling? He belongs to the party that has been targeting coal mining and use for decades!
He showed his true nature when he made his little deal with the Left over that “anti-inflation” bill. I don’t feel sorry for that corrupt thing, but I do feel for the people in WV who were smart enough not to vote for him and are getting screwed anyway.
I don’t live in WV but if I did, I’d be annoyed at Manchin’s statement. Seems like Manchin is more upset with Biden’s midterm gaffe (the truth out loud) than what has been his obvious intention since before his election. C’mon Joe, you sound surprised (naive) or are you’re in on the game?
Yes I’d like to know exactly how “We’re gonna end fossil fuels” was “misinterpreted” by Biden’s critics. OR by Manchin.
A Nobel Prize was awarded to two gentlemen in 2005 for greatly improving the process of making pristine clean diesel from coal. That’s more than enough time for their ingenuity to go from the lab to the factory floor.
The US military belongs to Congress. Congress routinely purchases ships and planes their Navy did not request. That hardware gets built and employed nonetheless. Congress should command its military to make massive quantities of pristine clean diesel from American coal. Just think of the beneficial impact if the world’s #1 consumer of diesel substantially met its needs from new, domestic sources of diesel (without wasting a single bushel of corn or soybean).
Here is a powerful way for a Republican Congress to counterbalance the climastrologists in the “Biden” Admin and in society in general. It would also be an effective way to take the steam out of inflation, since diesel is the lifeblood of the economy. And, it would create lots of productive jobs, while further enhancing the most consequential nation in history as the world’s hydrocarbon hyperpower.
Carter got a Nobel for the Egypt/Israel peace deal.
Obama got a Nobel for not being Bush.
Trump shepards the Abraham accords that brokered peace between Israel and several of it’s neighbors. The largest improvement in the Middle East in 40 years and he gets …