246 Comments

If these people aren't also protesting FOR more nuclear, then they aren't serious; they are just stupid, spoiled, bored children.

You won't catch them demanding more lithium mining and processing for batteries for their smart phones or EVs. They're perfectly content to let other countries bear that environmental burden.

Expand full comment

You have no idea what these protestors are for or against, other than Manchin's refusal to take climate change seriously - and it takes some nerve to describe working people in West Virginia, still one of the poorest states in the Union, as spoiled and bored children.

Expand full comment

I doubt very seriously that those are working people of West Virginia; oh perhaps a token few, but not the majority. I can't take climate change seriously when they don't; and nuclear is the only way to replace fossil fuels for generation of electricity. I think that would be a great step forward.

Expand full comment

Well, DC isn’t too far away. I’m sure the “perpetual agitation” crowd could pull together a few nickels and dimes, rent some buses & supply box lunches for angry college students, homeless people and other disenfranchised persons who don’t have anything better to do than roll over to WV for the day.

Expand full comment

You are spot on as to the demographics of the protesters.

Expand full comment

These are activists, not poor, working people.

Expand full comment

Why, specifically, do you take climate change seriously?

Expand full comment

Yes pretty sick scenario. We have desperately poor people(often black) toiling for minimal money for rich white people. Sounds surprisingly like antebellum America

Expand full comment

Fascinating. I would be interested to see the racial makeup of those toilers. How many blacks, whites, and asians. It would also be interesting to see the religion, ethnicity and creed of the miners. I certainly hope they're meeting their affirmative action quotas.

Expand full comment

Sounds not surprisingly like the world as a whole. What is your solution, sorry tradeoff?

Expand full comment

We'll store the spent fuel near your house, okay?

Expand full comment

And I’ll stick six wind turbines on your lawn. Grow up

Expand full comment

Windmill "farms" have footprints of miles upon miles. Anyone thinking they are pretty needs to drive through and/or stay a night where they have been installed. Anyone with a home in the area has probably lost a lot of re-sale value and their quality of life at the same time.

Expand full comment

We had a place to store it that no one lived within 100 miles of, but your attitude carried the day.

Expand full comment

Harry Reid overruled the science on nuclear waste storage because it was in his home state.

Expand full comment

All we need is your address. I'm sure it'll bring Jobs! Jobs! Jobs! You're welcome.

Expand full comment

Let me first say I admire your homage to Veblen. My Graduate Econ program was heavily into Institutional. Having said that, my former agency, Department of Energy, did a nationwide search for a safe storage site for nuclear waste. Nevada, in the middle of no where, was their pick. Like someone dissing vaccines or masking requirements, Harry Reid ignored the science. He used his position as Senate Majority Leader to stop the science.

Expand full comment

Oh I see, you really are that stupid and trite. Well, bye!

Expand full comment

Straight to the ad hominem? You need to stockpile more ammunition, pard.

Expand full comment

You brought it on yourself with your taunt about putting spent fuel in the commenter's yard. It was mockery at its lowest, particularly when a safe storage place was long ago in the process of development. You deserve the ad hominem.

Expand full comment

Not for the likes of you. You don't use an elephant gun on a varmint.

Expand full comment

Here's the quote you're riffing on from the movie Simon. Like most other things from 1980 it hasn't aged well:

"6. Pollution. Anybody who owns a factory that makes radioactive waste has to take it home at night with him to his house."

Expand full comment

Storage of “spent” fuel is a more complicated issue…it is actually still useful as nuclear fuel. Most other nuclear power generating countries reprocess their spent fuel. The US, in a stupid, idealistic, Carter-era policy, chose to discard the waste. The reason was that fuel reprocessing generates plutonium that could be used in weapons. But so what? We produce weapons. We don’t need the reprocessed fuel for that. But it was a move that made nuclear disarmament activists happy.

Expand full comment

NIMBY much???

Expand full comment

Funny too because I'm willing to bet I live much closer to a nuclear generating plant than he does.

Expand full comment

That’s too extreme. People can be right on some points and wrong on others, even on the same issue. In fact this is probably the norm.

I agree that the left has a knee jerk irrational reaction to nuclear power, but it doesn’t mean they are wrong about Manchin.

( I am agnostic about nuclear power. Some say it is too expensive andI don’t know enough to be able to determine who is right. I am just acknowledging that for many people there is a strong irrational component to their opposition.)

Expand full comment

it takes time to move from the old position to the necessity for nuclear power plants. It comes down to a simple equation: if you want to save "civilization" that is the dominant solution on the table with wind, solar, etc being supportive technologies. long term, though, it just postpones the reckoning that we face. extracting "resources" from the planet disturbs planetary function and out civilization as it is now constituted is oriented around extraction. ecological limits exist and sooner or later they have to be understood to be foundational to our species survival. the planet is not in trouble, our civilization is and if we press far enough, potentially our species. We are ecological beings on an ecological planet, nothing will ever allow us to escape that foundational truth. so, once again, we are in a situation where there are competing goods, our civilization and lifestyle as it is presently constituted or a necessary alteration of how it is constituted, at its foundation (which nuclear power is not). I do agree with you that nuclear power is the only power system that is widely available at the present time that can possibly allow the civilizational structure to continue as it is. It will buy us time, however, i don't expect us to use that time wisely.

Expand full comment

The first oil crisis in human history had nothing to do with OPEC, but it did have to do with depleting a resource - which in turn led to the substitution of a previously useless thing that seeped out of the ground (in some places). Now if you want to talk wasteful - think of all the natural gas that was flared off when petroleum was being extracted. At least we don't do that like we used to.

Expand full comment

no, we no longer do that (or do we, i have seen it still in NM) but we do do other stupid things that are part of standard practice rationalism. reducing complex nonlinear systems to static "stuff" in order for degreed experts to more effectively utilize their theories of resource extraction (as well as promulgate their simplistic theories of the natural world) to "better" mankind is incredibly stupid, nor is it rational. Looking more deeply into the ways that preliterate and unschooled artisans, craftsmen, farmers and so on worked for centuries with landscapes constantly reveals that they were aware of landscape behavior and interactions that the majority of rationalists and scientists constantly missed and which many are only now being able to perceive. Top down theory placed on living landscapes leads to destruction of those landscapes. Period. The problem is in allowing rationality and meritocracy as an orientation to life to become a dominant force in human cultures. There are other kinds of rationality, other kinds of science, not just the one that has been lauded by current western cultures. (and these other forms were in vogue to a much greater degree even in what we now call "science" prior to WWII.) We will ALWAYS do it like we used to (re gas flaring) in more ways than can be easily seen until it is too late. it is the system through which the world is viewed, its climate of mind, that is the trouble. when human qualities of empathy, compassion, caring, the heart's response to how a place is being treated by rational science or industry, honor, integrity, and so on and on are left out of how rationality and science are done then something is seriously wrong.

Expand full comment

If you wish to embark on a Rousseauvian noble savage life, you are free to do so. You are not free to drag me along.

Expand full comment

it is always interesting that people with your orientation believe that is what i am talking about. it isn't. that you think so points up the limitations of your belief system/mind set more than anything else. skeptics are always so unable to be skeptical about their own skepticism, they cut such ridiculous figures. your thinking is simplistic, uninformed, lacks any understanding of history, is certainly uneducated, and definitely indicates an inability to reason. but hey, if it works for you go for it. other than that, you are a perfectly charming person.

Expand full comment

Yeah, when you start going on about the virtues of pre-modern life, it's a little tough not to assume you've got a Continental Romantic angle to your thinking. I'm not going to say I have answers for how all of humanity ought to operate - I lack both the creativity and hubris to sustain that kind of thing. History can tell us something about the past, but often it tells us as much about the present and what we would project both backwards and forwards.

Expand full comment

But but but if they voted for the noble savage life, your social contract says you must dutifully comply.

Expand full comment

Show me my signature on that contract, then we'll talk.

Expand full comment

The halcyon days of yore, when the population was small, their days were long, their lives were short, and every moment was filled with miserable toils and possibility of imminent death are thankfully long gone. Capitalism clawed us out of all that.

Expand full comment

it just struck me, are you the author of Plant Intelligence and the Imaginal Realm? If so, hats off to you. That book made such an impression on me, I actually felt the trees as alive intelligent beings.

Expand full comment

Thank you for this comment

Expand full comment

the ‘love it’ heart-shaped button refuses to work, so I’ll just drop a response to say I love your comment. Goes right to the heart of the matter, but too complicated for our simple-minded population to digest

Expand full comment

If they say they’re climate activists and they aren’t for nuclear power they’re really just Luddites.

Expand full comment

None of them said a word about nuclear power - pro or con - so you're jumping to conclusions. And as a proud Luddite...there's nothing wrong with Luddites! :)

Expand full comment

What a rude fecking comment from 65 people. Try living in W.V.

Expand full comment

I have friends in W.V. and they aren't the kind that would be out protesting like that. They have better things to do with their time.

Expand full comment

just so you will know... there is significant lithium mining and processing taking place in the US as well...

Expand full comment

I'm so f---ing tired of "climate change activists" who oppose nuclear power. You're not serious people, so shut up.

That's all.

Expand full comment

Absolutely. I’m on record that if Gore comes out for nuclear then they really believe their nonsense

Expand full comment

Not if Robert Reich beats him to it.

Expand full comment

it takes time to move from the old position to the necessity for nuclear power plants. It comes down to a simple equation: if you want to save "civilization" that is the dominant solution on the table with wind, solar, etc being supportive technologies. long term, though, it just postpones the reckoning that we face. extracting "resources" from the planet disturbs planetary function and out civilization as it is now constituted is oriented around extraction. ecological limits exist and sooner or later they have to be understood to be foundational to our species survival. the planet is not in trouble, our civilization is and if we press far enough, potentially our species. We are ecological beings on an ecological planet, nothing will ever allow us to escape that foundational truth. so, once again, we are in a situation where there are competing goods, our civilization and lifestyle as it is presently constituted or a necessary alteration of how it is constituted, at its foundation (which nuclear power is not). I do agree with you that nuclear power is the only power system that is widely available at the present time that can possibly allow the civilizational structure to continue as it is. It will buy us time, however, i don't expect us to use that time wisely.

Expand full comment

How dare Manchin take bribes for filthy fossil fuel! He needs to take bribes for "green energy" like every other democrat.

Expand full comment

Troy, you win Best Comment of the Day! Exactly!!

Expand full comment
Comment deleted
April 15, 2022
Comment deleted
Expand full comment

Murphy in New Jersey. Lucky he kept his job. Colossal d*ck.

Expand full comment

First, note that the company is his own company, which he founded and now owns much, if not all, of the stock. Those who own stock collect dividends, which are earnings. Second, as far as activism in West Virginia goes, good luck. I spent a part of my life just across the river in NE Kentucky and even though there are a lot of Democrats around, it's perhaps the most conservative part of the US, not to mention that coal is the primary source of income for most West Virginians. Not to mention that West Virginia was solidly for Trump. The only reason Manchin was reelected is because he's well-liked. Why he hasn't switched parties is beyond me.

By the way, I doubt that more than a third, if that many, of the "activists" are West Virginians.

Expand full comment

I suspect the main reason that Manchin hasn't switched parties is that the Manchin name and family is a long-time political family in WV and has always been on the Democratic side of the road. So it may be more of a family thing that we would think... and I don't think ALL of his positions are quite in line with the Republican/Conservative views.

Expand full comment

The reason Joe has not switched is because he has the ultimate vote on the Dem side of the aisle. If he switched he would only be one of 51. He is definitely more center than any other Dem but he's still a Dem

Expand full comment

Whatever the reason, it’s fun watching make everyone else go full-on apoplectic because Joe gives the party a bad name.

Expand full comment

You say "pay". I say "bribe."

Some say "earned". I say "unearned."

He is paid a bribe of $500,000 which is unearned [he didn't work for it unless doing what you are bribed to do is defined as 'work'] income. If he did not hold a public office, he'd not be receiving it. So it is, in truth and in fact, income resulting from holding a public office and should go into the public's treasury.

So he's a double thief.

Expand full comment

Just a point. He started and owns the company and collects a dividend on the stock. that is taxable and legal. The company should have been put in a blind trust. That is a big ethical/legal problem.

Trumps holdings were always a bone of contention with his detractors but the rest of Congress is given a pass. Nancy's husband and others spouses in Congress make loads of money dealing with government contracts and/or acting as lobbyists for corporations or individuals. That is why D.C. is know widely as 'THE SWAMP.' It is putrid and stinks like a cesspool. Most every American knows this.

Trump addressed it and got elected but was sucked down into that same swamp. When The Swamp monsters impeached him twice it was obvious their motivations. Biden makes Trump look like a choirboy with his cartel like family.

Expand full comment

Well put.

Expand full comment

Good god. Trump was swimming in the swamp with the rest of them long before he was elected. Born with a silver spoon in his (big) mouth, and tried building a fortune through shady deals, multiple bankruptcies, and not paying taxes. It’s just he’s a master salesman at selling his image as something entirely different.

Expand full comment

Trump was a pretty typical ruthless businessman and nasty piece of work. He never sent a night in D.C. in his life before he was elected. For whatever reason he was excluded from the D.C. Club and he scared the hell out of the permeant gov't that runs the U. S. Trump and all the many businessmen like him don't make a pimple on a dogs ass compared to the D. C. looters and war mongers who cost America their children with their unnecessary wars waged to line their pockets. Keep ranting at the scarecrow that is Trump while the professional grifters and war mongers merrily continue daily plunder of our Treasury and sacrificing the lives of our children. Compared to Trump these individuals and organizations are as evil as it gets. Trump is just pornography for the left to jack off to.

Expand full comment

It’s just that Trump became President and may be Commander in Chief again. Surely this country, the GOP, can find someone better.

Expand full comment

From what I am hearing from previous Trump supporters his time has passed and he might have trouble getting out of a primary. Trump was a one off in my opinion. The reaction from the left and the MSM was so crazed and rabid that a lot of people found it troubling and seemed to feel that there was something more going on.

As I posted previously Kennedy's drunk driving caused a young girls death. He kept his position and remained as a "revered" figure in Dem. circles. Bill Clinton was everything the woman's movement riled against yet he was supported and feted by the faux feminists while his victims were freely attacked by Democrat politicians.

Trump an innocuous businessman/playboy set off a holocaust of hate, media rancor, over the top personal attacks and attempts by government enforcement agencies to illegally remove him from office. From day one of his announcement the media treated him like a bad joke. His election was immediately branded a Russian plot.

Anyway it all appeared to be that he represented some mega threat to someone or something buried deep within the government. Almost like trying to kill a humming bird with an nuclear weapon. Gotta raise an eyebrow or two among many Americans who long past had lost trust in the government, its' FBI and CIA and the DOJ. All were all in against Trump from day one. Rightly or wrongly those driving forces unleashed a pandora's box of conspiracies, told you so's and all manner of aggrieved people against the establishment and its' media minions. Odd thing was that the left who distrusted the gov't and sued the hell out of them over the decades suddenly jumped in and acted like there was no more trustworthy institution than the gov't and its Congressional clowns.

Expand full comment

why should that be scary? Biden is the person pushing for escalation of the Russia/Ukraine war that could very well lead to a nuclear fallout, and you are not scared by that?!?

Expand full comment

Why should it be in a blind trust? Maybe the people from WV want someone with an economic interest in coal.

Expand full comment

Advocating for your constitutions is a bit different that profiting directly from your programs and policies that are supposed to benefit the companies that employ and bring jobs to your district or State. It is in the interest of the elected official to stand up for his voters but working for his own personal gain is a horse of a different color.

Expand full comment

There are so many conflicts-of-interest. Going after Manchin seems totally unfair if Scott Gottlieb, the ex-FDA chief can be on the board of Pfizer, and the Secretary of Defense comes from Raytheon's board. At least Manchin was elected by voters knowing about his side gig.

Expand full comment

seems like the woke activists got the marching orders to defame and attack Manchin; their bosses are getting tired of this ‘treacherous’ Dem!

Expand full comment

I understand having a blind trust where you don't know what it's invested in and what impact your actions as a congressman might have on them. What would a blind trust accomplish in this instance?

Expand full comment

Probably not much, but short of having every candidate divest themselves of every business or stock there is no real solution in the real world except hoping that the candidate is a basically honest individual. If you did force a liquidation of assets we probably would get career politicians (enough of them already) without real world experience and poor to boot. That opens another pandora's box. No easy answers or safeguards except a free press and informed voters.

Free press is now part of the establishment. The Washington Post is a totally compromised source of information. Press seems to be a "kept woman" addicted to power and access to the very government they are expected to police. When Max Boot a so called journalist calls for MORE censorship you know that institution has jumped the shark.

Expand full comment

what an apt description ‘kept woman’, except kept women of yore could still have more integrity and honor than these current ones.

Expand full comment

Sounds like he’s not a total grifter. I hate the swamp!!

Expand full comment

I do not know this to be true or false "he started and owns". So I am ignorant. I accept your representation of 'started' and 'owns' as I think you intend their meaning such as those terms are used in conversational English. The question arises, to me, source of funds for starting and how much his holding of public office could be reasonably considered as having influenced the continued existence. If it was started with funds gifted/loaned a political contributor or supporter [whether he was in office at the time is less important, to me, that whether he was thought of as a rising political star.] then that is one thing. If started with funds he saved up washing dishes at the local McDonalds or an inheritance that would be a different factual setting and call for a different analysis. I don't know. He might be clean on these two points or me might be just a different kind of dirty. He is presently dirty and he may, or may not, have started out dirty. Don't know. cheers.

Expand full comment

Very astute analysis. Since I have no independent knowledge of the how's or why's of his ownership of this company you make a good. point. With elected officials it is always an adventure trying to determine their motivations or their ethical underpinnings. I think this is pretty common with every government on earth. This is the nature of government. At least in a democracy the voters IF interested and informed can mitigate the actions of the worst of the swamp creatures by voting them out. We voted in rapists, murders, drug addicts and all manner of American lowbrow people. Ted Kennedy's actions resulted in the death of a staffer and he was celebrated and lauded over. But when he attempted to gain higher office he was rebuked. Bill Clinton needs no examination to point out his flaws. Life like gov't is not perfect and we are all compromised in some ways but we get by and often surprise ourselves by stepping up and doing the right thing when the chips are down. Problem with Congress is they are all in a fishbowl that most of us would be loath to have our lives exposed within. Okay got that off my chest.

Expand full comment

Manchin’s family has been in the coal business for decades, as have many if not most wealthy West Virginian families. This long pre-dated his entry into politics, and pre-dated even the birth of the climate change business. Al Gore has made more from climate alarmism than Manchin could DREAM of making from brokering and refining coal, which is still an important part of energy production in this country largely if not exclusively because of the nonsensical opposition to nuclear power.

Sweden burns almost zero fossil fuel because it relies massively on clean nuclear power. Western technology has made nuclear as close to 100% safe as it can likely ever be. Multiple sites for waste burial have been rejected for political, not scientific reasons .

Wind power has been a genocide on America’s avian population. Wind companes have paid tens of millions in fines for the death of HUNDREDS of rare golden and bald eagles. There is nothing more viscerally upsetting than the site of a noble bald eagle,, broken and dead beneath a churning turbine. These photos are suppressed by the climate activists.

Expand full comment

Thanks a well informed post and some sanity regarding the climate obsessed cultists on the left. If the toll on the bird population could be placed before the public the windmill industry would have to be evaluated against the harms it causes. But that scared cow industry never has to answer for the vast killings of wildlife or its very flawed technology.

Texas found out just what reliance on wind power can result in when there is a stampede to new unproven technology that can collapse in an instant. Funny how the individuals responsible for that disaster just move on to the next thing without missing a beat.

Even though the novel "Atlas Shrugged" is flawed in many places its depiction of the leeches and government bureaucrats who profit from the innovation of others is very compelling and accurate. The Obama's others with their bogus mantra of "you did not build this" are a very typical example of those hideous grifters who buzz around successful individuals like flies attracted to piles of shit. They who have never produced anything nor created one job somehow get to attack those who add value to society all the while demonizing the very people whom they feed off. The exact definition of a leech.

Expand full comment

There is more to adding value to society than producing goods and creating jobs. Those who teach, who comfort, who raise children, who inspire, who entertain, who support their families, who encourage, who deal honestly with others, etc., help to make life worth living for us all. There are many ways to define success.

Expand full comment

"This long pre-dated his entry into politics, and pre-dated even the birth of the climate change business." His entry into politics, okay, but he may be a 'third generation' grifter/grafter [ht. Holmes] This pushes the same questions back in time and onto prior Manchin crime family members err I mean "ancestors" and may result in a cleanness of origin that was later dirtied up. More we don't know. cheers.

Expand full comment

It appears you believe that all business people regardless of their origin are somehow grifters, grafters and criminal in nature. Calling individuals whom you don't know or are broad brushing them as criminal is a form of know nothingness that leads to mobs and "off its their heads" types of societal revolutions. Most these revolutions sputter out and societies return to their natural stasis.

The vaulted Kennedy's fortune was acquired by nefarious means and was laundered over the years. A Nazi sympathizer Joe Kennedy was removed from his ambassadorship to G.B. Yet this is almost never referred to by the Democrats who castigate everyone else. Nancy Pelosi herself is a product of a Mafia connected family and her husband has made loads of money with government contracts steered to him by -- guess who.

Expand full comment

Give it a rest

Expand full comment

Birds are getting killed?! Oooh no! I’m more concerned about the people all over the world killed for oil. But for sure, birds.

Expand full comment

Yeah, wind power wil stop wars over resources. Sure. Have you ever looked at the emissions and pollution created by the manufacture of a wind turbine? The elements and materials that are required? Do you understand why the components for them and solar cells are manufactured primarily in China, and the metals and REE’s are mined and refined in China and Russia? Anyone who believes wind is better and more scalable than nuclear is not a serious person. And yes, the murder of hundreds of rare eagles is a crime. That’s why the operators pay millions in fines. They should go to jail.

Expand full comment

He's paid a bribe by his own company?

Expand full comment

Well thank goodness Manchin is the only member of Congress with these sorts of “agreements.” 😂😂😂😂😂 See Military Industrial Complex vendors.

Expand full comment

And that suprises you!! Every so called representative, engages in this personal enrichment. They are bought and paid for by the people who own them. They can call it a campaign contribution, lobbying funds, or my favorite, junkets. In the real world these are called bribes and kickbacks. What's funny is that these are approved by the "Ethics" committee. Like there's one fucking ethical person in the whole of government. Well, maybe one?

Expand full comment

I like to believe there are a few with clean hands, but I have no proof of it

Expand full comment

I know there are. Our representative went to Congress for several terms and retired no wealthier (or not much) than he went in. Our current Senator seems to be on same track.

Expand full comment

Me neither.

Expand full comment

Who is your guess? I’ll go with Sen Susan Collins.

Expand full comment

Let me introduce you to Dianne Feinstein sometime. Or maybe Nancy Pelosi. DiFi in particular has made in excess of $100M in war profiteering and other pork from the trough. And that doesn't even count the $Billion her husband made off similar sweetheart deals including selling off CA state land and buildings to the lowest bidders who would then lease the land and buildings back to the state.

Great gig if you can get it ... 'course you'll have to knock-off DiFi to get then wait for Pelosi to pick the bones clean

Expand full comment

They are both so vile… but you know, powerful successful women, it’s sexist to criticize them…let’s toss in Maxine Waters and Claire McCaskill… Sen Blackburn is suspect as well. I wish I could stop caring. I went to college with Susan Collins and she was always a very focused, serious person. As a Republican from Maine, I think she does a great balancing act and I would keel over if she was proven to be corrupt.

Expand full comment

I've never met Senator Collins, but as a gay man, I'm particularly fond of her and fmr Senator Snowe. It was they who out-maneuvered obama and reid when DADT and DOMA were up to be repealed. Obama told reid to keep the repeals in committee so DADT and DOMA would remain law. Snowe and Collins got them out of committee and on to the senate floor where both were repealed.

I grow so weary of people claiming the clintons and obama and the democratic party are friends to gays, when it was clinton who created DOMA and DADT, and it took two strong republican women to champion gay rights and get both pieces of discriminatory legislation repealed.

Expand full comment

Yup, saying the DNC genuinely support gays is like people believing that Hillary is a genuine feminist. I’m 70, I’d like to slap her for co opting feminism… I think she toasts herself nightly for being such a shrewd charlatan.

Expand full comment

Out of 535 people, I vote for the dog

Expand full comment

Ron Wyden? Really not sure

Expand full comment

Not familiar with him. I of course am exaggerating, but there really are some steroidal unethical hypocrites… Maisie Honoro (sp?) close to the top of the list

Expand full comment

Technically you are correct. The IRS treats dividends as "unearned" income.

To say the dividends that Joe receives are unearned neglects the fact that he "earned" them by putting his ownership stake at risk of failure. Holding public office has not a diddly squat thing to do with it. He'd own the company even if he were a private citizen. Would you still say the dividends equal bribe then? Explain.

Expand full comment

Your understanding of ownership and capital is nonexistent. Really the wisdom of a kindergartner

Expand full comment

Sir/Madam-Fuck off. Your opinion is an uniformed as you are. I can tell by what you say you don't get the point. I can't even tell if you try. So your opinion if a "fuck off" opinion that I can ignore since it is just a 'blurt'. No reasoning, no logic. As ignorant as fuck. Cheers. Feel no need to respond unless it is lengthy and begins with a fair-minded [Principle of Charity] summary of the argument presented. A notation of factual or reasoning error and no simple "you are stupid" statements. Your blurt tells a reader more about your lack of consideration [in both senses] than it does about the facts and opinion I present, however flawed you deem them. If I were not feeling bitchy today and truly tired of numbnuts with keyboards I wouldn't have responded. And since you operate under an alias you are not entitled to a response, though arguments presented by you might be.

Expand full comment

You remain clueless. Is that lengthy” I enough for you? You made my day knowing that my comment made you even more “bitchy”.

LOL

Expand full comment

Did you comprehend the article?

Expand full comment

He owns stock in a company that makes money off of energy. It's not a bribe as some have pointed out. But it is a wicked Conflict of Interest, as many of our esteemed "leaders" also possess. Some will argue that having people in the know sit on committees and handle things like this is good. They are right to a point, but there is also a point where their own best interest served outweigh the rest of us. Manchin is likely there based on his voting record.

Again, that's the people of West Virginia's right, and they likely share a similar view to Manchin. So... it's what it is I suppose.

Expand full comment

since a significant percentage of the WV people are employed by the coal industry and it's supporting industries - I suspect they are OK with his support for the coal industry...

Expand full comment

Yup, I’m always appalled by the callous disregard by liberals for Appalachia. “They must transition to other jobs.” Go spend a week in Appalachia and get back to me….and then stop virtue signaling and start problem solving.

Expand full comment

Born and raised by those that grew up in Shenandoah, and bounced back and forth across MD, PA, and WV borders following work. Fully and completely aware of the area.

Conflicts of interest go MUCH further than just one place. I am against all conflicts of interest. Like... Those that write rules on term limits or stock trading, or any number of issues.

Expand full comment

Oops, I was not responding to your comment! I understand the conflicts of interests... what I have no use for is the people who throw coal miners into that Big Bad Basket of Deplorables..... out of sight, out of mind... Far too many liberals have no “on the ground” real understanding of a State completely different than theirs. Same people who consider farmers to be “ hayseeds.” I’m related to several.... and they express their distain from their Range Rovers....

Expand full comment

I don't agree it's a conflict of interest. Joe has always said he's for whatever is good for West Virginia. Coal is good for WV. Joe would be for coal even if he didn't have a dime invested in the industry.

Expand full comment

Excellent point to move past this "its a conflict" stuff.

Expand full comment

Like many of our “public servants”

Expand full comment

Did you read the article? He OWNS the company--ergo, the earnings (what's left over after all the expenses) go to him and whatever other investors there are

Expand full comment

"The end is nigh!" screeched the climate change activists... back in 2010, and 2000, and 1995, and 1980, and 1970, and...

Expand full comment

Before that, they were sacrificing children to appease the weather gods and shaking rain sticks. Claims about what we need to do to improve the weather are the longest-running scam in human history.

Expand full comment

But what if we didn’t need to kill people over oil anymore? Or the leader of the free world didn’t have to kiss Saudi Venezuela ass ever time there’s an oil whoopsie daisy. Also, speaking of fuck the environment, did you know wind mills are slaughtering birds? I bet you could sell tickets for that! The tears of environmental folks could give us more hydroelectric. But yeah no more regime change wars for oil. Americans are stupid but are we that stupid?

Expand full comment

Yes, but in the 70s the imminent doom was another Ice Age!!!

Expand full comment

Cooling. Warming. Changing. Warming causing cooling. It's all unfalsifiable rubbish.

Expand full comment