Manchin Cracks The Door
 
After Senator Joe Manchin's Sunday morning announcement that he would not vote for Joe Biden's $5 trillion socialist wish list, Politico reports that Manchin spoke with President Biden later that night.  They agreed to talk again in the new year about what exactly Manchin could support.  Meanwhile, Senate Democrats are holding an emergency caucus meeting tonight.
 
As I noted yesterday, Manchin has said he would support at least $1.5 trillion in new spending, and there are reports he might go even higher. 
 
According to the Washington Post, Manchin offered the White House a draft of a $1.8 trillion plan that included universal pre-kindergarten, a big expansion of Obamacare and hundreds of billions for some climate change mitigation efforts. 
 
But Manchin will not accept budget gimmicks that distort the real costs of the legislation.  And he's unlikely to accept aspects of the Green New Deal that would cripple the American energy industry, which is a primary purpose of the legislation. 
 
Conservatives may have won the first skirmish in the Senate, but the battle is clearly far from over.  Meanwhile, we have dodged a socialist bullet, and we've avoided massive tax increases and an army of 86,000 new IRS agents going after American taxpayers. 
 
 
 
Left-wing Lunacy
 
Liberal elites are constantly acting like they're all for "the little guy" and conservatives are for the wealthy.  But we regularly see how the left hates the little guy, particularly those Middle Americans in "flyover country." 
 
Remember when disgraced FBI agent Peter Strzok texted his mistress about "smelling" Trump voters at a Virginia Walmart?  Remember how Hillary Clinton denounced anyone who didn't like her socialist policies as "deplorable and irredeemable"? 
 
Well, the left's condescension has also been obvious in their unhinged attacks on Joe Manchin.  One of the worst was from Bette Midler, who tweeted this:
 
"What #JoeManchin . . . has done to the rest of America, who wants to move forward, not backward, like his state, is horrible. He sold us out. He wants us all to be just like his state, West Virginia. Poor, illiterate and strung out."
 
Wow!  The level of vitriol and hate from a tolerant progressive is just astonishing!  (Of course, I'm joking.)
 
Midler's outrageous tweet was a very revealing moment.  I don't mind "confessing" that growing up I was a big fan of Bobby Kennedy.  One reason why was because he made a point of advocating for the working poor and working-class people of Appalachia.  I grew up in Kentucky, and I know and love those folks.
 
I remember when Bobby Kennedy campaigned in the mountains of West Virginia, and said that the people who lived and worked there were the salt of the earth.  I wonder what he would say about his Democrat Party today.  Today's left prefers their Silicon Valley big tech friends over coal miners and truck drivers.
 
By the way, if you needed another example that today's media is the propaganda arm of the DNC, just compare their effusive praise of "maverick" John McCain for opposing his party and saving Obamacare to their condemnations of Joe Manchin.
 
 
 
Our "Democracy" Is Not Broken
 
Another false narrative widely repeated on the left is that "the system is broken" and needs massive changes.  What exactly is "the system"?  Well, it's everything. 
 
It's America's entire political system, which the left insists is "systemically racist."  America is inherently broken and must be "fundamentally transformed."
 
The left hates the Electoral College and wants to abolish it. 
 
They hate the Senate.  They hate the fact that South Dakota and West Virginia get two senators just like New York and California.  As one left-wing pundit put it:
 
"The Senate is a broken, failed institution which no longer serves any positive purpose, if it ever did. It is nothing more than a blood clot in the aorta of American politics, and it needs to be cut out before it kills us."
 
The left hates the Supreme Court, and wants to transform it by packing the court with left-wing activists. 
 
Watching the cable networks yesterday, I heard multiple commentators make the point in various ways, saying, "America is broken when one senator from a small state like West Virginia stopped this country from doing what needs to be done."  Or "No one elected Joe Manchin president." 
 
This narrative is a lie.
 
Joe Manchin did not single-handedly stop the Senate from acting.  He's part of a majority of at least 51 senators who oppose Biden's wrongly misnamed "Build Back Better" bill. 
 
America today is a deeply divided country, and nowhere is that better reflected than in our 50/50 Senate.  Joe Biden has no mandate for this kind of radical change.  So, it's not at all surprising that the Senate might vote 51 to 49 to stop a massive lurch to the left. 
 
The surprising thing is not that Biden's massive socialist spending bill failed to pass.  The surprising thing is that Joe Manchin was largely alone among Democrats in opposing it!
 
So, no, the American political system is not broken.  The Senate worked exactly the way our Founding Fathers hoped it would – as an impediment to radical change.
 
 
 
Three More Bow Out
 
Three senior House Democrats announced this week that they are retiring from Congress next year. 
 
Rep. Lucille Roybal-Allard (D-CA) is the chairman of an Appropriations subcommittee.  Rep. Albio Sires (D-NJ) is the chairman of a Foreign Relations subcommittee.  Rep. Stephanie Murphy (D-FL) is co-chair of the ever-shrinking Blue Dog Caucus, a group of so-called "House moderates."
 
So far, that's 23 House Democrats who are calling it quits in 2022, and even more could be headed for the exits, given this CNN headline today:  "A Recipe For Absolute Destruction: Democrats Scramble To Avoid Electoral Blowback." 
 
Republicans need to win just five seats to become the House majority.