Post by mhbruin on Dec 20, 2021 8:35:17 GMT -8
US Vaccine Data - We Have Now Administered 496 Million Shots (Population 333 Million)
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IF YOU ARE READING THIS, YOU CLEARLY IGNORED THE SUBJECT LINE
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Something to Mullah Over
In a rare public display of defiance in Iran, protesters have shouted anti-government slogans outside the home of a Kurdish man who has been executed.
Crowds gathered in Heidar Ghorbani's hometown of Kamyaran, in Kurdistan province, calling him a martyr.
Ghorbani, who was 48, was convicted of the murder of three people linked to Iran's elite Revolutionary Guard Corps.
But he had denied any connection with the killings, and human rights groups said he was a political prisoner.
Ghorbani was also found guilty of being a member of an exiled armed opposition group - the Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan (PDKI) - that fights for greater autonomy for Iran's Kurdish community.
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We Are All Going To Get COVID, and ...
Omicron will lead to a spike in cases in the upcoming weeks, but those who are vaccinated and unvaccinated will have a “stark difference” in experience, US Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy told anchor Tony Dokoupil on “CBS Mornings” Monday.
“In the coming weeks, Tony, we are going to see a spike in cases. And that’s because Omicron is incredibly transmissible, and you know, we have to be prepared for that,” Murthy said. “But there will be a stark difference between the experience of those who are vaccinated and boosted versus those who are unvaccinated.”
For people who have maximum protection from vaccines and boosters, Murthy said that they either won’t get an infection, or if they do, it will most likely be mild.
“If you are unvaccinated, I’m worried about you. I’m worried that your risk of being hospitalized, or God forbid, losing your life to this virus, is quite significant,” Murthy said. “It still remains the case that getting vaccinated and boosted is the best way to protect yourself, even against Omicron.”
I'm Still Not Planning a Cruise
Despite stringent measures supposed to keep ocean cruises Covid-free, operator Royal Caribbean says at least 48 people on board one of its ships that docked in Miami at the weekend have tested positive for the virus.
The Symphony of the Seas, the world's biggest cruise ship, was carrying more than 6,000 passengers and crew on a week-long journey around the Caribbean when a guest tested positive, prompting wider contact tracing, according to Royal Caribbean.
Cruise ships had been touted as the one of the "safest" vacations available back in summer 2021 when the cruise industry restarted in the US with new Covid protocols, following an extensive pandemic shutdown.
The Symphony of the Seas was carrying 6,091 passengers and crew members. In a statement, Royal Caribbean said that a guest tested positive during the voyage, and subsequent cases were detected following contact tracing.
It said 95% on board were fully vaccinated. Of the people who've since tested positive, 98% were fully vaccinated. The total number of cases amounted to 0.78% of the on board population.
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Confused About COVID Yet? This Should Help Confuse You. Exhibit 1
Anew study suggests the omicron variant of COVID-19 is “markedly resistant” to the current COVID-19 vaccines, antibody treatments and booster shots, raising concern from experts about what’s to come from the variant in the coming weeks.
“We found (omicron) to be markedly resistant to neutralization by serum not only from convalescent patients, but also from individuals vaccinated with one of the four widely used COVID-19 vaccines. Even serum from persons vaccinated and boosted with mRNA-based vaccines exhibited substantially diminished neutralizing activity against B.1.1.529,” the study said.
The study — which has not been peer-reviewed or edited for a scientific journal — found that monoclonal antibody cocktails are ineffective against omicron, too.
And natural antibodies from previous COVID-19 infections don’t help stop the virus, either, according to the study.
However, the study still recommends vaccination and booster shots to stay safe from the coronavirus variant.
Exhibit 2
Vaccine manufacturer Moderna said Monday that a booster dose of its coronavirus vaccine significantly raised antibody levels against the omicron variant, amid growing concerns about its rapid spread in the United States.
A booster dose of Moderna’s vaccine — half the dose used in the original shots for adults — increased antibody levels against omicron by 37 times, the company said in a statement, citing preliminary data.
Those antibodies “should provide some good level of protection as we go into the holiday season,” Paul Burton, Moderna’s chief medical officer, said in an interview.
Exhibit 3
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Closing in on The Previous Guy
From Raw Story:
Former president Donald Trump will soon be indicted for criminal racketeering under New York state law, according to Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative journalist David Cay Johnston.
Johnston indicated Saturday afternoon that the charges will stem from Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance's ongoing investigation into whether Trump's company misled lenders or tax authorities about the value of its properties.
"I anticipate they're going to bring a racketeering charge against Trump," Johnston said. "Certainly Trump's team, when he's indicted, and I'm certain he will be indicted, is going to try to lay the blame on everybody else, and so what the prosecutors want to show that is if (Trump Organization Chief Financial Officer) Allen Weisselberg phonied up documents, it was at the direction of Donald Trump."
He's So Dumb, He's Trying to Stop the Wrong Investigation
Donald Trump has sued New York state attorney general, Letitia James, seeking to halt her long-running investigation of his business practices, the New York Times reported on Monday.
The paper said Trump’s suit alleges that James, a Democrat, “is guided solely by political animus and a desire to harass, intimidate, and retaliate against a private citizen who she views as a political opponent”.
James recently said she would seek to question the former president under oath in January. Her investigation could only result in civil charges, not criminal.
Trump’s business affairs are also being investigated in New York by the Manhattan district attorney, Cyrus Vance. That is a criminal investigation.
--------------
Closing in on The Previous Guy - Part 2
Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.) said Sunday that the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack is looking into whether former President Donald Trump committed a crime by trying to obstruct the certification of the 2020 election results.
Kinzinger, one of two Republicans on the committee, said on CNN’s “State of the Union” that he wasn’t prepared to say yet if he believed Trump had broken the law, however, “by the end of our investigation, and by the time our report is out, [we’ll] have a pretty good idea.”
“We’ll be able to, you know, have out on the public record anything Justice Department needs maybe in pursuit of that,” he added.
“Nobody is above the law. And if the president knowingly allowed what happened on Jan. 6 to happen, and in fact was giddy about it, and that violates a criminal statute, he needs to be held accountable for that,” he said.
Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.), the vice chair of the panel, signaled at a hearing last week that Trump could have acted criminally.
He Doesn't Like It
Donald Trump is increasingly agitated by the House select committee investigating the Capitol attack, according to sources familiar with the matter, and appears anxious he might be implicated in the sprawling inquiry into the insurrection even as he protests his innocence.
The former president in recent weeks has complained more about the investigation, demanding why his former White House chief of staff, Mark Meadows, shared so much material about 6 January with the select committee, and why dozens of other aides have also cooperated.
Trump has also been perturbed by aides invoking the Fifth Amendment in depositions - it makes them look weak and complicit in a crime, he has told associates - and considers them foolish for not following the lead of his former strategist Steve Bannon in simply ignoring the subpoenas.
When Trump sees new developments in the Capitol attack investigation on television, he has started swearing about the negative coverage and bemoaned that the House minority leader, Kevin McCarthy, was too incompetent to put Republicans on the committee to defend him.
--------------
COVID and the QOP
Sarah Palin Says She'll Get COVID-19 Vaccine 'Over My Dead Body'
It Can Ge Arranged
Washington State Sen. Doug Ericksen Dies After COVID Battle
He was also was a former leader of Trump’s campaign in Washington and an outspoken critic of Democratic Gov. Jay Inslee’s COVID-19 emergency orders.
The staunch conservative, has died at age 52.
Ericksen’s death Friday came weeks after he said he had tested positive for the coronavirus while in El Salvador, though his cause of death wasn’t immediately released. The state Senate Republican Caucus confirmed his passing Saturday but did not say where he died.
Ericksen, a Ferndale Republican, reached out to Republican colleagues last month saying he had taken a trip to El Salvador and tested positive for COVID-19 shortly after he arrived. Reasons for his visit were unclear.
In a message to state House and Senate members, Ericksen asked for advice on how to receive monoclonal antibodies, which were not available in the Latin American nation.
--------------
Coal Joe Doesn't Have Many Friends Left in the Democratic Party
The latest antics from Sen. Joe Manchin, going on Fox News to stab President Joe Biden and the whole of the Democratic House and Senate in the back, further complicates an already hairy legislative push before the 2022 midterms. Frankly, by announcing he will singlehandedly torpedo the Build Back Better plan, Manchin is making Democrats’ prospects in that election even bleaker.
That’s one reason the White House blistered Manchin in a statement Sunday, a statement explicitly approved by Biden. “While staff drafted language addressing Manchin's specific concerns—on inflation, climate provisions and how the plan was paid for—Biden specifically instructed them to add that if Manchin stood by his comments, he had violated his word to the President,” CNN reports.
It’s not just Biden, though. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer called Manchin out in a “dear colleague” letter sent to fellow senators, acknowledging the “deep discontent and frustration” already existing among Senate Democrats that was heightened by “the decision to delay floor consideration of the Build Back Better Act because Senator Manchin could not come to an agreement with the president.” That’s as close to a rebuke of a single senator you’re going to see from a leader. Others have been a lot more sharp.
He May Find He Has Few in the QOP Either. But He Will Have Friends in Oil and Coal
For decades, Manchin has profited from a series of coal companies that he founded during the 1980s. His son, Joe Manchin IV, has since assumed leadership roles in the firms, and the senator says his ownership is held in a blind trust. Yet between the time he joined the Senate and today, Manchin has personally grossed more than $4.5 million from those firms, according to financial disclosures. He also holds stock options in Enersystems Inc., the larger of the two firms, valued between $1 and $5 million.
Those two companies are Enersystems Inc. and Farmington Resources Inc., the latter of which was created by the rapid merging of two other firms, Manchin’s Transcon and Farmington Energy in 2005. Enersystems purchases low-quality waste coal from mines and resells it to power plants as fuel, while Farmington Resources provides “support activities for mining” and holds coal reserves in the Fairmont area. Over the decades, whether feeding tens of thousands of tons of dirty waste coal into the power plants in northern West Virginia or subjecting workers to unsafe conditions, Manchin’s family coal business has almost entirely avoided public scrutiny.
Manchin has raised over 763,000 dollars from the fossil fuel industry from 2017 to 2020. Those numbers have only increased since 2021 as Manchin is critical to stop any action on the climate. Polluters got their investment return, and then some as the coal baron whittled most life-affirming provisions out of BBB.
Not Many Friends in West Virginia
Many West Virginians supported the Build Back Better Act before it was stripped down to accommodate Manchin and other conservative Democrats—a study from West Virginia University found the bill would have directed nearly $21 billion in investment in renewable power, grown the state’s economy by hundreds of millions of dollars annually, and created thousands of jobs. Mayors of Charleston and other large cities last week called on Manchin to vote for the bill, and the president of the United Mine Workers of America backed a section that would have transitioned from coal with thousands of clean energy jobs. A poll by Data for Progress earlier this year found that 57% of state likely voters favored the agenda, including 50% of independents and 45% of Republicans.
Manchin continues to be by far the top recipient of oil and gas industry contributions in Congress, while holding non-public shares valued at up to $5 million in his family coal brokerage and receiving a rich annual income from its waste coal services. The power plant where his family company handles waste coal was recently approved by a state commission to operate until at least 2040, surviving after a ratepayer bailout he oversaw as governor in 2006 and another publicly-funded rescue in 2015, and Manchin inserted $11.3 billion in funding in the bipartisan infrastructure bill that could free up more waste coal to burn, among other provisions he added targeting the niche industry.
While Manchin was in the process of removing the clean energy programs, over which he had previously demanded sole committee jurisdiction from Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, his campaign and leadership PAC saw an influx of over $400,000 in third quarter donations from fossil fuel industry PACs and the executives and employees of oil and gas companies.
Sen. Bernie Sanders has said he will pay for a poll to find out how the people of West Virginia feel about the Build Back Better bill after Sen. Joe Manchin said he would not support it.
Manchin, a moderate Democrat representing West Virginia, threw President Joe Biden's $1.75 trillion domestic initiative into jeopardy when he announced on Fox News Sunday that he could not support it.
"If I can't go home and explain it to the people of West Virginia, I can't vote for it," Manchin said. "And I cannot vote to continue with this piece of legislation."
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Good Lord! He Really Did Slow the Testing Down
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If You Cut the Price of a Useless Drug in Half, Is That a Bargain?
Biogen is slashing the price of its Alzheimer’s treatment in half months after it debuted to widespread criticism for an initial cost that could reach $56,000 annually.
The drugmaker said Monday that it will cut the wholesale acquisition cost of the drug by about 50% next month. That means the annual cost for a person of average weight will amount to $28,200.
The actual amount that person would pay will depend on factors like insurance coverage.
Biogen CEO Michel Vounatsos said in a prepared statement that too many patients were not being offered the drug due to “financial considerations,” and their disease had progressed beyond the point where Aduhelm could help.
Why Was the Price So High in the First Place?
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CDC doesn't do a good job of reporting around holidays.
Doses Administered 7-Day Average | Number of People Receiving 1 or More Doses | Number of People Fully Vaccinated | New Cases 7-Day Average | Deaths 7-Day Average | |
| Dec 20 | 1,554,261 | 241,881,712 | 204,098,982 | ||
| Dec 19 | 1,558,720 | 241,571,084 | 203,926,479 | 132,659 | 1,169 |
| Dec 18 | 1,562,366 | 241,205,528 | 203,727,446 | 127,445 | 1,182 |
| Dec 17 | 2,065,555 | 240,775,382 | 203,479,206 | 125,775 | 1,182 |
| Dec 16 | 2,043,207 | 240,321,022 | 203,159,327 | 122,296 | 1,179 |
| Dec 15 | 1,795,384 | 239,975,167 | 202,748,005 | 119,546 | 1,187 |
| Dec 14 | 1,904,464 | 239,553,956 | 202,504,037 | 117,950 | 1,143 |
| Dec 13 | 1,951,329 | 239,274,656 | 202,246,698 | 117,890 | 1,147 |
| Dec 12 | 1,984,721 | 239,008,166 | 201,975,235 | 116,742 | 1,131 |
| Dec 11 | 2,020,853 | 238,679,707 | 201,688,550 | 116,893 | 1,131 |
| Dec 10 | 1,721,570 | 238,143,066 | 201,279,582 | 118,575 | 1,146 |
| Dec 9 | 1,583,662 | 237,468,725 | 200,717,387 | 118,052 | 1,089 |
| Dec 8 | 1,611,831 | 237,087,380 | 200,400,533 | 118,515 | 1,092 |
| Dec 7 | 1,781,389 | 236,363,835 | 199,687,439 | 117,488 | 1,097 |
| Dec 6 | 1,780,807 | 236,018,871 | 199,313,022 | 117,179 | 1,117 |
| Dec 5 | 2,264,301 | 235,698,738 | 198,962,520 | 103,823 | 1,154 |
| Dec 4 | 2,009,864 | 235,297,964 | 198,592,167 | 105,554 | 1,150 |
| Dec 3 | 1,700,056 | 234,743,864 | 198,211,641 | 106,132 | 1,110 |
| Dec 2 | 1,428,263 | 234,269,053 | 197,838,728 | 96,425 | 975 |
| Dec 1 | 1,116,587 | 233,590,555 | 197,363,116 | 86,412 | 859 |
| Nov 30 | 1,152,647 | 233,207,582 | 197,058,988 | 82,846 | 816 |
| Nov 29 | 937,113 | 232,792,508 | 196,806,194 | 80,178 | 804 |
| Nov 28 | No Data | 72,008 | 719 | ||
| Nov 27 | No Data | 72,139 | 721 | ||
| Nov 26 | No Data | 73,962 | 742 | ||
| Nov 25 | No Data | 82,440 | 887 | ||
| Nov 24 | 898,833 | 231,367,686 | 196,168,756 | 93,931 | 989 |
| Nov 23 | 1,126,545 | 230,669,289 | 195,973,992 | 94,266 | 982 |
| Nov 22 | 1,521,815 | 230,732,565 | 196,398,948 | 93,668 | 1,009 |
| Nov 21 | 1,774,196 | 230,298,744 | 196,284,442 | 91,021 | 985 |
| Feb 16 | 1,716,311 | 39,670,551 | 15,015,434 | 78,292 |
| At Least One Dose | Fully Vaccinated | % of Vaccinated W/ Boosters | |
| % of Total Population | 72.9% | 61.5% | 29.8% |
| % of Population 12+ | 83.1% | 70.7% | 33.4% |
| % of Population 18+ | 85.1% | 72.5% | 44.1% |
| % of Population 65+ | 95.0% | 87.5% | 54.5% |
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IF YOU ARE READING THIS, YOU CLEARLY IGNORED THE SUBJECT LINE
--------------
Something to Mullah Over
In a rare public display of defiance in Iran, protesters have shouted anti-government slogans outside the home of a Kurdish man who has been executed.
Crowds gathered in Heidar Ghorbani's hometown of Kamyaran, in Kurdistan province, calling him a martyr.
Ghorbani, who was 48, was convicted of the murder of three people linked to Iran's elite Revolutionary Guard Corps.
But he had denied any connection with the killings, and human rights groups said he was a political prisoner.
Ghorbani was also found guilty of being a member of an exiled armed opposition group - the Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan (PDKI) - that fights for greater autonomy for Iran's Kurdish community.
--------------
We Are All Going To Get COVID, and ...
Omicron will lead to a spike in cases in the upcoming weeks, but those who are vaccinated and unvaccinated will have a “stark difference” in experience, US Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy told anchor Tony Dokoupil on “CBS Mornings” Monday.
“In the coming weeks, Tony, we are going to see a spike in cases. And that’s because Omicron is incredibly transmissible, and you know, we have to be prepared for that,” Murthy said. “But there will be a stark difference between the experience of those who are vaccinated and boosted versus those who are unvaccinated.”
For people who have maximum protection from vaccines and boosters, Murthy said that they either won’t get an infection, or if they do, it will most likely be mild.
“If you are unvaccinated, I’m worried about you. I’m worried that your risk of being hospitalized, or God forbid, losing your life to this virus, is quite significant,” Murthy said. “It still remains the case that getting vaccinated and boosted is the best way to protect yourself, even against Omicron.”
I'm Still Not Planning a Cruise
Despite stringent measures supposed to keep ocean cruises Covid-free, operator Royal Caribbean says at least 48 people on board one of its ships that docked in Miami at the weekend have tested positive for the virus.
The Symphony of the Seas, the world's biggest cruise ship, was carrying more than 6,000 passengers and crew on a week-long journey around the Caribbean when a guest tested positive, prompting wider contact tracing, according to Royal Caribbean.
Cruise ships had been touted as the one of the "safest" vacations available back in summer 2021 when the cruise industry restarted in the US with new Covid protocols, following an extensive pandemic shutdown.
The Symphony of the Seas was carrying 6,091 passengers and crew members. In a statement, Royal Caribbean said that a guest tested positive during the voyage, and subsequent cases were detected following contact tracing.
It said 95% on board were fully vaccinated. Of the people who've since tested positive, 98% were fully vaccinated. The total number of cases amounted to 0.78% of the on board population.
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Confused About COVID Yet? This Should Help Confuse You. Exhibit 1
Anew study suggests the omicron variant of COVID-19 is “markedly resistant” to the current COVID-19 vaccines, antibody treatments and booster shots, raising concern from experts about what’s to come from the variant in the coming weeks.
“We found (omicron) to be markedly resistant to neutralization by serum not only from convalescent patients, but also from individuals vaccinated with one of the four widely used COVID-19 vaccines. Even serum from persons vaccinated and boosted with mRNA-based vaccines exhibited substantially diminished neutralizing activity against B.1.1.529,” the study said.
The study — which has not been peer-reviewed or edited for a scientific journal — found that monoclonal antibody cocktails are ineffective against omicron, too.
And natural antibodies from previous COVID-19 infections don’t help stop the virus, either, according to the study.
However, the study still recommends vaccination and booster shots to stay safe from the coronavirus variant.
Exhibit 2
Vaccine manufacturer Moderna said Monday that a booster dose of its coronavirus vaccine significantly raised antibody levels against the omicron variant, amid growing concerns about its rapid spread in the United States.
A booster dose of Moderna’s vaccine — half the dose used in the original shots for adults — increased antibody levels against omicron by 37 times, the company said in a statement, citing preliminary data.
Those antibodies “should provide some good level of protection as we go into the holiday season,” Paul Burton, Moderna’s chief medical officer, said in an interview.
Exhibit 3
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Closing in on The Previous Guy
From Raw Story:
Former president Donald Trump will soon be indicted for criminal racketeering under New York state law, according to Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative journalist David Cay Johnston.
Johnston indicated Saturday afternoon that the charges will stem from Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance's ongoing investigation into whether Trump's company misled lenders or tax authorities about the value of its properties.
"I anticipate they're going to bring a racketeering charge against Trump," Johnston said. "Certainly Trump's team, when he's indicted, and I'm certain he will be indicted, is going to try to lay the blame on everybody else, and so what the prosecutors want to show that is if (Trump Organization Chief Financial Officer) Allen Weisselberg phonied up documents, it was at the direction of Donald Trump."
He's So Dumb, He's Trying to Stop the Wrong Investigation
Donald Trump has sued New York state attorney general, Letitia James, seeking to halt her long-running investigation of his business practices, the New York Times reported on Monday.
The paper said Trump’s suit alleges that James, a Democrat, “is guided solely by political animus and a desire to harass, intimidate, and retaliate against a private citizen who she views as a political opponent”.
James recently said she would seek to question the former president under oath in January. Her investigation could only result in civil charges, not criminal.
Trump’s business affairs are also being investigated in New York by the Manhattan district attorney, Cyrus Vance. That is a criminal investigation.
--------------
Closing in on The Previous Guy - Part 2
Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.) said Sunday that the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack is looking into whether former President Donald Trump committed a crime by trying to obstruct the certification of the 2020 election results.
Kinzinger, one of two Republicans on the committee, said on CNN’s “State of the Union” that he wasn’t prepared to say yet if he believed Trump had broken the law, however, “by the end of our investigation, and by the time our report is out, [we’ll] have a pretty good idea.”
“We’ll be able to, you know, have out on the public record anything Justice Department needs maybe in pursuit of that,” he added.
“Nobody is above the law. And if the president knowingly allowed what happened on Jan. 6 to happen, and in fact was giddy about it, and that violates a criminal statute, he needs to be held accountable for that,” he said.
Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.), the vice chair of the panel, signaled at a hearing last week that Trump could have acted criminally.
He Doesn't Like It
Donald Trump is increasingly agitated by the House select committee investigating the Capitol attack, according to sources familiar with the matter, and appears anxious he might be implicated in the sprawling inquiry into the insurrection even as he protests his innocence.
The former president in recent weeks has complained more about the investigation, demanding why his former White House chief of staff, Mark Meadows, shared so much material about 6 January with the select committee, and why dozens of other aides have also cooperated.
Trump has also been perturbed by aides invoking the Fifth Amendment in depositions - it makes them look weak and complicit in a crime, he has told associates - and considers them foolish for not following the lead of his former strategist Steve Bannon in simply ignoring the subpoenas.
When Trump sees new developments in the Capitol attack investigation on television, he has started swearing about the negative coverage and bemoaned that the House minority leader, Kevin McCarthy, was too incompetent to put Republicans on the committee to defend him.
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COVID and the QOP
Sarah Palin Says She'll Get COVID-19 Vaccine 'Over My Dead Body'
It Can Ge Arranged
Washington State Sen. Doug Ericksen Dies After COVID Battle
He was also was a former leader of Trump’s campaign in Washington and an outspoken critic of Democratic Gov. Jay Inslee’s COVID-19 emergency orders.
The staunch conservative, has died at age 52.
Ericksen’s death Friday came weeks after he said he had tested positive for the coronavirus while in El Salvador, though his cause of death wasn’t immediately released. The state Senate Republican Caucus confirmed his passing Saturday but did not say where he died.
Ericksen, a Ferndale Republican, reached out to Republican colleagues last month saying he had taken a trip to El Salvador and tested positive for COVID-19 shortly after he arrived. Reasons for his visit were unclear.
In a message to state House and Senate members, Ericksen asked for advice on how to receive monoclonal antibodies, which were not available in the Latin American nation.
--------------
Coal Joe Doesn't Have Many Friends Left in the Democratic Party
The latest antics from Sen. Joe Manchin, going on Fox News to stab President Joe Biden and the whole of the Democratic House and Senate in the back, further complicates an already hairy legislative push before the 2022 midterms. Frankly, by announcing he will singlehandedly torpedo the Build Back Better plan, Manchin is making Democrats’ prospects in that election even bleaker.
That’s one reason the White House blistered Manchin in a statement Sunday, a statement explicitly approved by Biden. “While staff drafted language addressing Manchin's specific concerns—on inflation, climate provisions and how the plan was paid for—Biden specifically instructed them to add that if Manchin stood by his comments, he had violated his word to the President,” CNN reports.
It’s not just Biden, though. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer called Manchin out in a “dear colleague” letter sent to fellow senators, acknowledging the “deep discontent and frustration” already existing among Senate Democrats that was heightened by “the decision to delay floor consideration of the Build Back Better Act because Senator Manchin could not come to an agreement with the president.” That’s as close to a rebuke of a single senator you’re going to see from a leader. Others have been a lot more sharp.
He May Find He Has Few in the QOP Either. But He Will Have Friends in Oil and Coal
For decades, Manchin has profited from a series of coal companies that he founded during the 1980s. His son, Joe Manchin IV, has since assumed leadership roles in the firms, and the senator says his ownership is held in a blind trust. Yet between the time he joined the Senate and today, Manchin has personally grossed more than $4.5 million from those firms, according to financial disclosures. He also holds stock options in Enersystems Inc., the larger of the two firms, valued between $1 and $5 million.
Those two companies are Enersystems Inc. and Farmington Resources Inc., the latter of which was created by the rapid merging of two other firms, Manchin’s Transcon and Farmington Energy in 2005. Enersystems purchases low-quality waste coal from mines and resells it to power plants as fuel, while Farmington Resources provides “support activities for mining” and holds coal reserves in the Fairmont area. Over the decades, whether feeding tens of thousands of tons of dirty waste coal into the power plants in northern West Virginia or subjecting workers to unsafe conditions, Manchin’s family coal business has almost entirely avoided public scrutiny.
Manchin has raised over 763,000 dollars from the fossil fuel industry from 2017 to 2020. Those numbers have only increased since 2021 as Manchin is critical to stop any action on the climate. Polluters got their investment return, and then some as the coal baron whittled most life-affirming provisions out of BBB.
Not Many Friends in West Virginia
Many West Virginians supported the Build Back Better Act before it was stripped down to accommodate Manchin and other conservative Democrats—a study from West Virginia University found the bill would have directed nearly $21 billion in investment in renewable power, grown the state’s economy by hundreds of millions of dollars annually, and created thousands of jobs. Mayors of Charleston and other large cities last week called on Manchin to vote for the bill, and the president of the United Mine Workers of America backed a section that would have transitioned from coal with thousands of clean energy jobs. A poll by Data for Progress earlier this year found that 57% of state likely voters favored the agenda, including 50% of independents and 45% of Republicans.
Manchin continues to be by far the top recipient of oil and gas industry contributions in Congress, while holding non-public shares valued at up to $5 million in his family coal brokerage and receiving a rich annual income from its waste coal services. The power plant where his family company handles waste coal was recently approved by a state commission to operate until at least 2040, surviving after a ratepayer bailout he oversaw as governor in 2006 and another publicly-funded rescue in 2015, and Manchin inserted $11.3 billion in funding in the bipartisan infrastructure bill that could free up more waste coal to burn, among other provisions he added targeting the niche industry.
While Manchin was in the process of removing the clean energy programs, over which he had previously demanded sole committee jurisdiction from Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, his campaign and leadership PAC saw an influx of over $400,000 in third quarter donations from fossil fuel industry PACs and the executives and employees of oil and gas companies.
Sen. Bernie Sanders has said he will pay for a poll to find out how the people of West Virginia feel about the Build Back Better bill after Sen. Joe Manchin said he would not support it.
Manchin, a moderate Democrat representing West Virginia, threw President Joe Biden's $1.75 trillion domestic initiative into jeopardy when he announced on Fox News Sunday that he could not support it.
"If I can't go home and explain it to the people of West Virginia, I can't vote for it," Manchin said. "And I cannot vote to continue with this piece of legislation."
--------------
Good Lord! He Really Did Slow the Testing Down
--------------
If You Cut the Price of a Useless Drug in Half, Is That a Bargain?
Biogen is slashing the price of its Alzheimer’s treatment in half months after it debuted to widespread criticism for an initial cost that could reach $56,000 annually.
The drugmaker said Monday that it will cut the wholesale acquisition cost of the drug by about 50% next month. That means the annual cost for a person of average weight will amount to $28,200.
The actual amount that person would pay will depend on factors like insurance coverage.
Biogen CEO Michel Vounatsos said in a prepared statement that too many patients were not being offered the drug due to “financial considerations,” and their disease had progressed beyond the point where Aduhelm could help.
Why Was the Price So High in the First Place?
--------------