Joe Manchin

Joe Manchin Calls Out Fox News Host for Lying About Biden Raising Taxes on the Middle Class

Posted by on August 2, 2022 at 11:33 am. 6 Comments :

Sen. Joe Manchin has become the Democrat that Democrats love to hate. He has obstructed legislation that his party and his President have worked on for months. Legislation that would benefit most of the American people, as well as the Party’s political prospects for the upcoming midterm elections.

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Fox News Lies

While the concerns of mainstream Democrats is understandable, some of the attacks on Manchin have been shortsighted. After all if he were not a Democrat, then Mitch McConnell would be majority leader and every Senate committee would be chaired by a Republican member of the Trump cult. And it would be difficult to elect any other Democratic senator from the blood-red state of West Virginia.

RELATED: Jen Psaki’s Scathing, Point By Point Repudiation of Joe Manchin’s Betrayal on the Build Back Better Bill

On Tuesday morning Manchin was interviewed by Harris Faulkner on Fox News (video below). And he illustrated just why Democrats are fortunate to have him on their side, despite the intra-party troubles he causes. Those troubles should not be downplayed. They are serious. But he is still better than the alternative, which would be more of the GOP (Greedy One Percent).

Faulkner sought to open a discussion on whether the “Inflation Reduction Act” proposed by President Biden and the Democrats raises taxes on middle class Americans. She played a video clip of Fox’s Peter Doocy asking White house Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre about the Joint Committee on Taxation saying that it does raise such taxes. Manchin shot that down by revealing a fact that Fox News hoped to suppress…

Faulkner: We gotta know the bottom line on taxes.
Manchin: Let me tell you the bottom line on that Harris. You want to know the bottom line – the Joint Committee on Taxation? That opinion was only written by my friends on the Republican side. It was not done by the whole Joint Committee. So that is unfair.

The interview went south for Fox News from there…

Manchin: Let’s be accurate what we’re doing here. The bottom line is how in the world can you be raising taxes when all we’re saying is the wealthiest corporations in America – 55 of them pay zero to help this great country of ours.
Faulkner: So how does this change that.
Manchin: It’s a minimum 15%. The tax rate was at 35% before 2017. Then it went to 21%. That was a tremendous savings. But that’s not good enough, I guess. All We’re saying is a 15% minimum. Everyone I know in West Virginia, and most people around the country, is paying a 21% corporate or greater. So why can’t the greatest billion dollars of revenue a year, why can’t they pay at least 15% for this great country? […]
Faulkner: But $400,000 was supposed to be the cut off. But I’m reading – and I am reading Senator – that it’s below that now.
Manchin: Who is paying any taxes that doesn’t have a corporation that has revenue of over a billion dollars a year? Not one person.

Faulkner nevertheless persisted with her wholly dishonest line of questioning…

Faulkner: I’m saying that Americans, $400,000 and below are now going to be taxed. Their taxes are gonna go up.
Manchin: That’s a lie. A pure outright lie.
Faulkner: So their taxes are not gonna go up.
Manchin: Not at all. And you know one thing? How about the people that are gonna be saving on their Medicare who are paying $288 billion higher prices than they should? They didn’t even assume that in the evaluation.

After being called a liar to her face, Faulkner still badgered Manchin with charges by McConnell and other Republicans that taxes would go up. Manchin hurled back that they were “totally absolutely wrong.” He told Faulkner that the questions she was asking, and the facts she has, are “completely wrong.” Then he refused to participate in her efforts to turn the debate on the bill into a political brawl saying that “This is not a political piece of legislation. This is an American legislation.”

Then Manchin pointedly asked Faulkner if she was “scared that we’re going to do something good that will help our country?” Which she took personally and got all huffy, yammering about the bible and her father who served. But Manchin’s remark was spot on, as Republicans – and their Fox News mouthpieces – are indeed afraid of anything passing that helps the nation because they would rather that people suffer than risk letting Biden and the Democrats get credit for achieving positive goals. Manchin closed the interview saying that…

“This is not about whether you like the President or whether you like Democrats. Do you like America? Do you want us to succeed as a country? Do you want to fight inflation? This bill does it.”

This interview shows how desperately Fox News wants to keep anything that benefits the American people from coming to pass. And they will load up their questions with lies and frantically seek to divert in order to halt progress or help people. They will also viciously flip on Manchin, their favorite Democrat, who yesterday they considered a brilliant, nonpartisan representative of the people.

RELATED: For Those Wondering What Biden and Democrats in Congress Have Been Doing the Past 16 Months…

No matter what you think of Joe Manchin, he came through in this interview and exposed the dishonesty and callous disregard for the welfare of the nation by Fox News. And we always need more of that.

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Jen Psaki’s Scathing, Point By Point Repudiation of Joe Manchin’s Betrayal on the Build Back Better Bill

Posted by on December 19, 2021 at 10:49 am. 4 Comments :

On Sunday morning Sen. Joe Manchin made a fairly resolute statement of opposition to President Biden’s Build Back Better bill. While it left a tiny opening for some further negotiations, it has been received with a resounding thud by Democrats and the majority of the American people who voted for just this sort of change.

Psaki Lightening

Manchin’s remarks on Fox News (video below) included some wiggle room wherein his opposition was described as “Where I’m at right now.” Which implies that he could be somewhere else in the future. He also said that “This is a no on ‘this’ legislation.” Which implies that a different version of the bill might be acceptable. These are admittedly small cracks in what has been his consistent resistance to legislation that is broadly popular among his colleagues in Congress, and even his own constituents in West Virginia.

RELATED: Kamala Harris Goes Biblical on Charlamagne Tha God After His Republican Spun Question

It is inexplicable how Manchin could continue to obstruct this bill to the detriment of his state, his party, and his country. However, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki released a response to Manchin’s latest defiant stand against the welfare of the American people. And she wasn’t mincing words. The statement began by noting that…

“Senator Manchin’s comments this morning on FOX are at odds with his discussions this week with the President, with White House staff, and with his own public utterances. […] Senator Manchin promised to continue conversations in the days ahead, and to work with us to reach that common ground. If his comments on FOX and written statement indicate an end to that effort, they represent a sudden and inexplicable reversal in his position, and a breach of his commitments to the President and the Senator’s colleagues in the House and Senate.”

Okay, Psaki did mince her words a little bit, Had she been less diplomatic she might have accurately accused Manchin of dishonesty and betrayal. However, her statement then went on to dismantle Manchin’s expressed concerns point by point. Some of the highlights include…

  • “The Build Back Better Act will have virtually no impact on inflation in the short term, and, in the long run, the policies it includes will ease inflationary pressures.”
  • “Build Back Better lowers costs that families pay. It will reduce what families pay for child care. It will reduce what they pay for prescription drugs. It will lower health care premiums. And it puts a tax cut in the pockets of families with kids.”
  • “The plan is fully paid for, is the most fiscally responsible major bill that Congress has considered in years, and reduces the deficit in the long run.”
  • “Build Back Better will produce a job-creating clean energy future for this country—including West Virginia.”
  • “Manchin will have to explain to those families paying $1,000 a month for insulin why they need to keep paying that, instead of $35 for that vital medicine.”
  • “He will have to explain to the nearly two million women who would get the affordable day care they need to return to work why he opposes a plan to get them the help they need.”
  • “Maybe Senator Manchin can explain to the millions of children who have been lifted out of poverty, in part due to the Child Tax Credit, why he wants to end a program that is helping achieve this milestone.”

Hopefully there is some chance that Manchin can still be swayed. If not, Democrats will have to pour more of there energy into passing the voting rights bills, and to electing more Democrats next year. Biden is walking a decidedly unstable tightrope. The last thing Democrats need is to shove Manchin into the eager arms the Republican Party, which would saddle us with Mitch McConnell as majority leader.

RELATED: The Biden Boom is Well Underway. Will the Media Honestly Report On It?

It’s a sad state of affairs when a Democrat is the barrier to other Democrats achieving the goals that they ran and won on just one year ago. But we must not forget that 48 of the 50 Democrats in the Senate support this bill. Zero of the 50 Republicans support it. It is the GOP that is the problem, not Democrats. And the solution is not to bash the Democratic Party and complain that they suck. The solution is to elect more and better Democrats.

NOTE: Twitter suspended the News Corpse account after 11 years without giving a reason. So if anyone wants to tweet articles from my website, please feel free to do so often and repeatedly. Also, Be sure to visit and follow News Corpse on Instagram. Thanks for your support.

How Fox News Deceives and Controls Their Flock:
Fox Nation vs. Reality: The Fox News Cult of Ignorance.
Available now at Amazon.

Kamala Harris Goes Biblical on Charlamagne Tha God After His Republican Spun Question

Posted by on December 18, 2021 at 9:04 am. 3 Comments :

Democrats are having enough trouble with the media these days to have to bother with fielding Republican talking points from ordinarily friendly faces. President Biden’s approval polling is inexplicably low considering the successes his administration has had, particularly with the economy and job growth. And yet, coverage of his administration in a recent study was shown to be more negative than it was for Donald Trump during his term in office.

Fox News, Kamala Harris

Which makes the Fox News flavored framing of a question posed by Charlamagne Tha God to Vice-President Kamala Harris somewhat puzzling. In an interview for his Comedy Central program, Charlamagne hit Harris with a well-trod Republican insult intended to diminish Biden as weak and lacking leadership skills (video below). “Who is really the President,” he asked. “Is it Joe Manchin or Joe Biden?”

This question has been circling the right-wing mediasphere for several weeks as Sen. Manchin has held up legislation that the rest of the Democrats in Congress support. What most observers forget is that those bills are also being opposed by all fifty Republicans in the Senate. So is Manchin’s single vote really more responsible for the legislative logjam than the entire Republican Party that has been resolutely partisan on every issue, including those they support?

Sure, Manchin’s vote could move the process forward if he weren’t so stubborn and selfish. But so could the vote of a single Republican who had the courage to vote in the best interests of the American people, instead of the partisan craving for power by GOP operatives and the anointment of Dear Leader Trump.

Harris was noticeably taken aback by Charlamagne’s question. But she wasn’t flustered in her response. Without hesitation she replied…

Come on, Charlamagne. It’s Joe Biden. And don’t start talking like a Republican about asking whether or not he’s president. It’s Joe Biden. And I’m Vice-President. My name is Kamala Harris. And the reality is because we are in office we do the things like…

Whereupon Harris extemporaneously enumerated an array of accomplishments achieved by the Biden/Harris administration in less than a year that specifically address the issues that matter most to Charlamagne’s audience.. They included…

  • The child tax credit which is gonna reduce black child poverty by 50 percent.
  • End choke holds and have body cameras.
  • Get lead out of pipes and paint because our babies are suffering because of that.
  • People who ride public transit deserve the same kind of dignity that anybody else does. So let’s improve that system.
  • Bring down prescription drug costs because folks who have diabetes should not be dying because they don’t have enough money in their pocket.
  • Black maternal mortality is a real issue that must be treated by everybody, including the White House, as a serious issue.

By the time Harris finished her mini-rant she had won over her host. Which was evident in the finale of this segment that resulted in the following exchange:

Harris: I hear the frustration, but let’s not deny the impact that we’ve had, and agree also that there is a whole lot more work to be done. And it is not easy to do. But we will not give up. And I will not give up.
C Tha God: I just want you to know that that Madame Vice President, that Kamala Harris, that’s the one I like. That’s the one that was putting the pressure on people in Senate hearings. That’s the one I’d like to see more often out here in the street.

That’s actually the Kamala Harris that has been there all along. But if you are falling for the media spin that Biden and Harris are failing because they haven’t achieved everything they set out to do – with a razor thin majority in Congress – it may seem like their efforts have been ineffective.

What’s ineffective is the media presentation of what is really happening in Washington. If the reporting was more reflective of the reality, Democrats wouldn’t be trying to dig themselves out of manufactured political hole. And by this time next year Democrats would be looking at a bigger congressional majority with which they could get even more done.

NOTE: Twitter suspended the News Corpse account after 11 years without giving a reason. So if anyone wants to tweet articles from my website, please feel free to do so often and repeatedly. Also, Be sure to visit and follow News Corpse on Instagram. Thanks for your support.

How Fox News Deceives and Controls Their Flock:
Fox Nation vs. Reality: The Fox News Cult of Ignorance.
Available now at Amazon.

Fox News and Republicans are Lying Extra Hard to Confuse Everyone About Voting Reform

Posted by on June 18, 2021 at 5:33 pm. 2 Comments :

Ever since Joe Biden humiliated Donald Trump – beating him by more than seven million votes – the despondent Cult of Trump has whined that Trump didn’t really lose. They continue to cling desperately to the “Big Lie” that the election was rigged and that the presidency was stolen. These are the fantastical delusions that led to the deadly Capitol Hill insurrection of January 6th.

Fox News, Constitution

However, despite having seven months, sixty court cases (all of which they lost), and unlimited hours of right-wing media on Fox News and elsewhere, they have never been able to provide even a sliver of evidence to support their hysterical, fringe-dwelling theories. Consequently, many Republican governors and legislators have turned their focus to future elections and a full-bore campaign of voter suppression.

That effort was met by Democrats in Congress who introduced the “For the People Act,” a package of voting reforms aimed at preserving democracy. It hasn’t been easy. The conservative Democratic senator from West Virginia, Joe Manchin, has been, until recently, gumming up the works. But now he has released his compromise version of the bill which has been positively received, even by the foremost advocate of voting reform, Stacy Abrams.

Unfortunately, that hasn’t been enough to move the knee-jerk Republican obstructionists. In fact, they just became even more committed to their anti-democratic agenda. That was plainly evident in this exchange between Dana Perino of Fox News and GOP Senator Tom Cotton (video below):

Perino: One thing that’s a little puzzling about this is that Manchin Lite is very similar to the Georgia voting bill. And the Georgia voting bill, Stacy Abrams said, is Jim Crow 2. So you could be a little confused as to what the Democrats are actually trying to do here. Do you have any idea?
Cotton: I’ll confess I’m always confused whenever Stacy Abrams is advocating for some radical voting proposal. But Dana, I think it’s pretty clear what the Democrats are trying to do. S1 is the Democrats bill to rig our elections forever. They can’t pass their unpopular agenda, so rather than changing their agenda, they want to change the rules of our democracy.

Okay. Try to follow this. Perino says that Manchin’s compromise is similar to the Georgia bill that Democrats staunchly oppose as blatant voter suppression. But it isn’t similar at all. So it’s not surprising that Abrams supports the Manchin compromise, but not the Georgia bill. Then Cotton admits that he’s confused, which shouldn’t surprise anyone either. But he also complains that Manchin’s compromise is a “radical voting proposal,” which Perino just said is very similar to the Georgia bill. So Cotton is bashing as radical the ultra-conservative Georgia bill that he has previously praised.

Don’t hurt yourself trying to make any sense of this. It is a profoundly ludicrous stab at disparaging any attempt to restore fairness to America’s voting processes. Cotton continued in his dishonest misrepresentations by claiming that “This bill would require taxpayer funding of politician’s campaigns.” That’s a flaming lie. The proposals that make up Manchin’s compromise are clearly spelled out. They include…

  • Automatic voter registration
  • Making election day a holiday
  • Mandating at least 15 days of early voting for federal elections
  • Banning partisan gerrymandering
  • Voter ID provisions

However, nowhere in the list is anything suggesting taxpayer funded political campaigns. Cotton has to know this. He’s presenting himself as knowledgeable about the proposed legislation. He has even made a determination that it would be unconstitutional because “the states have primary authority under our Constitution to regulate our election systems.” However, he’s flat out wrong about that as well. Article I, Section 4, Clause 1 of the Constitution states that…

“The Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof; but the Congress may at any time by Law make or alter such Regulations, except as to the Places of chusing Senators.”

What we have here is a Republican senator purposefully lying in order to muddy the waters so that people can’t have a rational understanding of perhaps the most significant feature of American democracy, the sanctity of the vote. And he’s doing it with the full cooperation and complicity of Fox News. It’s because of deliberate transgressions against the American people like this that we must remain vigilant and committed to achieving real reform despite the obstacles in our way.

NOTE: Twitter recently suspended the News Corpse account after 11 years without giving a reason. So if anyone wants to tweet articles from my website, please feel free to do so often and repeatedly. Also, Be sure to visit and follow News Corpse on Instagram. Thanks for your support.

How Fox News Deceives and Controls Their Flock:
Fox Nation vs. Reality: The Fox News Cult of Ignorance.
Available now at Amazon.