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Biden tries to bring back the Dirty Deal

Biden tries to bring back the Dirty Deal

Joe Manchin spreading out from the lame duck like an oilslick

Brad Johnson
December 06, 2022

PRESENTED BY DIEL MIGRATION

President Joe Biden, after getting Congress to force rail workers back to work with only one day of paid sick leave a year, is now working to force through the Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W. Va.) pipeline permitting plan. In September, the Manchin plan was nixed despite Biden’s efforts. But Biden is committed to Manchin, the one Democrat to vote against paid leave for the rail workers.

At Biden’s behest, lame-duck House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) have instructed the Armed Services chairs Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.) and Adam Smith (D-Wash.) to include Manchin’s dirty deal in the National Defense Appropriations Act, the military funding bill that is widely considered must-pass legislation.

At last week’s Fire Drill Friday rally with Jane Fonda, Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) and House Natural Resources chair Raúl Grijalva (D-Ariz.) came out forcefully against the Manchin deal being included in the NDAA.

Fellow Natural Resources committee member Rep. Jared Huffman (D-Calif.) told reporters that the Manchin deal would besmirch the legacy of environmental justice champion Rep. Donald McEachin (D-Va.), who passed away last week. Huffman angrily called out Democratic leadership:

“This is a dreadful thing to do in the wake of Don McEachin’s passing. It makes their encomiums to his life’s work on EJ ring very hollow.”

Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) added his voice today, tweeting that “if even ten House progressives vote against it, it likely can’t pass.”

The NDAA text was expected to be released at today’s House Rules Committee meeting, but chair Jim McGovern (D-Mass.) instead announced the nearly $1 trillion bill was not yet ready for consideration.

Opponents of Manchin’s dirty deal are hosting an emergency rally in front of the Cannon House Office Building at 8 am tomorrow morning, and in front of Schumer’s house in Brooklyn on Thursday.

“Torus, spindle, cluster. Human DNA spreading out from gravity's steep well like an oilslick.” — from Neuromancer, William Gibson. Credit: Me & Midjourney

SEMAFOR’S SPINDLE CLUSTER****: Climate reporter Bill Spindle has been canned by the Smiths Ben and Justin after a brief reign as the writer of their new outfit Semafor’s climate newsletter. The newsletter debuted with a Chevron sponsorship, putting Spindle in the ranks of polluter-sponsored newsletters like:

Politico Power Switch, by Arianna Skibell
Axios Generate, by Ben Geman and Andrew Freedman
The Hill’s Overnight Energy and Environment, by Zack Budryk
The Hill’s Equilibrium, by Sharon Udasin and Saul Elbein
Morning Consult Energy, by Julia Martinez

Spindle protested the inclusion of Chevron ads on his newsletter, and says he was fired after taking a principled stand against the fossil-fuel propaganda.

In a statement to Emily Atkin, who has been covering this story in her Heated newsletter, Semafor spokesperson Meera Pattni claimed Spindle’s firing was not related to his unwillingness to be a party to their corrupt propaganda:

“We decided to part ways with Bill due to issues that were unrelated to any advertising partnerships. Semafor adheres to robust ad acceptability guidelines that we stand by, and that are industry standard. We did not remove advertising due to editorial requests and have a number of rotating sponsors of the climate newsletter.”

Bill has a lovely Substack newsletter, in which he promises to write more about the problem of fossil-fuel advertising that runs rampant across prestige media. You can subscribe to him here:

“Overshooting 1.5°C may push the earth over several tipping points, leading to irreversible and severe changes in the climate system,” a new report from the OECD warns. “Current scientific understanding of climate system tipping points challenges the generally accepted notion that tipping points have a low probability of being crossed under moderate levels of warming.”

Fossil-fueled rain has caused catastrophic damage, flooding and landslides across the states of Espirito Santo, Santa Catarina, Paranà, Rio de Janeiro and Bahia in Brazil since late November 2022. According to the country’s Civil Defence, at least 10 people have died and over 17,500 have been displaced, as entire cities have been submerged in the floodwaters.