Tragedy: Joe Manchin Caves & Agrees to Big Green Build Back Better
We have to say we had hoped West Virginia U.S. Senator Joe Manchin would continue to hold his resolve and put the country first in denying the Democrats their dream of handing out yet more billions and trillions of dollars (to buy votes) via the so-called Build Back Better bill. But in the end, Manchin proved he’s just another Democrat that puts his party above the country. Yesterday the New York Times (warning, the Times IS a known fake news source) blared the headline that Manchin has caved and will now vote in favor of the BBB bill, dooming the country to hyperinflation for the next 2-5 years. Thanks Joe.
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Some politicians make us ill. One of them is John Fetterman, currently Pennsylvania’s undistinguished Lt. Governor and the Democrat candidate for the U.S. Senate to take over the seat being vacated by Pat Toomey. Fetterman is a radial socialist who, in 2016, signed a pledge to ban all fracking nationwide, including his home state of PA. Now that he’s running for the Senate, Fetterman has changed his tune and thinks that at least some fracking is OK. He is a liar.
In April, a group of nearly 200 protesters from some 60 different wacko anti-fossil fuel groups (an average of 3 1/3 person per “group”) turned out to protest a tiny 5-mile pipeline proposed in the Springfield, Massachusetts area (see 
Bad old ideas become bad new ideas for those on the left. In June 2018, MDN exclusively brought our readers the news that Diversified Gas & Oil (now called Diversified Energy) had purchased EQT Corporation’s Huron Shale assets, with a bunch of conventional wells, in Kentucky, Virginia, and West Virginia for $575 million (see 
Anti-fossil fuel activists are agitating in Pennsylvania to get the state Dept. of Conservation and Natural Resources (DCNR) to drop a $5,000 initial (and subsequent $500 annual) fee to access what is called the Exploration and Development Well Information Network (EDWIN) database. The EDWIN database contains details about oil and gas wells throughout the state, including data on the location, ownership status, construction information, and completion reports. DCNR uses the Dept. of Environmental Protection’s database as a starting point and cleans it up, making it more useful.
There is a very dangerous thing happening across the country. If you happen to have an opinion, a viewpoint, that’s different from the socialist left–and if you want to express that opinion in social media, via paid ads, etc., the left wants it shut down, calling it “dangerous.” You see, the socialist left can’t compete in the marketplace of free and open ideas and tolerance. Leftists are the most intolerant among us. Case in point: the group Natural Allies for a Clean Energy Future (founded in 2010) promotes information about the useful role of natural gas and the pipelines that flow it–and those ads target (among others) black and Latino voters. The ads are effective, so the socialist left is attempting to shut them down–kill free speech.
The leftist members of the Allegheny, PA County Council have proven just how leftward they have lurched (and how unhinged they have become). Last night the Council voted to overturn the veto of a ban on drilling for natural gas under (never on top of) county parks. The Council’s action denies taxpayers millions of dollars in revenue to fix and repair and expand county parks. County Executive Rich Fitzgerald, a Democrat himself, vetoed the idiotic ban, but the Democrats of the County Council just couldn’t help themselves. They voted to override Fitzgerald’s veto. Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Welcome to the People’s Republic of Allegheny County.
U.S. Senator Joe Manchin, Democrat from West Virginia, did the country (and his own party) a huge favor when he pushed the temporary pause button on committing trillions of dollars of new inflationary spending on Big Green programs called the Biden Build Back Better bill (see 
Last week MDN reported that Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf, in a final act of thumbing his nose at the prolific Marcellus industry in his own state, vetoed a bill, Senate Bill (SB) 275, that would have prohibited municipalities from banning the use of natural gas (see 
The crazies are getting crazier–if such a thing is possible. The Kool-Aid drinkers–those who are so brainwashed into the climate cult they refuse to think for themselves–are now demanding “real zero” carbon emissions. They say companies like Amazon and Google and Apple and other Big Green leftist idols who have pledged to be “net zero” carbon emissions by such and such a date are hiding. Those companies are actually still belching out CO2 by the megaton but claim they’re “green” by using nonsensical net zero pledges. Companies that pretend to be net zero use carbon offsets “over there” in order to keep belching out carbon “over here.” Now the crackpots are demanding total, worldwide “real zero” carbon emissions–the end of society as we know it.
Joe Manchin was “this close” to selling out the country by voting for the Democrat Build Back Better (BBB) nonsense that does nothing to actually save the planet but does hand out large gobs of money to favored political cronies (and stokes inflation even more). Manchin STILL may sell out his country and vote for such madness, but he hit the pause button to say he wants to see July’s inflation numbers (reported in August) first before he commits to jumping off the political cliff with the rest of the Democrats. Manchin’s simple act of hitting the pause button caused the left to become unhinged, savaging Manchin in mainstream media. Unfortunately, BBB is not dead. Far from it.
Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf’s foolish plan to force PA’s coal- and natural gas-fired power plants to begin paying an obscenely high tax on carbon dioxide emissions as part of the so-called Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) got blocked on July 1 by PA Commonwealth Court (see 
As he promised to do, Allegheny County, PA County Executive Rich Fitzgerald vetoed a horrible bill passed by County Council that would prohibit drilling and fracking *under* county-owned parks (see 
We’ve been keeping an eye on articles that appear with increasing regularity from the D.C. swamp hinting that West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin is talking with New York Senator Chuck “the schmuck” Schumer about Biden’s harebrained New Green Deal bill that would shut down even more fossil energy and soar inflation above the currently unbelievable level of 9.1%. The Washington Post, in particular, is pressuring Manchin to go along and pass a bill hoping it will help the Democrats win in November. Since appealing to Manchin’s loyalty to the Democrat Party is going nowhere, the Dems have decided to bribe Manchin by promising him the moon–including a fast track to finish the 94% completed Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) project. Will Joe Manchin cave and trade away the country’s future in return for completing an important M-U pipeline? Will Washington Dems torpedo MVP if Manchin doesn’t play along? He’s on the horns of a dilemma.
In March 2019, MDN told you about a new Williams plan to beef up the Transco pipeline in Pennsylvania and New Jersey, to deliver an extra 829 MMcf/d (originally 1 billion cubic feet per day) of Marcellus gas to PA, NJ, and Maryland (see