Tag Archives: Joe Manchin

Inside the Democrats’ climate deal with the devil

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The new climate package furthers the US’ most profligate pastimes: drilling oil and driving big cars

By Aaron White  Published 8-2-2022 by openDemocracy

Senator Joe Manchin Photo: Third Way Think Tank/flickr/CC

Last week, Joe Manchin, the West Virginia senator whose decisive vote in the evenly split upper house has led some to brand him ‘President Manchin’, and Senate Majority leader Chuck Schumer surprised even the most clued-in political junkies by announcing support for a climate bill that had been declared dead just several weeks before.

The 725-page legislation seemed a brief respite from a summer of extreme weather – a brutal heatwave and flooding across the US – as well as soaring inflation, a cost of living crisis and radical Supreme Court rulings that overturned abortion rights and limited the regulatory power of the Environmental Protection Agency. Continue reading →

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Indigenous-Led Blockade Demands Biden Declare Climate Emergency, End Oil Leasing

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“Native land back in native hands, we are not your sacrifice zones!”

By Jake Johnson   Published 8-1-2022 by Common Dreams

A demonstrator is suspended from a tripod structure in front of the Interior Department in Washington, D.C. on August 1, 2022. (Photo: About Face: Veterans Against the War/Twitter)

An Indigenous-led blockade outside the U.S. Department of Interior early Monday morning called on President Joe Biden to declare a climate emergency and halt all new fossil fuel projects, a demand that came as the White House and Senate Democrats are pushing legislation that could unleash a flurry of drilling activity on public lands and waters.

“Native land back in native hands, we are not your sacrifice zones!” declared the Ikiya Collective, which helped organize the direct action. Continue reading →

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Big Pharma Flooding Airwaves With Disinformation to Kill Drug Price Reform

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“Powerful interest groups out there don’t want this legislation to succeed, so they’re pouring dark money into efforts to stop it,” said one Democratic senator.

By Jake Johnson  Published 7-29-2022 by Common Dreams

The group American Commitment is running ads in several states attacking Democrats’ plan to lower prescription drug prices. (Photo: Screengrab/American Commitment)

While its thousands of lobbyists work fervently on Capitol Hill, the pharmaceutical industry is flooding the airwaves in several states with deceptive ads in a last-ditch campaign to block Senate Democrats’ plan to curb the unchecked pricing power of drug corporations.

Included as part of a reconciliation package negotiated by Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), the proposal would require Medicare to negotiate the prices of a small number of drugs directly with pharmaceutical companies, which can currently drive up costs as they please—boosting their profits at the expense of patients. Continue reading →

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Just 27 Billionaires Have Spent $90 Million to Buy GOP Congress: Report

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“They’re counting on that ‘small’ investment in anti-tax Republicans to save them billions in taxes,” said Americans for Tax Fairness, which conducted the analysis.

By Kenny Stancil  Published 7-18-2022 by Common Dreams

Stephen Schwarzman, co-founder and CEO of Blackstone, speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos, January 23, 2018. Photo: World Economic Forum/flickr/CC

A few dozen billionaires are spending tens of millions of dollars on the 2022 midterm elections—mostly to support Republican candidates, including many who have parroted the dangerous lie that the 2020 presidential election was stolen—in a bid to ensure that Congress is full of lawmakers willing “to make their wealthy benefactors even richer,” according to a fresh analysis.

Titled Billionaires Buying Elections, the report from Americans for Tax Fairness (ATF) details how “billionaires are increasingly using their personal fortunes and the profits of connected corporations to drown out regular voters’ voices and elect hand-picked candidates who further rig the nation’s economy—especially the tax system.” Continue reading →

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99% of House GOP Just Showed They Support Forcing Children to Birth ‘Their Rapist’s Child’: Pascrell

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Despite Republican opposition, Democrats passed a bill to affirm the right to cross state lines for abortion care in response to attempts by anti-choice lawmakers to ban such travel.

By Jessica Corbett  Published 7-15-2022 by Common Dreams

Abortion Rights Rally in response to Supreme Court Roe vs Wade Reversal Decision at Washington Square Park in NYC on Friday evening, 24 June 2022. Photo: Elvert Barnes/flickr/CC

While reproductive rights advocates and many Democrats on Friday welcomed the U.S. House of Representatives’ passage of a bill protecting the right to travel for abortion care, Congressman Bill Pascrell Jr. called out GOP lawmakers who opposed the legislation.

“Today 99% of House Republicans made clear they support forcing raped children to give birth to their rapist’s child,” declared the New Jersey Democrat after the House approved the Ensuring Access to Abortion Act in a 223-205 vote. Continue reading →

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Letting Medicare Negotiate Drug Prices Would Save US Nearly $290 Billion: CBO

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“By empowering Medicare to directly negotiate prices for prescription drugs Congress can end the days of seniors missing lifesaving medications because they cannot afford them,” said Majority Leader Chuck Schumer.

By Jon Queally  Published 7-9-2022 by Common Dreams

The Congressional Budget Office said Friday that a pending proposal by Senate Democrats to allow Medicare to negotiate directly with drug companies for lower prices would yield nearly $290 billion in savings and new revenue over ten years of implementation, a predictable yet crucial finding as lawmakers try to revitalize a legislative deal in the coming weeks.

The Democratic effort to revitalize a broader reconciliation package that could be passed in the narrowly-split Senate without Republican votes is considered the best that can be achieved after Sens. Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema tanked the much larger Build Back Better plan—one that included sweeping climate provisions and other social investments—last year. Continue reading →

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‘Shameful’: GOP Colluding With Autocratic Orban Government to Tank Global Tax Deal

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One watchdog group slammed Republicans for “choosing to sabotage the United States’ ability to tax corporations effectively and conspire with foreign governments.”

By Jake Johnson  Published 7-6-2022 by Common Dreams

Official visit to the OECD of Viktor Orbán, Prime Minister of Hungary. on April 7, 2018. Photo: OECD/flickr/CC

News that GOP members of Congress are coordinating with the far-right Hungarian government in an attempt to block a proposed global minimum tax on multinational companies is drawing outrage from watchdog groups and Democratic lawmakers, with one U.S. senator accusing Republicans of doing “anything it takes to help their dark money corporate backers dodge taxes.”

Just ahead of the July 4 holiday weekend, the Washington Post reported that “senior Hungarian officials say they are working with Republican lawmakers in the United States to defeat a global minimum tax backed by the Biden administration, as European and American leaders struggle to enact a groundbreaking international accord targeting multinational corporations.” Continue reading →

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In ‘Crisis Moment’ for Abortion Rights, Biden Weighs Declaring Public Health Emergency

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“This is a five-alarm fire,” said Sen. Elizabeth Warren, “and we cannot wait to respond.”

By Jake Johnson  Published 6-16-2022 by Common Dreams

Demonstration in front of SCOTUS May 3 2022 Photo: Janni Rye/Wikimedia Commons/CC

With the right-wing U.S. Supreme Court expected to overturn Roe v. Wade as soon as this month, President Joe Biden is reportedly weighing a number of executive orders to protect abortion rights at the federal level—including declaration of a national public health emergency—as progressive lawmakers and rights groups push him to act.

The New York Times, citing unnamed administration officials, reported Thursday that “some of the ideas under consideration include declaring a national public health emergency, readying the Justice Department to fight any attempt by states to criminalize travel for the purpose of obtaining an abortion, and asserting that Food and Drug Administration regulations granting approval to abortion medications preempt any state bans.” Continue reading →

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To Combat Insulin Price Gouging, California Looks Into Generic Drug Production

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“Everyone who cares about the future of U.S. domestic policy should pay attention to this effort in California to build a public option for prescription drug manufacturing,” said one expert. “Potentially game-changing.”

By Kenny Stancil  Published 6-8-2022 by Common Dreams

Photo: Brian J. Matis/flickr/CC

With insulin prices in the United States so astronomical that experts have accused the federal government and pharmaceutical industry of violating human rights, California is exploring a plan to produce its own generic version of the lifesaving medicine and make it accessible to millions of people with diabetes.

“Everyone who cares about the future of U.S. domestic policy should pay attention to this effort in California to build a public option for prescription drug manufacturing,” Steph Sterling, vice president of the Roosevelt Institute, a progressive think tank, said Tuesday. Continue reading →

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‘No Time to Waste’: New Nationwide March For Our Lives Protests Set for June 11

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“Together, we rose up four years ago. One million of us demanded change. We built a movement. We voted for new leaders. And the gun deaths increased. Now is the moment we march again.”

By Brett Wilkins  Published 5-26-2022 by Common Dreams

March For Our Lives student protest for gun control St. Paul, Minnesota March 7, 2018. Photo: Fibonacci Blue/flickr/CC

Four years, over 100 school shootings, and more than 170,000 U.S. firearm deaths after the first March For Our Lives rallies in 2018, the student-led gun control advocacy group announced Wednesday that it would stage a new nationwide day of protest on June 11 following Tuesday’s Robb Elementary School massacre in Texas.

“Together, we rose up four years ago. One million of us demanded change. We built a movement. We voted for new leaders. And the gun deaths increased,” March For Our Lives tweeted. “Now is the moment we march again.” Continue reading →

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