Holy gob, Manchin

 

This article from Daily Kos really show the depths of Joe Manchin's devotion to doing the right thing -- for himself.  He's got a pretty good con going on the citizen of West Virginia.

Now, I'm still grateful Manchin calls himself a Democrat, and he is going to vote to confirm Biden's Supreme Court nominee, which earn him one accolade.  Given all the demerits he's accumulated, he's going to need about a thousand accolades to compensate.

Joe Manchin may be smaller and more corrupt than we even realized

Excerpting freely (I was going to say liberally, but that ain't Joe):

"In 1988, while he was helping the [Grant Town] power plant with the permits it needed, he set up his own business to provide that power plant with waste coal—garbage of bituminous, or gob. In 1989, the power plant got its permits and became the one customer of Manchin’s waste coal business."

After the Grant Town power plant opened, it was one of three plants in West Virginia burning gob. Manchin, as a state legislator, successfully pushed a tax break for power plants that burn gob. Again, not illegal … but notably corrupt."

"But there’s a reason more power plants don’t burn waste coal. It’s not just dirtier, it’s more expensive. “It contains more non-coal material, lowering the energy output and increasing the amount of ash,” as Mark Sumner has explained. “It also contains more sulfur and heavy metals, creating toxins that either go up the smokestack or into the coal slurry at the plant.”

”Since 2016, Grant Town has cost Mon [Monongahela] Power $117 million more than it would have spent to buy that power from other sources, according to documents filed last year with the Public Service Commission,” the [New York] Times reports. “The utility had little choice but to buy the electricity; its contract with Grant Town doesn’t expire until 2036.” So the Grant Town power plant is causing pollution above the average coal-burning plant. It’s costing West Virginia utility customers extra money. But it’s funneling $500,000 a year into Joe Manchin’s pockets."

What a servant of the people!

Like I said, he's going to need a lot of accolades, and I don't know where he's going to get them. He won't get many more from me, I'm sure.