Once upon a time, there used to be an unspoken code that you didn’t protest at people’s homes. Imagine a time when even leftists thought that was a bad thing — that people who did such a thing would catch flak for doing something unseemly.
That’s long since flown out the window over the past couple of years, with the radical leftist protesting.
Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) has a unique living situation when he’s in Washington, D.C. Manchin lives on a houseboat, where he can get away from it all.
But unfortunately, he didn’t quite escape all the Washington insanity this week.
Leftists have been targeting him and Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ) because of their reluctance to sign aboard the Biden spending spree reconciliation bill. Manchin, Sinema and other moderates want the bipartisan infrastructure bill to be voted on first. They don’t see the same need or rush for the reconciliation bill. They have big issues with price tag and some of the provisions of the bill. Manchin has said that he wouldn’t go more than $1.5 trillion — and he already thinks that’s a compromise.
Progressives on the other hand want the reconciliation bill voted on first, and they see holding up the infrastructure bill as leverage to help them get the bigger budget bill.
As we reported yesterday, both bills seemed to fall apart over the stalemate. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) pulled the vote on the infrastructure bill which was supposed to be Thursday, already rescheduled from Monday. Manchin wouldn’t budge off his top line and Sinema left town, showing Biden and Pelosi that there wasn’t anything happening soon.
But Manchin has reportedly had to deal with a little extra insanity. Leftists had been kayaking up to his boat, and harassing him and his neighbors multiple times this week. They were caught on video on Thursday evening, screaming at his boat and waving signs like “Don’t sink our health care” and “No climate, no deal.”
Manchin came out and implored them not to annoy the neighbors. Given that they were yelling, Manchin was very nice, likely knowing that someone was video-tapping everything. He actually talked with them. They called on him to pass the reconciliation bill, one of them yelling that this wasn’t “spending” but “investing.” Thinking that that didn’t go over well with Manchin, who has called the bill fiscal insanity.”
DAY 2 AT MANCHIN’S YACHT.
We were proud to stand (kayak) with WV again today. 🛶
Most WVians want @Sen_JoeManchin to pass the full reconciliation bill. For jobs, climate, healthcare, home care. They’re coming to DC to tell him.#DemsBuildBackBetter pic.twitter.com/6o9g9z7RdR
— CPD Action (@CPDAction) September 29, 2021
Lobbying @Sen_JoeManchin, on his yacht, from kayaks in the Potomac. pic.twitter.com/VwHsPaBSzk
— Philip Melanchthon Wegmann (@PhilipWegmann) October 2, 2021
“We just passed a Pentagon budget of $788 billion” one activist pointed out. “And that over 10 years is $6 trillion.”
“How much do you think that we spend on non-discretionary, basically non-defense?” Manchin fired back. “Just as much.”
Another activist countered saying, “not enough.”
In fact, far more is spent on social spending. Mandatory expenditures, such as Social Security, Medicare, and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) account for about 65% of the budget. But this is a common, leftist false trope. Even thought we spend so much for folks like this, it will never be enough.
As we noted, not only isn’t the bill “zero dollars,” as Joe Biden and some of the other Democrats have been claiming, it isn’t even really $3.5 trillion. It’s actually far more than that, as we explained, more in the neighborhood of over $5 trillion.
These folks aren’t living in reality and they don’t have a sense of how this would hurt the economy for everyone, as well as further push rampant inflation.
Folks on social media also talked about hunting down Sinema at the retreat she was going to be at today. This is a dangerous thing, when a lot of these folks are being whipped up to great anger against Manchin and Sinema. It’s something that should once again be called out as wrong. Even politicians need to be able to have the privacy of their own homes, for the quiet enjoyment of themselves and their family — whether you agree with them politically or not.
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