Senator Manchin Telling a Story
Senator Manchin has a million excuses for doing “nothing.” I am not sure why the rest of the Dems do not out him. Biden has negotiated with Manchin in private which I would not do as it leaves Manchin the ability to tell the story, a story each time he changes his mind.
There was a lot of hope for this administration as they had the majority in both bodies. One person is holding us back. Democrat in name only? Why? Maybe because if he were Republican, McConnell would show no leniency towards his stance(s). Be an independent? I am not sure he is that smart. As an independent, Manchin can not shift blame. With Democrats, he knows he can mislead and offer up the same old excuse of not being able to explain to his constituency. Maybe he should take notes?
Who is Manchin responsible to if not the people he supposedly represents?
West Virginia is or was #1 for opioid deaths in the US. A few years back before opioids became a big deal, I was asked to write on this topic by one organization. If you search on Angry Bear (opioids) you may find two bar charts showing overall deaths yearly by drugs and on that same bar chart deaths attributed to opioids by year also. It was developed by the Senate Joint Economic Committee. The importance of this chart (below) were the years corresponding with opioid deaths. With the introduction of Sadler’s Purdue OxyContin, you can see the growth in deaths starting with the OxyContin introduction. Some more data. West Virginia (1/2019) was #1 at 37.6 deaths/100,000.
Some more data. West Virginia (1/2019) was #1 at 37.6 deaths/100,000.
This isn’t occurring in the 1 million citizens of West Virginia largest city because WV has no cities that big. West Virginia has no cities larger than 100,000 or even 60,000. The state capital is probably the biggest city at ~50,000 with another city close to the same size. The state also has a negative population growth rate (right now) and the oldest population in the US.
Why would I pick on opioids to write about with regard to Manchin? Here is one example of Manchin “making stuff up” about the cause of one person dying from an opioid overdose. A young, beautiful, white, blonde-haired woman coming from a family of greater than average means. It is tragic as this young woman was starting from a base which would have enabled her to meet her goals of helping others. Manchin uses her story to vote “no” on the appointment of one person to the FDA.
Manchin is making stuff up about the vote on the approval of the time-released drug OxyContin. The tragedy was not in the approval of OxyContin which could help people if used in a prescribed manner. The tragedy was in the abuse of the Jick and Porter letter, doctors abusing the use of OxyContin, the blocking of state legislation, the backing of federal legislators, etc. All of which was promoted by Purdue and the Sadlers. You can see the increases in rates and numbers of death from opioids and drugs (separated) corresponding with the introduction of OxyContin.
Why the increase?
A 2017 NEJM article writes specifically about the abuse of the Porter and Jick Letter by Purdue and the rest of the industry in to sell OxyContin. “A 1980 Letter on the Risk of Opioid Addition.” And just a simple, altered sentence led people to believe you could not become addicted.
“We conclude that despite the widespread use of narcotic drug in hospitals, the development of addiction is rare in medical patients with no history of addiction.”
The people promoting OxyContin struck the words “in hospitals” while pushing OxyContin. I sum it up here. Just how bad was the abuse of the letter?
The number of citations increased from 1996 through 2002 and descended till 2017. From 1980 onward till 2015 the letter was cited 5 to 28 (1996) times per year affirming Opioids addition is rare minus the words “hospital setting.”
The median number of citations of an article from a NEJM article is 11 times.
That is a little different story than what Manchin tells the Senate. So is Manchin making stuff up because he doesn’t know or is he lying on the Senate floor, to the nation, and to his constituents? If he were a dumb person, I would say he doesn’t really know. He is not a dumb person and he is using a tragedy to convey a lie about one person’s appointment to the FDA. This is the manner of the Senator from West Virginia. This was not just a tragedy of one person whose parents of whom he made the acquaintance. It is the tragedy of thousands of people who used OxyContin in an unsafe manner due to a lie, doctors over prescribing, and the ease in which OxyContin could be obtained.
I doubt the Democrats will ever get the complete endorsement from Manchin due to his being a chameleon. His color or opinion will change as needed to hide his true beliefs and himself.
“…I am not sure why the rest of the Dems do not out him…”
[If one were to examine Manchin’s reputation in the media, then there is no evidence of his operating on the down-low with his centrist Senate buddy Sinema. Just how out can a conservative Democrat be? This is not to say that neither is a two-faced hack nor con-artist, but then that is archetypal US politics, not stealthy subterfuge. They have each found their own sweet spot in racket.]
You give Sinema a pass here that she does not deserve. And this negotiate in private/public thing is meaningless. Manchin and Sinema have the power. There are no carrots or sticks that can move them. Neither of them will win another election, and they have nothing to lose. In the meantime, they are both needed badly to nominate judges, so they cannot be banished.
However, if the Senate is lost in 2022 that is when Dems should react strongly to these two buffoons. Kick them out of the caucus, strip them of all committee work, and banned them from the cool table in the lunchroom. Their 15 minutes will end in 2022 or 2024. Regretfully, we all have to hope it is 2024.
EM:
Joe Manchin is lying. I was being polite. Millions of tabs ended up in two small town pharmacies in West Virgina.
As you know, none of this has anything to do with the FDA. It has more to do with state and Federal legislatures failing to do something and blocking legislation from being passed. Just like passing bullet-spewing-weapons legislation . . . another addiction.
If the Repubs keep blowing themselves up, the Dems have a chance.
EM;
That I can write from memory of much of this astonishes me. I know the topic quite well. I have tons of data to draw from now. I can tie the numbers of deaths to when OxyContin was introduced by Purdue by the discovery of the US Senate Economics Committee.
Even so, I can not know everything. Even this amount of information will be laughed at and refused. In the scheme of things, I am just another person.
‘ I am not sure why the rest of the Dems do not out him.’
He fits their agenda of ‘trying’ but never ‘doing’ perfectly. and they need more campaign money because of him! Your vision of the D party is way off. Please consider that. Remove those rose colored glasses and look at their record, not their rhetoric. If they did not have Manchin, they would invent him.
doug:
My telling of the “facts” of how the opioid epidemic came to be is not rhetoric. They are facts. My challenging Manchin in particular relates to many other things he has done and does to establish his own brand of being a maverick the same as what Sinema is trying to do to emulate McCain. By December of this year, millions of people will again be uninsured as they can not afford the costs of healthcare insurance.
Manchin lied to Congress, his constituents, and the rest. He uses the story of a rich, white, and pretty, young woman to make his point. He is not a Dem and neither would he be a Repub. He just wants his way.
Dems need more money? You need to look at what is happening here. What decided to allow corporate entities to fund politics? What is carelessly taking down the fabric of politics and this nation to favor a few over the many. This is more of a business than a government. And by many decisions being made, it is evolving into something favoring religions and a few at the top of the economic order.
Do you think Stabenow liked what I said about student loans? Or Durbin when I cornered him at Showdown in Chicago. Since I am in AZ now, I will be challenging Sinema.
Thank you for your thoughts, but you are wrong.
Nonsense.
Trump won West Virginia with almost 69% of the vote. It was his second best state, after Wyoming.
Democrats are lucky to have Joe Manchin in the Senate. It has given them a Supreme Court justice and 46 federal judges as of March 1st. Manchin also voted for the large American Rescue Plan, which won by a 50 to 49 vote. He was also a key player in the bipartisan infrastructure package.
Manchin told Schumer early on that he would only vote for a $1.5 trillion Build Back Better. Unfortunately, Schumer never told the Democratic caucus, especially Bernie Sanders, that this was the top line. So Democrats wasted months negotiating against themselves.
Manchin has been in favor of reversing some of the Trump tax cuts. The opposition to that has been Sinema. There are also other moderate Democrats who are probably glad that Manchin takes the heat. We can see that in the 8 Democrats who voted against the minimum wage increase.
The real problem are the voters of Maine. They voted for Joe Biden but then sent Susan Collins back to the Senate. They probably think they are “independent” thinkers but they are really McConnell enablers. If Sara Gideon was the current Senator from Maine, Manchin would be in a much different position.
Jim,
Thanks.
Only 2/3s of Maine went for Biden.
Jim:
You still do not get to lie. This wasn’t a story about a bunch of poor, white coal miners who used OxyContin to kill pain. It wasn’t a story about two West Virgina pharmacies in small towns of less than 20,000 (if my memory serves me correctly) receiving millions of opioid pills shipped by manufacturers. It surely wasn’t a story about a young black man who was the first to attend college from his family becoming addicted.
This was a story about a pretty young blond haired white woman who came from a well-to-do family who dies from opioid overdose (Fentanyl) in 2020 25 years after OxyContin was introduced AND SOLD BY PURDUE AND THE SACKLERS AS A NONADDICTIVE DRUG. PROMOTING IT AS BEING NONADDICTIVE ABUSING A 1980 STUDY BY DOCTORS PORTER AND JICK WHICH CLEARLY SAID OPIOIDS WHEN USED IN A HOSPITAL SETTING ARE NONADDICTIVE..
Can you read it now?
Well before the death of this young woman, thousands of others died from opioids. State and federal legislatures did not block the scattering of opioids across the nation. Indeed some states like New Mexico blocked legislation (Cameron King). How many times have we heard about “State’s Rights?”
An earlier comment:
Manchin has a million excuses for doing “nothing.” I am not sure why the rest of the Dems do not out him. Biden has negotiated with Manchin in private which I would not do as it leaves Manchin the ability to tell the story each time he changes his mind.
There was a lot of hope for this administration as they had the majority in both bodies. One person is holding us back. Democrat is name only? Why? Maybe because if he were Republican, McConnell would show no leniency towards his stance(s). Be an independent? I am not sure he is that smart. With Democrats, he knows he can mislead and offer up the same old excuse of not being able to explain.
Who is Manchin responsible to if not the people he supposedly represents?
West Virginia is or was #1 for opioid deaths in the US. A few years back before opioids became a big deal, I was asked to write on this topic by one organization. If you search on Angry Bear (opioids) you may find two bar charts showing overall deaths by drugs and on that same bar chart deaths attributed to opioids . . . by year. It was developed by the Senate Economic committee. The importance of this chart was the years corresponding with opioid deaths. With the introduction of Sadler’s Purdue OxyContin, you can see the growth in deaths. Some more data. West Virginia (1/2019) was #1 at 37.6 deaths/100,000.
This isn’t occurring in the 1 million citizens of West Virginia largest city. It has no cities that big. West Virginia has no cities larger than 100,000 or even 60,000. The state capital is probably the biggest city at ~50,000 with another city close to the same size. The state has a negative population growth rate (right now) and the oldest population in the US.
Why would I pick on opioids to write about with regard to Manchin? Here is one example of Manchin “making stuff up” about the cause of one person dying from an opioid overdose. A young, beautiful, white, blonde-haired woman coming from a family of greater than average means. It is tragic as this young woman was starting from a base which would have enabled her to meet her goals of helping others. Manchin uses her story to vote “no” on the appointment of one person to the FDA.
Manchin is making stuff up about the vote on the approval of the time-released drug OxyContin. The tragedy was not in the approval of OxyContin which could help people if used in the prescribed manner. The tragedy was in the abuse of the Jick and Porter letter, doctors abusing the use of OxyContin, the blocking of state legislation, the backing of federal legislators, etc. All of which was done by Purdue and the Sadlers.
2017 NEJM article writes specifically about the abuse of the Porter and Jick Letter by Purdue in particular to sell OxyContin and the rest of the industry. A 1980 Letter on the Risk of Opioid Addition. Just a simple one sentence led people to believe you could not become addicted.
“We conclude that despite the widespread use of narcotic drug in hospitals, the development of addiction is rare in medical patients with no history of addiction.”
The people promoting OxyContin struck the words “in hospitals” while pushing OxyContin. I kind of sum it all up here.
That is a little different story than what Manchin tells the Senate. So is Manchin making stuff up because he doesn’t know or is he lying on the Senate floor, to the nation, and to his constituents? If he were a dumb person, I would say he doesn’t really know. He is not a dumb person and he is using a tragedy to convey a lie about one person’s appointment to the FDA. This is the manner of the Senator from West Virginia. This was not just a tragedy of one person whose parents of whom he made the acquaintance. It is the tragedy of thousands of people who used OxyContin in an unsafe manner due to a lie, doctors over prescribing, and the ease in which OxyContin could be obtained.
I doubt the Democrats will ever get the complete endorsement from Manchin due to his being a chameleon. His color or opinion will change as needed to hide his true beliefs and himself.
You all know this: ‘Manchin is in the catbird seat.’
Manchin in the Middle
MetroNews (The Voice of WVA) – Nov 30, 2020
ModSquad – The Moderate Democrats PAC
(10 members of the US Senate, not including Kyrsten Sinema – go figure.)
The most influential member of the ten would have to be Joe Manchin, but obviously he is not unique.