After publicly playing Hamlet for a few days, Joe Manchin (DINO-WV) has announced that he will support the nomination of Deb Halland as Secretary of the Interior.
Why her, she participated in protests against the Keystone XL pipeline, which as a VERY pro fossil fuel Senator from a coal state he should find even more unsettling than a few mean Tweets about Republicans made by Neera Tanden.
The idea that only CEO contributes to a company’s growth and not all employees is really pernicious https://t.co/2d9xgU0IHJ
— Neera Tanden (@neeratanden) August 27, 2016
Pretty mild, actually
It turns out that Manchin is probably lying about his reason to oppose Tanden.
It seems that his daughter, Heather Bresch, academic fabulist and CEO of Mylan Pharmaceuticals, was criticized by Tanden for raising her own pay while gouging consumers for the Epipen® anaphylaxis treatment
This would not be the first time that Manchin has used his official position to benefit his daughter. His finger prints are all over an effort to get Bresch an MBA degree that she did not earn.
So Joe Manchin’s actions here are even more stupid, sordid, and corrupt than I had previously imagined.
Still no sympathy for Ms. Tanden though. She’s a hack and a psychopath, and she shut down a publication in response to unionization, so am firmly of the belief that she should not be kitchen staff supervisor* at the White House, much less director of the OMB.
*It’s a reference to the comic book Cerebus the Aardvark.