Joe Manchin appeared on Morning Joe today, absolutely delighted to shill for Big Oil and gas. In fact, it seemed more like an infomercial than a news interview.
Scarborough started by asking how to get lower prices at the pump.
"Let's look at the reality and the world we live in. First of all, this is a Putin war. He has weaponized energy," Manchin said.
"He used it against Europe. Europe made some decisions that weren't good for them. They're paying the price because of their dependency on dirty Russian oil and natural gas. The least we can do is maintain our energy independence and be able to backfill every way possible. We can start with cleaner American energy. I know a lot of my friends on the far left, the environmentalists don't want to increase productivity. For us to be strong, to be the super power of the world, we should develop a North American alliance with Canada and Mexico and the United States as one continent basically that can be the energy hub," he said.
(And anyone who doesn't agree with me is a dirty hippie who hates America!)
"Joe, we can walk and chew gum at the same time. We can make sure we produce the cleanest resources basically from fossil fuels, but also be able to segue into to a cleaner environment. We can do both. You can't do one and not the other and think we'll be fine. We should be ramping up production, out there doing everything we can to maintain our independence. If we don't get Europe up and loaded for next winter, for the summer when they depleted all their reserves, there's going to be a big problem coming."
Sounds reasonable, right? After all, Obama proposed the same things!
The difference is, Obama wasn't actively blocking ANY moves at all toward a cleaner climate. Because when Big Oil buys itself some Joe Manchin, he stays bought!
