Koch-backed group fuels opposition to school mask mandates, leaked letter shows A template letter circulated by Independent Women’s Forum offers a glimpse into a well-resourced campaign against public health regulations

Koch-backed group fuels opposition to school mask mandates, leaked letter shows

“A template letter circulated by Independent Women’s Forum offers a glimpse into a well-resourced campaign against public health regulations

Isaac Stanley-Becker1:00 p.m. EDT

Protesters are escorted out of a school board meeting in Las Vegas. Opposition to mandates is being fueled, in part, by well-funded conservative groups whose methods mask the coordinated nature of the backlash. (Bizuayehu Tesfaye/Las Vegas Review-Journal via AP, File)

It is motivated, the author explains, by a desire to “speak up for what is best for my kids.” And it fervently conveys the author’s feelings to school leaders: “I do not believe little kids should be forced to wear masks, and I urge you to adopt a policy that allows parental choice on this matter for the upcoming school year.”

But the heartfelt appeal is not the product of a grass roots groundswell. Rather, it is a template drafted and circulated this week within a conservative network built on the scaffolding of the Koch fortune and the largesse of other GOP megadonors.

That makes the document, which was obtained by The Washington Post, the latest salvo in an inflamed debate over mask requirements in schools, which have become the epicenter of partisan battles over everything from gender identity to critical race theory. The political melee engulfing educators has complicated efforts to reopen schools safely during a new wave of the virus brought on by the highly transmissible delta variant.

The document offers a rare glimpse into the inner workings of a well-financed conservative campaign to undermine regulations that health authorities say are necessary to contain the coronavirus. The frustration of many parents who want a greater say is deeply felt, school superintendents say. But their anger is also being fueled by organized activists whose influence is ordinarily veiled.

The letter was made available on Tuesday to paying members of the Independent Women’s Network, a project of the Independent Women’s Forum and Independent Women’s Voice that markets itself as a “members-only platform that is free from censorship and cancellation.” Both are nonprofits once touted by their board chairman and CEO, Heather Higgins, as part of a unique tool in the “Republican conservative arsenal” because, “Being branded as neutral but actually having the people who know, know that you’re actually conservative puts us in a unique position.”

Higgins, an heiress to the Vicks VapoRub fortune, did not respond to a request for comment. Carrie Lukas, president of Independent Women’s Forum, said in an interview the letter was originally authored by the group’s policy director and sent to her child’s Denver preschool. The policy director did not consult experts for the letter, Lukas said, because, “She wrote it as a mom. She didn’t call anyone on the phone, but you can see she looked at a lot of data.”

The group decided to circulate the letter, Lukas said, to “empower people to have a kind, civil conversation.”

Lukas is a co-author of a Sept. 28 post in the network’s “Resource Center” explaining the purpose of the letter, according to documents reviewed by The Post. “Is your school considering mask mandates, or has it already made a decision that kids must wear masks in class?” the appeal begins. “Push back! Here is a draft letter you can use to write your own school superintendents and administrators, principals, and teachers!”

The letter “contains a respectful tone, helpful data, and supporting articles that illustrate the harms of masking kids,” the appeal promises. “This letter can also easily be turned into a letter to the editor for your local paper.” It is unclear how widely the letter has been used so far by members of the network, where membership costs between $5 and $25 per month.

The document flies in the face of recommendations from the American Academy of Pediatrics as well as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, whose positions stress the need to account for more dangerous strains of the virus and to protect people too young to receive shots still only authorized for those 12 and older.

A pair of CDC studies published last month found that schools with mask requirements saw fewer outbreaks than those without them, and that pediatric cases rose faster in counties where schools had made masking a matter of personal choice.

In contrast with evidence provided by government scientists, the Independent Women’s Forum letter offers an inventory of inaccuracies, said pediatric infectious-disease specialists. David Kimberlin, a physician at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, was particularly troubled by the letter’s argument that “young kids do not significantly spread covid.” That notion is undercut, he said, by “data clearly showing that children can transmit the virus, perhaps to a lesser extent than older adolescents and adults, but that second part is still not clear.”

Claims guided by “political ideology, instead of data, will cause more deaths, more funerals and more white flags on the National Mall,” Kimberlin said.

As a nonprofit, Independent Women’s Forum is exempt from disclosing its donors and paying federal income taxes. But the group, which reported revenue of nearly $3.8 million in 2019, has drawn financial and institutional support from organizations endowed by billionaire industrialist Charles Koch and his late brother, David, according to private promotional materials as well as tax records and other public statements.

Tributes to sponsors prepared for recent galas — and reviewed by The Post — recognize the Charles Koch Institute as a major benefactor. Other backers include Facebook; Dick DeVos, heir to the Amway fortune and the husband of former Education Secretary Betsy DeVos; and the Walton Family Foundation, a philanthropy controlled by the family that founded Walmart.

Bill Riggs, a spokesman for the Charles Koch Institute and other philanthropic and advocacy organizations endowed by the billionaire, said the group’s financial support for Independent Women’s Forum was steered toward a program opposing occupational and labor regulations. Representatives for other benefactors did not respond to requests for comment.

The institutional ties binding Independent Women’s Forum to the Koch network go even deeper.

In 2003, Independent Women’s Forum announced that it was formally affiliating with Americans for Prosperity, the Koch network’s main political arm, and that the two organizations would share office space. “The affiliation agreement provides for staff and resource sharing between Americans for Prosperity and the Independent Women’s Forum,” an archived news release stated, explaining that Nancy Pfotenhauer, then-president of Independent Women’s Forum, would also serve as president of Americans for Prosperity.

The affiliation ended in 2005, said Lukas, a former policy analyst for the Cato Institute, which was first founded as the Charles Koch Foundation. She said her organization’s relationship to the Koch network was “relatively minor.”

Most parents of school-age children support requiring masks, polling suggests. More than six in 10 parents say their child’s school should make masks obligatory, at least for unvaccinated students and staff, according to a Kaiser Family Foundation survey released in August.

Views vary along partisan lines, according to the poll, with more than two-thirds of Republican parents opposing such mandates, and racial differences are stark, as well. Overwhelming majorities of Black and Hispanic parents — 83 percent and 76 percent, respectively — support school mask requirements, compared with a slim majority of White parents, at 54 percent.

Despite the picture of public opinion conveyed by such polling, masking in schools has become an explosive local issue. School board meetings have seenviolence and arrests. Outside Austin, one parent ripped a mask from a teacher’s face, the superintendent reported.

The letter drafted by Independent Women’s Forum illustrates how national groups are “inflaming the political fight over broadly popular mask protections,” said Lisa Graves, executive director of True North Research, a liberal watchdog group, and a former deputy assistant attorney general in the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Policy. “The effect is really to distort public debate.”

The letter tries to distance itself from the political maelstrom, noting, “It’s my view that emotion and politics (from both sides!) have driven a lot of policy choices during the pandemic at nearly every level of government … that’s too bad.”

Meanwhile, the letter traffics in “nonsense and extremism,” said Julia Raifman, an assistant professor of health policy at Boston University and the creator of a database tracking state policy responses to the pandemic.

The letter warns of possible downsides for children wearing masks, ranging from communication difficulties to tooth decay. But such claims lack credible evidence, she said, compared with a wealth of data showing face coverings blunt the risk from the coronavirus.

The letter also emphasizes moves by some peer countries not to mandate masks in schools. But other places have maintained indoor mask requirements for adults that have suppressed community transmission sufficiently to protect children and allow schools to proceed normally, Raifman said.

“Mask-wearing can be temporary until transmission is reduced, but the children, parents and all people who die if we do not control surges will be gone forever,” she said.“

U.S. Coronavirus Death Toll Surpasses 700,000 Despite Wide Availability of Vaccines The latest Covid-19 deaths were concentrated in the South, and included more younger people than before. Every age group under 55 saw its highest death toll of the pandemic this August. Oct

U.S. Coronavirus Death Toll Surpasses 700,000 Despite Wide Availability of Vaccines

“The latest Covid-19 deaths were concentrated in the South, and included more younger people than before. Every age group under 55 saw its highest death toll of the pandemic this August.

Oct. 1, 2021

“These are people who, without the pandemic, they would almost certainly be alive and live full lives,” said Wayne Bright, a funeral home director in Tampa, Fla. “It’s so much worse now than it was when the pandemic first happened.”Zack Wittman for The New York Times

“These are people who, without the pandemic, they would almost certainly be alive and live full lives,” said Wayne Bright, a funeral home director in Tampa, Fla. “It’s so much worse now than it was when the pandemic first happened.”Zack Wittman for The New York Times

The United States surpassed 700,000 deaths from the coronavirus on Friday, a milestone that few experts had anticipated months ago when vaccines became widely available to the American public.

An overwhelming majority of Americans who have died in recent months, a period in which the country has offered broad access to shots, were unvaccinated. The United States has had one of the highest recent death rates of any country with an ample supply of vaccines.

The new and alarming surge of deaths this summer means that the coronavirus pandemic has become the deadliest in American history, overtaking the toll from the influenza pandemic of 1918 and 1919, which killed about 675,000 people.

“This Delta wave just rips through the unvaccinated,” said Howard Markel, a medical historian at the University of Michigan. The deaths that have followed the wide availability of vaccines, he added, are “absolutely needless.”

Recent Covid-19 deaths

Deaths per 100,000 residents since June 16

The recent virus deaths are distinct from those in previous chapters of the pandemic, an analysis by The New York Times shows. People who died in the last three and a half months were concentrated in the South, a region that has lagged in vaccinations; many of the deaths were reported in Florida, Mississippi, Louisiana and Arkansas. And those who died were younger: In August, every age group under 55 had its highest death toll of the pandemic.

That month, Brandee Stripling, a bartender in Cottondale, Ala., told her boss that she felt as if she had been run over by a freight train.

Ms. Stripling, a 38-year-old single mother, had not been vaccinated against the coronavirus, and now she had tested positive. Get some rest, her boss, Justin Grimball, reassured her.

“I thought she would pull through and get back to work and keep on living,” Mr. Grimball said.

Last week, he stood in a cemetery as Ms. Stripling was buried in her family plot. A pastor spoke comforting words, her children clutched one another in grief and a country song, “If I Die Young,” played in the background.

Her death came in the virus surge that gripped the country all summer, as the Delta variant hurtled through the South, Pacific Northwest and parts of the Midwest. Close to 100,000 people across the United States have died of Covid-19 since mid-June, months after vaccines were available to American adults.

Mason Hallman, 31, said his sister Brandee Stripling died weeks before the 16th birthday of her daughter Taylor, right. “At 38 years old, you just don’t plan on dying,” Mr. Hallman said. “We want our children to bury us when we’re old, not when we’re young.”Wes Frazer for The New York Times

The United States government has not closely tracked the vaccination status of everyone who has been infected with the virus, but the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has so far identified 2,900 people who were vaccinated among the 100,000 who died of Covid since mid-June.

Vaccines have been proven highly effective in preventing severe illness and death, and a study from the C.D.C. that was published in September found that after Delta became the dominant variant, unvaccinated people were more than 10 times as likely to die of the virus as the vaccinated were. The study, which spanned from April to mid-July, used data from 10 states, New York City, Los Angeles County and King County, Wash., which includes Seattle.

Recent Covid-19 deaths compared with state vaccination rates

Lower vaccination rate,
higher death rate

Higher vaccination rate,
lower death rate

Share fully vaccinated

40%

50%

60%

70%

20

60

80 deaths

80

per 100,000 residents

The pace of death has quickened, then slowed, then quickened again over the past 18 months as the virus has rippled across America in waves.

The most recent 100,000 deaths occurred over more than three months, a considerably slower pace than when the pandemic reached its peak last winter. During that earlier surge, just 34 days elapsed between the nation’s 400,000th and 500,000th death.

All U.S. adults

eligible for

vaccine

The pace of Covid-19 deaths nationwide

First vaccines

administered

to reach

100,000

U.S. deaths

to reach

200,000

to reach

300,000

to reach

400,000

to reach

500,000

to reach

600,000

Feb. 29:

First report of

a U.S. death

By late September, more than 2,000 people on average were dying from the virus each day, a level the country has not reached since February.

But the recent deaths have left families and friends, some of whom said they had thought the pandemic was largely over, stunned and devastated. Weary doctors and nurses voiced frustration that many of the patients whose lives they were now struggling to save had shunned vaccines. Coroners, funeral home directors and clergy members were again busy consoling the grief-stricken and preparing the dead for burial.

Wayne Bright, a funeral home director in Tampa, Fla., has been handling Covid-19 deaths since the beginning of the pandemic, working long hours under difficult circumstances.

Still, this summer has been different.

About 40 percent of the most recent 100,000 people to die of the virus were under 65, a share higher than at any other point in the pandemic, and Mr. Bright has spent months bearing witness to what he calls “premature grief.” In one family, a father of teenagers died. A 16-year-old girl in another family lost her mother, aunt and cousin to the virus, all in quick succession.

“Now you’re dealing with people in their 30s and 40s and 50s,” he said. “These are people who, without the pandemic, they would almost certainly be alive and live full lives. It’s so much worse now than it was when the pandemic first happened. The Delta variant is tremendously worse. It would be hard for me to define just how much worse it is.”

Monthly Covid-19 deaths by age

A record number of young people died during the Delta surge ...

Mar.

July

Oct.

Jan.

April

Aug.

1,000

2,000

3,000

4,000

5,000 deaths

Under 25

Ages
25-34

Ages
35-44

Ages
45-54

… even though those in older age groups continued to make up the majority of deaths.

Mar.

July

Oct.

Jan.

April

Aug.

50,000

100,000 deaths

85+

55-64

Under 55

75-84

65-74

His own exhaustion runs deep. He works seven days a week and has lately been confronted with previously unimaginable problems: shortages of caskets, hospitals with full morgues and a need to schedule burials weeks into the future so cemeteries will have vaults available.

“It certainly has taken a toll,” he said. “And you just think, this just doesn’t have to be.”

The Delta surge has hit working-age Americans particularly hard. Older Americans are still more susceptible to the virus but have benefited from their willingness to be vaccinated: People 65 and older, who have been among the most vulnerable to serious illness from the virus, have the highest rate of vaccination of all age groups, at 83 percent fully vaccinated, according to the C.D.C.

Vaccine mandates have begun to take effect in some states and within some companies, and on Friday, California became the first state to announce plans to add the coronavirus vaccine to other vaccinations required to attend school, starting as early as next fall. But only 65 percent of the eligible U.S. population is fully vaccinated. The nation’s vaccination campaign has been slowed by people who say they are hesitant or unwilling to get shots, amid a polarized landscape that has included misinformation from conservative and anti-vaccine commentators casting doubt on the safety of vaccines.

Vaccination rates are lower for people in their 30s, and the number of people in that age group who died of the virus in August was almost double the number who died during January, the previous record month, according to provisional counts from the C.D.C. More than 3,800 people in their 40s died of Covid-19 in August, compared with 2,800 in January.

Stephen Kimmel, a professor of epidemiology at the University of Florida, said younger people were particularly vulnerable to infection now because they have a relatively low rate of vaccination and are increasingly interacting with one another, leading to more opportunities to be infected. The Delta variant is much more contagious than previous variants.

“If you look back when the virus first started, the mantra was, this seems to be a disease that affects older people more severely, and fortunately younger people don’t seem to get as sick,” he said. “Younger people now feel this is a virus that won’t affect them.”

In many parts of the South that weathered the worst of the summer surge, deaths from Covid-19 have only recently begun to slow down.

James Pollard, the coroner in Henry County, Ky., outside Louisville, said he was seeing more deaths occur at home than at any other time during the pandemic. On a recent day, he said, an ambulance was summoned to return a coronavirus patient to a hospital, but the person died before the ambulance arrived.

“The families are going through a lot of initial pain and shock and when we’re getting 20-, 30-, 40-year-old people who are passing away from it, that makes it so much more difficult,” he said. “It has more of a lasting effect than any other natural death.”

He hears a frequent refrain: family members who vow to be vaccinated after losing a relative to the disease.

The wave of Delta deaths has been particularly high in rural areas of the South, where vaccination rates trail those of nearby metropolitan areas. Even though the raw number of Covid-19 deaths is higher in metropolitan areas because their populations are larger, the share of people dying of the virus in rural areas has been much greater.

Mr. Bright said the people dying of Covid-19 now were mostly unvaccinated, as were many of the family members who crowd into his funeral home for services.Zack Wittman for The New York Times

The outsize impact on the South propelled Mississippi ahead of New York and New Jersey for the most coronavirus deaths relative to population throughout the pandemic. Before the Delta surge, the worst-hit states had been mostly Northeastern states that suffered dire early outbreaks, as well as Arizona. But Louisiana and Alabama have become two of the five states with the highest proportion of Covid deaths.

Harold Proctor, the coroner in Floyd County, Ga., said his office was handling twice the number of deaths compared with this time last year. At this point in the pandemic, he said, some families are so accustomed to hearing and reading about Covid-19 that they have a sense that deaths from the virus are commonplace.

“It does seem like they have more accepted that people will die of Covid now,” Mr. Proctor said.

Other families have expressed sorrow mixed with profound remorse that their dead relative was not vaccinated.

The Rev. Joy Baumgartner, a minister in Beloit, Wis., presided over a recent funeral that she described as “the saddest, most grief-stricken I have ever experienced.”

The woman who died of Covid-19 was a 64-year-old church member, talented baker and frequent volunteer during group dinners on Thanksgiving. Her adult children had advised her not to receive a shot.

When they arrived at the church, Ms. Baumgartner said, the woman’s children were full of regret, despairing over their actions and searching for a rationale. “They condemned themselves,” she recalled.

“I had to hold these people in my arms in front of this urn of ashes, asking God to help them through this. It was a never-ending week of excruciating pain.”

Note: The graphics showing state vaccination rates compared with recent virus deaths was updated to reflect an update in the Centers for Disease Control vaccination data that amended the Texas vaccination rate from 55 percent to 51 percent.

Amy Schoenfeld Walker and Sarah Cahalan contributed reporting.“

Biden’s Slide With Key Voters: Momentary Blip or Danger Sign? Polls show women and other reliably Democratic voters have soured on the president’s performance, raising questions about the causes of dissatisfaction

Biden’s Slide With Key Voters: Momentary Blip or Danger Sign?

“Polls show women and other reliably Democratic voters have soured on the president’s performance, raising questions about the causes of dissatisfaction.

Oct. 1, 2021, 5:00 a.m. ET

A rally outside the White House last year called on President Biden to take action to protect voting rights.Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images

President Biden’s approval rating among key Democratic constituencies has declined considerably in recent months, eroding or even reversing decades-long patterns in public opinion.

The as-yet-unanswerable question is whether that slide is a momentary dip — a fluke of a tough run of headlines — or a warning sign of even deeper dissatisfaction among Democratic-leaning voters.

A large number of voters — women, young people and those who are Black or Latino — have all soured on Mr. Biden’s performance, according to polls conducted since the withdrawal of American troops from Afghanistan, even while Mr. Biden has retained more of his support among men, college-educated white voters and older voters.

The shifts could be temporary. Perhaps the enactment of the president’s stalled legislative initiatives in Congress would be enough for the president to renew his reputation with Democratic-leaning voters. But for now, the differences in attitudes about Mr. Biden between men and women, young and old, Hispanic and non-Hispanic and perhaps even white and Black have grown unusually small. The pattern defies the decades-long tendency for Democrats to fare better among women than men, and among the young than the old.

There are few clues to help analysts understand these striking shifts in Mr. Biden’s ratings among reliably Democratic constituencies. But the shift can be interpreted in two ways, each with very different political consequences heading into the midterm election next year.

The best case for Democrats is that this is nothing more than an unusual response to an unusually unfavorable news environment, in which general dissatisfaction with Mr. Biden over the chaos in Afghanistan and the surging Delta variant of the coronavirus temporarily spilled across demographic fault lines.

But Mr. Biden’s weakness could also be interpreted as a continuation of electoral trends that surprised and disappointed Democrats in November. Mr. Biden fared unexpectedly poorly last year among many of the same groups he is struggling with now. It raises the more alarming possibility for Democrats that recent events have revealed a broader problem — they are losing support among voting groups they generally take for granted.

A shrinking gender gap

Mr. Biden’s ratings have fallen more among women than any other demographic group. Forty-eight percent of women approve of Mr. Biden’s performance in polls conducted since the fall of Kabul, down from 57 percent in earlier surveys by the same national pollsters.

The president has retained more of his support among men. His rating has dipped only slightly, to 42 percent from 45 percent. While women are still likelier to approve of Mr. Biden than men, the gender gap — the difference in political preference between women and men — has been cut in half, to just six points today from 12 points in July.

The polls do not offer many clues as to why. Perhaps the fate of Afghan women weighed more heavily on American women than men. Maybe the challenges of sending children back to class alienated mothers at the start of the school year. Even the Supreme Court’s decision on abortion in Texas could be contributing to a sense among Democratic-leaning women that America is off course, inadvertently hurting Mr. Biden.

For Democrats, the absence of a clear explanation could be a good sign. They can hope that voters are momentarily evaluating Mr. Biden based on perceptions of his competence, rather than on ideological grounds. If so, the gender gap — and Mr. Biden’s ratings — might return to normal if the national political environment becomes more favorable to him.

Biden supporters rallied last year in Pittsburgh. Forty-eight percent of women approve of Mr. Biden’s performance in recent polls, down from 57 percent in earlier surveys. Ruth Fremson/The New York Times

The generation gap, reversed

For nearly 20 years, Democrats have fared better among younger voters than older voters. That pattern continued in the 2020 presidential election, when Mr. Biden won around 60 percent of voters under 35, but only around 48 percent of voters 65 and older — a gap of about 12 points.

That cannot be said for Mr. Biden today.

The president’s ratings have fallen to around 45 percent among 18- to 34-year-olds, while his rating holds at around 48 percent among seniors, entirely closing and even slightly reversing the generation gap evident in recent elections.

The generation gap had already reversed by July, suggesting Mr. Biden’s woes among young voters run deeper than a series of bad news events.

It is possible the coronavirus pandemic plays a role in Mr. Biden’s challenge, as young voters bear much of the burden of virus-related restrictions, do not face as many health risks as older voters and are relatively unlikely to be vaccinated.

But Mr. Biden has struggled with young voters dating back to the primary season, and one could argue the Democratic Party has struggled with the group dating back to at least the first Bernie Sanders campaign against Hillary Clinton.

Support for Mr. Biden has surprisingly decreased among women, young people and those who are Black or Latino.Erin Schaff/The New York Times

A fall among Black voters

If all of the polls are averaged together, Mr. Biden has not necessarily lost that much more ground among Black or Hispanic voters than white voters. But there is real, if inconclusive, evidence of a larger decline in his standing, especially among African Americans.

Polls from the Pew Research Center, Quinnipiac University and Morning Consultall found Mr. Biden’s approval rating slipping into the low 70s or 60s among Black voters, a weak performance for any Democrat.

The Pew Research and Morning Consult surveys warrant particular attention, since they have large numbers of Black respondents. The difference between white and Black voters has been nearly cut in half in those polls, to around 30 points from the typical 50-point gap in recent presidential races.

But the polls have not been consistent in showing a steep decline in Mr. Biden’s support among Black voters, with some national surveys showing Mr. Biden with a much higher and more typical approval rating.

It is not obvious why Mr. Biden’s ratings would fall so far among Black voters. A backlash against vaccine mandates might be a possible explanation, supported by a steeper decline in Mr. Biden’s ratings among unvaccinated Black voters.

The polls were largely conducted before bipartisan talks to reform policing faltered, and outrage erupted over the treatment of Haitian refugees at the U.S.-Mexico border.

At the same time, the polls show Mr. Biden’s ratings among Latino voters slipping close to or beneath 50 percent. A new Quinnipiac poll in Texas even showed Mr. Biden’s ratings in the 30s among Latino voters in the state. It’s not what Democrats want to see after Mr. Biden’s disappointing performance among the group last November.

While most major demographic divides have eroded recently, one has continued to widen: the education gap among white voters.

Mr. Biden’s support has held up among white college graduates, according to the recent polls, while his standing among white voters without a degree has dropped to 30 percent, down from 37 percent in polls taken in June and July.

Even if Mr. Biden could rejuvenate his support among traditional Democratic constituencies, weakness among white voters without a degree would still be a serious challenge for Democrats heading into the midterm election next year, when the president’s party usually suffers a drubbing.

The latest polls do not do much to reassure Democrats that they are poised to defy that trend. In the history of modern polling, Mr. Biden’s ratings have sunk lower than the ratings for all but two presidents at similar points in their terms — Gerald Ford and Donald Trump“

For Joe Manchin, Corruption and Greed Are a Family Affair - FactKeepers.com

For Joe Manchin, Corruption and Greed Are a Family Affair

Marty Kassowitz

"Joe Manchin has moved into the position of doing Mitch McConnell’s job by obstructing forward motion on the long overdue social investment needed to move the country back from the abyss of the effects of the “trickle down economics.” (As a quick refresher, “trickle down” is the fake economic theory originated in the Reagan era that basically says if we make rich people and corporations richer, they will pull us all up. In a word, bullshit.)

It has been proven in the decades since that the money that flows upward stays there. This economic theory has gutted middle class America, made the idea of a one-breadwinner household a thing of the past and magnified environmental destruction while exploding military spending, medical costs and drug prices to name a few.

So what has this got to do with Joe Manchin? Everything. He has personal profit motivations to oppose efforts to remedy this situation. And, as the headline states, so does his family.

Let’s start with Joe. His opposition to the environmental aspects of the $3.5 trillion infrastructure investment being crafted is based on long-discredited opinions that reducing and eliminating the use of coal energy will not help. But the real deal is that he is heavily invested in coal and a considerable portion of his personal wealth is based on it.

According to Vice.com,

For decades, Manchin has profited from a series of coal companies that he founded during the 1980s. His son, Joe Manchin IV, has since assumed leadership roles in the firms, and the senator says his ownership is held in a blind trust. Yet between the time he joined the Senate and today, Manchin has personally grossed more than $4.5 million from those firms, according to financial disclosures. He also holds stock options in Enersystems Inc., the larger of the two firms, valued between $1 and $5 million.

Another factor in the Manchin family mix is his daughter, Heather Bresch. She retired last year from her position as CEO of Mylan, the pharma company that bought the rights to the EpiPen. Bresch led the way in jacking up the prices of EpiPens to the nose-bleed levels they sell at today—in some cases as much as ten times what they sell for in other countries. Bresch presided over not only this, but also the complicated strategy of what is called a tax inversion, by merging with Abbot Labs and thus moved the company and its tax base to The Netherlands to avoid corporate taxes in the US.

This connects back to Joe Manchin in a couple of ways. A Washington Post article from 2016 details how Bresch got hired at Mylan in the first place. Joe got her the interview that led to her hiring. Factually, she started literally in the basement and rose the corporate ladder. A controversial MBA probably helped–controversial in that it was granted despite her being 22 credits short and was later rescinded. As the referenced articles note, Joe Manchin was Governor of West Virginia at the time.

One of the components of the “human infrastructure” package being crafted by Congress is the expansion of Medicare. And this will finally include a restoration of the ability to directly negotiate drug prices. The current law outsources the negotiations to PMBs or Pharmacy Benefits Management companies—also known as the Pharma Benefits Mafia. The largest of these is CVS with a 32 percent share of the drug market in the US. If the Medicare expansion were to pass and the Medicare administration to regain direct negotiating power for drug prices, it could end the price-gouging gravy train drug companies like Mylan have been enjoying. And this would affect Joe Manchin’s daughter’s wallet.

We have covered Joe and Heather’s connections that seem to link directly to Joe’s opposition to the infrastructure package. There’s one more person in the mix: Joe’s wife, Gayle Manchin. Where does she fit in?

In 2016, USA Today ran a piece about Gayle Manchin. At the time she was on the National Association of State Boards of Education (NASBE), having been appointed by Joe when he was Governor of West Virginia.

After Gayle Manchin took over the National Association of State Boards of Education in 2012, she spearheaded an unprecedented effort that encouraged states to require schools to purchase medical devices that fight life-threatening allergic reactions.

The association’s move helped pave the way for Mylan Specialty, maker of EpiPens, to develop a near monopoly in school nurses’ offices. Eleven states drafted laws requiring epinephrine auto-injectors. Nearly every other state recommended schools stock them after what the White House called the “EpiPen Law” in 2013 gave funding preference to those that did.

Keeping it in the family takes on very specific and direct meaning with the Manchins. And Joe has demonstrated the ability to cast a blind eye to factors that negatively affect those outside the family circle. DemocracyNow posted a story earlier this year that gives major weight to this statement.

More than 1,400 workers in West Virginia are set to lose their jobs this week when the Viatris pharmaceuticals plant in Morgantown shuts down and moves operations overseas to India and Australia. Workers say they’ve had no response to their urgent requests for help from their Democratic senator, Joe Manchin, who is often called the most powerful man in Washington. Viatris was formed through a merger between two pharmaceutical companies, Mylan and Upjohn. Mylan’s chief executive, Manchin’s daughter Heather Bresch, got a $31 million payout as a result of the corporate consolidation before the new company set about cutting costs, including the closure of the Morgantown plant.

Lead, follow or get out of the way—the last is what Joe needs to do now. The information in this article took about 20 minutes to research. One wonders what would turn up with a comprehensive investigation."

For Joe Manchin, Corruption and Greed Are a Family Affair - FactKeepers.com

“A Moral Crisis”: Reverend William Barber on Why Congress Must Pass $3.5 Trillion Bill | Democracy Now!

“A Moral Crisis”: Reverend William Barber on Why Congress Must Pass $3.5 Trillion Bill | Democracy Now!