Joe Manchin’s Pipe Dream
by Jim Hightower Rube Goldberg would marvel at Sen. Joe Manchin’s wacky, convoluted machinations to rig the system so fossil fuel polluters can run roughshod over nature, local people, and democracy. Goldberg was a master of satirical cartoons, drawing hilarious schematics of convoluted contraptions to do silly tasks. His “Self-Operating Napkin,” for example, involved a spoon, cracker, toucan, skyrocket, sickle, and a pendulum attached to a napkin—all operating sequentially to automatically wipe the chin of a soup eater. So here comes Joe with his own sequential machinations to (Zip! Ping! Sproing!) push his pet corporate boondoggle into law. Manchin’s Mountain Valley Pipeline would ram a …