All these excuses were made by some for Manchin when I put up a couple of diaries earlier on this controversy. Oh, we should not bring up his family. It’s his daughter’s controversy. Not his. BULLSHIT. Family is a big part of many politicians lives Most kids benefit unfairly from their parents in poiltics. Yes, in some cases, they may be truly independent and in such cases, you don’t make that insinuation that they share the blame for a scandal .
So not only has Manchin refused to condemn his daughter’s company’s pricing , let alone bash his own daughter, he took the extra step to praise her a week after the scandal hit the papers. But get this, this guy got his wife on a board of education and as the chairperson, she abused her position to push her daughter’s product Epipen to get a prominent position in schools so Mylan could give some early freebies and once they got the monopoly position, they could ratchet up the price.
Read and enjoy and take your party blinders off and tell me that this person Manchin deserves your support for reelection. THis is how corruption thrives in our politics. Voters in both parties put ideology over integrity and blindly vote for them to get reelected regardless of corruption scandals and only if they bungle big time with some sensitive vote or the economy does not thrive locally do they kick them out. Add insult to injury, this guy is not even a great ideological match.
Read here about this great Democrat’s wife.
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.
The CEO of Mylan then, and now, was Heather Bresch. Gayle Manchin is Heather Bresch’s mother.
Are families still off limits?
About this time, Mylan launched its "EpiPen4Schools” program, which has provided more than 700,000 free EpiPens to 65,000 schools, about half the nation's schools. The New York attorney general's investigation centers on this program, which required schools to buy EpiPens rather than its competitors if they got discounted versions, but Mylan has since changed the policy.
In December 2012, the association announced an "epinephrine policy initiative" designed to "help state boards of education as they develop student health policies regarding anaphylaxis and epinephrine auto-injector access and use," according to a press release that month. The resulting policy “discussion guide” listed key components that school policies and state legislation should have, including protection from legal liability for the school.
It was the first time the group had addressed food allergies as policy despite its own admission that it had been a growing issue since about 2000.
Previously, the association carefully avoided corporate influence, especially when its policy guidance was involved, says Brenda Welburn, the former longtime executive director.
Manchin became president-elect of the education association in late 2010 and Welburn retired at the end of 2011. Welburn recalls Manchin stopping by her office saying her "daughter's company" could donate to the group. The following year, it did. "It just looked so bad to me," Welburn said. "She (Manchin) becomes president and all of a sudden NASBE is saying EpiPens are a good thing for schools."
Manchin was appointed in 2007 to serve a nine-year term on the West Virginia board of education by her husband, then-Gov. and now Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va. Gayle Manchin became the association president in January 2012, the same month her daughter became Mylan’s CEO.
Minutes of a NASBE board of directors meeting in March 2012 show Mylan funding was discussed. It continued this year with what executive director Kristen Amundson said was a $15,000 contribution from Mylan in April.
So we had all this outrage over Mylan for a couple of weeks. Guess what! All Heather Bresch had to do, was outwait the outrage. She is laughing at how stupid and powerless we all are and how she can get away with whatever she wants. Yeah, Hillary made some noise about clamping down on this, but let’s see what she really does when she becomes President. Don't we have Obama as President now? So how will anything change if we just change Presidents? The Republicans, in general, do not give a damn either. No consequences because we move on to the next outrage. This is why I advocate scaring Manchin , at the very least, during his reelection. Corruption must have consequences. Manchin may not be the most corrupt guy, but his refusal to even mildly criticize Mylan must be punished.
Or the solution would be to do the Capone strategy. Harass everyone in this family on minor technicalities and make them regret playing a role in this. It should scare other senators and their kids into being less unrestrained in their future shady dealings. Playing this in a civil manner will only make us look like chumps. Time to be mean.
If Ivanka Trump did the same thing as Gayle Manchin, imagine how many diaries and how many recs and how many comments we would have. Get rid of the bias and condemn the people that need to be condemned.
The most common excuse we see for not doing anything to Manchin is that it will jeopardize our chances. But once you sold the soul of the party for short term goals, you hurt the party long term. Look at the comment sections. A lot of Democratic bashing because of this scandal. How is that conducive to building the Democratic PArty brand by turning a blind eye to this issue. Why would a Republican feel any shame the next time we point out one of their corrupt scandals? All they have to do is point to ours and say it’s the same all over.