Could Democrats be on the verge of losing yet another Senator from their caucus?
Just last week, Sen. Kysrsen Sinema of Arizona announced she’d had enough of the woke insanity in the Democratic Party and switched her affiliation to independent. The change doesn’t mean she’ll be voting with Republicans, but she doesn’t want to be associated with the Democratic Party brand moving forward.
It now appears that West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin isn’t ruling out a similar party change though he’s made no official move so far:
Sen. Joe Manchin on Monday left the door open to one day becoming an independent, three days after Arizona colleague Kyrsten Sinema announced that she was leaving the Democratic Party to become an independent herself.
While speaking with reporters on Monday afternoon, Manchin, D-W.Va., maintained that he is already “the most independent person” in the Senate and confirmed that he has considered alterations to his party affiliation before.
He didn’t foreclose ever leaving the Democrats but said he has no plans for such a move.
“I don’t know how you get more independent than I am,” he said. “I look at all of these things, I’ve always looked at all of these things. But I have no intention of doing anything right now. Whether I do something later, I can’t tell you what the future is going to bring.”
Whether Manchin has a D or I next to his name next year is sort of immaterial, he’s still basically in control of the Senate along with Sinema. If they don’t sign on to whatever plan Majority Leader Chuck Schumer has in store, it’s already dead in the water without Republican support. In that regard, this is still Manchin’s Senate and he shows no sign of buckling moving forward.
From that standpoint, however, there does seem to be a lot of wiggle room when it comes to criticizing his own party and joining with the chorus of Republicans on some hot-button issues. Take the border crisis, for example, an entirely man-made problem created by the Biden administration’s desire for open borders.
Manchin has joined a slew of other lawmakers calling for tighter border enforcement with regard to the upcoming expiration of the Title 42 provision in days:
Under Title 42, immigrants, typically from Mexico and Central American countries, are released usually within 24 to 48 hours after screening. A federal judge overturned the policy on Nov. 15.
With the order ending on Dec. 20, Border Patrol will not be able to return people across the border immediately and will arrest each illegal immigrant and detain them. However, Border Patrol does not have the capacity to detain immigrants for as long as it takes to process people due to overcrowding facilities.
Manchin, along with Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) and Reps. Henry Cuellar (D-TX) and Tony Gonzales (R-TX), sent a letter to Biden on Tuesday stating that five weeks (from Nov. 15 to Dec. 20) is “completely inadequate” to prepare for an influx of immigrants, especially those with invalid claims of asylum or relief.
They are asking Biden to extend the order until Congress has time to pass bipartisan immigration legislation.
“This situation is untenable, and we must work together to keep in place DHS’s authority to quickly expel migrants until an acceptable set of alternative policies and resources is put into place,” the members wrote.
A “crisis” exists at the southern border, the members said, and they are concerned at the level of support from the Biden administration.
“Never before in our nation’s history have we experienced this scope and scale of illegal border crossings, and we remain concerned that your administration has not provided sufficient support or resources to the men and women of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) who are tasked with maintaining border security,” the members wrote.
Get ready for the flood happening in a few days as migrants are waiting on the Mexican side of the border for the official expiration of Title 42. It’s a chaotic situation created by the Biden administration and overseen by DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. The end result will be more unfettered illegal immigration, a greater flow of drugs, more human trafficking, and a continually deteriorating situation in which the US/Mexico border is nothing more than a line on a map rather than a physical dividing line.
Will Manchin ever get the courage to jump ship? Here’s to hoping.
