Footnote to the Footnote

GOPper Rep. Greg Walden of Oregon is obviously up on slogan-speech, saying about the biomass climb-down that EPA had been "close to enforcing new job-killing regulations." Then again, the EPA always seems to get the slogan machine whirring: On Thursday, the agency invoked a rarely-used authority to veto a water permit for West Virginia's largest mountaintop removal mine on the grounds that

Arch Coal's Spruce No. 1 mine in Logan County would use "destructive and unsustainable" mining practices

that would irreparably damage the environment - including burying seven miles of waterways - and threaten the health of nearby communities. The action comes after a more than a year of urging the company to no avail to come up with a plan to mitigate the environmental impact of the mine and nine months after the veto was first threatened.

In response, Sen. Joe Manchin, one of the Ds and thereby, we are instructed by some to assume, one of the "good guys" of who we need more, called the action ""a shocking display of overreach" and "an unprecedented power grab."

"This is not just an assault on the coal industry. It's an assault on every job market in the U.S. economy," Manchin said. "It might be West Virginia and the coal industry today. It will be your industry tomorrow."

Overreach! Power grab! Job killer! And they're coming to get you!

A nice reminder that in the matter of spewing shit, it's not a case of GOPper versus Dim, it's one of right versus left. And Joe Manchin ain't no lefty.

Has the left spewed some shit? Of course. But if each were Pinocchio, the left would have a branch for a nose while that of the right could supply us with biomass into the next century.