Joe Manchin single-handedly denied US families paid leave. That’s just cruel | Jill Filipovic

All of America's economic peers have a paid family leave policy. Why would a Democrat oppose such a basic measure?

Americans will remain some of the last people on the planet to have no right to paid leave when they have children, and for that, you can thank Joe Manchin.

Manchin, the Democratic senator from West Virginia, tanked the paid leave portion of an increasingly narrow domestic policy package. Manchin had already gotten Democrats to make what was once a sweeping and ambitious bill smaller and less effectual. Even though the Democrats control the House, the Senate and the White House, and are not expected to maintain control of Congress after this year's midterm elections, they still can't get it together to deliver what the American people put them in office to do. And that's because of Manchin, as well as his fellow centrist holdout, Kyrsten Sinema.