“I got a rock,” Charlie Brown infamously and dejectedly told Linus after seeing the results of trick-or-treating in the Peanuts’ 1966 Halloween special, “It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown.” Similarly, there’s an old story about bad kids getting a lump of coal in their Christmas stocking. Well, Joe Manchin played the part of Charlie Brown and the bad kid after Joe Biden’s latest comments about energy. The West Virginia senator must feel like he got a lump of coal.

Biden went out to campaign in the couldn’t-be-safer state of California Friday, where he told the crowd that we’re “going to become a wind generation.” In fact, his dedication to remaking the economy over fears of climate change is going to be so thorough that coal will need to die. “We’re going to be shutting these [coal] plants down all across America and having wind and solar power.”

The trouble is that Biden’s comments were made known outside the Golden State, where power outages have become routine. Biden’s favorite baseball team, the Philadelphia Phillies, lost the World Series Saturday night after Biden campaigned in coal-heavy Pennsylvania earlier in the day. Coincidence? Given John Fetterman’s sad attempts to walk back his own anti-energy comments, we’re guessing that Biden’s promise to gut Pennsylvania’s economy won’t help Fetterman beat Dr. Mehmet Oz Tuesday. The same goes for Tim Ryan, who’s in a tight race with J.D. Vance for Ohio’s Senate seat.

Joe Manchin isn’t up for election tomorrow, but he was mad enough given that West Virginia (which Donald Trump won by 39 points) uses coal to produce 90% of its electricity. “President Biden’s comments are not only outrageous and divorced from reality,” Manchin said, “they ignore the severe economic pain the American people are feeling because of rising energy costs.” Talking about the loss of coal jobs in such a “cavalier” manner, Manchin added, “is offensive and disgusting.” He concluded, “The President owes these incredible workers an immediate and public apology and it is time he learn a lesson that his words matter and have consequences.”

The war on coal started under Barack Obama, so Biden is clearly just following the lead of his old boss. And since Obama took office, roughly a third of the nation’s coal plants have been retired. Biden’s so-called Inflation Reduction Act will increase inflation by reducing coal power even further. When that reality hits West Virginia voters — especially the newly unemployed coal workers — they ought to remember that Manchin voted with every other Democrat for that monstrosity.

The White House immediately went on the defensive, with White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre issuing a statement saying, “The President’s remarks yesterday have been twisted to suggest a meaning that was not intended; he regrets it if anyone hearing these remarks took offense.” First of all, opponents are only quoting the president. Second, note that she didn’t contradict what Biden said because, she added, “Our goal as a nation is to combat climate change.”

Elsewhere in Inconvenient Biden Gaffes, the president responded to a climate fanatic heckler by taking on oil. “No more drilling,” he snapped. “There is no more drilling.”

“There are at least five more years of offshore drilling,” the woman yelled in response. “Not in the Atlantic or the Pacific but in the Antarctic and off the Gulf of New [sic] Mexico.”

“That was before I was president,” Biden answered. “We’re trying to work on that and get that done.”

Straight from the horse’s mouth, days before Election Day. Joe Biden and his radical ecofascist party want to shut down coal and oil drilling. They want you to buy electric cars and charge them with unreliable solar panels and wind turbines, or, better yet, rely on public transportation. They want to remake the economy under Green New Deal socialism.

If you think inflation’s bad now, or that gas and utility prices are skyrocketing already, just elect more Democrats and see how you like the rock in your candy bag or the coal in your stocking.