 Scott Walden of Politico wrote a really interesting piece about Joe Manchin and he was able to draw a line directly from Joe Manchin's actions as a lawmaker to his business. So Joe Manchin over the years has done things governed in the way that conspicuously gives his coal business that his family owns and operates an advantage when it comes to regulations and this is pretty overt. But yet we allow this conflict of interest to exist because Joe Manchin did the bare minimum. He allowed his son to retain control of the business and placed it in a blind trust. It's basically the Trump excuse. But that doesn't eliminate the conflict of interest and as this story proves it didn't because Joe Manchin has been governing in a way to benefit this company. So the fact that this is illegal is astounding to me. So let's get to it. As Governor Joe Manchin supported an unusual detail in a clean energy bill that was moving through the West Virginia Legislature in 2009 to provision classified waste coal as an alternative energy. The muddy mix of discarded coal and rocks is one of the most carbon-intensive fuels in America and Manchin's family business stood to benefit financially when it was reclassified as something akin to solar, wind and hydro power. Jesus Christ. Selling the scrap coal has earned Manchin millions of dollars over three decades and he has used his political positions to protect the fuel and a single power plant in West Virginia that burns it from laws and regulations that also threatened his family business. So stop for a moment. Let's really let that detail sink in. So he was able to classify waste coal as an alternative energy akin to wind, solar and hydro. This is cartoonishly corrupt and we allow this. He still gets elected. He went from being governor to a U.S. senator and guess where he is right now? He is the chair of the Senate's Energy and Natural Resources Committee, which for those of you who don't know, this is the perfect spot to continue doing the bidding of the coal industry and specifically his family's business. I mean, he's not even trying to hide it. He couldn't be more brazen and now he's in control of federal policy as it relates to the environment and climate change. Isn't that a little bit worrisome? Doesn't his motivations, you know, conflict with what we're all trying to do, live on a habitable planet? Just the details of the story are so ridiculous, but there's more. Quote, everything he does, everything he did when he was governor, everything that he has done while he is a senator is going to advance his best interest and the interest of the people who put money in his pocket, period, said Nancy Peoples Guthrie, who was a Democratic state lawmaker at the time. That's all you need to know about Joe Manchin. As the Build Back Better bill hovered on life support late last year, Manchin used his position as chair of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee to remove a clean energy program from the sprawling package. The provision could have accelerated the closure of coal plants. Those maneuvers occurred as Manchin's family business and our systems Inc. continued to sell waste coal to a power plant in his home state named Grantown. He earned five hundred thousand dollars from energy systems last year according to Senate Financial Disclosure reports. Manchin has said he has no control over the family coal business, which is run by his son Joe Manchin IV and resides in a blind trust. Manchin did not respond to multiple requests for comment. Yet over the arc of Manchin's political career, he has pushed measures to promote the coal that energy systems removes from abandoned mines, nominated officials who helped ensure that the power plant that buys most of the company's coal did not close and waged political battles against environmental regulations that threaten the same plant. Without any one of those decisions, Grantown might have closed, leaving Manchin's family business without its top consumer. So to say that this is a conflict of interest, I think would be a misnomer. This is just corruption. He's just doing the bidding of his family's company. We're allowing a fox to guard the henhouse and the fox is saying, it's totally cool. I'm looking out for the interests of the hens. I'm protecting them and we're just like, OK, that's fine. Sounds reasonable. Why are we allowing this to happen? Why are we allowing him to use the excuse that he's not in control of the company when his son is the head of the company? Is this really persuasive to anyone? Look, I'm not sure about everyone else, but because my parents love me, you know, if I was put in control of a company that they managed and they went into some position where they can advocate for our company to have a more advantageous position economically, they would do that to benefit me. It doesn't matter that, you know, they're no longer in control of said company because they love me, they'd be trying to help me. So of course, that logically follows for somebody in Congress. So because that's just human nature, because there's these conflicts of interest, that's why we're supposed to have laws that stop this. You should not have a business in the coal industry if you want to be a United States center. Sorry, you have to sell that off. You can't put it in a blind trust and let your son control it because we all know that you are still looking out for the interests of this particular company. I mean, the fact that this is persuasive to anyone is just it shows how naive we are as a country. But I mean, I just I don't know what you what you say about this. This is just beyond the pale. Nobody should allow this. He should be in jail. This is corruption. It's not just the conflict of interest. This is him doing what is precisely going to benefit his family. And this entire family is so terrible. Remember, his daughter, Heather, was the one whose drug company hiked up the price of EpiPens, a life saving drug that people need. My mom had to carry around an EpiPen. I don't know if she still does, but I know that she couldn't buy them because they're so expensive. So, you know, this company is so self-interested, so opportunistic, and they've used his position of power to further enhance their own wealth. And that's so sickening. I mean, we see these videos of activists following mansion around, following him to his yacht and screaming at him, explaining that he needs to support Build Back Better. But honestly, for how much damage he's done and how corrupt and self-serving his career has been, he should be followed around for the rest of his life. People should heckle him everywhere he goes because this is just, it's so shameless. But the problem is that, you know, Joe Manchin is a microcosm of a broader issue. You know, a lot of senators, they have interests that they are just kind of following and pursuing out in the open. I mean, how often do we see Nancy Pelosi purchasing stock? She's effectively doing insider trading and we're just fine with it. I mean, thankfully, there's a bill to ban stock buybacks from members of Congress that's gaining some momentum. But does anyone actually believe that it will pass, that Congress will curtail their own power? I mean, perhaps I'll be wrong, but I'll have to wait and see. It just feels like, you know, we're in this terrible situation because how do we put pressure on corrupt people to rein in their corruption? They're not going to want to regulate themselves and rein themselves in. So it's an issue that perpetually just happens. And we don't have outside institutions and, you know, a judicial system that will actually hold them accountable because a lot of what they do is fully legal. I mean, campaign contributions to the point where they are unlimited and given by super PACs, they are tantamount to legalized bribes. But we allow that. So we've legalized bribery, we've legalized corruption. And what's left is this hollowed out country where our government doesn't really serve the people. It just serves the people in power. So if you really want to affect political change, I don't know how you do that anymore. We know that Congress isn't the conduit for political change in a democracy, which is troubling. So, I mean, I guess if you want to get ahead in life, you can run for Congress and, you know, set yourself up for life. But what else is the point of Congress? You have people like this in positions of power and they block progress. They sit on committees that are beneficial to their own family business. And we're just supposed to accept this. I mean, when do the people finally stand up in America and say, enough is enough? So I mean, to a lot of people who have been paying attention. This isn't surprising in the slightest bit, but still, I mean, to see these details laid out in the open, to see how brazen he's been at using his political career to benefit his family's coal business, it still is shocking to hear about. But again, it's not going to be surprising to anyone. It shouldn't be surprising, at least if you've been paying attention.