so that is a big no go
an example:
Joe Manchin’s ‘blind trust’ is an utter farce
Top ethics experts are ‘stunned’ by Joe Manchin’s conflict of interest
https://www.inquirer.com/columnists/attytood/joe-manchin-blind-trust-conflict-of-interest-coal-20211019.html
America has learned a lot in 2021 about West Virginia Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin and the things he doesn’t like, as he positions himself as “the decider” on what legislation can or can’t through the Congress. He’s not a big fan of what he calls “the entitlement society” — apparently any government action that benefits working folks instead of those who float on or near the senator’s luxury houseboat — or anyone bad-mouthing fossil fuels. But what the most conservative Democrat on Capitol Hill really hates is people asking him about his money.
In late September, Manchin snapped at a Bloomberg reporter, Ari Natter, who asked about the annual dividend checks the lawmaker still collects from a coal company now run by his son. “I’ve been in a blind trust for 20 years,” Manchin insisted. “I have no idea what they’re doing.” When Natter continued to press about the millions Manchin has received from Enersystems, Manchin angrily asked, “You got a problem?” and when Natter asked another question, “You’d do best to change the subject.”
Let’s not, shall we? In fact, let’s make Manchin and the conflict of interest that now threatens Planet Earth the main subject of today’s newsletter.
After all, it was less than three weeks later that word leaked on Capitol Hill that Manchin — knowing that President Biden’s ambitious climate agenda can’t pass the 50-50 Senate without his support — is successfully blocking the critical $150 billion component to help utilities replace dirty fossil fuels, including coal, with clean energy. Experts say that without the program, the lynchpin of the White House climate strategy, the United States won’t meet scientists’ timeline for reversing global warming.
So, yeah, we do have a problem, Senator Manchin. And part of the problem is this: When the senator says that his not-insignificant fortune is in a “blind trust” —
his robotic response, for more than a decade — he’s technically not lying. But Manchin’s wealth isn’t in a blind trust in the sense that most people would understand that term. The senator knows that coal dollars are floating his boat. Like much of what passes for ethics in Congress, the whole thing is a farce. As any hardened investigative reporter would tell you, the corruption of Joe Manchin is the worst kind — the legal kind.
sip
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