Dear Editor,

Recently, once again, Sen. Joe Manchin (Democrat, West Virginia) essentially blocked his party’s proposed domestic agenda, which had included desired tax increases on the wealthy and large corporations, significantly increasing health care spending, as well as a program designed to reduce emissions, improving climate change by 50 percent by 2030, following extensive negotiations with his fellow Democrats, which led to the dramatic reduction of President Joe Biden and the Democrats’ $2 trillion Build Back Better plan, which Sen. Manchin appeared to be willing to support, with his desired changes now essentially agreed upon.

Sen. Manchin, as a result, has brought about considerable attention upon himself, and he has by no means been reluctant to shamelessly promote himself and his views, repeatedly, including on the conservative Fox News channel.

In addition, it is noted that Sen. Manchin voted in support of former president Donald J. Trump’s agenda an astounding 50.4 percent of the time in the U.S. Senate, while Mr. Trump was in office, perhaps bringing to question as to whose side Sen. Manchin may actually be on?

Sen. Manchin, who currently serves as chairman of the U.S. Senate Energy Commission, founded Eversystem, a coal brokerage firm, in 1988, over which he had given day-to-day control to his son in 2000, upon his election as Secretary of State for the State of West Virginia.

However, it has been reported that Sen. Manchin had been paid in excess of $5 million in dividends and income from the company from 2011-2020.

In addition, Sen. Manchin reportedly has received more than $1.6 million from the oil and gas and fossil fuel industries’ political action committees in donations.

The aforementioned is most disturbing and makes Sen. Manchin appears quite compromised, as well as quite “Trumpian,” respective to his career in government, as well as his massive ego.

Until these recent troubling controversies, Sen. Manchin had served his state quite admirably for many years, serving in the West Virginia House of Delegates from 1982-1996, as West Virginia’s Secretary of State from 2001-2005, and as governor from 2005-2010, before being appointed to replace the iconic Robert C. Byrd in the U.S. Senate up his (Sen. Byrd’s) passing in 2010, the seat which he has held since Nov. 15, 2010, and which he continues to hold.

Thankfully, Sen. Manchin has, indeed, reconsidered the aforementioned, in an effort to do what is right for his party, his state, and the nation, in support of the efforts of his colleagues to help further improve the lives of the citizens of our great nation.

Richard Hord,

Martins Ferry, Ohio