West Virginia Blue
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From United Steelworkers president Leo W. Gerard (also covered by Ed Schultz's show today):
On Dec. 18, a dozen retirees, men and women in their 60s, 70s, even 80s, began occupying a median strip along Route 33 in front of the closed Century Aluminum smelter in Ravenswood, W.Va. In tents and under tarps, a small group stays overnight, despite hypertension, arthritis and other old age ailments. One has suffered a stroke.
These vulnerable people expose themselves to weather extremes although some have no health insurance at all. Century cancelled it. That's why they're occupying Century.
The retirees labored their entire lives for wages and pensions comparably lower than those of other aluminum workers. They did it believing they made those sacrifices in exchange for good, lifelong health coverage. Over the past two years, however, Century evicted them, about 540 retirees altogether, from the insurance plan.
The betrayal burns. Executives at Century, corporate 1 percenters, committed the same sort of treachery that is being condemned by Occupy Wall Street demonstrators representing the victimized 99 percent across the country. Thus the retirees adopted the grandchildren's protest tactic of encampment.
Bobby Nelson had a program on the subject today featuring Karen Gorrell, leader of the retirees. To get some great background on the situation, listen to it HERE.
Unbelievable that not only is he co-sponsoring the bill to authorize the Keystone Pipeline, he was the ONLY Democrat to do so. I am officially ashamed of him. I am reminded of the Democratic Convention in '08, when he spoke and oh so carefully avoided any mention of then candidate Obama, he was so wary of aligning himself with him. I was shamed into voting for him by my fellow Democrats, but you know what? Never again. You certainly don't have to post this publicly. I'm blowing off steam, but I mean every word I say.
Did you hear some of the people who are going to run as Republicans in WV this cycle?
One of my particular favorites is Delegate Brian Savilla (R-Putnam). He really thinks he can beat Secretary of State Natalie Tennant. So, let's do a brief analysis of Savilla's work in the WV House of Delegates, shall we?
Earlier it was a perennial GOP candidate who lives in Florida and has to fly in to Maryland to make his campaign announcement, and now the Republicans give us an attorney general candidate who wasn't even licensed to practice law in the state until last week.
The Republican running to be the state's chief lawyer was not licensed to practice law in West Virginia until last week, according to records from the West Virginia State Bar.
Harpers Ferry resident Patrick Morrisey had not practiced law in West Virginia prior to that or had any West Virginia clients, he confirmed in an email Monday.
He was admitted to the State Bar on Jan. 24. Four days later, he filed to run for attorney general.
It is likely that Morrisey could face the issue in the campaign.
"He's going to have to respond to why he thinks he should be attorney general when he's never worked in West Virginia," said Fran Hughes, chief deputy for incumbent Attorney General Darrell McGraw.
snip
Morrisey moved to West Virginia in 2006 and lives in Harpers Ferry with his wife and stepdaughter. He currently practices law at the Washington, D.C. office of an international law firm. He is licensed to practice law in several jurisdictions.
But not West Virginia until he decided to run for office. He'll try to claim he'll bring a fresh perspective, but that's only because he has ZERO experience in West Virginia.
The United Mine Workers of America marks the 122nd anniversary of its creation and continues to stand strong for coal miners and working people across the state and nation.
Mitt Romney pays a lower tax rate than the average West Virginian and he "earned" $46 million while telling people he's unemployed. He doesn't work for a living because he inherited a lot of money and just owning lots of money helps him make even more ridiculous amounts of money that are taxed at a lower rate than the rest of us who pay our fair share and work for a living. That money he invests isn't making money from employing people and creating useful items. It's mostly from corporate profits created when corporations laid off American workers and shipped their jobs oversees to people who will work in near slave-like conditions. Romney also gave millions to a tax-deductible charity, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which many Republicans consider a cult.
In a second development on Friday, the justices blocked a decision of a federal court in West Virginia in another election case while the justices consider an appeal. The West Virginia case concerns whether that state's three House districts must be absolutely equal in population.
There was some Texas stuff in there, too, now that Gov. Perry is ba-a-ack. But back to us here in the Mountain State.
Isn't it sweet that Cheif Justice Roberts is our federal court overseer? He puts a new meaning to one-person-one-vote, huh?
In its second ruling Friday on courts' power to draw new election districts, the Supreme Court in a West Virginia case raised doubts about the authority of federal District Courts to require states to achieve absolute equality of population in drafting new voting boundaries.
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The District Court had not adopted a substitute plan of its own, and, in fact, stayed further proceedings after state officials had gone to the Supreme Court for a stay of the ruling.
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One of the goals of the legislature's plan was to assure the state's two Republican members of the House - Reps. Shelley Moore Capito and David McKinley - that they would not have to run against each other in the GOP primary for the same seat.
So for those of us living in the district that looks the most like a salamander, it is staying the same, minus Mason County.
While West Virginia coal-fed politicians haven't wanted coal operators held accountable for poisoning West Virginia, the law says otherwise.
Ken Ward Jr.:
In federal court down in Huntington, attorneys for the Sierra Club and other groups have just filed copies of a major lawsuit settlement that insiders are saying could require Patriot Coal to spend hundreds of millions of dollars to treat selenium pollution from three of the company's major mountaintop removal mining complexes here in West Virginia.
The deal will require Patriot to build and operate new treatment systems for 43 water discharge outfalls on 10 different permits - far more than 14 outlets covered in a previous deal with Alpha Natural Resources or the five outfalls included in a settlement with Arch Coal.
This is a huge win for people who love West Virginia.
And kudos to the environmental organizations AND Patriot Coal for reaching this agreement.
Remember when people in Charleston made fun of how often Sen. John Unger (D) would bring up Mother Teresa? That's how many of us feel about how often Sen. Joe Manchin whenever he misuses and overuses the words "common sense."
China has become more capitalistic and worried about the long-term effects of climate change on its economy than the West Virginia coal apparatchiks who rise and cheer in support of the coal industry despite the massive harm it is doing to the state and the people.
Global warming threatens China's march to prosperity by cutting crops, shrinking rivers and unleashing more droughts and floods, says the government's latest assessment of climate change, projecting big shifts in how the nation feeds itself.
The warnings are carried in the government's "Second National Assessment Report on Climate Change," which sums up advancing scientific knowledge about the consequences and costs of global warming for China -- the world's second biggest economy and the biggest emitter of greenhouse gas pollution.
Global warming fed by greenhouse gases from industry, transport and shifting land-use poses a long-term threat to China's prosperity, health and food output, says the report. With China's economy likely to rival the United States' in size in coming decades, that will trigger wider consequences.
"China faces extremely grim ecological and environmental conditions under the impact of continued global warming and changes to China's regional environment," says the 710-page report, officially published late last year but released for public sale only recently.
Meanwhile the coal apparatchiks in West Virginia spout coal propaganda the way communists used to quote their phony ideological propaganda.
Sadly our coal apparatchiks can't look past their next coal company campaign contribution to consider the long-term detrimental effects of their policies on the state's workers and economy.
CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- Hulett Carlson Smith, West Virginia's governor from 1965 to 1969, whose term was marked by several disasters and the state's first attempt to regulate the strip mining industry, died on Sunday in Scottsdale, Ariz., at the age of 93.
He had a hand in one of the things we can truly be proud of, when it comes to W.Va. government:
He also signed legislation abolishing the death penalty in West Virginia, which he called one of his proudest moments at governor, according to the history "West Virginia Governors" by former Charleston Gazette reporter John G. Morgan.
• WV-Sen: Hahahahahahahahah! Oh, too, too priceless! Uber-rich businessman John Raese received a ton of crap last year (deservedly so) for actually being a resident of Florida while running for Senate in West Virginia. (Here's a sample DSCC ad.) So how did he launch his bid for a rematch against Dem Sen. Joe Manchin, the guy who thoroughly beat him last year?
"It just seemed like a good day," he told reporters. "The weather was clear, the clouds parted and I just came in."
According to the FlightAware online flight tracking service, Raese flew to Charleston from Palm Beach International Airport in his Cessna Citation jet, arriving at Yeager Airport at 3:34 p.m.
Oh man! Just perfect! But wait, it gets even better:
However, the jet is hangared, not in the University City, but at Cumberland (Md.) Regional Airport, about 70 miles east of Morgantown.
Why? Unlike West Virginia, Maryland does not collect aircraft registration fees or charge personal property taxes on aircraft. Purchases of aircraft are also exempt from Maryland sales taxes, if the company that owns the plane is engaged in interstate commerce.
For a Citation CJ2, domiciling the jet in Maryland saves about $240,000 in sales taxes, and about $52,000 a year in personal property taxes.
So one redistricting plan introduced by Sen. John Unger would put the two Panhandles together in one Congressional district. This has the advantage of putting the two areas the rest of the state would like to get rid of into one Congressional District and leave the State of Kanawha intact. The disadvantage is it doesn't put Capito up against McKinley, although some say that's a feature and not a bug because certain individuals don't want one of them looking for a Senate seat to run for when they are lazy and have their comfortable representative seats they're busy keeping warm.
Could the odd couple that is the Panhandles work together - like Starsky and Hutch or Eddie Murphy and Nick Nolte in 48 Hours or would it be more like Sting and Lugar, with everyone knowing Lex would eventually stab Sting in the back?
No word on who the big business/Chamber-backed challenger he typically faces will be, but with Citizens United in effect, you can be sure one is coming.
Despite being rejected by W.Va. voters in 1984, 1988, 2006 and 2010, Florida Republican and minimum wage opponent John Raese can't take 'no' for an answer, and is ready to waste the millions he inherited on yet another futile effort.
John Raese, who ran against Joe Manchin to complete Robert C. Byrd's unexpired U.S. Senate term in 2010, has filed to run for the same seat in 2012.
So expect another year's worth of annoying ad attack ads on your TV.
This announcement really illustrates Mike Stuart's failure as WV GOP chair, as it appears their 2012 strategy is to ignore party-building and candidate recruitment in favor of revisiting the same shallow pool of rich egotists and their vanity efforts.
Help! This could be the dominant meme between now and November. Can you please take a look and help spread this? I just bought time on Union Leader in NH.
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