West Virginia Blue
The Best Blogging Community in West Virginia Democratic politics, progressive policies, the good life and free living in Wild, Wonderful West Virginia.
If you missed last week's theatrical look at fracking and healthcare, don't miss what's sure to be an informative evening on February 22nd at the Earthdog Cafe in Berkeley Springs. We've invited Michael Davis, a moderate Republican, and Rep Capito, to a debate that evening. Mr Davis is taking on Rep Capito in the primary. Read more at http://www.morgancountyusa.org In the event Rep Capito doesn't show up, we will improvise theatrically!
Great. Our wonderful Senator Manchin is about to go on national TV (MSNBC) to totally illustrate, in living color, his Neanderthal roots. Asking President Obama to repeal the provision to guarantee contraceptives coverage for all women. Somebody give him a club. Remind me again, who is this guy.
TalkingPointsMemo has a post how pro-choice Republicans, the few of them that are left, have issued a warning to the GOP that their fight with President Obama on contraception.
Pro-choice Republicans are begging their party to drop this fight over contraception before it's too late. Turning to a discussion about access to birth control will be nothing short of a disaster, they say.
Since U.S. Rep. Shelley Moore Capito is one of the few pro-choice Republicans on Capitol Hill, perhaps she should join her fellow pro-choice Republicans in urging her party to drop this fight.
Then again, she's taken an extremist stance against contraception before.
Does Capito, one of the largest recipients of donations from the Republican pro-choice WISH group, really not support contraception for women? That's the fight her party wants to have and so far she's joined with them in wanting to deny women birth control.
WV GOP chair Mike Stuart's bold prediction to Phil Kabler back in October:
Stuart also said he believes some well-known Democrats will switch
parties and run as Republicans in 2012.
"I feel confident there will be some notable names ... that will be
switching parties for statewide races," said Stuart, who said he could
not name names.
But, given the way Stuart sabotaged Betty Ireland's bid for governor, it shouldn't be a shock that serious GOP candidates are hesitant to run while he's in charge of their party.
Wondering why you may have seen anti-union "educate the workers" commercials over the weekend?
Sen. Rockefeller is CHAIR of the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. What is he trading away for rural airport support?
Democrats and Republicans have been unable to pass a long-term reauthorization because Republicans insisted it include a provision that would change mediation rules such that workers who abstained from unionization votes would be counted as if they'd voted "no."
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The Communications Workers of America - which has led the push to pass a clean FAA reauthorization - will amplify their efforts Monday. But they're short on time. And if the bill passes unchanged, it threatens to widen a rift between labor and incumbent Democrats this election year.
"CWA and other opponents urge the U.S. Senate to delete the provisions of the proposed compromise legislation that would amend the Railway Labor Act and to instead move a clean version of the FAA legislation forward," CWA said in an official statement.
NPR radio was heralding the return of the conference committee just this morning, and the tortuous path over the last four years to FAA reauthorization. They highlighted the extra flights in and out of National Airport. This is very good for John McCain.
Shelley likes this kind of stuff. We don't have much time. You know what to do.
Those mythical little people just can't seem to get a break.
Manchin finds it impossible to miss an opportunity to find issues with administration policies and attempt to distance himself from President Obama in the eyes of right wing West Virginia voters. He makes a big deal out of the administration requiring religious based hospitals and other institutions to provide contraceptive information and care free of charge even if same is contrary to their religious beliefs. Read about it here.
Abortion and Right to Life have been right wing issues for decades, and truly have no place in our political arena. Now Joe Manchin has gone one more step down the road in supporting right wing causes. The Republicans want a West Virginia Senator with an R after his name. Joe is certainly doing everything he can to accomodate them.
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.
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