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For nearly the past 8 years, inept Republican Rep. Shelley Moore Capito has agreed with everything Dick Cheney has said and done.
Dick Cheney has held fund raisers for her and promoted her to fellow Republicans. He's been the defacto head of the GOP, the one who tells them to march. So let's remember what Republicans really think about us in West Virginia.
The National Energy Assistance Directors Association released a new energy costs survey last week, and the report found that Bush's high energy prices are squeezing nearly all households nationwide, with low-income families and individuals are being hit the hardest.
...According to the U.S. Census 2005-2006, West Virginia was ranked 48th in per-capita income.
Low-income households typically spend a greater percentage of their income on utilities than those in higher income brackets, and as prices rise, they are having to make increasingly difficult choices in order to keep the lights shining, the water flowing, and the stove running.
...Although Shelley Capito is from West Virginia, it's likely that she's aware of the problem, especially now that she's making over 9 million bucks a year and has
moved to Washington D.C. to be closer to her hedge-fund hubby.
It must be those secret, magical REPUBLICAN FAMILY VALUES that helped her personal assets to jump from around $3 million to well over $9 million in just two years while earning under $200,000 yearly as a congressional representative.
As home energy and gasoline prices increase, low-income households (under $32K a year) are
having to make serious cutbacks on basic necessities in order to make ends meet.
...Since our household per-capita income (back in 2005/'06) was only around $38,000, that leaves an awful lot of our fellow Mountaineers at dire risk.
On Jan 12, 2007 Rep Capito voted against requiring the federal government to negotiate with drug companies for the prices of drugs covered under Medicare (H.R. 4)/ Roll Call 23. This went directly against the expressed will and intent of our WV legislature, who, in both houses, had concurrently passed a bill to do essentially the same.
And although I'm certain there's some reason why she'd do such a thing, it curiously has never occurred to our local media to even ask her what her reasons were. So now, it's gotten down to either buy fuel, food, or medicine.
And thanks to our local media's lack of concern, we're left to try to piece together what we know.
Like his political hero Dick Cheney, "Delegate" Jonathan Miller, 24, the rightwing Republican from Berkeley County, had "other priorities" when it came to serving in the military for a war he supports.
But his priorities apparently don't include attending meetings when he's appointed to the boards.
Del. Jonathan Miller, R-Berkeley, indicated in writing that he wished to be reappointed, but County Commissioner William L. "Bill" Stubblefield made the motion to replace him with Elizabeth Layne Diehl, provost of the Martinsburg campus of Mountain State University.
Diehl's appointment to Miller's seat on the Eastern Panhandle board was unanimously approved by the commission.
Stubblefield cited Miller's lack of attendance at meetings for not reappointing the southern Berkeley County delegate to another one-year term.
Miller acknowledged that he had missed several meetings because of professional obligations, but that circumstance since had been resolved.
Like Miller, all three members of the Berkeley County Commission who decided to oust him are Republicans so it wasn't a partisan decision.
Miller, who was elected as a "family values" candidate, is now under the tutelage of "family values" politician and GOP political consultant Vic Sprouse.
CHARLESTON, W.VA. - In an effort to promote industrializing the pristine Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, Rep. Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV-02) claimed in a newspaper op-ed column published and distributed to newspapers in West Virginia by her congressional office this week that the Chinese are "drilling for oil 30 miles from our coastline..." in Florida.
Vice President Dick Cheney, a former highly-paid oil industry executive, should have known better when he first uttered the false claim in a speech to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce on June 11 that the Chinese government is "drilling 60 miles off our coast." The fabrication quickly became a GOP talking point, was repeated in the media by Sean Hannity and other far-right wing pundits, and finally whittled down to 30 miles by the time Shelley Moore Capito made the claim to West Virginians .
Never one to shy away from scaring up the ghosts of terrorism and xenophobia to frighten Americans, Dick Cheney nonetheless was forced to issue a retraction after a host of industry experts and analysts quickly debunked the Vice President's phony claim that communists were plundering our shorelines.
Cheney's office issued a retraction statement admitting that "...no Chinese firm is drilling there."
Yet even a week after Cheney was forced to admit he had told a whopper, Shelley Moore Capito is still repeating the bogus talking point to her constituents back in West Virginia .
Cheney has raised over $350,000 for Shelley Moore Capito's campaigns for Congress, and jokingly referred to West Virginia as a state of inbreds.
Anne Barth and Shelley Moore Capito have expressed opposing opinions on how to get more domestic crude oil onto the market quickly.
Capito favors drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, which everyone agrees would take years to produce. Scientific estimates of how much recoverable oil is actually underneath the delicate and pristine ecosystem differ wildly.
"Big Oil is already sitting on enough approved drilling permits today to double our domestic oil production. To me the question is not 'why don't we prepare to pump oil from ANWR in 5 or ten years?' The question is 'why aren't we pumping oil from the stockpile of 68 million acres of domestic drilling permits today?'" said Anne Barth.
"Most oil and gasoline is bought and sold several times by speculators before it gets to us consumers. That system needs to change, but Big Oil has had their way in Congress for too long. In spite of the record profits and ridiculous price at the pumps, some remain committed to protecting the status quo for Big Oil. Their lobby is very powerful, and their friends in Congress remain very loyal to them.
"While Big Oil is busy stockpiling drilling permits before their friends in the White House leave office, Rep. Rahall and his colleagues are asking why we should give ANWR to Big Oil now while they are already sitting on 10,000 permits they aren't drilling. I think it's a question the American people should be asking too," Barth said.
"Why are we pretending ANWR is holding up progress when we already have oil and gas permits on 68 million acres of land that are being stockpiled instead of drilled? No real progress can be made on meeting America 's energy needs unless we are able to have an honest discussion."
We've been trying to find the original source for that mysterious meme about China drilling for oil off the coast of Cuba and Florida.
It's flat out wrong. The AP debunked it a few days ago after Vice President Dick Cheney tried to pass it off in remarks to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce about high energy prices.
But it lives on. GOP operative Mary Matalin repeated it on CNN just last night.
We've traced the evolution of the non-fact and found it emerged a few months ago with an inexplicable spate of letters to the editor at small and regional daily newspapers. Within weeks it was popping up as a talking point among many Republican lawmakers and getting traction from conservative pundits.
In most instances, the Republicans point to the (fake) story as reason to suspend the current moratoriums on offshore drilling that are largely based on environmental concerns. It may also serve to gin up opposition to the Cuban regime, a sentiment that has been vital to GOP support in Florida.
Do you know how you can tell when Cheney and Capito lie? Their lips move.
For years many of us on here have referred to George W. Bush and Dick Cheney as unindicted war criminals. Now a retired major general agrees:
The profiles of these eleven former detainees, none of whom were ever charged with a crime or told why they were detained, are tragic and brutal rebuttals to those who claim that torture is ever justified. Through the experiences of these men in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Guantanamo Bay, we can see the full scope of the damage this illegal and unsound policy has inflicted-both on America's institutions and our nation's founding values, which the military, intelligence services, and our justice system are duty-bound to defend.
In order for these individuals to suffer the wanton cruelty to which they were subjected, a government policy was promulgated to the field whereby the Geneva Conventions and the Uniform Code of Military Justice were disregarded. The UN Convention Against Torture was indiscriminately ignored. And the healing professions, including physicians and psychologists, became complicit in the willful infliction of harm against those the Hippocratic Oath demands they protect.
After years of disclosures by government investigations, media accounts, and reports from human rights organizations, there is no longer any doubt as to whether the current administration has committed war crimes. The only question that remains to be answered is whether those who ordered the use of torture will be held to account.
The former detainees in this report, each of whom is fighting a lonely and difficult battle to rebuild his life, require reparations for what they endured, comprehensive psycho-social and medical assistance, and even an official apology from our government.
But most of all, these men deserve justice as required under the tenets of international law and the United States Constitution.
Republican Rep. Shelley Moore Capito has no trouble supporting war criminals.
ROCKEFELLER QUESTIONS VICE PRESIDENT CHENEY'S APOLOGY TO WEST VIRGINIANS
Washington, D.C. - Sen. Rockefeller today made the following statement after hearing of Vice President Cheney's apology regarding his disparaging remarks toward West Virginians:
"Vice President Cheney's comments yesterday have made it clear to me and all West Virginians how he really feels about our state. So, during an election year, our citizens are valued and respected by Dick Cheney, but without re-election on the horizon, we are insulted and the butt of his jokes. I have to say that it's pretty hard to take his aide's apology seriously now that he has shown his true colors."
Yesterday, after first hearing of Cheney's comments, Rockefeller said, "West Virginians are the hardest working, most decent people I know. Anyone who spends time with them gets it. The vice president should be more careful about cheap shots aimed at the very people who elected him."
Cheney should come to West Virginia and apologize in person. He also should apologize for torture, rendition, illegal, unnecessary war in Iraq, warrantless wiretappling, running up huge deficits, stop loss orders in the military, multiple tours of combat for the military, Walter Reed, and the failure to capture or kill Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan. Since he's really the president and George W. Bush is his sockpuppet, Cheney has a lot of apologizing to do.
The email from presidentsecretemailaccount@rnc.com caught me by surprise.
DEar Carnaki,
We read you blog post Operation Skahira. We got a job opening for war zar and want you to apply for it. Can you come in Friday for an intervew? I like to meet people fase to fase to get an idea of what they ar like, to look into there sole. This issss all secret. My address is 160 Pencilvanya Ave, Washington. Come around to the back door cause it'ss secret
I leaned back in my chair and considered my best options.
Dick Cheney about his friend and supporter Shelley Moore Capito in 2006:
The President and I need people of Shelley's caliber to help us keep our nation prosperous."
Dick Cheney on Monday:
"So I had Cheneys on both sides of the family and we don't even live in West Virginia. You can say those things when you're not running for re-election."
At least dick only shot her in the foot instead of the face as he has his other friends.
The questioner jokingly asked the vice president if he and Obama were going to have a family reunion, to which Cheney replied he would "have no objections" though he said he doubted Obama would want one - "certainly not before November."
Then came the offensive punch line. Cheney explained that during the course of researching his family lineage for Lynne's memoir "Blue Skies, No Fences" last year, he learned there were Cheneys on both his father's and his mother's side of the family. There was a Richard Cheney on his mother's side, the vice president said.
"So I had Cheneys on both sides of the family and we don't even live in West Virginia," Cheney quipped.
U.S. Rep. Nick Rahall (D-WV03):
"We may owe the vice president a debt of gratitude for yet another great West Virginia slogan: Dick Cheney is not from here," Rahall told us.
U.S. Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D):
"West Virginians are the hardest working, most decent people I know. Anyone who spends time with them gets it. The Vice President should be more careful about cheap shots aimed at the very people who elected him."
Sen. Robert C. Byrd (D-Beloved):
"That a man who has ascended to the seat of Vice President of the United States would openly display such contempt and astounding ignorance toward his own countrymen is an insult to all Americans.
"Now that he or the Administration he represents no longer needs their vote, Mr. Cheney apparently feels that he is now free to mock and belittle the people of West Virginia. With his trademark arrogance, the Vice President even added 'You can say those things when you're not running for re-election.'"
Gov. Joe Manchin (D):
"I truly cannot believe that any vice president of the United States, regardless of their political affiliation, would make such a derogatory statement about my state or any state for that matter. West Virginia is home to some of the most patriotic people in the nation and our sons and daughters have answered the call to duty every time a president has needed their service. They deserve better from the vice president, and so I would simply ask for his apology."
After Manchin asked for his apology, Cheney's PR person offered an apology.
What's interesting is Cheney's friend and Bush Republican Rep. Shelley Moore Capito said she found Cheney's remark "disappointing" but did not call for an apology. Maybe she's afraid he won't come and fund raise for her as he has in the past.
UPDATE
The Associated Press story has a line from Cheney that makes his remark sound even worse:
"You can say those things when you're not running for re-election.''
Go ahead, dick, tell us how you really feel about the state.
Leading telecom advocate Fred Hiatt this morning turned over his Washington Post Op-Ed page today to leading telecom advocate Jay Rockefeller, the Democratic Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman, to explain why it is so "unfair and unwise" to allow telecoms to be sued for breaking the law. Just as all Bush followers do when they want to "justify" lawbreaking, Rockefeller's entire defense is principally based on one argument: 9/11, 9/11, 9/11. Thus he melodramatically begins:
In the immediate aftermath of Sept. 11, the Bush administration had a choice: Aggressively pursue potential terrorists using existing laws or devise new, secret intelligence programs in uncharted legal waters. . . .
Within weeks of the 2001 attacks, communications companies received written requests and directives for assistance with intelligence activities authorized by the president. These companies were assured that their cooperation was not only legal but also necessary because of their unique technical capabilities. They were also told it was their patriotic duty to help protect the country after the devastating attacks on our homeland.
Using 9/11 to "justify" telecom amnesty is not only manipulative, but also completely misleading. Telecoms did not merely break the law in the intense days and weeks following the 9/11 attacks. Had they done only that, there would almost certainly be no issue. Indeed, the lead counsel in the AT&T case, Cindy Cohn, said in the podcast interview I conducted with her last week that had telecoms enabled illegal surveillance only in the immediate aftermath of the 9/11 attacks -- but then thereafter demanded that the surveillance be conducted legally -- EFF almost certainly would not have sued at all.
But that isn't what happened. Both the Bush administration and the telecoms jointly broke the law for years. Even as we moved further and further away from the 9/11 attacks, neither the administration nor the telecoms bothered to comply with the law. The administration was too interested in affirming the theory that the President could exercise power without limits, and the telecoms were too busy reaping the great profits from their increasingly close relationship with the Government.
The 9/11 attacks could be a coherent (though not persuasive) defense to lawless surveillance on September 13, 2001 or even on October 13, 2001 -- but not throughout 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006 and into 2007. That is nothing more than deliberate lawbreaking motivated by limitless power (in the case of Bush) and swelling profits (in the case of telecoms). Rockefeller's exploitation of 9/11 and "patriotism" to justify years of illegal spying is shameless in the extreme, and the only thing "unfair and unwise" is to pass laws with no purpose other than to relieve the lawbreakers of all consequences.
His entire article is well worth a read, particularly by the Rockefeller loyalists apologists who should be trying to straighten Rockefeller out instead of encouraging him to continue on the wrong path.
Greenwald also takes apart another argument cited by Rockefeller loyalists here:
"Punishment" for lawbreaking is not for them. Rockefeller -- with his wise and genetically implanted noblesse oblige -- has looked at everything in Secret and knows that there was nothing wrong here. And that's all we need to know. We should place faith in his Judgment that there need be no further examination of what his telecom contributors did. No court proceedings or judges need look at any of this because Jay Rockefeller has adjudged, in secret with Dick Cheney, that telecoms should be protected. Just marvel at these self-loving, patronizing assurances:
Over the past year, the Senate intelligence committee has examined this issue, along with the need to bring the warrantless surveillance program within the law. We closely studied the facts, the documents and the alternatives to liability for the companies. Ultimately, we concluded that if we subject companies to lawsuits when doing so is patently unfair, we will forfeit industry as a crucial tool in our national defense. . . .
Unfortunately, immunity for communications companies has become a cause celebre for opponents of the surveillance program as a whole, and that has led to widespread confusion.
The growing anger over efforts to protect lawbreaking telecoms is nothing more than a "cause celebre." We're just "confused," misdirecting our unbridled, unsophisticated rage to the poor, innocent telecoms. It is up to the Serious Rulers -- Rockefeller and Hiatt and Cheney and Jamie Gorelick -- to protect these executives from the wild masses who are starting to become restless with their childish, confused ideas about how telecoms shouldn't be given license to break what we used to call "the law."
Rockefeller ends his Op-Ed how he began: with condescending deceit. "Lawsuits against the government can go forward," he says, showing how tough he is by declaring: "we rejected the White House's year-long push for blanket immunity covering government officials."
But Rockefeller knows this is untrue. Lawsuits against the government almost certainly cannot proceed. The Bush administration continuously invokes the "state secrets" privilege to compel courts to dismiss any such suits brought against the Government. Worse, because no individual citizens can prove that they were subjected to this illegal surveillance -- because Rockefeller and his friends in the administraiton have ensured that it all has stayed completely secret -- no plaintiff, as the Sixth Circuit has ruled, has "standing" to proceed in NSA lawsuits against the Government.
Thus, amnesty for lawbreaking telecoms would not mean that "we hold government officials accountable for mistakes or wrongdoing." It would mean the opposite. The Cheney-Rockefeller amnesty would strangle to death the sole remaining mechanism for obtaining a judicial ruling as to whether Bush broke the law with his various illegal NSA spying programs. It would be the final nail in the coffin in the attempt to ensure accountability for this lawbreaking.
And Rockefeller knows that, despite his patronizing claims to the contrary. After all, if he were serious about ensuring that Bush officials face consequences for their illegal spying, his bill would include mechanisms to ensure that they cannot invoke legal tactics (states secrets and "standing") to prevent courts from ruling on what they did.
Revealingly, his bill contains no such provisions. Thus, it would simultaneously protect telecoms from being held accountable in courts while allowing Bush officials to continue to shield themselves from legal accountability. It is nothing more noble than an enabling act for government and corporate lawlessness.
Finally, Rockefeller closes with the only other tool in the Bush arsenal: fear-mongering to "justify" lawbreaking. If we do not give amnesty to telecoms, he warns in his most ominous tone, "our intelligence collection could come to a screeching halt" and "the impact would be devastating to the intelligence community, the Justice Department and military officials who are hunting down our enemies." In other words, he tells us -- in his best Cheney impression --unless we give amnesty to his telecom contributors, Al Qaeda will kill us all. That is what his Op-Ed repeatedly asserts.
Again, this argument is so misleading as to be insulting. FISA and other laws already contain amnesty if telecoms can show they acted in good faith. When telecoms comply with the law, they don't get sued. They get sued only when they violate their legal duties to their customers and the country by engaging in exactly the behavior which the American people, through their Congress, decided to prohibit in the form of our "laws."
We want "private industry" -- and government officials -- to be incentivized to abide by our laws, not to break them. That's just so basic. Telecoms will continue to have enormous incentive to cooperate with legal surveillance requests: namely, they earn enormous profits when they receive government contracts for such surveillance. Problems arise only when they break the law, and that's how things work -- or at least are supposed to work -- in a country that lives under "the rule of law."
Rockefeller's bill rewards deliberate lawbreaking. His amnesty gift further bolsters the image he and Fred Hiatt and friends have of America whereby our most powerful Beltway officials and our most lobbyist-protected corporations can break laws with total impunity. No matter how many times Rockefeller and Cheney scream "9/11" and "Terrorists!," the most basic principles of "the rule of law" demand that telecoms and Bush officials -- like everyone else -- be held accountable when they break the law.
Senator Rockefeller has done good over the years for West Virginia. That does not excuse his actions on this issue.
I take that (report) to mean they didn't feel pressure from Karl Rove, Vice President Cheney, the president, the pope or anyone else," said Rep. John Doolittle, R-Calif.
But Rep. Nick Rahall, D-W.Va., the panel's chairman, said Cheney has a history of acting in secret, and said Wooldridge's comments to the Post contradicted her statements to Interior Department investigators.
Wooldridge, who has since left government, could not be reached Tuesday. She told the Post in a June 27 article that Cheney "was coming from the perspective that the farmers had to be able to farm - that was his concern. The fact that the vice president was interested meant that everyone paid attention."
Rahall said he was concerned that Wooldridge - who resigned in January amid news reports she purchased a vacation home with former Interior Deputy Secretary J. Steven Griles and a ConocoPhillips lobbyist - did not reveal her contacts with Cheney to the inspector general's office. Wooldridge recently married Griles, who pleaded guilty to obstruction of justice in the Jack Abramoff influence-peddling scandal.
"If she spoke to the press and not to the inspector general, that sends a bad signal that there was a fear of repercussions," Rahall said.
While Wooldridge is now a private citizen, Rahall said he was considering whether to force her to testify to the Resources panel about her dealings with Cheney. "These activities occurred while she was at the (Interior) department," he said, adding that her resignation should not be an excuse to avoid appearing before his committee.
Meanwhile, Michael Kelly, a biologist who worked on Klamath issues for the National Marine Fisheries Service, told the committee that "someone at a higher level" instructed his team of scientists to endorse a plan to divert water to Klamath farmers, regardless of the consequences to salmon and other fish.
The agency's decision in early 2002 - months before the fish kill - "was no accident," Kelly said. "Someone at a higher level than the regional NMFS office was responsible for forcing the illegal action."
Kelly, who has since quit the federal agency, has filed a whistle-blower claim alleging that political concerns trumped science in the Klamath decision.
The United States has been in a prolonged Constitutional crisis since the Supreme Court showed it had been corrupted by partisan politics when the Bush vs. Gore ruling was issued in December, 2000. The Bush Administration began by Republican politicians thumbing their noses at the rule of law. The past seven years have been an unending assault on Constitutional government, American political traditions and personal freedom.
It is time to place impeachment fully on the table for the top members of the Bush White House and Cabinet. The appointment of Attorney General Gonzales should never have been approved by Congress. His record of distorting the truth in order to protect the political career of George W. Bush is the only real qualification he had when nominated. It was the reason he was appointed and the reason the appointment should have been soundly rejected.
On June 27, Rep. Mike Thompson (D-CA), along with 35 California and Oregon members of Congress, called for congressional hearings on Vice President Dick Cheney’s involvement in the political decision that killed 80,000 spawning salmon. They made this request to House Natural Resources Committee Chairman Nick Rahall (D-WV) after a Washington Post investigative report found that Cheney pressured mid-level bureaucrats in the Department of Interior to divert water from the Klamath River Basin for political gain.
The following day, Rahall announced he will hold a hearing. In response to the Congressional letter, Rahall released the following statement:
“This committee has already begun examining the penchant for this administration to favor politics over science in the implementation of the Endangered Species Act, which was highlighted during a May 9th hearing and in the resignation of the Interior Department’s Deputy Assistant Secretary for Fish and Wildlife and Parks over the fiasco.
“In light of the revelations being made over the situation in the Klamath River Basin, it is my intention to again convene the committee to delve into the issues raised by the members of Congress from California and Oregon. It certainly appears this administration will stop at nothing to achieve political gain from natural resources disasters. Ultimately, it will be hardworking Americans and their healthy environment that will lose if we fail to act.”
Congressional oversight was sorely lacking when Republicans like rubberstamp Rep. Shelley Moore Capito (R-Vulnerable) were in charge in Congress.
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