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West Virginia Governor Joe Manchin: Democrats Are Committed To Retaining and Creating Good-Paying Jobs
Applauds Democratic-Led Congress for Bipartisan Work on Economic Stimulus Package
Washington, DC - Governor Joe Manchin of West Virginia, chair of the Democratic Governors Association, delivers the Democratic radio address this week. He credits Democrats in Congress for working quickly with the President on a timely, targeted, and temporary economic stimulus package and for laying the groundwork to turn around the economy.
Governor Manchin, who addressed members of the U.S. House Democratic caucus this week, also highlights the success of Democratic policies in retaining and creating good jobs in West Virginia. He notes that it is going to take a Democratic president to restore consumer confidence, pay down the debt, and help middle class families.
What does this have to do with W.Va. politics? Plenty.
First, Republican Rep. Shelley Moore Capito (WV-02) talks a good game about improving coal mine safety. When legislation has come up for a vote, she has voted the right way. Unfortunately, she's done too little to bring strong mine safety legislation to the floor (despite the years she spent on the powerful House Rules Committee as a member of a Republican majority).
Capito's record on mine safety is further tainted by repeated campaign contributions from mine owners--include the Crandall Canyon mine. More telling, she has supported Bush administration policies--inadequate budgets and mine-company friendly personnel appointments--resulting in lax oversight at the Mine Safety and Health Administration.
Second, the Bush administration, aided and abetted every step of the way by Republican Rep. Shelley Moore Capito, has done everything it can to limit (if not outright overturn) Freedom of Information Act powers. When regulators, through incompetence or malfeasance, fail to do their job, FOIA discovery is one of very few tools available for public oversight.
How many more miners will die because this Republican administration turns a blind eye to mine owner greed?
Republican Capito arrived with Pres. Bush, she should leave with him, too.
Republican Rep. Shelley Moore Capito (WV-02) is a past and present member of the House Financial Services committee. She came into office in 2000 along with Pres. George Bush. She has been a staunch supporter of the financial and economic policies of the Bush administration.
Rep. Capito has been eager to take credit for a "successful" economy.
Rep. Capito consistently advocates for tax-cuts for the very wealthiest as sound fiscal policy.
Now that the housing boom has turned to a bust, our largest banks are being bailed out by foreign investors, and a recession is on the horizon, will Rep. Capito also accept responsibility for supporting the policies that got us into this mess?
I'm not sure what Pres. George Bush holds in greater contempt, the safety of coal miners, Congress, or the constitution.
By re-appointing Richard Stickler as acting head of Mine Safety and Health Administration, Pres. Bush is directly thumbing his nose at Sen. Byrd, West Virginia coal miners, and everyone else that cares about safe and responsible coal mining. For an administration that disregards constitutional precedents weekly, ignoring the will of Congress is but a bonus affront.
"The United States does not torture." is the clear "winner." Beyond that, I'm torn between "Nine U.S. attorneys were fired by nobody, but for good reason" and "The NSA's eavesdropping was limited in scope."
They are all incredibly egregious.
Part of the reason 2007 looks so bad is because the new Democratic Congress actually engaged in some oversight. Now, how about the next logical step. Will 2008 finally be the year of consequences?
Sen. Byrd is the chairman of the Senate Appropriations committee. He's also the longest serving Senator with an renown understanding of the constitution. I wonder how Sen. Byrd feels about President Bush's latest decision to interpret the constitution according to his own desires?
There is general bewilderment as to why the President decided to "pocket veto" a broadly supported defense appropriations bill. Bush had voiced no previous concerns about the bill. He provided a flimsy excuse, saying that the Iraqi government is concerned about potential liability from Saddam era actions.
More likely, it's the back story that is the real story. Bush declared it a pocket veto instead of signing a formal veto. Hold on.
Congress, not the President, that decides when it is in session. The Senate has been keeping itself open in pro forma sessions to keep Bush from making recess appointments. The point is, they've kept themselves open every day, including the day Bush declared the pocket veto.
Bush has announced the pocket veto despite its clear lack of qualifications in that regard:
Will the Congress defend their powers laid out in the Constitution, even to go so far as to bring a lawsuit to fight against Bush's attempt to use a pocket veto to deny a bill to become law? As the Senate is clearly in session according to its own rules, then Bush would clearly be in the wrong.
What happens next?
Kagro X has even more details, asking the really pertinent question, "How much more abuse can this Congress stand?"
Falling somewhere above anecdotal evidence but not a full-fledged scientific study, here is yet more proof the conservative base of the Republican party is mean people.
"When Huckabee said, 'After all, these are children of God," the dials plummeted. And that happened time and again through the evening: Any time any candidate proposed doing anything nice for anyone poor, the dials plummeted (30s)." The other big loser: John McCain saying we shouldn't torture people. In fact, it was an even bigger loser. It turns out that the only thing these GOP voters hated more than helping the poor was being told that it's wrong to torture people.
The Gingrich-Delay-Bush era Republican party has banished all compassion from the party platform.
The latest word is President Bush is still expected to veto the CHIP bill which passed this week with strong bipartisan support. If so, the big test for House Republican members: can they muster enough additional votes in the House to override his veto? Or, will they embrace this unpopular President even closer?
The caption on the large photo in the middle (Mom Goes to War) reads:
Spc. Heather Stout of Sutton says a tearful goodbye to her husband Randy and kids (from left) Sarah-Jo, 11; Rebekah, 6; and Jeremy, 9; before deploying to Iraq with the 821st Engineer Company Wednesday. Sarah-Jo was featured in an Aug. 19 Sunday Gazette-Mail article, "Dear Mr. Bush," after she wrote to President Bush describing what her life would be like with her mom at war. The 821st is based in Summersville and Spencer.
If you missed the article back on Aug. 19, it's a must-read. Here's an excerpt with Sarah-Jo's letter to Pres. Bush:
Dear Mr. Bush ...
My name is Sarah-Jo Jenkins. I live in the state of West Virginia. I am writing to you because I am very angry and sad at the same time! Why? Well you are sending my mom to war ...
I have already written to you and I haven't gotten any response. You don't know how dear my mom is to me and my family. To give you a better idea, we can't really live without her ... if my mom doesn't come back, my family will be lifeless on the inside, and joy will be something that is hard to bump into ...
Now you're probably thinking how is an 11-year-old girl going to change my mind, but this isn't just my thoughts, it's everybody's. Everybody wants the troops to come home, and no more, I repeat NO MORE, to leave, everybody wants the war to be OVER, and, Mr. Bush, you have the power to bring them back, you have the power to end this war!
This letter isn't just for me, it's also for my 6-year-old sister, my 9-year-old brother and my dad. Our life is empty without her. Write back when you get the chance. PLEASE!!!!
Thank you,
Sarah-Jo and family
The photo is from the family's second teary good-bye. The first was as mom left for training pre-deployment preparations, the second before departure to Iraq. It was after that first good-bye that Pres. Bush finally responded.
A Letter Answered
Her unit was leaving from Spencer. The whole family drove there. The children were crying. Their mom was crying. So was their stepdad. They call him Dad.
"We watched her get on a flatbed trailer and that was pretty much it," Randy Stout remembered. "They had a parade, but we didn't stay for the parade. That was enough."
A week or so later, Sarah-Jo got mail.
It was from the White House. Inside was an 8-by-10 glossy of Bush's face and a letter. Parts of it were exactly the same as another letter Bush sent last year to a 10-year-old girl in Maine who wrote to him about the war, according to newspaper reports from the time.
"Mrs. Bush and I encourage you to support these service men and women who are willing to sacrifice for a cause greater than self," the letter stated.
As if anyone needs to tell Sarah-Jo to support the troops, her parents said. Not only her mom, but some of her friends' parents and the family's good neighbors are in that unit headed to Iraq.
"She said, 'What does he want me to do? He's got my mom,'" Heather Stout said.
Ask Sarah-Jo what she thought of the letter, and she gives a measured response.
"It didn't make sense to me," she said, "because Saddam Hussein and Iraq didn't really have anything to do with 9/11."
Reader G sent me a great item from this week's papers putting in stark relief the poignancy of Bush's misplaced priorities. I'll get that up later today.
Meanwhile, I'm just once again reminded how "taken" the country was the lie that George Bush is a "compassionate conservative." Only a cold heartless person could consider vetoing this carefully constructed piece of important social legislation.
If you want to take positive action today, Daily Gotham provides a summary with links to MoveOn's actions in support of Rockefeller's S-CHIP program.
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.
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