West Virginia Blue
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Serial adulterer and "family values" Republican Dick Louse - I mean Vic Sprouse - was once touted as having a big future with the West Virginia GOP. That was before his very public separation from his fourth or fifth wife (it's hard to keep track) over his cheating on her derailed his political aspirations:
Everyone, even the most cynical observers who have seen it all, appreciate seeing an individual or even a political party acting consistent with their stated beliefs. Hypocrisy, on the other hand, has no friends.
This is why the West Virginia Republican Party, long the standard- bearer for traditional family values in this very family values state of ours, should bring every bit of persuasion and force to bear on one of their own--before he manages to wreck the whole train in the 2006 legislative elections.
We refer, of course, to Senate Minority Leader Vic Sprouse, who has shown a near total disregard for his fellow Senators and GOP legislative candidates by clinging by his fingernails to his leadership post in the wake of his messy divorce with Amy McKinley, the daughter of former GOP Chairman and gubernatorial candidate David McKinley of Wheeling.
But wait, there's more. Aside from this being Sprouse's third divorce, this particular situation Sprouse has caused is a mockery of any semblance of traditional family values, which he himself has run on and tried to defend from time to time.
In this case, Sprouse left his pregnant wife only a little after a year of marriage, some say just long enough to get him through his last election cycle. To leave a woman in the middle of pregnancy to fend for herself is not the kind of "leadership" Republicans come to expect from their Senate Minority Leader.
Moreover, the continuing consequences of Sprouse's early decision to leave this marriage continue. The couple's little boy, Max McKinley, was born with serious problems as a result of being afflicted with CHARGE Syndrome. Only through the heroic efforts of Amy McKinley, her family, and the child's doctors is Max able to come home for Christmas after several months of touch-and-go in a Seattle children's hospital.
Since all this is getting more and more known across the state, it is hard to believe that the Democrats won't seize upon this political gift, given them courtesy of Vic Sprouse. Sprouse is safe this year, having won his last election with Amy McKinley giving him quite a boost.
But even after Dick Louse - sorry, silly spelling error again Vic Sprouse was forced to step aside as Senate Minority Leader, Sprouse continued to claim he was Senate Minority Leader on his web site for months afterwards.
Now Louse - okay, that one was a typo - Sprouse is so jealous of Democratic candidate Anne Barth for having a future that he's throwing a hissy fit on his blog.
spruceshoe called out Dick Louse - I mean Vic Sprouse - for misspelling Anne Barth's name and lying about her policies. Louse isn't exactly known for his intellect. After all, Vic Sprouse apparently does all of his thinking with the wrong head.
But Sprouse is trying to claim otherwise:
I'm going to have to purposely misspell words just to watch them jump jack-legged and declare their intellectual superiority to my little Chemical Engineering degree.
Really? Does he want to go there? Because good chemical engineers make big money either working for major corporations or launching businesses that utilize their chemical engineering skills. Dick Louse's chemical engineering degree is as relevant as his inability to spell properly at his career of folding towels and putting weights away at his overpriced ladies' fitness center.
While he may boast of having a chemical engineering degree, he obviously couldn't cut it in the world of chemical engineering.
We've got video of Dick Louse - I mean Vic Sprouse - in action at his fitness center where he likes to break a "mental sweat."
I don't know why the woman in the video keeps calling him a "good man," because he certainly isn't, but notice we even have him on the video misspelling a word by leaving off the "e"?
Long ago there was a Kossack named Jimmy. You've never heard of him, he had a UID in the 40s, having joined the site in that summer of free love 1968.
Jimmy was a hard working activist. Jimmy would knock on doors and do sign waves and blog until 3 a.m. and then get up to open the soup kitchen for railroad hobos at 6 a.m. so they could catch the early train to their homeless sites.
But one day in 1969 Jimmy was struck down by an SUV - a Hummer 3 - driven by then Gov. Ronald Reagan as Jimmy was helping an elderly transgendered woman across the road to vote.
I was there with Jimmy when he pulled me down to hear his dying words, his final advice to me as my mentor.
Anne Barth, WV-02 candidate, on right.
"Carnacki," he said, the rain washing away the blood from his injured face while Reagan stood above us sneering in that bright California sunshine. "Carnacki, one day, one day a candidate you'll want to win will need people to vote for her in an online poll so that Wes Clark will come to her district and work to help get her elected."
I thought it a strange thing for him to say, considering it was 1969 and I had never heard of Wes Clark. Still, Jimmy was very foresighted.
"When that day comes," Jimmy coughed, "You tell them about me and you tell them to go out there and win that online voting for Anne Barth so that General Clark will be there to help her kick Shelley Moore Capito out of Congress. You tell them to go out there and win one for the Jimmy."
Then, with his dying breath, he died.
Matilda, the elderly transgendered woman Jimmy had been helping, and I cried as we carried his broken body to the recycling center just like he would have wanted. We discussed his final words later and put it down to his occasional use of acid. It was the 1960s afterall.
Ronald Reagan went on to win the White House and lead one of the most corrupt and criminal administrations until the current one.
Still, I remembered Jimmy's words even though I was five when he died.
So when I saw Wes Clark doing this, I knew the time had come to tell Jimmy's story, to let people know Jimmy's dedication to helping hobos and stray hippies.
I did part of my growing up in West Virginia where my father mined coal out of the hills - so did my uncles and my grandfather. It is where many of them died due to mining, sometimes by black lung and sometimes by accident. My uncle Dewey died when a kettle bottom fell on him and crushed him below the ribcage. During the autopsy, they also learned his lungs were filled with coal dust from long exposure to mining. My grandfather's lungs were also full of coal dust when he died and my father died of black lung and complications due to that condition.
I talked with my mom yesterday and we chatted about the upcoming election. She lives in Princeton and lives off of Social Security and the pension that has been well protected by the United Mine Workers. I asked who she was going to vote for and she said she didn't know. The commercials on television have not been helpful to her. Yes gas prices are high in West Virginia, but she is concerned with who is going to protect the unions and the pensions related to them.
Over the past 150 years, immense amounts of money has been drained out of West Virginia in the form of coal and none of it has been funneled back in terms of monetary wealth. Unlike Alaska, where the citizens get a yearly check from the oil companies for the oil that has been pumped out, West Virginia has been left to corporate wolves.
It is a pity, some of the most beautiful wilderness in America is blighted by crushing poverty caused by an uncaring federal government.
I think the people, at least my family that still lives in West Virginia, have one question on their minds.
"Which candidate will screw me the least?"
SPECIAL REQUEST FOR TCD FANS: The San Francisco Chronicle is pondering the addition of new cartoons for their paper - a process that seems to be initiated by Darren Bell, creator of Candorville (one of my daily reads - highly recommended). You can read the Chronicle article here and please add your thoughts to the comments if you wish. If anything, put in a good word for Darren and Candorville.
I am submitting Town Called Dobson to the paper for their consideration. They seem to have given great weight to receiving 200 messages considering Candorville. I am asking TCD fans to try to surpass that amount. (I get more than that many hate mails a day, surely fans can do better?)
This is not a race between Darren and I, it is a hope that more progressive strips can be represented in the printed press of America.
So if you read the San Francisco Chronicle or live in the Bay Area (Google Analytics tell me there are a lot of you), please send your kind comments (or naked, straining outrage) to David Wiegand at his published addresses below. If you are a subscriber, cut out your mailing label and staple it to a TCD strip and include it in your letter.
I was in New York City on a business trip when I went into the now notorious Emperor's Club. This post is about my experience there.
I was in need of a drink after a hard day in the city. I saw a discrete sign saying the Emperor's Club. A fancy name for a bar, but none the less I didn't know the neighborhood and didn't want to wander around looking for one.
I entered and was surprised to not see a bar, just a few leather chairs like an old fashioned British club. Nice, I thought.
"May I help you?" an elegant woman asked, looking me up and down as if I had stumbled into the wrong place. I get that a lot.
"I just want a quick one," I said, looking forward to a shot of Crown Royal Special Reserve. Long time readers might recall my love for the "Special Reserve."
"We don't normally accomodate walk-ins," she said.
That's weird for a bar, I thought. But I didn't want to say anything and show I was a bumpkin not used to the city ways.
"I have the money," interpretting her earlier look as concern for my ability to pay. As I said, I'm used to that look.
"Very well," she said. "I'll send someone over."
So it's one of those fancy bars with waitresses, I thought. Nice.
I waited and an elegant, lovely woman came over. "What would you like?" she asked.
I felt tongue-tied by her beauty. "Special," I said before stammering.
"That'll be $5,000," she purred.
Holy s**t! I thought. I knew a drink in New York would cost more than back home, but that was outrageous price gouging. I got up to leave and was already composing my email to Elliott Spitzer, who I knew was strong on consumer protection, when I saw him enter. I smiled at him as I passed him on my way out the door.
From One Citizen, more exclusives here at West Virginia Blue Red.
In the aftermath of a not-so-Super GOP Tuesday, Mitt Romney and John McCain have rolled out key endorsements to fend off Huckabee's insurgent campaign.
Romney Channels Zombie-Reagan while the Govinator greets his long lost Uncle...
No word out of the Romney camp (there's a scary image) if this endorsement is enough to keep him in the race or not.
Sorry for another copy and paste post from me. I want to be first with this breaking news.
The Times (link not available yet)
WASHINGTON - The Republican National Committee named Lord Voldemort as chairman Friday evening to replace Sen. Mel Martinez.
"I am deeply honored to be able to lead my followers," said Voldemort. "With Democrats acting as effective as the Minister of Magic Cornelius Fudge, I feel it is safe for me to operate in the open."
Republican insiders hailed the announcement as a positive step to help turn around the fortunes of the GOP.
"He is the perfect choice to lead the Republican Party in these times," said Republican consultant and former presidential advisor Karl Rove. "He embodies the Republican Party's views on war, power, torture and the health of children."
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nevada) said he would work in a bipartisan fashion with the new GOP chairman.
"Together we can stop any Democratic efforts to safeguard liberties," Reid said.
Voldemort said he was going to do his best to make sure Republicans remain in control in 2008 - no matter if Democrats or Republicans control Congress or the White House.
"So in that sense I believe in bipartisan solutions," he hissed.
International human rights groups and the American Civil Liberties Union said Voldemort's record in Britain was one of the darkest in history.
"This is a new land," Voldemort said in response to his critics. "It is amusing that in my native country I was called He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named while here Republican presidential candidates treat President Bush as He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named."
So far my record on breaking scoops is impeccable. See here and here.
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