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.
(Reposted in case you missed it the first time. - promoted by Clem Guttata)
By Clem Guttata
Coal CEOs get political representation, what about the rest of us?
Logan County Commission President Art Kirkendoll requested a meeting and he got it. Michael Browning reported (emphasis mine):
Kirkendoll has asked Gov. Joe Manchin for a meeting with him, commission presidents from Lincoln, Boone, Mingo and Kanawha counties, the EPA, the Division of Environmental Protection, Congressman Nick Rahall, Congresswoman Shelley Moore Capito, representatives from U.S. senators Robert C. Byrd and Jay Rockefeller's offices and officials from the coal industry.
Today at 3 p.m., the group will meet privately in the governor's office to discuss coal's future and the economic impact it has on the state and nation.
"This meeting was way overdue to have all the major coal producers' officials together with the EPA and the DEP, the congressional people and the commission presidents from the five major coal-producing counties that spend the money and try to create activities on coal tax," Kirkendoll said. "Everybody that has a stake in what we do will be there. Instead of each of us writing letters, I wanted to get us all together - the people who are investing their money, who are spending the money, the people who are making laws and making the rules - so that we can ask how do we a qualify permits that are solid and work. I sent the governor a letter and he thought it was a great idea so he put the meeting together."
Kirkendoll doesn't think anyone downstream has a stake in coal mining. He doesn't think it matters that we drink the same water, breath the same air, or--point of fact--actually pay for the electricity that makes that coal valuable.
...the list of expected attendees includes Massey Energy President Don Blankenship, CONSOL Energy CEO Brett Harvey and International Coal Group President Ben Hatfield. Two members of Congress will be there, as will county commissioners from the state's major coal producing counties, and top officials from a dozen or more other coal companies. It's a big deal to get all those folks in the same room, and it seems like the public ought to know what is said.
With enough twists to fill a pretzel factor, Gov. Manchin and his communications director, Matt Turner, said there was no need to invite potential critics of coal mining practices because:
"the meeting is not about environmental regulations." (AP - via)
"This is not about the environment. This is about the economic plight the (coalfield local government officials) are being put in." (source)
The meeting happened this afternoon outside the Governor's Mansion in a party tent literally bought and paid for by coal industry donors, (I kid you not... you couldn't make this stuff up) and was followed by a press conference.
Nov. 10, 2009 - CHARLESTON, W.Va. - Gov. Joe Manchin, joined by West Virginia elected officials: U.S. Sen. Jay Rockefeller, Congressman Nick Joe Rahall, Congresswoman Shelley Moore Capito, Senate President Earl Ray Tomblin, House Speaker Rick Thompson and various other state leaders, county commissioners, representatives from the coal industry and labor met to discuss the future of coal in West Virginia during a press conference. Photos by: Steven W. Rotsch
West Virginia political leaders promised Tuesday to speak "with one voice" to clarify the Obama administration's proposals to more strictly regulate mountaintop removal coal mining.
Gov. Joe Manchin, Sen. Jay Rockefeller, and Reps. Nick J. Rahall and Shelley Moore Capito said they would join forces to seek a high-level White House meeting to raise coal industry concerns about tougher permit reviews instituted by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
"It's about the economy of West Virginia," Manchin said at a news conference after a two-hour, closed-door meeting with industry leaders. "We're just trying to find that balance right now."
I'd like someone to ask Gov. Manchin what it is that he's trying to "balance"? As far as I can tell, "balance" is his code word for stopping any tighter environmental regulation enforcement.
Coal company CEOs have been guaranteed a voice in Washington. The Gov. of West Virginia, Sen. Rockefeller, Rep. Rahall and Rep. Capito stood at a podium this afternoon and promised to speak "with one voice" in Washington, DC on their behalf.
The citizens of West Virginia did not elect these officials to represent coal company executives, they serve to represent us all.
What is good for Don Blankenship is not what is good for all of West Virginia. What is good for CONSOL Energy CEO Brett Harvey is not what is good for all of West Virginia (just ask the residents of the Dunkard Creek watershed). What is good for International Coal Group President Ben Hatfield is not what is good for all of West Virginia.
We need political leaders who will lead for all West Virginians, not political followers catering to the needs of coal company CEOs. We need political leaders who will ask not what they can do for coal, but what they can do for West Virginia. We need political leaders who can honor both our heritage and our future.
My daughter is an 11th generation West Virginian, and we are turning her heritage into a toxic waste dump, unfit for the next generation of West Virginia's children.
Given this groundbreaking new study, I find it particularly enraging that the US House of Representatives is currently trying to pass a bill (HR 2018) that would actually gut the Clean Water Act in order to make it easier for coal companies to continue blowing up Appalachia's mountains and spewing pollution into the air and water of nearby towns and homes. The bill is sponsored by Reps. Nick Rahall of West Virginia and John Mica of Florida. It is a polluter wish list, with ramifications that extend far beyond Appalachian coal country.
On Thursday, Planned Parenthood of WV held a rally in Charleston, West Virginia. The rally was in support of ridding anti-family planning language and cuts directly affecting Planned Parenthood from the U.S. House of Representatives HR1, the Full-Year Continuing Appropriations Act of 2011, once it hits the Senate.
Reps. McKinley, Rahall and Capito voted for this bill.
Sen. Gillibrand has harsh words for those, like Rep. Rahall (WV-03) who support US House bill HR3. Her admonishment equally applies to Jeff Kessler's ill-conceived SB443.
Via Ken Ward Jr. at Coal Tattoo, there is a moving piece on NPR about the ongoing grief of those killed because they were Upper Big Branch miners:
But Gene Jones believes speaking out is critical, especially as public memory of the tragedy fades. Jones, 50, lost his identical twin Dean in the explosion.
"We're just going to be forgotten," Jones says, while mine disasters are "going to continue and continue and continue to go on. We need it fixed."
snip
Gene and Dean Jones were so close in their mother's womb doctors detected just a single heartbeat.
"I was 10 minutes older than Dean," Gene said. "It's like part of me is gone."
"I think about him every day," Gene said from a conference room at Appalachian Power in Beckley, where he works as an electrical engineer. His hazel eyes welled with tears. "So I work a lot not to think about it."
An obituary Gene wrote for his brother that includes an image of Dean, broadly smiling, sits on the table. If it wasn't for Dean's mustache, the twins would look exactly alike.
Still, when Gene looks in the mirror he sees his brother. "When people see me they see me and Dean," Gene adds, referring to Dean's widow Gina and their now 14-year-old son Kyle. "When Kyle sees me he sees his daddy some and when he listens to me talk, he probably thinks, 'Whoa, that's my dad!'"
Nick Rahall voted in support of the Robert C. Byrd Mine Safety Protection Act. Alan Mollohan did not show up to vote on it. Shelley Moore Capito voted against it. The bill after all, would close loopholes that allow mines repeatedly in violation to continue to operate unsafely. The lives of the miners have less value than the profits of the mine owners and their shareholder dividends.
Ward reprints an excerpt from the moving obituary Gene wrote for his brother that highlighted the relationship Dean had with Dean's son Kyle.
His beautiful son, whom he loves with every fiber of his being, is also waiting. They will have dinner together and then they will spend the evening together. They love "The Andy Griffith Show." He has purchased his son all the episodes on DVD, and they watch them over and over. They love watching old westerns, the kind that he grew up watching as a boy. They love the Steelers. He has filled his son's whole room with Steelers' memorabilia. They love WVU football and basketball. They love to wrestle and play and their beautiful golden retriever joins in the play. They are constant companions, bonded in a way that most do not know. His son is sick. His son has cystic fibrosis, a progressive and debilitating illness, for which there is no cure. He has spent many sleepless days and nights pleading for his son's life and health. He adores him and wants to be there for him. He wants to comfort him in hard times and laugh and play with him in good times. He wants his son's life to be full and blessed. He will lead him safely to manhood. They will blow out the candles together on his May 1st 14th birthday; since last year his son was too ill to have a birthday cake. They are best buddies. His greatest ambition was to be a good father.
His greatest ambition was to be a good father. There's little I can think of more important or that has more value than being a good father.
As Gene points out, the more than $12 million that Massey CEO Don Blankenship will receive for simply retiring from the company is four times more than the settlement offered by Massey to the families of the dead. Blankenship's putting profits over the lives of the people was more valuable to Massey than the lives of the miners.
In a way, it's really the story of America in the 21st century. From the tax cuts for the wealthy that will lead to a budgetary trap down the road that will lead to cuts in Social Security and Medicare to the telecom immunity supported by Sen. Jay Rockefeller that allowed Bush administration officials and telecom executives immunity for breaking the law to spy on all of us, Americans are losing out to the powerful. The wealthiest get away with crimes of such scope that it is hard to fathom. The rest of us are losing our financial security, our hope and our liberties and many are cheering on our collapse because they cannot comprehend how they have been swindled.
"We're just going to be forgotten," Gene Jones says, while mine disasters are "going to continue and continue and continue to go on. We need it fixed."
Jones could just as well be talking in general about the middleclass and the poor as well as about miners.
The current system is about propping up the wealthiest and making sure the scales of justice are tilted in their favor to the point there is no justice.
Dean Jones was a good human being. But if the people in power truly respected him and the other 28 miners, the Robert C. Byrd Miner Protection Act would have passed unanimously so that no other teenage sons would have to miss their fathers because the mining company put profits over people and those responsible for doing so would be given jail sentences instead of tax cuts and millions in bonuses.
The American Dream still exists for those fortunate enough to be in the wealthiest 2 percent who control half of all the nation's wealth. For the rest of us, the disasters are going to continue and continue, but it's not going to get fixed.
Activist icon Mother Jones once said pray for the dead and fight like hell for the living.
Peace be with the Jones family and all those who died to provide higher profits to cover Blankenship's exit bonus.
The resounding, landslide victory of U.S. Rep. Nick Rahall (D) in WV-01 was not only a thumping of the disgraced former judge and French Riviera vacation friend of Don Blankenship but also a resounding defeat of the bigotry that the Spike Maynard and the Republicans introduced into the race.
In a commercial based off lies and that the nonpartisan FactCheck.org called one of the harshest of the campaign season, Spike and West Virginia Republicans tried to base their attacks on the statesman-like Rahall on the fact his grandparents were born in Lebanon.
Spike and the WV GOP made false ties to try to link Rahall, a Presbyterian, to Islamic terrorist organizations because of Rahall's ethnicity even though he's a West Virginian through-and-through.
Outside money, much from Don Blankenship who puts profits over the lives of his workers time after time, was used to smear a good and decent representative for West Virginia.
And their appeals to naked bigotry through misinformation failed.
Republicans should not only hang their head for their resounding defeat in WV-03, but out of shame for their indecency and their bigotry. Considering the kind of people they are, I don't expect Spike, Blankenship, Roman Stauffer or any of their ilk in the WVGOP to have enough sense of propriety to know shame.
But West Virginia voters thoroughly rejected them and their malicious campaign tactics. Again.
* If you haven't voted yet, please vote on Tuesday. I urge everyone in West Virginia to vote a straight party Democratic Party ticket. In the congressional races, the choices are starkly clear. A Republican victory makes it that much harder for future progressive policy advocacy.
For example, if Raese wins the discourse shifts to arguments about whether whether climate change is real and if work place safety and environmental regulations should exist at all.
If Manchin wins, at least we're starting from a more rational place to fight our battles.
* This is one of those years when I really wished we had instant runoff voting. Instead of voting for the candidate whose views were closest to mine, I was stuck voting for the least worst option with a chance to win.
* If Joe Manchin pulls off a victory, one of the many people he can thank is Republican Rep. Shelley Moore Capito. In a year when Republicans are picking up seats all over the country, the weak WV GOP bench is a major liability for WV GOP chances.
Since her election in 2000, Capito has worked hard to make sure she's the only viable state GOP candidate. Even in this election, with her best chance ever to welcome aboard fellow Republicans to the WV delegation in DC, Capito has been MIA. If Raese or McKinley squeak out a victory, it'll be no thanks to her.
* The most famous political science model for predicting US House election outcomes says the Republicans are expected (based on the economy and historic conditions like party in power) to win 45 seats. Nate Silver's current model estimates a Republican margin of 55 seats--not far off. As Atrios recently put it, "I think the ignored true narrative of this election season is that as horrible as the economy is, it's a miracle the Dems are seeming to do as well as they are and especially that Obama remains relatively popular." (We'll see on Wednesday is that's really true.)
The outcome of WV-01 will be one of the indications of how the national wind is blowing. I have no idea how it, or the composition of the House, will end up.
The only predictions I'm prepared to make for tomorrow are that Manchin, Capito, and Rahall will all win. No major changes will happen in the composition of the WV state house.
Whatever the election outcome, there's a rocky road ahead.
"We have a choice in this election, to keep an experienced team with values that we trust, or give away power to the purveyors of fear, doom and gloom," Rahall said. "We have a choice between continuing to create a brighter future for our dreams, or stepping away from the progress that we've made."
That is a statesman.
Those in the crowd included Andrea Spring of Raleigh County. She rejects the GOP's central argument - that Manchin and Rahall would vote in lockstep with President Barack Obama's administration.
"I think that's really simplistic," the semi-retired educator said. "The situation in Washington was inherited by Obama. People who have done a good job for their state, like Gov. Manchin and Nick Rahall, they should be judged on their track record."
West Virginia had a good friend in President Clinton unlike John Raese, who had to dredge up a half-term Alaska governor and an out-of-state, pants-defecating, rock has-been to stump for him.
Sincere kudos to Steve Allen Adams at West Virginia Watchdog for admitting where he was wrong in writing a poorly sourced story that attempted to create a false link between Nick Rahall and a terrorist organization. Too bad his mea culpa comes after the damage is done. For Spike Maynard, the article already had served its purpose and Adam's apology cannot change the damage done by the false associations created by the article and the embarrassment about bigotry caused by Spike's commercial.
However, Adams at least has owned up to his part in this embarrassment to the state after he was called out on it by FactCheck.org.
Adams loses some points, however, by adding qualifiers to his retraction:
The story I wrote in February about Rep. Nick Rahall (D-W.Va.) and funding from groups with alleged Hamas ties is one such story that, if I could turn back time, I probably wouldn't have written.
To be clear I didn't make anything up, but the information that I based that story on wasn't as solid as I had thought it was. On top of that it's a poorly-written story that, had an editor read it and quizzed me beforehand the way Factcheck.org did after the fact, probably would have been spiked.
There's no "probably" about it. WorldNetDaily is called WingNutDaily for a reason. It's a rightwing propaganda site and too often a factfree zone. The site has aggressively pushed with more than 500 posts on the topic the conspiracy theory about President Obama's birth certificate and this is the site that Adams relied on for information to make his spurious claim. Here's FactCheck.org on those conspiracy theories of "birthers" like WorldNetDaily:
FactCheck.org staffers have now seen, touched, examined and photographed the original birth certificate. We conclude that it meets all of the requirements from the State Department for proving U.S. citizenship. Claims that the document lacks a raised seal or a signature are false. We have posted high-resolution photographs of the document as "supporting documents" to this article. Our conclusion: Obama was born in the U.S.A. just as he has always said.
Maybe Adams should stick to reality based sites instead of wingnut sites if he has a serious interest in the truth.
Adams also needs to look a bit deeper inwardly. He writes:
There is no staff here at West Virginia Watchdog, just me. I'm a one-man shop, which means that I don't have the safeguards that your newspaper reporter has. While I often poke at my newspaper brethren, the reporter/editor relationship is one that is very important. Having someone to check your work for inaccuracies and poorly-worded thoughts is vital to a good story. Despite not having such a system I do the best I can with the tools I am given.
However, to jump to the conclusion that I'm for Rahall's opponent in the 3rd District congressional race, as at least one blog has done, is unfair. I have fairly covered both parties, and all candidates as evenly as I can.
I believe he thinks he is sincerely trying. But just as an editor could help him spot when he is blind to things poorly written (a flaw we all share at times) he needs to recognize that he might not see when he is putting his thumb on the scales to favor one side over another. The fact that he jumped on such a clearly false story about Rahall should give him pause about whether he has really "fairly covered both parties." The fact he even touted the disgraced former judge Spike Maynard as a candidate for WV-03 is another misstep that should make him step back.
A site that wants to be an independent watchdog, and one is needed, should have hammered against the idea of someone with as corrupt a history as Spike jumping into the race. There also are other signs that show which way his site tilts. Has he written stories critically about Shelley Moore Capito and David McKinley? I take him for his word that he has. But we've published numerous posts on this site criticizing nearly every Democrat in the state at one time or another and that does not give us an claim to being an objective site. That's not our goal. We're a site that supports Democrats and progressive causes and we're honest about it.
To conclude, Adam's retraction is honestly appreciated by me and I am sure others for what it was: an attempt to set the record straight. I also hope with real sincerity that Adams takes this opportunity to come away from this a better blogger. If he wants to be a vigilant watchdog for the state, he should learn where his blind spots might be.
Our own heath harrison has an excellent Q&A with U.S. Rep. Nick Rahall at Huffington Post. Here's an excerpt but it's well worth reading in full:
I'm running this campaign as I run every campaign -- vigorously, working for every vote and not taking anything for granted. Whether its' an election year or non-election year, I've always been accessible to the people and have a record of which I'm proud to run.
I believe this election is crucial to the future of our state, because of the loss of seniority already, with the loss of Senator Byrd. And we lost a seat on the House Appropriations committee with Representative Mollohan's defeat. West Virginia cannot afford further loss of seniority, which is vital to a small state like ours.
I recognize there's anger out there. There's angst, there's frustration, there's fear --the fear being more fueled by scare tactics run across the nation and, in particular, my district.
But, when all is said and done, the people of West Virginia will see through the fog and the fear factor that's being invoked in this election and make their judgments in what is in the best interest for our state.
I want to make sure something didn't get overlooked in the nonpartisan FactCheck.org's smackdown of Spike Maynard's deceptive ad.
But then the West Virginia Watchdog says without attribution that the Arab American group "has ties to the Muslim Brotherhood: the parent of both Hamas and Al-Qaeda, and a group affiliated with the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR)." There is no evidence of such "ties."
The Justice Department lists Hamas and al Qaeda, of course, as terrorist organizations. It also says that Hamas was "an outgrowth of the Palestinian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood." But what is the Arab American Leadership Council's connection to the Muslim Brotherhood? The article doesn't say, so we called the author, Steven Allen Adams. We told him we were having a hard time following the logic, because his article did not support the claim that the Arab American Leadership Council "has ties to the Muslim Brotherhood."
After re-reading his item, Adams said: "I'm not even following my own logic on it, which is a terrible thing to say.
Why would Adams make up a false claim that was later used by Spike's campaign?
Because he was an early cheerleader for the disgraced former judge?
Wingnut Web site The West Virginia Watchdog is pushing the idea that former Supreme Court Justice Elliot "Spike" Maynard, who was booted from office by the voters following a little photo problem, is a possibility to challenge Representative Nick Rahall in next year's election.
The Watchdog hilariously thinks Spike is the kind of 'statesman' the race needs.
I guess Spike and his supporters are desperate to distract voters with phony claims about Rahall in order to keep them from remembering Spike's association with his Monaco vacation buddy, Don Blankenship.
Spike Maynard with Massey Coal's Don Blankenship on vacation in the French Riviera not long before Spike ruled in Blankenship's favor to overturn a $76 million dollar verdict against Massey. As attorney Bruce Stanley, a Pittsburgh lawyer representing Caperton, said later "It is beyond the realm of human comprehension that any judge could claim any semblance of impartiality when, before casting the deciding vote in a $76 million case, he accompanies the CEO of the litigant on a luxurious trip to the French Riviera."
...
Nick Rahall represents the people of his district in West Virginia. Spike would only represent the interests of his Monaco vacation buddy Don Blankenship. Spike would move to deregulate every safety regulation in the book because lives are less important than Don Blankenship's profits.
Three months before the Aracoma mine fire, Massey CEO Don Blankenship sent managers a memo saying, "If any of you have been asked by your group presidents, your supervisors, engineers or anyone else to do anything other than run coal . . . you need to ignore them and run coal. This memo is necessary only because we seem not to understand that the coal pays the bills." [Logan Banner, 9/1/06]
Fortunately voters in WV-03 have more sense than to allow Blankenship to buy a Congressional seat for his Monaco vacation buddy.
But to the West Virginia Watchdog, the disgraced former judge was a candidate worth touting back in December.* I can't follow Adams' logic on that either, which is a terrible thing to say.
In one of the weirdest stories of this political season, the Associated Press runs a story on how U.S. Rep. Nick Rahall faces a serious challenge from the disgraced former judge Spike Maynard without mentioning a single poll number to back up the story's premise.
Why would the reporter not cite any poll data? Maybe because it shows the story's premise to be false?
Update
Link fixed. The links to the story still show up on teh Google search for the Charleston Gazette, but it goes to page not found. But the factless story by Tim Huber which does not mention the polling data can be found elsewhere. The AP should never have let such a factless story go through and should have pulled the story.
Copyright 2011 West Virginia Blue
Site content may be used for any purpose without explicit permission unless otherwise specified.
This site exists thanks to financial support from BlogPAC, dedicated volunteers and participation by members of this community. The views expressed at West Virginia Blue belong solely to their respective authors.
Spike Maynard with Massey Coal's Don Blankenship on vacation in the French Riviera not long before Spike ruled in Blankenship's favor to overturn a $76 million dollar verdict against Massey. As attorney Bruce Stanley, a Pittsburgh lawyer representing Caperton, said later "It is beyond the realm of human comprehension that any judge could claim any semblance of impartiality when, before casting the deciding vote in a $76 million case, he accompanies the CEO of the litigant on a luxurious trip to the French Riviera."
