West Virginia Blue
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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.
Republican Rep. Shelley Moore Capito founded a "civility caucus" in Congress, a move that many of us thought meant she expected us to be civil to her no matter what vile things she claimed about her opponents.
We were right of course. Turns out the Civility Project drew only three members of Congress, and Capito was not one of them to take the civility pledge which set a rather low bar for civility in the first place:
I will be civil in my public discourse and behavior.
I will be respectful of others whether or not I agree with them.
But now the Republican leader of the Civility Project is calling it quits and his reason for doing so isn't going to surprise people who have paid attention:
Mr. DeMoss, a former aide to Moral Majority founder Rev. Jerry Falwell and an unpaid adviser to Republican Gov. Mitt Romney in the 2008 presidential campaign, said that he was particularly surprised by the hostility to the civility pledge from conservatives.
"The worst e-mails I received about the civility project were from conservatives with just unbelievable language about communists, and some words I wouldn't use in this phone call," he said. "This political divide has become so sharp that everything is black and white, and too many conservatives can see no redeeming value in any liberal or Democrat. That would probably be true about some liberals going the other direction, but I didn't hear from them."
West Virginia highways will be among the first victims of the new U. S. House leadership with the announcement by Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) that he and the GOP conference will begin to change the way federal highway dollars are allocated. The change would treat highway funding, with some exceptions, as other spending bills - subject to any member's attempt to reduce the amounts. The proposal will cause an estimated 20 percent cut in West Virginia's highway budget, according to U. S. Sen. Joe Manchin. Even the U. S. Chamber of Commerce predicts "major job losses" if the measure is enacted.
West Virginia's Democratic leadership sounded off against the proposed rule changes with Manchin calling the rule change "an irresponsible cut".
U. S. Sen. Jay Rockefeller stated "[the] rule will paralyze West Virginia's infrastructure."
As expected, GOP rank-and-file member Shelley Moore Capito will be supporting this devastating action. Despite the damage the rule change would have on West Virginia's economy and infrastructure, Capito has decided to put her party's interests above the interests of ordinary West Virginians.
West Virginia cannot afford job losses and infrastructure cuts. At a time when we expect our leaders to defend our interests, we find once again, Shelley Moore Capito can be found supporting Washington, not West Virginia.
All West Virginians should ask themselves: "Who is on our side?"
While Betty Ireland is the only announced Republican gubernatorial candidate, effectively avoiding the annual "What Will Shelley Moore Capito Run For?" charade, I keep seeing Facebook comments and emails saying the real GOP figure we should worry about running for office is WV GOP chairman Mike Stuart.
Stuart's got impressive credentials and the WV GOP biography makes him sound more like a candidate himself than a party chairman.
Mike, Katrina, Isabella and Audrey returned to West Virginia to begin the effort to fight for working folks, to rebuild West Virginia's economy, and to create an economic environment where future generations of West Virginians can reside and thrive.
Is Stuart using his position as WV GOP chairman to build his own political future and protect Capito's or that of other Republican candidates? It'll be interesting to watch, but it wouldn't be the first time that Shelley Moore Capito's supporters have maneuvered to block Ireland from becoming a potential Capito rival.
Here he is in Politico mulling a run for governor:
"The key is bold leadership. We need a GOP candidate that is not afraid to lead to build a better future for West Virginia," he said.
Stuart is in the middle of a reorganization of the state party and said he would want to meet with key business leaders before settling on a decision. But he could use the overhaul of the state party as a launching pad for a campaign.
"We will be releasing my vision plan for the state in February which will go a long way toward defining key goals we want to achieve for West Virginia through new leadership," he said. "The race must be about the future as well as a referendum by the people on whether they are satisfied with placeholders as opposed to transformative leadership."
Doesn't that mean that as WV GOP chairman, Stuart is already dismissing Ireland as a candidate who could offer that kind of leadership?
Yesterday, former Secretary of State Betty Ireland announced that she is going to run for Governor. From the State Journal:
Ireland announced Thursday she will file pre-candidacy papers to run for governor of West Virginia. The two forms, one for a 2011 special election year and another for the 2012 regularly scheduled governor's race, will allow her to begin raising and spending money on a campaign -- whenever a race is scheduled.
...
"West Virginia needs new leadership to get us out of last place," Ireland said in a news release. "The private sector experience I bring to the table, coupled with my state government experience, should give our citizens great confidence that I have the skills to move our state forward in all aspects."
With Ireland's intentions announced, it is now all but certain that Republican Rep. Shelley Moore Capito (WV-02) will not run for Governor. The only remaining question is if Capito will step up for a challenging U.S. Senate run or stick to a comparatively safe re-election campaign.
I suspect we won't know that answer until late in the year, well after her new district is drawn and Capito has used the lure of a potential Senate run to fatten her campaign coffers.
As to the Governor's race, Ireland is now well positioned as the Republican favorite. It will be interesting to see if she is challenged by a more conservative primary opponent.
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.
Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives just blocked efforts by Democratic leaders to resurrect a major mine safety reform bill before the end of the year and the GOP takeover of the House in 2011.
snip
According to the official roll call vote, only one Republican voted to bring up the bill.
Got to be Shelley Moore Capito, right? She's interested in protecting miners, right?
But I thought the Republicans were for tax cuts. This vote shows that Republicans only care about tax cuts for rich people. Only 3 Republicans voted for tax cuts for people who earn under $250,000.
Update (by Clem G.)
Capito voted against tax cuts for the first $250,000 of income for all households. She's wants to hold our tax cuts hostage for an extra tax break for the rest of the income made by really wealthy households.
Here in Capito's district, WV-02, there are a total of 256,942 households (2008 estimate). Of those, only 4,884 have an income of $200,000 or more. That's less than 2%. And, considering there's probably quite a lot making between $200,000 and $250,000, it's probably quite a bit less than 2%.
Yes, that's right. While Democrat Reps. Rahall and Mollohan voted for a tax cut for all household, Republican Rep. Capito is holding out for even lower taxes for those top 2% of earners.
Republican Rep. Shelley Moore Capito has supported policies that ship American jobs overseas and then when the unemployed working men and women need assistance to help them carry on until they can find new jobs, she doesn't help.
Capito is fine with helping out the rich, but the working class people are nothing to her. The GOP has determined the best way to political victory is for the economy to continue to suffer and the hardship of Americans and the economic strength of the country are less important to them than the nation.
Every pro-choice West Virginian should thank God that Republican Rep. Shelley Moore Capito didn't get tea bagged this year. As the Republican candidate and, once again, our representative in WV-02, she is the lone pro-choice member of the West Virginia delegation.
Although you don't hear her talk about it a lot during the election, Capito proudly sports her pro-choice credentials as a WISH List Star.
The WISH List -- which stands for Women In the Senate and House® -- raises money to identify, train, support and elect more Republican women leaders to public office at all levels of government. WISH is America's largest fundraising network for pro-choice Republican women candidates!
Top House Republicans knew for months about e-mail traffic between Representative Mark Foley and a former teenage page, but kept the matter secret and allowed Mr. Foley to remain head of a Congressional caucus on children's issues, Republican lawmakers said Saturday.
Capito was on the three-member Congressional committee to oversee the welfare of the pages.
Geez, I know she'll always be an ineffective back bencher, but Republican Rep. Shelley Moore Capito is already trying to make excuses to cover herself:
She said it's hard to say where she will land as a result of the Republican majority, but she could end up chairing a subcommittee.
"I think I'm definitely in the mix, and I hope to grab the reins of some important issues," Capito said.
Part of the mix? Hope to grab the reins? Way to set the bar high for yourself there, Capito.
* 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.
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