West Virginia Blue
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West Virginia is ranked 43rd in measures of overall child welfare, according to the 21st annual National KIDS COUNT Data Book put out by the Annie E. Casey Foundation.
West Virginia ranks 43rd in the nation overall in child well-being and in the bottom 10 states on four of the 10 indicators, including the percent of low-birthweight babies (46th), children living without secure parental employment (45th), children in poverty (43rd) and the child death rate (42nd). There was some good news for children in West Virginia: The state has improved on four of the 10 measures affecting child well-being since 2000 (infant mortality rate, child death rate, teen death rate and percent of children in poverty). However, in two measures (percent low-birthweight babies and percent of children in single parent families), conditions for West Virginia children have worsened; in two others(teen birth rate and percent of teens not in school and not high school graduates), conditions have remained unchanged; and two of the indicators are not comparable to previous years.
When you look at the maps at the county level, it is not surprising that the counties where King Coal rules strongest are also where children fare badly in overall well-being. King Coal isn't good at raising children.
Good for Carte, this is a plum set of assignments.
SENATOR GOODWIN ANNOUNCES HIS SENATE COMMITTEE ASSIGNMENTS
**GOODWIN TO SERVE WEST VIRGINIA ON ARMED SERVICES, BUDGET, HELP AND RULES COMMITTEES**
Washington, D.C.-Senator Carte Goodwin today announced that he will serve West Virginia on four Senate Committees: Senate Budget Committee, Senate Armed Services Committee; Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee (HELP); and, the Senate Rules and Administration Committee.
"Serving West Virginia as your Senator for the coming months is my greatest honor, and my new Committee assignments will mean a strong voice at the table for the families of our great state. Having the opportunity to work for West Virginia on the issues that really matter to our state - from economic security and balancing the federal budget, to protecting the brave soldiers who put their lives on the line for our security, to strengthening our education and health care systems - is a responsibility I take very seriously. We need to put people back to work and improve the economy in West Virginia and that is my number one priority. I will work as hard as I can to fight for you in my time in the U.S. Senate."
Why should the Dem. and GOP primary have all the fun? The WV-SEN general election now promises to be at least a three-way contest, too.
Mountain Party Candidate to File for Senate
Charleston, WV - Former WV Mountain Party gubernatorial candidate, Jesse Johnson will be filing to run for the unexpired term of US Senator Robert C. Byrd in the special primary election set for August 28th.
Johnson ran as the party's gubernatorial candidate in 2004 and 2008 and as a candidate for US Senate in 2006.
Johnson is running to give WV voters an alternative to politics as usual and protect their constitutional rights as well as the protection of our precious Air, Water, and Mountains here in the Mountain State.
The WV Mountain Party affiliated with the national US Green Party in 2007
So far there have been three Democrats file for WV-SEN: the heavily favored, Gov. Joe Manchin; mountain-top removal activist Ken Hechler; and former Mon County delegate Sheirl Fletcher.
No one has filed yet from the Republican party, but I fully expect that John Raese will. I think he's going to wait until the last minute with the hopes of luring at least one other Republican into the primary.
Why?
Because it is in John Rease's personal interest to have both a contested Republican primary and to have as heavily contested as possible general election. He'll invest a modest amount of his own wealth to keep both races as competitive as possible.
After all, what is one of the biggest differences between a lightly contested and a heavily contested election? The amount of media spending.
And, what would be a nice unexpected windfall for John Raese's West Virginia media empire? Heavy media spending for a contested special Senate election.
Update from Carnacki: Raese makes it official he's in.
It's pretty darn exciting to see Jefferson County native Rod Snyder elected president of YDA. Congratulations, Rod, on your hard-earned and well-deserved honor. Keep making us proud!
West Virginian Elected President of the Young Democrats of America
WASHINGTON, DC - July 19, 2010 - Jefferson County native Rod Snyder was elected the 39th President of the Young Democrats (YDA) of America yesterday at the organization's national conference in Washington, DC. Snyder is only the second West Virginian to lead YDA in the organization's 78 year history.
Snyder graduated in 2002 with a Bachelors degree in Political Science from Eastern University near Philadelphia, Pennsylvania where he served as president of the student body. He currently works as Director of Public Policy with the National Corn Growers Association in Washington, DC and resides on his family's farm in Shenandoah Junction, West Virginia.
Snyder previously served as President of the West Virginia Young Democrats from 2007 - 2009, YDA Mid-Atlantic Region Director from 2007 - 2009 and YDA Executive Vice President from 2009 - 2010 .
In 2004, Snyder was a candidate for the West Virginia House of Delegates and was named the state's Outstanding Young Democrat of the Year in 2005. He is the son of West Virginia State Senator Herb Snyder.
During the 2008 election cycle, Snyder managed three successful campaigns in the Eastern Panhandle of West Virginia, including the election of the youngest ever female legislator in the history of the state, Delegate Tiffany Lawrence. He also served on the Agriculture and Rural Policy Advisory Committee for the 2008 Barack Obama for President Campaign.
Snyder is an accomplished singer/songwriter and was a semifinalist on season four of the television show American Idol. In 2006, he released his debut full-length album entitled "Leaving Hollywood Behind."
At this weekend's national conference, YDA also adopted resolutions expressing condolences to the families of the fallen miners at the Upper Big Branch disaster, as well as honoring the life and service of Senator Robert C. Byrd.
The Young Democrats of America is the largest youth-led, national, partisan political organization. YDA mobilizes young people under the age of 36 to participate in the electoral process, influences the ideals of the Democratic Party, and develops the skills of the youth generation to serve as leaders at the local and national level. YDA has been the official youth arm of the Democratic Party since 1932. Since 2002, YDA has operated independently of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) as a nonfederal 527 political organization.
A Charles Town woman's search for answers of her dying son's last moments in Afghanistan leads an ABC News reporter on an 8,000 mile journey to provide them. Here is the woman's moving story.
I'm sure we remember VP Biden's story during Sen. Byrd's funeral, about how Sen. Byrd would remove Biden's flag pin and replace it with a US Constitution pin. The other year, I found a link for those pins on the Tamarack website and bought a couple.
The link is no longer on the Tamarack website. Googling produces nothing but blogs referring to the pins or sites with gaudy bejeweled versions.
What happened to the company that made them? Did the business go out? If so, would anyone want to see about starting it up again? Frankly, I hope someone makes the pins.
Wouldn't you love to tell Faux News to stop the faux outrage over the lack of flag pin, and say "they swore to uphold the Constitution, not the flag!"
Besides, what better memorial to our dear Sen. Byrd than to wear the pins he gave out?
If you want to know why Joe Manchin is eager to run for Senate as soon as possible, look no further than the results of this Rasmussen poll released today:
A new Rasmussen Reports telephone survey of Likely Voters in West Virginia, taken Thursday night, shows Manchin with 53% support, while Congresswoman Shelley Moore Capito earns 39% of the vote. Three percent (3%) prefer another candidate in the race, and five percent (5%) are undecided.
If former West Virginia Secretary of State Betty Ireland is his GOP rival, Manchin captures 65% voter support. Ireland picks up 26%. Three percent (3%) again like some other candidate, while six percent (6%) are undecided.
Yet while 77% of the state's voters approve of the job Manchin is doing as governor, he would be running in a challenging political environment for any Democratic candidate.
Only 35% of voters in the state approve of how President Obama is doing his job, while 64% disapprove. This is a much higher rate of disapproval than is found in the Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll.
Now, I take this all with a giant grain of salt as Rasmussen has rated poorly among all of the pollsters. But, they generally have a strong Republican bias, so if this is Manchin's floor, that's really saying something.
It's too bad they didn't poll any other Democrats. It would be nice to know how someone like Rep. Rahall matched up across the state vs. Capito, if for no other reason to get a better pulse of Dem/Rep party strength independent of Manchin's personal position as incumbent Gov.
This is a horribly misguided effort to "Draft Joe."
Top West Virginia labor and business leaders are calling on Gov. Joe Manchin - who local Democrats say is highly interested in running for Senate - to reverse course and appoint himself to the seat held by the late Sen. Robert Byrd (D-W.Va.).
"We just strongly believe that he's the right person and we would certainly encourage him to reconsider that decision and in fact appoint himself," said Larry Matheney, the secretary and treasurer of the West Virginia AFL-CIO.
For one thing, they're forgetting the not-so-trivial detail that the Gov. cannot appointment himself. He'd have to make a dubious moral bargain with the designated Gov. successor whereby Manchin agreed to elevate someone else to Gov. in exchange for them naming him a US Senator.
That's a mighty big bite of a poisoned fruit for them both to begin new offices with.
If Manchin turns out to be the next Dem. party candidate for Senator, I would vote for him over any WVa Republican alternative I've ever seen, but I think this whole idea of back-room maneuvering to be interim successor just plain stinks.
For those of us trying to hang in and do what's right, things are beginning to feel a little shaky here at home. While the corporate/government interlocutors scheme to steady that "invisible hand" over their coffers, the raging malcontents are strategizing to take back America - getting "illegals" out of the country, poor people "out of their pockets," and Obama out of the White House. Some are vowing 2nd Amendment assistance as needed.
The millions mired in debt and hopelessness are finding they have few friends - 53% of a recent survey blamed borrowers for their plight. Payday predators hawking two week loans at 390% interest, and slick brokers duping the poor into skipping the fine print and signing the dotted line get a pass. When the financial institutions abuse their freedom, they get rescued from their free-fall by taxpayers and the victims they swindled take the rap.
1.2 million people just lost their extended unemployment benefits, and the number is projected to grow several hundred thousand a week. There are 6 applicants for every available job, and criminalizing poverty is on the rise. Cities are cracking down on sharing food with the indigent, and many have laws against "lying, sitting or loitering on the streets." Limbaugh's recent quip to hungry children: "There's always the neighborhood dumpster" is straight out of Dickens.
For years, undocumented workers have grown the wallets of the wealthy. Their nightly swim across the Rio Grande brought down wages for American workers and built fortunes on Wall Street. These "wetbacks" who risk their lives to feed their starving families and whose kids are fighting and dying in our wars are now targeted enemies.
It's undeniable that cheap labor has eroded decades of progress for American workers - their dreams crumbed before them - but stoking a xenophobic frenzy by pitting victims
of economic policies, directed by NAFTA, GATT and the World Bank, against each other is a dark and cynical enterprise. We need to look behind the curtain where modern day robber barons work their alchemy.
The militant wing of the "fix America movement" is widespread and growing. The Southern Poverty Law Center report shows militia groups grew 300% the first year of Obama's presidency. They're now organizing on Facebook, My Space, Twitter etc. - all fueling fires of insurrection.
Oath Keepers, the group said to be the hub of the anti-Obama movement, was founded a year ago by Yale-educated lawyer and ex Ron Paul aid, Stewart Rhodes. He and others at the helm are reportedly "savvy and smart." The core members are uniformed men and women who recruit military buddies and stash weapons for a showdown when Obama declares martial law - which they are convinced he will do.
Well, here we are, another year older and oh so lost, mad, and scared!
We're a fractured nation in need of honest introspection. Have we, as was recently charged, "stopped being citizens and started being consumers?" Have we abandoned in our hearts many of the ideals our country so proudly proclaims? Are we really committed to the common good? Do we really believe in "liberty and justice for all?" Or, are we coming to think this is passe pap being kept alive by what Gingrich calls "Obama's secular-socialist machine?"
Surely, we must know, somewhere deep inside, that much going on in our country is both morally indefensible and practically unsustainable. That we have the highest inequality of wealth in the industrialized world and the highest in our nation's history should surely give us pause. We the people are accountable after all.
We'd better love democracy more than we hate each other - if not, the consequences are unthinkable.
Happy Birthday, America.
Like many others, I've been thinking a lot this past week about what Sen. Robert Byrd has meant to me and, additionally, how to mark his passing. This morning I want to celebrate the legacy of Sen. Byrd I most hope will live on. I originally posted this diary on Oct 21, 2009. Sen. Byrd went further in Dec. 2009 in speaking forcefully about the benefits and costs of coal to West Virginia. This is but one of many topics that Sen. Byrd showed great courage in provided brave leadership on.
Big Daddy is gone. It's up to us now. Let's make him proud.
What most casual observers of Congress know about Senator Robert C. Byrd is he's the longest-serving member in the Senate's history and he's been incredibly successful at steering federal dollars to West Virginia.
(Political Science Professor) Rupp remembers a quote from former Democratic House speaker Jim Wright, D-Texas, that Byrd posted in his office near the Senate Appropriations Committee Room inside the Capitol. It said: "Bob is a living encyclopedia, and legislative graveyards are filled with the bones of those who underestimated him."
Time and time again, Sen. Byrd has delivered for West Virginia. The question of the moment is, what does Byrd think West Virginia needs in the next energy and climate bill?
In the fall of 2006 Senator Byrd was an honored guest at the Mercer County Democratic Party Bean Dinner. Senator Rockefeller was also a guest at the same event. The video that follows is made up of pictures of Senator Byrd from that visit along with a rendition of May the Circle be Unbroken by the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band and Friends. It was a wonderful afternoon as Senator Byrd set aside his prepared remarks and spoke candidly about his youth growing up in Wolf Creek Hollow here in Mercer County. It was obvious that he truly loved his home state and all of us who live here as much as we loved him.
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No one has filed yet from the Republican party, but I fully expect that John Raese will. I think he's going to wait until the last minute with the hopes of luring at least one other Republican into the primary.
If you want to know why Joe Manchin is eager to run for Senate as soon as possible, look no further than the results of this 
