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So tell me about West Virginia

So tell me about West Virginia

John Conyers (D-Mich), via The Hill, talking about West Virginia:

“There’s a big campaign going on about how you clean coal, and we want to examine that as critically and fairly as we can, but here’s the problem: I’ve been to West Virginia, and that’s about all they’ve got there…”

Joe Manchin’s response is at the link, here’s part of it:

At this time of massive federal deficits, I also invite you to learn more about West Virginia’s strong finances. Our great state is one of the few states in this country that is financially solvent. During the recession, West Virginia had a surplus every year, cut tax rates and raised its credit rating — for three straight years. We believe that the federal government could learn a lot from West Virginia’s commonsense approach.

Face it Joe, your party looks down at you.  It’s almost as if you were a Tea Party member.  Or at least clinging bitterly to guns and religion, which after all, is all you’ve got down there other than coal, right?

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Democrat party continues to hemorrhage working class, Reagan, Jacksonian, Jim Webb, Scots-Irish Democrats by attacking them on all fronts. What will they be called in the future Perry Democrats or Palin Democrats?

West Virginia has some of the best whitewater rafting in the world.

Ah yes, another fine mess John Conyers has gotten into. So, when will he cleanup his own mess, the one caused by his own close circle of corruption? Plus, the fine mess his home town is inright now! Also, Detroit is not an area to brag upon in recent times.

Democrats have never forgiven West Virginia for not going along with secession.

    THAT one is too good not to commit to memory.

    DINORightMarie in reply to Crawford. | August 25, 2011 at 2:02 pm

    But I thought they rewrote history, cleansing Democrats of all ties to secession and the South….. Revisionist history has a selective memory.

    Too bad. Can’t have it both ways, guys.

    Conyers is overdue for a replacement. Who’s running against him in 2012?

DINORightMarie | August 25, 2011 at 10:03 am

West Virginia is just north of me. Their state has a solid coal mining economy, particularly in the western and south-western parts of the state. Tourism (white water rafting, camping, etc.) is next in line for revenues, from what I’ve read.

Manchin got elected by basically being a governor that brought in the bacon, along with being a “conservative” Democrat and guns advocate (his commercial for filling the empty Byrd seat is great! he sounds like a Republican. heh). You really can’t be a West Virginian and be against guns. They live of the land in many areas still.

They have fairly high state taxes; the land is very mountainous, and real estate is still pretty cheap. Gambling is legal there, and they have a mix of north-south economic policies. They get a LOT of subsidies from the federal government for their poor. Think Hatfields & McCoys. Coal towns, black lung, etc.

If the coal industry is crushed, West Virginia will be devastated. So will south-western Virginia, along with other hi-producing coal areas.

The EPA should be 1st on the chopping block, IMHO. Before being eliminated, however, the EPA budget needs to IMMEDIATELY be cut in 1/2 or more; ALL new regulations made prior to 2006 CANCELED; and an independent econ assessment of their impact on business productivity should be done – with a deadline of 6 months to complete – to allow near-immediate action. EPA MUST be retructureed (I say eliminated); it is a wasteful, uber-liberal, jobs-killing cancer destroying our nation’s our economic solvency, our ingenuity, our liberty.

There are MANY bureaus and agencies that need to be eliminated (Dept. of Energy, Dept. of Interior, FCC, EEOC, HUD, Dept. of Education come to mind). EPA should go first, IMHO.

    DINORightMarie in reply to DINORightMarie. | August 25, 2011 at 10:05 am

    *off the land, not *of the land 😛

    Very good. I’d modify your “coal industry is crushed” comment – if it happens it will be lights out in a lot of places and the country will be devastated. The answer: rationing, as in who gets power, when. Never forget, Obama promised to “bankrupt them.” You’re right: EPA? A hobby horse that never should have been created and is now a collection of Obama henchmen. DOE? Thirty five years (and counting) of uselessness. Close them both.

      DINORightMarie in reply to Owego. | August 25, 2011 at 1:55 pm

      Amen, @Owego. There is already a plan to close several coal-fired electric plants. We will see increases of AT LEAST 25% in our electric bills. Not to mention the other “unintended consequences” of cost increases that will be passed on to us in other energy-related areas and ways (goods, services, other energy, etc.).

      It will devastate our economy even more; it will affect every household.

      I just hope people FINALLY see it, that it gets through their ideological, foggy, addled skulls, and VOTE THIS MAN OUT in 2012 (and the Democrat Senators, too!). Even Manchin. I don’t trust him, even though I am sure he is a strong 2nd amendment guy. Too much garbage comes with his label – Democrat.

      Neo in reply to Owego. | September 3, 2011 at 9:29 am

      DOE is definitely after EPA.

      After decades of nuclear industry money be paid for a permanent spent fuel repository, we still have dozens of cooling pools at nuclear plants around the country just waiting for the power to go off and create dozens of Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disasters.

      In 2008, we got change, but in 2012, we need change we can believe in. And, a little real leadership would be helpful too.

@ Crawford is partially right. But it’s more than that, too. Professional Democrats like Conyers disparage original Democrats such as West Virginians because to their minds they are so stupid. They just “don’t get it”. They believe a politician’s word should mean something. Like what’s with that?

What Reagan said about Hispanics is also true about West Virginians. They just don’t know it yet and with the shenanigans being pulled by beltway RHINOs they’ll never figure it out. Maybe the TP stands a chance.

“So tell me about West Virginia”? Why, because a guy like John Conyers criticizes it? Wrong discussion, you’ve taken the bait. That’s like asking for a discussion of our elections because Hugo Chavez made a comment about voting practices in St. Louis. Let’s talk about Michigan, Detroit, and John Conyers.

WV is a Republican state, they just don’t know it yet. The Democratic state agenda in WV bear little resemblance to the national D platform.

They’ve figured it out for Presidential elections, backing McCain over Obama 55 – 42, but they’ve been Democrats for so long they haven’t yet broken the habit.

The Democratic Party has moved so far left that they’ve left old-style private sector, working class, Democrats behind. This is a natural constituency for Republicans if only they’ll take the trouble to go and make their case.

D’s today stand for huge government and redistribution of wealth. Their base is in public sector unions and welfare recipients. Basically, anyone that gets their primary income source from government. To blue collar workers, the D’s do nothing except extract taxes from their paychecks to redistribute to someone else, and impose crushing regulatory burdens on their employers that result in job losses.

Once the Republican Party wakes up and realizes that blue collar workers’ interests are represented by policies the R’s already stand for, and go and explain as much to them, the D’s will cease to exist outside of major urban areas.

[…] From William Jacobson on Senator Manchin: “Face it Joe, your party looks down at you.  It’s almost as if you were a Tea Party […]

BannedbytheGuardian | August 25, 2011 at 8:34 pm

As a foreigner who hiked The Appalachian Trail in 2010.

I met many West Virginians & asked some (friendly ) questions about Robert Byrd. They said They could not vote him out as it would be like voting their Grandfather out. Plus that WV had been a very poor state& he brought in lots of bacon. WVirginians were always good conversationalists & especially tuned into discussions of poverty.

Living in a coal district myself & having an interest in cl history demographics & music I did some extra trips in SW Virginia & WV.

Blowing off mountain tops by coal companies. This is despicable & an offense to the Appalachians & aesthetics of a geographically bounteous & beautiful land.

No matter what party you are -you are merely guardians of the land . Coal must be smarter mined & better utilized.

It is 250 years past the Industrial Revolution . As a note .. Britain’s waterways are now the cleanest ever since 1750. The Hudson River valley is reclaiming its magnificence.

The Right must have an ecological passion. The constitution is a piece of paper. America the land is forever.

BannedbytheGuardian | August 25, 2011 at 9:54 pm

Furthermore coal mining counties have a universality be it in The Ukraine Wales Nth England Australia or The Ruhr valley. The ways of life including large families ooorly fed , the lung disease , the acute sun (vitamin D ) deficiencies ,the 24/7 survival fears have left their genetic mark down the generations. It is knowledge that lead exposure reduces IQ as does ricketts . These plus more were endemic in coal communities & even today in my local area I can spot he true locals. They are shorter , their teeth less resilient & likely on welfare.

West Virginia had a particularly virulent rampant company tyranny. Mining rights were gained by buying the rights off poor farmers in the 19th century for $25 etc & locked t in
forever. Mining towns were fully owned by companies. The unions in WV were no better even murdering a dissenting miner & his whole family.

Recently a mining company was reported as exploratory drilling down through a graveyard in WV!

BTW coal mining districts have the worst governance even today. My area was proudly outed as THE most corrupt municipality in the state’s history. However that is better than our competitors who had a genuine paedo as MP or 25 years. Ours we said was only gay.

Wonder if Jay Rockefeller is going to come to the defense of West Virginia from a fellow democrap’s attack.

delicountessa | August 28, 2011 at 12:10 am

*Waves from a mountaintop in beautiful WV* We are and always have been economically depressed. We have high taxes, a terrible legal environment and a lot of regulation that kills businesses. Many of our people are Yellow Dogs and we have very active but low-key Union thuggery that goes on in our elections. Nationally, we often vote R but, other than an occasional Republican governor, we have been under Democrat control for around 80 years. Then everyone wonders why things never seem to get any better. The politicos like to blame it on “infrastructure” but that’s nonsense. If I’m not mistaken, other states also have mountains?
Reese pretty much lost the election when he said he’d try to repeal minimum wage. Considering that is the prevailing wage around here, that was a non-starter. No matter how much sense it may make from an economists point of view,when you are telling people who are barely making ends meet “hey, I want to cut your wages!” you tend to lose votes.
Manchin was a somewhat conservative Governor, but now that he is in the senate, he pretty much follows the party line. I expect him to win re-election anyway. People here don’t seem to pay attention to what our reps do, just what they say and he talks a good game. Even so, we are waking up. We don’t have a great deal of political activism or strong in-state communication. In fact, I know a great deal more about what is going on Nationally than I do in the state house. The Dems have a lock and I have no idea how we are going to break it.

Like John Conyers has anything to brag about in Michigan and Detroit. You know–the city where his wife is a confessed criminal serving a three-year sentence for conspiracy to commit bribery and where his great congressional influence has yet to do anything about the high unemployment in that state?