Mercer United Democrats

This is cross posted from wvablue.com today.  More important for everyone is to read the post by Clem Guttatta of the blog on DailyKos.  It can be read by clicking here.

There has been a lot of talk in the Bluefield Daily Telegraph lately praising the Coal to Liquid idea.  After you’ve read Clem’s Diary at WVaBlue you might feel inclined to write Congressman Rahall and Senator Byrd regarding their support for the Bill funding this technology.  Our state has been raped enough by King Coal… it’s time to take a stand on a very important issue.

The DCCC has a great new ad. Someone there is really hitting the hot button. 

I pay a lot of attention to what soldiers and Marines in Iraq have to say because my son was there with the Marines during the first major battle at Fallujah.  I care about them, and so does my son.  We hear lots of stories from these folks.  I hope over time to pass some of them as well as other things I have heard along on this blog….

An Iraqi veteran wraps a cord around his neck and hangs himself.  He had asked and pleaded with the Veteran’s Administration for help that he didn’t get. He had a picture of his baby as he hung there.

Another story…

At an award ceremony a Marine is awarded the Bronze Star.  He gives it back telling them to keep it along with some other choice words.  He was wounded dragging other Marines from a damaged vehicle during an attack on their convoy. He lost his leg as a result of his wounds.

 A story returning home…

Two Marines return home from Iraq. There to meet them is the widow and daughter of a fallen Marine.  She wants to know what happened to her husband, and the little girl asked "why didn’t you bring my daddy home with you?"  One of the Marines says that it was the hardest thing he had ever done.

More thoughts…

• 44,000 soldiers went to Iraq without proper body armor or no body armor.
• 360 tons of U.S. $100 bills are shipped to Iraq - 12 BILLION DOLLARS. In testimony to Congress officials said they gave the money away.  They just didn’t know to who.
• Two years of budget cuts for the Veteran’s Administration and other military hospitals like Walter Reed tell the true story of the Bush administration and his no oversight rubber stamp congress.
• Our soldiers are given untreated water with sewage in it to increase profits for civilian contractors.

Our soldiers, veterans and their families could have used that 12 billian dollars.  Many more in this country could have used that money.  Look at New Orleans, Louisiana, Mississippi and others, but President Bush and his Vice President would have to get permission from Wall Street and the oil companies.  These things happen because Presient Bush was on vacation.

By Clem Guttatta crossposted from WVaBlue

Today’s map of the day… one small reminder of the enormous consequences at stake in the Iraq War debate.

Courtesy of the Washington Post here’s a map showing the hometown of each West Virginia soldier who has died in the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts (as of April 2, 2007).

Click on the image to get to the Washington Post page with live links to individual soldiers.

At our meeting on March 31st the Mercer United Democrats decided to hold a yard sale on June 8th and 9th. Hours and location will be announced. Discussion included selling yard sale items plus a bake sale and offering ham biscuits for breakfast. Plans also include registering voters. Check back here for details.

Cross posted from WVaBlue. 

Sunday is the start of another month, as we continue day by day towards the most important election we have seen and will see in decades.  There are a lot of us in southern West Virginia that realize that we must start working and planning now to insure that we throw the rest of the bums out in November of 2008.  At the end of next month several of us from the Mercer County, West Virginia Democrats United will be attending a weekend DFA (Democracy for America) training session in Knoxville, Tennessee.  We are meeting monthly to keep people motivated, organized and prepared for the 2008 election. We can’t forget that while our state has continued to elect mostly Democrats for our national and local offices that the Republicans are not going to go away quietly.  Karl Rove has already compiled his list of what he feels are vulnerable Democrats, and in league with the Department of Justice’s Abu Gonzales has shown real contempt for the people of this country in the bush league (pardon the pun) firing of eight Federal Attorneys to insure that all criminal investigations of corrupt Republicans are brought to a screeching halt. They also want to insure that Democrats are in the limelight with real or imagined corruption charges. 

One thing that is great about the blogosphere is that the intentions of Karl Rove are being brought to light and talked about. I discovered a blog today that was new to me thanks to the Huffington Post called Seeing the Forest.  Dave Johnson in a post today titled Rove Knows That Voters Have Short Memories makes it clear that we had better be prepared for all kinds of criminal investigations and speicious charges aimed at Democrats because the Repugs have learned that voters pay attention to scandal and corruption and will vote the bad guys out. I think he put it pretty well…

In 2006 people voted against Republicans, not for Democrats. Never forget this.The 2006 election taught Republicans that people vote against headlines about corruption and war. Republicans were being investigated and indicted for corruption so people voted against them.
So they are taking steps to change the playing field for 2008. This is what the Justice Department scandal is about. The prosecutors who did "play ball" — drop investigations into Republican corruption and investigate "administration priorities" — were allowed to stay and the ones who did their jobs were fired.

Dave goes on to say that he feels the only cure for these corrupt moves that have been made by the politicians is to…

replace all 93 Bush prosecutors with honest people, and clean out the entire Justice Department.

The most important point he made is at the end the post which ties into what I said at the start of this Diary regarding getting ready NOW…

Meanwhile, the supporting infrastructure that surrounds the Democratic Party — unfunded blogs and poorly-funded progressive organizations and very few poorly-funded think tanks — is still failing to reach out to the general public with reasons to vote for Democrats.

What we do in local blogs to motivate folks who read what we have to say is going to be an important part of the 2008 election, however, we still can’t forget that elections are won by raising money, canvassing on foot and on the phone, and just plain hard work.  We all need to get started early to make sure that Karl Rove doesn’t have any more victories.

Cross posted from WVaBlue 

Each day seems to bring us more unbelievable stories about the political excesses of the the Bush administration and how the the likes of Karl Rove and his ilk continue to meddle in the peoples business.  From the management of our invasion of Iraq and the Defense Department, to the CIA and the National Security Agency, military hospitals ala Walter Reed and the Veterans Administration, the Justice Department, and now the General Services Administration. I just keep waiting for another shoe to drop bringing us more unbelievable scandals.  Even many of Bushes rubber stamp congress have started to see the light as we saw this weekend with Senator Chuck Hagel (D-NB) mentioning that all important word… IMPEACHMENT.

Finally a Democratic Congress is asking the right questions and bringing administration officials in to testify. Amazing to see that a senior Justice Department official Marcia Gooding has announced that she will invoke her constitutional right to not testify against herself as she will invoke the fifth amendment to avoid testifying about what actually happened in prosecutorgate.  Tonight crooksand liars.com is pointing to a story by Bob Geiger that gives the schedule for all important hearings this week.  Geiger’s story can be read right here.  C&L’s post can be read here, and includes the following from Geiger’s article…

It’s another huge week in the Senate Judiciary Committee, which we knew would constantly be the case as soon as Democrats took over and oversight of a crooked White House actually started happening.

On Tuesday, Judiciary will call FBI Director Robert Mueller in to testify on what kinds of Constitutional corners his crew has been cutting over the last few years in a hearing called "Oversight of the Federal Bureau of Investigation."

Another big day in Judiciary is Thursday when a hearing is held on "Preserving Prosecutorial Independence: Is the Department of Justice Politicizing the Hiring and Firing of U.S. Attorneys?" Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-VT) will be grilling D. Kyle Sampson, the former Chief of Staff to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.

And I like the follow-up notice for the Thursday meeting that indicates time will be allocated to "discuss the possibility of the issuance of certain subpoenas in connection with investigation into replacement of United States Attorneys."

So what is going on with the West Virginia congressional delegation regarding this mess?  An article in Sunday’s Charleston Gazette written by Paul J. Nyden has some answers in regard to the the Justice Department scandal.  The article can be read in its entirety on line by clicking here.  He does a great job in showing how each Senator and Congressman has responded to the Justice Department scandal.

The Dean of the Senate, Senator Robert Byrd’s feelings were reported as follows…

Sen. Robert Byrd has been leading congressional efforts to restore a Senate-confirmation requirement for U.S. attorney appointments, while other members of the state’s delegation are demanding action and answers in the wake of the dismissal of eight U.S. attorneys.

The process for choosing the government prosecutors has come under fire amid charges that the Justice Department’s dismissals were politically motivated.

“Americans don’t want law-enforcement officials appointed based on their good looks, family connections or because the Republican National Committee wants to groom them to run for Congress some day,” said Byrd, D-W.Va., in a Sunday Gazette-Mail interview. “U.S. attorneys should be nominated and confirmed by the Senate based on merit.”

Senator Jay Rockefeller made his points regarding this scandal as well…

Sen. Jay Rockefeller, also D-W.Va., said signs of White House involvement are troubling.

“It appears as if the Bush administration was attempting to politicize our judicial system, and I’m angered by it,” he said. “This situation is unacceptable and exactly the type of thing that causes people to lose faith in their government. We must get to the bottom of it and demand accountability.”

Congressman Nick Joe Rahall hit a home run in his comments…

Gonzales should leave office if it turns out that he engineered the dismissals for political reasons, says Rep. Nick Rahall, D-W.Va.

“At a bare minimum, the U.S. attorney’s office should not be turned into a game of musical chairs to suit any president’s political party,” Rahall said. “And if it is, to any extent, the attorney general should be the one to find himself without a seat.”

Congresswoman Shelly Moore Capito had her usual non-commital stance, I’m really not going to get myself in trouble with George Bush comment made by a spokesperson…

A spokesman for the state delegation’s only Republican, Rep. Shelley Moore Capito, said she wants to know more about the dismissals.

“The congresswoman understands these U.S. attorneys served at the pleasure of the president, but she also believes the explanation for their dismissals has been muddled and confusing at best,” said Jordan Stoick. “She’s pleased to see that administration officials have turned over thousands of e-mails to congressional committees and that both sides are willing to discuss this matter.”

 The article goes on to point that Allan Mollohan declined to comment.

Senator Byrd’s comments regarding the Constitution really made me want to stand up and cheer for our Democratic Members of Congress as he always does when he proves again his love and knowledge of the Constitution…

He said he sees the dismissals as raising nothing short of a constitutional issue.

“Only the Constitution affords the people the powers and the prerogatives that keep us a free nation,” he said. “We must continue to fight to ensure that our constitutional rights and privileges are never undermined or trampled by an ambitious, overly zealous executive branch like the one now in the White House.”

The Senate has confirmation power in other matters as a check on presidential power, he said.

“The Founders granted the Senate the power of confirmation precisely so that we could prevent a corrupt White House from undertaking exactly the indefensible actions that this White House has embraced with respect to the appointment of U.S. attorneys,” Byrd said.

There isn’t a lot more to be said after that.  Senator Byrd brings home the importance of congressional oversight and the responsibility of each and every elected member of congress to be that all important independent body that can insure that checks and balances prevent the kind of illegal and corrupt activities that we have seen more of every day as the light is finally shining on the behaviour of the Republicans and especially the Bush, Cheney, Rove axis.  I think we all need to take the time to thank our members of congress that have said what needs to be said including Senators Byrd and Rockefeller and Congressman Nick Joe Rahall.  Once that is done call Allan Mollohan and get him to give you his opinion, and finally point out to Shelly Moore Capito the fact that she needs to speak out for the people of West Virginia who are horrified by the behavior of this administration.
 

Things are looking a little bit more positive for the bipartisan bill that will require any new toll increases to be approved by the state legislature as it was passed after much discussion and turmoil by both houses on Saturday as reported in the Beckley Register Herald yesterday by Mannix Porter here…

Southern lawmakers took that giant stride in the final hours of the session Saturday night, overcoming the Manchin administration’s early-on success in watering down a Senate bill.

“We haven’t seen the full thing,” Gov. Joe Manchin told reporters when the session ended.

Manchin said he wants the independent consultant, Public Resources Advisory Group, to take a long look at the bill sent to his desk requiring the Legislature’s approval of any “toll revisions.”

“We want to make sure that we’re not defaulting on our bonds,” he said.

“That’s all. We’ll go from there.”

A lot of the credit for the success in passing this bill belongs to a group of southern WV Senators and Delegates that put a huge effort into making sure that the right language was put back into the bill, and getting it passed.

A bi-partisan effort, launched in the Senate, held sway before the midnight hour, but it took some wrangling between the two chambers and a conference committee to restore the original bill.

After Manchin’s appointed chairman on the Turnpike’s governing board, Joe Martin, convinced the House Finance Committee to remove the Legislature’s veto power, the Senate refused to retreat.

Majority Leader Truman Chafin, D-Mingo, and Minority Leader Don Caruth, R-Mercer, and Sen. Jesse Guills, R-Greenbrier, held their ground, disputing Martin’s fears that bond holders would immediately call in the bonds if the West Virginia Parkways Authority needed to take all toll hikes before lawmakers.

The Governor is going to have the PRAG Group look at the bill before making any decision regarding signature. Maybe those of us in the southern part of the state with many of our friends to the north will write the Governor and encourage him to sign this important bill into law.

Crossposted from WVBlue.

Several southern West Virginia Delegates submitted a bill Wednesday to match one submitted in the Senate concerning the WV Parkway Authority as mentioned in a story in the Bluefield Daily Telegraph today by Barbara Hawkins here.

Mercer Delegates Mike Porter, R-Princeton; Dr. Marshall Long, D-Princeton and Eustace Frederick, D-Bluefield, submitted a bill that calls for action by the Legislature which would prevent the West Virginia Parkways, Economic Development and Tourism Authority from raising tolls on the turnpike without going to the Legislature first.

The bill would also prevent any approved toll increase from taking affect until 12 months after the original petition is placed with the Legislature.

A similar bill was crafted by Senate Minority Leader Don Caruth, R-Mercer, and Senate Majority Leader H. Truman Chafin, D-Mingo and co-sponsored by Senator Jesse Guills, R-Greenbrier and Senator John Pat Fanning, D-McDowell and introduced on Friday.

It will be very interesting to see where this leads, and if passed by both houses whether Governor Manchin will sign the bill.

The United Democrats for Mercer County will be meeting on Saturday February 24th at Hardees off 460 (intersection with I77) at 10:00am.  Rumor has it we will have the chance to see Al Gore’s Academy Award nominated An Inconvenient Truth.  Join us all for a cup of coffee and chat.