Big news day in WV

The big news in WV today is the visit of President Obama to Charleston to discuss the opioid addiction crisis. This state leads the nation in overdose deaths.

You can read more or watch the whole thing here. The president also gave Gazette Mail reporter David Gutman and exclusive interview here.

Not surprisingly, coal supporters, many of whom blame all the ills of the industry on the president, also rallied. There was some racial dog whistling at the event. It is my long held position that the blackness of the president has been a gift from the gods both to the industry and to certain politicians.

The state's attorney general also used the visit to show his....position.

A meme is born

For someone who has been blogging for several years, I'm pretty behind on social media. One thing I have recently resolved to do is to learn to make memes for Facebook and such. I mean hard hitting social justice memes. But today, just to see if I could make one at all, I resorted to a gratuitous animal picture of Edith and her toys. Hard hitting social meme content to come. Just probably not today.

THINGS THAT MAKE YOU GO HMMM. Here's more on possible conflicts of interest involving drug companies and WV's attorney general.

ANNALS OF URBAN AGRICULTURE. A while back the city of Charleston WV passed an ordnance allowing city residents to own chickens and such. Here's one nice success story. Meanwhile, the hens at Goat Rope Farm have either permanently retired from egg production or have gone on strike.

Poverty: it's not as much fun as some think

El Cabrero spent a few years in (involuntary) poverty and one thing about that I'd like the world to know is that it's not nearly as much fun as people who have never been there seem to think. Back in the 1990s the writer Earl Shorris described it well in his book New American Blues. 

To use Shorris' term, living in poverty is like living in a "surround of force." It means always being on the defensive and feeling like a hunted animal. One damn thing after another, nearly all of which are bad. Today a friend emailed a post by someone living through that now and it rings true to my experience. You can find it here.

WHO'S WINNING? Here's an interesting look at two midwestern states that have taken different political paths and what the early results seem to be.

PRISON OVERCROWDING is an issue I've been concerned about in WV for the last few years. Here's a summary of where things are with that now.

UTERUS POLICE TAKE NOTE. According to a recent poll, West Virginian's have little enthusiasm for an abortion inquisition such as that advocated by the state's attorney general (and friend to drug companies, but that's another story).

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

One liner of the day

Whenever I hear politicians talk about the need to make tough choices, what I hear is this: "It's time to really stick it to poor people." Which come to think of it isn't a tough choice at all but rather a cowardly one. Paul Krugman struck at that theme today in his op-ed about the need for demand-side economics. Here's his version:

"Economics is supposed to be about making hard choices (at other people's expense, naturally)."

SAD NEWS. Here's an op-ed by a friend of mine on sad days for public libraries.

KINDER, GENTLER? On the bright side, E.J. Dionne argues that Americans seem to be getting less punitive, partially because of dropping crime rates.

HEALTH CARE. Here's a reminder of why we needed reform to start with.

MORE FUN AND GAMES with West Virginia's drug lobbyist in chief attorney general here.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

A champion for children (and someone else completely different)

Last Friday I  had the opportunity to attend an event celebrating the Children's Health Insurance Program which featured on of the key architects of that law, to wit WV's senior senator Jay Rockefeller. During the program, several medical and mental health professionals spoke about the benefits of the program, which also covers dental and mental health.

CHIP, enacted in 1997 in Congress and expanded repeatedly in WV since then, now covers children in families earning up to 300 percent of the federal poverty level. It has made a huge impact in health coverage. One number I've heard thrown around is that since the program began, around 40 million children have benefited from the program.

In WV, CHIP outreach, which also enrolls eligible children in Medicaid, has reduced the number of uninsured children to practically zero. As one dentist said at the event, "you just don't see uninsured children anymore."

That is quite a legacy and may be the greatest of Rockefeller's many contributions.

MEANWHILE, ON THE DARK SIDE, WV Attorney General Patrick Morrisey and his rich friends don't have to worry about affording health care. So instead they worry about how to keep others from getting it. Nice.

The wonders of the market

El Cabrero has from time to time been a critic of so-called free market ideologies. Now, thanks to a recent email from a reader, I take it all back. Well, some of it anyway.

The reason for my conversion is that, through the market's invisible hand, you, Gentle Reader, as well as I, can be the proud owner of a Zombie Outbreak Response Team license tag holder for your vehicle.

There are no guarantees, but it just might get you behind the security lines at a zombie apocalypse outbreak.

Maybe I'll go read some more Ayn Rand now.

YOU WOULDN'T KNOW THIS FROM LISTENING TO SOME PEOPLE, but the federal deficit is actually shrinking.

IMAGES OF WAR by way of NPR here.

HOLY PILL MILL, BATMAN! Read about the latest fun and games from the WV attorney general here. No wonder consumer protection is on the back burner these days.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

A little good news

Congratulations to the United Mine Workers of America for reaching a settlement with Patriot Coal that preserves some of the benefits promised to retired miners. Details of the settlement aren't available yet. The company was formed from holdings from the Arch and Peabody coal companies. Many observers contend, with the union, that Patriot was set up to fail as a way of getting rid of promised benefits to retired union miners.

Despite an unfavorable ruling by a federal judge in May, the union kept up the pressure and protests, even as its leaders continued to try to reach a negotiated agreement.

Lots of us who sympathized with the miners were also concerned about the precedence this bankruptcy deal would set. The obvious question was, "Who's next?"

I'm glad they held the line.

MANDATORY MINIMUMS. Here's Politico on US Attorney General Eric Holder's proposal for sentencing reform.

FRIENDS IN HIGH PLACES. Here are the latest hijinks from the WV Attorney General's office.

FESS UP. OK, who smuggled this snapping turtle into Germany? It has to be a Goat Rope reader. I even tremble to think that the turtle in question might be this Goat Rope contributor.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

O what a falling off was there

Once upon a time, the office of West Virginia's Attorney General was one devoted to things like consumer protection. When, for example, my elderly mother was preyed upon by predatory marketers, they tended to crawl back under their rocks when I mentioned the name of Darrell McGraw.

Those days are gone since the current occupant of that office, Patrick Morrisey, was elected mostly due to money from West Virginia's colonial masters out of state. As the Charleston Gazette noted in a recent editorial, the consumer protection division of that office has pretty much been gutted.

Gazette political columnist Phil Kabler summed it up nicely:

Should anyone be surprised that Pactrick Morrisey is pursuing a right-wing agenda, including investigation abortion clinics, and dismantling his office's consumer protection division? Not if they were paying attention.

Many voters were so focused on retiring longtime Attorney General Darrell McGraw that they didn't think through the consequences of electing Morrissey.

A quick glance of campaign contributors makes clear those donors weren't banking on Morrisey to continue McGraw's legacy of strong consumer protection and willingness to take on big pharmaceutical companies for price-fixing.

Gazette investigative reporter Eric Eyre noted today that

A special fund established to pay for Attorney General Patrick Morrisey's inaugural party received a $2,500 contribution from Cardinal Health in late February, the same company Morrisey's office has a pending lawsuit against for allegedly fueling West Virginia's problem with prescription drug abuse. 

Morrisey's wife, Denise Henry, is a lobbyist for Cardinal Health in Washington D.C. 

Cardinal Health, the nations second largest drug distributor, paid her lobbying firm $100,000 last year, according to Henry's lobbying disclosure form.

I wouldn't hold out much hope on that lawsuit. Follow the money.

Or maybe it has nothing to do with money at all (he wrote with irony). Maybe there are more important things for Morrisey to do...Like holding abortion witch hunts. Or opposing Medicaid expansion for hard working West Virginians when around 4 state residents die prematurely every week because they lack health insurance (uhhh...what happened to the whole pro-life thing?) Or holding forums on how we could make the state more business friendly?

Recently, Delegate Don Perdue, chair of the House Health Committee suggested Morrisey actually do something useful, like investigating WV's meth problems. I'm not holding my breath on that one either.

Servicing the ruling class is a full time job.

When bubbles bust

I've been meaning to post something for a day or so but am just getting around to it. Here are a few random postmortem election thoughts.

BUBBLELAND.  Earlier this week, the blog Daily Kos came up with an impressive list of right wing pundits who made bad predictions about the presidential election. What's up with that? Part of it might have to do with living in a bubble where all the information you take in comes from people who share your ideological biases. Two interesting articles recently came out on how the right wing noise machine blew it. The first is from Slate and the second is from the Atlantic. It's kind of like what happened with the Bush administration in Iraq: they took their own propaganda as if it was real intelligence.

DEMOGRAPHY'S UPS AND DOWNS. Shortly after the election, Politico posted this feature about the demographic trends working against the Republican Party on a nationwide basis. Ironically, those same trends are working the other way in WV, which has a bit of a surplus of grumpy old white guys. The "war on coal" hissy fit adds to the cauldron.

SPEAKING OF COAL. I had a pre-election conversation with someone who knows more about the industry than anyone I know. He wondered whether an Obama victory would mean a toning down of the rhetoric as people figured out the hissy fit wasn't working. However, the hissy fit did work at the state level, although I'm not sure how long that dog will hunt.

SPEAKING OF WEST VIRGINIA, a friend of mine observed yesterday that 2012 was WV's 2010.

MORE ABSENTEE OWNERSHIP. Outsiders have owned most of West Virginia for over a century and  are still acquiring real estate, so I guess it's no surprise that they now own the state attorney general's office.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED