Alan Mollohan Still Under Investigation

http://nlpc.org/category/people/alan-mollohan

This is a link to an article pasted below from the National Legal and Policy Center.

According to a confidential House Ethics Committee report produced in July, and described in the Washington Post today:
The Justice Department has told the ethics panel to suspend a probe of Rep. Alan B. Mollohan (D-W. Va.), whose personal finances federal investigators began reviewing in early 2006 after complaints from a conservative group that he was not fully revealing his real estate holdings. There has been no public action on that inquiry for several years. But the department's request in early July to the committee suggests that the case continues to draw the attention of federal investigators, who often ask that the House and Senate ethics panels refrain from taking action against members whom the department is already investigating. (emphasis ours)

Please Bring Back Halloween and Other Holidays

This is a note to schools. Give our kids back their holidays and their fun.

What happened to the schools I used to attend from the 1970s through the 1990s? The elementary schools kids had a great time. They dressed up for Halloween, got candy, and paraded up and down the street. It was a wonderful break because kids do work hard in school and deserve fun.

Kids could hear the Thanksgiving story about the Pilgrims without some left wing guilt trip about the Indians.

Kids celebrated Christmas with a nice party that featured cookies, Kool Aid, and giving the teacher some decent but inexpensive gift. Santa Claus, lights, and Merry Christmas signs were everywhere.

St. Valentines Day meant that the children exchanged little Valentine cards with most folks and big ones with their close friends. No one considered whether or not celebrating in this manner gave Catholicism an undue influence over children. No one cared that some sensitive kid might get his or her feelings hurt if they didn't get the big card from some other kid.

Schools needed these releases for both teachers and students. A few days of fun per year do not detract from instructional time that much. If they do, who cares? They are children after all. Schools have become places where adults force society's strange hangups on kids, mostly forcing them to abandon the idea of fun.

Please bring back holidays. let the kids have some fun, especially on Halloween.

"Playful" Mocking of Christianity?

It's time to admit that the letter written by Mr. Long in a recent edition of the Cumberland Times News is absolutely true. Christianity is under assault by elites in the world of media and the arts.

Just this year we saw the president himself ordering the covering of Christian symbols as he spoke in a Georgetown University chapel. This facility has many venues if Obama finds religions other than his own offensive. He did not have to offend Roman Catholics by covering their symbols.

Most recently HBO aired a program called Curb Your Enthusiasm, created by and starring Seinfeld creator Larry David. For some reason, he found it humorous to urinate on a picture of Jesus Christ.

Larry David happens to be Jewish, but I get the feeling that his irreverence would prevent him from showing much outrage over similar treatment meted out to a representation of Moses, David, or any other important figure of his faith. Why? I doubt he has a faithful bone in his body.

Here is the "God's honest truth." David can mock Christian and Jewish figures to his heart's content in the Western world. The same fools that watch his crap (and I have seen this show. Not funny or interesting) will still watch his crap. If he even produced a representation of Mohammed, HBO would refuse to air the show and very likely some terrorist would threaten to kill him. Incidentally, I have old history textbooks in my office that contain Arab produced portraits of Mohammed. I am not sure how the prohibition against his picture ever came about.

Anyway, the usual end to this kind of story is to call for some boycott taht will never materialize. David will never feel market repercussions and HBO will keep airing its show until it gets even less funny than it is right now. Our only recourse is to find ways to hold up the cultural elite and make them look ridiculous. Create an image of the snooty, prissy liberal cultural icon and keep blasting away at the image with humor and satire. David would likely be completely lost on a farm, a back road, or a real job. All these people have is the mean sort of wit that tears down as opposed to real artisitc, or any other kind of positive skills.

Save the Males

When is the last time you saw a masculine character beat down or at least put some fear into the bad guy in an action movie, a la John Wayne, Randolph Scott, Bruce Willis, Sean Connery, or Harrison Ford?

Likely it was either Denzel Washington or an octogenarian Clint Eastwood in Gran Torino. Other than that, masculinity is dead in Hollywood, at least as far as good old fashioned good guy versus bad guy flicks are concerned.

You'll still see the idea of masculinity mocked. George Clooney does it subtly and Will Farrell does it much more crudely. They make the message clear that strong male types are outdated, foolish, and relatively useless. They join the stereotypical bungling father of situation comedies over the past fifteen years. Patriarchal symbols of wisdom such as Bill Cosby disappeared, replaced by men who could not outwit their more enlightened children.

Some see this as an attempt to create balance between the sexes in media culture. Men dominated power roles for so long, why not have women shown as powerful for once? I agree that there is nothing wrong with powerful women in strong roles, beating bad guys, protecting their families, or the country depending on the movie. But that does not mean that they must be accompanied so often by weak and/or incompetent men. The James Bond series has changed with the times most effectively. Bond preserved his womanizing and ability to win his fights, but was accompanied more and more often by capable female sidekicks.

What do the movies matter? The problem is that the assault on masculinity goes beyond culture. A child received an initially draconian sentence of forty five days in a dangerous alternative school. The young boy simply liked using a Swiss Army knife with his packed lunch. He was treated like a psychopathic killer. Boys playing war with guns used to be commonplace. Now it is seen as inciting violent tendencies. Even active boys in school often get misdiagnosed as ADHD simply for being boys.

Some of this actually comes from the memory of the Bush presidency. Bush was seen and described as an alpha male type leader, which he probably would not have disputed. Liberals don't care for John Wayne anyway, but presidents such as Reagan and GWB convinced many that powerful males in leadership roles led to nothing positive.

Males as they grow from boys to men play rough, wrestle, fight, and occasionally accidentally break things as they learn about the world. Some when they become men take risks, take on challenges, and dare to do great things. We should not discourage boys from being boys and men from being men. We should certainly fight the liberal media and culture that tries to impose its own anti male stereotypes.

Your honor, Bill Stewart, and other notes

Charleston mayor Danny Jones has endorsed Democratic State Chair Nick Casey for a federal judgeship appointment. Jones allegedly is a Republican, but generally lives off the ideological reservation. Most recently he advocated putting cameras on most of Charleston's street corners. Most Republicans oppose such a measure for the cost alone, much less the civil liberties questions.

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Senator John D. Rockefeller sent a strong message to the Obama Adminiostration concerning the revoking of a mining permit in Southern West Virginia. Apparently the EPA now believes that a mine operation should guarantee that a stream is precisely the same after mining is completed as before. This is unprecedented and demonstrates the state of siege American mining is finding itself in. Senator Rockefeller used to oppose all strip mining. Either he wants to keep union votes, or he understands that this is a "food on the table" issue for his constituents."

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Fed up union members, according to the Charleston Daily Mail are switching their registration to the GOP. It's time for the RNC to have a national level sit down with organized labor. After all, we all want to save American manufacturing and only the Republican Party has shown any interest in doing that.

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Congratulations to Bill Stewart. The win over UConn, a motivated and tough team, demonstrates how far this staff and team have come. They made great adjustments to beat Randy Edsell's Huskies. Edsell is the best coach you have never heard of and always brings a great game plan, if not the greatest talent. Jarrett Brown layed an outstanding game, making great decisions and big plays to keep WVU in it until game breaker Noel Devine put the Mountaineers up in the waning minutes of the contest.

Great job Bill Stewart. Great job assistant coaches. Great job WVU players!

Reps. Capito and Driehaus Announce Bipartisan Ohio River Basin Caucus

WASHINGTON - Representatives Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va., and Steve Driehaus, D-Ohio, today announced the establishment of the bipartisan Ohio River Basin Congressional Caucus. The caucus is dedicated to addressing critical economic, infrastructure, agricultural, environmental, and community issues within the entire Ohio River Basin and watershed. Reps. Capito and Driehaus will serve as caucus co-chairs.

“The Ohio River Valley has long-been a critical economic pipeline that connects manufacturers, farmers and other businesses to markets across our nation and around the world,” said Capito. “And I’m pleased to work with my colleague from Ohio in a joint effort to support the entire Ohio Valley region. The river’s impact is great, and it’s our hope that this important caucus will help support the region’s interests for years to come.”

“The Ohio River is not only central to the history and economy of greater Cincinnati, but it’s critical to commerce, agriculture, and transportation for a huge part of the United States. I’m proud to join with Representative Capito so that we can work to promote and protect the Ohio River Basin and the millions of people whose lives are impacted by the Ohio River,” said Rep. Driehaus.

The Ohio River Valley Sanitation Commission (ORSANCO) recognized Reps. Capito and Driehaus as “Ohio River Champions” in recognition of their leadership in establishing the Ohio River Basin Caucus.

The Ohio River Basin includes 55 Congressional districts in 14 states. The Ohio River Watershed covers 203,940 square miles and is populated by more than 25 million people.

Gary Howell to guest on Joe Danger's Show (to be reschudeled)

Gary Howell will be a guest on Joe Danger's, Talk of the Town on WDNE to be rescheduled. The topic will be Israel, the United States and Iran's nuclear program.

Tennessee Revives Committees of Correspondence and Begs the Question "Do We Have States Or Colonies?"

In a move that was probably unthinkable as too radical as little as a decade ago, the Governor of Tennessee issued an invitation for other states to join in a "working group" to discuss ways to resist federal government encroachment on state sovereignty.

This represents the next logical step for states, among which include Alaska and West Virginia, that have passed resolutions asserting their rights under the Tenth Amendment. Texas set off fireworks with its governor's offhand suggestion that his state could choose to secede at some point.

Issues include unfunded mandates, unnecessary regulation, and the federal government's explosion of possible new taxes and restrictions. A Georgia gubernatorial candidate has threatened that under his administration, the State Police will arrest any federal authority that attempts to confiscate a firearm. Montana and Ohio are looking into ways to protect firearms fully manufactured in and sold within their state boundaries from federal laws based upon the Interstate Commerce Clause of the Constitution.

Not in recent memory has the state sovereignty movement acted with such vigor. The federal government had never acted with such sweeping force before either. The Constitution protects states through the Tenth Amendment, but Congress uses an expanded interpretation of the Interstate Commerce Clause and threats of suspended highway funding to enforce their will on state government.

Tennessee's invitation does not specifically mention the phrase "committees of correspondence," but it is the same principle. These were set up in the early 1770s to coordinate colonial authorities' against draconian British legislation. Such committees served as the foundation for the Continental Congress that launched the American Revolution.

Obama Stumps for Cap and Tax

[Charleston, WV] West Virginia Republican Party Chairman Doug McKinney issued the following statement in response to President Obama's speech this morning at MIT about the energy legislation working its way through the Democrat Congress:

"Moments ago, President Obama concluded his remarks to a small crowd of supporters in Massachusetts as he called for 'the passage of comprehensive legislation that will finally make renewable energy the profitable kind of energy in America'. That's a laudable goal, but not if it means loosing hundreds of thousands of jobs we can't replace and spending billions of dollars we don't have. The Democrat cap and tax scheme is simply one more big government boondoggle that West Virginian's can't afford. Of course if Obama and his entourage had bothered to show up in a place that produces coal, like West Virginia, they might have actually heard that opinion. Instead it's clear that president cares more about his image in Copenhagen this December at the international climate talks than he dose about American workers and American jobs"

Time For A Statement on Coal

West Virginia has suffered tremendously from the advent of an Obama led federal government. His opposition to coal seems to combine with a personal grudge against West Virginia. West Virginia was one of a few states that rejected him not once, but twice! His team cut off highway funds to Corridor H while increasing funds to districts that voted for him. Now it attacks coal using a badly interpreted Clean Water Act.

Seventy-nine permits have been denied since he took office and a major one was just revoked. We are down almost 30,000 jobs since he took office. How many hundreds of jobs would have been added directly by those coal mines, how many more in the nearby communities?

West Virginia needs to fight this outrage.

Federal policy relies upon the Interstate Commerce Clause to enforce its actions without relying on the states. Otherwise they have no constitutional ability to enforce anything economically related within state boundaries. Montana, Ohio, and other states have passed legislation that invalidates federal gun laws. If a gun is manufactured entirely within that state and stamped with "Made in _____," it is not subject to federal gun laws.

Can we do the same thing on a limited basis in West Virginia? If you have an independent company that uses machinery sold by a West Virginia company to produce coal consumed entirely within the state of West Virginia, it would seem that the EPA would have no authority whatsoever. Of course this would require the State of West Virginia to pass enabling legislation just as Ohio and Montana did with firearms (come to think of it, let's follow their example on guns too!)

It might never work economically speaking, but West Virginia can make a bold political response by having its legislature pass this kind of legislation. Obama is on a mission to destroy our industry. It is up to our state to fight back.

A worthy read on Robert C. Byrd

Robert C. Byrd, Dirty Money & That Old Company Store by Halli Casser-Jayne

Halli Casser-Jayne is the author of A YEAR IN MY PAJAMAS WITH PRESIDENT OBAMA, The Politics of Strange Bedfellows. You can follow her thoughts @ http:www.thecjpoliticalreport.com

Obama thinks Republicans do as they’re told; has he been to WV?

I find it ironic that President Obama thinks that the party of individual responsibility takes its marching orders from the top. He obviously has never read the Republican Party platform. Republicans are very passionate about insuring the views of all are heard, but mostly we passionate about keeping the rights guaranteed in the Constitution. Here is what he said.

Obama is about as wrong as he could be on this issue. I invite him to come to West Virginia and review the workings of the state Republican Party. There are many diverse opinions and the people are extremely passionate about it. The West Virginia Republicans are doing battle amongst themselves all via to get their version of what they believe is the right course of action heard. The reality is far from the uninformed statements of Obama.

Or perhaps Obama only sees the true end game of the Republicans, because in the end all but a few on the fringe will come together and work to defeat Democrats. On Election Day 2010 we will speak with one voice. That voice will say we have had enough of your socialist policies and defeat many of your supporting minions. Keep in mind that in 2012, it is Obama’s turn to find out what happens when Republican’s do as they are told.

Kook or Prophet?

Obama's attack on Unbias News organization makes Leno

New Black Panther Party Probably Behind Latest "Tawana Bradley" Type Case From West Virginia

Another white on black gang rape case is shown to be a lie.

Meghan Williams, a young black teenage girl from Logan County, horrified the nation with allegations a few years back that six white men abducted, raped, and tortured her for several days. Now she has completely recanted her story.

The six men all pled guilty and received lengthy prison sentences. With her potentially testifying against them, it was apparently an open and shut case. Of course they were charged under unconstitutional hate crimes statutes.

Williams' attorney, Bryan Potts, accuses Williams' deceased mother and New Black Panther Party leader Malik Shabazz of coercing a young and confused teenage girl of concocting the lie. One of the accused had been a boyfriend of Williams. So far, th enotion of getting back at an ex boyfriend is the only reasoning given by her. A press conference is planned to give further explanation.

This leads one to wonder about the representation these young men had. Certainly it must have been tempting to take a deal that gave these men a chance to be free decades down the road instead of a life sentence. However a jury trial would have forced the police to look for forensic evidence that did not exist. In the modern climate, it is doubtful that a jury would have failed to convict them after hearing testimony from Williams. That being said, a good attorney might have cracked her story.

What ifs are nearly pointless. The reality is that a lie shattered the lives of all of these young men and also Williams herself. She must live with the fact that her lies ruined lives.

The only villain left is the New Black Panther Party leadership. These terrorist thugs saw a chance to get national attention for themselves on the backs of six innocent men. Was it not a hate crime to push a girl to lie and jail white men unjustly? If we are going to have hate crimes statutes, the prosecutors ought to try Shabazz on them because what he did absolutely stemmed from racial hatred.

Horse Drawn Wagons and Newspapers

A paper commissioned by the Columbia University Journalism School basically says the government should step in to save the newspapers across the county. One of the nations largest newspapers, The New York Times, recently announced it is laying off additional workers as its market share contracts adding fuel to the fire that the print media needs saving. My questions; Why?

In 1900 when the automobile industry was beginning to grow I wonder if there was talk of saving the horse drawn wagon industry? After all the horse drawn wagon industry was an important part of the transportation industry and had been for many years. The horse drawn wagon manufacturers in 1900 and the Newspaper producers today are in the same position. They are in an industry that is in transition.

In 1900 the transportation industry did not go away. It evolved into motorized transport. Some of those companies that saw the change coming evolved. Consider Studebaker. Studebaker had been around since the Civil War building wagons for the US Military and at the turn of the 20th Century they realized they were not in the business of making wagons, but in the business of providing transportation products. The survived for nearly another 70 year by switching to building cars and trucks. They successfully made the transition from horse and buggy to automobiles to survive much longer than their contemporaries.

The newspaper industry is the modern horse drawn wagon industry. It does not need a bailout from the government, in fact no industry does. The first thing the newspaper industry needs to do it realize they are not in the newspaper business, they are in the news information business. Perhaps the New York Times and the Washington Post may not survive, but that is OK because somebody will take their place.

While Studebaker made the transition at the turn of the 20th Century, we also saw the rise of the replacement transportation companies like Dodge, Ford and Chevrolet. As we transition into the 21st Century we are already seeing the replacement for the newspapers in publications like The Drudge Report, Breitbart and Bloomberg.

The newspapers do not need a bailout, they need to die a natural death. In a few years a newspaper will be about as useful to a modern world as a horse drawn wagon built in a government subsidized factory.

Will We Soon See a Sedition Act of 2010?

I remember not so long ago that Glenn Beck leveled harsh criticism at a man holding high office. As usual, Beck spoke freely and without restraint, making his target cringe. President George W. Bush was used to being stung by the left. In the wake of the bailouts his administration pushed through Congress last year, President Bush found himself attacked more often than not on the Glenn Beck program.

Different year, different president, same gadfly. Beck still criticizes. Sean Hannity and Bill O'Reilly get their shots in as well, just like Keith Olbermann used to bash Bush nightly. Bush maintained his dignity, did not respond, and simply did his job.

Free speech in under assault in this country. The Obama Administration blames Fox News for destroying its relationship with the public, thwarting its agenda. They expect Fox to fall into line, to not ask the tough questions, and to not criticize.

We have not seen this kind of direct assault on a news organization since Richard Nixon declared war on the New York Times almost thirty years ago.

Obama is acting as if he is in Britain circa 1750. What he is accusing Fox of in a roundabout way is sedition. Sedition was a controversial, but well entrenched concept in British law. Speech that criticized the government, but was seen to be an obstacle to policy was considered criminal sedition. During the Quasi Naval War in the 1790s, Congress passed a Sedition Act that made the Federalist Party so unpopular that it never again won control of the legislative or executive branches. The concept of criminal sedition has no place in American law, but Obama and the White House seem to be trying to resurrect the concept.

He does it through using the "rules for radicals" playbook. I hate using a conservative cliche, but there is a set of guidelines for radicals that includes personalizing and demonizing the opposition. Obama tried doing that with Rush Limbaugh and got nowhere. Then he tried it on Glenn Beck and only boosted his ratings. Now he wants America to turn against a legitimate news broadcaster because they dare to disagree with him. Here's the problem with using that playbook. It only works in opposition, not when you are the incumbent. When those in power use these methods, they just look like bullies if not heroes standing up for the First Amendment.

I foresee a lot of liberals, not leftists, but liberals quoting Evelyn Beatrice Hall's quote, commonly attributed to Voltaire, this week, "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defedn to the death your right to say it." Incidentally, this was the Bush Administration's attitude towards Michael Moore, Cindy Sheehan, and others. A cold wind is blowing in the world of American civil liberties.

Fundraising issues for Mollohan: Barnes, Smith lead challenger pack

Alan Mollohan is having fund raising trouble. According The Hill, "Third quarter House recap: Big funding surprises from little-known challengers. They list Mollohan as only one of six incumbents that failed to raise more than $100,000 in the last quarter, despite facing tough challengers.

Among announced Republican challengers against Mollohan for the 2010 election both Clark Barnes of Randolph County and Scott Smith of Preston County have both tied for first with 40% in a recent PHC poll. Daniel Swisher is a distant 3rd polling only 9%. Cindy Hall and Tom Stark both polled less than 5%.

Because We Are Not Like Them

In 2003 American soldiers went into Iraq to remove that nation's tyrannical government. President Bush's stated reason was that Iraq posessed weapons of mass destruction. We also invaded because of the deep aversion that he and many other Americans felt towards that evil regime. Soldiers found evidence of weapons programs, but no weapons themselves.

The Left called it, predictably, a "lie." "Bush lied, thousands died" they chanted. The media took up the mantra, never considering that Hussein could have moved the weapons in the several month buildup to war. They never considered that the United States and other nations had the obligation to enforce previous United Nations decisions. It boiled down to "Bush lied."

Since the beginning of this century the Left has exchanged simple anti-capitalist rhetoric for the diversionary tactic of regulating capitalism out of any ability to compete or expand. They manufactured a crisis called "global warming" based upon computer models, incomplete observations, and correlation based studies. The facts have come in and they are simply wrong.

The liberal leaning BBC abruptly changed its editorial position, admitting that evidence points not towards global warming, but a gradual cooling. Global temperatures peaked in the late 1990s and followed a slow cooling trend that accelerated in the past two years. NASA noted earlier this year that Martian polar caps shrank at the same time as the northern ice cap on Earth. Solar energy expended more heat in that same period. Now solar energy has slightly declined at the same time as Earth has cooled.

It seems like common sense that the Earth might heat when the Sun gets warmer and cool when the Sun produces less energy. Scientists do not part with cherished beliefs easily. However, more are abandoning the man made global warming hypothesis than sticking to it these days. The media and politicians have not caught on yet. We must do our part to educate them and obstruct any attempt to regulate away capitalism in the name of bad science.

That all being said, we should not resort to their tactics. As someone put it, they are not evil, just wrong. They wanted something very badly to be true and a lot of jobs around the industrialized world were lost as a result. I would not call them liars, but if Congress and the president persist, they are certainly still very deluded.

The Last Friends of Coal Bowl

This may be the last Friends of Coal Bowl.

It's not that West Virginia and Marshall will stop their series this year. The contract still runs for a couple of more games. However the game will have to locate another sponsor. West Virginia's coal producers and related industries have seen discouraging drops in revenue. This did not happen because energy prices dropped that much. Their efforts to expand production and jobs have hit a federal brick wall.

Perhaps the Environmental Protection Agency will step forward to pony up some money. After all, some of the proceeds and financial; support go to both of these great universities. The EPA has embarked on a mission to assassinate King Coal. They denied seventy-nine surface mining permits this year, killing off uncounted thousands of jobs and millions in revenue for state government, local authorities, and West Virginia schools.

This does not reflect real issues, but a determination by an increasingly dictatorial presidency to control the economy and livelihoods of individuals. It is unfortunate that Senator Byrd, a long time supporter of miners, has chosen this instance to muddy the waters by attacking Massey Energy's refusal to build with its money in these tough times a brand new school in a county where they pay a heavy percentage of property taxes.

Anyone who fights this outrage against our state, Democrat, Republican, independent, union or company, must join together. Believe me this attack, let's call it what it is, against a state that voted for John McCain must be met with action.

Have the coal companies always been saints? No. Shouldn't West Virginia continue to work on creating a truly diversified economy that does not rely so heavily upon one industry? Absolutely! However this is a bald faced assault on an industry and a state that dared to vote against The Won almost two to one.

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Another conservative blog has argued that state Republicans have not appreciated the urgency of this issue. I can speak for no one else, but the Potomac Highlands Conservative has addressed this issue repeatedly in the past. We support Congresswoman Capito's "all of the above" energy plan and oppose attacks on coal. We have not done so on as regular a basis as other pundits because the left wing in this country seems to present us with a new, different, and occasionally bizarre outrage every day of the week and twice on Sunday.