Blame Democratic Party Hijackers Not the People of WV – A Shocking Exposé by Charlotte Pritt

Posted on May 22, 2012 by Up The Holler

The following is a full and complete Op-Ed piece as it was sent to the editors of the Charleston Newspapers by Charlotte Pritt. In an obvious attempt to bury the lead, (a device used by coal-powered media across Appalachia for years to suppress news that doesn’t suit their purpose), the Gazette editorial staff watered down her original title (above) to Charlotte Pritt: A few to blame for Judd’s 41 percent. They also took out some key facts, including Manchin’s controversial affiliation with the American Legislative Exchange Council, which, unchecked, could quite possibly be a formation of the Fifth Reich in America.

For twisting her words, Statehouse Beat reporter Phil Kabler and his his editors at the Charleston Gazette both owe a public apology to author Pritt, who happens to be the former Democratic gubernatorial nominee, former state senator, former delegate and former member of the state Democratic Executive Committee. So she should know a thing or two about Democratic politics in the Mountain State. HOWEVER Pritt shouldn’t hold her breath because, as I demonstrate below her article, the Gazette’s editorial board has also been hijacked.

Blame Democratic Party Hijackers Not the People of WV -Charlotte Pritt

The misrepresentation of my perspective in Phil Kabler’s piece: “How did Judd get 41% of vote?” must be addressed because it implies that I blame Republicans for the incident and I don’t. I agree with GOP Chairman Mike Stuart, the Young Republicans and Betty Ireland, the Democratic Chair Larry Puccio and Natalie Tennant should have taken action like the 13 other Secretaries of State that kept Judd off the ballot. Although I relayed the speculation that some people felt that Karl Rove-types were bankrolling the Keith Judd incident, I made it very clear that my outrage was with the right wing “corporatist” of the democratic party who have hijacked the Democratic Party in WV. The Karl Rove part belonged to someone else, but I did say that it takes organization to carry 10 counties. Carrying a county doesn’t just spontaneously happen. Since I had talked with both Jim Haught and Paul Nyden May 9, before I had talked with Phil Kabler, they can corroborate that my outrage was with Republicrats Senator Joe Manchin and his appointed Chair of the Democratic Party Larry Puccio, whom I feel are responsible for the incident for the following reasons:

Inaction by the Democratic Party Chair and Anti-Obama comments before the May 9 election by WV’s highest ranking Democrat Officials: Senator Joe Manchin and Governor Earl Ray Tomblin

Like Boone County Democratic Party Chairwoman Sue Ann Zickefoose, I also “wondered why the Democratic Party of the Secretary of State hadn’t done more to avoid the embarrassment of Judd on the ballot.” My first call May 9 was to the Secretary of State’s office to be told that they had alerted the Democratic Party Headquarters of Judd’s filing early on so that they could take action. My second call on May 9 was to Democratic Headquarters to find out why they were caught sleeping at the wheel. When I asked what the party had done in response to the call from the Secretary of State’s office they said “they asked the Secretary of State not to allow the filing.” When asked if they had filed a lawsuit or if they had sent out press releases to alert the public, the answer was no. When asked if there was any paper trail of anything that they had done to alert the public they said no. In effect they had done nothing. When I asked for the name of Obama’s contact person in the state, I was told that she (they couldn’t remember her name) had been in the state for a couple of weeks before the election and they thought she was someplace in the northern part of the state but they didn’t have her number!

The Pre-Primary timing of the anti-Obama comments by Senator Joe Manchin (coal broker) and Governor Earl Ray Tomlin (heavily backed by coal companies) which stated that they didn’t know if they were going to vote for Obama shortly before the election set the stage for what happened in the 10 counties (which were either 100% or 98% counties controlled by extractive multinational coal, timber or gas and oil).

When I researched “Joe Manchin’s connection to AlEC, I discovered that ALEC is funded by the Koch brothers and other multinational corporations. ALEC was described as “basically a right-wing Republican organization….but there are a few reactionary Democrats who have been involved…maybe 1%” Joe Manchin was the first on the list of Congressional Democrats with ALEC ties.
Joe Manchin’s support of Republican candidates against democrats is legendary in the WV among people in the know. Since 1996 when Joe started democrats for Underwood and successfully helped the Republican candidate win, the democratic party has been continually raided with right wing candidates. The traditional values of the democratic party of choice, environment, worker’s rights have not been represented by the democratic candidates since Joe Manchin ran for governor and appointed Larry Puccio chair. The democratic party leadership under Joe in WV is similar to a mini-ALEC in that “real democrat” candidates like Virginia Graf, who ran against twelve year incumbent Republican Shelly Moore Capito, Arch Moore’s daughter and a Joe Manchin family close friend, received no support from the democratic party.
Senator Joe Manchin’s comments on Fox news referring to ”President George W. Bush as my President” while becoming bolder and bolder in his anti-Obama comments have added fuel to the coal company and multinational industries who have continued an all-out war on Obama in West Virigina since the beginning of Obama’s presidency.

I am an unashamed liberal Democrat and the only person to ever defeat right-wing conservative Joe Manchin, even while he outspent me two to one. When people of West Virginia have access to the truth (through the media) or their own experience, they will make choices that reflect their interest. Unfortunately, when they live in a state controlled by multinationals, when they are fed misinformation, have no candidate reflecting their interests, battle with triggered voting machines and other irregularities at the polling site, they give up in dismay, especially if they think that there is no one expressing their reality or defending their cause. The Democratic Party leadership, Manchin and Puccio, left unchecked by Secretary Tennant, has failed us.

Betty Ireland is Right: Natalie Tennant’s Excuses don’t measure up

I agree with Betty Ireland and the Secretaries of 16 other states who successfully kept Keith Judd off the ballot. The same federal law that Natalie said superseded state law applied to the other states. Keith Judd has had to sue the Secretaries of State in other states to get on the ballot. Judd’s filed 22 cases in 17 states, PLUS 41 additional circuit court cases in 19 different circuits for a total of 63 court filings! I haven’t yet found 1 where he was ultimately successful, including in WV. the ballot. If you want to check the research, go to

http://dockets.justia.com/search?query=Keith+Russell+Judd&noscat=5

Even though Judd seems to have consistently run as a democrat, Republican Secretaries of the State in several other states protected the people of their state from the embarrassment that WV experienced. Republican Secretary of State in Louisiana court document filed this year February 20, 2012 Case: 11-30920 states on page 2 “This appeal is without arguable merit. It is dismissed as frivolous. Judd has a history of vexatious and frivolous litigation in this court and many other courts.” So Natalie could have refused to let Keith Judd on the ballot using the same tactics as Secretaries of numerous other states and forced him to sue to get on the ballot.

The right wing hijackers of the democratic party, Senator Joe Manchin and his appointed chair of the democratic party Larry Puccio, have shown by their affiliation to “the corporate party” of ALEC and multinational companies controlling the state, by their comments against Obama and their continued lack of support for democrats with traditional values and by their inexcusable inaction are responsible for this embarrassing incident with Keith Judd. The embarrassment West Virginia and all of her citizens have had to endure since the May 9 election could have been prevented if Natalie, Puccio and Joe had not rolled over and played dead or in Joe’s and Earl Ray’s case added fuel to the fire.

To add insult to injury, the Gazette printed Kabler’s Who’s behind the Judd campaign?, to back up his original lie. In it he weakly “attempts” to answer his own question by providing a long-winded explanation about how Judd purportedly sold a commercial property back in July 14, 2007, for $170,000. Although it may account for how he raised the $2500.00 fee required to run in West Virginia, Kabler never even comes close to explaining how Judd managed to carry ten West Virginia counties without some sort of party affiliation!

By exposing the fact that the WV Democratic Party didn’t raise a ruckus about some out-of-state inmate running on the Democratic ticket here, and that Secretary of State Natalie Tennant (D-ManchinTool) didn’t have the guts to challenge Judd despite knowing that he was in federal prison, Ms. Pritt’s explanation goes far to give a bleak picture of a hijacked political party. Unfortunately not far enough to satisfy my curiosity.

I want to know why Kabler, who is an experienced statehouse reporter, was so inclined to swallow Tennant’s lame explanation for why she didn’t challenge Judd in court, particularly when all those other states had successfully kept him off their ballot -for years. I want to know where Judd really got his $2,500 filing fee, because since the sale of his property he’s on record as having filed numerous lawsuits against various Secretaries of States as a pauper! And if that’s truly the case then I want to know how a convicted felon got all those votes in a state where nobody knows him without spending any of his own cash to campaign.

So perhaps the most incisive question is just why does the Gazette pay Kabler to be a statehouse reporter and give him his own column, yet never demands that he push for exactly who ordered Tennant to just roll over and let some bum make a laughing stock out of West Virginia?

IN A RELATED MATTER, it just so happens that this same election cycle Tennant also kept H. John Rogers, an upstanding West Virginian from filing to run for State Supreme Court on the Mountain Party ticket, which, when compared to her decision to let a convicted felon run while still behind bars, exposed both her and her beloved WV Democratic party as having been hijacked.

-One Citizen

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Former WV Governor Joe Manchin Could Still Be Facing Charges Over His Retail Government Policy

Posted on April 3, 2012 by Up The Holler

There still may be an outside chance that justice may be rendered on behalf of the victims of the explosion at Upper Big Branch. WVANEWS reported Monday, April 2, 2012, that the investigation of Manchin is still open regarding Manchin’s use of Massey’s corporate jet due to the explosion at Massey’s UBB mine at Montcoal, WV.

Manchin’s plane trip in and of itself is small potatoes. Hopefully to those investigating him it will indicate the former WV governor’s “cozy” relationship with the owner of a mine where 29 men lost their lives just because governor Manchin personally had ordered his own state regulators to not shut down that operation over obvious and repeated safety violations. But you don’t have to take my word for it because you can hear Manchin indict himself on the following short youtube presentation below:

Upon hearing Manchin’s incredible statement on that video, I personally checked out the pre-edited version at this link, and sure enough, prior to the explosion, and after 12 miners died at Sago, WV, Manchin personally admitted to instructing “his people” to go easy on fines and to not shut coal operations down when they saw repeated violations!

Of course Manchin could never have predicted the dire result of his cozy “Retail Government” policy while he was pandering to his fellow “Friends of Coal”, even though the 12 who died at Sago during another blast prior to his pandering did so also while he was running WV. Should we all forgive him for a temporary lapse of judgement and endorse him for his next run for office, as did the WV Chamber of Commerce, the Charleston Gazette, the WV Chamber of Commerce and the United Mine Workers of America?

In his report, former MSHA-head J. Davitt McAteer, the head of Manchin’s own Independent Investigation into the Upper Big Branch Mine Disaster officially (and quite bravely) branded the inability of the state of West Virginia (while under governor Manchin) to protect the lives of miners as “a political failure – a failure by the state’s government to nurture and support strict safety standards for coal miners. But McAteer didn’t stop there, he went on to say, “If miners’ lives are to be safeguarded, the cozy relationship between high-ranking government officials and the coal industry must change, as must the relationship between the enforcement agency and the industry it regulates”.

That 120-page report may be found at this link To easily check my quote within the context it was originally used, you can download that report and in the pdf search engine apply the searchword: cozy
. That will take you straight to McAteer’s scathing indictment of Manchin’s role in the deaths of those men, especially in light of my own full report which may still be found at this link.

Not included in my earlier report was why Davitt McAteer raised hell about Tomblin’s lame attempt to cover up Manchin’s role when their cadre of cowards at the statehouse passed a so-called “mine safety bill”. If you’d like to review Ken Ward’s coverage of McAteer’s courageous public pronouncements, take a gander at this link

Ken Hechler, a true WV statesman, literally wrote the book on mine safety. Besides drafting the original bill, in his book “The Fight for Coal Mine Health and Safety: A Documented History,” Hechler addressed the political struggle that was waged to pass his landmark 1969 legislation. Hechler has since been quoted stating unequivocally that “If the 1969 law had been enforced, those miners would have been saved.” All of the government and independent reports subsequent to the explosion at Upper Big Branch have agreed with my friend Ken on that point.

There can be little doubt that Joe Manchin implemented his lethal Retail Government policy to benefit his rich and powerful coal industry pals. Reflecting only on the results of that policy, UMW president Cecil Roberts and the UMW tagged it as “Industrial Homicide“. Considering the fact that more miners died while on Manchin’s watch than any others since 1969 (after Hechler’s mine safety bill was implemented), Senator “Retail Government” now appears to have blood on his hands.

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Cheney Gets Heart: No Word Yet When Other Republican Leaders Will Get One

Posted on March 28, 2012 by Up The Holler

by Pat LaMarche

Originally Posted: 03/25/2012 8:15 pm over at the Huffington Post

Dick Cheney has once again beaten the odds. He’s one of very few heart transplant recipients over the age of seventy. And he’ll need his luck to continue because older patients don’t do as well post-surgery as younger folks do. It’d be a real shame if he got to use this heart even less than he used his last one.

Timing is everything. And the irony of Cheney’s heart transplant — missing the 10 year anniversary of the Iraq War by only a few days — should remind us of the hearts stopped by his “shock and awe” policy in that country. An undisputed architect of the War in Iraq, he and the other hawks of the George W. Bush administration presided over the senseless killing of tens of thousands of innocents who did the U.S. no harm.

The New York Times reports that the Cheney family is grateful to the donor as well as the doctors and staff at George Washington University Hospital. Cheney and his family are no doubt appreciative that his life was saved regardless of his limited odds and advanced years. How fortunate for them that the decision was made to give him that donor’s heart.

And though the former vice president can easily afford the million dollar commitment he has made to keep the donor heart beating in his chest, you can’t help but wonder if all this sacrifice and expense to save his one life can jump start any sort of epiphany for Cheney or his colleagues when it comes to wasting the lives of others.

And if thinking about the death toll in Iraq is just too overwhelming or you are still wrestling with the notion that war is hell and those deaths are somehow justified — then take a minute and think about the lives lost in the United States because of the Cheney-like policies put forth by he and his Republican successors.

Harvard University conducted a study in 2009 which stated that 45,000 of Cheney’s fellow Americans die each year from a lack of health insurance. And the 2010 U.S. Census says that the number of people lacking health insurance is on the rise indicating that Harvard’s next study will show the number of deaths going up too.

Imagine if it were 45,000 Dick Cheney’s that were dead. In fact, in nearly every case, the only difference between Cheney and all those dead uninsured people is that what they had wrong with them would have been a lot less expensive — not to mention a lot easier — to cure. Oh, and they weren’t millionaires.

Cheney’s original ticker’s been on the fritz since 1978 when he had his first heart attack. He’s had every manner of medical intervention to keep him alive from by-pass surgery to artificial pumps – and now someone else’s beating heart. The accumulated expense of keeping Cheney around all these years while his policies have cost the lives of so many illustrates better than any othe-r example the misplaced role money plays in the U.S. healthcare system. And — quite frankly – it also proves exactly how heartless those policies and their supporters are. If there’s enough money to give Cheney the care he needs, there should be enough to give necessary procedures and medicines to every American.

As the 2012 presidential race drags on — with the unending arguments over prescription drug coverage for women or the pros and cons of mandatory insurance — it becomes excruciatingly clear that the Republican leadership has no intention of treating one common U.S. citizen’s life as though it were worthy of saving.

Of course President Obama’s Affordable Care Act proves that the Democrats have enough heart to save more U.S. lives, but that they lack the guts to save them all. See, the argument that Americans pay more for health care than anyone else in the world even though they don’t live as long as folks in nations with universal health care never got heard over the louder voices of the for-profit insurance industry. Alas, the Republicans aren’t the only ones needing an organ transplant. The Democrats need the stomach to fight for the American people.

Lastly, and frighteningly, rumors swirl around the blogosphere that the pre-transplant Cheney supported U.S. military involvement in Iran. Let’s hope that if that’s true, his new heart tells him otherwise.

Former Green Party vice presidential candidate Pat LaMarche lives in the upper Appalachian region (Maine) where she’s a radio broadcaster on The Pulse Morning Show which can be heard weekdays from 6 to 10 am at this link.

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INDELIBLE –

Posted on February 7, 2012 by Up The Holler

The Art Emporium will feature the creative photographic works of T. Paige Dalporto in a show titled “Indelible,” on Monday. The opening reception will be held from 5:30 to 8 p.m. Thursday.

The slide show is of the photographs in INDELIBLE which I have taken since 2007 around Fayette County, West Virginia mostly on Gauley Mountain. They owe a lot to the physicality, the mountains, of this area of West Virginia five miles from my home. They are a celebration of these mountains, nature, life, and really do speak to me: “This life is worth preserving. At all costs.”

TPaige’s Kickstart blog may be found at this link.

The Art Emporium, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Friday, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday, 823 Quarrier St., Charleston; www.artemporium.net or 304-345-2787.

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What we don’t know could hurt us worse

Posted on December 28, 2011 by Up The Holler

I’ll say one thing about today’s politicians: They have given whole new meaning to the term “stimulus package.”

Democrat or Republican, gay or straight, our public leaders seem to have a proclivity for unseemly and costly behavior. And when I think of the shenanigans they’re pulling and the lies they are telling their families, I do wonder how so many powerful public figures can be simultaneously so self-absorbed and so astonishingly stupid.

And as for these same leaders appropriately handling our public trust and our financial issues, it comes as little surprise that our representatives think the best way to fix a problem is to throw money at it. It is, after all, the single best way to get the attention of an Argentinean beauty or a high-priced New York call girl.

Remember Eliot Spitzer and the paper trail he left on the money he spent? That paper trail is how they caught him hiring his very expensive consorts. New invasive measures passed through the Patriot Act created a legal form of spying on our banking business done here in the United States, even though that business involves U.S. citizens. So the Big Brother department of the federal government monitored Spitzer’s ATM transactions. I’m sure I don’t know much about the $5,000 sex trade, but the government watching our everyday private financial dealings is what I find obscene. Still, you would expect that a former New York governor and New York state attorney general — whose business it was to know what legal traps exist — would have known better.

As for the most recently exposed dimwit in office, we can easily read every word of his sappy juvenile Harlequin-esque love letters. Jeepers, it’s hard to tell which is a worse way to get caught — the feds following the money trail until they find that a famous powerful man can have sex with beautiful, sexually skilled women, but only if they pay large sums of money for it, or a local newspapers reprinting your lovesick, star-crossed testimonies to marital infidelity.

But really stupid, arrogant men desiring sexual gratification and adoring lovers is not as amazing to me as the fact that the press has such an easy time accessing the documentation to prove their foolhardy philandering. That easy press access coupled with an unhealthy congressional preoccupation with private sexual exploits — a la the Clinton impeachment trial — makes me wonder what type of really bad things must be going on in the offices that the media can’t access and Congress lacks the courage to investigate.

You know, like the offices of the big coal companies.

While you know all about the stain on Monica Lewinsky’s dress and her dalliances in the Oval Office, you know absolutely nothing about the conversations between President Obama and top coal executives who met with him earlier this month, even though they, too, rendezvoused in the Oval Office.

And while no law enforcement officials hassled the reporters and photographers covering the Lewinsky, Spitzer or Sanford affairs, both a reporter and a photographer covering a mountaintop removal coal-mining protest were arrested, their equipment was ceased and they have now been charged with trespassing as well as conspiracy.

Conspiracy? Conspiracy to do what? Inform the American people about the exploits of companies that manipulate our elected officials and plunder our natural resources?

Now you can argue that blowing those mountains sky high in order to easily access the coal inside is the prerogative of private ownership. But one could make the same argument about former President Clinton’s private parts. For some reason the press and Congress think we have the right to supervise Clinton’s little treasures but not the majesty of an entire mountain range. And the same protections given to Newsweek when they collected evidence in the Clinton-Lewinsky affair were not afforded to Paul Corbit Brown and Kurt Mann when they covered the protests at Massey Energy Mine.

We know a little bit about the coal companies and President Obama. The president campaigned against mountaintop removal. He has since entertained coal executives privately at the White House. And he no longer opposes it. If the media wants a story about unfaithful men, they should cover this one.

Pat LaMarche of Yarmouth is the author of “Left Out In America: The State of Homelessness in the United States.” She may be reached at PatLaMarche@hotmail.com.

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Chrismas Bailout Hearing

Posted on December 26, 2011 by Up The Holler

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This is what democracy looked like on K street today!

Posted on December 8, 2011 by Up The Holler

Busloads of protestors from all across the U.S. including West Virginia jam D.C. to focus on Crony Capitalism!

Today, thousands of 99 Percenters marched on K Street in Washington, D.C. as part of the “Take Back The Capitol” action which was aimed directly at the lobbying firms that corporate interests use to influence the federal government.

In case the corporate media pretends it doesn’t know why these Americans decided to take their anger out on K Street, a report recently released by Public Campaign reveals how crucial it is for Americans to reclaim our democracy by directly battling the special interests of mega corporations. Public Campaign’s research exposes thirty giant corporations which spent more money lobbying our lawmakers than they spent in taxes. For example, one of the top 10 most profitable companies in the world — General Electric — got a net tax rebate of $4.7 billion from 2008 to 2010. Which is a whoppin return on the $84 million it spent lobbying the federal government during that same period.

The full list of the 30 corporations and what they paid in federal taxes as opposed to lobbying is available at this link.

For on-the-ground live observations check out the twitter log at this link

The following is provided courtesy of the SEIU Blog at this link and OccupyCharlestonWV.org at this link…
3:10 PM Eastern – Wednesday, December 7, 2011
“We Are The 99%!” March on K Street (Live Blog)
By Kate Thomas

KStreetprotest.jpg

Day 3 of Take Back The Capitol kicked off with lots of rain….but nothing can put out this fire!

Remember–even if you can’t be in DC with us this week, you can still make an impact.

Send Congress a message here and we’ll deliver it for you.

LIVE UPDATES as the actions unfold below. You can also stay in the know via hashtag #99indc.

UPDATE, 3:00 PM: 99er’s in DC have mostly headed back to the People’s Camp near the National Mall.

During today’s #99InDC action on K Street, 11 people were arrested; 8 men and 3 women. The group was primarily made of unemployed 99er’s and clergy.

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PHOTOS: Check out many more great action shots from today on Flickr here.

1:45 PM: Marching on New York Street now.

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1:28 PM: Protesters now marching East on K Street.

1:20 PM: Arrests taking place. Exact number TBD. More details to come shortly.

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Captured one clergy member being arrested below:

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1:10 PM: BREAKING: DCPD warns 99er’s to clear K Street.

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12:49 PM: No amount of rain can faze those battered by the storm of economic injustice & corporate greed (h/t @IWJ)

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A long view of K Street:

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12:28 PM: Video of K Street scene.

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12:27 PM: Actions at 15th & K Street.

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12:18 PM: Breaking: Activists shut down 16th and K St.

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From 2008 to 2010, 30 Fortune 500 companies spent more on lobbyists than they paid in taxes. Can you think of a better reason to shut down K Street than that?

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12:13 PM: Letting K Street know we’re here loud & clear.

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12:05 PM: One of the last stops on the way to K Street: building w/ General Electric (GE) lobbyists.

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12:00 PM: Crowd breaks into “The people, united, will never be defeated!”

11:57 AM: Outside Verizon offices protesting corporate greed on 13th and I Street, chanting “Shame on Verizon!”

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11:47 AM: Swarming Wells Fargo on 13th Street.

Chanting “banks got bailed out, we got sold out!”

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11:31 AM: Thousands surge down the street, chanting “We Are The 99%! We Are The 99%!)

Watch a live stream of the actions happening at http://www.ustream.tv/channel/iwilloccupy.

11:21 AM: Activists break off into 4 marching lines and begin to converge on K Street.

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11:11 AM: Walking from natl mall to downtown

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11:00 AM: Thousands of enthused 99er’s gather on the People’s Mall before marching to confront lobbyists on K Street.

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10:00 AM: Bringing the People’s Mic to K Street lobbyists:

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Lobbyists, beware! The 99 percent is marching to K Street today with mud on our boots & democracy in our hearts.

About Service Employees International Union:

SEIU is the fastest-growing union in North America. Focused on uniting workers in three sectors to improve their lives and the services they provide

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  • THIS JUST IN:
    • Occupy Charleston WV re-lauches website, delegation marches on DC!

    Posted on December 7, 2011 by Up The Holler

    FROM OCCUPYCHARLESTONWV.ORG:

    Despite recent efforts to diminish the voice of We the PEOPLE by violently kicking members of our national movement out of public spaces all across the U.S., Occupy Charleston WV (“OCWV”) is still alive and doing just fine, thankyouverymuch.

    In a show of solidarity with the national Occupy Wall Street movement first National General Assembly in our nation’s capitol city, a delegation of 12 (TWELVE!) individuals from the Great State of West Virginia yesterday took part in numerous activities in Washington DC including, (its rumored) leading a “mike check” protest in front of the White House during the tree lighting ceremony!

    Back here in Charleston, since storm troopers for the banksters couldn’t legally disperse us because we had decided to headquarter on private property owned by the local AFL-CIO, our local rightwing media sent a team into our OccupyCharlestonWV encampment to try to dampen local public support by focusing a report on our problems and downplaying our collective determination to affect justice for the 99 percent.

    Although Daily Wail photographer/ Koch teabag stringer Bob Wojo focused his camera on our toilets and our rain-soaked campgrounds as reporter Hack Zarold intentionally ignored the determination of Occupiers throughout the camp, since their hit piece, support by the local public including area unions and churches has nonetheless been unwavering.

    That the national media picked up the overall negative spin from the weasel team from the Daily Wail wasn’t really a surprise given the tone of its op-eds lately, although certain details that Hack Z. left out were disappointing to the point of embarrassing.For HIM.

    Here’s why:

    Corporate-spun editorials and news pieces all fail to report that the public-at-large generally agrees with what the Occupy movement stands for. BTW Don’t fall for the results of their fake polls, because the corporate tools who write the poll scripts cleverly never ask the question that way.

    IF PROPERLY ASKED, the public-at-large will generally agree with what the Occupy movement stands for nationally because they REALIZE that 1 out of every 3 Americans are now either living in poverty or right next to it. Don’t take my word for it, read the facts at this link.

    Across West Virginia, the poverty is far worse because of our corrupt political system is widely accepted without comment by the corporate-owned media. Both work together to hide the fact that as a state we’ve long been considered the 4th richest when it comes to natural resources, yet here the poverty is rampant. And it is almost as well hidden by our local “Hacks” as is the disconnect from the draining of our resources by our local media’s corporate sponsors.

    That large numbers of Appalachians both in and out of our Occupier camps here in WV all suffer the standard problems associated with long term poverty is shocking only because it has been such a closely kept secret by the same “Hacks” (and Wojos) who are now striving, through the power of their corporate media, to kneecap those who’ve recently decided to demand a TRUE democratic society, and are actively doing so from our state’s capitol all the way to D.C.

    Regarding the setbacks encountered by our encampments as reported by these corporate tools, let the following Press Release from OccupyCharlestonWV speak for itself, although I’d wager you never caught anything about this PRESS RELEASE in your local media back when it was issued. It is also notable that although our Good Neighbor Policy was approved by consensus at our General Assembly months ago, it was by necessity personally hand delivered on the same date as the Press Release to the Mayor and City Council of Charleston, WV by Jesse Johnson due to the number of homeless and disaffected that were being herded to our camp by the local police.

    Date of Release: Tue, Nov 8, 2011 at 10:56 AM Subject: City Police Coordination

    Last night at General Assembly there was an unconfirmed report that a member of the city police force had rousted some homeless and intoxicated citizens from Davis Square and told them that if they wanted to camp they needed to do it at our location.

    We fully understand the City of Charleston’s inability to cope with its rising numbers of homeless and disaffected citizens. Although we will not reject those less fortunate than most, we have already contacted the Mayor’s office to let him know that the Occupy Charleston community will not tolerate public intoxication in compliance with its established maxim of zero tolerance in compliance with our Good Neighbor Policy.
    —————————————————————————

    GOOD NEIGHBOR POLICY

    Following respectful and good-faith dialogue with members of the local community, Occupy Charleston, WV hereby announces the following Good Neighbor Policy to ensure safety and awareness:

    ~ OCWV has zero tolerance for drugs or alcohol anywhere on occupy site
    ~ Zero tolerance for violence or verbal abuse towards anyone;
    ~ Zero tolerance for abuse of personal or public property.
    ~ Smoking only in designated areas and outside of General Assembly
    ~ OCWV encourages all participants to respect health and sanitary regulations, and will direct all participants to respectfully utilize appropriate facilities.
    ~ OCWV will at all times have a community relations representative on-site, to monitor and respond to community concerns and complaints.

    Original Date of Publication: October 23, 2011

    posted by OC
    Charleston, WV

     

    Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment

    George Orwell’s “1984″ wasn’t meant to be an instruction manual.

    Posted on December 1, 2011 by Up The Holler

    The following article was re-posted here because 61 senators betrayed you this week. They authorized the indefinite suspension of Habeus Corpus (again) and the ability to detain American citizens without charge or trial, anywhere in the world. We are now officially a police state and our country is considered a new part of the “battlefield.”

    The worldwide indefinite detention without charge or trial provision is contained within S. 1867, which was passed on the Senate floor Monday. The bill was drafted in secret by Sens. Carl Levin (D-Mich.) and John McCain (R-Ariz.) and passed in a closed-door committee meeting, without even a single hearing.

    According to one source, the Department of Homeland Security is attempting, through this bill, to start including its focus on anyone who is or will be engaged or encouraging domestic unrest, whatever the reason. The net is being cast over such groups as the Tea Party, which has been under actual and electronic surveillance by the FBI and other intelligence agencies, as well as the various “occupy” groups!

    America Has Become a Fascist Police State
    go to original

    One word that emerged from the novel was the word “doublespeak,” where truth is deliberately obfuscated through clever wording. In some cases, the meaning of a word is reversed entirely. Oceania, the totalitarian regime in Orwell’s book, used doublespeak as a matter of course. The Ministry of Truth specialized in propaganda. The Ministry of Love was a secretive torture complex.

    In the early years of public school, or in public addresses by politicians, America is touted as the Land of the Free, or the Land of Opportunity, or the Greatest Country on Earth. We’re taught from near-infancy that this country was founded on the right to say what you want, whenever, wherever, to whomever.

    We’re told we have the freedom to assemble peacefully, to petition our leaders for a redress of grievances. We’re taught that if you’re apprehended by the law, you have the right to a fair trial and legal representation.

    Yet, today we live in a country where government aids the corporate takeover of elections. Here, banks who fraudulently took Americans’ homes for profit can get bailed out by the taxpayers, and use the money to pay themselves 12-figure bonuses. This is a country where even US citizens can be detained without due process, tortured, and even assassinated overseas.

    Today, in the Land of the Free, nonviolent political protesters using their First Amendment rights to speak out against all of the above can be beaten, tasered, and maced by heavily-militarized police forces, using military-grade equipment, without any provocation.

    The recent Black Friday mobs of consumers pitching tents in parking lots and rioting over $2 waffle irons were met with silence from the police. Yet, 10 people speaking out in a Wal-Mart about the company’s CEO making $19,000 per hour while his employees are forced to work on a holiday for less than poverty-level wages apparently provokes police to tackle and arrest the citizens nonviolently encouraging shoppers to buy local. In today’s America we can Occupy for Capitalism, but not for Democracy.

    Oakland Mayor Jean Quan has openly admitted that the recent police crackdowns on Occupy Wall Street solidarity encampments were the result of careful coordination between mayors on a series of conference calls. There are also reports that the Department of Homeland Security and the FBI gave advice on the crackdowns, encouraging municipalities to deploy large numbers of police, equip them with riot gear, and break up encampments when the media were least likely to be present. Reports from New York allege that reporters were asked to raise their hand if they had press credentials, before being penned in an area far from the protests. Those trying to get through were arrested, and told that it was illegal to “take pictures on the sidewalk.”

    It is no longer extreme to say we now live in a fascist police state. Thanks to the Patriot Act, the SCOTUS’ Citizens United decision, and a complacent electorate, our First Amendment rights of free speech and free assembly now only exist on paper. In Tienanmen Square, the Chinese government also censored the press and violently cracked down on peaceful protesters. All that’s missing here are the tanks.

    Mussolini said, “Fascism should be more accurately called corporatism, because it is a merger of state and corporate power.” It is Orwellian doublespeak to call this country “free” while freedom is actively suppressed with aid from a corporate-owned government. The people are not free if their leaders are actively making war with them.

    Carl Gibson, 24, of Lexington, Kentucky, is a spokesman and organizer for US Uncut, a nonviolent, creative direct-action movement to stop budget cuts by getting corporations to pay their fair share of taxes. He graduated from Morehead State University in 2009 with a B.A. in Journalism before starting the first US Uncut group in Jackson, Mississippi, in February of 2011. Since then, over 20,000 US Uncut activists have carried out more than 300 actions in over 100 cities nationwide. You may contact Carl at carl@rsnorg.org.

    FYI…
    The sixty-one seditious senators who betrayed you by their vote on S. 1867 are:

    Ayotte (R-NH)
    Barrasso (R-WY)
    Blunt (R-MO)
    Boozman (R-AR)
    Brown (R-MA)
    Burr (R-NC)
    Casey (D-PA)
    Chambliss (R-GA)
    Coats (R-IN)
    Coburn (R-OK)
    Cochran (R-MS)
    Collins (R-ME)
    Conrad (D-ND)
    Corker (R-TN)
    Cornyn (R-TX)
    Crapo (R-ID)
    DeMint (R-SC)
    Enzi (R-WY)
    Graham (R-SC)
    Grassley (R-IA)
    Hagan (D-NC)
    Hatch (R-UT)
    Heller (R-NV)
    Hoeven (R-ND)
    Hutchison (R-TX)
    Inhofe (R-OK)
    Inouye (D-HI)
    Isakson (R-GA)
    Johanns (R-NE)
    Johnson (R-WI)
    Kohl (D-WI)
    Kyl (R-AZ)
    Landrieu (D-LA)
    Lee (R-UT)
    Levin (D-MI)
    Lieberman (ID-CT)
    Lugar (R-IN)
    Manchin (D-WV)
    McCain (R-AZ)
    McCaskill (D-MO)
    McConnell (R-KY)
    Menendez (D-NJ)
    Moran (R-KS)
    Nelson (D-NE)
    Portman (R-OH)
    Pryor (D-AR)
    Reed (D-RI)
    Risch (R-ID)
    Roberts (R-KS)
    Rubio (R-FL)
    Sessions (R-AL)
    Shaheen (D-NH)
    Shelby (R-AL)
    Snowe (R-ME)
    Stabenow (D-MI)
    Thune (R-SD)
    Toomey (R-PA)
    Vitter (R-LA)
    Whitehouse (D-RI)
    Wicker (R-MS)

    source

    West Virginia, THIS is what happens when you vote for the “lesser of two evils”. Although its true that Manchin’s old pal John Raese would have likely voted exactly the same way as Mojo, I GUARANTEE you that my good friend Jesse Johnson of the MOUNTAIN PARTY would have FILIBUSTERED this right back down Dick Cheney’s spider hole where it belongs!

    Now, thanks to West Virginia’s dumbass yellow-dog Democrats, the same Senate will likely pass an upcoming bill to repeal the prohibitions against torture:

    The ACLU and over 30 other organizations sent a letter to the Senate asking them to oppose an effort in Congress that threatens to revive the use of torture and other inhumane interrogation techniques. If passed, an amendment introduced by Sen. Kelly Ayotte (R-N.H.) to the Defense Authorization bill would roll back torture prevention measures that Congress overwhelmingly approved in the 2005 McCain Anti-Torture Amendment, as well as a 2009 Executive Order on ensuring lawful interrogations. It would also require the administration to create a secret list of approved interrogation techniques in a classified annex to the existing interrogation field manual.

    Posted by One Citizen
    Dec. 01, 2011 at 5:27 am

    Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment

    Connecting the Dots…

    Posted on November 19, 2011 by Up The Holler


    Corporate Media sees the Occupy movement as a threat, because we aim to change the status quo. The way it is now, politicians can spend huge amounts of Corporate Campaign Cash every election cycle, so Corporate Media thrives by helping elect corporate-owned politicians.

    In only a few places is this incestuous relationship not so subtle. The most obvious is FoxNews, which openly supports corporatocracy.

    One subtle way media supports the status quo is through the perennial publishing of push-polls which support the two party system to the exclusion of all others. For instance, I challenge anyone to find a so-called “scientific” poll that included a Mountain Party candidate, even though that party has maintained full ballot access for over a decade in West Virginia. Though you’ll never get them to admit it, newsroom editors purposely exclude the Mountain Party simply because it has always shunned corporate cash and called for cleaning up elections!

    That’s not the only way the media works towards electing the best corporate panderer that money can buy. Right now it does so by downplaying the message of those who simply seek justice.

    You don’t have to take my word for it. Just watch and you’ll see. Once the media realizes that its been outflanked by the internet and Twitter (like it did in Egypt), and the Occupy Movement suddenly becomes a MAJOR threat by exposing media’s campaign cash cow, newsroom editors will begin ignoring the Occupy Movement altogether. It will do so in exactly the same way as it has done to WV’s Mountain Party, and nationally to the Green Party, which, thanks to the media blackout MOST Americans don’t realize, revealed that George Bush rigged the elections in Ohio!

    Can you cite even one instance where this importnt revelation ever was properly covered in the national media?

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