Above you will see a video of U.S. Senate candidate Rep. Shelley Moore Capito (R. WV-2) speaking at a Republican fundraiser about Medicare:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...
During recent remarks to a local GOP group, Rep. Shelley Moore Capitol (R-W.Va.) hailed Medicare as "a tremendous program" and imagined she would have "many sleepless nights" without it, since her parents rely on it to keep the costs of their prescription drugs down.
What you wouldn't know by Capito's comments, though, is that she voted -- three times -- for the House Republican budget put forward by Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), which would overhaul Medicare and reopen the prescription drug "donut hole," that would force immediate costs increases onto people like her parents.
Capito, who has been in the House since 2000 and is now running for Senate, made her remarks during a speech to the Greenbrier Republican Party on April 20. - Huffington Post, 5/3/13
Yep. This is who is running for retiring Senator Jay Rockefeller's (D. WV) Senate seat. It's no secret that the Republicans want to gain control of the Senate in next year's elections and the GOP establishment believes that Capito can dupe West Virginians into voting for her. Capito also found a friend in helping keep the EPA off big coal's balls:
http://www.register-herald.com/...
A move to force the Environmental Protection Agency to act promptly on pending coal mining permits is afoot in Congress, led by Rep. Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky.
Last week, an appellate court held that the EPA was within its authority to retroactively cancel a 404 permit issued years earlier to Arch Coal at its Spruce No. 1 mine, a mountaintop mining operation in Logan County.
That decision provoked a mass outcry in the state, chiefly by Rep. Nick Rahall, D-W.Va., and Bill Raney, president of the West Virginia Coal Association.
Capito, R-W.Va., and McConnell, R-Ky., said the EPA’s “overreach” is impacting the industry negatively in their respective states.
“This administration is doing everything it can to destroy the coal industry,” Capito charged Tuesday.
“From President Obama stating that he wants to ‘bankrupt’ it to the EPA holding the permitting process hostage, this administration is standing in the way of economic growth and driving up hardworking West Virginians’ electric bills.”
Rahall immediately criticized the court’s decision, warning that it would have a ripple effect throughout the coal industry, if permits can be yanked after they had been approved by the EPA.
But a leading environmental group, the Sierra Club, disagreed, noting that the federal agency had applied its veto authority only 13 times since 1972 over permits approved initially by the Army Corps of Engineers and only three times was this action taken retroactively. - The Register-Herald, 5/1/13
http://www.heraldstaronline.com/...
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency would "go on the clock" and have no more than 270 days to approve or reject a coal mining permit under legislation introduced Monday by U.S. Rep. Shelley Moore Capito.
The Coal Jobs Protection Act also would make it illegal for the agency to retroactively reject mining permits already granted, she explained.
Capito, R-Charleston, and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., announced the legislation Monday in Hazard, Ky. McConnell plans to introduce the same legislation in the Senate.
The bill's intent is to "push back on the EPA overreach into the permitting process, which is negatively impacting coal-mining jobs in states like West Virginia and Kentucky," Capito said. - Herald Star, 4/30/13
The Coal Jobs Protection Act is Capito & McConnell's way of hyping up their "states' rights" creds to try and make friends with the Tea Party and the Club For Growth. It's also their way to keep big coal happy and keep the big campaign contribution checks coming in:
Capito said the legislation would reinstate "the vital roles that states play in finding the proper balance between jobs and the environment."
States would have final say in setting standards, and the permitting process would be expanded to include an assessment of economic impact. - Charleston Daily Mail, 5/2/13
McConnell's really been hyping up how big of a puppet he is for big coal:
http://www.wsaz.com/...
"I've pushed back against this [Obama] administration since day one on its attempts to regulate America's coal industry and coal mining jobs, literally, out of existence," McConnell said.
That regulation, McConnell said, is costing the state coal severance money – and costing miners their jobs. In response, he and fellow U.S. Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., are introducing legislation in the Senate called the Coal Jobs Protection Act. Its main aim is to simplify the process of getting mining permits from the Environmental Protection Agency.
McConnell introduced the plan in Pikeville Monday morning at Whayne Supply, a company that builds mining equipment. One of the technicians there, William Bogar, said he and many others in the area depend heavily on coal as the basis of the local economy.
“If coal goes, we've not got nothing here,” Bogar said.
Later, in Hazard, McConnell was joined by U. S. Rep. Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va., to pitch her version of the plan, which she plans to bring to the House of Representatives.
“A strategic barrage, literal barrage of regulations from the EPA is strangling one of our state's most important industries, the coal industry,” McConnell said to the crowd gathered in Pikeville. He added, “The EPA is changing the rules in the middle of the game, and they’ve done it all without a single vote from Congress.” - WSAZ 3, 4/29/13
I understand the reasons why Capito and McConnell have teamed up but it's a bold move for Capito to team up with a guy West Virginia hates:
http://www.salon.com/...
If you follow college athletics, you’re probably familiar with the conference realignment chaos now playing out, which is set to make big winners of some schools — while inflicting grievous and possibly permanent damage on others. If you don’t, then you probably don’t care much about the minutia of the whole saga, and it’s too dense to convey here anyway. For the purposes of this post, this is what’s important to know:
Affiliation with a marquee athletic conference in football — the biggest money-making sport, by far – is now vital to the health of any major college athletic program, since the marquee conferences command lucrative television deals and control access to college football’s premier post-season bowl games. It is essentially impossible for a school to win college football’s national championship without being a member of a top conference,
West Virginia University is currently a member of what can charitably be described as an endangered athletic conference — the Big East — and (like every other football-playing Big East member) has been desperately trying to relocate to another stable, top-tier conference.
West Virginians love their state university’s football team; on a game day in the fall, Mountaineer Field becomes the largest city in the state, with 60,000 fans filling the stands and staying after the game to sing John Denver’s “Country Roads.”
As of Tuesday afternoon, everyone in the state was breathing a big sigh of relief with news that the leaders of the member schools of the Big 12 — one of those marquee conferences — had approved adding West Virginia as a member and were about the announce it publicly.
Then Mitch McConnell got involved.
Yes, that would be Senator Mitch McConnell, the Republican leader of the U.S. Senate, and as odd as it may seem, he’s emerged as a key player in a college sports drama. The reason: McConnell is a Louisville man. He grew up in the city, attended the University of Louisville, and remains a rabid fan of its sports teams. And the Louisville Cardinals are in the same position as the West Virginia Mountaineers: They are members of the dying Big East and they’re desperately angling for a lifeline from the Big 12. So when word broke Tuesday afternoon of West Virginia’s impending invitation to join the league, this happened:
But everything changed Tuesday evening, as the Big 12 backed off its assurances to West Virginia. Hard lobbying from another candidate from the Big East, Louisville, has created a heated race for the remaining slot in the Big 12 that Missouri is expected to vacate soon. (Missouri is still headed to the Southeastern Conference after it sorts through its exit issues with the Big 12.)
A person with direct knowledge of the situation said it was “too close to call” between West Virginia and Louisville.
Two other people with direct knowledge said that the lobbying of the Senate minority leader, Mitch McConnell, Republican of Kentucky, had helped Louisville. His communication with Oklahoma’s president, David Boren, a former senator, and Texas Tech’s chancellor, Kent Hance, a former congressman, played a role in raising Louisville’s fortunes. Hance confirmed that McConnell called him to push Louisville.
And just like that, West Virginia’s seemingly imminent move to a safe conference home is on indefinite hold, and the future of the school’s football team — and the foundation of its entire athletic program — is in peril. Needless to say, this has enraged McConnell’s Senate colleagues from West Virginia. Democrat Jay Rockefeller termed McConnell’s apparent intervention “just flat wrong. I am doing and will do whatever it takes to get us back to the merits,” while Joe Manchin one-upped him by suggesting an investigation. - Salon, 10/27/11
Now I'm practical, coal is always going to have an influence on West Virginia politics but Capito and McConnell as a duo in the Senate makes my stomach turn. By the way
Oh in case you didn't know, Rep. Nick Rahall (D. WV-3) won't be running for Senate:
http://www.nationaljournal.com/...
Rep. Nick Rahall, D-W.Va., will soon announce he is running for a 20th term in the House, taking a pass on the race to replace retiring Democratic Sen. Jay Rockefeller, according to a statement obtained by Hotline On Call.
"With U.S. Senator Jay Rockefeller retiring at the end of this term, it is more important than ever that our state have someone in Congress with the proven ability to bring important infrastructure improvements and the accompanying new jobs back home to West Virginia," Rahall says in a fundraising letter that will be released in the coming days. He goes on to highlight his work protecting coal miners as well as seniors and veterans, making the case that with Rockefeller retiring, he can keep up those battles as West Virginia's most senior Democrat in Congress.
Rahall’s decision not to run for Rockefeller's seat doesn't come as a major surprise, as he raised just over $142,000 in the first quarter of the year. That was dwarfed by the $915,000 raised by GOP Rep. Shelley Moore Capito, who has declared her candidacy for Rockefeller's seat.
Though Rahall's fundraising was roughly on par with his first quarter totals in 2011, he'll need to pick up the pace if he wants to return to Congress in 2014. Rahall ended March with just $217,000 in the bank -- less than half of what he had on hand at this point during his last reelection -- and the 2014 race could be expensive.
The National Republican Congressional Committee has indicated Rahall will be one of their top seven targets for the 2014 cycle and has already begun airing ads against him. One Democratic strategist pointed out that the district overlaps with some Ohio and Kentucky media markets, and contentious gubernatorial and Senate races there, respectively, could drive up the costs of advertising, particularly for outside groups. - National Journal, 4/30/13
No new word from either my ideal candidate, Secretary of State Natalie Tennant (D. WV) or the DSCC's top choice, wealthy attorney Nick Preservati, about whether or not they will enter the race. The Club For Growth has yet to find their ideal candidate to challenge Capito.