Free Republic

The Environmental Protection Agency’s new rule on carbon pollution is the latest headache for Democrats trying to defend a fragile Senate majority. With many vulnerable Democrats coming from energy-producing states, Republicans argued the Obama administration’s call for power plants to cut their carbon emissions 30 percent by 2030 would cost local jobs and increase energy prices. Democratic candidates in coal-rich West Virginia and Kentucky were among the first to try to distance themselves from the president after the changes were unveiled Monday.

WINFIELD, WV - Students at Winfield High School in Winfield, WV have started a petition asking the Putnam County Board of Education to reconsider their decision to remove a popular graduation day tradition. Coach Leon McCoy is well known in Winfield, WV. He has made it a tradition to speak at Winfield High School's graduation. But after complaints from some parents about the religious theme in his presentation the speech has been called off. Students are fighting back. "I think it is very disappointing and unfortunate that Coach McCoy can't speak," said senior Hannah Clark. She said when she was...

"As I stated on March 28, the language contained in House Bill 4588 is unconstitutional. I encourage legislators not to call themselves into a special session to revisit the same issue. Should members of the Legislature take the same action again, I will again veto the bill. As I also said on March 28, I am proud of my pro-life record, and I would be happy to work with members of the Legislature during the 2015 regular session to pass a bill that is constitutional." Friday Marks 2 Years Since Murder of Charleston Man More From Our Partners

CHARLESTON, W.Va. (WSAZ) -- Tips helped Charleston Police track down a juvenile suspect in connection to a mailbox explosion that was posted on YouTube. According to Charleston Police Detectives, the teenager is facing a charge of criminal use of a destructive device. A neighbor on Louden Heights Road, located in the South Hills area of Charleston, captured the incident on home security video during the weekend .

Saira Blair, who just unseated an incumbent West Virginia state legislator, isn’t thinking about her plans for the summer. She’s thinking about how to defeat Democrat Layne Diehl come November. Because if Saira wins, it will make her the youngest legislator in West Virginia’s history- she’s just 17 years old.

News Print Article | Email Friend | Reprint Permissions Pro-life, pro-family 17-year-old beats 2-time incumbent in West Virginia by Teresa Platt Thu May 15, 2014 16:53 EST CHARLESTON, WV, May 15, 2014 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Running on an explicitly pro-life and pro-family platform, Saira Blair a 17-year-old high school student beat out two-time incumbent Larry Kump to represent the Republicans in the November race for the state House of Delegates. Blair, a strong Catholic said on her election signs: “I am a Fiscal Conservative, I’m pro-life. I’m pro-marriage I’m pro-family. I’m pro-second Amendment. I’m pro-business. I’m pro-jobs I’m pro West Virginia....

Tea Party Senator Ted Cruz claimed his first victory in the battle to control the Republican Party on Tuesday night when his two candidates in Nebraska won their primary elections.Cruz endorsed gubernatorial candidate Pete Ricketts and Senate candidate Ben Sasse won their respective primary races, positioning Cruz as kingmaker in November.'Ben Sasse’s decisive victory in Nebraska tonight is a clear indication that the grassroots are rising up to Make DC Listen. They’re rising up to take our country back,' Cruz posted to his Facebook. Ted Cruz, left, campaigns in Omaha, Nebraska, on Friday, May 9, for Republican gubernatorial candidate Pete...

The Tea Party, left for dead by the mainstream media only a week ago, roared back to life on Tuesday with two big Republican primary victories in Nebraska and West Virginia. All eyes now turn to Mississippi's June 3 Republican U.S. Senate primary between establishment incumbent Thad Cochran (R-MS) and Tea Party-backed state senator Chris McDaniel as the next big test of the Tea Party's ability to win elections. In Nebraska, the Republican U.S. Senate primary race that many thought had tightened into a three way race turned into a romp for Tea Party-backed Ben Sasse, who easily won with...

Saira Blair will graduate from a West Virginia high school later this month. She posts photos of her smoothie habit on Instagram, volunteers at the Martinsburg VA hospital and helps raise money for the Make-a-Wish foundation. She will not be eligible to vote until July. But on Tuesday, she beat a sitting state delegate who was seeking a third term in office. With all 13 precincts in her Martinsburg-area district reporting, Blair beat state Del. Larry Kump (R) by an 872-728 vote margin. Blair campaigned on an antiabortion, pro-Second Amendment platform, offering her cellphone number to constituents and pledging not...

Former Maryland GOP Chairman Alex Mooney has won the Republican primary for West Virginia’s second congressional district, according to the Associated Press, beating pharmacist Ken Reed and former U.S. International Trade Commissioner and state legislator Charlotte Lane.With 74.9 percent of precincts reporting, Mooney had 35 percent of the vote to Reed’s 22 percent, and Lane was running third with 18.4 percent.Those were the three leading candidates, but it was a seven-way brawl to replace Rep. Shelley Moore Capito who is leaving her House seat to run for the Senate. This is a clear victory for the tea party as Mooney...

Capito will be the republican nominee for the US Senate (and likely the next senator from WV).

THIS IS FOR THE MIDWEST (NORTHEAST and SOUTH is in a separate thread and West coming later, see links below) There are numerous important House Primary Races! And places where we can WIN! PLEASE contribute! And if you can't contribute money ... the least we can do is go to their pages and give them a "like" or a tweet. All of these candidates are involved in primaries that are close (or could be close) against generally more moderate or liberal Republicans. All of these districts are winnable in November. West Virginia: ALEX MOONEY, WEST VIRGINIA-2, May 13th .... Open...

CHARLESTON, W.Va. – The U.S. House seat Rep. Nick Rahall (D-W.Va.) has held since 1977 is now considered one of the most “vulnerable” in the country during the November general election. “In the past, Rahall boasted one of the best local brands in politics, effectively keeping enough distance between himself and a national party that’s increasingly unpopular in West Virginia,” according to a Tuesday article in Roll Call, a Capitol Hill newspaper. But Shira Center, who contributed to that Roll Call report, said times are changing and so is the political climate in West Virginia, especially in Rahall’s 3rd District....

Sen. Jay Rockefeller unloaded on lawmakers Tuesday, accusing some of blocking efforts to solve urgent problems during Barack Obama’s presidency “because he’s the wrong color.” Rockefeller (D-W.Va.), who will retire at the end of the year, made his comments during a Senate Finance Committee hearing on transportation funding, saying he’s confounded by the “lack of will to keep ourselves from dropping into rivers and rolling over bridges that are no longer there.” “It’s an American characteristic that you don’t do anything which displeases the voters, because you always have to get reelected here,” he added. “I understand part of it....

House Dem: Climate change bigger health threat than AIDS, malaria By Andrew Restuccia - 04/06/11 12:25 PM ET Just hours before a vote Wednesday on a GOP plan to block Environmental Protection Agency climate regulations, Rep. Lois Capps (D-Calif.) called climate change a bigger public health threat than AIDS, malaria and pandemic flu. Capps and several other liberal Democrats spoke out Wednesday morning in opposition to the legislation, authored by House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Fred Upton (R-Mich.). The lawmakers, who were joined by officials from the American Lung Association and the Union of Concerned Scientists, said the Upton...

The American coal industry is accusing the Obama administration of using the Environmental Protection Agency to end the use of coal despite the president's claim of having an "all of the above" energy policy. ... the EPA's MATS rules, which go into effect in January 2016, will devastate coal production in America and .. about 60 gigawatts of coal-fired generation coming off-line .. One of Monseu’s issues is the way she said the administration is targeting coal, which currently fuels around 40 percent of the electricity produced in the U.S. "Increasingly we face a situation where policy is dictated not...

Watching the celebration at the NRA convention over the defeat of background checks was the most nauseating experience of the day. I am not a New York gun control liberal, either. I support a shotgun for home defense, a handgun for limited conceal/carry, and an assortment of hunting rifles to balance West Virginia's exploding deer population (as evidenced by hourly collisions with cars). So, I am hardly out of the mainstream. But, the gun safety debate is B.S. This foaming at the mouth, Obamar is coming for the guns, Nanny Bloomberg is a bad billionaire, and most despicable of all,...

In a bizarre op-ed in The Charleston Gazette last week, journalism professor Christopher Swindell argued that the National Rifle Association “advocates armed rebellion against the duly elected government of the United States of America.” Stirring words, to be sure, but Swindell was hardly done — not even close. He also said that the NRA is guilty of “treason” “worthy of the firing squad.” “To support the new NRA president’s agenda of arming the populace for confrontation with the government is bloody treason,” Swindell charged in his wacky essay. After briefly playing the race card and alluding to the Civil War,...

According to the country’s paper of record, people in West Virginia are just too damn dumb and racist to know that they need savior Obama’s healthcare law. They say that those that would benefit the most are so dead set in their hatred for President Obama, that they’re willing to go without healthcare coverage. Three conservative groups (even one backed by the dreaded Koch brothers) are blamed for running ads in West Virginia that has “stigmatized” the law. Obama is so unpopular in hayseed, hick town, that they’re willing to lay down and die before they’d sign up for Obamacare.

Inside the sleek hillside headquarters of Valley Health Systems, built with a grant from the health care law, two employees played an advertisement they had helped produce to promote the law’s insurance coverage for young, working-class West Virginians. Health professionals, state officials, social workers, insurance agents and others trying to make the law work for uninsured Americans say the partisan divisions and attack ads have depressed participation in some places. They say the law has been stigmatized for many who could benefit from it, especially in conservative states like West Virginia that have the poorest, most medically underserved populations but...