Joe Manchin’s Reagan moment to us & West Virginians: People would go hunting & abuse paid leave

We always knew Joe Manchin was a neoliberal. But his disdain for the rest of us is palpable. Funny, it is he who a taker is.

#BuildBackBetter #FoxNews #joeBiden #JoeManchin #paidLeave https://wp.me/p1OjMZ-kjx

The rise of candidates centering gun violence is a result of the growing prevention movement across the US, which has become something of 👉a pipeline for new candidates running for office.

#Maxwell #Frost, the nation’s first gen Z US representative, started off as a volunteer before becoming organizing director for
"March for Our Lives",
the gun-safety group founded by survivors of the 2018 mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas high school in #Parkland, Florida.

Georgia representative #Lucy #McBath, whose son Jordan Davis was shot and killed in 2012,
and Virginia governor-elect #Abigail #Spanberger were both volunteers with the gun-safety group
"Moms Demand Action" before they ran for office.

And #Cameron #Kasky, a survivor of the Parkland shooting who helped to organize the March for Our Lives student protests, recently announced his campaign to represent Manhattan, New York, in Congress.

“I see myself as a small part of a bigger movement. It’s the reason I got into politics,” Frost said.

“I was 15 when #Sandy #Hook happened and that’s what pushed me to get involved in organizing and it’s remained a big piece of my organizing.”

Today, calling out gun-rights lobbyists and groups like the National Rifle Association ( #NRA ) is common among Democrats vying for political office.

But less than 15 years ago, many moderate Democrats held A ratings from the NRA and the subject of regulating guns was a third rail that could spell an end to political aspirations,
said #Shannon #Watts, a violence-prevention activist and founder of Moms Demand Action.

“It was gradual and not linear,”
she said of the change that’s happened.
“We saw that our volunteers were running for office and thought it was common sense that someone who was learning how to shape legislation would want to take the next step to make the legislation as an elected official.”

Watts marks the 2012 mass shooting at Sandy Hook elementary school, in which a gunman
killed 20 children and six adults,
and the subsequent failure of Congress to pass gun-safety policies, as a watershed moment that pushed formerly gun-friendly Democrats like former West Virginia senator #JoeManchin, Minnesota governor #Tim #Walz and former Arizona representative #Ann #Kirkpatrick to risk their A rating from the NRA to call for restrictions on gun-#magazine #capacities and #assault #weapons.
⭐️Now, having an F rating from the group is a point of pride.

“After Parkland, zero Democratic members of Congress had an A rating and were proud about it.
That’s a seismic shift,”
Watts added.
“I think it’s proof positive that playing the long game works.
Lucy [McBath] ran for a seat held by Republicans and she ran on the issue of gun safety.
It shattered a lot of misperceptions and fears about being gun safety-forward.

The issue of gun violence has also activated newcomers to politics.
#Shaundelle #Brooks’s son, Akilah Dasilva, was one of four people killed in a mass shooting at a #Nashville Waffle House in 2018.

Five years later, in 2023, another son, who survived the Waffle House shooting, was shot and injured while leaving a Nashville music venue.

After her son’s death, Brooks said she regularly would go to the statehouse to advocate for gun laws that she feels could have prevented the death of her son and so many others.

After years of her pleas falling on unreceptive ears, she decided to run for office.

“There was a time where people were scared to even mention it while they were running.

And I remember not voting for certain people because of that.

So I am grateful that people are standing up, speaking out and being brave about it,” Brooks said.

“Coming up here for seven years and having them just ignoring me,
testifying and then being told that if my son had a gun that would have saved his life,
showed me that I needed to do more than what I was doing.”

The personal experiences of loss unite people like Brooks and Pearson with the scores of Americans who are part of what gun-violence victims and survivors describe as a club that no one wants to be a part of.

“When people see you’re personally impacted,
they feel that you’re more credible to talk about this kind of stuff.

They know it’s not a political thing for us,” she said
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/jan/02/gun-safety-law-us-legislation?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

‘It’s our turn’: gun-safety advocates are riding a ‘seismic’ wave to US legislatures

A once-toxic topic is helping survivors and relatives of victims get elected to enact the laws they helped draft

The Guardian
Manchin urges lawmakers to stop acting in ‘attack mode’ amid political violence

Former senator’s comments echo recent call from Erika Kirk that ‘everyone has responsibility’ to tone down hatred

The Guardian

😂
#JimJustice, who also owns other businesses, was once considered to be West Virginia’s wealthiest resident. But more than $1bn of collective debt has resulted in his having a projected net worth of “less than zero” 🙄

Despite his financial troubles, Jim Justice served as WV’s governor for 8 years beginning in 2017. He then won election to the US Senate, taking over a seat vacated by the retirement of his fellow #WestVirginia #coal tycoon (and fake democrat) #JoeManchin
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/nov/25/jim-justice-west-virginia-back-taxes

Republican Jim Justice to pay $5m in back taxes following government lawsuit

Lawsuit filed in West Virginia maintained that Justice and his wife received notice of the funds due since 2009 but didn’t pay

The Guardian

#Wikipedia - Origin of the concept of a #SacrificeZone

"According to the United Nations Human Rights Council [#UNHRC], the term Sacrifice zone emerged in the #ColdWar period when #NuclearTesting, conducted by #colonial powers, such as the #UnitedStates, #France, the #UnitedKingdom, and the #SovietUnion transformed sections of land into #uninhabitable and highly #radioactive areas. Sacrifice zones can be defined as communities that experience dangerous levels of hazardous contamination and waste exposure. Sacrifice zones are linked to #racism, #oppression, #patriarchy, and #colonialism, as they are hubs of #pollution that disproportionately target and harm the physical and mental health of marginalized groups who face overlapping forms of #oppressions.

According to Helen Huntington Smith, the term was first used in the U.S. discussing the long-term effects of #StripMining #coal in the American West in the 1970s. The National Academy of Sciences/National Academy of Engineering Study Committee on the Potential for Rehabilitating Lands Surface Mined for Coal in the Western United States produced a 1973 report that introduced the term, finding:

In each zone the probability of rehabilitating an area depends upon the land use objectives, the characteristics of the site, the technology available, and the skill with which this technology is applied. At the extremes, if surface mined lands are declared national sacrifice areas, all ecological zones have a high probability of being successfully rehabilitated. If, however, complete restoration is the objective, rehabilitation in each zone has no probability of success.

Similarly in 1975, Genevieve Atwood wrote in Scientific American:

Surface mining without #reclamation removes the land forever from #productive use; such land can best be classified as a #NationalSacrifice area. With successful reclamation, however, surface mining can become just one of a series of land uses that merely interrupt a current use and then return the land to an equivalent potential productivity or an even higher one.

Huntington Smith wrote in 1975, "The Panel that issued the cautious and scholarly National Academy of Sciences report unwittingly touched off a verbal bombshell" with the phrase National Sacrifice Area; "The words exploded in the Western press overnight. Seized upon by a people who felt themselves being served up as 'national sacrifices', they became a watchword and a rallying cry." The term sparked public debate, including among #environmentalists and politicians such as future Colorado governor Richard Lamm.

The term continued to be used in the context of strip mining until at least 1999: '#WestVirginia has become an environmental sacrifice zone'."

#JoeManchin #BigOil #BigCoal #StripMining #EnvironmentalRacism #CoalMining #Appalachia #PollutionSacrificeZones #CorporateColonialism

Former U.S. senator and #WestVirginia governor #JoeManchin sits down with #JonStewart to discuss his memoir, “Dead Center: In Defense of Common Sense.” They talk about whether #centrism exists in the Trump era, Manchin’s experience working across partisan lines in the Senate youtu.be/vyZ9j44Kg4M?...

Former Sen. Joe Manchin - “Dea...
Former Sen. Joe Manchin - “Dead Center: In Defense of Common Sense” | The Daily Show

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Former Sen. Joe Manchin - “Dead Center: In Defense of Common Sense” | The Daily Show

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Former Sen. Joe Manchin - “Dead Center: In Defense of Common Sense” | The Daily Show

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Joe Manchin Drags Democrats, Trump's Larger Than Life Ballroom: Late Night's News of the Week

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