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Tag: west virginia
GOP Legislators Undermine Public Health As Measles Spreads Across 15 States

GOP Legislators Undermine Public Health As Measles Spreads Across 15 States

West Virginia’s Republicans passed a bill through the House of Delegates on Monday that would allow religious exemptions for vaccines required for school attendance. The bill comes as dozens of measles cases across 15 states have been reported. The bill will now head to the state Senate for debate. If the bill passes, it would be the first nonmedical vaccine exemption allowed in West Virginia.

The bill began as a proposal to eliminate vaccine requirements for public virtual schooling, but it has expanded to allow private schools the right to decide whether to require vaccinations for their students. Whether the bill would allow parents to exempt their child from a public school’s vaccine mandate remains unclear at this time, according to analysis from ABC News.

The state GOP’s attempt to dismantle public health protections isn’t going over well with some West Virginians, though. Dr. Steven Eshenaur, the health officer for the Kanawha-Charleston health department, told the Associated Press, “It escapes sound reasoning why anyone would want to weaken childhood immunization laws. Our children are more important than any agenda that would bring these horrific diseases back to the Mountain State.”

Meanwhile, Republican-controlled Florida is in the midst of a measles outbreak at Manatee Bay Elementary School in Broward County. Seven of 10 statewide cases of measles have ties to the school, while the state’s Surgeon General Dr. Joseph Ladapo recently issued a letter that didn’t urge parents to make sure their children were immunized. Ladapo, who was appointed by Gov. Ron DeSantis, is best known for his vaccine denialism during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Democratic Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz of Florida has called for Ladapo to either resign or be fired. She said his handling of the Broward County outbreak has been “grossly irresponsible,” and calling Ladapo “a misinformation super spreader.”

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released data in November showing that national vaccination rates among kindergartners have yet to return to their pre-pandemic levels, making West Virginia’s flirtation with religious-exemption policies that much more troubling. Currently, children in West Virginia are required to have at least one dose of chickenpox, hepatitis B, measles, mumps, diphtheria, polio, rubella, tetanus, and whooping cough before entering K-12 school for the first time.

By leaning into the right’s anti-science movement, GOP-controlled states are encouraging a new normal that includes outbreaks of childhood diseases once thought to be eliminated more than two decades ago.

Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos.

coal miners joe manchin

Livid With Sen. Manchin, Coal Miners Say He's Turning His Back On Them

After DINO Senator Joe Manchin (D-WV) selfishly torpedoed President Biden's Build Back Better plan, sending the markets in a tailspin on Monday and leaving millions of working poor parents out in the cold, the faux democratic Senator did what he always does when opposing a very popular piece of legislation from his own party: run to the media and claim the bill would harm his West Virginia constituents.

Worse yet, Manchin came even closer to becoming a full-blown Republican when he falsely claimed that parents would use the Child Tax Credit to buy drugs. One can make an argument that it's not the government's job to subsidize your family, especially when single working-class Americans aren't getting any such relief, but it's beyond disingenuous and ugly to believe that the monies are being used on drugs.

But the United Mine Workers are telling Manchin it’s time he works for them and support this bill.

"We urge Senator Manchin to revisit his opposition to this legislation and work with his colleagues to pass something that will help keep coal miners working, and have a meaningful impact on our members, their families and their communities,” Cecil Roberts, president of the United Mine Workers of America, said in a statement Monday. These workers are justifiably sacred about job security and want help now. Build Back Better, for example, includes several tax incentives—which Manchin's Big Coal donors are fighting—to encourage manufacturers to build new facilities at the coal site and hire unemployed miners.

Manchin's opposition means “the potential for those jobs is significantly threatened,” Roberts said. And Phil Smith, the union’s chief lobbyist, highlighted this provision in an interview with The Washington Post’s Greg Sargent, saying the bill would “provide a better chance of helping workers who will be dislocated by our transition to a decarbonized future—a dislocation that will likely continue either way—than not passing BBB will.” Adding, the bill “provides the potential for good jobs that our members who have been dislocated can get,” Smith said

These coal miners are not just upset with Senator Manchin's blatant disregard for the economic livelihoods, but they also believe in voting rights--a provision in BBB--and want him to get on board with that as well.

“I also want to reiterate our support for the passage of voting rights legislation as soon as possible, and strongly encourage Senator Manchin and every other Senator to be prepared to do whatever it takes to accomplish that,” Roberts said in the statement. “Anti-democracy legislators and their allies are working every day to roll back the right to vote in America. Failure by the Senate to stand up to that is unacceptable and a dereliction of their duty to the Constitution.”



In short, these coal miners vigorously believe in the BBB and are not going to let one Senator's massively large ego get in the way of their survival.

West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice

‘Keep Lining Up Body Bags’: GOP Governor Warns On Vaccine Refusal

Reprinted with permission from Alternet

West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice (R) has a message for the residents in his state that refuse to get vaccinated.

On Friday, September 17, Justice held a press conference to appeal to residents as vaccination rates in the state remain stagnant. With just 45 percent of residents vaccinated, West Virginia is still a state with one of the lowest vaccination rates in the United States, Justice is hoping people will begin to take COVID vaccination seriously.

He also made it clear what could happen if people continue to refuse vaccination.

"We're going to run to the fire and get vaccinated right now, or we're going to pile the body bags up until we reach a point in time to where we have enough people that have natural immunities and enough people that are vaccinated," he said.

Justice made it clear yet again that if eligible individuals do not get vaccinated, "they'll keep dying" and "we're just going to keep lining the body bags up and we're going to line them up and line them up."

At the time, Justice made his disappointment clear as he expressed frustration and concern about those who are still unvaccinated. The Republican governor also emphasized that there is no longer time to make a decision.

"It's too late, West Virginia. It's too late for you to decide, you know, 'Oh, we should have gotten vaccinated.' You can't stop this now, what's happened in West Virginia. But you can still save your own life, or lives that are around you, by getting vaccinated."

Justice's latest press conference follows his remarks a few weeks ago in response to the conspiracy theories about the vaccine. At the time, Justice weighed in on the bizarre "microchip" theory.

"Why in the world do we have to come up with these crazy ideas—and they're crazy ideas—that the vaccine's got something in it and its tracing people wherever they go?"

To improve the state's vaccination statistics, the state of West Virginia has even resorted to offering incentives and prizes to encourage residents to get vaccinated.

West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice

‘For God’s Sake’: GOP Governor Rips ‘Crazy’ Vaccine Conspiracies

Reprinted with permission from Alternet

With one of the lowest COVID vaccination rates in the United States, West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice (R) has been fighting an uphill battle to get residents vaccinated in his state. The Republican governor has also dealt with his fair share of conspiracy theories which have also created more barriers getting residents to take the jab.

Unlike some members of his party, though, Justice — who ran for office as a Democrat before switching parties — is pushing back against Covid misinformation. On Wednesday, September 8, the governor appeared for his daily briefing where he addressed the conspiracy theories surrounding the COVID vaccine as he lambasted the bizarre ideologies.

"For God's sakes a livin', how difficult is this to understand?" Justice said during his daily briefing on Wednesday. "Why in the world do we have to come up with these crazy ideas — and they're crazy ideas — that the vaccine's got something in it and it's tracing people wherever they go?"

Justice's remarks stem from previous reports about the bizarre claim. Back in May, reports began circulating about the microchipping conspiracy which has been linked to Microsoft business magnate Bill Gates. According to BBC News, "a new YouGov poll of 1,640 people suggests that 28 percent of Americans believe that Bill Gates wants to use vaccines to implant microchips in people - with the figure rising to 44 percent among Republicans."

The publication also notes: "Rumours took hold in March when Mr. Gates said in an interview that eventually 'we will have some digital certificates' which would be used to show who'd recovered, been tested and ultimately who received a vaccine. He made no mention of microchips."

That one quote led to the rapid circulation of an article with a headline that read, "Bill Gates will use microchip implants to fight coronavirus." Conspiracy theorists claimed the so-called microchips are a way for the government to keep track of Americans.

However, according to HuffPost, Justice highlighted the one major flaw in the conspiracy theory: the government does not need microchips to know the whereabouts of Americans when the vast majority of Americans carry cell phones. "The same very people that are saying that are carrying their cellphones around," he said. "I mean, come on."

The spread of misinformation and conspiracy theories has greatly contributed to vaccine hesitancy among Americans, mostly members of the Republican party. However, the Biden administration is still working to get Americans vaccinated.