……..The latest poll in a local daily paper was interesting. It asked the question “Do you think Joe Manchin should run for president” and 64% of the respondents said yes. Yet poll after poll indicates Gov. Jim Justice would beat the pants off of Manchin in a Senate race. What is it? You would trust Joe with the responsibilities of the highest office in the US, but not the Senate. What about if Jim Justice ran for President (honestly I’d just like to have the sitcom rights if he did) You’d have Babydog with access to the hotbutton. A part of me really likes Justice for his frankness “Just wear the “””” mask,” but another part of me abhors that he and his family don’t pay their creditors. That’s arrogance and a flagrant disregard for those businesses and their employees’ finances.
……Meanwhile a headline on Metro News said Joe was “hitting the road”to travel the country to see if there is sufficient interest in a no labels presidential candidate. I love it because it showed him on his motorcycle ready to hit the country roads. Supposedly he and his daughter Heather Bresch are putting $500 million into a
campaign to see what the interest is. Heather was the President of Mylan Pharmaceutical who had a fake masters from WVU on her resume and was a very good friend of owner Mylan Puskar. A very good friend sent me a blog Mylan’s daughter did about Heather that was far from flattering, but I could seem to access it.
………Taking it local. Things are quiet on the election and legislative front, but I expect the teachers and public employees to erupt soon after the holidays over the rise in premiums for their insurance. Don’t be surprised if you begin to hear the word “strike” if there is pushback to a raise. The PEIA board is mandated by an 80/20 rule. When I went into the legislature in 1990, PEIA was grossly underfunded and the State was had just been through the mismanagement by former Treasurer A. James Manchin. I served on a PEIA select committee in 2000, and what we learned were there were no easy answers and yes there were going to be premium and copay increases to keep the plan solvent and somewhere along the way some slick politicians defended the lack of raises with the lack of premiums. The person who should be called to task on this is Jim Justice who touted the financial stability of our state. If we’re in such good shape we should give the teacher’s and public employees raisesl
………I keep waiting for the subject to come up and the commissioners to try to get their 1 percent back from the cities. It’s a lose lose even if I’m a county commissioner. The cities were grateful for the money and have projects waiting to fund. Do I want to have those voters mad or the supporters of the projects who aren’t going to be funded? I look for when the allocations are made the question to be asked?
……I usually try to have a theme for a column, but were I to theme this column it would be “Tamara is a hot mess.” Sometimes it takes a whole year to recognize what a mess we are and were. I took my Christmas decorations down last year in a daze, maybe a frenzy, January 1. Bill had died Dec. 15 and I just wanted the decorations out of sight. Near as I can tell, I took a giant garbage bag and Tupperware containers and just started tossing. Normally I have things labeled by rooms and then mantle, etc. This year there’s just a garbage bag full of garlands . There’s just no way to figure it out. I compensated by buying a three-foot reindeer whose antlers light up. Shannon tried to help by reminding me that it appeared that I had too many garlands and she had two mantles that could use a garland.
………It is Sunday and as we speak the contents are on the garage floor waiting for word on where their home will be this year.
………What’s one of your strongest Christmas memories. Each day, we’re going to feature someone’s memory. Send us your’s. Let’s start with me, cause I like to be first. “I was maybe eight-years-old when my Dad took me to Weirton to Christmas shop for my Mom. It was in the upper end of Weirton where Marantz’s used to be. The streets were filed with shoppers and I picked out a multi-colored glass set with a pitcher and Dad had it gift wrapped. When we came out it was snowing hard and you could see the graffitte and the snow mixed together. We were so close to the mill, that there was a glow in the air. I felt like I was in the most perfect Christmas movie in a big city.