Election fraud, animal torture and wrecks on the interstate

We need a few new laws in West Virginia.

Here’s the first one: If a candidate runs for governor as a member of one political party – and gets elected primarily because he claims to represent the platform of that party – it shall be illegal for him to change party affiliation for at least four years. Further, said governor shall be held accountable for his actions during those four years and subject to a recall referendum by voters if he strays demonstrably from the platform that the voters chose.

There shall also be penalties for violating this new law. For example, if any governor – let’s call him, say, Jim Justice – campaigns and is elected as a Democrat and then switches parties before the ink is dry on his first proclamation, he shall be arrested for election fraud and bound over for trial in a West Virginia circuit court. I mean, what could be more fraudulent than intentionally and maliciously misleading voters into thinking you will support their agenda, then turning your back on them as soon as you have collected their votes?   

What’s even worse, our new Republi-Cratic governor has gone all-in for the pseudo-Republican faux-president of the United States, so much so that he’s now trying to out-stupid and out-dictator Donald Trump, as if that were even possible. Want proof?

On Saturday, it was reported that rising prices for construction materials as a result of tariffs instituted by Trump are threatening to derail major road projects in the state. A Wheeling bridge project, for one, is now estimated to cost $100 million more because of the tariff-inflated cost of steel.

Let me say that again: The project is now one hundred million dollars over budget.

When House of Delegates Minority Leader Tim Miley sent a letter to Governor Justice warning him about the effect of Trump’s tariffs, Justice replied with a Trump Administration talking point. The exchange went like this:

Miley: “If the trend continues, this will greatly limit the number of projects that can be completed with funding through the ‘Roads to Prosperity’ program. I sincerely hope that the public was not misled on the costs and number of the projects that the state will be able to complete….”

Justice: “Steel price or steel tariffs, they could have possibly hurt West Virginia and they could hurt in certain ways. However, the overall net gain in the end will be unbelievable for this country. Our president, all he wants to have happen is fair play.”

In other words, “Trump good, tariffs good, make American great and let the people of West Virginia pay the price.” I don’t believe a Democratic governor who actually was a Democrat would stake out a similar position.

If that isn’t bad enough for you, during the same news conference Justice came perilously close to endorsing Trump’s “fake news” fantasy and his “enemy of the people” criticism of the press when he accused the Charleston Gazette-Mail of driving people away from West Virginia by printing “negative” stories about him and the state.

He called an opinion piece written by one of the newspaper’s editors “garbage,” and attacked the author of the column directly. Pointing to the “very very tip” of his little fingernail, Justice said, “I would tell you that I have cared for, done more, and loved more for the state of West Virginia and its people than this guy will do in his lifetime.”

Does that mean that Justice thinks the writer is an “enemy of the people” of West Virginia? You can be the judge.

Here’s another law that needs changed: A Marion County man was arrested last week for misdemeanor animal cruelty after stuffing his blind, aging dog into a cooler bag, weighting it down with books and throwing it into a ditch behind an abandoned power plant. The dog would have died if the bag hadn’t been spotted by a good Samaritan walking his own dog in the area.

Winston

The good news is, the dog – now named Winston – was immediately taken to the Marion County Humane Society, where he is recovering from the ordeal and a fund has been started to pay for cataract surgery to help restore some of his sight.

The bad news is, the animal cruelty charge “is not considered a felony because he did not put the dog in the bag for his own amusement, he did not mutilate the dog and the dog did not die,” officials said. In other words, terrorizing an old, blind dog by zipping it into a small bag, throwing it over a hill and leaving it to starve to death does not constitute torture under state law.

As it stands, the misdemeanor charge could carry a sentence of up to six months in jail and a fine between $300 and $2,000...but rarely do offenders serve jail time in these cases. And that’s why this law needs to be changed to make any kind of animal abuse that rises to this level of torture a felony punishable by substantial jail time and a hefty fine.

I would advocate for poking out the offender’s eyeballs and hoisting him off the New River Gorge Bridge in a suitcase, but I don’t think that’s going to happen.

And finally: We need to lower the speed limit on Interstate 79 to either 55 or 60 miles an hour. We need to do this immediately, because there’s an accident on that roadway virtually every day (there were two big ones yesterday alone) and I’m told by police who patrol the road that careless driving at excessive speed is the principal cause of these accidents. Also, for some reason, motorists have lost the ability to control a vehicle when it rains.

I drove I-79 from Fairmont to Morgantown and back every day for seven years, and later from Morgantown to Fairmont and back for 11 years, so I spent 18 years of my working life commuting in one direction or the other on the 11-mile stretch of interstate between the two towns. I did it in rain, snow, sleet, fog and wind and I never saw but a handful of wrecks in all of that time. Plus, traffic was much lighter than it is today.

Like most motorists, I drove 10 miles over the speed limit – meaning I went 65 m.p.h. for most of that time – in the belief that the police will “give you” those 10 for free. But now, with the speed limit set at 70, most people are driving 80 (or faster) and the number of wrecks is off the charts. If you set your cruise control at 70 and drive along I-79, cars will pass you like you’re standing still.

So here’s the new law: If 70 is deemed to be the safe speed, and if drivers generally “cheat” above the limit by 10 m.p.h., we need to reduce the established speed limit to 60. Then everyone will go 70 anyway and that’s where we wanted them to be in the first place. Problem solved.

Of course, it still doesn’t fix the problem of people who can’t drive when it rains. I’d suggest that more stringent driver’s tests are required with refresher exams every two-to-five years, and follow-up testing on rainy and snowy days wouldn’t be a bad idea, either.

Seriously, am I the only one who thinks about these things?