Why $ Appalachian politicians $ are making the news? -- including lewd conduct

hey folks welcome to episode 9 of the Appalachian Roundup today we're going to round up the news on Appalachian politicians why have Appalachian politicians been making the news what have they been up to let's find out now there's no way I can cover all the stories so I'm just going to look at the the things that most sold my attention we'll start off with the West Virginia legislature about 40 members of the House of delegates and I think 10 West Virginia Senators state senators all signed a letter that endorsed Trump for president now of course as you know Trump has been Trump has been indicted on 37 felonies still represents the symbol for the base uh particularly within West Virginia and particularly within the West Virginia Republican party other Appalachian politicians have been attacking federal policy on homelessness and making homes harder to access I mentioned this on the video I did on homelessness in Appalachia but uh JD Vance from Ohio you know he's the Appalachian elegy kid and then Andy Barr of Kentucky made news for attacking the federal housing first policy which primarily again I'm not defending the policy because I don't think it's necessarily been effective but the policy was geared toward placing a priority and putting people in homes first and then dealing things with things like addiction bar and Vance are doing are basically on one hand denying that economics plays a role in people being homeless on the flip side they're putting up obstacles to people actually getting homes they're attacking a home's first policy then they're kind of like putting in place a home second policy and Holmes comes secondary to things like drug treatment what this means according to the New York Times article quotes from Anne Oliva are the chief executive of the National Alliance to end homelessness she describes what Vance and Barr are doing as quote the attack on housing first is the first most worrisome thing I've seen in my 30 years in this field when people have a safe and stable place to live they can address other things in their lives if critics succeed in defunding these successful programs we're going to see a lot more deaths on the streets what have politicians of Appalachia been doing at least in this instance they're attacking Federal housing policies there's also politicians who fleece their own constituents as a whole range of those first West Virginia governor Jim Justice is a good place to start here he's one time noted by Forbes as the only billionaire in West Virginia although he's been downgraded no longer a billionaire but he's still a very very rich man his family owns and controls numerous businesses throughout the state and impacts economics in the state and around the state Justice made news back in 2018 when he and two of his company Bluestone Energy's sales Corp and Southern coal Court were sued by a company called X coal X Cole sued these companies over a breached contract basically these companies had agreed to deliver 720 000 net tons of metallurgical coal to uh to overseas buyers and the companies failed to follow through just X coal one in court and the judge ruled that Jim Justice and his companies owed X Cole about 10 million dollars now since then 8 million of that has been collected by X coal so there's about 2 million in outstanding um Court mandated fines and penalties and contractual obligations and fees that Jim Justice and his companies owe and so why did he make the news here more recently um Jim Justice basically X Cole is trying to get Jim Justice's financial documents to prove that Jim Justice can pay the last remaining two million dollars but Jim Justice is trying to prevent those documents from being released because Jim Justice is running for Senate and so but the judge has ruled that just because you're running for the Senate doesn't mean you're not obligated to pay your debts and it doesn't mean you can't be um that your financial documents can be disclosed if you're claiming you can't pay your debts okay so basically he's either got to pay his debts or show his financial documents I mean that's what it boils down to and the judge is saying you know do one of the other because you can't uh keep avoiding this um so he made the news there Jim Justice is also sued by the Department of Justice full government is trying to collect something like about seven million 7.6 million dollars in fines and unpaymental regulation fines as well as worker safety violations and unpaid fees kind of related Jim Justice was also in the in the news um because he owns 31 properties in Lee County Virginia and Jim Justice hadn't paid taxes on those I hadn't paid property taxes on those on those properties in a number of years and so since 2010 so Lee County um was auctioning off the 31 properties and these were mostly the properties that had mineral rights like coal and other ore rights gym Justice and his companies owed something like 224 602.82 cents to Lee County Virginia and they were going to collect it through auctioning off the properties and he made the news there and then West Virginia uh Democratic senator Joe manchin um he made the news for repeatedly failing to pay property taxes in West Virginia particularly in Marion County I believe but these were relatively small I think Mansion paid off something like 700 in unpaid taxes uh and in 2020 he made nearly 630 dollars in back taxes to the county for taxes he owed on cars boats and trailers from 2016 2017 and 2018. so it seems Mansion doesn't pay his local property taxes on and then finally the Kanawha County Commissioner Kent Carper he's been he made the news for lewd conduct apparently in Daniel Boone Park up in uh Charleston West Virginia he showed us penis to some lady and the woman called 9-1-1 and she recognized him as being Kent Carper and um you know he's being investigated by all that now and so one of the things that uh politicians of Appalachia have been doing have been going around engaging in lewd conduct [Music]