Steven Allen Adams – Conversations with Myself

Hey folks, sorry I haven’t been writing here much this week. In fact, I’m really sorry I left you with only the circumcision post to read. I know it must have been awkward, ha!

First of all, thanks to everyone who has gone to my news site, The West Virginia Examiner. Yesterday I posted a story about Sen. Jay Rockefeller’s push to give the president sweeping authority over private internet networks in the event of a “cyber emergency.” It was the fastest rising story in WVEx history, currently sitting at 415 hits. Helping me out was the beautiful Shelly Roche:

Shelly Roche is the CTO of BreakTheMatrix, the founder of Plenticulture, a frequent contributor to Freedom Watch with Judge Andrew Napolitano on FoxNews.com, and writes for her own blog at ByteStyle. In an email, Roche said that S.773 puts private companies at great risk.“It is true that they couldn’t actually shut down the internet in its entirety – all they can do is block traffic to/from certain networks. But the issue here is that they shouldn’t have the authority to shut down ANY private internet traffic,” said Roche. “Private companies have every incentive to keep their network security tight. If they don’t, they’ll go out of business. Government interference will only reduce security and add unwarranted burdens to businesses during a recession.”

(Rockefeller spokesperson Jessica) Tice said that anyone saying the bill gives the president power to pull the plug on private internet access is wrong.

“To be very clear, the Rockefeller-Snowe bill will not empower a government shut down or takeover of the internet and any suggestion otherwise is misleading and false,” stated Tice. “The purpose of this language is to clarify how the President directs the public-private response to a crisis, secure our economy and safeguard our financial networks, protect the American people, their privacy and civil liberties, and coordinate the government’s response.”The West Virginia Examiner – A WVEx Original: Rockefeller’s Internet Bill Raises Concerns

My thanks to Shelly Roche for being cool. She is one of my favorite libertarian voices out there.

This morning I broke a story that I am extremely proud of. For the past month I’ve been trying to figure out if ACORN, the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, is active in West Virginia. According to their website, they are not. But I found that odd; West Virginia is a majority Democrat state that is pro-union, so it would seem like a natural environment for ACORN to operate in.

It’s not as simple as that though, and it never is in WV. The Democrats in this state are mostly conservative, blue dog Democrats. There are a few left-wingers, but they stay mostly in the minority. Afterall, this state voted for Ronald Reagan, twice for George W. Bush, and voted overwhelmingly for John McCain over Pres. Barack Obama.

So ACORN, being a radical left-wing group, can’t operate openly in the state. But ACORN founder Wade Rathke, through the Tides Foundation where he sat as a board member until this year, has helped steer a quarter of a million dollars this decade to left-wing groups operating in West Virginia, including groups that openly protest coal mining, logging, and global warming.

Ah ha! That is the other reason ACORN isn’t active in West Virginia. ACORN is obviously very union friendly, but attacking coal mining puts them squarely against the United Mine Workers union. That wouldn’t look good for ACORN, so they have to operate under the radar.

Here is an excerpt from my story. Please read it and spread the link around:

Tides has donated $138,000 to West Virginia groups between 2008 and 2004. Receiving the largest of this cash was the group West Virginia Free ($120,000), a family planning and reproductive freedom organization which is hosting feminist Gloria Steinem Oct. 20, 2009, at the West Virginia Cultural Center. $3,000 was given to the Rainbow Community Center in Clarksburg, a lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender advocacy group.Two anti-coal groups were the recipients of Tides’ generous wealth. $40,000 was given to the group Appalachian Voices, a North Carolina-based grassroots activist group which protests mountaintop removal (MTR) in West Virginia, along with logging and carbon dioxide pollution. $15,000 was given to Coal River Mountain Watch, a West Virginia-based group which also protests MTR.

While Tides only funds a few anti-coal groups directly, the bulk of Tide’s funding is funneled through the Appalachian Community Fund, based out of Knoxville TN. Founded in 1987, the fund provides grants “to groups working for progressive social change in Central Appalachia (East Tennessee, Eastern Kentucky, Southwest Virginia and West Virginia), and to be a sustainable resource base for community organizing and social change work in this region.”

The Appalachian Community Fund between 2007 and 2001 gave $118,840 in grants to West Virginia organizations. $37,657 went to WV Free during that time, but $37,645 went to Coal River Mountain Watch and $26,227 went to the Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition. The West Virginia Examiner – A WVEx Original: ACORN’s Fingerprints on the Anti-Coal Movement

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