TooLong4Change

With the start of the WV Legislature’s session this month, Governor Morrisey gave the State of the State Address. He spoke about a vision for a prosperous state, but regularly brought politics into a federalized view, despite comments stating his intention to prioritize West Virginians. Some things to start of with:  The longest serving state senator, Donna Boley, is retiring. Senator Boley for a time was the sole Republican member of the Senate, showcasing the importance of a legislative opposition voice. Her retirement will lead to a loss of experience and leadership within the capital. In attendance at the Capital for the address were the parents of the WV National Gaurdswoman whom was murdered while in DC, prays to her family and to her recovering colleague. Additionally the governor praised the Gaurd broadly, and specifically for noticing a fire, and responding prior to emergency responders. Our National Gaurd are key to our Future, and our Youth’s understanding of responsibil...

  WV Guards Shot in DC I pray for the families who will spend this holiday season with a loved one, in hospital or planning their funeral. No member of the United States military should face death at home, particularly if as alleged by a former ally of our Armed Forces. It has been reported that during the deployment of the WV National Guard into Washington, DC two of our neighbors were critically wounded after being shot by an Afghani man who previously assisted members of our military in their missions in Afghanistan. No Motive for the shooting is confirmed. Our original promise to our Afghani allies, was to create a democratic republic with a stable government, then it was to provide them a path to safe refuge within our nation. Unfortunately, we failed at both, as the Taliban advanced we fled, leaving many Afghanis in harm's way. We have since scrambled to get some of our Afghani allies to the United States, and one of them is who apparently shot two national guard members, so ...

Press Release For Immediate Release WV Lobbying needs Reform and Accountability Recently the media has been reporting on a story regarding a man who was simultaneously working for the WV State Auditor, and served as President of a lobbying firm. This, of course, is incredibly dubious and unethical, but it took people pointing out that the situation may have been illegal for this individual to leave his position being paid $25/hour of taxpayer money. Due to loopholes in the laws of West Virginia, it is not clear whether this individual did actually violate state law, though I stand firm in saying that investigations into several potential violations should occur. Regardless of the legality of the actions taken by the State Auditor and his employee/campaign contributor, West Virginia must close any of the potential loopholes in the lobbying laws of West Virginia. If you are a lobbyist, I have little sympathy for you. I will listen to everyday people, and the grassroots organizations that...

Since I was a young teenager, I have openly expressed my desire to run for political office as a means of improving the world. Due to struggles with anxiety, depression, and financial difficulties over the years many of these runs never occurred. But in the background of life I've continued to develop policies for a better economy, keeping and improving our state's Wild and Wonderful environment, and how to appropriately approach these policies within the context of a government budget. A few weeks ago my voter registration was updated to allow me to seek the Democratic nomination for state House in district 51 in 2026. Despite this, I will always note my intention is to serve as an effective independent without caucusing with either major political party due to the expectation of caucus members to vote in line with party leadership. I am releasing this post, alongside a press release given to local media stations following approval as an official pre-candidate for State House ...

Congress has passed a rescission bill for the first time in a few decades, something that could certainly benefit the American taxpayer if such was formulated correctly. For starters, on the scale of the federal government's budget and debts $9-billion is not worth the time nor political capital needed to achieve such a bill's passage. A fiscally responsible approach to the budget would involve a larger overall cut to government spending, alongside either keeping tax rates steady or increasing tax rates and closing loopholes (preferably for those most capable of paying a larger portion). This $9-billion in cuts targets the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB), as well as foreign aid. The vast majority of the 9-billion figure does come from foreign aid programs rather than from the CPB, which while is a tough decision to be made is not the worst source for spending cuts. While the United States is capable of assisting international partners and the impoverished worldwide, I...

The state government of West Virginia has established a 'flood resiliency fund' which sounds great and proactive. However, for the past few years  our government has failed to place a single dollar into the fund, this despite the fact that individual members have proposed measures to put funds into the account including a recent attempt to transfer $50-million from our 'rainy day fund' that currently sits at $1.35- B illion. These proposals have consistently been rejected by many of the same people who decided to create the empty fund. As we have seen from our flash floods in the past decade (including in just the past few days/weeks), and recently in Texas' "flash flood alley" it is important that governments at the local, state, and federal levels do all that they can when it comes to extreme weather events. They must in order to prevent death, injury, and millions in property damages. Scientists, including meteorologists, predict increased and more seve...

Recently, my partner and I have attended two conventions. It took months of savings to do so and admittedly more debt than I would like as a result of some unfortunate financial situations I got into. A few months ago we attended Tsubasacon in Charleston, WV. Here my beautiful partner, Samara, was able to cosplay (or dress up as various characters) and looked wonderful while doing it. I got to meet many of her friends, fellow cosplayers, and a local small artist/craft maker and their partner. I am very happy to be able to consider them friends or acquaintances of mine to some degree or another. My partner and her friends being able to join together a couple of times to do panels where they could in effect do a little improv show in character. They are very talented individuals, which if you ever get the chance you should attend a panel of theirs or in the very least get a selfie with, in their cosplays.  During one of the panels at Tsubasacon, a meme/semi-inside joke was born with ...

As Israel and Hamas lead to the U.S. Military Industrial Complex’s leader’s eyeballs to turn to dollar signs the Republican Party in the U.S. House of Representatives fail to deliver the money to their bosses. As the United States seeks to fund wars in Ukraine and Israeli-Palestine/Palestinian-Israel we see a failure of political parties to show leadership. The Democrats fail us by financing war over American infrastructure, schooling, and investing in rural and poor communities. Republicans failing us by failing to provide stable leadership, financing those same wars, and failing to provide a fiscally responsible plan as promised.  The United States must withdraw from our supra-national policing, and work toward realistic, fact-based, peace-focused foreign policy. Not viewing every military conflict as a means to profiteer and bolster the military industrial complex. I want the starving fed, the homeless clothes, and infrastructure repaired but let’s focused on rural WV as well. I...

  Mid to Late December:   discovered discoloration of some parts of Ellwood, I believed this could have been excess water or even a lack of enough water due to certain plants needing a small amount during a winter dormancy & when purchased Ellwood's soil was completely dry. Experimented with soil water levels to little success. January 11:  The discoloration hadn't improved nor stopped so in search of finding a definitive answer I removed the foil around Ellwood's pot which did have excess moisture in it, which at the time excess water was the leading theory. I began tracking days to better track Ellwood and be better able to write this post about Ellwood.      January 12:  still deeply worried and not convinced that removing the foil was enough of a fix I try loosening the soil to allow better drainage of the water, but couldn't really do so. I pulled Ellwood out of the pot to see that unfortunately they'd become even more rootbound then when I ha...

So since I was a teenager I have been vocal about my plans to run for political office. I originally had planned to run for WV House of Delegates in 2020 when I would have been 19 years old. However, a bout of depression & anxiety made it to where I failed to work toward this goal and had planned to give up on my political career (despite remaining passionate). I would come out of this depression in early 2019 & take the advice of my high school Physics teacher (R.I.P.) to run for a municipal office prior to running for the legislature. As such 2019 became the year that I graduated high school with honors, started university, got my driver’s license, my mom battled cancer, & I ran for Oak Hill City Council, Ward 2. Due to how busy that year was & my anxiety/inability to campaign I did poorly. Since that point I have build my personal brand around my political ambitions, & regularly comment on current political events. And I  recently approached some friends of m...

I have had trouble developing hobbies over the years, but recently I have been working to develop things that interest me into hobbies. I know how to crochet & did some recent work on a project but haven't done so in a few weeks. I've been collecting Pokemon Cards, and been organizing them as I wish. And then something else I have been watching and thinking about trying my hand at, is the art of growing Bonsai Trees. So with crochet, I originally became interested and learned how to after seeing my grandma Kathy working on some pieces which became blankets/scarves for me and my cousins. I have never finished any project I began, but I plan to keep my current project ready for work until completed. This art is something I enjoy quite a bit, and I hope to have some pieces to show to my future children and/or future grandchildren. And my crochet knowledge did help me last night (Nov 27 to Nov 28, 2022) as I used a sewing kit to repair holes in a pair of jeans I own. Now sewing...

West Virginia is a wonderful state, that I want to see prosper.  However, that's difficult whenever there aren't enough careers available. As someone who is currently attending college and has a job, I know this quite well first hand. I applied to dozens of jobs, on and off for months, before getting the best job I have ever had working with some of the best people I have ever known. We had a period where everywhere was looking for workers, but nowhere was hiring.  And as a reminder this is for minimum wage to just above minimum wage work I am talking about right now. The kind of work that uses my future degree (business management with a marketing minor) is few and far between. In order to get a place of my own, in order to start a family, in order to survive the vast majority of my generation will be required to leave West Virginia for work. I'm sure previous generations struggled to find work, and had to work very, very hard; but the facts of the current economic statu...

So as is clear from my social media presence, I am deeply interested in politics, including running for political office. I am currently registered to vote as Unaffiliated/Nonpartisan/Independent, instead of as a member of a political party. This is not  because I am a moderate, nor a centrist, it is because I view political parties, in the least the ones in the United States as corrupt. Both major political parties accept dark money, corporate money, and don't really care about representing the will of the people. Further my beliefs tend to be outside of the establishment of each of the parties. I am a Social and Economic Leftist, and Fiscal Moderate which makes me not really work in the established parties who are Liberal and Conservative respectively. I have also struggled to find a minor/third party which I felt comfortable affiliating with. And of course there comes the issue of the logistics of being a political candidate. It isn't very likely to win an election, necessar...

Condolences to the Windsor family of the United Kingdom, following the death of their matriarch Elizabeth Alexandra Mary, better known as Queen Elizabeth the 2nd. Beloved around the world Elizabeth will be missed by many, the world knew her as the ever living embodiment of the Windsor family. Her son, Charles is now the inheritor of the vast lands, wealth, and jewels Elizabeth owned. Charles is a far more controversial figure, and will likely lead to movements to strip the Windsor family of their special status that has no real place in the modern world. The Windsors were made wealthy through the greed of their ancestors, slavery, and colonialism.  With Charles taking the title of King, we will likely see a drastic reduction in the scope of the monarchy, if not the complete abolition of the special status. Scotland is ruled by a nationalist party seeking to become independent from the nation, without Elizabeth acting as Head of State it only makes it more likely for them to leave. ...

So on Friday, I had an assignment in which I had to write a paper on teamwork, particularly in business settings, and how this one person said the three elements of an effective teammate were Humility, Hunger for Success, and Smarts as defined as emotional intelligence. And while that has already been written and submitted I was thinking back to last semester in my business simulation class. In that class we worked in teams to manage a business, one of the teams shared work but with one clearly defined leader, one team worked together without a leader and lacking an understanding of the simulation’s data, one team had a leader tasked with most of the work due to inactive team members, and my team selected me as CEO and we worked together on most decisions while trusting each other to make necessary decisions regarding particular aspects of the business which they managed to become skilled in over the course of the class. Clearly I don’t have as many details on the other teams, but that...

  Hair - Self Expression and General Thoughts So I recently got my haircut, by an amazing woman named Kellie who run a small business known as Hair by Kellie . It is way shorter than I had it previously, and what I thought I would want to end up with. That said, I like the cut I have and it is easier to take better care of my scalp and hair overall. But why would I make a blog post about hair if that's all I had to say? Well hair through my childhood was something I considered an afterthought, and I just got it cut however my parents decided to tell the person cutting it, even once old enough to express an opinion I didn't hold any. However, in the past few years, particularly after I cut my own hair and then when I started to wear it much longer then before I began to fall in love with my hair, viewing it as deeply connected to my self-expression. This was an interesting develop as my mom did struggle a lot during her battle with cancer about her self-expression feeling taken ...

So why am I even creating this? Well it's because I have recently been struggling with the fact that my social media presence is basically completely based around my political views. Don't get me wrong, I do think a lot about politics and deeply enjoy being involved in politics overall. Politics has been something I have grown more and more passionate about, and I do intend to run for political office (again) someday. However, I am more than just politics, which many people find boring or controversial, despite my own personal enjoyment. I am interested in business, having been studying business management in university since 2019, getting my degree this upcoming spring. I also care about gaming, and occasionally dip into fandoms of youtubers or shows of certain types. This blog will be an outlet for those topics, alongside politics, to take the place of social media posts. I regularly give long explanations, and struggle to with social media word limits. Too Long 4 Change, is ...