Meet Dollar Store Gilead’s New Governor, Patrick Morrisey

One of the things that may surprise you about Dollar Store Gilead’s new governor, Patrick Morrisey, is that he’s not from one of the family dynasties who have governed the state or served in the state or national legislatures. Instead, Morrisey is a carpetbagger from New Jersey.

Say what you want about the previous governor Jim Justice—and I have here at First Draft several times—he at least had a modicum of charm, even if it mostly came from his ever-present bulldog, Babydog. Morrisey is a nasty, mean little man, who can’t conjure up even the slightest bit of bonhomie.

Morrisey has been trying to get into politics his entire life, but until he carpetbagged to West Virginia, the voters consistently and overwhelmingly rejected him. He’s spent most of his life in law firms as a Big Pharna lobbyist. Oh and his wife is a lobbyist, too.

Now I thought that the whole point of MAGA was to root out swamp creatures, so it’s confusing to see MAGAts embrace swamp creatures wherever they can find them. The sad truth is that lots of people don’t know how to vote their own interests because they have been brainwashed by a steady diet of right wing media. It’s infuriating to see people who need government assistance vote to get rid of government assistance simply because some rich fuckers want even more money.

He did win the Attorney General race here in WV, and he was your anodyne generic Koch brothers/ALEX MAGAt. Tons of litigation to roll back protections for the environment, to make it easier for people to get guns, to weaken the ACA, etc. Oh and he sued to overturn the 2020 election. He’s a beauty, as we used to say.

And he’s a hypocrite.  Here’s his assessment of the Biden presidency, 11 days in:

Here’s what Morrisey did on Tuesday, his first full day in office:

Gov. Patrick Morrisey wasted no time on his second day in office Tuesday by signing several executive orders, ranging from ordering a review of all state rules and regulations to banning state funding for DEI programs and allowing for religious exemptions for vaccines.

Morrisey held his first press conference Tuesday morning in the Governor’s Reception Room at the State Capitol Building announcing the signing of eight executive orders that go into effect the same day. Morrisey said he was fulfilling promises made in his inaugural speech Monday.

“I think it’s really important that we demonstrate that we have a team in place that’s going to be aggressive, proactive, and we’re going to begin this transformational process to put West Virginia first and be that shining state in the mountains,” Morrisey said. “Today begins the process of effectuating those goals. We’re going to be trying to accomplish a lot. We will be swift, we will be decisive, and we will be doing more of these events coming up.”

He signed 8 of them.

The guy has a completely captive GOP statehouse majority—they hold both houses.  And this is the bullshit he wants to ram through:  banning DEI, allowing religious exemptions for vaccination requirements (newsflash:  no major religion prohibits vaccinations), and pushing money from public school funding to private schools via the Hope Scholarship which the WV GOP has plundered the last few years to prop up right wing Christian schools.

He’s pathetic and embarrassing. And we’re stuck with him. Thanks, New Jersey! Oh and the cover photo is his barely-attended inauguration.

New Jersey redeems itself with this, one of its great bands, Winter Hours. I love how much they sound like a band I included in yesterday’s post, Hunters & Collectors: