About Heather

The Gazette does a good job today of reminding us that the person who actually started all of this — the “Heather” behind Heathergate — is still doing just fine, thank you, in her fancy, multi-million dollar out-of-state job.

It’s worth going back to ponder exactly what Heather did. It’s jaw-droppingly amazing, actually: Heather had one conversation with Paul Speaker where she alleges that he agreed to excuse her from HALF of her MBA coursework so she could be free to jet set around the country for her dear old friend Mike Puskar. (Course work for a graduate degree? Seriously, who can be burdened with such a quaint inconvenience?) She never ever follows up. She never makes a phone call, never sends an email, ANYTHING. She just begins representing herself as someone who has earned an MBA.

And gosh by golly, when someone dared to question her about it, she actually said that her word was “better than any transcript,” and that for anyone to accuse her of not earning an MBA degree was “offensive.”

Offensive.

Seriously, people — who the fuck does that? WHO? Certainly not a reasonable person:

“No student should have a reasonable basis to conclude that he or she could or would be excused from so many outstanding credit and course obligations simply upon the basis of a single meeting without any follow-up.”

This really was one of the most shocking parts of the report, and it deserves more attention. If Heather really, honestly thought she had earned an MBA degree, that means she is either 1, dumber than a bag of hammers, or 2, because she’s HEATHER FUCKING MANCHIN, she feels a sense of privilege and entitlement that is SO deep and SO great, that literally, people like you and me cannot comprehend it.

I guess that’s what happens to your head when your entire family’s “success” is built on generations of political power.

And about that political power: it should turn your stomach to think that the Manchins used the state university — paid for by tax dollars and sky-high tuition — to get their daughter a fake MBA, and now she’s LITERALLY making 100 times what the average West Virginian makes in a year. And because she’s too good to live in West Virginia, we don’t even get a dime of that back in taxes. All we get is a big ugly scandal.

And all over a degree that Heather actually says (probably truthfully) that she never really needed. But it’s not about what she needed — she’s never needed anything in her entire life.

It’s all about what Heather MANCHIN thinks she deserves.

___________________

People still ask me what I think drew the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette to this story in the first place. Was it a tip? Who the hell knows. But let’s consider the obvious:

Most news junkies remember that Wall Street became concerned when Mylan — a company that contrary to popular belief, is actually headquartered right outside of Pittsburgh — bought up the generic arm of Merck. (Which incidentally, happened around the exact same time that Heather Bresch was promoted to COO.) Overnight, Mylan became a much larger company. A lot of people thought (and still think) that Mylan may have bit off more than it can chew. And investors are still unsure if the company’s leaders — including Heather Bresch — have it in them to run such a large operation.

Why, you might ask? Forget the fact that she doesn’t have an MBA. She doesn’t have a COO’s resume period. I challenge you to find ANY company of similar size in America that has ever promoted its Director of Public and Government Relations (business speak for “Head of Lobbying”) directly to Chief Operating Officer. It just doesn’t happen. We’re talking about 2 entirely different jobs, and 2 ENTIRELY different skill sets.

Directors of Public and Government Relations are almost always politically and socially connected schmoozers who know how to arrange political favors for their company. In other words, a pretty good job for a Manchin. The COO on the other hand, is literally the person chiefly responsible for managing the day-to-day operations of the corporation. It’s about as nuts and bolts of a job as it gets.

So. If you’ve ever wondered why anyone would take a second look at Heather Bresch’s resume — wonder no more.

WHY IS JOE MANCHIN RUNNING YOUR CHILDREN OUT OF STATE?

It’s time to take a hard look at the real Joe Manchin, West Virginia. If you’re a parent or grandparent — and if you’re worried that your kids or grandkids won’t be able to find work in West Virginia — you won’t like what you see.

Joe Manchin’s bullies on the WVU Board of Governors are telling honest West Virginia teenagers they’re not welcome in their own home state — BECAUSE THE KIDS TOLD THE TRUTH.

In case you don’t know, Joe Manchin appoints and controls the WVU Board of Governors. And you’ve probably heard about the Manchin master’s degree scandal. Joe Manchin’s daughter makes $3 million a year working for an out-of-state drug company. Not long ago, a newspaper found out she’s been lying for 10 years about having a master’s degree. But Joe Manchin’s buddy Mike Garrison — Joe Manchin’s handpicked president of WVU — covered it up.

That’s right. They faked a master’s degree for Joe Manchin’s daughter. Independent investigators found out that they’d made up grades OUT OF THIN AIR to give Joe Manchin’s daughter a degree she never earned. And Joe Manchin’s daughter kept her $3 million a year, out of state job.

Then, believe it or not, the Manchin master’s degree scandal got even uglier. Some honest WVU students felt duty-bound to speak out against the dishonest things Manchin’s men were doing. And what thanks did they get?

Here’s what: Joe Manchin’s handpicked, grown-up bullies on the Board of Governors are telling those teenage kids to GET THE HELL OUT OF WEST VIRGINIA, FOREVER. They’re threatening these kids that they’ll never be able to work in West Virginia. Because those brave, honest students dared to speak truth to Joe Manchin’s absolutely corrupt power.

I can’t even begin to put into words how disgusting that is.

Joe Manchin’s thugs on the Board of Governors are a bunch of fifty-something crooks. They’re multimillionaires. They live in houses in South Hills and on Cheat Lake — huge houses like you and I will never set foot inside of.

Now think back to when you were 19 years old. You might have kids or grandkids around that age. At nineteen, you’re nothing but fragile dreams and paralyzing fears. Dreams of making a decent life for yourself in the place where you were born. West Virginia, for most of us. And fears that something will go wrong. That you’re not up to the task. That you don’t know the right people, or how to do what you need to do to succeed.

Now imagine — and this is no stretch for those of us not named Manchin or Goodwin or Garrison — that your parents raised you to do the right thing. To value honesty and integrity above all else. To take a stand when you see a crook doing something wrong. So when you find out your school gave a FAKE master’s degree to the daughter of the most powerful man in West Virginia — just because she’s a politically-connected multimillionaire — you speak up. You say it’s wrong and demand that the men responsible be held accountable.

Then a few days later, some slick-faced, fifty-year-old millionaire thug like Steve Goodwin or Parry Petroplus sends you a message. “Your dreams are dead, son.” Pack your bags and move on. You can’t stay in West Virginia. Joe Manchin’s men will make sure you NEVER find work here. So get the hell out and don’t come back.

You’re nineteen years old. One of the richest, most powerful men in West Virginia has just kicked you out of the state where generations of your family have lived and died. The state where, in all likelihood, your dad and granddad left to go to war and came back to raise a family. The state where you dreamed of raising your own kids, just like they did.

You know that the rich man can do what exactly he says he can. Because he’s a Manchin Man, and the Manchin Men own West Virginia. To the Manchins and the Goodwins, the generations worth of sweat and blood that your family’s poured into this soil don’t mean a damn thing. They’ll grind you under their heel just as casually as they take a piss. They’ve done it before. And so you have to leave home, just because you did the right thing. Because Joe Manchin’s men said you’re not welcome here any more—not if you speak up and say Joe Manchin’s daughter should have to earn her degree just like everyone else.

This isn’t fiction, Mom and Dad. This is dead-serious reality. This is the Real Joe Manchin. This is the Governor you voted for. Politico Joe thinks you’re just one more dumb hick. He tells you he wants to keep your kids here at home because he knows that’s what you want to hear. But the real Joe Manchin — his millionaire bully boys tell your kids to get the hell out of West Virginia the second they’re honest enough to call things like they see them. Because that’s the one sin that Joe Manchin can’t forgive: HONESTY.

Folks, this is your state just as much as it is Joe Manchin’s. So answer me this: what right do Joe Manchin and his millionaire bullies have to tell your kids they’re not welcome in West Virginia? Just because you raised your kids to tell the truth?

********

If you don’t yet fully appreciate what Joe’s in for, fast forward to the Senate race four years from now. Joe will have real opponents then, opponents with millions to spend pounding this story and a dozen others like it into the head of every voter in West Virginia. And in all likelihood, Mike Garrison will still be sitting in Stewart Hall, a big, fat, living reminder that Joe Manchin’s multimillionaire board members threatened to ruin the lives of the honest kids who spoke up against the Manchin degree scandal. Wanna guess what the big-hitting GOP political consultants will do with that, when the stakes are a Senate seat in a state that hasn’t had a Republican senator since Ike was president?

The Dogs That Didn’t Bark, Part II

2. The West Virginia Democratic Party

Forget about Republicans (at least until the next post). What about West Virginia’s Democrats?

Between Goodwin’s rigged search, Garrison’s installation as president, and his subsequent manufacturing of a degree for former boss Heather Bresch, we’ve been witness to some of the most brazen acts political corruption since the days of Arch Moore. Things like this only come down the pike every so often.

This is the kind of stuff that an enterprising — or dare we admit it, opportunistic Democratic politician could build a career on. You could really make a name for yourself. Because if there’s anything voters love, it’s corruption busting, crime fighting do-gooders. There’s absolutely no reason why West Virginia Democrats should not or could not be out there every single day giving speeches and cranking out press releases to stoke the fires of voter outrage.

But West Virginia’s Democrats have chosen to sit mute. Why? What do they have to lose?

I already know what you’re thinking. But there are a couple things you people need to understand. First of all, everyone needs to get over their perception of Joe Manchin being some sort of powerful political genius. He’s not that smart — like his daughter, he’s never had to be. And he’s not a particularly great politician — he’s certainly not his Uncle Jimmy, that’s for damn sure — again, because he’s never had to be. Joe is ONLY where he is today because his Daddy and family were political bigshots in Marion county decades ago. We’re talking about a guy who’s probably never had a real job in his entire life. His entire life is built on his family’s political influence — that, and nothing else.

Which leads to the second point – Joe Manchin isn’t the popular guy you probably think he is. Most observers just assume that Joe Manchin is the Democratic party in West Virgina. But they’re wrong. I’d go as far to say that the majority of Democratic politicians in West Virginia don’t even like Joe Manchin — they just tolerate him. If you wonder why, see the previous paragraph. And then think about who Manchin supported for governor waaaaay back in 1997: Cecil H. Underwood. Manchin campaigned vigorously for the guy, and in most circles is still seen as a backstabbing turncoat. It’s not the kind of thing politicians get over. Ever.

Now at this point, Manchin’s role in Garrison’s installation and Heathergate remain shrouded. And that’s mostly because no one has bothered to poke around. But it doesn’t take a political genius to figure out what was really going on, and it certainly wouldn’t take a political genius to exploit Manchin’s impropriety, or the appearance thereof, for his or her own political gain. I’m not even talking about running Manchin out of office — I’m just saying that if an enterprising politician wanted to get on the news every night, and in the paper every morning all over the state, speaking out against Heathergate would be a good way to do it

So to any young, enterprising Democrat out there with dreams of holding statewide office who’d like to take this on, but fears of getting smacked down by the machine — please, give it a second thought. Hell, I’ll even volunteer to write press releases for you.

Now is your chance.

The Dogs That Didn’t Bark, Part I

1. A Mylan shareholder suit against Heather Bresch.

That’s right. Mylan shareholders are allowed to sue Heather Bresch personally for bringing down the price of their stock.

I don’t know how many of you realize this, but Mylan stock is worth less than half of what it was 2 years ago. It has fallen most sharply in the time since Heather Bresch became COO, and it really began to nosedive when people found out about her little lie. All the while, Heather continued to take home MILLIONS in compensation.

It wouldn’t be hard to find a good plaintiff, either — perhaps a sweet old West Virginia school teacher who lost a big chunk of her retirement by investing in Mylan back when it was worth 3 times what it is now.

For the life of me, I can’t figure out why this hasn’t happened yet. Mylan would pay ANYONE who had the balls to do it a million dollars just to go away. Why? To keep things out of discovery, that’s why. Mark my words — they’re scared fucking to death of discovery. Just IMAGINE what would happen if the discovery possess uncovered something like a letter from WVU to Heather Bresch reminding her that she needs to finish up her degree before her credits expire. There’s almost certainly a piece of paper somewhere that shows that she knew that didn’t finish the degree. And god help her if it ever turns up.

Sometimes I Doubt Your Commitment to Sparkle Motion

Read this carefully: I’m not saything that WVU, or the College of Business and Economics have given away 72 bogus degrees over the past several years.

Mike Garrison and Alex Macia are saying it.

Garrison’s people have been shopping this story around for over a week now. It’s not exactly a secret.

Alex Macia himself was going around during last week’s interim legislative session telling just about anyone who would listen about these “72″ bogus degrees.

I’m not saying that these “72 degrees” are bogus, either. MIKE GARRISON AND ALEX MACIA are. If there’s any truth to what they’re saying at all (what, these people lie?), it’s almost certainly along the lines of what readers have suggested in the comments: discrepancies over a handfuls of credits and / or minor clerical errors. In other words, apples and oranges.

Who knows if there’s any truth to what they’re alleging. The real point here is that THESE PEOPLE ARE WILLING TO BRING DOWN THE ENTIRE UNIVERSITY TO STAY IN POWER.

But now that the cat’s out of the bag, let’s hope that they think twice about their next move. I for one, would be just as happy if next week goes by and we don’t hear a damn thing about this from Stewart Hall.

Mike Garrison: A Leader Like No Other

I’m willing to bet that Micheal S. Garrison was the only university president in the United States of America who attended, but did not speak at his own school’s commencement ceremony Saturday.

How sad. It’s Garrison’s very first commencement as President — and he’s too scared to address the very people he’s charged with leading for fear of being summarily booed. What a pathetic coward this man is.

He is unable — and unwilling to lead. There’s really no greater indication of the fact that Mike Garrison’s term as President is absolutely over.

“The group that met at WVU today”

Let’s talk about that “group.”

Of the 1800 or so faculty members, 200 to 300 are off-campus — many of them hundreds of miles away. And WVU’s administration made it very clear that no concessions would be made to allow them to attend the Assembly.

About 500 more of the faculty are clinicians with patient care responsibilities — which is a fancy way of pointing out that most of them weren’t allowed to attend the Assembly either.

So of the faculty members who were realistically able to attend the Assembly — a vast majority of them showed up. And all but a handful of them demanded Garrison’s resignation. Again: 565 in favor of resignation, 39 against and 11 abstentions.

This can’t be repeated enough: even if a full quorum of 900 had showed up, and the same 565 faculty members voted in favor of Garrison’s resignation — the motion would have passed by 63%.

THE FACULTY HAVE SPOKEN.

Hell — so has Hoppy.

It’s over, Mike. You lost.

(Thanks to the commenters who basically wrote this post for me.)

HUNDREDS OF WVU FACULTY DEMAND GARRISON’S RESIGNATION

565 in favor of resignation, 39 against and 11 abstentions.

First, a profound debt of gratitude is owed to the hundreds of brave faculty members who risked their very livelihoods by standing up to WVU’s derelict and tyrannical leaders.

Second, congratulations are in order — to Mike Garrison. He’s managed to achieve what no other university president has — THREE VOTES OF NO CONFIDENCE. Great job, Mike!

Just for fun, do a Google search for “university president ‘no confidence‘” to get an idea of the type of company President Mike is in.

But this is hardly over.

No doubt Boss Garrison and his handlers busy working with their big money PR firms to prepare his next bullshit response. Garrison stubbornly hangs on despite an unprecedented THREE VOTES OF NO CONFIDENCE, and in the process, continues to bring shame upon the University, its students, faculty and graduates. He’s all too happy to keep dealing damage to the hopes and accomplishments of others in order to preserve what might be left of his future political future.

And no doubt, we’ll be asked to wait until the next Board of Governors meeting, so that the same 18 people who have done nothing but abused the university’s resources for their own private gain, the same 18 pieces of shit who shamelessly turned WVU into the whore of the academic world can go behind closed doors in a last-ditch attempt to save face.

No doubt we’ll be asked to take even more time, and have more discussion.

NO CONFIDENCE. THREE times.

What more is there left to discuss or debate? FIRE MIKE GARRISON — only then can we move on.

ENOUGH

BREAKING: Garrison has appointed Jane Martin, former Dean of Nursing, as Interim Provost — in an attempt, no doubt, to take the heat off himself. Good luck with that.

Now. From reading the hundreds of comments, it’s clear that a lot of you people sound a lot like battered wives. I don’t mean that in a derogatory way, but–

Think about that.

Look guys — it’s now or never. Either stand up to Garrison today, or start stocking up on lube. Because if this guy stays, the only thing you can count on is getting totally fucked.

So get your ass to the assembly. FIND A WAY. Cancel appointments. Break prior engagements. Unless you’re bleeding hard from the head, you have no excuse. The Faculty Senate BRAVELY stood up — now it’s your turn.

Enough of this whining on the internet. IT IS TIME FOR ACTION. Hit them back. Let the bullies know you’re NOT GOING TO TAKE IT ANYMORE.

Oh, and report back.

Tomorrow Is The Most Important Day in the History of WVU

Mike Garrison hangs on by a thread. The whole world mocks him—a bloated, rasping bully, painfully out of his depth. In the spotlight’s glare, he’s so godawful embarrassing that I almost feel sorry for him. He desperately wants to sound like a university president, but he just doesn’t have the brains for it. It turns out he’s not even much of a politician, at least when dealing with people who he can’t pay off or strong-arm. He gives one wrong, dumb, unbelievable answer after another. If you’ve seen or read his interviews, you know what I mean—the attention from this scandal has permanently unmasked him as a mediocre fraud, wildly inadequate to the job he stole and the mess he’s made of it.

And now, out of nowhere, his patron Goodwin has quit. The Gazette has gotten religion in the eleventh hour. WVU is losing millions of dollars in donations. He faces a third no-confidence vote in less than a year. Boss Garrison is in dire straits.

But he still figures time is on his side. School’s almost out. More important, the scandal is running out of newsworthy events. On Wednesday, the University Assembly will vote no-confidence and demand his resignation. He’ll respond with a statement that some high-dollar Washington PR firm is no doubt writing, on WVU’s dime, as I type these words. (It’s probably Joe Carey’s firm, which leads me to digress: if anyone with access to a grand jury happens to be reading this, ask around about Joe Carey using the state plane as a taxpayer taxi to visit his fancy girlfriend in NYC, after a postcoital Wise flew the coop to Sandy’s doghouse and left the kids in the Governor’s office totally unsupervised. In fact, ask if Bob Wise knew about it. That worthless shitbag would literally piss his Fruit-of-the-Looms if he got a federal target letter — and he certainly deserves to wet himself after ending his richly deserved exile just to defend Garrison.) Garrison will promise more pay raises and daycare centers and “healing.” And then things will quiet down. He will have been pushed to the very brink, but he will live to fight another day.

That’s Garrison’s endgame.

The faculty — AND ONLY THE FACULTY — can stop him from getting away with it. Let’s not delude ourselves about a criminal investigation or a legislative review. The political cesspool that created this problem isn’t going to solve it. The faculty are the only organized force with the independence and the courage to stand up to Garrison (and more important, to Manchin, who’s the real reason the political class is afraid to take this on).

That’s why tomorrow, when the University Assembly votes on Garrison, is the most important day in WVU’s history. Because if Garrison survives this — after giving away a master’s degree as a naked political favor, like a job holding a STOP/SLOW sign in Logan County — then whatever is left of WVU as an “academic” institution will be gone. The precedent will be set: The governor, the president, and the board can use WVU as their personal slush fund and political machine, right out in the open, with no fear of repercussions. And make no mistake: as soon as the spotlight’s off, Garrison will gut those who opposed him. NO JOB AT WVU WILL BE SAFE. Multimillionaire Julian Bailes and goons like him will be free to roam campus handing out pink slips and demanding fealty to Garrison — or else. Even worse, a whole generation of budding politicos will begin bidding to be the next politician-president of WVU, knowing that the one who can harness the university’s budget and prestige to his own political ends will come out on top. It’s no exaggeration to say that if Mike Garrison can pull this off, WVU will never be the same again.

We’re at a crossroads, friends.

At a minimum, the Assembly has to vote overwhelmingly in favor of Garrison’s resignation. That’ll put the story back in the national news for another cycle. But if all the faculty do is vote no-confidence and then fall silent, it won’t be enough to force Garrison out.

Instead, to win this fight — and to save my alma mater — the faculty have to use unconventional measures to keep the story in the news. Here’s one simple guerilla tactic: pass a resolution that not only votes no-confidence and demands Garrison’s resignation, but also requires the Faculty Senate to vote on a no-confidence/resignation resolution every single month as long as Garrison is president. That’d create an automatic mechanism to continue registering the faculty’s disgust — and continue generating news stories about the faculty’s struggle against the polluted Garrison administration. (None of the current resolutions includes that option, but the Assembly uses Robert’s Rules of Order, so the resolutions can be amended from the floor.) Professor Larry Hornak proposed another excellent idea at yesterday’s Senate meeting: put teeth in the Senate’s no-confidence vote by boycotting Garrison’s sham search committee for a new provost. And if Garrison ultimately refuses to leave, the faculty shouldn’t hesitate to use the nuclear option: stop teaching until he packs up his cash-filled briefcase and leaves Stewart Hall. I’m dead serious. The university itself hangs in the balance.

In short, the faculty have to declare war. A mere one-and-done vote will lose the school. It’s a lot to ask, I know. But we’re also in a rare window of opportunity. Right now, for a fleeting moment, the faculty have the power. Garrison is on his heels. The faculty hold the moral and political high ground. If they seize the moment and aggressively press their advantage, they can bury him. They can take back WVU. And if they don’t, they’ll regret it forever. We all will.