Editorial

OP ED COLUMN: Ready For West Virginia’s Day in Court

In a few short days, on Tuesday, Sept. 27, my office will take the lead before a panel of nine judges and make our best case against President Obama’s so-called “Clean Power Plan.”

The Power Plan is an unlawful federal rule that forces states to stop using the most affordable, reliable form of energy — coal. Read more

COLUMN: Making Stuff Up, a Winning Legal Strategy

by David Epstein
ProPublica, Sep. 2, 2016, 8 a.m. Read more

Public Relations Firm Claims to Have Ghost Written Thousands of Op-Eds in Major U.S. Newspapers

Laura Bentz of Keybridge Communications describes her company as "a boutique PR firm -- founded by a former writer for the Wall Street Journal -- that specializes in writing and placing op-eds. With some of the country's most influential trade groups and global corporations as clients, we run many of the major op-ed campaigns in the U.S. We place roughly 3,000 op-eds per year." Read more

SHELLEY'S WORLD: "A Crime in Rhyme"‏

Ideas breed like bunnies, and

There really are a lot

From which to pick as I prepare

An outline for my plot: Read more

Trump Campaign Debuts the 'America First' App

(New York, NY) August 26, 2016 – The Donald J. Trump Campaign announced the new app, ‘America First’, available on Android and iOS devices. The ‘America First’ app allows supporters of Donald J. Trump to engage with the campaign, meet fellow supporters, and collaborate to Make America Great Again by answering various calls to action and building an active online community of supporters. Read more

Secretary of State Candidate Mac Warner Announces Friends of Coal Endorsement

MORGANTOWN, August 25, 2016 – Retired Army Veteran and candidate for Secretary of State Mac Warner announced the endorsement from Friends of Coal and the West Virginia Coal Association. The West Virginia Coal Association recently endorsed Donald Trump for President and gave the following comments about their endorsement in the 2016 West Virginia Secretary of State’s race: Read more

Why Are We Still Wasting Billions on Homeland Security Projects That Don’t Make Us Safer?

by Stephen Engelberg
ProPublica, Aug. 19, 2016 Read more

COLUMN: Hobet Project Holds Vast Promise for West Virginians‏

Just down the road from Charleston in Boone and Lincoln counties lies something unique and promising in Southern West Virginia - approximately 12,000 acres of flat land ideal for new businesses and with the potential for a level of job creation that would be a game changer for our state. Read more

GUEST OP ED COMMENTARY: Let's Shift the Cause of Dispair

by Scott Caserta

Thought:
If folks had a job, a future, a plan of some kind then maybe despair would not lead them to drug abuse and ODs? Read more

OP ED OPINION: The 24/7 Sobriety Program: What Might Have Been

West Virginia’s war on drugs continues to present many challenges. It seems as though a battle is being waged in every home, neighborhood and community throughout our state. Read more

Satanic Black Mass Still Scheduled at Oklahome City Public Venue Despite Protest

OKLAHOMA CITY, Aug. 11, 2016 /Christian Newswire/ -- Amid growing protest Satanists plan to stage a second Black Mass at the public Civic Center Music Hall in Oklahoma City on August 15, 2016. The public sacrilege against God and the Catholic Mass will include the desecration of a statue of the Virgin Mary whose Assumption into Heaven is celebrated that day. Read more

SHELLEY'S WORLD: "Aah...Youth."

So there we were. Four friends: Margaret, twenty-one; her sister Justine, twenty-five; and their mother Pegeen, eternally young and beautiful … all three native New Yorkers. Then there was little old me, who grew up in the Midwest (this becomes relevant later), and like thousands before me, came to the Big City to chase down a dream. Read more

Statement from Charles Woods, father of Benghazi Hero Tyrone Woods

(New York, NY)  -  Donald J. Trump received the endorsement of Charles Woods the father of Tyrone Woods, a former Navy SEAL, who gave his life fighting to protect Americans during the terror attacks on the U.S. consulate and the CIA compound in Benghazi. Ty’s sacrifice saved more than twenty-five American lives, and he is truly an American hero. Read more

COLUMN: Is Common Courtesy Dying?

SEATTLE, Wash. – For 10 years journalists have been writing and talking about more people becoming rude every day. We now have a generation that does not understand or practice the basics of old fashioned common courtesy. They obviously never learned from their parents and their children will not learn from them, making things even worse in the future. Read more

OP ED: FOIA Exemptions Prevent Some Energy Workers from Proving Claim

By Deb Jerison

One of the ways Energy Employees Claimant Assistance Project (EECAP) provides information to the public on Energy Employees Occupation Illness Compensation Program Act (EEOICPA)  is by filing Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests.  On July 1, 2016 President Obama signed the FOIA Improvement Act of 2016 into law. Read more

EDITORAL COMMENTARY: Midlife Voters Need to Educate Millenials on the Clintons

We have noticed something interesting in recent weeks, a political phenomenon we should have expected but which managed to take us off guard.  The new generation of voters, commonly called "the Millenials," are too young to remember the political hijinks and salacious events of the Clinton Administration. Read more

The US Has Lost More Than One-Quarter Of Its Manufacturing Jobs Under Hillary-Backed Trade Policies

Since Bill Clinton Became President In January 1993, The U.S. Has Lost 4,506,000 Manufacturing Jobs, A 27 Percent Decline. ( Bureau Of Labor Statistics, Accessed 6/21/16) Read more

Washington Tells Us Our Electric Bills Will Rise

You have to admire the Obama Administration’s optimism.  Even though the Supreme Court issued a stay on the president’s “Clean Power Plan” (CPP) earlier this year, the EPA insists that states should keep moving forward with efforts to radically alter their power sector.  It’s a bold move, since the High Court has already determined that states shouldn’t be compelled to incur such hefty costs before the case is fully litigated. Read more

False Testimony Concealed: The Unconstitutional “Prior Restraint”

Courts are properly authorized to sanction acts of defamation—publicly lying about someone—but they’re not authorized to prohibit truthful speech or opinion (even if it’s negative), and they’re not authorized to prohibit speech acts before they’ve even been committed. An order of the court that prohibits future speech is called a prior restraint, and it’s unconstitutional (see the First Amendment). Read more

OP ED: Will WV Shut Down or Agree on Budget

by Chris Stansbury

 

Most of us remember being introduced to the expression, "too big to fail," back in 2007-08 when we discovered there were institutions so large and so thoroughly enmeshed in our financial system that they had to be propped up by the government in order to avert a financial catastrophe. As Alan Greenspan then explained, "If they're too big to fail, they're too big." Read more

COLUMN: The Edward Bernays Method; Buyer Beware.

BY BARBARA DANIELS Read more

I’m Not Your Shorty

It wasn’t the first time. Read more

LETTER TO THE EDITOR: Vet Supports Trump, Condemns NAFTA

I am a Patriot!

I believe NAFTA destroyed the middle class. Read more

LETTER: Frackers Taped Admitting Using Military Psyops On Public.

The oil and gas industry is now using military psychological operations to “educate” the media, public and regulatory bodies. At an industry conference in Houston, “Media & Stakeholder Relations; Hydraulic Fracturing Initiative 2011,” the conferees were taped citing the use of the US Army/Marine Corp Insurgency Manual and former psy-ops agents. Read more

WVCDL Announces first round of endorsements!

Charleston, WV  – The West Virginia Citizens Defense League, in a continuing effort to protect and expand the right to keep and bear arms within the State of West Virginia, is pleased to announce the first round of political endorsements for the upcoming elections. Read more

Passage of Outside Counsel Legislation Closes The Door on Backroom Deals‏

Charleston, W.Va. – The West Virginia Legislature and Attorney General Patrick Morrisey deserve recognition for their work on a good-government outside counsel rule requiring transparency and competitive bidding for the appointment of private attorneys to represent the state and its agencies, according to legal watchdog group West Virginia Citizens Against Lawsuit Abuse (WV CALA).  Read more

LETTER: Activist says wider atomic worker probe is warranted

The EEOICPA / Site Metric System (SEM) is corrupt. Workers that worked in places like the Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant in Piketon, Ohio as I did, were victims of poor safety practices. It is well documented that the government withheld information about what we have been exposed to. The government never tested us plus records were not kept. Our records were falsified or shredded. The government admitted that they made us sick and would take care of Cold War Heroes. So why 16 years later are sick workers being turned down for illnesses that are related to a job that made them sick. Read more

Attorney General Morrisey, 21 States Win Gun Rights Victory‏

CHARLESTON — West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey hailed a federal appeals court decision as a crucial victory in protecting the rights of gun owners across the state and beyond. Read more

WAAAHHHH…but we don’t wanna get arrested!!

As the macho, gun-toting, testosterone-addled cowboys who took over the wildlife refuge in Oregon call it quits, their pitiful whine can be heard all the way to Florida: “Waaahhh…but we don’t wanna get arrested…” Read more

COLUMN: The Republican Debate: Who Goes First?

BY DR. ROBERT FORREY

If you did not watch the beginning of the Republican  New Hampshire debate last night you missed one of the most embarrassingly hilarious  episodes in American campaign history because they screwed up the introduction of the candidates so bad it was if  we were watching not the New Hampshire debate but rather an episode of Saturday Night Live lampooning the incompetence of the Republican Party. Read more

OP ED OPINION: Taking on Nukespeak

By Andrew Moss

In 1946, George Orwell decried the abuse of language in his classic essay, “Politics and the English Language,” declaring famously that “it [language] becomes ugly and inaccurate because our thoughts are foolish, but the slovenliness of our language makes it easier for us to have foolish thoughts.” Orwell reserved his sharpest criticism for corrupted political language, which he called the “defense of the indefensible,” and in the years that followed, others writers took up similar critiques of political discourse, adjusting their focus according to the circumstances of the time. Read more

Time for a Reset in US-Saudi Relations?

by Mel Gurtov

The growing rift between Saudi Arabia and Iran is reportedly causing great consternation in US policymaking circles.  Once again, US officials are called upon to decide whether to support an ally that isn’t behaving in accord with US interests, significantly modify the relationship, or abandon it.  Read more

A Lesson (Still) Not Learned

By Michael N. Nagler

I was deeply saddened to read last week of the death by suicide of Cmdr. Job Price who was with a Navy SEAL team in Afghanistan.  I was even sadder when I realized that the hopeful idea that sprung up in my mind was naive: “Now maybe people will understand why soldiers commit suicide.”  The only reasons for his suicide that the media could offer were the usual suspects: it was a bad deployment, “a cautionary tale of how men were ground down by years of fighting and losing comrades,” and of course, the old fallback that puts a stop to the whole inquiry, “no one knows why.”   Read more