Breaking News

Columnists

Phones versus playing

When I was a kid, childhood meant playing on the street, riding my bike, hanging out with friends. Most kids now experience a different childhood. Jonathan Haidt’s bestselling book, “The Anxious Generation,” talks about that. He calls it “a tragedy in two acts.” “Act One, we lose the play-based childhood. We stop letting kids run around outside. We’re too afraid they’ll get abducted. ... We get gradual loss of play from the ‘90s through the early 2010s. ... That sets kids up to be weaker.” Because kids who don’t have real experiences are less ...

Political violence must be condemned

Political violence must be condemned in all its deplorable forms. Last week, we lost a 31-year-old young man, Charlie Kirk, by the act of a cowardly madman. An evil doer may have thought he prevailed when he took the life of this young man with a beautiful wife and kids, but evil failed miserably. Our prayers should continue to go out to the Kirk family along with our thanks for sharing Charlie with all of us. May God strengthen the family now and in the days and years ahead. Fair fight? In the days of Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr people could exercise “political violence” ...

Here’s to your healthcare

Last week marked the first legislative interim meetings since the end of June, with lawmakers getting a two-month summer break. Well, some lawmakers. Much of Republican legislative leadership spent their summer in planning meetings for a possible special session that did not happen. At one point, there was a hard date set for a special session in July. But then that was moved back to September coinciding with last week’s interims. It should be obvious that a special session — which was to be focused on the Public Employees Insurance Agency (PEIA) — did not occur. While ...

Stop the IRS’s stealth $700 Billion tax increase

President Donald Trump has done an admirable job at defanging the IRS, which was converted into a weaponized agency targeting Democrats’ political enemies. Chief Justice John Marshall famously pronounced early in our nation’s history that “the power to tax involves the power to destroy.” The Democrats inside the Biden IRS took that to heart. They hired thousands of new IRS agents to harass businesses, rich people and, in some cases, Republican donors. Some of the officers under infamous former IRS enforcer Lois Lerner, the woman who aimed her agency’s auditing guns at ...

Data from First Friday with Distefano

When Seth Distefano presented Kids Count data and geographic facts about Randolph County at Kump Center for the September First Friday Focus on Education, our school problems became clearer. Seth is proud to be a graduate of Tygart Valley High School, but he understands that his home county has all the economic disadvantages of most remote, rural counties in West Virginia. The fact that our Randolph County School system ranks 55th among 55 counties in this state is a matter of money — both buildings and buses cost money. The local average cost of public education is impossibly ...

Afraid of voters

Playing with representative democracy is a delicate game, one that can evoke strong emotions and foster resentments. Democrats have lost two elections in 2000 and 2016 where they won the popular vote and lost the presidency. Both results have had profound consequences from the Supreme Court, which was constructed by the ruthless Mitch McConnell, to the notorious Project 2025. A great deal was done by states that ignore Baker vs Carr, which mandated “one man, one vote.” Texas is a good example of trying to seize five seats by changing the rules mid-census. It is a legal method ...