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Letters to the Editor

Reader supports bill before legislature

I was shocked by the March 31 Inter-Mountain OpEd “Distraction SJR 1 is not a gun rights bill” West Virginia Constitution, Article 1, Section 2: The government of the United States is a government of enumerated powers, and all powers not delegated to it, nor inhibited to the States, are reserved to the States or to the people thereof. Among the powers so reserved by the States, is the exclusive regulation of their own internal government and police; and it is the high and solemn duty of the several departments of government, created by this Constitution, to guard and protect the ...

Understanding just who is to blame

Who’s to blame? Our political leaders are leaving 2020 in the rear view mirror, yet they’re dragging an anchor into and through 2021. Despite touting a record-breaking development of several COVID-19 vaccines, deaths and hospitalizations from the virus are an expanding problem. Although the vaccine will save lives, it will not save the country from abject debt. Nor will it save companies or individuals from personal bankruptcy. America is in a crisis, one that even Hollywood could not have imagined. As if you haven’t paid enough already, be prepared for your taxes to rise ...

Doctor sees need for a separate entrance

I applaud efforts to increase healthcare access to rural locations, especially for evenings and weekends when most physician offices are closed. Thus, I wish Davis Medical Center and the Davis Shop n Save all the best in their new joint venture. I must protest, however, their current plan as described to me to use the same entrance for the urgent care and grocery store. It is my view that encouraging sick patients to come to a grocery store where healthy people wish to shop is a bad idea that potentially increases infectious disease risk to the general population. If such a ...

Will natural gas tax increase kill jobs?

The natural gas industry is extremely diversified across hundreds of companies in West Virginia. Almost every service needed to take gas from thousands of feet below the earth’s surface to the eventual customer is contracted to an enormous number of specialists — each working for a separate entity. Engineers, contractors, trucking companies, pipeliners, drillers and safety experts all come together to make the system work. This is in addition to the numerous natural gas producers that hire these contractors. So when the governor of West Virginia announced the single largest tax ...

Reader opposes state legislature bills

Our state legislature is outdoing itself with harmful legislation this legislative term. It seems that the wealthy industry leaders who operate our state government do not have any proposals that would help our struggling population economically weather or recover from the devastating effects of COVID-19. The legislators themselves seem to prefer to stoke the flames of racial and gender resentment rather than acknowledge reality. Living West Virginians are limited in legislation proposed this session from talking about their own realities and histories because the white male ...

Our piece of the pie keeps getting small

The Free Dictionary defines the phrase “a piece of the pie” as a share in an amount of money or a business regarded as something to be divpided up. You want, and expect, your fair share, especially when you’ve paid into that business. In this case, I am not referring to a business, I am referring to the United States, the country we pay taxes into. Congress is running it and they are about to run us right out of business. The last three pandemic relief bills have gone to projects that have nothing to do with the COVID-19 outbreak. The problem is, the piece of pie the average ...