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Suiting up for the session

Columnists

Finally, it is 2026 and things will begin ramping up from here as the new 60-day legislative session kicks off next week with the gaveling in of the House of Delegates and state Senate, and Gov. Patrick Morrisey’s second State of the State address. The West Virginia Press Association’s annual Legislative Lookahead is this Friday at the Culture Center in Charleston. The event serves as the kickoff for those in print, TV, radio, and non-profit news preparing for their statehouse coverage.  Reporters will hear from legislative majority and minority leadership, executive branch ...

Wish list for 2026

Columnists

Listening to the usual legacy media suspects, one might think 2025 was an apocalyptic wasteland of sorts — an authoritarian fever dream brought on by the return of Donald J. Trump to the Oval Office. The reality looked very different. This past year was, in many ways, a pretty great and clarifying one. Let’s take stock of what happened when our government remembered whom it serves, as well as what unfinished business remains as we flip the calendar. First, the obvious: Political sanity was restored to the nation’s capital. After years of leftist elite-driven chaos — wide-open ...

Economy

Editorials

If money is what it will take to resolve the damage done by the substance abuse epidemic in the Mountain State, we are sitting on an enormous opportunity through funds distributed by the West Virginia First Foundation. Just this month nearly $18 million in Momentum Initiative Grants was awarded to tackle the problem. In this round, there are 76 projects — some statewide, some regional — that will focus on foster care and non-parental caregiver initiatives, youth prevention, recovery housing, behavioral health and workforce development, and reentry and diversion programs. The ...

Endangered diplomacy

Columnists

Diplomacy, Donald Trump-style, is becoming increasingly ad hoc. Pick the day, and you can never be sure whether he will stick to a policy or change course. From Venezuela to Ukraine, he swerves from position to position. And he is unpredictable on whose lead he will follow. Will it be Secretary of State Marco Rubio or special advisor Steve Witkoff who shapes the response? Ukraine particularly mirrors this approach to foreign policy. One minute, he is on the phone with Vladimir Putin; the next, he is hosting Vladimir Zelensky. Trump praises both and boasts of progress, while the ...

Predictions of doom

Columnists

While campaigning, President Donald Trump said, “We’re a nation in decline.” Now that he’s president, the left agrees. “We are witnessing the collapse and implosion of the American empire,” says Cornell West. Are the predictors of doom correct? Will America collapse like so many civilizations before us? If we don’t learn from history, says historian Johan Norberg, that might happen. “It’s a clash within every civilization on whether they should keep going, be open to innovation and progress, or whether they should retreat and decline,” he says in my new ...

Billionaires playing a game they can’t win

Columnists

The frenzy of the gift-giving season is over. Children have received their toys. Billionaires, too. Do you remember that old bumper sticker that said, “He who dies with the most toys wins. More money, more things is winning at the Game of Life”? Topping the Forbes list of billionaires, the ones who can afford the most toys, are Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos and Larry Ellison. And how have they shown their holiday spirit over the years? Musk threatened to leave Tesla unless the board granted him a pay package potentially worth over $1 trillion, roughly the annual GDP ...