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Upside down

When Lord Cornwallis handed his sword to George Washington at Yorktown, the British band played a tune, “The World Turned Upside Down.” This seems to be a fitting description of Donald Trump’s approach to the economic order. Tariffs, the price of gold, and other arcane ideas seemingly are on the table. It promises to be a repeat performance of Richard Nixon in August 1971. Except this performance will be somewhat in reverse. Nixon inherited a strained economic situation due to deficits and the inability to adjust the Gold System established during World War II, known as Bretton ...

Peter Navarro serves as President Donald Trump’s Senior Counselor for Trade and Manufacturing. He is also a key player in the MAGA movement. It was Navarro who went to jail in July 2024 for his refusal to testify before the January 6 Committee; to say the least, he is loyal. But he is also the architect, along with Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, of the tariff “war” which threatens to explode. He has attracted the ire of Elon Musk, whom he has described as a “car assembler,” not a “car manufacturer.” Musk retorted that Navarro is “dumber than a sack of bricks, but ...

The Golden Rule

I try not to write angry. As I’ve said before, this column is not just a place for me to spew an opinion. I really do try to use this space to take you behind-the-scenes into how I choose the stories I cover, analysis of the political actions of others, and tidbits of items I can’t fit into stories. But after bearing witness to the actions of the West Virginia Senate on the last night of the 2025 legislative session, I was pretty flabbergasted. I had already turned in last week’s column Saturday afternoon and had considered having my editors toss that in order to write a new ...

Why does union membership keep declining?

It hardly qualifies as news anymore, but according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, union membership declined from 2023 to 2024, going from 10% to 9.9% of wage and salary workers. Some 32% of public employees are union members compared to only 5.9% of private-sector workers, down from 6% in 2023. This means 49% of all union members work for the government and, even more striking, 32% belong to the two national teachers unions. As National Review’s Dominic Pino pointed out, national media is chock full of hopeful stories about union organizing drives and strikes — he cited 214 in ...

Who is safe now?

In a couple of months, I am planning a business trip to Europe. I don’t scare easy, but despite the fact that I’m an American citizen and have committed no crime, I am worried about what might happen when I attempt to come home. Will Customs and Border Patrol agents pull me from the customs line as they did to Amir Makled? He’s an American citizen, too, a lawyer born and raised in Detroit who was returning from a vacation in the Dominican Republic. But he happens to represent a pro-Palestinian student protester. CBP detained Makled and demanded access to his phone. CBP can demand ...

Spring in the air in Barbour

Hello from Barbour County! Spring is in the air, and hopefully that means that the snow is behind us. It’s hard to believe that the next time I write to you, it will be May! Easter weekend is here, and that means egg hunts and sunrise services. To start the weekend off, there will be an Easter Egg Hunt at Belington Elementary School beginning at 10 a.m. This is sponsored by the Junior Lions Club. After that, there will be an Egg Hunt beginning at noon at Camp Popeye, off Route 250, just outside of Belington on Saturday, April 19. Stop by for some fun, and while you are there, ...