Tale of 2 presidents and terrible storage

January 11, 2023

This week, it was revealed that President Joe Biden’s personal lawyers discovered some Obama-era classified documents in an office at the Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement, a Washington think tank, on Nov. 2, 2022. Biden had worked out of the office from 2017 — after he was no longer vice president — to 2019, just before he announced his candidacy for president. According to official statements, the documents were immediately turned over to the National Archives and the Department of Justice was notified. NBC News reported yesterday evening that Biden’s ...

History doesn’t repeat — it rhymes

January 10, 2023

As the idiom goes, those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat. But history never really repeats — it rhymes. The players change, as do the locations. Situations may be similar — enough to feel like déjà vu — but never exactly alike. Not a replay, but an echo; not a repeat, but a rhyme. Last Friday marked the two-year anniversary of the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, when rioters fueled by former President Donald Trump’s election conspiracies stormed the seat of government, threatening Congress and the certification of the 2020 election. On Sunday, an ...

It’s not as simple as ‘get a job’

January 7, 2023

When frigid temperatures struck Morgantown over the Christmas weekend, organizations and volunteer groups struggled to find accommodations for 110 people who are homeless. Sixty people hunkered down in the emergency warming shelter; another 20 had been placed in hotel rooms; and 30 waited out the cold in Bartlett’s year-round shelter. Becky Rodd, coordinator of the emergency warming shelter, said the holiday deep freeze revealed a “crisis of homelessness in Morgantown.” It’s no secret that homelessness is a problem here in the city, but many of us may not have realized just ...

Editorial Encore: More money, same problems: Where to use the surplus

January 4, 2023

EDITOR'S NOTE: We took a look into our editorial archive to see what was on our minds this time last year — and found that it was many of the same things as this year. We published an editorial Jan. 9, 2022, with a list of suggestions for how to use the $394 million surplus — now closer to $2 billion. There’s more money, but the same problems persist, so we’ve adapted last year’s list with this year’s numbers. Gov. Jim Justice’s administration has been good about bringing in surpluses at the end of the fiscal year. But it’s also been notorious for squirrelling the ...

We’ve made it to 2023

December 31, 2022

It’s one of those rare internet memes that’s all text and no image. It reads: “Nobody claim 2023 as ‘your year.’ We’re all going to walk in real slow. Be good. Be quiet. Be cautious and respectful. Don’t touch anything.” A similar meme went around before the last couple New Years, with “2021” and “2022,” respectively. After three years of sickness, political vitriol and global and economic tumult, no one can be blamed for approaching the new year with wariness. Some of us are still processing 2020, and the last two years feel like little more than an ...

W.Va. senator to sponsor eugenics bill

December 27, 2022

Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat its mistakes. Unless, of course, they don’t think history’s “mistakes” are actually mistakes. At a meeting with Mineral County residents in early December, Sen. Randy Smith (R-Tucker) announced that he will be the lead sponsor for a bill that proposes anyone convicted of a drug-related crime can “volunteer” to be sterilized in exchange for a lesser sentence. “If you get caught with drugs ... but if you want to lessen your prison sentence, if you’re a man, you can get a vasectomy so you can’t produce ...