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Will courts see Hope Scholarship violates W.Va.’s Constitution?

It’s not often a defendant in a lawsuit takes the plaintiff’s side. But such is the case when a statement was released on behalf of the state superintendent and the state board of education that made clear they support the lawsuit against the new Hope Scholarship and take issue with the program itself. Clayton Burch in his capacity as the state superintendent of schools and Miller Hall in his capacity as the president of the state board of education are both named as defendants in the lawsuit Beaver v. Moore. The case — brought by three West Virginia public school ...

Better late than never on gun reform

In the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization was one bright spot that was almost entirely overshadowed: For the first time in decades, Congress passed legislation addressing America’s out of control gun violence. The bill, Bipartisan Safer Communities Act of 2022, which President Biden has already signed into law, is a monumental breakthrough for bipartisanship in Congress but only a small step toward curbing the gun violence epidemic. But, better to have something than nothing, and better late than never. Over the next five ...

SCOTUS on a roll

The U.S. Supreme Court is on a roll — crushing rights and smashing precedents as it goes. We understood this wave of potentially bad decisions was coming — the nation’s highest court usually saves its biggest, most controversial rulings for the end of its session. But one can only do so much to brace against a tsunami, especially with four more decisions yet to come. The biggest one, of course, was the decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health that overruled Roe v. Wade on Friday. Also thrown into the mix last week were the rulings to force Maine’s K-12 ...

Fair pay, opportunity and respect

That’s all officers ask for Last Sunday, The Dominion Post detailed the myriad complaints from Morgantown police officers against the City of Morgantown. Chief among the grievances was a series of policy changes that will cut officers’ pay: significantly less paid overtime and use-it-or-lose-it paid time off. But the underlying issue is that Morgantown’s police don’t feel supported and respected by the city, and that has caused officers to leave the force in droves. The solution to stop the flood of resignations is simple: Give the Morgantown Police Department the ...

Welcome to Gilead

“We had choices then.” – June“Now you have respect. You have protection. You can fulfill your biological destinies in peace.” – Fred“Biological destiny?” – June“Children. What else is there to live for?” – Fred -- From the Hulu adaptation of Margaret Atwood’s “The Handmaid’s Tale” Welcome to Gilead. On our first day in the new world order, women now have fewer rights than a corpse and the barrier that has kept the United States of America from becoming a theocracy has been badly damaged. It is worthwhile to note that nothing can legally be ...

The Supreme Court decimates separation of church and state

Remember when conservatives decried the pre-Trump Supreme Court as an “activist court” because it dared to — gasp! — uphold human rights? Those same conservatives are oddly quiet now that the U.S. actually does have an “activist” Supreme Court — one that has delighted in overturning decades, sometimes centuries, of precedent and in deliberately misreading the Constitution despite many of its most extreme justices calling themselves “originalists.” This week saw two radical rulings, with more sure to follow. In Carson v. Makin, the far-right court gleefully took a ...