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Editorial

Public perception of petty partisan political attack ads

The 2015 article “Comparing the Effectiveness of Positive and Negative Political Campaigns” by Peter A. Gregory (found in Inquiries Journal) posits an interesting premise: Negative political ads hurt the attacker more than the attackee. Gregory analyzed research going back to 1991, though he uses a more narrow definition of “negative" than most of the studies. He includes any ad that points out something “bad” about the opposing candidate even if that something is true. He found some of the studies show attack ads help the attacker; others showed they hurt the attacker. A ...

Small settlements don’t really punish opioid companies

Attorney General Patrick Morrisey is always so proud to show off his pitiful little opioid settlements, like a little kid showing off his lunchroom trade but who doesn’t realize he got the worse end of the deal. His latest “victory” is a $26 million settlement with Endo Health Solutions — of which approximately $4.75 million will go to attorney fees (if we calculated correctly) and only 24.5% of the remaining amount, or about $5.2 million, will be shared among all of West Virginia’s counties and cities. The bulk of the money ($15.4 million) is slated for Morrisey’s ...

Academic awards shouldn’t depend on athletic scholarships

In Tuesday’s e-edition, The Dominion Post’s Sports section featured an article about WVU’s new Academic Incentive Program. But first, let’s rewind to June 2021. Last year, the case NCAA v. Alston went all the way to the Supreme Court. In it, former WVU player Shawne Alston and other current and former Division I football and men’s and women’s basketball players challenged NCAA athlete compensation practices on anti-trust grounds. Ultimately, the Supreme Court voted 9-0 to uphold the ruling of the district court: The NCAA could continue to restrict the amount of athletic ...

Abusing tax dollars for campaign mailings

One of the last things John Pyles asked of The Dominion Post was to look into the flyers Rep. David McKinley sends four times a year  that say in the top left corner, “Paid for by official funds authorized by the House of Representatives.” McKinley would likely argue that the flyers are to keep constituents informed about what he’s doing in Congress. To the rest of us, the colorful cardstock sheet looks like campaigning on the taxpayers’ dime. At least, that’s what Pyles said when he’d call to ask if we’d seen them. (We hadn’t, so he mailed us one of his ...

The cop culture of violence and silence

The Dominion Post reported Monday that Westover’s insurer settled two lawsuits alleging police brutality. The suit on behalf of William Cox — who says he was kicked, punched, pepper-sprayed and falsely arrested by Westover officers Aaron Dalton and Justice Carver for recording them with his cell phone as they drove by in a marked cruiser in August 2019 — was settled for $750,000. The suit filed by Andre Howton — who alleges officers Dalton and Zachary Fecsko pulled him from his home and beat him on New Year’s Day 2019 — was settled for $350,000. As part of the ...

GOP couldn’t stop KBJ, but they tried

Yesterday, Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson was confirmed by the Senate, in a 53-47 vote, to take over for Justice Stephen Breyer when he retires this summer. It was a rare and welcome show of bipartisanship. Republican centrists Sens. Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski and Mitt Romney voted with all 50 Democrats. Fellow Republicans continued to smear Judge Jackson’s reputation up until the very last second, continuing to claim, without factual basis, that she was soft on crime and some kind of radical leftist. With the last several Supreme Court nominees leaning so far to the right, ...