BACK PEW–Breaking down the details
By Stephen Baldwin, RealWV March 8, 2023 Last week, I wrote at length about how politics has become a performance. Right on cue, our leaders proceeded to hold a balloon drop photo op to celebrate a tax cut and pay raise for public employees…while quietly giving themselves a much larger raise and increasing employee insurance […]
THE BACK PEW: Sparks fly at halftime
By Stephen Baldwin, RealWV February 8, 2023 It’s officially halftime under the dome! This is day 30 of the 60-day legislative session. And it began with a bang this morning! COMPETING TAX CUT PLANS. Senate Republicans and Democrats joined together in a press conference to present their tax cut plan. The main parts are: 15% […]
THE BACK PEW: ‘Politics has become personal’
By Stephen Baldwin, RealWV January 26, 2023 Someone once told me, “Everything is political. Except politics, and it’s personal.” Truer words were never spoken. The increasingly-visible drama unfolding under the golden dome right now can be boiled down into those two categories–political and personal. POLITICAL. Here’s the dirty little secret most everyone in the capitol […]
EDITORIAL: The foster care ‘avalanche’ is coming
By Stephen Baldwin, RealWV January 17, 2023 How many foster kids do we have in West Virginia? During the State of the State address last week, Governor Jim Justice said, “In this state, we’ve got plus or minus 1,000 foster kids, don’t we.” Delegate Kayla Young responded on social media the next day by saying, […]
