Jay Dee's Post

WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama has signed a one-year extension of several provisions in the nation’s main counterterrorism law, the Patriot Act. Provisions in the measure would have expired on Sunday without Obama’s signature Saturday. The act, which was adopted in the weeks after the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks, expands the government’s ability to monitor Americans [...]

By Jeff Biggers The greater part of what my neighbors call good I believe in my soul to be bad, and if I repent of anything, it is very like to be my good behavior. What demon possessed me that I behaved so well? — Henry David Thoreau, Walden He’s sitting in the Southern Regional Jail, in [...]

We had eight years of Bush and Cheney, Now you get mad? You didn’t get mad when the Supreme Court stopped a legal recount and appointed a President.. You didn’t get mad when Cheney allowed Enron to dictate energy policy. You didn’t get mad when a covert CIA operative got outed for disagreeing with [...]

(ABC News) – An Army sergeant who served in Iraq for 15 months has been restricted to his Washington military base after being accused of waterboarding his 4-year-old daughter because she refused to recite her ABCs. Joshua Ryan Tabor, 27, was arrested on Jan. 31 and charged with assaulting a child after police in Yelm, Wash., [...]

Poverty scorecard: West Virginia edition by Andrew Clevenger Yesterday, the Sargent Shriver National Center on Poverty Law issued a scorecard — more of a report card, really, since they give letter grades — based on how federal elected officials voted on poverty-related legislation in 2009. You can check out how West Virginia’s two senators and three representatives voted [...]

by Ken Ward Jr. You have to wonder sometimes what Gov. Joe Manchin is thinking … there he was yesterday, with all his talk about finding a “balance” between jobs and the environment. And the very next day … Top lawmakers today introduced — at Manchin’s request — a resolution attacking efforts in Congress and by the [...]

Consumer Reports’ latest test of fresh, whole broilers bought in 22 states reveals that two-thirds of birds tested harbored salmonella and/or campylobacter, the leading bacterial causes of food-borne disease. The report reveals that organic “air-chilled” broilers were among the cleanest and that Perdue was found to be the cleanest of the brand-name chicken. Tyson and [...]

Back in June, officials from various Obama administration agencies said they were going to take “unprecedented steps to reduce environmental impacts” of mountaintop removal coal mining. They just didn’t say when … and apparently, at least over at the Interior Department, they don’t have plans to act anytime soon. On Friday, lawyers for Interior Secretary Ken [...]

NEW HAVEN, W.Va. — Well, American Electric Power certainly put on a good show today at the kickoff even of its CCS pilot project at the Mountaineer Plant in Mason County, W.Va. Signs with pretty green arrows directed visitors into the plant. Speakers were projected onto twin giant-screen televisions. Everybody got a parting gift: A nifty [...]

Citing a new Government Accountability Office report, Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., is calling for reforms in the way the federal government processes benefits for miners who have contracted deadly black lung disease. In a statement this afternoon, Rockefeller said: Miners are the heart of the Mountain State, and we must continue fighting to protect their health and [...]