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CHARLESTON — Thousands of union members crowded the West Virginia Capitol Wednesday night to protest right-to-work and other items on the Legislature’s agenda. In a campaign organized by the West Virginia AFL-CIO, union members were bused to the Capitol to kick off lobbying efforts for the state's 60-day legislative session. The protesters gathered under the Capitol dome and chanted at legislators who were on their way to the governor’s annual state of the state address. Union officials want to prevent any changes to prevailing wage requirements for government-funded construction projects, avoid cuts to government employee health benefits and prevent West...

A US senator is asking the federal government to take this remarkable step: completely ban Bitcoin. Joe Manchin, a Democratic senator representing West Virginia, sent a letter Wednesday to the Treasury Department, the Federal Reserve, and other regulators characterizing the virtual currency as encouraging "illicit activity" as well as being "highly unstable and disruptive to our economy."

CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- Jorea Marple was carrying out numerous recommendations from the much-discussed audit of West Virginia's public schools system when she was fired as superintendent, by Board of Education members eager to signal to Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin and the Legislature that they supported the extensive review of education spending, policy and organization. Those board members have cited the need for change when explaining Marple's ouster, in light of struggling student performance. At least one member, Gayle Manchin, has commented further. "My viewpoint was, we should all embrace this audit and garner from its findings and recommendation that would...

WVGOP HISTORIC WINS Biggest House and Statewide Wins in 80 Years CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- The West Virginia Republican Party will have more Delegates and Statewide elected officeholders than any year in the last 80 years. Period. "Tonight, West Virginia made the move to a two-party state for the first time in over 80 years," said West Virginia Republican Chairman Conrad Lucas. "We gave folks tremendous choices up and down the ballot. Tonight, we added at least ten new Delegates, three new State Senators and elected the first Republican attorney general since 1928 in Patrick Morrisey. Allen Loughry is exactly the...

EV is now 24 Romney, Obama has 3.

With 60-odd percent of the vote counted in West Virginia's Democratic primary, a man named Keith Judd can make a unique claim. He has won a greater proportion of the vote -- almost 40 percent -- than any other primary candidate running against Barack Obama. Who's Keith Judd? He's prisoner #11593-051, currently serving out a sentence for making threats at the University of New Mexico. In 2008, he caused a minor stir for making the Idaho primary ballot, confounding state officials, who thought they had rules preventing that sort of thing. Unbowed, he ran again this year, delivering FEC reports...

President Barack Obama might not be the only Democratic presidential candidate to receive a national party delegate in West Virginia. Keith Judd might receive one, also. But, in order for him to be represented at the Democratic National Committee convention in North Carolina, he must win at least 15 percent of the vote. The Charleston Gazette reports: Under state and national Democratic Party rules, if little-known Democratic presidential candidate Keith Judd secures 15 percent of the vote in today's election, he will technically be entitled to have at least one delegate from West Virginia at the Democratic National Convention in...

Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin (D-WV) has announced that he will not endorse Barack Obama for re-election, stating, “[the president] has apparently made it his mission to drive the backbone of West Virginia’s economy, coal and the energy industry, out of business.”

West Virginia’s Democratic Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin said he is not endorsing President Barack Obama for re-election, saying the president “has apparently made it his mission to drive the backbone of West Virginia’s economy, coal and the energy industry, out of business.” Tomblin is running for re-election in the heavily Democratic and major coal-producing state this year. He won a special election for the governorship last year after Gov. Joe Manchin was elected to the U.S. Senate in 2010. “As a loyal member of the Democratic party and as governor for our state, I will continue to do everything I...

The President of the United Mine Workers of America says the regulation of carbon emissions from coal is not just an American issue. "You have to eliminate greenhouse gas emissions throughout the world. You can't just regulate them through the EPA of the United States," Cecil Roberts said on Tuesday's MetroNews Talkline. Roberts says he thinks the federal Environmental Protection Agency is exceeding its authority with proposed new regulations for required greenhouse gas limits for all new coal fired power plants. He says those limits will shut down the development of new plants since the levels cannot be reached without...

A federal judge slammed an Obama administration gambit to revoke mountaintop mining permits Friday, saying the EPA invented authority where there was none. “EPA resorts to magical thinking” to justify nullifying permits issued by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for Arch Coal Inc.’s Mingo Logan mine in West Virginia, wrote U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson in Washington, D.C. Berman Jackson said the EPA’s effort to revoke permits already issued by the Army Corps lacked the backing of any statutory provision or regulation. “It posits a scenario involving the automatic self-destruction of a written permit issued by an entirely...

EPA Proposes Strict Limits on Coal Plants By RYAN TRACY And KEITH JOHNSON WASHINGTON—The Environmental Protection Agency on Tuesday proposed strict limits on greenhouse-gas emissions from new power plants despite warnings from utilities and others that such a step to would lead to the demise of coal-fired electricity generation. The agency outlined a standard that analysts said would effectively ban new coal-fired stations unless they use carbon-capture technology, which hasn't yet been proven cost-effective. The EPA said the rule wouldn't apply to existing power plants, including when they make modifications to comply with other air-pollution rules, addressing a major concern...

Lincoln County, West Virginia, is a poor place whose chief export is Chuck Yeager. What it lacks in money, Lincoln County adds in entertainment. Its elections are liar’s poker among the Democratic Party factions. There are too few Republicans to matter, and so it is the Democratic Party primaries where the cheating occurs. For 14 years, Democratic County Assessor Jerry Weaver and Democratic Circuit Clerk Greg Stowers fixed elections. The feds caught them. They went to prison. Jerry Weaver got out and decided to run for sheriff. He figured since the current sheriff Democrat Jerry Bowman and his buddy, Democratic...

Time may already have run out for Americans to defeat President Barack Obama in his war against the coal industry. Many utility companies already have run up the white flag. Before millions of people even knew about the war on coal, decisions were made that will send their utility bills skyrocketing. Some of those choices are irreversible. A few weeks ago it was revealed at least 32 coal-fired power plants in 12 states, including West Virginia and Ohio, would be closed so utility companies could comply with the Obama administration's air pollution regulations. On the list was the Kammer Plant...

A felon incarcerated in Texas took one in three votes away from President Obama in West Virginia's Democratic presidential primary on Tuesday. Keith Judd, who is serving time in a federal prison in Texarkana, Texas, for extortion, took 37 percent of the vote, with 50 percent of precincts reporting. Obama captured the remaining 63 percent. By locking up more than 15 percent, Judd may be entitled to at least one delegate at the Democratic National Convention in September. …

MARTINSBURG, W.Va. -- “Last week, I was talking about some coal deals,” businessman and Republican U.S. Senate candidate John Raese told a packed crowd at the local Holiday Inn Saturday night, “and I said let’s close the deals before the hammer-and-sickle come down.” The 200-plus guests at the Berkley County Republican dinner here cheered. They knew exactly what Raese was talking about: the Obama administration’s assault on the coal industry that is the economic backbone of West Virginia. Almost to a person, Republicans we spoke to here agree that a series of regulations and rulings from the Environmental Protection Agency...

West Virginia likely will land a $2 billion cracker that will convert the “wet” natural gas in the Marcellus shale into a cheap feedstock for plastics and the like. This will be cheaper than oil-based feedstock. Not only will this mean thousands of jobs in West Virginia to run the plant, the cracker could also help revive West Virginia’s chemical industry, particularly in the Kanawha Valley (Charleston — the state’s capital and suburb of Poca). When I moved here in 1984, we had 15,000 chemical jobs. Today we are lucky if we have 1,500. Naturally, liberals oppose the cracker. They...

West Virginia’s Monongalia County Board of Education is proposing a new homeschool policy. In the document’s “statement of purpose,” the board refers to stale objections, which reveal a flawed and stereotyped view towards homeschooling. Despite the fact that homeschooling has decades worth of practical and scientific evidence documenting its success, there are still public school officials who re-use the same old criticism of homeschooling—teacher competency and socialization. Here is the proposed policy’s first paragraph: “Monongalia County Board of Education encourages the enrollment of all school-age children [who] are residents in Monongalia County or in registered parochial or private schools so...

West Virginia Gov. Joe Manchin (D) was supposed to have an easy road to the Senate once Rep. Shelley Moore Capito (R) decided against challenging him in November's special election. But the latest Rasmussen poll on the race shows Republican businessman John Raese within six points of the popular governor. Manchin is running in a special election to fill out the remainder of the late Sen. Robert Byrd's (D) term. The new poll gives Manchin 48 percent of the vote to Raese's 42. Another 4 percent prefer another candidate, and 7 percent remain undecided. The survey polled 500 likely voters...