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Link to his post, which he has since deleted: https://twitter.com/jonathantasini/status/958765928602157056

The White House is confirming one fatality and one serious injury after a chartered train carrying Republican lawmakers to a retreat in West Virginia hit a garbage truck. White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders says there are no serious injuries among members of Congress or congressional staff. Sanders says President Donald Trump has been fully briefed on the matter and is receiving regular updates. The train carrying the lawmakers hit a garbage truck south of Charlottesville, Virginia. Lawmakers are heading to their annual legislative retreat at the Greenbrier resort in White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia.

Over the past decade, out-of-state drug companies shipped 20.8 million prescription painkillers to two pharmacies four blocks apart in a Southern West Virginia town with 2,900 people, according to a congressional committee investigating the opioid crisis.The House Energy and Commerce Committee cited the massive shipments of hydrocodone and oxycodone — two powerful painkillers — to the town of Williamson, in Mingo County, amid the panel’s inquiry into the role of drug distributors in the opioid epidemic.“These numbers are outrageous, and we will get to the bottom of how this destruction was able to be unleashed across West Virginia,” said committee...

West Virginia's Sen. Joe Manchin (D.) criticized House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D., Calif.) after being shown a clip of her characterizing President Donald Trump's immigration plan as a way to "Make America White Again." CNN's "State of the Union" host Jake Tapper used the Pelosi clip to start a discussion on immigration. "Let me just say what I said last night: that plan is a campaign to make America white again," Pelosi said. "You know what, we don't need that type of rhetoric on either side, from Nancy, Paul Ryan or anybody else," Manchin said. Manchin proceeded to say...

How close did Democrats come to losing the Senate seat from West Virginia? Close enough to take a lecture from incumbent Joe Manchin, who reluctantly committed to running for another term in November only yesterday. The New York Times reveals Manchin’s surprising holdout, as well as his blunt assessment of the Senate and Democrats’ sharp left turn:

The world's greatest deliberative body has become the world's greatest constipated body, chained to a rule that no longer makes any sense: the Byrd Rule, which requires 60 Senate votes to end a filibuster on budgetary legislation when that legislation would significantly increase the deficit beyond a ten-year horizon. (Otherwise, the reconciliation process allows for a mere majority for passage.) The so-called "Schumer shutdown" and an endless series of continuing resolutions cry out for ending the legislative filibuster in general on budget matters, where the risk of government shutdown is now ever present. The Democrats claim that the Republicans are...

RUSH: Here’s another great piece, another Limbaugh echo. There’s so many Limbaugh echoes out there today that I’m reveling in it here, folks. By the way, from TheHill.com, headline: “Left Says Democrats Caved on Shutdown — Progressives are hammering [Chuck You] Schumer for his agreement … to end the government shutdown on Monday. Even House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi has spoken out against the deal, saying there was no reason to support it. ‘I don’t see that there’s any reason — I’m speaking personally and hearing from my members — to support what was put forth,’ Pelosi said…” Pelosi is...

Though federal employees won’t get a paycheck during the governmment shutdown, members of Congress will — unless they specify otherwise. Ten Democratic senators on Friday introduced a bill that would withhold pay for members of Congress during the government shutdown. The legislation comes from Sen. Heidi Heitkamp (D-N.D.), along with Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee Ranking Member Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.), Sens. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), Bob Casey (D-Pa.), Maggie Hassan (D-N.H.), Joe Manchin (D-W. Va.), Gary Peters (D-Mich.), Tina Smith (D-Minn.), Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.) and Jon Tester (D-Mont.). “It’s wrong that members of Congress would still get paid in...

Guess which state has the highest poverty rate in the country? Not Mississippi, New Mexico, or West Virginia, but California, where nearly one out of five residents is poor. That's according to the Census Bureau's Supplemental Poverty Measure, which factors in the cost of housing, food, utilities and clothing, and which includes noncash government assistance as a form of income.

The economic vector of West Virginia (and parts of Pennsylvania and Ohio adjoining it) has reversed course since the election of President Donald Trump, going from depressed (and forgotten) to growing and attracting huge structural investments from overseas. You can see the changes on the ground, not just in dry economic statistics. It is one thing to read about GNP growth roughly doubling since President Trump reformed the oppressive regulatory environment and devoted attention to reviving King Coal to his former majesty in West Virginia (and then some). Casey Jenkins of the Wilkes-Barre Times Leader writes from Wheeling, WV about...

WHEELING — Motorists know age and excessive use are taking a toll on Interstate 70 through Ohio County, but some state lawmakers are concerned drivers may be paying tolls after a proposed $172.5 million rehabilitation on the stretch of highway is completed. Delegates Erikka Storch, R-Ohio, and Patrick McGeehan, R-Hancock, both said they voted against a bill — which ultimately passed — giving the West Virginia Parkways Authority the ability to charge tolls after construction of new roads and major improvements to existing highways because of their concerns about future tolling on Interstate 70. State Senate Majority Leader Ryan Ferns,...

Attorney General Jeff Landry is urging a federal appeals court to reverse an order that is preventing the implementation of President Donald Trump's executive order regulating so-called "sanctuary cities," arguing that such immigrant-friendly jurisdictions "undermine the rule of law and deprive law enforcement of the tools necessary to enforce the law effectively." "We have seen too many crimes occur against our own State’s citizens due to sanctuary city policies; which is why I have been actively fighting back against these policies since taking office," Landry, a Republican, said in a news release announcing that he had joined 10 other attorneys...

Of course it will, Joe.  More than 80 percent of Americans will get a tax cut next year under the new law, with nearly as many taxpayers enjoying relief through at least 2026 (and very likely beyond).  Of the plan's tiny handful of 'losers' (less than five percent), most are high-income earners living in high-tax states who itemize their deductions -- as opposed to taking the now-doubled standard deduction, as 70 percent of filers currently do (a number that will grow).  It...doesn't sound like many West Virginians fit that profile.  Manchin knew all of this, of course, but he voted...

It’s come to this. Morgan Spurlock has issued a dramatic, guilt-fueled, angst-ridden confession entitled, “I Am Part of the Problem.’’ By his own account, the filmmaker, 47, best known for the 2004 documentary take-down of the fast-food industry, “Super Size Me,’’ was extremely, horrifically and chronically naughty. Yet as he tells it, he never sexually assaulted anyone, nor did he touch, grope or kiss any person without invitation or tacit agreement. As Spurlock tells it in an online post, he did not sexually harass, fire, spank or tickle any females over whom he exerted professional or physical power, nor did...

HUNTINGTON, W.Va. — Gov. Jim Justice says he’s going to use the West Virginia National Guard to help Huntington respond to the current rash of violence that has resulted in a number of murders including three this week. Gov. Jim Justice talks with WSAZ-TV Anchor Amanda Barren. “I’m going to call upon our National Guard,” Justice said during a Thursday town hall meeting on WSAZ-TV in Huntington. “Our National Guard has resources that can absolutely combat this thing.” Justice said he couldn’t be specific but said the Guard would be working with other police agencies. “That doesn’t mean setting a...

CHARLESTON, W.Va. — Lawyers for the Mountain Valley Pipeline say if there are delays in the federal court system, the entire project could be delayed by at least a year. The pipeline developers wrote in a recent court filing that they need access to all the property no later than this coming Feb. 1 to comply with a window for tree clearing required by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. “If MVP is unable to gain access to commence work on each respective deadline, construction of the entire MVP project may be delayed for as much as one year given...

President Trump hosted the National Collegiate Athletic Association champion sports teams at the White House on Friday - or most of them, that is. The event began with the student athletes meeting President Trump in the Rose Garden for photos. "A lot of great athletes," Trump told the press pool. The Marine Corps Marching Band played nearby from the South Lawn, as President Trump joked with athletes, meeting them in groups. When talking with the Ohio State men's volleyball team, the president was seen jokingly smacking a volleyball in the air. While interacting with the West Virginia rifle team in...

CHARLESTON — After news broke that state officials had brokered an $83.7 billion deal with China Energy Investment Corporation to invest in West Virginia’s shale gas and chemical industries, one of the first questions to come up was how soon the Mountain State might see the fruits of the agreement. “We’re going full steam ahead, immediately,” state Commerce Secretary Woody Thrasher said in a telephone call from China. According to U.S. Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va., Thrasher and others familiar with the memorandum of understanding, ground could be broken within six to eight months on two gas-fired power stations to...

CHARLESTON, W.Va. — A company owned by Gov. Jim Justice and his family says it wanted to settle a $4 million debt by selling a helicopter, but the lender hasn’t been cooperating. James C. Companies, Justice Aviation — and the governor personally — were sued in the Southern District of New York in September over default on a loan for the companies’ private helicopter. A little more than $4 million is remaining on the loan. The plaintiff, Citizens Asset Finance, wants to foreclose and take back the helicopter. In an answer filed on Friday, lawyers for Justice and his companies...

When Mike Sylvester entered a career training center earlier this year in southwestern Pennsylvania, he found more than one hundred federally funded courses covering everything from computer programming to nursing. He settled instead on something familiar: a coal mining course. "I think there is a coal comeback,” said the 33-year-old son of a miner. Despite broad consensus about coal's bleak future, a years-long effort to diversify the economy of this hard-hit region away from mining is stumbling, with Obama-era jobs retraining classes undersubscribed and future programs at risk under President Donald Trump’s proposed 2018 budget. Trump has promised to revive...