Some tea party-oriented West Virginia legislators who call themselves the Liberty Caucus support "a bill that would allow anyone to carry a concealed weapon without a permit," a news report said. Wait a minute. Would this include high school boys or grade school tots taking loaded pistols to class? Would it let drug dealers carry Uzis to police their territory? Would it let psychotics bring guns into the Legislature's galleries? If the Liberty Caucus answers "no" to any of those questions, then it favors gun control.
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When Planned Parenthood collects, tests, stores and processes donated fetal tissue, then charges a processing fee, that's similar to the Red Cross charging a fee for handling donated blood - according to Kathy Jewell, a retired University of Charleston nurse trainer.
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Bulletin for northern West Virginians: People who live near deep "fracking" gas wells are 27 percent more likely to be hospitalized for heart and other ailments, researchers from the University of Pennsylvania and Columbia University found by scanning nearly 200,000 Pennsylvania medical records.
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California's long drought is the worst in 1,200 years, according to scientists who traced evidence in tree rings. The drought is causing billions in losses and tens of thousands of agriculture jobs. Is this calamity rooted in global warming?
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Flamboyant H. John Rogers of New Martinsville was upset because the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette spotlighted rampant drug abuse in Wetzel County. So Rogers obtained a Pittsburgh "event" permit and burned a copy of the newspaper outside its office, while photographers snapped his protest. We wonder why Rogers didn't protest against his county's terrible drug problem.
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New York Times columnist Timothy Egan says the Republican Party has become "a refuge for racists" because southern white supremacy groups ally themselves with the GOP. "The white south changed allegiances with the advent of the civil rights movement," he wrote. "Richard Nixon then sealed the transformation with his Southern Strategy, which parked southern whites firmly in the Republican Party."
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Amid the uproar over the rebel flag, comedian John Oliver quipped: "The Confederate flag is one of those symbols that should really only be seen on T-shirts, belt buckles and bumper stickers to help the rest of us identify the worst people."