The presidential debate featuring the Republican presidential hopefuls conducted by cable television outlet CNBC, an NBC network affiliate caused a bit of stir. The conduct of the “moderators”, an interesting and ironic term that in this case is misapplied, was downright offensive. So much so that the Republican National Committee severed ties with the network citing “bad faith”. My how journalism has fallen.

How about this headline from CNN last month, “Clinton: Alabama voting restrictions ‘a blast from the Jim Crow past’” Beyond divisive, it’s incendiary. It’s also disingenuous and just plain wrong. The article goes on to say, “The Alabama Law Enforcement Agency announced last week that an $11 million cut in the budget would force the closing of 31 part-time, county-owned satellite locations at which residents can obtain or renew their licenses…Democrats have charged that the governor’s decision to close identification offices is politically motivated due to the state’s strict voter identification laws and will disproportionately affect African-American voters”.

I had no intention of watching the Democrat presidential debate last week. However, my wife started to watch and it wasn’t long before morbid curiosity got the better of me. It was like watching reruns of television shows - like Criminal Minds for example - that I had avoided the first time around.

My how time flies. We’re in the final quarter of 2015 - which means that we are right around the halfway point of the census period. In all likelihood, when the numbers are collected at the end of the current decade and the task of redistricting is begun, West Virginia will lose one of its members in the US House of Representatives. Relative to other states, West Virginia’s population has stagnated. In fact, during the census period that ended in 2010, West Virginia became the first state ever to record more deaths than births. Without significant numbers of folks wanting to re-locate to our state, we will continue to lose ground with to other states with regard to population.

There’s a controversial bill, HR 1599, named the ”Safe and Accurate Food Labeling Act of 2015” that has passed the US House of Representatives and is now under consideration by the US Senate. To some the title of the bill is Orwellian - its detractors have called it the “Deny Americans the Right to Know” or “Dark Act”. The controversy that surrounds the legislation concerns genetically modified food - otherwise known as “GMOs” (which actually stands for “Genetically Modified Organisms”).

Anti-Washington sentiment is sweeping the nation. According to a very recent Rasmussen poll, only 2% of “likely voters” believe that congress is doing an “excellent” job, while another 7% believe it is doing a “good” job. There are 25% that rate its performance as “fair” and 63% call it “poor”. Apparently there are 3% that can’t bring themselves to even think about it. I don’t blame them.