The United States Postal Service (USPS) is an independent agency of the United States government responsible for providing postal service in the United States. It is one of the few government agencies explicitly authorized by the United States Constitution.

Employing 656,000 workers and 260,000 vehicles, the Postal Service is the second-largest civilian employer in the United States (after Wal-Mart) and the operator of the largest civilian vehicle fleet in the world.

The USPS is obligated to serve all Americans, regardless of geography, at uniform price and quality. Six days a week, the United States Postal Service delivers some 660 million pieces of mail to as many as 142 million delivery points.

Since its reorganization into an independent organization under the 1970 Postal Reorganization Act, the USPS has become self-sufficient and has not received taxpayer-dollars since the early 1980s. The decline of mail volume due to increased usage of e-mail has forced the postal service to increase postage rates while cutting costs to maintain this financial balance.

First Class mail volume has declined 22 percent from 1998 to 2007, due to the increasing use of e-mail and the World Wide Web for correspondence and business transactions. Private carriers like UPS and FedEx have also cut into the Postal Service's package-delivery business.

Budget-cutting measures under consideration include elimination of Saturday delivery and shuttering some of the 32,700 Post Offices currently operated in the U.S.

Should the U.S. privatize the Postal Service?

The first closed-circuit video surveillance camera was developed by German scientists in 1942 for monitoring the launch of V2 rockets. In September 1968, Olean, New York was the first city in the United States to install video cameras along its main business street in an effort to fight crime. Soon, banks and stores began employing such cameras to discourage theft.

In recent decades, especially with general crime fears growing in the 1990s and following the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, use of surveillance cameras in public areas has increased greatly, especially in the United Kingdom.

In that country, a 1994 government report, "Closed Circuit Television: Looking Out For You," paved the way for expanded use of surveillance cameras. The exact number of such cameras in the UK is not known, however, a 2002 study estimated the number of surveillance cameras in private premises in London is around 500,000, and the total number of cameras in the UK is around 4,200,000. According to that estimate, the UK has one camera for every 14 people. The investigation of several notable murder cases have been aided by the use of video surveillance, including London-area bomb blasts.

Video surveillance has been less extensive in the U.S., however, use of such systems has increased greatly since 9-11.

The city of Keyser employs several surveillance cameras downtown and at some of its facilities, and Mineral County Commissioner Wayne Spiggle sees the cameras as central to a proposed countywide Neighborhood Watch program.

Do you support the use of video surveillance cameras to deter crime and aid in police investigations?

Is Sen. Byrd’s coal stand good for WV?

 This past Monday, the Op-Ed page of the Mineral Daily News-Tribune featured a lengthy column by U.S. Sen. Robert Byrd on coal, global warming and mountaintop mining removal. Billed by the senator's staff as “a major opinion piece,” the commentary challenged the state's coal industry, and its citizens, to embrace change in the energy sector.

Byrd stated that coal cannot be replaced in the nation's energy mix because it provides about half of all electricity consumed in the U.S., a fact that “vexes some in the environmental community, but it is reality.” Calling for “an open and honest dialogue about coal's future in West Virginia,” though, the senator noted that most Americans and most in Congress oppose mountaintop mining, and threats by coal-state lawmakers to hold up health care legislation over the issue “is beyond foolish; it is morally indefensible.” Similarly, the senator urged West Virginians to accept the reality of global warming: “To deny the mounting science of climate change is to stick our heads in the sand and say 'deal me out.',” he wrote.

Byrd called for staking out a middle ground on such issues, and said he will push for legislation that eases the coal industry into the new “low carbon” environment through increased funding for clean-coal research, tax credits for clean-coal power plants, and an easing of emission standards and timelines.

“Change has been a constant throughout the history of our coal industry,” the senator concluded. “West Virginians can choose to anticipate change and adapt to it, or resist and be overrun by it.”

Faced with the question of how to try terrorist detainees held at Guantanamo Bay, the Obama administration has opted to conduct trials for some of the most notorious in New York City. Self-proclaimed Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four other Guantanamo Bay detainees will be sent to New York to face trial in a civilian federal court. Bringing such notorious suspects to U.S. soil to face trial is a key step in Obama’s plan to close the terror suspect detention center at Guantanamo Bay. It is also a major legal and political test of Obama’s overall approach to terrorism. If the case suffers legal setbacks, the administration will face second-guessing from those who never wanted it in a civilian courtroom. And if lawmakers get upset about notorious terrorists being brought to their home regions, they may fight back against other parts of Obama’s agenda. The New York case may also force the court system to confront a host of difficult legal issues surrounding counter-terrorism programs begun after the 2001 attacks, including the harsh interrogation techniques once used on some of the suspects while in CIA custody. The most severe method — waterboarding, or simulated drowning — was used on Mohammed 183 times in 2003, before the practice was banned. Critics also charge that civilian trials will give the detainees a platform to spread the message of terrorism, recruit followers and burnish their image as martyrs.

Should terrorist detainee trials be held in New York City?

Keep the excess school levy?

 The tax levy in Mineral County is composed of several smaller levies, including a state levy, a county levy, and a fire and rescue excess levy. In addition, the Board of Education is funded through a current levy and excess levy, the latter of which provides additional funding for the school system.

The two excess levies that are in place in Mineral County are subject to approval by the voters. If, when the levies are up for renewal, they do not win a support of the majority of voters who cast ballots in the election, the excess levy is no longer assessed, and that revenue is not forwarded to the two entities.

Mineral County officials were concerned enough about the possibility of a failure of the excess levies, that in negotiating with U.S. WindForce over its proposed Pinnacle Wind Farm, the county commissioners established a $250,000 floor for the wind farm’s property tax, in the event that those tax levies are not approved, and the county tax rate subsequently falls.

County voters have also been asked to support special bond levies that are targeted toward funding specific capital improvement projects, including new school construction. Recent bond levies have not won passage.

With Democrats wielding their sizable majority to fend off strong Republican opposition and survive the defection of 39 members of their own party, the U.S. House of Representatives voted 220 to 215 to approve health care reform legislation after a day of contentious debate.
On November 7, as midnight drew near, 219 House Democrats and 1 Republican approved a measure that would extend insurance coverage to virtually all Americans by 2013. The 1990-page bill would also restructure private insurance, bolster primary care, and make countless other policy changes.
The House bill would, at a cost of $1.05 trillion, extend coverage to an estimated 96% of the U.S. population (excluding undocumented immigrants), up from 83%. Expanded coverage would become available through insurance exchanges — where eligible people would receive subsidies to purchase their choice of plans — and through an expansion of Medicaid. The bill also prescribes a heavy set of regulations that would limit the ability of private insurers to deny coverage, barring them from discriminating against applicants on the basis of health status, denying coverage because of a preexisting condition, or imposing annual or lifetime limits on coverage. Through the creation of a national health insurance exchange, the bill would hold private carriers to greater account and require them to offer standardized benefit packages.
Action on a health care overhaul now moves to the U.S. Senate. (Source: New England Journal of Medicine), where Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) has crafted a bill as a compromise between two committees’ measures and floor debate awaits only a cost estimate from the Congressional Budget Office. And President Barack Obama has weighed in, urging senators to “take up the baton and bring this effort to the finish line.”

Be sure to read what FACEOFF columnists Charlie Meyer and Steve Smoot have to say on this subject and If you have something to say about it, send us a letter-to-the-editor at: letters@newstribune.info. We want to hear what you have to say.
 

 Do 3rd party efforts bode ill for GOP?

While the GOP ran the table in gubernatorial elections last week in Virginia and New Jersey, the race in New York's 23rd Congressional District saw a Democrat elected for the first time in more than 150 years, after the GOP-nominated candidate was criticized as too liberal, and drew a conservative, third-party challenger. Although the Republican candidate dropped out just before votes were cast, the dispute divided the Republican vote and resulted in the Democratic win.
The race was unique for the national attention drawn to what would otherwise have been a little-noticed election to fill the seat of former Rep. John McHugh, whom President Obama named Secretary of the Army. Fox News heavyweights Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck strongly promoted the conservative candidate, as did Gov. Sarah Palin and a host of Republican Party officials who opposed the GOP candidate's support of abortion rights and legalized gay marriage.
However, Newt Gingrich and other prominent Republicans backed the GOP candidate, a New York Assemblywoman whose votes left her about in the middle among New York Republicans in that state's legislature. Gingrich and others argued that the GOP must embrace such candidates if the party hopes to be a “big tent” movement that accepts moderates.
After the New York election, conservative activists vowed to take their campaign to other states, targeting candidates they believe are not sufficiently conservative in their views.
 

Be sure to read what FACEOFF columnists Charlie Meyer and Steve Smoot have to say on this subject and If you have something to say about it, send us a letter-to-the-editor at: letters@newstribune.info. We want to hear what you have to say.

The Business and Occupation tax (often abbreviated  as the B & O tax) is a type of tax levied by the U.S. states of Washington and West Virginia, and by municipal governments in West Virginia. The state of Ohio is currently phasing in a similar tax, with full implementation in 2010.
It is a type of gross-receipts tax because it is levied on gross income, rather than net income. Although West Virginia has largely scrapped its B&O tax at the state level, it continues to allow municipalities to collect B&O taxes of their own, and this tax is the major source of revenue for many cities in the state. (Source: Wikipedia) According to the West Virginia State Tax Department, "This tax is imposed on the privilege of engaging in certain business activities." Rates vary according to the type of business, and differ from city to city. In Keyser, the B&O tax accounts for about 32 percent, or nearly one-third, of the $1.8 million the city receives in taxes and other revenue for its operating budget. However, the tax has created a business flight outside the city, with Potomac Valley Hospital among the most recent -- and biggest -- business to leave town for less-taxed pastures just south of the city limits. Be sure to read what FACEOFF columnists Charlie Meyer and Steve Smoot have to say on this subject and If you have something to say about it, send us a letter-to-the-editor at: letters@newstribune.info. We want to hear what you have to say.

Is Keyser's B&O Tax harmful or beneficial?

Question
Is U.S. business over-regulated?

The Debate:
Since colonial times, government has regulated business. The need for more responsive and effective business regulation was at least part of the reason for the fight for independence and the establishment of the federal government.
As the U.S. economy became more industrialized and the United States grew to be a world power in the nineteenth century, the federal government passed business laws that favored social reforms over the interests of big business. In the twentieth century, government involvement continued to expand until the 1970s, when both business and the public began to call for less regulation.
At the beginning of the 21st century, the ruinous effects that utility deregulation had on California's economy and the corporate accounting scandals that came to light in late 2001 raised the possibility of a new era of federal intervention into business practices.
That lesson was reinforced by the economic crash from which the country is only now emerging, brought about in large part by the risky business practices of Wall Street investment firms and the lack of oversight on the part of federal regulators.

Be sure to read what FACEOFF columnists Charlie Meyer and Steve Smoot have to say on this subject and If you have something to say about it, send us a letter-to-the-editor at: letters@newstribune.info. We want to hear what you have to say.

Long accused of a conservative bias, Fox News’ alleged tilt to the Right became a news topic of its own last week when members of President Obama's inner circle criticized Fox as a Republican mouthpiece dedicated not to reporting the news objectively, but rather to making money. White House communications director Anita Dunn said Fox News operates "almost as either the research arm or the communications arm of the Republican Party." On Sunday, Rahm Emanuel, President Barack Obama's chief of staff, said, "It is not a news organization so much as it has a perspective." In response to the criticism, Fox News executive Michael Clemente on
Sunday accused the White House of continuing to "declare war on a news organization" rather than focusing on issues such as jobs and health care. Founded in 1996 by media mogul Rupert Murdoch, Fox News is lead by CEO Roger Ailes, a longtime Republican operative. From its initial base of 17 million households, Fox is now available in 102 million U.S. households and is the nation’s number-one cable news network according to Neilson ratings. The channel is broadcast to 40 countries. Be sure to read what FACEOFF columnists Charlie Meyer and Steve Smoot have to say on this subject and If you have something to say about it, send us a letter-to-the-editor at: letters@newstribune.info. We want to hear what you have to say.

Is Fox News a legitimate news organization?

The Nobel Peace Prize was established by Swedish industrialist and inventor Alfred Nobel as one of five annual financial awards to  recognize those who, according to Nobel's guidelines, "shall have   conferred the greatest benefit on mankind." The other four awards are in Physics, Chemistry, Medicine and Literature. In his will, which outlined how the prizes were to be awarded, Nobel stated that the Peace Prize should go to the person who in the past   year "shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses."The first Nobel prizes were awarded in 1901. Past Nobel Peace Prize laureates have included Theodore Roosevelt, Martin Luther King, Henry Kissinger, the Dalai Lama, Mikhail Gorbachev, Bishop Desmond Tutu and Jimmy Carter. Last week, the Norwegian Nobel Committee announced that the 2009 prize  would go to President Barack Obama. In making the announcement, committee officials said he was given the award "for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples."

Be sure to read what FACEOFF columnists Charlie Meyer and Steve Smoot have to say on this subject and If you have something to say about it, send us a letter-to-the-editor at: letters@newstribune.info. We want to hear what you have to say.

This weeks FACEOFF question: Did President Barack Obama deserve the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize?

 

As with other communities in West Virginia, and elsewhere across the nation, Mineral County has long grappled with the issue of strip clubs, and whether or how to regulate them. In the Mountain State, efforts to regulate and prohibit adult entertainment venues are constrained by a tradition of land-use rights and minimalist zoning codes. The same sentiment that allows a property owner to maintain a half-dozen junked cars in his front yard, leaves communities vulnerable to the business owner who wants to open a strip club at the old neighborhood bar down the street. While adult entertainment has often been allowed under First Amendment
freedom-of-expression protections, many communities have been able to effectively bar strip clubs and book stores by enacting strict zoning policies that prohibit such establishments within 1,000 feet or so of churches, schools and residential neighborhoods, in effect consigning them
to industrial zones. Mineral County has tried for several years to chase the Legz club in Wiley
Ford, its efforts at one point beaten back in federal court. Those efforts continue, leading to today’s Faceoff topic.

Be sure to read what FACEOFF columnists Charlie Meyer and Steve Smoot have to say on this subject and If you have something to say about it, send us a letter-to-the-editor at: letters@newstribune.info. We want to hear what you have to say.

This week's FACEOFF question: Should Mineral County try to bar stip clubs and other adult-oriented businesses?

Political commentary too mean-spirited?

Are today’s political commentators going too far with their attacks on opponents?

Be sure to read what FACEOFF columnists Charlie Meyer and Steve Smoot have to say on this subject and If you have something to say about it, send us a letter-to-the-editor at: letters@newstribune.info. We want to hear what you have to say.

Following the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, U.S. military forces
entered Afghanistan seeking to remove from power the Islamic fundamentalist Taliban movement, which had provided sanctuary for Osama Bin Laden and other members of the al-Queda terrorist movement responsible for 9-11. In the early stages of the operation, Special Forces units worked with Afghan forces opposed to the Taliban, employing U.S. airpower and other resources to rout and scatter the enemy forces. The Taliban found a safe haven in lawless tribal areas of Pakistan, however. From there the movement gradually rebuilt its strength, as U.S. efforts focused on Iraq. In the spring of 2009 President Barack Obama authorized an increase of 21,000 troops in Afghanistan, nearly doubling the number of U.S. forces in the country. Earlier this month, the U.S. commander in the country, called for even more troops, saying the war might be lost without the commitment of additional U.S. resources. President Obama has not yet decided on a course of action. As of Thursday, 843 U.S. troops have died in Afghanistan since 2001. 2009 has been the deadliest year by far, with 213 deaths through the first nine months of the year.

Be sure to read what FACEOFF columnists Charlie Meyer and Steve Smoot have to say on this subject and If you have something to say about it, send us a letter-to-the-editor at: letters@newstribune.info. We want to hear what you have to say.

Can the United States still win the war in Afghanistan?

 

A central component of many health care reform proposals being considered in Congress -- including the plan forwarded this week by Sen. Max Baucus -- involves mandatory health insurance. Like car insurance, the proposals would require Americans to buy health insurance coverage or pay a fine. Subsidies would be provided for low-income individuals and families.
Mandatory health insurance plans are modeled largely on Massachusetts, which enacted such a plan in 2006. It requires nearly every resident of the state to obtain health insurance coverage. Since the law’s enactment, an additional 439,000 residents of the state who lacked health coverage, now have insurance. Signficiant funding issues remain unresolved, however, with the state’s plan doing little to check the spiraling cost of health care.
In February 2008 the Boston Globe reported that Commonwealth Care -- one of the main insurance options -- covered 169,000 people and had a projected cost of $618 million for the fiscal year. By June 2011 enrollment is projected to grow to 342,000 people at an annual expense of $1.35 billion. (Source: Wikipedia)

Be sure to read what FACEOFF columnists Charlie Meyer and Steve Smoot have to say on this subject and If you have something to say about it, send us a letter-to-the-editor at: letters@newstribune.info. We want to hear what you have to say.

This week's FACEOFF QUESTION: Should health insurance be mandatory?