Donald Trump, an ongoing eruption of self-refuting statements (“I’m a very stable genius” with “a very good brain”), is adding self-impeachment to his repertoire. Spiraling downward in a tightening gyre, his increasingly unhinged public performances (Google the one with Finland’s dumbfounded…

WASHINGTON, NEXT WEEK, AT THE RATE THINGS ARE GOING — Asked to account for his attempts to pressure Ukraine into influencing the election, Donald Trump responded by standing bare to the elements in the middle of the South Lawn and shouting, “IN A WORLD WITHOUT GOD, EVERYTHING IS PERMITTED!” …

It was at least a year ago. Maybe two. My wife called me into the living room. I had to see what she was watching on her phone.

The Sports Illustrated saga refuses to end. Last week, the commentariat erupted with fury after the venerable magazine laid off at least 25 percent of its editorial staff, including a number of respected writers, and announced plans to hire scores of part-time freelancers.

The U.S. added 136,000 jobs in September and unemployment dropped to a low which hasn’t been seen since Joe Namath led the New York Jets to victory in 1969’s Superbowl III. That’s good, right? It’s more complex than that.

The beginning of the Supreme Court’s term this week includes momentous oral arguments on Tuesday in two cases that illustrate clashing theories about how statutes should be construed. If properly decided, the cases will nudge Congress to act like a legislative body.

“If Democrats are successful in removing the president from office (which they never will be), it will cause a Civil War like fracture in this Nation from which our Country will never heal.” — Donald Trump, roughly quoting Robert Jeffress, a conservative Dallas preacher

Over the last few years, West Virginia has made major progress in school-based child nutrition, thanks to the federal Healthy Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010, West Virginia’s 2013 Feed to Achieve Act and the wise decisions of nearly all county school boards.

KABUL, Afghanistan — My office here overlooks a well-tended rose garden, surrounded by high concrete walls and scrolls of razor wire, which the neighborhood cats have learned to navigate unscathed. Beyond, though, danger lurks: car bombs, kidnappings, shootouts between insurgents and police.

Every American knows Donald Trump wanted a border wall. Was Mexico going to pay for it? Most people knew probably not. Maybe some of his more ardent supporters believed him.

Look it up. According to the U.S. Protocols on Nomenclature for Church, Mosque and Temple Social Functions, “Ladies Tea” is no longer accepted usage.

There’s no problem with President Donald Trump asking the Ukrainian president to “look into” Joe Biden and do “whatever you can do with the Attorney General” about him. That’s what West Virginia’s 2nd District Republican congresswoman, Carol Miller, would have you believe through a statement…

A vocal cohort of fully grown human adults seems unable to deal with Greta Thunberg.

I remember there once was a hubbub at my home parish in Beckley about 30 years ago regarding the distractions posed by babies and young children at church. I believe the upshot was that they best be seen and not heard.

We now know the truth: President Trump asked the leader of Ukraine to investigate the man who was widely seen as his strongest potential opponent during a phone call in which he noted that “we do a lot for Ukraine.” He threw an invite for a White House visit into the bargain.

When you’re constantly monitoring the news, things can get a little stressful.

For Democrats, political reasons to avoid stepping on the road to impeachment still stand. But political complications have collapsed in importance compared with reasons to move ahead.

To deny climate change is to deny laws of physics. Instead of refusing to believe, we Republicans should engage in the debate. Otherwise, we’ll live with whatever solution is developed without us. As for the issue’s proof, I rely on my family’s resident expert, cousin Charles. Allow me to explain.

A depressing mystery hangs over our politics: Why is it that when we have a president whose behavior puts our security interests in peril, our political parties can’t confront the threat together?

WASHINGTON — As a case study in the workings of modern democracy, the handling of Social Security by successive presidents and Congress over recent decades is a deeply disturbing exercise. The facts are not in dispute. Congress and the White House have agreed to benefits for retirees and the…

Social media was rife Tuesday with tributes to Cokie Roberts — especially from women, and especially from women who are journalists — about what she meant to them as a role model, mentor, guide and friend.

For the past two weeks, I’ve stood with other parents, watching my son run through soccer drills on a stiff, browned field of grass adjacent to Target in South Charleston.

“The enemy gets a vote.” American military leaders are fond of using that line. Gen. James Mattis used it so often that it is sometimes attributed to him. In fact, it is a nugget of wisdom dating back to Sun Tzu, the Chinese military strategist, who counseled that one must “know the enemy.” …

What’s the most significant occurrence so far in the 21st century?

If you missed the House Judiciary Committee testimony of former Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski, be patient. The circus will come to town and you can call it even. Democrats attempted to get answers from the squirmy Lewandowski, while Republicans disgraced themselves by letting on a…

The second most important food group in West Virginia, after the pepperoni roll, is, obviously, the entire menu at Tudor’s Biscuit World, but especially the Mary B.

To engage in clairvoyancy in Summersville first requires a municipal license. The application fee is $100. Who knew? Perhaps not even the clairvoyants:

In the beginning, our forefathers said seats in the House of Representatives would be apportioned based on the whole number of people in each state, excepting untaxed American Indians. Recently, that’s been challenged by those proposing to count only citizens, not total people. They’ve faile…

With football season comes a bombardment of television ads for “manly man” foods — the triple-decker burgers, racks of ribs, Buffalo wings, mighty meaty pizzas galore. For those of us who are trying to eat healthier, seeing the artery-clogging junk fare during commercial breaks detracts from…

Physically diminutive, intellectually acerbic and with an eye for the ironic, Margaret Ng — lawyer, writer and former legislator — is, at 71, a member of the generation for which this city’s youthful protesters have scant patience. They say the elders have been too patient about Hong Kong’s …

In 1879, on the road leading into Dodge City, there stood a sign. “The Carrying of Fire Arms Strictly Prohibited,” it said.

Few economists disagree that the nation faces a recession. While some economic indicators appear still rosy, business investment continues to fall. This indicator is key in measuring business confidence that investments will pay off with economic growth as contrasted to nervousness and coast…

WASHINGTON — Imagine if, back in 2011, President Barack Obama had not only withdrawn all U.S. forces from Iraq, facilitating the rise of the Islamic State, but also invited Islamic State leaders to Camp David to sign an agreement cementing his withdrawal plan.

It was a normal, September morning. I’d only been a reporter for about two years. I was driving from The Daily Independent, in Ashland, Kentucky, to cover a Greenup County Fiscal Court meeting (Kentucky’s version of a county commission).

I was wrong. A democracy component is included in new rules selecting West Virginia delegates to the Republican National Convention. However, these rules still have some committee members miffed because of a century-old struggle pitting presidential primaries against the historic convention …

Britain’s Tories are arguably the most successful political party of the modern age. The Conservatives have ruled Britain for nearly 60 of the 90 years since 1929 (the country’s first election with universal adult suffrage). But last week, we watched the beginning of the end of the Conservat…

The verdict of history is that the trade war that’s now raging between the United States and China will lead to no good — with consequences that could go well beyond trade and threaten the world’s geopolitical and economic stability.

If President Donald Trump had inadvertently said that Arkansas, rather than Alabama, was in the path of Hurricane Dorian, he would have needed his justification bubble (drawn with a sharpie) to stretch westward to the mighty Mississippi, with flood warnings for Little Rock. He could have sim…

There are alarming consequences for the survival of human beings and the success of the society they inhabit when the brain suffers without treatment. And it has become frighteningly common for Americans to find their way into despair and self-murder.

Two stories at the center of the news — the Brexit mess in Britain and the U.S. Senate’s failure to act on gun violence — should force us to think hard about what it will take for historic democracies to make their systems work again. We need to accept that different conceptions of democracy…

WASHINGTON — Richard Stengel, a former Time editor who became the State Department’s undersecretary for public diplomacy, writes that he was once an information “idealist.” He believed that in the marketplace of ideas, the truth would ultimately prevail. Not anymore.

Sen. Joe Manchin’s decision against attempting a return to the Governor’s Office is part of a daisy chain of power moves as hard to follow as the last three episodes of “Game of Thrones.”

To better serve us, the West Virginia Republican Party Executive Committee decided to select our national convention delegates in cooperation with the Trump campaign. That way we won’t have to bother with it. There’s only one thing missing in that deal: democracy. Here are details.

Robust debate over the wisdom of former tea party enthusiast Joe Walsh choosing to launch a primary challenge against President Donald Trump has obscured a more critical set of questions: What should Republican presidential challengers be doing? What is their purpose?

This Labor Day, I’m looking for a job. To be honest, I’ve been looking for a job for the last 20 Labor Days.

WASHINGTON — The big news in the Democratic presidential race is that not much has changed since Joe Biden jumped in.

WASHINGTON — It was known as the “Treaty of Detroit,” but it did not end a shooting war. In 1950, Walter Reuther, the legendary leader of the United Auto Workers union, and Charlie Wilson, the CEO of General Motors, agreed to a historic labor contract that bought the automaker five years of …

Andrew Luck, the superstar quarterback who just quit professional football at the tender age of 29, has received mixed reviews from the sports world. Colts fans booed him. And any number of sports writers see his decision to get out of football to avoid more injuries as tragedy combined with…

Republican candidates have yet to explain how Canada, England, France, Germany, Hungary, Poland and the other industrialized nations manage to have their versions of Medicare for All, while we wait. Medicare presently works awfully well for 53 million of us. Why not for all of us? Recently, …