Am still very distrustful of our local Hemp folks and the separation of it from Pot for Medical uses as is alleged at this time. If there is a way around whatever Laws are put in place, the Pot folks will find them or just say to Hell with it and sell out the back door. No matter the few who may benefit from Legal purchases, there will be the false prescriptions and the illegal sales to contend with as the program goes along. And still think anyone growing Hemp should be barred from any Pot growing.
Another notoriety that we did not need was the media pointing out the problems with the West Virginia Crime Labs among dozens of others involved in falsifying results in testing. Not as bad as some of the bigger States, but for sure not company that we should want to be in. The Columnist that wrote the article noted: "Secrecy about the Crime Labs crisis is a toxic recipe for more wrongful convictions". Each time one of these Labs gets caught, it brings into question the results of thousands and tens of thousands of other cases processed through that Lab or prosecuted by a particular Prosecutor?
The very extensive article in the Daily Blat concerning one Mark Parr, a Parkersburg High School Graduate was a slap in the man's face. I don't know who this Staff Sgt Michael Behlin is in respect to the PN&S, but he sure doesn't know much about Enlisted, Warrant or Commissioned Ranks in the Army.
The secondary headline "Parkersburg High School grad reaches high NCO rank" was to Mr. Parr an insult. If the writer had known or done any research, he would have learned and/ or known that a Warrant Officer outranks ALL Enlisted Personnel in the Army and the Military as a whole. This includes E1 to E9- Private to Sergeant Majors. A Warrant is outranked by every Commissioned Officer be they an 01 to 010- 2d Lieutenant to Four Star General/ Admiral. This holds true in ANY branch of our Military too.
A Warrant Officer is a highly skilled individual in very limited areas overall. What I am saying is that as Mr. Parr noted is very true. As a Chief Warrant Officer WO2, RA, I was a what was called either a Property Book Officer or a Repair Parts Technician. Those titles can and are very deceptive because of the Accountability/ Responsibility entrusted/ assigned from the first day one becomes either of those positions. As Mr. Parr was responsible for hundreds of millions of dollars of ammunition, I was the same for ALL the equipment in the Organizations that I was responsible for at Fort Lewis. The only classes of Supply I did not have direct supervision over were the Ammo Stocks and the Food in the Mess halls. And even then, I did a brief stint as the Food Service Officer until a new Food Service Warrant was assigned. And of course there were very small allotments of ammo in each company arms room.
The exceptional value a qualified Warrant brings to his/ her specialty(s) are often far and away superior to a Commissioned Officer. Not to diminish them, but they are what could be called Jacks of All Trades because they are required to know a bit about anything they may come into contact with, while the Warrant is usually less exposed outside of their fields. However, it is not unusual for one to be given for some time what are called "additional duties". In my case, when my S4 Captain got sent off to Idaho for a couple of months to monitor the summer training for Reservists, I was told that until he returned, it was ALL mine. Had some interesting days I will admit.
An interesting point on a Warrant be they W1 or W4 which was as high as it went when I was in the Service were all expected to be equally proficient upon day of appointment. I know that as good as I was, I did not know everything a W3 or W4 knew from experience. But it sounded good in writing to someone I guess?
But any enlisted person above specialist 4 should know the difference between an NCO and a Warrant. Staff Sgt Behlin I suspect was Air Force? The Air Force got rid of their Warrants by and large many years ago to make slots for Officers who were fliers.
The brouhaha over releasing information to the Federal Panel on Elections is interesting? Yes, there is for sure the matter of Privacy. The Feds are not well known for protecting information on people. Just a couple of years back, when the Office of Personnel Management (OPM), was hacked by the Chinese, 23 Million active and retired Federal Records went to China. I was one of them so my data is all over the place. Pretty boring reading after being retired so many years I would suspect.
But in respect to what was just put out that the Fed wanted to know how many people were registered how many times and where is fine to ask even if not to give. But the comment on why there is such a low voter turnout would be very telling in a place like West Virginia were the Election Processes are so flawed. Mr. Rhodes even got caught up in Voting Issues and allegations of Voter Issues in the Vienna Early Voting Days. 'nuff said'.