An Indepth Analysis of News and Trends Affecting West Kentucky 

If You Can't Find Something, You Ain't Shoppin'! Missy Jenkins, Heath High shooting survivor, teacher and now author, and Supreme Court Justice Bill Cunningham will be at the Hickman County Arts, Crafts, Book and Food Fair on December 6th at the Young Center, FUMC, South Washington Street in Clinton signing their books.  See the full story ...

News Highlights Government Spending This past week’s stories in two major Kentucky papers taken together emphasize the tone deaf quality of our leaders in Frankfort. Spewing money out of one pocket while turning the other inside out to show taxpayers and President Elect Obama the pitifully poor state of the Commonwealth is an activity shared by both the executive and legislative branch.  See the full story ...

That Darned Hole UPDATE: We don’t know who fixed the cover. Had to be someone from the government (nobody I know keeps those cool red cones lying around). Walking back from the courthouse this morning around ten, I noticed the cover was off the manhole that sits right in the middle of the sidewalk almost under our one- and- only- traffic light. A few weeks (months?) ago, someone tripped on this very same manhole and was hurt.  See the full story ...

Pilgrims Pride Files Chapter 11 Pilgrims Pride files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in its home state of Texas. Stock trading has halted on the NYSE when the stock dropped to sixty two cents a share.  All the news is not bleak. The company says it has no plans to lay off workers at the Graves County plant and CNNMoney is reporting that  Pilgrims Pride has $450 million in funding lined up to get them through the bankruptcy.  See the full story ...

Was Hubbard Right About MSU? Saturday's Paducah Sun headlined a front page story "Future of university relies on Paducah".   See the full story ...

EKU and General Atomics Partner with Fed $$ Eastern Kentucky University and General Atomics, a firm out of California, will be working together to come up with a non-food biofuel. General Atomics, founded (when else?) in the 1950s, created the Predator drone used extensively by the military.  To move the deal, Rep. Ben Chandler came up with $4 million dollars in federal funds for the project.   See the full story ...

Beaver Dam Cafe - Sign of the Times? The Ohio County Times-News, www.octimesnews.com reported recently that little Beaver Dam lost two long standing businesses. The office of the Beaver Dam Deposit Bank on Main Street closed. Then the Commonwealth of Kentucky padlocked the Beaver Dam Cafe for unemployment insurance payments.  See the full story ...

More Nukes for Paduke? Got an email today from the Cumberland Chapter of the Sierra Club. It looks like Paducah is on the list for a spent nuclear fuel reprocessing plant. Oh goody. More foulness for ground, air, water and living beings.    This sounds like a really bad idea.  There is an address to submit your opinion in the email. Do something unfood related this weekend - write to the Department of Energy. See the full story ...

Yowzah. Gov't Jobs Up, Factory Jobs Down According to the seasonally adjusted employment data, the government sector, which includes public education, public administration agencies and state-owned hospitals, gained 2,700 positions between September 2008 and October 2008. The sector has grown by 10,000 jobs since October 2007 with roughly half of those positions in local government.  See the full story ... State Gov't Press Release

How to Change a Light Bulb – or What’s Really Wrong With Detroit Step 3. "Gently pry the headlight assembly away from the fender as shown in the picture. This will free the ball stud from its retainer in the fender..." Yeah. Right. See the full story ...

Retailers Putting Faith in Humor, Class, Quality to Survive Christmas  See the full story ...

Editorial Page

Tom Gish Left EKY Better Than He Found It One of my childhood heroes was buried today. Tom Gish, who made the Mountain Eagle (It Screams!) a light in the darkness of the hollers of Eastern Kentucky, went to his Maker at the too young age of 82.  See the full story ...

Is It Time to Think the Unthinkable? Incumbency seems to be the biggest predictor of success at the ballot box. In past elections, we calculated the chances of reelection at 91%. This year, the chances of re-election were even better. The percentage of incumbents went up this year. Two years ago, there were 65 unopposed House legislators. This year, there were 70 unopposed.    See the full story ...

About Us

About Us- A Futurist in West Kentucky The West Kentucky Journal of Politics & Issues is a non-profit news platform for analyzing the geo-political events of 34 counties. See the full story ...

Great Rivers Megalopolis: America's New Energy Frontier Noted Kentucky futurist, Ivan Potter, announced yesterday the emergence of a new 21st century geographic entity in mid America called the "Great Rivers Megalopolis".    See the full story ... 1 opinion posted