The fucking moron State Senator Robert Karnes mocking the mask mandate at the 2021 legislative session: 

Webster County Senator Illegally Holds Office

Webster County Senator Robert Karnes (Republican) is in a lot of hot water.

The Charleston Gazette recently uncovered facts which show he is illegally holding office as a State Senator as he did not meet the minimum eligibility requirements when he was elected in 2014.

Article 4, Section 4 of the West Virginia Constitution states that no person shall be elected to state office unless they have been a resident of West Virginia for at least five years prior to their election.

Karnes voted in Florida in 2010. To be eligible to vote in Florida, a person must declare he is a resident of that state. Obviously, since he declared his Florida residency when he voted in 2010, he had not been a resident of West Virginia for the required five year period "next preceding" his election in 2014.

In short, Karnes is illegally holding office in West Virginia and needs to be removed due to such illegality.

When a Gazette reporter asked Karnes if he voted in Florida in 2010, Karnes lied to the reporter denying the same. His denial is an obvious falsehood, as the Robert Karnes who voted in Florida has the same exact birth date of Senator Karnes and listed a Florida address which, you guessed it, is the same address used by other officers of his Florida-based business.

To show Karnes' guilty conscious in this matter, consider this fact: The day before the Gazette article was published on May 27, 2017 uncovering his ineligibility to hold office, Karnes cancelled his Florida voter registration. What a hypocrite. Karnes is clearly trying to defraud the voting authorities in either or both West Virginia and Florida.

But Karnes' obvious guilt in this matter does not stop there. When an Upshur County Delta Record reporter questioned Karnes about his ineligibility, and whether he voted in Florida in 2010, this was his response:

"Yeah, I really don’t have any idea. I can’t swear that I didn’t. It’s not something I’m going to go back and look at. I have no idea if I did or not. I have a life, and that’s really not the obsession of my life. It’s not really an important factor as far as I can tell. Is this a hit job? I thought you wanted to talk about the issues and what we were doing down here (in the state Legislature). I don’t really want to hear about this.”

Of course Karnes does not "want to hear about this." He does not want the public to know he defrauded them when he ran for State Senate in 2014 knowing he was ineligible. And as to his squirming comment that he does not recall whether he voted, because "it's not really an important factor," why is he in public office if voting is not important?

The West Virginia Constitution provides a process of removal on grounds of official misconduct and incompetence. It was official misconduct for Karnes to accept the office of State Senator when he knew he had not been a resident of West Virginia for the required five years. Karnes is also incompetent (in many ways) because he was not such a five year resident. While incompetence is not defined in the West Virginia Constitution, a legal meaning from Black's Law Dictionary (a gold standard in defining the legal effect of words) provides that incompetence is "the condition of lacking power to act with legal effectiveness." Karnes cannot legally exercise the powers of his office as he was ineligible to run for that office in the first place.

Webster Boys Track Athletes Post Decent Results at State Meet

The 2017 State Track Meet at Laidley Field in Charleston is now history, and the Webster boys' track team placed 15th out of 25 Class A teams competing, with several respectable race results.

In the 100 meter dash, freshman Reece Nutter and freshman Cole Deel placed fifth and sixth respectively out of eight competitors in the finals. Deel was fourth and Nutter was sixth in the 16 runner preliminaries to qualify for the finals.

Another freshman, Dawson Tharp, placed fifth out of eight competitors in the finals of the 200 meter dash (after having placed fifth out of 14 in the preliminaries to qualify for the finals).

Senior Korbin White had a good showing in the preliminaries of the 110 meter hurdles, placing eighth out of 16 to qualify for the finals, but faded in the finals finishing seventh out of the eight finalists.

In the 4 x 100 meter relay finals, the team of Reece Nutter (freshman), Dawson Tharp (freshman), Cole Deel (freshman), and Jarod Romano (senior) placed fifth out of the 16 teams competing.

In the 4 x 200 meter relay finals, the team of Nutter, Tharp, Deel, and senior Korbin White placed fifth out of the 16 teams competing.

In the 4 x 100 meter shuttle relay finals, the team of Korbin White, sophomore Seth Vandevender, junior Mathias Palmer, and junior Nathaniel Casto placed sixth out of the 16 teams competing.

The number of underclassmen who made decent showings for the Webster boys' team only bodes well for the school's future track competitions.

According to results posted, the Webster girls' team did not compete in enough events to be ranked as a team.  Carson Short, Sierra King, Madison Loughridge, and Jordan White finished 14th out of 16 teams in the finals of the 4 x 800 meter relay. Short, King, Loughridge, and White did a little better in the 4 x 400 meter relay, finishing 12th out of 16 teams.

Brett Morris Signs to Play in European Basketball League

Former Webster County Highlander and Glenville State College basketball standout Brett Morris signed a contract today to continue his career with a team named BC Mess of Luxembourg in Europe. Brett is scheduled to report to training camp in August with the basketball season ranging from October to May.

Additional information about the BC Mess team can be found at this website: BC Mess of Luxembourg

Photos of Brett from his Facebook page.

Luxembourg is a small european country surrounded by France, Germany, and Belgium. BC Mess has their headquarters in the town of Mondercange, in the southwest of Luxembourg. The predominant languages spoken in Luxembourg are Luxembourgish (thanks to a commenter alerting us to that fact), French and German.

Last Tuesday in Webster Springs

Those curves in front of the courthouse claimed another victim last week.

Sex Offender's Appeal Rejected for Fifth Time

Convicted sex offender Alvin Chambers.

In what seems like an endless ability to appeal a criminal conviction, the West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals today again rejected the appeal of sex offender Alvin Chambers.

Chambers was convicted by a jury in 2005 of four felony counts of sexual assault and sexual abuse by a parent, guardian, or custodian. Judge Jack Alsop sentenced Chambers to a term of not less than 20 but not more than 40 years in prison. Chambers appealed that conviction and sentence to the Supreme Court and it was rejected back in 2006.

After his 2006 appeal denial, Chambers filed his first writ of habeas corpus, which is effectively another appeal saying he is being detained wrongly. That first writ was denied in 2007 (he did not appeal the rejection of his first writ). In 2010, Chambers filed his second writ of habeas corpus and it was denied in 2011. Chambers appealed the denial of his second writ to the Supreme Court and it was rejected in 2012. In 2013, Chambers filed his third writ which was denied and he appealed it to the Supreme Court, who denied it in 2014.

Which brings us to his filing of his fourth writ in 2015, which was denied by the Circuit Judge, and appealed yet again to the Supreme Court. Today, the Court denied this fourth writ, which is effectively Chambers' fifth appeal attempt to get his conviction and sentence thrown out.

Chambers claimed defects in jury instructions and that his trial counsel was ineffective. Without spending much time explaining why, the high court today found no errors in Chamber's trial.

The full opinion can be read at the link below:

Full Text of Opinion

Meth Maker's Appeal Rejected

Convicted conspirator
and meth maker Patricia Palmer.

Today, the West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals rejected the appeal of convicted meth maker Patricia Palmer.

Palmer was found guilty of the felony crimes of  conspiracy to make meth and making meth by a Webster County jury in April of 2015. Judge Jack Alsop sentenced Palmer to not less than one but not more than five years on the conspiracy conviction and to not less than two but not more than ten years of the making meth conviction, running the sentences consecutively so that her actual term of confinement is not less than three but not more than 15 years.

At her jury trial, a State Police chemist verified the substances found at Palmer's residence were used in meth making. Palmer complains in her appeal that the sealed evidence analyzed by the chemist had a date on it one week earlier than the date of the crime. The high court did not buy into that technicality to overturn Palmer's convictions as she admitted on the day of her arrest that she had just been to the store to buy one of the ingredients used in making meth and that her and her co-conspirators "were just making some shit to smoke," statements which the jury considered. Palmer was also caught by police red-handed with what looked like meth, which she described as a "white bottle with white gunk."

Click this link for the Court's full opinion:
Palmer Appeal Rejected