Opinion & commentary
Opinion and commentary submitted to Appalachia Insider by individual contributors. The views expressed are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of Appalachia Insider. These pieces are separate from our news reporting.
People have spent my whole life calling Eastern Kentucky a poor place. They say it on the news. They say it in Frankfort. They say it every time we show up in a ranking nobody wants to be on. But I have never believed th…
Read story →For years, Eastern Kentucky has been told it is poor, broken, and beyond saving without outside rescue. We have watched the same cycle repeat. New officials, old habits. Grants missed. Roads patched instead of fixed. Wat…
Read story →I’ve been looking over Kentucky’s proposed Amendment 1, and something keeps coming back to me. Not necessarily whether the amendment is right or wrong, but whether we fully appreciate what we’re being asked to decide. O…
Read story →As October marks Domestic Violence Awareness Month, Appalachia Insider is sharing the following guest opinion submitted by Elizabeth Fitch, Executive Director of Turning Point Domestic Violence Services. Fitch reflects …
Read story →Every year, the Social Security Trustees release a report, and every year the headlines say the same thing: the program is running out of money. This year’s report projects that the retirement trust fund will exhaust its…
Read story →There’s a quiet but consequential shift happening in Kentucky’s energy debate, and this time it isn’t theoretical. It’s legislative, it’s targeted, and it’s aimed squarely at small modular nuclear reactors. This session…
Read story →I was watching a video this evening in which Jamie Dimon talked about inflation staying “sticky” and the possibility that interest rates could keep rising. I kept coming back to the same question. Why? Not why the Feder…
Read story →There is something about the way we talk about money in this country that has bothered me for a long time. We talk about the federal debt like the government is a family sitting around the kitchen table with too many cre…
Read story →I bought a Toyota Grand Highlander that cost around $60,000. I financed it through Toyota. Every month, I make a large payment on a vehicle that I am told I own. Toyota made money selling me the vehicle. Toyota makes mon…
Read story →A few years ago, I started looking at the ridge that runs from the Route 30 side of Magoffin County toward Royalton and Tip Top and wondering why we did not see it differently. There was already a maintained road across…
Read story →By Ariel Fugate, Communications Manager, Mountain Association Four years after the devastating Eastern Kentucky floods of 2022, communities across the region are still rebuilding. While significant progress has been mad…
Read story →I was watching a discussion this morning about the national debt, Treasury bonds, rising yields, and the federal government buying back some of its own debt. The concern was understandable. The United States has crossed …
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