Saturday, Oct. 27, in Pittsburgh, a Sabbath celebration at the Tree of Life synagogue became the site of the largest mass murder of Jews in U.S. history. Eleven worshippers were killed by a racist gunman.
With Tuesday’s elections following what seemed to be a longer-than-usual, and certainly more-divisive-than-usual political season, the winners are clear — and we’re not talking about only the candidates.
Can’t you say anything good about President Donald Trump?
In describing the GOP tax cuts, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi said that they and bonuses American workers were getting were “crumbs.” They were “tax cuts for the rich.” Some argued that the tax cuts would reduce revenues. Pelosi predicted, “This thing will explode the deficit.” How abou…
When you Google “Cecilia Paul,” the top result is the Simon and Garfunkel song “Cecilia.” This breaks my heart, because Paul lived a life that was a glorious song of a different sort.
As I write, the results of the 2018 midterm elections are not yet known. By the time some readers see this, it’s possible that the long-predicted blue wave will have washed away GOP majorities in Washington and at least the supermajorities Republicans enjoy in the North Carolina General Assembly.
By Thursday, Oct. 25, the targets of the mailed pipe bombs had risen to nine: George Soros, Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, Maxine Waters, John Brennan, Eric Holder, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Joe Biden and Robert De Niro.
A couple of reminders from our local law officers are especially important to note this week.
Why would I ask you to read from a column I wrote almost 30 years ago?
Democrats are hoping the coming election will give them a majority in the House of Representatives. Republicans and much of our nation dread that prospect. My question is: What would a House majority mean for the Democrats? Let’s look at it.
Doctors see it all. Dr. Anne Nolte is one of the founders of the National Gianna Center for Women’s Health and Fertility. At the Gianna Center’s annual fundraising dinner, she celebrated mothers and fathers who had love, sought love and gave love. She celebrated a couple who have opened thei…
Was the assassination of JFK by Lee Harvey Oswald still getting as much media coverage three weeks after his death as it did that first week after Nov. 22, 1963? Not as I recall.
One party government is not working in Ashe County.
When near-hurricane force winds and gusts reach our mountains, you know we’re in for some heavy weather.
When we vote on Nov. 6, we need to elect leaders who are persons of honesty and integrity, people whom we can trust, people who will speak the truth and work for the common good. We need to elect those who are civil in their speech and in their actions, those who would be good models of good…
October is breast cancer awareness month and I have decided to share my breast cancer experience with the community.
Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Louisiana, Mississippi, New York, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia and West Virginia have enacted laws to combat what is seen as price gouging in the wake of natural disasters. Price gouging is legally defined as charging 10 to…
The West can be a bit patronizing to other parts of the world. This attitude was on full display when French president Emmanuel Macron declared, “I always say: ‘Present me the woman who decided, being perfectly educated, to have seven, eight or nine children.”
When H. G. Jones died on Oct. 14, our state lost a key connection to its history as well as a prime and positive, but all too rare, example of dedicated and unselfish public service.
As Election Day approaches, you will continue to hear a great deal about hot-button issues that candidates believe may either swing your vote or motivate you to cast it. But few will be as consequential as an issue you probably won’t hear about in 2018 but will matter a lot in 2019: upgradin…
North Carolina’s elementary and secondary schools are among the best in the country at delivering academic value for the tax dollars spent on them. If you haven’t heard that before, it’s not your fault. You have been repeatedly misinformed.
This much we know:
I am looking for iconic North Carolina eateries for a new book.
This message to voters pertains to one of the six proposed amendments to the Constitution of North Carolina which will be on your ballot.
Democratic socialist Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, seeking to represent New York’s 14th Congressional District, has called for the abolition of the Electoral College. Her argument came on the heels of the Senate’s confirming Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court. She was lamenting the fact that C…
There’s a scene in the new movie “Gosnell: The Trial of America’s Biggest Serial Killer,” that should launch candid conversations around the country. Alexis McGuire (played by Sarah Jane Morris), the lead prosecutor in the case against the Philadelphia abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell, is depi…
Personal attention matters in sheriff race
Was Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi murdered inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, and then his body cut up with a bone saw and flown to Riyadh in Gulfstream jets owned by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman?
A "meet-and-greet" interview with the candidates running for the Ashe County Board of Education.
When did we forget to lose graciously?
Just how naïve can people be? During Brett Kavanaugh’s Supreme Court justice nomination hearing he gave a very convincing performance of righteous outrage. If he truly was an innocent man being wrongly accused, why did he not demand a full-blown investigation to clear his name with the resul…
Are you as an informed voter as you’d like to be — or need to be?
Perhaps the most pernicious thing that was said in recent weeks was when Sen. Mazie Hirono of Hawaii literally told men to “shut up” in regard to determining the truth behind differing accounts of high school memories involving Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh.
Do political movements ever really accomplish anything? The English writer G.K. Chesterton had his doubts. “The whole modern world has divided itself into Conservatives and Progressives,” he wrote in 1924. “The business of Progressives is to go on making mistakes. The business of the Conserv…
A widely anticipated textbook, “Universal Economics,” has just been published by Liberty Fund. Its authors are two noted UCLA economists, the late Armen A. Alchian and William R. Allen. Editor Jerry L. Jordan was their student and later became a member of President Ronald Reagan’s Council of…
September’s flooding from Hurricane Florence brought much bad news to New Bern and its neighboring cities, towns and communities.
Four days after he described Christine Blasey Ford, the accuser of Judge Brett Kavanaugh, as a “very credible witness,” President Donald Trump could no longer contain his feelings or constrain his instincts.
The other day I checked my high school yearbook to see what might keep me from confirmation to the Supreme Court. In it, there is a quote from former education secretary William J. Bennett: “Saints are not born through other people’s sins.” That quote seems relevant in so many ways right now…
During a recent debate about one of six constitutional amendments on North Carolina’s 2018 ballot, General Assembly special counsel Brent Woodcox made an important observation: you don’t know what you think you know.
Judge Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination to the Supreme Court was approved on an 11-10 party-line vote Friday, Sept. 28, in the Senate Judiciary Committee. Yet his confirmation is not assured.
With early fall in the air and crisp, cool days ahead, has there ever been a better time for a walk — or paddle — in the park?
“You’d better be careful,” my wonderful seventh grade teacher, Miss Winifred Potts, preached to my class more than 65 years ago.
President Barack Obama’s first education secretary, Arne Duncan, gave a speech on the 45th anniversary of “Bloody Sunday” at the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Ala., where, in 1965, state troopers beat and tear-gassed hundreds of peaceful civil rights marchers who were demanding voting right…
Will Democrats deliver a punishing blow to Republicans in this year midterm elections in North Carolina or will the much-vaunted “blue wave” prove to be more of a ripple?
What explains the staying power of Harper Lee’s book, “To Kill a Mockingbird,” and the film that starred Gregory Peck as Atticus Finch?
I’m thankful that increasing attention is being paid to the dire state of higher education in our country. Heather Mac Donald, a fellow at the Manhattan Institute, has just published “The Diversity Delusion.” Its subtitle captures much of the book’s content: “How Race and Gender Pandering Co…
You don’t need to spend time on Twitter to realize that politics is not bringing out the best in us, to put it mildly. The Brett Kavanaugh confirmation ordeal seems to be some kind of breaking point. And yet, haven’t we had many of them over the past weeks, months and years — and decades? Su…
By the end of his second term, President Ronald Reagan, who had called the Soviet Union an “evil empire,” was strolling through Red Square with Russians slapping him on the back.
Now you see it, now you don’t might be the most apt description of this fall’s leaf season: According to both local university biologists and local residents working from a lifetime of experience, the best leaf-looking will peak early this year. Indeed, the color at some of the High Country’…
At approximately 8 a.m. Saturday, Sept. 22, I entered Ashe Memorial Hospital’s Emergency Department, I had been experiencing chest pains since waking up that morning.
What explains the staying power of Harper Lee’s book, “To Kill a Mockingbird,” and the film that starred Gregory Peck as Atticus Finch?
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