Award-winning columnist, writer, speaker and editor
CHARLOTTE, NC– Early voting for the 2018 primaries starts tomorrow. A Washington Post article claims that Democrats advantage in the midterms may be slipping. In North Carolina, there will not be a presidential, Senate or gubernatorial race at the top of the ballot. But with seats in the U.S. House and state legislature, and balance of power at stake, polls and predictions have started.
Will there be a blue wave? Is it too early for predictions?
A U.S. House race in South Carolina may depend on how you define the word “brandish,” as in, what exactly do you call it when Republican Congressman Ralph Norman pulls out his gunin a Rock Hill diner meet-and-greet with constituents?
Though the state’s law enforcement division and attorney general have concluded “this is not a prosecutable offense,” Republicans and Democrats are weighing the political plusses and minuses of the recent event in light of a midterm race that gets more interesting by the day.
It was partly partisan politics that drove protesters and counterprotesters in the global “March for Our Lives” on Saturday. Many who traveled to Washington or their town squares demanded action on school safety, gun control and more.
But to Washington lawmakers, of both parties and on either side of the gun issue, who just managed to pass a $1.3 trillion omnibus bill to keep the government running that same week and may not pass any other major legislation for the rest of the year, it was a rebuke.
That day had to feel bigger than a one-time event driven by the violence that has touched too many young lives. “These kids,” whether you praise or curse them, were actually doing something, and acting more grown-up than the adults.
It was announced this week by the Commerce Department that the 2020 Census would be changed to add a question about citizenship.
Already the state of California has sued, saying the question violates the Constitution; the New York Attorney General has said he will lead a multi-state lawsuit to preserve what he said was a fair and accurate Census.
Why does it matter, and what will it mean for North Carolina — and the country — economically and politically?
The election for a congressional seat in Pennsylvania is over, yet not over, as absentee ballots were still being tallied on Wednesday and the wrangling haThe election for a congressional seat in Pennsylvania was over, yet not over, on Wednesday, with all eyes on the few hundred votes that gave Democrat Conor Lamb an initial edge over Republican Rick Saccone.
And the reckoning has only begun. Amid the hand-wringing from nervous Republicans fearing a midterm blue wave and cautious optimism from Democrats who realize November is a long way off were signs that the tensions of this campaign resonate far beyond a spot in the southwestern corner of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.
CHARLOTTE, N.C. — It’s difficult to ever imagine another faith leader being dubbed “America’s Pastor.” That’s because of the person Billy Graham was and the current political, social and cultural divisions in our country. And there is also the question of whether pluralistic America wants, needs or should have a pastor — now, then or ever.
Graham was never the universally revered and uncontroversial figure that many of those who now praise him remember. But in reviewing the legacy of a man who lived through much of a century that defined American change and who died at the age of 99 on Wednesday in his home in the North Carolina mountains, it is important to give him his singular, flawed due.
The “American Dream” may be a problematic concept, but everyone in this country and around the world knows exactly what it means. And truth be told, everyone wants to believe it: If you are determined and work hard enough, smart enough and long enough, you can achieve anything in this land of unlimited opportunity.
In her 2014 book “The Burglary,” Betty Medsger recounts the barely believable true story of the band of anti-Vietnam War activists (pretty ordinary-to-the-eye citizens, some married with children) who broke into the FBI office in Media, Pennsylvania, in 1971 and discovered some dirty secrets compiled by J. Edgar Hoover and the agency he ruled.
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That the FBI, then most known for its practice of seeing a subversive under every bed — and placing a tape recorder there — would now be considered a haven for left-wing radicals is astounding.
CHARLOTTE, NC– After a contentious and divisive first year of the Trump presidency, the president and members of Congress have a chance to at least start to move toward the bipartisanship that most Americans want so the government will work for the American people. But is it possible for Democrats and Republicans to come together after so much has happened with so much to do
The 2004 romantic comedy “50 First Dates” offered a novel, though somewhat implausible, premise — and I don’t mean that Drew Barrymore would find Adam Sandler irresistible. The heroine of the tale, afflicted with short-term memory loss, woke up each morning with a clean slate, thinking it was the same day, with no recollection of anything that happened the day before.
Who knew the president of the United States, most members of a political party and White House staff would suffer from the same condition?
