Commentary

COMMENTARY
NC General Assembly (Photo: Clayton Henkel)

HB2 shadow still looms large in NC, but how large?

BY: - May 30, 2023

Once again, North Carolina is looking down the barrel of a barrage of far-right legislation. Again unchecked by the counterweight of a gubernatorial veto (thanks to one legislator’s act of astounding deceit), Republicans are gleefully railroading extremist social legislation into law. A top reason: some important changes that have overtaken our state’s politics in recent […]

COMMENTARY

The Watchdog

BY: - May 30, 2023

COMMENTARY
President Joe Biden

Once again, Biden makes the best of an impossible situation

BY: - May 30, 2023

In a perfect world – or even a really good one – there’s no doubt that the debt ceiling agreement President Biden struck with House Speaker Kevin McCarthy over the weekend would be a frustration and a disappointment. The agreement will inflict all manner of painful cuts to core public structures and services that are […]

COMMENTARY
American flag and North Carolina flag

Some uplifting U.S. military news for Memorial Day 2023

BY: - May 29, 2023

Editor’s note: This Friday, June 2, 2023, will mark the dawn of an important new era for the largest military base in the world — North Carolina’s Fort Bragg. As part of the U.S. Military’s long overdue initiative to remove the names of Confederates who fought against the United States during the Civil War and […]

COMMENTARY
abortion pills

Celia Rivenbark: The only thing that can save us is…big pharma?!

BY: - May 27, 2023

There’s an old joke that if men were the ones who got pregnant, they’d be able to get an abortion at a 7-Eleven. I’d go a step further and say they’d also demand a Big Gulp and free taquitos from the “hot” bar before they left. Such is the entitlement of those men who talk […]

COMMENTARY
sugar cane being ground in a 19th Century windmill

We aren’t supposed to imply that the Founders (slaveholders) weren’t always paragons of virtue

BY: - May 26, 2023

LONDON – In 2022, the Prince and Princess of Wales (you know them as William and Kate) toured the Commonwealth countries of the Caribbean, former slave colonies. They made a bit of a mess. At one event the royal couple were supposed to meet a bunch of children, but found themselves separated from the kids […]

COMMENTARY
An illustration of the Boston Massacre

From my cold dead hand: Gun groups perpetuate militia myth to keep whatever arms they dream of

BY: - May 25, 2023

About the Second Amendment: I have questions. I cannot wrap my lizard-sized brain around the notion that the reason for people to keep and own guns is to protect against tyranny. Spare me the historical discourses about the establishment of the Second Amendment, because I realize a bunch of a rag-tag colonists rose up against […]