With North Carolina’s Republican-dominated General Assembly still dead-set on refusing to provide meaningful relief for mountain communities hit hard by Hurricane Helene on Sept. 27, Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper traveled to Washington, D.C., with a delegation of western leaders, appealing to higher authority for help.

To the Editor:

The 2024 presidential election revealed one thing in crystal-clear, proof-positive, light-years beyond any reasonable doubt comprehensibility, that the ability and capacity of the average American voter to simply (but so importantly) distinguish between fact and fiction, the ability to grasp (and choose confidently) between truth and falsehood, the aptitude necessary to seek out and determine right from wrong, to diligently and with purpose contrast good and evil, and lastly, the ability and the practiced competence to differentiate and choose the honorable from the dishonorable — no longer exists. 

In the midst of the most important and crucial presidential election in my 39 years of existence in this country and, perhaps, also that of my now elderly parents and long-gone grandparents, I decided to order a New York Strip Steak, medium with sautéed onions. 

To the Editor:

I wish I could blame the outcome of the recent presidential election on yet another “misfire” (as in 2000 and 2016) of our arcane and thoroughly undemocratic Electoral College system.

To the Editor:

The liberal media, including TV personalities and “journalists,” were really shocked over the Trump victory. “Oh, the humanity!!” It is almost comical to see the culture elites who believe that they are endowed with wisdom and understanding to be totally dumbfounded, particularly when they tell us how we should think. 

While it certainly appears that a “red wave” washed over the United States on Nov. 5, that’s not exactly the case in North Carolina, where Democrats held onto critical Council of State offices and made solid gains where it really counts — in the General Assembly. 

To the Editor:

I still remember September 27, 1953. That was the Sunday my brother, Greg, and I were baptized and committed our lives into following the way of Jesus Christ. From that day at Second Avenue Methodist Church in Rome, Georgia, I have attempted to live as a person of faith. 

To the Editor:

Donald Trump has been guilty of spewing so many fact-free statements over the years that ‘fact checking’ has become a ritual after every Trump pronouncement. No one, including the people that support him, denies this fact.

To the Editor:

A vote for Trump is a vote for Project 2025, the incredibly dangerous game plan for a far-right authoritarian government that would strip away vital protections enjoyed by the American people today.

The legacies of Western North Carolina’s two previous Republican congressmen, Mark Meadows and Madison Cawthorn, haven’t exactly aged well.