Congress needs to do its job

To the Editor:

I did not vote for Elon Musk, and I am pretty sure that no one else did either as he was not on any ballot.  Then, why is this man able to disrupt and make changes in our governmental system and programs?  Sens. Tillis and Budd, and Rep. Edwards, do your jobs!

Watch your bank account

To the Editor:

Trump and his puppet master Elon Musk are killing our economy that was recovering better than any other major nation after the terrible worldwide COVID experience, an economy with bipartisan infrastructure investments that were good for working people and poised to take off in a measured and secure way with inflation down and jobs up.

Public safety, tourism impact behind Pless’ TDA bill

Last week, Haywood County Republican Rep. Mark Pless filed a bill that would strip the county of its ability to levy room occupancy taxes. Now, he’s revealed that the impact of tourism on public safety and tight county budgets are also a motivating force behind it. 

Proposed state aid bill is an insult

The number is $53.6 billion. That’s the estimate from the N.C. Office of State Budget and Management for the damage Helene inflicted on Western North Carolina. Those are just dollars; in the bigger picture, lives have been lost, transformed and forever changed. 

The Joyful Botanist: Banking on it

There are many places and things that you can bank on in our world. You can call bank on a basketball court or pool table. You can carve a bank on a skateboard. You can donate food to a food bank or blood to a blood bank. You can upload data to a data bank that runs on multiple levels of memory banks. You can climb down the riverbank to take a dip.

We need to stop wasteful spending

To the Editor:

“The Convention of States” movement, in a race against time, strongly urges the N.C. Senate to pass a bill calling for the convening of a Convention of States as authorized under Article V of the Constitution.

Massive money has spoiled politics

To the Editor:

“Welcome to the end of democracy. We are here to overthrow it completely,” Jack Posobiec said as the event began.

Cherokee funeral home hires director with criminal past: Owner currently faces several felonies

The owner of Long House Funeral Home, himself facing decades in prison, has hired a convicted felon to be funeral home’s director. 

This must be the place: ‘Because no matter where you run, you just end up running into yourself’

That quote underneath the title of this column is from the seminal 1958 novella “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” by Truman Capote. It was also the dramatic culmination in the 1961 film of the same name starring Audrey Hepburn as Holly Golightly. 

Sometimes ‘the system’ all seems so unfair

Many years ago, one of the students in my English composition course approached me after class one day as other students were filing out, hesitating for just a moment until the last couple of them trickled into the hallway, leaving just the two of us. 

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