Opinion (410)
Everyone knows that North Carolina is a closely divided purple state. Everyone knows that in 2020, many statewide races and control of the state legislature will be hotly contested. And everyone knows that with Democrats increasingly dominant in urban areas and Republicans in rural areas, the only real battleground will be in the suburbs.
When you ask most people what things they are afraid of, there is a list of usual suspects most of the time. A lot of people are afraid of heights. I am, so I can understand that fear quite well. My wife is afraid of spiders. I am afraid of snakes. My wife doesn't mind snakes so much and I don't really have a concrete opinion of spiders, so it works out for both of us.
COLUMN: Politics is a pile of shared psychoses
Written by Thomas L. Knapp
Dr. Bandy Lee, a psychiatrist affiliated with Yale University, posits a "'shared psychosis' among just about all of Donald Trump's followers."
Last week, the Republicans in the Kansas legislature reached an agreement with the Democratic governor to expand Medicaid. Today, the North Carolina legislature goes back into session. Maybe we could see a similar agreement here.
“Prudence,” wrote the British statesman Edmund Burke, “is not only the first in rank of the virtues political and moral, but she is the director, the regulator, the standard of them all.” Quite right. Unfortunately, prudence has been sadly lacking on the issue of voter identification. It’s roiled North Carolina politics for years. It needn’t have.
If I have already done a column on this particular topic, please forgive me. I try my best not to repeat anything, but it's inevitable that I repeat a phrase, a sentence, or possibly a whole topic. I used to be able to access the previous columns where I stored them on the laptop, but my trusty old laptop bit the dust and I cannot access my archives. That said, I ask your forgiveness if I have broached this subject before.
GUEST EDITORIAL: Banning hemp to fight pot is reefer madness
Written by Wilson Times
Eight decades after the anti-pot propaganda film “Reefer Madness” stirred a moral panic over marijuana, cops and prosecutors in North Carolina are bending the truth to bind hemp to its infamous cannabis cousin.
COLUMN: Trump versus Iran: Power doesn't just corrupt, it deludes
Written by Thomas L. Knapp
On Jan. 8, U.S. president Donald Trump addressed the American public concerning a casualty-free Iranian missile attack on U.S. bases in Iraq, where just last week Iranian general Qasem Soleimani was killed in a U.S. drone strike.
I suspect that at some point, Thom Tillis had a modicum of self-respect. I also suspect that those days are long forgotten. Today, he debases himself regularly trying to stay in the good graces of the con man in the White House.
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Although Kamala Harris exited the Democratic presidential field weeks ago, I can think of two ways that the Harris campaign could still leave a significant mark on the politics of 2020.
COLUMN: For the new year, some things will change while others stay the same
Written by Joe Weaver
After a few weeks off, I'm returning with the first column of a new month, year, and decade.
COLUMN: Panhandling bans can't survive legal or moral scrutiny
Written by Corey Friedman - Wilson Times
It was a Christmas greeting tailor-made for a pre-redemption Ebenezer Scrooge.
COLUMN: Iraq: America's other 'longest war'
Written by Thomas L. Knapp
As the calendar prepared to flip from 2019 to 2020, protesters stormed the U.S. embassy in Baghdad. As I write this, the action — a response to U.S. airstrikes in Iraq and Syria which killed at least 25 and wounded more than 50 — hasn’t yet become a reprise of the Iran hostage crisis of 40 years ago, but it’s eerily reminiscent.
