Obama was AWOL on Benghazi On “Fox News Sunday” recently, White House aide Dan Pfeiffer was asked about President Barack Obama’s whereabouts the night of the Sept. 11 attack in Benghazi.
This was the night when we lost our first ambassador in 30 years, and when three other Americans were killed in an attack lasting for hours at multiple locations. Since the president is commander in chief, one would think that where he was and what he did during such an event would b...
Obama’s disdain for Constitution If you Google “George W. Bush shredding the constitution,” you will get many millions of hits. The New York Times railed, “Ever since 9/11, we have watched Republican lawmakers help Mr. Bush shred the Constitution in the name of fighting terrorism.”
President Bush attempted to listen in on the international calls of suspected terrorists, he used waterboarding on exactly three terrorists, and he put detainees in Guantanamo.
Mr. Obama — gre...
The question: Who pays for I-95 work? This article is about tolling Interstate 95 from South Carolina to Virginia. I-95 tolling is not a new topic as it was under heavy discussion long before I left the General Assembly in 2010. There is no one perfect solution to the issue. Yet something must be done. Doing nothing and allowing I-95 to remain a four-lane interstate is not a real option, therefore I will not discuss that any further.
Before one finalizes a position on tolling I...
Honoring our fallen “All gave some, but some gave all.”
— Unknown
1.32 million.
That is the number of Americans who have died fighting for this country — and the ones who are being honored this Memorial Day weekend, which should not be confused with Veterans Day, a day to recognize the service of all our veterans. To put that number in perspective, at a rate of a single death per day, it would take 3,616 years to climb to 1.32 million dead.
The 1.32 m...
A numerical look at our state By JOHN HOOD
RALEIGH — In the spirit of keeping things simple, the case for reforming North Carolina’s medical-assistance programs can be expressed in four numbers: 12, 15, 17, and 48.
These are all national rankings. North Carolina ranks 12th in the nation in state mental health spending per capita. North Carolina ranks 15th in Medicaid payments per child or working-aged adult enrolled in the program. North Carolina ranks 17th in state a...
Math problem It took almost two years to the day, but the Lumbee Tribal Government finally has a tribal administrator.
The Lumbee Tribal Council last week, in a split vote, approved Tony Hunt as the tribe’s top administrator — the fourth time that Tribal Chairman Paul Brooks had made a nomination.
We don’t know much about Hunt except that he is a Hoke County educator and, as a county commissioner, a politician, a combination that is frequent in Robeso...
Treating the symptom The Board of Education of the Public Schools of Robeson County last week did more than transfer fourth-graders out of Tanglewood and Rowland-Norment elementary schools and to Carroll Middle, it also set a precedent on how similar situations will be handled going forward — absent, that is, reigning in the system’s liberal transfer policy.
Our weekly poll is unscientific, but that lack of randomness can’t explain away results that were overwh...
Not your envoys, Mr. President Count me as irritable on the subject, but President Obama’s imperious habit of suggesting that American diplomats work for him is offensive to democratic sensibilities.
In the second presidential debate last fall, when the Benghazi matter came up, the president responded: “Well, let me … talk about our diplomats, because they serve all around the world and do an incredible job in a very dangerous situation. And these aren’t just representat...
The cure for political correctness This time of year, as college students return home for the summer, many parents may notice how many politically correct ideas they have acquired on campus. Some of those parents may wonder how they can undo some of the brainwashing that has become so common in what are supposed to be institutions of higher learning.
The strategy used by Gen. Douglas MacArthur so successfully in the Pacific during World War II can be useful in this very diff...
IRS deal likely to boomerang Back in their day, the tea party folks were riding high, fueling indignation over alleged government-run death panels, a treasonous Federal Reserve and the like. They commandeered sparsely attended Republican primaries, managing to nominate for Senate seats a dabbler in witchcraft in Delaware, holders of strange views on rape in Missouri and Indiana, and in Nevada, a candidate suggesting armed insurrection if her people didn’t win elections. ...
Accountability, integrity absent in board’s decision on transfers To the Editor,
Tanglewood words of the week: “Accountability and Integrity.” The decision made by seven Robeson County school board members to transfer third-graders to Carroll Middle School lacks both.
Admittedly, it’s been quite a while since my last math course, but for seven board members, their math just doesn’t add up. After months of secrecy regarding possible transfers, this decision was made at a private retreat. I’m not sure wha...
Group asks commissioners to pay county employees equally To the Editor,
Citizens for Integrity in Government is asking the county commissioners to re-direct Tony Normand’s efforts and study the compensation of county employee across all levels. If pay and benefits of our county employees are not the fourth highest in the state as compared with their counterparts across the state, the CIG requests the county commissioners authorize pay increases in the upcoming budget to increase their compensatio...
The danger that is straight ahead A hundred years ago, anyone who might have predicted in 1913 the monumental, man-made catastrophes that would occur in the rest of the 20th century would have been considered warped, if not completely mentally deranged.
Who would have believed that the continent of Europe, which had not had a major war in nearly a hundred years since Napoleon was defeated at Waterloo, would set off two World Wars that were incomparably worse than any wars b...
The bungling of big government President Barack Obama believes in the public sector. He thinks it should be made ever more expansive and entrusted with ever more complicated tasks. Its unions should be powerful. It should be hailed by all the great and good, and attract the nation’s best and brightest.
This is how the president portrays the public sector at a level of glittering generality. Then there’s the reality of all that government that is too big for him to monito...
A promise to fight abuse of power We’ve all heard the phrase that “elections have consequences.” Recent news about the IRS singling out conservative groups for extra scrutiny is a “consequence” I never hoped to see.
When I first learned the IRS had targeted conservative groups during the most recent election, I was outraged by the reports indicating a nonpartisan government agency was actually engaging in political activities and using taxpayer-funded resources. Perhaps the...
Time will tell Our county commissioners are running out of plank — and soon enough it will be revealed whether they are serious about the slashing that is required for the commissioners in arguably North Carolina’s poorest county to no longer be the state’s best compensated when pay and benefits are totaled.
If that doesn’t happen, then it will be clear that the commissioners’ strategy — employed successfully a decade ago — was that if they stood stubborn...
Press finally getting adversarial Rarely has the White House briefing room so resembled the main ballroom at a meeting of the Conservative Political Action Conference.
After news broke of a sweeping Justice Department subpoena of The Associated Press telephone records, White House press secretary Jay Carney didn’t so much have to deal with querulous reporters pressing him on all fronts. He had to deal with citizens bristling with anger over perceived encroachments on their ...
Another one, please There are jobs — and then there are JOBS.
The 150 that were announced this week as headed to Robeson County clearly fall into the second category.
Cape Fear Arsenal, in picking Robeson County and Lumberton, says it will put the old Outer Banks building on Starlight Drive back to work with the manufacturing of ammunition — something folks around here will surely support. According to company officials, the average wage for the workers will...
The death of free speech in US Two years ago, this column, along with others, raised an alarm about the Obama administration’s decision radically to diminish the due process rights of those accused of sexual harassment on American campuses. There’s a new outrage today, but first, a recap:
In a 2011 letter to colleges, the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights mandated that in cases of suspected sexual harassment or sexual assault, universities were to red...
ObamaCare handles the little things For years, conservatives have pushed for a health-insurance model emphasizing catastrophic coverage. It works as follows:
Consumers pay the cost of ordinary care, such as a checkup, a blood test or an eye exam. Insurance kicks in only for major crises — a heart attack, cancer requiring extensive treatment, a kidney transplant, intensive care for a newborn.
The Affordable Care Act, also known as ObamaCare, goes in the other direction by ex...
