Despite whatever misgivings I have about the current president, and I confess to having many, he’s right about pencils.  “How many pencils does a person need?” He famously asked recently. You only need “one or two,” he insisted. And when I read those words, I looked up from my newspaper to the three jars on […]

In 2005, my Army unit searched an Afghan village for an enemy weapons cache. Our convoy consisted of a lead Humvee with a .50 caliber machine gun, a center civilian pickup, and my team’s trail Humvee, in which I manned the Mk 19 grenade-launching machine gun. It was a pretty average day. Then our convoy […]

Seven states seceded from the Union before James Buchanan left office in 1861, and within months of Lincoln’s inauguration, the forces of slavocracy directly threatened the capital with the Confederate victory at Bull Run. Whatever one thinks of American democracy in 2025, it is not under any more dire threat than the one contained in […]

Trump campaigns in North Carolina for Michael Whatley's Senate bid as GOP works to keep the Republican seat from Roy Cooper in crucial 2026 midterm battle.