When my sons were teenagers, my wife worked an early morning shift for a period of time, so I was responsible for getting them ready for school. This included breakfast duty, so I prepared a nutritious daily feast of Graham crackers, covered with peanut butter and chocolate chips. (That’s me, Mr. Health Food.)
While a disbelieving nation is focused on the endless border crisis, more immigration sleight of hand is ongoing in Washington. Cloaked in Congress-speak, the troubling details of the Build Back Better Act are being hidden from a bad-news weary public.
I was not going to write a Thanksgiving column this week for a couple of reasons. First, that is the predictable thing to do when you have to churn out a weekly column. I pride myself on being unpredictable.
Thanksgiving last year. It stills feels like a piece of dry turkey stuck somewhere near my heart.
Before the right to keep and bear arms is stated in the Second Amendment, the Founders wrote why they believed it necessary for people to arm themselves as part of a "militia." They said it is a "necessity to the security of a free state." The Founders knew that liberty is not the natural state of humanity and must be defended against government authorities and lawbreakers who try to limit or abolish it.
I have never purposefully littered. I pick up trash frequently along sidewalks, roads and trails. We’ve switched out all light bulbs at homes for LEDs, conserve water and energy whenever practically possible, and generally try to live a life of reducing, reusing and recycling.
Remember those "shovel-ready jobs" promised by the Obama-Biden administration in 2011? When many failed to appear after passage of this spending boondoggle, President Obama joked, "Shovel-ready was not as shovel-ready as we expected."
Because life is mostly made up of little experiences, occasionally interrupted by big events, it’s easy to take the little things for granted.
After two weeks of negotiations, leaders from around the globe gathered in Glasgow for the United Nations Conference on Climate Change announced an agreement. Critics immediately pounced, complaining the accord amounts to diplomatic good intentions, not guaranteed action.
The views and opinions depicted here are those of the artists and do not necessarily reflect the views of this publication.
Every person in America ought to spend one day getting up hay. Just one day.
It was the Fourth of July in 1974 when I first met Max Cleland, then a state senator, running for Georgia's lieutenant governor.
"Lawlessness is lawlessness. Anarchy is anarchy is anarchy. Neither race nor color nor frustration is an excuse for either lawlessness or anarchy." - Thurgood Marshall
It is a small country church in which we assemble most Sundays for worship.
When past presidents have seen their approval numbers take a dive, they went on foreign trips. Sometimes this works, but more often it doesn't, because failure at home often follows them abroad. World leaders can sense failure and its twin, weakness.
We typically associate the month of November with elections, Thanksgiving Day, and Black Friday sales, but November is also National Adoption Awareness Month.
This week, I am going to forego any discussion of politics and share a personal experience with you. It involves art, Ray Charles, the Righteous Brothers, a refrigerator magnet and me.
Our mom, then Betty Lynn Ready, was just a little girl, going to school every day with thousands of other kids in Birmingham, Ala. From 1949-1952, a polio epidemic was sweeping the globe. The virus tended to selectively target population centers, often leaving stricken children in wheelchairs, with permanent leg braces and deformed limbs. During the late '40s, the disease caused paralysis in 1 of every 1,000 children aged 5-9.
November has arrived and things are going to really get hairy now.
The current gridlock in Congress is frustrating for Democrats who support the extremely expansive domestic spending legislation of President Joe Biden. Note: not all Democrats do back this latest big spending blowout.
My how quickly things can change with the right message and the right messenger.
The views and opinions depicted here are those of the artists and do not necessarily reflect the views of this publication.
Perhaps you remember a line from Waylon Jennings’ career-making hit, “Luckenbach, Texas,” that tips the cowboy hat to “Hank Williams pain songs and Newbury train songs.”
About now I can think of in excess of 2 trillion reasons to thank God for West Virginia U.S. Senator Joe Manchin (D-WV). And I also have quite a high five and a few "amens" handy for Arizona U.S. Senator Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ), this moderate pair of Senate Democrats withholding their votes of approval will likely result in a proposed $3.5 trillion human and green energy infrastructure spending plan coming only in at a still too high $1.5-1.75 trillion.
The annual "trick-or-treat" ritual is over. Not so the "tricks" perpetuated by congressional Democrats about their tax-and-spend ritual, and their phony numbers.
Halloween was fun while it lasted.
For decades it has been the one day of the year we could all forget our worries and live in the moment.
October is the scary month, and not just because of Halloween.
It's open enrollment season for Medicare. Local TV stations and cable networks are flooded with ads for various insurance supplements. They promise "free" dental care, free transportation to doctors, free drugs, free dentures, and lots of other free stuff.
The views and opinions depicted here are those of the artists and do not necessarily reflect the views of this publication.
Quite a while back – this means "many years" to a Southerner – I was on a book tour that included stops in one of my favorite states: Louisiana.
As I occasionally fret about the larger and seemingly more intractable challenges facing our nation, I am often heartened by the hard work, progress and ingenuity I witness demonstrated by community nonprofits.
Courageous journalists Maria Ressa of the Philippines and Dmitry Muratov of Russia have just received the Nobel Peace Prize. Each of these remarkable leaders personifies great courage and reflects a nation experiencing challenge to internal repression.
Vice President Kamala Harris, who appears to be in the witness protection program when it comes to her assigned role of restoring our southern border, has re-surfaced in a video she sent to 300 Black churches in Virginia.
Despite the many blessings of living in America, why aren’t more Americans happy?
The views and opinions depicted here are those of the artists and do not necessarily reflect the views of this publication.
Of all the things that have faded away and become no more than faint memories, the ones I miss the most are church bells.
Over the years, I have had the honor and pleasure of assisting, staffing and supporting both Democratic and Republican candidates and officeholders, from the U.S. Senate and Georgia's Governor's office to sheriffs and local county commissions. There are certainly differences in philosophy and approach between the two major parties, but good people still exist and seek careers in public service on both sides of the aisle.
White House Chief of Staff Ron Klain brought criticism on himself last week when he retweeted a post from Harvard economist Jason Furman. Furman claimed that rising inflation and nationwide supply chain issues that have delayed products from reaching store shelves is a "high-class problem."
Be extra cautious when you “fall back” on Nov. 7, 2021.
Britain's Home Office says more than 12,500 migrants have broken the law to get into the UK so far this year. Compare this to the nearly 200,000 migrants who have crossed the nearly nonexistent southern border just in July of this year.
Though Washington, D.C., and our U.S. Congress can still produce leaders, and I have hopes that our White House will again be home to a unifying and charismatic leader who can inspire our nation, I have come over time to believe that true innovation, catalysts and successful pilot initiative…
The views and opinions depicted here are those of the artists and do not necessarily reflect the views of this publication.
My parents, having grown up Appalachian poor, were always careful about saving things they could use again.
When people cast a vote for president, they are hoping -- sometimes against hope -- that the person they have picked will do things to make their lives better.
The government of France bitterly denounces Australia’s decision to purchase nuclear submarines from the United States and Britain. One byproduct is cancellation of a sale of French conventional subs to Canberra.
What is the greatest threat to educating children today? Is it COVID-19, or ignorance? I'm going for number two. There is growing evidence to back me up.
To the people of the rural South – especially in the days of my childhood – a sign of hard-working success meant the ability to eventually buy a recliner.
My buddies Ayres and Klinger and I walked its crowded corridors for hours on Friday nights, hoping to meet girls.
The Pandora Papers, released by The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) on Sunday, is not equivalent to the Pentagon Papers, which revealed how the U.S. government lied to the public about the Vietnam War, but it might serve the political ends of the left.
The Afghanistan aftermath drama is underway, featured center stage in the always-intense theater known as the United States Congress.
This is not a scientific poll — results reflect only the opinions of those voting.
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