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- 2026 US Senate Race in North Carolina
- The Fall of Man: John Calvin, Leibniz, and Deeper Truths
- Time of Reassessment America
- Knowing Trump
- Has the Bethlehem Star Mystery Been Unveiled?
- Newberry Judge Request Sworn Medical Affidavits and Sets Near-Term Deadline in Jeff Davis Case
- “If You’ve Never Had Filet Mignon, Peanut Butter Tastes Just Fine”
- Appeals Court Refuses to Dismiss Greenville County Republican Chairman’s Contempt Case
- The America That Once Was (A Christmas Memory)
- Is a Self-Proclaimed Drag Queen Performer Serving in a Leading Moral Arc Role at a Greenville Children’s Production of Annie?
- Merry Christmas from Times Examiner
- Republican Women's Club Hosts Freedom Caucus Members
- The Trump 2025 National Security Strategy
- Compromise Reached, But Public Trust Remains Unsettled After County Administrator Vote
Local Columnists
Growing Old Gracefully
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- By David Thompson
In my experience, one usually hears advice when its application would be least appreciated and mostly useless. Thus we come to know the truth in the saying that, “Nothing goes so unheeded as unsolicited advice,” and yet here I go.
My Mother was not just wise; she was given to me as an Angel from God. Please accept that I am not being flippant or a smart aleck at the moment; fact is, Mom’s analytical skills relative to her children were so astonishingly accurate it was, well, scary. Like when she told me at age 10 that my penchant for being reckless was going to hinder my life if not reformed. Her words have come back to haunt me many times since.
One can certainly make a case that wanting to join the Marines at age 19 because they said they needed “A few good men,” was motivated by all the right stuff. Then again, my sisters would tell you even today that such a decision during the Vietnam War falls into the reckless x 10 category. Who knew my sisters would also get the analytical gene…nah, just kidding, those two knuckleheads don’t know anything.
Four Roots of Islamic Violence and Jihad
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- By Mike Scruggs
The four roots of Islamic violence and Jihad exposed here are not poverty, discrimination, the Crusades, or Colonialism. They come straight from the Koran and other sacred doctrinal texts of Islam.
Karl Troutwein, in his 2009 book, The 9/11 Verses: Terrorist Teachings in the Koran, describes four main elements in the Koran and the Sunna (the words and actions of Muhammad) that when combined result in a high probability of Islamic violence.
The first is “An attitude of anger and hate towards non-Muslims.”
This is corroborated by the analysis Dr. Bill Warner in his writings and books on “Political Islam.”
Trust America
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- By David Thompson
Peggy Noonan said in the WSJ, “Trust America.” Apparently that is her response to people upset with an election that will put Donald Trump in the White House. While I want to share Ms. Noonan’s faith in the USA, it is less clear after 8 years of Obama that we can or should do so. Certainly we should not without strong “rules of engagement.”
There is much wiggle room under the First Amendment (1A), in fact, we allow for the expression of all sorts of nonsense. Where the line should be drawn, however, is when evil people among us utilize the American instinct for fair play and tolerance against us – then my pragmatic side says, “Wake up, America.”
ISIS, for example, has used the Internet for all sorts of nefarious purposes, including sending messages, recruiting and demonstrating just how evil human beings can be. Jihad is not a passing fancy: it has been around for 1400 years. We ignore radical Islamic terrorism, as Obama has tried to do, only at our peril.
The Muslim Brotherhood, CAIR, and Civilization Jihad
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- By Mike Scruggs
Rep Keith Ellison (D, MN) was the first Muslim to be elected to the U.S. Congress and was sworn into office using a Koran in 2007. Ellison was a follower of Louis Farrakhan’s Nation of Islam but in recent years converted to orthodox Sunni Islam. He has been a strong supporter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), and CAIR and associated Muslim Brotherhood (MB) members have generously supported his political campaigns. The huge Somali refugee population placed in Minneapolis by the State Department and the HHS Refugee Resettlement Department is his strongest constituency. On November 19, he announced his candidacy for Chairman of the Democratic National Committee, replacing Donna Brazile. Ellison has already received the endorsement of Senator Chuck Schumer, leader of the Senate Democratic Caucus, Harry Reid, Liz Warren, Bernie Sanders, new Illinois Senator Tammy Duckworth, and 10 other Congress members. Ellison is known even in the Democratic Party as radical in his pro-Palestinian and anti-Israel views. However, the Democrats may be too addicted to laundered Arab-oil campaign contributions to put up much resistance to Ellison as DNC Chairman. I agree with Frank Gaffney, President of the Center for Security Policy. Ellison would be the first Muslim Brotherhood DNC Chairman. Ellison does have some competition, including former DNC Chairman Howard Dean. The radicalization of the Democratic Party makes it imperative that ordinary American voters know the truth about Islam, the Muslim Brotherhood, and CAIR.
Not My President
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- By David Thompson
My Dad used to say it, “Sometimes you have to laugh to keep from crying.” And I admit, among the things that progressives are doing lately that make me laugh are those signs that say, “Not my President.”
There are so many real and imagined grievances between and among us that one of the takeaways from the elections of 2016 is the indisputable fact that Obama succeeded. Oh, he lost an election alright; indeed, he lost in epic fashion. But his larger quest was to “fundamentally transform” this country and, by golly, he did so. As readers of this column know, my spin on his legacy will be anything but generous. Then again, even we amateur historians take a stab at “fair and balanced” now and again.
We used to be able to carry the weight, to shoulder without complaint the burdens of being a citizen in this land, the greatest country in history. No more; the MSM now carps about most everything and those masses who once “yearned to be free,” are now merely “useful idiots.” Obama succeeded in getting re-elected in 2012 and some would say in a larger sense as well, because he utilized a divide and conquer strategy. Military folks know one never splits the troops up, and yet there are examples…with names such as Chancellorsville.
The Tide of a Great Battle Has Turned
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- By Mike Scruggs
But Beware the Subtlety of Enemy Counterattack
By the Grace of God, Donald Trump should be inaugurated as President of the United States on January 20, 2017. There were many constituencies that went into the makeup of Trump’s electoral victory. Among the most prominent was the predominantly white blue-collar and lower middle class working families that had been largely lost to establishment Republican candidates, since Reagan brought them out in massive numbers in 1980 and 1984. Thereafter the Republican Party began to drift back to its big-business-crony capitalism Whig roots. It should be clear that the future of the Republican Party rests with both the rewards of free enterprise and the hard work and patriotism of American workers. The misguided globalism and terrible neglect and outright contempt for sensible immigration policies by the Bush and Obama administrations had moved the demographics of the country to near the point of permanent social, economic, cultural, and political insanity.
The Aftermath
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- By David Thompson
The election of 2016 is finally over. As I write this prior to Election Day, I have no knowledge of who will be the next POTUS. Regardless who won, however, can we all agree to make some changes so we never again find ourselves with such a lousy choice in candidates?
Political parties have become the antithesis of democracy. The Democrats were uncovered by WikiLeaks, emails clearly showed that Bernie Sanders did not have a prayer of winning the nomination. That Hillary Clinton engaged in corruption should surprise nobody. That the Democrat National Committee (DNC) did so will only be an issue if you are not a progressive ideologue, the sort that has taken control of the DNC. And because Hillary successfully colluded with the DNC to rig the primary system in her favor, it reinforced her belief that she was entitled to be POTUS. She tried to wrestle the nomination from Obama in 2008 also, but there were too many Democrats then who refused to go along.
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