The Right’s Shameful War on Drag Queens

by Alexander H. Jones | Mar 10, 2023 | Politics | 14 comments

A man dancing flamboyantly, caked in makeup, and wearing gaudy jewelry and a brightly-colored dress is called a drag queen. She tends to have an overwrought stage name like Pandora Danger and an individualized persona. And she, like all drag queens, holds a beloved...

A letter to the small towns and rural counties across NC

by Thomas Mills | Mar 10, 2023 | Editor's Blog | 10 comments

Dear Rural and Small Town North Carolinians, We need to talk. You’ve been voting for Republicans steadily for the past decade or more and it really hasn’t worked out very well. It’s time to reconsider your choices. Since Republicans have taken over the legislature,...

Calling out Tucker Carlson is not courageous

by Thomas Mills | Mar 8, 2023 | Editor's Blog | 5 comments

On Monday night, Tucker Carlson aired a distorted view of the Capitol Riot, calling it a mostly peaceful demonstration. Carlson, of course, was gaslighting his audience, convincing conservatives that what they saw happen that day didn’t really happen. After years of...

Republicans in North Carolina haven’t built anything

by Thomas Mills | Mar 7, 2023 | Editor's Blog | 5 comments

Editor’s note: Every time I hear some Republican rewriting history to claim credit for making North Carolina an economic powerhouse, I’m writing one of these columns. I’m not giving in to fairy tales or lies. Republicans claiming that they’ve made...

Ruining Chapel Hill

by Thomas Mills | Mar 6, 2023 | Editor's Blog | 10 comments

Today, I’m writing more of a local post, though it might be of interest to people interested in zoning and growth problems. It’s in response to threads I’ve been reading over on Nextdoor, the social media platform that could get as toxic as Twitter if it’s not...

A week of bipartisan progress for NC

by Thomas Mills | Mar 3, 2023 | Politics | 2 comments

Damn, what a week for North Carolina politics. Instead of the normal partisan divide, we’ve seen movement on important bipartisan bills that are good for the state. The state board of education also seems to have come to consensus on teacher pay raise. Every now and...

Democrats Can Do Much Better in North Carolina

by Alexander H. Jones | Mar 2, 2023 | Politics | 0 comments

“Diamond” Jim Gardner, failed hamburger magnate and eventual loser of two gubernatorial elections, once thought he could transform the state. To some extent he did: Gardner pried open eastern North Carolina for Republicans, creating a geographic foundation...

The GOP’s false narrative

by Thomas Mills | Mar 1, 2023 | Editor's Blog | 32 comments

Republicans have a narrative about how they saved North Carolina. To hear them tell it, North Carolina was a spiraling hellhole of bloated government and over-regulation that kept businesses from moving here and taxes too high. In reality, everything that’s made North...

The latest victim of wokism

by Thomas Mills | Feb 27, 2023 | Editor's Blog | 4 comments

The creator of the comic strip “Dilbert” went on a racist rant last week and now hundreds of newspapers across the country have dropped the cartoon. Scott Adams, who posted his screed on his YouTube channel, called Black people “a hate group” and told White people to...

Voters Under 40 are a Sleeping Giant

by Alexander H. Jones | Feb 24, 2023 | Politics | 13 comments

North Carolina Democrats took a major generational leap in choosing Anderson Clayton as their state party chair. Aged 25, Clayton represents a full break with the past several decades–and arguably even half-century–of party leadership in a state where...