Sick of political ads?

Anyone who decides how to vote based on the lies, half-truths, fear mongering and out-of-context soundbites both parties are drowning us with is part of the problem. All we can do now is choose the issue most important to us — it should be national security or all the others won’t matter. The millions who crossed our borders illegally in the past four years include over 64,000 from China (House Committee on Homeland Security September 2024). If organized and coordinated, just a fraction of them could disrupt life as we know it. Our enemies are talking with each other to explore ways to exploit the fact that our military and arsenals are depleted, and leadership weak. Pray for America. 2 Chronicles 7:14

— Tim Deal,
Salisbury

False allegations

While October is Domestic Violence Awareness Month, it is time we address that there are false allegations of domestic violence, and that the current system of obtaining a Domestic Violence Protective Order is too easy to exploit by ill-willed individuals who abuse the system to gain a competitive advantage in legal proceedings.

To see how easy the system is to exploit, we need look no further than the domestic violence agencies that operate throughout our state advocating for Ex Parte domestic violence protective orders to be handed out like candy on affidavit alone.  What these agencies will not tell you about are the individuals who exploit the system to get their significant other removed from their lives for the weekend so that they can have a side romance. These individuals will take out an Ex Parte 50B protective order on Friday, so that they can have their weekend free for their side romance, and then they will either dismiss their Ex Parte 50B or not even show up to court when it is time for the hearing.

These agencies also have no measures in place to address the mental stability of the individual applying for a 50B domestic violence protective order.  Yet, they file these orders daily sending them to the judges who often grant the orders Ex Parte like candy with the mindset that they can always dismiss it at the full hearing in 10 days, if in fact it happens in 10 days, which given the current state of things most of the time it does not. Still yet, 10 days allows time for much damage especially in situations where the individual seeking a protective order is actually mentally unstable and perhaps merely having hallucinations that they are being abused when they in fact are not.

The legislators in Raleigh and the judges throughout North Carolina need to take heed of the current frankly pathetic state of obtaining Ex Parte 50B domestic violence protective orders, and need to reform the system to make it more fair and balanced for all, so that it is not so easy to exploit.

— Chadwick Harvey

No to Trump

I had my 45th birthday in Saudi, my 57th birthday in Kuwait and my 58th birthday in Iraq, after spending 15 months in the desert. I have gone to war twice with the 846th Transportation Company. My steady boyfriend of 20 years (Tunnie Dyson) died while I was in Iraq, and I couldn’t make it home in time for the funeral. We were there specifically to get rid of a dictator. I had just opened the MWR (Morale, Welfare & Recreation) building at FOB Speicher, east of Baghdad, the day that Saddam was captured, 13 Dec 2003. We had a TV, four phones and 20 computers, and the building was bulging and overrun with soldiers. Everyone was so happy, excited and thrilled that we had eliminated a dictator, Saddam Hussein.  Why in America would anyone even consider voting for someone who has already told us publicly that he would be a dictator on day one after he took office?

— Elaine Howle
Salisbury