By Martin A. Dyckman • Guest Columnist

Russian paratroopers dropping on the White House lawn could scarcely do more damage to the United States than what the North Carolina Senate called for last week: a convention of the states to tear up the U.S. Constitution. How Donald Trump would love that.

Sorry Haywood County citizens and others in the western part of the state, the most grassroots and local ballots you cast just don’t matter. But you should be fine with that, because surely you realize that those men and women whom you voted on to your county board and school board, they just aren’t as smart and astute as your state legislators. From on high atop their lofty perches in Raleigh, Reps. Michele Presnell and Mike Clampitt know what is best. 

So shut up, get in line behind these wise leaders, and we’ll make Haywood County and the rest of west great again.

Residents of Haywood County stand to save at least $1 million a year if relaxed emissions standards become law — and there’s a good chance they will. 

North Carolina and its citizens are better off with HB2’s repeal. It’s a giant step forward, and despite criticism from the right and the left, I am glad we have at least moved the ball closer to the endzone.

HB2 was an embarrassment, a bad joke whose punchlines kept North Carolina in the crosshairs of pundits and comedians. The bill was morally wrong.

An admittedly imperfect compromise that could end the tempest of controversy surrounding North Carolina’s HB2 has been reached, but not everybody’s seeing rainbows after the storm.

Republican lawmakers in Raleigh have introduced several bills to make more local elections a partisan affair, and local leaders aren’t happy about it.

A bill set to make school board elections partisan in Haywood County took current school board members — including the chairman — completely by surprise and has so far earned poor marks from a majority of the board.

Newly elected Rep. Mike Clampitt was asked some tough questions during his first constituent meeting in Haywood County last Friday, and the crowd was not satisfied with his answers — or lack thereof.

With the new session of the North Carolina Legislature underway, a flurry of bills has been filed in both the House and Senate — more than 180 of them — as of Feb. 14. 

If you’d polled Kimberley Brookshire’s friends a couple years ago, they’d likely have said the chances were slim to none that the Charlotte resident would ever think seriously about leaving it all behind to hike more than 2,000 miles through North Carolina. 

“I wasn’t much of an outdoors person,” said Brookshire, 32.