The Blue Ridge Parkway Foundation will receive 100 free hours of public relations and marketing services as part of the Stand Up Initiative from Asheville-based Darby Communications and Status Forward. 

Tremont Institute is a finalist for an international education award in recognition of its Community Leaders Fellowship program. 

A 68-acre conservation purchase in Catawba County is expected to become part of the planned Wilderness Gateway State Trail, which is intended to meander thorugh Catawba and Burke counties and along the Rutherford-McDowell county line. 

Support wildlife in North Carolina with a voluntary contribution to the Nongame and Endangered Wildlife Fund on line 30 of the N.C. state income tax form. 

To the Editor:

Our N.C. House Rep. Joe Sam Queen is fulfilling every campaign promise he made two years ago. Here is the latest example, one that affects people, especially school-age children, here in WNC’s most isolated areas the most.

To the Editor:

Congratulations, by now the president has been acquitted of high crimes and misdemeanors. The Republican Senate has determined without any witnesses or documents that Trump had a “perfect call.” There never was any question about the facts, to quote Republican Sen. Lamar Alexander, “It was inappropriate for the president to ask a foreign leader to investigate his political opponent and to withhold United States aid to encourage that investigation”.

By Mark Jamison • Guest Columnist | Some have called it the death of irony, the moment when Kenneth Starr, he of special counsel fame, stood in the well of the Senate and bemoaned the possibility that impeachment had become a partisan political tool. Then again, the gaslighting and Eddie Haskell-like pronouncements of cognitive dissonance by folks like Sen. Mitch McConnell have become normalized to the point where many are no longer horrified, just merely curious at what the scriptwriters of this perverse reality show that stands in for American political culture will come up with next. The emperor may have no clothes, but in the valley of the willfully blind who cares to notice?

By Steve Wall • Guest Columnist | Why do we even need any medical insurance programs or Social Security?

Well, because about 500 elderly folks in Haywood County are in nursing homes with their fees paid by Medicaid. And over 4,500 of our community’s children are enrolled in Medicaid. Virtually anyone over 65 gets their medical bills paid primarily paid by Medicare. And most people over 65 depend on Social Security to escape the poverty that threatened their  aging family members before 1936 and President Roosevelt. 

How’s your pickle knowledge?

A coalition of individuals and organizations came together to get river cane planted at Rivers Edge Park in Clyde this month. 

To the Editor:

Draw a Venn diagram. Circle one is morality. Circle two is ethics. Number three is law. As most people know morality is basically voluntary. Morality is the substance of individual and group conscience. Ethics is basically guidelines for certain groups of people who adhere to them voluntarily. Most groups establish some penalty for failure to comply. Neither of the first two behavioral guidelines listed above permeates all behavior in America. The law does. We are a nation founded on laws. 

The president of the United States has apparently ignored morality, ethics and the law for his entire lifetime. By virtue of his family’s wealth he has thumbed his nose at morality, ethics and the law with little total financial loss. Acquisition of money seems to be his only priority. 

This mode of operation has worked so long as he has been able to isolate “weaker” individuals and businesses. However, he has now entered into a legal agreement/disagreement with most Americans. Some will take his side because of party affiliation. Some want earthly power for their religious beliefs. The reality is, though, that most Americans want to see Donald Trump have to operate within the same legal framework as the rest of us. He is no more special than anyone else.

Since Trump should provide moral and ethical leadership befitting the Office of the President of the United States but refuses/fails to do so, we may have to tolerate that for a while. We should not have to abide his overt mocking of the legal system that makes America a beacon of democracy, civility, hope and freedom for the rest of the world.

If he is above the law, why do the rest of us have to obey? We have to agree to obey or we might as well shred the Constitution of the United States of America. We will either continue to be a beacon or we will extinguish the flame that Lady Liberty holds for all the world to admire.

Deep down, do you want a president who wants to be above the law?

Dave Waldrop

Webster

To the Editor:

I am constantly sickened by the rate at which our country is being driven into the toilet by the dishonesty, incompetence, and venality of this GOP administration.

These are terrible times for any thinking person. I so often feel appalled and disgusted at the caliber of this GOP administration’s actions.

The lying and slandering by this administration has to be stopped. It devolves to the Congress to demonstrate that America is in fact a place where the “rule of law” matters. I believe Congress should censure the Secretary of State Mike Pompeo for his interactions with National Public Radio’s Mary Louise Kelly during her interview, and his continued public attacks on her after the interview. That could be a start to the return of respect in political discourse, as well as to the restoration of a sense of representation of the people in our Congress.

Bill Aylor

Bryson City

To the Editor:

The hysterical, savage and frenzied attacks on President Trump  by Democrats, the media, powerful deep state and political establishment has been ongoing ever since the day he was elected. Most think this continual insulting harassment is because Trump is not a part of the D.C. club, is brash, outspoken, ignores political correctness, it was not “his turn” and he operates on a completely different style than the entrenched power politicians. These assumptions are true and valid, but the most dangerous and destructive anti-Trump cabal is the global elitists whose goal is a new world order. In the USA the global elite includes presidents Carter, Clinton, the Bushes and Obama and their new world order agendas that sells out American jobs, American workers and American sovereignty. Trump’s America-first initiative is a distinct threat to those goals of the new world order elitists who pull the strings of  governments worldwide. 

Everything President Trump has done defeats the power and profit of the global elitists. He pulled us out of TPP, the Paris Climate Accord and renegotiated NAFTA. He is securing the border threatening cheap illegal labor, imposed tariffs on China and just negotiated an initial trade agreement with China. These moves by President Trump are a grave danger to the global elitists that includes big business, big media, big finance and big government.

 It is no wonder that multi-millions of global elite dollars are funding the anti-Trump political agenda through dozens of front groups assigned to fight Trump’s reelection. Such groups are funded by  global elitists like George Soros, Hillary and Bill Clinton. For other names worldwide check out The Superclass List then  Agenda 21, Southern Poverty Law Center, Open Society Foundation and “philanthropic” organizations such as Arabella Advisors  whose “story” includes “helping clients whose promising ideas with the power to effect deep social change often require up-front capital.”  

Much to the dismay of global elitists, the new world order is under threat all over the world not only in the USA. Think Brexit, the yellow vests in France, populist governments in Hungary and Poland.  Leading the threat is President Donald J. Trump who fights successfully for the American people, our constitutional rights, liberties and the sovereignty of our nation. No wonder the global elitists have their sights on Trump and his defeat in 2020.

Carol Adams

Glenville

The Jackson County Chamber of Commerce Board of Directors recently recognized Julie Spiro Donaldson for 20 years of service as the chamber’s executive director from 1999-present. 

Over the past decade or so, there’s been only one serious candidate willing or able to run for the District 119 House seat currently occupied by Waynesville Democrat Joe Sam Queen. 

The Jackson County Arts Council is proud to announce the 2020 T-shirt design winner is Josie Smoker. 

On Jan. 13, J Gabriel, Moonlight and Garbo, and Tia Dana presented the Haywood County Arts Council with a $1,200 check. 

At the annual meeting of the Haywood Arts Regional Theatre Board of Directors on Jan. 21, HART Executive Director Steve Lloyd announced the theater’s “Volunteer of the Year” would be Michelle Free. 

Tea time at Nettie’s Bakery in Waynesville raised $1,350 in support of the critically endangered red wolf during the inaugural event Tea Time for the Red Wolf Saturday, Jan. 1. 

George Ivey has joined the Blue Ridge Parkway Foundation as the nonprofit’s new development officer. 

Haywood Community College 2019 professional crafts fiber graduate Hannah Mitsu Shimabukuro was recently named a Penland School of Craft Core Fellow. 

By Martin Dyckman • Guest Columnist | No one in America should be above the law, least of all the person most responsible for enforcing it. But there he is: Donald Trump, preening and posturing and scoffing at the Constitution like some latter-day Mussolini, his conceit inflamed by the Justice Department’s policy that a sitting president can’t be indicted.

Nothing in the Constitution or any law Congress made says so. 

To the Editor:

Have you a favorite president? I do, Harry S Truman (no period after the S). Truman was the first president I saw in person. In 1947 he campaigned from a caboose in my hometown (Haverhill, Massachusetts). It was after Labor Day, school had commenced, my third-grade class was at the railroad station to greet him.

Truman became president when Franklin Roosevelt died April 12, 1945, then won the presidency by defeating Thomas Dewey in 1947. One of Truman’s accomplishments, he made a sincere effort to introduce national health insurance.

Even in Harry Truman’s time (70 years ago) the deep-pocketed American Medical Association (AMA) opposed the program, wanting to protect physicians’ superior market power and professional autonomy. Then, as now, the AMA’s national network endeavored to stir up fear of “socialized medicine.” Opponents of universal coverage have relied on variations of that playbook ever since.

This is well-documented and you can verify these facts through study of William C. Hsiao, K.T. Li Professor of Economics Emeritus at Harvard University’s T.H. Chan School of Public Health. Hsiao most recently wrote on the subject for Foreign Affairs (Jan.-Feb. 2000).

Truman, JFK, Johnson, Nixon, Carter, H.W. Bush, Clinton and Obama all recognized the need of establishing effective, affordable health care. The fact remains, across the broad spectrum of health care, Americans pay more and get less .... Why?

The root of the problem (deferring to William Hsiao), as the United States became a prosperous, industrialized society in the early 20th century, it chose to treat health care as a commercial product rather than a social good, such as education. As a result, whereas government-mandated universal schooling was the norm by the 1920s, health care still remains primarily a private-sector commodity driven by the profit motive.

According to statistics (confirm them, please) 28 million Americans are uninsured and 44 more million are under-insured, contributing to an inequality in that the top quarter of American wage-earners live 10 years longer (on average) than the bottom quarter.

Finally, the flagrant fraud, waste and abuse driving up the price of health care, tens of billions of dollars in unnecessary spending year after year.  Hsiao tells us that a cottage industry has sprung up to advise hospitals and physicians how to game the claims system by fragmenting bills and “upcoding services” — exaggerating their complexity — in order to maximize payments.

Large providers employ workers whose primary task is to find ways to pad charges. Some hospitals and clinics take a blunter approach: they simply file claims for services they’ve not actually performed. It’s been going on for decades.

Some of us have experienced and reported irregularities over the years with only minimal success. Unless public attitudes shift drastically, we’ll never achieve full and affordable health care.

However, should American values and urgencies change and we decide we’ve had enough scheming and scamming, we have only to look to Canada, Taiwan, Germany, and a few other nations for guidance with systems that work.

David L. Snell

Franklin

To the Editor:

It is unbelievable that this quality paper can stand toe to toe with other publications and best them time after time. In fact, your news and list of events are much better than any Western Carolina paper currently published. I have lived all over the world and in a number of states but have not experienced the professionalism shown by your staff. There is writing and WRITING; you know the difference. Without your publication, we would be left out of timely news. I thought about writing this letter for some time but I finally got my thoughts in order. Keep on doing what you do so well and these Western Carolinians will continue being informed every Wednesday.

KG Watson

Maggie Valley

The Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians hopes to earn more than $1 million over 10 years by extending a $4 million loan to broadband provider Balsam West, of which it is a 50 percent owner. 

Whether you are following a vegan or vegetarian diet or just looking for a meatless or meat-free burger option for a quick meal, you will appreciate the selection of products you can find at your local Ingles Markets. 

On Monday, Dec. 30, the Roman Catholic Diocese of Charlotte published a list of several clergy the diocese found to have been “credibly accused” of child sexual abuse since the diocese’s creation in 1972. Of these clergy members, two worked in the 43rd Prosecutorial District in the 1970s and 1980s. 

As an ingredient, caffeine is found naturally in coffee, tea, mate and chocolate and is added to caffeinated sodas, some “energy” waters, coffee-flavored foods like ice cream and meal replacement bars, as well as candy, gum and non-prescription medications that have added caffeine. 

In the early hours of the morning on Saturday, Nov. 30, slightly more than 500 students at Western Carolina University met in the football stadium parking lot and packed into 12 buses. What did they have in common? They all were members of WCU’s Pride of the Mountains Marching Band. Their destination? New York City.

Robert Burns is credited with saving the folk music of Scotland. He was born just a few years after England conquered Scotland in 1746. England was intent upon destroying the clan system. Edicts of proscription were issued forbidding the remaining Scottish people from wearing tartan and speaking Gaelic upon removal or death. Scottish leaders and their families were hunted down. The lucky ones escaped, some to America. Not many decades passed before the old language, except in the darkest dales of Scotland, was lost.

Robert Burns was a poet farmer in Ayreshire, Scotland, but an accomplished poet.  He began to compose a collection of poems about familiar country characters and legends. To make the subjects more human, he wrote in the Old Scots dialect that was used in storytelling. He set many of these poems to old pub ballads. The tunes would be familiar to people but with new words.

He performed this repertoire in meeting halls and salons around Scotland, attracted mentors, and became famous. These songs and poems might not have become famous if England had not been the world power in the 19th century. As their armies moved all over the globe, Burns’ songs and poems went with them.  Although many artist and writers have been honored, Robert Burns is the only one who has an annual celebration named for him. Still over 250 years later, Robert Burns Night highlighting his poems and songs are still bringing people together around the world. And he did not live long to do it. He died at 37. 

The Taste of Scotland society will hold its annual Burns Night on Jan. 25 at Tartan Hall, First Presbyterian Church, Franklin. The evening will start with a roll call of the Clans, move to a five course dinner menu. Jacobites By Name will perform after dinner. We hope to have some Scottish country dancing, and we will end the night by gathering in a circle and singing, “Auld Lang Syne,” perhaps his most famous work.

Merrilee Bordeaux

Franklin

To the Editor:

The impeachment of President Donald Trump, the most partisan political witch hunt in our American history, is fraudulent, a hoax, charade and scam. Democrats, the media and various other left-wing swamp Trump haters have been calling for his impeachment from the day he was elected ... before the man assumed any presidential duties … before he set foot into the Oval Office. At that time there was nothing to impeach him on. Oh! Sorry! There was one thing according to the Trump-hating Democrats. He beat the Democrat chosen one, Hilary Clinton, in the 2016 presidential election. With that perceived “crime” Democrat officeholders cried out for impeachment without any constitutional reason to impeach. Early on, a congressman from Texas stood at the U.S. House of Representatives podium and said we need to impeach before he is reelected ... upon her election in 2018 a potty mouth congresswoman vowed to impeach the #&%*, using the nastiest profanity. Maxine Waters bellowed out “impeach 45” just about every day from the 2016 Election Day ... still nothing valid or constitutional to impeach. This process is like telling your child I will be grounding you but I don’t know for what yet.

After trying to find a Trump crime worthy of impeachment — including a two and a half year special counsel investigation — the desperate Democrat scammers have settled on articles of impeachment that we are to believe are high crimes and misdemeanors … abuse of power and obstruction of justice. These accusations are not criminal nor are they true. Instead they are conjured up by a kangaroo court in an attempt to get rid of a president by coup rather than an election. Democrats have tried to foist this nonsense on us and while at it the Speaker of the House has abused her power by holding the impeachment articles from the Senate.

In the meantime we have a booming Trump economy where more than 7 million jobs have been added; in 2019 the unemployment rate reached its lowest level in half a century; the unemployment rates for minorities, veterans, individuals with disabilities, and those without a high school diploma are at record lows; wages are growing at their fastest rate in a decades; two existing regulations for every new regulation are slashed saving $50 billion in regulatory costs; support is strengthened for our community, border control and ICE law enforcement officers; ISIS is devastated; trade agreements are renegotiated to benefit the U.S and red lines in the sand are honored like the promise to eliminate of those responsible for attacks on our embassies and killing Americans.

It is no wonder that the left, Democrats and the Trump-hating swamp want to be rid of President Donald Trump who is making America and our citizens great again. That idea is alien to them.

Shirley Slaughter

Cashiers

To the Editor:

It is my understanding that the state legislature and the governor are at an impasse over the state budget because of a refusal by the General Assembly to expand Medicaid, which Gov. Roy Cooper has strongly supported. 

Here’s the thing: For the past five years North Carolina taxpayers have paid $8.3 billion in federal taxes to support the cost of expanding Medicaid in 36 other states and the District of Columbia. But our legislators refuse to take action to provide coverage to over 464,000 North Carolinians, which federal funding will fund up to 90 percent.

Expanding Medicaid would make health care available to many working North Carolina adults whose employers offer neither health insurance nor wages sufficient to purchase coverage on the private market. Many of these working adults are parents whose lack of health care directly affects their children, often resulting in poor school performance and a less promising future.

The injection of billions of dollars of federal funding into the economy will spur North Carolina’s business activity and create an estimated 34,000 jobs in this year, 2020. With Medicaid expansion, at least 665 additional people in Macon County would be covered, more jobs and more tax revenue would be created.

And also in this unpassed state budget is a plan for retired school personnel to receive a one-time .5 percent bonus. You read that right: 5 tenths of a percent ... bonus. The Macon County North Carolina Retired School Personnel have asked for a cost-of-living increase to try to keep up with inflation. For our efforts, we have received a 1 percent increase three times in 10 years, yet the cumulative inflation over that time period has been 18.10 percent. 

We didn’t serve the children of North Carolina in order to become rich, but it would be a real bonus if we retirees could keep up with inflation.

Nancy Scott 

Franklin

Lake Junaluska to draw down water levelsLake Junaluska has opened its dam to draw down the lake. The lake drawdown, which happens every few years, allows for removal of silt from the lake’s floor as well as repairs, maintenance and litter cleanup. The lake will be filled again by Easter.

In the post-holiday frenzy we hear a lot about making resolutions regarding our health and fitness. Many of us start with good intentions, but our aspirations fall flat after just a few weeks because we never figured out a plan to execute our resolutions. 

Several changes to hunting, inland fishing and trapping licenses structures and fees went into effect with the start of the New Year. 

Eight area land trusts protected a collective 8,598 acres in 2019, equivalent to 13.43 square miles, bringing the total protected since 2016 to 30,478 acres.

Tim Petrea, program supervisor for the Waynesville Parks and Recreation Department since 2013, will be leaving North Carolina for a position as director of county parks, recreation and leisure services in Wyoming. 

A 17-acre bog in Burke County is now protected for consesrvation folowing a Dec. 16 purchase by the Foothills Conservancy of North Carolina. 

Duke Energy will move forward with excavating nearly 80 million tons of coal ash at sites in North Carolina following the signing of a settlement agreement with community and environmental groups that ends appeal litigation. 

To the Editor:

On a recent ride into town, I found myself behind a car with a bumper sticker that read “Support Our Troops.” I imagined addressing the driver: “What exactly does your bumper sticker mean? How are you supporting our troops? Do you send them gifts for Christmas? Donate to veterans causes? Do you vote for candidates who will keep them safe by providing arms for them in battle or for candidates who will keep them safe by staying out of conflicts? Are you implying that I don’t support our troops because my car does not display the same message?”

It’s been decades since I’ve met anyone who does not respect the men and women who put themselves in harm’s way to protect us.

And what about the bumper stickers that say “Peace”? “What statement are you making? That you are for peace? As opposed to what? Have you ever met anyone who is against peace?”

The truth is that these bumper stickers have nothing at all to do with our troops or world peace. Rather, their sole purpose is to let others know what side you’re on. They are no different than the colors worn by rival gangs in cities across America.

So, at the dawn of this new decade, perhaps it’s time to begin dismantling the social and political divisions in our country. The bumpers of our cars may be the best place to start. And if you must display something, may I suggest “I am human — just like you.”

Jeffrey Zalles

Southport

To the Editor:

Recently, a prolific contributor of letters to editors asked how much longer we could stand to have Donald Trump as President. I’ll make this short and sweet. We can stand to have him as long as it takes to clean out the corruption in the FBI, DOJ, CIA, and other agencies with bleach and a fire hose. As long as we have unelected agencies illegally trying to overturn the results of an election we can stop worrying about any foreign adversaries. The enemy is us, or at least a certain subset of arrogant functionaries and their enablers that have forgotten what democracy is supposed to be. Four more years!

David Parker

Sylva

The search for the driver of a silver/grey Dodge Charger with white strobe lights who allegedly held a woman at gunpoint in December has not resulted in any new information.

Southeast Tourism Society has named the Hook, Line and Drinker Festival in Sylva one of the STS Top 20 Events in the Southeast for May 2020.

After some 18 years in business, there will be a special closing celebration for Soul Infusion Tea House & Bistro in Sylva. Though the business will open at noon on Saturday, Jan. 11, the “Soul’s Last Stand” will be from 5 to 11:30 p.m. that day.

This time of year there seems to be a lot of talk about eliminating foods. How about if instead we let talk about ADDING more food from plants to our meals - this is actually the recommendation of the US Dietary Guidelines and My Plate!