Two things have been true throughout American history: We love to protest, but we hate protesters. And bashing protesters is always good politics. Protesting is deep in our DNA. Protesters settled the country. The American Revolution was the ultimate, violent protest. Ever since, we’ve cycled through protest and repression. When abolitionists protested slavery, Southern slaveowners…
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It used to be Democratic politicians marched in a phalanx behind Israel. Joe Biden did. For years. Now a new generation of Democrats smile at Hamas. Frown at Israel. And Biden, shifting with the political winds, has taken to straddling the fence. To be safe Israel has little choice but to eliminate Hamas – but…
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You’d have to look a long time to find a grander Trumpster than Marjorie Taylor Greene. She’s one of a kind. And so’s he. Both have huge social media ‘Followings’ and like Trump, Greene knows how to set her followers on fire – she just did with three words, Oust Mike Johnson. When she said…
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Before North Carolina Republicans got down to business in the legislature, they got down to some serious partying. First there was the incident at the December wedding of Rep. Destin Hall, who wants to be Speaker next year. One of his groomsmen fell off a truck and was injured so badly he was hospitalized for…
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Luther fled Worms – the emperor condemned him. Made him an outlaw. Luther fled into hiding in the Thuringian Forest – fate reared its head a third time: The emperor had to leave Germany to go to Spain to fight his war with the King of France. Didn’t set foot in Germany again for ten…
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Fifty-four years ago this week, on May 8, 1970, 4,500 students from nearly a dozen colleges and universities marched on Capitol Square in Raleigh to protest the Vietnam War. Four days earlier, National Guardsmen had shot and killed four students and injured nine more in protests at Kent State University in Ohio. Our march, which…
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A peasant’s son Martin Luther never knew the year he was born. Believing children were wicked his father whipped him, his mother caned him. Luther’s harsh life led him to take refuge in the cloister. The Saxon prince started a college – Luther moved to Wittenburg, taught about St. Paul. Believed, like Paul, truth and…
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After Rodrigo Borgia died, soft-spoken but cunning Leo de Medici became pope, after bribing cardinals ended up strapped for cash. A German prince said he wanted to be an Archbishop. Leo told him that would cost him 12,000 gold ducats – 1000 for each of the Apostles. The prince frowned: How about 7000, one thousand…
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It was a time, Tom Hanks wrote describing the end of the Middle Ages, when dukes and serfs paid popes to keep from going to hell. The Holy Roman Empire was not holy, not Roman, and not an empire. He’d read A World Lit Only by Fire, William Manchester’s last book, five times. Popes hid…
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A peasant’s son Martin Luther never knew the year he was born. Believing children were wicked…
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After Rodrigo Borgia died, soft-spoken but cunning Leo de Medici became pope, after bribing cardinals ended…
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It was a time, Tom Hanks wrote describing the end of the Middle Ages, when dukes…
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