Hayes

I recently wrote about the funding that was finally approved to fix the substandard housing at Fort Bragg just in time for Military Families First weekend.

It's sadly indicative of not only the current administration, but the prior near decade of complete Republican control over all government agencies, what it takes for any "progress" to finally happen for the average working American. It's tragically no different for our hard working military, in spite of all the "support our troops" rhetoric from those that do anything but...

Today's Fayetteville Observer.

My Finance Director usually asks people for money. Today he just sent a newsletter asking for a minute of your time to Take our Country Back.

Frontpaged by James. This is easy and fast. Please hit the link and vote for Larry!

It's sadly indicative of not only the current administration, but the prior near decade of complete Republican control over all government agencies, what it takes for any "progress" to finally happen for the average working American. It's tragically no different for our hard working military, in spite of all the "support our troops" rhetoric from those that do anything but...

Today is the Armed Services' Military Spouse Appreciation Day or Military Families First weekend as it's known in my District which includes Fort Bragg, where the Army just approved $2.9 million to fix the substandard living conditions.

The Nation magazine recently came for a visit to Biscoe, the headquarters of my campaign for Congress, and they saw first hand how devastated our Congressional District is:

It's a bright, mellow, short-sleeve April evening in the troubled pinelands of south central North Carolina. Except for the waspish drone of lawnmowers and the occasional whoosh of a car sliding along Highway 220, this town of 1,700 is almost eerily quiet--partly because, with gas costing what it does, people can't afford to do much driving around. But it's mostly because of the big yawning silence at the center of Biscoe, where the mill used to be.

"Agriculture is not just about putting things in the ground and then harvesting them...it is increasingly about the social and environmental variables that will in large part determine the future capacity of agriculture to provide for eight or nine billion people in a manner that is sustainable" - Achim Steiner, Executive Director, UNEP

This Earth Day, I thought it important to consider an often unsung hero of the environmental movement that remains our best line of defense in securing the ultimate goal of environmentalism - our sustainable existence. That unsung hero is the local family farmer, and must be an integral part of the solution to the tsunami of interrelated epidemics on the global horizon from the world food crisis to the world energy crisis and every imported fruit and vegetable driven home from a Supercenter in a plastic shopping bag in between.

Sadly, MIT professor Edward Lorenz, father of the chaos theory also known as the 'butterfly effect', died this week at 90. You may wonder why that matters to a high school civics teacher running for Congress.

Professor Lorenz's theory is why I believe we all have to step up and do our part to change the world. You may have seen that he was honored on one of the very first pages created on my Congressional campaign website in 2005, and to this day there is a butterfly on my website.

He was a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology when he came up with the scientific concept that small effects lead to big changes, something that was explained in a simple example known as the "butterfly effect." He explained how something as minuscule as a butterfly flapping its wings in Brazil changes the constantly moving atmosphere in ways that could later trigger tornadoes in Texas.

It's tax day, which means millions of hard working Americans will be scrambling to file their Federal taxes today, many begrudgingly as they watch an escalating cost of the Iraq War exceed $500 billion on the shoulders of working families.

That said, as you file your taxes today you may be shocked to learn exactly where many of those tax dollars go. We all know my opponent Robin Hayes is one of the wealthiest lawmakers in Congress, but this is downright shameful.

On this day a 143 years ago, our American civil war came to its end.

We know that more than 620,000 Americans died in our Civil War with disease and the chaos of conflict killing twice as many as those lost to actual violence. 50,000 survivors returned home as amputees. We know when it started and when it ended. The war was over 4 years after it had begun by 1865.

By contrast, the Sunni-Shiite conflict began some 1,400 years ago and we cannot pretend it does not continue today.

Often people who I talk to about my campaign are surprised I still work at my job as a teacher. When I tell them that it isn't really a choice, that I'm not wealthy and I have to work to support my family they seem genuinely shocked that someone is running for Congress who can't 'just take a year off'. There are others here in my district who understand exactly what I'm talking about and are getting involved in politics, sometimes for the first time, because they know that we can't leave the business of Washington only to people who can afford to take time off and run 'full-time'. Here in North Carolina's 8th District, we've been represented for 10 years by the 6th wealthiest Member of Congress and this is where we find ourselves:

There's a reason a new poll shows that Voters in NC focus on economy.

June Nance, a 50-year-old unemployed educator from Scotland County, said she is learning to live without health insurance, exercising regularly and eating healthy.

"Thank God, I'm fairly healthy," Nance said. "I pray daily that nothing serious happens to me.

June is not alone.

Sadly, we all know the tragic milestone of U.S. deaths in Iraq.

As I think about the honorable sacrifices of our military families today, I'd be remiss to not remind you all why my opponent, Republican Robin Hayes, must be retired.

If anyone has ever doubted that Robin Hayes would say or do anything to get through just one more election cycle, take a look at his remarks on the Iraq War just days after narrowly clinging to his seat by 330 votes in 2006.

Full size image here.