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.

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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.

Cross posted from BlueNC!

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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.

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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.

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I spent a lot of time last year explaining to folks that it was a Blue Moon election year.  Last night was the first Blue Moon since then...

In politics, of course, a "Blue Moon" is the rare occurrence of Congress being at the top of the ballot with no Senate or Governor's race. Now we think of it as what we call the second full moon occurring in the same month, but any farmer will tell you it really means having an extra moon in the growing cycle. Last night I saw it coming home after a long day of teaching followed by my 'second job' of making fundraising calls, and started reflecting on the sacrifices I make being away from my family to do this and the sacrifices I'm asking others to make of their time, money, and other resources.  

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