In response to the Beep caller who complains that this president didn’t give him any Social Security boost when people got $1,000 bonuses from their company. We all know that people want to blame this president for everything. However, the bonuses came from companies, not the government. LBJ, a Democratic president, borrowed the money from Social Security. It was never returned. That’s why Social Security is running out. There is no relation between Social Security and the $1,000 bonuses. I know you want to blame this president for everything, but not this one, my friend. Thank you.

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I’m not a gun owner but I’m going to join the NRA and I’m making a list and checking it twice of all these places that are boycotting the NRA, and I’m going to boycott them.

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So sad. Now Trump and his lackies are attacking Republicans FISA warrant court judges. Too bad. So sad. Like a soap opera up there in that White House. It’s very entertaining. At least they do make us laugh.

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Hello. I was just reading the Beep. And there was an call in there that was talking about that they don’t want the government to send them food, that they wanted the food stamps, and people should be talking to the government about it, that they should all reach out and say that they don’t want these boxes of food that the government is going to send out, because they want food stamps. Well, I have this to say. I’m a taxpayer. And I think if you are getting food stamps, you should be grateful for anything that the government gives you at this point. Because I don’t think the taxpayers should be on the hook for all these food stamps. People are abusing them. They’re selling them. And they’re doing all kind of different things with them. So, therefore, I think it’s time that the government sent out food instead of you getting hundreds of dollars of food stamps and you misusing them the way you are.

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Incredible.  It is a little after 6:10 p.m. on Sunday, March 4 on Bunch Road in Oak Ridge, and a car just passed me heading southbound which I may never see again. Forget about Ferraris and Lambos and Gordon-Keebles and Ginettas and McLarens. No, this one was much, much more rare. It was a Vanden Plas 1300 of approximately 1970 vintage, in excellent condition, or so it appeared, as it crossed by me at about 45 mph. I recognized it immediately, gave a “thumbs up” and in the two seconds we had, the driver waved back. I don’t know who you are, sir, but I would wager that you’re driving the only Vanden Plas 1300 in North Carolina, and probably the cleanest one in North America. Thanks for waving back. She looks like a beauty. Please keep her as beautiful as she is now.  Just sign me off as An Independent Thinker.

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Yes, I’m reading the Feb. 22 edition of your newspaper. And in response to a letter to the editor called Guns Kill People, according to this lady who wrote the letter that guns don’t kill people, people kill people, which is fine. But she responds, guns make it a lot easier. Well, so do the knives in your kitchen, the baseball bats on the field, and the car in your driveway. It’s not the guns that are killing people. It’s the idiots that buy the guns and the nuts that don’t keep them secured. Signed me off as King James I in Whitsett.

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Yes, Beep. I wonder if anybody has heard whether Barack Hussein Obama is still hovering about 10 feet over everybody. I haven’t heard anything like that. I sure hope he falls and hurts – I mean, I hope he doesn’t fall and hurt his self.

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I keep seeing in the Rhino here where some individual called, and I’ve seen them call many times, over why there’s no builders building apartment complexes in rich communities as they want to say. The funny thing about it is, in that beep he says, they wouldn’t have to worry about their money. The government will take care of the money and pay it. Well, that’s the thing about it. That’s why everybody gets so mad. An individual living in Section 8 housing with two or three kids getting every freebie that they can get from the government is making more a month than an individual out here working for a living is making. I saw a survey on that a few months back.

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I like reading the Beep. But every time I do, I hate that blue background. It’s just not easy on the eyes as a lighter color would be, or just a plain white background. I’m not sure if others feel that way, but that’s my opinion.

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John, Japan’s schools are completely safe. Why don’t you do an article on how they achieve this. Thanks. Bye-bye.

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Hello, Rhino. Want safer schools? Fortify them the same way as you would a prison. Sound harsh? So is the mass murder of students. Otis says, times have changed and the measure of security should change as well. Thank you.

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Hello, Beep. Southern Guilford here. Kids are speaking out against guns, yet kids kill each other with guns. Isn’t that an oxymoron to the 10th level? Maybe America’s youth is spending too much time on social media. There are better things to do with your fingers and thumbs than to play with a computer and spread threats on the internet.

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Hey, John, I just read where Susan Ladd was let go by the news and fish wrap. And I think that’s great news. Now, if they would just let Allen Johnson go, and discontinue articles written by Leonard Pitts, Kathleen Parker, Robin Adams Cheeley, I think the city and the county and the world would be a better place. Thank you.

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Yeah, here’s what the real Democratic memo shows. It shows the deflection telling you it’s not what it is. It shows the demonization, demonizing Trump because he dared to oppose the FBI and the DOJ, and it includes a lot of lies. And the FISA court did not know that DNC and Hillary paid for the Russian dossier. Stated to the court that it was a political opposition paper. McCabe, the FBI guy who resigned said the dossier played a major role in getting the warrant. Without it, it wouldn’t have gotten it. The Democratic memo does not address this issue. The court was also not informed that Bruce Orr’s wife worked for Fusion GPS. Small fact. The main points remain the same. There is no evidence of Trump collusion in Russia but clearly evidence the DNC, Hillary Clinton paid for the fake Russian dossier and it was used to get FISA warrants to spy on Trump.

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Yeah, you Trump supporters need to quit believing everything that comes out of his buffoon mouth. I am a Democrat. We are gun owners. We are gun collectors. We love the Second Amendment. We do not want to get rid of the Second Amendment. Just want to get rid of those war guns that kill children. So, pay attention. Know the facts. Think for yourself for a change. And stop believing everything you hear out of that fool’s mouth. I’m a gun owner. I own pistols, handguns, but nobody needs – no American needs a wartime weapon that is so easy for high school kids to get a hold of. If anything, raise the age from 18 to 25. Because are they going to be more sane at 21? It doesn’t make sense. We just want to get rid of the wartime weapons, not the rest.

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I will actually give ultra-liberal Oprah Winfrey a few brownie points for recently having the good sense to not run as an ungodly ultra-liberal wacky lunatic Democratic presidential candidate in 2020. Now look at who they currently have left. Eric “Obama yes man” Holder, Elizabeth “Pocahontas” Warren, who I truly believe is actually further to the left than Hillary, if you can believe that. Oh, and don’t forget crazy Uncle Joe Biden, as Sean Hannity calls him. Enough said. Folks, this is why the Democrats have gone beyond scraping the bottom of the barrel. God help us if any of these were to be elected in 2020.

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Yes, I’d like to know why that church on Merritt Drive can have a – I know he’s probably off-duty policeman over there with his vehicle blocking one lane of the southbound traffic on Merritt Drive, and him standing out there stopping all traffic on a public street for these people to come out of that church, or whatever it is. I do not think it is right to delay the public out there for them to get out while you got something you want to do also just sitting there waiting. And that police car is actually taxpayer car, and he’s using it for his private use up there since he’s off-duty. That shouldn’t be allowed either. Also, think if they want to do anything about traffic, they should try to get the city to put them a stop light up there so people would have to stop and let some of them out. But I don’t think it’s right for them to stop traffic on a public street for them to make their exit.

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One thing the massacre in Parkland, Florida, has done is to distinguish the real heroes from the folks who merely strap on a gun and pin on a badge.

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I said it before and I’ll say it again. North Carolina DOT has too much money and they are not afraid to waste it. Prime example is the stretch of 840 between Bryan Boulevard and I-40. Very soon drivers along this stretch will move perfectly good road signs and signposts being dismantled and brand-new signs and signposts being erected. There is no valid reason for this amount of poor planning and waste of tax money. Just sign me off as a fed-up taxpayer.

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I’d like to tell everyone about a travesty in process. Just watched a wonderful little community of Forest Oaks that’s being tried to be forced into a homeowners’ association. We have a developer out here, a builder, a Realtor and several disgruntled members in the community that are mad with their neighbors. So they’ve decided that they’re going to revive 50-year-old covenants in our community that are outdated. They’re going to revive these covenants and then they’re going to force a homeowners’ association into this community. Sole purpose of a homeowners’ association will be to enforce 50-year-old covenants so the developer can develop his property on Forest Oaks Drive. As he said at the meeting, to build $300,000 houses in there so they can draw some college-educated people into this community. There’s people out here in their 80s and late 70s, and we’re all retirees, a lot of us. We don’t want anything to do with a homeowners’ association.

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Continuing. Living in Forest Oaks has been a pleasure over the years. Neighbors were friendly; everyone seemed to get along. Now we’re going to have a developer that doesn’t even live in this area come in here and pal up with a big builder and a real estate agent in this area telling everyone their property values will increase. That’s not true. That is a bold-faced lie. Anyone that wants to move in an area, the first questions they want to know, is there a homeowners’ association. And are there covenants in that area? And most people with common sense steer clear of that. You have an open-ended community ran by a homeowners’ association that has a management team that regulates everything going on in this community from now on. We have no streetlights. We have no sidewalks. We have nothing for this homeowners’ association to take care of.

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We don’t need a comedy channel. Whenever Trump talks and a Democrat gets up to say something, it’s so ridiculous like he was talking about the guns possibly with teachers. And what he was referring to, I’m sure, is making male teachers, 25 to 30 years old, some of them already own guns. This man got up and Democrat – from some state, I don’t know where – said that first-grade teachers didn’t want to be armed and carrying pistols around. And nobody had said one word about a first-grade teacher. And he also said that the sheriff’s department where he was at said it would take about six months to teach them how to shoot it. Now six months to load a pistol, and you see a man coming through the door, and it will take you six months to tell them how to shoot him. That is the most ridiculous thing I’ve heard of. All they need is an able-bodied man. He don’t never have to been on an Army base or ever heard of one, to have a gun, know how to use it, and he sees a man coming in, shoot him.

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Our president alleges that he would have confronted that shooter with his bare hands. Kind of a big claim for a draft dodger to make. We know what he’s like to get his bare hands on. He said so.

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Before I read any letters to the editor, I look to see who submitted it, period. If it says Maureen Parker or Charles Mann, Chuck Mann, I skip it, period. Anybody with so much to say, obviously doesn’t do enough listening, period.

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Let’s see if I got this right. You can go out and get drunk, liquored up, buy alcohol and that’s all legal. But you climb in a car and kill somebody in a wreck, that’s illegal. You go out and buy a gun. That’s legal. You go out and take a gun and kill somebody, that’s illegal. But now they want to take my gun away, but nobody’s talking about taking away my car if you get drunked up.

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Hi. I drive past the intersection of Green Valley and Battleground probably a couple of times a day. And the Camp Stokes sign there right beside the railroad tracks has been knocked over. It’s where the old Civil War – I think they practice there or they – anyway, what do they do? Some kind of camp. I think it was a. Start over.

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Hi. I’m sorry to be a bitter clinger, but I can’t stand all this stuff about Billy Graham. They keep talking about how he was such a righteous man. What did he do? He owned like five, six houses, a fleet of cars. I mean, does that sound like a man of God who gave himself? Don’t most of them give over to poverty? Martin Luther King wasn’t no better. I mean he was a millionaire by the time he was assassinated. I just don’t know. If you want to be a religious person, hey, how about doing the religion thing. Give your money to charity. Put your faith in God and let him take care of you. Just saying.

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Really, Obama? I just heard you say there were no scandals in your White House? Please give me a break. What about Benghazi?

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Yes, I read on Facebook that Beaufort Justice Barnes, previously known as BJ, has written a book about himself. That book should be alongside what happened by Hillary Clinton. My dad used to say self-brag is half scandal. Thank you.

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Well, you know what? It’s interesting how stories will spread all over the place. Sal Leone that has run for everything from City Council, I think, to the US Senate, he retired just recently from his job at the Thomasville Police Department. He retired. Well, anyway, there’s all types of rumors floating around. And it just amazes me when somebody like that that’s worked …

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It’s March 1, and as a lifelong Tar Heel I had breakfast with a fellow Tar Heel just here this morning. I was informed that there is an anonymous letter signed by 12 professors at UNC-Chapel Hill saying that if Silent Sam is not taken down that they will tear it down. Well, I don’t know if that’s a different wrinkle from a debate that’s been going on for decades. But I will tell these 12 professors, and I’m assuming that none of them are from North Carolina, that is it not their prerogative. They do not possess the wisdom to remove a statue and for all times and for all generations co-opt the debate. Personally, I like Silent Sam. It attests to the valor and the aspirations of young men that went off to war thinking they were fighting the second revolution. And you can make judgments about all of that. What you can’t do is revise history.

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To all the anonymous 12 UNC professors who signed a letter of intent to tear down Silent Sam. Let me give you the McEducation that you probably don’t have. You’ll put some context to the memory of those students. President Abraham Lincoln issued a series of executive orders to which he had no clear legal basis without Congress in session. Lincoln combined the state militias into a 90-day national volunteer force, called for 40,000 volunteers, enlarged the regular Army and Navy, diverted $2 million in unspent appropriations to military needs, instituted censorship of the US mail, ordered a blockade of Southern ports, suspended the writ of habeas corpus and ordered states to be arrested by military police and individuals whom he deemed to be guilty of engaging in or even just contemplating treasonous actions. Lincoln asserted that these extraordinary measures were necessary to confront the crisis.

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Has anybody heard any good jokes lately? I have one for you. It’s called northwest Greensboro. The residents of northwest Greensboro for some reason look down on the rest of the city. I don’t know why. Because their kids are also doing illegal drugs. Their kids are also participating in underage drinking. Their kids are also having premarital sex outside of marriage. I just don’t know why they want to act like they are better than someone else and they’re really not. The adults are also participating in illegal drug use. Not all of them, but some of them.

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You know what? I have been looking for a 1,500-square-foot space to put a business in. I have looked in Greensboro, Clemmons, Winston, Mocksville, basically all over. And I’m finding out the average price for a 1,500-square-foot space runs about $550 to $600 a month. But for some reason whenever you come to Guilford County and you’re looking at them, the prices seem to double and triple up into $1,500 all the way up to the $2,500 mark. I’m sitting here wondering, do these Realtors that have all these empty buildings in Greensboro and around it, don’t they understand that you can go right out of the city limits and get a 1,500-square-foot building for around $600 a month? I even found some that even included the power and water with it, believe it or not, that were out in the Clemmons and Mocksville area.

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John Hammer, I’m again really disappointed in you. You broke your promise. You indicated that you always say the president’s full name. You insisted on saying Barack Hussein Obama, but you failed to say Donald John Trump. I even gave you credit once by saying that you had corrected yourself and started to use his full name, but I see you’ve regressed. And I am even more disappointed that you tried to convince me that you didn’t print Barack Hussein Obama’s full name any other reason that that’s why for any other reason than you always do that. But you were inciting some type of negative vibe. And, I’m again, really disappointed in you. You said you would do it. You did it a couple of times, and I see you regressed. So, I know you weren’t as honorable as I gave you credit. And I’m disappointed.

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John, I take the News & Record knowing that it is liberal. But at the end of last year, Leonard Pitts was on vacation. And there were two very positive articles written by Marc Thiessen on President Trump. The first one, “Trump’s War on Regulations Unleashes the Economy.” Then he did a second article. It took up over half the page, but this was the 10 best things done in his first year in office. Showed the big picture of the president. And the article was very, very good.

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When are the county commissioners going to get together and do something about Uber? When are they going to make Uber comply with all the state regulations and commercial regulations that all of us in the business have to comply with? It’s just not fair. They are putting taxis, cab drivers and people in the transportation business out of business because they do not have to comply with the commercial regulations that the rest of us have to. It’s just not fair. The playing field should be even for everybody. They have no skin in the game. They have nothing invested while everybody else in the business has to pay about $3,000 to $5,000 a year per vehicle for commercial insurance while they pay nothing. When are the county commissioners going to do something to help us out? Come on, Skip. Help us. We need some help. We’re going out of business. Make Uber comply with all the commercial regulations that all the rest of us have to. It’s just not fair. Thank you.

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Editor’s Note: The Guilford County commissioners have no authority over Uber or taxis.