Republicans in Congress, including those representing North Carolina, are seeking detailed answers from the Biden administration over the United States’ catastrophic exit from Afghanistan. Thousands of people — Americans, their allies, and those friendly to Americans — who wanted to leave Afghanistan amid the chaos after the Taliban takeover are still in the war-torn country....
John Szoka, an Army veteran, was thinking about 9/11. About the attacks and the aftermath. The ghost-like figures, covered in ash, emerging from the destruction. All looking much the same. Shocked, shaken, and scared. No tags or labels. “You couldn’t tell if someone was black, white, Hispanic, rich, poor. Everybody was the same. We were...
We’re winning in Afghanistan. That was the mantra, what they told us. Never entirely true. Some of it, maybe. Many of us in the U.S. were admittedly oblivious to the realities that Taliban fighters still maintained strongholds in the mountains, that ferocious attacks on allied military bases and outposts continued. Suicide bombings, car bombings. Winning? ...
The N.C. House passed a bill by a vote of 100-5 on Wednesday to exempt military retirement pay from state income taxes. House Bill 83 is sponsored by Rep. John Szoka, R-Cumberland, who represents the district where Fort Bragg and the 82nd Airborne are located. Szoka spoke on the floor of the House asking members...
The Economic Support working group of the House Select Committee on COVID-19 has approved a bill waiving the accrual of interest on taxes paid between April 15 and the new July 15 deadline. The N.C. Department of Revenue waived late fees when the state decided to extend the tax deadline to July 15, but legislation...
The vape tax disappeared by the time its mini-budget made it to the House floor. The House Finance Committee sprung an amendment that would tax e-cigarette and vapor products on Senate Bill 557 in committee, Wednesday, Oct. 30. The amendment cleared the Finance Committee that morning with strong support, but was scrubbed in the House...
State legislators have sent a tax on vaping to the House. The House Finance Committee amended a mini-budget, Senate Bill 557, Wednesday, Oct. 30, to raise the tax on vaping and send part of the tax revenue toward the Tobacco Use Prevention Fund. Representatives called the tax the “first step” in tackling the vaping crisis....
If the General Assembly learned anything from recent decades of redistricting battles, it’s that the map-drawing process needs a thorough overhaul. The House Redistricting Committee discussed several proposed redistricting plans Thursday, Oct. 24, intending to make the process as nonpartisan as possible. A timeline regarding a committee vote doesn’t exist, and members adjourned without notice...
The House Energy and Public Utilities Committee on Tuesday, June, 25, approved a version of a bill to restrict new wind turbines near military bases, eliminating a proposed ban that was part of the original bill. Under a proposed committee substitute of Senate Bill 377, the “Military Base Protection Act,” the N.C. Department of Environmental...
State laws and regulations prevent municipalities from collaborating with Internet Service Providers in public-private partnerships that could bridge the urban-rural digital divide, the N.C. League of Municipalities says. A group of municipal officials held a press conference Wednesday, March 21, with state Rep. John Szoka, R-Cumberland, to unveil a new report titled Leaping the Digital...
State Rep. John Szoka, R-Cumberland, is worried $92 million from a national Volkswagen consent decree over Clean Air Act violations might get tangled up in another separation-of-powers showdown between Gov. Roy Cooper and the General Assembly. With the nasty battle over the governor’s foiled attempt to create a $57.8 million Atlantic Coast Pipeline escrow fund...
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