After months of exhaustive meetings and debate, when Oconee County Council balanced the budget without a tax increase Tuesday night, we almost felt like a Staples Easy Button would have been useful.

With sweltering temperatures almost every afternoon, it’s been too hot for much in the way of outdoor activities lately. Just venturing outside in the afternoons is not for the faint of heart.

We said it once, and we’ll say it again.

In light of the worst mass shooting in U.S. history, we thought now more than ever may be a good time to remind you that today you have a chance to exercise one of your most important rights as an American.

Today, councilwoman Edda Cammick tore a page right out of our book and went back on the record again suggesting cuts to the FY ‘17 Oconee County budget that she’d suggested weeks ago, and quite frankly ones we’d been eyeing as well.

The Journal has endorsed candidates for races of local interest in Tuesday’s Republican primary.

There are some things in this business that even the most hardened journalists cringe over.

Well, it’s here, folks. Next Tuesday, we hope thousands of you will head to the polls and select who you’d like to see lead the way into the foreseeable future.

In its monthly English language magazine, Dabiq, May 2015, an ISIS editorial states, “we’re looking to do something big, something truly epic.”

In our lifetime, there are rare occasions when we are touched profoundly by individuals through random acts of kindness from which the individual expects nothing in return.