An historic week and a missed opportunity
Last week was an historic week. It began with a repudiation of the Confederate battle flag by political leaders who just weeks earlier would have defended it. Next, the Supreme Court again upheld the main provisions of the Affordable Care Act, moving us closer to...
Luring people with ideas
CNBC’s rankings for best states for business are out and North Carolina dropped four places from fifth to ninth. A lot of organizations put out rankings and many are more subjective than objective, so take the actual ranking with a grain of salt. However, if they use...
Why the flag debate matters
Progressives claiming that the flag debate is a distraction have missed the point. As President Obama made so clear in his eulogy for Clementa Pinckney, a racist white guy tried to start a race war by killing nine African-Americans in a church. Instead, he forced...
Confederates in the Senate
The Confederate flag debate has come to North Carolina. We might not fly the battle flag on the capitol grounds or embed it in our state flag, but we do put it on license plates for the Sons of the Confederacy. Now, Pat McCrory wants it taken off the menu of specialty...
Twenty years since Gantt-Helms. Time to try again.
According to twitter, Kay Hagan is not running for US Senate against Richard Burr. It’s a set back for establishment Democrats who saw her as the best candidate. However, her announcement opens up new opportunities for a fresh face to jump into the race. There's still...
Reactionaries at the wheel
Great satire works because it’s true. Stephen Colbert mastered it in his parody of conservative journalists with his claim “I don’t see race.” Fox News and the Republican presidential candidates re-emphasized Colbert’s brilliance when they fell all over themselves...
The right thing to do
Yesterday, the state House and Senate eased the rules on voter IDs, allowing voters without a photo ID to cast provisional ballots. Their votes would be validated if they could prove a hardship in obtaining or using an ID based on at least one of eight reasons laid...
Sabotaging Obamacare
Back in 2013, when Republicans were itching to show how much they hated Obamacare, the legislature passed Senate Bill 4. The bill is known mainly for stopping the expansion of Medicaid, costing the state millions of dollars in needed funds and denying insurance to...
The Senate’s utopian budget
Republicans often complain that government programs pick winners and losers. Nobody is choosing winners and losers more than the GOP Senate. Winners are quite clearly people who are already doing well. Losers are the rest of us. Senate Republicans are following the...
What the NC GOP has gotten (almost) right
Anybody who has read this blog knows that I’m not happy with the Republicans running North Carolina. I think their policies are harmful to the institutions that have made the state a great place to live and made it one of the fastest growing states in the nation. I...
