Setting the Record Straight
The latest lame excuse for holding up Medicaid expansion
For nearly a decade, North Carolina has forgone billions of federal dollars, prevented the creation of thousands of good jobs, caused multiple rural hospitals to close, and most disturbingly, condemned thousands of uninsured people to an early death by refusing to follow the lead of 38 other states in expanding Medicaid. As scores of experts, advocates, public officials and average North Carolinians have repeatedly attested and evidenced...
Clichés won’t get the job done when it comes to America’s gun violence epidemic
“Unspeakable.” This appears to a top platitude of choice for modern, gun-loving American politicians these days as they respond to each new horrific tragedy that the easy and widespread availability of mass killing machines visits on our society. That and “praying” for the families of the victims.
Five things to know about the leaked Supreme Court ruling and the future of abortion rights
The internet has exploded over the last 36 hours in the aftermath of Monday night’s extraordinary leak of a draft U.S. Supreme Court decision in the Mississippi abortion case (Dobbs v. Jackson) that reverses the 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling, which established the constitutional right to terminate a pregnancy prior to fetal viability.
Four initial takeaways from the Robin Hayes corruption case
This has been another remarkable week in North Carolina. Once again, a dark cloud of corruption has descended upon and enveloped the state’s politics as federal prosecutors unsealed an extraordinary grand jury indictment of one of the state’s best known politicians and a trio of well-heeled businessmen.
Now what? Five initial election takeaways for North Carolinians
The 2018 election is finally and mercifully over and, as was noted in this space yesterday, now is no time for progressives to rest on their laurels. Having taken some promising initial steps in the struggle to overcome Trumpism and build a better, fairer, freer and more sustainable nation and planet, now is the time...
It’s too late to fix the amendments
It should not work this way. State constitutions simply should not be fundamentally rewritten during a poorly noticed, hastily arranged, kangaroo legislative session in which new amendment language is unveiled and approved in a span of a few hours (or a day or two)...
Friday hurricane and climate change numbers
With apologies to the Fitzsimon File (which, happily, returns next week…)
2.0---Degrees Fahrenheit that global temperatures have risen since the 19th Century (National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s “Global Climate Change” website)
A bad dream: The damage Trump’s DACA order could inflict on the economy
President Donald Trump’s order to rescind the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program (DACA) has provoked a thunderous national response from Americans across the political spectrum who are rightfully outraged at the potential human carnage that could result from pushing more than 800,000 young people back into the shadows.
The outrageous partisan payback continues
North Carolina Commissioner of Agriculture Steve Troxler and Labor Commissioner Cherie Berry could both be eligible for impeachment soon. At least, that’s the obvious conclusion one must draw from the laughably outrageous action taken yesterday afternoon by members of the Rules Committee of the North Carolina House.
The far right forces a dramatic and worrisome change in national politics
The U.S. Senate is about to “go nuclear” to aid Donald Trump’s Supreme Court nominee
For decades, members of both political parties in the United States Senate have discussed the idea of ending the “60 vote rule” – the requirement that the minority can demand a supermajority vote to pass extremely important and controversial legislation. In recent years, there has been some erosion in the rule, but as of today, the rule remains in place when it comes to the monumentally important matter of Supreme Court nominations.
General Assembly sends HB2 “repeal” to Cooper’s desk
Governor, some Democrats support effort in face of impassioned progressive opposition
In a strange and remarkable replay of the controversial one-day special legislative session that took place one year ago last week, the North Carolina General Assembly passed legislation today in a matter of hours that purports to repeal HB2 – the state’s infamous LGBTQ discrimination law. Surprisingly, the proposal also appears to have the backing of Governor Roy Cooper, who issued a terse statement of support last night.
East Carolina officials fumble national anthem controversy
Banning courageous, peaceful protests and bowing to haters is no way for university officials to act
There’s been a great deal of hubbub inside the right-wing echo chamber in recent years about a supposed wave of “political correctness” and free speech “suppression” that has infected American college campuses. According to this narrative, conservative students and academics are constantly squelched in their efforts to exercise their First Amendment rights by “intolerant, leftist” administrators who, it is claimed, are bent upon stifling views with which they disagree.