Divided we stand. Or kneel
Last night’s installment of Ken Burns’s “The Vietnam War” recalled how divided our country was 50 years ago. Today we’re just as divided. Thanks to Trump. Apparently, the Divider-in-Chief... Read More
NC Spin Articles
A chess game
When a politician takes a poll most folks figure he means to figure out how he can bamboozle people and there’s truth in that but a poll’s also a picture of the powers – like fear, revenge... Read More
NC economy retreated slightly in August
by Dr. Mike Walden, NCSU Professor of Economics, September 28, 2017. The Index retreated slightly in August from its reading in July. However, this was not unexpected given the Index's strong rise in... Read More
Lawmakers stonewalling Cooper's Board of Ed nominees
Sandra Byrd has been a decorated North Carolina high school teacher in western North Carolina and an associate professor at UNC-Asheville, where she also served as assistant provost. So she seemed a... Read More
NC dodged a healthcare bullet
Editorial by The Charlotte Observer, reprinted in The Burlington Times-News, September 29, 2017. The Graham-Cassidy health care bill appears to be mercifully dead, as Senate Majority leader Mitch... Read More
NC loses in high stakes incentives game
Editorial by Fayetteville Observer, reprinted in Jacksonville Daily News, September 28, 2017. We weren’t even close. The winner played Major League Baseball. We barely made it to Little League. When... Read More
College students and free speech: reason to worry
From Middlebury to Berkeley, Chapel Hill to Minnesota, battles over free speech are raging on America’s college campuses. Student protests and recent incidents involving violence and loss of life... Read More
Toxic politics wins out on GenX response
Editorial by Wilmington Star-News, September 24, 2017. We confess that we’ve been terribly naive. When we found out that an unregulated and possibly harmful chemical was being deliberately... Read More
Take time with judicial tinkering
While legislative and congressional districts are redrawn every 10 years to match population changes — so everyone’s vote counts equally — North Carolina’s judicial districts haven’t been... Read More
New health care bill, same pernicious plot
The latest effort in Washington to repeal and not actually replace the Affordable Care Act has a different name, the Cassidy-Graham plan, but it should look familiar. It is essentially a proposal like... Read More
