Today marks 100 days since I filed an official request with the Department of Public Instruction to release records of communication related to NC Superintendent Mark Johnson’s Istation contract award. North Carolina public records law deems such records “property of the people,” and continued failure to furnish them may amount to a violation of state law.
...Perhaps the Republicans who control North Carolina’s General Assembly have finally gotten the message: their decade-long efforts to rig the state’s legislative and congressional voting district boundaries in their party’s favor simply won’t fly when challenged in the courts. Perhaps they’re starting to take seriously the views of those, including the N.C. Council of Churches, who have called for districts to be drawn via a process less susceptible to partisan abuse.
...Tonight's Democratic presidential debate will be dominated by two urgent issues: the House of Representatives’ inquiry into the possible impeachment of President Trump, and Trump’s decision to withdraw US forces from northern Syria. Impeachment and Syria should produce a high degree of unity among the 12 presidential contenders on the stage. However, the surface agreement masks complex political calculations.
...Survey of hold-out states indicates the Medicaid expansion debate has entered a new phase Across the states, the approach of an election year typically provides an excuse for policymakers to avoid taking on controversial and complex policy issues for fear of offending one side or the other.
...On September 23rd, leaders from around the world met in New York for the UN Climate Action Summit. Four years ago, in Paris, it was agreed to limit global warming to less than two degrees Celsius to stave off dire consequences for our planet, but too little has changed since then. Now world leaders meet again to determine a new set of actions to avoid this daunting threshold. “Two degrees” of warming is a global number, and it doesn’t sound very big.
..."We are in it for the long haul” Jan Allen used to conclude her Lillian’s List events with this phrase, “we are in it for the long haul.” The audience understood because, like Jan, most of the people in attendance had been feminist activists for decades. Respected and dignified with a slight chip on her shoulder, Jan was a part of every modern wave of feminism in the United States.
...As activists and leaders from around the world travel to New York this week to rally global efforts to address the climate crisis, I’m reminded of our own state’s history-making contributions to the environmental cause. In 1982, Warren County sparked a movement when local residents of the poor, mostly African American community rose up to oppose the dumping of toxic chemicals in their neighborhoods.
...It’s September and America’s school children are back in class. They’re greeted every day with the usual staples of education in America: new classes and teachers, the latest and trendiest technology and school supplies followed shortly by relentless test taking. It is probable they will also be met with more recent school staples: active shooter drills and armed guards or police monitoring their hallways.
...Powerful new research confirms numerous benefits of substantially increasing public investments For decades, a debate raged in education policy circles: does money matter? While this question has definitively been answered by academics, it will undoubtedly be the subject of heated debate over the next year in North Carolina. In June, court-appointed consultants submitted a much-anticipated report detailing how North Carolina can meet its constitutional requirement to provide a “sound, basic education” to all students.
...If politics can be described as a contact sport, it’s perhaps fitting to say that when the Republicans who control North Carolina’s General Assembly went to court to defend the extreme gerrymandering that has helped keep them in power, they suffered no less than an epic beat-down. Three judges capped years of litigation with an explosive Sept. 3 ruling that scraps the current state House and Senate election district maps and requires them to be redrawn so they treat all voters...
...Opponents of traditional public schools are scrambling to defend the diversion of public funds to charter and private schools. They argue that since education itself is a public good, it shouldn’t matter where a student is educated: any school, regardless of its mission, quality, curriculum, student composition, staff experience, or student outcomes supports the public good, and therefore should be financially supported by the state.
...A young Black man is accused of killing two white people. White community members begin making baldly racist calls for the suspect to be hanged, shot or otherwise “taken care of” by a gang of vigilantes. The county prosecutor quickly assures the public he will seek the death penalty. The threats of lynching continue. Even the defense attorneys receive death threats.
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