Why a lobby group’s gifts to lawmakers should provoke outrage and lots more scrutiny Last week, NC Policy Watch investigative reporter Sarah Ovaska broke a story of great importance in the world of North Carolina politics and state government. After weeks of carefully reviewing public records and responses to information requests, Ovaska [Continue Reading...]
Legislative proposal would actually tell scientists which data they can and can’t consider on rising sea levels Since as far back as the Scopes Trial (and probably even Galileo), the debate over science has been at the crux of numerous political and cultural conflicts between progressives and conservatives. For a variety [Continue Reading...]
Why yesterday’s vote is more likely to hasten marriage equality in North Carolina than delay it Assume that a couple of years back you had been thinking about how to bring about marriage equality for North Carolina’s LGBT community. What might have been your first steps? What would you have done to jumpstart [Continue Reading...]
What North Carolina courts have to look forward to if Amendment One becomes law For months now, prominent and well-respected lawyers and law professors of both political parties have been raising questions about the impact that Amendment One will have on the North Carolina courts and law enforcement systems. You don’t [Continue Reading...]
Why the right keeps talking about anything other than the real issues One of the basic and usually accurate rules of modern Americans politics is that when a candidate starts talking like a pundit or an analyst (i.e. he or she starts talking like an insider rather than a real person – think [Continue Reading...]
New study on kids confirms link between tax revenues and child wellbeing There is a bit of popular mythology in the modern American political spin world – especially in conservative circles – that it’s somehow a mistake to preserve or increase public spending on important public programs and structures in order to get [Continue Reading...]
Public transit plan is a key to the Triangle’s future prosperity and wellbeing Last week in this space, we explored the implications of a recent national study that assessed and ranked the health and wellbeing of every county in the country. As the piece noted, there’s no particular mystery as to [Continue Reading...]
New report on county health outcomes gets to the heart of the ideological debate At the most basic level, it’s beyond debate that one’s location can have an enormous impact on one’s health and wellbeing. If you have any doubts about this, ask the people who live near the Fukushima disaster, in the [Continue Reading...]
Hint: The answer may surprise you Here is a typical reaction that a lot of people voice when the folks here at NC Policy Watch continue to report on and produce negative commentaries about the North Carolina “Education” Lottery: “Come on guys, give it up! That’s one genie that’s not going [Continue Reading...]
Next week’s gambling luncheon is about an unholy alliance between corporations and government Gambling can be an awkward subject for progressives. As with the subject of frequently safe drugs like alcohol and marijuana and even unhealthy foods, there is ample reason for caring and thoughtful people to take what might be described as [Continue Reading...]
Progressives must think beyond the 2012 elections There are clearly a lot of reasons to care about the 2012 elections. With powerful conservative players spending corporate money at a record-breaking pace in an effort to buy even more control of our national and state governments than they already have, progressives have every [Continue Reading...]
Conservative state lawmakers go to bat for the richest of the rich There are a lot of things in modern politics and public policy that will leave you slapping your forehead in utter amazement: Pro-gun groups attacking North Carolina conservative Republican legislators for being “weasels” when it comes to the Second Amendment, [Continue Reading...]
Special immigration committee won’t give notice of its plans There’s been a great deal of controversy in recent weeks over the refusal of the state’s conservative legislative leadership to give any prior notice to the public about the agendas for the numerous “special” legislative sessions it’s been holding. You remember that [Continue Reading...]
What last week’s General Assembly evictions say about conservative legislative leaders There’s been a good deal of controversy in recent days over the decision by officials in House Speaker Thom Tillis’ office to evict a group of quiet and peaceful demonstrators from the second floor of the state Legislative Building last [Continue Reading...]
Why common sense, common good solutions make us freer It’s frequently amazing to see the kinds of nutty ideas that can fester and grow in the body politic. Combine a measure of legitimate grievance, a kernel of truth, big helpings of distorted history lessons and rigid, half-baked ideology along with healthy dashes of [Continue Reading...]
