The justices of the North Carolina Supreme Court are currently debating how they should handle conflicts of interest. Indeed, two Republican justices are now the target of motions to “disqualify” based on alleged conflicts in a case challenging a pair of constitutional amendments adopted and placed on the statewide ballot by the legislature in 2018.
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Original Commentary
There are several hugely important items that were left out of the compromise domestic policy plan that President Biden urged Congress to pass last week before he left for the global climate change summit in Scotland. The list, which if common sense and broadly shared common good thinking had been ascendant in American politics and policy in recent years...
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By any fair assessment, the United States has come a long way over the last century and a half in overcoming its original sins of slavery and institutionalized racism. A century and a half ago – the span of just two lifetimes – millions of Black Americans were held in bondage by force of law and treated as chattel property because of their skin color.
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If there’s one enduring myth in America, it’s that there’s nothing we can really do to end poverty. Most policy prescriptions during the last few decades — from setting up Byzantine barriers to programs like food stamps and Medicaid to doing nothing at all — are rooted in condescending lore that poor people deserve to suffer...
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Veteran Triangle-area Congressman David Price called it a career yesterday and revealed that he will not seek re-election in 2022. The announcement signals the impending conclusion of an outstanding political career for an honorable public official who has served various iterations of his Triangle-based Fourth Congressional District with distinction for more than three decades.
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Why the onus is now on the state Utilities Commission to protect ratepayers and the environment North Carolina’s electricity sector is undergoing a generational change. Duke Energy will retire most of its remaining coal-fired power plants over the next decade, and a key question for the state is what energy resources will replace those retiring plants.
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The CDC issued an urgent health advisory for those currently pregnant, planning a pregnancy or breastfeeding on Sept. 29, 2021. The statement reiterated the importance of vaccination in preventing severe illness and death resulting from COVID-19. It also highlighted the wide gap in vaccination rates with pregnant people who are less than half as likely to have been vaccinated than a member of the general public.
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Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson is officially the highest-ranking Republican official in state government. It’s expected that he will run for Governor in 2024. But who’s kidding who? Robinson is certainly not the leader of the North Carolina GOP or even close to its most important or influential member.
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A distant cousin of mine recently died of COVID-19. We had long ago lost touch when we both moved from our North Dakota hometown, me to Minnesota by way of stops in Florida and Georgia, and she to Texas, where she worked as a teacher, got married and raised a family for more than 30 years.
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It’s hard to pinpoint the most maddening thing about the rushed, convoluted and opaque redistricting process that North Carolina Republican legislative leaders have been running in recent weeks, but there are several leading contenders. First has been the disregard for the pandemic. When so much of modern life has moved online due to COVID-19, it’s ridiculous that the public was forced to attend crowded in-person hearings...
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