The consumer lending industry in North Carolina finally achieved its goal of raising interest rates and fees on small loans, despite opposition from the NC Banking Commissioner, NC Attorney General, and numerous consumer groups. The Associated Press says the industry paid about $1.5 million for an army of 20 lobbyists to sell its message to General [...]
Wow! Yesterday, Art Pope personally intervened to stop an amendment that would have saved the judicial public financing program from certain death. He came to the House Speaker’s office, pretending to act on behalf of the Governor in his role as McCrory's Budget Director. But the amendment had NO impact on the state budget. Pope [...]
After the biggest crowds yet attended Moral Monday, Gov. Pat McCrory told Republicans at their convention in Charlotte that the protestors are mostly outsiders trying “to change the subject, and I’m not going to let them.” Apparently, he doesn’t want to be held accountable for his actions – or face the truth. WRAL just released [...]
The American Prospect magazine features a collection of articles about the South's changing political dynamics. Bob Moser, once with the NC Indy and now AP’s editor, writes the lead essay about the “End of the Solid South.” Chris Kromm and Sue Sturgis of the Institute for Southern Studies have a timely article about North Carolina’s [...]
In a bold move, 14 current NC Court of Appeals judges - Republicans and Democrats - have sent a joint letter to General Assembly leaders and Gov. Pat McCrory declaring their firm support for the judicial public financing program. In the letter, the judges note that the public financing system "helps restore public confidence in [...]
A new survey by a Republican polling firm finds that rascal legislators – especially Republican men - should think twice before destroying North Carolina’s embattled judicial public financing program. The poll, conducted by a firm that has worked for Sen. Jesse Helms and many leading conservatives, shows that 67 percent of Republican women especially like [...]
Maybe you’ve heard of the growing demonstrations occurring at the General Assembly in Raleigh on Monday evenings. Under the leadership of the Rev. William J. Barber II of the NC NAACP, thousands of people have rallied against regressive legislation and FOR economic justice, quality education and health care, and voting rights. In addition to the [...]
Yesterday, as the NC Senate voted to kill our state’s judicial public financing program, two West Virginia Republicans came to Raleigh to tell judges and legislators why their state just adopted essentially the same program to raise confidence in their judiciary and improve a sagging business climate. “The perception of judges being bought, rather than [...]
North Carolina has the (sad) distinction of having one of the worst-funded public education systems in the nation, and the NC General Assembly appears committed to keep it that way. Legislative leaders are not only extending the education budget cuts, they also want to divert taxpayer dollars from public to private schools. An analysis by NC [...]
More media outlets and bloggers are looking beyond the initial uproar over the IRS’s reprehensible targeting of 501(c)(4) applications from groups on one end of the political spectrum. The targeting is bad enough, but the scandal behind the scandal is the refusal of the IRS to challenge the biggest abusers of the c-4 tax-exempt privilege [...]