Pro-democracy conservatives
By the time most of you read this, I’ll be on a plane heading to Stockholm. I probably won’t write until I get back later in the month, so I want to give you some summer reading advice. Don’t read people who agree with you. Or at least don’t only read people who agree...
Medicaid and marijuana and the NC Senate
If you didn’t know better, you would think Democrats were running the North Carolina Senate. The body passed Medicaid expansion earlier in the session and passed a bill legalizing medical marijuana this week. Both bills will likely get stymied in the House this year,...
America, America, What Have You Become?
I remember when, in about 2010, Republicans began putting pictures of assault rifles in their campaign advertisements. The response from most observers amounted to "Oh my god! That's crossing a line." Now every Republican from Lauren Boebert to Bo Hines brandishes an...
When Did Teachers Become the Enemy?
While we were told to wait for all the information to make a judgment about police actions in Uvalde, the police themselves were quick to share a (now disproven) story that the shooter gained access through a door propped open by a teacher. This attempt to blame a...
Make it about guns
Last night, Joe Biden gave the speech the country needed to hear about gun control. In the wake of a spate of mass shootings that included the slaughter of 19 school children in Uvalde, Texas, he asked a simple question. “How much more carnage are we willing to...
Democrats beat Cawthorn
According to a report by the AP, Democrats, not Republicans, beat Madison Cawthorn in the GOP primary in NC-11. Their analysis shows that 5,400 of the early votes came from people who voted in the 2020 Democratic primary. Cawthorn lost by fewer than 1,500 votes,...
Medicaid Expansion Would Be a Signal Achievement
Republicans such as Senator Phil Berger opposed Medicaid expansion so tenaciously it almost seemed to be a matter of religious conviction. As Berger himself liked to argue, most of the uninsured in North Carolina were "able-bodied men," whom he deemed unworthy of...
Try results instead
Earlier this month, I wrote that the pending decision to overturn Roe v. Wade could change the political landscape if Democrats handled the issue correctly. The tragedy in Uvalde, Texas could add to that shift in the dynamic heading into the mid-terms. In both...
A stunning state of denial
The deaths of children in schools at the hands of deranged shooters is the most disturbing part of life in modern America. Our inability to act to prevent future deaths is mind numbing. The fact that we can’t, or won’t, take measures to protect our offspring, the...
Will We See More Constructive Bipartisanship This Legislative Session?
Six-point-two billion is a large number. And so, multiplied by hundreds of thousands, is 3,500. Those figures represent, respectively, the total size in dollars of North Carolina's budget surplus and the difference between N.C. per-pupil spending and the national...
A little break
On most weekdays for the past nine years, I’ve gotten out of bed, usually around six o’clock or so, scanned social media, checked a few websites, and then written about 500 words, usually before 10am. (In the beginning, I read the newspaper, but I haven’t had an...
Three Questions After the Primary
Yesterday saw one of the livelier primaries North Carolina has held in recent years. But for all the uncertainty surrounding outcomes when the polls closed, most of the highest-profile races shook out without surprises. We're heading toward November with a slate of...
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