Plastic bags are getting the boot from the barrier islands of North Carolina’s Outer Banks, under a crafty piece of legislation tucked neatly into the General Assembly’s budget plan. The new law, which goes into effect Oct. 1, expands a plastic bag ban that was enacted last year and prohibited large retail stores from distributing […]
Certainly not any evidence of willful misconduct by Gov. Beverly Perdue’s campaign, or at least none that the lead investigator for the State Board of Elections could find. The reason? Um, that would be because Elections Board Chairman Larry Leake, a Democrat and long-time political ally of Perdue, ordered the lead investigator not to interview […]
Good thing no money to cover the cost of the General Assembly’s wild spending and bond binge on capital projects for the UNC system will be coming from tuition. Otherwise, tuition fees would be skyrocketing. Phew! Dodged a major bullet – um, nevermind. At least legislators have a long-term plan on how to pay the […]
UNC-TV has backed itself into a tenuous position that could have devastating impact for journalists across the state – at least the ones who work for a public broadcasting system and, by extension, are considered state employees. It started when the General Assembly’s Senate Judiciary 2 Committee issued subpoenas to UNC-TV and two of its […]
Not content with throwing around copious amounts of cash in the form of so-called business investment grants to lure brick-and-mortar companies to North Carolina, legislators have upped the ante for Hollywood. The General Assembly approved a bill this year that turbo-charges tax breaks for the film industry, skyrocketing the amount of money available to be […]
And maybe not just in the alphabet. South Carolina is already headed down a track to approve an illegal-immigration law that closely mirrors the one that has landed Arizona in a legal battle with the U.S. Department of Justice. A state Senate bill that would empower local police to check the immigration status of anyone […]
In a move that could have dire ramifications for Charlotte-Mecklenburg and municipalities across the state, union bosses and their henchmen in the federal government are getting ready to ram through the Police and Firefiighters Monopoly Bargaining bill by attaching it to the War Supplemental, slated to be voted on tonight. We brought this abomination to […]
Just as the N.C. General Assembly is getting ready to loot millions of dollars in lottery money from counties around the state, former state lottery commissioner Kevin Geddings snags an early release from prison, courtesy of a recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling on so-called “honest services” fraud charges. The Raleigh N&O lays out the details […]
It seems almost depressing that in North Carolina politics, or indeed any body of elected officials or government bureaucrats, that there is a need for so-called “ethics” legislation. (Why yes Jim, it is unethical for you to accept thousands of dollars in cash from a favor seeking lobbyist while visiting the bathroom of the Capital Grille. […]
And then spending some more. That seems to be the standard operating model for the N.C. General Assembly, where the Senate recently approved taking on $451 million of non-voter-approved debt for, among other items, building some new engineering facilities for N.C. State and AT&T State. The bond debt doesn’t include funding for operations, once the […]
