From police to portraits, from statues to school buildings, Americans are taking a new look at our racial — and racist — past. One legacy of that past is the Electoral College for electing presidents.
Wednesday, July 08, 2020
From police to portraits, from statues to school buildings, Americans are taking a new look at our racial — and racist — past. One legacy of that past is the Electoral College for electing Presidents.
Dr. Thomas Sowell has just published “Charter Schools and Their Enemies.” He presents actual test scores of students in traditional public schools and charter schools on New York State Education Department’s annual English Language Arts test and its Mathematics Test. Sowell gives the results…
The Supreme Court last week needlessly poked a hole in Thomas Jefferson’s “wall of separation between church and state.” By a 5-4 vote, the court ruled in a case from Montana that if a state provides a tax break that benefits students at a secular private school, it must include private reli…
Tuesday, July 07, 2020
Asked by a reporter that given his age, 77 years, if he’d been tested for any mental decline, the presumptive Democratic nominee, former Vice President Joe Biden, responded by declaring, “I can hardly wait to compare my cognitive capability to the cognitive capability of the man I’m running …
If you are among the minority of North Carolinians who haven’t supported the expansion of parental choice in education over the past two decades — in the form of charter schools, open enrollment among district schools, and aid to private-school students who have special needs or modest house…
Sunday, July 05, 2020
In July 1864, Confederate forces led by General Jubal Early attacked Fort Stevens and Fort DeRussy on the outskirts of Washington, D.C. Union forces drove them away after two days of skirmishes, but the battle threw a scare into the capital city and constituted a high point in the Confederac…
Sunday, July 05, 2020
In July 1864, Confederate forces led by General Jubal Early attacked Fort Stevens and Fort DeRussy on the outskirts of Washington, D.C. Union forces drove them away after two days of skirmishes, but the battle threw a scare into the capital city and constituted a high point in the Confederac…
Chief Justice John Roberts has recently sided with the Supreme Court’s four liberal justices on three key rulings: barring discrimination against LGBTQ employees; outlawing draconian abortion restrictions in Louisiana; and protecting about 700,000 undocumented “Dreamers” from deportation.
Recently, I had “the talk” with my four children, two sons and two daughters. For Black families, “the talk” is not about the birds and the bees. The talk is about what to do when you encounter the police. It is a talk about how to stay alive. My mother and my father had a similar talk with …
The drive to make Washington, D.C., a state has been a favorite of some Democrats for years. Why wouldn’t it be? If enacted, a new state, formed from deepest-blue D.C., would create two new Democratic senators and one new Democratic member of the House. For a Democrat, what’s not to like?
The events of recent weeks — beginning with the tragic police murders of George Floyd and Rayshard Brooks and culminating in the most diverse coalition of protesters for equal justice that this nation has ever seen — have opened color-blind eyes and tone-deaf ears. Congress must seize this m…
Friday, July 03, 2020
With hundreds of thousands of North Carolinians out of work and millions fearful about their futures, state and local policymakers are about to encounter a parade of companies, industries, and special-interest groups asking for targeted tax breaks and other handouts.
The uncooperative attitudes some are currently exhibiting brings back memories of North Carolina’s history of recalcitrance.
Wednesday, July 01, 2020
Why did President Donald Trump not attempt to emulate President Richard Nixon’s Saturday Night Massacre?
Dr. Thomas Sowell has been both a friend and a colleague of mine for over a half-century. On Tuesday, he completed his 90th year of life, and I want to highlight some important features of that life. Sowell was born in Gastonia, North Carolina, in 1930. As part of the great black migration n…
Tuesday, June 30, 2020
Conventional wisdom has it that progressives champion urbanity and conservatives disdain it. There’s some truth to that. Progressives are far more likely than conservatives to prefer walkable, high-density communities over auto-dependent, detached-dwelling neighborhoods. Urban areas tend to …
The media often portrays the coronavirus pandemic as an urban problem. But the North Carolina counties with the highest COVID infection rates actually have more pigs and poultry than people. In these rural communities with large populations of poverty and people of color, there is a little-n…
Sunday, June 28, 2020
What do George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt, Ulysses S. Grant, Father Junipero Serra and Christopher Columbus have in common?
NBC News reports that President Donald Trump is “furious” over “underwhelming” attendance at his June 20 campaign rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Only 6,200 of 19,000 seats ended up being filled. An optimistically pre-arranged overflow area went unused.
John Bolton, the former national security adviser, writes in his new book that President Trump makes decisions based on only one calculation: his own political self-interest.
Once again, a prominent leader in North Carolina is coming under intense criticism for responding to a “Black Lives Matter” inquiry with the “But All Lives Matter” retort. UNC-Wilmington Chancellor Jose Sartarelli, upon being requested to allow a “Black Lives Matter” painting to be placed on…
Friday, June 26, 2020
There was a time in March when it felt like we were all united in attacking COVID-19, but that honeymoon was short lived. By the end of April, the virus had become partisan.
As soon as he heard the news that a mob had torn down statues on the grounds of North Carolina’s State Capitol on the evening of June 19, Gov. Roy Cooper realized his mistake. He had not been clear enough in instructing his aides, including Secretary of Public Safety Eric Hooks. He knew he’d…
