July 20, 2010

Special interest group gets study

Posted by Dr. Terry Stoops at 8:34 PM

On their website, the North Carolina Association of Educators (NCAE) boasts that they convinced legislators to study Wake County's diversity policy.

We'll see if the folks appointed to the diversity study committee represent diverse ideologies...

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Protests move to school board meeting

Posted by Rick Henderson at 5:31 PM

CJ Executive Editor Don Carrington took these photos of the action outside this afternoon's Wake County school board meeting. 

N.C. NAACP President Rev. William Barber arrives at the meeting.

Barber leads supporters in prayer.

Barber discusses his demands with Wake County Schools security chief Harold Lassiter as Pullen Baptist Church Pastor Nancy Petty looks on.

Raleigh Police Chief Harry Dolan was on hand.

Barber was arrested, handcuffed, and led away.

Petty was arrested.

Look for additional updates on Carolina Journal Online and CarolinaJournal.tv.

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Public universities' impact on economic growth

Posted by Mitch Kokai at 2:55 PM

Supporters of North Carolina's public universities frequently call those schools the state's economic engine. They say increased investment in higher education will promote economic growth.

Is that true? A new report from the Pope Center for Higher Education Policy examines that question. Report author Jay Schalin and N.C. State economist Doug Pearce examined its findings during a public presentation today in Raleigh.

Click the play button below to watch the 54:45 presentation.

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News coverage of the significant Wake County school board protest

Posted by Jon Sanders at 2:35 PM

Available here.

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New Carolina Journal Online exclusive

Posted by Mitch Kokai at 2:23 PM

The latest Carolina Journal Online exclusive features Anthony Greco's CarolinaJournal.tv video of the NAACP-led protest against the Wake County school board's recent vote to end forced busing.

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Scenes from a protest

Posted by Rick Henderson at 1:23 PM

On a sweltering morning in downtown Raleigh, Carolina Journal Executive Editor Don Carrington took these photos at the NAACP-led demonstration protesting the Wake County school board's assignment policies.

Several hundred protesters gathered on the Fayetteville Street Mall

At the podium, Temple Beth Or Rabbi Lucy HF Dinner

North Carolina NAACP President Rev. William Barber

Durham author and activist Tim Tyson

Pullen Memorial Baptist Church Pastor Nancy E. Petty

We'll have more photos and a video report from related activities later today.

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Moving Towards Transparency

Posted by Becki Gray at 11:52 AM

North Carolina's State Treasurer unveils a new tool on her website aimed at making city and county governments more transparent. You can access five years of info on fund balances, solvency, how much they dependency on other governmental entities for funds and more.   Also encouraging transparency among NC governmental entities, see NCTransparency.com 

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NC WARN and Solar Power

Posted by Daren Bakst at 11:19 AM

Last week, the N & O published an article about an NC WARN report that argues solar power is less expensive than nuclear power.

I criticized the report in this detailed blog post and the N & O published my letter to the editor.  Today, NC WARN responded to criticism of its report with a letter in the N & O.

NC WARN argues regarding my letter: "In its criticism, the Locke Foundation referred to 2008 federal data long eclipsed by utility reports..."

Not only does NC WARN do a disservice to the public by being misleading about solar costs, it can't even be honest about something as simple as the data I used.

The data that I used was 2010 EIA data.

That cost data I provided was only the tip of the iceberg as to what is wrong with NC WARN's report.  My detailed blog post provides a lot more detail.  Quite simply, the report is a joke.

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Taxpayers foot hefty bill for Wake school board protests

Posted by Dr. Terry Stoops at 10:15 AM

Courtesy of the Wake Community Network (www.wakeactive.com)
 
Pre-election Security Costs

July, 2009: $91.72
August, 2009: $155.22
September, 2009: N/A
October, 2009: $119.96
November, 2009: $84.68

Total July 2009 – November 2009: $451.58

Post-election Security Costs
(Private Security + Law Enforcement)

December, 2009: $1,686.38
January, 2010: $1,379.36
February, 2010: $1,852.18
March, 2010: $2,287.90 + $2,720.00
April, 2010: $1,886.07 + $2,907.50
 
Total December 2009 – April 2010: $14,719.39

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Behind the curtain at Journolist

Posted by Rick Henderson at 10:02 AM

This dynamite story from The Daily Caller (WARNING: LANGUAGE) puts a lie to the claim, from Washington Post bloggerkind Ezra Klein, that the secretive, Beltway-centric left-wing group Journolist was little more than

An insulated space where the lure of a smart, ongoing conversation would encourage journalists, policy experts and assorted other observers to share their insights with one another. The eventual irony of the list was that it came to be viewed as a secretive conspiracy, when in fact it was always a fractious and freewheeling conversation meant to open the closed relationship between a reporter and his source to a wider audience.

According to records obtained by The Daily Caller, at several points during the 2008 presidential campaign a group of liberal journalists took radical steps to protect their favored candidate [Barack Obama]. Employees of news organizations including Time, Politico, the Huffington Post, the Baltimore Sun, the Guardian, Salon and the New Republic participated in outpourings of anger over how Obama had been treated in the media, and in some cases plotted to fix the damage.

In one instance, Spencer Ackerman of the Washington Independent urged his colleagues to deflect attention from Obama’s relationship with Wright by changing the subject. Pick one of Obama’s conservative critics, Ackerman wrote, “Fred Barnes, Karl Rove, who cares — and call them racists.”

Michael Tomasky, a writer for the Guardian, also tried to rally his fellow members of Journolist: “Listen folks – in my opinion, we all have to do what we can to kill ABC and this idiocy in whatever venues we have. This isn’t about defending Obama. This is about how the [mainstream media] kills any chance of discourse that actually serves the people.”

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Schools that make a difference

Posted by Joseph Coletti at 09:27 AM

Waiting for Superman is a new movie from the director of "An Inconvenient Truth" (who sent his own children to private schools) looks at the failure of public schools and the promise of charter schools for those fortunate few who win the entrance lotteries.

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Were higher test scores in Wake County a vindication?

Posted by Joseph Coletti at 09:05 AM

Opponents of neighborhood schools in Wake County crowed last week that improving test scores demonstrated the value of the old diversity policy. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools had similar test results, even though the school system has neighborhood schools and lower historical performance. If you had any doubts, it should be clearer that today's protesters can't rely on the law or the facts to make their case.

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New N.C. Court of Appeals opinions released

Posted by Mitch Kokai at 08:58 AM

Among the new batch of opinions released this morning from the N.C. Court of Appeals:

• An appellate panel ruled 2-1 in favor of Rowan Salisbury Schools in a worker's compensation dispute with a high school teacher who injured her knee while walking up the school's stairs.
  
• A unanimous three-judge panel reversed a lower court ruling and instead favored Haywood County in a lawsuit linked to a 2006 scuffle at the county sheriff's department office.
  
• A unanimous three-judge panel affirmed the N.C. Department of Health and Human Services' ruling in a certificate-of-need dispute involving the purchase of a "linear accelerator" by Cancer Centers of North Carolina and AOR Management Company of Virginia. Rex Hospital, Cary Urology, and Wake Radiology Oncology Services had challenged the CON ruling.
  
• A unanimous three-judge panel offered a mixed ruling in a lawsuit involving Gaston County 911 call center employees. The appellate judges affirmed a trial court ruling blocking a lawsuit against the employees in their official capacity but remanded the case to the lower court to resolve other issues.
  
• An appellate panel ruled 2-1 in favor of the Cape Fear Public Utility Authority in a dispute with a property owner over sewer and utility easements.
  

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Latest dispatches from the campaign trail

Posted by David N. Bass at 08:00 AM

• The Associated Press reports on the 2010 cycle, the biggest election fight for Tar Heel Republicans and Democrats in a decade.


• U.S. Sen. Richard Burr has $6.3 million in his campaign kitty; Democrat Elaine Marshall has $163,195 in hers.


• Thirteenth Congressional District GOP candidate Bill Randall holds a town hall meeting in Rockingham County.


• U.S. Rep. Larry Kissell, D-8th, leads his Republican foe Harold Johnson in cash-on-hand, although Johnson out-raised him in the second quarter.


• The Republican Party contest early voting sites in Cumberland County, arguing that there should only be one, not four.


• Rasmussen Reports survey says that only 23 percent of American voters believe the federal government has the consent of the governed.


• U.S. Rep. Heath Shuler, D-11th, has a huge fundraising advantage over his Republican opponent Jeff Miller.


• The Democratic-aligned firm Public Policy Polling has a 43-43 percent tie on a nationwide generic congressional ballot, despite Obama’s poor numbers.

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New Carolina Journal Online features

Posted by Mitch Kokai at 07:02 AM

The latest Carolina Journal Online exclusive features Bill Flanigen's report on various targeted corporate tax breaks the General Assembly endorsed in 2010. 

John Hood's Daily Journal examines efforts by the NAACP and allied group to manufacture racial controversies in an effort to change the political landscape.

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