The Wake County legislative delegation is meeting Monday at 4 pm in the General Assembly building on the first floor. It’s an open forum and a chance to take a stand — with the county’s Republican and Democratic legislators listening — on the inflamed issues surrounding the Wake school system and Dix Park. Both the […]
Bob Geary
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General Assembly wresting authority from local governments’ hands
A government that abuses its authority, tramples the people’s right to be self-governing and acts for corrupt ends instead of the public good is tyranny. That’s what the signers of the Declaration of Independence, in 1776, charged England with for its misrule of the American colonies. That also describes the Republican Party’s reign in North […]
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The GOP’s anti-union stance could backfire
Where to begin about the decline of organized labor in this country and, along with it, the decline of the middle class? In the mid-20th century, a third of American workers belonged to a union. Today, that figure has dropped to less than one in eight. Meanwhile, the share of national income claimed by the […]
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Wealth inequality in America: Take 6:23, see why it’s a crisis
The middle-class. The American Dream. It’s not a matter of “under siege” — it’s the greedy looting our country, and they’ve been getting away with it for years. This excellent data visualization — not new, but all over the social media for the last week — might even make you angry enough to get involved:
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Oaks & Spokes highlights Raleigh’s critical mass of cyclists
Oaks & Spokes continues through Sunday. All participants are welcome. Our dreary winter of distasteful state government drags on, but there’s daylight aheador Daylight Saving Time, anyway. Soon, spring will be here, and apparently $4 a gallon gasoline as well, which reminds me that it’s time to put some air in the bicycle tires and […]
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Oaks & Spokes: Our 10-day Raleigh bicycle fest starts with First Friday events
March comes in tomorrow. March means spring. Spring means, apparently, $4 a gallon gasoline. And that means, time to put some air in our bicycle tires and crank up our own personal combustion engines. And just in time, we have Oaks and Spokes upon us, a 10-day Raleigh bicycle festival with something for riders of […]
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Judges should strike down GOP redistricting
Total number of House and Senate seats 170 Number of House and Senate seats held by Democrats 60 Number held by Republicans 110 Number held by Democrats who are African-American 31 Number held by Republicans who are African-American 0 The arguments about N.C. districts that were heard by a special three-judge panel this week involved […]
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With light-rail on life support, a Wake County plan for mass transit: #buses
View the Wake County Transit Plan and its financial data. In the month since I wrote about it, the rezoning of 616 Oberlin Road near Cameron Village was approved, touching off another round of handwringing about skimpy public transit in Raleigh. City Councilor Randy Stagner, for example, warned against continuing to approve high-density apartment projects […]
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Hey, Pat McCrory! You’re national (bad) news for sticking it to the jobless.
Gov. McCrory signed the bill slashing unemployment benefits in North Carolina, a measure which also makes North Carolinians the only folks in America who, if they lose their jobs, will not be eligible for federal emergency benefits as of July 1. Think Progress, the voice of the Center for American Progress Action Fund, found this […]
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In referendum, 77% of UNC-CH students call on university to divest from coal.
UNC-Chapel Hill students are part of a national movement to put college and university endowments where their values should be when it comes to climate change. In short, get their money out of coal and fossil-fuel stocks and send a message to the investment world that it’s wrong to finance companies whose products threaten to […]