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This Week in Washington for May 18, 2013
We’ve all heard the phrase, “elections have consequences.” Recent news about the IRS singling out conservative groups for extra scrutiny is a “consequence” I never hoped to see. When I first learned the IRS had targeted conservative groups during the most recent election, I was outraged by the reports indicating a nonpartisan government agency was actually engaging in political activities and using taxpayer-funded resources. Perhaps the mos...
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Clusters of blossoms
Dear Editor, In most places the Dandelion is considered a noxious weed. Richmond County, however, seems to honor the “weed,” and rightly so. Taraxacum Officinale, as it is technically known, is a beneficial herb used many places as food and medicine. It is not native to North America having originated in Eurasia 30 million years ago. In spring in Richmond County, yards, roadsides and fields are aglow with the small yellow blooms. No...
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Tar Heel View: On state tax reform efforts
North Carolina developed its current system of taxation during the revenue reforms of the Great Depression, seeking to keep state government afloat at a time of widespread hardship. It depended — and still depends — on a relatively high income tax rate and was designed to reflect an economic system driven by agriculture and manufacturing, textiles and furniture. Such a structure does not reflect an “ideas” economy or one that produces more ...
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Rep. Pierce
A flurry of legislation
The General Assembly has experienced a flurry of legislation as lawmakers introduce as many bills as possible before crossover — the deadline in which legislation that doesn’t raise or spend money must clear the House or Senate chambers by Thursday night (May 9) to be considered for the remaining two-year session. So far, the House has voted in favor of legislation such as prohibiting law enforcement officers from destroying fully-operating f...
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Our View: In the driver’s seat — a big responsibility
Traffic crashes are the No. 1 killer of teens in America. Along with reading, writing and arithmetic, it’s important to teach our children about safety behind the wheel. It may start with a tricycle in the driveway, or a Big Wheel on the sidewalk, but before you know it our kids have grown enough to earn a real drivers license, and the chance to operate a real motor vehicle — that’s about 4,000 pounds of plastic and metal, capable of spee...
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NC activists need Teachable Tuesdays
The North Carolina chapter of the NAACP is spearheading a weekly series of protests at the state legislature called “Moral Mondays” directed against Republican-supported bills such as tax reform and voter ID. Might I respectfully suggest that the participants agree to a weekly series of instructional sessions about free speech in a constitutional republic? Let’s call them “Teachable Tuesdays.” The need for remedial education on the principl...
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Along These Lines: Adventures in smuggling
The ingenuity of criminals never fails to amaze. Take smugglers, for instance. They can be incredibly resourceful at packing contraband into extraordinarily places. And while often ingenious, smugglers can also be mind-bogglingly inept. Consider the woman traveling through the Bangkok airport back in 2010, who attempted to smuggle a drugged, live baby tiger in a suitcase full of stuffed, toy tigers. Airport security tend to get suspicious w...
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Tar Heel View: Industry can’t set fracking rules
We’re disturbed that a new rule set for approval by the North Carolina Mining and Energy Commission requiring some disclosure of chemicals used in hydraulic fracturing was withdrawn at the request of industry giant Halliburton. Fracking could be economically beneficially here if done right, but the recent move does not fit that standard. The News & Observer of Raleigh reported that the state commission, created by the legislature last year,...
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My Spin: NC moving forward
Government is nothing more than a social contract. An essential function of government is to provide infrastructure for the common good that is too costly, too big or impractical for individuals to undertake themselves. A look at our history reveals that public infrastructure has been funded through bonds, taxes, tolls and the lottery. We boast the opening of the first public university in 1795, financed in part by a lottery. With stagnatio...
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Tar Heel View: Separate public, charter school boards will hurt education
Republicans in the state legislature are in the process of making a multitude of bad decisions with regard to public education. And the antipathy they feel toward public school teachers, some of whom have criticized cuts to education, is leading GOP lawmakers down a path that will do much damage, from making it harder to get good teachers in the state to dividing public school governance between charter schools and conventional schools to p...
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Thom Goolsby
Sex trafficking puts on a human face
A human face was put on sex trafficking in a recent Senate Judiciary 1 committee meeting. Anna, a young lady who was the victim of sex trafficking when she was a teenager, gave powerful testimony before the committee. She told the senators how as a teen she was raped hundreds of times, as well as being photographed and videotaped by a pornographer. Anna showed the committee a somewhat graphic picture of herself that she never remembers bein...
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D.G. Martin
Good books you won’t see on ‘Bookwatch’
Here are some important new books you will not learn about on UNC-TV’s “North Carolina Bookwatch.” Before I explain, let me tell you a little bit about the books. Popular novelist Clyde Edgerton’s “Papadaddy’s Book for New Fathers: Advice to Dads of All Ages” is based on what he has learned as the older father of three young children. He will be 69 on May 20. Edgerton embraces the opportunities young children present to an older parent ...
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Rep. Hudson
This Week in Washington for May 11, 2013
As I travel throughout North Carolina’s communities, I hear regularly from families who are struggling to balance the ever-increasing demands of work with the desire to care for and be with their family. This got me thinking about the reasons folks start their own business, and I believe one of the biggest motivating factors is the desire to have some control over their own lives. Part of the vision that my House Republican colleagues and I a...
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I do not understand
Dear Editor, My sister and I gave our dog a bath and then took her for a walk on Martin Street. As we were walking, a dog that appeared to be a German Shepard came viciously barking and jumping at us and our dog. We didn’t know what to do. We didn’t have our cells because we were using water and left them at home. When we finally made it home I called a number and a lady forwarded me to the animal control but I did not get an answer so ...
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Our View: From seed to sky
I think that I shall never see A poem lovely as a tree … A tree that may in summer wear A nest of robins in her hair … Writer Joyce Kilmer recognized the tremendous value of trees when he penned those famous lines so long ago. We need the trees. To feed us. To cool us. To provide us shelter. To ground us and bind us. To hold the fragile soil strong, and be a haven for our critters and squirrels. Our relationship with th...
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