Opinion

Opinion Roundup: Confirming Kavanaugh, U.S. House race, storms keep coming and more

Monday, Oct. 8, 2018 -- A round up of opinion, commentary and analysis on: Politics after Hurricane Florence, Second lady Karen Pence coming to Charlotte to campaign for congressional candidate, Kavanaugh's court, a potent new weapon in the war on poverty, Currituck County going through "crazy" housing boom, Guilford County pulls out all stops to clear DWI cases and more.

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How Kavanaugh Showed His Rage and Won His Fight for Court Seat
Monday, Oct. 8, 2018 -- A round up of opinion, commentary and analysis on: Politics after Hurricane Florence, Second lady Karen Pence coming to Charlotte to campaign for congressional candidate, Kavanaugh’s court, a potent new weapon in the war on poverty, Currituck County going through "crazy" housing boom, Guilford County pulls out all stops to clear DWI cases and more.
CAMPAIGN 2018
ALEX GRANADOS: Can the kumbaya moment possibly last? (EdNC analysis) -- Hurricane Florence brought devastation to N.C., but it also brought some measure of political peace. Leaders who prefer to avoid the same rooms came together to address the aftermath of the terrible storm with grace and bipartisan fervor. … In contrast to the special session held in 2016 after Hurricane Matthew, this session stayed focused. The December 2016 special session did address the damage caused by Hurricane Matthew, but then legislative leaders closed that session and started another one where they pushed a bundle of controversial policies, including some that weakened Governor Roy Cooper and the State Board of Education.
DONALD STEPHENS: Vote against destructive NC amendments (Asheville Citizen-Times column) -- In the last several years our judges have struck down a number of laws enacted by the General Assembly that were clearly unconstitutional. In retaliation, the legislature has come up with a plan to prevent judges from stopping them. This plan will enable the legislators to put their own political supporters on the bench and let them pass any law they choose. Their plan is a dramatic change to the state constitution and would allow the legislative leadership to hand-pick the people who will fill all judicial vacancies in this state. They know it would destroy the balance of power that a healthy democracy needs and it would corrupt the integrity of the judiciary. It would put partisan politics in every courtroom in this state. Do not be deceived. Ultimately, the House Speaker Tim Moore and Senate President Pro Tem Phil Berger , two good old boys, they would pick our judges. It’s good old boy politics, pure and simple.
MIKAYA THURMOND: Friend of Parkland shooting victim reminds NC students they have 'power to save lives' (WRAL-TV reports) -- It's been nearly seven months since a gunman opened fire at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Florida and, on Sunday, one Charlotte high schooler traveled to Raleigh to share the story of what she lost that day.
SAM DEGRAVE: Alleged political sign theft results in misdemeanor charge for UNCA professor (Asheville Citizen-Times reports) -- Here today. Gone tomorrow. That's the story of dozens of bright yellow political signs calling for Buncombe County voters to "drain the swamp" by casting their ballots for Republicans on Nov. 6. Over the past couple weeks, the man behind the signs has watched as they disappeared, stolen from lawns and rights of way. Others were left in place but vandalized. On Friday night, he caught a pair of alleged sign stealers in the act, resulting in a misdemeanor criminal charge for a UNC Asheville professor Amanda Wray.
Ex-Attorney General Holder visiting N Carolina for Democrats (AP reports) -- Former U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder has gotten involved in North Carolina politics as head of a Democratic group, so he'll visit the state this week to support a Supreme Court candidate and legislative hopefuls.
JON HAWLEY: Politifact critical of Phelps' claim, calls it 'mostly false' (Elizabeth City Daily Advance reports) -- The candidates in Senate District 1 are sparring over health care costs, as state Rep. Bob Steinburg is calling out his opponent, Washington County Commissioner Cole Phelps, for making what he claims are “false attacks” on his record. The dispute started when Phelps, a Democrat, posted on Facebook last month that “health care premiums in N.C. are now among the five highest ... in the country,” and accused Steinburg of “protecting insurance company profits — not his constituents.” Politifact NC, the group that investigates political ads and politicians’ claims for accuracy, rated Phelps’ claim in an Oct. 2 article as “mostly false.”
TIM BUCKLAND: Politics after Hurricane Florence: Resuming campaigns a ‘high-wire act’ (Wilmington Star-News reports) -- Midterm elections are a month away; some campaigns still suspended
JANE WEBSTER: Second lady Karen Pence is coming to Charlotte to campaign for congressional candidate (Charlotte Observer reports) -- Karen Pence, the wife of Vice President Mike Pence, will speak at a rally in Charlotte NC for Republican congressional candidate Mark Harris. She’ll go on a bus tour around the 9th District with conservative women.
ELI PORTILLO: Candidates in closely watched U.S. House race to debate this week. Here’s how to watch (Charlotte Observer reports) — The Democratic and Republican candidates running for an open U.S. House seat in NC will face off Wednesday for their first debate, in what’s shaped up to be one of the most closely watched races in the nation. Mark Harris, former pastor of First Baptist Church in Charlotte, defeated incumbent Robert Pittenger this spring in the Republican primary for the 9th District seat.
KAVANAUGH NOMINATION AFTERMATH
ADAM LIPTAK: Confirming Kavanaugh: Triumph for conservatives, but blow to court’s image (New York Times reports) -- There will be no swing justice in the mold of Anthony M. Kennedy, Sandra Day O’Connor or Lewis F. Powell Jr., who forged alliances with both liberals and conservatives. Instead, the Supreme Court will consist of two distinct blocs — five conservatives and four liberals. The court, in other words, will perfectly reflect the deep polarization of the American public and political system. The fight to put Judge Brett Kavanaugh on the court only widened that division. The confirmation process was a bare-knuckle brawl, and the nomination was muscled through by sheer force of political will. All of this inflicted collateral damage on the court, leaving it injured and diminished.
ROBERT BARNES: Kavanaugh’s court is the one conservatives have worked decades to build (Washington Post reports) -- Expect re-energized efforts from social and religious conservatives to get their issues — gun-control challenges, religious objections to gay rights — before a court where like-minded justices will make up the majority.
PETER BAKER & NICHOLAS FANDOS: How Kavanaugh showed his rage and won his fight for court seat (New York Times reports) -- When President Donald Trump called the Hart Building, Don McGahn, his White House counsel, refused to take the call. Instead, McGahn cleared the room and sat down with Brett Kavanaugh and his wife, Ashley Kavanaugh. The only way to save his nomination, McGahn said, was to show the senators how he really felt, to channel his outrage and indignation at the charges he had denied. Kavanaugh did not need convincing. He was brimming with rage and resentment, so when he went before the Senate Judiciary Committee, he did not hold back.
SARAH KRUEGER: Protesters against Kavanaugh confirmation gather in Raleigh (WRAL-TV reports) -- After Brett Kavanaugh's confirmation was finalized dozens of people gathered outside the Legislative Building in Raleigh to voice their opposition to the new justice.
CARLI BROSSEAU: As Kavanaugh is confirmed, senator from NC slams Dems’ ‘politics of personal destruction’ (Durham Herald-Sun reports) -- In the hours before Brett Kavanaugh was expected to be approved by the U.S. Senate as a Supreme Court justice, U.S. Sen. Thom Tillis sent out a statement cautioning against “the politics of personal destruction.”
SARAH KRUEGER: GOP women praise Kavanaugh confirmation, call sexual assault claims 'outlandish' (WRAL-TV reports) – N.C. Republicans held a news conference praising senators for confirming Justice Brett Kavanaugh, despite what they called a "smear campaign" spearheaded by Democrats.
TIM WHITE: Will we learn anything from the Kavanaugh saga? (Fayetteville Observer column) -- I don’t know whether Brett Kavanaugh sexually assaulted anyone during his hard-partying days more than three decades ago. And I’m not sure he knows either. It’s clear from many sources that he was a heavy drinker during high school and college. The evidence abounds. That doesn’t disqualify him from much of anything. If every one of us as adults were judged solely on the basis of our high school and college behavior, we’d have mighty few people available for political office,
GINGER LIVINGSTON: Burr, Tillis applaud Kavanaugh's confirmation, Butterfield is dismayed (Greenville Daily Reflector reports) — Rep. G.K. Butterfield said he had hoped the Senate would have give more time and attention to the sexual assault allegations brought by Christine Blasey Ford and others along with Kavanaugh’s response, which Butterfield called “partisan fury” which raised “very serious questions about Judge Kavanaugh’s honesty, temperament, and ability to be an impartial justice.”
JOE JOHNSON: NC GOP women stand up for Kavanaugh; say Democrats must ‘pay a political price’ (Durham-Herald Sun reports) — A group of Republican women led by NC GOP vice chairwoman Michele Nix on Sunday accused Democrats of using smear campaigns and resorting to mob rule during last week’s confirmation hearings for Brett Kavanaugh to the U.S. Supreme Court.
ALLEN JOHNSON: What if a boozy culture had reigned at a Guilford County high school? (Greensboro News & Record column) — Imagine that a public high school in Guilford County becomes known for its hard-drinking students and anything-goes house parties. Imagine that the students revel in inbibing until they are sick and treat each keg of beer consumed as a merit badge.
CELIA RIVENBARK: My high school yearbook is under investigation ... by me (Wilmington Star-News column) — Like many of you, I suspect, the Brett Kavanaugh debacle has caused me to wonder: “Where is my high school yearbook?” and “Is there anything in it that could someday keep me from a lifetime appointment to the U.S. Supreme Court?” It took me a few minutes, but I found it. The biggest revelation: Old yearbooks that have been stored in cardboard boxes for decades smell like boof.
POLICY & POLITICS
Congratulations to the Rev. Barber (Winston-Salem Journal) --Last week ended on a high note as we received the news that the Rev. William Barber, a son of N.C., was one of the 25 recipients of this year’s prestigious MacArthur fellowship grants, an annual award given to artists, scientists and others who, as the MacArthur Foundation puts it, are “on the precipice of great discovery or a game-changing idea.” The honor, sometimes referred to as a “genius grant,” gives its recipients $625,000 over five years to use as they please.
Potent new weapon in the war on poverty (Fayetteville Observer) -- The researchers who identified Fayetteville’s — and N.C.’s — downward-spiraling generational poverty have created a tool that helps communities precisely target their worst pockets of poverty and introduce programs that may help break the discouraging cycle. Pioneering work a few years ago by a Harvard economist found that in some states, children born into poverty have a pretty good shot at breaking out and achieving better life outcomes than their parents. In other states, those children would be more likely to plunge deeper into poverty than their parents, in a cycle that repeats itself in succeeding generations. Poor children in North Carolina had some of the worst outcomes. And when the researchers broke the data down to city levels, it turned out that Fayetteville’s children who are born poor have some of the worst outcomes in the country, falling substantially deeper into poverty than most of their peers around the country.
RICHARD CRAVER: Folwell expands cost-cutting campaign to provider reimbursement rates (Winston-Salem Journal reports) -- State Treasurer Dale Folwell wants to change how health-care providers are reimbursed by the State Health Plan in an initiative that could save members up to $60 million initially. Folwell’s proposal is that the plan will shift on Jan. 1, 2020, from a commercial-based payment model to a reference-based government pricing model based on a percentage of Medicare rates.
TED VADEN: Carl Fox on the Confederate Monument: Silent, no more (Durham Herald-Sun column) -- Orange Chatham County Judge Carl Fox is speaking out on Silent Sam, the Confederate Monument on the UNC Chapel Hill campus, civil rights, and mob rule.
JEFF HAMPTON: Currituck County going through "crazy" housing boom, approaching records of early 2000s (Norfolk Virginian-Pilot reports) -- Currituck County is going through another housing surge that is approaching the record-setting days of the early 2000s. Instead of settling in Virginia where prices are higher, people are eyeing this area south of the Virginia border.
SARAH KRUEGER: DMV extending hours at select locations to combat long lines (WRAL-TV reports) — After some residents reported waiting outside DMV offices for hours in long lines, DMV officials announced that 11 locations around the state will open at 7 a.m., an hour earlier than normal, beginning Monday. Officials said the long lines are partially due to people seeking Real IDs, which will be a requirement to fly starting in October 2020.
Guilford County pulls out all stops to clear DWI cases (Greensboro News & Record) — The courtrooms for cases of driving while impaired have been quite busy these past few days, and that’s very good news for enforcing laws that perhaps protect more people on a daily basis than just about any other law.
Pushing back against anti-Semitism (Winston-Salem Journal) — In this day and age it can be difficult to tell if anti-Semitic graffiti, like that recently spray-painted on a wall at Appalachian State University in Boone, is the result of pure racism or some juvenile act of stupidity. Either way, it’s an ugly expression of hatred that needs to be confronted and countered by those who are more rational and more compassionate.
HURRICANE FLORENCE RECOVERY
THOMAS GOLDSMITH: Nearly Half of Tar Heels Killed by Hurricane Florence Were 70 or Older (N.C. Health News reports) -- Hurricane Florence was especially lethal for older North Carolinians who made up two-thirds of the people who died during and because of the storm.
US Dept. of Ed. awards N.C. colleges $2 million to aid low-income students with Florence recovery (Wilson Times reports) -- Barton College and Wilson Community College are among N.C. colleges that will receive grants for low-income students affected by Hurricane Florence. According to an announcement from U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos, N.C. institutions of higher learning have been awarded a total of $2 million in supplemental funding.
EMILY WAX-THIBODEAUX: Military families raise concerns about housing problems after Hurricane Florence (Washington Post reports) -- Families living on one of the Marine Corps’ largest bases are ramping up criticism of the private company that manages their homes, saying it is ignoring long-standing problems with mold and structural defects that were exacerbated after Hurricane Florence slammed N.C. last month.
ADAM WAGNER: Rebuilding conundrum: For some Florence flooding victims, answer is unclear (Wilmington Star-News reports) -- Faced with storms that seem to be getting increasingly more severe, officials and residents struggle for answers
DANA SARGENT: Move factory farms out of floodplain (Wilmington Star-News column) -- More than three weeks after Hurricane Florence made landfall near Wilmington on September 14, flood waters in some areas continue to linger. Our hearts are with the those who lost loved ones, and those who have suffered property losses. We are inspired by the generosity of our community and those who have come to our aid from out of state.
MAT GENDLE: To preserve our beaches, we must rethink coastal real estate policies (Fayetteville Observer column) -- Like many Carolinians, the ocean is in my blood. Nothing delights me more than spending a day on the sand hunting for shells, on a board out in the churning waves or in a boat exploring twisting tidal creeks, emerald green with Spartina grass. I’m not a climate scientist or geologist, but you don’t need extensive technical training to notice that things are rapidly changing on the North Carolina and South Carolina barrier islands.
UNC-Wilmington still repairing student housing after Florence (AP reports) -- Classes are set to resume at UNC-Wilmington following Hurricane Florence's destruction.
STEPHANIE CARSON: NWF Releases Steps to Prevent Future Hurricane Damage (Public News Service reports) -- Eastern N.C. communities still are cleaning up and drying out from up to 36 inches of rain dumped by Hurricane Florence. At least 40 people died as a result of the storm, and the National Wildlife Federation and others view the disaster as a troubling trend, after other Hurricanes such as Matthew and Harvey. This month, the nonprofit released a report highlighting 12 things communities can do to prevent a similar disaster.
Fast storm recovery at VA (Fayetteville Observer) — Resiliency is something Veterans Affairs Secretary Robert Wilkie saw when he toured VA facilities impacted by Florence in Fayetteville and Wilmington. Even before the flooding fully receded, VA officials in this region were getting the department’s health-care operations up and running. Clinics that had been shut down by the storm had at least partially reopened. Mobile medical units were providing care until regular facilities could reopen. VA medical and administrative staff from as far away as Alaska were in town, helping out.
JOSH SHAFFER & MARTHA QUILLIN: Evacuated and evicted, many of Hurricane Florence’s victims have nowhere to go (Charlotte Observer reports) — When Hurricane Florence hit, Alex Carias took shelter in his pickup truck, riding out the storm with his terrier, Gus. With their mobile home ruined, he planned on living inside the truck at least temporarily, but a social worker found them and ordered them into a shelter in nearby Morehead City
ENERGY & ENVIRONMENT
KIRK ROSS: Regulators Prepare Crackdown on Air and Water Emissions of GenX (Carolina Public Press reports) -- The NC Department of Environmental Quality has spent the year gathering data on the fluorochemical Chemours has been releasing into local air and waters. Now it's poised to act.
KEVIN SACK & JOHN SCHWARTZ: As Storms Keep Coming, FEMA Spends Billions in ‘Cycle’ of Damage and Repair (New York Times reports) — “Human settlements have been designed in a way that reflects a climate of the past, and this increases the likelihood that disaster-related losses will continue to rise,” said Gavin Smith, a professor at the University of NC at Chapel Hill who directs the Coastal Resilience Center of Excellence, a research consortium funded by the Department of Homeland Security. “This also means we need to rethink how and where we build before the storm, as well as how and where we reconstruct public buildings and infrastructure in the aftermath of extreme events.”
JEFF LEWIS: October Brings More Migrants Heading South (Coastal Review Online reports) — September jump-started the songbird migration, with a brief pause for a hurricane, and October will keep the birds moving through, on their way to their wintering grounds. There will be plenty of birds to see this month and hopefully some rarities to find.
AND MORE…
STEVE REED: Reid kneels, says Kaepernick 'robbed' of dream to play again (AP reports) -- Eric Reid called his return to the NFL "bittersweet," saying it still hurts that his friend Colin Kaepernick has been "robbed" of his dream to play again in the NFL. While the safety is back in the league playing for the Panthers, Kaepernick remains a free agent. Kaepernick filed a grievance against the league in October of 2017 alleging teams have conspired to keep him out of the league because of his decision to protest racial and social injustice by kneeling during the national anthem.

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