Opinion

Opinion Roundup: What's really going on in Washington?

Monday, Jan. 15, 2018 -- A roundup of opinion, commentary and analysis on Americans' search for reliable information amid polarized politics, the ugly truth behind N.C.'s class-size mandate, a call for the legislature to address the human health effects of GenX and more.

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Monday, Jan. 15, 2018 -- A roundup of opinion, commentary and analysis on Americans' search for reliable information amid polarized politics, the ugly truth behind N.C.'s class-size mandate, a call for the legislature to address the human health effects of GenX and more.
POLITICS & POLICY
LAURIE KELLMAN & JONATHAN DREW: Trust and truth under Trump - Americans are in a quandary (AP news analysis) -- When truck driver Chris Gromek wants to know what's really going on in Washington, he scans the internet and satellite radio. He no longer flips TV channels because networks such as Fox News and MSNBC deliver conflicting accounts tainted by politics, he says. "Where is the truth?" asks the 47-year-old North Carolina resident. Answering that question accurately is a cornerstone of any functioning democracy, according to none other than Thomas Jefferson. But a year into Donald Trump's fact-bending, media-bashing presidency, Americans are increasingly confused about who can be trusted to tell them reliably what their government and their commander in chief are doing.
MATT LECLERCQ: You can’t put s---hole in print. Or can you? (Fayetteville Observer column) -- My phone chimes with news alerts all day, but this particular alert on Thursday evening got a double take. President Trump said what? Oh my. My first thought, to be honest, was how we would handle this four-letter (+hole) vulgarity in the Observer. I knew it was going to be an important story — the president reportedly disparaging in such crude terms Haiti and nations in Africa, in the context of an immigration debate.
JOHN RAILEY: Thank you, Mr. President, for making this King Day special (Winston-Salem Journal column) -- I keep thinking about those words from the Psalm: “Joy comes in the morning.” Joy might seem far off right now. This is a different King Day, one preceded by months of racial unrest. It’s preceded by a year of dreams turned to nightmares, of the fatal white supremacist rally in Charlottesville and what’s often seemed like a slow surrendering of all that’s good about our land. Then came the news Thursday that President Trump referred to Africa and Haiti as “s---hole countries.” He denied saying it, but he didn’t need to. He did Martin King’s cause a favor.
CELIA RIVENBARK: I feel Trump’s pain, but ... (Wilmington Star-News column) -- What I’m going to say will shock some, if not most of y’all because it defends Donald Trump. Yes, President Trump, appearing to act in the manner of a Completely Normal American for possibly the first time since he was just a young stable genius, gloriously botched the singing of the national anthem at the national college football championship game. Hons, I have watched the video of Trump singing the anthem, or attempting to, like it’s the Zapruder film (ask your parents) and I can say without equivocation the only time Trump appeared to sing lustily and accurately was during the “bombs bursting in air” part.
With bigot-based policy, who'll want to come here? (Elizabeth City Daily Advance) -- President Donald Trump proved once again last week why he’s uniformly unfit to lead the greatest nation in the world. Trump’s use of offensive and disparaging language with the senators wasn’t new. Nor was the racism — black-majority countries whose people should be blocked from the U.S.; white majority countries are great places whose people should be welcomed with open arms — that informed the president’s remarks. Anyone paying half-attention for the past two years should know by now that our 45th president holds deeply racist beliefs.
Immigration reform needed now (Winston-Salem Journal) -- Wednesday’s federal court decision placing an injunction on President Trump’s elimination of DACA protections underscores the need for the DACA “dreamers” to stay — and for Congress to quit futzing around and write legislation to solidify their status.
JOHN RAILEY: A personal case for letting in refugees (Winston-Salem Journal column) -- As President Trump continues his push to severely limit the number of refugees our land of liberty lets in, most recently by his action to deport Salvadoran refugees and through his bigoted insult against Africa and Haiti, here’s a story: My wife, Kathleen, might not be here, or alive period, if her maternal ancestors had not made it here.
Protecting Dreamers must be first priority (Greensboro News & Record) -- Democrats don’t hold much power in Washington, but they should use every bit they’ve got to protect the Dreamers.
KAREN CHAVEZ: As TPS protection removed for Salvadorans, Asheville residents face deportation (Asheville Citizen-Times analysis) -- Roxana Jimenez sat down with her three young children Friday night to tell them mom might be taken away. After learning last week she could lose her legal immigration status of 17 years, Jimenez had wanted to delay the conversation for as long as she could. Jimenez is a native of El Salvador and could lose right to stay in the U.S., where all three of her children were born. Another 300,000 Salvadorans granted safety are now at risk of being deported.
Why are N.C. Republicans afraid of the voters? (Wilmington Star-News) -- This issue isn’t settled. The U.S. Supreme Court still has to be heard from. Still, the ruling last week by a three-judge federal appeals panel voiding North Carolina’s congressional districts marks a victory for democracy and the power of the individual voter. Previous court rulings had voided two of the U.S. House districts, finding that they discriminated against African-American voters.
ADAM LIPTAK: Case for Math, Not ‘Gobbledygook,’ in Judging Partisan Voting Maps (New York Times analysis) -- “It may be simply my educational background,” Chief Justice John Roberts said, presumably referring to his Harvard degrees in history and law. Statistical evidence said to show that Wisconsin’s voting districts had been warped by political gerrymandering struck him as “sociological gobbledygook.” Last week, Judge James A. Wynn Jr. came to the defense of math. “It makes no sense for courts to close their eyes to new scientific or statistical methods,” he wrote in a decision striking down North Carolina’s congressional map as an unconstitutional partisan gerrymander.
RAY GRONBERG: How a Duke professor helped bring down NC’s controversial Congressional map (Durham Herald-Sun analysis) -- Validation sometimes arrives quietly. Other times, it makes a splash, and for the chairman of Duke University’s math department, Tuesday’s validation was the splashy kind. Duke professor Jonathan Mattingly saw his critical analysis of the state’s 13 Congressional districts become one of the focal points of a 205-page court ruling that declared them an unconstitutional partisan gerrymander.
Don’t split up 7th Judicial District (Rocky Mount Telegram) -- A plan to remove Nash County from the 7th Judicial District would cause major problems for the area. Republican-backed legislation to redraw the state’s judicial districts would do just that, splitting Rocky Mount into separate judicial districts at the county line.
LINDELL JOHN KAY: Coleman launches campaign for Congress (Rocky Mount Telegram analysis) -- A former state official launched her campaign for Congress in Rocky Mount, saying she can beat the entrenched incumbent. Linda Coleman, former three-term N.C. General Assembly member and lieutenant gubernatorial candidate, officially announced her run for the Second Congressional District.
STEPHANIE CARSON: Family Speaks: Raleigh Man Dies in Police Custody (Public News Service analysis) -- This week, the family of a man who died in Raleigh Police custody is hoping to have more answers. Curtis Roeman Mangum began showing signs of medical distress last Wednesday after he was taken into custody with another suspect. He later died after being transferred to WakeMed hospital.
MAKENZIE HOLLAND: Final compensation checks for eugenics victims stalled (Wilmington Star-News analysis) -- Local eugenics victim Elnora Mills Brashears has been waiting for more than two years for her final payment from the state.
RICHARD BARRON: Toyota-Mazda deal leaves polished megasite, team in place (Greensboro News & Record analysis) -- The team of people that put the megasite together is still in place as well as their engineering plans and studies. The land can be quickly retooled for the next prospect.
Money can’t buy you love, or a car plant (Fayetteville Observer/Kinston Free Press) -- There are a lot of good economic-development lessons in this state’s inability to win a jointly run Toyota and Mazda car factory. But one looms largest: Throwing the biggest bundle of money at the project doesn’t mean we’ll get it. We and Alabama were finalists for the vehicle plant. This state had done a lot of things right, including assembling a sprawling “megasite” in Randolph County near Greensboro.​
RICHARD CRAVER: Triad struggles to make progress on pledge of high-tech job growth (Winston-Salem Journal analysis) -- Nearly 14 years ago, Triad civic and elected officials put a stake in the ground by selecting a preferred measuring stick for the local economy. The inspiration: a national job-growth ranking of 165th among the 200 largest metropolitan statistical areas for the 1997-2002 period as determined by the Milken Institute. Nearly 14 years later, the Triad has made limited progress on those goals, notwithstanding the current united front for the region’s long-shot bid for Amazon’s second headquarters campus. Milken’s 2017 rankings, out last week, had the Winston-Salem MSA at No. 121 and the Greensboro-High Point MSA at No. 142.
MARK JOHNSON: Talent pipeline is key to bringing jobs to N.C. (Winston-Salem Journal column) -- Others can debate how we build a competitive auto parts supply chain without first having a major auto factory here. I have a more effective solution to strengthen the job creators already in North Carolina and attract more. We must offer a talent pipeline unmatched by our competitors and eliminate one of the biggest challenges companies currently face — recruiting skilled workers.
EDUCATION
LOWELL SIMON: In Raleigh, the Education of Our Children Seems for Sale (Southern Pines Pilot column) -- How is it possible that the N.C. General Assembly thinks class size reduction is already funded when local leadership is convinced that it will cause substantial cutbacks? I have only recently begun hearing the refrain that class size reduction was funded last year. To me, this is a new one. As best I can figure, the General Assembly said, “We think you should reduce K-3 class sizes, but you do what you think best. Here’s your budget.”
ENERGY & ENVIRONMENT
Senate leader ignores widening GenX threat (Fayetteville Observer) -- Phil Berger is either breathtakingly ill-informed about the pollution problems threatening residents of the Cape Fear River Basin or he just doesn’t care that residents’ health is imperiled by pollutants that are likely to cause cancer. There isn’t much gray area between those possibilities to explain why the state Senate leader shut down a House bill last week that would have ramped up state efforts to track and study GenX and other chemicals that have leaked,
ALLEN MAURER: Diesel Technology Forum: Clean diesel helps power the N.C. economy (WRAL-TV/TechWire analysis) -- A new online resource, Diesel Technology Forum’s searchable database, shows the broad impact of clean diesel on North Carolina’s economy and transportation systems. The state is first out of the 50 states for clean diesel engines manufactured and nearly 8,500 North Carolinians work in diesel-related jobs.
HEALTH
ALLEN MASK: New Duke Hospital research center to reduce health care treatment gaps (WRAL-TV analysis) -- Duke University Hospital opened a research center to reduce health disparities between patients. The new Duke facility, called REACH Equity, is an effort to improve interactions between patients, health care providers and the health care system. Research has shown that African-Americans tend to have less access to vaccinations, screenings and cardiac procedures when they are diagnosed with cardiovascular disease. According to studies, this disparity for black patients exists even when they have access to health care and health insurance. "But they are more likely to receive some more undesirable types of procedures, like amputation because of the complications of disease," Dr. Kimberly Johnson said.
TIM WHITE: Drug busts and education won’t stop the opioid crisis (Fayetteville Observer column) -- If you want to help your kids understand why it’s not a good idea to get messed up with drugs, just show them the police mug shots in Friday’s paper — the people busted in the Harnett County drug raids Thursday. Look at those faces. Some of them look like road maps for the highway to hell. It looks as if some of the alleged pushers may have been pretty familiar with their product.
AND MORE
HOWARD E. COVINGTON JR.: Self-Help melds social progress, financial power (Greensboro News & Record column) -- Self-Help Credit Union is a North Carolina-based nonprofit loan fund and community development financial institution. Its story is told in a new book by Greensboro resident Howard E. Covington Jr., “Lending Power: How Self-Help Credit Union Turned Small-Time Loans into Big-Time Change.”
ISABEL WILKERSON: The Heart Is the Last Frontier (On Being, NPR) -- Go to the doctor and they won’t begin to treat you without taking your history — and not just yours, but that of your parents and grandparents before you. Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Isabel Wilkerson points this out as she reflects on her epic work of narrative non-fiction, “The Warmth of Other Suns,” during an interview at the 2016 Faith in Literature Festival at the University of North Carolina Asheville. She’s immersed herself in the stories of the Great Migration, the diaspora of six million African Americans to the north of the U.S. in the 20th century. It’s a carrier of untold histories and truths that help make sense of human and social challenges newly visible at the heart of our life together.

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