Opinion Roundup: Endorsement in 9th; Trump tweets on Cooper; presidential campaigning and the KKK; death penalty on trial and more

Monday, Aug. 26, 2019 -- A round up of opinion, commentary and analysis on: endorsement in the 9th; Trump tweets on Cooper; presidential campaigns in Durham and the KKK in Hillsborough; death penalty on trial; Cooper passes on health bill; N.C. handgun shows up in Jamaica murders; opioids flooding N.C.; offshore wind; and more.

NC-09 endorsement: It’s about more than the Dans. It’s about The Donald (Charlotte Observer) -- It should come as little surprise that this editorial board is endorsing Dan McCready in the 9th Congressional District special election. We endorsed McCready, a moderate Democrat, in the 9th District race last fall that was tainted by absentee ballot fraud. “McCready has far more potential to effectively represent the 9th, and to help change the tone in Congress,” we said then. We still believe that, and we believe that McCready’s opponent in this special election, Republican Dan Bishop, has shown himself unfit to represent the 9th. Bishop is the unrepentant author of HB2, a discriminatory law that cost Charlotte and North Carolina millions of dollars in business and lost events. “There’s no Mecklenburg legislator we can remember who has done more damage to Charlotte,” we said about him in 2016.

GINGER LIVINGSTON: Candidates say they'll continue Jones' fight to lower national debt (Greenville Daily Reflector reports) -- The Democratic and Republican candidates in the special election for the 3rd Congressional District said their past and current experiences in budgeting give them the credentials to address the national debt in Congress. Democrat Allen Thomas said his three terms as Greenville’s mayor gave him plenty of budgeting experience. “We need to be mindful of the fiscal position that our children and grandchildren will inherit,” Thomas said. “However, we must also keep our commitments to our families and seniors by continuing to fund the programs that help us thrive. During a candidates’ forum sponsored by the Greenville-Pitt County Chamber of Commerce last week, Thomas said the nation needs to invest in the drivers of the nation’s economy. That investment should begin with the removal of regulatory control of small business owners and other areas that put money back into the economy.

GINGER LIVINGSTON: 3rd District winner will quickly face re-election bid (Greenville Daily Reflector reports) -- The Democrat and Republican running to fill the open seat of the late congressman Walter Jones Jr. both used the phrase “hit the ground running” when describing their plans for taking office. The winner of the Sept. 10 special election for the 3rd Congressional District will need to make his mark quickly. Whoever wins will have two months in Congress before filing for the 2020 congressional elections begins at noon on Dec. 2.

ALFRED CHARLES: Trump tweet criticizes Cooper veto that would have forced NC sheriffs to honor ICE detainers (WRAL-TV reports) -- Republican President Trump took aim at Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper via Twitter on N.C. legislation to require sheriffs hold county jail inmates for possible deportation three days after Cooper vetoed the bill.

Trump criticizes Cooper in tweet on immigration bill (AP reports) -- President Donald Trump has criticized Gov. Roy Cooper for vetoing a bill that would have required the state's sheriffs to recognize requests by federal immigration agents to hold jail inmates believed to be in the country illegally.

RICHARD CRAVER: Medicaid expansion projected to give major boost to hospital revenues (Winston-Salem Journal reports) -- Expanding Medicaid coverage in the state would provide a $335.2 million annual revenue boost to hospitals in the Triad and Northwest N.C., according to a report from an advocacy group. Authors of the N.C. Budget & Tax Center report, titled “Strong medicine,” said Medicaid coverage expansion for between 450,000 and 650,000 residents “is not just a moral imperative.”

DAWN VAUGHN: Small business health act becomes law, but without governor’s signature (Durham Herald-Sun reports) -- Gov. Cooper’s comment on the bill was that a “proven and effective way most other states have used to drive down the cost of private health insurance has been to accept the billions of federal dollars to expand Medicaid.”

Health insurance bill will be law without Cooper's signature (AP reports) -- Gov. Roy Cooper said that a bipartisan health insurance measure will become law without his signature.

TRAVIS FAIN: Cooper lets Small business insurance bill become law despite objections (WRAL-TV reports) -- Senate Bill 86, which would allow small businesses, real estate agents and others with statewide trade groups to work together to set up health insurance plans, became law Sunday without the signature of Gov. Roy Cooper.

DAVID SINCLAIR: Controversial funeral legislation moves to governor for action (Southern Pines Pilot reports) -- Legislation creating a provisional license for funeral directors that has drawn some opposition from the very industry supporters say it will help is now awaiting Gov. Roy Cooper’s signature.

Deal reached to do away with more standardized testing in NC (AP reports) -- Legislators have reached a compromise on doing away with more standardized testing in public schools.

MARTHA WAGGONER: Race and the death penalty -Arguments ongoing (AP reports) -- Four death row prisoners will argue to N.C.'s highest court that racial bias so infected their trials that they should be resentenced to life in prison as attorneys revive arguments about a repealed law on race and capital punishment. The state Supreme Court will hear arguments today and Tuesday in the cases of four death row inmates who briefly were resentenced to life without parole when legislators approved the Racial Justice Act in 2009. The law was repealed four years later.

BRYAN STEVENSON: NC Supreme Court should end racial bias in jury selections (Durham Herald-Sun column) -- This week, North Carolina has a chance to confront a problem that has haunted the state for too long. The state Supreme Court will hear arguments on August 26 and 27 about the N.C. Racial Justice Act. This groundbreaking law allowed people on death row to present evidence that racial bias played a role in their death sentences.

MICHAEL HEWLETT: Death row inmate convicted of killing Winston-Salem police officer claims racial discrimination in case (Winston-Salem Journal reports) -- Only one black woman was called in the jury box for a black Winston-Salem man’s murder trial in 1995, his attorneys said in court papers. But Forsyth County prosecutors dismissed her, even though she gave virtually the same answers as a white woman who prosecutors approved as a juror, they said. Years later, prosecutors couldn’t find a race-neutral reason why the black woman was removed, the attorneys said.

DAWN VAUGHN: Talking about race isn’t ‘identity politics,’ Kamala Harris tells crowd in Durham (Durham Herald-Sun reports) -- “We know how to fight. In fact there is nothing we have gained that came without a fight,” presidential candidate Kamala Harris told a mostly African American audience.

TAFT WIREBACK: I'll 'prosecute the case' against Trump, presidential candidate Kamala Harris says at Greensboro rally (Greensboro News & Record reports) -- Select her as the Democratic presidential nominee and she'll not only light into "the current occupant of the White House," but also articulate a winning financial rescue plan for the middle class, U.S. Sen. Kamala Harris told an appreciative crowd at Smith High School. The California senator and former state attorney general said that if picked as her party's standard bearer, "we will do what is necessary to prosecute the case against four more years of Donald Trump in the White House."

KASEY CUNNINGHAM: Kamala Harris makes campaign stop in Durham; KKK protest in Hillsborough (WRAL-TV reports) -- Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris was in Durham Saturday and so were protesters, including members of the KKK.

AZAM AHMED: One Handgun from N.C., 9 Murders: How American Firearms Cause Carnage Abroad (New York Times reports) -- Hundreds of thousands of guns sold in the United States vanish because of loose American gun laws. Many reappear in Jamaica, turning its streets into battlefields. Purchased in 1991 by a farmer in Greenville, N.C., "Briana," serial number 245PN70462, was a 9-millimeter Browning handgun. The Browning vanished from the public record for nearly 24 years — until it suddenly started wreaking havoc in Jamaica. For three years, its ballistic fingerprint connected it to shootings, mystifying law enforcement. Finally, after a firefight with the police, it was recovered last year and its bloody run came to an end.

LESLIE BONEY: Creating economic opportunity – at scale (Greensboro News & Record column) -- A lot more North Carolinians these days are facing the challenge of how to move up economically. According to the Carolina Population Center, there are 1,363,130 North Carolinians between the ages of 25 and 54, what experts called the “prime working age,” with a high school degree or less. The Georgetown Center for Education and the Workforce tells us that 74% of people with Catrina’s education background don’t have a “good job” — one paying more than $35,000 a year. A report earlier this year by the My Future NC Commission estimates that two-thirds of jobs created in our state by 2030 will require some education beyond high school, and that if we do nothing, we’ll fall 400,000 jobs short.

MELISSA MURPHY: Tennis champ, trailblazer Althea Gibson honored at US Open (AP reports) -- Althea Gibson basked in a ticker-tape parade in New York a decade before Arthur Ashe won the 1968 U.S. Open. Gibson won 11 majors in three years from 1956-58. She integrated two sports — tennis and golf — during an era of racial segregation. One Love Tennis is an athletic and educational program for youth in Wilmington. Why wasn't there a monument to the first African American to win a major title (1956 French Open) before winning both the U.S. Nationals (precursor to the U.S. Open) and Wimbledon in 1957-58? Program Director Lenny Simpson suggested the girls be part of the solution by writing letters to his friend and then-U.S. Tennis Association President Katrina Adams. King and Adams had been working on the Gibson project for years.

MYRON PITTS: Rise of anti-Semitism driven by far right, fanned by Trump (Fayetteville Observer column) -- The focus on one representative’s controversial comments can obscure a dangerous trend.

LISA WORF: How Do NC Cities Tackle Affordable Housing Challenges? (WFAE-FM reports) -- The North Carolina Housing Coalition works with several groups to help advocate for resources to build and preserve affordable housing. Pamela Atwood is the group’s director of housing policy, and she joins WFAE's "Morning Edition" host Lisa Worf to talk about affordable housing challenges across the state.

LISA O'DONNELL: Millions of opioid pain pills flowed through the area, sparking an epidemic, according to government data (Winston-Salem Journal reports) -- In the early 2000s, N.C. was awash in hydrocodone and oxycodone pills, more than 2.5 billion from 2006 to 2012, according to recently released government data made available by the Washington Post. Seventy-six billion pills were distributed throughout the country during those six years, an avalanche of addictive substances that inflamed a smoldering opioid epidemic. More than 300,000 people in the U.S. have died of opioid overdoses since 2000, including 47,000 in 2017, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The people have spoken -- slow down on NHRMC (Wilmington Star-News) -- On the road to exploring the future of New Hanover Regional Medical Center -- including the possibility of a sale -- the cart is still too far ahead of the horse. It needs to slow down, not for any required reason, but for the greater good of the community.

EILEEN WOLL: Offshore wind project shows power, potential (Norfolk Virginian-Pilot column) -- The Offshore Energy Program Director of the Sierra Club's Virginia Chapter argues the importance of two-turbine wind energy platform under construction in the waters off Virginia's coast.

JENNIFER ALLEN: Kirkman says Port Study Could Avert Controversy (Coastal Review reports) -- Carteret County’s economic development director says a recent study of what it would take to make the state port’s Radio Island property ready for industry can help the ports authority avoid past mistakes.

ORRIN PILKEY: On the Outer Banks, there may be no escape from The Big One (Durham Herald-Sun column) -- In the last couple of decades, the problem of escape from natural hazards has come to the forefront of planning for emergency response as climate change alters the nature of hazards. Two examples of this are intensifying forest fires and increasingly severe coastal storms.

NCDOT seeks input on electric vehicle plan (Coastal Review reports) -- The N.C. Zero-Emission Vehicle Plan is being developed to boost electric vehicle ownership. The state Department of Transportation released a draft version of its  Zero-Emissions Vehicle Plan and is looking for public comments until Sept. 6. The plan can be reviewed on the NCDOT webpage.

Frederick Burroughs, Raleigh's first black pediatrician, dies at age 89 (WRAL-TV reports) -- Dr. Frederick Douglas Burroughs, a pediatrician who dedicated his life to serving people in need, died on Aug. 18 at the age of 89.

UNC Grad Sidney Rittenberg, Idealistic American Aide to Mao Who Evolved to Counsel Capitalists, Dies at 98 (New York Times reports) -- Sidney Rittenberg, an American soldier-linguist who stayed in China for 35 years after World War II as an adviser and political prisoner of the Communist Revolution, and later made millions as a counselor of Western capitalists exploiting booming Chinese markets, died in Scottsdale, Ariz. He was born in Charleston, S.C. He turned down a scholarship to Princeton to attend UNC-Chapel Hill, where he majored in philosophy and graduated in 1941. His father was president of the Charleston City Council and his grandfather had been a prominent S.C. legislator. He joined the American Communist Party in 1940, drawn by its platform of free speech, racial equality and roots in the labor movement. Without giving up his Communist ideals, resigned in 1942 when he was drafted by the Army in World War II.

Sidney Rittenberg, American adviser to the Chinese Communist Party, dies at 98 (Washington Post reports) -- After Army service in World War II brought him to China, a young UNC graduate and labor activist named Sidney Rittenberg stayed on to help build a new world power forged by a communist revolution. Mr. Rittenberg, who was 98 when he died Aug. 24 at a nursing center in Fountain Hills, Ariz., became one of a handful of Americans who lived behind the lines of a country that developed into a bitter Cold War enemy.