Tag: Thom Tillis

Editorial: Time to get moving on pre-K

November 14, 2013 at 8:15 amCategory:Uncategorized

by

If you get a chance, check out this Charlotte Observer editorial on the state Supreme Court’s recent ruling on the North Carolina’s still badly inadequate pre-Kindergarten effort. As the editorial notes:

Berger pre-K“We’re a little puzzled by the fist-pumping from Republicans in Raleigh last week after the N.C. Supreme Court tossed out a case involving the legislature and the state’s pre-K program.

The court, in a six-page decision, dismissed an appeal of a 2011 lower-court ruling that said the Republican-led legislature had violated a constitutional mandate by making it harder for at-risk children to participate in pre-K. The court also vacated that lower-court ruling because Republicans undid the two things that landed them in court in the first place – capping pre-K enrollment and initiating a co-pay for some eligible families. Read More…

Twelve year old speaks with incredible eloquence on voter suppression (Video)

October 29, 2013 at 3:04 pmCategory:Uncategorized

by

Wow! Watch this speech from yesterday’s Moral Monday event in Burlington and be inspired. If only Pat McCrory, Thom Tillis and Phil Berger would.

YouTube Preview Image

 

Editorial highlights McCrory’s shortsigtedness on Medicaid expansion

October 29, 2013 at 8:39 amCategory:Uncategorized

by

In case you missed it, this Fayetteville Observer editorial helps explain the remarkable blindness of the Pope/Tillis/Berger/McCrory decision to deny health insurance to a half-million North Carolinians by refusing to allow the expansion of Medicaid at a comparatively tiny cost to the state. After documenting the disastrous impact the decision is having on poorer, rural hospitals like Southeastern Regional Medical Center in Lumberton, the editorial concludes this way:

“The rationale for the legislature’s decision was that Medicaid is “broken” because its cost rose as more people sought assistance while recovery from a record recession lagged.

The illogic of that position must be drawing some political heat. This week Senate and House leaders took to filming a protest and doing head counts of protesters and journalists – small-bore politics.

‘An expansion of Medicaid would cost North Carolina taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars through 2021,’ they said in a joint release.

Probably so. But not expanding Medicaid is going to cost us billions, much sooner. If it leaves a landscape strewn with closed, underfunded or understaffed hospitals, that will be the heaviest cost of all.”

Read the entire editorial by clicking here.

NAACP responds to revelations of spying, “anarchist” claims

October 10, 2013 at 10:26 amCategory:Uncategorized

by

In case you missed it, here is the official NAACP response to the revelations from earlier this week that Raleigh police spied on Moral Monday protester planning sessions:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
10 October 2013

NC NAACP Responds to Raleigh Police Surveillance of Moral Monday Mobilization Sessions

DURHAM – It is deeply concerning that the Speaker of the House, Thom Tillis and Senate Pro Temp, Phil Berger created a climate of hostility and suspicion around Moral Monday protesters.  It is our understanding that they or their staff ordered the arrests.  They chose to criminalize legitimate peaceful protest. Now they are suggesting that they had knowledge of so called anarchists.  This claim strikes us as strange since our staff and team were in constant talks with the capital police and we were never informed of so called anarchists. To say things of this nature could be construed as an attempt to mar the image of the protesters and to change the message of the movement.  The fact is North Carolina citizens followed their first amendment rights and their rights under the North Carolina State Constitution, Article 1, Section 12 by seeking redress of their grievances regarding the extreme and regressive policies passed by elected officials this year.  North Carolinians of all socio economic backgrounds, colors and creeds operated under the best of the moral – non violent tradition when they came together. Read More…

Truly amazing: Law allowing 16 and 17 year-olds to pre-register to vote ends Friday

August 28, 2013 at 3:45 pmCategory:Uncategorized

by

From the good people at Common Cause NC:

North Carolina kills pre-registration law as Colorado enacts its own.

As North Carolina repeals the law allowing 16 & 17 year olds to pre-register to vote, Colorado becomes the 9th state in the nation to adopt such a law.

Earlier this month, Governor Pat McCrory signed into law the bill (H589) to end the pre-registration program, five days after Colorado’s new law went into effect.

“It’s a real mystery why the legislature and the Governor feel a program that enhanced high school civics education and allowed 16 & 17 year olds to pre-register to vote has to end,” said Bob Phillips, Common Cause North Carolina executive director.  

“The program was virtually cost free and helped young people understand the importance of voting. How can that possibly be a bad thing?”   Read More…