John Hood’s
Daily Journal

9.02.10
North Carolina Isn’t the Worst

Never let it be said that I don’t report good news about North Carolina when it crosses my desk.

CJ Ticker

• JLF expert helps debunk a report from an anti-nukes group: Nuclear power is still much cheaper than solar.
• SecDef Robert Gates to speak at Duke Sept. 29.
• Wake County School Board agrees to 16-zone assignment plan.
• Wake County DA to investigate Perdue campaign flights.
• JLF President John Hood offers analysis during tonight's 7 o'clock WRAL TV documentary on the dangers of cell phone use while driving.
• Breazeale endorses McIntyre rather than fellow GOP'er Pantano in N.C.'s 7th Cong Dist.
• JLF expert outlines benefits of state-level health care deregulation.
• Sources: Davidson College president to replace Bowles as UNC system leader.

Other Opinions

9.02.10
Redistricting

The Asheville Citizen- Times says that we’ll need to keep an eye on the next General Assembly to make sure the districts we are presented with serve the voters — and not the politicians.

---

9.02.10
Highway Patrol

A new recommendation on how to select a new leader for the N.C. Highway Patrol will disappoint critics who have called for an end to good ol’ boy politics says the Rocky Mount Telegram.

---

9.02.10
Urban loops

The Charlotte Observer argues that state should link local land use decisions to road budgets and stop building bypasses of bypasses.

---

9.01.10
The VAT

JLF’s Roy Cordato says that a value-added tax is not just another tax. It poses a fundamental threat to liberty and a free society.

---

9.01.10
Prison health care

The Jacksonville Daily News writes that for Medicaid to work for prisoners, and states to save a few dollars, the system needs to be simplified.

---

9.02.10
Obama Unpredictable So Far
On the campaign trail, the president never discussed the important details of many issues his administration has tackled. The president may not have broken any promises, but he simply failed to warn us of what was to come.

Media Mangle

8.10.10
Sometimes the news is not where it should be

When the news is buried, is it accidental or on purpose?

---

7.30.10
Finding all bias in a newspaper is tough for an editor

Sometimes little examples of bias can just sneak by the most diligent of editors.

---

6.27.10
N&O needs remedial instruction on First Amendment

The editors dedicated roughly two-thirds of a piece ostensibly about the ethics bill before the short session of the General Assembly into a diatribe on the public-financing provision that was axed.

Carolina Beat

9.02.10
The Race Was Fixed

Lead Story

VIDEO: Neighbors Rally Against High Speed Rail Option

September 02, 2010, By Anthony Greco

RALEIGH — Residents of Raleigh’s Five Points district are standing up against an option to bring President Obama’s high speed rail through their backyards. The option is called NC-3, which would run trains down the west side of Capital Boulevard into downtown Raleigh. The option would use eminent domain to seize homes and businesses in order to make room for the faster trains.

Headlines

9.02.10 - Earl menaces N.C.: ‘It will be close’

CHARLOTTE — Mandatory evacuations were ordered Thursday morning for part of the Outer Banks, as powerful Hurricane Earl continued moving toward the North Carolina coast. Earl’s winds strengthened early Thursday to 145 mph, and National Hurricane Center meteorologists say the outer bands of the storm are expected to reach the southern part of the Outer Banks by the early-afternoon hours. At 5 a.m., the center of the hurricane was about 410 miles south-southeast of Cape Hatteras. Earl was moving to the north-northwest at 18 mph.

Related Environment Articles:

---

9.02.10 - Wachovia’s rescue eyed

WASHINGTON — Wachovia’s 2008 rescue by Wells Fargo relied on a tax break that Congress never approved, adding to the cost of U.S. bailouts, according to the vice chairman of a panel investigating the financial crisis. An interpretation of Internal Revenue Service rules during the meltdown that helped Wells Fargo was “an unprecedented executive-branch usurpation of tax law,” former U.S. Rep. Bill Thomas said at yesterday’s hearing of the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission in Washington.

Related NC Economy Articles:

---

9.02.10 - House travel stipends probed

WASHINGTON — Congressional investigators are questioning a half-dozen lawmakers for possibly misspending government funds meant to pay for overseas travel, according to people familiar with the matter. The investigation follows a Wall Street Journal article in March that said lawmakers had used daily cash stipends, meant to cover certain costs of official government travel overseas, to cover expenses that appeared to be unauthorized by House rules.

Related NC Ethics & Corruption Articles:

---

9.02.10 - Mel Watt cleared by panel

CHARLOTTE — A day after an ethics panel dismissed allegations against him, Democratic U.S. Rep. Mel Watt said having his ethics questioned was “humbling and emotionally draining.” “After practicing law for 22 years and serving in Congress for 18 years, it has been very humbling and emotionally draining to have been for the first time in my life the focus of a review ... that implied or called into question my personal or professional honesty and integrity,” he said in a statement Wednesday.

Related NC Ethics & Corruption Articles:

---

9.02.10 - Advisers tell Perdue not to wait on commander hire

RALEIGH — Gov. Beverly Perdue should avoid putting the leadership of the embattled Highway Patrol into “indefinite limbo” and select its next commander under current rules that prevent an outsider from being appointed, an advisory group recommended Wednesday. The patrol Leadership Advisory Group's report also suggested several policy changes to ensure patrol officers conduct themselves honorably after repeated problems involving troopers and their behavior.

Related Police/Public Safety Articles:

---

9.02.10 - Duke considers closing old coal plants

CHARLOTTE — Duke Energy said Wednesday it might close seven coal-fired units at its Carolinas power plants within five years as environmental regulations intensify. Federal regulators are expected to stiffen limits on pollutants that form smog, acid rain and haze, Duke said in an annual planning document filed with the N.C. Utilities Commission. New rules for toxic mercury emissions and coal ash are also expected. Shutting down old units can be cheaper for utilities than refitting them with new pollution controls.

Related Energy Articles:

---

9.02.10 - CTS may get Superfund status

SKYLAND — A former electrical parts plant that neighbors say contaminated their wells has taken the first step toward becoming a Superfund site, a move that would require an extensive cleanup and reparations for any who were harmed. Still, any help for residents near the former CTS of Asheville site would be years away, said an Environmental Protection Agency spokeswoman Wednesday.

Related Environment Articles:

---

9.02.10 - RWCA head raps diversity policy

RALEIGH — In a split with other African-American leaders, the head of a local civil rights group is publicly criticizing Wake County’s discarded socioeconomic diversity policy and calling for greater cooperation with the new school board majority. Dan Coleman, president of the Raleigh-Wake Citizens Association, told his group’s members in an e-mail message Wednesday that newly released test scores show that students in Southeast Raleigh, many of whom are bused outside the community for diversity, are “failing.”

Related Education Articles:

---

9.02.10 - Revalue property soon? Not advised

DURHAM — With sales data roughly in line with property tax assessments, Durham County Tax Administrator Kim Simpson isn’t inclined to push elected officials to revalue property here any time soon. Durham traditionally has revalued land for tax purposes every seven or eight years, in line with state law that requires new assessments at least every eight years. While there was talk in years past of shortening the cycle, with the economy still in a slump, Simpson doesn’t see a reason to do that.

Related Local Government Articles:

---

9.02.10 - Dutch masters coming to N.C.

RALEIGH — The North Carolina Museum of Art is attempting its own masterpiece: an exhibit that features more authentic Rembrandt paintings than any American museum has yet achieved. The museum is borrowing and leasing masterpieces by the 17th century Dutch painter from about two dozen museums in the United States, including the National Gallery of Art in Washington and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.

Related State Government Articles: