“Any material that we have had to purchase, 20% to 30% up on clamshells boxes, fertilizer over 100% up, fuel was crazy. Even this spring, with some of the crops bringing better pricing than last year, we still made more money last year because when you look at all of our costs with labor and everything being up, we didn’t do any better.” - Ron Cottle, Faison, N.C.
Carolina Journal recently surveyed the four candidates running for a seat on the North Carolina Supreme Court. Below are their answers to core questions on personal judicial philosophy. Read carefully, because the stakes are high. November's two races could shift the balance of power on the state's high court.
In a late September letter to the N.C. Utilities Commission (NCUC), the Wilmington City Council asked that any path forward on reducing carbon also take into account price and grid reliability. The letter begins by praising the October 2021 law, H.B. 951, which creates targets for N.C. utilities for carbon reduction. This law, called “Energy...
The N.C. Supreme Court will decide in the weeks ahead whether the General Assembly will need to redraw state election maps again. The state’s highest court heard oral arguments Tuesday in a case challenging maps used for this year’s legislative and congressional elections.
A $25 million gift to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill will fund a new center built around reducing youth suicides. The move comes as child and teen suicide rates have increased in recent years due in part to the ripple effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. The gift, made by UNC alum William...
By all accounts, Republican State Senator Lisa Barnes, R-Nash, representing Johnston and Nash Counties has a record of public service that is to be commended, even if you disagree with her political positions on healthcare, education, and the economy. Outside of partisan politics, she works with the Coalition for Addiction and Recovery Education, brings faith and...
I’m less interested in partisan politics than some of my peers, but I’m tired of politicians coddling criminals. Violent crime is up in North Carolina and generally way up in many of America’s urban environments. Violent crime in Asheville is up 31% over five years. Statistics are telling, but behind the numbers are actual dead mothers, sons, and other...
I attended the third National Conservativism conference in Miami and was pleasantly surprised by what I heard. I went skeptical: “nationalism” left a bad taste in my mouth, and I was sure I would find rabid Donald Trump supporters, QAnon types, or people who despised those from other countries. None of my preconceptions were true....
The North Carolina Supreme Court met in the Historic 1767 Chowan Count Courthouse in Edenton on October 3 and 4. The beauty of the setting belied the ugly politics behind two of the cases the court heard on those days. The court had decided on a 4-3 party-line vote on July 28 to truncate the normal judicial process in Harper v. Hall, a...
In 2020, polls projected North Carolina and Florida to go for Biden in the presidential race, but both ended up in Trump's electoral column. This year, polls show tightening races across the country, many within the margin of error, leading experts to speculate whether poll accuracy is an issue again.
With just six weeks to go until election day, former President Donald Trump will hold a rally in Wilmington Friday for Republican U.S. Senate candidate Ted Budd. Roads around Wilmington are already closed, and traffic is redirected across the area as the parking lots for the rally open.
Getting Ted Budd to the U.S. Senate appears to be a top priority for national Republicans. In campaign spending reports out Tuesday, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell’s Senate Leadership Fund PAC spent more than $3.4 million dollars in ads this week. The blitz of ads comes as former President Donald Trump announces plans to campaign for Budd in Wilmington, N.C. on September 23.
A lawsuit filed by the Republican National Committee, the N.C. Republican Party, and Clay County GOP Chair Barbara Deas over state election rules as early voting by mail began. The suit, filed Sept, 9, seeks to reign in what Republicans see as illegal tampering with election law by the Democrat-majority N.C. State Board of Elections (NCSBE), especially regarding the absentee-ballot deadline and limits on election observers.
President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris are both unpopular with a majority of North Carolinians, and Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Cheri Beasley seems to have taken notice.
Donna King, Carolina Journal editor-in-chief, discusses N.C. parents’ participation in a Washington, D.C, rally about the dangers of fentanyl. King offered these comments during the Sept. 23, 2022, edition of PBS North Carolina’s “Front Row with Marc Rotterman.”
Mitch Kokai, John Locke Foundation senior political analyst, assesses 2022 midterm election contests for the U.S. House and Senate. Kokai offered these comments during the Sept. 23, 2022, edition of PBS North Carolina’s “Front Row with Marc Rotterman.”
Mitch Kokai, John Locke Foundation senior political analyst, discusses the U.S. Army’s recommendation that soldiers consider applying for food stamps to help them fight inflation. Kokai offered these comments during the Sept. 16, 2022, edition of PBS North Carolina’s “Front Row with Marc Rotterman.”
Dr. Terry Stoops, director of the Center for Effective Education at the John Locke Foundation, discusses a new charter school proposed for Garner. The Wake County Public School System opposes the school. Stoops offered these comments during a Sept. 14, 2022, report on WRAL.
On Wednesday, September 14, Amy Cooke, CEO of the John Locke Foundation, testified before the U.S. House Subcommittee Oversight and Investigations. The Democrat-led committee titled the hearing "The Role of Public Relations Firms in Preventing Action on Climate Change."
I attended the third National Conservativism conference in Miami and was pleasantly surprised by what I heard. I went skeptical: “nationalism” left a bad taste in my mouth, and I was sure I would find rabid Donald Trump supporters, QAnon types, or people who despised those from other countries. None of my preconceptions were true....
“Real Time” with Bill Maher has become one of the last, if not last, American television talk show to air political commentary from a left-wing perspective that is not under the guise of political correctness. While the host, American comedian Bill Maher, views political events through a progressive lens, he does not hold back from...
Donna King, Carolina Journal editor-in-chief, discusses new teen suicide information in North Carolina. King offered these comments during the Sept. 30, 2022, edition of PBS North Carolina’s “Front Row with Marc Rotterman.”
Before we get to the crazy, I do want to let all the good folks down in Florida that I’m thinking of them. I know many of you are, too. As a Hurricane Katrina evacuee, I know firsthand what a big storm can do, which is decimate homes and lives. Obviously, folks throughout North Carolina...
Mitch Kokai, John Locke Foundation senior political analyst, discusses the New York Times’ column warning about America’s “free-speech problem.” Kokai offered these comments during the March 25, 2022, edition of PBS North Carolina’s “Front Row with Marc Rotterman.”
Canadian professor, author, and psychologist Dr. Jordan Peterson on Thursday offered a non-political and largely academic lecture on the psychology of beauty, dreams, and purpose. The reaction from city officials and activists to the address at the Durham Performing Arts Center was night-and-day from the one leading up to his appearance four years earlier. It...
As the Russian invasion of neighboring Ukraine continues to escalate, North Carolina’s local Ukrainian population is rallying to bring attention to the suffering of people in their homeland and to gather supplies to help them. Donna Goldstein, co-president of the Ukrainian Association of North Carolina, finds herself at the forefront of these efforts. Goldstein has...
The fourth estate, journalism, is racing to receivership unless we can rescue it from its rapacious self. The hubris hasn’t always been this bad, this blatant, or this biased, yet it worsens daily. In the town I grew up in, Nashville, Tennessee, there were two newspapers in the 1950s and 1960s, one for the morning,...
One of the goals within our cultural wars is to push Christmas aside, to make even more room for divisive politicized agendas that tear us apart.