Politics

Politics

There are 1,056 posts filed in Politics (this is page 65 of 106).

Good election day

It’s been a long but good election day! All of the candidates I supported won election, with Nancy McFarlane becoming Raleigh’s next mayor, Russ Stephenson reelected as at-large councilor, Eugene Weeks being elected outright to the District C seat, Randy Stagner winning a seat as the District A councilor, and Kevin Sutton reelected to the school board. Also, both the housing and transportation bonds passed by a good margin. To top it off, school board chairman Ron Margiotta was sent packing when Susan Evans defeated him tonight. There’s still a runoff pending for the District 3 school board seat held by Kevin Hill, but that’s within reach.

A fantastic day, politics-wise!

Hagan is not paying attention

Tens of thousands are protesting how big corporations own our government and Senator Kay Hagan wants to sell us out even more. Has she not been paying attention to Occupy Wall Street?

I can’t think of a bigger blunder than introducing this bill now. This is not going to go over well with the “99%.”

North Carolina Sen. Kay Hagan Thursday introduced a bipartisan bill to entice U.S. corporations to bring home offshore profits at a sharply discounted tax rate – a move she said could help jump-start a stagnant economy.

At a news conference with Republican Sen. John McCain, Hagan said that offering a tax holiday – a temporary lowering of corporate taxes for offshore profits from 35 percent to 8.75 percent or lower – would encourage companies to hire more American workers.

“More than $1 trillion of American company earnings are stranded outside of America where it is not doing one bit of good for the American economy,” said Hagan, a Democrat from Greensboro. “Companies with a North Carolina presence have roughly $200 billion sitting overseas. I want that money back in America and I want it back in North Carolina.”

via Hagan backs corporate tax holiday – National – NewsObserver.com.

Press released

In my inbox today was a request from the City of Raleigh’s public affairs department for my resume and bio. The city is apparently working up a press release about my becoming chair of the city’s Parks board and my fellow boardmember Kimberly Siran becoming vice-chair.

Of course, it would have to take a really, really slow news day for this to get into print anywhere. I’m talking like double-dog slow. Even so, it’s pretty novel for me to be the subject of a press release.

At least one news source will be covering it: my blog! Once it’s released I’ll post a copy!

St. Aug candidate forum

I attended a candidate forum at St. Aug Monday where two mayoral candidates and all the District C candidates were addressing the mostly-student audience. The audience was a bit reserved and the candidates mostly spoke of vague goals. In general, the forum seemed kind of dull.

Then Raquel Williams, one of four candidates for the District C seat, stood up and told her remarkable story. Ms. Williams is a smart, hard-working woman who has far more education than I’ll ever have and she earned it as a single parent of four children. Her personal narrative described her path through college, which was sidetracked four times by pregnancies.
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Safe neighborhoods

Two weeks ago, one of my neighbors reported on our neighborhood email list that his girlfriend’s car had been broken into and her iPod stolen. While it’s a shame her $100 car window was broken to steal her $50 iPod, what caught my attention was what the responding officer said: that this was the first motor vehicle larceny our neighborhood has suffered in months. I’m flabbergasted we went nearly the whole summer without any car break-ins.
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New Raleigh bonds earn Triple A rating

There are some who want to make a big deal about Raleigh’s debt. In reality, Raleigh’s AAA rating has been earned over decades and provide our city with the cheapest financing for making our investments in our city.

It’s smart money.

Fitch Ratings has assigned its highest Triple A rating to two new general obligation bond packages, totalling $34.5 million, being sold by the City of Raleigh.

The agency also reaffirmed the AAA status of the city’s other $219 million in outstanding general obligation, or GO, bonds. The ratings outlook is stable.

via New Raleigh bonds earn Triple A rating from Fitch – Triangle Business Journal.

What to do about Pakistan?

I’ve been meaning to write about the remarkable comments made last week by outgoing Joint Chiefs chairman Admiral Mike Mullen regarding Pakistan. In unusually frank terms, Adm. Mullen pointed the finger at Pakistan’s ISI secret service as being a “veritable arm” of the terrorist group the Haqqani network, which is accused in the bombing the American Embassy in Kabul. Retiring soon or not, Admiral Mullen wouldn’t dare make this accusation if there wasn’t solid intelligence backing it up.
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Redmond still standing by her sweetheart deal

As part of the N&O’s profiles of candidates for Raleigh Mayor, the newspaper ran another story taking another look at Billie Redmond’s dealings on Wake County’s Citizens’ Facilities Advisory Committee, a citizen’s committee tasked with deciding how to spend bond money. As you recall, as co-chairperson of the board Redmond enthusiastically supported a proposal to overspend $4 million of taxpayer money on property for an Apex school, knowing the deal would net her company a cool quarter-million in commissions. Fortunately, the Commissioners torpedoed the deal and put a new policy in place that all property must be appraised first.

In today’s article, Redmond inexplicably still thinks that was a great decision:
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