Corruption

We may never know how many undisclosed flights Democratic Gov. Beverly Perdue took in her campaigns for governor. The investigation which was begun to look into the actions of her predecessor and mentor, former Democratic Gov. Mike Easley, was cut short by the Democrat-controlled State Board of Elections. Kim Strach, the deputy manager of...
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The way Democrats in the General Assembly attempted to expand public financing of campaigns to all Council of State races was a clear example of the very corruption of power the scheme was supposed to end. The measure was created behind closed doors, without any public hearings and introduced on the floor without notice...
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Don’t look for any reform of the state’s liquor sale monopoly in this session of the General Assembly. It appears legislators need all the fortification they can get to handle the other pressing issues facing the state – like making it a felony to abuse animals and giving $300 million in corporate welfare to...
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The proposals to turn over more responsibility for the state’s troubled mental health and probation systems to private agencies are not examples of privatization, but a continuation of the poor management, bureaucratic incompetence and political cronyism that pervades North Carolina state government. The current concept of “privatization” is to award government monopolies to special...
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One of the benefits of a parliamentary democracy like the United Kingdom is the general openness to multiple parties. British voters don’t seem to get confused by more than two parties on the ballot. On the contrary, a third party helps expose corruption and malfeasance, as Dr. Mike Munger notes in this op ed...
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Celgard, LLC is going green, in more ways than one. The Charlotte-based company has received more than $52 million in taxpayer money from the federal and local governments. The company, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Polypore International, Inc., builds components of lithium-ion batteries used in electric cars. The grants were intended to help the company...
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Two Libertarian candidates for General Assembly unequivocally believe that the records, salary and employment history of state employees should be public information. They were responding to the same questions asked of Democratic and Republican elected officials by the News & Observer for a series of articles highlighting Sunshine Week. Sunshine Week is a national...
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From The Atlantic: “For the first time in recent history, the lobbying, grassroots and advertising budget of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce has surpassed the spending of BOTH the Republican National Committee and Democratic National Committee.”
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Some days, in fact most days, when I read the News & Observer some articles cause me to chuckle, either because they’re just funny or because they illustrate the absurdities and contradictions of real life. Often, it is because they highlight the hypocrisy and duplicity of most of the people people who purport to...
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Libertarian Party news release The Libertarian Party calls on President Obama to not break yet another campaign promise by directing Congress to have an open, televised format for all future negotiations on the health care overhaul bills under consideration in Congress. Read the full press release here. They are being kind. The LP headquarters...
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