It is not everyday that one person has a relationship to so many of the day’s main news stories, but Angela Wright has touched history as the woman not called to support Anita Hill when she testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee during Clarence Thomas’ confirmation hearings almost 30 years ago. Wright talks to Mary C. Curtis about former Vice President Joe Biden, #MeToo and the inner workings of a contentious Supreme Court battle.
The ‘invisible’ people who pay the price for Trump’s COVID malpractice
Despite the late nights and long hours that took my father away more than this daddy’s girl would have liked, he never stopped being my hero. I knew that when he finished his day job, changed clothes and headed to his extra shifts tending bar or waiting tables for local caterers, he was doing it for a reason. Lots of them, actually —my mom, two sisters, two brothers and me.
For someone as proud as he was, it was a sacrifice because of what he had to put up with from people with a lot more money and a lot less character. They treated him like he was “invisible,” or worse, and he put up with it, for us.
What he did not have to do is endure the recklessness of a boss who willfully and deliberately exposed him to a deadly virus in the name of politics.
But others very much like him do.
Oct082020
POLITICAL WRAP: Mixed Messages on President’s Health; Cal Cunningham Text Scandal
CHARLOTTE, N.C. – Mixed messages this weekend about President Trump’s health, as he remains hospitalized at Walter Reed Medical Center.
And North Carolina’s Senate race, upended by revelations Democrat Cal Cunningham sent sexually suggestive text messages to a California strategist, who is not his wife.
Our political contributor Mary C. Curtis has more in the video above.
Oct042020
Charlotte Talks Local News Roundup: Phase 3 Reopening, CMS Adjusts Return Plan, CMPD Officers Resign
On the local news roundup, North Carolina moves into Phase 3 of reopening. With the state’s coronavirus metrics stable, Gov. Roy Cooper is easing restrictions to allow bars and other entertainment venues to open with reduced capacity. We find out what that means and check in our COVID-19 numbers.
The first CMS students began returning to the classroom this week, with more on the way. And the school board holds an emergency meeting to adjust their return to school plan for elementary students.
Five CMPD officers connected to the in-custody death of Harold Easter resign ahead of video release.
And county elections boards across the state have begun to process tens of thousands of absentee ballots.
Our roundtable of reporters fills us in on those stories and more.
Guests
Steve Harrison, WFAE’s Political Reporter
Claire Donnelly, WFAE’s health reporter
Mary C. Curtis, columnist for Rollcall.com and WCCB-TV
Nick Ochsner, Chief Investigative Reporter at WBTV
Ann Doss Helms, WFAE’s education reporter
Oct022020
Shut up and act? Tell that to Donald Trump
After refusing to weigh in on previous presidential contests, Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson has endorsed Joe Biden and Kamala Harris in the 2020 race, lending his star power — while looking quite buff after a coronavirus scare — to a video with the Democratic ticket.
Cue the naysayers with the familiar refrain of “who cares” and “stick to acting,” conveniently ignoring the reality show-starring, tabloid-exploiting résumé of the man in the White House. Donald Trump’s Tuesday night debate performance was light on policy, but heavy on drama and fireworks, which is how he and his supporters like it. Though when the president encouraged the far-right Proud Boys to “stand back” and “stand by,” the act became all too real for anyone who cares about the “United” States.
Oct012020
Mary C. Curtis: Takeaways From First Presidential Debate
CHARLOTTE, NC — The first presidential debate is in the books!
President Donald Trump and former vice president Joe Biden took the stage in Cleveland Tuesday night.
WCCB Political contributor Mary C. Curtis discusses the biggest takeaways from the debate.
Sep302020
Trump’s ‘good genes’ rhetoric illustrates why the fight for justice never ends
It was one of lawyer Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s cases before she took her place on the Supreme Court or in pop culture memes. It is only occasionally mentioned, perhaps because the details illuminated a truth people prefer to look away from, so they can pretend that sort of thing could never happen here.
But something terrible did happen, to a teenager, sterilized in 1965 without fully consenting or understanding the consequences in a program that continued into the 1970s in the state of North Carolina. The girl became a woman whose marriage and life crashed before her story became the basis of a lawsuit Ginsburg filed in federal court that helped expose the state’s eugenics program. While North Carolina’s was particularly aggressive, other states implemented their own versions, long ago given a thumbs up by the U.S. Supreme Court in a 1927 decision written by Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.
Sep242020
