CHARLOTTE, NC– After a contentious and divisive first year of the Trump presidency, the president and members of Congress have a chance to at least start to move toward the bipartisanship that most Americans want so the government will work for the American people. But is it possible for Democrats and Republicans to come together after so much has happened with so much to do
Archives for January 2018
Opinion: To Make Government Work, You Have to Respect It
Explore any part of the vast expanse of the Western United States, and you are sure to stumble across a plaque affixed to the corner of stone stairs leading to a pathway through a national park or monument. You will no doubt get similar unexpected knowledge from a sign hanging on the wall of a library in small-town America.
Things Americans take for granted, many of them, were financed by the federal government, built by U.S. workers, grateful for the Depression-era lifeline provided by the Works Progress Administration. Many of the roads, bridges and sidewalks that crisscross cities in every part of the country share the same provenance — the federal government everyone complains about.
It all works, somehow, until a shutdown, the latest version of which ended almost before it began. And boy did everyone breathe a sigh of relief when they learned the (much maligned) post office would keep sending and delivering through rain and hail, sleet and shutdown.
Jan252018
Debate on CMS Expanding Definition of Diversity
CHARLOTTE, NC — At the school board meeting on Tuesday night, those on different sides of a difficult issue had their say. In the end, the board voted 7-2 to adopt a more inclusive definition of diversity, expanding it to include sexual orientation and gender identity/expression, along with race, gender, national origin and religion.
Political Contributor Mary C. Curtis talks about whether the policy makes students feel welcomed or replace parent’s teaching on personal issues
Jan252018
Opinion: Forgetting What It Means to Be an American
The 2004 romantic comedy “50 First Dates” offered a novel, though somewhat implausible, premise — and I don’t mean that Drew Barrymore would find Adam Sandler irresistible. The heroine of the tale, afflicted with short-term memory loss, woke up each morning with a clean slate, thinking it was the same day, with no recollection of anything that happened the day before.
Who knew the president of the United States, most members of a political party and White House staff would suffer from the same condition?
Jan182018
Court panel says N.C. voting maps use unconstitutional partisan gerrymandering. What’s next?
CHARLOTTE, NC — North Carolina lawmakers are redrawing the state’s Congressional district maps, after judges called the old ones unconstitutional.
They have two weeks to get it done.
A panel of Federal Judges ruled Republicans’ created an unfair advantage when they used race and other partisan factors to create the current maps.
Our political contributor Mary C. Curtis stopped by Rising to offer some perspective.
Jan102018
How Trump became ‘the white affirmative action president’
(CNN) When the Trump administration recently signaled that it was going to crack down on affirmative action, some critics responded with an odd request: Why not start with the man sitting in the Oval Office? President Donald Trump embodies the worst stereotypes conservatives have invoked to describe affirmative action beneficiaries, according to several commentators, political scientists and diversity experts. They say he’s entitled, unqualified and held to lower standards because of racial grievances. They call Trump the nation’s first affirmative action president.
Jan092018
Opinion: Why Oprah in 2020 Is Both Blessing and Curse for Trump and the GOP
It didn’t take long for “Oprah in 2020” to start trending after the one-named icon’s stirring Golden Globes speech on Sunday night.
Perhaps not surprisingly, considering his gift for exploiting political and cultural fault lines, one of the first to connect the media and philanthropic queen to electoral gold was none other than Donald Trump, who has said in the past that the two on a presidential ticket would win “easily.”
Maybe the president really is the “very stable genius” he says he is.
But did Trump also see her as the competition that could be his undoing?
Jan082018
Fashion Activism at 75th Golden Globes
Hollywood’s ‘Party of the Year’ is Sunday night in Los Angeles. The 75th Annual Golden Globe Awards celebrate the best in film and American television, but this year, actors and actresses are using their fashion to send a message about sexual harassment. Mary Curtis, an award-winning journalist and columnist with Roll Call, discusses with CGTN’s Wang Guan.
Jan082018
Opinion: Will African-American Female Leadership Move Into the Spotlight in 2018?
It’s kind of a pattern. In tangled tales of the intersection of racism and sexism, women of color are depended upon for the hard work but pushed aside for recognition.
Jan042018
The Olympics as Diplomacy
CHARLOTTE, NC – South Korea has offered to talk with the North about joining next month’s Olympics…so could this potentially signal that the Korean Peninsula wants to use the winter games as a diplomatic solution to the nuclear crisis?
The nuclear taunting between the U.S. and North Korea has escalated, with President Trump tweeting that his “button” is bigger that the North Korean leader. Will South Korea’s paying “good cop” to Trump’s “bad cop” be an opening for a compromise?
The Olympics, in the past, have been center stage for political statements that have led to diplomatic discourse – in positive and negatives ways. Will the 2018 winter games bring a breakthrough? Or is North Korea playing for time and using overtures as a way to drive a wedge between South Korea and the U.S.?
Political Contributor Mary C. Curtis offers more perspective.
Jan032018
