But it was not a unanimous vote:

“Even though the vote was 6-1, Earl McKee…was voting against one section. The way I had originally written [the resolution] he was fine with.”

McKee confirmed this on Thursday. "Let me be very clear,” McKee said. “I have no issue or concern with opening or continuing the conversation of if, how, should or when reparations should be discussed. The conversation should be how we ensure a level playing field without obstacles to anyone.”

The only way to "level the playing field" for a population that has been shackled, lynched, denied property rights, segregated, denied access to municipal water & sewer, and a whole laundry list of other discriminatory practices by government and the private sector, is to give them genuine, tangible resources. How you do that is of course the critical question, and I'm not sure the OC Commission is going to put the focus where they need to:

Julie von Haefen has some things to say:

The 72-hour waiting period requires 43% of patients to travel considerable distances across county lines to access reproductive health care and thereby places an undue financial burden on women in our state who need safe and reliable access to family planning services. This requirement isolates rural women from their support systems and burdens them with more financial barriers to abortion access than other women in our state. Taking time off work and waiting three days to receive health care is extremely burdensome for many people in North Carolina, and is especially burdensome, if not impossible, during a pandemic. By repealing the counseling and 72-hour waiting period requirements, our state can break down the financial and political barriers that block many in our state from accessing the crucial reproductive health care they need.

Going into lecture mode now to air a Festivus grievance that has been bothering me for some time: Protecting a woman's right to choose is a core Progressive tenet. I don't care what other Progressive credentials you might burnish, if you choose to leave this one out, you have missed that boat completely. It's not a throwaway issue, something that can be casually disregarded, as I have seen as recently as 2-3 weeks ago. Lecture over, back to Julie:

Coal lobbyist Andrew Wheeler has a special place in hell waiting for him:

A coalition of nine environmental groups is suing the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) over a rule that extends the life of giant pits of toxic coal sludge, risking contamination of nearby water sources.

The July rule allows for the more than 400 coal ash pits across the nation, where coal residue is mixed with liquid and stored in open-air, often unlined ponds, to stay open as late as 2038.

We can't be shed of this monster soon enough. While it remains to be seen how much Duke Energy will try to take advantage of this, I have a hunch it will depend on if they're allowed to fleece ratepayers for cleaning up their own mess or not. A few words from Earthjustice:

growing up i thought @CherieBerryNC was some amazingly smart person that managed to be Labor Comish for decades but today @theobserver and @MSNBC have proven that she’s just an old idiot #NCCovid #ncpol

— Vanessa Huxtable (@WasherofHands) December 8, 2020

The Board of Elections should never have allowed that elevator picture in the first place. She didn't have to campaign hard during election season, because her smiling face was etched into everybody's memory,