Still waiting for all the "winning" to happen:

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce says $1.1 billion in North Carolina exports are threatened by a trade war, including a half-billion dollars worth of exports to Canada and $350 million to China.

Tariffs are impacting not only businesses, builders and growers but consumers who will see higher prices for things like appliances, cars and houses. Multimillion-dollar projects are in danger of being postponed or canceled.

I've never been a fan of "completely" free trade. The truth is, there are over a billion unemployed or seriously under-employed people worldwide, and American workers could easily be swallowed up and replaced in that formula. But you have to approach trade policy like a surgeon, carefully cutting and stitching, and not blasting it with a sawed-off shotgun like Trump is doing. The ripple effect of unintended consequences can be devastating to businesses:

Stirring the tea leaves on November:

Could slate of constitutional amendments backfire on the Right? | NC Policy Watch https://t.co/njOBlEFoGi #ncga #ncpol #ncgov

— NC Policy Watch (@NCPolicyWatch) July 3, 2018

Sometimes a "controlled burn" gets out of hand:

Because they've never met a bill they didn't want to hijack:

Lawmakers focused on improving school safety for months have planned to address a significant shortage of school psychologists, but none of the related bills filed by legislators look like they are going anywhere during this legislative session.

The proposal had broad support, and passed unanimously in the House, but the bill failed after the Senate tacked on a controversial and unrelated healthcare provision. Then the Senate stalled the House's attempts to resurrect the psychology provision in another bill about licensing regulation in various industries. That bill did not make it past the legislature's self-imposed deadline to send all statewide bills to the governor's desk.

That's pretty much all you need to know about how Berger and his acolytes roll. No matter how needed and necessary a piece of legislation is, if they can't use (abuse) it to get something else they want, it's no longer worth their effort. The sheer arrogance and selfishness is breathtaking. And it's not like this is a "nice to have" enhancement of our schools, it's a crisis that has deadly consequences if not addressed:

Going down the same crooked road again:

We all know how this went last time around. We cant trust Republicans with a "vague" voter suppression bill that "leaves lots of questions" #ncpol https://t.co/dJ5VlnHlcV

— Robert Howard (@RobertWHoward) June 12, 2018

Not to mention, putting something "vague" in the NC Constitution is a recipe for a legal nightmare. But of course Republicans don't care about things like that, they thrive in an environment of uncertainty.

Making our schools both more religious and more dangerous:

6/5: House: The "School Self-Defense Act" -permit teachers to carry guns. House K-12 Ed Comm: "National and State Mottos in Schools Act," aka "In God We Trust" in every public school. Sen. Rules: HB 717, Judicial Elections https://t.co/pXkmXqUe55 #ncga #ncpol #NCed #faircourtsnc pic.twitter.com/CN6fWGGCZQ

— Stamp NC Blue (@StampNCBlue) June 5, 2018

It's almost like GOP leaders asked themselves, "Let's see, what can we do to make it look like we care about school safety, but doesn't cost much money?"