And help parents with back-to-school

The upcoming sales tax holiday will be a big help to small businesses still struggling to recover from the economic recession, says Gregg Thompson, state director of the National Federation of Independent Business, (NFIB)North Carolina’s leading small-business association.

The holiday is Aug. 5-7.

According to the North Carolina Substance Improvement Project, 30,738 of the 38,423 people in prison in North Carolina need substance abuse services. It costs roughly $25,000 to send someone to prison in North Carolina, which is paid for out of tax dollars.

In 1962, the U.S. Supreme Court first ruled that addiction is an illness, not a crime, and that states may require addicts to submit to treatment, and also pursue criminal sanctions for non-compliance. Responding to an obvious need of including treatment in the judicial process with the intent of preventing addictive behavior and criminal activity, The Treatment Accountability for Safer Communities, TASC, was formed.

Senate Military and Veterans Appropriations Act includes $750 million for North Carolina U.S. Senator Kay R. Hagan has announced that the Senate approved $750 million for veterans programs and military construction in North Carolina that she fought to secure. Hagan voted in support of the 2012 Military Construction and Veterans Affairs and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, which passed the Senate Wednesday night, July 20, by a 97-2 vote. The bill now moves to be merged with the House version.

“North Carolina is the most military friendly state in the nation, and this important legislation helps ensure our servicemembers, veterans and their families receive the support and care they deserve,” said Hagan, Chair of the Senate Armed Services Subcommittee on Emerging Threats.

Remember the nuclear waste debates of the 1980s? Remember the panic after Three Mile Island, a nuclear power station on an island in the Susquehanna River near Harrisburg, Penn., which after a reactor core meltdown in 1979 released highly radioactive gas into the environment? Remember the protests and pickets? Remember how the consensus in the country regarding the clear dangers of nuclear power led to the cancelation of all new nuclear power projects for decades?

Some in Western North Carolina, those who are able to remember all the way back to those glory years of muscle cars and Reaganomics, may even recall Sandy Mush and a local protest campaign to keep nuclear waste from being trucked into our mountains and dumped here.

Read more...