Opinion: Why Oprah in 2020 Is Both Blessing and Curse for Trump and the GOP

Featured at Roll Call

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?

Read the rest atRoll Call
Jan082018 TAGS: , , , ,

Fashion Activism at 75th Golden Globes

Featured at CGTN

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.

Read the rest atCGTN
Jan082018 TAGS: , , , ,

Opinion: Will African-American Female Leadership Move Into the Spotlight in 2018?

Featured at Roll Call

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.

Read the rest atRoll Call
Jan042018 TAGS: , , , , , ,

The Olympics as Diplomacy

Featured at WCCB Rising

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.

Read the rest atWCCB Rising
Jan032018 TAGS: , , ,

Charlotte Talks: Local News Roundup Recaps 2017’s Top Stories

Featured at WFAE

What DIDN’T happen in 2017?

Charlotte grappled with its highest murder count since the early 1990s. Police were at a loss for an explanation for the sharp increase, which disproportionately impacted the African-American community.

The city’s first African-American female mayor, Vi Lyles, took office after unseating incumbent Jennifer Roberts in the Democratic primary. Young newcomers were elected to form a majority on the City Council.

The national reckoning with sexual harassment found its way to the Carolina Panthers front office, leading to the swift downfall of owner Jerry Richardson.

House Bill 2, which put transgender rights in the national conversation, went by the wayside.

A new school superintendent, Clayton Wilcox, took the helm at Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools as the dust settled on a controversial student assignment.

Mike Collins and the reporters who covered these and other stories put it all into perspective.

GUESTS

Tom Bullock, reporter, WFAE (@TomWFAE)

Glenn Burkins, editor and publisher, Q City Metro (@glennburkins)

Mary C. Curtis, Roll Call columnist (@mcurtisnc3)

Ann Doss Helms, education reporter, The Charlotte Observer (@anndosshelms)

Read the rest atWFAE
Dec292017 TAGS: , , ,

2018 Politics Preview and Predictions

Featured at WCCB Rising

CHARLOTTE, NC — Will 2018 beat 2017 when it comes to political surprises? WCCB Political Contributor Mary C. Curtis takes a look at what’s in store in Charlotte and beyond.

Read the rest atWCCB Rising
Dec272017 TAGS: , , , , , , , ,

Opinion: Thinking Small When the Big Picture Looks Cloudy

Featured at Roll Call

Polls that show a view of Congress mighty low and sinking fast invariably find voters more satisfied with their own representatives. Thumbs-down verdicts for Washington and the “swamp” in general often turn rosier when dealing with particulars.

That fact, plus gerrymandered districts and restrictive voting laws, is reason enough for Democrats to be cautious when predicting a 2018 blue electoral wave. Americans are thinking small these days, preferring to stick with the familiar and close-to-home when confronted with issues that gobble up all the oxygen in the room and the brain.

At the least, taking time for family, home, neighborhood and church is one way to make sense of life and change the things you can, as the famous “Serenity Prayer” counsels. It’s the opposite of traditional advice to look at the “big picture” for perspective when little things don’t go your way.

Read the rest atRoll Call
Dec212017 TAGS: , , , , ,

Senate Passes Largest Tax Overhaul in Three Decades

Featured at WCCB Rising

CHARLOTTE, NC — A New Bill Ends the Year and Transforms the Tax System. It looks as though the Trump administration and the Republican-controlled Congress will get its win, a legislative accomplishment, and a big one. The major overhaul of the nation’s tax system will be passed without any support from Democrats and without one public hearing. Polls show that it and President Donald Trump are unpopular, but will that change as the effects of the bill start to shake out?

Political Contributor, Mary C. Curtis weighs in.

Read the rest atWCCB Rising
Dec202017 TAGS: , , ,

Charlotte Talks News Roundup

Featured at WFAE

This week on the Friday News Roundup…

Charlotte Mecklenburg Schools now has a new school board. We’ll go over the new leadership and find out how this board  may affect student assignment and education throughout the system.

Cardinal Innovations continues to make headlines after the state stepped in to remove its CEO and board after allegations of financial mismanagement. An update on the story.

Could City Council go back to televising its citizen comment sessions? We discuss what Council Member Braxton Winston is doing in support of that possible move.

Charlotteans near Park Road are upset about the closing of the Park Terrace Movie Theatre. Why the closure? What will happen next? We discuss what we know.

Light Rail is now 10 years old, and still growing. We take a look back at those first days of the Light Rail and why the opposition of public funding for the rail still exists.

We cover those stories and much more with Mike Collins and the roundup reporters on the Charlotte Talks Local News Roundup.

Guests:

Tom Bullock, reporter for WFAE

Ann Doss Helms, reporter for The Charlotte Observer

Mary C. Curtis, columnist at Roll Call and contributor at WCCB-TV

Read the rest atWFAE
Dec152017

Opinion: The Commandments According to Roy Moore Take a Hit

Featured at Roll Call

In the Alabama Senate race, both sides went to church — Republican Roy Moore and Democrat Doug Jones took their appeals to their faithful, which, for the most part, worship the same God but came to wildly different electoral conclusions.

On Tuesday, Jones won. The miracle of a Democrat winning a statewide race in deep-red Alabama actually happened. It was not the divine intervention Moore had prayed for, perhaps pointing out the danger when you so shamelessly use the word of the Lord to divide.

Read the rest atRoll Call
Dec142017 TAGS: , , , , , , ,
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