Posted on 03/23/2017 6:58:21 AM PDT by fwdude
The good news for North Carolina is starting to sound like a broken record, but based on the latest business reports, HB 2 might have been the best thing that happened to the state! Tourism is thriving and the economy is expanding — which is exactly the opposite of what liberals predicted. In a great Washington Times piece today, Bradford Richardson and Valerie Richardson are quick to point out that whatever “boycott” the Left had unleashed on the Tar Heels wasn’t nearly as powerful as they thought it would be.
Financial indicators released for 2016, they write, “show that the boycott has failed to derail North Carolina as a regional and national powerhouse,” despite the loss of some significant sporting events. As we’ve talked about before, hotel occupancy and room demand shattered records last year — part of the reason Forbes named North Carolina #2 in the nation for doing business. Now, adding to those accolades, Site Selection magazine just named the state “fourth in the nation for attracting and expanding businesses with the arrival of 289 projects — and seventh in projects per capita.” Hardly the stuff of a flailing economy! “North Carolina finished first for drawing corporate facilities in the eight-state South Atlantic region,” the Times goes on. “Also unscathed was the state’s seasonally adjusted unemployment rate, which was 5.3 in January 2016 and 5.3 percent in January 2017.” If liberals were hoping to make a case study out of North Carolina and the effects of privacy bills, they’ll have a tough time doing so now. As many as 13 states are considering measures like HB 2 — and based on these numbers, it might be the best decision they ever make!
Meanwhile, Target and sports associations like the NBA and ACC continue to pay for their stubbornness. After moving their events out of North Carolina, both the NBA All-Star Game and ACC Basketball Championship sold the fewest tickets to their events ever. The almost year-long boycott of Target has the retailer swimming in red ink, with shares down as much as 35 percent since opening its bathrooms and changing rooms to people of either gender. Yet amazingly, the company’s executives and PR specialists continue to insist that their transgender policy has anything to do with the crash. Target spokeswoman Erika Winkels told Snopes.com, “We have made it clear over time that we’ve seen no material impact to the business based on the bathroom policy. We don’t have anything new or different to share.”
But saying it doesn’t make it so. And if, like the media, they believe that ignoring it will make it go away, Target is mistaken. The company was at its peak the day they announced their new bathroom rules. After that, they’ve yet to recover. Compared to the S&P 500, Target has been declining while the rest of the market — including their biggest competitors — rebounds. Coincidence? Only Target thinks so.
Which competitors of Target have turned around financially?
The Leftists in Austin are using the N C boycott as a scare tactic to keep Texas legislators from voting for a gender-specific bill such as N.C.’s. If the lawmakers have the facts stated here, they will not be bullied by the warped-gender crowd.
I was at Kroger store a couple of days ago and there was an older woman in the floral department. She had long, dirty, stringy hair, was wearing a sundress meant for a 15 year old who shops at Forever 21. As I got closer I saw the 5 o’clock shadow and armpit hair. Yup, it was an older man dressed up as a little girl.
That’s what wants in the bathrooms and dressing rooms with our daughters. It was all normal and natural, right? Should be encouraged and made against the law if normal people don’t accept it and celebrate it and let it have access to our children.
It was and is comedy gold to watch the people who thought electing Roy Cooper would mean NC would turn into San Francisco overnight.
Apparently many of them STILL don’t understand the two-party system and the role of the legislature, to say nothing of the balance of power in the legislature.
Even funnier is that Cooper sure as hell isn’t going to rock the boat at this point in time.
The Charlotte & Raleigh newspapers would make you think the state was going to become the next Dust Bowl (Sand Bowl?) with everyone fleeing in terror and disgust because Tommy Teenager couldn’t shower with the girls.
Guess which single ACC squad remains in the NCAA Basketball Tournament after eight. . .count them EIGHT ACC teams got bounced in the first or second rounds? Can you say North Carolina?
Here in Charlotte, NC, the local fishwrap (Charlotte Observer, which I refer to as the Disturber) continually flogs the issue of HB2 and the damage it’s causing to the economy here. Their latest editorial diatribe appears today under the breathless headline: “A year later, HB2 has cost North Carolina millions. How much worse will it get?”.
Yet there is no proof of any damage to the economy at all.
If you follow their logic, it has “cost” the State millions because NC hasn’t legalized marijuana, prostitution, gambling, and a host of other things the majority of the State’s largely-moral population is against.
Reality trumps liberalism.
Liberals fail to notice and continue to flail away.
I’m still not convinced that Cooper was fairly elected. There were some suspicious shenanigans in that election, and the rabid motivation of the left to dethrone their top nemesis in McCrory was some strong motivation to “find” votes.
It was crooked as a dog’s hind leg.
As usual, once the result went the media’s way they instantly forgot about the polls they relentlessly published that called the result into question.
Me either!! God willing and another Trump victory in 2020 will make Cooper a "one and done" governor!
In one instance they claimed that Company XYZ abandoned a construction project (or possibly renting office space) at the very last minute because of some newfound moral outrage about HB2.
This would ignore the very long, very expensive runup to such a build or expansion. To walk away dramatically in some sort of boycott would be financially ruinous and therefore highly unlikely. There was no official statement from the company and no proof for the claim other than what might charitably be called anecdotal evidence.
The loss of virtue-signaling sports leagues and games is a plus, not a minus, in almost every conceivable category except, perhaps, if you are a popcorn vendor.
Ironically, the same people who tsk-tsk about the outsized importance of sports in the culture are the ones claiming the loss of a once-per-year event (ACC) or a once-per-20-years event (NBA All-Star Game) are bellwethers of economic ruin and that losing them shames NC.
Hypocrisy is nothing new for the lefties, nor is failing to connect cause and effect. It can't be said often enough: had the smug city council not overstepped the mark then HB2 never would have been enacted.
The ACC is too busy with this to investigate the courses that UNC athletes did not take but got credit for.
“I’m still not convinced that Cooper was fairly elected.”
Likely there was voter fraud particularly in Durham. However, McCrory ran a very poor campaign. Cooper, with out of state money, pounded McCrory on the airwaves for 6 months while McCrory’s advertising didn’t come until the last few weeks before the election. McCrory also failed to hit the campaign trail. Finally, he sealed his fate by supporting funding the widening of Interstate 77 north of Charlotte by converting it to a toll road administered by a foreign company. That didn’t play well with the middle class commuters from outlying communities to Charlotte. The votes he lost along the I77 corridor from his first election in 2012, to his loss in 2016, would have given him the margin of victory over Cooper.
Overall McCrory was a good governor. Unfortunately instead of aggressively touting his accomplishments, and attacking his socialist opponent, he ran a typical Republican establishment defensive campaign. When will GOP campaign consultants recognize the era of gentlemanly campaigns is long gone? Democrats come to the battle prepared to fight in the gutter. As Trump has demonstrated, when you engage in a blood sport, you need to always hit harder than your opponent and you can never let any attack be unchallenged.
Trump won in NC, Burr won reelection to the Senate, Republicans dominated the Congressional elections and control the state legislature. Had McCrory run a strong, aggressive campaign in 2016, and resisted special interests on the I77 toll road, he would have been reelected despite the infamous bathroom bill.
So when does Texas vote on their version? Sooner the better. The asshat that runs the NFL has threatened them lets hope that doesn’t work. What is it with pro sports?
Target is down over 35% over the same timeframe.
Plus, Texas is a so much more massive economy than North Carolina, the dynamics are much different. All of the massive industry in our sales-tax-free state isn’t going to be affected in the least.
Only ones having vapors over this are the media and a handful of leftist agitators who want to virtue signal that they're more enlightened than the rest. 90+ % of NC could care what they think.
It's great. Gives Pols a bit of backbone on the topic, for a change.
The Senate approved the bill, but we have a disgusting RINO in Joe Straus as Speaker of the House who is reluctant to do what needs doing.
Still like the whinny leftists trying to get the Belk Bowl moved. Belk told them where to go. Belk’s HQ is in Charlotte NC making the whole idea of moving it absurd.
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