“You’ve gotta be moderate,” they said.

“Protecting women and children in the bathroom will kill our economy,” they said.

Or not.

Forbes Magazine, in ranking the best states in the nation for business, placed the Tar Heel state at number 2  – in spite of HB2.

The blowback that erupted after House Bill 2 was signed into law this year didn’t hurt North Carolina’s ranking in Forbes’ annual list of the “Best States for Business.”

For the second consecutive year, North Carolina ranked second on the list behind Utah, which topped the list for the third consecutive year.

One key for North Carolina’s high ranking was in the area of business costs, where the state ranked second in the nation.

“North Carolina has the second smallest union workforce in the U.S. in terms of percent of total employment” behind South Carolina, Forbes noted. “The resulting benefit is labor costs that are 11 percent below the national average – fourth lowest in the country.”

That’s an added giggle.

Unions kill jobs and hurt workers and their families.

Commonsense bathroom laws protect families.

Liberals are peeling their skin off, as we speak.

Of course, there has been a slowing, due to liberal companies revolting and boycotting, due to the bathroom bill, but those losses are quickly absorbed by the overall health of North Carolina’s Republican-led economy.

The law prompted North Carolina’s ranking in the regulatory environment category to drop from No. 4 to No. 7, but that didn’t affect its overall ranking.

Forbes also cited the $2.7 billion in foreign direct investment that the state attracted last year, which it said “has fueled much of North Carolina’s high-tech job growth,” and noted that “people have been flocking to North Carolina for the past decade.”

Forbes considers six categories in compiling its list. In addition to regulatory environment and business costs, here’s how North Carolina ranked in the other categories: No. 12 in labor supply; No. 22 in economic climate; No. 9 in growth prospects; and No. 13 in quality of life.

North Carolina is the only state that has ranked among the top five overall in each of the 11 annual lists compiled by Forbes.

Republicans have maintained their hold on the state government in this past election. Only Governor McCrory is still battling for his seat, but if any more corruption from Democrats is uncovered, that may not be a problem and the state can roll on to more and more success.