Archive for December 2014
A Grave Injustice
GQ just published a list of the 20 craziest politicians and two North Carolinians are on it: Mark Walker, the new Congressman from Greensboro who made the list for joking he’d be for bombing Mexico and that he worries Obama may not leave office at the end of his term, and Congresswoman Virginia Foxx.…
Read MoreWayne Goodwin’s Customer Service
Insurance Commissioner Wayne Goodwin and Governor Pat McCrory appear to have different ideas of what “customer service” means. To McCrory and his administration, the “customers” are “corporations” and, too often, “polluters.” To Goodwin, the customers are “consumers” and, in this instance, “homeowners.” Goodwin last week denied the insurance industry’s request to raise homeowners’…
Read MoreNot The Faintest Idea
It was a simple question but back in February after the big coal ash spill it needed a quick answer: Were the coal ash ponds a ticking time bomb or nothing to worry about? A few days ago the State Official in charge of the coal ash cleanup told the Environmental Review Commission, “We…
Read MorePat’s Payout Freakout
Two things are for sure here: First, it’s never good to be linked to Mark Sanford in a Page One story. Second, if Bev Perdue had done it, McCrory and the Republican Party would be howling for her investigation, indictment and impeachment. But there are two big questions: First, how bad, and how politically…
Read MoreMaybe Not The Best Idea
About a week ago the Governor went on a tear about 60 Minutes, saying Leslie Stahl had done him wrong; that he’d sat sweating under the hot lights for an hour answering questions but she hadn’t even blamed Democrats once for the coal ash spill – all his work had been for nothing. Worse than…
Read MoreHe Gets No Respect
He’d been through, he said, the ordeal of sitting for a whole hour and fifteen minutes under hot lights, sweating, answering questions but then, he added, when he saw the interview on TV he had been shocked. He sounded – not in the TV interview but, later, when he described the interview to a…
Read MoreWarren and Webb
Conventional wisdom says only two people can stop Hillary Clinton from the nomination in 2016: Hillary herself and Bill Clinton. But two other people embody a potential problem: Senator Elizabeth Warren and former Senator Jim Webb. Warren and Webb are vastly different individuals, but are making much the same critique of Washington. The message…
Read MoreKeep Pat Safe
Once again, a TAPster bails me out on a busy day with this guest blog: “Regardless of our personal feelings about Governor McCrory, we should all pray for his safety. We should help him across the street, taste his food and take turns guarding the mansion’s front door. “These drastic measures are required…
Read MoreA Third Crime
The talk shows and newspapers were full of stories last weekend about riots and protests about white policemen killing young black men – people opined about our country’s ‘systematic racial problems’ and how Michael Brown was killed for stealing a box of cigars and Eric Garner died for selling tax free cigarettes on the street…
Read MoreCharles B. Aycock? Really?
Democrats in Washington are squabbling about torture, a $1.1 trillion budget bill and regulations on Wall Street and big banks. Democrats in North Carolina are squabbling about – I kid you not – Charles Brantley Aycock. Specifically, the squabble is in part over whether the wife of a descendant of North Carolina’s governor from…
Read More