Back when ex-Sen. Lauch Faircloth was a Democrat, he’d joke: “There are two things I’ve never understood: electricity and Republicans.” Evidently, he figured out Republicans, because he became one. But some of us still struggle. Three cases in point: First: Republicans fought Obamacare because they said millions of Americans would lose their health insurance.…
Read MoreA loyal TAPster outraged by Thom (No Clean Hands) Tillis contributes today’s blog: Just when we thought it couldn’t get any colder last week, Senator Thom Tillis embarrassed North Carolina again, voting against Loretta Lynch’s nomination as US attorney general. Lynch is the daughter of a Baptist minister from Greensboro who opened his church to protesters…
Read MoreOnce upon a time, in the Shire of Raleigh, there was a company called Progress Energy, nee CP&L. The residents of the Shire oft complained about the company, but with affection. After all, its employees and managers and overlords and even its King lived amongst the people and even walked amongst them. The people knew…
Read MoreA snow-day deep-dive into current political commentary finds three things. One, Republicans are becoming more and more deranged. Two, Democrats are falling deeper and deeper into despair. And, three, it’s all about President Obama. Politics has come unhinged since Election Day 2008 and the election of a black President. It just gets worse as…
Read MoreThe fur’s flying over in Chapel Hill – Dean Boger (at the Law School) along with a cohort of professors have lit into the Board of Governors saying closing the Law School’s Anti-Poverty Center leaves them with only one conclusion: The Board is for poverty. The Dean lamented the Board was guilty of every…
Read MoreSomething was missing from the usual snow day TV fare. Bill and Renee ran down the shutdowns. Elizabeth and Greg kept predicting the snow would end any minute. Gilbert was giddy. Various teams showed us various roads. But…something just wasn’t there. Oh yes! The Governor’s snow briefing! Where was Governor McCrory warning us not…
Read MoreA TAPster reminded me of a snow day blog I did once in memory of my father. It’s apropos today. My dad, Jim, was a printer and, at one time, foreman of the N&O composing room. In those hot-type days, printers used house ads to fill in columns of type. The ads would tell you…
Read MoreWe’re in the Great Mentioner season of the political cycle, when the names of potential 2016 candidates start floating through the rumor mills, media and blogosphere. And nothing talks like money. An enterprising TAPster looked at the year-end cash-on-hand numbers for potential statewide candidates and Council of State incumbents. Not surprisingly, at…
Read MoreI was barely eighteen when, my first night in Chapel Hill, they herded all the male freshmen into an auditorium and an aging Dean stepped up to a podium, perched his half-glasses on the end of his nose, and explained genteelly from here on – for the next four years – we were expected to…
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