Where was this guy in October when we needed him? In the weeks before the election, President Obama seemed passive and powerless as ISIS ran wild in the Middle East and Ebola panicked America. In the weeks since, he’s come back strong: heralding a recovering economy, challenging Congress on immigration, championing Internet openness,…
Read MoreWhen we sat down to our annual Christmas lunch our group of old white conservative men were looking care-worn and weary;—they’d voted against gay marriage and won and a year and a half later gays were marrying right here in North Carolina; the newspaper headline on the table was even more discouraging: President Obama…
Read MoreGQ 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 MoreInsurance 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 MoreIt 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 MoreTwo 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 MoreAbout 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’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 MoreConventional 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…
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