Gary is taking a break from blogging. Our guest blogger filling in for Gary is a Tapster. The recent dustup about so-called ‘outside’ agitators spear-heading the Moral Monday protests has spotlighted a significant trend in North Carolina: the state actually is being run by outsiders. Each of the last two Gov’s were born in other states, and…
Read MoreAbout two weeks ago one of the cable TV channels ran old Elvis movies every night which was a happy event until the night my wife walked into the room, saw Elvis singing “Return to Sender,” and asked diplomatically if, since I’d seen four Elvis movies that week, I’d like to watch the Billboard…
Read MoreAll last year Democrats hammered away at Pat McCrory saying, Disclose, disclose, disclose – demanding McCrory disclose the clients he worked with at the Charlotte law firm of Moore and Van Allen. Apparently, no one gave a toot and, after the election, the Governor may well have thought and he’d heard the word disclose…
Read MoreThe word that keeps popping up when people describe the atmosphere at the legislature is “mean.” “Everybody you pass in the halls is either somebody who screwed you or somebody you hate,” said one aide to a Republican leader. “It’s all about revenge, Republicans getting even for all those years out of power,” said…
Read MoreCarter and I will be guests on WUNC radio’s “State of Things” at noon Friday. We’re told the topics are “Jim Holshouser’s legacy and the changing Republican Party/state politics.” Of course, we’ll talk about whatever crosses our minds.
Read MoreThom Tillis said he was running for Senate and as soon as he got the words out of his mouth Greg Brannon, the Libertarian doctor who’s also running, let fly with a broadside calling Tillis “yet another in a long line of career politicians eager to take the next step on the ladder of political…
Read MoreEarlier this year there was a lot of moaning and gnashing of teeth about the terrible Sequester spending cuts – listening to the politicians up in Washington you’d have thought the government was teetering on its last legs, on the brink of financial Armageddon, staring doom in the face. President Obama even said the…
Read MoreLooking at the Great Republican Rollback, Democrats are tempted to attack on every front: taxes, Medicaid, teacher pay, jetty ban, Jordan Lake, Child Fatality Task Force, Rural Center, Racial Justice, voter ID, jobless benefits, campaign financing, etc., etc. Focus, people. In politics, to say 10 things – or even two things – is…
Read MoreThe newspaper set out to land a Democratic shark. And landed a Republican whale instead. The roots of the News and Observer story run back 26 years – to when Jim Martin was Governor. Back then the Democrats in the legislature decided, instead of letting Martin pass out what’s euphemistically called ‘Economic Development Grants,’…
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One bleak visual at the inauguration summed up Joe Biden’s presidency: Biden sat silently – seething…
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