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Saturday Mail

By Carter Wrenn March 13, 2013

Washington may be about to give us an answer on one of the longest running philosophical debates since Eve bit the apple: Are humans rational creatures?   For months, just about every politician in Washington – Republican Congressmen, Democratic Senators, President Obama, Speaker John Boehner – has been talking about how much they want to…

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Fast and Mean

By Gary Pearce March 13, 2013

Two months in, two things are striking about the Republican regime in Raleigh: how fast they move and how mean they seem.   This is a recipe for a Democratic revival, if – and it’s a big if – Democrats get their act together.   Too many politicos – Democrats and Republicans – assume that…

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Watch What They Do, Not What They Say

By Carter Wrenn March 12, 2013

Congressman Walter Jones is an old-fashioned soft-spoken Southerner – so when I saw he’d put a statement on Twitter, I thought, What the heck? I clicked and landed on a statement (Walter had made) that explained just about everything anyone needs to know about the Sequester in one-page.   Last month up in Washington President…

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UNC PR

By Gary Pearce March 11, 2013

Why does a university with so many journalism and PR grads get such bad PR in media outlets where lots of UNC grads work?   After Dan Kane’s report in The News & Observer Sunday – not to mention this weekend’s games – those grads might ask: Why did they hire a Duke guy for…

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A Good Read

By Gary Pearce March 9, 2013

If you want to know how local and state politics, TV news and Raleigh’s whole media/political world got to be the way it is, here’s the book for you.   It’s “I Never Promised Not to Tell,” a tell-almost-all by Grady Jefferys, a veteran writer-ad man-journalist-consultant who was there, as he says, “When Television and…

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White House Tours

By Carter Wrenn March 8, 2013

President Obama just announced the Sequester spending cuts are so terrible he has no choice but to cancel White House tours;—that upset House Speaker John Boehner who immediately cried foul, saying Obama was grandstanding and he (Boehner) had kept the Capitol tours running and Obama could have done the same thing – which is no…

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Incentivized

By Gary Pearce March 8, 2013

Governor McCrory and Republican legislators were against incentives before they were for them.   McCrory is clearly for them when he can bask in the announcement of 2,600 new jobs by MetLife. (Hello, Snoopy!)   Or maybe he’s for them when they are negotiated by Moore & Van Allen, his old law firm.   But…

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A Tale of Two States

By Gary Pearce March 7, 2013

While Governor McCrory prepares a “very, very tight budget” and blocks Medicaid expansion, the Republican governor of another purple Southern state is going in the opposite direction.   Governor Rick Scott of Florida was a Tea Party poster boy when he got elected in 2010. Now a Miami Tea Party leader has sent the governor…

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A Master Salesman

By Carter Wrenn March 6, 2013

Taking a deep breath, inhaling a lungful of the highly oxygenated Washington air, celebrity, intellectual, and poo-bah Newt Gingrich announced he, himself, personally, was about to deliver a ‘very-direct, no baloney’ manifesto on Republican politics – then lit into Karl Rove, saying Republican political consultants were arrogant idiots and that the country was better off…

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Education Governor

By Gary Pearce March 13, 2025

With a better General Assembly, Josh Stein could join Jim Hunt and Terry Sanford on North…

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By Gary Pearce March 12, 2025

Once upon a time, there was a great and powerful newspaper: The News & Observer. Everybody…

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By Gary Pearce March 10, 2025

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