It’s no surprise Jesse Helms cozied up to the FBI. He and J. Edgar Hoover were the leading enemies of Martin Luther King and the civil rights movement. But the revelations spotlight part of WRAL’s history that people at the station today might rather forget. In the 1960s, WRAL was known as the…
Read MoreI’ve been absolved. Several people asked if I’m the “Agent Pierce” on N&O Executive Editor John Drescher’s blog. Apparently, they think I went undercover by changing the spelling of my name. Drescher absolved me this week. It’s not me. I’ve read Drescher’s frustrations about dealing with bloggers who fling vitriol and venom…
Read MoreThere’s an interesting – and important – vote scheduled in the state Senate Finance Committee today at 1 p.m. The bill is S1209. The Broadband for Everyone NC coalition – which I’m working with – views this as an industry-sponsored bill that will give control of North Carolina’s broadband (and economic) future to Time…
Read MoreLast week over on NC Spin Tom Campbell published a glowing interview with Perdue Cabinet Secretary Lanier Cansler – but even before the ink dried on the page the yarn Cansler spun Campbell was coming undone. You might think before the Governor and Secretary Cansler put someone in charge of caring for the state’s…
Read MoreGovernor Perdue and Lanier Cansler didnât need the John Tote fiasco. Perdue has made strides putting her administration in order. Cansler has the thankless task of managing an unmanageable department. But he has Carter and the home-health hounds gnawing on his leg, and the mainstream media is starting to chew too. Then comes…
Read MoreAn alert reader caught this in my blog yesterday about Mark Critz, the Democrat who won the special congressional election in Pennsylvania: “I don’t think Critz voted for health care bill (he wasn’t in Congress then). He did say he would not have voted for it.” The reader is correct, and I thank…
Read MoreLast Friday Bill Randall published his ‘Charter of Principles’ on Facebook. Then, so more people would read it, he published it again a few hours later. And with reason. It is an impressive statement. Eloquent. Profound. Articulate. The problem is Randall did not write it. He plagiarized it. Fifty years ago, back in…
Read MoreDemocrats, Republicans, Tea Partiers, anti-Tea Partiers – everybody – found something to like in last week’s primaries across the country. I found a lesson in a special congressional election in Pennsylvania that applies to a congressional election in North Carolina – specifically, to the efforts by the State Employees Association of North Carolina to…
Read MoreBill, Here is the fourth question. At the debate you were asked, Why are you the best candidate to defeat Brad Miller? You gave two reasons. Because, you said, no one could find any inconsistencies in your record and because you’d never pandered for votes. In your campaign video (on your website) you pledge…
Read More
