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Convention Center Costs: Up $30 Million This Year

By Carter Wrenn December 20, 2006

It comes as a shock: After the Mayor has spent $215 million on the Convention Center he says that’s only enough to build a “grade-B facility.” (News and Observer 12-15-06). Mayor Meeker wants – and he’s gotten –$6.4 million more. For what? He got a cool million for stone floors. Two million for kitchen equipment.…

Unseating Liddy Dole

By Gary Pearce December 20, 2006

Democrats nationally and in North Carolina are zeroing in on Senator Dole in 2008. She is vulnerable – to the right opponent. Beating an incumbent Senator is tough. I learned that working for Jim Hunt against Jesse Helms in 1984 and for John Edwards against Lauch Faircloth in 1998. Democrats need a tough, well-funded opponent…

Yes, I will. No, I won’t. Yes, I will.

By Carter Wrenn December 20, 2006

From the News and Observer: “Chuck Williamson was mad, already, about Interstate 40 repairs expected to suck up $20 million that taxpayers planned to spend for other Triangle road work. He was mad about the prospect of waiting another 18 months, if we’re lucky, to get the I-40 paving job unbotched. Now, after a personal…

Bush’s Other Foreign Policy Disaster

By Gary Pearce December 19, 2006

Ronald Reagan called the Soviet Union an “evil empire.” He was right. George W. Bush said he looked into Vladimar Putin’s soul and saw a man he could trust. He was wrong. One side effect of Bush’s Iraq disaster is his lack of attention to what’s happening in Putin’s Russia: murder, war crimes and growing…

The Grinch Who Stole Christmas?

By Carter Wrenn December 19, 2006

The other day Governor Easley boasted North Carolina’s quarter-cent cut in the sales tax meant North Carolinians “will see their hard-earned tax dollars can stretch a bit further.” On Tuesday, he turned into the Grinch who stole Christmas and said going ahead with the rest of the tax cut (another quarter-cent) might be unwise. (If…

Which Democrat will be President

By Gary Pearce December 18, 2006

Two years and one month from now, America will inaugurate a Democratic President. Why am I so certain? Reason No. 1: History. Since 1950, the Presidential party typically serves two – or one terms – and then is kicked out: Democrats in 1952, Republicans in 1960, Democrats in 1968, Republicans in 1976, Democrats in 1980,…

Alice in Washington-Land

By Gary Pearce December 18, 2006

I was struggling to grasp two developments in Washington last week: The gay daughter of the Vice President of an anti-gay administration – along with her lesbian partner – will be a mother soon. Bless her. That Vice President hailed Don Rumsfeld as “the finest secretary of defense this nation has ever had.” But one…

Iraq Diplomacy

By Carter Wrenn December 18, 2006

The Iraq Study Commission’s hinting we need a grand diplomatic strategy, involving Iran and Syria, to get us out of the war in Iraq. But it’s hard to believe we’re going to talk our way out of this mess. The idea that there is a diplomatic, magical wand Jim Baker (or anyone else) can wave…

No Wonder

By Carter Wrenn December 15, 2006

It comes as a shock but waste dumps can be built in North Carolina without an environmental study to determine the potential harm when they are put in flood plains or near a water supplies. The Environmental Review Commission (which is studying four mega-trashdumps out of state companies plan to build here to bury garbage…

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