Posts by Gary Pearce
Holdering On
Ex-Congressman Barney Frank suggests this slogan for Democrats: “We’re not perfect, but they’re nuts.” Take the GOP’s hard-line opposition to Loretta Lynch’s nomination as Attorney General. On one of Sunday’s talk shows, a Republican said the Senate shouldn’t even vote on her nomination. Why? Because, he said, she’ll continue the policies of current AG…
Read MoreThe Future is Now
Going back to the days of Terry Sanford and Jim Hunt, Young Democrats were a breeding ground for extraordinary leaders. But the current crop may become the best ever. I spent several hours in Chapel Hill Saturday morning at the annual state convention of YDs, College Dems and Teen Dems. They are just as…
Read MoreJustice for Jamie
Off and on the last month I’ve been uncharacteristically uninterested in blogging or even talking about politics. It generally happened after I sat in on the trial of the man who murdered Jamie Kirk Hahn, tried to murder Nation Hahn and in a real sense took the lives of many people in their families. …
Read MoreWaking Up
Yes, the Republicans’ Wake County power grab is raw, cynical politics. But it could help Democrats win legislative seats, the Governor’s Office, the U.S. Senate race and even a U.S. Senate majority and the Presidency next year. Wake is the biggest-voting county and the biggest swing-vote county in a big state that could decide…
Read MoreApril Fool
A TAPster alerts us to another potential April surprise for taxpayers: Republicans in the legislature left a little bag of stink on the doorsteps of millions of self-employed North Carolinians who’ll step in it when they calculate their state taxes in the next month. The Repubs proudly boast of reducing state tax rates.…
Read MoreClaude Sitton
Claude Sitton was, indeed, forceful and fearless. But not without flaws, flaws that show what is great and what can be dangerous about journalism. Sitton’s forcefulness shaped a controversy that rages more than two decades later: Did the N&O unfairly railroad Jim Valvano? Many State fans neither forgive nor forget. One said this week,…
Read MoreHate Online
The Internet, social media and cable TV may make us more informed, but they also make us more inflamed. And more apt to go down in flames. Frat boys sing a racist song, it goes viral and they are expelled, their parents humiliated and their reputations irreparably ruined. A corporate executive posts a racist…
Read MoreSave Your Breath
Before any 2016 death match, Hillary Clinton and Jeb Bush face a death march through the media and their own parties’ chattering crowds. Last week’s crisis was Clinton’s email while Secretary of State. The DC media pounced and some Democrats went into a frenzy of fretting: The Clintons are their own worst enemies! They…
Read MoreJamie’s Voice
There will be more pain, more tears, more heartbreak as the trial goes on. But Jamie Kirk Hahn’s voice in the courtroom reminded us what was lost that awful April evening two years ago. A witness who had talked to her by phone about a campaign billing problem described her as “genuine and honest.”…
Read MoreThe Job Chase
A TAPster who spent many years as a private-sector economic developer offers this: The myopic, confused and naïve approach of North Carolina Republicans to the state’s business recruitment efforts continues to baffle experts who toil daily to bring good jobs here. Our Republicans are opposed to incentives as “corporate welfare,” and they don’t…
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