General
Fear the Voters
Here’s a fundamental difference between Democrats and Republicans. Democrats want to make it easier for people to vote. Republicans, harder. In Florida, Republicans are desperately trying to purge voters before November. In North Carolina, the Republican legislature doesn’t want to help counties improve and maintain voting systems. A party that doesn’t trust the…
Read MoreKeeping It Simple
Walter Dalton beat Bill Faison like a drum in the Democratic primary. But Dalton could learn something from Faison’s ability to boil down an issue – and an attack – to its essence. Or, as one old Southern politician said, “he gets the hay down where the goats can reach it.” Example is Faison’s tweet…
Read MoreDead in Their Tracks
It came as a surprise to open the newspaper and read that the United Nations, dead set on one world government, is on the verge of taking away our ‘property rights’ here in North Carolina through a cabal called ‘Agenda 21’ – which, as soon as unsuspecting local officials are done implementing it, will let…
Read MoreHard Hearts
Republicans are determined to define themselves as hard-hearted – and hypocritical. They give two explanations for cutting out $10 million to compensate people who were forcibly sterilized by the state. The first is: We can’ afford it. Let’s figure here. The budget is $20 billion. $200 million is 1 percent of that. So…
Read MoreThe Best Organized Campaign on Earth
It’s a sad fact but there’re not many farmers left these days and even back in the old days when I was a boy I don’t recall ever meeting a Jewish farmer and if I’d ever needed to go looking for one (or any other kind of farmer for that matter) the last place on…
Read MoreLeaving No Stone Unturned
Politico the Washington super-blog reports that on the sixth floor of an office building in Chicago there’re ‘150 techies’ working night and day to reelect President Obama by doing ‘data mining’ which may sound as stimulating as watching paint dry but consider two facts: President Obama now has 27 million ‘Facebook Followers’ (to Mitt…
Read MoreScandal – or Stupidity?
Was the N&O’s front-page story on “lettergate” overblown? The story referred repeatedly to “false letters.” What was false? Apparently, this sentence: “Funds are needed in this budget cycle” for two highway projects. Members of Governor Perdue’s staff inserted that line. Jim Trogdon of DOT, whose signature was added to the letters electronically, didn’t…
Read MoreThe Sea’s Rising
Sometime awhile back the State appointed a Commission of Scientists who set to work to figure out how much the seas are rising and last week the commission announced its conclusion: Science proves the Atlantic Ocean is going to rise exactly 39 inches (over the next century) and if the folks in Morehead City and…
Read MoreFollowing the Flock
Political reporters are like flocks of birds. One bird flies to a wire, and every bird flies to the same wire. One national political reporter writes a story about Obama’s problems in North Carolina, and every national political reporter writes the same story. The latest story to cause the Obama campaign heartburn came from…
Read MoreDouble Talk?
Open the newspaper most any day and you’ll read some politician somewhere saying the government’s flat broke. Washington’s out of money. Raleigh’s destitute. Money’s tight at City Hall. The County’s cut its budget. But the other morning I opened the newspaper and one story sounded a different note: Amid all…
Read More