General
Redistrict the Right Way!
This is an urgent open letter to Republican political consultants in North Carolina: Now is the time to come to the aid of your profession. Your party is in charge of redistricting. The lonely eyes of all political consultants – Democrats and Republicans – turn to you. I’m not talking about partisan…
Read MoreIt Turns Out…
Now that we’re bombing Libya the New York Times reports that, technically, we didn’t go to war to defeat Gadhafi. Technically, the Times says, all the UN Resolution did was set up a no-fly zone to stop Gadhafi bombing his own civilians. The General commanding our attack says pretty much the same thing: “Our mission…
Read MoreReforming DENR
The easy story line is that rapacious Republicans are out to gut North Carolina’s environmental protections. Not so fast. In fact, Governor Perdue might want to jump on this train while she’s restructuring state government. There are economic developers and business people who are responsible on environmental issues AND convinced that DENR…
Read MoreA Mystery
Governor Perdue’s against ending end-course tests in high schools, she empathically told the newspaper. But, then, she took a breath and said there’s no way she’ll veto the Republicans’ bill to eliminate the tests. Then she took another breath and said she won’t sign the bill either. Instead, she’s going to sit on her hands…
Read MoreThe Republican Rush
I’m the last person most Republicans would listen to for advice. But I’m struck lately by the concerns I’ve heard from serious and nonpartisan people about the GOP’s ambitious legislative agenda. As one veteran at the legislature observed: “If the Republicans try to do everything now, there won’t be a later for them.” …
Read MoreThe Oldest Story in Politics
As Claude Rains said in Rickâs Café in Casablanca, Iâm shocked, just shocked. Itâs like the world turned upside down â here on Talking About Politics. Iâm defending trial lawyers and Garyâs defending negligent doctors. The issue of âmedical malpractice reform,â in a unique way, boils down to hard-edged questions about personal responsibility⦠and…
Read MoreOne Libyan Jet
Oh Lord, will we ever learn from our mistakes? There’s a restaurant near my office with a dozen television sets lining the walls (usually turned to basketball games) but the other night they were all turned to CNN and Fox as a Libyan fighter went down in flames and a cruise missile blew apart…
Read MoreFergit, Hell!
An N&O letter-writer takes umbrage at the bipartisan effort to pardon Civil War-era Governor W.W. Holden, denouncing him as a “pestiferous ulcer on the body politic.” (It’s hard to find good calumny like that anymore) Then someone leaves on senators’ desks an “unflattering biography of Holden that quoted histories written by a deceased white supremacist…
Read MoreAnother View on Med Mal
I do consulting work with doctors and hospitals, and my view of medical-malpractice reform differs from Carter’s. First off, personal-injury lawyers aren’t opposed to reform just out of tender hearts and a passion for justice. They’re looking after their bank accounts. Second, a lawyer who is a skilled courtroom performer can hit the…
Read MoreAnother Quagmire?
Well, the United Nations has voted to go to war with Libya only it doesn’t call it a war it calls it a ‘no-fly zone’ – which is political double talk for filling the skies over Libya with American or French or British fighters blowing up Libyan tanks and artillery and air-defense batteries. The…
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