General
Meeker Goes Halfway
Last week something unusual happened on the City Council. Mayor Meeker recused himself from a vote. Why unusual? Well, for years, the Mayor’s been voting on city agreements with the downtown developer his son works with. So, what changed? The Mayor says the problem is his law firm is representing ‘a Fayetteville Street building owner…
Read MoreBoundless Passions
Mayor Meeker’s passion for spending money downtown knows no bounds. It tests the borders of the infinite. First, he gets the city council to increase spending on his pink elephant Convention Center to $220 million. No sooner is that done than he gets the Council to spend three or four million on his English-style Roundabouts…
Read MorePolitical Justice
As the Bush administrationâs politics-in-Justice scandal mounts in Washington, one would be naïve not to wonder about recent federal prosecutions in Raleigh. No, Iâm not defending Jim Black, Michael Decker or Kevin Geddings. They clearly broke the law, betrayed the public trust and deserve punishment. But the harshness of their sentences does raise your antennae.…
Read MoreReturn of John McCain
Watch for a John McCain comeback in the Republican presidential campaign. Rudy Giuliani and Mitt Romney have taken their star turns. And the social conservatives who dominate the Republican Party can’t be happy. Giuliani is taking them on directly. He says his support for abortion rights, gun control and gay rights should not matter. Good…
Read MoreJohn Edwards’ Transparency
The other day two radio commentators on NPR were joking about a survey they’d taken of presidential candidates. One of the questions each candidate was asked, What is your dream job? The first commentator said, I love Congressman Tom Tancredo’s answer best. Tancredo – a dark horse candidate – when asked what his dream job…
Read MoreBuying Drugs in Canada
It just seems like just yesterday that the newspapers reported the Democrats in Congress were about to pass legislation to let pharmacists and consumers buy prescription drugs in Canada. The pharmaceutical industry quashed that idea like a bug. It was alive one day and dead as a doornail the next. Why? The big pharmaceutical companies…
Read MoreThe Wake Schools Plot
It’s all a vast right-wing conspiracy. And it’s about to wreck the Wake County schools. The plotters started by opposing a school-construction bond issue in 1999. They beat it. Then they targeted the school board elections, but lost. So they targeted election of the county commissioners, who control the school money. They won there. The…
Read MoreThe Deal of a Lifetime
Imagine this. Your employer loans you $12.5 million to build a country-western music theatre, pays you $1.5 million a year to manage it, then tells you when the debt is repaid you can buy the theatre for $1. And as a perk he gives you a house to live in. That would never happen you…
Read MoreDemocratic Derby
If the Democratic presidential race was the Kentucky Derby, John Edwards would be the third-place horse hoping for Hillary and Obama to stumble – or leave him a gap to run through. Edwards’ best chance for a breakthrough is on the war. No other issue matters: health care, global warming, none of them. It’s all…
Read MorePutin’s Soul
Two things jumped out from the pictures taken of George Bush senior, Bill Clinton and Vladimir Putin at Boris Yeltsin’s funeral: Putin’s cold killer’s eyes. Which reminds us what George Bush junior said when he met Putin: he looked in his eyes and saw his soul. And decided it was good. Which explains why Bush…
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