Issues
The Terror of Winning…
Bev Perdue and Phil Berger are beginning to sound a bit like a couple whose marriage is on the rocks – she says she’s “disgusted” with him and he’s hunkered down like a harassed husband grumbling she’s done nothing but say, “Do it my way – that’s the only way that I’ll accept.” What…
Read MoreJohn of Arabia
First we got into another ‘short war’ (over in Libya) then the war turned into a logjam then one morning I opened the newspaper and there was John McCain traipsing around Benghazi saying we ought to dive in deeper to break the logjam and next the Obama administration was sending the ‘rebels’ $25 million. …
Read More18,000 Teachers
For two years Governor Perdue’s been face to face battling an enemy (let’s name her enemy ‘Problems’ – meaning she’s been fighting with faceless abstractions like deficits, unemployment and recessions rather than flesh and blood people) and she’s been losing at every turn. But now she’s face to face with a new enemy: Republicans. And…
Read MoreLafayette Park
Osama’s dead and let’s hope Al Qaeda passes with him (or at least falls apart without him) but there’s one bit of grit in the gears that says maybe we paid a price for his villainy we hadn’t reckoned on. It’s the celebrating. The way we – especially our young people – seem…
Read MoreIt’s Not a Tax…
Today’s new breed of politicians are a lot more versatile than the old-timers most of us grew up with. In the old days when Democratic politicians raised ‘fees’ – like the fee you pay for your car registration – they’d argue stubbornly it was not a tax increase and Republican politicians would argue back,…
Read MoreThe Binary Budget Choice
Every now and then you read a sentence that hits you like a hammer. So it was the other day when I thumbed through the April 17 Newsweek, which I hadn’t picked up in many moons. I chanced upon an essay by Niall Ferguson, “Doing the Right Thing: America finally comes to its senses…
Read MoreFollow the Money
Well, Gary, at least no one can say we’ve gotten more close minded as we’ve gotten older: Here you are (Putting Pocketbooks First – below) saying Republican Representative and lawyer Leo Daughtry voted against ‘Med-Mal Caps’ to protect his own legal fees and here I am saying, Hold on – you’re following the wrong money…
Read MorePolitics to Make the Gilded Age Proud
Republican House Leader Skip Stam, according to the newspaper, has introduced a new law limiting how much corporations with state contracts can give to politicians who grant the contracts. Surely a step in the right direction. But, that said, while Representative Stam’s limiting donations to the Democratic Governor and folks in the Executive Branch…
Read MorePutting Pocketbooks First
Sometimes you have to rise above principle. That’s what Rep. Leo Daughtry and several Republican House members did this week when they voted to weaken the tort reform bill. Normally, tort reform is an article of faith for Republicans. It’s not only in their platforms, it’s in their genetic code. But that…
Read More$4.1 Million
For years auto insurers have locked horns with Insurance Commissioners over raising car insurance premiums, but, now, Republican legislators are about to solve their problem – by getting the Insurance Commission out of the auto-insurers hair – a move the Commissioner says is dead certain sure to bring higher car insurance premiums. The newspaper,…
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