Issues
Quarantines
President Obama may have the most brilliant strategy on earth to defeat Ebola but, on the other hand, he may go down in history as the first head of a government to encourage thousands of people (doctors and nurses) to visit a plague zone and then return home to meld back into the population without,…
Read MoreNot a Ticket Splitter
A pollster will usually ask voters: Would you say you 1) Always vote Democratic, 2) Usually vote Democratic, 3) Always vote Republican, 4) Usually vote Republican or 5) would you say you split your ticket and vote for about as many Republicans as Democrats? Down at the Editorial Board (not in the news room)…
Read MoreMata Hari
Eric pointed to the word ‘backlash’ and said, They put a picture of a Black minister, sneering, beneath a headline saying ‘backlash’ then quote the ACLU as saying Black preachers want to punish gay people because of who they love. A trio of amenable grunts rose from the end of the table then out…
Read MoreThe Next Jonas Salk
Kaci Hickox was mad as hops – she’d gotten off the plane in Newark, been hustled straight into quarantine, and three days later she was still in quarantine only by then she’d hired a lawyer to sue Governor Chris Christie. A few days before Ms. Hickox flew from Sierra Leone to Newark, a doctor, who’d…
Read MoreIrony or Hypocrisy?
An African-American minister proclaimed that a gay person should not be a judge. He also joined Rep. Skip Stam-and apparently 27 other House Republicans-in proclaiming that magistrates, who are officers of the court, should not have to carry out laws and court decisions they don’t like. Forty years ago, several magistrates in North Carolina…
Read MoreTV and Turnout
As good citizens, we all know that these two truths are self-evident in politics. First, as both editorial writers and Walmart moms agreed in the paper today, big money and “assault ads” are bad. Second, (as everybody but the Republican legislature, Governor McCrory and the State Board of Elections apparently think) higher voter turnout is…
Read MoreThe Senate Race – 5
You have to give Kay Hagan credit: A year ago the Swing Voters were ready to roll down the track and vote her out of office – and for a year Hagan kept those voters out of Thom Tillis’ camp. The one big change in the Senate race – Tillis’ rising unpopularity with Independents…
Read MoreIn Praise of Pat
Stop the presses. I have something nice to say about Governor McCrory. Unlike his Republican colleagues Thom Tillis, Phil Berger and Dan Forrest, McCrory said he will respect and obey the court decision on gay marriage, even if he doesn’t like it. Good for him. But why? I asked a couple of…
Read MoreOdd and Odder
If you think about it DENR’s proposal was pretty odd. Last winter, when tons of water from a coal ash pond poured into the Dan River, there was consternation and gnashing of teeth. The U.S. Attorney started investigating. The Governor ordered every coal ash pond cleaned up. The legislature said Amen. Then, with…
Read MoreOctober Surprises
First ISIS. Then Ebola. Now men marring men and women marrying women. What’s next? “Human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together, mass hysteria!”? More to the point, will video and big Page One pictures of newlywed men kissing each other sway this election? Consider three things here. First, yes, Amendment One passed…
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