Issues
Frick and Frack
Gary is taking a break from blogging. Here is one from a Tapster. The Senate’s headlong rush this week to jumpstart hydraulic fracturing in North Carolina proves they’ve learned absolutely nothing from the Dan River coal ash spill. Senate Republicans say they want to create jobs and stimulate home-grown energy, and the sooner the…
Read MoreWhat Comeback?
Gary is taking a break from blogging. In his absence, he asked Thomas Mills to fill in. Thomas blogs at www.politicsnc.com where this article is cross-posted. Republicans in Raleigh have a problem with their storyline. They keep insisting that North Carolina is on a “Carolina comeback” but nobody’s feeling the benefits–except the rich. They cite…
Read MoreAs D-day anniversary approaches, survivor recounts vivid memories
Gary’s stepfather, Joe Dickerson, was interviewed by David Crabtree of WRAL last week. To watch this moving interview, click the link below: http://www.wral.com/as-d-day-anniversary-approaches-survivor-recounts-vivid-memories/13649342/ The WRAL story follows: As D-day anniversary approaches, survivor recounts vivid memories Joe Dickerson nearly died twice in 1944 – first from a near drowning and then from shrapnel. Dickerson, 91,…
Read MoreAn Issue from the East
Gary is taking a break from blogging. Here’s a guest blog from Joe Stewart, Executive Director of the NC FreeEnterprise Foundation; a nonpartisan non-profit organization that conducts research on candidates, campaigns and voter attitudes in North Carolina. Once the match up in the US Senate race was known on primary election night, a reporter asked…
Read MoreOne Honest Man Getting Shot from Both Sides
Years ago a Democratic gnome sitting in a cloister pouring over reams of polls and demographics had a profound revelation: Most of the people who didn’t vote were Democrats. The word spread from gnome to pollster to politicians where it led to scads of mischief (all dressed in the trappings of government) as Democrats passed…
Read MoreLife After ObamaCare
The ice melting under Republicans’ feet isn’t climate change, it’s Obamacare. The issue on which they bet the house this year may be disappearing. A poll this month in North Carolina, Louisiana and Kentucky found that, while people don’t like Obamacare, they want Congress to improve it, instead of repealing and replacing it. …
Read MoreNarrowcasting
Watching the Republican Senate debate, it would not have been surprising if all four candidates had sworn that the earth is flat. Because they went right over the edge. You saw four candidates who would pay any price, bear any burden, destroy any branch of government, defend any outlandish right to have a gun…
Read MoreTeacher Exodus
When hundreds of teachers leave in the middle of the school year – in one of the nation’s best places to live and one of its best school systems – we have a crisis. But Republicans are in denial, and Democrats have a winning issue for this fall. About one out of every 15…
Read MoreDeadly Politics
Misery loves company and right here, in Raleigh, it’s led to a pretty strange alliance. Governor McCrory’s Department of Environment and Natural Resources and President Obama’s Environmental Protection Agency have joined arms. To whip the ‘coal ash’ problem. According to the newspaper reports the Governor is “pleased” but, so far, the EPA hasn’t…
Read MoreIs Good Money Bad Too?
This is a story about how even “good” money – that is, money spent for candidates and causes I like – can be bad. It’s a story about how outside donors and independent campaigns, not candidates and office-holders, are setting the political agenda. You can walk, and run, but money talks. Most every…
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