Issues
A Mystery Number
50 years ago we declared war on poverty, spent $20.7 trillion, and lost. So now the President is trying again. Only this time he’s calling it a war on income inequality because a war on poverty only appeals to folks who are poor while a war on income inequality appeals to just about everyone except,…
Read MoreTurning Virtue on Its Head
Back when General Washington whipped King George the old saying ‘A penny saved is a penny earned’ was a bit of folk wisdom hardly a soul disagreed with – but these days modern economists have determined that kind of old-fashioned virtue is really a vice and that the true path to prosperity is borrowing –…
Read MoreMLK Day and 1984
My blog below on the 1984 Senate race prompted a TAPster to note that the Martin Luther King holiday was a big issue that year. Jim Hunt led Jesse Helms in early polls, but Helms turned the race around in late 1983 when he filibustered on the Senate floor against a national holiday honoring…
Read MoreCaring for the Poor In Style
A couple of weeks ago the News & Observer published a story that got folks stirred up over how the head of the Raleigh Housing Authority was making $280,000 a year and wining and dining his board of directors for $3,000 at a Christmas banquet at Raleigh’s elegant Second Empire Restaurant – all paid for by taxpayers.…
Read MoreThe Dithers
Back before Christmas when Congress struck its ‘big budget deal’ the newspapers were running stories left and right telling everyone how Round 2 of the Sequester was going to be aw-ful and terr-ible and croo-el. In one story a lady in Fayetteville told how the army was going to be so decimated by the…
Read MoreMcCrory’s Bridge
The Watauga Wizard, Jerry Wayne Williamson, nails it: “McCrory Blocks Traffic on All Bridges Going into CD12.” Jerry adds in his Watauga Watchblog: “(Congressman Mel Watt’s) resignation should have triggered a special election to fill his unexpired term in the U.S. House. But, no, Gov. McCrory decided that the seat could be filled on November…
Read MoreRespirators
In a speech a couple of weeks ago the President urged Congress to get moving and pass his bill to extend unemployment benefits then, climbing up on his rhetorical high horse, he added that paying unemployment benefits “is one of the most effective ways to boost the economy” – which sounded a little odd, like…
Read MoreClay for Congress
Don’t underestimate a candidate who already won 12 million Americans’ votes on TV. Clay Aiken may be a surprising candidate for Congress, but he may be just what Democrats need: a new face and fresh blood that energizes new voters, especially young voters. The social-media response to his possible candidacy in the 2nd…
Read MorePickpockets
You would think by now out of sheer boredom Congressmen would be looking for new ways to fool voters but, undeterred at using the same old worn-out trick again, just before Christmas eager-beaver Paul Ryan rolled out his new budget, saying how he’d made a deal with the Democrats to cut spending and cut the…
Read MorePossums
Up in Brasstown deep in the Smoky Mountains, on every New Years Eve a local merchant holds a ‘Possum Drop’ – a western North Carolina version of the Yankees’ ball drop in Times Square. What the mountain folks hadn’t counted on was PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) taking umbrage at the…
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