North Carolina – Democrats
War on Teachers Update
Governor McCrory believes it’s OK to pay a beginning teacher $25,000, but $65,000 isn’t enough for a 24-year-old state government appointee who worked in McCrory’s campaign. So he got a raise to $87,500. That’s three times what a starting teacher gets in North Carolina. Another campaign staffer got a $23,000 raise to $85,000,…
Read MoreThe Smell Test
All I can say about Gary’s column on D.G. Martin is – “Amen.” In the fourteen years I’ve known D.G., I’ve never heard him say an unkind word about anyone – so Claude Pope claiming he’d called Republicans Nazis just didn’t pass the smell test. Here’s the column D.G. wrote. Take a look…
Read MoreDevilment
An old friend who now lives in Maryland wrote the other day and asked, What in blazes is going on in the North Carolina legislature? Well, right now, thankfully, nothing. The legislators have decamped. But what kind of devilment went on in the legislature before the peace of August southern afternoons was restored?…
Read MoreCookies
It was a frozen moment in time, a sort of thirty-second epiphany revealing the compounded double griefs of fading courtliness and ascending Yankeedom (I say Yankeedom because most Yankees never experienced the good fortune of having a maiden aunt whose sole purpose in life was to indoctrinate – by force if necessary – wayward nieces…
Read MoreThe New Chief
No sooner did the state legislators vamoose out of town than the pundits begin publishing post-mortems and obituaries. Republicans, they opined, had a ‘breathtaking session,’ marched right off the right end of the earth, passed bills that hurt everyone from the poor to the lame, halt and maimed, and got pounded for their wicked…
Read MoreOne Thing’s for Sure…
One reason politics (and state legislatures in particular) are fascinating is they put an endless parade of foibles in a fallen world on display every day. There’s probably no place on earth better to study sin or foolishness than a state legislature. Since way back when, political wheel-horses in Raleigh have been quietly rewarding…
Read MoreDemocrats’ MVP
It’s hard to be an all-star when your team is getting steamrolled every day. Still, a number of Democratic legislators have fought hard, stood their ground and spoken eloquently. But I’m awarding this coveted honor (the TAP MVP) to the Democrat whose star has risen fastest and farthest this session: Senator Josh Stein of…
Read MoreA Mischievous Genie
Over a week ago in a newspaper story – after a day of women chanting “shame, shame, shame” – a Republican consultant declared bluntly House Speaker Thom Tillis had better support the Senate’s abortion bill or just about every Republican was going to be mad with him. Next, in the same story, a Democratic…
Read MoreTaxes, Jobs and Education
Thankful yet? You get a tax cut. And North Carolinians get more jobs. At least, that’s the theory. Cary Republican Rep. Nelson Dollar called it the “jobs bill of a generation.” Sen. Josh Stein, a Raleigh Democrat, called it “tax breaks for the wealthy and out-of-state corporations.” Here’s the economic question: Will…
Read MoreZeb Alley
Zeb Alley was truly a happy warrior. He was a real warrior, a warrior wounded in combat in Korea. For the rest of his 84 years, he loved life, laughter, lobbying, the legislature, people, a party, a good meal, a good time and the Democratic Party. For all my happy memories of Zeb, I…
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