North Carolina – Republicans
The WakeMed Wars
Back in the salad days of the Roman Republic every now and then an absolutely vicious war would break out between the Roman Aristocrats and the Plebes and it looks like we’ve got a similar tussle on our hands here in Wake County. Between two hospitals. Heart surgeries are among the most profitable…
Read MoreDangerous Business
We now have clear evidence that political blogging is hazardous to the health of the body politic. Under the Dome led this morning with my blog speculating that the legislature would be in session until December. It was a joke. I was being facetious. (Well, partly facetious. I was serious about legislators being…
Read MoreThe 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 MoreA Reese Hart Story
Back in the 1970s, the AP had a legislative reporter in Raleigh named Reese Hart. In those days, AP, UPI and all the major newspapers generated a flood of stories about daily legislative developments. The N&O, where I worked, had a couple of pages every day devoted to the minutiae of bill introductions, committee meetings…
Read MoreOff Track Again
First it was protecting us against Shariah law. Then it was protecting our right to carry guns to parks and workplaces. Then it was designing roads. Now it’s dictating medical procedures to women and their doctors. Republicans in the legislature are determined to do everything – but address North Carolina’s economic problems. And…
Read MoreWrong Turn
Once again Republicans in the legislature have focused on an issue that apparently is more urgent than creating jobs and balancing the budget: They’ve gone into the road-designing business. Bruce Siceloff reports in the N&O that “the Senate is scheduled to vote today on a proposal to rip out part of an Asheville road,…
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 MoreSacred Cows
“All animals are equal, but some are more equal than others.” – George Orwell, Animal Farm Legislative leaders said everything would be on the table for budget cuts. But a Democratic TAPster sent these “quick, back-of-the-envelope numbers” on how deeply the House budget cut agencies headed by Republicans: Department of Labor cut…
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 MoreBirthers and Shariah Law
The N&O front page today showed how Republicans are frittering away their once-in-a-blue-moon political advantage. The more they talk about Obama’s birth certificate and the threat of Shariah law in America, the less they can take advantage of his real vulnerability, which was captured in an inside-page story: Americans are losing confidence in his…
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