North Carolina – Republicans
Cloud Cuckoo Land
Last week on his Facebook page, Raleigh Congressional candidate Bill Randall boldly challenged his readers: “Do not read the following if you are not willing to face this challenge head-on. Is there a remnant out there who aren’t willing to give up? This great Republic must be preserved.” Well, naturally, I clicked on the…
Read MoreGetting His Story All Tangled Up
In a way Bill Randall was clever, taking a fifty year old document, Stan Evans’ ‘Sharon Statement,’ renaming it and posting it on his website as his own ‘Charter of Principles’ as if he’d written it. After all, it worked for almost a year – until last week when Randall got caught red-handed. …
Read MoreThe ‘Helms Station’
It’s no surprise Jesse Helms cozied up to the FBI. He and J. Edgar Hoover were the leading enemies of Martin Luther King and the civil rights movement. But the revelations spotlight part of WRAL’s history that people at the station today might rather forget. In the 1960s, WRAL was known as the…
Read MoreCrab Pots, Mental Health and a Perdue Meltdown
Last week over on NC Spin Tom Campbell published a glowing interview with Perdue Cabinet Secretary Lanier Cansler – but even before the ink dried on the page the yarn Cansler spun Campbell was coming undone. You might think before the Governor and Secretary Cansler put someone in charge of caring for the state’s…
Read MoreWhoops!
Last Friday Bill Randall published his ‘Charter of Principles’ on Facebook. Then, so more people would read it, he published it again a few hours later. And with reason. It is an impressive statement. Eloquent. Profound. Articulate. The problem is Randall did not write it. He plagiarized it. Fifty years ago, back in…
Read MoreAn Open Letter to Bill Randall – Part 4
Bill, Here is the fourth question. At the debate you were asked, Why are you the best candidate to defeat Brad Miller? You gave two reasons. Because, you said, no one could find any inconsistencies in your record and because you’d never pandered for votes. In your campaign video (on your website) you pledge…
Read MoreAn Open Letter to Bill Randall – Part 3
Bill, Here is the third question. At the debate you were asked, What would you cut to hold down government spending? Bernie Reeves answered that he would do what all small businessmen have learned to do when money is tight: Cut salaries – which promptly cost him the votes of any government employees in…
Read MoreA Bright Line
That didn’t take long. For all the Tea Party’s denials of racism, it took Tea Party poster boy Rand Paul about one news cycle to trip over race. The federal government, he says, has no business telling a business it can’t discriminate on the basis of race. Of course, he added, he…
Read MoreAn Open Letter to Bill Randall – Part 2
Dear Bill, Here is the second question about the debate. You were asked, Are you pro-life? Now most Republicans are pro-life – though they disagree on the best way to end abortion; some favor passing a Constitutional Amendment to make abortion illegal outright; others favor passing a Constitutional Amendment to let each state…
Read MoreAn Open Letter to Bill Randall
Dear Bill, At your debate with Bernie Reeves, when you were asked where you stood on tax reform and said, The Fair Tax, baby, and, second thing, get rid of the IRS. Not replace the IRS. Abolish it. That effective piece of political theatre evoked hurrahs and cheers – but it wasn’t…
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