North Carolina – Republicans
Bill Friday and the Hairdresser
Governor McCrory says our universities’ mission is to put butts in jobs. Bill Friday believed their mission is to set minds and spirits soaring so they can make North Carolina a better place. The contrast between that blinkered view and that broad vision was never captured better than in Jane Stancill’s remarkable story Sunday about…
Read MoreArtful Lies
Little White Lies. Outright Lies. Artful Lies. Once a bartender told a sailor on leave for the weekend, There’re a lot of prostitutes down at the bus station. Say hello to Anna if you see her. Listening you’d think Anna was a prostitute but you’d be wrong: She was the sixty year-old clerk working behind…
Read MoreA Misunderstanding, Chapter 1
The Governor’s biggest challenge, a Republican consultant explained to the newspaper, is coming up with a way to overhaul Medicaid and stopping its persistent cost overruns – if the Governor can do that, the consultant said, it “practically will insure his reelection.” Which sounds fine – except for a misunderstanding. Six years ago, back in…
Read MoreWake Effect
First the legislature retreated on RFRA. Then on Dix. Take a bow, Wake County. And take note of what this portends for 2016. The Republican juggernaut slowed, if only briefly, because Republicans realized they better not push Wake County much farther. Education cuts, tax increases and commissioner-gerrymandering have mobilized Democrats in the county and alienated…
Read MoreAlvin York
I didn’t see much sense in making a lady in Indiana (or anywhere else) cater a gay wedding if she didn’t want to, so I said the Religious Freedom Act sounded like a fine idea – which turned out to be like lighting the fuse to a stick of dynamite. Before I knew it I’d…
Read MoreFalse Equivalence
John Drescher of the N&O called foul on Governor McCrory’s public-records stonewalling. But will the media referees let McCrory manufacture a counterpunch against Roy Cooper? It’s called “false equivalence.” It’s a favorite media-manipulation trick. Let’s say your candidate has a big, fat negative. Like you haven’t fulfilled a public-records request dating back to last July.…
Read MoreCrazy Train
The “religious freedom” train ran off the rails on Jones Street yesterday. House Republicans realized the state would lose business and some of them would lose elections. It was a telling turnaround for a body that had pushed through a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriages just a few years back. If you ever doubted…
Read MoreGood Old Days
WRAL’s documentary on Jim Hunt brings back fond, and not so fond, memories. It implicitly brings up the dramatically different philosophy that marks North Carolina’s leadership today. It shows the toll that politics can take on all involved, especially families. And it tells a largely untold story about one key to Hunt’s success, Carolyn Hunt.…
Read MoreWizards
If there’s a lonesome pilgrim out there hoping the recent Supreme Court decision will restore honor and fairness to redistricting… well, the Wizards have him surrounded. When Republicans dreams came true and, at long last, they got to draw their own districts, they set out to find a special kind of Wizard. Next…
Read MoreRecalculating…
A TAPster more knowledgeable than me offers a word of praise for one thing the legislature is doing: The legislature this week will continue its napalm assault on long-standing policies and practices in the civil war to create a conservative nirvana in North Carolina. And, while most Republican efforts have hurt the poor, the…
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