Carter Wrenn
Gary Pearce
Grand Old (Drunk) Party
Before North Carolina Republicans got down to business in the legislature, they got down to some serious partying. First there was the incident at the December wedding of Rep. Destin Hall, who wants to be Speaker next year. One of his groomsmen fell off a truck and was injured so badly he was hospitalized for…
A World Lit Only by Fire – Part IV
Luther fled Worms – the emperor condemned him. Made him an outlaw. Luther fled into hiding in the Thuringian Forest – fate reared its head a third time: The emperor had to leave Germany to go to Spain to fight his war with the King of France. Didn’t set foot in Germany again for ten…
Protests and Presidents
Fifty-four years ago this week, on May 8, 1970, 4,500 students from nearly a dozen colleges and universities marched on Capitol Square in Raleigh to protest the Vietnam War. Four days earlier, National Guardsmen had shot and killed four students and injured nine more in protests at Kent State University in Ohio. Our march, which…
A World Lit Only by Fire – Part III
A peasant’s son Martin Luther never knew the year he was born. Believing children were wicked his father whipped him, his mother caned him. Luther’s harsh life led him to take refuge in the cloister. The Saxon prince started a college – Luther moved to Wittenburg, taught about St. Paul. Believed, like Paul, truth and…
A World Lit Only by Fire – Part II
After Rodrigo Borgia died, soft-spoken but cunning Leo de Medici became pope, after bribing cardinals ended up strapped for cash. A German prince said he wanted to be an Archbishop. Leo told him that would cost him 12,000 gold ducats – 1000 for each of the Apostles. The prince frowned: How about 7000, one thousand…
A World Lit Only by Fire – Part I
It was a time, Tom Hanks wrote describing the end of the Middle Ages, when dukes and serfs paid popes to keep from going to hell. The Holy Roman Empire was not holy, not Roman, and not an empire. He’d read A World Lit Only by Fire, William Manchester’s last book, five times. Popes hid…
Trust Flies Out the Window
Planned Parenthood’s spending a ton of money – $10 million – to elect pro-abortion candidates in North Carolina. Eyes locked on white suburban women it’s running digital ads, knocking on a million doors to elect Joe Biden, the Democrat candidate for governor, and break the Republican super-majority in the state House and Senate. The first…
A School Test
The Republican legislature may not vote for Democratic Governor Roy Cooper’s school plan, but North Carolinians can in November. The Governor has drawn a line in the sand – and a clear line of difference between the two parties. Cooper’s plan: 5% teacher pay raise this year $1,500 retention bonus restore master’s degree pay for…
Democrats’ Country Inroads
New data shows that North Carolina Democrats are right to look for votes on country roads and small-town streets. A group called Rural Democracy Initiative – “Communities, Not Corporations” – will release a poll next month saying that “rural voters tend to be economic populists who would overwhelmingly support parts of the Democratic Party’s agenda…