Carter Wrenn
Gary Pearce
Why do Republicans feel compelled to insult, dismiss and condescend to women in North Carolina? The latest: Governor McCrory dismissing Ann Goodnight’s pointed and powerful letter to the N&O (reprinted in full at the end of this blog). The Governor sniffed at the letter to Al Hunt of Bloomberg News: “Ms. Goodnight, he…
Read MoreLast week, “a bodyguard prevented a News & Observer reporter from asking (DHHS Secretary Aldona) Wos any questions” after a speech. This week, when questions arose about DHHS paying $85,000-plus salaries to young campaign aides to Governor McCrory, “the governor’s spokeswoman, Kim Genardo, referred questions” to Wos. “Wos could not be reached.” Hold…
Read MoreIt’s a bleak landscape. A nightmare vision of a counter-revolution roaring down the tracks, turning back the hands of the clock, rolling back progress to the days before indoor plumbing, air-conditioning, and daylight savings time. Republicans, Reverend William Barber howls, are turning back the clock to the days of Jim Crow. Republican tax…
Read MoreThis isn’t a story of sin begetting sin but of foolishness begetting foolishness. Years ago, somewhere, some Democratic political guru sat in a room with reams of demographics of people who never had voted and when he finished studying those pages of statistics one fact was clear as a bell: If those folks started…
Read MoreGovernor McCrory increasingly looks like a modest Triple-A ballplayer who is befuddled by big league pitching. His latest whiff is defending the DHHS salary debacle. McCrory should have put as much distance as possible between himself and the decision to give 24-year-olds who worked in his campaign senior jobs paying $85,000 and $87,500 in…
Read MoreYes, Newt Gingrich is nuts. But sometimes even a nut sees reality. And last week he summed up why the Republican Party is on the road to disaster: “We are caught up right now in a culture – and you see it every single day – where as long as we are negative, as…
Read MoreGovernor 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 News & Observed marked its 119th birthday this week. But will it see 125 – or 130? It’s part of a century-old industry that last week was invaded – to be saved or razed? – by the billionaire owner of a brand-new industry, Amazon. Executive Editor John Drescher wrote in his front-page…
Read MoreLet’s be honest: The voter ID law that Governor McCrory signed is about political power, not fraud. A letter-writer to the N&O got it right where the Governor got it wrong. McCrory said: “Common practices like boarding an airplane and purchasing Sudafed require photo ID, and we should expect nothing less for the protection…
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Tim Waltz posted a photo of himself standing outside in a snowstorm wearing a flannel shirt…
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Some Trump supporters are surprised to find out they’re Trump victims. Farmers at the American Farm…
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Watching a troupe of politicians sitting in line side by side behind an ornate wooden dais…
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