Carter Wrenn
Gary Pearce
Once again jubilant Americans take to the streets to celebrate the end of a terrorist. Crowds cheer police officers and military personnel. Fans at ball games chant “USA, USA!” Last time it was a diabolical international terror mastermind hiding in an expansive compound right under the noses of the Pakistani military. This time it…
Read MoreDwane Powell’s return to the N&O captured in one cartoon – a depiction of the Republican elephant gone wild – what thousands of words fail to describe. (Congratulations, incidentally, to Powell on being selected for the N.C. Journalism Hall of Fame.) Even a Republican TAPster wrote: “This cartoon just about sums it up.…
Read MoreThe Republicans’ education agenda finally comes into focus: It’s about creating a market for private enterprise. They want to privatize Medicaid and privatize the Department of Commerce, so why not privatize schools? It’s the only thing that makes sense. You might be wondering: How do they propose to make public schools better when they…
Read MoreLast week Gary thoughtfully wrote a squib (below) urging people to visit young Thomas Mills’ new website PoliticsNC – so I did. And got a surprise. Young Mr. Mills was – genially – taking me to task for writing how the Democrats passing voter laws (over the years) to elect Democrats, had led to Republicans…
Read MoreFor years Jesse Helms wrote every speech he made, typing each on an old reporter’s typewriter, then one year when he was unusually harried he decided it was time to hire a speechwriter – so we hired ‘John.’ John was an unusually gifted writer but for all his virtues he had a peculiar view…
Read MoreIt’s hard to talk about politics when Americans are being blown apart at a great event in one of our great cities. A celebration of human aspiration and achievement becomes a terrorist’s target. A race that celebrates leg power and stamina becomes an abattoir of lost limbs and broken bodies. But politics inevitably intrudes.…
Read MoreRepublicans and Democrats over in the legislature have been battling hammer and tongs but, still, it raised eyebrows last week when the News & Observer reported Republicans have declared war on the cities. House Speaker Thom Tillis explained the new conflagration philosophically, saying ‘Part of the conflict is due to a different world view…
Read MoreNow that UNC-Chapel Hill has a new chancellor, maybe it can move beyond the battles over sexual assaults and athletics-versus-academics and get on with the real war – the one with the new Republican majority in Raleigh. And it will be war. This is a fundamental social, cultural and political conflict. It is…
Read MoreWith Republican legislators pushing drug tests for welfare recipients, let’s look at two Southern states’ experiences. For a year, Georgia has encouraged businesses to alert the agency if a job applicant fails a drug test, so that the state can deny them unemployment benefits. How many people have the tests caught? Exactly one.…
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