Carter Wrenn
Gary Pearce
Taxpayers are paying for big salaries and big consulting contracts at DHHS. Are they also paying for “security” so the Secretary won’t have to answer questions about what the taxpayers are paying? An indignant TAPster emailed on Sunday: “Ned Barnett’s column this morning says that Aldona Wos has ‘security personnel.’ I guess this really…
Foreign policy is not my forte, so don’t ask me what America should do about Syria. But I get politics, and I don’t get President Obama’s political strategy. If you want to do something, why ask permission from a Congress that has proven itself incapable of doing anything? Most Republicans won’t vote for…
When Charles Meeker let fly his Governor-in-2016 trial balloon, you saw two things about where the political winds are blowing today. First, Democrats sense Governor McCrory is vulnerable. That’s no news flash. Everybody has concluded that over the last month. Including McCrory and his allies. That’s why they’re denouncing the media, promising to whack…
In the Senate of the world’s oldest democracy the Honorables sat down around a giant horseshoe-shaped table to hold a hearing to ask the Secretary of State how he figured bombing Syria was a good idea – but a strange thing happened: As soon as each Senator asked his first question the Secretary of State…
Every day I say: Today I won’t pick on Governor McCrory. Then he does something so boneheaded I can’t resist. Like his parting shots at the legislature. He looked like the 98-pound weakling sticking out his tongue long after the bully who kicked sand in his face walked down the beach. The legislature…
The Governor climbed into the ring with the State House Monday morning and thirty minutes later he was lying sprawled flat on his back on the canvas then, the next morning, he climbed back into the ring – this time with the State Senate – and the same thing happened again. Pat McCrory’s…
Even Republicans are puzzled about why Governor McCrory vetoed the two bills he did. Why pick a fight you’re going to lose? Unless there’s a big upside, and there’s not here. Both of the bills he vetoed had passed the House, his only real ally on Jones Street, with veto-proof majorities and bipartisan…
Broken politics and posturing politicians present one degree of mendacity when it comes to passing a budget – but the moment a war appears on the horizon that same devilment turns lethal. A few days ago the President declared that, as leader of the oldest constitutional democracy on earth, he needs the support of…
A local CEO was shocked by Governor McCrory’s comments in Rob Christensen’s Sunday N&O story (“During session and beyond, McCrory has rough start”). Here’s the message he left on voice mail: “I can’t tell you a CEO in any organization who could get away with saying I have no agenda, I have no…
Carter Wrenn and I are moving to Substack. That’s where you’ll find our blogs in the…
The political sniping began even as chaos still reigned at the White House Correspondents Dinner. My…
A new nationwide poll shows that, if they could run against each other in 2028, Barack…