Carter Wrenn
Gary Pearce
Every session, some legislator does something astoundingly bone-headed. This year we have Rep. Bryan Holloway, R-Stokes. Holloway told WRAL’s Laura Leslie and Mark Binker that he had nothing to do with the embarrassingly sophomoric and allegedly sexist preppy-fantasy blog “Wasp 101.” Leslie and Binker listed the coincidences between Stokes and blog author, “Richard.”…
Maybe it was the front-page photo of the white-coated female doctor, stethoscope around her neck, being arrested. Maybe it’s the growing number of protesters and arrests. Maybe it’s the broad range of people and interests involved. Whatever the reason, the Moral Monday protests are rolling downhill, picking up speed and making an impact. …
Congressman George Holding – probably thanks to Carter – had a clear message in his campaign: “Cut Spending Now.” But not now, it turns out. And not for himself. Holding’s ads said: “Cut Spending Now.” His yard signs said: “Cut Spending Now.” In his speeches and debates, he said: “Cut Spending Now.” By George,…
Just after we invaded Iraq ten years ago, having lunch with a businessman, I said, Well, they say we have to do it to stop terrorism but I wonder if it’s not about oil too. He laid down his fork. Looked up. Don’t kid yourself. It’s all about oil. Well, I thought, getting…
Moral Mondays show there is still passion on the Democratic side of North Carolina’s political wars. Away from the headlines, there are more strong signs for a Democratic comeback. There’s a long, deep bench of future candidates. In no order, and no doubt leaving out many good ones, there are Roy Cooper, Janet Cowell,…
There’re some strange doings going on over in the General Assembly. For decades, free markets have been an article of faith with Republicans. We don’t like government manipulating markets to pick ‘winners and losers.’ But when Tesla Motors sold eighty fancy electric cars over the Internet in North Carolina, the Automobile Dealers Association…
Thirty-four years ago, in 1979, I tagged along on Governor Jim Hunt’s trade mission to China – the first for a North Carolina governor. The goal: get the Chinese to buy more North Carolina products, like pork. Now, we’re selling them more than pork; we’re selling them Smithfield Foods. “We’ve gone whole-hog,” Ferrel Guillory…
In today’s superheated politics, a bit of understatement can be a powerful thing. Exaggeration and overstatement get you headlines, but they don’t necessarily win the hearts and minds of swing voters. Democrats might remember that as they rail at the Republican-run state government. Crying wolf at every outrage – and there’s a new one every…
Lust has undone more men than most any other sin and, about a year ago, over in Chapel Hill, it turned an aging professor into a drug runner. Professor Paul Frampton was born in a working class family in a working class neighborhood in England, earned three degrees from Oxford, earned a Ph.D. in…
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…