Carter Wrenn
Gary Pearce
You can easily flick aside a Republican witch hunt on Benghazi. After all, they’ve been at it since Mitt Romney popped off the first day. You can manage a controversy about the IRS targeting Tea Party groups – so long as, unlike Nixon, the White House wasn’t involved. But your Justice Department subpoenaed…
Americans have a fine tradition of demonstrating, protesting, sitting-in and getting arrested when their government does something they don’t like. And we always have a great debate about whether the tactics help or hurt. Do they? Look at what we’ve seen over the years: suffragettes, civil rights, anti-Vietnam, gay rights. And the Tea Party,…
When the Raleigh City Council abruptly and mysteriously fired City Manager Russell Allen, you knew there had to be some major urban policy matter involved. Yep: parking places. Now, politicians will put up with a lot. You can attack them, smear them, call them names, criticize their ideas and vote against them. That’s all…
The N&O headline said “Tax plan creates more losers than winners,” but the only real winners and losers from the Senate tax proposal will be Phil Berger and Thom Tillis. As a wise Raleigh vet observed over breakfast, the plan won’t pass. Too many special interests gored, too many lobbyists working and too much…
A group of Democrats was decrying the blizzard of bad bills they see from the legislature: cutting education, attacking renewable energy, making it harder for teens to get health care, loosening gun restraints, on and on. They were talking about what could be done to slow down the storm or persuade Governor McCrory to exercise…
This week’s headlines tell a tale of the priorities and problems of North Carolina’s top three Republicans. Governor McCrory, like all new governors, is focused on getting his cronies into state jobs and frustrated that he can’t fire current state employees fast enough. (A TAPster noted that McCrory’s off-with-their-heads story came out on State…
The trouble with South Carolina, Robert E. Lee supposedly said, is that it’s too small to be an independent nation and too large to be an insane asylum. Which helps explain why Mark Sanford may win his congressional race tonight. The other explanation is our politics today. We are so deeply and bitterly divided…
A TAPster notes that the House’s gun bill allows concealed weapons at sporting events, adding: “I wouldn’t want to be a ref.” Anyone who has been at a game and witnessed the raw anger that can erupt gets the point. How would you like to be the ref who makes an unpopular call…
Governor McCrory went to Texas to push for off-shore drilling, but where does he stand on deep-sixing renewable energy? His old boss at Duke Energy opposes the bill. So do some legislative Republicans. But McCrory, the jobs and energy governor, is silent. Does he agree with the argument made by Republican Rep. Mike…
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…
Senator Phil Berger was out of touch with voters in his district – and suffered the…