Carter Wrenn
Gary Pearce
It’s my favorite holiday. No presents, no carols, no decorating (until you start on Christmas), just food and family. Also, for me this year, some golf and the State basketball and football games. It’s the quintessential American celebration. Plus, it’s always on Thursday. So you get a guaranteed four-day weekend, or maybe five,…
Here’s a TAPster’s interesting talk on the flap about how many job layoffs the legislature caused: “Sometimes it’s hard to tell who has better aim at their feet these days, the Democrats or the Republicans — and whether there’s anyone out there holding them accountable for their poor politics or obfuscating rhetoric. The latest…
News that the investigation has been reopened into Natalie Wood’s death recalls what might have been. As a young man, I had a serious case of the hots for Natalie. Some years later, around 1981 or so, she was in the Triangle filming “Brainstorm,” which would be her last movie. Governor Hunt, then…
For all my digital-media enthusiasm, I still have one foot firmly planted in the old media world. Especially when I can spend a fine Sunday morning perusing the N&O and New York Times. And especially when it leads to a realization like yesterday’s: North Carolina will have a war over fracking in 2012. …
Everybody’s talking about the 99 percent and the 1 percent. I’m interested in the 9 percent: the percentage of Americans that polls say approve of Congress’ performance. Who are these people? What are thinking? And what will the percentage be when the congressional budget supercommittee, as appears inevitable, fails to reach a Grand…
The country’s up to our eyeballs in debt. Congress is on the verge of cutting defense spending $600 billion. And one way or another just about everybody in Washington is looking for ways to cut, cut, cut. Except one fellow. Barack Obama’s opening a new military base to defend… …in…
Want to see how important North Carolina will be in the 2012 presidential race? Read this New York Times dive into how the Obama Administration backed down on tougher smog-ozone standards. Especially this: “One of the strongest appeals (against tougher rules) came from North Carolina, a state Mr. Obama narrowly won in 2008. The…
Brutal jailers locked mentally ill prisoners in ‘isolation cells,’ took their clothes and mattresses, and left them to sleep naked on the concrete floor – it sounds like a prison in Bangkok or Rangoon only it didn’t happen in Bangkok it happened in Raleigh. The wardens at Central Prison called it “therapeutic seclusion.” Governor…
Democratic oppo researchers should be reveling in what Dome called Pat McCrory’s “shout out” to Heather Lusordo: “I just think unwarranted personal attacks against you hurt our democratic system. I feel for your and your family for what you had to go through. I commend you for the courage to stand up to it.…
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…