Carter Wrenn
Gary Pearce
It’s revealing when politicians – specifically, Republican legislators – clearly believe they are better off when fewer people vote. That’s the conclusion you have to draw from their efforts to suppress early voting in North Carolina. (See Jim Morrill’s story in the Charlotte O and N&O.) Actually, the Republicans are right. The GOP…
Read MoreMaureen Dowd the doyen of liberal columnists, the epitome of kindhearted tolerance, emoting sensitivity from her fingertips, let out a screech like a loon the other day – howling about anyone who dared to criticize the demonstrators dancing in the streets celebrating Osama bin Laden’s death, roaring like an enraged Cassandra, “I don’t want closure.…
Read MoreI said: Who ever heard of Republicans saying increasing fees $150 million isn’t a tax? And the former legislator sitting across the table said: You missed the real tax increase. I blinked: Come again? It turns out for years private colleges – like Campbell and Queens and Peace and Meredith – haven’t…
Read MoreThe fall of Ruffin Poole is an old story in politics, one familiar to readers of All the King’s Men. An idealistic young man (and it’s always a man) goes into politics, hooks up with a winning politician and ends up next to the seat of power. It’s a heady wine. Suddenly people want…
Read MoreThe lobbying war between WakeMed’s Plebes and UNC Hospital’s Aristocrats in the legislature just took a wild turn at the Aristocrats’ expense. So far the Plebes have been set on cutting UNC’s $44 million state tax subsidy but then, last week, Plebe chieftain Bill Atkinson surprised everyone by announcing he wanted to buy Raleigh’s…
Read MoreWhat would Jim Gardner say? The silver-haired, golden-tongued GOP gubernatorial candidate had a great issue in 1992, when he was running against Jim Hunt: “Make prisoners work – and work hard,” he said in his TV spots. He was outraged that hardened criminals were idling away their time “watching TV and working out.”…
Read MoreOver in the State House Republicans hurrahed when five Democrats voted for Speaker Thom Tillis’ budget – at last it looked like Tillis had the votes to override one of Governor Perdue’s vetoes. But flowers bloom then quickly fade. Before the sun set the five Democrats made it perfectly clear to the press…
Read MoreBack in the salad days of the Roman Republic every now and then an absolutely vicious war would break out between the Roman Aristocrats and the Plebes and it looks like we’ve got a similar tussle on our hands here in Wake County. Between two hospitals. Heart surgeries are among the most profitable…
Read MoreWe now have clear evidence that political blogging is hazardous to the health of the body politic. Under the Dome led this morning with my blog speculating that the legislature would be in session until December. It was a joke. I was being facetious. (Well, partly facetious. I was serious about legislators being…
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With a better General Assembly, Josh Stein could join Jim Hunt and Terry Sanford on North…
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Once upon a time, there was a great and powerful newspaper: The News & Observer. Everybody…
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The shouting, sign-waving and cane-wielding by congressional Democrats at the State of the Union isn’t a…
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