Carter Wrenn
Gary Pearce
Over in the legislature, the Democrats took out an axe and cut just about every program in sight from education to health care – and each Democratic legislator voted for it. Then once the Democrats had made half the state mad they turned around and supported a billion dollar tax increase – and made…
Read MoreBefore Father’s Day Barack Obama (whose own father left home when Obama was two years old) speaking to a group of fatherless boys, said, “Just because your father wasn’t there for you, that’s no excuse for you to be absent also…you have an obligation to break the cycle and learn from those mistakes…” No one…
Read MoreBig Tobacco’s big defeat in Congress this month just goes to show that in politics there are no final victories. Turn the page back to 1994. That’s the year Congressman Henry Waxman hauled the top tobacco-company executives before Congress – lining them up and administering the oath like they were Mafia dons. …
Read MoreIt’s hard to imagine a better week – at least in North Carolina – for Republicans. The grand jury’s investigating Governor Easley about the Southport Marina. And Professor Mrs. Easley’s job at NCSU. And Easley’s real estate deal at the beach. And Easley’s free travel. And free vacations. Easley Contributors are testifying, Chancellors are testifying,…
Read MoreI was talking this week with a very smart person who knows what is going on with health care reform in Washington. She said President Obama’s goal is to get a reform bill enacted into law by the end of October. But that depends on Senate Democrats getting 60 votes to force action. …
Read MoreGovernor Perdue must have decided that the only way to arrest her flagging poll numbers is to plant the flag for education. And for $1.5 billion in higher taxes. Laura Leslie at WUNC radio said Perdue is “fighting back” against legislative cuts with a “Jim Hunt-esque tour to pressure legislators to protect school funding.”…
Read MoreTwo readers – who otherwise praise the N&O’s coverage of Easley/Stategate – ask whether the newspaper is guilty of excessive end zone celebration. They especially took issue with John Drescher’s column Saturday criticizing Bob Jordan, the interim trustees’ chairman. One said, “I just think it had a little bit of sitting on the…
Read MoreTom Fetzer must have adequately addressed the most important issue on the minds of delegates at the state Republican convention this weekend: his sexual orientation. This obsession with whether someone is gay is one of the problems Republicans have. Another, judging from the recent war of words on our blog, is their anger. At…
Read MoreWhen I was invited to talk about the state of N.C.State on this weekend’s Headline Saturday for WRAL and The N&O, I was prepared to get even more depressed about my alma mater. Instead, I left the studio this morning feeling good. The reason was the other panelist at the taping: Dr. Jim Martin,…
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Fifty-four years ago this week, on May 8, 1970, 4,500 students from nearly a dozen colleges…
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A peasant’s son Martin Luther never knew the year he was born. Believing children were wicked…
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After Rodrigo Borgia died, soft-spoken but cunning Leo de Medici became pope, after bribing cardinals ended…
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