Carter Wrenn
Gary Pearce
Here are two appropriate topics for my Fourth of July post: flag-burning and The New York Times. The two have this in common: They are the Republicans’ latest ploy to avoid an election disaster in November. Since W can’t catch Osama, pacify Iraq or convince Americans he has a plan to win the war, he…
The News and Observer reports the maintenance for the RBC Center is going to cost $60 million over the next 16 years (6/27/06). Who can argue with that? We built it, we’ve got to take care of it. But there’s a warning here. When the City Council or County Commissioners spend $100 million for an…
John Edwards is telling Democrats they need backbone. Mr. Edwards is also running for President on the courageous platform of eliminating poverty. He says he can do it – or a lot of it – for $20 billion. Lyndon Johnston couldn’t eliminate poverty with the whole Great Society program. The trillions we’ve spent on welfare…
The State Senate’s budget increases government spending a whopping 9.4%. But it turns out the Senators are the ones holding the line. The Governor wants to increase spending even more: 9.6%. And the House topped him: 9.7%. The Governor and the Senate want to spend 90.5% of the state’s $2.4 billion surplus – and return…
Four big waste management corporations – three from out of state – want to put waste dumps of the Mount Everest variety in eastern North Carolina. Then they want to haul garbage here from other states. Each of the dumps is near the coast. One is in the middle of a flood plain. It seems…
This is a piece of advice that I hope finds its way to my Congressman, Brad Miller. Brad, Americans love happy warriors. Think Roosevelt, Clinton, Kennedy and, yes, Reagan. We do not go for mopers and whiners. Think Dole (Bob), Hoover and Carter. This week, Brad, I talked to two friends who attended recent fundraisers…
Last week there was an outbreak of new taxes in Wake County. Both the Raleigh City Council and the County Commissioners voted to hike taxes the same day. Lead by Mayor Meeker the City Council voted to increase property taxes 9%. On top of that if the School Bond – which the Mayor supports –…
I remember Ralph Reed as a baby-faced, holier-than-thou aide to Jesse Helms in the 1984 Hunt-Helms Senate race. Reed went on to run Pat Robertson’s Moral Majority. Now he’s running for lieutenant governor of Georgia. In the meantime, it appears he rang up some big profits from a suspect source. A bipartisan Senate report has…
A few days ago the state threatened to fire the company – computer giant ACS – it gave the biggest state contract (installing a new Medicaid claims system) to a year ago. That‘s a $171 million contract and, right now, after working on it a year ACS is a year behind schedule. When the company…
Senator Phil Berger was out of touch with voters in his district – and suffered the…
A reassuring lesson from our trip to Germany and Czechia is that dictators, despots and tyrants…
Gwyn and I just returned from a 12-day journey through 1,000 years of history in Germany…