Talking About Politics

The Marshall Plan

Gary Pearce — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 12:36:00 GMT

Senator Richard Burr’s ad shows he knows he could be vulnerable. Voters don’t know him or what he’s done.

Which supports Elaine Marshall’s case for getting the $10 million she needs from the DSCC to be competitive.

Senate Democrats are playing defense most everywhere this year. It would be nice to make one raid in Republican territory. Make them spend time and money here instead of against a Democratic incumbent.

Public Policy Polling has repeatedly noted Burr’s weakness.

RealClearPolitics says Burr is in “the danger zone.”

Marshall has a good campaign team, and she can draw a sharp contrast with Burr. She can attack him on voting for the bailout, which will temper Republicans’ enthusiasm for him and hurt him with independents. She can attack him as a 16-year Washington politician.

Plus, she has an advantage: She’s a woman.

PPP’s analysis shows that Democratic voters aren’t energized. Money – and a visit by President Obama – could change that.

Which would help not only Marshall, but also Democratic congressional incumbents. And Democratic chances in the legislative races. And redistricting in 2011. And Obama’s chances here in 2012.

The votes are there for Marshall. The question is whether she’ll have the money to get them.

Government Jobs

Gary Pearce — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 16:20:00 GMT

A reader called today with an interesting thought spurred by Richard Burr’s ad.

She took issue with his suggestion that all jobs come from the private sector. She pointed out that government contracts with Blackwater, Halliburton, KBR and a raft of defense contractors sure created a bunch of jobs.

She has a point. When private companies aren’t hiring, a government job – or a job created by a government contract – can pay the rent.

A Win for Perdue

Gary Pearce — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 12:31:00 GMT

Remember the furor last year when Governor Perdue announced that dozens of long-term, convicted criminals might get out of prison early because of an issue over “good time”?

Remember how everybody said what a disaster this would be for her?

Remember how critics said she overreacted by threatening to stand in the jailhouse door to prevent their release?

Then, last week, did you notice when the state Supreme Court ruled that she was, in fact, right? That the inmates wouldn’t be getting out early?

Somehow that didn’t get quite the same attention.

The Governor and her people should enjoy some told-you-so’s here.

Flight of Fancy

Gary Pearce — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 18:33:00 GMT

My friend Damon Circosta, executive director on the N.C. Center for Voter Education, gets an A for effort but an F for persuasiveness.

Circosta, according to Under the Dome, says the flap over Governor Perdue’s campaign not reporting some flights is an argument for “voter-owned” (publicly financed) campaigns. http://projects.newsobserver.com/dome#ixzz0yBS20BU0

The logic goes over my head.

Why is a candidate taking public funds any less likely to commit a reporting error than a candidate taking individual and PAC contributions?

I hope Damon will enlighten me.

As I’ve blogged before, I understand that public-financing supporters are well-intentioned – and right to be concerned about corruption in today’s system. But if President Obama had used public financing, he couldn’t have competed in North Carolina.

There is a case to be made for public financing. I just down see how this is it.

Resolved

Gary Pearce — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 12:23:00 GMT

I’m amused by people who argue that the “mosque” shouldn’t be built near Ground Zero because a poll showed a majority of Americans oppose it.

Well, not along ago I saw a poll that found, for the first time, that most Americans think gay couples should be allowed to wed.

That settles it, I guess.

Only in America...

Gary Pearce — Mon, 30 Aug 2010 15:06:00 GMT

…could a charlatan like Glenn Beck (with Sarah Palin as backup) claim that holding his Washington rally on the anniversary of Martin Luther King’s is “divine providence” AND simultaneously claim that an Islamic center shouldn’t be built two blocks from Ground Zero because it offends some people.

Am I the only person who thinks it’s fine for Beck & Co. to hold their rally when and where they did AND for the Islamic center to be built on that site?

'They did a bad Thing'

Carter Wrenn — Mon, 30 Aug 2010 14:05:00 GMT

Over in Afghanistan, according to the newspaper, 25-year-old Khayyam and 19-year-old Siddiqa fell in love;---now Khayyam already had a wife but that wasn’t a hurdle because in Afghanistan men can have four wives; instead the hurdle was his family turned thumbs down on the marriage, plus Siddiqa was already engaged to a relative of Khayyam’s who she didn’t want to marry.

Khayyam and Siddiqa eloped.

A few months later their families found them hiding in a distant province and promised if they’d come home all would be forgiven. But the day they returned home they were seized by the Taliban which convened a court of Mullahs and convicted them. Next they were taken outside into the bazaar, surrounded by 200 villagers and stoned.

Siddiqa in her burqa was killed first.

Then Khayyam.

Khayyam’s father and brother and Siddiqa’s brother participated in the stoning.

Afterwards a local farmer, Nader Khan, told a Kabul reporter, “People were very happy seeing this,” adding the crowd was festive and cheered during the stoning. The couple, he concluded, “did a bad thing.”

A spokesman for the Taliban speaking by cell phone also explained to the reporter it all was handled quite properly according to Shariah Law which he claimed is “based on Islamic Law,” at least the way the Taliban sees it.

Can't We All Get Along?

Gary Pearce — Fri, 27 Aug 2010 12:28:00 GMT

It’s a familiar question. I heard it again not long ago.

My Republican friend/foe Jack Hawke and I were tossing partisan grenades at each other during a panel on this year’s elections.

When it was time for Q&A, the question was: “Can’t the two parties put aside their differences and solve our problems instead of fighting and attacking each other all the time?”

No, we can’t. What’s more, we shouldn’t.

The question rises from a well-intentioned, civics-book view of politics. But it overlooks the basic fact that politics is about differences and disagreements – often deeply held.

An example: On health-care reform, Democrats thought every American should be required to have insurance. Republicans disagreed.

There is no middle ground there, no compromise. We either require it, or we don’t.

So we see who has the most votes today. Then the other side gets a chance to take its case to the people for their vote.

That leads to a lot of fussing and fighting, fuming and fulminating, posturing and positioning.

You may not like that free-for-all. If so, there are places that don’t have it. Like

North Korea

The Million Dollar Question

Carter Wrenn — Thu, 26 Aug 2010 21:26:00 GMT

Well, Gary, you’re back and I’m glad we’ve got a little controversy on our hands (about the Mosque in Manhattan) and I suspect before we finish debating we may be disagreeing on more than just politics.

Let me ask – gingerly – three questions. Are all religions are equal? Should all religions be treated equally? Is there a tie between Islam and terrorism?

Are all religions equal? Most people I think would answer this question no. Moslems don’t believe Christ is the Messiah so in their view Christians are making a mistake by worshiping a false God. Most Christians, of course, look at it exactly the other way around. The point is one of these religions has to be right and the other is wrong – so it’s hard to see how they’re equal. Do we disagree?

Should all religions be treated equally? In America today we’ve already crossed that bridge and, I suspect, most people would answer this question yes. But that does tend to lead to awkward conflicts and the mosque is an example. To put it delicately, even if a fellow favors freedom of religion, if he has qualms about Islam’s ties to terrorism he may naturally wince at the prospect of a mosque two blocks from Ground Zero.

And that brings us face to face with the million dollar question. Is there a tie between Islam and terrorism? Perhaps you know the answer to that. I don’t. But, naturally, ignorance breeds doubt and doubt leads to suspicion.

For instance, I look around at the followers of other religions – for example, Hindus or Buddhists – and I wonder if they are as likely to commit acts of terrorism as Muslims. And a brief, unscientific glance at who’s murdering who these days doesn’t reveal a lot of Hindu terrorists. Of course, that doesn’t prove a link exists between Islam and terrorism. Osama bin Laden could be attacking the United States for a number of reasons that have nothing to do with Islam. But I suspect the plumb line in the debate about the mosque boils down to the answer to the question of the ties between Islam and terrorism.

I may be completely mischaracterizing your view (and I am sure if I am you’ll correct me) but it seems to me pro-mosque building folks answer that question one of two ways. They say: There’re good people and there’re bad people and Osama bin Laden is a bad person and his religion has nothing to do with it. He’d still be a bad person (and a murderer) if he was a Christian.

Or, alternatively, they reason: There are ‘bad Christians’ but that doesn’t prove Christianity is bad. So the fact there are ‘bad Muslims’ doesn’t prove Islam is bad. Therefore, the two religions should be treated equally.

That sounds fair and logical and open-minded but, of course, there is the possibility the first statement is true and the second false. After all, I think we’d agree a Christian blowing up 3,000 innocent people would be acting contrary to the teachings of Christ. But I guess it’s possible a Muslim doing the same thing might be acting in accord with the teachings of The Prophet.

So here is the question I suspect may take us far beyond politics: What do you think? Like many people who don’t know a great deal about Islam I wonder, Is there something about Islam that leads to the creation of terrorists like Osama bin Laden?

Holding for AG?

Gary Pearce — Thu, 26 Aug 2010 13:21:00 GMT

The rumor among Republicans is that George Holding will run against Roy Cooper for AG in 2012.

That assumes, of course, that Holding doesn’t stay on as U.S. Attorney forever.

It also assumes he finally handles his high-profile cases: Mike Easley and John Edwards.

Maybe Holding will punt Easley to the state, saying that the Supreme Court ruling on “honest services” makes a federal prosecution impossible.

That could be bad news for Edwards. It wouldn’t look good for Holding to keep the bat on his shoulder and not swing twice.

Of course, any prosecutor has to worry now about trying Easley or Edwards. If that clown Blagojevich got off, don’t you think Easley and/or Edwards could convince at least one juror to hold out for acquittal?

Perdue's Luck

Gary Pearce — Wed, 25 Aug 2010 19:46:00 GMT

Governor Perdue can’t catch a break.

Today should have been a big news day for her: North Carolina winning one of the 10 “Race to the Top” selections.

That’s a big step forward in school reform. And, by the way, one of the most significant and least recognized achievements of the Obama administration.

But that story competes with headlines about her campaign being fined $30,000 for not reporting flights in the 2008 campaign.

Elections Board, Highway Patrol, SBI (not under her, but do people know that?). It’s hard to climb out of the muck in Raleigh.

The Inmates Are Loose

Gary Pearce — Wed, 25 Aug 2010 13:08:00 GMT

One thing is clear from Tuesday’s primaries: the lunatics are running the Republican asylum.

Rick Scott, a key figure in the biggest health-care fraud scandal ever, won the Republican nomination for governor of Florida. Alaska Senator Lisa Murkowski trails a Sarah Palin-endorsed Tea Partier. And John McCain, who gave America Sarah Palin, survived in Arizona by turning his back on everything he ever stood for.

This is excellent news for the Democratic Party.

Republicans still may win big this year. But, if they do, the Tea Party will claim credit. It will grab the GOP steering wheel and steer the car over the cliff.

Democrats will then be poised for a big comeback in 2012, with Barack Obama winning reelection.

Not ‘94?

Gary Pearce — Tue, 24 Aug 2010 15:19:00 GMT

The last couple of weeks, I’ve talked with Democrats and Republicans who are deeply involved in this year’s elections.

And I found a ray of hope for Democrats: 2010 may not be 1994 revisited.

The reason: 1994 itself.

What happened that year is hard-wired into Democratic DNA – in North Carolina and nationally. “1994” is a synonym for “disaster.”

In fact, 1994 shook Democrats so hard that they may avert disaster this year, when the climate looks just as bad as 16 years ago.

Case in point: the state Senate’s Democratic campaign caucus. After nearly losing their majority in 1994 – and watching Republicans take the House – they got serious about running professional campaigns: raising money, doing research and polling and producing quality mail and TV ads.

That’s how they kept their majority. And they have much the same professional team they built in 1996.

Tom Fetzer has greatly raised the Republicans’ game this year. But they’re up against a tough, experienced Democratic team.

The other difference – which one Republican consultant mentioned – is that the GOP tide is cresting earlier this year than in 1994. Then, Republicans began surging in September. This year, it came months earlier.

Then, Democrats were caught by surprise. I remember being in a meeting with then-Governor Hunt and one of his close friends. When I told them then-Congressman Martin Lancaster might lose to Walter Jones, Hunt’s friend shot back: “You cannot tell me that little pipsqueak might beat Martin.”

He did. Even more stunning, David Price lost.

This year, Democrats aren’t asleep at the switch.

Now, this may all be wishful Democratic thinking. Or the Republicans may be spiking the ball before they’re in the end zone.

Stories About Journalists

Carter Wrenn — Mon, 23 Aug 2010 16:18:00 GMT

For twenty years the state ‘crime lab,’ the News and Observer reports, has been withholding evidence and misleading juries at trials and sending innocent people to prison – but no one has been fired, which makes the fate of Eszter Vajda (another state employee who did lose her job last week after the firestorm over her documentary about the cyanide buried around Alcoa’s old aluminum smelter in Stanly County) seem, well, odd.

After months of shuffling through environmental reports and reading lawsuits and interviewing widows of Alcoa employees who’d died of cancer, Vajda was not only shocked – she’d figured out those old files were telling a story she’d never imagined. But part way through her documentary she ran head on into a hurdle: Her researcher, Martin Sansone, had to go home to England and her employer UNC-TV wouldn’t pay to fly him back to finish the film.

Most sensible young women (and anyone with more common sense than stubbornness) would have given up on making a full length documentary when they couldn’t afford to buy an airplane ticket. But whatever Eszter Vajda’s vices fear wasn’t one of them. She had her teeth into a story and to be stopped by an airline ticket was insufferable – so she and Sansone asked a group of Republicans, who’re on the other side of the fight from Alcoa down in Stanly County, to pay Sansone’s expenses.

Taking money from folks opposing Alcoa when you’re making a film about Alcoa wasn’t going to look good, but for years UNC-TV had been taking money from people to make films about them (say, for the Golden Leaf Foundation) so, perhaps, Vajda just looked at what UNC-TV had done in the past and figured, How is this any different?

Sansone flew back to Raleigh and Vajda charged ahead and then ran head on into another hurdle: Most journalists thrive on controversy because it sells newspapers. But the managers of UNC-TV, in addition to being journalists, are level-headed government employees. They don’t need to air controversial programs (which makes people mad at them) to make money so it’s just plain common sense for them to avoid controversy like the plague. (Two of the features on UNC-TV’s website this morning were “Share Your Favorite Baseball Memory” and “A Tour of the Great Lodges of the Canadian Rockies” with station manager Tom Howe.)

When her superiors at UNC-TV told Vajda they didn’t want to air her hour-long documentary she cajoled and appealed but got nowhere – then she lit into them.

Raleigh’s no longer a small town but word does still get around and pretty soon ears down at the legislature picked up on the rumblings between Vajda and her bosses and that landed UNC-TV in an odd place: In the middle of a tug of war between Alcoa’s lobbyists (who were trying to kill a bill Alcoa didn’t like) and a handful of local state legislators trying to pass the bill. The legislators figured, even if they hadn’t seen her film, it couldn’t hurt if Vajda told the story of, for example, Alcoa suing the Health Department to stop it from posting signs along Badin Lake, by its smelter, warning pregnant women not to eat the fish because they were contaminated with PCBs that can cause cancer.

But even when the old bull-moose of the Senate, Marc Basnight, weighed in UNC-TV wouldn’t give Vajda what she wanted. In the end she could only talk the station into airing three short segments – so most of her documentary was headed for the elephant’s graveyard of unfinished documentaries when something even more unexpected happened: Senator Fletcher Hartsell sent a pair of subpoenas to UNC-TV and Vajda, personally, telling her to bring the full hour long version of her documentary over to his Senate Committee so Senators could look at it.

That didn’t trouble anyone much except Vajda’s fellow journalists who saw the idea of subpoenaing a journalist as a kind of heresy and let out a howl of outrage that would have made a tub-thumping Baptist preacher proud. Hard bitten reporters who’d been publishing public records to embarrass governors for years roared subpoenaing a reporter was unconstitutional and UNC-TV ought to tell Senator Hartsell to stick his subpoena in his ear

Trapped between lobbyists, State Senators, and a mob of howling journalists UNC-TV had more controversy on its hands than it had ever dreamed of and when the Attorney General’s office told them there was no legal way to look a judge in the eye and argue a public record created by a journalist (who worked for state government) was exempt from the same laws governors have to abide by they stuck the flag.

Vajda trooped over to the legislature and played a rough cut of her documentary to a room packed full of Senators and Alcoa lobbyists and for the first time folks got to see The Alcoa Story and it was a doozy: Right at the start of her film Vajda launched into a list of toxic chemicals that are waste from aluminum smelting – cyanide, arsenic and PCBs – then moved right on into how Alcoa had been dumping them in Stanly County since it opened its smelter in World War I, then moved on into local cancer rates and groundwater contamination and ended up by asking a question it’s kind of amazing no one asked before: Why doesn’t the state do a study to find out if what Alcoa’s been doing down in Stanly County since World War I is a public health threat?

Vajda’s documentary sent a shock wave through the legislature and then another odd thing happened: Out of a clear blue sky UNC-TV started sending letters to people who’d posted her film on the Internet ordering them to take it down because it violated their copyright. In other words, UNC-TV was saying Vajda’s documentary was a public record but no one could show it to anyone else because it was copywrited.

If, a year ago, Governor Easley had told the News and Observer, Sure my emails are public records. And sure you can see them. But you can’t publish them. They’re copywrited – the press would have had apoplexy. But, this time, not one journalist complained.

Instead several of Vajda’s fellow journalists tore into her over Sansone’s travels and never mentioned copyrighting public records or PCBs; -- then UNC-TV issued a terse statement saying Vajda was no longer employed by the station.

Finally, when the smoke cleared, one local paper – Yes, Weekly – did ask Alcoa the million dollar question – and it’s about all the vindication Vajda is likely to get.

What, the paper asked, did Alcoa claim was biased about Vajda’s film?

Well, it wasn’t true, Alcoa spokesman Mike Bellwood said, that Alcoa is a trillion dollar corporation like Ms. Vajda reported. Then he added that Vajda was also wrong when she reported Alcoa’s Yadkin Dams could be ‘recaptured’ by Congress for $16 million. (In fairness to Vajda, in her documentary she actually said Alcoa had told the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission ‘recapture’ would cost $24 million.)

As Yes, Weekly pointed out Alcoa didn’t dispute a word Vajda had reported about the cyanide buried around its smelter.

Hallowed Principle

Gary Pearce — Mon, 23 Aug 2010 13:52:00 GMT

Well, Carter, I get your point that the World Trade Center is “hallowed ground.” But why does that mean a mosque, or an Islamic cultural center, shouldn’t be two blocks away?

In an area, apparently, that is now home to bars, restaurants and a strip club?

Apparently, the reasoning is that anything Islamic anywhere nearby is a violation of this sacred ground. In other words, because a group of Islamic fanatics committed an atrocity, all Muslims and all things Islamic must be held responsible.

I don’t buy that.

I think what we have here isn’t principle, but pure politics.

Hallowed Ground

Carter Wrenn — Mon, 16 Aug 2010 20:48:00 GMT

Now, Gary, about that mosque in Manhattan you disagree with me about: It is fine and noble to talk about “freedom” and “tolerance” and “openness” but Charles Krauthamner asked a pretty fair question of his own about this mosque in the newspaper last week: ‘What makes a place sacred?’

He gave three examples of what makes a patch of earth hallowed ground: A miracle (Lourdes), a noble sacrifice (Gettysburg), or the blood of martyrs and suffering of the innocent (Auschwitz).

He continued, ‘When we speak of… hallowed ground, what we mean is it belongs to those who suffered and died there – and such ownership obliges us, the living, to preserve the dignity and memory of the place, never allowing it to be forgotten, trivialized or misappropriated’…that’s why while no one objects to Japanese cultural centers, the idea of putting one up on Pearl Harbor would be offensive… and why Pope John Paul II ordered the Carmelite nuns to leave the convent they had established at Auschwitz… he was teaching them a lesson in respect: This is not your place.’

The Governor of New York offered to find the ‘good Muslims’ you describe in New York another place for their mosque. They refused. What more needs to be said?

Just Plain Funny...

Carter Wrenn — Mon, 16 Aug 2010 20:36:00 GMT

Sometimes something will just float in out of the Internet that’s just plain funny.

This one came with the subject: A-Bomb or Welfare. Click Here to read it.

Obama-care and Perdue-care

Carter Wrenn — Mon, 16 Aug 2010 17:28:00 GMT

Seven hundred fire breathing Democrats gathered in Fayetteville for their convention and just about came to blows over reading the riot act to three Democratic Congressmen who had the sheer audacity to vote against Obama-care.

What saved the poor Congressmen from humiliation (or perhaps mutilation) was one of their more adroit supporters standing up and telling his fellow Democrats: Look. Wait a minute. We ought not to have litmus tests for ideological purity. That’s what the Tea Party does.

As angry as the Democrats were at the Congressmen apparently they liked being compared to the Tea Party even less so they dropped the whole idea.

But here’s an odd anomaly: Not one of the up-in-arms-over-Obama-care Democrats paid the least bit of attention to what’s going on with Perdue-care right here in North Carolina.

Up in Washington President Obama just provided healthcare to some 30 odd million Americans – but here in North Carolina Governor Perdue is cutting care to the old and infirm and poor left and right.

The state’s so-called mental hospitals – if you read the newspapers – are 21st century throwbacks to Bedlam (the notorious 19th century London insane asylum). In North Carolina’s 21st century mental hospitals patients have been killed by other patients, beaten by orderlies, and raped.

Of course (and maybe this is a blessing in disguise) for the poor getting into one of the state’s ‘mental hospitals’ is just about impossible – because there are too few beds. As a result, the newspapers report, under Perdue-care psychotics (if they are violent) spend days handcuffed to beds in Emergency Rooms or being ‘warehoused’ in rest homes that were meant to treat the elderly.

And the problems aren’t limited to mental hospitals.

In May, an 88-year-old woman – a severe diabetic and double amputee – applied to the state for in-home care so she could stay out of a nursing home. Three months later she’s still waiting to hear from the state.

Another woman applied for care in April. It took the state two months to respond. By then she was in the hospital.

Another elderly woman applied for care in April. Her care was approved in July. Unfortunately, she died in June.

A patient’s rights group got so upset about how the state’s treating mental patients it sued and after the Obama Administration found out what the state is doing it joined in the suit – against Governor Perdue.

In another lawsuit a judge ruled Perdue’s Department of Health and Human Services was trying to cut care to elderly patients on Medicaid without bothering to physically examine the patients first to determine if they needed care.

Meantime, at the same time she’s cutting medical care to the poor Governor Perdue is proposing to give a new tax break to movie stars who earn over $1 million – so they’ll make movies in North Carolina.

No wonder the latest Civitas Institute poll shows Governor Perdue’s popularity, which had already plummeted among Republicans and Independents, just plummeted among Democrats too – by 15 points.

Gary's Taking a Break

Gary Pearce — Mon, 16 Aug 2010 13:23:00 GMT

This website is going to tilt right this week. I’m going to the beach.

On the agenda: golf, reading, napping, seafood and spirits, swimming and jogging (to make up for the seafood and spirits).

Not on the agenda: blogging.

I’ll be back August 23.

Don’t let Carter warp your mind while I’m gone.

Ethics North Carolina Style

Carter Wrenn — Fri, 13 Aug 2010 14:34:00 GMT

As House Democratic Leader Joe Hackney and House Republican Leader ‘Skip’ Stam watched beaming, Governor Perdue signed the states latest ‘Ethics Law.’

Hackney then said it was wonderful that Democrats were cleaning up the mess in state government, and Stam said it was a shame the Democrats had created the mess in the first place.

However, truth be told, the laws legislators left out of the bill are more important than the ones they put in.

For example: They left out a law that would have made candidates personally liable for the fines when if their campaigns violate state elections laws. Legislators killed that law in a New York minute.

And they left out another law that would have limited how much money government contractors can give to the politicians granting their contracts. Legislators said that might make it harder for companies that already had contracts to get more state work – because somehow, they reasoned, it would give companies without contracts a competitive advantage.

At least there’s no doubt that’s true – in North Carolina nothing gets a government contract like a contribution.

The Will of the People

Gary Pearce — Fri, 13 Aug 2010 13:17:00 GMT

Some people must have superpowers.

How else can they divine “the will of the people” all by themselves?

Frequently, people comment here that Obama and the Democrats are defying “the will of the people” or “the majority.”

I hate to break it to you, but under our beloved Constitution the only way to definitively determine the will of the people is by an election.

And Obama won. Overwhelmingly. Including in states that Democrats hadn’t won in decades. Like North Carolina.

Now, he may lose in 2012. That would be the will of the people. Or he may win another four years. Again, will of the people.

And Republicans may win this year. Will of the people.

But the will of the people is not necessarily what you or I think it is, especially when it always happens to jibe with our personal opinions. It’s not necessarily what the latest poll said. Especially when another poll might say exactly the opposite.

And it’s not necessarily whatever some cable TV blabbermouth – left or right – is saying.

Individuals’ opinions are always interesting - whether idiotic or insightful. But they aren’t necessarily “the will of the people.”

Immigrants and Gays

Carter Wrenn — Fri, 13 Aug 2010 13:00:00 GMT

Federal judges have turned out to be President Obama’s worst nightmare; first a Clinton judge in Phoenix threw out Arizona’s immigration law and landed Obama in the middle of a political war over the next to last issue he wanted to fight over; then a judge in California landed him in an even worse fight – one over gay marriage.

How much trouble could this cause Obama?

Even Democrats (or, at least, a lot of Democrats) disagree with him over giving amnesty to illegal immigrants, and even California – which is running nose to nose with Massachusetts for the crown of most liberated and open-minded state – voted almost two to one against gay marriage.

President Obama spent a trillion dollars, the recession deepened, and he lost the support of Independents. In the Democratic primaries he ran to Hillary’s left as a peace candidate, then after the election you couldn’t slip a sheet of paper between his policy in Iraq and Afghanistan and George Bush’s – which has made the peace wing of his own party restless. Now, when he least needs bad news, he now has to fight battles on two issues that will send conservatives to the polls in droves.

NC-SBI

Carter Wrenn — Fri, 13 Aug 2010 01:27:00 GMT

Over in Davie County a dentist tells the District Attorney his wife stabbed him with a spear, then he stabbed her back with his pocket knife, and she died; the DA calls in the SBI’s Chief ‘Blood Splatter’ expert to figure out exactly what did happen; two investigators stare at the bloodstains on the husband’s tee-shirt, focus on one odd stain, and come to a startling conclusion: The husband’s not telling the truth. He killed the wife, wiped his bloody knife on his tee-shirt, then stabbed himself in the thigh with the spear.

Next the Chief ‘Blood Splatter’ expert, Duane Deaver, and an aide run a ‘scientific’ test to prove his theory: They take a pocket-knife, dip it in blood and wipe it on a tee-shirt to see if it matches the odd stain on the husband’s tee-shirt.

Only there’s a problem: It doesn’t.

So Deaver, following the highly scientific theory ‘if at first you don’t succeed try, try again,’ repeats the experiment and this time has better luck: The stains match – so he’s proved it is possible the husband murdered his wife and then wiped the knife on his tee-shirt but, of course, it’s also possible that one odd stain could have gotten on the tee-shirt in any one of a dozen different ways and Deaver hasn’t eliminated any of them.

But that little hole in Deaver’s ‘scientific’ theory gets left out of the report his office sends the DA – instead the report says the state’s ‘Blood Splatter’ experts have proved ‘scientifically’ and irrefutably the husband is lying and killed the wife – so the DA charges the husband with murder.

Two years later, the case lands in an expose in a newspaper a hundred miles away, along with two other cases where ‘Blood Splatter’ expert Deaver tested stains on a man’s boot and on a car bumper. Deaver’s tests showed the stains might have been blood but, later, testifying in court, Deaver said that using the latest scientific knowledge he’d proved absolutely, irrefutably the stains were blood. In other words, he didn’t tell the truth.

Now what on earth is going on here?

How can it be possible (for over twenty years – because the three cases happened 20 years apart) an official state ‘investigator’ have been giving false testimony to send people to jail?

And, for that matter, why didn’t the DA in Davie County tell Deaver, If you’re saying wiping a bloody knife twice on a tee-shirt is irrefutable, scientific evidence I’m a monkey’s uncle – which is what the foreman of the jury in the dentists case more or less told the newspaper, saying, “Politically, socially, religiously, I’m conservative; I’m a law-and-order man. But I don’t know what other word to use but a fraud.”

Awhile back my friend Joe – who’s a defense lawyer – and I had a disagreement over some aspect of the criminal justice system in North Carolina. I can’t even remember what it was now. But, whatever it was, Joe, I apologize. It’s clear there’ve been shenanigans going on in the SBI and the courts and DA’s offices that are just plain crazy.

Running Hard

Gary Pearce — Thu, 12 Aug 2010 14:54:00 GMT

If you think running for office is easy, you should have seen Rep. Grier Martin yesterday.

The heat index on my street in Raleigh’s North Ridge was somewhere north of 100 degrees. And here came Grier, drenched with sweat through his knit shirt, his khaki slacks and shoes.

He was going door to door, talking to voters or leaving a note and campaign literature if no one was home.

He was probably glad to see a friendly Democratic face, since this is one of the most Republican neighborhoods around. (What am I doing here?)

We invited him in for some cold water, a towel and the air-conditioning. He said this was just one more day of canvassing his entire district.

I might have wondered about a normal person handling the heat, but I know Grier (like his father, D.G.) is a compulsive exerciser – and fitter than 98 percent of the population.

“This probably means you won’t have to run today,” I said.

Oh no. He was planning to do his usual five miles after he got home – and rested a bit.

For that alone he deserves to win.

The GOP Show

Gary Pearce — Wed, 11 Aug 2010 14:48:00 GMT

North Carolina Republicans are a long way from winning this fall’s legislative elections, but they’re winning the battle of perceptions.

And that battle has big implications for fundraising.

Three sources have told me in the last week that the Republicans’ presentations on their prospects for the fall are blowing away the Democrats.

One source, a Democrat, said maybe it’s that the Republicans just have an easier story to tell this year, with the political winds at their backs. Or maybe the Democrats are playing possum. Or maybe they’re just down and discouraged.

Whatever, the Democratic House and Senate caucus leaders need to step up their games if they’re going to win the money race.