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Entries for 'Carter Wrenn'
Carter Wrenn posted on September 28, 2012 18:12
Amid the turmoil and hard times, when 47% of the Americans depend on government for support, it came as a surprise to open the newspaper and read Raleigh is spending $60 million on a train station.
Medicare is, with mathematical certainty, heading to bankruptcy. Social Security is not far behind. And the government in Washington can only continue to function as long as someone is willing to loan it 40 cents of every dollar it spends.
But the federal government, state government and city governments are uniting to build a train depot.
Does that make any sense at all?
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Carter Wrenn posted on September 28, 2012 17:59
There is a lot of sound and fury in the press – the latest storyline on the Presidential race reads: ‘Romney Stumbles,’ ‘Romney Sinks,’ ‘Romney Running Out of Time.’ Former Bush campaign aide Mark McKinnon wrote Romney ‘has dug his hole so deeply now, I don’t know if he can pull himself out.’
In fact, the last Gallop tracking poll (Wednesday night) showed Romney and Obama tied with 47% of the vote each.
So what’s going on here?
Tabloid journalism.
Whether it’s MSNBC, CNN or Fox News, tabloids – even the electronic version – feed on drama. Every night they need crisis and if a crisis doesn’t exist they’ll invent one. After all, they can’t report night after night that the polls didn’t change.
So watch the story line. I expect it may run: Romney Stumbles, Romney Falls, Romney Rallies, Polls Tied Again.
But don’t confuse that with the facts.
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Carter Wrenn posted on September 26, 2012 17:17
If Mitt Romney feels like he’s up to his hips in alligators – he ought to consider the alligators that have chomped down on poor Tony Tata.
Two years ago, the newly elected Republican School Board made short shift of the old School Superintendent and hired Tata. Then the Democrats won the next election and their School Board set out to give Tata the boot.
Elections do have consequences.
Next, proclaiming it the “War at the School Board,” Wake County’s Republican Chairman Susan Bryant blasted the Democrats and emailed a call to arms to local Republicans, saying, ‘The radical extremists… are preparing to fire our great Superintendent, and we have to stop them.’
Unfortunately for Mrs. Bryant she ran head-on into a deadly foe: A sense of humor – which the News & Observer’s Barry Saunders has in abundance. Gently poking Mrs. Bryan in his column Saunders wrote: Chill, sisterwoman. ‘Radical extremists’ are those people who stormed our embassy and killed our ambassador and others in Libya…’
Anyway, it’s all over now. Yesterday the Democrats removed Tata.
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Carter Wrenn posted on September 26, 2012 15:26
It’s a fad: Paul Ryan put his mother on TV, then David Rouzer put his grandmother on TV, then Tom Murray (who’s running for State House) put his mother in a TV ad. So which will folks say, ‘No one knows him better than his mother’ – or – ‘Does that mean he couldn’t get anyone except his mother to say something good about him?
David Rouzer has also done another ad people might look at two ways.
Back in 2008 two white-haired gentlemen sat down on a porch in a pair of rocking chairs and made a TV ad for Kay Hagan that all but sunk Liddy Dole. Two years later, the same two white-haired gentlemen reappeared, rocking and saying they’d made a mistake last election and this time they were voting for Senator Richard Burr. It was clever – and humorous and it worked.
Now David Rouzer has put the same two gentlemen in an ad, rocking for him – so will the third time turn out to be a charm or too much of a good thing?
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Carter Wrenn posted on September 25, 2012 13:57
Imagine Mitt Romney, Barack Obama and Bill Clinton sitting in a room together, listening to a pollster describing the mythical undecided voter, saying: She’s forty-six years old. She grew up on a farm or in a working class neighborhood. She’s a working mother now with two children, living in the suburbs. She’s pro-choice. And she’s sitting in the pew in church every Sunday.
Obama nods slowly. Mitt Romney scratches his head. And Clinton grins and says, Yeah, I know that girl. I went to high school with a girl like her.
That’s a long way of saying when it comes to undecided voters Barack Obama and Mitt Romney are talking to a concept they heard from a pollster – while Bill Clinton is talking to a woman he’s met and known.
For example, when the archetypical suburban working mother sees Romney’s new ad about China’s currency manipulation she may think, At last, he’s talking about an issue I care about – but, then again, she may also furrow her brow and sigh, Why on earth is he talking about the Yuan?
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Carter Wrenn posted on September 24, 2012 18:10
It’s been a long hard fought political war – for years the folks over at the Civitas Institute have been racing the liberals at Public Policy Polling (who seem to be able to churn out a poll every five minutes) to see who could bombard the newspapers with the most propaganda disguised as polling.
Not long ago the Civitas Institute gained the upper hand when the New York Times reported that PPP’s polls had a “house effect” (which is a nice way to say a bias) favoring Democrats. But then, unfortunately, the wheel came off Civitas’ cart too. They released a poll showing Mitt Romney with a ten point lead (53% to 43%) over Barack Obama in North Carolina which sounded fine – until a reporter spotted a glitch: The poll had 30% of the African-Americans voting for Mitt Romney over Obama.
This is all more or less politics as usual but it may have added a new aphorism to the American lexicon. For years we’ve heard, “The check’s in the mail” and “Don’t worry, you won’t get pregnant” – now PPP and Civitas have also given us, “Our scientific poll shows…”
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Carter Wrenn posted on September 24, 2012 11:20
In the Senate race in Virginia George Allen debated Tim Kaine the other night and right off moderator David Gregory – thinking of Mitt Romney and the 47% – pointed out one million Virginians do not pay any taxes. Then asked Kaine, Do you believe everyone should pay something?
In other words, he asked Kaine if he agreed with the Tea Party’s position – and challenged Kaine to take a tougher stand than Mitt Romney on taxing the 47%.
To everyone’s surprise Kaine said Yes – he was open to the idea of a minimum tax.
So what happened?
The next morning the National Republican Senate Committee put out a press release blasting Kaine, telling voters he wants to “raise taxes on everyone in Virginia.”
And that’s how politics works.
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Carter Wrenn posted on September 21, 2012 18:09
From Singapore to Casablanca outside our embassies Muslims are rioting – so, exactly how much of the Muslim world is mad at us? Ten percent? Half? Ninety percent? Or, more to the point, how many Muslims agree that taking revenge for a YouTube video by murdering a diplomat who never saw or heard the video is wrong? A handful? A lot? Almost all?
Last Sunday, President Obama’s Ambassador to the U.N. told us the attack on our embassy was spontaneous. It wasn’t a terrorist attack. But whoever heard of a demonstrator showing up at a riot carrying a grenade launcher? So who attacked our embassy? If it was terrorists – who were they? Where are they? We’ve tried attacking whole nations (two of them) to stop groups of terrorists and that hasn’t worked out too well – so, this time, how do we tell the terrorists from the Muslims who bear us no ill will?
And, finally, the biggest question of all: Who is going to answer these questions? President Obama? Secretary Clinton? Congress? Lord, help us, is there someone else? How about the Mossad?
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Carter Wrenn posted on September 21, 2012 11:32
Mitt Romney’s getting pummeled for saying 47% of the voters will not support him because no one getting a check from the government’s going to vote for him over Obama.
Even the conservative pundits are giving Romney the blazes.
But while Romney was fumbling the facts he may also have put his finger on our Modern 21st Century Third Millennium Democracy’s biggest dilemma.
David Brooks wrote this about Romney’s faux pas: ‘In 1980, about 30% of Americans received some form of government benefits. Today about 40% do...In 1960, government transfers to individuals totaled $24 billion. By 2010, that total was 100 times as large… entitlement transfers have grown by more than 700% over the last fifty years… and this spending surge has increased faster under Republican administrators than Democratic ones.’
It’s a hard fact in our democracy: A majority can vote to reach into the treasury and help themselves to other people’s money whenever it wants. It’s redefined the meaning of ‘Majority Rule.’ And it’s not a new phenomenon.
Back during the 1820’s, Congressmen from the North (who wanted to protect manufacturers in New England from imports) and Congressmen from the West (who wanted Washington to build roads in their states) got together and passed tariffs – that were primarily paid by Southerners.
After the Civil War the railroad tycoons corralled enough votes in Congress to get the federal government to give them free and clear title to 12,000 acres of public land for each mile of track they laid – and, in the end, the tycoons ended up owning more land than there is in all of Germany.
Social Security and Medicare started out with the best of intentions but, today, unless you have the misfortune of dying young, when you retire the government is going to pay you a lot more than you ever paid into either program – whether you need the money or not.
And there seems to be no solution to the problem – instead it looks like once a democracy gets itself good and organized (which takes around 200 years) this is where it ends up.
So, maybe, instead of backpedaling Romney ought to let fly and say: I know pointing out our government has become a system for plunder is unpopular – but here’s an even harder fact: An economy based on plunder won’t work and it’s just a matter of time before the plunder gets so out of hand the economy collapses. So do we fix the problem now or do we wait for the collapse?
It would probably cost Romney the election but that debate is coming sooner or later.
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Carter Wrenn posted on September 19, 2012 16:35
UNC Chancellor Holden Thorp made one mistake.
When the News and Observer first asked him for Matt Kupec and Tami Hansbrough’s travel records, Chancellor Thorp said, I’ll get back with you. When he got back with them a week later he told them Kupec and Hansbrough had taken the trips together at the University’s expense – then announced Kupec had resigned.
By then Thorp almost certainly knew the records also showed he’d taken trips with Kupec and Hansbrough but he didn’t mention that – or give the records to News and Observer.
A few days later Tami Hansbrough resigned.
Then, suddenly, Holden Thorp resigned too.
Which seemed odd – until the next morning when the News and Observer published the travel records beneath a headline: “Chancellor Thorp flew with former UNC fundraisers.”
It’s an old story. Rather than telling the press an unpleasant fact Chancellor Thorp told the News and Observer part of the truth – and put himself squarely behind the eight ball.
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