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Gary Pearce posted on April 19, 2013 10:55
Dwane Powell’s return to the N&O captured in one cartoon – a depiction of the Republican elephant gone wild – what thousands of words fail to describe.
(Congratulations, incidentally, to Powell on being selected for the N.C. Journalism Hall of Fame.)
Even a Republican TAPster wrote: “This cartoon just about sums it up. The speed limit sign of infinity cracks me up.”
He added, “They (GOP legislative leaders) think that if they don’t go for everything all at once, then they will be betraying their base and get attacked for it.”
Haste. And arrogance. As epitomized by Senator Tommy Tucker from Union County, who told a North Carolina newspaper publisher “I am the senator. You are the citizen. You need to be quiet.”
Chris Fitzsimon’s blog at NC Policy Watch captured that incident best: “Tucker’s berating of a citizen he is supposed to be representing wasn’t all that surprising. That’s the way the General Assembly, especially the Senate, is run these days.
“The folks in charge not only want to make sure you know they are in charge, they want your obedience, not your questions or doubts and certainly not your disagreements. It’s clear they not only have an ideological agenda to pursue, they have scores to settle from their years in the minority.”
[Click to read and post comments...]
Gary Pearce posted on April 18, 2013 14:36
The Republicans’ education agenda finally comes into focus: It’s about creating a market for private enterprise. They want to privatize Medicaid and privatize the Department of Commerce, so why not privatize schools?
It’s the only thing that makes sense. You might be wondering: How do they propose to make public schools better when they demonize and demoralize teachers, take teacher assistants out of the classroom and increase class sizes? (And, at the same time, demand that schools teach the Bible, cursive writing and, for all we know, creationism.)
The answer has to be that they don’t want to make public schools better. They want to make them worse. They want to say: “The schools are broken, they are failing. So we have to give tax money to private schools.”
Then families that can afford it will move their children to private schools. Which leaves public schools with the kids from poor and broken families. Which drives down the schools’ performances even farther. Which…well, you get it.
And who will fill this need? Entrepreneurs like big Republican contributor Bob Luddy, who owns and operates private schools. You see, it’s all about the private sector, not public schools.
[Click to read and post comments...]
Carter Wrenn posted on April 17, 2013 11:44
Last week Gary thoughtfully wrote a squib (below) urging people to visit young Thomas Mills’ new website PoliticsNC – so I did. And got a surprise. Young Mr. Mills was – genially – taking me to task for writing how the Democrats passing voter laws (over the years) to elect Democrats, had led to Republicans (once they had power) doing the same thing to elect Republicans, which, taken altogether, was a pretty good example of how one sin begets another – the political version of an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth with no remorse anywhere.
Mr. Mills didn’t mind me criticizing my own party but he didn’t particularly like me criticizing his party – the way he sees it, Republicans have done all the sinning while Democrats have done none at all. He made his case this way: Republicans are trying to pass laws that discourage people from voting while the Democrats, back in the days when they had power, had pursued a loftier goal: They’d passed laws to encourage more people to vote. Which sounds fine. Except that argument collapses in the face of one fact: Right in the middle of their lofty crusade to get more people to the polls, Democrats passed a law to make it more difficult for people to cast absentee ballots – because Republicans were more likely to vote that way than Democrats.
There’re other examples of Democrats changing laws to elect Democrats – like in the 1980 election: Locked in a tight race for US Senate, Democrats decided if a voter marked the block next to Republican John East’s name in the race for U.S. Senate, but, then, also marked the Straight Democratic ticket block on the same ballot, they wouldn’t throw the ballot out as spoiled – they’d count it as a vote for Democratic Senate candidate Robert Morgan.
Toward the end of his blog, Mr. Mills wrote, “Carter should know politics is about perception and the perception here is...” – well, the perception here is Republicans are “old, bigoted white guys.”
I don’t know of an idea that has done more harm in politics than the thought, Perception is what matters...it’s like saying, If I lie, cheat and steal, it doesn’t matter so long as people think I’m a walking breathing paragon of moral rectitude.
There's also an easy way to prove it’s a fiction to say ‘perception’ has the power to save a politician from the older truth that bad deeds breed consequences – just look at what’s happening in front of our eyes (over voter laws): Democrats sowed the wind and now they’re reaping the whirlwind and, in time, Republicans may reap an indigestible harvest as well.
[Click to read and post comments...]
Carter Wrenn posted on April 16, 2013 10:32
For years Jesse Helms wrote every speech he made, typing each on an old reporter’s typewriter, then one year when he was unusually harried he decided it was time to hire a speechwriter – so we hired ‘John.’
John was an unusually gifted writer but for all his virtues he had a peculiar view of politics (and the world in general). John saw politics as one tiny pinnacle of pure white light populated with saints, surrounded by a pitch-black engulfing darkness filled with goblins and liberals who had to be exterminated and, since the saints were badly outnumbered, the way John saw it there was no room for the luxury mercy.
Of course the fearfulness of his vision meant he was angry a great part of the time and naturally, over time, his anger turned him mean.
For six months John diligently labored writing passionate and articulate speeches for Jesse then one day in December, as we walked to my car to go to lunch, John handed Jesse a speech and launched into a tirade about Christmas – he said Christmas was a greed-ridden desecration of the story of the Christ child, an abomination reeking of materialism, then tore into Santa Claus, saying Santa Claus was a hobgoblin invented by greedy shopkeepers to con little children – then he stepped in front of Jesse, turned to face him, and said, Somebody needs to stand up and tell those children the truth about Santa Claus – and pointed to that speech.
Not with the white-hot passion (born of fear or betrayal or meanness) of a common murderer but with the cold-calculated passion of a Grand Inquisitor ticking off the names of heretics John had proposed the murder of St. Nicholas.
Jesse stopped dead in his tracks, rocked back on his heels, looked back at John, and grinned, Well, if you don’t mind, I believe I’d as soon pass on running for the Senate by telling children there’s no Santa Claus.
Back in those days you could usually find a fellow like John in almost every town of any size but given the limits of geography and communications in those days it was nearly impossible for John to find (or share fellowship with) his natural political soul mates. He was sadly isolated and fought his political battles alone.
John passed on a decade ago but today his lineal descendents (not in blood but in politics) are happier because they’re no longer alone – modern day Johns build websites then with the click of a button other ‘Johns’ can find them and they form a tribe as bellicose as Huns.
The other day, without meaning to, a soft-spoken lady from Charlotte who’s one of the four Republican leaders in the House – Representative Ruth Samuelson – sent one of those Hun-tribes into a white-hot fury.
Back to 2007 a previous state legislature passed a bill to encourage companies to produce ‘renewable energy’ – like solar power – in North Carolina; hardly a word has been said about the bill for six years, until last week when State Representative Mike Hager stood up in a House Committee and announced that utility companies using solar power was adding millions of dollars to electric bills and he was going to put a stop to it by repealing that six-year-old bill.
Those two words – renewable energy – reverberated across the Internet with the power of a magnet and hit a tribe of Johns right squarely between the eyes. Because the one person they knew who favored renewable energy was Barack Obama. And that’s all they needed to know. No sooner had Mike Hager sounded the war tocsin than a full-throated battle cry filled the air and charges flew about the evil of government subsidies and the worse evil of government interfering with the free market – which in a way didn’t add up because utility companies are monopolies and there is no free market for selling electricity.
Then just when it looked like Representative Hager’s bill was sure to sail through that committee Ruth Samuelson stood up and politely said that it might be a good idea for legislators to stop and do a little research before voting.
About an hour after that one Hun-like tribe put a picture of Samuelson and a picture of another Republican legislator on its website alongside a picture of Obama then added a headline over the pictures roaring: They voted with Obama!
The way that tribe saw it Ruth Samuelson had gone over to the Dark Side or, worse, become a liberal – which didn’t add up either because how on earth could an Obama-liberal be one of the four Republican Leaders in the State House?
So I looked up that 2007 bill and an odd fact popped up right away: George Bush was President when that bill passed. Then a second fact leaped off the page: The most rock-ribbed conservative in the legislature, Phil Berger, had voted for that bill. As had Thom Tillis, Tom Apodaca, Skip Stam, Robert Pittenger and just about every other Republican in the General Assembly.
Whether that Hun-like tribe’s attack on Ruth Samuelson was cold-blooded calculation or hot-blooded rage there’s no getting around one more fact: It was an act of pure meanness – like when John told Jesse, You ought to tell little children there is no Santa Claus.
[Click to read and post comments...]
Gary Pearce posted on April 16, 2013 09:50
It’s hard to talk about politics when Americans are being blown apart at a great event in one of our great cities. A celebration of human aspiration and achievement becomes a terrorist’s target. A race that celebrates leg power and stamina becomes an abattoir of lost limbs and broken bodies.
But politics inevitably intrudes. We immediately and logically suspect Islamic terrorists. The lunatic right erupts over a rumor (untrue) that CNN’s Wolf Blitzer blamed the Tea Party. (Boston: Boston Tea Party: Income Tax Day: Patriots Day. Get it?) Someone on the left will predictably pontificate: “What does this say” about America? “What kind of country are we becoming?”
It says nothing of the kind about America. We always have among us sick fucks (pardon the language). Terrorists, assassins, murderers, fanatics, anarchists.
But the cowards who plant bombs and run away were far outnumbered by the emergency workers and ordinary people who ran to the blast and tried to save the wounded. Our better angels, as Lincoln called them, always overcome evil.
Our real test will come later: how we respond.
After 9/11, we made our country more safe, but maybe less free. We set about hunting down the killers, and we eventually got them. Unfortunately, we launched two ill-advised wars that cost us much money and too many lives and broken bodies.
This time let’s stay focused on the real evil-doers. And never let them blow up our fundamental goodness.
[Click to read and post comments...]
Carter Wrenn posted on April 15, 2013 14:27
Republicans and Democrats over in the legislature have been battling hammer and tongs but, still, it raised eyebrows last week when the News & Observer reported Republicans have declared war on the cities.
House Speaker Thom Tillis explained the new conflagration philosophically, saying ‘Part of the conflict is due to a different world view of the role of government.’ Other legislators were blunter, saying ‘Cities are getting too big and too powerful’ and ‘Cities are too arrogant.’
The mayors (who’re mostly Democrats) tried to fight back but the legislators (who’re mostly Republicans) had them over a barrel: The General Assembly had the power – legally – so it rolled happily forward redrawing school board districts, rewriting local housing regulations, and taking the airport from Charlotte, the water system from Asheville and Dix Park from Raleigh.
But, a year from now, this war may take a turn that surprises the General Assembly: Years ago, when Jesse Helms first ran for Senate, most of the voters lived in small towns and rural crossroads not big enough to be called towns. But those days have long-since vanished. Cities are now the political dynamos and cities and suburbs decide elections and mayors (like Raleigh’s Mayor Nancy McFarlane) are popular – more popular than, say, a Republican legislator from Raleigh.
So what began as a legal fight may spiral into a political fight and, next election, if Mayor McFarlane decides to lead one of those independent Super PAC campaigns, Republican legislators in swing districts in Wake County could become casualties.
There’s also another more nuanced problem. Legislators changing government policies – like cutting spending or reforming the tax code – is one thing. But Republican legislators passing laws to weaken Democratic mayors is another thing entirely. Voters are pretty tolerant of politicians’ foibles and clay feet and hardly a soul believes anymore American Democracy is an exercise in selflessness or clean hands – but sometimes when a politician goes too far he runs afoul of a political current that runs bone-deep – then the wind changes and tolerance ends and a bedrock American spirit (that cannot abide a politician who grabs for too much power) breaks loose and wreaks havoc.
[Click to read and post comments...]
Gary Pearce posted on April 15, 2013 10:42
Now that UNC-Chapel Hill has a new chancellor, maybe it can move beyond the battles over sexual assaults and athletics-versus-academics and get on with the real war – the one with the new Republican majority in Raleigh.
And it will be war.
This is a fundamental social, cultural and political conflict. It is free inquiry versus free enterprise, scholars versus CEOs, free-thinkers versus true believers. It is, writ large, the same battle that has gone on since Jesse Helms railed against Chapel Hill in the 1960s. It is, 50 years later, the Speaker Ban Law sequel.
It is the ultimate brawl between the two traditions that have long defined North Carolina politics: the liberalism of Chapel Hill against the conservatism of North Carolina’s rural areas, fundamentalist churches and selected boardrooms.
But this time the anti-UNC crowd controls the legislature and the Governor’s office.
Governor McCrory, though he is quick now to defend liberal arts, has questioned gender studies and any studies that don’t put “butts in jobs.” Art Pope has long railed against what he sees as UNC’s hostility to business. And then there is a strong streak of anti-intellectualism in some Republican quarters.
In past years, UNC could count on the solid support of North Carolina’s newspapers. That relationship, especially with the N&O, has been strained by battles over public records. Some veteran N&O hands question whether the paper has gone too far and is damaging the university.
This wouldn’t be the nation’s first war between the academic world and a business-government complex that wants to “reform” academia. See the University of Virginia.
And here, like there, it could become a fight to the death of one side or the other.
Does Chancellor Folt know what she’s getting into? Holden Thorp certainly knows what he’s getting out of: big-time college athletics, the N&O’s firing range and Art Pope’s turf.
As an N.C. State alum, I could sit back and enjoy this. After all, State doesn’t face the same hostility. It puts butts in jobs: scientists, engineers and agribusiness managers. (And even a few of us history majors.)
But Chapel Hill is an essential element of North Carolina’s progressive tradition. Which is why it’s in the crosshairs.
And why it’s worth fighting for.
[Click to read and post comments...]
Gary Pearce posted on April 14, 2013 08:07
With Republican legislators pushing drug tests for welfare recipients, let’s look at two Southern states’ experiences.
For a year, Georgia has encouraged businesses to alert the agency if a job applicant fails a drug test, so that the state can deny them unemployment benefits. How many people have the tests caught?
Exactly one.
Or maybe we should follow Arkansas’ example.
When Republicans there pushed for drug testing for welfare recipients, Democrats proposed an amendment that ANYONE receiving non-salary benefits from state government should be subject to drug testing as a condition of the transfer (i.e., contractors, companies with tax incentives, etc.). The bill died in committee.
The way this legislatuere is going, drug tests for legislators may be in line.
[Click to read and post comments...]
Gary Pearce posted on April 13, 2013 08:05
A laurel and hearty handshake go out to Rep. Robert Brawley for boldly speaking up for the right of legislators to take free gifts from lobbyists. Right on, brother!
The legislature should pass this bill. Because it then would take almost no time before most of the members are in jail or forced out by scandal. A most healthy house-cleaning would result.
[Click to read and post comments...]
Gary Pearce posted on April 12, 2013 08:03
I commend to your attention PoliticsNC, a new blog by Thomas Mills, a Democratic consultant who gives me great hope for the future.
Here’s a sample from a recent post he did that stirred up some Democrats:
“Two myths seem to be dominating Democrats’ analysis of their problems. The first is that Art Pope “bought” the elections for Republicans. The second is that focusing on education is the winning message for Democrats. Like many myths, they each have a grain of truth but both are greatly exaggerated.”
[Click to read and post comments...]
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Carter Wrenn
Gary Pearce
The Charlotte Observer says: “Carter Wrenn and Gary Pearce don’t see eye-to-eye on many issues. But they both love North Carolina and know its politics inside and out.”
Carter is a Republican.
Gary is a Democrat.
They met in 1984, during the epic U.S. Senate battle between Jesse Helms and Jim Hunt. Carter worked for Helms and Gary, for Hunt.
Years later, they became friends. They even worked together on some nonpolitical clients.
They enjoy talking about politics. So they started this blog in 2005.
They’re still talking. And they invite you to join the conversation.
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