The Power of Television

Mrs. Edna Street is an elderly lady and a double amputee; last May when she was in the hospital her doctor sent a form to the Department of Health and Human Services asking that she be provided – under Medicaid – in-home care when she went home to convalesce.   The doctor never heard back.…

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Gays and the GOP

Even Republicans are giving up gay-bashing. But, as always, and to paraphrase Rob Christensen, paradox rules North Carolina politics.   In the last 10 years, North Carolina went from a Republican Senator, Jesse Helms, who bashed “queers” and “the homosexual lobby” to a Republican Senator, Richard Burr, who surprised people by voting to abolish Don’t…

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Barbour’s Blindness

Of course Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour doesn’t remember race relations “being that bad” in the 1960s; he’s a white guy!   I grew up in the 60s in North Carolina, and I don’t remember race relations being bad at all for us whites. We could go anywhere we wanted and do anything we wanted.  …

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School Wars

General Tata better bring his helmet.   The new WakeCounty schools superintendent is already taking incoming. He might be starting the job with half of WakeCounty mad at him.   People who don’t like the board’s (sometime) majority welcome his selection like a poke in the eye with a stick: a Fox-commentating, Sarah Palin-admiring, conservative-blogging…

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Hagan’s Conclusion

  North Carolina’s own Senator Kay Hagan climbed up on her high horse in the Charlotte Observer the other day and denounced the fiscal irresponsibility of the $858 billion tax-cut bill – which she voted against.   In her op-ed lambasting government spending Hagan thundered:   “On Dec. 1, the bipartisan debt commission released its…

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50 Years Later

One of my favorite questions to ask people when I’m speaking about my Jim Hunt book is: “How many of you were living in North Carolina in 1960?”   I use 1960 because it was a seminal year in Hunt’s life – and North Carolina’s. It marks a neat half-century, for one thing. It was…

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Blind Loyalty, Blind Justice…

Floyd Brown’s a grown man who has the mental capacity of a seven year old boy; seventeen years ago he was arrested and confessed to an SBI Agent who wrote down his confession word for word, that he’d murdered an elderly woman in Anson County when he broke into her home.   He was never…

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In Defense of the Gov

Chrissy Pearson, Governor Perdue’s communications director, took me to task for my blog “Smile, Gov.” (But she did it nicely. Her email began: “Season’s greetings.”)   I’m happy to oblige any elected official – or their representative – who reads my blog and wants to respond. So here is Chrissy’s full message:   “I’m sorry…

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Jobs, Environment and the Budget

Two stories on the N&O’s Page One Sunday struck me as related.   One was the fight over a chicken processing plant in Nash County. The other was whether a state government “reset” can balance the budget.   Like many things these days, the linkage hit me because of the work I’ve done on my Jim…

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People Who Live in Glass Houses…

Off and running hard for reelection the other day Governor Perdue charged over to the legislature to confront the newly elected Republican Majority and right off she threw the gauntlet down challenging the Republicans to limit the legislative session to 45 days and to appoint an independent commission to handle redistricting both of which Republicans…

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