Power Center

Forget the politicians in Raleigh. The most powerful person in North Carolina is Bill Johnson.   Under the Duke-Progress merger, Johnson will be CEO of the new company – one of the biggest utilities in the nation and a corporation on the scale of ExxonMobil.   He will be a powerful force not just in…

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Listening to NPR

The last two mornings listening to National Public Radio while driving to work has been like being assailed; folks are calling-in mad as hornets and every media pundit is thoroughly morally outraged and they’re all blasting away at the Tea Party, saying overheated political rhetoric caused the shootings in Arizona and Sarah Palin all but…

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A Voice of Sanity

Well, I predicted it Monday (“Commence Firing”).   And while overheated political rhetoric may not necessarily lead to violence, violence certainly leads to overheated political rhetoric.   Sarah Palin says it’s a “blood libel” to criticize her for placing Democrats — including Rep. Gabrielle Giffords — under crosshairs during the 2010 election and talking about…

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The Reckoning

Unlike some Democrats, I’m not in despair about the Republican Party’s new power.   It’s not just that I’m glad the GOP will share some – or bear all – of the blame for unpopular cuts.   Rather, it’s time we finally decide how much government we want – and how much we’re willing to…

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Commence Firing

It’s predictable that some Democrats will implicate Sarah Palin and the Tea Party in the Arizona shootings.   It’s predictable that Republicans will accuse those Democrats of seeking to exploit a tragedy perpetrated by a nut.   The unfortunate truth is that in the history of our politics, as Rap Brown once said, violence is…

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Unintended Consequences

To cut spending Republican leaders in the General Assembly, the News and Observer reported the other day, are considering allowing Governor Perdue’s Cabinet Secretaries to decide what to cut in their departments.   In other words the legislature will decide that, say, the Department of Transportation budget must cut $200 million to balance the budget,…

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Not Everybody Loved Marc

A veteran of the legislature’s hallways and byways took exception to my sympathetic and OBX-centric view of Marc Basnight.   Even the Charlotte Observer gushed, “It’s a testament to his place in N.C. politics that even his political adversaries spoke glowingly of him.”    Here’s the legislative vet’s dissenting view:   “Leaders from other areas of the…

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A Second Rate Power?

Instead of one of those periodic calamities where the economy stumbles then rights itself it looks like this time America’s economic engine may have ruptured and faces a long, slow convalescence. That takes a decade. Or, maybe, doesn’t happen at all.   At a meeting of economists and businessmen and politicians this week UNC-President Erskine…

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Burr for Veep?

Maybe there was more than I realized behind Senator Richard Burr’s vote to repeal “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.”   Last week, I gave him credit for doing the right thing. But an astute Burr-watcher – not a partisan either way – noted that Burr took a different tack on what was arguably the key vote:…

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