About moving those primaries…
The story you are about to read is true. Only the names have been changed to protect the innocent. Back in the early 1990s, I worked on a hard-fought state legislative campaign. The primary was held in May and Democrats had multiple qualified and well-funded...
Donald van der Vaart: Attack dog
North Carolina Department of Environment and Natural Resources Secretary Donald van der Vaart seems to be shifting the mission of his department. Instead of protecting the environment he’s taken on the role of political attack dog and defender of industry. At a time...
The GOP’s tax on school kids
School’s back in session and so are the asks for money to provide for school supplies. I’ve had children in the public schools for most of the past 20 years. Never have I seen the need for so many basics. In the past, the PTAs and PTOs focused on extras. They added to...
Trolling the GOP
Nobody trolls Republicans quite like Barack Obama. Yesterday, he changed the name of Mt. McKinley back to Mt. Denali. Natives Americans have always referred to it as Denali which means “the high one.” It’s the tallest mountain in the United States so that name makes...
Blaming everybody
When asked recently about what they thought about Donald Trump, focus group participants saw him as a leader who “kicks ass and takes names.” They like that he has been successful and that he’s not owned by any special interests. They don’t care that he’s changed...
Like third world oligarchies
If budgets are reflections of priorities, we know that teachers and state employees still aren’t very high on the that list. Who is? Rich people, of course. The House and Senate announced yesterday that they’ve come to agreement on how to compensate state employees....
Getting back to the good ol’ days
When I was in my teens and early twenties, I spent a lot of time sitting on the hoods of cars parked by the side of Highway 74 in Wadesboro, listening to all kinds of redneck wisdom. Ronald Wilson Reagan was president back then and most folks thought he was on the...
Paying your own way
Back in the late 1990s, before North Carolina had a lottery, I asked a conservative friend in Virginia what he thought about his state’s lottery. “It’s fine with me,” he said. “Mostly poor people play it and they’re the ones who use government money anyhow.” That’s...
Feeding at the government trough
The Ashley Madison hack has provided plenty of fodder for the internet over the past few days. It exposed hypocrites like the already ethically-challenged Josh Duggar and at least one Christian youtube crusader. Even the head of the Louisiana GOP had an account. Here...
Spinning education
Republicans clearly understand that their heavy-handed approach to cutting education hurts them politically. Last year, Kay Hagan almost defeated Thom Tillis in a Republican wave by making the race about his record on public education. So they’re launching a...
