Berger rebukes Moore
Phil Berger announced he would not call a veto override vote without at least 24 hours’ notice. He says, “There should be no question that should the budget override vote come up, that every member of the Senate has been told publicly that they have a choice to...
Gerlach caught dancing, if you want to call it that
They caught him red handed. The video leaves no doubt about it. Interim East Carolina Chancellor Dan Gerlach got caught trying to dance. Those moves were virtually criminal. He made Steve Martin in “The Jerk” look like Fred Astair. But that wasn’t the end of it....
A defining week
What a week last week was. Say that five times in a row. You might as well get used to it. We’ll be saying it a lot heading into 2020. On the national scene, Democrats launched an impeachment inquiry into Donald Trump’s admission that he asked a foreign government to...
The GOP folly at the BOG
UNC Board of Governor’s Chair Harry Smith is stepping down next week, continuing the revolving door at the UNC system that’s left the university in a constant state of flux. His resignation reflects the utter failure of the GOP to manage the state’s Crown Jewel and...
RIP, Jack
Michael McKinney died yesterday. He was 55 years old. I knew him as Jack Whitebread, a moniker he brought with him when he moved to Chapel Hill in the mid-1980s. Sometime before that, when he lived in Bloomington, Indiana, he went by the name Rat Rondell. Jack...
Impeachment
What a week. It’s only Wednesday and the North Carolina House minority Leader took to a press conference to call out the GOP House leadership for lying. The president of UNC Board of Governors resigned, continuing the GOP’s legacy of failed governance of our...
There are bigger battles to fight
Yesterday, Democratic House Minority Leader Darren Jackson called out the GOP leadership for lying about the circumstances of the budget veto override vote last week. He says a look at security footage shows Republicans calm and clearly understanding what was...
RIP Dean Westmoreland
Dean Westmoreland died last week. He was a teacher from Kings Mountain and former president of the North Carolina Association of Educators. In my political education, he was a giant. I met Dean when I moved to Shelby in the spring of 1993. After a decade of...
On Medicaid expansion, don’t let the perfect get in the way of the good
North Carolina is on the verge of a major political breakthrough. The state House is poised to pass a Medicaid expansion bill. Republicans call the bill NC Health Care for Working Families and deny that it’s real Medicaid expansion. If they can pass it, let them keep...
Tillis kicks off campaign wrapping himself around Trump
Thom Tillis kicked off his re-election campaign with an ad wrapping himself around Donald Trump. It’s a signal of how beholden the party is to the president and of Tillis’ naked political opportunism. The GOP has become more a cult of personality than a political...
