Last week brought a flurry of reporting about the moral decay of America's economic and political culture; the politics of greed is at the heart of the problem and the right target for the Occupy Movement and others. Somewhere in the 1980s, thanks to leadership at the top ranks of business and government, the transition accelerated [...]
Advocates for requiring photo ID checks at the polls may delight in a news story breaking in Statesville, where a city council member is charged with voter fraud along with his sister and two of her family members. But all these voters cast ballots in their own names; requiring them to flash a photo document with [...]
A quick look from the news: Here are two examples of splendid editorials from North Carolina papers – one from the Charlotte Observer about good ways to hold Super PACs accountable for their wacko ads, and one from the Winston-Salem Journal about the bad ways Speaker Thom Tillis’ behaves as a leader in government. And [...]
NC House Speaker Thom Tillis deserves credit for his series of town hall meetings where he takes questions from the audience, including a sprinkling of dissenters. But his handlers apparently don’t want him exposed to an audience that is less overwhelmingly sympathetic to his message. Some voices are good, others are just not welcome, even [...]
Guess where Pat McCrory ended his swing across the state, announcing the official start of his campaign for governor as the candidate who will “turn North Carolina around” and end the “corruption” of the Democrats? The trip finished in Wilmington, with a large McCrory rally at a pool hall and grill - which is owned [...]
Here’s a strategy to simultaneously fight nasty political money and the nasty political ads they buy: Go after the broadcasters and make them pull any ad not completely substantiated with hard evidence. As a media expert explains, independent ads don’t enjoy the same protection from a broadcaster’s good-taste test as ads produced by candidates during [...]
An editorial writer for the Raleigh News & Observer handed Art Pope a bevy of compliments for his “humanitarian” philanthropy, extolling the list of “charities and universities the Pope Foundation blessed with $1.2 million in grants last year.” Alliance Medical Ministries - $10,000; Barium Springs Home for Children - $10,000; Blessed Sacrament School - $10,000; etc. [...]
For those of you fascinated by the strange behavior of former Gov. Mike Easley, Don Carrington of the Carolina Journal has a new piece that examines Easley’s finances after his felony conviction, with an appropriate question: How can he move hundreds of thousands of dollars around and still not pay a dime toward the $90,000-plus [...]
The “Art Pope Exposed” teach-in went off without a hitch on Tuesday, except for the traffic jams, video difficulties, and a few Popers in the audience (their camera seemed to work fine). More than 250 people (100 in person, the rest via web streaming) participated in the event that ended with a rump workshop about [...]
The transition from “good ol’ boy” politics to money-dominated politics is a story best told from the South, and who can tell it better than Fritz Hollings, the former South Carolina governor who represented his state in the US Senate from 1967 to 2005. His column in the Charleston, SC newspaper gives a special window [...]