newsobserver.com projects - free trade - Comments

Re: Quick Hits

lexalexander — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 10:45:40 -0400

Holding officials responsible for their actions isn't hate, it's law-and-order conservatism. And it isn't just the left that wants those officials held responsible: According to a February USA Today/Gallup poll, large majorities of Americans want warrantless wiretapping and torture investigated.

As for Democrats being implicated, if in fact they are, I say prosecute them, too.

Re: Quick Hits

Gosh — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 08:15:51 -0400

I just threw up a little.

“I’d love to co-sponsor every piece of legislation with Ted Kennedy,” said Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.). “When Ted says he’s going to do something, he’s committed to it.”

Re: Quick Hits

PaulTerrell — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 19:11:25 -0400

I do not wonder now why on the left there is so much hate. But I sense the witch hunt about the supposed torture legal opinions and actual interrogations will result in the prosecution of Barney Frank and many other Democrats should the Republicans gain power in 2010 or 2012.

Re: Quick Hits

Prospero — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 14:28:09 -0500

The definition of "bipartisan" for the Senate Democrats, who have ruled that Chamber since 1868, is "be reasonable, do it our way." Partisanship comes easily when these legally defined private institutions are Democrats first and state Senators second.

Re: Mailer targets Dole on trade

dnguyen68 — Sun, 26 Oct 2008 20:09:53 -0400

43 years in Washington ? Must be talking about her husband Bob Dole. Elizabeth Dole came to Washington in 2003

Re: Press Limitations in N.C.

Proctor — Sun, 26 Oct 2008 16:30:03 -0400

Journalists from other states ought to make sure they maintain their home-state connections while covering politics in North Carolina because the Democratic Party of this state has a sordid record of limitation of freedom of the press for writers who do not support the proper "ltef-liberal" wing of the national and state Democratic parties.

Around here in Raleigh and Durham, the sort-of-liberal wing of our Democratic Party loves to try to please the supposedly liberal branches of the national Democratic Party in Texas and in the Northeast and New England, even if it means limiting the publication of editorial essays in support of the Democratic candidate for governor of North Carolina, Bev Perdue.

So the end result of our Democratic Party's meddling with constitutionally protected press liberties has resulted in a whole slew of newspaper editorials in favor of the Republican candidate for governor.

Although our own home state's Democratic Party deserves the major responsibility for this unhealthy state of literary and journalistic affairs, some of the "credit" must also go to certain Democratic Party organizations in the Northeast, which managed to convince our political, educational and journalistic establishment in the Triangle years ago that our own North Carolina writers should play a lot of second fiddle when it comes to writing about politics, education and government here in North Carolina.

The extent to which certain operatives of both the state and national Democratic parties will go to make life miserable personally for Tar Heel writers unwilling to follow this nebulous left-liberal party line in their own independent research and editorial work is one of the great untold stories in American journalism today.

Because certain outstanding journalists--such as David Brinkley, Charles Kuralt and Tom Wicker--went from their native North Carolina to important positions at leading national press organizations such as NBC, CBS and The New York Times, now the conventional wisdom is that the Democratic Party, in dubious "arrangements" with certain local organizations of the Republican Party in cities such as Charlotte, ought to try to exercise harsh, unrelenting editorial control over the work of writers and editors in the Old North State.

Only in "liberal" North Carolina is it possible to go 30 years under the poverty line trying to earn an honest livelihood in journalism-related endeavors free from direct intervention or even censorship by the "progressive" wing of the national and state Democratic parties.

David P. McKnight

Re: "The Old North State"

Proctor — Sun, 26 Oct 2008 15:42:56 -0400

Oops--In my previous post, make that judge and songwriter William Gaston, who penned "The Old North State."

D. McKnight

Re: Talking Heads Talking Points

Proctor — Sun, 26 Oct 2008 15:40:53 -0400

Of course, some of us think that North Carolina is really a blue state which has been on another one of its traditional extended Rip Van Winkle naps as occurred in the 19th Century.

And besides Andrew Jackson (Union County, N.C. and Nashville, Tenn.), James K. Polk (Mecklenburg County, N.C., and Nashville, Tenn.) and Andrew Johnson (Raleigh, N.C., and Greeneville, Tenn.), don't forget Vice President Rufus King of Alabama, a native of Sampson County, N.C. Of course, we should perhaps remember him as Vice President-Elect King since he died of an illness before Inauguration Day.

Here's to our judge and songwriter, William Gaston of New Bern, who penned "The Old North Carolina":

"Hoorah, hoorah, the Old North State forever,
"Hoorah, hoorah, the Old North State."

Gastonia and Gaston County, N.C., are named in honor of William Gaston as is the community of Gaston in Northampton County, N.C., just south of the Virginia line.

Thanks to Joe the Candidate--Joe Felmet, the former Winston-Salem Journal newspaperman who entered the field of candidates in the Democratic primary for the U.S. Senate in 1978, we often sang Gaston's "The Old North State" at campaign forums and meetings that year, so the song is anything but forgotten on the highways and byways of the--er, the Old North State.

David P. McKnight

Re: Talking Heads Talking Points

jjsmith2 — Sun, 26 Oct 2008 15:16:03 -0400

Please don't call us the Tar Heel State. It's too close to that curse word Tarheel.

Re: Mailer targets Dole on trade

JC — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 16:28:35 -0400

Big deal. Most of the politicians on both sides did not bother to even read or question these agreements but took campaign donations from the companies lobbying for them.

Resumes don't help when you don't show up for work

betsybarnet — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 10:00:49 -0400

They also don't help when you don't show up to get to know the people you represent....

Re: Advisor: Obama plan helps middle class

woodcox — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 18:34:09 -0400

Barack Obama is offering more of the typical class warfare rhetoric employed by Democrat politicians this year on the campaign trail. Even while preaching his belief in a message of "unity" and campaigning on "change," he follows the same, tired Democrat political playbook to divide us according to the number on our pay stubs. It won't work this time. Voters are wise to this divisive tactic. When we look at who will actually be harmed by Obama's policy proposals on the economy, we know it won't be the rich. After all, those with plenty of money can make up for any new tax hikes Obama may propose.

Who will be harmed then? The answer is regular folks. With Obama increasing the top marginal tax rate, millions of small businesses who choose to file as individual income earners will be directly harmed. This is no small harm as Obama's plan would reduce the after-tax income for these small businesses from 55.4 cents on the dollar to 37.2 cents, a one-third reduction in after-tax income. Small businesses will then face the choice to either cut one-third of their costs or lay off one-third of their workers. Small business is the engine for job creation in North Carolina and across the country. In tough economic times and a declining jobs market, we need to enact economic policies that will help these businesses find their way to prosperity instead of placing government as the obstacle in their path.

Re: Advisor: Obama plan helps middle class

tangoz — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 18:16:16 -0400

Barack Obama is not going to give anyone a tax break if elected. Look at his few spending proposals and that will tell you where his priorities lie. Plus he has to get any plans through Congress, good luck on that too.

Ask Biden why he has donated less than 1% of his income to charities and why he uses every loop hole to get out paying taxes if it is patriotic. Biden just called himself unpatriotic.

Re: Dole's major bipartisan legislation

FFC1304 — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 17:05:54 -0400

at least Senator Dole is willing to consider domestic and offshore drilling! sheesh, what does it take to harvest our own, and NOT for other countries?

Re: Gee

FFC1304 — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 17:04:04 -0400

Protzman, you are funny today...thanks for the chuckle, endure the challenge...