Sure, Clay Aiken’s announcement video is sensational. Check it out. But J. Keith Crisco, the other leading candidate for the Democratic nomination in the 2nd congressional district, has a video too. But Crisco’s has 985 views on YouTube. Aiken’s, after five days, had nearly half a million. But then, Crisco’s candidacy was a snoozer, notwithstanding […]
Bob Geary
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“Have You Ever Been Convicted of a Crime?” prevents nonviolent offenders from re-entering society
Moral March on Raleigh Saturday, Feb. 8 State NAACP and allied civil rights, women’s rights, faith-based, labor, LGBT, immigrant justice, student and environmental communities. Gather: 9:30 a.m., Wilmington Street near South Street. March: 10:30 a.m., Fayetteville Street to the State Capitol. Mass rally to follow. In his job as a staff attorney with the Durham-based […]
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It’s becoming affordable in the Triangle—and it scares Duke Energy to death
Solarize Durham information session with NC WARN and Yes! Solar Solutions Thursday, Jan. 30, 6:30 p.m. Eno River Unitarian Universalist Fellowship 4907 Garrett Road, Durham Free; open to the public I have a way to cut your electricity bill, thumb your nose at Duke Energy and do your bit for the planet’s survival: Have solar […]
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Pro-LGBT group calls on Roy Cooper to drop Amendment One defense
In a post yesterday, I noted that as Virginia Attorney General Mark Herring was stepping up on the issue of same-sex marriage rights, North Carolina Attorney General Roy Cooper was shrinking from an important immigrant rights issue — thus adding to Cooper’s list of disappointing legal positions, including his defense of racial gerrymandering, of voter-suppression […]
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Today: Virginia’s AG goes bold, unlike our AG Roy Cooper
It can’t be a good day for N.C. Attorney General Roy Cooper, who’s all but declared his candidacy for governor in 2016. On the same day that Virginia Attorney General Mark Herring, also a Democrat, announced that he will not defend Virginia’s ban on same-sex marriages because he’s convinced it’s unconstitutional — a courageous stand […]
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Tea party hero Greg Brannon runs for U.S. Senate
It’s a cramped room in a cookie-cutter North Raleigh office park, and it’s packed when 70 Republican activists show up for this official opening. They’re a flannel-and-ball caps crowd, all white, old and young, not a suit in sight. Killing time, a man and a woman trade jibes about U.S. Sen. Kay Hagan, the incumbent […]
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McCrory, Obama, and the General Assembly’s experiment in class warfare
Perhaps you’ve heard that the national debt—the amount owed by the federal government—is $17.2 trillion. A scary number, especially when your brother-in-law, say, drops it as evidence that the country is headed for hell. But it’s not so scary when compared with what we’re worth. According to the Credit Suisse Research Institute’s Global Wealth Report, […]
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Dix Park, mass transit: Mayor Nancy McFarlane’s vision for Raleigh
The Raleigh City Council is heading to Wilmington for a three-day retreat at the end of January. High on Mayor Nancy McFarlane’s agenda for this apparently unprecedented strategic planning event is how to improve communications. By that, McFarlane means that “when people have been together a long time, they can have a lot of stuff […]
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Forecasting the year to come in North Carolina politics
After a crazy 2013 in North Carolina politics, what will 2014 bring? It’s an election year with a U.S. Senate race plus whatever new lunacies come out of the General Assembly. Naturally, I consulted my friend Theo Sophical, who is something of a seer. Here’s what he foresaw. January: Lt. Gov. Dan Forest presents his […]
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The misplaced priorities of college football
By the time you read this, we’ll know whether the East Carolina University Pirates tamed the Ohio University Bobcats in the big Beef ‘O’ Brady’s Bowl. Still ahead: UNC versus Cincinnati in the Belk Bowl and Duke against Texas A&M in the Chick fil-A Bowl. These are just three of the holiday season’s 35 lucrative […]