A Breach of Trust?

Along with other protestors the professor was evicted from the State Senate gallery by the police. Then, a day or so later, he published an op-ed but he didn’t argue the legislature stripping Roy Cooper of his power was illegal – he called it a breach of trust. Since the majority of people had voted…

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A Twitter Brawl

On Christmas Day an editor at Buzzfeed News contacted Sean Spicer the RNC spokesman and Spicer tweeted back: “When you asked me if that Trump/”new King”/Jesus comparison was intentional: I hope you were kidding.” It was too late. A brawl had already broken out on Twitter with a legion of tweeters – like ‘Sentient Space…

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Petty Pat

Some pundits, clearly suffering from too much holiday cheer, have strained to say kind things about Pat McCrory in his final days. Not me. I’m taking one more shot on his way out. Earlier in his one (blessedly) term, McCrory took a stand against legislative overreach. The legislature’s appointments to a coal ash commission, in…

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Hitler and Fake News

Even with four degrees behind him Eric remains untouched by either pretension or the wonders of the Internet – so it came as a surprise when I asked, Did you buy the book about Hitler? and he said, I looked it up on the internet. It said the book compares Trump to Hitler. Hitler wasn’t…

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A New Year’s Resolution for Democrats

Let’s resolve to stop over-analyzing why Trump won. And start focusing on winning state and local elections, beginning in 2017. Yes, Clinton’s loss was stunning and demoralizing. But over-analysis breeds paralysis. And blinds us to more-pressing problems. Democrats are in far better shape in presidential races than down the ballot. For all that went wrong,…

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The HB2 “trust” canard

This is a case of false equivalence. Republicans say it and reporters buy it, but Democrats should reject it. The canard – a big lie, really – is that the failed HB2 repeal has led to a regrettable lack of trust between Democrats and Republicans in Raleigh. And, by extension, that both sides are equally…

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McCroryCare

In their rush to strip power from Roy Cooper, Republican legislative bosses talked about a going-away present for Pat McCrory: free health-care coverage for life. That perk fell by the wayside, however. Which just proves that karma is real. Maybe now McCrory feels the pain of the hundreds of thousands of North Carolinians who didn’t…

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Coop’s Coup

Last week Republican legislators stripped Governor-elect Roy Cooper of power. This week Cooper showed he still has the power to beat them. Cooper’s strategy was simple and elegant: If the Republicans repealed HB2, he won. If they didn’t, he won bigger. They didn’t. He won. Big time. The Republicans had said – over and over…

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A Plague on Both Their Houses

The devil never sleeps; for four years the Republican powers-that-be in Raleigh worked and strained to have Pat McCrory appoint their sons, cousins, friends and contributors to patronage jobs – then Roy Cooper defeated Pat and, a moment later, temptation whispered, Protect your friends. And loved ones. If you don’t they’ll lose their jobs. Only…

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Trump truths

The Founding Fathers, in their wisdom, gave us the Electoral College. Now the Electoral College has given us President Trump. We know he lost the popular vote by almost 3 million votes, and we know most Americans believe he isn’t fit for the Oval Office. But in the six weeks since the election we’ve learned…

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