It’s Not an Earthquake

It’s easy to agree with Donald Trump on trade and spending cuts but then his lips move and the same man who said, I get bigger crowds than Beyoncé, and, Trump University gets an ‘A’ rating from the Better Business Bureau, says, The FBI investigation is a witch hunt. Without honesty trust withers and without…

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The Grab’s Still On

It’s an incurable vice: Railroad tycoons did it in the Gilded Age and over a century later Wall Street bankers did it, reaching into the government treasury to bail out their bad loans (with other people’s money) and the ‘grabbers’ don’t always live on Wall Street. Take fringe benefits. For government employees. Right now a…

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Another Election, Anyone?

Sometimes it takes a while but the chickens always come home to roost and, more often than not, they come home at the worst possible time. Six years ago, when Republican legislators drew the new state House and Senate districts, they had a simple theory: They believed the Voting Rights Act required them to create…

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Hold your horses

As my old friend J.P. used to say, “People even got tired of The Andy Griffith Show eventually.” So it is with the Trump Presidency. Understandably, Democrats want him out of the White House. Now! Today! His recklessness and willful ignorance are frightening. But the more Democrats rail and rant and rave, the more Trump’s…

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A Novel Kind of Diplomacy

The President rapped the Germans, Angela Merkel rapped back, and the President unsheathed a new type of diplomacy – he tweeted. NATO’s the key to the West’s alliance against Russia, and Germany – after the United States – is the biggest nation in NATO and the President’s having a twitter spat with the Germans. It’s…

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Why the polls were wrong

Nate Cohn of The New York Times Upshot column has an eye-opening analysis of why so many state-level polls were wrong about Trump and Clinton last year. More on that later. But bad polls aren’t to blame for Hillary Clinton’s loss. Because her campaign didn’t do polls. That’s the most shattering revelation in a new…

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Since Jim Hunt

Democrats don’t have a more determined foe than the Civitas Institute, so when Civitas’ May poll reported good news for Roy Cooper it was a bad sign. According to Civitas’ poll 61% of the voters in North Carolina now approve of the job Roy Cooper is doing as Governor. Among all voters Cooper’s job approval…

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A Story We May See Again

There’ve been two special elections for Congress and two more are on the way: Last fall, Trump won three of those districts easily but won one — in Georgia — by just two points. The Georgia district is Republican (31%); Democrat (27%); Independent (41%). That’s a four point Republican advantage. But a poll last week…

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JFK at 100

There are many John F. Kennedys to consider. There’s the Camelot myth, and there’s the real man. There’s the assassinated hero, and there’s the real President. There’s the President who managed a peaceful end to the Cuban Missile Crisis, a triumph of strength and restraint. And there’s the President who gave us the Bay of…

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The Plague Spreads

Conor pulled out a chair, sat down by Spencer, straightened his tie, and Judge Bryne, sitting across the table, grunted, ‘You’re a walking plague.’ ‘Could you put a little meat on that bone?’  ‘You look at a politician and see a teenage boy and now Spencer’s doing it too.’ ‘Which politician?’ A federal investigator had…

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