HB2 courage

Governor Cooper and Democratic legislators showed something last week that is so rare in America today we hardly know it when we see it. Political courage. Political courage is when you do what you believe is right. Even if it disappoints your strongest supporters. Even if it could cost you an election. Name another politician…

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Tricks

In Donald Trump’s world whatever he says cannot be wrong. He’s infallible. Because as Trump says, I know how life works. And, if you ask, Trump will give you proof of his infallibility: He’ll explain how he predicted the outcome of the Brexit vote in advance and how he predicted – a hundred times –…

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Unraveling

Day in and day out for years I sat in meetings watching and listening to men who lived and breathed politics and, almost to a man every one looked on telling a lie (or, more precisely, being caught telling a lie) as a risk they dreaded. A lie was like a cancer. It could grow…

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HB2 bracket busters

Predicting politics is like filling out NCAA brackets: Your predictions and your brackets will get busted. EG: Who predicted the Republican debacle on health care? Nobody. Which explains why Republicans and Democrats alike are thrashing on an HB2 compromise. Republicans already were wrong about it once. When they rushed it through last March, they thought…

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Losers

When you run as the Greatest Winner Of All Time, you’d better win. Especially your first time. So there’s no way Trump can bluff or blame his way out of his health care debacle. He lost bigly. Republicans lost bigly. Paul Ryan lost bigliest. For seven years and through four elections, they promised to ditch…

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Sick!

Republicans couldn’t muster enough votes to pass their TrumpNoCare bill. Mainly because the Freedom (to Die) Caucus doesn’t believe the bill takes health care away from enough Americans. And they don’t want to cover maternal health, mental health or preexisting conditions. They urgently need to pass it so they can move on. Move on to…

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RussiaGate

This looks familiar. A President’s election campaign is investigated by the FBI for possible lawbreaking. The media is hot on the trail. Deep Throats are leaking all over Washington. Congress is asking questions. A President, known for his paranoia and his disregard for the truth, lashes out at critics, reporters and leakers. His loyalists and…

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Rolling Downhill

It’s peculiar: My memory is far from perfect but I can’t recall either Jesse Helms or Jim Hunt spending taxpayers’ money to sue another politician – but these days it happens all the time: We’ve got packed courtrooms where one group of government lawyers are battling another group of government lawyers in front of judges…

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122 Professors

It’s one of the oldest temptations walking around on two legs: A man will try most anything to get his hands on a dollar – and the other morning 122 professors proved they’re no exception. Over in Chapel Hill at a Board of Governors meeting one of the trustees stood up and said it was…

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Bowling with Donald

When the average two-legged creature adds the title ‘Congressmen’ to the front of his name it can turn out to be humorous – but expensive. Last week at 10:30 in the morning House Republican Leaders rolled out their plan to repeal Obamacare; twelve and a half hours later the forty Congressmen sitting in the Ways…

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