Archive for 2017
Those Days Are Gone
It’s the lynchpin of his plan: Paul Ryan wants to tax imports a trillion dollars over ten years so he can cut corporate taxes and income taxes an equal amount. It sounds straightforward. But there is an odd missing piece. A trillion dollars over ten years is $100 billion a year – and, in years…
Read MoreCooper’s (familiar) challenge
Roy Cooper has seen this movie before. This time, he plays the lead. Thirty years ago, Cooper was a freshman House member. The Governor was a Republican. Democrats controlled the General Assembly. There were only 50 Republicans among the 170 House and Senate members. And the Governor didn’t have veto power. When Governor Jim Martin…
Read MoreThe New Enemy
Whether it was in his blood or whether, like a craft, it was a talent he honed he could walk into a board room and sell one group ‘the greatest deal ever’ in the morning and in the afternoon in another board room he could make the same promise to another group and since he…
Read MorePetty Pat
Judging from his HB2 emails, Pat McCrory would fit in fine with Trump. He’s thin-skinned, obsessed with how the media treats him and always whining about unfair coverage. Now, let’s be fair. All politicians obsess about how the media reports on them. But here’s what separates leaders from politicians: Leaders learn. Instead of constantly complaining,…
Read MoreTrump’s brain
When Democrats look at Trump’s immigration ban, they see chaos, cruelty, carnage, confusion and controversy. Not to mention a lack of planning, a lack of coordination and even cause for impeachment. Steve Bannon sees things working out just like he planned. Bannon is Trump’s brain. Where Trump is impulsive, Bannon is strategic. Where Trump reacts…
Read MoreThe Third Man
Fearless and unfettered by creeds, mocking his foes, he tweeted New Year’s greetings to “my many enemies who have fought me and lost so badly.” His vanity boundless he loves talking about himself, boasting, ‘Great meeting…packed house…long standing ovations.’ When he speaks one man sees a Deliverer while another sees a devil; one roars he’s…
Read MoreJerry Brown vs Trump
Mention Jerry Brown, and people are apt to laugh and say, “Governor Moonbeam” or “flake” or the like. Wrong. Today, Brown is serving his fourth term as California’s Governor. He restored his state to fiscal sanity. He made it a climate-change leader. He has emerged as a wise elder and truth-teller. And never more so…
Read MoreAlternative Universe
Trump started his Presidency with a speech that should have surprised no one. It’s what he said from day one. Then he sent his spokesman to tell a blatant, bald-faced, laughable lie about crowd sizes. “Alternative facts,” the White House explained. Trump has an obsession with the size of his things. Then hundreds of thousands…
Read MoreWeaving Their Way Through Congress
Donald Trump was blunt, saying his Presidency is going to be about taking power away from the Washington Politicians and giving it back to the people. I’d like to say, Amen. But is Donald Trump really a populist crusader? Or is he a pragmatist who simply decided anti-Washington populism was the train to ride to…
Read MoreHard News and the Search for Clicks
I read down the list of headlines on the newspaper’s website until I came to one that read: Trump’s inaugural address echoes anti-Semitic isolationists and a Batman villain. Fact, I wondered. Or opinion? According to the newspaper it was fact. Hard news. When Donald Trump said his inauguration was about taking power away from Washington…
Read More