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…
Read MorePredicting 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…
Read MoreWhen 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…
Read MoreRepublicans 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…
Read MoreThis 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…
Read MoreIt’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…
Read MoreIt’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…
Read MoreWhen 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…
Read MoreAngry because Jeff Sessions wouldn’t run the Justice Department’s investigation into the Russians meddling in our election, Trump erupted at the White House staff then flew to Mar-a-Lago for the weekend. The next morning, up before dawn, holding his Twitter machine he pressed send and struck out at Obama. Some people figured Trump meant to…
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