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Blind

By Carter Wrenn August 11, 2025

In the days before anyone ever turned on a light bulb, sitting in a candle-lit room, practical but with a skeptical streak, puzzled, Thomas stared across the dinner table at the man talking, asked, We don’t know where you’re going. How can we know the road to take to follow you? The answer he got?…

Oddities

By Carter Wrenn August 8, 2025

In the old days a political party had to win an election to keep its majority in Congress. So it rolled up its sleeves and went to work to convince people it was right. Times have changed. These days politicians roll up their sleeves and go to work on redistricting. Take a look at what’s…

Sick

By Gary Pearce August 8, 2025

“I see one-third of a nation ill-housed, ill-clad, ill-nourished,” President Franklin D. Roosevelt said in 1937, in his second inaugural address. Today, 88 years later, FDR would see one-third of Americans going without medical care. A national poll by Embold Research (1,736 registered voters, July 1-7) found that “nearly 30% of Americans indicated that they faced…

Straight Talk

By Gary Pearce August 6, 2025

A veteran Democrat who doesn’t get excited by much texted me at night: “This is solid. Democrats forgot how to talk to people like this.” He’d seen this video by Jamie Ager, who’s taking on a tough but intriguing race in the 11th Congressional District of Western North Carolina Ager delivers a direct message and…

A Blessing

By Carter Wrenn August 5, 2025

The circus is back in town. Next year’s Senate campaign’s off and rolling. And it’s like watching the rerun of an old tv show. Full of shadows, dark music, Republican’s first ad whacked Roy Cooper, called him a ‘wreck’, told people when he mismanaged a hurricane 100 people died; on social media Republicans described Cooper…

2024 Might-Have-Beens

By Gary Pearce July 31, 2025

Kamala Harris could have won. She could have overcome President Biden’s poor polls, voters’ discontent and her campaign’s short timeline. That’s what I take from 2024: How Trump Retook the White House and the Democrats Lost America – by three newspaper reporters, Josh Dawsey, Tyler Pager, and Isaac Arnsdorf. Their reporting shows that campaigns matter;…

Harmony

By Carter Wrenn July 30, 2025

I always thought of Trump and MAGA as one living breathing creature, like a chorus of voices singing one harmony, one song. But when Pam Bondi dropped a match on the Epstein fire something surprising happened: Harmony faded. Voices in the choir – like Tucker Carlson and Marjorie Taylor Greene – were singing a different…

Roy vs DC

By Gary Pearce July 29, 2025

It’s Down Home Roy versus D.C. politicians. Roy Cooper’s announcement video is how Opie Taylor of Mayberry would look and sound if he grew up to run for Senator. Cooper begins nostalgically: “It wasn’t always this hard, because being in the middle class meant something. You could afford a home. Your kids went to good…

Strange Times

By Carter Wrenn July 28, 2025

I was sitting in my sixth-grade classroom, surrounded by boys and girls I grew up with, when the principal walked through the door and, voice somber, told us President Kennedy had just been shot. One boy – whose parents disliked Kennedy – clapped, cheering. It was goofy. Everyone in the room stared at him shocked.…

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Political Shots Fired

By Gary Pearce April 28, 2026

The political sniping began even as chaos still reigned at the White House Correspondents Dinner. My…

Obama 48-Trump 39

By Gary Pearce April 26, 2026

A new nationwide poll shows that, if they could run against each other in 2028, Barack…

“Conservative Successes”?

By Gary Pearce April 23, 2026

Senator Phil Berger was out of touch with voters in his district – and suffered the…