That Only Makes Sense in Washington…

Kristi Noem’s spending $172 million to buy two small, luxury private jets. For Noem and her department heads to fly around in. Stop a moment, mull that over: We’re drowning in debt – $37.8 trillion in debt. And adding more debt – $1.8 trillion more – each year. But we’re spending $172 million to buy…

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$51 Million

This is a strange story – the national debt’s $37.8 trillion. Our annual deficit is $1.9 trillion. We’re in debt up to our eyeballs. But, at the same time, the government’s spending more than anyone in the U.S. to run ads – political ads. How much? $51 million. Who’s in the ads? Kristi Noem, Trump…

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A Piano and a Whorehouse

“My choice early in life was either to be a piano player in a whorehouse or a politician. To tell the truth there’s hardly any difference.”                                     – President Harry Truman “Politics is supposed to be the second…

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An Odd Tale

Hard face, narrow eyes, Tom Homan looks tough. The day Trump took office he gave Homan a nickname: The ‘Border Czar,’ put him in charge of ICE. A cloud floated over the horizon. Down the street from the White House, in the Justice Department, Trump Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove found out the FBI was…

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A Picture of Politics Today

Growing up in Brooklyn, after college she worked two years in New York City, then went to law school – working for Ken Starr during the Clinton scandal she deposed Monica Lewinsky. She married, settling in Portland – George Bush made her a U.S. Attorney. Dark-haired, practical, leading prosecutors, sitting in courtrooms she made it…

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A Raid

An old man sitting at home in his apartment at night heard explosions, voices shouting in the hallway; soldiers wearing combat fatigues broke down his door, surrounded him, handcuffed him using zip-ties – only it turned out they weren’t soldiers they were ICE agents. He told them he was an American citizen – puzzled, asked…

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1884

‘There is nothing new under the sun.’ Was Solomon right when he said that? Does history repeat itself? After ruling Washington for a generation, from the Civil War through the Gilded Age, in 1884 Republicans ran James Blaine – the epitome of a Washington insider – for President. Democrat Grover Cleveland grabbed an issue he…

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Who Expected to See This?

It came as a surprise. Followed by another surprise. Saturday, Trump posted on Truth Social the FBI had placed 274 agents in the crowd on January 6 who were ‘probably acting as agitators and insurrectionists’ – laying the blame for the riot on the FBI. What happened next was a bigger surprise: The same day,…

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Revenge

A gunman wearing a ski mask, a pistol in his hand, kicked down the door, broke into his home. He was sixteen, home alone, with his younger brother. Pinning the brother to the floor, knee in the middle of his back, putting the gun to the brother’s ear, the gunman stared across the room at…

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A Touch of Politeness

After taking our order the waitress, a plain-faced country woman with a gimp knee, limped toward the kitchen. David, a retired lawyer, sitting beside his son-in-law Kevin, leaning back, staring across the table at me, half laughed. “I’m sad to say Kevin’s got his foot in politics.” Round face, jaw set, Kevin grinned. “Can you…

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