Posts by Carter Wrenn
The Pond-Skater
David Brooks, the columnist, felt a sea-change. Last fall, before the election, liberals saw Donald Trump as a buffoon who couldn’t possibly win the election then, on Election Night, right in front of their eyes, the clown turned into a dragon. After the election – as the dragon headed for Washington – the shaken liberals…
Read MoreNo Quit in Him
To show strength, he said he’d ordered an aircraft carrier to sail straight north to North Korea – then the Pentagon released a photograph of the carrier sailing straight south away from Korea. He pounds the Washington Politicians but, despite his threats, his wall’s stuck in Congress, his immigration plan’s stuck in the courts, and…
Read MoreNo One Minds
Last year Trump tore into NAFTA. And said China was a no-good currency manipulator, NATO was obsolete, Obama’s Iran Agreement was the ‘worst deal ever,’ and Obama’s Paris Climate Change Agreement was a ‘hoax.’ And he said he was going to fix them all and ‘Make America Great’ – and the crowds at his rallies…
Read MoreBeer, Politics, a Quick Death
Years ago, around the time of Prohibition, the politicians in Raleigh passed a law that said, A brewer can’t deliver his own beer. And with that one law the politicians created a new industry which blossomed: The Beer Wholesalers (or Beer Distributors). Eighty-odd years passed and that old law, still on the books, put hand-cuffs…
Read MoreA Death Ray?
I’d love to know why that North Korean missile blew up. Was it North Korean bungling? Or did the Pentagon zap it with some super-secret electro-magnetic death-ray? I like to believe it was a death-ray – because then saving ourselves from Kim Jong-un would be as simple as pushing a button. However, just before that…
Read MoreHardly a Soul Blinked
After the Congressional Special Election down in Georgia, President Trump exclaimed, Great victory. (He meant for Trump.) At the same time the Democrats were saying the same thing: They said they’d won a great victory. And defeated Trump. Somebody wasn’t telling the truth. And Sean Trende, of Real Clear Politics, put his finger on who:…
Read MoreIs That All There Is?
This is a great bill, he said. There’s a great plan… the plan gets better and better and better, and it has gotten really, really, really good. It was like listening to a high-school boy urging a girl to go to the prom with him: This will be great. Really great. It just gets better…
Read MoreLooking Over His Shoulder
Watching Sean Hannity’s like watching a celebrity say the same thing over and over – it wears out quickly. But somehow, Bill O’Reilly wasn’t hum-drum – he had a knack for entertainment. So, did O’Reilly’s sins catch up with him? Fox News says Yes. He’s guilty and gone. O’Reilly says not so – that the…
Read MoreHillbilly Elegy
Gary told me, Read Hillbilly Elegy – it’ll make you see things you’ve been staring at for years in a different light. The story – a memoir – starts when a pregnant thirteen-year-old girl marries a sixteen-year-old boy and moves from Kentucky’s Appalachian Mountains to Middleton, Ohio in the late 1940’s. He went to work…
Read MoreA Welter of Echoes
Each roar lasts a second. But the echoes last days. Mexico wins. We lose. China wins. We lose. Wall Street wins. We lose. Washington Politicians win. We lose. Each had mantra-like precision. Each echoed across twitter, cable news, and newspaper headlines. Once, when Obamacare repeal failed, two mantras collided head-on. The President tweeted: The Democrats…
Read More