General
Jeb! and the silver foot in his mouth
Anybody who has ever worked on campaign debate prep will recognize the coming train wreck in this New York Times story about Jeb! Bush: “In rigorous practice sessions that have crisscrossed the country in the past few weeks, Mr. Bush has been preparing pointed responses to Mr. Trump’s most frequent insults (he has called Mr.…
Read MoreSock the rich
In North Carolina, thousands rally for an aging lefty in his race against Bill and Hillary Clinton’s New Democratic Party. In Britain, Tony Blair’s New Labour Party picks an aging, even-leftier lefty for its new leader. What in the wide, wide world of sports is going on here? What’s going on isn’t just on the…
Read MoreThe Sound of Gunfire
The first thing you saw in Donald Trump’s video was a mug shot of an illegal immigrant who’d murdered a girl and the next thing you heard was Jeb Bush’s voice saying illegal immigration wasn’t a crime it was an act of love. Donald Trump’s first video was short, brutal and to the point. The…
Read MoreThe Return of Slavery
The New York Times wrote a story telling how a man bought a twelve year old girl as a sex slave, tied her, gagged her, knelt by the bed, prayed, then stood over her and explained how, because she was a heathen, raping her was going to bring him closer to God. The Yazidis –…
Read MoreStanding in the Shadows Laughing
The Republicans are so mad they’re ready to lynch every politician in Washington so, if you’re the Prince of Mischief, you need a magic trick. Quick. Next, out of nowhere, a man walks onto a stage who talks in plain simple English, saying, China is screwing us, who doesn’t sound a bit like a politician…
Read MoreSave or delete Hillary?
Hillary Clinton’s aura of inevitability is colliding with the Clintons’ aura of inevitable scandal. What do we make of the email flap? We know that Hillary-haters will seize on any story to gin up controversy and “scandal.” We know that Hillary’s palace guard will blame it on a hostile media and a vast right-wing conspiracy.…
Read MoreThe 24-Hour News Cycle
With the dawn of 24-hour news cycle and the instant ‘Tweet’ reporters need a new story every five minutes and, it turns out, even a Republican Primary with nineteen candidates and Donald Trump, all talking at once, can’t fill the bill. The reporters need more so they’re straining to turn Hillary versus Bernie Sanders into…
Read MoreThe Capitator
Back when the legislature came to town, State Senator Ralph Hise announced Medicaid spending was out of control but he had a solution – Capitation – which worked like this: He was going to hire MCOs (Medicaid HMOs) to run Medicaid then he was going to tell them: This is all you get to spend.…
Read MoreHow the State Senate Works
A handful of Senate leaders sit down in backrooms and make plans then come out of the rooms and a bill pops into a committee then they march over to the Senate Chamber and pass it in the blink of an eye. The same Senate powers-that-be made a plan to ‘transfer’ millions of dollars in…
Read MoreTrump masters the media universe
Ever since FDR gave his fireside chats on radio, successful Presidents have mastered the dominant new media of their time. Donald Trump masters today’s media by providing what the media wants above all: constant controversy. JFK won on TV in 1960 and kept winning with live televised news conferences. Roger Ailes orchestrated Nixon’s win in…
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