General
A Writer’s Mark
My wife didn’t say I had to go, but I figured it was smart to go. So, instead of walking our dog in the woods and watching football last Saturday, I went with her to Northampton County for the unveiling of a state historical marker honoring her late aunt, Mebane Holoman Burgwyn. The Burgwyn family…
Read MoreBombs in the Caribbean
The Defense Department turned into the War Department and now every day we’re bombing boats in the Caribbean – killing, Trump says, terrorists and drug smugglers. Senator Rand Paul asked a straightforward question: Show us proof they’re terrorists. Trump ignored him. Paul added a president can’t just, on his own, order the army to kill…
Read MoreHuman Nature at Work
Years rolled by, presidents tried to unite us – often fell short. But at least tried. Trump doesn’t try. A practical New Yorker he understands division tightens his grip on MAGA. So he uses division as a tool. And it works. But division sows seeds: People stop seeing their opponents as fellow Americans. They see…
Read MoreA Trainwreck
The shutdown’s rolling along – voice dry, flat, tedious, Chuck Shumer lays the blame on Trump. Defending himself, hitting back, Trump’s heaping scorn on Schumer. Over at the Department of Homeland Security, Kristi Noem’s been spending taxpayers’ money airing TV ads praising Trump. Using the internet the Department of Agriculture’s spending taxpayers’ money to lay…
Read MoreScumbags
Reagan ran against Ford, then ran against Jimmy Carter, Jesse Helms ran against Jim Hunt: Those were tough hard-fought battles where each side hammered the other but, tough as they were, back in those days no one called his opponent a ‘scumbag.’ Because, if he did, shaking their heads people would vote against him for…
Read MoreStormy Politics
A reader sent these “random thoughts on a rainy day.” I thought they’re worth sharing: Watching the homes on Hatteras Island collapse into an angry Atlantic is sad. But the scene is also a microcosm of today’s paradoxical conflict between the responsibilities of individual citizens and their government. These are private homes whose owners and…
Read MoreThe Price of Anger
Tariffs are controversial – people disagree over whether they do good or harm. I don’t know who’s right or wrong. But the way Trump saw it Canada was sapping our economy, so after he was reelected he put tariffs on Canada to fix the problem. An odd thing happened. Canada ran a TV ad in…
Read MoreHealing
During Prohibition, Al Capone was the most notorious New York tough guy. He didn’t grasp fame until after he moved to Chicago. But in those days no one matched him. In the 1950’s, during the Army–McCarthy hearings, another New York tough guy, a lawyer, Roy Cohn, sitting beside Fightin’ Joe McCarthy pilloried witnesses. McCarthy fumbled.…
Read MoreA Lost Virtue
Years ago back when Reagan was President I met an unknown Texas Congressman – slender, quiet, fearless, Ron Paul was cut from a rare bolt of cloth. I never met his son, Rand, but father and son seem a lot alike: Both doctors, both outspoken but soft-voiced, both polite but fearless. You seldom see men…
Read MoreThat 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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