General
The Grab’s Still On
It’s an incurable vice: Railroad tycoons did it in the Gilded Age and over a century later Wall Street bankers did it, reaching into the government treasury to bail out their bad loans (with other people’s money) and the ‘grabbers’ don’t always live on Wall Street. Take fringe benefits. For government employees. Right now a…
Read MoreAnother Election, Anyone?
Sometimes it takes a while but the chickens always come home to roost and, more often than not, they come home at the worst possible time. Six years ago, when Republican legislators drew the new state House and Senate districts, they had a simple theory: They believed the Voting Rights Act required them to create…
Read MoreA Novel Kind of Diplomacy
The President rapped the Germans, Angela Merkel rapped back, and the President unsheathed a new type of diplomacy – he tweeted. NATO’s the key to the West’s alliance against Russia, and Germany – after the United States – is the biggest nation in NATO and the President’s having a twitter spat with the Germans. It’s…
Read MoreSince Jim Hunt
Democrats don’t have a more determined foe than the Civitas Institute, so when Civitas’ May poll reported good news for Roy Cooper it was a bad sign. According to Civitas’ poll 61% of the voters in North Carolina now approve of the job Roy Cooper is doing as Governor. Among all voters Cooper’s job approval…
Read MoreA Story We May See Again
There’ve been two special elections for Congress and two more are on the way: Last fall, Trump won three of those districts easily but won one — in Georgia — by just two points. The Georgia district is Republican (31%); Democrat (27%); Independent (41%). That’s a four point Republican advantage. But a poll last week…
Read MoreJFK at 100
There are many John F. Kennedys to consider. There’s the Camelot myth, and there’s the real man. There’s the assassinated hero, and there’s the real President. There’s the President who managed a peaceful end to the Cuban Missile Crisis, a triumph of strength and restraint. And there’s the President who gave us the Bay of…
Read MoreThe Plague Spreads
Conor pulled out a chair, sat down by Spencer, straightened his tie, and Judge Bryne, sitting across the table, grunted, ‘You’re a walking plague.’ ‘Could you put a little meat on that bone?’ ‘You look at a politician and see a teenage boy and now Spencer’s doing it too.’ ‘Which politician?’ A federal investigator had…
Read MorePlagues
‘You said to watch that documentary – with all that ranting about ‘real nut jobs’ and ‘stone cold losers’ those two guys remind me of a pair of teenage boys.’ Judge Bryne grunted. ‘You mean Roger Stone and Donald Trump?’ The waitress served three breakfast plates. Conor glanced around the table. ‘That show addled my…
Read MoreScoop Breaks Record
Imagine: A reporter leaning over a computer, eyes locked on Donald Trump’s face, watches the President’s lips begin to move, hears the words ‘Great,’ ‘Huge’ and ‘Fake News’ and goes a little berserk – then the phone rings and a voice says sitting in the Oval Office with the Russian Ambassador the President did the…
Read MoreShow Business
CNN said Roger told Donald he ought to fire Comey and Donald Tweeted “Fake news. Have not spoken to Roger in a long time.” Then Roger told ABC he’d spoken to Donald “very recently.” It was an odd sort of disagreement between two old friends that left ‘Trumpistas’ angry, liberals outraged and the media in…
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