Issues
They’re Back
Hallelujah. The Russians are back. I know that sounds odd to say. Stalin, Khrushchev, Brezhnev, for forty years Russian villains plotted to crush us until the Berlin Wall fell then, for thirty years, no more villains. Now, they’re back. But there’s a silver lining in every cloud: Seeing a Russian villain on his doorstep sobers…
Read MoreA Cloud to Keep Your Eye On
For years – for decades – I’ve expected ‘The National Debt’ to the sink the economy but the crash never came; it defies common sense but, somehow, no matter how much the politicians spent the chickens never came to roost. Hardly a soul even noticed when President Trump didn’t mention the debt in his State…
Read MoreThe FISA Memos
When you watch the politicians arguing on CNN and FOX about the FISA Memos you can’t make heads or tails of what’s going on. To Republicans their Memo proves the FBI used political research paid for by Democrats to get a warrant to wiretap the Trump campaign – or one-time Trump advisor, Carter Page –…
Read MoreSteve Bannon’s Three Temptations
The main character in Michael Wolff’s book isn’t Donald Trump it’s Steve Bannon: The book begins with Bannon having dinner with Roger Ailes and ends with Bannon standing on the steps in front of the Breitbart townhouse in Washington explaining the next move in his war on ‘The Swamp.’ Bannon’s story twists and turns: A…
Read MoreWhat Makes a Wave Election?
What creates a wave election? Two things. Here’s one: In 1988, 1990 and 1992 Congressman David Price, a popular Democratic incumbent in a Democratic district, received over 100,000 votes in each election and won easily. Then, in 1994, a wave election came along that favored Republicans. Democrats didn’t vote and David Price received 76,000 votes…
Read More‘I would NEVER…’
President Trump’s single most popular tweet in 2017 (according to ABC News) was: Why would Kim Jong-un insult me by calling me “old” when I would NEVER call him ‘short and fat?’ So did Donald Trump, who’s not known for his subtlety, just make a back-handed insult? Or did he just do what he said…
Read MoreLike a Politician
Hardly anyone likes politicians drawing districts to elect themselves but, to rip apart the Congressional Districts Republicans drew, Judge James Wynn spun a tale full of fictions. Judge Wynn described the Republican Plan as a vicious extreme ‘partisan gerrymander’ that would assure Republicans win 10 of North Carolina’s 13 Congressional seats for years and cited…
Read MoreFixing the Slips?
President Trump said over and over that his tax cut is the biggest in history but, then, the press reported the Treasury Department had ranked every tax cut (as a percentage of GDP) since 1940. Was Trump first? No. Was he second? No. Where did he stand? Last. Seventh out of seven. Which leads to…
Read MoreOne White Hot Story
Brian Ross had a ‘confidential’ source, an insider close to Michael Flynn – so at 11 o’clock last Friday morning Ross (of ABC News ) dropped a bombshell: Michael Flynn was going to testify Trump had ordered him to contact the Russians before the election. The world turned upside down. Twitter and Facebook exploded. The…
Read MoreAfter Six Years of Howling…
The politicians are hollering, again, about redistricting – about the new State House and Senate district maps drawn by the federal judges ‘Special Mapmaker.’ But look beneath the surface: What’s surprising is how few districts changed. And how little those districts changed. The News and Observer analyzed the new maps: One district changed from .4%…
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