National Republicans
A Reckoning
Hitler couldn’t destroy America. The Soviet Union couldn’t either. But Trump’s warning us one federal court has the power to destroy us. Of course, he was angry the court ruled against him. And he was posturing to get clicks on social media. But he left one question unanswered. Here’s what happened: Using what he calls…
Read MoreThe Times They Are a’ Changin’
The other day I read Big Tech Algorithms – by feeding us what we crave to see, hear, believe – are warping our character. There’s probably some truth in that but tale spinning goes all the way back to the Serpent tempting Eve in the Garden of Eden – it’s an old bone-deep sin. Parents…
Read MoreA Line in the Sand
After Watergate, puzzled, trying to figure out reams of new election laws, I started looking for a lawyer – but there wasn’t a single lawyer in North Carolina who practiced that kind of law. I called Stan Evans, head of the American Conservative Union in Washington, and he said one name: “John Bolton.” A week…
Read MoreTuning In
A big thing that people in politics don’t understand is how little attention people pay to politics. We politicos dive in and swim deep in the daily river of news – every Breaking News flash, every headline, every talking head, every twist and turn in every story. But most people take only an occasional dip…
Read MoreThe Pilgrim – Part 1
Lying in a hospital bed, past ninety, face peaceful, eyes failing, J. I. Packer could hear his nurse’s footsteps but her face was a blur. Staring down at his hollow cheeks, rail-thin legs, the patch of skin stretched across the awkward dent on the side of his forehead, she asked a question, he didn’t answer,…
Read MoreA Fading Memory
When a jobs report showed the economy lagging, he fired the woman who wrote the report. Rolled on. Calling a press conference in the White House he ordered the National Guard to patrol the streets in Washington, DC to stop crime. The Epstein files sailed away over the horizon. A fading memory. Tariffs erupted again,…
Read MoreBlind
In the days before anyone ever turned on a light bulb, sitting in a candle-lit room, practical but with a skeptical streak, puzzled, Thomas stared across the dinner table at the man talking, asked, We don’t know where you’re going. How can we know the road to take to follow you? The answer he got?…
Read MoreOddities
In the old days a political party had to win an election to keep its majority in Congress. So it rolled up its sleeves and went to work to convince people it was right. Times have changed. These days politicians roll up their sleeves and go to work on redistricting. Take a look at what’s…
Read MoreSick
“I see one-third of a nation ill-housed, ill-clad, ill-nourished,” President Franklin D. Roosevelt said in 1937, in his second inaugural address. Today, 88 years later, FDR would see one-third of Americans going without medical care. A national poll by Embold Research (1,736 registered voters, July 1-7) found that “nearly 30% of Americans indicated that they faced…
Read MoreA Blessing
The circus is back in town. Next year’s Senate campaign’s off and rolling. And it’s like watching the rerun of an old tv show. Full of shadows, dark music, Republican’s first ad whacked Roy Cooper, called him a ‘wreck’, told people when he mismanaged a hurricane 100 people died; on social media Republicans described Cooper…
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