Carter Wrenn
Gary Pearce
Blind
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?…
Oddities
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…
Sick
“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…
Straight Talk
A veteran Democrat who doesn’t get excited by much texted me at night: “This is solid. Democrats forgot how to talk to people like this.” He’d seen this video by Jamie Ager, who’s taking on a tough but intriguing race in the 11th Congressional District of Western North Carolina Ager delivers a direct message and…
A 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…
2024 Might-Have-Beens
Kamala Harris could have won. She could have overcome President Biden’s poor polls, voters’ discontent and her campaign’s short timeline. That’s what I take from 2024: How Trump Retook the White House and the Democrats Lost America – by three newspaper reporters, Josh Dawsey, Tyler Pager, and Isaac Arnsdorf. Their reporting shows that campaigns matter;…
Harmony
I always thought of Trump and MAGA as one living breathing creature, like a chorus of voices singing one harmony, one song. But when Pam Bondi dropped a match on the Epstein fire something surprising happened: Harmony faded. Voices in the choir – like Tucker Carlson and Marjorie Taylor Greene – were singing a different…
Roy vs DC
It’s Down Home Roy versus D.C. politicians. Roy Cooper’s announcement video is how Opie Taylor of Mayberry would look and sound if he grew up to run for Senator. Cooper begins nostalgically: “It wasn’t always this hard, because being in the middle class meant something. You could afford a home. Your kids went to good…
Strange Times
I was sitting in my sixth-grade classroom, surrounded by boys and girls I grew up with, when the principal walked through the door and, voice somber, told us President Kennedy had just been shot. One boy – whose parents disliked Kennedy – clapped, cheering. It was goofy. Everyone in the room stared at him shocked.…