Carter Wrenn
Gary Pearce
Roadkill?
I didn’t know what to tell this prospective candidate. They (I use “they” to protect the innocent) want to run as Unaffiliated in a heavily gerrymandered Republican district. And they wanted my advice. Why run Unaffiliated? “Because a Democrat doesn’t stand a chance, and voters deserve a choice.” Much as I admire that, I wasn’t…
An Old Warning
Conor sat down. “A poll in the newspaper says Republicans are 14 points behind Democrats – is that true?” He was asking about the generic ballot question in the poll. Both modern and old-fashioned, after law school Conor returned to his small town, practiced law with his father. Like his father, grandfather, great-grandfather he’s a…
Trump + Mamdani
The last time a “fascist” and a “communist” were this chummy, they divided up Poland. This time, President Trump and New York Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani shook up politics. Trump had called Mamdani a “communist lunatic.” The mayor-to-be had called the President a “fascist” and “despot.” But love was in bloom when the two met Friday.…
Lincoln Stories
Three days before Abraham Lincoln was assassinated he told his wife and a small circle of friends a story: How one night he’d stayed up late waiting for dispatches from the front – when he finally got to bed, weary, he quickly fell asleep. In a dream a deathlike silence surrounded him. He heard distant…
Fighting for Freedom
Do any “Freedom Conservatives” in the Republican Party have qualms about masked government agents snatching people off the street and locking them up? The only Republican I’ve heard pipe up is lame-duck Senator Thom Tillis of North Carolina, who said at a Senate hearing yesterday: “I want to make sure that Homeland Security can provide…
An About Face
For months I’ve been wondering about tariffs: Are they good? Bad? Do they make a cup of coffee cost more? Who pays them? Are they taxes? Back in Reagan days almost all my Republican friends said, Yes, absolutely, they’re taxes. But today we’re marching down a different road. Trump says absolutely not, tariffs aren’t taxes.…
The Forgotten President
We know about the assassinations of Abraham Lincoln and John F. Kennedy. We may know that the assassination of William McKinley in 1901 elevated “that damned cowboy,” Theodore Roosevelt, to the Presidency. But who knows about the fourth President to be assassinated, James A. Garfield? A new Netflix series, Death by Lightning, reintroduces us to…
Nothing Noble About It
Allies for years, erupting, Trump called Marjorie Taylor Greene ‘a traitor.’ Greene, looking frazzled, posturing herself, shot back that standing up for women who’d been raped didn’t make her a traitor – said she never expected fighting to release the Epstein files would come to this. Insult hurling rolled on – Trump said Greene was…
A Different Sin
I missed that Jeffrey Epstein, in one of his emails, mentioned this Sherlock Holmes story: Back in 1892, a famous racehorse was stolen in the middle of the night and the horse’s trainer was found dead. To Dr. Watson’s surprise, Holmes pointed out a curious fact: The night the man was killed the dog that…