Cross of Gold

A little known prairie lawyer got up and gave a speech at the Democratic Convention in 1896 and the next day was nominated for President.   Last weekend, a conservative posted a link to this speech on Twitter with a one word comment: Wow.   It’s Elizabeth Warren’s talking about Citigroup and it’s as close…

Read More

Infighting

The months right after an election are, as James Carville once said, “when you stop screwing your enemies and start screwing your friends.”   That’s true of winners and losers. The winners fight over the best jobs and nicest offices. The losers fight over who’s to blame. And they jockey for positions in the next…

Read More

Fire in the Eyes

I dropped in on a wise old Democrat who has been through the political wars, winning more than he lost. I found him undaunted by 2014 and fired up for 2016.   He chided me for chiding Senator Hagan for chiding President Obama over the November results: “You were too tough on her. The President…

Read More

Debating Incentives

Ben Bradlee of the Washington Post used to say: “I come in every day with an empty bucket, and somebody fills it up.” Some days I come in with an empty blog, but TAPsters (readers, commentators and contributors) fill it up. Here’s a guest blog that’s timely in light of Senator-elect Andy Wells’ letter to…

Read More

A Gift that Keeps on Giving

The Taliban’s on a tear and ISIS is selling women as slaves and it looks like Limited Wars have turned out to be a gift that keeps on giving and we’re about to fight one more.   ISIS has reconquered half of Irag but to whip ‘em we’re not sending in the Marines or the…

Read More

The Seed of Wickedness?

  Generally speaking it looks folks see the riots in Missouri two ways – Jim Martin who serves on the local School Board gave an example in the newspaper of one way: After the riots he explained to his fellow School Board members they were watching a ‘classic disconnect between how officialdom and people in…

Read More

Duke Who?

When 60 Minutes came calling, Governor McCrory was quick to dump, and dump on, his old employer Duke Energy.   When Leslie Stahl asked about Duke’s record on coal ash, McCrory squinted real serious-like and said, “Actually, there’s been no record regarding coal ash disposal.” Stahl: “They haven’t done anything?” McCrory: “Very little, very little.…

Read More

What’s the Difference?

  Obama and the Republican Leaders in Congress are eyeball to eyeball over immigration with the President saying he’s done a fine noble deed to bring five million people out of the shadows and with Republicans saying Obama’s fine noble deed is just an unconstitutional power grab.   They’re having a fine row but the…

Read More

Hagan and Obama, Part II

You know it was a bad story when somebody says at breakfast, “Did Senator Hagan know she was being quoted when she said that about Obama?”   We don’t know. But we do know that Hagan’s interview with a McClatchy reporter threw gas on a fire burning in the Democratic Party – and probably burned…

Read More

Good Luck, Bad Luck

Talk about a fellow being star-crossed – after the election as everyone took a deep breath and settled back peacefully for Thanksgiving the Governor, without a lot of hoopla,  quietly launched his reelection campaign, blanketing the Internet with a nice pleasant new video – then, the next day, an environmental group announced it had found…

Read More