Starting Fires

When Sam Nunberg told a CNN reporter that he wasn’t about to obey Robert Mueller’s subpoena, in the blink of an eye, he became a star on cable TV and Twitter. But, of course, complying with subpoenas isn’t optional. Nunberg was just an awkward, unhappy, vexed soul bemoaning his fate to reporters. He wasn’t a…

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Infection?

It was the kind of thing district attorneys do all the time: Robert Mueller was fishing. He subpoenaed Trump and Company for all the documents they had that mentioned nine of Trump’s associates. But on Meet the Press, Chuck Todd,  erupting, reported because of the subpoena, “Sources say the President is ‘unglued’ as chaos plagues…

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Walking Around in a Fog

In the blink of an eye, CNN, pouncing, announced the real reason Hope Hicks had resigned – it reported after Trump had read she said she’d told ‘little white lies’ for him, he’d berated her, asking, How could you be so stupid? CBS had it’s own theory: It reported that a titanic power struggle was…

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Reality Show Politics

The state Democratic Party heard the Republican Party was making automated calls, had heart palpitations, and filed a complaint with the Consumer Protection Division of the Attorney General’s office. The Consumer Protection Agency sent the complaint to the Republican Party – and asked for a response. When GOP Executive Director Dallas Woodhouse read the Democrats…

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A Cautious Man and a Joint Committee

For years, whenever Roy Cooper passed on running for Governor, people would smile and say, Ole Roy — he’s just naturally cautious. The other day when Governor Cooper announced he’d granted the gas pipeline companies the state permit they needed the way he explained it sounded fine: We’d get a pipeline. Plus the companies would…

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Digging a Hole Deeper

Policy Watch broadsided Duane Hall, claiming he’d sexually harassed women; in a flash, Democrats from Roy Cooper on down demanded Hall resign from the legislature. Hall slipped, said he’d only kissed one woman who didn’t want to be kissed, then, a day later, said Policy Watch slammed him because he (a 50-year-old man) had once…

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Once There Was a Time…

When President Trump nominated Tom Farr for the vacant federal judgeship in eastern North Carolina, Anthony Spearman, the head of the state NAACP, headed to Washington to disagree. But his pilgrimage took an odd twist when he compared Tom Farr to Adolph Hitler. Trump appointing Hitler? Pure political bluster. But fiction took on a life…

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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…

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A 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…

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The 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 –…

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