Don’t make it a process argument
Josh Marshall, the founder and editor of Talking Points Memo, wrote a column in the New York Times this weekend offering Democrats a way to make abortion a salient issue in November. He urges all Democratic Senators and challengers to pledge not only to codify Roe...
From think tank to hackery
I’m back from Sweden. While North Carolina was suffering from 95+ degree heat, we were struggling to get above 70 degrees. At some point, I’d love to spend summers there. For now, I’ll take what I can get. While the landscape, the climate, and the culture were much...
Pro-democracy conservatives
By the time most of you read this, I’ll be on a plane heading to Stockholm. I probably won’t write until I get back later in the month, so I want to give you some summer reading advice. Don’t read people who agree with you. Or at least don’t only read people who agree...
Medicaid and marijuana and the NC Senate
If you didn’t know better, you would think Democrats were running the North Carolina Senate. The body passed Medicaid expansion earlier in the session and passed a bill legalizing medical marijuana this week. Both bills will likely get stymied in the House this year,...
Make it about guns
Last night, Joe Biden gave the speech the country needed to hear about gun control. In the wake of a spate of mass shootings that included the slaughter of 19 school children in Uvalde, Texas, he asked a simple question. “How much more carnage are we willing to...
Democrats beat Cawthorn
According to a report by the AP, Democrats, not Republicans, beat Madison Cawthorn in the GOP primary in NC-11. Their analysis shows that 5,400 of the early votes came from people who voted in the 2020 Democratic primary. Cawthorn lost by fewer than 1,500 votes,...
Try results instead
Earlier this month, I wrote that the pending decision to overturn Roe v. Wade could change the political landscape if Democrats handled the issue correctly. The tragedy in Uvalde, Texas could add to that shift in the dynamic heading into the mid-terms. In both...
A stunning state of denial
The deaths of children in schools at the hands of deranged shooters is the most disturbing part of life in modern America. Our inability to act to prevent future deaths is mind numbing. The fact that we can’t, or won’t, take measures to protect our offspring, the...
A little break
On most weekdays for the past nine years, I’ve gotten out of bed, usually around six o’clock or so, scanned social media, checked a few websites, and then written about 500 words, usually before 10am. (In the beginning, I read the newspaper, but I haven’t had an...
Primary roundup
The 2002 North Carolina primaries are now in the books. The major races across the state were settled and we won’t see any runoffs, at least for federal office. We’re on to November. At the top of the ticket, there were no real surprises. Cheri Beasley handily...
