Moscow on the Rio Grande
Back when Stalin was consolidating his power and establishing the police state that would define the Soviet Union, a legend emerged of a boy who informed on his father for hoarding or selling papers or some offense against the state. The father was then sent to a...
The New Nuttiness of the Republican Governor
Greg Abbot and Ron DeSantis are two of the flashiest, crassest, and most authoritarian politicians in the United States of America. Each man has established himself as a field general in the MAGA revolution, downplaying COVID-19 and punishing those of their residents...
Our Own Fascist
History rotates between tragedy and farce, but sometimes a farce turns out to be something far more dangerous. In his loose-lipped way, Madison Cawthorn toed the line of open incitement to political violence. The prospect of another uprising against the government of...
It’s over. The rest is just second guessing.
Well, it’s over. Joe Biden announced the end of the Afghanistan adventure yesterday. It will quickly start fading from Americans’ memories. As one person said on Twitter, Americans barely paid attention when we were there. They will certainly not pay attention when we...
Why North Carolina Politics Are So Bitter
In the late 19th century, 60 German Jews made their way into the terra incognita of Old North Carolina. James "Buck" Duke had invited them here because he had the bright idea of automated cigarette rolling, and they knew how to operate the machines. It must have been...
A breeding ground for miscreants, fascists, and racists
Madison Cawthorn is what happens when a political party refuses to hold its own accountable and puts power before governing. The GOP decided that Donald Trump could say and do anything with no consequences as long as they held the White House. Cawthorn has learned...
COVID is a Republican
This past week, I had two different people tell me essentially the same story. Both had workers come to their houses to make repairs. The homeowners asked the men if they were vaccinated. In both cases, the workers said, “No, we’re Republicans.” That’s a remarkable...
Biden did what Trump wouldn’t
Nobody should be more excited about what Joe Biden has done in Afghanistan than the ardent isolationists who supported Donald Trump. Not only is he getting America out of a 20 year war with no foreseeable end, he’s largely blown up the foreign policy establishment...
A History Lesson That The Anti-CRT Crowd Probably Doesn’t Want To Hear
"Everyone knows how bad slavery was, but hearing about it for months now is getting old," complained a Caswell County resident in response to Mark Robinson's "F.A.C.T.S." commission. "I don't hear any of these teachers talking about Hitler and how he tried to take out...
Three Cheers for Nancy Pelosi
In the face of threats by a deluded band of "moderates" to derail the Democratic agenda, Speak Nancy Pelosi pushed through the full $3.5 trillion public-investment package on the Biden presidency rests. The bill came through in full, without being watered down in the...
The Indoctrinated
Lieutenant Governor Mark Robinson released a report on his investigation into the use of Critical Race Theory in schools. Republicans have suddenly embraced the term “indoctrination.” It’s all over my #NCPOL twitter feed. In their minds, our children are being...
Mark Robinson’s Dime-store McCarthysim
"Instead of a war on poverty, they got a war on drugs so the police can bother me." -Tupac Shakur, "Changes," 1996 In that one lyric tucked into a song that eloquently expressed Clinton-era Black rage, Tupac Shakur said more about the burden of systemic racism than...