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Stories by John Brummett
Much-needed conversation Today's conservatives say America's race situation is pretty much resolved or at least sufficiently so that government doesn't need to do anything special any longer for Black people.Today... February 5, 2023
OPINION | JOHN BRUMMETT: Laws for the offended I'm scared and I'm offended. So, let's make a law right quick. There's nothing to it, particularly when four-fifths of the Legislature sees it our way and wouldn't dare ask questio... February 2, 2023
OPINION | JOHN BRUMMETT: Republican’s hard row to hoe State Rep. Jim Wooten of Beebe is a Republican. He was one in the late 1970s when then-Gov. David Pryor, a Democrat, made him director of commerce and then of finance and administration.Pryor didn&#39... February 1, 2023
OPINION | JOHN BRUMMETT: The power of messaging It appears we're going to find out if Gov. Sarah Sanders, aka DeSanders, can dare to get to the political left of her gubernatorial role model, Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida.She has systematically ... January 31, 2023
OPINION | JOHN BRUMMETT: A valuable dialogue I'm fired up about good dialogue, having enjoyed a bit of it last week. I engaged in potentially valuable exchanges that took place after columns in this space on:• The grandstanding of conse... January 29, 2023
OPINION | JOHN BRUMMETT: The loyal opposition This will be the second column in this space in barely a month on the subject of the Arkansas Democratic Party.That's two more columns than the subject deserves, considering its near-extinction in... January 26, 2023
OPINION | JOHN BRUMMETT: No, it’s not indoctrination I'm fairly sure I've been taught something pretty close to so-called critical race theory.Those who decry the theory are perhaps saying "aha"--that I stand as evidence of the human t... January 25, 2023
OPINION | JOHN BRUMMETT: Tactical, not practical Culture means way of life. A culture war occurs when hostilities break out between colliding ways of life seeking dominance over each other.We don't have a culture war in Arkansas. Instead we have... January 24, 2023
OPINION | JOHN BRUMMETT: Cooking in resentment lab Modern American resentment conservatism works best in areas where there is no current problem. That way, the snarling right gets to play with invented ones.Last week in Arkansas, resentment conservati... January 22, 2023
OPINION | JOHN BRUMMETT: Dancing on debt ceiling The federal government has no option other than to raise the debt limit, which is why we should worry that Congress won't do it.Did you watch on television the other day as the House of Representa... January 19, 2023
OPINION | JOHN BRUMMETT: A prix fixe school agenda In this week's regular video and podcast with Roby Brock of Talk Business and Politics, Brock said he'd been told the single consolidated education bill that Gov. Sarah Sanders is demanding wi... January 18, 2023
OPINION | JOHN BRUMMETT: Sarah at full speed It only seems I'm obsessing on Sarah Huckabee Sanders.What's happened is that she has hit the ground running at full speed as Arkansas governor. Backward, mostly. So, I'm merely hustling t... January 17, 2023
OPINION | JOHN BRUMMETT: Wrong wrapped with right New Gov. Sarah Sanders said several wrong things last week. Even when she said something right, it was wrapped in contradiction. Right-wing grandstanding tends to drag down substance and merit.The bes... January 15, 2023
OPINION | JOHN BRUMMETT: The income-tax conundrum New Gov. Sarah Sanders set the Arkansas Primitive Assembly to hootin' and hollerin' in happiness in her inaugural address Tuesday.It happened first when she declared that, under her leadership... January 12, 2023
OPINION | JOHN BRUMMETT: Here in West Florida There is another basic difference between Asa Hutchinson and Sarah Sanders beyond the fact that he tells the truth about Donald Trump.It's that he, as governor, resisted unnecessary right-wing cul... January 11, 2023
OPINION | JOHN BRUMMETT: A lesson for moderates We need fiery, fighting-spirit moderates who kick behinds and take names. We need passion from the passive.But the problem with moderates is that they typically behave so moderately.The ones in Congre... January 10, 2023
Raise a toast to Grif Grif Stockley died Wednesday in a nursing home in Virginia where he'd been taken in late-life cognitive decline to be near his beloved daughter.Tributes appropriately lauded him as a brave and dev... January 8, 2023
OPINION | JOHN BRUMMETT: Spectacle of the absurd Let's begin with a good word for U.S. Rep. Steve Womack, Republican congressman from the 3rd District of Arkansas.Remember that he voted for the $1.7 trillion spending bill a few days ago. Remembe... January 5, 2023
OPINION | JOHN BRUMMETT: A fresh start for 2023 On a sunny and unseasonably mild first day of 2023, with peas simmering and a neighborhood walk beckoning, a columnist's thoughts turn to the tired but ever-hopeful concept of making resolutions f... January 4, 2023
OPINION | JOHN BRUMMETT: As it was foretold … Actually, I do like telling you I told you so. And I did tell you so.It happened in a television interview broadcast nine days ago, four days ahead of the formal introduction of doomsday for academic ... January 3, 2023
OPINION | JOHN BRUMMETT: Hard to explain the obvious It's hard to prove what, if anything, is in the head of Republican state legislators in Arkansas, even if the effect of their actions is evident.Were they misbehaving with deliberate discriminatio... January 1, 2023
OPINION | JOHN BRUMMETT: A glimpse of bipartisanship The big news out of Washington last week was that half the Arkansas congressional delegation voted correctly, presumably not by mistake.A record of correctness as high as 50 percent in an Arkansas con... December 29, 2022
OPINION | JOHN BRUMMETT: To protect senior citizens A friend was lamenting the circumstance of a mutual acquaintance in his 80s.The gentleman in question was ailing from unexplained symptoms and getting no relief as he waited to see if his health-insur... December 27, 2022
A trip to childhood Editor's note: This column first appeared in 2015. A couple of references are out of date. Mom is gone now, though she lives in Christmas memories.On a Saturday morning that spring, I sat alone, h... December 25, 2022
OPINION | JOHN BRUMMETT: The Asa straddle Maybe it's a void. Maybe it's the breach. Either way, Asa Hutchinson has really stepped in it.There he was, back on Sunday-morning network television. He was more candid than ever and broadly ... December 22, 2022
OPINON | JOHN BRUMMETT: More Trump-y than ever Before we get to the fullest revelation yet of the essence of Donald Trump, or so they're saying, some of you probably need to know what an NFT is.So, being otherwise at sea myself, I'll regur... December 20, 2022
OPINION | JOHN BRUMMETT: Bubba has the floor I called Bubba McCoy on his cell to wish him a merry Christmas, and he said I'd caught him down on the floor and unable to get up."I'd pulled the phone out of my pocket to call Rent-a-Cra... December 18, 2022
OPINION | JOHN BRUMMETT: Being Kyrsten Sinema I have complimentary and important things to say about Kyrsten Sinema, but I don't know her and my distant observation is befogged by her mystery.If I write that she's exactly what the doctor ... December 15, 2022
OPINION | JOHN BRUMMETT: Rebuilding a party All good men come to the aid of their party. At least that's what I remember typing to test a newly installed typewriter ribbon.That's an inky strip that rolls around this cartridge and ... we... December 13, 2022
Cruising down the highway It was the next afternoon, rainy and dreary but maybe not so much for smiling, relaxed Asa Hutchinson.The night before, Donald Trump's handpicked superstar running back, Herschel Walker, had lost ... December 11, 2022
OPINION | JOHN BRUMMETT: On the agenda for January Bart Hester arrived in the state Senate a decade ago, not long out of the Razorback bullpen where he was the catcher. That's not to say he didn't get into some games and earn a varsity letter.... December 8, 2022
OPINION | JOHN BRUMMETT: GOP can’t quite close door The state Republican Committee narrowly failed on Saturday to pass a measure calling for only card-carrying Republicans to pick all officeholders in the state except in Pulaski, Washington and a few D... December 6, 2022
House Democrats unite The new post-Pelosi leadership team for House Democrats got elected by acclamation Wednesday.The unanimity reflected a concerted Democratic desire to appear more unified, collegial and efficient than ... December 4, 2022
OPINION | JOHN BRUMMETT: Evolution on race Jerry Jones stood near the back of a gaggle of white boys at North Little Rock High School in 1957. He was a 15-year-old sophomore out of white working-class Rose City. He was watching without express... December 1, 2022
OPINION | JOHN BRUMMETT: Asa takes a bold-ish stance Asa Hutchinson had a moment Sunday. CNN invited him back on "State of the Nation" where, for a while, he'd started to resemble a regular.They called him this time because Donald Trump ha... November 30, 2022
OPINION | JOHN BRUMMETT: The plan on prisons Among the few bills pre-filed already for the legislative session beginning in January are two blank ones that presumably will soon become bulky.They are identical companion measures, a Senate version... November 29, 2022
OPINION | JOHN BRUMMETT: More legislative trickery One of our feistier conservative Republican state legislators has put in a bill for the next session that seems to try to spite any Arkansas company that shows the temerity to expand health coverage f... November 27, 2022
OPINION | JOHN BRUMMETT: Thankful reflections on life There will be a couple of football games of interest to many of us on today's holiday occasion.One pits the Cowboys against the Giants. I'll root, probably in vain, for the Giants. I have an i... November 24, 2022
OPINION | JOHN BRUMMETT: Nancy’s long shadow Nancy Pelosi's defining moment came in 2008 when George W. Bush's treasury secretary, Hank Paulson, former chairman of Goldman Sachs, literally bowed before her.The Wall Street Journal called ... November 23, 2022
OPINION | JOHN BRUMMETT: The education agenda Our new governor's focus, they tell me, will be education, to which some of you just said, "Oh, dear."The recent power play in the state Senate to allow only two Democrats on standing co... November 22, 2022
OPINION | JOHN BRUMMETT: As the arrows whiz by A reader writes to say we need arrows because surely Joe Biden and Sarah Huckabee Sanders getupward ones and Donald Trump downward.When they're that obvious, there may not be much need.But we aim ... November 20, 2022
OPINION | JOHN BRUMMETT: How will Sarah govern? Our governor-elect is quite the mystery. What kind of governor are we are in for, anyway?Arkansas elected Sarah Huckabee Sanders because she was the "R"--or not the "D"--as well as... November 17, 2022
OPINION | JOHN BRUMMETT: Not quite hell I need to write a correction. It's of my column published the Sunday before the midterm election.That column cited polls showing the electorate distressed mostly over the state of the economy. On ... November 16, 2022
OPINION | JOHN BRUMMETT: Simply because they can State Sen. Linda Chesterfield was minding her own business presumably, living in the south-central to southwestern section of Pulaski County.She looked up one day last year to find that her Republican... November 15, 2022
Not part of the tribe Each big election takes inventory of our tribal political division. Each inventory finds that division to be starker and deeper than the time before.Each election reminds me I'm living in a rival ... November 13, 2022
OPINION | JOHN BRUMETT: Searching for togetherness The New York Times, which many of you despise if I read the election returns correctly, summed it up Wednesday morning in a splendid paragraph.It reported, or analyzed--or, if you insist, opinion-ized... November 10, 2022
OPINION | JOHN BRUMMETT: Cynical, or simply realistic? The best Democratic candidate imaginable for Arkansas, where a Democratic candidate is hardly a thing, asked me mid-campaign how I got so cynical. I said I was realistic.Chris Jones--smart, accomplish... November 9, 2022
OPINION | JOHN BRUMMETT: A blood moon election Here are a few thoughts on an Election Day coinciding with a full moon and total lunar eclipse, which ought to give eeriness a chance.First, I should mention pushback on my column of Sunday. That inst... November 8, 2022
OPINION | JOHN BRUMMETT: Hold your horses, Dems On Wednesday morning CNN released a poll showing respondents disapproving of the job performance of Joe Biden.They deemed him and Democrats insufficiently attentive to the real problem of the economy.... November 6, 2022
OPINION | JOHN BRUMMETT: Should people really rule? Proposed Issue 2 asks voters to concede they're less responsible than legislators.If Issue 2 passes because voters don't pay enough attention to realize they're being insulted, then the le... November 3, 2022
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