OPINION | JOHN BRUMMETT: Cops at the Capitol
It's not against the law to be stupid. Feel free now to enter your own second sentence. Let's get your snark out of the way, freeing space for mine.
Perhaps you're thinking the decriminalization of s...
January 21, 2021
OPINION | JOHN BRUMMETT: From the center out
Just as we need not heal until we purge the Trumpian right-wing extremist insurrection movement, we need not pine for bipartisanship until we can learn to be nonpartisan.
Our immediate need is not fo...
January 20, 2021
OPINION | JOHN BRUMMETT: Adventures in mediocrity
The first thing Gov. Asa Hutchinson said when he returned my call Saturday was that a ranking that morning in The New York Times had shown Arkansas 25th among the states in vaccination performance thu...
January 19, 2021
OPINION | JOHN BRUMMETT: A primer on protest
We need to define three words. They are protest, riot and insurrection. Then we need to consider whether asserting hypocrisy in other people excuses one's own.
Protest is a noble exercise in free exp...
January 17, 2021
OPINION | JOHN BRUMMETT: Asa walking a hard road
Gov. Asa Hutchinson began his State of the State address to the Legislature on Tuesday by thanking members for the warm reception that wasn’t.
It was tepid. It was one of those rounds of applause fal...
January 14, 2021
OPINION | JOHN BRUMMETT: Light dawns, finally
That was a compelling photo gallery and accompanying article in this newspaper's online edition last Friday.
That would be the one displaying and detailing the six Republican white guys who have serv...
January 13, 2021
OPINION | JOHN BRUMMETT: The moral imperative
As one sometimes criticized for weighing political considerations too heavily, I recognize that we now live in a new era occurring after the president led a violent insurrection.
This week, moral and...
January 12, 2021
OPINION | JOHN BRUMMETT: After the Trump horror
Donald Trump and his vaunted base have revealed themselves in a mob of thugs taking siege of the U.S. Capitol to try to overthrow our democracy.
The question arises whether this development might inc...
January 10, 2021
OPINION | JOHN BRUMMETT: Virus racking up points
If you're keeping score at home--and you really need to stay home considering this score--the tally Tuesday was 4,107 to 2,229.
That was in the race in Arkansas between new coronavirus cases and coro...
January 7, 2021
OPINION | JOHN BRUMMETT: Right ... and advantageous
You do a pretty good job analyzing political considerations, Gov. Asa Hutchinson told me the other day. But he said I seldom if ever seemed to consider that sometimes politicians do what they think is...
January 6, 2021
OPINION | JOHN BRUMMETT: The dog-and-pony show
The state of Georgia engages today in a democratic exercise that several Republicans in Congress no longer accept unless they win.
Georgia will elect either Democrats or Republicans to the U.S. Senat...
January 5, 2021
OPINION | JOHN BRUMMETT: Ledge chomping at the bit
Across rural Arkansas, conservative-minded people adoring of Donald Trump and resentful of government rules have elected droves of Republican state legislators to reflect their adorations and resentme...
January 3, 2021
OPINION | JOHN BRUMMETT: Plunging in on Roe
Is it legal or appropriate to enact a state law that is expressly illegal under federal case law?
I had occasion to ask that the other day of Gov. Asa Hutchinson. I was interviewing him for a forthco...
December 31, 2020
OPINION | JOHN BRUMMETT: Fear as policy
The trigger-happy of Arkansas got a nice Christmas gift last week.
More than two dozen state legislators introduced a bill likely to pass that would make it easier to shoot a person because of the wa...
December 29, 2020
OPINION | JOHN BRUMMETT: From the center out
Congress achieved a pandemic relief plan last week, demonstrating how center-out compromise can work.
Donald Trump disengaged from that process, demonstrating his pointlessness. He then tried to blow...
December 27, 2020