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OPINION | JOHN BRUMMETT: Sometimes, it’s just not funny
To give credit where due, it all began with Sarah Palin, Tina Fey and Al Franken in 2008. That's when the political figure and the satirical comic became the s…
Stories by John Brummett
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Subscriber ExclusiveOPINION | JOHN BRUMMETT: Cynics, cowards and politics
Gov. Sarah Sanders played the cynically irrelevant card last week. Her liberal Democratic resisters played the fearfully evasive one in response. Everyone play…
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Subscriber ExclusiveOPINION | JOHN BRUMMETT: Where the crisis lies
An interesting and telling thing happened early in my 40-minute telephone interview last week with Tim Alberta. We were visiting in advance of his appearance T…
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Subscriber ExclusiveOPINION | JOHN BRUMMETT: The quiet part, out loud
This is about a massive one-two punch. First he gets elected. Then he lets loose as himself.
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Subscriber ExclusiveOPINION | JOHN BRUMMETT: Lessons from David Pryor
It's a bit like saying Patrick Mahomes had a bad game when he passed for 250 yards and two touchdowns.
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Subscriber ExclusiveOPINION | JOHN BRUMMETT: Another Sarah scandal?
"The moral gymnastics required from Arkansas Democrats to be scandalized by Sarah Huckabee Sanders while fondly remembering the Clinton years is next level."--…
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Subscriber ExclusiveOPINION | JOHN BRUMMETT: Bubba holds forth
Some smart-aleck put in a letter to the editor the other day that I'd written something he liked and somehow managed to do so without consulting Bubba McCoy.
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Subscriber ExclusiveOPINION | JOHN BRUMMETT: Curiouser and curiouser
It already was a strange story, a tragedy, a matter of investigation and a wrongful-death lawsuit likely in the making.
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Subscriber ExclusiveOPINION | JOHN BRUMMETT: The few, the timid, the Democrats
"Russellville may be small, but they're slow."--longtime Conway radio sportscaster Bill Johnson calling play-by-play for a high school basketball game in the m…
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Subscriber ExclusiveOPINION | JOHN BRUMMETT: Bold, brave, unfailingly nice
David Pryor stood as a paragon of Arkansas politics in his era, circa 1966 to 1996.
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Subscriber ExclusiveOPINION | JOHN BRUMMETT: A portrait of arrogance
People say they're tired of hearing about the lectern. Fine. The issue is whether they're tired of their governor, and, if not, why not.
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Subscriber ExclusiveOPINION | JOHN BRUMMETT: For once, agreement
We may be seeing the political right and left coming together right here in Arkansas, among the unlikeliest of places.
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OPINION | JOHN BRUMMETT: Reading between the auditors’ lines
May I summarize the lectern audit in gritty plain language? Why, thank you. I shall.
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Subscriber ExclusiveOPINION | JOHN BRUMMETT: Just need a fighting chance
I sat there thinking the event was working and that I only cared right now in politics about good will and tolerance among people who differ on issues.
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Subscriber ExclusiveOPINION | JOHN BRUMMETT: Not quite an endorsement
There is a way to do it. Here, let me show Asa Hutchinson how.
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Subscriber ExclusiveOPINION | JOHN BRUMMETT: Light, darkness, then light again
"Get your glasses and look at this," she said. "It's like a mouse has bitten off a piece of cheese."
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Subscriber ExclusiveOPINION | JOHN BRUMMETT: A new abortion stance
Donald Trump has no interest other than winning. So it's telling that he believes his interest will be best served by softening his position on abortion.
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Subscriber ExclusiveOPINION | JOHN BRUMMETT: Cleaning up their mess
Cutting-edge high-tech innovation tends to spring up home-grown after a long investment in elite higher education systems emphasizing mathematics and science a…
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Subscriber ExclusiveOPINION | JOHN BRUMMETT: Sarah on November ballot
Sarah Sanders surely has no serious worry about getting re-elected in 2026. But surviving the election unscathed this November, when she won't appear on the ba…
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Subscriber ExclusiveOPINION | JOHN BRUMMETT: With luck, justice will prevail
U.S. District Judge Lee Rudofsky draws the lawsuit against the indoctrination section of Gov. Sanders' LEARNS act. He makes a formal disclosure that he plans t…
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Subscriber ExclusiveOPINION | JOHN BRUMMETT: Democracy needs … less
Critics will say today's offering is anti-democratic. I think it's anti-destructive. Y'all decide, or at least think about it if you have the inclination. And,…
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Subscriber ExclusiveOPINION | JOHN BRUMMETT: A daddy and daughter duel
They say the lower the stakes, the louder the spat.
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Subscriber ExclusiveOPINION | JOHN BRUMMETT: A case for slow deliberation
What appears to have happened is that the cryptocurrency-mining industry—which few in Arkansas knew anything about—delivered to the pliable, business-coveting …
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Subscriber ExclusiveOPINION | JOHN BRUMMETT: Abortion debate’s latest twist
The abortion pill case before the U.S. Supreme Court is, in some ways, bigger than the Roe v. Wade repeal.
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Subscriber ExclusiveOPINION | JOHN BRUMMETT: Where the agenda gets set
This is a story about a leading employer in rural Arkansas and a leading cultural influence in rural Arkansas--different entities in this context.
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Subscriber ExclusiveOPINION | JOHN BRUMMETT: Tragic death a powder keg
It's a shooting-death tragedy loaded with polarized and dysfunctional politics. And that's all a community needs to intensify what amounts in American society …
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Subscriber ExclusiveOPINION | JOHN BRUMMETT: Sarah on the offense
Gov. Sarah Sanders has opted to engage her real opponent, which is the people's constitutional authority to make their own laws.
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Subscriber ExclusiveOPINION | JOHN BRUMMETT: Asa speculation still aloft
If there is nothing to this talk that Asa Hutchinson might be interested in, and under consideration for, the presidency of the University of the Arkansas Syst…
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Subscriber ExclusiveOPINION | JOHN BRUMMETT: ‘Indoctrination’? Depends who does it
In Sarah Sanders' Arkansas, public schools may no longer share materials that impart the known fact that America has a racist history with scars evident still.
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Subscriber ExclusiveOPINION | JOHN BRUMMETT: Fair and circumspect
One fact becomes clear in special counsel Robert Hur's finding that Joe Biden should not be criminally prosecuted for his transgressions with classified docume…
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Subscriber ExclusiveOPINION | JOHN BRUMMETT: The Asa rumor mill ablaze
If you're sitting around not doing anything, you might invest a few minutes pondering whether it would be good or bad if former Gov. Asa Hutchinson became pres…
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Subscriber ExclusiveOPINION | JOHN BRUMMETT: A tale of unforced errors
If you're scoring at home in the matter of the state Corrections Board versus Gov. Sarah Sanders and Attorney General Tim Griffin, make a note that the Correct…
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Subscriber ExclusiveOPINION | JOHN BRUMMETT: Political nitpicking worth nothing
I'll give you the one-two-three of it and then I'll tell you it adds to zero, which is the sum of most of our politics.
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Subscriber ExclusiveOPINION | JOHN BRUMMETT: Wonder of blunders
Republicans got their tails kicked by an old man they'd ridiculed as feeble. Then they responded with a bizarre young Alabama woman who parodied modern Republi…
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Subscriber ExclusiveOPINION | JOHN BRUMMETT: Making sense of the election
Here are random remaining thoughts on the party primaries and judicial races Tuesday in Arkansas, which provided a weird experience typical of voting occasions…
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Subscriber ExclusiveOPINION | JOHN BRUMMETT: Listening to Bill worth a shot
"This is one of Trump's unique political gifts: He inspires such visceral hatred in his opponents that he provokes them to self-destruct." -- from a column by …
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Subscriber ExclusiveOPINION | JOHN BRUMMETT: Election more of the same
The big political news nationally Tuesday was that another moderate--nearly the last one--faded away. Meantime, the two most polarizing candidates imaginable f…
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Subscriber ExclusiveOPINION | JOHN BRUMMETT: The day’s arrived, dang it
So this is the day. I've put it off as long as possible.
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Subscriber ExclusiveOPINION | JOHN BRUMMETT: Educating the answers
They badger me in the weekly retirees' class on politics to repeat the question. It is irksome. I can't seem to remember to do it.
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Subscriber ExclusiveOPINION | JOHN BRUMMETT: Freedom to worship, or not
The most hostile response ever to an assertion in this column? That would be to a sentence that America is not a Christian nation but a free-religion nation.
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Subscriber ExclusiveOPINION | JOHN BRUMMETT: Coffee and ‘conversation’
A reader suggested I pop a caffeine pill and watch the video of a "conversation" last week among the candidates for chief justice of the Arkansas Supreme Court.
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Subscriber ExclusiveOPINION | JOHN BRUMMETT: Disgusting, yes, but …
Donald Trump said odd things to and about Black people on Friday night. The Black people in the audience applauded. They laughed at his quip about only Black f…
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Subscriber ExclusiveOPINION | JOHN BRUMMETT: Moms and Medicaid math
Gov. Sarah Sanders has such an aversion to Medicaid, the federal-state partnership for poor people's health insurance, that she advocates putting our state's l…
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Subscriber ExclusiveOPINION | JOHN BRUMMETT: Maneuvers on the court
I don't know of a better way to select judges than the absurd way we do it in Arkansas.
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Subscriber ExclusiveOPINION | JOHN BRUMMETT: Judging the judge candidates
This is the season for people to show up on your front porch asking you to vote for them for a local judgeship.
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Subscriber ExclusiveOPINION | JOHN BRUMMETT: Crooks, cowards, or couch
"Donald Trump seems more sincere about his lies than Joe Biden does about his truth."
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Subscriber ExclusiveOPINION | JOHN BRUMMETT: A stopgap on Sarah
Did you ever see that cartoon by George Fisher in which Orval Faubus was speaking to an Arkansas General Assembly made up of faces all looking like Orval Faubu…
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Subscriber ExclusiveOPINION | JOHN BRUMMETT: Meh … just enjoy the noise
I've got it now. It took a while, but, finally, the insight of Lindsey Graham and Tom Cotton on the method in Donald Trump's meaninglessness got through.
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Subscriber ExclusiveOPINION | JOHN BRUMMETT: Find light where you can
You look for encouraging developments where you can find them, even to the point of taking heart that Gov. Sarah Sanders deigned to talk that one time with mem…
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Subscriber ExclusiveOPINION | JOHN BRUMMETT: A crisis of politics
There are at least three points to explore on the seemingly seismic matter of the special counsel choosing not to prosecute President Joe Biden on having class…