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Bill Straub

@bstraub

"I'm a tired hack with a doubtful future'' -- Philip Marlowe. Former White House and political correspondent for Scripps Howard, now a columnist for the Northern Kentucky Tribune. A disciple of Walter Reuther. An original Mets fan. Bill Evans devotee.

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12.11.2024
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Latest posts by Bill Straub @bstraub

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Opinion - Bill Straub: Rep. Jamie Comer has a flamethrower but no honor, but about those Epstein files. . . - NKyTribune There’s a meme going around, popularized by political commentator Charlie Sykes, warning that “a clown with a flamethrower still has a flamethrower.’’ Rep. Jamie Comer, R-TheFrankfortLoop, doesn’t req...

My latest for the Northern Kentucky Tribune: Jamie Comer, a clown with a flamethrower.

nkytribune.com/2026/03/opin...

06.03.2026 16:00 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
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Opinion - Bill Straub: Republican campaign to replace McConnell comes down to 'who does Daddy love best?' - NKyTribune The Republican primary for the seat being vacated by the retiring Sen. Mitch McConnell revolves around a single factor – who does daddy love best? The three principal contenders – Rep. Andy Barr, R-Le...

My latest for the Northern Kentucky Tribune: GOP senate campaign is centered on who loves daddy the best.

nkytribune.com/2026/02/opin...

27.02.2026 18:27 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
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Opinion - Bill Straub: Andy Barr's latest ad makes clear message he's sending to voters - NKyTribune HA! And you people thought George Wallace was dead. Don’t panic. The sleazy bigot who served as governor of the sovereign state of Alabama remains six feet under at the Greenwood Cemetery in Montgomer...

Latest for NKY Trib: Do you realize being White isn't a sin? Didn't realize that til Andy Barr told me so

nkytribune.com/2026/02/opin...

13.02.2026 15:35 👍 1 🔁 1 💬 0 📌 0
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Opinion - Bill Straub: Sending credit Sen. Rand Paul's way for the courage to stand up to Trump - NKyTribune Sen. Rand Paul has been receiving a lot of praise recently for stating the obvious. And he deserves all the credit being tossed his way. Appearing on the once-great CBS program 60 Minutes on Sunday, t...

My latest for the Northern Kentucky Tribune: Sometimes you just havta give the devil his due:

nkytribune.com/2026/02/opin...

06.02.2026 19:29 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
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Opinion - Bill Straub: Congressman Andy Barr reaches new low in pandering to Trump over ICE - NKyTribune There must be a word to describe a person of modest abilities who is willing to shed every layer of self-esteem at his/her disposal to fulfill a voracious ambition with no regard for retaining even a ...

My latest for the Northern Kentucky Tribune: You know, Andy Barr is such a doofus it's almost endearing. Almost.

nkytribune.com/2026/01/opin...

30.01.2026 18:36 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
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Opinion - Bill Straub: ICE, ICE and more ICE - when is enough enough? - NKyTribune Enough is enough. The United States Immigration and Enforcement Agency, better known as ICE, is out of control. It is invading communities, wielding military-style gear, donning facemasks, for crying ...

My latest for the Northern Kentucky Tribune: ICE ain't cool.

nkytribune.com/2026/01/opin...

23.01.2026 17:27 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
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Opinion - Bill Straub: Kentucky has invested a lot in president/dictator Trump; doesn't seem to be paying off - NKyTribune This coming Tuesday, Jan. 20, will mark the end of the first year of what is shaping up as the American Reign of Terror, the administration of President-cum-Dictator Donald J. Trump, which still has a...

My latest for Northern Kentucky Tribune: Kentucky voters sure love Donnie but he doesn't return the ardor.

nkytribune.com/2026/01/opin...

16.01.2026 16:50 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
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Opinion - Bill Straub: There's much more to Trump's Greenland obsession than national security - NKyTribune Did you ever, in your wildest dreams, to quote an old Moody Blues song, imagine a time when a United States senator would feel compelled to assure the public that he would do everything in his power t...

My latest for the Northern Kentucky Tribune: To arms! To arms with Greenland!

nkytribune.com/2026/01/opin...

09.01.2026 15:53 👍 1 🔁 1 💬 0 📌 0
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Opinion - Bill Straub: Thomas Massie is enjoying a surge of popularity, but beware - NKyTribune In a development that defies all logic — arriving during this strange period in American history that itself defies all logic — Rep. Thomas Harold Massie of somewhere or other in Lewis County, Kentuck...

My latest for the Northern Kentucky Tribune: Liberals' new BFF -- Thomas Massie?

nkytribune.com/2026/01/opin...

02.01.2026 17:42 👍 1 🔁 1 💬 0 📌 0
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Opinion - Bill Straub: Listen to the music; its beauty can persevere and perhaps sweep us to better times - NKyTribune Whenever I write this column, and most other times, I have music playing in the background. On this day it’s the Sonata in A by Gabriel Faure with Itzhak Perlman and Emanuel Ax handling the honors. Th...

My latest for the Northern Kentucky Tribune: Music is the answer.

nkytribune.com/2025/12/opin...

27.12.2025 12:51 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
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Opinion - Bill Straub: With Trump's trademark lack of decency on display, his devotees toe the line - NKyTribune WASHINGTON – It would be a serious error to assume that the despicable comments issued by President-cum-Dictator Donald J. Trump in wake of the violent deaths of Hollywood director Rob Reiner and his ...

My latest for the NKY Tribune: Stealing a phrase from the '60s, in this one, I let it all hang out.

nkytribune.com/2025/12/opin...

19.12.2025 16:58 👍 1 🔁 1 💬 0 📌 0

If they sign Tucker/Bellinger (or both) trade for another outfielder and get relief help I'm willing to wait and see.

13.12.2025 19:59 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0

Don't think they overpaid for Polonco over two years, had a .821 OPS last season. Think with the arms coming from Syracuse the rotation will be okay, but the relief corps will, as always, be an absolute mess.

13.12.2025 19:59 👍 2 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0

Braves look to be in the right track bolstering the bullpen but I don't think Yaz III is much beyond a fourth outfielder these days. Don't know what to think about the Mets. They still have an ok core around Soto-Lindor but they now need two outfielders and a first baseman,though Polanco may fit.

13.12.2025 19:57 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 2 📌 0
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Opinion - Bill Straub: It is honestly comedy gold, the hyprocrisy of Jamie Comer - NKyTribune Having thoroughly humiliated himself over the bogus and years long Biden Crime Family™ investigation, Rep. Jamie Comer has now established that his nitwittery is infinite, changing horses to pursue th...

My latest for the Northern Kentucky Tribune: Jamie Comer is at it again. Nitwitery unbound.

nkytribune.com/2025/12/opin...

12.12.2025 17:55 👍 3 🔁 1 💬 0 📌 0
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Opinion - Bill Straub: The inept Secretary of War just might be leading us into a war in Venezuela - NKyTribune In assessing the performance of Peter Hegseth, the insidious boob who insists on being addressed as the Secretary of War for these United States, Sen. Rand Paul determined that the man responsible for...

My latest for the NKY Tribune: Re you ready for Hegseth leading the military in the Battle of Caracas?

nkytribune.com/2025/12/opin...

05.12.2025 17:15 👍 1 🔁 1 💬 0 📌 0
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Opinion - Bill Straub: How much more of 'ugly nation' status can we possibly take? - NKyTribune To say that Rep. Thomas Harold Massie is exasperating is undisputable. He is the rare politician who actually seems to believe what he says, something that might usually be considered a positive attri...

My latest for the Northern Kentucky Tribune: Trump's ugly assault on Massie and his marriage shows why he is unfit for office.

nkytribune.com/2025/11/opin...

21.11.2025 16:16 👍 1 🔁 1 💬 0 📌 0

Sharper than their performance.

15.11.2025 09:26 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
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Opinion - Bill Straub: Hypocrisy, double-standards, and outright law-bending - measured in crypto - NKyTribune It’s fair to assume that very few folks in Ludlow or Silver Grove have ever heard of a cryptocurrency kingpin named Changpeng Zhao, who is worth a whole lotta dough and happens to have pleaded guilty ...

My latest for the Northern Kentucky Tribune: Trump pardons a guy helping him make money. So where's Jamie Comer?

nkytribune.com/2025/11/opin...

07.11.2025 22:13 👍 1 🔁 1 💬 0 📌 0

Hey John David. Yeah, they picked them up because they did so well with the Mets this season (actually, in the past, Hefner has done a good job. Think the problem was the GM's decision not to sign a front line pitcher. Supposed to be going after Skubal.)

07.11.2025 22:09 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
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Up close, Martha Layne Collins' challenges and successes as state's first (and only) woman governor - NKyTribune By Bill Straub NKyTribune reporter WASHINGTON – Martha Layne Collins, Kentucky’s first and, thus far, only woman governor who died early Saturday morning at age 88, was the most reticent politician I ...

Another take:

nkytribune.com/2025/11/pers...

03.11.2025 19:05 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
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Up close, Martha Layne Collins' challenges and successes as state's first (and only) woman governor - NKyTribune By Bill Straub NKyTribune reporter WASHINGTON – Martha Layne Collins, Kentucky’s first and, thus far, only woman governor who died early Saturday morning at age 88, was the most reticent politician I ...

My take on the death at 88 of former Kentucky Gov. Martha Layne Collins.

nkytribune.com/2025/11/pers...

02.11.2025 14:15 👍 2 🔁 1 💬 0 📌 0
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Opinion - Bill Straub: Rand Paul shows backbone in recent efforts to kill Trump's damaging tariff policy - NKyTribune The human farce, aka President-cum-Dictator Donald J. Trump, offers up the truth so infrequently that anything passing for accuracy from his turgid mouth should lead to the declaration of a national h...

My latest for the Northern Kentucky Tribune: 3 KY lawmakers driving Trump nuts. It's a short drive.

nkytribune.com/2025/10/opin...

31.10.2025 16:09 👍 0 🔁 1 💬 0 📌 0
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Opinion - Bill Straub: How can Americans stand with leader who considers many of them 'the enemy' - NKyTribune On March 4, 1865, just 36 days before the Confederate surrender at Appomattox, effectively ending the Civil War he sought to avoid, Abraham Lincoln delivered his second inaugural, vowing to welcome th...

My latest for the Northern Kentucky Tribune: How do you run a country when you deplore half of the population?

nkytribune.com/2025/10/opin...

24.10.2025 16:14 👍 0 🔁 1 💬 0 📌 0
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Opinion - Bill Straub: Johnson's 'sleight of hand' in Medicaid funding fight just doesn't hold muster - NKyTribune House Speaker Mike Johnson, one of those devout Christians who believes it’s okay to lie in service to President-cum-Dictator Donald Trump, wants you to believe he’s trying desperately to throw a life...

My latest for NKY Trib: Rural hospitals are in big trouble and KY GOP congressmen are letting it happen.

nkytribune.com/2025/10/opin...

17.10.2025 14:16 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0

Can the young woman even speak English? Joe did she get his number? He just lies all the time and his cult eats it up.

10.10.2025 22:24 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
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Opinion - Bill Straub: As shutdown drags on, GOP refuses to let truth get in the way of good story - NKyTribune Let’s talk about lying of the political kind. Fabrications, if you’re being fancy, have long held a prominent role in the American story, save, of course, for George Washington who legendarily confess...

My latest for the Northern Kentucky Tribune: Lies, damn lies and Donald Trump.

nkytribune.com/2025/10/opin...

10.10.2025 15:31 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
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Opinion - Bill Straub: Washington's 'blame game' heats up with U.S. government 'Closed 'Til Further Notice’ - NKyTribune Rep. Jamie Comer has a well-earned reputation for being a nitwit. Having embarrassed himself directing a never-ending series of worthless, politically-charged probes as chair of the House Oversight an...

My latest for NKY Tribune: Republicans all for a government shutdown when it's on their terms.

nkytribune.com/2025/10/opin...

03.10.2025 14:02 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0

I’ll be glad to raise 1986 for them.

02.10.2025 00:59 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
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Opinion - Bill Straub: Never missing an opportunity to shake things up, Massie's Epstein mission plods on - NKyTribune Whatever you might think of him, it’s indisputable that Rep. Thomas Massie possesses a unique talent for shaking things up. And if events go according to Hoyle over the next few days, his latest bit o...

My latest for the Northern Kentucky Tribune: Massie uses Epstein scandal to shake things up.

nkytribune.com/2025/09/opin...

26.09.2025 15:25 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0