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Moral standards have vanished

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I will go to my grave flummoxed, flabbergasted and frustrated totally over the lack of moral standards we now require of candidates for president of the United States.

We have elected an individual who has admitted to serial philandering, admitted to grabbing women by their private area, been convicted of 34 felony counts associated with his campaign, been convicted of raping a journalist and convicted of paying an adult film actress $130,000 to keep quiet about a one-night stand that the president says never occurred.

That just scratches the top of my itchy head.

It’s OK for a candidate for the highest office in land to do those things, if you believe the horsesh** pushed by Donald Trump’s loyal cult followers.

What is going to happen when a politician from the Democratic Party side of the aisle gets caught committing any one of those things enumerated here? The MAGA crowd will go ballistic. So will the Oval Office occupant. They will engage in selective outrage because their guy got away with it.

It is disgraceful, disgusting and duplicitous conduct at its worst.

national news, political news

Harris became … boring!

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Theories have been launched all over creation over why and how Vice President Kamala Harris’s campaign went from spectacular to one that took it on the chin on Election Day.

My theory, for what it’s worth? She became boring.

Here’s my point. As her campaign concluded, it began to dawn on me that I had heard it all before. Many times, in fact. She seemed to rely too heavily on applause lines and cliches.

To wit:

  • There’s more that unites us than separates us.
  • I know Donald Trump’s type.
  • I have only had one client in my years in public service: you, the people.
  • Donald Trump is an unserious man.
  • I never have asked what party people belonged to.  I only asked, “Are you OK?”
  • When we fight, we win!

I am sure there were many more examples. To be candid, I don’t remember them because I nodded off frequently during Harris’s rallies later on in the campaign.

I admit to being caught up in the excitement of Harris’s campaign after President Biden bowed out during the summer. My enthusiasm for her never waned and I voted proudly for her and for her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz.

But as I look back now just days after their loss, I am left only to wonder if Harris — and Walz, too — relied too heavily on the same ol’ applause lines that got our attention … but which had a limited lifespan on the trail that leads to the White House.

Make no mistake: Campaign-trail boredom is a deal breaker.

national news

Still can’t respect the man

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Allow me this simple declaration, which is that despite my being faithful to declining to refer to Donald Trump directly as president of the United States … I am going to keep pledge intact for the man’s second term as POTUS.

Why? Because even though I revere the office, I despise the man who is about to inherit it. Therefore, Trump has earned the right — in my mind — to have the word “President” published in this blog directly in front of his name.

My former media colleagues have bent over in every direction to ensure they refer to him as President-elect. Hell, I can’t even do that!

I accept his election. He won it fairly and squarely. I salute his campaign staff’s acumen in ensuring he visited all the right “battleground states” at the right time. His strategy paid off as he was able to win every one of them.

But damn! Dude conducted himself in the most disgusting manner imaginable down the stretch, with the worst demonstration of callousness occurring in the final week when he handled a microphone the way someone handles a male sex organ. Good grief! Remember, too, that did that in front of children who were scattered about in the rally crowd.

So … this man is elected president. He’s got four more years in the Oval Office. The Constitution forbids him from seeking office again.

I am going to commence holding my breath at noon on Jan. 20.

But I damn sure won’t be silent.

Donald Trump

Trump countdown is on

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Some of us out here have commenced the countdown clock to determine when Donald J. Trump is going to commit a profoundly foolish, stupid and potentially illegal act when he assumes the presidency on Jan. 20.

I am not making any bets. I don’t know when it will occur. I do have some notions, though, about what Trump might seek to do when he takes his hand off the holy book on inauguration day.

He could:

  • Pardon the traitors who were jailed for their attack on the government on Jan. 6, 2021.
  • Issue an executive order establishing a sky-high tariff on imported goods, which could trigger an inflation rate we haven’t seen in many decades.
  • Call Russian dictator Vladimir Putin and promise to end any support for Ukraine, which would clear the deck for Putin’s illegal invasion of Ukraine.
  • Issue another executive order calling for the mass deportation of 11 million U.S. residents who are here illegally.
  • Call flag officers back to active duty and then order them court-martialed for comments they made about Trump being a fascist. I am researching that idiotic notion to see if it’s legal. I’ll get back to you on that one.

Will he do any of them? Beats the daylights out of me. I’m just speculating, because that’s all I can do sitting here at some distance.

None of this, of course, includes any of the idiotic pronouncements he could make. I am wondering what could be the memorable from his second inaugural speech. The first one gave us “the American carnage ends” immediately. It didn’t.

The second Trump term well could be as chaotic as the first one.

Let’s all hold on with both hands.

national news

Joe Biden: institutionalist

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Joe Biden’s love of tradition and his inherent grace were on full display today as he welcomed his successor to the job he is about to inherit.

President Biden, to put it bluntly, has demonstrated tangibly that he is a far better man than Donald J. Trump ever thought of being.

Trump’s victory over Vice President Kamala Harris continues to send tremors throughout the world as leaders seek to assess what all this means for U.S. standing in the world community.

I also need to remind anyone who needs reminding that Joe Biden today offered the very thing that his predecessor, Trump, denied him when Biden defeated Trump in the 2020 election: a peaceful transfer of power.

Biden values the tradition associated with the presidency. He vowed today to provide a complete and peaceful transfer of power to the Trump team. I shake my head in amazement that President Biden would be so inclined. But that’s why he was elected POTUS in the first place. Biden represents the very best among us. Trump embodies, well, far less of American culture.

I don’t expect Donald Trump to reflect for a nano-second on what President Biden has pledged. He isn’t wired to reflect on anything other than how he can benefit. Still, I just want Joe Biden to know that his magnanimity has not gone unnoticed.

Well done, Mr. President.

national news

Americans deliver more darkness

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OK, I don’t have much to say about what happened last night across this great land … so I’ll just declare that most of the Americans who voted for president decided to send us into a period of darkness and despair.

Donald Trump’s election as president is being greeted with high-fives and back-slapping. It’s also being met with tears and worry about what this man’s return to the world stage means for this nation.

This much also is certain as I continue to ponder what might lie ahead for us, which is that Trump once again has turned your friendly blogger into a blithering idiot. Just when I thought Vice President Kamala Harris has revived her campaign down the stretch for a sprint to victory lane, she fell short.

Why on this good Earth we have chosen to elect a degenerate, a pervert, a convicted felon, an admitted philanderer and self-acknowledged sexual assailant to our grandest political office is utterly beyond my ability to understand. He denigrates our servicemen and women, and he expresses admiration for some of the world’s most ruthless dictators

We used to demand that we elect the best among us to public office. Americans have selected one of the worst among us as our president. What in this topsy-turvy world has happened to us?

I am still in utter shock.

Uncategorized

Puppy loves the rain!

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Allow me to be crystal clear: I love my new puppy, Sabol, beyond all that is reasonable.

However — and this is not a deal breaker — Sabol, it turns out, loves the rain. She loves it so much that when it pours, I can hardly get her to come into the house.

The sky opened up today in Princeton. It poured off and on for most of the day. What did Sabol do? She wanted to go outside into the deluge!

Understand this: Toby the Puppy hated water. He hated rainfall. He hated lawn sprinklers. The only time Toby tolerated rain occurred when he was taking a bath.

These days, I am left to struggle to keep my new puppy inside where it’s dry … and where she won’t stink to high heaven when her fur dries.

Doggie parenthood does have its challenges.

national news

Nation will survive

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Allow me this opportunity to speak well of the system of government that our nation’s founders created more than two centuries ago.

Friends of mine have said — and they are only half-joking — that they are going to leave the US of A in case the wrong candidate wins the next presidential election. Me? I am staying put. Why? Because my faith in the Constitution will remain strong.

I voted early for Vice President Kamala Harris and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz. I declared my preference for this contest a long time ago. I am a “never Trumper.” I never would cast my ballot for this totally unfit human being. I said so even before he rode the escalator in June 2015 to declare his intention to run for president in 2016.

Despite all the threats this guy has made, the Constitution has built in safeguards that those of us who oppose this individual can deploy. It does provide for impeachment. The courts — even with the right-wingers sitting on the bench — also can be summoned to make key decisions that could block what this madman would want to do.

I am hoping for a Harris-Walz victory. I make no bones about who I want to take the oath of office next January. However, I happen to love living in the greatest nation on Earth. I intend to stay here … for the duration of the time God gives me to breathe freely.

I have sought to use this blog as a weapon to defeat Donald Trump. The Constitution gives me the protection I need to continue using in case the worst event comes to pass.

However, I remain increasingly hopeful that the correct candidate will take her oath next January.

political news

Waiting with bated breath

Never in my entire — and admittedly lengthy — life can I remember waiting with such anticipation for the polls to close back east on Election Night.

That’s what I am doing today. It is mid-afternoon in North Texas. The polls close in New England and along the Atlantic Coast in about five hours. Once they do, we well might get an idea of whether the nation is returning to its old self of optimism and liberty … or whether we’re going to succumb to the dipshit notions pitched by a convicted felon, twice-impeached former POTUS.

You know what I want to happen. My gut and, yes, my trick knee are telling we might be going to sleep tonight with a hopeful smile. But it ain’t a lead-pipe cinch.

I heard enough of the campaign rhetoric. I have heard the sales pitches of both sides. I am now awaiting the results of what all those millions of campaign dollars have purchased for the candidates who spent them.

political news

Harris has the ‘big mo’

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Momentum well might be the great predictor of who finishes first in the 2024 presidential race.

From my North Texas vantage point, in a county that borders Democratic Party hotbed in Dallas County, it looks for all the world as if Vice President Kamala Harris has the “big mo” as she and Donald Trump gallop down the stretch.

Harris has declared she is going “all positive” in the final hours of this most bitter campaign. Trump’s strategy? He’s going in the other direction. Harris talks about her momentum. Trump refers to Democrats as members of a “demonic party.” Harris speaks of “joy in the morning.” Trump says an assailant would have to take out the “fake news” staffers to get to him, which he said “wouldn’t bother me.”

Who is sounding like a winner? Who’s the loser?

I dare not say out loud what I am hoping in my heart.

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