Donald Trump

The rally? It didn’t go quite as planned

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What do we glean from Donald John Trump’s return to the campaign rally podium?

He stood in an arena in Tulsa, Okla., that he said he would pack with 19,000 screaming Trumpkins. All those empty seats were meant, I suppose, to disguise the fanatics.

The Trump re-election team had to cancel some outdoor events. Why? Low turnout.

Trump blathers on in his rally. He rambles incoherently. He spent about 20 to 30 minutes showing how he could lift a glass of water with a single hand.

Oh, and then we have the lack of social distancing among those who were in the arena, the lack of face masks, the lack of care being taken to avoid coming down with COVID-19. Sigh.

Donald Trump’s return to the 2020 presidential campaign trail, to my eyes, has encountered some serious trouble as the Carnival Barker in Chief seeks to win re-election to a second term.

I won’t lose a bit of sleep over any of this.

national news

Hey, Mr. VPOTUS, black lives do matter

Vice President Mike Pence had a chance Friday to say the words “black lives matter.”

He chose to avoid saying them. Maybe he thinks he’ll be struck by lightning, or will ignite in some form of spontaneous combustion simply by uttering the words. Instead, he told a TV interviewer:

“Let me just say that what happened to George Floyd was a tragedy,” Pence said Friday. “And in this nation, especially on Juneteenth, we celebrate the fact that from the founding of this nation, we cherish the ideal that all of us are created equal and endowed by our creator with certain inalienable rights. And so all lives matter in a very real sense.”

The death of George Floyd in Minneapolis has given the Black Lives Matter movement additional impetus. Floyd’s death at the hands of white police officers has spawned protests.

As it has happened in the past when Black Lives Matter becomes part of the national dialogue, those who take umbrage at the term pervert it, suggesting that Black Lives Matter devalues everyone else’s lives. It does no such thing, which I sense is what kept the VP from saying the words.

If I could prepared his response, I might have him say something like this: “Yes, black lives matter just as much as white lives matter, Latino lives matter, Asian lives matter, native American lives matter. We are created equal in the eyes of our Creator.”

See? That’s not so bad. Mr. Vice President, you and the Racist in Chief need to say the words.

national news

Bolton saves his best for his book deal … not the country

The more I think of John Bolton, the angrier I become.

Yes, I have plenty of anger at Donald Trump, for whom Bolton worked as national security adviser for 17 months before being fired … or before he resigned. That’s a given, you know?

My anger at Bolton stems from what he could have said a year ago, when the House of Representatives began discussing seriously whether to impeach Trump on abuse of power. Bolton, after all was “In The Room Where It Happened,” and has written a memoir of that title.

The truth is that Bolton hasn’t said anything that millions of us either knew or suspected all along about Trump.

He could have spilled the beans on what he saw and heard. He chose to remain silent while the House prepared its impeachment articles to present to the Senate, which put Trump on trial for abusing the power of his office and for obstructing Congress.

House and Senate Republicans — except for Sen. Mitt Romney — exhibited profound cowardice by refusing to accept the obvious, that Donald Trump had abused the immense power of his office and obstructed Congress’s efforts to get at the truth.

They were led, in my view, toward their cowardly den by John Bolton. He choked. He could have laid it out there in vivid detail. Bolton could have subjected himself to harsh questioning by Trump’s sycophantic supporters and, more than likely, held his own.

He didn’t do that. Instead, he chose to save himself for the release of his book, from which he intends to make a healthy fortune.

I wanted a reason to cheer Bolton. I find myself jeering him. It’s not that he fits my ideal for public service. I dislike his world view. However, we keep hearing about what tough dude he is, how principled he remains, how he wouldn’t be intimidated by Donald Trump.

It all sounds like so much crap now.

Would any of this changed the minds of GOP senators and House members who gave Trump a pass on the crimes he committed? Probably not nearly enough to turn acquittal into conviction in the Senate.

It simply offends and galls me terribly that John Bolton is getting all this exposure now, that the media are slobbering all over this guy just because he’s telling us now what he should have disclosed much earlier … when it really mattered.

national news

Trump, Barr engage in liar’s contest

This is fantastic!

Attorney General William Barr says he asked Donald Trump to fire Southern District of New York U.S. Attorney Geoffrey Berman, so Trump did what he was asked by the AG to do.

You got that?

Wait! Trump said he played no part in Berman’s dismissal; it’s all Barr’s doing, he said.

Who’s telling the truth? Why should we even care to know, given both men’s penchant for lying?

Berman had been asked to resign the SDNY post, but he declined, saying he wanted to stay on the job until the Justice Department found a suitable replacement. However, DOJ or the White House couldn’t wait. So … someone fired Berman.

You see, Berman’s office was eyeball-deep in a probe of Donald Trump’s personal financial matters, including the release of those tax returns that Trump once upon a time pledged to release to the public once he got through what he called a “routine audit.”

Berman is out. The question of the day: Who did the deed?

My guess? Donald Trump told Barr to can the prosecutor. Why? He was getting too close to rooting out the corruption that runs rampant throughout the Trump White House operation.

national news

Joe Biden: most memorable comeback in history?

If the 2020 presidential election plays out as I hope it will — and I will not take my preferred outcome for granted — then we are going to witness a truly historic political event.

We are going to witness what I believe could be the most astonishing political comeback in U.S. history.

Joe Biden will be nominated soon by the Democratic Party to take on Donald Trump, the Republican incumbent president of the United States. The winds are blowing briskly at Biden’s back … at the moment. I pray they will carry him to victory, enabling him to repair the damage Trump has brought to our republic.

How in the world did Biden get to this place?

He was elected to the Senate in 1972; then his wife and daughter died in a horrific auto accident. Young Joe Biden thought about quitting, as he had two young sons — both of whom were injured badly in that wreck, but who suddenly were without their mother. His Senate colleagues talked him into staying.

He sought the 1988 nomination. He was proud of bellowing about his working-class background. Oops! Wait! It turned out he was lifting comments, almost verbatim, from a British politician, Neil Kinnock, who came from similar hardscrabble beginnings. Biden was caught copying those remarks. He dropped out, embarrassed and possibly ashamed of himself.

Two decades later, he ran again for president. He got thumped in the early primaries by a young Illinois senator, a fellow named Barack Hussein Obama. Biden called it quits in the 2008 campaign. Obama then won the nomination, but before that he tapped Biden on the shoulder and asked him to join him on what the two of them would call “an incredible journey.” The Obama-Biden ticket won that race and served two successful terms at the top of the political chain of command.

Now comes 2020. Biden decides to run again for president. He gets shellacked in the early primaries. Iowa and New Hampshire didn’t go well … at all! He would bide his time. Biden waited for a key endorsement from a South Carolina political godfather, U.S. Rep. James Clyburn, a senior member of the Congressional Black Caucus. Clyburn gave Biden a ringing endorsement. Biden won the South Carolina primary. He then won practically every other primary after that.

The man whose campaign was thought to be on life support then turned into a raging juggernaut.

He now stands on the precipice of becoming elected to the nation’s highest office. His entry into the Senate was nearly doomed by tragedy; his first run for president got derailed by the candidate’s own rhetorical carelessness; his second presidential run was steamrolled by a charismatic young pol; and his third presidential campaign needed a key endorsement by a leading African-American politician to get new life.

Do you get my point? Joseph R. Biden Jr. has been left for political dead more times than he cares to recall. I suggest that even if he loses to Trump, his comeback still will look impressive.

A victory, though, would put this working-class hero in a league all to himself.

medical news, national news

‘A perfect storm’ brewing in Tulsa?

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I am married to a wise woman.

She appreciates the concern that the COVID-19 pandemic has shut down the economy. She wants the economy to restart as much as the next person. She also wants it to be done with care about people’s health, indeed their very lives.

It is with that notion that she said recently, “The economy won’t revive itself when we’re all hospitalized … or dead!”

You got that right, sweetheart!

Accordingly, the health experts who are seeking to get Donald Trump’s attention are yelling at the top of their lungs that Trump’s planned rally in Tulsa this weekend is a “perfect storm” for infection from the killer virus. They are beseeching the Trump team to postpone the rally. They are concerned that packing 19,000 people into a confined space, giving them a chance to scream their joy at Trump’s idiotic ramblings (without wearing masks) is going to expose thousands of them to potential illness from COVID-19.

As PBS noted: “As best I can tell, there’s nowhere in the world that’s doing large indoor events,” said state Rep. Monroe Nichols, a Democrat who represents Tulsa. “Definitely not events with 20,000 people in the middle of a global pandemic. It’s just not a thing.”

Trump’s rally Saturday is “a worst case scenario. It’s a perfect storm for the further spread of the virus,” Nichols added.

Tulsa is the place that is doing a “large indoor event.” What’s more, local officials report a serious spike already under way in Oklahoma.

Is this smart? No. It is the depth of stupidity.

national news

Juneteenth rushes to the fore!

Americans are getting a major wake-up call on a matter of profound historical significance.

It was brought to us by the deaths of African-American men who died in police custody. It has evolved into demonstrations, peaceful protests and, yes, into terrible riots. Set aside the violence for a moment and let’s look at the event that has been thrust into our consciousness.

Juneteenth is celebrated every June 19 by the African-American community. It marks the day in 1865 when Union soldiers arrived in Galveston to tell blacks they had been emancipated, freed from enslavement. They were free men, women and children.

Many millions of Americans knew of Juneteenth, they knew about the event that some of us celebrate every year. We now are being educated. Juneteenth represents a seminal moment in American history.

Accordingly, we now are hearing from members of Congress — yes, from both major political parties — who are calling for Juneteenth to become a federal holiday. I am not usually a fan of legislative remedies of this sort, matters brought to us through tragedy. They too often seem like an overreaction.

Not this time! Juneteenth is as significant an event as any that have occurred. It brought an end — finally! — to the curse of enslavement. The 13th Amendment to the Constitution wiped slavery off the books at the end of 1865.

I am heartened to see Republican U.S. Sen. John Cornyn of Texas present legislation seeking to establish Juneteenth as a federal holiday. He no doubt will have plenty of Democratic support among his Senate colleagues.

I realize fully that creating a new federal holiday will not assuage the concerns of Americans about the treatment of black citizens at the hands of some white-dominated law enforcement agencies. The work to right those wrongs must proceed. I also realize that not all police are evil, that the overwhelming majority of law enforcement officers are men and women of high honor and integrity. The events of recent weeks have brought vivid clarity to the concerns raised for too long by African-Americans about the treatment they receive from police agencies.

That clarity now also includes an understanding of the significance of Juneteenth, not just to African-Americans, but also to the entire nation. Yes, it is past time to set that day aside as a national holiday.

national news

‘130 million to zero’? If only …

(Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

A Facebook friend — a gentleman I don’t know well, but likely will get to know better — put out a message that I found refreshing.

He wonders why the next presidential election won’t produce a vote result of “130 million to zero.” That would be with Joe Biden getting every ballot cast this coming November, with Donald Trump getting none of them. My friend estimates a nationwide turnout of 130 million votes being cast.

Man, that is a serious pipe dream, but as I survey the wreckage that Donald Trump has brought to the presidency, it does astound me that there could be any Trumpkin who voted for the carnival barker/con man in 2016 would stay with him this time around.

Of course they will. No one believes Joe Biden can pitch a shutout, although many of us — even those of us who live in Trump Country — certainly wish he could.

I keep seeing the polls that tell us Biden is leading Trump. Fox News has just published a survey that gives Biden a 12-percentage point lead over Trump. That lead likely won’t hold up, because the “smart money” suggests a close contest is on the horizon.

What does boggle my noodle, though, is how Trump continues to maintain the level of support he does. It stands at about 42 percent, give or take a point or two. How in the name of political incompetence can this guy continue to hold onto that support?

I wonder about all this recognizing fully — and acknowledge with all the candor I can muster — that I was terribly wrong about the outcome of the 2016 election. I was among those who believed Hillary Clinton would win. I wrote on this blog that I thought she’d win big.

What I must point out, though, is that public opinion polling that put Clinton up by 3 percent over Trump turned out to be correct. Trump, though, pulled what they call an “inside straight” by pilfering enough Electoral College votes to win the election. Therein lies the greatest threat to Joe Biden’s bid to oust the incompetent nincompoop who continues to demonstrate every single day that he presents an existential threat to the nation he governs.

130 million to zero? I wish.

State news

Damage is done, Empower Texans

I’ve gone from despising Empower Texans to hating the ultra right-wing political action committee with what my dear Mom used to call a “purple passion.”

An audio recording has surfaced in which two Empower Texans operatives are making fun of the fact that Gov. Greg Abbott is confined to a wheelchair. The recording is profanity-laced. It is tasteless in the extreme.

Now, to be fair, Empower Texans boss Michael Quinn Sullivan has apologized to Abbott. He has condemned the remarks. I don’t know if he has dismissed the yahoos who made the comments. He damn sure should.

I want to be clear about my feelings about Empower Texans. This right-wing PAC has become involved in Republican Party primary politics, It targets GOP incumbents who ET believes aren’t “conservative enough.” In 2018, ET went after state Sen. Kel Seliger and state Rep. Four Price, two Amarillo Republicans I happen to know quite well. Seliger and Price survived the challenge.

Now we hear from Empower Texans’ operatives Tony McDonald and Cary Cheshire talking trash. Indeed, to poke fun of a public official’s disability is pure trash.

State Rep. Jeff Leach, a Plano Republican, said this via Twitter: Abbott has more strength in his spine & integrity in his pinkie than these fools. Silver lining: now the masses get to see what many of us have known for a long time: A once reputable & respected policy organization, ET has turned in to nothing more than a sanctimonious sewer.

Am I a fan of Greg Abbott’s politics and his world view? No, I am not. That’s beside the point. The point I want to make is that Empower Texans has shown that two members of its high command behave despicably beyond measure.

Yes, I hate Empower Texans.

national news

Bolton a ‘loser’ and ‘wacko’?

Donald Trump’s reaction to John Bolton’s memoir would be laughable were it not such a scathing indictment on Trump’s own view of the quality of individuals he has chosen for hyper-sensitive national security jobs.

Bolton served for 17 months as national security adviser. Then Trump canned him; or Bolton resigned, depending on who’s telling the tale. Now Bolton has penned a book — “The Room Where it Happened” — that skins Trump alive, calling him “unfit” for the presidency.

Trump’s reaction, via Twitter, has been astonishing. He called Bolton a “wacko” who was “washed up.” Trump said Bolton never could have been confirmed for a Cabinet-level post, so Trump tossed him a bone as national security adviser, a job that didn’t require confirmation by the Senate.

What the hell?

Is this how Trump treats this job? The guy you entrust to provide you with unvarnished intelligence on threats to the nation is a “wacko”? What in the name of perfection happened to the notion that Trump would surround himself with the “best people”?

Bolton is no “wacko.” Granted, he isn’t a standout by my way of thinking, but he has served previous Republican presidents who trusted his advice and counsel.

I also believe as he does, that Donald John Trump is unfit for high public office.

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