Category Archives: Uncategorized

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Trump channels Hitler

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There should be zero doubt at this stage of the 2024 presidential campaign that Donald Trump envisions himself as a new version of Adolf Hitler.

A widely attributed quote says that Trump hopes he can get “generals like the ones Hitler had.”

I’ll just say it out loud. Donald Trump is insane. He is beyond merely being ignorant, even though he doesn’t seem to know that Hitler’s generals tried three times to assassinate the 20th century’s most despicable tyrant. Trump only sees the blind, frothing loyalty that many of them exhibited toward Hitler.

The former Joint Chiefs chairman, Army Gen. Mark Milley, says Trump is “fascist to the core.” Former Homeland Security secretary/ former White House chief of staff/former Marine Gen. John Kelly says Trump is unfit for public office. Former Defense Secretary/former Marine Gen. Jim Mattis has called Trump a “moron.”

This man wants his old job back, the one from which 81 million Americans fired him four years ago.

You didn’t hear it here first, but I will say it again: If he gets back into office, ladies and gents, you and I are in a world of hurt.

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‘Fair, balanced?’ Bwahaha!

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Do you remember the time the Fox Propaganda Network touted itself as an organization that presented the news in a “fair and balanced” manner?

Well, kids …  it’s never been true. We saw stark evidence of that lie during Kamala Harris’s interview with Fox’s Bret Baier the other evening.

Baier asked the Democratic presidential nominee to commend on remarks she had made accusing Donald Trump of threatening to use the military to exact retribution against his political adversaries. Then he broadcast a heavily edited version of Trump’s response to a question leveled at him by Fox colleague Harris Faulkner.

He told Faulkner he was the most “investigated” public figure since “Alphonse Capone.” That was the sum of his re-broadcast response.

Harris didn’t take the bait. She called Baier out on the spot, telling him that he had edited the remarks to cast Trump in a favorable light. The vice president demonstrated the kind of snap that media reps should be doing when Trump’s remarks are edited in that shameless manner.

As for Fox’s reputation as being “fair and balanced,” that’s never been the case, and the network is now nothing more than a shill for the moronic MAGA cult that has taken over a once-great political party.

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Sucking it up with an early vote

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Command decision time at blogging HQ, which happens to be my North Texas man cave.

I have decided to cast my vote early in this year’s election, Early voting begins in Texas on Monday and it is possible I’ll be one of the first voters in line at my Princeton polling place.

As many of you know, I have preferred to wait until Election Day to cast my ballot. Not this year. I am going to get my preferences logged into the secure system early. I am going to get my civic duty out of the way.

Then I’ll just wait for the end of the campaign to exhaust itself until Nov. 5.

My concerns about candidates’ messing up between now and Election Day remain. I am just going to presume that the candidates of my choice will keep it clean until Election Day.

I also am announcing my plan to split my ticket. I am going to vote for some Republicans running in down-ballot contests. You know all about my preferences for the very top of the ballot. I won’t revisit those choices here or seek to explain them to you.

There is no point to trying to persuade readers of this blog about the unfitness of the Republican presidential nominee or try to explain how an incumbent US senator can hightail it to Cancun while hundreds of Texans were dying in the midst of the February 2021 deep freeze that smothered virtually the entire state.

Just know that I remain faithful to opposing straight-ticket voting. That principle remains intact.

Let it never be said that this old man is too hidebound to change the way he casts his ballot. I might not vote early in the next election, or the one after that.

This one? I hear the sound of my conscience telling me to do it.

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Sabol earns her spurs

DRIPPING SPRINGS, Texas — Our first overnight trip away from home resulted early in a case of my new puppy, Sabol, showing her intelligence.

She’s a keeper.

Here’s the Cliff’s Notes version of what happened.

My brother -in-law and I went out for breakfast this morning. I sent Sabol outside to take care of business before we left. She came back inside and I closed the back door to the patio. We were gone for an hour and returned home.

Awaiting us in the driveway was my pooch. Her tail was wagging and she said something that I interpreted to be, “Hey Dad and Uncle Mike, I’m glad you came back!”

How in the world did she get out?

I checked the back door. It was wide open. Sabol pushed it open and ventured out to wait for us to return.

This is an astounding event on a couple of levels. First, she was in a location that was new to her. She could have panicked and run off, but she didn’t. Second, and this is my niece Mary’s theory, she might have recognized that my Ranger pickup was in the driveway; Sabol might have realized I was coming back. She applied her canine common sense.

I merely concluded that I didn’t allow the door to latch shut when I let my puppy into the house.

Yep. This smart girl has earned her spurs.

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Go get ’em, VA

It’s been a while since I last sang the praies of the Veterans Administration, on which I depend for my primary medical care.

So, I’ll offer a word of praise.

An unusual event occurred today. I returned from a vacation in Greece. Then I developed a pain in my right foot. It continued to worsen. I called my physician at the Rayburn VA Medical Clinic in Bonham. I got a physician’s assistant on the phone and told her of my concern. She recommended I check into an ER today to have someone look it over.

I did. I went to Medical City/McKinney, not far from my house. The PA had given the number of the VA’s hotline, which I called to let them know I had checked into the ER.

With that phone call, the VA became hooked up with a private medical provider.

The ER did an ultrasound, looking for evidence of a blood clot. They found nothing. The doc came out, counseled me on what to do, prescribed some high-powered pain meds he said would attack the inflammation in my foot. “We are going to treat this as gout,” he said.

Fine. I was out of the ER and back home in three hours.

Not bad at all.

I am a major fan of this pre-paid medical care I earned from my two years in the. Army.

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Traffic nightmare awaits

Every single trip I make along US Highway 380 through McKinney, Princeton and Farmersville only reminds me of what lies ahead for North Texas motorists in the months ahead.

We are facing a traffic-flow nightmare as the state highway department starts breaking up asphalt along the highway.

They’re going to close down two of four existing lanes of traffic soon to begin work to expand 380 from four lanes to six.

Then in 2027, the Texas Department of Transportation is going to accept bids to build a series of freeway bypasses around several cities aimed at relieving traffic congestion.

Until all of this is done, ladies and gents, you and I are headed for an endless stream of frustration, teeth-gnashing, four-letter words and assorted expressions of angst as we do battle with our neighbors and friends seeking to navigate the congestion nightmare that awaits all of us.

This is the part where I will pray for favorable weather to enable the crews to finish their monumental task sooner rather than later.

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Football alignments gone mad

What is wrong with this picture? Oregon played UCLA last night in what was billed as the Ducks’ “Big 10 opener.”

What? Huh? Are you kidding me?

The Ducks smoked the Bruins, which did my heart good. Those of us who grew up on the Pacific Coast, who cheered for Pac 12 teams’ success against the Big 10 in the Rose Bowl at the end of every college football season, are finding it a little tough to swallow that the Ducks, Huskies, Trojans and Bruins are now part of the hated Big 10 … which has morphed into the Big Monstrosity

I get that money drives everything these days. The Pac 12 no longer really exists. The Big 10 is now the Big 20 (or maybe it’s 30). What’s more, the Ducks beat the Bruins in the Rose Bowl, which doubles as the Bruins’ home field when it isn’t serving as the site for the “Granddaddy of All Bowls.”

I am going to realign my own gridiron bias.

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Listen to the governor!

Now that Ron DeSantis is back home doing the job to which he was elected, it is time tp take the Florida governor’s warning with utmost seriousness.

OK, so the Republican governor didn’t fare well as a candidate for his party’s presidential nomination. However, with Hurricane Helene bearing down on his state, Gov. DeSantis has informed his constituents that they are facing almost certain death if they try to ride out the storm surge that is coming their way.

My overarching issue at this moment is this: Where do you go and how do you get there?

As I watch Floridians and other coastal residents deal with the increasing frequency and ferocity of these storms, all I am left to do is pray for their safety and hope for all I can muster that they are able to get out of the path of the surge.

DeSantis says the Gulf tide might swell by 20 feet — or more — as Hurricane Helene heads for landfall. It has been called a Category 4 hurricane, which is about as horrific as it gets.

I now must wonder aloud whether the governor is having second thoughts about the way he dismissed climate change while he campaigned for the presidency. My view from North Texas? It’s real, governor.

I am going to set that debate aside for another time and simply join the rest of the nation in wishing you and your constituents well as you fight this seaborne monster.

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‘Greatest selfless act’

George Clooney is known for a lot of things: accomplished actor and filmmaker, bona fide “hunk,” noted family man in an industry not known for such a lifestyle.

Political scholarship doesn’t come to mind when I think of George Clooney.

Yet the actor has offered what I believe is a spot-on critique of President Biden when he calls the president’s decision to step down from his re-election campaign the “greatest selfless act” perhaps since the time George Washington decided that two terms as POTUS was enough.

Biden’s withdrawal from the campaign and his endorsement of Vice President Kamala Harris is the rarest of all acts, given that Biden surrendered the enormous power he possessed as POTUS.

That act of selflessness is going to ensure, in my mind, historians’ verdict on Biden’s presidency and his willingness to surrender the power that goes with occupying it.

Biden did not want to step aside after that debate performance that prompted the tongue-wagging that questioned his mental acuity. He faced enormous pressure from Democrats, his friends and allies … and from George Clooney, whose op-ed column in the New York Times shook the political world at its core.

It is President Biden, though, who deserves the bouquet, as his decision to surrender power well might save this country from madness and mayhem.

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Let’s call her ‘Calico’

NAXOS, Greece — This country is known for a lot of spectacular aspects … breathtaking landscapes, centuries-old antiquities, its food, its music and its people.

It also is home to perhaps millions of stray dogs and cats that roam through city streets and rural gardens with nary a care in the world.

My traveling companions and I have made a friend of one of the wanderers on Naxos, where we will spend the next few nights. I am going to call her “Calico,” as she is a calico kitty, and I believe a young one, too.

Calico doesn’t act like a feral animal. Her fur is groomed, she purrs constantly, she loves being held and she also seems willing to join us indoors in the resort where we are staying.

Stray dogs and cats have been a source of discussion among Greeks for years. As Greece was preparing to host the 2004 Athens Olympics, a tempest erupted when the government considered methods to, um, “reduce” the number of stray animals who officials thought would bother the millions of tourists who came here for the Games.

Citizens here said, “Not so fast!” They resisted any thought of mass slaughter of the pooches and kitties. Indeed, we witnessed a woman the other morning in Athens feeding about 20 cats gathered around her for a meal.

These adorable critters, such as Calico, are part of life in Greece.