Category Archives: national news

national news

He angers me daily

I seem to have reached a sort of milepost in my detesting of the Moron in Chief.

He cannot go a single, solitary day without pi**ing me off. Everything this guy says just rankles me. He makes me wince. I gnash my teeth. I mutter something at the TV screen that usually contains a four-letter word or an epithet of some sort.

How can this guy do this to me? A friend of mine unloaded on me recently with the same tirade. He said Trump “has to go.” My friend, Chris, said that everything about Trump reminds him of how unfit he is to be president of the United States.

Then he said, “You know me. I like everyone!”

Well, there you go. It’s come down to that. Donald Trump has pi**ed off even those proclaim their affection for all of humanity.

I stand with Chris.

In actuality, I have felt that way since the moment I watched Trump declare his presidential candidacy. My goodness, he has angered me damn near daily since the moment he became a politician. Yes, I know … he says he isn’t a pol, but he is, by definition. His followers say he isn’t. They’re as ignorant as he is on that and a number of other matters.

Don’t get me wrong. I don’t dishonor those who support this guy. I simply am confused, bamboozled if you will, about how they can back a liar, a philanderer, a cheat, a fraud, a guy who lacks any sort of moral bearing.

That’s their problem. It certainly isn’t mine. My particular problem at the moment is dealing with my anger at Donald Trump.

national news

Chaos reigns!

You want chaos as it regards anything involving Donald J. Trump?

Try this on for size …

The Republican National Committee chose Charlotte, N.C., to stage its 2020 presidential nominating convention; then the coronavirus pandemic hit.

North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper said he couldn’t guarantee that the health of convention goers would be protected from the fatal virus. So then the RNC moved the convention to Jacksonville, Fla., where Trump was supposed to accept the GOP nomination.

Then came word from the Republican sheriff of Duval County, who said he couldn’t guarantee the safety of those attending the gathering in Jacksonville. Trump then cancelled the Jacksonville event.

He moved it back to Charlotte, but with a wrinkle: There will be no media allowed to cover the event live. It’ll occur in the arena, but it will be done more or less in secret.

Eek, man! What’s going on here?

I can no longer begin to keep up with the machinations of what is supposed to be a grand political event. Granted, the pandemic has thrown a lot of it into a cocked hat.

Meanwhile, though, Democrats are proceeding Milwaukee, Wis., just as they planned to do when the pandemic started sickening and killing Americans.

Does all of this portend what another four years of Donald J. Trump would produce were he to actually win this presidential  election? I dread the thought.

national news

Feels like the first time

Anxiousness is setting in as I await Election Day.

To be candid, I do not believe I have felt quite like this prior to a presidential election since, oh, the first time I was able to cast my ballot. That was in 1972. A long time ago, yes? However, I do have much the same sense of anticipation that I felt way back when I was so much younger.

I want this outcome to turn out the right way. I want Joseph Robinette Biden Jr. to be elected president over Donald John Trump Sr. I want Trump banished from the White House, from my house, from your house.

I was a freshly scrubbed registered voter in 1972 when I got to vote for the first time. I had served my country in the U.S. Army. I returned home from my two-year stint impassioned to change the course of the nation. The Vietnam War was raging. I had gotten a look at that war up close for a bit of time and came away more confused about it than I was when I arrived there in the spring of 1969. They were still shooting guns, dropping bombs and killing people with the same regularity when I left as when I arrived.

I wanted that war to end.

I lined up behind Sen. George McGovern. I wanted President Nixon to lose the election. I wanted then, as I do now, a dramatic course correction for our nation. It didn’t work out well for us then. Nixon was bigly, as in really huge.

That’s where the symmetry between then and now ends.

Many presidential elections have come and gone, of course. Some of them turned out the way I preferred. Some of them went the other way. The nation survived. I feared we might not survive the 1972 election result. It turned out that another matter, Watergate, intervened to take care of things for us. Nixon quit less than two years later.

I am sensing much the same anxiousness now as I was then. Add a bit of anxiety, and you might grasp a bit more the importance I am attaching to ridding the nation of the repulsive conduct of our commander in chief.

Yep, it feels like the first time.

national news

Trump: a lost cause

It is clear to me that for Donald Trump to speak candidly and frankly about the state of the battle against the coronavirus pandemic would be tantamount to admitting defeat … and admitting he was wrong to boast about the fantastic job he and his response team had delivered.

Medical experts are telling us that the pandemic is getting set to sweep into areas of the country not yet hammered by its misery. The Sun Belt has felt the virus’s wrath; so has the Pacific Coast; same for New York, New Jersey and Connecticut. Now it’s the Midwest’s turn to face down the coronavirus dragon, or so we are being told.

Dr. Deborah Birx, one of Trump’s pandemic task force response members – and an acknowledged expert on infectious disease – has issued dire warnings about what lies ahead for the nation. Trump’s response? He calls her “pathetic.” Good ever-loving grief, dude. Get a grip. She is the expert. You are not!

Trump’s aversion to admitting failure or to acknowledging a mistake is well-known. It’s his modus operandi. He fires off rebukes and epithets to those who surround him, those he enlists – ostensibly – to assist him in putting down crises. This is what he has done to Deborah Birx as well as to Dr. Anthony Fauci, another world-renowned infectious disease expert.

I am at the point now of giving up on Donald Trump ever being able to discuss with us the gravity of the crisis that continues to unfold. It continues to spread its tragedy. It has killed more than 155,000 Americans. It has sickened more than 4 million of us. Some of those infected happen to be friends of mine and even some members of my family. I do not feel comforted one tiny bit by anything that flies out of Donald Trump’s mouth.

Nor do I ever expect to hear anything approaching an honest assessment of the battle we are waging. Why? Because Trump has wrapped himself tightly in a blanket of false delusion.

national news

‘Unity’ becomes hate speech

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REUTERS/Dominick Reuter TPX IMAGES OF THE DAY

Do you remember when Donald Trump promised to “unify” the nation? Do you recall the many times he said he would be everyone’s president?

I do. It was just four years ago. It seems like an eternity.

Here we are. We’re on the cusp of another presidential election. My several social media networks are abuzz with memes, proclamations, hysteria. Donald Trump’s re-election effort has produced — at least in my memory — the most hateful back/forth possible.

Why is that? How did we get to this point?

I have to point straight, with both hands at the White House, at the guy who lives there with his wife and youngest son. Donald Trump has failed to deliver on many of his 2016 presidential campaign promises.

The “unity” pledge stands out. It’s a doozy. Trump’s strategy has been clear almost since the day he took the oath of office: He would speak only to his base; the rest of us, especially those who voted for his opponent four years ago, do not matter to him.

The result has been hate speech disguised as “political discourse.”

I’ll be clear: We have been through more divisive times in this country; the Civil War comes to mind; so does the Vietnam War; Watergate, too.

In my lifetime, though, this era — ushered in with the election of a first-time office seeker and former reality TV show host — has been unique in the level of hostility between the sides. Friendships have been plowed asunder. Family members are at each others’ throats. Prominent politicians have quit talking to those on “the other side of the aisle.”

Why is that? I focus my attention and the blame at the man at the top of the heap, the current president of the United States.

Donald Trump occupies the bulliest of political pulpits imaginable. The president is fully capable, were he so wired, to guide the tone of the debate toward a civil tone. Instead, Donald Trump has used that pulpit to foment the anger that has devolved into hatred.

This is my statement of fair warning that we need to prepare ourselves for the gutter-level campaign that Donald Trump intends to produce for us. This won’t be fun.

national news

Obama goes political? So what?

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Alyssa Pointer / alyssa.pointer@ajc.com

Right-wing media have been having the time of their lives chastising former President Obama over the nature of his eulogy in memory of the legendary civil rights leader, the late John Lewis.

The 44th president was just too damn political in that moment, they say. To which I respond: Big … deal! So what?

Obama is getting set to join former Vice President Joe Biden in the effort to unseat Donald Trump in November. That has been known for a long time.

So, the former president weighed in during his time saluting John Lewis to remind the nation of the damage being done by the Trump administration to the very institution — voting rights — that Lewis sought to build and strengthen. He pointed out correctly how “those in power at this moment” are seeking to suppress the rights of African-Americans and other minorities. It would have been horrible in the extreme for Obama or any of the other eulogists to ignore that real-time reality.

In fact, though, Obama’s remarks weren’t in any way out of bounds. They sought to honor the legacy that John Lewis left after dying this past week of cancer at the age of 80. Indeed, Lewis shed blood on the Edmund Pettus Bridge in 1965 while marching on behalf of voting rights and human rights.

And while we’re on the subject of political speeches — and please forgive this dose of “what about-ism” — can you imagine Donald Trump eulogizing a politician without tossing out a barrage of political epithets? In an election year, no less?

The right-wing media pundits are entitled to their opinions, for sure. I get that and I honor the U.S.  Constitution that provides them their liberty to speak their mind.

Their right-wingers’ criticism of President Barack H. Obama in this context, however, is off base.

medical news, national news

Take it seriously, folks!

The death of one-time Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain ought to be a wake-up call to those who think the COVID-19 pandemic is some sort of “hoax” cooked up by Democrats to harm Donald Trump’s re-election effort.

Same for the infection of Rep. Louie Gohmert. Or perhaps the positive test registered by Trump’s national security adviser Robert O’Brien.

Let’s shut the hell up with the conspiracy nonsense, shall we?

Cain’s death is particularly poignant in this regard: He attended that Tulsa, Okla., rally where the sparse crowd piled into the arena, most of whom were not wearing masks or maintaining social distance. Cain was one of them.

Then he got sick. Now he is dead.

The Godfather’s Pizza mogul ran for president in 2012, touting his economic wizardry and assorted cures for what he said ailed the U.S. economy. He now will be known, arguably forever, as one of Donald Trump’s staunch minions who didn’t heed the warnings of medical professionals to take measures to protect himself and others from the killer virus.

Yet, there remains that cabal of goofballs who insist the pandemic is a made-up matter. It ain’t real, they say. They contend it’s part of some Deep State plot to deny Donald Trump a second term as president.

Those who foment that lie are full of sh**. They know it and so should the rest of us.

Herman Cain’s death is a sad but profound reminder that the best medical and scientific minds in the world are trying like the dickens to find a cure for this menace.

As a friend of mine in Amarillo — who, along with her husband has recovered from a positive COVID-19 test — has told me, she is in “take no prisoners mode” with regard to the conspiracy theorists. She vows to shut down anyone who refuses to take this killer seriously.

So will I.

national news

Sowing fear of democracy

Donald J. Trump’s fear campaign is kicking into high gear.

It is despicable, deplorable and disgraceful. All at once. There are many more angry adjectives to attach to it.

He wants us to believe that mail-in voting is inherently corrupt. He floated the bizarre and unlawful idea that he would seek to delay the Nov. 3 election, claiming he wants to ensure a corruption-free balloting process. He can’t do anything of the sort and congressional leaders pushed back … hard! Trump has backed off that idiocy.

However, he has sown the seeds of doubt in the minds of many Americans. This is a preposterous and dangerous affront to an electoral system that works well in the states that employ it. Voter fraud? It’s infinitesimal! Indeed, it can be argued that mail-in voting is more secure than the conventional method.

That won’t stop Trump from seeking to block efforts to encourage voting in this Pandemic Era. He doesn’t give a rat’s a** about anything other than assuring his re-election.

He is denigrating the work that state and local officials do to protect against voter fraud. Why in the name of electoral integrity can’t we solicit the advice and counsel of state election officials on how they conduct all-mail voting? Of course we can! Donald Trump, though, will continue to hammer home the idea that this method of voting is somehow corrupt.

It … isn’t!

The Demagogue in Chief must cease his disgraceful campaign of fear. Sadly, he won’t.

national news

Trump’s absence: the ‘new normal’?

As I have sought to process the day’s big event, the funeral of civil rights hero/icon/legend John Lewis, I pondered the absence of one individual who one could have presumed should have been there.

Donald J. Trump was not in Atlanta today to pay tribute to John Lewis, the former congressman and human rights activist who died at age 80 of pancreatic cancer. Oh, no. Trump was in Washington, tweeting messages seeking to undermine the voting rights gains for which Lewis fought, and bled.

It’s becoming something of a “new normal” in this Age of Trump as president of the United States. He was disinvited to the funeral of U.S. Sen. John McCain. Trump attended the funeral of former President George H.W. Bush, but we didn’t hear a word from him. Now, the Lewis funeral. Trump declared he had no intention of honoring Lewis while he lie in state in the Capitol Rotunda.

I thought about past funerals of high-profile political figures. I recalled the presence of President Lyndon Johnson at the funeral of a man he hated beyond measure, Sen. Robert F. Kennedy. I remembered the funeral of President Richard Nixon and recalled one of the tributes paid to him by President Bill Clinton, who told us that we must not judge his predecessor’s public life by just one episode, but by its entire history. I remember, too, when former Presidents Harry Truman and Dwight Eisenhower patched up their bitter differences while attending the funeral of their successor, President John F. Kennedy. The two old war horses realized in that moment that life was too short and too precious for them to continue hating each other.

Donald Trump clearly would not have been welcomed at John Lewis’s funeral. He once chided Lewis for supposedly being “all talk and no action.” Trump ignored the beatings that Lewis endured while seeking to guarantee the rights of black Americans to vote in free and fair elections.

So it fell to three of Trump’s predecessors — Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama — to speak of their friend and a man who will be remembered as a legend in his own time … and beyond. 

Donald Trump? He was left to sulk in the background.

national news, political news

Texas GOP to Trump: You can’t do that

Donald J. “Ignoramus in Chief” Trump has demanded a delay in the Nov. 3 presidential election.

Just one problem with that order. Donald Trump doesn’t have the authority to issue it. He cannot delay the election. The U.S. Constitution grants that authority to a second co-equal branch of government, Congress.

And to be sure, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell — a Democrat and a Republican, respectively — aren’t having it.

It’s one of those matters of governance that a president ought to know. Except that Donald Trump has no knowledge, understanding or interest in government, its limitations and its authority. So he issues a hollow, feckless demand.

What is remarkable, too, is that Texas Republicans have joined other politicians around the nation in telling Trump that he can’t do it, that he has no authority under the law. So, the Texas GOP is telling Trump: Knock it off!

Why the delay? It seems that Trump has this paranoid fear of losing his effort at re-election, so he wants to delay the balloting to, um, guard against a phony voter fraud scare he has cooked up.

Trump is doing all he can to muddy up the electoral system. He wants to suppress the vote, which is code for “suppress the African-American vote.” 

He keeps yapping about the phony inherent corruption with mail-in voting. It doesn’t exist any more than it exists in the current system of voting done in all but about six states. Trump is seeking to foment unfounded fear in mail-in balloting.

Trump is stoking electoral fear. He is the one who appears to be afraid of what might await him at the end of the balloting.

It is that Democratic Party nominee Joe Biden will receive more votes than Trump, that he will win election through a substantial Electoral College victory and that Trump will give up an office of which he has zero understanding.