Category Archives: national news

national news

Would DJT actually resist leaving the White House if he loses?

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I cannot possibly be the only red-blooded American patriot who thinks this is plausible, so I will offer this notion to you to ponder.

I wouldn’t put anything past Donald John Trump to do whatever he can to resist accepting the results of the 2020 presidential election even if he loses bigly to Joseph R. Biden Jr.

By that I am willing to suggest that Trump might not accept the results, might not concede the election to Biden and might try some sort of legal jiu-jitsu to stay in office. The result might be that the next president would be forced to drag the Sore Loser in Chief kicking and screaming.

Truth be told, I would pay real American money to see such a spectacle unfold before our very eyes.

There’s a deep segment in my gut that tells me it’s a plausible end to the presidency of Donald John Trump.

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Biden is no far-left lackey

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We had better steel ourselves for the onslaught of demagogic attacks from Donald J. Trump’s campaign against Joseph R. Biden.

The current theme is laughable and disgraceful all at once.

Trump is contending that Joe Biden is a puppet of the far left, that he is intent on “defunding” local police departments and creating a lawless society.

Stop! Whoa! Hold it!

Joe Biden has said categorically that he does not favor any effort to “defund” police departments. He has said they should be examined and that police practices perhaps need to be reformed and improved. That, I want to assert, has nothing to do with whatever garbage is coming from Trump’s political campaign.

Biden also has argued that he does not favor “Medicare for All,” which has been a favorite talking point among the progressive movement. Instead, he has taken a more reasonable approach, which is to tinker with the Affordable Care Act, to improve the legislation he helped create.

Donald Trump is facing someone  I consider a traditional Democrat. Joe Biden comes from a working-class background. His legislative legacy is full of efforts to lend a hand to aid working families. His alliance with traditional Democratic constituencies has become legendary in political circles.

Donald Trump will not dissuaded from facing political reality. His poll standing very well is filling him with some sense of urgency to say damn near anything he believes will drag down the frontrunning challenger. So … he’s settled on the “far left lackey” argument.

It won’t work. It shouldn’t work. My hope is that Joe Biden’s team will ensure that it is ready to respond with equal or greater force to any demagogic lie that Donald Trump is willing to throw.

Game on!

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Amusing or disgusting?

I am trying to decide whether Donald Trump’s assorted campaign strategies amuse me or disgust me.

I’ll say it’s possibly a bit of both … but mostly disgusting.

I watched Trump try to suggest the other day that Joseph R. Biden is intent on destroying the “suburbs.” To which I raised my eyebrows and thought, “Huh? What in the world is the Demagogue in Chief saying?” Then it dawned on me.

He accuses the former vice president, as I understand what passes for logic in POTUS’s noggin, of creating a lawless inner city, which will drive people out of the city and into the ‘burbs. Thus, we have a situation, according to the No. 1 demagogue, where suburbs are populated by those who formerly lived in the inner city.

It’s a thinly disguised code for racial politics, my friends.

It ain’t funny, so I’ll cease being amused by that tactic. It’s downright disgusting, vile, venal and vicious. It is precisely the kind of trait that Trump demonstrates routinely, such as when he called the Klansmen and neo-Nazis who marched in Charlottesville “fine people.” Or how about when he continued to insist that the nation’s first black president wasn’t born in the United States and that he was constitutionally ineligible to campaign for the nation’s highest office?

You get the idea, yes?

So now Donald Trump says Joe Biden is going to destroy the ‘burbs.

Disgraceful.

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Hey … what about the victims?

The depths of Donald Trump’s heartlessness has yet to be discovered.

Consider this bit of nauseating information: When a reporter asked him recently about Ghislaine Maxwell, the former girlfriend/confidante of convicted sexual assailant Jeffrey Epstein, he said he wanted to “wish her well.”

Maxwell, I hasten to add, is accused of finding underage girls for Epstein to rape. Epstein, of course, hanged himself in a New York jail cell a few months ago. Maxwell now is the premier character in this hideous act.

So, what about the victims of Epstein’s lecherous behavior? Don’t they deserve “well wishes” from the president of the United States?

Trump has yet to offer a single public word of horror over what happened to these people at Epstein’s demand. He has yet to condemn anything his old friend did.

Oh, no. He offers Ghislaine Maxwell his good wishes and hope she is “well.” How can the president remain silent on the ghastly accusation that has been leveled at her and then offer the lame, tepid and moronic statement that “I wish her well”?

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Still committing impeachable offenses?

I am acutely aware that Donald Trump’s impeachment and Senate trial are now part of our nation’s history, that Trump will be remembered forever as the nation’s third impeached president of the United States.

I cannot get past the cowardice demonstrated by all but one of the Senate’s 53 Republican members in giving this corrupt narcissist a pass on what he did, which was to extort the leader of another country into providing political dirt on Joe Biden, the man now in position to defeat Trump in the upcoming election.

Nor can I understand the logic behind that Senate acquittal, given that since then Trump has committed — allegedly — at least two more heinous acts.

One is that he reportedly sought to move the British Open golf tournament to a resort he owns, thus seeking actively to flout the clause in the Constitution that prohibits the president from profiting materially from his public office. It’s called the Emoluments Clause and this reported solicitation is simply the latest such example of this blatant corruption.

The other is the hideous betrayal of his oath as commander in chief to care for the troops under his command. I refer to the allegation that Russia paid Taliban terrorists bounties for every American serviceman and woman killed in Afghanistan. If there is a more “impeachable offense” than that, I am totally unaware of it.

This is the bargain that every House Republican and all but one Senate Republican delivered when they decided that the “perfect phone call” to the Ukrainian president in July 2019 wasn’t enough to toss Trump out of office.

I am enough of a realist to know that impeaching Trump again is likely out of the question. I also am enough of an idealist to hope that the election this November will take care of the corruption that has influenced damn near every political decision Trump has made while sitting in the Oval Office.

Of course, an election result doesn’t prevent criminal prosecution of Donald Trump once he quick-steps out of the White House for the final time. Oh, allow me to wish once again that the day comes after this next election.

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What if it’s Biden?

(Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

Let’s play a game of “What if?” … shall we?

Bear in mind that I am not predicting any sort of presidential election outcome. I merely am pondering the possibilities if my preferred result occurs at the end of ballot counting on Nov. 3.

  • What if Joe Biden beats Donald Trump in a landslide? Trump has indicated he might “not accept” the results of a free and fair election. He will suggest it was “rigged.” Will the president-elect summon the Secret Service to escort the previous first family out out of the White House? I would pay real American money to see that occur.
  • What if Biden is given the chance to “lead” the nation through the coronavirus pandemic? Trump has failed at virtually every level possible, no matter what VP Mike “The Sycophant” Pence says to the contrary. How will that leadership present itself? My hope is that the new president starts simply by expressing sincere compassion and empathy for the suffering of millions of Americans.
  • What if Joe Biden inherits an economy in absolute free fall? The nature and scope of our economic collapse makes the 2009 mess that Biden and President Obama inherited when they took over resemble a walk in the park. It’s related directly to the pandemic. Millions of Americans have been tossed out of their jobs. Where does the new president find the money to boost an economy that already is teetering on the precipice of a depression?
  • What if Joe Biden takes over as head of the world’s most indispensable nation and finds that our allies are laughing at us? The wreckage that Trump has brought to those alliances is epic in its scope. Trump has scolded our European allies for not doing enough to defend themselves against Russia. He has chided our continental neighbors in Canada and Mexico personally. Joe Biden, the master of diplomacy, needs to mend those fences in a major hurry.
  • What if Joe Biden gets to sit down face to face with Russian dictator Vladimir Putin? This is where the new president needs to wag his finger in Putin’s mug and warn him about the economic and diplomatic consequences that await him if (a) he continues to interfere in our elections and (b) continues to pay bounties to the Taliban for killing our troops.

A new president will have a monumental repair job awaiting him after the wreckage that Donald Trump has brought.

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Follow the Nixon lead, Mr. POTUS

Donald J. Trump just cannot commit to accepting the election results in November … if he loses to Joe Biden.

He sought to justify his skepticism of the results, casting doubt on their legitimacy, in an interview with Fox News Sunday host Chris Wallace.

Simply by refusing to accept those results, Donald Trump is seeking to undermine the work done at the state and local levels of government to ensure that our elections are safe, free and secure. That’s how the president rolls. He said the same thing prior to the 2016 election, that he might challenge the results if Hillary Clinton won that contest. It turned out that Trump won; I don’t recall Clinton holding out for a possible challenge after she conceded defeat to Trump.

This is part and parcel of Trump’s background, starting with the obvious lack of public service experience. He was bred on the notion that everyone in business is out to cut someone else’s throat; therefore, they weren’t to be trusted. Had he an ounce of public service experience, Trump might take a different, more magnanimous approach to election results.

I harken to the 1960 presidential election. Vice President Richard Nixon lost that contest by a whisker to Sen. John F. Kennedy. JFK’s plurality totaled 112,000 votes nationally. Questions arose about the vote count in Illinois, where Kennedy won that state’s 27 electoral votes by just a handful. Republican operatives urged the VP to challenge the Illinois vote count, to tally up the ballots all over again. Nixon chose instead to let the vote count stand, to allow the president-elect to begin his transition to the most exalted office in the land.

Nixon put the country ahead of any personal political gain. To be sure, had Illinois’ electoral votes gone to Nixon, he still would have lost the electoral vote. But my point is that the vice president didn’t want to subject the nation to additional and, to his mind, pointless turmoil. His eight years as VP in the Eisenhower administration and his time in Congress taught him something about the value of public service.

Donald Trump has zero understanding of that need and will do all he can to sow seeds of doubt and discord in an electoral process that we all cherish.

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Wishing to hurry up Election Day

Mom always told me to “stop wishing your life away.”

She was right, of course, but that doesn’t stop me from wishing we could get through these next 101 days in rapid-fire time.

Nov. 3 is Election Day. Joe Biden is leading Donald Trump by, oh, anywhere from 10 to 15 percentage points nationally. He is leading in all the key “swing states” Trump won in 2016 while pilfering the election from the previous presumed odds-on favorite for the presidency, Hillary Rodham Clinton.

That leads me straight to my point. I would be foolhardy to the max to underestimate — in the words of filmmaker/pundit Michael Moore — the evil genius that lurks inside Trump’s combed-over skull.

Let us not forget that Clinton held a similarly wide lead over Trump at roughly this time during the 2016 campaign. Then it vanished. She still pulled more actual votes than Trump, but the lead vaporized down the stretch; she ended up with a 2.09 percent lead over Trump in the “popular vote,” only to lose the Electoral College by a small amount.

Do you get my point here? If Biden is unable to hold onto the current lead, the door could remain open just enough for Trump to sneak back into the Oval Office for another four years. I shudder at the thought.

Can it happen? Sure. Do I want it to happen? Hah! Are you kidding?

Therefore, I want the next 101 days to zoom past us so we can start to restore the nation’s soul, restart its heart and return it to the respect it once had around the world.

I know, Mom. I am wishing my life away. I hope you understand.

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Fright is setting in

I don’t want to sound alarmist.

However, I am getting filled with astonishing feelings of fright at the prospect of a second presidential term with Donald John Trump sitting in the Oval Office.

I don’t scare easily, so this isn’t some sort of Chicken Little screed. The very notion that Donald Trump could actually win a second term is filling me with dread. It’s the real thing, man. I mean it!

Trump took office without a single moment of public service experience under his belt. His entire adult life was aimed at self-enrichment, self-aggrandizement and self-promotion. He took that experience with him into the White House.

The man doesn’t possess an ounce of empathy or compassion. I mean, my goodness, he admits to preferring to trample over people than to hold them up.

Trump’s lack of public service experience has been coupled with his abject ignorance of the government over which he presides. He talks about enacting “bills” all by himself. Remember when he told the Republican convention in Cleveland that “I, alone” can solve the nation’s ills? He cannot. That hasn’t stopped him from continuing to imply such a moronic strategy.

We’re now well into the 2020 presidential campaign. I have not yet heard a single coherent statement that speaks to how he wants to govern during a second term. He continues to spend his entire re-election campaign effort at denigrating his Democratic foe, Joe Biden. Where’s the plan for governing, Donald? It ain’t there.

So are we going to expose ourselves to four more years of the kind of (non)leadership we’ve gotten during the past four years? Are we going to hand this president an invitation to do anything he thinks he can do without recrimination?

My goodness, we cannot allow this guy to send in federal “agents” to put down protests in our cities. We can’t allow him to “dominate the streets” with “heavily armed” troops. We cannot allow this individual to assault his foes using language that to my ears sounds overtly racist.

This clown snookered too many of us in 2016. A lot of us saw this disaster coming the moment he announced his candidacy at Trump Tower. I happen to one of those who now is frightened at the possibility that this guy could fool too many of us once again.

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AOC is earning her stripes

I have taken a shot or two at first-term U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez for the past few months, suggesting she’s still a bit too green to be getting all the media attention and hype she gets.

Well, I think AOC has turned an important corner.

She stepped to the microphone during a U.S. House of Representatives session this week and took to task a veteran Republican colleague, Ted Yoho, for blurting out a profane epithet at her during a confrontation on the steps of the U.S. Capitol.

AOC spoke on behalf of women across the country who are verbally abused and accosted by men in power and said, in effect: We are not going to take it any longer!

To which I say: Stand tall, Rep. Ocasio-Cortez!

The event occurred after Yoho and AOC exchanged a few heated words on the Capitol steps. She reportedly walked away and then heard Yoho call her a “fu**ing bitch.” The Hill newspaper reported the incident. Yoho then took to the floor to deliver what I like to call a “non-apology apology.” He didn’t say he was sorry for using such crass language. He said something about being married for a long time and for having daughters, which makes him aware of how he should talk to women.

Ocasio-Cortez stood on the House floor and said the following, according to the Chicago Tribune: “This issue is not about one incident. It is cultural,” said Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., calling it a culture “of accepting a violence and violent language against women, an entire structure of power that supports that.”

I should point, too, that AOC happens to be part of the so-called progressive “squad” of four legislators who have been singled out by Donald Trump, who once told them to “go back” to where they came from. Hmm. The other three are Reps. Ayanna Pressley, Ihan Omar and Rashida Tlaib; AOC, Pressley and Tlaib all were born in the United States, while Omar is a naturalized U.S. citizen. They all are women of color and they all deserve to be treated with respect as elected American politicians.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez delivered a serious dose of truth to power in a 10-minute speech on the floor of the U.S. House.

I’ll leave you with this, from AOC: “Having a daughter does not make a man decent. Having a wife does not make a decent man. Treating people with dignity and respect makes a decent man.”