Category Archives: national news

national news

Keystone Kops makes a return

Are you as confused as I am about what is being reported about securing the president of the United States? Please say “yes,” because I can’t make sense of any of it.

It’s being reported that Donald Trump was squirreled away in a catering vehicle because of a “credible threat” to his security. Now comes word that the White House is downplaying the threat, which occurred while Trump was trying last month to leave Turkey after attending a NATO summit.

There’s more to this tale of fantasy. Trump was supposed to fly out of Turkey aboard the Boeing 747 jet designated as Air Force One whenever it transports the president of the United States. That didn’t happen. Trump took another plane out of Turkey. Except we know are told the air traffic controllers never used the Air Force One terminology to ID the jet that carried the POTUS. I understand that would constitute a major no-no in aviation standard operating procedure.

I’m trying to keep all this straight. I fear it’s a losing fight.

Now I understand that Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessett and other key Cabinet officials were aboard the targeted 747. Good grief, man! So are we to believe that the White House deemed Rubio, Bessett et al to be expendable? As I’ve noted long ago, I never take anything coming from the White House under the Donald Trump era at its word.

The jokesters are going to have a field day with this item. If only the White House had a communications department that could set the record straight.

national news, political news

This POTUS takes job lightly

When the president of the United States spends hours each night sending out social media digs at political foes, or concentrates his anger at media reporters, or takes time to lament who’s to blame for a reflecting pool fiasco, or can’t complete construction of a billion-dollar ballroom where the East Wing once stood …

Well, you have a POTUS who cannot possibly be up to the job to which he was elected to do.

You have in Donald Trump an overfed showman who has started a war with Iran, backed an aggressor in the Kremlin for launching an illegal and immoral war against Ukraine and has alienated just about every valuable ally this nation has worked for decades to count on as a friend.

President Barack Obama recently said that a president who is serious about his job has — at minimum — perhaps 10 issues on his plate that require his undivided attention. And they have nothing to do with beautifying the White House.

It should be abundantly clear that Donald Trump was far more interested in becoming the POTUS than actually being that person. To be the commander in chief, the head of government and head of state requires laser-like focus. Trump exhibits none of that trait as he stumbles, bumbles and blathers his way through each day he is in office.

He continues to bitch about losing the 2020 election to President Joe Biden … and cannot bring himself to say a single empathetic word about the former president’s struggle against cancer. He continues to lie about presiding over the “the greatest economy the world has ever seen” when in fact the USA is teetering on the brink of bankruptcy.

This individual has sought to destroy our democratic republic. He cheapens the presidency every single day he sits in the Oval Office. Donald Trump has no business holding the office to which he was elected twice. What in the world is wrong with this nation?

national news

Trump outdoes himself … once again!

Donald Trump fielded a question over the weekend about news that President Biden’s cancer has spread from his prostate gland to his bones, apparently signaling a daunting turn for the 46th POTUS.

His answer was disgusting, but not the least bit surprising, given Trump’s lack of empathy for any human being on this Earth.

He called his predecessor a mean spirit, said he has trashed the reputations of his political adversaries. “So, no, I don’t feel sorry for him,” Trump said. Wow, man.

This is precisely why Donald Trump engenders such loathing among millions of Americans. And, yes, even from those who contend they support his ideas but dislike the man. All the POTUS had to say was simply something like this: “The president and I have profound differences, but I want to wish him well as he continues his struggle against cancer. I will say a prayer for Mrs. Biden and their children, Hunter and Ashley and their families.”

Even a milquetoast statement of empathy such as that could go a long way toward possibly redeeming Donald in the eyes of a nation that is growing so very weary of his continued insults.

This lack of compassion only proves what many of us have said all along, that Donald Trump carries none of what many of us think would be a normal sense decency.

This individual is wired in a way that bears no resemblance to anything you and I experience routinely as we go about a normal lifestyle.

I will pray for President Joe Biden, whose decency alone casts a gigantic shadow over the wreckage that Trump is bringing to the nation’s highest office.

national news, political news

Never have seen hatred like this …

My interest in politics and public policy goes back a ways … to, oh, around 1968. I had just graduated high school the previous year and was floundering in college.

Military duty awaited me, along with the Vietnam War that was fueling much of the debate in this country. The war and the debate raged on after I donned the Army uniform in the summer of ’68; in fact, I was inducted on Aug. 21 of that year, which means I will commemorate my induction date in just a few days.

I had a preferred presidential candidate that year. It was Sen. Robert F. Kennedy of New York. He was possibly on track to be nominated that summer as the Democratic candidate for president. Then in June 1968 it ended in a hail of gunfire in the Los Angeles hotel kitchen the night of the California Democratic primary that RFK won.

I went on to serve my country. I returned home in 1970. I got involved in the 1972 presidential election.

Where am I going with this? At no time, not a single time, did I witness the kind of bad blood flow among activists and politicians that we’re witnessing now in the Age of Donald Trump. We are witnessing the tearing apart of one of the essential threads of our political fabric. It’s the fabric that tells us that civility and decorum have their place … even as we debate with every ounce of mental and emotional strength in favor of policies and politicians we admire.

These days we hear about politicians fearing for their lives, that their political foes could react violently. And I won’t be coy about this aspect of the today’s climate: Pols and activists on the right — especially the MAGA right — are the most guilty of fomenting this fear. To be fair, the violence has its roots across the spectrum. I will cite the gruesome murder of right-wing provocateur Charlie Kirk as a key example of how dangerous this rhetoric has become for everyone in the public eye.

Can we return to the good old days of fierce debate among friends in high places? I damn sure hope so.

national news

Trump hangs on by a thread

Donald J. Trump keeps bragging about how great he is as a man and as a politician, about he won two of three presidential elections in a landslide.

Hmm. I gave that some thought, so I looked up a few numbers to try to put this man’s time in high office in its proper perspective. Let’s take a brief look at them, OK?

Trump ran in 2016 against Hillary Clinton. He finished that election with nearly 3 million fewer votes than Clinton, but won the Electoral College and, thus, became president.

He ran for re-election in 2020 and got whipped by Joe Biden, who tallied about 7 million more votes than Trump, who then protested Biden’s victory by launching the insurrection on Jan. 6, 2021.

Trump ran again in 2024 and beat Kamala Harris by about 2 million votes, and won the Electoral College, too.

I totaled up Trump’s popular votes in all three elections and came up with 212 million votes compared to 214 million votes tallied by Clinton, Biden and Harris combined.

Here’s my point.

Donald Trump can declare until his orange face turns blue, but the numbers don’t lie, unlike the liar in chief. Donald Trump did win all those “battleground states” in 2024 and I will give him credit for that. He fought hard to persuade voters in Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Nevada, Arizona and Georgia to support him. But across the vast nation, he still came up short of anything approaching the “landslide” he keeps saying he won.

Furthermore, in all three of those national elections on which Trump’s name was on the ballot, he fell short of scoring a majority. He finished with about 45% in 2016, 47% on 2020 and 49% in 2024.

A landslide usually describes a 10-point victory or greater. Trump has been hanging on by a single thread since the moment he took the oath of office in January 2017.

I believe he is going to see what a landslide actually looks like in about 88 days.

Donald Trump, national news

Trump angry at GOP rebellion? Awww, too bad

Word out of DC is that the hothead in chief, Donald Trump, is angry over Republican resistance to his choice to be the next attorney general.

Gosh, what could be getting under their skin? It could be that Todd Blanche can’t stop acting like Trump’s personal lawyer, which he was for several years. It might be Blanche’s resistance to submit in writing a pledge to protect the reputations of the victims of the late Jeffrey Epstein, who brutalized these women. Maybe it’s a collection of “all of the above” factors that make Blanche totally unfit to be the nation’s top law enforcement officer.

At least two GOP senators, lame ducks John Cornyn of Texas and Thom Tillis of North Carolina, say they might vote “no” on Blanche’s AG nomination. Cornyn lost his GOP runoff race and Tillis chose not to seek re-election. They’re both free of Trump’s threats. We also have Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, who’s been a thorn in Trump’s s ample backside for years.

I am pleased to see the GOP Senate caucus grow a set of — oh, you know — and start to resist Trump on matters that count. Selecting an AG is a big deal. Blanche shouldn’t get the nod to lead the Department of Justice. Hope is beginning to stir.

national news, political news

Trump earns title of ‘loser’

One of Donald J. Trump’s favorite epithets appears to be “loser,” which he bestows on anyone he deems to be, um, well … not worthy of any description other than that one.

I want to hang the label round the flabby neck of the current POTUS, for he has assumed the title of loser in chief.

He keeps harping on an election he lost to Joe Biden. He has filed 60-some lawsuits and lost every one of them in various courts of law. Trump continues to tease us with the half-baked notion of running for a “fourth term” in the White House. Why four? He won the first race in 2016, claims to have won the second one in 2020, captured the presidency in 2024 and suggests the 22nd Amendment to the Constitution doesn’t apply to him … so he might run again. The amendment says he’s only able to win twice. He did so. At the end of the current term, he’s out. For keeps. Forever!

He backs candidates who win their Republican primaries. So, he can claim victories there. The test of success has come in general elections when his MAGA morons face real opposition. Then they lose. I am suggesting strongly they’ll keep losing throughout the 2026 midterm election season.

What does make the 47th POTUS? It makes him a loser. Pure and simple.

His legislative agenda — such as it is — is dead. He’s heading for certain impeachment once Democrats reclaim control of the House of Reps. Then it will fall on the Senate to determine if he stays in office. If the GOP keeps control of the Senate, he might hold on until the end of his term. If not, well, then the fun really begins.

The loser in chief’s legacy will be cast in stone.

national news

Trump surrounds himself with dimwits

It is as clear as the length of the day that Donald Trump’s premier broken campaign promise is the one that he pledged to surround himself with only the “best people,” the brightest minds and bona fide experts in every field known to humankind.

It also is clear as the deep blue sky that Trump has delivered us an executive team full of dimwits, nimrods, dipshits and kooks. I won’t name them all, as they likely would take too much time to finish these thoughts.

However, I want to explore briefly why Trump has scraped so low to fill his government executive team. It’s because the boss himself — that would be the POTUS — fits into all the pejorative descriptions I laid out in the previous paragraph. The last thing Donald Trump wants to do is have his team show him up by actually have an understanding of government, the Constitution and the limits the framers placed on the president.

In a strange, perverse sort of way I kind of get it if that is Trump’s desire. He doesn’t want to be shown up by underlings. We saw glimpses of that during his first term. He had a retired Marine Corps general, Jim Mattis, as secretary of defense. Mattis got the boot because he knew better than to just be a yes man to the president. The same can be said of John Kelly, another USMC general who took a spin at White House chief of staff. Mark Esper, another Defense boss, also got the boot in the. rear. I would even count Rex Tillerson, the first secretary of state to serve the Trump team.

The second term administration is filled with lackeys, yes men and women and assorted individuals who have no business serving in the highest levels of government.

We are getting the kind of government we should expect from a POTUS who brings to the highest office in the land zero background in public service.

national news

GOP: out of ideas and running out of luck

A political party that keeps harping on the past only can mean one thing about the present and the future, and it doesn’t bode well for the party I’m about to mention.

The Republican Party, led by Donald Trump, is flat out of ideas. It is running out of steam. Its luck is damn near spent.

What does this mean for its future? The immediate future is looking grim every passing day. The GOP small margin in the House of Representatives looks quite vulnerable these days, as Democrats appear poised to seize the majority from its “friends” on the other side of the aisle. The hill toward majority control in the Senate still looks more formidable than in the House, but there appear to be more avenues for Democratic success than for Republicans.

As for the Republicans’ leader, Donald Trump, well … all I can offer there is a word of caution that he is facing a near-certain impeachment in the House. It might come even during the first year of the pending Democratic victory at the ballot box. This individual has all but acted like he is committing impeachable acts on purpose, that he’s secretly hoping to be impeached. He violates the Constitution with impunity.

We can set aside the ridiculous nonsense he prattles on with regard to Presidents Biden and Obama; it’s the unconstitutional actions he takes regularly that ought to become the targets of those intending to file impeachment articles. The Iran war, the tariffs he imposes on all Americans are two actions that come to mind immediately.

Trump’s legacy is hardening each day. It is built on chaos, malfeasance and corruption. Thus, it is becoming virtually impossible for the POTUS’s political heirs to advance any sort of political agenda … even if they had one.

national news

Trump’s fixation with ‘things’ proves key point

Donald J. Trump’s fixation with adorning the West Wing with gold trimming, his destruction of the East Wing to build a fancy ballroom, his plans to build an Arc de Trump, his decision to plaster his name on the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts proves what many of us have said all along about this fraudulent “champion of the people.”

He doesn’t give a rat’s ass about everyday Americans, nor does he care a one tiny bit about the value of public service.

I used this blog to warn folks about supporting a man who has never spent a waking moment of his adult life thinking about improving the nation. His entire focus, every damn moment, has been aimed at enriching himself. He doesn’t care about the MAGA morons who proclaim his virtue … such as it exists.

He talks about our “great military,” yet he refers to warriors as “suckers” and “losers.” He desecrates the memory of the late U.S. Sen. John McCain, a Vietnam War hero who was tortured during his years as a prisoner of war.

The physical evidence of Trump’s real passion can be seen all over the nation’s capital. You hear it in his remarks. He cannot stop talking about that damn ballroom and he presumes to believe that Americans are in favor of spending more than $1 billion to build a place for the POTUS to entertain heads of state.

Well … we don’t want to spend more money on a fancy dining hall, Donald.