Category Archives: national news

national news, political news

Head-spinning begins

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My 74-year-old noggin is spinning like Linda Blair’s in the “The Exorcist.” At times it feels as if it’s going 360 degrees.

That is what this presidential election season is doing to me.

Republicans are set to nominate an individual they have selected twice already to run for president. He won the first time in one of the most bizarre flukes in American political history, capturing the Electoral College while losing the popular vote by 3 million ballots. He lost the second time fair and square, only to declare the election was rigged and was stolen from him.

Now the GOP is going to nominate him one more time? His platform sounds like the 2020 theme, which is that it is short on ideas for the future and long on made-up grievances.

Except that he has persuaded enough Americans that his dubious gripes are real enough for them to climb aboard his clown car.

Democrats have a successful incumbent running as an underdog, for God’s sake! President Biden’s term so far has produced far more successes than failures, and yet the MAGA minions seek to persuade us that the Joe Biden presidency has been an abject failure.

What the hell … ?

Republicans are hell bent on suppressing voter turnout. Democrats want the turnout to break the records set in 2020. By my own barometer, I long have believed that democracy works best when more — rather than fewer — voters take part.

I won’t even get into the felony trials involving the GOP nominee’s criminal allegations. He is wanting to delay them past the election and then is hoping for all he can to be elected so he can just crumple them up and toss ’em into the crapper.

I do not intend to allow that to happen, if this blog has any pull at all.

First things first, though. I have to get my head to stop spinning.

crime news, national news, political news

Pence ignores the obvious

Mike Pence says he won’t endorse the man in whose administration he served as vice president.

Oh, and why is that? Well, the former VP says he and the ex-POTUS have fundamental policy differences. Therefore, he won’t endorse the guy who also incited a mob to seek out the VP while carrying signs that said “Hang Mike Pence!”

Or that he said Pence was a coward for refusing to discount votes that elected Joe Biden president of the U.S. in 2020.

Or that he did nothing to call off the traitors who stormed the Capitol on the Sixth of January.

No, Pence said he cannot endorse the former Moron in Chief because of “policy differences.”

What … a … coward!

Joe Biden, national news, political news

Let the campaign commence

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The strangest presidential campaign in my memory has begun in earnest … and the two major-party candidates haven’t even been nominated yet by their respective parties.

President Biden is running for re-election against the nimrod he defeated in 2020. For reasons that I cannot explain or understand, he is running — for the time being — as the underdog in this contest.

I don’t get it. The economy is rocking along. Americans clearly are better off than they were when he took office in January 2021. He campaigned on a pledge to restore our nation’s “soul,” and I believe he has succeeded. He’s got more work to do and in my view he has earned the right to finish the job.

But, oh my … this campaign is as weird as any I have seen in all my years watching and, in some cases, covering these events. In fact, it’s the weirdest campaign I can remember.

The Republican nominee-in-waiting is cozying up to dictators. He calls the Hungarian thug/despot a “strong leader” and sounds as if he wants to govern the United States the way his good pal governs Hungary. Oh, my God in heaven. Please … no!

He threatens to dismantle NATO, all but pledges to look the other way while Russian thug Vladimir Putin “does whatever the hell he wants” by attacking a NATO ally while he prosecutes the war in Ukraine.

All of that and more run totally counter to American ideals. Yet the dipsh** continues to lead in public opinion polling.

Are we that stupid, that ignorant, that cynical as a nation to let this guy have his way? May we all come to our senses between now and Nov. 5, when Election Day arrives.

crime news, local news, national news, political news

Fani Willis is in the clear

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Leave it to a disgraced former Navy flag officer to engage in partisan hyperbole in reaction to a judge’s ruling on a Georgia district attorney seeking to prosecute a former POTUS for election interference crimes.

Ronny Jackson, whom the Navy inspector general demoted to captain after determining allegations of misconduct were true, said Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis should be “disbarred.” Why? Because she had a romantic relationship with a prosecutor on her team.

The judge in the case hearing the matter involving the ex-POTUS’s alleged interference has determined Willis can stay on the job but the lead prosecutor must go.

Jackson, who now represents the Texas Panhandle in the U.S. House, said the judge’s ruling only proves he’s a partisan. He wants Willis’s law license revoked.

Well, sh**! The doc should have his medical license revoked for his liberal dispensing of controlled drugs to clients who request them. That’s why he’s got the pejorative nickname of “Candy Man.”

Whatever. Willis will continue to do her work as prescribed by Georgia law and the state’s constitution.

As for Rep. Jackson, he ought to just butt the hell out and tend to the business of the Texas Panhandle … if he can figure out what’s important to the district and the region he hardly knows.

national news, political news

How is this race even close?

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I admit that I am slow on the uptake at times, particularly when it comes to certain political trends.

The state of the current presidential campaign is my latest example.

I will go to my grave more than likely wondering how in the name of God Almighty that President Joe Biden finds himself fighting for his political life against the likely Republican nominee.

The GOP nimrod pledged to craft an infrastructure plan. He didn’t. He pledged to build a wall on the southern border and make Mexico pay for it. He didn’t do that either. He said he would declare war on the COVID pandemic and fight like hell against it. Oh, man, he failed miserably.

Biden succeeded him in 2021 and got Congress to pass an infrastructure bill and then defeated the pandemic. Yeah, the border crisis has worsened, but he’s redoubling his efforts there.

The economy is rockin ‘n rollin’ and Joe Biden can take some credit for that.

It should be a runaway. Biden should be facing the prospect of a landslide victory in November. He likely won’t get one.

The former Liar in Chief figures to make it a close race. How in the world a twice-impeached and multiple indicted candidate is hanging in there is beyond my capacity to understand.

national news, political news

Character no longer matters?

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Republicans once stood as those who believed in strong moral conduct and scorned those who got caught doing untoward things in public.

Do you remember those days? I sure do. They reached a full boil during the time Bill Clinton was seeking the presidency. Why, the so-called “moral majority” and those on the far right just couldn’t stomach the notion of someone who cheated on his wife becoming president of the United States.

They even countenanced the publishing of an alleged documentary called “The Clinton Chronicles” that purported to “prove” that Bill and Hillary Clinton plotted the murder of a close friend, Vince Foster … who in fact took his own life in a D.C. park.

Oh, how it has all changed.

What now passes for the Republican Party is set to nominate an individual for the presidential campaign who fails at every level possible the test the GOP once applied to candidates for the nation’s highest office.

He admits to cheating on his wives; he has been convicted of sexual abuse; he was impeached twice during his term as POTUS; he once bragged about grabbing women by their genitalia; he has said he never has sought forgiveness; he called for the execution of the Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman who had the temerity to criticize him over policy matters.

I could go on … but I won’t.

To be clear, I wasn’t a fan of the witch hunt launched against Bill Clinton back in the day. I am less of a fan now of the dimwit who wants to return to the Oval Office and serve as “your retribution” to those who have swallowed the swill he has offered.

And yet he has the support of the Republican National Committee, those who operate the machinery and a loudly vocal minority of voters who continue to outshout the rest of the nation.

The state of the current Republican Party makes me miss the former GOP … and that, I will tell you, is really saying something.

crime news, national news

Yes, he was an ‘illegal’ immigrant

Lest you think I am a Joe Biden lackey, I have to acknowledge that the president was wrong to apologize to the killer of a woman whose case has become a rallying cry for the MAGA movement.

Laiken Riley died at the hands of a man who was in this country illegally. President Biden referred to him as an “illegal” immigrant, then apologized to him for his use of the term “illegal.” Biden said he should have called him an “undocumented” immigrant.

Talk about splitting hairs!

The dude was in this country illegally. He reportedly broke U.S. immigration law by coming here, then committed a horrific crime. Riley was killed while jogging on the University of Georgia campus. Police arrested a man from Venezuela, Jose Ibarra, who came to this country — dare I say it — illegally.

The president’s apology now has lifted the issue of immigration to the top shelf of campaign issues heading into the 2024 presidential campaign.

Damn, I wish Biden would take greater care on issues such as this. He blurted out a description that, on its face, is accurate. He did not need to apologize for speaking the truth about an individual charged with a horrible crime.

media news, national news, political news

Waiting for the unknown

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There once was a time when surprises occurred during presidential primary campaigns.

All eyes would be focused on established political stars or — in the case of the current Republican nominee-in-waiting — on notorious characters.

Then the surprise would occur. Someone would burst out of the crowd. That someone would an individual no one had heard of … or so it seemed. They would take the rest of the field on head to head. The unknown candidate then would collect enough delegates to win the nomination from their party.

Alas, those days appear gone. Maybe forever. Why is that? Social media platforms grant instant celebrity status to newly minted politicians. I think of the likes of Marjorie Taylor Greene and Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez.

MTG and AOC both earned celebrity status by having their names initialized in the manner I have just demonstrated. One of them, MTG, has been a disgrace. AOC — again, in my view only — has emerged as a star; to be fair, I had my doubts about AOC when she arrived in D.C.

I am wishing at times for a new star to burst forth from the tall grass and capture our hearts and minds.

American voters are facing a presidential election this year with two warhorses fighting each other. One of them is a seasoned politician with decades of public service under his belt. Joe Biden, though, is 81 years of age and has been on center stage almost from the moment he became a U.S. senator in January 1973. He says he’s ready for the fight that awaits him; I am taking him at his word.

His probable opponent … I cannot print his name. He is 77 years of age and has been impeached twice, indicted four times, faces 91 criminal counts, incited an assault on our government, lost his re-election bid and has never conceded defeat, been convicted of sexual assault, has lied about his wealth, denigrated a legitimate Vietnam War hero, mocked a physically challenged reporter and said those who serve in the military are “suckers” and “losers.”

I long for a return to an era when someone fresh, clean and scandal free can emerge from the shadows and capture our imagination.

Who is that person? If I knew his or her name, that would take away the surprise.

local news, national news, political news

GOP pissants reveal their ‘character’

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Let me be clear that I was disappointed, but not the least bit surprised, at the behavior demonstrated by the MAGA chorus of what passes for a once-great political party last night at President Biden’s State of the Union speech.

They showered the president with catcalls and jeers for parts of his speech, showing the world what kind of classlessness comprises the Republican side of the congressional aisle.

My instinct for fairness compels me to point out something before I return to my point: Democrats have on occasion done the same thing when a Republican president has delivered an important speech on the state of our great nation. We also had a House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, tear up her hard-copy text of an SOTU speech delivered by President Biden’s immediate predecessor. That was a poor look, too, to be sure.

I want to remind readers of this blog, though, of an important point.

It is that exactly two people — the president and vice president — hold their office because of votes cast by an entire nation. Congress comprises 535 individuals who are elected either by voters in their states or in congressional districts carved out by legislatures.

Just two people, Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, have the standing to demand respect and decorum from their audience to whom they are speaking.

Joe Biden didn’t get it from the likes of, say, the MAGA loudmouth from Georgia, Marjorie Taylor Greene, who also showed great disrespect for the rules of the House by wearing a MAGA ballcap on her pointed head. The idea that House Speaker Mike Johnson would allow such a thing to occur is disgraceful on its face; no headgear is allowed in the House chamber, period.

Oh, wait! Had he scolded MTG for breaking the rules, she likely would file a petition to have him removed. Therein lies the real story behind who’s running the show in the House … and it damn sure isn’t the speaker.

Joe Biden delivered a fiery speech from the podium. It resonated with this North Texas blogger. Welcome to the fight, Mr. President.

national news, political news

No mention of ex-POTUS’s name

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Well, I’ll be deep-fried and fricasseed. I was certain President Biden would pepper his State of the Union speech with the name of the fellow he succeeded as president.

He didn’t.

Biden didn’t mention his name not one single time!

I had prepared to swill ouzo from a flask tonight at every mention of the former Moron in Chief’s name.

Hah! I can save it for another time.

Still, my first reaction to President Biden’s speech is quite positive. He came to the joint congressional session prepared to wage political war. He didn’t disappoint.