Category Archives: national news

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No need to ID this guy by name

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Everyone on Earth now likely knows the name of the next Republican Party presidential nominee, as he has captured the party nomination for the past three election cycles.

Thus, you won’t need to read his name on High Plains Blogger. I made a command decision some weeks ago to boycott the idiot’s name, to keep it off my blog posts … to the extent that I can.

There might be an occasion where I quote another politician who has to use his name. I am going to seek ways to write around it.

Why do this? It’s purely selfish. I am sick and fu**ing tired of seeing his name in print and hearing his name mentioned on broadcast media. The very sound of his name makes me feel like puking.

The sight of his overfed, over made-up face causes the same sort of revulsion.

I am wondering whether I should invoke a private drinking game tonight as President Biden delivers his State of the Union speech. Every time the president mentions his 2024 general election foe by name, I am thinking about taking a swig from a small bottle of ouzo I received the other day from a friend of mine.

If I do, I am likely to be wasted by the end of the evening.

President Biden clearly is preparing for a rematch against the former moron in chief he defeated in 2020. He mentions his name liberally whenever he speaks these days in public. That’s fine. It’s good to remind voters specifically who drove the economy into the tank with his feckless, reckless and careless response to the COVID crisis.

That’s a topic for another day.

Meantime, I will watch our president declare that the health of our union is strong and is getting stronger. I just hope my flask of ouzo will last the entire speech.

local news, national news, political news

Like minds make good friends

It never used to be like this … but the here and now suggests a new level of compatibility is required for Americans to make friends.

One such friend of mine is an admitted political junkie. She loves the political process and she is well-versed on political trends and those who set them.

We are of like minds politically. Which means that she can tell me what’s in her heart and on her facile mind. I won’t bristle.

It turns out that political compatibility measures up to things such as, oh, what kind of movies you like, the type of food you can eat, and your taste in music.

It wasn’t always like this. I have maintained many friendships over many decades with people who have supported politicians who were the polar opposite of the individuals I formerly admired.

These days, if you say “polar opposite” to people such as me, then you back a pol who disavows democracy and adheres to authoritarianism. That’s a deal-breaker in my book.

Do we take our politics more seriously than before? Umm, not really. I do take the hideous point of view being espoused by those on the opposite side of the field more seriously.

It’s not enough to consider tax policy, or even gun policy to drive me far from those with whom I differ on those issues. How should I think of someone who embraces someone who is unfit for public office? That makes it a whole new game for me.

national news, political news

GOP about to go ’round the bend

What passes for a once-great American political party tonight appears ready to ’round the ol’ bend, from traditional conservatism to something few of us recognize.

A former POTUS who was impeached twice by the U.S. House and now stands indicted in four courts — two state and two federal — of high crimes is likely to win enough delegates to seal his nomination to the presidency in 2024.

God help us all!

I have refused to mention this clown’s name on this blog. My pledge to avoid mentioning it remains strong. I am deeply troubled that the party he claims to represent no longer appears to care about a politician’s character. Indeed, the fellow who’s likely to be nominated in 2024 doesn’t have any character; he lacks morals; he lacks compassion; he lacks grace.

He is unfit for public office.

However, he is poised to claim the nomination of a party he has co-opted and hijacked.

I cannot even fathom what many of the great Republicans of the past would think of what has become of their party.

national news, political news

Optimism being tested

My eternal optimism is being put to the strongest test in my life’s history … as I watch this political drama play itself out.

Our nation’s constitutional framework is being tested mightily by forces loyal to an individual who declares his intention to be his followers’ “retribution.” How might he do that? By suspending — and these are his own thoughts — constitutional authority if only for a day were he elected to the presidency of the U.S.A.

I long have held firm to the notion that President Ford was right when he took office in August 1974 after President Nixon resigned. “Our Constitution works,” the new president reminded us … and it does.

It’s facing an entirely new set of challenges these days. What I find most remarkable is that the idiot who is challenging the Constitution is doing so with the blessing of the blind cultists who follow him. I will never subscribe to the notion that these followers comprise a majority of Americans. They are a minority, but dammit, they are vocal. Their vocal cheering of the trash that pours forth from their hero only empowers him.

My sense of optimism, therefore, is being tested like never before.

But you know what? I am not going to give in the idiotic belief that enough Americans are stupid and simple-minded enough to elect this fraud to high office.

We are a great country and most of those of us who are willing to cast our ballots for POTUS know the difference between who we are and who we could become … if we make the wrong choice.

local news, national news, political news

Pro-life, pro-choice: not mutually exclusive

Shall we now commence a brief discussion on what I believe could become the determining issue of the 2024 election?

It’s called euphemistically “reproductive rights.” Women across this land are angry that their rights have been stripped away by a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that effectively ended a 50-year landmark court ruling that granted women the right under the Constitution to end a pregnancy.

Yes, to get an abortion!

Republicans by and large line up in favor of the SCOTUS ruling; Democrats oppose it.

Where am I on this matter? No surprise to know that I favor allowing women the right to determine a matter that is deeply personal. Politicians — most of whom are men — have no business making that determination for them.

Am I pro-choice? Yes! Am I pro-life? Yes!

Am I a hypocrite for affirming both views? No!

As a red-blooded American male, I am in no position to determine whether a woman should obtain an abortion. I have no standing on that matter. Zero. None.

Neither, in my view, does any other human being.

To be clear, no woman ever has asked me whether she should get an abortion. For that fact I am eternally grateful. I pray to God Almighty I never will have to answer that inquiry. That doesn’t mean for one instant that I would counsel a woman to do something I consider to be an act of immense cruelty.

I live in a state, Texas, that has enacted a strict anti-abortion law; the Legislature acted in the wake of the SCOTUS decision. Texas legislators placed a six-week time limit on women; six weeks after conception, abortion is determined to be illegal. The law makes no exception for the health of the mother, let alone for the health and life of the unborn child. It also subjects women and their physician to criminal penalty if they proceed with an abortion.

Is that what you call a pro-life stance? Hell no! It is a pro-birth stance.

This matter is quickly becoming a major campaign issue in the race for U.S. Senate. Republican U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz favors the idiotic law; his two main Democratic opponents, state Sen. Roland Guiterrez and U.S. Rep. Colin Allred oppose it.

I will venture to suggest that neither of these two Democratic pols would advise an abortion any more than I would. The religious right, though, will sling arrows at the individual nominated on Tuesday to run against Cruz.

This issue is fundamental to women across the state and the nation. I stand with them — and against the fanatics on the right — in this important battle for personal liberty.

I stand with them proudly as a Texas resident who is both pro-choice and pro-life.

national news, political news

Pledge? What pledge?

Nikki Haley is now hinting that the “pledge” she made earlier in the Republican Party presidential primary to support the eventual nominee isn’t really, well, worth honoring.

Haley was one of a gaggle of GOP candidates to make the pledge to endorse and presumably campaign for the nominee. Well, the nominee now appears to be the ex-POTUS, the guy who was impeached twice and who is indicted and awaiting trial on four felony allegations.

Not so fast, said the former South Carolina governor and former U.N. ambassador. After all, she didn’t sign a legal document. There’s nothing on paper that binds her to some bogus promise to back the party nominee.

If she chooses to back away from the pledge, well, I cannot really blame her. Not that I care one damn bit whether she keeps the pledge or chooses to back someone else.

The nominee in waiting is damaged goods to be sure. I get that he leads President Biden in most of the public opinion surveys we see. However, as they say, a week is a lifetime in politics.

This is one weird political season for certain. The idea that a once-great political party could nominate a potential convicted felon for the presidency is something I never would have imagined even two decades ago.

I am still going to hold on with both hands as we travel the rest of this electoral journey.

As for Nikki Haley … you do what you must.

media news, national news, political news

Heartened by media performance

The so-called “mainstream media” are doing the job for which their practitioners signed on as they cover the campaign of the idiot who wants to return to the Oval Office.

I believe they have learned from the mistakes they made when they “covered” his initial campaign president starting with his announcement at the NYC tower that bears his name (for now!).

The media chose to essentially give him a pass on the lies that poured out of his mouth. They gave him space in newspapers and airtime on TV and radio, letting him say things about other politicians, immigrants, war heroes and the dispossessed without challenging the veracity of the claims he made.

Not so in this election cycle, or to some degree the 2020 election cycle when he sought to be re-elected as POTUS.

The four years of the moron’s time as president taught many in the media a bitter lesson, which was that it was duty-bound to call him a “liar” when they detected an untruth spilling out of his overfed pie hole. Only a few commentators, I recall at the time, had the fortitude to call him what he was, is and always will be: a liar.

The media now have the court system to buttress what many of us known all along. A New York court has determined, for instance, that The Former Guy lied to bankers about his wealth to obtain favorable loans. He overstated his self-proclaimed empire, he got caught doing it and has been adjudicated to be a bald-faced liar in a court of law.

Of course, we have The Big Lie, which the former Moron in Chief has used to suggest that the 2020 election was rigged against him. I’ve lost count of the number of court decisions that have declared those allegations to be false. He keeps fomenting The Big Lie and his cult followers continue to buy into it.

Moreover, the media now are reporting the lies up front and with all due vigor and professionalism. They didn’t do so when he first entered the political arena in the summer of 2015.

I am grateful that my former colleagues are doing their jobs now. May they continue to keep us informed … as they must.

national news, political news

Who’s the real RINO?

The adherents of the 45th POTUS have redefined a long-held term: Republican In Name Only.

The only way now to be classified a RINO these days is to disagree with the cult leader’s world view or criticism him for it … such as it is. You agree with the idiot, you’re good. You disagree, you become subject to censure or worse, expulsion from a once-great political party.

Sen. Mitt Romney recently declared that “absolutely not” will he vote for the presumptive GOP presidential nominee this November. He hasn’t said who will get his vote, not that I care. Let’s remember that we cast our votes in secret, so it’s no one’s damn business who votes for whom.

He’s already getting the RINO barbs flung at him by the cult followers. He earned their misplaced scorn by voting to convict their hero in the first impeachment trial held in the Senate.

In reality, though, the real RINO is the cult leader. He ran as a Republican in 2016 because it provided him the easiest path to victory. Dude actually said so!

Does he know about basic Republican doctrine? Does he care to learn about it? Does he give a crap about anything other than fattening his own wallet? No, no and no!

The term RINO these days ought to be seen as a badge of honor by real Republicans who happen to be appalled at their party’s most recent and reportedly future presidential nominee.

If only they could — or would — deny him the power he craves.

national news, political news

Wait for ‘RINO!’ epithet

Mitt Romney, the Republican junior senator from Utah, has made his choice for president clear … which is that he will “absolutely not” vote for the presumptive GOP nominee this year.

Romney famously called the former POTUS a “phony and a fraud” in 2016. Then he became the first senator to vote to convict a president from his own party when the former Liar in Chief stood trial in the first of two impeachments.

Romney says “character counts” for his vote. Thus, he cannot vote for the party’s nominee if it happens to be the idiot who stands ready to accept the Republican nomination.

The fans of the ex-POTUS are going to proclaim Romney to be a Republican In Name Only. Why? Because he isn’t loyal to the moron who once held the presidency.

Hey, Sen. Mitt Romney is much more of a Republican than the guy he opposes.

legal news, national news, political news

Now … the trials await

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The talking heads have been blabbing and blathering about the U.S. Supreme Court decision to hear the case involving presidential immunity as it regards the most recent former POTUS.

The decision likely will delay the trial that the ex-POTUS is claiming shouldn’t take place because he has some form of immunity against any of the charges brought against him.

The former Liar in Chief has four criminal trials awaiting him. The first one will occur in New York state court and will determine whether he broke campaign finance laws when he paid off an adult film star to keep quiet about a one-night tumble the two of them allegedly took before he became a candidate for president.

The trial is set to begin in March. It could end in a few weeks and, get this, the former POTUS could end up being convicted of a felony. This trial could conclude well before the November presidential election.

Then we have the three other trials. One of them involves his role in inciting the mob assault on the government; another involves his pilfering of classified documents as he left the White House; a third case is set for Fulton County, Ga., and it involves allegations that the former POTUS sought to interfere with election results.

Of the four, the first one — involving the porn star — is likely to go first.

Then the former Moron in Chief’s supporters will have to decide whether they really want to vote for a candidate who’s been convicted of a felony. Fifty percent of Republicans have made it known they cannot vote for a convicted felon.

One also has to ask why the SCOTUS chose to hear the case that had been tossed by two lower courts that ruled the former POTUS had no claim to immunity. Four justices voted to hear the case, which is all that was required. Let us hope for all our worth that the court isn’t trying to delay this matter beyond the November election.

I am going to rely on my belief in reports that Chief Justice John Roberts is concerned about the court’s public standing and will work to ensure that it decides this matter quickly. Then a trial can commence and perhaps be concluded in time for voters to make this critical decision.

The SCOTUS clearly has complicated matters unnecessarily.