Category Archives: national news

national news, political news

Awaiting the new year … and new challenges

The worst year of my life is inching closer to the back door and I will say farewell to 2023 without a trace of affection.

But … you know about the reason why, so I won’t belabor the point.

The new year is full of promise for me as (a) an adult seeking to rebuild my life, (b) a patriot who is proud of my country but recognizing it has work to do to become a ”more perfect Union,” and (c) a voter who will gladly exercise my right as a citizen of the world’s greatest nation.

I want to talk only about “b” and “c.”

My patriotism is nothing I choose to display by waving flags, or wearing lettered clothing or marching in the street. I am a quiet patriot. I pay my taxes without complaining. I generally trust my government to do right by me and my family. I do stand for the National Anthem and doff my cap if I am wearing one. I know all the social graces required.

I also use this blog as my venue for ranting on occasion when my government messes up. The Constitution allows me to do so without fear of retribution.

Now, for the “c” part of the promise that awaits. 2024 is a presidential election year. Every year, one or more of the candidates for POTUS declares it to be “the most important election of our lifetime.” The election coming up just might be it for this old-timer.

I continue to harbor enormous faith that our Constitution will weather the storm that is pummeling it. Two major parties are fighting for control of our government. Only one of them, though, is a “great” party. Republicans have ridden their party off the bridge and into the drink.

The lone great party happens to be run by Democrats. They normally would have a good story to tell about why we should return one of them, Joe Biden, to the White House. That message is going into the ears of millions of voters and out the other side … into the void.

What does that mean for the Democratic Party? It means they need to sharpen their long knives and tell the voters what is at stake. Do Americans want to retain a democratic republic or do we want to introduce a government that is run by an individual vowing to seek revenge against his foes? Against the press? Against anyone who opposes his (alleged) public policies?

The Republican Party has set the table exquisitely for Democrats to use their many talking points against them.

If I were King of the World, I would compel Democrats in power to start serving up what Republicans are offering. Many millions of us need reminding of what is at stake.

My eternal optimism tells me to believe we are better than where Republicans want to take us.

My faith is strong. So is my resolve to do all I can to spread the message.

May the new year bring us discernment to hear that message … and courage to act on it!

legal news, national news

Colo. court invokes 14th … wow!

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The Colorado Supreme Court has shown judicial courage that appears to defy precedent.

It has ruled that Donald Trump cannot run for the Republican presidential nomination in that state’s primary because he engaged in an insurrection against the U.S. government on Jan. 6, 2021.

The Constitution’s 14th Amendment says anyone who does such a thing cannot serve in public office. It doesn’t say a thing about “due process,” or “trial by jury,” or a “conviction” of a crime. The Colorado court said, in effect, that the amendment speaks clearly and loudly enough to disqualify the former POTUS from seeking the GOP nomination in Colorado.

I normally would cheer this decision and declare victory in the fight to keep Trump out of the White House. Except for this caveat.

Trump is going to appeal the ruling to the U.S. Supreme Court, which is packed with a 6-3 super-conservative majority. Three justices were nominated by Trump, so it is quite possible they will vote to overrule the Colorado decision; throw in similar votes from Justices Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas and Chief John Roberts and then, well … there you have it.

I am left to hope that a couple of those conservatives might be able to break away from their political loyalty and read the 14th Amendment carefully. Then they can assess that what Trump did on 1/6 qualifies as an incitement of the attack that ensued that day.

Yes, I know. It’s a faint hope … but it’s all I have.

national news

Graham mounts pitiful defense

Lindsey Graham has mounted what only can be called a pitiful defense of the guy he once determined was unfit for public office.

The South Carolina Republican U.S. senator has become a first-degree, top-tier suck-up to Donald J. Trump.

Trump over the weekend used Hitleresque language to describe immigrants, saying they are “poisoning” out nation’s blood. “Meet the Press” host Kristen Welker pressed Graham on what Trump said, asking him if the ex-POTUS’s rhetoric caused him concern.

Oh, no. Graham said we should watch his actions, that it doesn’t matter what Trump says. What a line of BS.

Trump’s actions, I need to remind the senator, mirror quite nicely what he has said about many individuals. So, when he says people “poison” our blood, or calls his critics “vermin,” he is charting a path straight down the steps of Hitler, Stalin, Mussolini, Putin and other despots he reportedly admires.

Pathetic.

national news

What about Trump’s mental sharpness?

All this blather and nonsense about whether President Biden has lost a step or two mentally ignores or dismisses a key question.

Which is: Have you listened to the unhinged, uncontrolled and incompetent rants of the guy Biden succeeded as POTUS?

Donald Trump is 77 years of age. He is just a tad younger than the president. Trump bloviates about the Big Lie while Joe Biden is negotiating with world leaders. Trump cannot seem to get Barack Obama off of what’s left of his mind, mistaking Biden with the 44th president fairly routinely.

The ex-POTUS clearly is declining, as some medical experts are suggesting. Yet those who are critical of President Biden on the specious argument that he’s losing mental acuity fail to recognize the same thing in what is becoming apparent in the idiot who wants to replace him.

Try to nibble on this nugget: Trump also said that under his administration, shoplifters would be subject to extrajudicial execution: “We will immediately stop all the pillaging and theft. Very simply, if you rob a store, you can fully expect to be shot as you are leaving that store.”

He said that President Biden’s policies will lead us into “World War two.” Hey, wait. We fought that one already. He said Army Gen. Mark Milley, the former chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, should be executed; that he swept all 50 states in 2020; that he defeated Obama in 2016; and that windmills are killing whales.

Dude is losing it, man. To think that some Americans actually want this lunatic in charge of the executive branch of our government is, well … simply beyond belief.

Joe Biden, national news

Good government gone … not forgotten

Do you remember when government at all levels — from Capitol Hill, to state capitols, county courthouses and city halls — worked for the people who pay their bills?

It wasn’t necessarily a government run by liberals. There once was a conservative movement that railed against government, but whose adherents didn’t stand in the way of government seeking common ground.

Those days are gone. I hope, though, that good government as I recall it isn’t extinct, like the dodo bird and the woolly mammoth.

I long for its return.

Even during the Ronald Reagan era, government could rise to the occasion. The 40th president declared at his first inaugural that “government is the problem” and the cause for the nation’s ills in the early 1980s. President Reagan, though, found a way to work with his old nemesis/drinking buddy Speaker Tip O’Neill to find a way into the light.

We have an entirely different climate today in D.C. Those damn MAGA morons have taken obstructionism to a new level, almost turning it into an art form. The progressive caucus on the other side also has dug in deeply, seeking unaffordable government actions, such as Medicare for All and forgiving every former college student’s debt.

For the purposes of this blog, though, I am going to aim my rhetorical fire at the MAGA cultists.

Because of the MAGA crowd’s ignorance, the U.S. House this year required 15 ballots to elect a speaker … and then only after he conceded so much to the MAGA morons that he made himself vulnerable to the ouster vote that booted him out of office.

This Congress has proved to be among the least productive legislative sessions in history. Why? Because the MAGA crowd insists on seeking something on which to impeach President Biden.

This isn’t good government in any possible form.

Just maybe there will be enough Americans who are as fed up as I am to dropkick the MAGA crowd to the sh***er. I don’t have a problem, per se, with conservatives as long as they understand the value of outreach on occasion to the other side of the aisle.

President Reagan understood it clearly. If only he were around today to lecture the MAGA morons on how to govern while standing firm on their principles.

national news

Hunter Biden sticks it to ’em

Most of the time I would be inclined to chastise a public figure for refusing to answer a legally issued subpoena.

Not this time. The public figure of the moment is Hunter Biden, son of President Joe Biden. A congressional committee had subpoenaed Hunter Biden, demanding that he testify in private to the committee.

Biden is having none of it. He wants instead to talk publicly to the panel, in front of the world, on the record so that everyone can hear his answers to the questions that will come.

I am forced to wonder: What is wrong with that? I can’t think of a reason why Hunter Biden would want to go behind closed doors. I can think of plenty of reasons for him to insist on public testimony.

First of all, he wants to expose House Republicans’ efforts to find any sort of crime that can connect him to his father. He has said that Daddy Biden derived “no financial benefit” from his son’s corporate work.

Second, he wants the committee to seek to explain publicly why it is conducting the hearing in the first place.

Third, Biden would take an oath to tell the whole truth. Failure to do so would result in punishment. He could take the oath, speak the truth and let the public draw its conclusions over who is telling the entire truth.

The Hunter Biden probe is headed for oblivion, in my humble view … right along with the Republicans’ impeachment inquiry aimed at finding impeachable dirt on his dad.

national news

Now it’s OK for ‘partisan impeachment’?

US House Speaker Mike Johnson is on record saying that “partisan impeachment” by Congress sets a dangerous precedent.

Oh, but wait. That was then. The here and now suggests that Johnson has changed his partisan mind. You see, the House yesterday voted along party lines to launch an impeachment inquiry to find something on which to charge President Biden.

Every Republican voted for the inquiry; every Democrat voted against it. The GOP caucus is looking for something. To date, they don’t even have a suspected “high crime and misdemeanor” to allege against Biden.

But, hey, who cares what the speaker once said? He must’ve been kidding when he called for a bipartisan impeachment. The inquiry, for sure, doesn’t necessarily guarantee an impeachment against President Biden.

My hunch tells me that if one comes, it’ll be along partisan lines.

Disgraceful.

national news

Cheney emerges as odd hero

As I watch former Congresswoman Liz Cheney make the TV rounds pitching her book, I am profoundly struck by the injustice that was done to her by members of her own Republican Party.

They castigated this conservative lawmaker from Wyoming because she had the courage to stand firm against the reprehensible conduct of a GOP president. Her own state’s party organization kicked her out. Then she got ‘primaried” in 2022 and lost to an individual who is loyal to the cult that follows the 45th POTUS.

And, again, I have to wonder why.

Cheney is not my kind of lawmaker. I disagree with her on guns, abortion, trade, taxation … you name it. However, she has demonstrated this trait above all else: She is a principled woman who stands on a guiding notion that the oath she took was to protect the Constitution, that she would be loyal only to the nation and not to one man.

And she paid the price for her principles.

It is shameful what has become of the Republican Party, where the MAGA morons label other Republicans “RINO” because they disagree with the 45th POTUS. That individual, the ex-president, is the real Republican In Name Only.

But, good grief! There is no talking sense to the cultists who have swallowed the poisonous, autocratic view of government that he offers.

national news, political news

This guy’s the worst of ’em

OK, I’ve already established that Chris Christie has emerged as my favorite Republican contender for the party’s presidential nomination in 2024.

The former New Jersey governor has shed the gloves and has donned the brass knuckles in taking on Donald J. Trump. For that I give him high marks.

Now … I want to say a few words about the worst Republican running for this nomination. Step up, Vivek Ramaswamy and take your licks.

I am unclear what his credentials are for seeking the presidency. I understand he’s a successful businessman. He has no public service in his background.

However, he is managing to become the most obnoxious, disgusting, disgraceful bunch among the candidates still standing. Good grief — and I can’t believe I am going to say this — this guy might be worse than Trump! I’ll need to avoid being struck by a lightning bolt.

Ramaswamy is brusque, loud, abrasive and mostly incoherent in his rants. What in the world is this guy’s hallmark, his defining issue?

He has managed to make a complete ass of himself during most of the four GOP joint appearances.

Ramaswamy won’t win the nomination. Perhaps he’s vying for a spot on a ticket led by — gulp! — I can’t say his name any longer.

Believe me when I say this: I am trying to give the remaining GOP candidates a careful examination. I detest Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, so he’s out. Meanwhile, former South Carolina Gov. and former U.N. ambassador Nikki Haley is a possibility; she’s certainly smarter than Ramaswamy, who insulted her intelligence the other evening.

My interest in the Republican field is predicated somewhat on the bizarre notion — which I hope doesn’t materialize — that President Biden will not be the Democratic nominee for president.

So, there you have it. Chris Christie is my GOP favorite; Vivek Ramaswamy is the GOP pits.

And the frontrunner? Enough about who former secretary of state Rex Tillerson once called a “fu**ing moron.”