Category Archives: national news

national news

RINO gets re-defined

An amazing transformation has occurred within the American political dictionary over the past, oh, six year or so.

The term RINO has taken on a new meaning, one that has nothing to do with what I understand the acronym was created to symbolize.

RINO is shorthand for Republican In Name Only. I long have understood the term as one that describes someone who talks a good Republican game, but who veers far from normal GOP orthodoxy with his or her votes or public policy decisions.

These days? It is used as an epithet for anyone who opposes the presence of Donald John Trump on the political stage. Here’s where the irony gets so rich you damn near choke on it: Of all the prominent Republicans in action today, Trump himself is the personification of a RINO.

He once said that abortion should be legal, then he changed his mind. He has disparaged the men and women who serve in the military. Trump has cozied up to dictators such as, let’s see, former KGB spy Vladimir Putin, Marxist North Korean thug Kim Jong Un. He trashes our intelligence network. Trump wants to yank the United States out of NATO. He applauded Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. During his term as president, the nation rang up the largest debt in history.

Do you get where I’m going here?

And yet those who adhere to Trumpism contend that those who don’t are the RINOs of this world.

Trump has redefined Republicanism, turning into something barely recognizable to real Republicans.

Therefore, he has reshaped the American political glossary, turning it into … damn, I don’t know what to call it.

Go figure.

national news

What am I missing?

What in the world am I not getting as I watch the MAGA Moron Caucus within the House Republican Party clear the decks for an impeachment inquiry into President Biden?

Four years ago, the House GOP caucus resisted impeaching Donald Trump despite irrefutable evidence he had violated the U.S. Constitution by asking a foreign head of state for a political favor in exchange for weapons to defend itself against an aggressor nation. The House impeached Trump, but he avoided conviction in the Senate.

Then came the assault on the Capitol Building that Trump provoked. It was all done in broad daylight. The House impeached him a second time over the objections of MAGA morons. Again, Trump escaped conviction.

Here we are now. The GOP caucus is full of revenge, having taken back control of the House. They want an impeachment now. The charges? The high crimes and misdemeanors?

Hmm. We don’t know. They haven’t spelled anything out. Why not? Because — in my view — there is nothing to spell out! They’re going to look for “widespread corruption.” They’ll seek to find something the president did to qualify as an impeachable offense.

Absent any actionable evidence, though, the MAGA loudmouths keep blathering about impeaching Joe Biden. They want his head on a proverbial platter … no matter what!

They are hectoring Speaker Kevin McCarthy into launching an impeachment inquiry, even without a vote in the House — which well could fail were it to be taken. McCarthy is caving to the MAGA crowd, to which he likely owes the speakership.

This is a disgraceful display of vengeance politics … at its worst!

national news

So long, Mitt; I’ll miss you

Mitt Romney has decided to call it a career, announcing today he won’t seek re-election to another term in the U.S. Senate in 2024.

What am I supposed to think about that? Here’s what is crossing my mind at the moment.

The Utah Republican did not get my vote for president when he ran in 2012 against President Obama. Indeed, I didn’t much care for him when he sought to undo the good things Obama accomplished in his first term in office.

Then along came Donald Trump, the political party hijacker who commandeered the Republican Party and turned into something unrecognizable. Romney resisted Trump’s tug on the party and then called him out in 2016, referring to Trump as a “phony” and a “fraud.” Mitt Romney did not endear himself to the MAGA faithful who continue to hang onto Trump’s every dimwitted pronouncement.

Which leads to me to believe that Romney knew what stood before him in a 2024 re-election campaign … that the Trump acolytes would be targeting Romney for defeat.

Sen. Romney represents the “establishment” wing of the GOP, which is about to lose an articulate champion for what is left of a once-great political party.

national news

‘The Mayor’ has fallen farthest

It was striking to me as I watched the nation commemorate the 22nd year since the 9/11 attacks that one man was missing from all the ceremonies we saw.

At Ground Zero. At the Pentagon. At the field in Shanksville, Pa. Dignitaries noted the tragedy that befell the nation. They saluted the first responders. The spoke to the unity that brought Americans of all political stripes together.

Who was missing from all of this? The man we once hailed as “America’s Mayor,” Rudolph Giuliani has become persona non grata.

The more I think about it, the more I am left to conclude that no political figure has fallen farther and more dramatically than Giuliani in the 22 years since he burst on the American political scene simply by being a man of strength and dignity trying to rally New York City from the wreckage brought by the terrorists.

He would become Time’s Person of the Year in 2001 … and with great reason. He stood like a colossus over rubble where the Twin Towers once stood. Americans looked to him to provide strength that would feed the rest of us.

America’s Mayor delivered … in spades.

Now, though, he has become a ridiculous caricature of himself. He stands with a former POTUS who lost the 2020 election and proclaims that he actually won it. Giuliani has been indicted by federal and state grand juries. He is in danger of losing his law license.

Do I pity him? Do I lament his fall from the nation’s grace? Not for a second. The man made his choice willingly and I’ll presume with a clear head.

Given all the chaos that he engenders these days it would be the depth of folly for him to appear publicly to take part in events designed to remember the horrendous event that handed him the opportunity to stand tall.

America’s Mayor has become America’s Joke.

national news

MAGA cabal calls the shots

Kevin McCarthy made it official: He has instructed the relevant U.S. House of Representatives committee chairs to rev up an inquiry into whether to impeach President Biden.

Which begs this question: Is there a clearer demonstration than this of just who is calling the shots within the People’s House? It ain’t the speaker of the body, but rather it’s the MAGA moron cabal that forced him to act in this irresponsible manner.

Speaker McCarthy is in charge by the slimmest of margins in the House. He owes the speakership to the concessions he made to the MAGA cabal that wants this impeachment inquiry.

What are the charges? What high crime and misdemeanor has the president allegedly committed? Where will this inquiry go and how long will it last?

The MAGA morons want it to go through the next election cycle, keeping the heat on the president for as long as humanly possible.

We are about to witness a staggering abuse of power within the House of Representatives that could rival any such abuses we already have witnessed.

And why? For what reason? I believe I know.

It’s revenge for the twin impeachments leveled against Donald Trump … and it is disgraceful.

national news

No impeachment … OK?

Joe Biden doesn’t deserve to be impeached by the U.S. House of Representatives. If you don’t believe me, then you ought to heed the warnings of some prominent congressional conservatives.

The president is being targeted by the MAGA caucus of the House for unspecified “high crimes and misdemeanors.” What they are must be anyone’s guess.

But, by golly, the MAGA morons are proceeding with an impeachment inquiry, come hell or high water. One of them happens to be my North Texas congressman, freshman Keith Self of McKinney. Good grief, dude. Get a fu**ing grip!

Many conservatives, though, say that impeachment is a non-starter. They include Sens. Mitt Romney of Utah, Jerry Moran of Kansas, Mike Lee of Utah, and Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky.

We all know what is driving this idiotic endeavor. It’s revenge against House Democrats who spearheaded two impeachments against a Republican who served as POTUS. That’s it!

Do we have a crime? Is there anything President Biden has done to deserve impeachment? Not … a … damn … thing!

national news

Time doesn’t heal this pain

They say that “time heals” damn near all emotional pain. I’m not sure about that.

We are commemorating the 9/11 attack on our nation today. Twenty-two years ago, Islamic terrorists hijacked jetliners and flew them into the World Trade Center’s towers, into the Pentagon and then — after fighting with the passengers aboard a fourth jetliner — crashed into a field in Shanksville, Pa.

All the times I have watched the horrendous video of that day, witnessing all the carnage, the panic and chaos and I still well up when I gaze on what happened that day.

Indeed, it seems to worsen with time, not the reverse.

The event has spurred me to thank firefighters and police officers when I see them going about their usual day. I have done the same to ambulance drivers, EMTs and paramedics. They all represent a segment of our society that rushed toward the danger when it exploded in front of us on 9/11.

We’ll never forget that horrendous day … and may it always bring back the pain we felt in the moment.

national news

Polling data = real-time snapshot

All the polling data we are seeing these days showing a neck-and-neck race between President Joe Biden and the man he defeated in 2020 remind me of historical precedent.

Which is to say that today’s polling data don’t mean squat this far out from an upcoming election.

Yes, I have commented on my frustration that Donald Trump even can collect 35 to 40% of the electorate’s favor, given all he has said, done and demonstrated since he became a politician in 2015.

But I want to revisit some recent presidential polling history to remind you of how volatile these polls can become.

Remember that public opinion polls are merely a real-time snapshot of what is on people’s minds. Opinions change.

Prior to the 1984 election, Walter Mondale was seen as a legitimate challenger to President Reagan. The president was re-elected with an 18% margin and a 49-state Electoral College wipeout. In 1992, Ross Perot actually led President George H.W. Bush and former Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton. Perot finished with 19% of the vote and zero Electoral College votes, while Bill Clinton breezed to election.

Four years later, Sen. Bob Dole was neck-and-neck with the president, but then lost decisively. In 2008, Sen. John McCain was seen as a possible winner against Sen. Barack Obama; it didn’t happen. Obama was in danger four years later of losing to Mitt Romney; he won comfortably.

Today’s polling data mean next to nothing. Trump is going on trial on at least two of the indictments leveled against him prior to the GOP primary season. Americans are going to get a snootful from courtrooms about the way he conducted himself during his time in office and, most damaging, after he lost the 2020 election.

I am going to stand squarely on my view that Donald Trump is not electable in 2024. Period. He has no vision for the future, other than telling us how he intends to exact revenge on his foes. His unfitness for public office cannot be stated any more starkly than that.

The polling data will be there to remind us … in real time.

crime news, legal news, national news

FBI says ‘no insurrection’? Hmm …

I have been schooled by a critic of this blog who tells me the FBI can find no evidence of an “organized plot” to overturn the 2020 presidential election result.

This, for instance, comes from the Daily Beast: Over 570 alleged rioters have been arrested since the storming of the U.S. Capitol in January—but the FBI has reportedly found little evidence that the riot was an organized plot to overturn Donald Trump’s election defeat.

All righty. I will accept that. I must have been looking the other way when the FBI made that determination. I never have declared myself to be all-knowing all the time.

But … what does any of that do to the case leveled against Donald Trump? In my mind? Not much.

The grand jury that examined the 1/6 assault on our government did not cite “insurrection” as a specific charge against Trump. It speaks to obstruction of justice and other assorted crimes allegedly attributable to the ex-POTUS.

I am going to stand with the findings — as I have understood them — of special counsel Jack Smith’s team that Trump impeded efforts to quell the violence that day.

Again, from the Daily Beast: Reuters reports that the FBI has so far found scant evidence to suggest that the riot was centrally coordinated by far-right groups, the former president himself, or his close allies. 

OK, then. However, no one can deny the attack occurred. Nor can anyone deny that Trump delivered a speech that morning on the Ellipse that stirred a lot of individuals up. Many of them were video- and audio-recorded saying they were acting at Trump’s behest, which he delivered to them on the Ellipse. Is that a “centrally coordinated” event? Not in the strict sense of the terminology.

However, he could have stopped it. He could have issued a statement urging the mob to go home. He could have taken to Twitter to issue that call. He didn’t do anything of the sort. He watched it unfold from the White House.

And did nothing!

Am I a bit wiser now about the FBI’s view of what happened? Sure I am. I also remain convinced that Donald Trump needs to be held accountable for his role in what transpired on that horrible day.

national news

Foundations take a stand for democracy

This kind of thing doesn’t happen every day, but it has and the fate of democracy in the United States well might benefit greatly from this statement.

Six presidential foundations have issued a statement calling for a revitalization of democratic principles ahead of the 2024 presidential campaign. The statement came initially from the George W. Bush Presidential Center in Dallas; cosigners are the LBJ Foundation in Austin, the Obama Foundation in Chicago, the George and Barbara Bush Foundation in College Station and the John F. Kennedy Center and Library in Boston.

The statement didn’t name names, but it didn’t need to. We all know who is the object of the statement’s warning … it would Donald J. Trump and his fixation with autocracy.

“As a diverse nation of people with different backgrounds and beliefs, democracy holds us together,” the groups said. “We are a country rooted in the rule of law, where the protection of the rights of all people is paramount. At the same time, we live among our fellow citizens, underscoring the importance of compassion, tolerance, pluralism, and respect for others.”

Presidential foundations call for return to democratic values ahead of 2024 elections (ketr.org)

Indeed, our nation’s founders launched a revolution against a government that sought to subjugate colonial residents to the iron fist of autocratic rule. What emerged from that conflict in the 18th century was a nation founded on the notion that peaceful dissent is part of our governing fabric.

Let us never lose sight of what our founders intended.