Category Archives: national news

national news

On the verge of letting go

Just to be clear, the headline on top of this post doesn’t mean I am going to leave this world. I intend to stick around.

I am about to “let go” of efforts to shame Donald Trump with harsh rhetoric. I have found that my vocabulary isn’t descriptive enough to capture the attention of the POTUS, nor that of his closest aides and fans who live near in the heart of Trump Country.

Instead, I believe I shoudl rely on the moxie and the smarts of a former politician. Ex-New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie – a former Trump ally — recently noted that it’s foolish to pile onto a politician who is committing political suicide. Christie asserts that Trump is committing suicide at thi moment. Therefore, Christie said, it’s good to let the POTUS continue to inflict the wounds that eventually could spell the end of the nimrod’s life as a politician.

It is clear as the deep blue sky that Trump isn’t as sharp as the guy who burst onto the political scene in 2015. Listen to his public comments then and compare them to what he says now. In the old days he at least was able to string sentences together. Today? What flies out of his overfed yapper is a colletion of non-starters and at times is utter and absolute jibberish. Criticism of this guy now is useless. He doesn’t care. He doesn’t understand why so many of us are horrified by the nonsensse that poisons the air we breathe.

He is dying politically. I find no need to join the amen chorus of critics. I’ll be ready to weigh in when he goes way beyond the pale. The guy is a has-been.

national news

Time to wish for a brighter future

Donald J. Trump has worn this old man out. I am pooped, man. All the negativity I can muster has failed the move any needle in determining whether POTUS 47 has heard me, let alone taken any steps to follow the advice I have laid out for him.

So … with that as a predicate, I am announcing a new tactic in my ongoing campaign to get through the POTUS’s thick, vacuous skull. I am going to post what I wish in a future president of the United States.

You probably can guess that one of my goals will be seek a kinder, gentler administration. This bullying, lying, hostile approach hasn’t worked. It hasn’t produced a form of governance that works for the nation. It hasn’t given this blogger an opening through which I can appeal to whatever semblance that might exist within what passes for a heart in the POTUS.

I want a president who knows how to govern. I want someone who is faithful to the sacred oath he or she will take on inauguration. I want a president who understands working with a team around him or her. I want a president who will listen and heed dissent. For that matter, I want a president who will honor dissent as an essential element of how to govern with the limitations of a democratic republic. I want to elect someone who won’t demonize critics as “the enemy within.”

Over the course of next several months I intend to touch on those topics. I intend to relate the future blog topics to probable idiocy we will see from Trump. I won’t spend much energy criticism the incumbent,  but will look forward to what I hope the future brings that will address those concerns of the moment.

I hope you’ll join me. See ya down the road.

national news

Go slow, Democrats, when you take control

I am now going to offer a bit of advice to congressional Democrats who appear poised to take control of the legislative branch of government once we count the ballots cast in the 2026 midterm election.

I want to be simple and crystal clear, so please pay attention. Do not spike the proverbial football once it becomes clear that the power is shifting from Republican to Democratic control. You can win with grace and class, Democrats, just as you have been forced to lose with it since the Age of Trump grabbed control of the agenda.

It is tempting, I reckon, to show the GOP that it no longer is in charge. How many times in recent years have Republicans done so in showing Democrats that the Rs control the agenda? Too many to count.

It’s easy, I suppose, to stick it in the Rs’ ear. It would be counterproductive. I have yearned for a return to civility in Congress. The House Democratic leader, Hakeem Jeffries of New York, will take the speaker’s gavel next January and then, presumably, will get to work. My hope for the new speaker will be that he doesn’t floorboard the agenda, that he takes a reasoned approach to legislating.

OK, I know what you might be thinking: This blogger has called for the impeachment of Trump. I still believe the POTUS has committed multiple impeachable offenses. I want the new majority to ensure it has an ironclad case before filing those impeachment articles. No need to rush.

A new day is likely to dawn. Let us welcome it with solemnity.

national news

We will survive this crisis

Barack H. Obama is being hailed in many quarters these days as a wise man, a title he was largedly denied while he served for two mostly successful terms as president of the United States.

But here he is today, being hailed by progressives as standing among the greatest of the 47 men who have held the high office. Forgive me, but I believe some folks are getting ahead of themselves. History isn’t done drafting how Obama will stand among the Americans who have served as president.

He did, though, offer a bit of wisdom to Jenna Bush Hager, daughter of the man he succeeded as president. Hager interviewed Obama on the current crisis that threatens to engulf our political system. Obama said, simply, that we have been through many crises already and have managed “to come out of them better” and stronger.

I intend to cling tightly to that view. I believe that’s the case.

We fought a civil war that killed about 600,000 Americans. We have fought two world wars against tyrants who sought control of the planet through the use of force. We have survived a great depression that saw fortunes vanish in an instant, where the once-wealthy were left with nothing on Earth. Three presidents have been impeached. A fourth president resigned from office to avoid a fourth impeachment. Americans have marched in the streets to protest war, economic policy and any assortment of decisions made on high.

We have at this moment a tinhorn charlatan, a fraud, a con man seeking to corrupt the system of government beyond anything we recognize. And now many Amerians are worried that he no longer has the mental capacity to make rational decisions.

Are we going to fall apart and crumble? No! The founders must have expected some form of what is takiing place, and crafted a Constitution built to withstand the pressure it is feeling.

The founders knew what they were building. I believe, as does President Obama, that we’re going to survive.

national news

Clearing the air on Trump

Donald Trump is the least fit man ever to occupy the office of president of the United States.

There, I have just repeated a mantra I have been declaring on this blog since the moment it became clear that Trump was considering a run for the nation’s highest elected office.

However, I now am going to state what hasn’t been repeated … which is that I and many other critics take no joy in blasting the POTUS over the way he has conducted himself. I now will clear the air.

When President Bush invited all the living former POTUSes to the White House to honor his successor, President-elect Barack Obama, he did so with grace and dignity. Bush turned to Obama and said that despite deep political differences, he wanted Obama to succeed. He wished him well, as did all the former presidents.

This is worth mentioning because of the criticism that has been tossed at the Trump foes over the course of his time as POTUS. These “never Trumpers” don’t “hate America.” They don’t want the nation to fail. They don’t seek to destroy this nation’s standing as the lone military superpower.

They don’t criticize Trump with gleams in their eyes and warm feelings in their tummies.

They are angry with Trump. They dislike the nation denigrating itself by allowing the president to make a fool of himself on the world stage. They understand that when the president criticizes our allies, or salutes dictators for their strength he is speaking ostensibly on behalf of 300-plus million Americans. This pluralistic society of ours cannot stand in synchronized lockstep with a man who states his desire to wipe a nation off the face of the Earth … which is what Trump has done with Iran.

No one with an ounce of conscience should support such a notion. I possess more than an ounce of it, so I am adamantly opposed to the idea of wiping a civilization off the planet.

I oppose Trump not because I detest him personally. I do so because I love my country. I want us to succeed. I actually want Trump to succeed. However, it is abundantly clear that POTUS 47 lacks the thread of compassion to do the right thing for the nation he was chosen to lead.

I take no joy in acknowledging that truth.

national news

Waiting for ‘restoration’

Joe Biden’s presidency is going to be measured favorably, I believe, by those who earn a living making such judgments. President Biden’s single term likely won’t be held up against the likes of those who won re-election, but a single word does come to mind when I ponder Biden’s tenure in the Oval Office.

The term is “restorative.” Biden was able during his four years in office to restore much of what we came to expect in our head of state, head of government and commander in chief. Biden respects and honors the trappings of the office. He inherited an office in 2021 that had been all but ruined by the term of Donald J. Trump.

I want another restorative presidency to take hold in the 2028 election. Trump will be gone … thankfully.

One of the key tasks of the next president will be to return the decorum and dignity that the U.S. presidency deserves. Such a restoration can come from any one of the individuals in both parties who will seek the office in a couple of years. It might be that Joe Biden, elected to the U.S. Senate in 1972, is the godfather of D.C. decorum. He has been at or near the center of power for more than five decades.

The good news of the 2028 election includes he guarantee that Donald Trump will be gone. The bad news will be that the MAGA movement he created will take some to disappear. I sense along with others that the MAGA cabal is beginning to fall apart. I have noted on this blog many times that America doesn’t need to be “made great again.” The U.S. of A. has been great all along.

May the next president of the United States restore the dignity Americans deserve in their highest elected office. And may the next president represent the very best of us, not the worst of us.

national news

GOP silence speaks volumes

Republicans’ stone-cold silence in response to Donald Trump’s lies continues to boggle my noggin … such as what he said the other day about the potential end to the Iran war.

You cannot make this stuff up!

He started the war with Iran. Trump is now working to end it. If he succeeds and the Iranians stop firing back at us and Israel, he’ll take credit for ending that war. Yes? Of course he will!

But then he said the other day that no previous president in U.S. history has ended a war. He has ended eight of ’em, or so he said. Hold on a second, Mr. Ignoramus in Chief.

In 1941, we were drawn into World War II when the Japanese bombed our fleet in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. President Roosevelt asked Congress the next day to declare war against Japan, which it did. Then the Nazi Germans declared war on us and we responded by declaring war on them.

Nearly four years later, FDR died of a stroke, up stepped Vice President Harry Truman to take over as commander in chief. On May 7, 1945, President Truman accepted Germany’s unconditional surrender. WWII in Europe ended … on Truman’s watch. Give ’em Hell Harry wasn’t done. We dropped two A-bombs on Japan in August 1945. The Japanese surrendered on Aug. 14 and on Sept. 2, 1945, Japanese military leaders signed the surrender documents aboard the battleship U.S.S. Missouri in Tokyo Bay.

I learned of that historical sequence when I was a little boy.

He keeps blathering about his “landslide” election as POTUS; it was nothing of the sort. How he won more Electoral College votes than any POTUS since President Reagan; another provable lie.

And through all of this, the Republican conference in Congress sits silently on its hands, saying nothing to correct the record.

These GOP officials disgrace themselves, the government they are elected to run and the once-great political party they supposedly represent.

legal news, national news

I’ll say it now: Trump is certifiably insane!

With this blog post I am venturing tenderly onto a tree limb that is getting fuller by the hour with individuals who have said what I am going to declare.

Donald John Trump is insane! He may be certifiably so. He has gone mad. Bonkers,

I mean, can you name a president of the United States who ever has said he wanted to wipe a civilization off the face of the Earth? Can anyone find a historical reference to such utter madness? Trump said that if Iran doesn’t comply with his demands to end the war that Trump launched against Tehran that he would annihilate the population. They would be gone. All dead.

That is genocide in its rawest form, kids. And Trump has declared that he would be willing to drop the bombs to do the job.

We have established that the POTUS has made the declaration. That is an unlawful order if one has ever existed. No flag officer worth his or her honor would follow such an order. But you get my drift, yes? Of course you do!

Donald Trump need not say another word for the rest of his miserable life. He has established clearly his intention as commander in chief. He has gone ’round the bend!

Now comes the real hard part. Invoking the 25th Amendment to the Constitution that enables Trump to be removed from office. Such an act requires Republicans to join their Democratic colleagues in moving such an act forward. Based on what we all have witnessed, there aren’t enough GOP members of Congress or members of the Cabinet to say that “enough is enough!”

I feel better now that I’ve gotten it off my chest. I take no pleasure in joining the growing chorus. But, dammit! … the guy is beyond redemption.

national news, Uncategorized

Hit the road, congressman Swallwell

Eric Swallwell looked to many Democratic partisans like a sort of political hero. Then the sh** hit the fan!

Swallwell ended his campaign for California governor and then today announced he intends to resign from Congress. What happened to this one-time Golden Boy? He got caught messing around with several women other than his wife. One of the “other women” reportedly is a member of his House staff.

So, just like that he’s gone from hero to zero. Good riddance, jerk!

I would give him the benefit of the doubt except that this pattern follows too closely the pattens set by other politicians caught doing similar misdeeds.

I would like to give this guy the benefit of the doubt. But it’s too hard to ignore the allegations leveled by these victims. Swallwell, considered a leading candidate for California government, calls the allegations “false.” Then he acknowledged making the mistakes too many married men make. It’s between “me and my wife.”

Give me a break.

I am shaking my noggin. This clown simply should just disappear into the darkest corners of any room he happens to find.

national news

Playtime for POTUS about to end

From my seat in Flyover Country, it looks as though Donald Trump’s recess is about to end and we’ll be returning soon to the very issues that are driving in him out of his vacuous skull.

We’ve had our attention ripped away by the Artemis II mission. Major League Baseball began its season. The NBA playoffs have begun. Rory McIlroy has just won his second straight Masters green jacket.

But wait. We have those Epstein files lurking. The Iran war is still blazing. Inflation is out of control. The POTUS makes less sense every time he opens his yapper.

What’s next? Beats the stuffing out of me. I am going to enjoy watching Donald Trump writhe and wriggle as he seeks an escape strategy from the myriad crises are gripping the office.

I have enjoyed the break from the daily dosage of D.C. rubbish. Gotta get back, I reckon, to paying attention to the issues that threaten our democracy. I remain confident our Constitution will withstand this assault.

However, I am far less comfortable making that assertion.