Category Archives: political news

national news, political news

Trump = racism, cruelty

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Donald J. Trump’s penchant for racist and cruel rhetoric was on full display this week and as usual, it was an ugly sight to see and an even uglier message to hear.

The president of the United States of America took particular aim at a member of Congress. She is Ilhan Omar, a Minnesota Democrat who emigrated to the United States from Somalia when she was a girl. She became a naturalized American and then a few years ago decided to delve into public service by running for a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives.

Trump has called her garbage. He labels her place of birth a “shithole country.” He wants her deported. He said Somalia is known only for corruption, violence, disease.

Trump’s moronic rant cannot be allowed to stand. Yet his Republican allies in Congress sit on their hands, keep their lips zipped tight and let the POTUS hurl epithets at a woman who chose to move to the Land of Opportunity to escape the dangerous surroundings of the land where she was born.

I’ll never understand why the GOP caucus allows this fecal-brained idiot continue to speak the way he does about one of their colleagues. Nor will I ever grasp why the MAGA cultists guffaw out loud at the tasteless rhetoric that flows freely from the mouth of their exalted leader.

I am not qualified to judge the job Rep. Omar does for her constituents. I do know that she gets re-elected to office every two years, which tells me that the residents of her district think she’s doing well for them. About all I know about Omar is that she is a stern critic of Donald Trump.

However, I am fully qualified to declare that an elected member of Congress, a citizen of this great land, deserves to be treated with respect … even from the man with whom she has serious disagreements.

Omar won’t get it from the man masquerading as president of the United States and it is to his everlasting shame.

crime news, military news, national news, political news

Bombing boats: self-defeating ‘strategy’

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A whole lot of top U.S. military brass is weighing in on Donald Trump’s decision to order missile strikes on speed boats that allegedly are carrying lethal drugs into the United States of America.

You know the drill. We have sent an aircraft carrier strike force into the Caribbean Sea to look for boats that the Trump administration says are loaded with fentanyl. They’re killing people at sea, basing their actions on the aim of protecting U.S. citizens against the drug horror that allegedly is coming to this country from the speed boats.

The brass is saying: What a minute. Let’s rethink this nonsense!

What I am hearing is that retired general-grade officers are saying the better strategy is to board the boats, seize what they’re carrying, take the operators into custody and then interrogate them to get information on the drug networks for which they are working.

But … no-o-o-o-o! Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth want to shoot first and ask questions later. What they are doing is destroying evidence they could use to prosecute the drug runners!

We have this ridiculous strategy that also has encountered allegations that the administration is committing a war crime by launching these “double-tap” air strikes to kill survivors of the initial missile strikes against the speed boats. And, get this: Donald Trump — who claimed to have bone spurs to avoid service in the Vietnam War — is talking openly about sending U.S. troops into Venezuela to launch a ground combat operation to root out the drug dealers. What the hell … ?

This fraudster in chief is out of ever-lovin’ control!

national news, political news

The longer he stays …

Gotta make an admission … which is that the longer we have to endure Donald Trump’s ignorant idiocy the more I miss traditional Republicans, the men and women who stood for principles they hold dear.

I have admitted on this blog that for as long as I have voted for president, dating back to 1972, I have voted for Democratic nominees. It hasn’t been a partisan thing but rather based on the candidates’ philosophies and those intangibles we all seek in the individuals we choose to lead our nation.

I came close to flipping, in 1976. I had to hold my breath just a bit to vote for Jimmy Carter. I thought about casting a vote for President Gerald Ford. My feelings for President Ford were more or less based on one of those intangibles. I just liked the man.

Now I am yearning for someone who cares about principle and who acts on some moral authority he or she can claim. That includes Republicans!

We don’t have a principled man in the White House. We have an immoral/amoral moron. He sees every single political relationship he has forged as a transactional event, which he can parlay into something that benefits him. He has demonstrated racist qualities time and again. He is ignorant of the document he was supposed to protect and defend. Trump doesn’t appreciate that dissent not only should be welcomed, but it is guaranteed in the Constitution’s First Amendment.

Trump is a Republican In Name Only. The RINO in chief doesn’t adhere to traditional GOP principles. The Party of Lincoln, which welcomed political diversity, has been shoved aside. The party of Trump is something quite different … and despicable.

If only the real Republicans who are left standing in the political arena could find the backbone to stand up to this fraudster. If only …

political news, State news

This could be the guy

All right, boys and girls, I want to extol the virtues of a young man I find highly attractive as a candidate for public office, but I will stop far short of predicting he will attain that office in 2026.

Democratic state Rep. James Talarico of Austin is running for the U.S. Senate held by John Cornyn, the San Antonio Republican who now is bragging about how closely he works with the nation’s felon in chief, Donald Trump.

Where to begin about Talarico? I will start with his history as a Presbyterian seminarian. He is a former school teacher. He detests Christian nationalism, calling it “a cancer on our religion.” Talarico has called Christian nationalism “the worship of power — social power, economic power, political power, in the name of Christ” and has accused Christian nationalists of turning Jesus “into a gun-toting, gay-bashing, science-denying, money-loving, fear-mongering fascist”, arguing that it is “incumbent on all Christians to confront it and denounce it” in a 2023 guest sermon that has more than 1 million views on YouTube..

Talarico is being hailed by Democrats as a potential party rescuer. It remains to be seen, of course, whether he will collect enough stroke to take office in January 2027.

But here is what makes him so attractive to voters such as me. He doesn’t hide his faith. He touts it proudly, but he also understands that we should practice our faith in houses of worship, not shove it down the throats of every Texan … even those who do not worship a deity.

He opposes Republican efforts to display the Ten Commandments in public places, such as county courthouses and public schools. He calls such displays “un-Christian” and “un-American.” Talarico understands what should be obvious to anyone who reads the Constitution, that the founders created a secular nation and they wrote zero references to Christianity or Jesus Christ in the nation’s governing document.

Will this young man knock the veteran pol out of office? I am going to hope it happens.

national news, political news

World has gone mad!

There can be no getting around what I believe is obvious, which is that our world has gone mad, nuts, bonkers, into the loony bin … and beyond.

I’m going to harken to the 2024 presidential election in which a tiny plurality of Americans decided to ignore the obvious warning signs about the Republican Party nominee for president and elected this guy to a second term in the White House.

Yep. Donald Trump told us what was in store if we elected him. He would be the “retribution” for the MAGA cult and that he would all by himself fix what he said was wrong with the greatest nation on Earth. My goodness! The message could not possibly have been clearer!

He took office on Jan. 20, 2025 and commenced to do precisely what he said he would do. And no one seemed to care! OK, many of us did care. We have been raising holy hell ever since the end of the ’24 campaign. But those in power have blown it off.

It’s getting worse by the day. I read Trump’s “Thanksgiving message” and wanted to puke onto my lap. He hurled racial slurs, insults, epithets and utter rubbish at his opponents. Damn near every word that poured forth from his overfed pie hole was a lie.

Now there appears to be significant evidence of cognitive decline. He’s falling asleep in Oval Office meetings. Try reading transcripts of statements he makes and if you can discern a cogent message out of them, be sure to broadcast it loudly and clearly because no one has been able to make a shred of sense of what this guy is saying.

I’ll say it again, with gusto … which is that we have gone ’round the bend, kids. It is imperative that we collect ourselves and get busy fixing what is fundamentally wrong with our republic.

political news

This ‘ticket’ deserves an early look

As a general rule I don’t think one bit about potential presidential tickets this early in an election season, but I am going to make an exception today.

I keep seeing social media memes that suggest a potential Democratic ticket comprising California Gov. Gavin Newsom and Arizona Sen. Mark Kelly might be in the making. I’ll make this admission, which is that such a notion sounds pretty appealing to me. I happen to think a lot about both men.

I hear that Newsom has his foes in California, as he governs the state in a kind of spotty fashion. He has emerged as an articulate foe of Donald Trump … who won’t be on the 2028 GOP ballot. He has crafted a humor campaign against the Republicans that pokes fun at Democrats, drawing bipartisan laughter.

I should state here that the chatter has Newsom running for POTUS, Kelly for VPOTUS.

I’ll admit, too, that of the pair Kelly has emerged as the bigger media star. Trump has singled Kelly out as a seditionist, claiming he should face the death penalty if convicted of a “crime” that involves him declaring that military personnel must not obey “an unlawful order.”

It’s particularly laughable that Kelly would be targeted in this manner. The senator graduated from the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy, served for 25 years in the Navy, flew 39 combat missions in Iraq, flew four times aboard space shuttles and has been elected to the U.S. Senate. The man has led a full life … all of it committed to public service.

I won’t commit to undying devotion to this Democratic tandem. Kelly has to win re-electiion to the Senate next year, which I believe he will do. He has lashed out articulately against Trump’s foolishness. As for Newsom, well, who knows if some skeletons emerge from the governor’s closet?

It’s still early and I am willing to suggest there will be a lot of Democrats — and Republicans — seeking the keys to the White House in 2028.

national news, political news

Real reason for MTG’s departure?

As a rule, I dislike being called a cynic, but I have to take issue with Marjorie Taylor Greene’s stated reason for quitting Congress after five turbulent years representing a rural NW Georgia district.

She entered the House after the 2020 election with both guns blazing. She was a proud MAGA Republican dedicated to furthering the agenda favored by her fella … Donald Trump. She has fallen out of favor with the Big Man, who recently called her a “traitor” because she had the gumption to stand up for the victims of Jeffrey Epstein’s shenanigans. MTG sought to make peace in recent weeks by declaring she no longer would engage in the vitriol that became part of her brand. Well, I believe the congresswoman was about to find out that payback is a serious bitch! I believe the Republican Party is going to have its genitals handed to it after the 2026 midterm election and Greene, who always has struck me as a politician more dialed into the limelight than actual governing, was about to be shoved to the back shelf. Democrats who often were the victims of her barbs would not take kindly to her remaining among their midst were they to retake the majority in January 2027. Therein, I believe, lies the real reason for MTG’s stunning departure from Congress. She alluded briefly to the GOP’s immediate future in her statement, declaring that she does not want to subject her family to the Trumpian onslaught in a bitter GOP primary only to see the Republicans “lose the election.” I will say further that I am glad to know that MTG has thought better of her flame-throwing rhetoric and has vowed to take a more civil tone in discussing policy differences with Democrats. I salute her for standing by her principles … yes, even those with which I disagree. Marjorie Taylor Greene also knows that memories can last seemingly forever in Washington. Reality is a force with which not everyone can reckon.
crime news, national news, political news

Closer to the tipping point?

Every day, it seems, we appear to be creeping closer to the tipping point in which Donald J. Trump says something that will spell the end of his failed presidency.

He crossed another huge line this week by saying out loud and in public that six Democratic members of Congress are guilty of sedition, a crime that carries a punishment of death. That’s right. The POTUS has declared that six opposing members of Congress should be executed for speaking out against the orders that Trump is issuing.

What in the world is happening to this nation? Why are we allowing this moron to get away with these sorts of idiotic pronouncements? Here’s the worst of it: Not even a president of the United States who calls for the execution of political opposition could be convicted by a Senate controlled by members of his own political party … because they are in tacit agreement with this dipshit!

Public opinon polling suggests that Trump’s support among Americans is collapsing as he continues to scarf up more power for the executive branch. The polls aren’t “fake,” as Trump contends. They are real and they suggest that Trump’s MAGA base is shrinking before our eyes. When the likes of Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, D-Ga., turn on Trump then you know you are witnessing a sea change.

Suppose there was a chance to invoke the 25th Amendment to the Constitution, which contains a clause about removing the president who is deemed incompetent. Does anyone believe that a majority of this executive branch comprising diehard Trump loyalists is going to sign a document declaring the boss to be unfit for the office? It won’t happen.

That’s why I believe we’re only getting a lot closer to some tipping point that will spell the end of this moron’s time in office.

political news

Well done, Mme. Speaker

Nancy Pelosi took the gavel to lead the U.S. House of Representatives at a time when Republicans and Democrats were still able to speak kindly of each other.

Take, for example, when in 2007, Republican President Bush prepared to deliver his State of the Union speech and he began with a statement that he would be the “first president in history to begin his speech with these words: ‘Madame Speaker.'”

Pelosi, a Democrat from San Francisco, became the first — and so far only — woman to become speaker of the House. The chamber — all of it — erupted into applause as Speaker Pelosi basked in the glow that shined on her.

Pelosi recently announced she won’t seek another term as a member of Congress when her current term runs out at the end of next year. Nancy Pelosi was as consequential a speaker as any we have had in U.S. history.

Working at times with a paper-thin Democratic majority, she managed to shepherd key legislation through the House and onto the president’s desk. I am thinking at this moment of the enactment of the Affordable Care Act in 2010. It was the highlight of President Obama’s domestic agenda and the speaker of the House earned all the plaudits she got in the moment.

Her time wielding the gavel wasn’t all peaches and cream. She was a fierce partisan. She had her scrapes with Donald J. Trump during his first term in the White House. Through all those battles, she kept her poise and remained strong against the bullying tactics that Trump likes to employ.

Pelosi now goes by the meaningless title of “speaker emerita,” which is a symbolic term honoring her time in the speaker’s chair. I’ll skip using that term to refer to the former speaker and simply wish her Godspeed and good wishes as she cruises toward a well-earned retirement.

political news

A word of caution

For those expecting High Plains Blogger to offer a full-throated endorsement of the California vote supporting Proposition 50 this week, let’s instead heed a word of caution over what we might have unleashed in this country.

It is a warning of rigged elections on both sides of the chasm.

Prop 50 was California’s answer to the Texas Legislature’s decision to approve a redistrict plan that could produce five more Republican seats in Congress. California Gov. Gavin Newsom said the Texas effort cannot stand. So, he launched an effort to ask voters to approve a statewide redistricting plan that counters the Texas decision. Californians did … in a huge way.

What they have done is given the California Assembly carte blanche to redraw lines that would enable the election of more Democrats to Congress to counter an anticipated GOP surge in Texas and other so-called “red states.” More “blue states” are planning similar efforts for the 2026 election cycle.

Do you get where I am going with this? I support the concept of electing more politicians who would oppose the chicanery being foisted on us by the Donald Trump administration. I am deeply troubled that Democrats are responding with an effort to “preserve democracy” with a process that is as rigged as the one Republicans are foisting on millions of other Americans.

That ain’t democracy, kids.

I am left to recall the words of the great Native American philosopher, Tonto, who would tell the Lone Ranger, “Two wrongs don’t make it right.” The path to restoring our democratic process should be more of a challenge than just rigging an election to produce candidates to our liking.