Category Archives: political news

Joe Biden, national news, political news

This is no normal year

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If only this were a normal presidential election year, but it is far from normal.

We have two major-party candidates who reportedly are the two most unpopular public figures since, oh, The Flood. We also have a third-party goofball, who happens to be a scion of one of the 20th century’s great political families.

Does all this portend a dismally low voter turnout? Not so fast.

We had the same two major-party guys running in 2020. When all the ballots were counted, 158 million Americans voted, a record. Joe Biden was elected president. The other guy called the election “rigged” and said it was “fake.” Never mind that the Republican Party presidential nominee tried like hell to rig the election in his favor.

Oh, and he hasn’t conceded that he lost to President Biden.

In steps Robert F. Kennedy Jr., son of the former U.S. attorney general and former U.S. senator from New York. RFK sought the presidency in 1968 and well might have been elected … except for the assassin who gunned him down in the Los Angeles hotel kitchen.

This isn’t a normal election any more than the previous one, or the one before that when the former Liar in Chief got elected.

Joe Biden promised a return to normal presidential behavior. He has behaved like the adult in the room. Unlike the guy he defeated,

Now they’re preparing to square off again. I get that they’re bold old men. Allow me this bit of candor: Time is on neither man’s side, although the chatter almost always seems to focus on Joe Biden’s alleged decline in acuity. I am prepared to argue that the GOP nominee in waiting is exhibiting even more frightening examples of unhinged behavior.

Does any of this mean a dismal turnout in this fall’s election? Hardly.

Both sides are going to gin up their respective bases. My fervent hope is that President Biden wins the day, the election and continues to restore our national soul.

political news, religious news

Tough to resist hating this guy

My dear mother taught me to avoid saying I “hate” someone. Mom wasn’t a particularly religious person, but surely she must have known what Scripture teaches us about Jesus “loving” his enemies.

Still, as I survey the Republican Party presidential nominee-in-waiting, I find myself wondering if the ex-POTUS knows a damn thing about what’s inside the Bible. Thus, I wonder if he refrains from telling those closest to him not to “hate” those who oppose him. If he is as ignorant of what the Bible tells us as I suspect he is, then he hasn’t exercised a moment of faithful restraint.

This is the kind of supposition that gives me grief as I wrestle with what I feel viscerally about the GOP nominee-to-be. If he has never sought forgiveness, as he once said, then should those of us who do follow Jesus’s teachings actually care about this guy?

At some level, I do care about him. “Care,” though, is as far as I go.

I’m going to continue to avoid saying I “hate” this clown. Jesus wouldn’t agree to it. More importantly, neither would Mom.

Donald Trump, national news, political news

Bannon blathers the ‘truth’?

Steve Bannon’s blatherings normally run into one of my ears and out the other, given that I don’t trust the guy as far as I can throw him.

However, when the former inside man in the POTUS 45’s administration says what he says about what Republicans prefer in the 2024 presidential race, well, I tend to perk up.

Bannon believes most GOP members of Congress want the ex-POTUS to lose to President Biden later this year.

Why is that? Because the former Idiot in Chief is a loser and he would bring other Republicans down with him. We saw it happen in the 2020 election and in the 2022 midterm balloting. POTUS 45’s endorsements were poison to GOP candidates and they want him gone from the scene … according to Bannon.

You know what? I’ll go along with what ol’ Steve says on this one. I just hope his version of the “trick knee” doesn’t let him down.

If only some of these Republicans would get off their duffs and work to defeat the one-time commander in chief.

military news, national news, political news

Is he really that stupid?

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NUREMBERG, Germany — As you know, I am visiting friends in this lovely city in the gorgeous Bavaria region.

They are well-read, erudite and sophisticated. Alena asked me a fascinating question today about the intelligence of the POTUS No. 45. “Do you think he’s really that stupid,” she asked, “or is he just playing to the people who support him no matter what?”

Her reference point is that ghastly mini-speech he made the other day about the Battle of Gettysburg, the fight that turned the tide of our Civil War. The ex-POTUS offered not a single word about the significance of the battle, but instead prattled on about how “bloody” and “beautiful” it was.

Her point is interesting to me. She believes he might just be saying such a thing to appeal to his MAGA cult base of voters who themselves might not have any notion about the importance of this — or any other — significant event in our nation’s history.

Hmm. I thought for a moment about what Alena said. I don’t believe the former Philanderer in Chief is that sophisticated. I do believe he is an ignorant fool. She describes him as “evil.” My bride used that term,, too, to describe the presumed  Republican Party presidential nominee.

Perhaps the term “evil” connotes a level of genius. I’ll have to consider it. He strikes me as someone I have felt all along is unfit for public office, given that he’s never devoted a nano-second of his professional life to giving back to the nation,

Yes, I also believe he is that stupid.

crime news, Donald Trump, legal news, political news

First time for everything, yes?

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POTUS No. 45 keeps bitching out loud that “this is the first time” a former president has gone to court to face a criminal prosecution.

It’s as if he’s suggesting that the unprecedented nature of the trial is unjust.

Uhhh, no. It’s not unjust, Mr. Former Liar in Chief.

It’s just that this great nation has never been led by someone so inherently corrupt. The law just caught up with the ex-Philanderer in Chief.

He’s on trial in New York City on a 33-count indictment alleging that he spent campaign funds illegally to cover up a tryst he had with an adult film actress. He paid her hush money — get ready for this — to keep quiet about an event he denies ever occurred. 

Go figure that one out, folks.

Yeah, it’s the first time a former POTUS has gone on trial. I get it. I agree, too, that No, 45 has reason to worry.

It damn sure isn’t unjust, as the ex-POTUS seems to suggest.

national news, political news

Peaceful transition: hallmark of our nation’s greatness

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U.S. presidencies have changed partisan hands many times over the years since our nation’s founding.

And to a man, each president who either is about to take command of our executive branch or is handing command over to a successor, they say the same thing.

“The peaceful transition of power from one president to the next is one of the hallmarks of our nation’s greatness,” they say. That transition sets us apart, it establishes for the entire world to witness how great nations should conduct this necessary function.

I have watched presidents — Republican and Democrat alike — pledge full support for their successor and “compete cooperation” as they embark on that transition.

All of this is to condemn in forceful language the hideous refusal to grant such a transition from the administration of the 45th POTUS to the man who defeated him, Joe Biden.

President Carter got shellacked by Ronald Reagan in 1980. He called the president-elect to congratulate him and to work with him as his team prepared to take power. President George H.W. Bush lost decisively to Bill Clinton in 1992. President Bush did the same thing, telling the president-elect that he wished him success.

The 45th POTUS has been nothing but a petulant, lying, stubborn wannabe dictator by continuing to foment The Big Lie about election fraud that did not exist in 2020.

And to think this former POTUS wants to “make America great again.” What … a … disgrace!

local news, political news

Cruz needs to be shown the door

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Of all the men and women I have watched in politics over many years as a journalist and now as a civilian with a keen interest in public policy, Ted Cruz stands tall among them as the most loathsome.

The junior U.S. senator from Texas keeps getting sliced and diced by the state’s largest newspaper — his hometown sheet, in fact — over this and that policy issue. The Houston Chronicle has peeled the bark off Cruz’s backside most recently over his blocking of high-speed Internet service coming to Texas.

But in reality, the Cruz Missile is now trying to rebrand himself as a bipartisan senator, someone with Democratic friends and colleagues. My goodness … this guy is utterly without shame.

He has spent the bulk of his nearly dozen years in the Senate doing two things: trying to advance his own political ambition and trashing Democrats at every opportunity.

He damn near lost his first re-election bid in 2018. Now he’s facing another Democrat who’s abandoning his House seat to challenge him. The foe this time is Colin Allred of Dallas.

Oh, how I want Allred to win. I want another senator who can work with pols on the other side of the still-great chasm. Our state’s senior senator, John Cornyn of San Antonio, at times shows promise in steering clear of the MAGA wing of the Republican Party.

Cornyn needs a partner in that bipartisan effort. From my vantage point, it doesn’t appear to me that Ted Cruz is wired in that manner.

Which is precisely why I want Colin Allred to give Ted Cruz the boot in the backside.

national news, political news

Democracy is strong … not ‘fragile’

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Vice President Kamala Harris needs to take a deep breath and assess carefully the strength of the democratic republic she is governing alongside President Joe Biden.

Harris told an interviewer that the 2024 election well could be the “last democratic election” this country could have. Really, Mme. Vice President?

She frets that the presumed Republican presidential nominee could get elected and enact a permanent dictatorship. Thus, we have the end of democracy in this great nation of ours, she reckoned.

Kamala Harris agrees with interviewer that 2024 could be last US democratic election (yahoo.com)

Harris was speaking on a podcast hosted by Angie “Pumps” Sullivan. “I don’t think it’s hyperbolic to say this genuinely could be the last democratic election we ever have,” Sullivan said.

“You’re right,” Harris responded.

Excuse me, but I’ll butt in for a moment.

Sullivan is being hyperbolic in the extreme. For the VPOTUS to endorse that hyperbole is folly in the extreme.

All of this seems to presume that the GOP nominee is going to win the election. I am going out on that fragile limb and say, “No way in this world is that moron going to win the election this fall!”

Harris went on: “No, and I’m going to tell you. As vice president, I’ve now met with over 150 world leaders … in the last three international trips I’ve taken — which are going back to the end of last year through this year — world leaders have come up to me, expressing their real concern about this election,” Harris said.

What precisely do they know about the character of Americans? We have it totally within our power to stop this crazed lunatic from ascending to power yet again.

And make no mistake about it, the GOP nominee-to-be is flat-out nuts, a loon, and he poses an existential threat to the very government he once swore to “defend and protect.”

local news, political news, State news

Cruz seeks to rebrand himself … yeah, right

Rafael Edward Cruz, aka Ted Cruz, is trying to pull off the biggest rebranding effort in U.S. Senate history.

The Republican firebrand now calls himself a “bipartisan” member of the Senate, citing his working relationship and friendship (if you dare believe that) with leading Senate Democrats.

It’s a joke, I’m tellin’ ya. Except that I ain’t laughing at it … except perhaps in derision.

Cruz is in for another tough re-election fight, this time against Democratic U.S. Rep. Colin Allred of Dallas, who — according to many leading polls — is in a dead heat with the two-term senator. Cruz was first elected in 2012, then won a bitter re-election battle in 2018 against former Rep. Beto O’Rourke by about 3 percentage points.

Ted Cruz angles for a bipartisan rebrand | The Texas Tribune

Allred, serving his second term in the House, has established a bipartisan reputation in the lower chamber and says Cruz’s effort is a bald-faced sham. Allred told the Texas Tribune: “I don’t think Ted Cruz is fooling anybody,” Allred said. “He spent 12 years being the most divisive — and proudly so — partisan warrior in the United States. And I think it’s kind of laughable actually that at this point, when he’s in a close race, that he wants to now stress, ‘Oh, actually I have been working in a bipartisan way.’”

He’s nothing like the bipartisan statesman he is portraying himself to be. Recall how he filibustered in the Senate in trying to kill the Affordable Care Act. He has been a front-row election denier, questioning the validity of the 2020 presidential election that gave us Joe Biden as president. He has been virtually silent about the 1/6 assault on our government and has endorsed the 45th POTUS’s bid to win back the White House after losing to President Biden in 2020.

According to the Tribune: “When I first arrived in the Senate 12 years ago, there was such a thing as moderate Democrats. They existed. You could work them,” Cruz said at the Texas Public Policy Foundation’s Texas Policy Summit last month. “There aren’t any left. The Democrats, they hate Trump so much their brains have melted, and what’s happened is they have gone crazy off the edge to the left.”

Now he wants us to believe he’s willing to work with Democrats whose “brains have melted”?

Hah!

2016 election, national news, political news

Are we really that stupid?

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A member of my family and I disagree on the potential outcome of the 2024 presidential election.

My family member believes the 45th president is poised to regain the presidency. I disagree. He and I had an exchange that went something like this:

Family member: I think he’s going to win.

Me: No. He won’t win.

FM: You said the same thing in 2016 and look what happened.

Me: We have learned from the mistake we made as a nation. We aren’t going to make it again.

FM: I am not so sure about that. I don’t think we’ve learned anything. Besides, Biden didn’t win in 2020 by a landslide.

Me: I know. A few hundred thousand-vote switch in three states would have produced a vastly different result.

The exchange ended shortly after that. My family member does not want the 45th POTUS to win. He doesn’t exactly line up strongly in President Biden’s camp.

I do wish my family member had more faith in the collective intelligence of American voters. But … he doesn’t and I’ll accept his view that we are collection of gullible dummies. I, however, am going to stand on my wellspring of belief that we are smarter than we have demonstrated.

The former POTUS tapped into a heretofore mine of resentment in Americans’ hearts. He now vows to be “your retribution” for misperceived wrongs that have been committed against the former POTUS. He is going to unleash the Justice Department on his foes … and to think he accuses Biden of “weaponizing” the DOJ.

Are we really ready to welcome a return of this kind of political vengeance into the halls of power?

I think not.