Category Archives: political news

Ex-POTUS now opposes national abortion ban … oh, really?

POTUS No. 45 has just declared his opposition to a national ban on abortion, saying that states should have the final say on what happens within their borders.

What in the world are we to glean from the presumed Republican Party presidential nominee’s latest stance on abortion?

Let’s review for a moment this moron’s path through the abortion pea patch.

He once declared himself to be fully pro-choice on the issue. Then he ran for president in 2016 and promised to appoint judges who would overturn Roe v. Wade, the landmark 1973 Supreme Court ruling that inscribed a woman’s right to choose as a civil liberty. He kept that promise, with three judges named to the high court during his single — and hopefully only — presidential term. Republican senators declared their intention to enact a national ban, the former POTUS was silent. Now he says it’s up to the states.

While making that declaration, the former Idiot in Chief has boasted about “single-handedly overturning Roe v. Wade.”

Where does this clown stand on the issue? Don’t answer that. I think I know. He doesn’t stand anywhere on it.

He has no view. He has no policy.

Politics enters eclipse coverage

Leave it to the TV network talking heads to inject contemporary politics into discussion about the historic wonder of a total solar eclipse.

I was taken aback … but not surprised.

Listening to the eclipse run-up early this afternoon, an MSNBC commentator noted that an eclipse actually prevented a war from erupting in ancient Greece. I didn’t catch the name of the adversary facing down the Greeks.

Then she wondered out loud whether during these contentious times that we could have a similar peace-finding result from the eclipse that swept across the eastern third of the United States.

We all know the answer to that one. No! It won’t end the sniping, the backbiting, the innuendo here at home and the wars that rage in Europe and the Middle East.

It’s kind of a quaint thought, however.

The old-time Greeks didn’t have social media to take their minds away from Mother Nature’s splendor back in the day. Nor did they have cheap tinhorn politicians who play to TV cameras whenever someone — anyone! — turns on the lights; oh sure, they had their tinhorns, but they were motivated by simpler means.

Here’s my immediate takeaway from what we witnessed today in North Texas.

For a few minutes in the early afternoon, I wasn’t worried at all about what mere mortal politicians were doing or saying in the halls of power. Not in Congress, or the White House, or City Hall or the county courthouse. My focus was straight up as I watched the moon block the sunlight shining on Earth.

Nothing else mattered. Nothing!

Let the trial begin … and end

Eight days from now a judge in New York City is going to bang a gavel and call for the beginning of a trial.

It won’t be an ordinary trial. The criminal defendant will be a former president of the United States. He will make history by being the first ex-POTUS ever to stand trial.

The ex-POTUS has three more trials awaiting him once this one concludes. The others are more consequential in terms of the charges leveled against him. First things first, though.

The NYC trial is going to take the former POTUS off the campaign trail for as long as it takes to reach a conclusion. He’ll be in court listening to testimony alleging how he misused campaign funds to pay off an adult film actress to keep quiet about a one-night stand the two of them had, but which the former POTUS said didn’t happen.

Go figure.

The defendant cut a check for the actress totaling 130 grand to shut her up.

This might not be the biggest legal deal facing the former POTUS. Still, it’s pretty damn big. District Attorney Alvin Bragg has to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant did what has been alleged. It’s a criminal case, after all, so the bar is set high.

I will not shy away from — or apologize for — my hope that DA Bragg delivers the goods to the jury that will decide this matter. I want the former POTUS to be convicted of the crime that has been alleged. I also want him locked up and kept out of public view. He is an existential menace to the nation he seeks to lead once more.

God help us if there are enough stupid Americans out there to put him back into the Oval Office.

In many crucial ways, this is the most important trial in U.S. history. It’s going to make for the highest political drama any of have ever witnessed.

Get out of the way, RFK Jr.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is really pissing me off … in a serious sort of way.

Now he’s talking smack about the traitors who are jailed for storming the Capitol building on 1/6, refusing to call them what they are, criminals who were caught seeking to overturn the results of a free, fair, legal and moral election.

Democratic Party officials — many of whom with fond memories of Junior’s father and uncles — now want the independent presidential candidate to drop out of the race. I join them in their anger at RFK Jr., who’s sounding more like a crackpot than a serious candidate for POTUS.

Man, I never thought I was say these things about the scion of one of America’s great political families, and the second-oldest son of my first political hero.

The great Robert F. Kennedy no doubt would climb out of his Arlington National Cemetery grave — if he could — and deliver a serious ass-kicking to his son.

Does Junior not understand what this treasonous mob sought to do and does not appreciate the consequence he could bring to the result of an election he has zero chance of winning?

Tim Dunn: scary dude

Tim Dunn has taken front-and-center stage as the most frightening political operative at work in Texas.

Why say such a thing? Well, the Texas Tribune reports that a former Texas House speaker, Joe Straus, has confirmed that Dunn — who runs Empower Texans, told him that “only Christians” should hold leadership positions in the Legislature.

Straus is Jewish. So I am presuming that Dunn either (a) didn’t know that when he said it to the speaker or (b) knew it and didn’t give a sh**. I’m guessing it was the latter.

Empower Texans is the far right-wing political action committee that works tirelessly against Republicans who aren’t conservative enough to suit the group’s taste. Dunn is a Midland oil executive who believes that Christianity is the only religion on Earth that is worth a damn.

According to the Tribune: But Dunn reportedly demanded that Straus replace “a significant number” of his committee chairs with tea party-aligned lawmakers backed by Dunn’s political advocacy group, Empower Texans. After Straus rebuffed the demand, the two began to talk about social policy, at which point Dunn allegedly said he believed only Christians should hold leadership posts. “It was a pretty unsatisfactory meeting,” Straus said Thursday. “We never met again.”

Ya think?

Joe Straus: Tim Dunn said only Christians should be in leadership | The Texas Tribune

Let me remind Dunn and others of his ilk of something the founders wrote into the Constitution. Article VI states that “no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.

What about that statement does that dimwit not get?

House speaker is no ‘liberal’ … period!

I need to clear the air on a Texas politician I do not know personally, but who is someone I trust implicitly to run a state legislative chamber with conscience and competence.

House Speaker Dade Phelan, a Beaumont Republican, has become a prime target of the Club for Growth, a national right-wing political action committee that aims to spend $4 million in ads to defeat the legislator who is in the midst of a runoff election.

The Texas Tribune reports: “From failing to support school choice to allowing radical liberal Democrats to chair committees, Speaker Phelan is a certified RINO with a long record, and he will be held accountable by the voters in the runoff,” said David McIntosh, president of Club for Growth’s Super PAC.

Phelan is nothing of the sort that Club for Growth describes. The speaker let his Republican colleagues vote their conscience — and their constituents’ conscience — in opposing Gov. Greg Abbott’s dream of siphoning off public education money to a voucher plan that would enable parents to enroll their children in private schools.

Why the opposition from Republican legislators? Because they represent House districts that depend mightily on the strength of the public school systems that serve their constituents.

Why is that worthy of the attacks that Club for Growth and other hardline right-wingers plan to hurl at the speaker? I don’t see it.

Club for Growth wades into Texas primary battles | The Texas Tribune

As the Tribune reports: Over two regular legislative sessions, the House under Phelan has passed some of the most conservative legislation in the chamber’s history, including allowing permitless carry of handguns and a near-total ban on abortion. Phelan has come under particular criticism from many within his party for the House’s failure last year to approve a school voucher bill favored by Abbott.

Dade Phelan clearly considers himself to be a conservative. I guess he is not conservative enough to suit the one-issue zealots who think it’s OK to gut our public school system.

RFK Jr. has gone bonkers

Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s butter has slipped off its noodles … to borrow a phrase I heard long ago to question someone’s mental capacity.

RFK Jr., who once professed great admiration and affection for Joe Biden, now says the president is a greater threat to democracy than the presumed Republican presidential nominee, aka POTUS No. 45.

What the hell has Junior — an independent candidate for president — been swilling?

It is the former Moron in Chief who says he would become a dictator on his first day in office if — God forbid! — he’s elected this fall. The Former Guy is the one who’s pals with dictators around the world, calling them “sharp” and “strong leaders” and wishing he could rule with the same iron fist.

RFK Jr., to say it bluntly, is a disgrace to the name he carries … that of his late father. Something deep inside me tells me Bobby Kennedy would be aghast at the garbage pouring out of his son’s pie hole.

Choices are widening

Americans are facing a critical decision that by all rights should be a no-brainer, one that requires hardly more than a scintilla of thought.

It is this: Do Americans want to elect a certifiable overfed, overhyped and over-publicized juvenile fu**ing delinquent to the presidency or do we re-elect a known grownup, someone with years of public service under his belt, someone who has a clear priority list of beliefs and principles?

In a normal context, there would be no debate. We wouldn’t allow our children to behave in the manner displayed by the presumed Republican Party presidential nominee. But here is, standing on the precipice of an astonishing political comeback, on the verge of securing the GOP presidential nomination for the third election cycle in a row!

The former Moron in Chief authorized the distribution of a video showing President Biden hogtied in a rope. What the hell?

He continues to foment the Big Lie about electoral theft in 2020 that did not occur. Didn’t we teach our children to take their lumps when they lose, dust themselves off and go about their next task? My wife and I taught our sons those lessons in life.

The misdeeds are too many to enumerate here. You get my drift.

Joe Biden is the grownup in this contest. The other guy is a petulant little dipsh**.

Are we headed for the crapper?

I am going to refuse to believe this great nation of ours is going to elect someone who stands a better than decent chance of being convicted of a felony.

Thus, the crapper destination is not in our nation’s future. Or so my gut is telling me.

I see the polling data that tell me the incumbent president, Joe Biden, trails his likely Republican opponent. I also notice that the polls also show the two men within striking distance of each other. The data all contain a “margin of error” that varies from 3 to 6 percentage points.

OK, I am not going to rely on polls to buoy my spirits. They can change. They can be wrong.

What does lift my spirits is my undying belief in the intelligence of average Americans. And I am not going to include the MAGA nimrods who comprise the bulk of the base that continues to support the former Liar in Chief in my category of “average American.” They ain’t average. Not by a long shot.

I want to harken back to the ex-POTUS’s inaugural speech on Jan. 20, 2017. Do you recall the most memorable line from that speech? To me it was: “The American carnage stops right here, right now.”

Did it stop? No. It didn’t! No president should make such a prediction knowing he cannot make it happen because he says it.

It was just one of many promises this dipsh** made that he didn’t keep. Now he’s running for a third time. It’s all different now. Forget the two impeachments. He stands as a four-times-indicted criminal defendant awaiting trial for an assortment of felonies he has been accused of committing.

I am going to lay my faith at the feet of American voters who cannot stomach the notion of electing a potentially convicted criminal to the nation’s highest office.

We are better than that. We are definitely better than the candidate.

How does he maintain this grip?

The afterlife awaits every one of us, as no one gets out of here alive.

When my day arrives — and I hope for damn sure it’s no time soon — I will head there with many political questions jostling through my noggin.

Chief among them will be trying to grasp how the 45th POTUS manages to maintain the grip he has secured around the throats of the MAGA cult he has created.

To be sure, it’s seemingly not as large a cult as it once was, but it’s every bit as vocal. The cultists so far are outshouting the rest of the Republican Party faithful … and I mean to say the “real Republicans” who cannot seem to shake loose the grip that the former Liar in Chief has on the MAGA crowd.

My belief in the goodness of humanity is being challenged daily by the ignorance demonstrated by those who glom onto the moron’s every statement. Even when he mangles words or confuses individuals (such as when he recently confused Joe Biden with Barack Obama), they still whoop and holler. Go … figure, man.

I will have to dish out some off-handed praise to the former Idiot in Chief. He has found the audience that adheres to his nonsense, and he speaks plainly to them in a language that only they seem to comprehend.

The rest of us?

We’re left in the dark … and the candidate doesn’t give a sh**!