Category Archives: political news

national news, political news

What is RFK Jr. doing?

Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s bizarre campaign for the presidency has me baffled and bamboozled.

He announced his candidacy first as a Democrat; then he became an independent. This week he selected an entrepreneur/lawyer, Nicole Shanahan, as his vice-presidential running mate.

Why the bafflement? Well, RFK Jr.’s father, the late U.S. Sen. Robert F. Kennedy, was my first political hero. I had the pleasure of shaking Bobby Kennedy’s hand in late May 1968, one week before his own presidential bid ended with an assassin’s bullet in Los Angeles.

I am struck by the notion that RFK Jr. would abandon the Democratic Party, given his family’s long affiliation with the party. I am certain his father would be aghast.

What’s more, RFK Jr. professed profound admiration and affection for President Biden even as he was announcing his Democratic presidential campaign. What the … ?

I am puzzled by the reason he wants to become the next POTUS. His conspiracy theories regarding the murder of his father and his idiotic refusal to accept the vaccine offered to battle the COVID 19 pandemic simply send me into orbit.

Will his campaign harm Biden more than the Republican nominee-in-waiting? I haven’t a clue. I have seen polling data that suggest an even draw-down of votes for both major-party candidates. I don’t necessarily believe those polls.

I remain baffled that Bobby Jr. would do this … and to what end.

I also am convinced that his father would take the kid to the proverbial woodshed …

media news, national news, political news

Can it get worse for speaker?

I have asked a question in the headline atop this post that I believe I can answer.

Yes. It can get worse. It seems to be worsening daily for U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson, whose majority in the congressional chamber is now down to a single member. Meaning that the dude has virtually no governing majority.

Johnson is facing an insurrection — if you’ll pardon the use of the term — within his own party. The MAGA caucus led by Marjorie Taylor Greene wants him booted out. The reason escapes me. The guy is one of them! Still, MTG wants him gone, but hasn’t yet taken the final legislative step to get him removed, which would be to call for a vote of House members.

GOP congressmen are fleeing the chamber. Ken Buck of Colorado said so long, saying he can’t work in such a chaotic atmosphere.

The late Sen. John McCain used to demand that the Senate follow “regular order.” He should have spoken those words to the House, too. Regular order establishes a procedure for legislating that can seem boring, cumbersome and arcane. It sure beats the hell out of the madness we are witnessing these days with MAGA nitwits blathering constantly about how the House cannot allow Democrats to have any say in how the place functions.

The MAGA clowns are not interested in governing. Their only interest appears to be seeing their names in bold print in headlines across the country.

Speaker Johnson is presiding over all of this. He cannot control the House. The MAGA cultists are running amok and are running roughshod over the guy they chose when they booted his immediate predecessor, Kevin McCarthy, out of the speaker’s office.

Boy howdy, Mike Johnson is occupying the worst political office in D.C. It’s likely to get even worse.

media news, national news, political news

NBC makes a bad hire

Ronna Romney McDaniel once held the job as chair of the Republican National Committee, which by definition is a legitimate political occupation.

Were she just the RNC chair before NBC News hired her as a paid consultant, I would be fine with it, as would other journalists who today are howling like wolves at news of this hiring decision.

However, she brings some serious baggage to her new gig. You see, she also fomented the Big Lie put forth by the 45th president, who lost the 2020 election to Joe Biden but who has refused to accept his defeat in a free, fair and legal election.

Oh, there’s more to untangle in McDaniel’s background.

She also was a co-conspirator in the 1/6 assault on our government, calling the traitorous mob’s smashing of windows and threats against Vice President Mike Pence a form of “legitimate political discussion.”

McDaniel worked hand in glove with the outgoing administration to undermine the results of the election.

Now she is employed by a major television network as a “paid political consultant.” This is a travesty of the first order.

Veteran NBC journalist Chuck Todd took his network to task over the weekend, asking out loud whether McDaniel will be speaking for herself or for her employer. She has said she “took one for the team” by endorsing The Big Lie and only now says that Joe Biden is the legitimately elected president of the United States.

It’s one thing for a network to hire political contributors of varying points of view. Liberal-leaning networks have conservatives on the air frequently and conservative-leaning networks do the same with liberal commentators.

It’s quite another for a network to give credibility to a known liar and purveyor of hideous falsehoods.

Ronna McDaniel has no business offering points of view on matters where she has displayed a disgraceful willingness to lie to the public.

crime news, national news, political news

Outrage keeps mounting

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My wellspring of outrage seems to know no bounds, given the idiocy that keeps flowing from the overfed pie hole of the 2024 Republican Party presidential nominee in waiting.

He said the following recently to a crowd of MAGA minions cheering his every ridiculous proclamation: He will pardon all the so-called “hostages” who are jailed for their assault on the U.S. Capitol on 1/6 … if he’s elected president in November.

Yep. It’s now out there, on the record. The traitorous mob that sought to assassinate the then-vice president, Mike Pence, and killed a cop seeking to defend the Capitol, defecated on the floor of the government building and vowed to overturn the results of a free, fair and legal election would get a pardon from the former Moron in Chief.

Is there any sense of decency left in that individual? Don’t bother answering that one. There was no decency to start with and he is demonstrating with each political rally how utterly unhinged he has become.

 

business news, national news, political news

These guys were ‘really rich’

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Quiz time: Did you ever hear Mitt Romney, or Nelson Rockefeller, JFK, RFK or Teddy Kennedy proclaim to adoring crowds that they were “really rich”? 

Time’s up. I didn’t think so.

But yet … this year’s presumptive Republican presidential nominee has made such a proclamation. Many times, in fact, since he became a politician in the summer of 2015.

Well, it turns out he might not be quite as “really rich” as he bragged. It is being reported widely that the guy who also proclaimed himself to be “really smart” and would hire “the best people” to work for him cannot raise the $400-plus million bond he is ordered to pay in the defamation case brought by E. Jeanne Carroll, whom a jury has ruled was raped by the former Idiot in Chief.

I am reluctant to say “I told you so,” but I have maintained all along that anyone who claims out loud to be as rich and smart as the former POTUS more than likely is neither.

New York Attorney General Leticia James now faces the prospect of seizing the ex-POTUS’s assets to make him pay for what he owes the court. Wouldn’t that be, um, rich beyond belief.

Mitt Romney said out loud what many of us knew already prior to the 2016 election. He called the so-called “really rich” guy a “phony” and a “fraud.”

Am I stunned at what might happen soon? Yes! Am I surprised? Not one little bit!

International news, national news, political news

Where’s the outrage?

The 45th POTUS has remained stunningly silent on the “rigged election” that occurred the other day in Russia, which elected his pal Vladimir Putin to another term as president/strongman/despot/thug/goon.

And yet the former Moron in Chief continues to rail against the phony allegation that the 2020 election in this country was “stolen” from him. It wasn’t.

Putin is despot for life in Russia, a title to which his American pal aspires, or so it appears.

He “won” the election in Russia against virtually zero opposition, which is how they do things in the formerly democratic Russian Federation. It is reverting to the ways of old, to the ways of the evil empire it replaced in 1991.

Are we hearing anything in protest from the presumed Republican presidential nominee or from his shrinking gaggle of cult followers?

Hah! Not even …

crime news, national news, political news

Disgust is sinking in

There can be no way to describe adequately what I am feeling now about the progress of the criminal proceedings against the 45th president of the United States.

Dude somehow is managing to run out the clock on several fronts. What’s even more disgusting is that he might be getting help from a supposedly “impartial” jurist who might be setting the table for an instructed verdict of acquittal in the federal case involving the ex-POTUS’s pilfering of classified documents.

U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon, whom the former Moron in Chief appointed to the federal bench, keeps issuing goofball rulings that benefit her fella … the aforementioned ex-POTUS.

The latest one has been vilified by legal scholars from stem to stern on its weirdness. Cannon has instructed prosecutors led by special counsel Jack Smith and the criminal defendant’s counsel to provide reams of “discovery” evidence on the eve of when the trial is supposed to start.

The complexity of the ruling reportedly suggests that the judge might be able to issue a bench ruling calling for an acquittal. If it holds up! That’s not a sure thing, or so I am led to believe.

The ex-POTUS also is stalling in the case involving the New York state trial on the hush money he paid to the porn actress to keep her quiet about a one-night stand the two of them had in 2006. The former Idiot in Chief denies ever engaging in sex with Stormy Daniels but cut her a $130,000 check to keep quiet about it. Go … figure!

The trial on the 1/6 assault on our government — the one the ex-POTUS provoked on the Ellipse — has been delayed.

Oh, and the Georgia case? Who knows what’ll happen there. A judge says the DA can stay on the job, but the fellow with whom she had a relationship has resigned as lead prosecutor.

All of this points to the chaos created by the former guy’s stalling tactics.

Let us not forget that he has said all along he is innocent of anything being accused. Despite that, he acts very much like someone with something serious to hide. The stalling and the proclamations of innocence just do not add up.

national news, political news

Stand down, Kari Lake

Kari Lake should have her noggin examined for signs of any life other than that which foments the idiocy that flies out of her mouth.

Lake is the Arizona Republican who is running for the U.S. Senate. She is an avid 2020 election denier and someone who has refused to concede she lost the Arizona governor’s race in 2022.

She wants the U.S. Supreme Court to declare that electronic voting is — get ready for it — unconstitutional!

According to MSN.com: The petition to the court alleges new evidence showing false statements made by defendants regarding the safeguards ensuring vote accuracy. Lake and Finchem’s lawyers argue for an amendment to their allegations on standing, aiming to demonstrate a likelihood of recurring harms in future elections similar to those alleged in the 2022 election.

Hang on a moment. The guy hired by the 45th POTUS to monitor the 2020 election declared it to be “the most secure election in U.S. history.” The former POTUS then fired him because he didn’t get the finding he desired.

Kari Lake Petitions US Supreme Court to Declare Electronic Voting Unconstitutional (msn.com)

What the hell is Lake trying to do? It is baffling in the extreme to believe this is a serious person who well could be elected to the Senate and, thus, be empowered to enact legislation that affects all of us.

That’s you and me, man.

Kari Lake is nuttier than a Snickers bar.

local news, political news, State news

Non-GOP observers feeling the pain

The fight that is developing in Texas between non-believers of certain politicians and those who adhere to their every proclamation gives us non-Republicans considerable angst.

How come? Because I, as one of them, find myself rooting for the non-believers in their scrap with those who follow the will of the crooks who happen to hold high public office.

I want to point directly to the troubles that continue to dog Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton. The AG has taken dead aim at several pols who had the temerity to favor his impeachment in the House. His slate of candidates in this month’s Republican Party primary did pretty well.

One of Paxton’s “enemies” hails from a city I once called home. He is House Speaker Dade Phelan of Beaumont. Phelan faces a runoff against some political newbie, a guy named David Covey. Paxton recruited Covey to run against Phelan. He finished first in the GOP primary, but the two of them are headed for a runoff to see who gets the nomination. Covey finished first and Phelan finished second, but Covey didn’t get the 50% margin he needed to win outright.

I am rooting for Phelan to win the runoff. Not that I care about his politics, per se. I just favor the stance he took in voting to impeach the crooked AG and the manner in which he conducted the House proceedings that led to Paxton’s impeachment. Phelan is a conservative and, frankly, not my ideal politician. Yet the AG refers to him as the “liberal speaker.” What a fu**ing crock!

This intraparty squabbling is playing out in states across the country. I drive through Collin County, where I live, and I see signs for politicians proclaiming themselves to be a “conservative Republican” running for office. How do they define “conservative”? Everyone’s a conservative Republican, yes? You have one conservative Republican running against another of the same ilk. How does a GOP voter choose?

The election season is playing itself out a little at a time. Those of us who sit on the sidelines watching this GOP internecine battle being fought are left to cheer silently for those who respect the system and who put the law above party loyalty.

national news, political news

Accusations aren’t ‘false’

A critic of High Plains Blogger has accused me of saying things about the presumed Republican Party presidential nominee that are false.

Well, I am going to challenge that allegation with this brief post.

He writes: You bash Trump with false accusations and give credit to Biden where’s there’s very little credit to be given.

Nothing I have said about the presumptive GOP nominee is “false.” As for “credit” being given to President Biden, I’ll save that comment for another post.

I have said for as long as I have been writing this blog — and it’s been many years — that I do not mind criticism of its content; just don’t ascribe impure motives to me for expressing these views. They are mine alone and I take responsibility for them. As for my motivation, some folks over the years have questioned my faith, and my patriotism. I take a back seat to no one on either matter.

My accusations against the 45th POTUS are based on what juries have determined, what legally constituted prosecutors have said in criminal indictments and even on the visual record of video and audio recordings the world has seen and heard with its own eyes and ears.

The falsehood or the truth about any of it has yet to be determined in courts of law. My sincere and fervent hope is that we get to those determinations sooner rather than later.

I am just going to make this point one more time — and it likely won’t be the final time: The idiot whom Republicans will nominate for POTUS is unfit for any public office in the land.