Category Archives: political news

political news

Waiting with bated breath

Never in my entire — and admittedly lengthy — life can I remember waiting with such anticipation for the polls to close back east on Election Night.

That’s what I am doing today. It is mid-afternoon in North Texas. The polls close in New England and along the Atlantic Coast in about five hours. Once they do, we well might get an idea of whether the nation is returning to its old self of optimism and liberty … or whether we’re going to succumb to the dipshit notions pitched by a convicted felon, twice-impeached former POTUS.

You know what I want to happen. My gut and, yes, my trick knee are telling we might be going to sleep tonight with a hopeful smile. But it ain’t a lead-pipe cinch.

I heard enough of the campaign rhetoric. I have heard the sales pitches of both sides. I am now awaiting the results of what all those millions of campaign dollars have purchased for the candidates who spent them.

political news

Harris has the ‘big mo’

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Momentum well might be the great predictor of who finishes first in the 2024 presidential race.

From my North Texas vantage point, in a county that borders Democratic Party hotbed in Dallas County, it looks for all the world as if Vice President Kamala Harris has the “big mo” as she and Donald Trump gallop down the stretch.

Harris has declared she is going “all positive” in the final hours of this most bitter campaign. Trump’s strategy? He’s going in the other direction. Harris talks about her momentum. Trump refers to Democrats as members of a “demonic party.” Harris speaks of “joy in the morning.” Trump says an assailant would have to take out the “fake news” staffers to get to him, which he said “wouldn’t bother me.”

Who is sounding like a winner? Who’s the loser?

I dare not say out loud what I am hoping in my heart.

political news

Early vote smashes records!

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ABC News reported this morning that 47% of all Texas registered voters cast their ballots early in advance of Election Day.

Think for just a moment about that. Nearly half of all the state’s registered voters have spoken out. Does this mean that the early-vote strategy is going to produce a record overall turnout when all the ballots are counted?

Nationally, the early-vote turnout exceeds 78 million votes. That is slightly more than half of all the ballots cast in the 2020 presidential election.

This well could bode for a serious uptick in overall voter participation.

I have long been critical of early voting as a way to draw more people to the polls. Historically, early voting has enabled Americans to cast their ballots without having to wait in long lines on Election Day.  It hasn’t boosted total vote turnout.

This year might be different … to which I offer a huge hooray!

national news, political news

Shut up, Mr. President

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I have a simple, straightforward and admittedly painful demand to make of President Biden.

Shut … up, Mr. President. The 2024 election no longer is your fight, as you handed the Democratic Party banner over to VP Kamala Harris.

Biden decided to weigh in with a comment on the MAGA moron who called Puerto Rico an “island of garbage floating in the ocean.” The idiot made that remark while speaking to a rally at Madison Square Garden.

However, President Biden just couldn’t keep his trap shut. He said the “only garbage I see are Trump supporters.” Do you recall Hillary Clinton’s infamous “deplorables” comment describing Trumpkins pulling for the GOP nominee in the 2016 contest?

Biden’s gratuitous cheap shot reminded me immediately of another “deplorables” moment. Biden seemingly forgot one of the cardinal rules of politics: When the other side makes a hideous error, just let ’em stew in their own juices … and allow the political gods take care of matters.

Mr. President, you aren’t in this fight. Sit down and shut the hell up!

national news, political news

October surprise explodes!

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You know, it’s not every day when we get t witness an “October surprise” explode in the face of a political candidate seeking an entirely different reaction.

Republican nominee for POTUS, Donald Trump, sought to stage a rally in Madison Square Garden. His intent, I am left to presume, was to gin up support for his cause.

It did not work!

The rally instead has mobilized a key voting bloc to oppose Trump’s election bid. It was a horrifying display of misogyny, racism, xenophobia, sexism … you name it.

We’re now hearing from Puerto Rico and other Latino leaders declare categorically that they cannot possibly vote for Trump based on the trash tossed out from the MSG podium over the weekend.

What momentum Trump might have thought he had going into the final week of his campaign against Vice President Kamala Harris has been halted. Indeed, Harris appears to be reversing the tide … in her favor!

The so-called “joke” about Puerto Rico being an “island of garbage floating in the ocean” was too much for the millions of Americans of Puerto Rican descent.

Oh, and Trump, using his tired dodge about “not knowing anything” about the tirade, is paying a huge political price for the dipshit’s comments made on Trump’s behalf.

None of us should be surprised at what we heard at the MSG encounter. It is the kind of attitude and invective we have heard from Trump since the moment he entered political life in June 2015.

However, for it to be thrust on us at this stage of a political campaign on the candidacy of a man who has no business even running for this noble office.

media news, national news, political news

Coverage is maddening, confusing

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The horse-race coverage of the 2024 campaign for the U.S. presidency carries many adjectives, none of which that come to mind are positive.

It is confusing, maddening, contradictory, chaotic.

I see headlines on the news services I read each day that tell me “Harris surges with new poll,” and then I see where “Trump is looking at a blowout win.” I am careful, of course, to check the source of these “news” items. Leftie organizations generally will tout Harris successes, while rightie outlets sing the praises of Trump’s efforts.

Even the mainstream outlets send confusing messages hither and yon, confusing the daylights out of folks like me.

All of this, I suppose, is to confirm that the contest is a dead heat. Kamala Harris and Donald Trump well might cross the finish line on Nov. 5 shoulder to shoulder.

Or … there’s a hidden vote out there that is waiting to awaken and put one of these candidates into the Oval Office. One theory believes that the hidden mass of voters comprises suburban women who want to protect their reproductive rights but who have been reluctant to tell pollsters of their desire. Another theory suggests another wave of Americans who aren’t yet ready to elect a woman as POTUS.

I’ll go with the former theory. That’s my hope … but you knew that.

local news, political news

Early vote shows early enthusiasm

Well, I did what many other Americans have dedicated themselves to doing and I voted early. Indeed, I \was among the first people lined up at the Princeton Municipal Center waiting anxiously to cast my ballot for a plethora of races on our lengthy ballot.

I haven’t normally done sort of thing, given my former distaste for voting early. I preferred to wait until Election Day to cast my ballot. Something in my inner self prompted me to vote early this year … so, I did.

I was heartened by the number of North Texans who were waiting. Everyone was quite glad to be there, awaiting their turn to perform this wonderful act of citizenship.

I won’t get into what partisan impact the early-voter turnout will have on our voting pattern. Analysts say Democrats prefer to vote early; Republicans prefer to wait until Election Day. I do not know how they can make that calculation. I had no feel for how my fellow early voters stand on the presidential race, which is as it should be.

Hey, it’s done. I am now going to block any further electronic correspondence I have been getting from those wanting me to spend money on their candidates’ campaign.

local news, political news

‘Election day’ arrives

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Notice the quotation marks around the words “Election day,” and also notice I didn’t capitalize “day.”

It’s because the actual election day will be15 days from now. However, I am going to march into the belly of the beast sometime Monday to cast my ballots for a slew of candidates and issues along my lengthy ballot in Princeton, Texas.

I still cannot define with clarity why I have decided to break with the tradition of waiting until Election Day to cast my ballot. I won’t try.

I am just going to drive to the polling place and wait to cast my ballot. I am going to vote enthusiastically for a number of races, such as for president and the US Senate. I won’t belabor the points on why. You know why.

It’s a full ballot and none of the candidates with whom I am most familiar present any real threat of a candidate making a deal-breaking mistake between now and the day they count all the ballots. I will split my ballot among Democrats and Republicans.

I do enjoy the pageantry, such as it is, about Election day or Day. Indeed, I would support shutting down everything for Election Day, which this year falls on Nov. 5. Why not make casting our ballots for whom we want to lead us a national holiday?

That’s another story for another day.

A big day awaits tomorrow as Texas goes to the polls.

national news, political news

Harris enrages Trump’s base … good for her!

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Vice President Kamala Harris is employing a politically risky strategy as she enters the home stretch in her bid to become the 47th president of the United States.

Oh, how I want this effort to pay off.

She is talking to Donald Trump-friendly media organizations and is telling their audiences the hard truth about their hero.

He is a weakling masquerading as a tough guy, she has said. Trump panders to dictators, seeking favors in return. Harris reminds her audiences it takes far more strength to build people up than to tear them down.

We all know what this will do to the MAGA base that continues to support this buffoon. It will rile ’em up, get ’em stoked, provoke the MAGA morons to levy threats.

The VP is banking on another outcome as well, that she will rile women around the nation who want to restore women’s reproductive rights, who have grown weary of Trump’s dark vision for the future of the country.

Kamala Harris is mining the depths of the electorate for Republicans who can be persuaded that Trump’s darkness has no place in a country that for centuries has been the source of eternal optimism.

You are aware of my bias. I’m all in on what Kamala Harris’s 11th-hour political strategy is seeking to do for her. May it serve to persuade others of the danger that Trump presents for the nation we all love.

national news, political news

We aren’t that dumb … are we?

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I have been wrestling with a nagging notion ever since the campaign between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump began taking shape.

It goes something like this: Are American voters really and truly ready for forgive the actions of a candidate who vows to weaponize the Justice Department to get back at his foes? Are we really prepared to hand over the nuclear launch codes to someone who cherishes love notes from dictators intent on destroying this country? Do we really want to entrust the health and welfare of ;poor Americans to someone who doesn’t give a rat’s rear end about them?

If we are, then we’re in a world of hurt, man.

I don’t know whether Trump will be able to win this election. Late polling indicators are causing me some mild dyspepsia. The idea that Americans would embrace this clown — whom they fired four years by 7 million votes — simply boggles my noodle.

His recent lies about the government being unwilling to assist storm victims are laced with ignorance, buttressed by loathing of those victims.

Furthermore, as a veteran who was sent to Vietnam in the late 1960s, I resent viscerally his description of my fellow vets as “losers and suckers” who answered their country’s call to report for duty in a hostile-fire zone.

But that, too, is OK with many of the MAGA cultists who comprise the bulk of this guy’s base.

If this guy can pull this charade off … well, God help us.