Monthly Archives: March 2020

national news

Sanders is cooking up a conspiracy

This is one of the many things I don’t understand.

U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders is now accusing the “Democratic establishment” of conspiring to defeat his bid to win the party’s presidential nomination, that it favors Joe Biden, whose Super Tuesday blowout across the South has inflicted serious injury to the Sanders campaign.

I don’t get where Sen. Sanders gets that.

Biden’s victory was fueled in two parts by African Americans.

First came Saturday’s stunning South Carolina primary victory that came in the wake of U.S. Rep. Jim Clyburn’s emotional endorsement of the former vice president. Clyburn carries fantastic clout among African Americans in his home state; he is the leading black member of Congress.

Part two occurred Tuesday night when Clyburn’s endorsement carried over into Virginia, Tennessee, Alabama, North Carolina, Arkansas, Oklahoma and then Texas … all states with substantial African American voter blocs. Biden won them all.

Indeed, do I need to remind everyone that the Democratic “establishment” was calling two weeks ago for Biden to step aside? He had performed dismally in Iowa and New Hampshire. Then came Nevada. He was considered the equivalent of political road kill. Leading Democrats wanted him to bow out, to go away quietly, to cede this fight to the next generation.

Now that Biden has breathed new life into his campaign he becomes a tool of the establishment? That’s what Sanders wants us to believe? C’mon, man! Sen. Sanders is concocting a conspiracy theory where none exists.

national news

Are we witnessing a comeback for the ages?

I’ve heard more than one pundit in the past few hours say that Joe Biden’s recovery from near political death is the most astonishing comeback they’ve ever witnessed.

I have to concur.

The Democratic presidential candidate who was given up for dead, who was considered little more than political road kill just 10 days ago, is now possibly on the verge of winning his party’s presidential nomination.

Politico reports that if Biden banishes Bernie Sanders in next week’s Michigan Democratic primary the end might be at hand for Sanders’ campaign.

I don’t want to oversell or overstate what we witnessed during last night’s Super Tuesday tidal wave, but Biden’s return from the near-dead is truly astonishing.

Sanders isn’t going to slink away quietly. He is going to fire up his attacks on Biden. He will challenge Biden’s vote on the Iraq War, on his trade votes, on the nature of his political donations.

Sen. Sanders, in my view, is going to ratchet up what I believe is a “class war” pitting the rich against the not-so-rich. He seems to be labeling Biden, a working-class hero to many voters, as some sort of puppet of the elite within the Democratic Party.

Biden ran the table across the South. He picked off Minnesota, Massachusetts and Maine. Sanders appears to have won California.

Next up is Michigan, which now appears to be the sort of “firewall” that kept Biden from combusting in South Carolina.

I am one American voter who wants Joe Biden to keep on winning.

national news

Can the new/returned frontrunner go the distance?

Before we start fitting Joseph R. Biden for a new inauguration suit we need to ponder a question posed by a friend of mine in an email overnight from w-a-a-a-ay down yonder … in South Australia.

My friend Peter follows U.S. politics closely and he asks this about Biden: And is he fit enough and sharp enough to take on Trump head-to-head, given the President will lie and cheat with impunity and without shame or pause for reflection?

Peter asks a good question, but I want to frame it a bit differently. The former vice president of the United States, who barreled through several primary victories Tuesday — including right here in Texas — first has to get past Bernie Sanders, who exhibited a continuing feistiness while declaring victory of his own.

Sanders got thumped in many of the states across the South. He did win in Vermont, in Colorado, Utah and he won the big prize in California. He isn’t going anywhere. He is in the fight to the finish; at least that’s what he is saying.

I was heartened to see Biden lift himself off the deck with a stellar run of victories. He is a long way from being nominated. It remains an open question at this moment whether he or Sanders will have enough delegates to win the nomination without a floor fight at the convention. Part of me sort of yearns for an actual fight, something to return these nominating conventions to what they were intended to be when the parties conceived of them.

However, I remain committed to hoping that Joe Biden emerges from this campaign in shape to take on Donald Trump.

Peter is absolutely correct. The current president of the United States will stop at nothing to smear, sully and slander his foe. He already has sought foreign government help in undermining Joe Biden’s candidacy, an act that resulted in his impeachment by the House of Representatives. The Senate acquittal only will embolden him to commit even more outrageous acts.

I also remain hopeful that Joe Biden would prepare himself for the onslaught that would come at him full force. He does exhibit some nagging tendencies to commit unforced verbal errors. Those must end. Now! He has to be on top of his game.

However, the once-prohibitive favorite to be the Democratic nominee has retaken his frontrunner status in the race to face Donald Trump. He is far from the clear favorite, but the fight is on.

national news

What a difference a primary victory has made

A single primary victory in the Deep South has injected a once-moribund presidential campaign with a vigor and vitality that one could not have imagined.

Joe Biden won the South Carolina primary this past weekend and set up a Super Tuesday ballot performance that has many of our heads spinning.

As I watch the coverage of the primary states poll closing, I am struck by the victories being rolled up by Biden in states where he was given up for politically dead a week or two or ago.

I heard someone say tonight that U.S. Rep. James Clyburn, the South Carolina political icon whose endorsement of Biden is seen as the turning point in the former VP’s presidential campaign, could be named “secretary of any Cabinet agency he wants” in a Biden administration if such an event comes to pass.

Gosh, do ya think?

Well, they’re still counting the ballots. I don’t know how Super Tuesday will shake out. As I write this brief blog post, I am hopeful that Democrats across the nation have snapped out of their revolutionary mood and returned to some semblance of rationality and reason.

Joe Biden represents a sort of political comfort zone that I believe we will seek as we ponder who we want to lead us for the next four years. I have had more than enough of the stomach-churning uncertainty of Donald Trump.

Of all the candidates left standing among that once-gigantic Democratic Party primary field, Joe Biden appears at this moment to be the one who can restore the decency that once was the hallmark of our nation’s most exalted public office.

national news

Long lines, long delays need to be fixed

They’re standing in long lines to vote in Texas and elsewhere, or so we are being told. That has to stop.

I’ve never quite understood why voting on Election Day has to be such an arduous task for so many Americans. County election officials ought to know roughly how many voters to expect; they ought to be able to assign enough polling place judges to work those elections; they ought to deploy enough voting machines to accept the ballots.

Media reports tell us of long lines in Harris County, Dallas County, Tarrant County, Travis County. I live in Collin County, which has more than 1 million residents. Fortunately for my wife and me, we didn’t have to wait more than just a minute or two when we cast our ballots in our rural community.

This isn’t a partisan issue. Republicans run things in Texas and many Democrats accuse the state of deliberately making it difficult for Texans to vote; they call it “voter suppression.”

However, the long lines are occurring in states such as California and Virginia, where Democrats hold the power.

Whatever the case, and whichever party is in control, there needs to be legislation enacted at the state level to ensure that voters do not have to stand in line for hours on end just to do their civic duty and to perform this fundamental act of citizenship.

media news

Matthews’ departure comes into sharper focus

I admit readily — and I have done so many times — that I am not the most intuitive guy in the world.

People say things that zoom straight over my noggin and I barely take note of how offensive their statements might seem to others, such as, oh, women or minorities.

When I heard last night from Chris Matthews himself on TV say that he was leaving MSNBC immediately and ending his two-decade run of “Hardball,” I was flummoxed initially. What the hell just happened? I wondered.

Then I heard about the things he said to Sen. Elizabeth Warren, questioning whether a woman she quoted in a Democratic presidential debate could have been lying about something Michael Bloomberg allegedly told her. It didn’t dawn on me in the moment, when Matthews and Warren sparred over that exchange, that women took serious offense to the questioning that Matthews was leveling at Warren.

Then came reports about Matthews hitting on women on his show, telling one of them how he had failed to “fall in love” with her. She reportedly took offense at the seeming come-on.

Matthews quit suddenly while admitting that times have changed from when the now 74-year-old was coming of age. Things that men said back then are no longer acceptable, he said. He apologized for what he had said.

I have commented already how I will miss his commentary. Yes, I have enjoyed watching him spar and joust with politicians. I have admired his ability to challenge those with whom agrees politically as readily as he does with those on the other side of the fence. To be candid, I didn’t pick up on the issues that others have identified as offensive.

When he wondered aloud about Bernie Sanders’ win in Nevada was akin to the Nazi conquest of France during World War II, I thought: Oh, that’s an interesting analogy. I didn’t cringe as others have done.

So now he’s gone from the air. Matthews could be abrasive, brash and loud. I heard all of that. It didn’t phase me.

I don’t know if any of this will sharpen my intuitive instincts. Maybe it will. If it doesn’t, I want to apologize in advance for any offense that I won’t take when someone pops off.

national news

Biden fits the bill for this old man

Joseph R. Biden Jr. got my vote today for president of the United States.

It is no surprise to readers of this blog. I waffled, wavered and wiggled a bit during the run-up to today’s Super Tuesday vote. In the end, though, I happen to fit into the demographic that is drawn to this fellow’s candidacy.

I once thought he was nearly finished as a candidate:

https://highplainsblogger.com/2019/11/painful-to-acknowledge-but-ex-vp-biden-likely-is-finished/

I am an older voter. I am a white guy. I consider myself to be a patriot. I am a veteran who once went to war for my country. I am retired. I live a quiet life in North Texas with my bride of more than 48 years. I am a one-time firebrand who once wanted to change the world with my single vote; that was a long time ago and I have grown out of that desire.

My keen interest today is in restoring the presidency to what I have grown up understanding it to represent. I believe Joseph Biden would do that for me.

We have been “treated” to more than three years of chaos, confusion, controversy … and contempt for the norms associated with the exalted office. I am tired of it and I want the presidency returned to the dignity the office demands.

I won’t belabor the point I have made already about Donald Trump’s unfitness for the office. I want to make another point, though: It is that Joe Biden, despite his verbal clumsiness and occasionally weird rhetoric, is profoundly fit to deliver the presidency from where Trump has dragged it.

As I ponder now where this primary race heads after today, it is my hope that Biden can collect more support along the way and that he can parlay that support into a presidential nomination … and then election.

national news

Trump delivers on this amazing pledge

What you see here reportedly is a check signed by Donald Trump paid to the Department of Health and Human Services.

It depicts his fourth-quarter salary that he is donating to the HHS to fight the coronavirus outbreak that is threatening nations around the world.

Trump vowed to forgo his $400,000 annual salary, donating it to various charities and causes.

Yes, I have been highly critical of the president since before he took office. And, yes, there is not a single thing he likely can do to change my opposition to his re-election.

I do, though, want to salute him for making good on his pledge to send his presidential salary to causes that need the money more than he does.

media news, political news

Thanks for the memories, Chris Matthews

1 Comment

Now that I have caught my breath — more or less — I want to say a word or two about a stunning announcement that hit me like a slap in the chops as I waited to hear from one of my favorite TV commentators.

Chris Matthews instead came on the air and said he was leaving a show I’ve been watching for the past two decades. That would be “Hardball.”

Matthews is gone. Just like that.

Well, my first reaction was: What in the name of unwelcomed surprises was that all about ? It turns out that Matthews and his MSNBC bosses thought they should part company over some on-air and off-air missteps.

Tonight the host apologized for saying something complimentary about a woman’s appearance, which someone must have thought was inappropriate. He earlier apologized correctly for invoking a Nazi Holocaust reference to Bernie Sanders’ stunning Nevada caucus victory.

Now he’s gone.

He spoke of the many fans of his who have enjoyed watching his commentary on the air. I am one of them. I long have gotten much about this man’s snappy, staccato rhetoric that he delivered at times over the voices of his guests. Still, this guy always has something interesting to say and he says it in a sort of regular-guy sort of manner that I find so amazingly appealing.

Matthews is no stranger to politics. He wrote speeches for President Carter, worked as an aide to House Speaker Tip O’Neill. He’s been at the center of power for decades. He has reported on the center of power as a reporter and columnist for the San Francisco Examiner.

The man’s knowledge is obvious. His love of politics and his belief in politics as a noble profession is equally so.

I am going to miss Chris Matthews’ perspective, which he delivered to us nightly with courage and ferocity.

national news

Democratic establishment gets its act together

Both major political parties have “establishment” wings.

The Republican establishment, sadly, has been co-opted and corrupted by Donald J. Trump and his fanatic base, the bloc of voters who think it’s OK to lie incessantly, to hurl insults and innuendo and to mock those with whom they disagree.

The Democratic establishment is being challenged by the far-left “progressive” wing of its party seeking to launch a “movement” that wants to toss aside an economic structure that has made this country so immensely wealthy.

The far-left wing of the Democratic Party is seeking to capture the presidential nomination and send a nominee, Bernie Sanders, against the godfather of the GOP fanatical wing, Donald Trump.

But wait! The Democratic establishment is beginning to come to its senses. Two center-left candidates for POTUS, Pete Buttigieg and Amy Klobuchar have dropped out; they’re going to endorse their new main man, Joseph R. Biden Jr., tonight in Dallas.

I am hearing some chatter out there in social media land that the D establishment is trying to “steal” the nomination from Bernie. Poppycock! There is no theft involved when people are acting in good faith to back an individual they believe can actually win a political campaign against someone — namely the current president — who needs to lose the next election.

And, no, I do not include the zillionaire Michael Bloomberg among the party establishment; Bloomberg isn’t an actual Democrat. Elizabeth Warren is fading away after a stellar start.

Buttigieg’s withdrawal speech spoke to the need for unity. He spoke to the desire to return to a political structure that seeks compromise and cooperation. Does anyone believe the “movement” leader, Bernie Sanders, is able to reach across the yawning political divide to work with those on the other side? I am not one of them.

Thus, it is my considered opinion that Democratic establishment political figures know of the need that exists out there.

What’s more, both wings of the Democratic Party share a mutual desire to defeat the Republican in the White House.

My desire now is for the Democratic establishment to catch its breath and persuade the progressives to join them in the political battle they both want to win.