Monthly Archives: January 2025

local news

City manager residence at issue

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City managers are responsible for a lot of things emanating from City Hall … such as taxes that they propose for city residents to pay for municipal services.

It always has struck me that the individual who proposes a specific tax burden for residents in their city should have to shoulder part of that burden himself or herself.

Here in Princeton, where I have lived for six years, that’s not the case. The city hired a young man, Mike Mashburn, as its city manager in 2024. He signed a hefty contract, then was given an extension and a raise shortly afteward.

He took the job without having to move to Princeton. The city charter, approved in 2023, doesn’t require that the city’s chief executive officer live inside city’s limits. Mashburn hasn’t made the move. A group of Princeton residents, though, want to amend the city charter to make in-city residency a requirement of City Hall’s top dog.

I have two thoughts on this idea. My first thought is that the City Council that sent the charter to a vote of residents should have written such a requirement into the document. I find it unconscionable that the city manager doesn’t share the burden he proposes for others.

My second thought is that since Mashburn is under contract he could sue the city for breaching that agreement if the cåharter amendment passes. Moreover … he well could win that lawsuit, which could cost taxpayers hundreds of thousands of dollars in a settlement.

The mayor who engineered Mashburn’s hiring lost her re-election bid late in 2024. Brianna Chacon interviewed Mashburn and then presented him to the City Council, which then — after meeting him for the first time in closed session — voted unanimously to hire him.

The bottom line from my vantage point is that the City Council did not perform its due diligence by insisting that the city manager live in the city where he would work each day.

As for City Manager Mike Mashburn, he should sell his house and move here … pronto!

military news, national news

Trump’s narcissism on full display

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Did anyone alive in the United States of America actually recoil in surprise at the show of self-aggrandizement and petulant partisanhip this morning when Donald J. Trump spoke to the nation in the wake of the tragic air crash in D.C. last night?

I didn’t think so.

Sixty-seven people are presumed dead after a crash involving an Army Blackhawk helicopter and a regional jetliner that was seeking to land at Reagan National Airport.

Trump entered the White House press briefing room ostensibly to deliver some remarks about the tragedy. What he delivered instead was a stomach-churning display of raw politics. He blamed the hiring practices of two predecessors, Barack Obama and Joe Biden, for possibly putting unqualified air traffic contollers in the tower at Reagan airport.

Presidents are asked occasionally to fulfill an unwritten rule of the office they occupy … that of comforter in chief. Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, Obama and Biden all rose to that role at various times during their tenure as president. Today, Trump did speak briefly to the grief felt by the family members of the victims.

But then …

He talked about DEI hiring policies enacted by Presidents Obama and Biden. He implied those “diversity, equity and inclusion” policies lowered the standards required of air traffic controllers, hinting that someone on the ATC staff at Reagan might have been responsible for the horrific crash.

Donald J. Trump today demonstrated one more time why he is incapable of performing even the most basic tasks of holding the nation’s highest elected office.

This numbskull is an absolute disgrace.

crime news, legal news

No moral equivalence here

Right-wing MAGA fanatics need to take great care when attaching moral equivalence to two vastly different actions taken by two equally vastly different men.

In one of his final acts as president, Joe Biden issued pre-emptive pardons to members of his family, believing they would spare them from the hassles of being harassed by federal officials loyal to the incoming POTUS.

Those pardons were, shall we say, weird and kind of bizarre. As it has been said many times, innocent people do not need to be pardoned. The family members pardoned by President Biden hadn’t even been charged with any crimes.

Then came the horrendous blanket pardons issued by Donald Trump, freeing about 1,500 traitorous mobsters from punishment for their role in the Jan. 6, 2021 insurrection against the government. They sought to overturn the 2020 presidential election results and attacked with all-due violence the Capitol cops seeking to protect members of Congress from the hysterical mob.

Some right-wingers have sought to attach the Biden pardons with the Trump pardons. Not a chance! There isn’t a scintilla of moral equivalence to be found!

One of the pardoned traitors, by the way, got into an altercation with Indiana police over the weekend and was shot to death by the cops. History seeking to repeat itself? Well … go figure.

What Trump did in pardoning all the convicted mobsters was send a clear signal that the president had their back in the event they might try to do something similar in the future. The president also gave the middle finger to cops who had suffered grievous injury in defense of our government.

Trump has taken the same oath twice to “protect and defend the Constitution.” He tossed that oath into the crapper the first time and there’s not a thing that I can detect that will prevent him from doing it again.

Therefore, let us end the idiotic attempt to equate the pardons issued by the departing president with those given by the individual who succeeded him.

national news

Figuring out a countdown clock

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OK, ladies and gents, we’re one full week into Donald Trump’s term as president of the United States and already I am seeking a way to count down the time before he departs the White House for the final time.

I have several measuring devices available to me.

We have the daily calendar. Trump entered the White House on Jan. 20 with 1449 days to go before the end of his time. He’s spent eight more days, leaving him with 1,441 to go. Still a lot. The number sounds daunting.

How about a weekly calendar? Trump began his term with 208 weeks to spend. He’s lopped off a first full week, leaving him with just 207 to go.

I won’t mess with a monthly calendar, as each month seems to last a lifetime.

I am inclined to keep a weekly short-timer’s calendar near my Man Cave desk at home. The weeks don’t drag on. The number of remaining weeks diminishes fairly rapidly.

Those of us who served in the military are familiar with short-timer’s calendars. I kept one on the door of my wall locker upon returning from Vietnam. I think I started it out at four months. I just checked off the days each evening before I hit the rack. It went quickly. Then I was done. Gone. Headed for home down the highway from Fort Lewis, Wash.

My desire to track the time before Trump is gone from my sight flies in the face of a truth my mother would preach. “Don’t wish your life away,” she would say to me as I coveted the arrival of the weekend.I was a teenager and I didn’t know any better. Besides, at that age I thought I’d live forever.

Well, I’ve made a lot of orbits around the sun since then. I am an old fogie … who still tends to wish my life away when it involves certain events or individuals I want to vanish.

I don’t expect Donald Trump to make any pronoucements or push through any policies that will delight me. He and I do not see the world through the same prism. It’s as simple as that.

Therefore, my form of countdown has begun until he is shown the Oval Office door for the final time.

legal news

Patel: worst of the bunch

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Of the remaining appointees to the Donald Trump Cabinet who remain quite problematic, I am going to single out of them as being the worst of the bunch.

FBI director-designate Kash Patel is utterly, completely and unquestionably unfit for the job he says he wants. Trump picked him, I guess, because Patel has all but declared war on the very agency he wants to lead.

How in the name of law enforcement can anyone justify this moron’s ascent into the FBI directorship? Patel and Trump have accused the Biden administration of “weaponizing” the agency against Trump’s political adversaries. What the new guy has suggested doing makes any accusation of Biden’s weaponization laughable on its face.

He said he wants to close the agency and turn it into a museum to commemorate the “deep state,” whatever the f*** that is. He vows to launch probes into special counsel Jack Smith’s work on behalf of the attorney general to prosecute Trump for crimes against the government. He wouldn’s shirk at any notion to prosecute the Jan. 6 House select committee that probed the insurrection that sought to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election.

Patel refuses to answer direct questions about whether he would say “no” to an order from Trump that is illegal. Nor does he acknowledge that Joe Biden won the 2020 election.

The clown is part of the Big Lie cabal that has no business serving as a top law enforcement official in our cherished federal government.

Kash Patel gets my nod as the worst of the sorry bunch still awaiting Senate confirmation. The sad truth, apparently, is that he’ll get confirmed. God help us.

legal news

Legal scholars got this one right

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A federal judge in Washington state has become the latest Man in the Moment by issuing a temporary halt to Donald Trump’s order ending birthright citizenship for anyone born in the United States of America.

I agree with U.S. District Judge John Coughenour, appointed to the federal bench by President Reagan. He called Trump’s order “blatantly unconstititutional.”

But hold on! He’s getting plenty of push back from conservative legal experts who are backing Trump’s decision.

One of them is Hans Von Spakovsky, who works for the Heritage Foundation. He said: “The 14th Amendment has two key clauses in it. One, you have to be born in the United States, but you also have to be subject to the jurisdiction of the United States. All those who push birthright citizenship just point to that first phrase and ignore the second,” he said. “I’ve done a lot of research on this. I’ve looked at the original passage of the 14th Amendment and what that phrase meant subject to the jurisdiction of the United States. According to the original sponsors of the 14th Amendment in Congress was that you owed your political allegiance to the United States and not a foreign government.” 

I just want to take note, however, of one key ommission in the amendment. It makes no mention of allegiance to a foreign power. It just lays it out there in plain English: If you’re born or are naturalized in this country, you are a U.S. citizen.

Conservatives ought to stand on historical precedent. This proposal to end birthright citizenship is a notion intended to attack the intentions of illegal residents, which has nsothing to do with the children they bring into this world.

national news

‘Great’ precedes ‘good’

Walter Isaacson, a political journalist of some renown, believes that Donald Trump already has established himself as a “great” president, but now must work on becoming a “good” one.

The difference, if I heard Isaacson correctly on a TV interview, suggests that Trump already has established his place in history as a politician of significant presence. He has reshaped the political landscape in a way that bears no resemblance to what it used to look like.

His task now is to do some “good” for the country he governs. Isaacson called Trump’s triumph over Kamala Harris a sweeping victory, in that he carried all seven of the swing states being contested. Granted, he didn’t win the “landslide” he keeps suggesting.

It was an important victory nonetheless, Isaacson contends.

Still, Trump — and this is my view — needs to channel the rage he still carries from his 2020 defeat at the hands of Joe Biden into constructive legislation. Dude needs an agenda on which he can hang his hat. I don’t see one. Nor do I see any evidence from Trump that he can craft anything of the sort.

All of this makes me doubt that Trump ever will achieve the “good” part of the office he has won.

national news

Trump Cabinet coming together … for better or worse

Four down and a bunch more to go for Donald Trump as he seeks to assemble the latest version of the federal government’s executive branch.

As expected, it’s been some tough sledding for some of Trump’s picks to administer policy decisions. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth needed a tie-breaking vote from Vice President J.D. Vance to push him across the finish line. Secretary of State Marco Rubio sailed through with a unanimous 99-0 Senate vote.

CIA Director John. Ratcliffe from North Texas and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem also got confirmed; they both had their share of “no” votes.

What’s next presents the possibility of at least three serious donnybrooks. FBI Director nominee Kash Patel, Director of National Intelligence hopeful Tulsi Gabbard and Health and Human Services pick Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

I almost don’t where to begin with these three nimrods. Patel wants to destroy the very agency he says he wants to lead; Gabbard has chummed around with deposed Syrian goon Hafaz al Assad; RFK Jr. might seek to endanger our children by getting rid of many vaccines now required.

All three of these individuals have serious opposition facing them. Patel has zero business running the FBI, given his expressed hatred of the agency. Gabbard is equally unfit to become DNI, as she has next to zero intelligence-gathering and analytical experience. RFK Jr. is half-cracked judging by his statements involving the care of our elderly and our children.

All three of those individuals need to be shown the door … with malice. It isn’t likely to happen because the GOP majority in the Senate is demonstrating it comprises a cabal of cowards who cannot bring themselves to demand that Trump find truly qualified public servants to fill these key posts.

Welcome to the return of government by chaos.

military news

DoD head appears cleared for job

Pete Hegseth should never be allowed to take the job he appears set to assume … secretary of defense of the world’s greatest military power.

But he will because I keep hearing how Senate Republicans, with a couple of notable exceptions, are standing with him. Sens. Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska likely will vote against Hegseth. Two more GOP defections and the dude is toast.

Who might abandon this guy remains an open question. What we’ve all seen in the second coming of Donald Trump to the White House is that the GOP caucus is as scared of him as it was when he left office in 2021, having been defeated by Joe Biden.

To be honest, it makes me so angry I want to spit.

Let’s just set aside all the sexual abuse stuff, the womanizing, the marital infidelity for just a moment. Hegseth is a combat veteran. He served in the Army. Hey, so did I, so I’ll thank him for his service.

That’s it! He didn’t command large groups of men and women. He held no administrative job. He gravitated from the military to a gig on the Fox Propaganda Channel, serving as a weekend host on “Fox and Friends.”

This does not constitute any sort of experience that qualifies this guy to lead the nation’s — and the world’s — most powerful and lethan military organization.

Toss in the stuff about his alleged sexual misconduct — which comes from women who have identified themselves — and you have a recipe for unmiitigated disaster.

The dude has waffled, flipped and flopped on many of his more controversial views, such as whether women should serve in combat. He said “no,” now he’s backing away.

Donald Trump continues to boast about finding the “best people” to work with him as POTUS. Pete Hegseth isn’t possibly one of them.

national news

Newest MAGA moron steps up

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Step right up, Andy Ogles, and take your place as the latest MAGA moron to exhibit his colors as a blind loyalist to the MAGA man in chief, Donald Trump.

Ogles is a Tennessee Republican House member who has introduced a bill to allow Trump to run for a third presidential term when his current term runs out in January 2029. Ogles, of course, wants to rewrite the Constitution, which bans anyone from being elected president more than twice.

This is the product of a MAGA dipshit who believes Trump is the savior for a nation that, truth be told and heard, is in quite good shape. Ogles’ amendment would limit a third-term president to those who serve non-consecutive terms. That means, quite naturally, that former presidents Barack Obama, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush are out, given that they were elected to two consecutive terms.

Let it be understood that the 22nd Amendment was crafted in the late 1940s by Republicans who didn’t want an “imperial presidency,” which they feared when Democratic President Franklin Roosevelt got elected to four terms. It has worked out all right since its ratification in 1951.

I am quite sure that when Trump’s current term is up that Americans will have decided they have had enough of the carnival barker masquerading as a serious politician.

As if one term wouldn’t have sufficed.