Monthly Archives: March 2025

national news

Trump 2.0 no better than Trump 1.0

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Word out of D.C. is that the second version of the Donald Trump adminisration is different from the first one.

The pundit class suggests that this version of Trump came into office prepared for the rigors of the office, whereas the first time around he entered office with nary a clue about anything.

The difference appears to be that Trump knows this time what he wants to do and is going about his business with ruthlessness and callous disregard for how it affects the people whose lives he is changing.

That’s better than before? Hardly!

The area where Trump remains horribly ignorant is in understanding the limits of his power. Whereas the first version of Trump didn’t know what the hell he was doing, the second version of him knows what he wants … but then issues orders as if they have the force of law.

The don’t.

A president cannot summarily fire public service employees. Nor can he dismantle a Cabinet office created by Congress. Nor can a POTUS ignore willingly an order issued by a federal judge. Nor can a president demand a judge be impeached just because he or she issues an order that angers Trump.

It’s far worse than a mixed bag with this version of the once-former president. He might be more organized and more pulled together than he was when he stumbled into office in 2017.

He also is far more dangerous than many of us even imagined.

Uncategorized

World has gone mad!

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Let us be sure we don’t pussyfoot around the obvious … which is that our political world has gone stark-raving mad.

How can I make such a claim? I have a friend in Germany, a journalist and a student of American politics. He usually is spot on with his understanding of U.S. political trends, as he said they occasionally mirror developing trends in Germany.

My friend wrote me a note that led with this: “I don’t understrand what is happening to your country.”

The major concern for my friend is the U.S.’s new found friendship with an assassin, a killer, a dictator and a highly aggressive head of state, Vladimir Putin.

Putin invaded Ukraine three years ago in a bold-faced territory grab from a sovereign nation. Ukraine also is an ally of the United States. President Biden immediately went to NATO officials to enlist their support for our financial and materiel aid to Ukraine. He got it.

Now, Biden is retired. He’s gone back to Delaware and is playing with his grandkids. Meanwhile, the nimrod who succeeded him has cozied up to Putin, seeking to broker a cease fire. Donald Trump hasn’t made a single demand of Russia other than for the troops to stop firing at Ukrainians.

Therefore, my friend in the beautifiul Bavaria region of Germany is as confused as many of us are about what has become of this nation.

For the first time in U.S. history, we have turned our backs on a dependable ally — Ukraine — in favor of an aggressor state while the two countries are in the middle of a bloody ground war!

Therein lies my friend’s confusion. He doesn’t understand this country. Nor do I.

legal news

Would he dare seek a third term?

A member of my family, a fellow I consider to be a smart fellow, says he is concerned that Donald J. Trump will be able to finagle his way into a third term as POTUS.

He knows the Constitution’s 22nd Amendment limits the president to two elected terms. He knows that Trump has been elected twice.

I reminded my relative that Trump cannot do anything single-handedly. He needs Congress to amend the 22nd Amendment. Then he would need three-quarters of the 50 states to ratify it.

“It won’t happen,” I beseeched him. “Ohhhh, I don’t know,” came his reply.

The nation’s founders didn’t write a perfect governing document. It has been amended 27 times since its ratificationn in 1789. The founders, though, did set the bar quite high for those who want to change the framework of our democratic republic. They set strict legislative requirements and set a high standard for the number of state legislators needed to ratify an amendment.

Donald Trump, it seems to many of us, would like to be able to seek a third term as POTUS. But, he’ll be 83 years of age when his current term ends. The founders made it clear that to change the Constitutiion, pro-amendment fanatics need to jump through a lot of hoops to make it happen.

Trump and his moronic MAGA minions might think they hold all the cards to change the Constitution. They don’t. The founders made damn sure of the document’s strength by building in “checks and balances” to keep presidents in check.

It has worked so far. It will continue to do its job.

legal news

SCOTUS chief pushes back … a bit

Media reports saiy that U.S. Chief Justice John Roberts is pushing back on Donald Trump’s call to impeach federal judges who rule against him.

I consider the chief’s response to be a tepid rejoinder. Then again, the chief justice of the nation’s highest court need not scream and bellow in a manner resembling what Trump demonstrates.

Roberts said that impeaching a judge is an “inappropriate” form of protesting a court ruling. He said the appeals process has worked for two centuries and that should be the way to respond to a ruling one dislikes.

Fine. I get the message. I fear it will be lost on the Maniac in Chief.

What fascinates me, though, as I watch Trump bloviate about all the revenge he intends to seek is that the courts do remain reasonably solid in the checks and balances realm of our federal government. Trump’s moronic staffers suggest that certain judges lack jurisdictiion or standing to rule as they do.

That’s pure crap. The only body that makes that call is the nine-member Supreme Court, whose chief has laid out what the Constitution allows.

Judicial impeachment is off the table!

national news

Does this oath even matter?

Donald J. Trump took his presidential oath of office in January while doing something that wasn’t lost on me or millions of others: He did not put his hand on a Bible.

Thus, when he vowed to “defend and protect” the Constitution and the government under which the founders created, that must have given him some way out of sticking to the sacred oath presidents normally take.

That must be the only possible rationale he is applying as he and Elon Musk lay waste to the government he vowed to defend and protect.

The Trump vow to be his supporters’ “retribution” is playing out as he and Musk fire thousands of public servants, seeking to slash billions of dollars from the budget.

Trump now, I suppose, can look at himself in the mirror and say with an overfed straight face that he can do all this without violating any sacred oath. Good grief! The guy is without conscience, without any moral compass, without any sense of empathy or decency.

Why else would he bring Earth’s richest human being on board to do his dirty work? Musk has none of those aforementioned qualities, so he can issue orders from his DOGE platform. Indeed, Musk doesn’t even have to answer to voters, as he didn’t run for office. He’s a hired gun whose task is to be Trump’s hit man.

I wasn’t alert enough to expect this kind of blowback at the second Trump inaugural when I noticed that Trump didn’t put his hand on a Bible. The gesture likely meant nothing at all to a man with zero compassion for the lives he is grinding into the dirt.

local news

Love this service

I am going to sound like a self-righteous do-gooder with this brief blog post, so I’ll apologize in advance for anyone who takes it that way.

I deliver Meals on Wheels every Monday to about a dozen households in Princeton. It takes me a little more than an hour to deliver a hot meal, a bottle of milk and a dessert/snack to shut-ins.

It is truly a gratifying hour-plus I spend each week. Almost without exception these folks greet me with a smile and a good word. For many of them it is clear to me they don’t talk with anyone outside of immediate family. Many of them have timed my arrival, as it’s about the same each week. They open the door as I am walking to deliver the knock or ring the bell.

We engage in small talk. They wish me well. One sweet lady near the end of my route always instructs me to “be careful, darlin’.”

How in the world can one start your day any better than that?

And yet … here’s where the politics comes in. The Elon Musk/Donald Trump administration well might ponder a way to cut funding for thie program. I haven’t yet heard whether the Collin County branch of Meals on Wheels is in jeopardy. I only am left to hope that it somehow survives the draconian cuts that Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency is pondering.

Keep your grimy mitts off this valuable service we provide for those in need.

local news, medical news

No redeeming value in this loss

Two years have passed since I experienced the worst day of my life and I still am getting the reaction from those intending to offer some semblance of comfort.

I recently explained to someone who inquired about my marital status. “I am a widower,” I responded. “Oh? Tell me what happened,” came the reaction. I told this individual about the glioblastoma that struck Kathy Anne, about the surgery to removed part of the mass in her brain, the rehab, the grand mal seizure and finally the end that came six weeks after the diagnosis.

“At least she didn’t suffer,” the individual said … to which I shot back, “There is nothing positive I can claim from all this.”

To be clear, I am rebuilding my life and the foundation for my new life looks promising. The brevity of my bride’s battle does not lessen the pain that came at the end of her life on Earth.

I have been through all kinds of family tragedy. Dad’s death in September 1980 was sudden and shocking. The last words I said to him were, “I’ll see you Wednesday.” He left on a weekend fishing trip to British Columbia, but then perished when the skipper of the boat he was in crashed into a log jam. Dad died instantly. I got the news and I felt the numbness of the shock consume my body.

Mom died nearly four years later to the day. She suffered from Alzheimer’s disease. We watched her disappear before our eyes over several years, losing cognitive skill bit by agonizing bit. The end came. I was expecting it.

Both instances inflicted enormous pain on our family.

Then came Kathy Anne’s sudden illness and then she was gone.

I never will accept the end of my bride’s life as a “blessing” because she “didn’t suffer.” The pain, although it still twinges, has become something I am able to manage and control.

Life does go on.

Uncategorized

Trump is POTUS? Hardly!

High Plains Blogger readers might recall that in 2016 I pledged never to post the word “President” directly in front of Donald Trump’s name.

My belief then was that he wasn’t my president. Not only did I vote against him, I considered him fundamentally unfit to hold the nation’s highest elected office. I still cling to that belief.

Six weeks into his second go-round as POTUS, the wisdom of that pledge is being brought into sharper focus. Only for a different reason.

He has taken office in the shadow of the world’s richest human being, Elon Musk. How in the world can this be? I can’t figure out how a publicity-seeking former reality TV mogul, real estate developer and huckster without equal can cede the spotlight to a tycoon who isn’t even eligible to run for president, as he was born in South Africa.

Americans didn’t elect Musk to anything. They elected Trump. However, Trump has turned budgeting authority over to Musk and his made-up Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE as it’s now known colloquially.

What’s more, he sits quietly while Musk takes Secretary of State Marco Rubio to task for not cutting enough from his State Department budget. Good grief! That isn’t Musk’s place! The authority to make such demands in public belongs exclusively to the president of the United States!

You see, Trump isn’t acting like the individual elected to the presidency. He has become the sidekick, the second banana, the guy riding shotgun in the clown car.

It is ridiculous and outrageous at the same time.

It also gives my pledge look all the more prescient.

national news

RIP, Sen. Simpson

Alan Simpson has left this good Earth after spending a career in public life trying to make it a better place.

The U.S. senator from Wyoming wasn’t exactly the kind of public official I would have voted for had I been given the chance. However, he symbolized a bygone era that allowed politicians of vastly different points of view to remain friends even after they tussled over policy issues.

Simpson, who died yesterday at age 93, was as conservative as they come. He also was a good-hearted man who was able to maintain close friendships with the likes of he late Ted Kennedy, the Senate’s renowned “liberal lion,” with whom he fought over policy matters.

The Wyoming senator also was the subject of Tom Brokaw’s book, “The Greatest Generation.” Brokaw told the story of how young Alan befriended a boy who had been sent to Wyoming after the U..S. entered World War II. Robert Matsui was a Japanese-American who’s only “sin” was to be of Japanese descent. The government rounded up hundreds of thousands of Americans and sent them to camps away from the Pacific Coast.

Matsui and Simpson got acquainted through the chain link fence and the razor wire that kept young Bobby locked up. They retained their friendship once they both entered Congress, Simpson as the conservative from Wyoming and Matsui as the liberal from California.

Alan Simpson embodied one of the essential qualities of good government. He was able to set personal friendships aside to debate political matters. When the debate ended, he joined his friends on the other side and had a good laugh.

national news

CR = crappy governance

Continuing resolutions keep bailing our Congress out of fiscal calamity.

Congress diddles and farts around trying to call the bluff of the folks on the other side of the aisle. They dicker over how much to spend and the rest of us hold our breath waiting to see if they can find common ground before the government runs out of money and closes down.

The CR is a crappy way to run a government. It’s got to stop!

The U.S. Senate agreed in a bipartisan vote to accept a Republican budget proposal. Ten Senate Democrats joined their GOP colleagues in agreeing to keep the doors open or another six months.

Then they’ll cue the music for the next budget dance in late summer.

And we’ll go through the same nonsense all over again.

Republicans usually have been the government shutdown culprits. They have screeched the loudest about budget issues and threatened to shut ‘er down if they didn’t get their way. This time, Democrats played that stupid game, resisting the Donald Trump-Elon Musk gambit for wiping out thousands of jobs in an effort to make government “more efficient.”

This so-called budgeting nightmare isn’t more efficient. It is a travesty that subjects everyone to unneeded heartburn and anxiety over whether the government will remain a force for good in people’s lives

Frankly, I hope Democrats can find a way to head off the disaster that awaits if the Trump-Musk tandem gets its way. They should operate from a position of fiscal responsibility, which to my way of thinking means they need to keep our government fully functional.

The ongoing string of CRs isn’t a solution.