Tag Archives: MAGA

Donald Trump

Yes, I want POTUS to succeed

Believe this or disbelieve it, but I want to clear the air on an issue that needs clearing.

It is the future of the presidency under the regime led by Donald J. Trump. In short, i actually want Trump to succeed. I don’t wish him success because he deserves high praise; he seeks it out even when he doesn’t deserve it.

I want the country to reap the benefit of whatever success Trump can bring forth.

I consider myself to be an American patriot, not a phony patriot who believes the lies that pour out of Trump’s mouth. I ain’t a MAGA American, as I believe the nation has retained its greatness even during the most difficult times imaginable.

What do I believe will happen with some of Trump’s policies? I believe the tariff tantrum he’s on only will worsen our daily lives by driving up the cost of damn near everything we consume. His deportation policy is heartless and inhumane. Trump’s meddling in higher education only weakens universities’ traditional independence.

The guy is a classic RINO, calling himself a “conservative” while unleashing the government to punish his political foes … to whom he refers as enemies.

I am a fair-minded fellow, regardless of what some critics of this blog might believe. I want Trump to succeed because continued failure only means more rough days ahead for the rest of us.

OK, maybe I’m self-serving in wishing the best for Trump’s policies. If he succeeds, we’ll all reap the reward.

national news, political news

Trump redefines conservatism

Donald J. Trump, through the force of his enormous will, has managed over the past decade to reshape the political landscape into something few of us recognize.

Take the definition of the term “conservative.”

I came of age politically in a time when Barry Goldwater and later Ronald Reagan became the gold standards for political conservatism. Their view was the term meant minimal government influence in our lives. Goldwater later became known more as a libertarian, taking the view that government had no role to play in determining people’s sex lives or whether a woman could obtain an abortion.

Trump has taken the conservative movement in an entirely different direction. He wants to use government as a weapon to wield against his political enemies. He vows to sic the FBI and the Justice Department on those in the media who criticize him.

He wants the government to go after colleges and universities who teach certain subjects in class. He recently withheld a huge fund from Harvard University because the Ivy League school refused to knuckle under his demand to stop teaching about racism, slavery and other low points in our nation’s glorious history.

Trump wants the government to ban transgender athletes from competing, he wants transgendered patriots to be barred from serving in the military.

None of this is “conservative” as I grew up understanding the term. An activist government is more of a — dare I say it? — liberal effort. In the old days, liberals were seen as wanting to deploy government to bring meaningful change.

These days, it’s all been tossed into a cocked hat.

Which brings about a key question. Who in our modern political world stands out as a Republican In Name Only? The Republican Party used to be thought of as the conservative party, yes?

I’ll cast my vote for Donald Trump as the nation’s RINO in chief.

national news

I want efficient government, too!

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Allow me this admission: I am all in on Donald Trump’s desire to make government more “efficient” and more “accountable” to the folks who pay for it … that means you and me.

We have heard tales for decades about wasteful spending in our federal government. Remember the stories about $600 toilet seats? Or airplanes that couildn’t fly?

Those were maddening tales to be sure. Trump got elected in 2024 partly on his promise to cut waste in our government. Hey, count me in!

What I — nor I doubt any other American — could foresee was the method Trump would use to slash government spending. Indiscrimiinate firings of inspectors general, or civil servants, of dedicated public employees, slashing of entire Cabinet departments all have become part of the modus operandi.

Then we have Elon Musk and that quasi-government agency called the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE. The term DOGE has become part of the government vernacular like NASA. We refer to the acronym as if it’s a real word.

Musk has been unbridled in his public statements about cutting Social Security, which has called a Ponzi scheme when, in fact, it is an earned benefit paid for with our tax noney we old folks paid with our tax money. That doesn’t matter to the richest man on Earth, whose DOGE lackeys are running amok.

The Musk-Trump strategy — such as it is — only demonstrates to me that the president has no plan, no principle, no idea of what our so-called leaders want to do.

They have taken a noble cause — making government more efficient — and turned iit nto a clown show.

The product is far from efficient … and no one is laughing.

national news

Trump rewrites the rules

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Try to imagine if you dare any president prior to Donald Trump’s arrival on the political scene in 2016 saying the things that often fly out of this guy’s mouth.

Take your pick of any of ’em. Republican or Democrat. It makes no never mind. Think of what the reaction would be if any president said out loud that he might seek a third term in office. Think of the insults any of them could level at former national security advisers or chairmen of the Joint Chiefs. Think of the kind of epithets they might hurl at fellow politicians. Think, too, of seeking to eliminate news organizations simply because they provide commentary you deem critical.

They would be impeached by the House of Representatives. There’s a decent chance they could be convicted of a high crime and drummed out of office.

Not now, man! No way. The current POTUS has rewritten the rules of conduct, of decorum, of behavior.

It’s now OK to talk like a junior high schooler, to speak of others in the most unkind language imaginable. It’s all right to lie openly.

It’s OK if you’re Donald John Trump!

Dude gets away with it … because he instills fear in those who might be inclined to speak out.

President George H.W. Bush once promised to turn the nation toward a “kinder, gentler” political climate. Donald Trump has torn that playbook into shreds, leading us to an environment full of insult and invective.

I prefer the G.H.W. Bush version of politics.

media news

Obama: What if I did this?

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Barack Hussein Obama, speaking to a crowd of college students the other day, raised a fascinating subject out loud.

The 44th president of the United States wondered, “What if I did any of this?” He explained himself. “What if I had banned Fox News” from the White House briefing room? The outcry from the right, he said, would be vociferous.

He is correct. What’s more, the right would have been justified in expressing anger at a president banning a media organization from access it was giving to other such media outlets.

Then he went on. He noted how Donald Trump has banned some news outlets that have been critical of his policies from access to White House sources. “It’s not a partisan issue,” President Obama said. “It’s about who we are as a culture,” he added.

Indeed, the very people who would be angry as hell at a Democratic president doing such an outrageous thing have grown silent as their guy, Trump, seeks to silence The Associated Press, CNN and MSNBC as they seek to cover the events dictated by the current president.

Obama also noted that “a good many of my predecessors” would be aghast at what is transpiring these days within the White House now run by Trump, the MAGA morons who back him and Elon Musk, the richest man on Earth.

Trump has declared his desire to see MSNBC taken apart. By whom or what, he doesn’t say. The implication, though, is clear. He wants to sic the government on the left-leaning network. Trump, who is astonishingly ignorant of the Constitution, seemingly doesn’t know that the First Amendment declares that a “free press” must be kept free of any government interference.

President Obama was spot on in delivering his rhetorical question. He is right to question aloud where we are as a culture that allows people to accept as normal the machinations of a wildly out-of-control chief executive who exhibits every sign imaginable of wanting to run this country as a dictator.

economic news

Do the math, Donald!

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Well, that was quite a day … don’t you think? The Dow Jones Industrial Average opened today in the tank per usual the past few days.

Then Donald Trump announced he would suspend tariffs levied against most nations for 90 days … except for China. What happened next was a rally for the books.

The DJIA launched itself into heavens, closing up nearly 3,000 points. The Standard and Poors 500 finished even stronger percentage-wise.

What does all of this say about Trump’s tariff tempest? It tells me that investors who control people’s retirement accounts, their livelihoods, and their run-around funds think ill of the notion of penalizing Americans because the president of the USA doesn’t understand the damage tariffs do here at home.

Trump’s tariffs would raise the cost of damn near everything we buy, given that we are a nation that imports so many essential goods, services and commodities.

Investors have good reason to be skittish over Trump’s unilateral — and unprovoked — trade war against our closest allies and trading partners. If investors are squeamish about it, think of how all of this affects people like you and me.

And do you believe Trump has any interest in protecting the interests of those he was elected to govern? If he stalls implementation of the tariffs and seeks better trade deals with our partners, then I’ll cling to a glimmer of hope that he does care.

However, I am not betting the farm on it.

economic news

Yeah, I’m tired of ‘winning’

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Donald Trump’s version of “winning” bears no resemblance to what the rest of us think of the term.

He insists America’s unprovoked trade war that has spread across the planet like a Texas prairie wildfire has earned the respect and admiration of our allies.

Um, Earth to Donald: No. It hasn’t.

Canada has vowed to retaliate. So has Mexico. We start with our two closest neighbors and two of our most reliable trading partners, and it only worsens beyond that.

The European Union is aghast that Trump would impose steep tariffs on goods imported from France, the UK, Italy and Germany. What’s a bottle of wine going to cost now that Trump has imposed steep tariffs on that item?

Here’s the bitterest irony of all the international reaction. Russia, Turkey and Hungary – nations all run by ham-handed dictators and thugs – aren’t feeling the tariff pinch the way our traditional allies are feeling it. Why is that? It must be that Trump so deeply admires dictators, so much so that he is exhibiting signs of becoming one himself.

And yet the POTUS keeps yapping about the “winning” strategy of declaring economic war on our allies. He says they’ll come around to seeing it our way. Really, dude?

It’s looking all more likely to this old man’s eyes that our allies are fed up to here – and you can determine where “here” is – with Trump’s ignorant push for tariffs that only punish Americans.

Am I tired “winning”? Yeah, I am sick and tired of it in terms that Donald Trump applies it.

education news

Public ed faces the axe

The Texas public education system is about to feel the budget axe as the Legislature prepares to approve a school voucher plan and send it to Gov. Greg Abbott’s desk for his signature.

What a crock of steer manure!

House Speaker Dustin Burrows says the House has enough votes to approve a measure that would allow the state to siphon off public education money and set it aside for parents to use to pay for private education for their children.

Burrows, a Lubbock Republican, is serving his first term as House speaker. I had a glimmer of hope he might have followed the lead of two former GOP speakers — Dade Phelan and Joe Straus — in resisting this gutting of public education.

Frankly, the move to gut public school districts of money runs totally counter to traditional Republican support in rural areas of the state. Many communities represented in Austin by GOP lawmakers, depend on healthy and vibrant public school systems to hold their towns together.

Those systems will be deprived of funds they need from taxpayers’ pockets once this goofy idea becomes law.

Abbott, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick and many MAGA Republican lawmakers are dead set on depriving public schools of the money they need to strengthen themselves and provide quality education to our public school children.

My wife and I brought two sons into this world and they attended Texas public schools until the early 1990s. I believe they both received good educations that enabled them to attend and graduate from higher education institutions. They both have flourished in their professional lives as a result.

I only can hope that future generations of Texas kids can enjoy the fruits of a solid public education. I don’t feel good about where the state is going.

Donald Trump, national news

Move over, President W.H. Harrison

I long have held the late President William Henry Harrison up as the model for setting the dubious record for making stupid presidential decisions.

Donald Trump is challenging President Harrison for that title.

Harrison’s stupidity manifested itself on inauguration day, March 3, 1841. It was bitterly cold in Washington, D.C. Harrison’s medical team warned him to bundle up before delivering his inaugural speech. He ignored the medical advice and stood in the cold rain for well past an hour droning on about whatever was the issue of the day.

He then caught pneumonia and was bed-ridden until April 4. That’s when he died. They swore in VP John Tyler.

Profoundly stupid on the president’s part, correct? Yes. It was.

Trump has been told by Nobel laureate economists on the left and the right that the tariffs he has imposed will be catastrophic. They will punish Americans who will pay exhorbitantly high prices for goods and commodities imported from abroad. They will do little harm that Trump intends to inflict on the exporting nations.

But … he imposed the tariffs anyway. He has put millions of Americans’ livelihood in potentially dire peril. He launched without apparent provocation and international trade war that includes some of our strongest, most reliable and faithful allies and trading partners. Such as Canada, Mexico, France, Australia and Japan.

Yes, the dumbass in chief has decided to declare economic war on the entire planet apparently believing he is going to strengthen our hand in the world market.

Well, President Harrison’s stupidity had an obvious negative impact on his personal health and well-being. Donald Trump’s stupidity will reverberate all across Planet Earth.

Step aside, W.H. Harrison. You have company in the pantheon of pitiful presidents.

business news, economic news

Trump inscribe’s hideous legacy

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What does it say about a U.S. president who hears from the top economists on Earth that a policy he is considering would bring unvarnished disaster for Americans’ life savings … but then goes ahead with the decision to proceed?

It tells me that the president is hellbent on inscribing his place as the worst president in U.S. history.

How in the name of economic sanity can Donald J. Trump impose tariffs on our closest allies and most reliable trading partners and then watch as retirement accounts vaporize in real time?

He has through executive action spurred an international trade war, guaranteed a huge spike in inflation, forced the nation into a negative economic growth pattern and cost Americans billions of dollars in their retirement accounts.

Where I come from, that makes Trump the worst president in the history of the republic.

He doesn’t take advice. He heeds only his overfed “gut” and his “hunch.” He seeks to punish nations for “ripping us off,” yet imposes tariffs on such economic giants as American Samoa and Vanuatu.

Yours truly’s retirement account is vanishing before my eyes. Why? Because the numbskull in chief doesn’t care one damn bit about protecting the people who pledged to protect when he took office.