Tag Archives: 2024 election

national news

Not understanding this … at all!

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I will go to my grave likely never coming to grips with the political phenomenon that continues to play out as the 2024 presidential campaign starts to ramp up.

We have an incumbent president, Joe Biden, sitting on one of the healthiest economies in nearly a generation. Yet he stands in danger of losing his re-election bid.

To whom? Possibly his immediate predecessor who was impeached twice by the House, who has been indicted four times by state and federal grand juries, who continues to defame his foes and who is preparing to stand trial for felony counts brought against him.

The confusion? I cannot fathom in my wildest dreams how this ex-POTUS continues to hold sway with Americans.

In an earlier era, Republican voters and political leaders never would have tolerated the behavior of an individual who they are poised to nominate for a second run as POTUS. He admits to cheating on his wives; he said he could date his daughter, who he described as being “hot.” He called John McCain a hero “only because he was captured (during the Vietnam War); I like people who aren’t captured.” He denigrated a physically challenged reporter and said he could grab women by their private parts because he’s a “celebrity.”

Nope. I’ll never understand what bounces around in the noggins of those who suggest that their guy can fix this nation.

Somewhere there must be a political sanity god who can guide this nation away from the madness that this guy represents.

Uncategorized

Way ahead of the curve …

Rarely can I boast about being ahead of the curve on political trends, as I mostly am wrong far more than I am correct.

As it involves the 45th president and his unfitness to hold — let alone run for — public office, well, I take a back seat to no one on that matter.

I made such a declaration long before he and his wife rode down the escalator in the office tower that bears his name. I noted that the future POTUS had zero public service experience, that his entire professional life was geared only toward self-enrichment. I argued vehemently on this blog that American voters must never let him near the Oval Office.

Well, as with most things, the voters didn’t heed my warning. He got elected in an Electoral College fluke, losing the popular vote by more than 3 million ballots, but being elected by pilfering key states and being awarded their electoral votes.

I truly wanted him to succeed. It couldn’t happen, though, because of that damn lack of public service background thing.

I said “I told you so” a time or three during his term in office. But again, the MAGA followers who happen to read High Plains Blogger were dismissive. I need to get over myself, some of ’em said.

Eight years later, the former POTUS is at it again. Only this time he has lost more than a step in speaking to the critical issues of the day.

He recently confused fellow GOP presidential candidate Nikki Haley with Hillary Clinton, prompting Haley to declare — for the first time and way later than I ever did — that the GOP frontrunner is “unfit for public office.”

Well, no sh** Sherlock!

These missteps are going to chip away where his previous insults, gaffes and hideous pronouncements couldn’t.

Hold your applause if you’re so inclined to congratulate me. Hey, I was just stating the obvious. If only those MAGA followers would follow suit.

national news, political news

Haley gets her wish … hold on!

Nikki Haley has been saying lately that she wants to go head-to-head with the Republican Party’s leading presidential candidate.

Well, as of today she got her wish when Florida Gov. DeSantis — once hailed as the lone alternative to the former Liar in Chief — folded up his campaign tent and then endorsed the guy he refused to take on with stern rhetoric.

Haley’s first big effort lines up in just a couple of days when New Hampshire Republicans go to the polls and cast real votes for the candidate of their choice. Haley, the former South Carolina governor and one-time U.N. ambassador, or the guy who appointed her as our envoy to the U.N.

I have no particular preference, other than to somehow ensure that the former POTUS never darkens the door in the West Wing ever again.

My personal desire when all the votes are counted in November is to see President Biden on the job for the next four years. As if you didn’t already know that.

Haley has been regurgitating some rhetoric repeatedly, saying that “rightly or wrongly, he brings chaos.” Well, duh! Someone will have to explain what she means by “rightly or wrongly.” How is it “right” for a leading politician to foment “chaos” wherever he goes?

I guess Haley doesn’t want to piss off the cult followers of her foe too much.

Whatever. It is now Haley vs. the pol who confuses her with Nancy Pelosi, who says he ran against Barack Obama, and who says Joe Biden is going to lead us into World War II. Spoiler alert: He didn’t run against the 44th president and we already fought — and won! — World War II.

***

One more thing. Perhaps you are noticing I refuse to mention the GOP frontrunner by name. I won’t, at least for a while. I am sick of seeing his name in print and hearing it on the air.

national news, political news

Polls aren’t predictors

I have to remind myself of an important fact as I ponder these public opinion polls showing President Biden possibly losing his re-election bid to the leading Republican challenger.

It is that the polls are not predictors of what will happen many months from now, but merely are snapshots of the public’s mood in the moment. What does that mean? It means that circumstances can change the public mood in dramatic fashion.

And, oh Lord, there are factors a-plenty out there that could change the minds of millions of Americans preparing to cast their votes for president.

We have several trials awaiting the GOP frontrunner. They are a dizzying array of felony charges. The former POTUS could be convicted of any of the felonies, from one accusing him of seeking to overturn the results of the 2020 election, to hiding classified documents in his posh digs in south Florida, to pressuring election officials in Georgia to “find” enough votes to award him that state’s electoral votes.

If a jury convicts him of any of them, he no longer can run for public office, let alone serve in the one he seeks. It’s on the books, man.

That means voters who currently favor the former POTUS in his bid to return to the office from which he was drummed out in 2020 will have to make decide whether they really want to vote for a convicted felon to become commander in chief of the world’s most powerful military and head of state of the world’s most indispensable nation.

The ex-POTUS can yelp and yammer all he wants about whatever decisions come down. The facts, though, will stand on the record forever if he is convicted of any of the serious charges that have been leveled against him.

President Biden has been a national politician for more than five decades. He knows his way around the political pea patch and no doubt will be able to exploit the obvious flaws in his opponent’s record … presuming, of course, that Republicans are foolish and stupid enough to nominate him.

Am I worried, therefore, about what these polls are telling us today? Nope. The worry will kick in on election eve if they are delivering the same message.

God help us if that occurs.

political news

The race begins in earnest

I am going to revisit briefly an observation I made about the presumed frontrunner for the 2024 Republican Party presidential nomination.

I said a good while ago that I wasn’t sure the 45th POTUS would be the nominee. I want to reiterate that view.

The Iowa caucus begins Monday. The weather statewide is hideous. Temps will be minus 15 degrees; wind chill is expected to drive it to 35 degrees below zero. Chris Christie has dropped out of the race. The GOP campaign is now down to just four challengers to the former Liar in Chief: They are Nikki Haley, Vivek Ramaswamy, Asa Hutchinson and Ron DeSantis.

Haley appears poised to pick up a good bit of late support now that Christie is on the sidelines.

What does any of this mean? Beats the bejeebers out of me.

The one-time POTUS is miles ahead in the latest polling. Big f***ing deal, as the current president once said to Barack Obama as the then-POTUS was set to sign the Affordable Care Act into law.

I keep hearing grumbling that even some of the ex-POTUS’s cultists are growing weary of his incoherent rants. Does it mean an upset is in the making? What about New Hampshire, which is having its primary. Remember what happened there in 1968.

President Johnson was seeking re-election. The Democratic primary took place and lo and behold, Eugene McCarthy, the anti-Vietnam War candidate, finished a close second to LBJ. On March 31, Johnson announced in a televised speech to the nation a suspension of the bombing of North Vietnam and then, in a stunner, announced: “I will not seek, and will not accept, the nomination of my party for another term as your president.”

Thus, there is ample room for more surprises this time out.

I would be amazed if the 45th POTUS suffers a proverbial near-mortal wound as he seeks to shed the weight of upcoming criminal trials … but not terribly surprised.

If only …

national news

So long, Chris Christie

Well … there goes my favorite Republican Party presidential candidate.

Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie today announced he has “no path toward the nomination,” and declared he is “suspending” his presidential campaign. I am going to ask one thing of the two-time presidential candidate: Keep up your relentless attacks on Donald Trump, and seek to remind the Trump cultists what the rest of us know … that Trump is “unfit for public office.”

Christie’s message simply had the reverse effect on the Trump base. It energized the MAGA cult, made ’em even more intent on working to ensure the crook’s nomination. Christie, I am sad to observe, simply never got out of single digits in polling data.

What, then, was the point, he asked today while speaking to a gathering of supporters in New Hampshire.

He said he won’t endorse President Biden. I get that. He continues to have a valuable message that is worth heeding. It is that Trump presents an existential threat to the nation.

Sorry your campaign never gained traction, governor. Stay vocal … and stay strong.

economic news, national news

Are we better off these days?

What in the world is it going to take to persuade Americans to shed their gloomy-Gus outlook on the U.S. economy?

You don’t need to answer that one. Just hear me out for a brief moment while I vent a bit of my frustration.

Here we are now officially in an election year. President Joe Biden is seeking another term, but he is facing headwinds that befuddle me. He is unable to persuade Americans that we are better off now than we were when he took office in January 2021.

Joblessness is down; employers are hiring tens of thousands of employees each month; inflation is down; interest rates are beginning to inch downward as well; retirement accounts are healthy; the stock market is setting records.

OK, I am going to set aside commenting on the border crisis and the phony investigations into alleged corruption involving the president.

Joe Biden has plenty of goods to sell Americans as he seeks re-election. He cannot seem to shake loose from Republicans who continue to feed the lie about the state of our economy.

They said we would plunge into recession. That the Dow would plummet. That inflation would gobble up Americans’ hard-earned savings accounts.

I don’t know about everyone else, but I am doing far better economically today than I was doing in 2020.

Should the president re-purpose the query that Ronald Reagan posed during the 1980 campaign against President Carter? He shouldn’t even consider it. I am certain that a similar question can be presented this year that would produce a far different response than the one Reagan used to devastating effect.

The very future of our nation depends on whether President Biden can find a way to vanquish forever the forces that keep lying to us about our nation’s economic health.

Donald Trump, local news, national news

No arguing with MAGAites

Command decisions come easily for me these days as a lone wolf who runs his own blog.

So … I am proud to announce that beginning this very moment I no longer am going to argue with the MAGA cultists who continue to back the idiocy preached by Donald Trump.

I just visited with a West Texas friend, who is far from a MAGA adherent, and we determined that there is no avenue of reason available when we engage a MAGA moron on policy matters.

They have swilled the Kool-Aid offered by Trump. It has seeped into their brain’s soft tissue. They are contaminated by the lies, the absolute lack of authenticity, the distortions blathered by Trump.

What, then, is the point of even trying to persuade them that their guy is a crook, who likely will be convicted (eventually!) of felonies relating to his denial of the 2020 presidential election, his theft of classified documents and the conspiracy to “find 11,780 votes” that would enable him to steal the electoral result in Georgia.

Does anyone see the irony? Trump accuses Democrats of trying to steal the 2020 election, but the only thievery taking place comes from Republicans!

From this moment forward, I no longer am going to debate with the MAGA morons. See y’all in the next life.

Joe Biden, national news

Biden is now engaged … fully

Joe Biden has decided to engage the individual who is believed to be his likely opponent in the 2024 presidential election.

As a chump bystander perched in North Texas, I merely want to say: Bring it, Mr. President!

President Biden marked the 1/6 assault on our federal government in a most fascinating way. He traveled to Valley Forge, Pa., where George Washington was encamped with his chilled revolutionary forces who were battling the British while trying to create a new democracy.

President Biden spoke on behalf of democratic principles and draw a straight line between those principles and the authoritarian theme sung by the presumed Republican nominee, Donald J. Trump. Biden said Trump poses a direct and existential threat to democracy.

I am one American patriot who wants us to continue on the democratic path forged by our founders and continued through the two centuries-plus since the American Revolution.

Biden told us in 2020 that he was campaigning for our nation’s soul. Sadly, much of that soul has been hijacked by Trump’s idiocy. Biden plans to seek to recover it, breathe new life into it and expose Trump — as if he needs the exposure — for the fraud he has shown us to be.

Go for it, Mr. President!

national news, political news

OK to change my mind …

Let me be clear: I am not changing my mind one bit on whether Donald Trump should be elected to the office from which he was drummed out nearly four years ago.

I am, though, going to pivot on the notion on whether states should boot his sorry ass off the GOP primary ballot this coming year.

Colorado has done so. The case is under appeal. Other states are considering it, too. My own thought is tracks along two trails.

One is that the courts should leave it up to voters to decide whether Trump is fit for public office. This voter has decided already he is not fit in the least for the office he seeks.

The other is that Trump well could be a convicted felon by the time the GOP primary season gets ramped up to full speed. Analysts are suggesting that Trump’s poll numbers well could plummet if a jury decides to convict Trump on any one of the four trials that are pending.

I happen to believe that Trump is unelectable. He is a madman masquerading as a Republican. He has admitted he wants to be a dictator on “Day One” of an administration were he elected. Gulp! I am choking on the thought.

This election should revolve around whether we want to remain a democratic republic or whether we want to hand the POTUS the authority to, oh … seek to execute the former Joint Chiefs chairman, pardon all the 1/6 traitors who stormed the Capitol; pardon himself for anything he did wrong.

Let the numbskull run once more and try to sell his idiocy to voters who’ve already seen what he can do. It would get many times worse a second time around.

Let’s all chew on what might lie ahead. I shudder at the frightening prospect.