Tag Archives: MAGA

national news

Cowards’ caucus remains silent

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The Republican Party caucus of congressional cowards continues to advance unqualified, unfit and undeserving nominees to the Cabinet headed by Donald J. Trump.

The party-line votes for the likes of Tulsi Gabbard, Robert F. Kennedy Jr.; Pete Hegseth suggest that these individuals aren’t likely to enjoy any sort of support from Democrats. But, by cracky, their Republican support among senators unswayed by the serious questions into their qualifications will be enough, more than likely, to lead them across the finish line.

Gabbard and Kennedy have just been approved by their respective nominating committees. Defense Secretary Hegseth was approved as well and, in fact, has taken office and has been dealing — rather smartly, I suggest — with the crash in D.C. of the Army helicopter and the American Airlines commercial jet.

Trump continues to hand power to an unelected zillionaire who continues to make command decisions on matters over which he has zero authority. What are Republicans doing to protect their constitutional authority?

This all pains me to ask: What the hell is happening to this government we all say we cherish, honor and vow to protect?

Trump is nominating certifiable wack jobs to key executive posts and is getting away with it because the Republican majority that controls both houses of Congress won’t stand up to him. Some of them tease with tough questions, only to vote to confirm the likes of Gabbard to be the next Director of National Intelligence and Kennedy to lead the Health and Human Services Department.

Next up is likely to be the worst of them all, FBI Director-designate Kash Patel, the moron who once declared his intention to shutter the FBI building and turn it into a museum of the deep state.

I am left to lament the absence of the governing majority that could stop this march toward madness. They are cowering in the corners of Congress while Donald Trump and his unelected sidekick, Elon Musk, run roughshod over the rule of law.

national news

When will GOP awaken to travesty?

A good friend and I frequently engage in political discussions that usually do not engender a lot of dispute … given that we’re cut from the same partisan cloth.

She does pose a question I want to repeat here: When will the Republican Party’s elected officials realize and say so out loud the travesty they are supporting in the White House?

She’s an avid anti-Donald Trumper. So am I. I cannot answer her question. I do not know what it will take for the GOP to realize (a) that Trump is not an invincible collossus, (b) that he is just as fallible as the rest of us and (c) that their show of courage very well could play well among the millions of “silent majority” American out here.

Trump’s remarks in t he wake of the air crash that killed 67 people this week in Washington, D.C., were just the latest outrageous insult that Trump threw into the political blender. He followed that up with his declaration of war against the FBI by firing all the field agents in charge. Then came Trump’s nominee for FBI director, his pick for director of national intelligence and his health and human services secretary nominee flip-flopping all over earlier remarks they had made about the damage they sought to do to the “status quo.”

Trump is surrounding himself in the executive branch of government with people who are profoundly unqualified for the jobs they hold. Then again, they mirror the lack of qualifications by their benefactor for the job to which he has been elected twice.

My friend informed today she has written GOP U.S. Sen. John Cornyn of Texas a letter informing him of her intention to oppose every Republican candidate who continues to back Trump’s hostile takeover of the federal government. Cornyn, a former Bexar County trial judge, is one of the targets of her rage.

Her hope rests in a belief that Cornyn’s legal background might imbue him with the knowledge that facts matter. Americans have witnessed with their own eyes an insurrection against the government, the purging of the FBI, the appointment of certifiable numbskulls to the highest levels of government.

What do all these things have in common?

Donald John Trump!

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.

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.

legal news

Birthright citizenship: solidly inscribed in Constitution

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Let’s just agree with this crystal clear notion … which is that the 14th Amendment to the US Constitution makes no distinction among those who are born in this country.

It is silent on whether parents are legal or illegal immigrants. You’re born here, you earn the right of citizenship. Period.

Donald Trump doesn’t see it that way. He wants to ban. He issued an executive order making that declaration. A federal judge, though, has declared Trump’s action in direct violation of the Constitution. Trump will appeal that sensible ruling. How far it goes is anyone’s guess. He’s got that right-wing-stacked Supreme Court on his side.

You must amend the Constitution to use the end of birthright citizenship to stem illegal immigration. There are serious hurdles to clear to amend the document.

The 14th Amendment also stipulates in crystal clear language that “no State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges … of citizens of the United States.”

Our forebears took care to ensure clarity of this amendment.

We must not trifle with birthright citizenship.