Tag Archives: Joe Biden

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 …

crime news, national news

Whether to nominate a felon

So help me I keep tilting in all directions ruminating over whether a once-great political party should nominate an indicted former POTUS for the job he wants to reclaim.

At the moment, I am inclined to just shrug and say: go ahead and nominate this clown, who well might be a convicted felon by the time the GOP nominating convention sends the ex-POTUS off to be defeated — once again — by President Joe Biden.

The former Liar in Chief keeps insulting judges who are presiding over his pending trials. He keeps hurling epithets at Jack Smith, the special counsel hired by Attorney General Merrick Garland to investigate allegations of criminal activity.

The one-time BS Artist in Chief will not be elected. All that is left is for President Biden to send him packing once again and have the two-time election loser ponder how he intends his time while fending off the hounds of justice.

These quandaries are difficult to shake. I might wake up in the morning feeling differently … but I doubt it.

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.

Joe Biden, national news

Raucous SOTU on tap?

President Biden … you are about to receive some more unsolicited advice from little ol’ me, one of your many supporters who wants to see you re-elected in November.

House Speaker Mike Johnson invited you to speak to a joint congressional session about the State of the Union. I am delighted you accepted the March 7 speaking engagement.

Be prepared, sir, to be heckled, harangued and harassed by a handful of MAGA morons sitting on the Republican side of the House chamber. You have a marvelous message to deliver. The state of our Union is strong. I expect that declaration to come with force during your speech.

It won’t matter to the likes of Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene, Paul Gosar, Matt Gaetz, Lauren (The Carpetbagger) Boebert, Sens. Ted (the Cruz Missile) Cruz or John (no, not that …) Kennedy.

They will hoot, holler and hiss as you extol the virtues of your term in office.

The challenge, Mr. President, will be in how you deal with it in the moment. One of your predecessors, President Obama, had a masterful sense of timing as he swatted away such idiocy arising from the GOP side of the chamber. Some advice? Why not call the man you call your “brother” and ask him for a tip on how to handle such juvenile behavior. Hey, no one needs to know you made the call.

Use your personal cell phone. Slip him a text message. He’ll call back, right?

Yes, this speech will be seen through a political lens. You know that, as you have sat through many other such SOTUs as senator and vice president.

As you declare the strength of our Union, though, it is imperative that you deal forthrightly with some of the issues that do plague this great nation. You know what I am talking about: the southern border crisis stands out; a solution to that difficult matter can come from you and the SOTU is an ideal forum to offer it. Wars in Israel and Ukraine also are deep concern for your fellow Americans. We need some glimmer of an “end game” strategy and again, the SOTU can provide the venue for it.

I am delighted with the state of our economy and you need  to remind Americans that the recession the “experts” predicted hasn’t come … and isn’t likely to come.

And, finally, you need to frame this upcoming campaign as a battle to retain our cherished democracy and resist the rants of those who want to turn the presidency into an autocracy.

I am with you, Mr. President.

As for the delinquents in the crowd who will toss decorum into the dumper as you stand before the nation, you’ll know how to handle them, too.

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!

Joe Biden, national news

Talk to us, Mr. POTUS!

President Biden doesn’t need or want unsolicited advice from a North Texas blogger … but he’s going to get it anyway.

Mr. President, you say you don’t follow the polls, that they are meaningless this far out from an election. However, they are not trending in your favor.

Here’s what I believe you ought to do: talk to us, as in stand in front of the nation and tell us — in detail — what in the world you are doing to resolve the myriad problems facing this nation.

Do not rely so heavily on your Cabinet members, or on the vice president, to explain the administration’s policies.

Mr. President, you need first and foremost to call the immigration matter along on our southern border what it is: a crisis! You, sir, need to tell us in no uncertain terms that we are facing a crisis with thousands of undocumented immigrants seeking entry into the United States.

Do not let Secretary or State Antony Blinken spell out your policy; do it yourself. Don’t rely on Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas speak on the issue, either. He’s damaged goods among many Americans who believe he has turned his back on securing the border.

Same is true for the war in Ukraine, and with Israel’s war with Hamas in Gaza. Mr. President, your relative silence on these matters is giving grist to the phony narrative that you have slipped a step or two.

Women’s reproductive rights also require the president’s voice. I admire Vice President Harris, but she’s No. 2 in the executive branch of government; we need to hear from No. 1 … that would be you!

Mr. President, I offer this advice as someone who voted for you in 2020 and who wants to see you re-elected next year. I am troubled by the lying that comes from those who suggest you don’t have the snap to talk to us intelligently about these issues. I believe you are fully capable of handling the job to which we elected you.

I just want you to hear more from you and less from those who speak for you.

How about it, Mr. President? Talk to us!

national news

What about Trump’s mental sharpness?

All this blather and nonsense about whether President Biden has lost a step or two mentally ignores or dismisses a key question.

Which is: Have you listened to the unhinged, uncontrolled and incompetent rants of the guy Biden succeeded as POTUS?

Donald Trump is 77 years of age. He is just a tad younger than the president. Trump bloviates about the Big Lie while Joe Biden is negotiating with world leaders. Trump cannot seem to get Barack Obama off of what’s left of his mind, mistaking Biden with the 44th president fairly routinely.

The ex-POTUS clearly is declining, as some medical experts are suggesting. Yet those who are critical of President Biden on the specious argument that he’s losing mental acuity fail to recognize the same thing in what is becoming apparent in the idiot who wants to replace him.

Try to nibble on this nugget: Trump also said that under his administration, shoplifters would be subject to extrajudicial execution: “We will immediately stop all the pillaging and theft. Very simply, if you rob a store, you can fully expect to be shot as you are leaving that store.”

He said that President Biden’s policies will lead us into “World War two.” Hey, wait. We fought that one already. He said Army Gen. Mark Milley, the former chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, should be executed; that he swept all 50 states in 2020; that he defeated Obama in 2016; and that windmills are killing whales.

Dude is losing it, man. To think that some Americans actually want this lunatic in charge of the executive branch of our government is, well … simply beyond belief.

Joe Biden, national news

Good government gone … not forgotten

Do you remember when government at all levels — from Capitol Hill, to state capitols, county courthouses and city halls — worked for the people who pay their bills?

It wasn’t necessarily a government run by liberals. There once was a conservative movement that railed against government, but whose adherents didn’t stand in the way of government seeking common ground.

Those days are gone. I hope, though, that good government as I recall it isn’t extinct, like the dodo bird and the woolly mammoth.

I long for its return.

Even during the Ronald Reagan era, government could rise to the occasion. The 40th president declared at his first inaugural that “government is the problem” and the cause for the nation’s ills in the early 1980s. President Reagan, though, found a way to work with his old nemesis/drinking buddy Speaker Tip O’Neill to find a way into the light.

We have an entirely different climate today in D.C. Those damn MAGA morons have taken obstructionism to a new level, almost turning it into an art form. The progressive caucus on the other side also has dug in deeply, seeking unaffordable government actions, such as Medicare for All and forgiving every former college student’s debt.

For the purposes of this blog, though, I am going to aim my rhetorical fire at the MAGA cultists.

Because of the MAGA crowd’s ignorance, the U.S. House this year required 15 ballots to elect a speaker … and then only after he conceded so much to the MAGA morons that he made himself vulnerable to the ouster vote that booted him out of office.

This Congress has proved to be among the least productive legislative sessions in history. Why? Because the MAGA crowd insists on seeking something on which to impeach President Biden.

This isn’t good government in any possible form.

Just maybe there will be enough Americans who are as fed up as I am to dropkick the MAGA crowd to the sh***er. I don’t have a problem, per se, with conservatives as long as they understand the value of outreach on occasion to the other side of the aisle.

President Reagan understood it clearly. If only he were around today to lecture the MAGA morons on how to govern while standing firm on their principles.

national news

Hunter Biden sticks it to ’em

Most of the time I would be inclined to chastise a public figure for refusing to answer a legally issued subpoena.

Not this time. The public figure of the moment is Hunter Biden, son of President Joe Biden. A congressional committee had subpoenaed Hunter Biden, demanding that he testify in private to the committee.

Biden is having none of it. He wants instead to talk publicly to the panel, in front of the world, on the record so that everyone can hear his answers to the questions that will come.

I am forced to wonder: What is wrong with that? I can’t think of a reason why Hunter Biden would want to go behind closed doors. I can think of plenty of reasons for him to insist on public testimony.

First of all, he wants to expose House Republicans’ efforts to find any sort of crime that can connect him to his father. He has said that Daddy Biden derived “no financial benefit” from his son’s corporate work.

Second, he wants the committee to seek to explain publicly why it is conducting the hearing in the first place.

Third, Biden would take an oath to tell the whole truth. Failure to do so would result in punishment. He could take the oath, speak the truth and let the public draw its conclusions over who is telling the entire truth.

The Hunter Biden probe is headed for oblivion, in my humble view … right along with the Republicans’ impeachment inquiry aimed at finding impeachable dirt on his dad.

national news

Now it’s OK for ‘partisan impeachment’?

US House Speaker Mike Johnson is on record saying that “partisan impeachment” by Congress sets a dangerous precedent.

Oh, but wait. That was then. The here and now suggests that Johnson has changed his partisan mind. You see, the House yesterday voted along party lines to launch an impeachment inquiry to find something on which to charge President Biden.

Every Republican voted for the inquiry; every Democrat voted against it. The GOP caucus is looking for something. To date, they don’t even have a suspected “high crime and misdemeanor” to allege against Biden.

But, hey, who cares what the speaker once said? He must’ve been kidding when he called for a bipartisan impeachment. The inquiry, for sure, doesn’t necessarily guarantee an impeachment against President Biden.

My hunch tells me that if one comes, it’ll be along partisan lines.

Disgraceful.