Tag Archives: MAGA

national news

Once more … what if?

What if a Category 4 or 5 hurricane were to slam the Texas coast, killing many people and destroying billions of dollars in property?

Or … what if a similar storm blasts Florida, causing that kiind of damage?

How about if an F-4 tornado swept across Oklahoma, Kansas and Nebraska, tearing apart valuable farm land?

Would the Republicans in Congress be so eager to attach strings to the damage the way are demanding of California in the wake of the wildfires that have destroyed thousands of homes, killing dozens of people? Of course not!

Why? Because those previous states are governed by Republicans, which tells me in the plainest language possible that the congressional GOP is politicizing aid to Americans that should be far above any political concerns.

The debate over whether we can afford aid to Americans who live in one of our United States simply makes me sick to my stomach.

House Speaker Mike Johnson, Senate Majority Leader John Thune and Donald J. Trump should be ashamed of themselves. That is, if they have any shame left.

national news

Trump legitimizes treason!

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How does one process the action on the first day of his return to high office … other than to recognize that Donald J. Trump delivered on a campaign promise.\

Just after taking the oath as POTUS, Trump pardoned roughly 1,500 of the traitorous goons who stormed the nation’s Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021 seeking to overturn the results of the 2020 election that Trump lost to President Biden.

It was arguably the darkest day in the history of our republic. Thousands of people stormed the Capitol that day, waging hand-to-hand combat with police officers seeking to protect members of Congress and Vice President Mike Pence from the anger emanating from the assailants.

Americans never in our history had witnessed such a flagrant attack on the very system of government we say we cherish.

Well, Trump called the prisoners “hostages” and issued blanket pardons to them.

Utterly and completely disgusting and abhorrent to those of us who value the rule of law.

This American patriot — that would be me — am simply astonished at what transpired after the inauguration.

Donald Trump has just legitimized a clear and present act of treason against the government he swore to defend and protect.

I’ll have more to say on the other executive orders Trump issued, but first … I need to catch my breath.

national news

Custom gets flushed

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Customarily, presidential inaugural speeches are intended to appeal to Americans’ highest ideals, setting a tone for the incoming administration to follow.

But … as is always the case with POTUS No. 47, custom got flushed down the crapper today. Donald J. Trump took his oath of office and then launched into all the campaign talking points he used to win the election in November.

He didn’t bother to thank his predecessor, President Biden, for his five decades of public service, or to congratulate his 2024 opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris, for the spirited campaign she waged against him.

Oh, no. None of that grace was to be heard in Trump’s speech. He railed yet again over what he called the decline of our nation, vowing to “make America great agaiin.”

It was vintage Trump. Frankly, it sickened me.

I decided to watch his speech hoping I might hear a word of grace from the man who violated the very oath he took in 2017. I hoped he might have learned a lesson or two from what I consider to be a failed presidency the first time around.

I was disappointed.

Just maybe, though, I shouldn’t have set my hopes too high.

media news

Awaiting Trump 2.0

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OK, I’ll have to be candid about the arrival of Donald Trump to the national political scene.

Your friendly blogger is going to seek to exercise some self-control when it comes to commenting on Trump as he assumes the presidency … yet again!

He no doubt is going to blather statements swathed in stupidity. He will display his ignorance of government time and again. He will insult his enemies, heap praise on his pals. My task as a blogger with a keen interest in politics and policy will be … to remain silent on most of that idiocy.

It sounds like a tall order. It has been easy for me to rant, rave and rail against the stupidity that flows from this guy’s pie hole. I have decided to follow a time-honored mantra: What the man does is more important than what he says.

I will just have to accept that he will say a lot of nonsensical things while sitting in the Oval Office. That’s just kinda par for this guy’s way of getting our attention.

When he acts on his idiocy, well, that’s another matter. His first day as a self-proclaimed “dictator” might give me ample grist on which to comment. I’ll be ready for that. Afterward? I intend to keep my powder dry for the things the numbskull in chief actually does.

Oh, it’s going to be a fun four years.

Uncategorized

Good call to move inaugural indoors, however …

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The decision to move the Monday presidential inaugural indoors is a good call for one obvious reason: it protects spectators and participants from the bitter cold expected to slam into the nation’s capital this weekend.

They’re going to open the Rotunda to the event that will feature Donald John Trump taking the oath of office for president. The Rotunda has a capacity of a couple hundred people. Which brings me to another, less obvious, issue related to the inaugural.

Moving the event indoors removes a discussion topic from the table: the size of the crowd gathered to witness it.

Or does it … ?

In 2017, Trump offered yet another obvious lie by saying his inaugural crowd set a record. Photographic evidence of the Mall crowd told a different story. The first Barack Obama presidential inaugural crowd in 2009 was far larger; for that matter, the second Obama inaugural in 2013 drew a larger crowd than Trump’s. Yet, Trump was having none of it.

Why is this important for today? I am waiting for ways that Trump will spin the interest in his inaugural crowd into something that won’t exist. I am all but certain he and his PR team will find a way to suggest that the “waiting list” for tickets to related inaugural events will soar into the millions of Americans.

Of course, none of this matters in the grand scheme of events. It will matter only if Trump and his team make a big deal out of it. I expect them fully to fixate on the trivial … which is what the narcissist in chief would require them to do.

Donald Trump, national news

How did we regress this far?

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I will go to my grave never understanding how this nation has regressed as far as it has with the election of someone who is so fundamentally flawed as the man who is about to become the 47th president of the United States of America.

I can recall an earlier era in this nation when Republicans across the land were so livid at the election of a young governor from Arkansas. Bill Clinton was believed to be a serial cheater, a womanizer who violated the oath he took to his wife. They published defamatory videos about him, accusing Bill and Hillary Clinton of killing a trusted aide who, in fact, took his own life.

Bill Clinton got elected president in 1992, but the hunt for impeachable dirt on him never let up. Finally, during a probe into a real estate matter, a special prosecutor found evidence of a relationship that existed between the president and a young White House intern. The prosecutor summoned a grand jury, which then asked the president about the affair. Clinton had taken the oath to tell the truth and then lied to the grand jury.

Aha! Republicans then had their impeachable offense: perjury before a duly sworn grand jury!

Good grief. Clinton lied about an affair and got impeached for it. He would be acquitted in a Senate trial.

Two decades later, we have a man in the White House who has admitted to marital infidelity but then sought political favors from a foreign head of state and then, after losing the 2020 election, incited an insurrection against the government as Congress was preparing to certify his election loss to Joe Biden. He went through two impeachment trials … but survived them both.

Republicans shrugged. No problem with any of that. He was convicted of 34 crimes involving the payment of money to a porn actress to be quiet about a tumble the two of them took in 2006.

We have entered a dark era where character no longer matters. We used to seek the very best among us to lead us. We have turned instead to giving a pass to someone who embodies he worst among us.

I never can accept what we are about to experience once again.

political news, State news

House shines with glimmer of hope

There’s the slightest glimmer of hope coming from the Texas State Capitol Building after the House of Representatives selected a new speaker of the lower legislative chamber.

Rep. Dustin Burrows, R-Lubbock, will take the gavel and lead the House for the next legislative session that began this week.

Why the hope? Well, Burrows is an ally of Rep, Dade Phelan of Beaumont, who angered the MAGA crowd with his handling of (a) the impeachment trial of Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton and (b) key legislative initiatives favored by Gov. Greg Abbott.

That suggests to me that Burrows might be more, um, moderate than the right-wingers of his Republican Party would prefer. Burrows, for example, is not slamming the door on selecting legislative Democrats to chair House committees. He said in December he prefers for the entire House to decide on those chairmanships, not just the speaker. Hmm, that sounds a tiny bit promising.

Burrows does favor Abbott’s school voucher notion, so he won’t scuttle that initiative.

Back to the chairmanship matter. It’s important to realize that the Legislature does contain members of both major parties. And that they represent Texans of all political stripes, principles and beliefs. I am one Texan who does not want to see the Legislature do the bidding of those who favor issues to which I am fundamentally opposed.

Besides, any legislator who can incur the wrath of super right-wing lobbyist Michael Quinn Sullivan — which Burrows has done — is OK in my book.,

education news

Abbott to renew fight against public education

Gov. Greg Abbott is sharpening his long knives in the upcoming legislative fight against public education.

I will watch with intense interest at how his fellow Republicans, elected to their rural legislative districts, deal with the governor’s efforts to gut and dismember the institutions that long ago became the heart and soul of these lawmakers’ communities.

GOP lawmakers resisted the idea of peeling public money away from public schools and sending them to private schools. The effort failed in the 2023 Texas Legislature. The successful blockage cost House Speaker Dade Phelan his chance of returning as speaker.

I learned long ago, when I first moved to Texas in 1984, that rural districts breathe life into communities that otherwise might wither and die were it not for the strength of their independent school districts. Many of those districts produce dedicated legislators who vow to fight for them in the halls of power in Austin; and most of those legislators these days are Republicans.

Abbott and Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick want to mess with that political chemistry by vowing to siphon money for public schools and allow parents to redeem vouchers they can use to pay for their children’s private education.

Well, I can say without equivocation that from the Panhandle to the Piney Woods and from Texoma to the Valley that rural communities that depend on the strength of their public school systems are going to fight for their very lives.

Will it matter in the end? Probably — and tragically — not … as long as the Republicans in the Legislature remain wedded to the MAGA view that public education is not worth saving.

Baloney …

national news

Small-minded governor shows his stripes

Greg Abbott is elbowing his way to the head of a long line of politicians possessed with small minds and equally small hearts.

Abbott, the Republican governor of Texas, today said that next Monday, flags flying in front of state buildings will rise to the top of their staffs to honor the inauguration of our next president of the United States.

I must mention that the next POTUS will be Donald John Trump, a Republican. President Biden had ordered flags down to half-staff after former President Jimmy Carter died just after Christmas. The flags are to fly at half-staff for 30 days, per the presidential order.

Biden last month directed flags to be displayed at half-staff for 30 days at the White House and on all public buildings and grounds to honor former President Carter, who died Dec. 29 at age 100.

Not so fast, said Abbott. He wants to honor Trump’s return to the White House by flying flags at full staff next Monday.

To be fair, Abbott did offer a tribute to the late president in a statement. “President Carter’s steadfast leadership left a lasting legacy that will be felt for generations to come, which together as a nation we honor by displaying flags at half-staff for 30 days,” Abbott said in his statement. I guess that means the flags will be lowered once Trump’s celebration is completed on Monday … yes?

Whatever. The gesture to raise the flags dishonors the president’s declaration and the service that the former president delivered to the nation during his term in office and for more than 40 years since his return to civilian life.

crime news

He stands as a convicted felon!

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Donald J. Trump’s list of “firsts” to be included in his obituary already comprises an unbelievable litany of disgraceful episodes in this man’s truly bizarre life.

First president to be impeached twice by the House of Representatives.

First president to boast about his martial unfaithfulness.

First president to be accused of seeking to overthrow the government.

And now this: First president to enter his second non-consecutive term in office as a convicted felon.

New York District Judge Juan Merchan today issued a sentence that finalizes Trump’s conviction on 34 felony counts of paying a porn actress $130,000 to keep quiet about a tryst the two of them had … but that Trump denies ever occurring. Merchan could have sent Trump to prison. He didn’t. He chose instead to issue what they call “unconditional discharge,” meaning that Donald Trump is free to take the oath of office in 10 days.

He will, though, be indelibly stained by the felony conviction on his record. Not that it matters a bit to this narcissistic sociopath who doesn’t exhibit a scintilla of contrition for the verdict delivered by a jury of his peers.

He plans to appeal the conviction.

I am going to accept the judge’s decision to take the action he took. I won’t do so gleefully. I am saddened by the reality that Trump was elected this past November after losing the 2020 election to Joe Biden. Voters “fired” Trump from his first job as president, only to send him back … even after he promised to pardon many of the Jan. 6 mobsters who stormed the Capitol that day to stop the certification of the election that Trump lost.

We have just witnessed a dark day in our nation’s rich and varied history.