Tag Archives: Joe Biden

national news

Wait for the trials … and convictions!

Norm Ornstein is one of those Washington, D.C., gray eminences whom the media turn to for a look at the political landscape and whether it is changing under our feet in real time.

Ornstein believes that Donald Trump’s current standing as the “frontrunner” for the 2024 presidential election is going to change “when and if the convictions” start rolling in from the felony criminal trials that await the former POTUS.

I believe he is correct. At least I hope he is correct. You see, the polling data showing Trump ahead of President Biden in several key battleground states simply baffles me beyond all measure.

Ornstein suggests that Biden could be in serious trouble if he is unable to persuade Americans that the successes he has enjoyed are the real deal. I believe they are, but he continues to underperform among voters who continue to tell pollsters that the country is headed in the “wrong direction.”

Huh? I don’t get it! Unemployment remains below 4%. Jobs keep piling up. Inflation, while still troublesome, is beginning to level off. The Fed appears set to put the brakes on interest rate increases.

Yes, we have war in the Middle East. And in Ukraine. Biden has held our alliances together.

The border crisis? It still is a serious problem, but it’s good to remember that we’re still detaining and deporting thousands of undocumented immigrants weekly.

“One of the things that I think is clear here is that most voters have paid no or little attention to Donald Trump’s legal problems,” Ornstein told MSNBC’s Ali Velshi. “That will change when we get criminal trials. And especially if and when we get convictions.”

It’s good to ask ourselves: Are Americans really and truly so stupid, gullible and ignorant that we want to elect a convicted felon as POTUS?

If we are, then this nation of ours is headed straight into the crapper.

We are much better than that.

International news, Joe Biden, national news

Partisan fight over aid to fight Russia?

You live  long enough and you’re liable to see all kinds of manifestations of principle you once thought were set in steel-enforced concrete.

Take the U.S. position regarding aggression by Russian armed forces … for example.

Russia invaded Ukraine a year-plus ago. President Biden said this country would stand foursquare against the Russian aggressors. He vowed to stitch together a strong alliance of nations to resist the Russians. He succeeded.

We have helped Ukraine turn back the Russians. Ukrainian armed forces launched a counteroffensive. You’d think the Democratic U.S. president would enjoy the support of long-standing anti-Russian pols who belong to the Republican Party. Right? Guess again, pilgrim.

We now have the MAGA crowd resisting efforts to back Ukraine … for reasons that totally escape me! It has to be that their guy, the former POTUS, thinks the sun rises and sets on Russian goon/strongman Vladimir Putin.

The MAGA cult seemingly doesn’t believe as much in democratic principles as their political forebears — the real Republicans who fought the Russians and the Soviet Union with a passion. Then again, I don’t consider the MAGA morons to be real Republicans. They are political perverts who have twisted longstanding U.S. policy into something unrecognizable.

It is an evolution I never envisioned I would see.

International news, military news, national news

Why does GOP ignore Russian aggression?

Some things you never expect to see up close … such as congressional Republicans turning their backs on Russian aggression in Europe.

Think about this for a moment. Republicans from Richard Nixon, Dwight Eisenhower, Ronald Reagan and two presidents named Bush all considered Russians to be our nation’s foremost adversary. Operating under the guise of the Soviet Union, Russia sought to spread its form of autocracy via armed conflict.

Such action was deemed an existential threat to everyone who didn’t adhere to their policy.

The Russians are doing so at this moment in Ukraine. They invaded that sovereign nation in February 2022. Ukraine has pushed back — hard! — with help from the United States, NATO and other freedom-loving nations.

But not, apparently, from this country’s Republican Party. The GOP congressional caucus has approved temporary spending legislation that suspends he military assistance the United States is providing Ukraine in its effort to repel the Russian aggressors.

Where, though, is the Republican Party led by the MAGA cult that is calling the cadence within GOP headquarters?  Is it insisting on diverting that money to domestic programs to help Americans in need? Is it seeking funds to assist veterans, Social Security recipients? Nope. None of that.

It’s just sticking it in President Biden’s ear because of the president’s stated commitment to help the Ukrainians beat back the Russian invaders … and preserve democracy in Ukraine!

Today’s Republican Party is following a foreign-policy script that would make past GOP leaders cringe.

Joe Biden

Panel serves ‘nothing burger’

Well now, it appears that the U.S. House Judiciary Committee, a panel comprising supposedly serious lawmakers, has offered the public a telling preview of the emptiness of the effort to impeach President Biden.

Put another way, they got nothing from the witnesses they called this week in the first hearing called to conduct an “impeachment inquiry” into the president’s alleged “high crimes and misdemeanors.”

There is nothing there!

The GOP-led House — which is now being run by the cabal of kooks comprising the MAGA Morons — is trying to find something on which to hang around Joe Biden’s neck.

Listen up, gang! You won’t find anything that holds up as an impeachable offense. Even some Republicans in the House — some of whom are members of the MAGA cult — are trying to drum a semblance of sense into the numbskulls seeking to impeach the president.

The Republicans in Congress are hellbent on finding something with which to accuse the president. They are acting solely out of vengeance for Democrats’ ability to impeach Donald Trump twice.

Democrats, though, compiled actual evidence. Thus, there was demonstrable evidence of a high crime and misdemeanor. Not this time!

The Judiciary Committee, if it was handling this inquiry with the seriousness it deserves, surely would be able to provide something to ponder. As it stands today, the House GOP has served us a juicy “nothing burger.”

economic news, Joe Biden, national news

Why won’t GOP govern?

Why in the name of sound fiscal management is Congress — led by Republicans in the House of Representatives — unable to approve a long-term budget deal that avoid the catastrophe that awaits us at the end of this month?

The federal government might be headed for another shutdown if Congress doesn’t approve enough money to keep services running. These are the services that you and I pay for with our tax money, services we expect to receive in return for the government demanding our funds.

Is it me or does it appear that these crises always seem to play out when the GOP controls the congressional purse strings while a Democrat sits in the big chair behind the Resolute Desk in the Oval Office?

This particular House GOP majority, although it is of an extremely slim margin, is being driven by the impulses that coarse through the veins of the MAGA Moron caucus that has managed to outshout not only Democrats but also the more reasonable members of the once-great Republican Party.

The MAGA minions insist on impeaching President Biden before they consider approving a federal budget. For what? Beats the hell out of me!

The MAGAites even have steamrolled House Speaker Kevin McCarthy into toeing their line. McCarthy went seemingly overnight from being someone who blamed the MAGA mouthpiece in chief for inciting the 1/6 assault on our government to becoming one of the dipsh**’s chief allies in the House. That’s not good enough to satisfy the MAGA morons.

So, here we are. Government could shut down again by Oct. 1. We’ll get to hear nonsensical speeches from GOP House members and perhaps even some senators about the wisdom of shutting it all down.

It is government performed by the cosmically stupid.

national news

Where’s the … beef?

My patience with congressional Republicans is wearing thin, so thin in fact that I feel the need to call them out on all that so-called “evidence” they purport to have on President Biden’s alleged corruption.

Where is it? What is it? From whom are they getting it?

The U.S. House is embarking on that impeachment inquiry sought by Speaker Kevin McCarthy, at the behest of the MAGA morons to pull his strings. The usual gang of loudmouths say the House must actually impeach the president before they act on things such as, oh, a federal budget.

Good grief, man!

Evidence? An actual “high crime or misdemeanor”? Have they developed a pattern? Hell no!

They have concocted a conclusion. Now the House Republican caucus is looking for a trail that will lead them to the conclusion they already have approved.

We hear a lot these days about the “rule of law,” yes? This isn’t how the rules work. They work when you come up with sufficient evidence to investigate; then you investigate and then you reach whatever conclusion your probe leads you … not the other way around!

What we see in this inquiry is more akin to the “rite of revenge.” House Democrats impeached Donald Trump twice after the then-POTUS sought a political favor from a foreign head of state and then exhorted the mob of traitors to storm the Capitol Building on 1/6.

Republicans won’t stand for that, so they’re seeking something to hang round a Democratic president’s neck.

I hear a glimmer of good news out there, which is that many non-MAGA moron Republicans are joining their Democratic colleagues in Congress and warning of the folly of impeaching a president who — if I may be blunt — does not deserve it.

crime news

Hunter Biden indicted … so?

What do we make of the three indictments handed down against Hunter Biden, son of the president of the United States?

Do they affect the president’s job directly? No. Do they draw Daddy Biden into Hunter’s web? No.

The indictments come from a grand jury in Delaware operating under the advice of a federal prosecutor appointed by Donald J. Trump. The indictments concern Hunter Biden’s illegal possession of a firearm and the alleged lie he told to obtain the weapon.

Hunter Biden was in the throes of a drug addiction. Federal law prohibits a drug addict from owning a firearm. Hunter Biden filled out a questionnaire that asked him if he had a drug problem. He said “no.” That was the wrong answer.

Yes, this is an embarrassment for the president. I have zero doubt that the MAGA spin machine is going to crank out all sorts of circumstances juxtaposing the president with the illegal conduct of his grown son.  It’s unfair, to be sure … but certainly not unexpected.

Make no mistake about this likely outcome, which is the 2024 presidential campaign just got a good bit murkier.

national news

What am I missing?

What in the world am I not getting as I watch the MAGA Moron Caucus within the House Republican Party clear the decks for an impeachment inquiry into President Biden?

Four years ago, the House GOP caucus resisted impeaching Donald Trump despite irrefutable evidence he had violated the U.S. Constitution by asking a foreign head of state for a political favor in exchange for weapons to defend itself against an aggressor nation. The House impeached Trump, but he avoided conviction in the Senate.

Then came the assault on the Capitol Building that Trump provoked. It was all done in broad daylight. The House impeached him a second time over the objections of MAGA morons. Again, Trump escaped conviction.

Here we are now. The GOP caucus is full of revenge, having taken back control of the House. They want an impeachment now. The charges? The high crimes and misdemeanors?

Hmm. We don’t know. They haven’t spelled anything out. Why not? Because — in my view — there is nothing to spell out! They’re going to look for “widespread corruption.” They’ll seek to find something the president did to qualify as an impeachable offense.

Absent any actionable evidence, though, the MAGA loudmouths keep blathering about impeaching Joe Biden. They want his head on a proverbial platter … no matter what!

They are hectoring Speaker Kevin McCarthy into launching an impeachment inquiry, even without a vote in the House — which well could fail were it to be taken. McCarthy is caving to the MAGA crowd, to which he likely owes the speakership.

This is a disgraceful display of vengeance politics … at its worst!

national news

MAGA cabal calls the shots

Kevin McCarthy made it official: He has instructed the relevant U.S. House of Representatives committee chairs to rev up an inquiry into whether to impeach President Biden.

Which begs this question: Is there a clearer demonstration than this of just who is calling the shots within the People’s House? It ain’t the speaker of the body, but rather it’s the MAGA moron cabal that forced him to act in this irresponsible manner.

Speaker McCarthy is in charge by the slimmest of margins in the House. He owes the speakership to the concessions he made to the MAGA cabal that wants this impeachment inquiry.

What are the charges? What high crime and misdemeanor has the president allegedly committed? Where will this inquiry go and how long will it last?

The MAGA morons want it to go through the next election cycle, keeping the heat on the president for as long as humanly possible.

We are about to witness a staggering abuse of power within the House of Representatives that could rival any such abuses we already have witnessed.

And why? For what reason? I believe I know.

It’s revenge for the twin impeachments leveled against Donald Trump … and it is disgraceful.

national news

No impeachment … OK?

Joe Biden doesn’t deserve to be impeached by the U.S. House of Representatives. If you don’t believe me, then you ought to heed the warnings of some prominent congressional conservatives.

The president is being targeted by the MAGA caucus of the House for unspecified “high crimes and misdemeanors.” What they are must be anyone’s guess.

But, by golly, the MAGA morons are proceeding with an impeachment inquiry, come hell or high water. One of them happens to be my North Texas congressman, freshman Keith Self of McKinney. Good grief, dude. Get a fu**ing grip!

Many conservatives, though, say that impeachment is a non-starter. They include Sens. Mitt Romney of Utah, Jerry Moran of Kansas, Mike Lee of Utah, and Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky.

We all know what is driving this idiotic endeavor. It’s revenge against House Democrats who spearheaded two impeachments against a Republican who served as POTUS. That’s it!

Do we have a crime? Is there anything President Biden has done to deserve impeachment? Not … a … damn … thing!