Tag Archives: MAGA

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‘L’ word doesn’t exist

Donald Trump wallowed today in the “L” word to describe the 2024 presidential election.

In Trump’s universe, the “L” word is shorthand for “landslide.” He kept saying during a rambling, nonsensical presser with reporters in Mar-a-Lago, Fla., that he defeated Vice President Kamala Harris in a “landslide.”

Let me be crystal clear — again! No, he did not ride a landslide of votes to victory in 2024!

He made some remark about winning the popular vote by “millions of votes.” Let’s see, he pulled in fewer than 2.3 million more votes than Harris. Let’s also note that more than 155 million ballots were cast. Now, when you say “millions of votes” separated them, my own perspective tells me it’s more than what Trump rolled up against the VP. Yes, he won more votes than any Republican presidential candidate in history, so I’ll give him that.

But the landslide he said he scored does not exist.

I just want to be clear on that point.

I won’t go into the rest of the idiocy that flowed from this fellow’s mouth. Doing so would mean I would miss something critical.

Landslide? It did not occur in 2024.

national news

Here we go: Round 2 of MAGA incompetence

Mike Johnson lost his first bid to re-up as speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives.

It is beginning to look like yet another intraparty donnybrook as Republicans, who control the House by the tiniest margin in memory, struggle to find a leader who can control the legislative flow in the congressional chamber.

This appears to be shaping up as arguably another leadership debacle that has become all too familiar to those of us interested in good government. Which is to say that good government doesn’t exist in the nation’s capital.

The House has a one-vote Republican majority. The GOP already has lost one vote, Thomas Massie of Kentucky, who said he cannot support Johnson’s re-election as speaker. No telling what will bring this particular MAGA goofball around.

Remember when it took Kevin McCarthy 15 votes to finally corral enough votes to keep the speaker’s gavel? It was the MAGA crowd that stopped McCarthy from taking charge. It also was a MAGA House member who called for his ouster … which took place quickly.

This is what we can expect to see moving forward. Oh … boy!

national news

Carter’s death shouldn’t signal ‘an end’

When the world heard of the passing of President Jimmy Carter, the tributes began flowing immediately into print and onto the airwaves and the Internet.

Someone said on TV that Carter’s death signaled “the end of an era,” implying that no one could succeed in building rapport among differing ideologies.

I am going to assert something different. I believe the former president’s passing at age 100 can reawaken the value of working together to enact laws and public policy.

Every former president has issued warm statements of gratitude for the struggle that Carter fought and saluted him for the humanitarian champion he became after leaving the White House in 1981. Republicans and Democrats alike all said essentially the same thing, that Carter personified the good in all Americans.

So … they recognize goodness in one of their own when they see it.

Congress today is vastly different than the body that served during the Carter years in the White House. It’s been reported that President Carter met with stern opposition to many of his more controversial proposals, such as giving the Panama Canal to the Panamanians. They reportedly also were chapped at Carter’s seeming moral superiority, given his deep born-again Christian faith.

Still, somehow the president and Congress managed to govern. We aren’t seeing much actual governance these days. Indeed, fissures are appearing within the Republican congressional caucus as the GOP struggles to determine whether to keep Mike Johnson as speaker of the House.

Good government always is possible when opposing sides realize it’s a team effort. I believe Jimmy Carter understood that tenet and, thus, was able — for example — to appoint more women to the federal bench than all the preceding presidents were able to do combined.

Does the 39th president’s death signal an end to good government? Not in the least!

national news

MAGA Nation at war with itself?

Heads up, MAGA Nation … there appears to be a multi-front battle forming among members of the cult that scored a victory in November but who amazingly don’t yet know how to spend the spoils of victory.

U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson, one of MAGA’s chief proponents, could be in danger of losing his powerful post as second-in-line to the presidency. His sin? Johnson has deigned to work with Democrats on keeping the government from shutting down. The MAGA credo includes a prohibition against working with them dreaded Democrats.

Not only that, but Johnson’s performance in mishandling the budgeting legislation has pissed off the MAGA cultist in chief, Donald Trump.

High tech billionaire Elon Musk is wearing out his welcome at the White House’s waiting room simply by being in the news more than the guy who elevated him to the un-elected post he shares with GOP loudmouth Vivek Ramaswamy; the two of them want to cut trillions of dollars from the budget.

Ramaswamy has angered MAGA followers with some language they deem inappropriate for whatever cause they are seeking to put forward.

Now we hear elements of the TEA Party are entering the fray. You remember them, right? They were the “tax enough already” cult that used to rule the roost in Congress until they got shoved aside by the MAGA loyalists. (FYI, I choose to capitalize “TEA” because I see the word as an acronym meaning “taxed enough already.”)

Oh, and what about Vice President-elect J.D. Vance? Is he missing in action? Not word lately from the veep-to-be. Go figure where he stands on anything.

So, Donald Trump’s rocky start to ascending to the pinnacle of power continues. May the battle be as “bloody” as many Americans hope it becomes. I say that because I believe our government will survive … serious injury and all.

Donald Trump, national news

Do not disbelieve Trump’s warnings

Donald Trump’s pathological lying makes it impossible for me to believe virtually nothing that flies out of his yapper.

Except for one thing.

That would be the warnings he has issued about what he intends to do when he becomes president of the United States of America.

When he has said he lost “many friends” on 9/11, we learned he attended zero funerals for his friends after that tragedy. He boasts about his “landslide” victory in 2016 when in fact he lost the popular vote and was elected solely on the basis of the Electoral College. He inflates his net worth, his intelligence and says he hires only “the best people”; all lies.

But he says he will toss the Constitution aside on his first day in office and will govern “like a dictator” for one day. That kind of boast … I believe.

He has said he intends to pardon many of the Jan. 6 traitors imprisoned after being convicted of seeking to overturn the 2020 election. He vows to let Russia “do whatever the hell they want” with Ukraine. He intends to “drill baby, drill” even though we’re now producing more petroleum than ever in our history.

Trump will take office with plenty of executive authority at his disposal. He says his 2024 victory gave him a “mandate” to use that power. Well, it did nothing of the sort. His victory was narrow. He will deploy that authority immediately upon taking office, or so he has vowed.

I will take him at his word on that, but on nothing else.

national news

Trump shows true self

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When word came out that Donald Trump had issued a “holiday greeting message” to the world, I immediately became reluctant to read it, as I thought I knew what the next POTUS would say.

I read it anyway and, sure enough, my instinct was correct.

This individual is utterly and totally incapable of demonstrating an ounce of grace during this holy season. His message contained epithets toward his predecessor in the White House, toward the three men who weren’t pardoned from execution by the president and for all the critics who continue to lament this dips***’s election this past Nov. 5.

He couldn’t simply say “Merry Christmas” and call it good. No mention of Jesus’s birth, no mention of the joy Christians feel toward that event.

I don’t why I bothered to read this message. It simply affirmed what I knew already … that this clown cannot perform the simplest tasks we seek from the leader of our great nation.

business news, International news

No, you cannot just ‘take back’ canal

Donald J. Trump is all bluster and fake bravado and zero substance and knowledge of the limits of the power of the office he is about to inherit.

He said he wants to “take back” the Panama Canal from the country that owns it outright, Panama. Why? Because he doesn’t like the steep fees the Panamanians are charging U.S.-flag ships using the canal.

Good grief! Panama took over the canal decades ago in a deal worked out with the U.S. government. It belongs to them! Panama is a sovereign nation that can do whatever it chooses with its assets. The United States has zero legal authority to seize property owned and operated by another nation.

I get that Trump doesn’t like the fees being charged U.S. shipping. I don’t particularly like it either. However, disliking another nation’s policies does not give us the inherent right to do the kind of thing that Trump is suggesting.

Let’s all get ready for this kind of nonsense to repeat itself for the next four years.

crime news

Ex-Rep. Gaetz: Serial lawbreaker?

OK, here is what we now have learned about a fellow selected by Donald Trump to be the nation’s next attorney general.

The House Ethics Committee report has issued a scathing report of former U.S. Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., engaging in sex with underage girls, of paying women for sex, illicit drug use, receiving improper gifts and granting special favors to personal associates … and for obstruction of justice.

The dude no longer will be attorney general, as he pulled out of consideration for the chief law enforcer’s post. But you know what? Many, many questions remain about what in the name of careful analysis was Trump thinking when he tossed Gaetz’s name into the hopper?

Good … grief, man!

The ethics panel chose to not file a criminal referral on Gaetz. It surely should have done so. The report suggests that the bipartisan committee found substantial evidence of Gaetz violating Florida’s statutory rape laws. Still, no charges? What the hell … ?

Let’s look briefly at the cavalier attitude Trump exhibited in nominating Gaetz in the first place. The POTUS-elect chose to forgo any criminal background check of his Cabinet nominees, choosing instead to rely on his own, um, instincts. Well, those instincts have revealed plenty about the individual who’s about to become the next president.

And they aren’t good.

Gaetz won’t be AG and for that we all can breathe easily. We still will have Donald Trump sitting in the Oval Office, making decisions affecting our lives.

What has been revealed about Trump’s selection process for a key Cabinet post should make all Americans very afraid of what’s to come when the huckster takes his oath of office.

ABC News reported: In its report, the committee concluded that it did not find substantial evidence that Gaetz violated federal sex trafficking laws, finding that while Gaetz “did cause the transportation of women across state lines for purposes of commercial sex,” investigators did not find evidence “that any of those women were under 18 at the time of travel, nor did the Committee find sufficient evidence to conclude that the commercial sex acts were induced by force, fraud, or coercion.”

But … Trump surely knew about this behavior and still he picked him to be AG.

Disgusting.

national news

Churchill would be appalled

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Winston Churchill once described democracy as cumbersome, awkward, prone to mistakes but still the best system of government ever devised.

The British statesman who led the UK through its darkest hours during World War II would be appalled at what is transpiring these days in the world’s foremost democratic republic, the United States of America.

The world’s premier democracy cannot approve a long-term budget to fund its massive government. It depends on those damn “continuing resolutions” that keep the money flowing for three to six months. Then our Congress returns to hassling among its members over whether to extend the debt ceiling, spend money on essential government projects, protect the environment, engage in foreign relations … all those kinds of things.

What’s happened to our government? For one thing, a once-great political party, the Republican Party, has been hijacked by the MAGA cabal of rabble-rousers who have less interest in government than in raising hell. Democrats, meanwhile, have staked out positions on the far left that remain out of reach for anyone in the middle, let alone the far right, to reach.

The MAGA cultist in chief, Donald Trump, has brought on board two unelected know-it-alls — Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy — to offer advice on how to slash trillions of dollars from the federal budget. One of these yahoos, Musk, is the richest man in the world. Do you think he cares about or understands the importance the federal government has for millions of ordinary Americans? Of course not!

But they’ve got Trump’s ear. That’s all that matters to a man about to take the reins a second time as the nation’s chief executive.

Winston Churchill died in 1965, long before Trump entered the political world, so he didn’t get to witness what the rest of us have seen. He believed in his view of democracy … but I have to wonder what he might say about the mess that the MAGA crowd has made of the “best form of government” ever devised.

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Dems keep government open … thank goodness!

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What in the name of good governance is happening here, with Congress once again dodging a government shutdown bullet.

The House, facing a Friday deadline to provide money to keep the government open, approved a three-month funding extension. It sent the measure to the Senate, which then piddled around for a few hours before approving the measure, sending it to President Biden’s desk for his signature.

Call me a fuddy-duddy, but I am one American patriot who is sick and tired of this brinkmanship orchestrated in large part by the MAGA wing of a once-great Republican Party.

Donald Trump and his first buddy, Elon Musk, torpedoed a measure worked out by both parties, contending they need to suspend the debt ceiling requirement. Then Republicans cobbled together a new version, only to watch it go down in flames.

Both sides got together a second time and approved a measure that ignores the Trump-Musk demand on the debt ceiling; it passed overwhelmingly. Then it went to the Senate, where Democrats maintain nominal control of the upper chamber. Senators approved it early today.

It will get Biden’s signature likely before the sun comes up over North Texas.

These are called “continuing resolutions.” They are a patchwork of measures. They solve no problems. They deal with no long-term solutions. They give us zero confidence they can ever solve the governance issues that need a resolution.

I’ve been yapping and yammering about good government lately. I’ll keep bringing it up until Republicans, dominated by the MAGA goons in Congress — and very soon by the guy in the White House — learn how to actually govern.