Tag Archives: GOP

national news

MAGA mugs McCarthy

Kevin McCarthy’s tenure as speaker of the U.S. House came crashing down this week, a brief but still eventful stint as the Man of the House.

It appears that the California Republican will be remembered for brokering a deal that had the twin effect of ensuring his election as speaker and guaranteeing his demise the first time he broke faith with the folks with whom he brokered the deal.

It also appears that McCarthy will go down in the annals of U.S. political history as the worst negotiator ever to ascend to the post that put him third in line to the U.S. presidency. Wow! Stunning, man.

In one sense, McCarthy’s post-expulsion statement makes sense, that a tiny clique of right-wing extremists changed the course of legislative history. These extremists, the MAGA cult, have little support outside the halls of the House, he said. Yet they won the day.

Am I crying over that? No! He brought it all on himself by chipping away at his authority in order to get elected. It took him 15 ballots to win the speakership at the beginning of the year. He got his wish, then lived to regret forging a deal with the legislative devil.

One of the conditions of his being elected speaker was to enable a single House member to call for the “vacating of the chair” if the speaker didn’t do the bidding of the MAGA cult. McCarthy didn’t do the MAGA bidding. His sin was that he teamed with House Democrats to avoid a shutdown of the government.

Big …. deal! The plan he negotiated keeps the lights on for 45 days. Then we’ll face the same crisis all over again. Happy Thanksgiving, y’all. We can thank the former speaker for a return to the madness.

Yeah, this guy got precisely what he deserved to get. A boot in the ass from the MAGA cult that is even less trustworthy than those within the Republican Party who hates them and the Democrats on other side of the House chamber.

This is no way to govern.

national news

Why didn’t Dems help?

One might be inclined to ask: If Kevin McCarthy’s loss of the U.S. House speakership was a result of his working with House Democrats to forestall a government shutdown, why didn’t Democrats vote to keep him in office?

I think I know. It is because Democrats don’t trust him any more than the MAGA cult followers who led the charge to oust him.

You see, Kevin McCarthy is a sort of closet MAGA minion. He condemned Donald Trump for his conduct on 1/6, then went immediately to Mar-a-Lago to have his picture taken with the former POTUS, grinning and embracing the leader of the MAGA cult.

How do you work with someone like that?

Moreover, then McCarthy had the MAGA crowd to whom he had to make plenty of promises in order to be elected speaker. It took House members 15 ballots to hand the gavel to McCarthy. One of the stipulations, apparently, was that he shouldn’t work Democrats and that under a new rule, a single House member could call for a motion to vacate the speakership if McCarthy broke any of the rules … to which he agreed!

He broke the rule about working with Democrats and that prompted Rep. Matt Gaetz to file the motion to vacate the speakership.

Democrats sat still and listened to Republicans argue among themselves on the House floor today.

This entire discussion and the resulting vote demonstrated clearly that Kevin McCarthy was no more the Man of the House than the guy who sweeps the floor at the end of the day.

Thus, I won’t feel one little bit of sympathy for this individual.

national news

House makes history!

The U.S. House of Representatives today made history, but you can bet your last buck that it won’t bask in the legacy this current Republican Party majority has created for the legislative body.

The House has booted the speaker out of his office, handing the job on an interim basis to Rep. Patrick McHenry.

Former Speaker Kevin McCarthy has been stripped of his title, stripped of what little power he actually possessed and sent to the back bench, possibly to sulk or to plot how he might regain the speakership.

McCarthy fell victim to the MAGA caucus within the Republican majority, which was slim to be sure. His sin? He worked with Democrats on finding a 45-day solution to keep the government running and averting a killer shutdown. The MAGA minions didn’t like that, so they rebelled.

One of them, Matt Gaetz, filed the motion to “vacate” the speaker’s office. And it passed.

To be clear this is not a bipartisan problem. As a Democratic strategist, Cornell Belcher, said, “This is a Republican problem.” And it seems to be one of some standing within the party. The GOP sought to oust Speaker Newt Gingrich, then went after John Boehner.

I’m trying to imagine Democrats trying this kind of thing with, say, Speakers Nancy Pelosi, Tom Foley or Sam Rayburn.

The MAGA crowd has seized control of the Republican Party and today they proved for all the world to see how just how out of control it is and how it is unable to govern one-half of the legislative branch of government.

A friend of mine sent me a text message immediately after McCarthy got the boot that suggests that the GOP could “screw up a two-car funeral.”

Just when you think you’ve seen everything … well, then you get this! Holy crap!

national news

45 days … nothing to cheer

U.S. House members must be high-fiving each other, slappin’ backs and telling themselves that they really know how to negotiate these deals.

It’s all just pure crap!

The House of Representatives has voted on a 45-day stopgap funding measure that reportedly will head off a potentially catastrophic government shutdown. The measure heads to the Senate, where it faces a friendlier audience.

This kind of government funding simply makes me sick!

Good government has no place in a House of Reps dominated by the MAGA-moron-club-of-kooks caucus within the Republican Party that boasts of being able to shut down the government if they don’t get their way on drastic spending cuts.

A much better way to run the federal government would be for all sides to come together and look for compromise. That’s not how Congress functions these days. The GOP majority is hanging by a shoestring. MAGA cultists keep threatening House Speaker Kevin McCarthy with his job if he doesn’t do their bidding.

The threat of a shutdown looms damn near all the time!

So, it appears Congress will set aside enough money to run the government for the next month and a half.

Then what? More of the same stubborn nonsense?

This is no way to govern!

crime news

Resign, Sen. Menendez!

An editor of mine once said that “if someone calls you an ass, blow it off as one person’s opinion. But if everyone around you does, then you’d better start shopping for a saddle.”

Sen. Bob Menendez, D-N.J., has been indicted on bribery charges; so has his wife, Nadine. The ranks of fellow Senate Democrats calling for him to resign has swelled to more than 30.

You know, he ought to just quit. Go home and get ready for a trial that likely is going to send this guy to prison.

It’s instructive to note two other points about Menendez’s current plight. One is that the Republican caucus in Congress has been silent. Hmm. Why is that? Oh, wait! The longer Menendez sits in the Senate, the less time the media will spend looking at assorted scandals and criminal indictments leveled against the former POTUS … who happens to be a Republican.

The other is Menendez was tried once before on corruption charges. His trial ended with a hung jury, meaning that prosecutors couldn’t get all jurors to convict him. So, the case was dismissed. It could have been re-tried. However, a hung jury doesn’t imply innocence in that earlier corruption scandal.

Had the Senate Democratic caucus shown any guts, it would have expelled Menendez from the Senate after the first criminal trial. But they are gutless wonders. They brought him back to the fold and allowed him to function as if nothing had happened.

Now comes the latest criminal indictment alleging that the Menendezes had gold bars worth hundreds of thousands of dollars stashed away along with envelopes stuffed with cash.

This indictment looks serious enough for Menendez to just walk away now and defend himself in court. Yes, he is entitled to the presumption of innocence. However, Menendez is not entitled to remain in the U.S. Senate.

local news

Dallas mayor joins GOP … so?

Why the hubbub over Dallas Mayor Eric Johnson announcing he now belongs to the Republican Party?

I heard about this morning and thought immediately: big, fu**ing deal!

Johnson serves as mayor of the state’s third-largest city. But you know what? He serves as a “non-partisan” elected official. That’s how it generally goes in Texas. Municipal officeholders don’t run under a partisan banner. We don’t elect these folks because they are Democrat, Republican, independent, Libertarian … whatever. We elect them because they might pledge to do something that we could support: street repair, more cops on the beat, more efficient trash pickup … those kinds of things.

It took Gov. Greg Abbott no time at all to “congratulate” because of his party switch. Again … BFD.

Why did Mayor Johnson make such a big deal of his partisan switcheroo? He might be considering a run for higher office, which requires candidates to run under a partisan banner. If that’s the case, well, it’s his choosing. He did serve as a Democrat in the Legislature before running for Dallas mayor.

Oh well. I will not spend another minute even thinking about it.

crime news, legal news

Indictments put lie to the obvious

Let us now quash, squash and put the kibosh on any notion that the Justice Department is a tool of the Democratic Party and that it is “weaponized” to target only conservative Republicans.

U.S. Sen. Robert Menendez and his wife, Nadine, have just been indicted on allegations that they took bribes. The DOJ evidence? Agents found gold bars and cash totaling hundreds of thousands of dollars in a search of the couple’s home in New Jersey.

This is a big deal, man. Democrats are calling for Menendez to resign. The flames of the political wildfire are accelerating rapidly.

Back to the original point …

Republicans have been pillorying the DOJ because of its investigations into Republicans, namely Donald Trump. GOP and MAGA morons in particular have accused the Justice Department and Attorney General Merrick Garland of having it in for the GOP. Garland has said all along that “no one is above the law.” That means Democrats, too.

The indictment of the Menendezes won’t silence the MAGA chorus. I wish it would.

As for the indictment itself, it looks real bad for the 69-year-old senator.

Politico reports the feds well might have the goods on the senator and his wife. Politico reported: While defendants sometimes claim they were unaware of items found in their homes or cars, the indictment suggests that would be a tough sell for the senator. Cash-filled “envelopes were found inside jackets bearing Menendez’s name and hanging in his closet,” prosecutors say. Some of the envelopes contained DNA or fingerprints from one of the men alleged to have bribed Menendez or his driver, the indictment alleges.

Cash, gold and a luxury car: The eye-popping allegations against Bob Menendez – POLITICO

Menendez did step down as chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Good move, given that so many of the allegations deal with foreign governments.

Should he resign his Senate seat? It looks real bad.

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.

national news

RINO gets re-defined

An amazing transformation has occurred within the American political dictionary over the past, oh, six year or so.

The term RINO has taken on a new meaning, one that has nothing to do with what I understand the acronym was created to symbolize.

RINO is shorthand for Republican In Name Only. I long have understood the term as one that describes someone who talks a good Republican game, but who veers far from normal GOP orthodoxy with his or her votes or public policy decisions.

These days? It is used as an epithet for anyone who opposes the presence of Donald John Trump on the political stage. Here’s where the irony gets so rich you damn near choke on it: Of all the prominent Republicans in action today, Trump himself is the personification of a RINO.

He once said that abortion should be legal, then he changed his mind. He has disparaged the men and women who serve in the military. Trump has cozied up to dictators such as, let’s see, former KGB spy Vladimir Putin, Marxist North Korean thug Kim Jong Un. He trashes our intelligence network. Trump wants to yank the United States out of NATO. He applauded Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. During his term as president, the nation rang up the largest debt in history.

Do you get where I’m going here?

And yet those who adhere to Trumpism contend that those who don’t are the RINOs of this world.

Trump has redefined Republicanism, turning into something barely recognizable to real Republicans.

Therefore, he has reshaped the American political glossary, turning it into … damn, I don’t know what to call it.

Go figure.

State news

Fight is far from finished

Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick made his point with crystal clarity … which is that the fight among Texas Republicans is far from over in light of the acquittal of Attorney General Ken Paxton in his historic impeachment trial.

To be honest, I really shouldn’t give a rat’s backside of the looming GOP fight. I just fear it’s going to bring even more scorn to the state my wife and I chose to call home nearly 40 years ago.

Patrick, as president of the Texas Senate, presided over the AG’s trial and, to my thinking, did a credible job of staying out of the way. Then came the acquittal by 30 senators. That gave Patrick license, in his mind, to declare that the impeachment was a waste of time and money. It was nothing of the sort.

He blamed House Republicans — who voted overwhelmingly to join their Democratic colleagues to impeach Paxton — for what others have called a “kangaroo court” and a “sham.” The GOP controls both legislative chambers, so in Patrick’s view, most House members were “supposed” to join their Senate colleagues in giving Paxton a pass.

We are witnessing a Texas version of what is transpiring nationally with Republicans fighting among themselves, divided between those who are loyal to the rule of law and those who adhere to the doctrine of a political party.

It looks horrible at a national level … and it’s just as ugly as it plays out in Austin.