Tag Archives: Joe Biden

national news

Polling data = real-time snapshot

All the polling data we are seeing these days showing a neck-and-neck race between President Joe Biden and the man he defeated in 2020 remind me of historical precedent.

Which is to say that today’s polling data don’t mean squat this far out from an upcoming election.

Yes, I have commented on my frustration that Donald Trump even can collect 35 to 40% of the electorate’s favor, given all he has said, done and demonstrated since he became a politician in 2015.

But I want to revisit some recent presidential polling history to remind you of how volatile these polls can become.

Remember that public opinion polls are merely a real-time snapshot of what is on people’s minds. Opinions change.

Prior to the 1984 election, Walter Mondale was seen as a legitimate challenger to President Reagan. The president was re-elected with an 18% margin and a 49-state Electoral College wipeout. In 1992, Ross Perot actually led President George H.W. Bush and former Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton. Perot finished with 19% of the vote and zero Electoral College votes, while Bill Clinton breezed to election.

Four years later, Sen. Bob Dole was neck-and-neck with the president, but then lost decisively. In 2008, Sen. John McCain was seen as a possible winner against Sen. Barack Obama; it didn’t happen. Obama was in danger four years later of losing to Mitt Romney; he won comfortably.

Today’s polling data mean next to nothing. Trump is going on trial on at least two of the indictments leveled against him prior to the GOP primary season. Americans are going to get a snootful from courtrooms about the way he conducted himself during his time in office and, most damaging, after he lost the 2020 election.

I am going to stand squarely on my view that Donald Trump is not electable in 2024. Period. He has no vision for the future, other than telling us how he intends to exact revenge on his foes. His unfitness for public office cannot be stated any more starkly than that.

The polling data will be there to remind us … in real time.

crime news

Impeach POTUS? For what?

I am still scratching my noggin over Republican efforts to launch an impeachment inquiry against President Biden.

My curiosity comes from this simple question: What are the “high crimes and misdemeanors” that the president allegedly committed?

My quick answer: There aren’t any. My more complicated examination: The GOP is paying Democrats back for impeaching their guy, Donald Trump, twice for crimes he clearly committed while sitting in the office of the presidency.

Republicans want their retribution — if I can borrow that term from Trumps’ own glossary.

Trump infamously got Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on the phone and asked him for a political favor in exchange for weaponry to use against a possible Russian invasion. Trump wanted Zelenskyy to dig up dirt on Joe Biden. The Constitution forbids such a thing. So, the House impeached Trump,

Then came the 1/6 assault on our government by the traitorous mob that acted at the behest of Trump. The House impeached him a second time.

You know how those impeachments turned out.

So now the House is pondering an impeachment inquiry into President Biden. It is looking for something, anything, to hang on Joe Biden.

Oh, is this where I mention that the president is seeking re-election in 2024? Is there any correlation between that and this phony impeachment inquiry? Looks like it to me.

One of the GOP zealots happens to be the Republican who represents the Third Congressional District in North Texas, Keith Self. He told a Farmersville gathering this week that he wants an inquiry but didn’t specify the charges that should be examined.

An impeachment inquiry against a president who has spent his entire professional life in public service looks like an exercise in revenge. This is what we get when we send zealous ideologues — rather than dedicated public servants — to Congress.

environmental news, Joe Biden, national news

Politics turns ugly in times of need

Don’t you just hate the gamesmanship that develops among politicians when disaster strikes communities, and even entire states? I do. It drives me batty.

For example …

President Biden traveled to Florida to examine he wreckage brought by Hurricane Idalia. Biden is running for re-election. One of the candidates wishing to succeed him is Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, one of a thundering herd of Republicans seeking his party’s nomination.

Biden says the federal government “will take care of Florida.” He added that “I don’t know” what the governor’s plans are during his brief visit to the “hurricane state.”

This kind of crap seemingly occurs all the time. Politicians seeking high public office just don’t dare be seen on camera cozying up to other politicians against whom they might be running.

Do you recall the time in 2012 when Superstorm Sandy devastated New Jersey? Democratic President Barack Obama went to the Jersey Shore to see the damage. Republican Gov. Chris Christie greeted him and was photographed — get ready for it — with his arm around the president’s shoulder. 

The response from Republicans was astonishing, to say the least. How in the world could a GOP governor be so damn friendly to a Democratic president who was just doing his job as the nation’s consoler in chief? 

How about the time Republican President Bush embraced then-Democratic U.S. Senate leader Tom Daschle after delivering his speech to Congress after the 9/11 terrorist attacks? Or when he sought to console New York’s Democratic Sen. Charles Schumer by cupping Schumer’s face in his hands on the floor of Congress?

It’s common knowledge, of course, that we have only president at a time and that individual is on call 24/7 to respond to emergencies when they occur. One of the occurred this past week in Florida and Joe Biden is answering that call. Why does it matter one damn bit whether the governor of that state is running for the office that Joe Biden now occupies?

It shouldn’t matter!

Joe Biden, national news

GOP: Party of rage

Donald John Trump telegraphed the message on Jan. 20, 2017 during his astonishing inaugural speech to a nation that waited to hear what kind of president he would become.

The only memorable line from that speech came when he declared that “the American carnage ends right here, right now.”

Well, it didn’t end. However, it did signal an element of rage that Trump has used to foment throughout many Americans’ hearts. He spoke like an angry man, never mind that he had pulled off one of the great American political upsets in U.S. history.

The Republican Party that nominated Trump in 2016, and again in 2020 — and is possibly going to do so in 2024 — is now the party of rage. It feeds on some Americans’ anger at … well, you name it.

At the federal government, at “woke policy,” at immigrants, at Black people, at gay people, at the media, at local elections officials, at medical experts who mandated vaccines against a killer virus … for God’s sake!

I am thinking at this moment of President Reagan’s 1984 re-election campaign theme, that “morning in America” had dawned over the country. The president parlayed that warm-and-fuzzy feeling into a 49-state landslide over his opponent that year, Walter Mondale.

Morning in America has become a thing of the increasingly distant past, if you listen — and heed — the rhetoric coming from the MAGA morons who now run the Republican Party.

I won’t suggest that a new morning has dawned over the United States. We still have plenty of issues and problems with which the current president, Joe Biden, is trying to deal.

However, this should be a nation far removed from the rage that dominated the four-year term of his immediate predecessor. Therein lies — except for the obvious criminality for which he soon will stand trial — Donald John Trump’s lasting legacy.

national news

Impeachment inquiry … of what?

Congressional Republicans are getting ready to launch what House Speaker Kevin McCarthy calls the next logical step toward an impeachment inquiry into President Biden’s conduct.

Which begs the question: What in the hell are they seeking to learn?

President Biden’s conduct as president, as VP and as a senator has been investigated beyond all that is reasonable. The man’s been at or near the political center stage almost from the day he assumed his Senate office in January 1973. That’s 50 years worth of digging and scratching for dirt on the guy.

Have they come up with anything? No! They haven’t!

Now he’s president of the United States and is running for re-election. The GOP is desperate to find something — anything! — they can hang round POTUS’s neck.

An impeachment inquiry is going to end up in the trash bin along with the other allegations of wrongdoing that have been the subject of social media chatter. However, it won’t stop the MAGA clowns who populate House committee chairs from continuing their futile search.

And so … much of the rest of the work that Congress must tend to will remain undone.

national news

Biden fluffs Maui response

I am going to join President Biden’s critics who are scolding him for his oddly tone-deaf response to the wildfires that wiped out a historic community in Hawaii.

The president was far off his game when the fires began ravaging the island of Maui. The town of Lahaina, known for its historic exhibits and artifacts, at this moment no longer exists. Joe Biden’s first response when asked if he planned to visit the state and examine the damage was a terse “no comment.” Then he said he would go at the right time.

Americans have every right to expect their president to rise to occasions such as the one brought on by the horrific fire that destroyed a town, killed more than 100 citizens and has all but wiped out a local economy by rendering its tourist trade almost non-existent.

I heard some chatter about the president not wanting to get in the way of rescue and recovery efforts. That’s nonsense.

Yes, President Biden did issue an emergency declaration, clearing the way for federal aid to be rushed to help the residents of Maui. And, yes, he and first lady Jill Biden did take time away from their family vacation this past week to walk among the ruins to offer their moral support to a grieving community.

The deadliest wildfire in our nation’s history deserved far more than the tepid response it produced from the president of the United States.

environmental news

Time for Hells Canyon National Park? Yes!

OK, Mr. President, this plea is for you, because I happen to believe you have the authority to act on this request from one or more of your constituents.

Would you please make the Hells Canyon National Recreation Area a national park? As you would say yourself: C’mon, man … you can do this!

Those of us with Pacific Northwest ties — such as yours truly — understand what a gorgeous stretch of river real estate along the Oregon-Idaho border we’re talking about.

Idaho has zero national parks designated within its state, although a tiny sliver of Yellowstone National Park along the Idaho-Wyoming border sits in Idaho. Oregon has just one, Crater Lake, which is a beaut to be sure.

Hells Canyon would add an impressive array of spectacular river gorge scenery to the national park roster as well.

Hells Canyon, as you know, Mr. President, is deeper than the Grand Canyon. The Snake River runs through the bottom of the canyon more than 7,000 from the rim. The Snake is a spectacular river system that flows into the Columbia River not far from Walla Walla, Wash.

I know you are aware of Hells Canyon, Mr. President. I appreciate the national recreation area designation for Hells Canyon, but to be called a “national park” gives the region some welcome ummpphh. 

There you have it, Mr. President. I know you’re busy, running for re-election and tending to national security issues. Give this at least some measured thought. Take a look at the place and you’ll see for yourself that it needs national park recognition.

crime news

Trump ‘defenders’ go on attack

Donald J. Trump’s “defenders” have a curious and frankly ingenious method of standing behind their cult hero.

Many of them acknowledge Trump’s multiple failings, but then engage in that curious game of “whataboutism” relating to President Biden.

They say things like, “Sure, Trump is crooked … but what about Joe Biden? He is, too! You know?”

A fellow with whom I am acquainted only casually is a frequent critic of this blog. He keeps insisting he doesn’t “give a sh**” about Trump. Except that he does. How do I know that? Because whenever I post a critical blog item about Trump — calling attention to his crooked past — this fellow jumps out of his skin long enough to tell me that Biden is even more crooked than Trump.

He mentions the Hunter Biden stuff (of course!) and then declares that Daddy Biden must be corrupt as well because someone alleges some connection between Hunter Biden’s business dealings and the president, who once served as VP.

The intent of this fellow’s whataboutism is to harm President Biden and benefit Trump. So … he doesn’t “give a sh** about Trump?” Of course he does! Just as I, too, “give a sh** about the ex-POTUS, although certainly not for the same reasons.

I simply must applaud the Trump cultists, though, for devising this strategy, which is proving to be effective. It has kept President Biden’s approval ratings down from where I believe they should be.

In the final analysis, though, this non-defense defense of an ex-POTUS will not return him to the White House. I take considerable comfort in believing that Donald John Trump is toast.

national news

‘Are you better off … ?’

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If only Ronald Reagan hadn’t used that all-time campaign zinger in 1980 while running for president of the United States.

Joe Biden well could co-opt or repurpose the question today as he seeks re-election to the office. It’s a tough sell, given that millions of Americans recall when Reagan posed the question during a debate with President Carter. The answer then, of course, was “no, we’re not better off!”

Today, were Joe Biden able to pose the question, the answer would be a resounding “yes!” We are better off today because we have gotten through a killer pandemic, we have recovered many millions of jobs lost during that terrible time, our jobless rate has returned to near-historic lows, manufacturing is up.

Yes, we have that nagging inflation issue, but that, too, is getting better.

It does puzzle me that President Biden’s job approval rating remains low, in the low to mid-40% range. Why it remains low is a mystery. I guess it has to do with the effectiveness of the opposition’s messaging machinery.

The MAGA morons have planted seeds of fear in the minds and hearts of voters, many of whom believe the clap-trap swill being offered by the MAGA goons.

I ain’t buying it. Nor should other American patriots.

We are better off today than we were at the start of the Biden term because the president has made good on his pledges to: fix the infrastructure, reduce the cost of drugs, whittle down the annual federal budget deficit; invest in clean energy development … and act like a president who governs all Americans not just those who voted for him.

medical news, political news

Why now, RFK Jr.?

Many things get past this old codger, one of them being the Democratic Party presidential candidacy of Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

I’ll stipulate once more that RFK Jr. was given the name of my first political hero, his father. His campaign for the White House, though, is based on conspiracies that, to my mind, do not exist.

Moreover, he expresses deep personal affection for President Biden, who enjoys the overwhelming support of RFK Jr.’s family.

He says the mandated COVID-19 vaccines were an overreach by the government, which he said should never have required us to be vaccinated against a virus that killed about 1 million Americans.

Hmm. Wow! What do you suppose the death toll would have been had the Biden administration not ordered the vaccines? My hunch: a whole lot more than those who perished.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. will not be elected president. Not this year. Not any year. Never. He sounds like a goofball nut case seeking to make a name for himself. Imagine that if you will … a man with arguably one of the most revered political names of the past century seeking even more attention.

I’m still trying to wrap my arms around this guy’s candidacy.

For now, I am left merely to shake my noggin in astonishment.