Tag Archives: MAGA

Musk poses grave danger

Elon Musk is emerging as the most dangerous man in America, thanks to the weird kinship he has formed with the next president of the United States.

Musk, as we all know, is the world’s richest man. He has filled Donald Trump’s vacuous noggin with notions that he can fix what’s wrong the federal government. He — along with right-wing blowhard Vivek Ramaswamy — leads a government reform project, or some such thing, that seeks to cut trillions of dollars from the government coffers.

Americans have elected Musk to no political office. He has no political standing other than his strange relationship with Trump. Musk has emerged as a sort of de facto co-president, if you dare swallow that bit of information in one bite.

The guy frightens the hell out of me. He ought to scare the bejabbers out of anyone who has this sort of love affair with good government. That should be all Americans who prefer that the president and Congress go back to what the late Sen. John McCain would call “regular order.”

There is not a damn thing that is “regular” about the way the next POTUS and Congress are getting ready to take the reins of power.

Trump figures to rely on the machinations of Musk — and, of course, Ramaswamy — as he proposes spending cuts.

This dude Musk, though, is one scary son of a … well, you know.

Forget about bipartisanship!

Donald Trump has made abundantly clear what he intends as he prepares to take the executive reins of the federal government.

Any effort to include Democrats in solving the issues of the day will be met with stubborn refusal to accept the other side’s help.

Trump and his rich-guy sidekick Elon Musk have just derailed a bipartisan spending plan that members of Congress had negotiated to keep the government from shutting down.

No can do, said Trump and Musk, declaring the spending proposal contains too much “fat” to suit the president-elect and his economic team led by Musk.

The deal is now dead. House Speaker Mike Johnson and his colleagues vow to keep working to keep the government open. They won’t get any help from the president-elect and team of obstructionists.

Trump campaigned this year on a promise to be “president for all Americans.” I took that to mean a pledge to work with members of Congress who represent Americans who did not support Trump and his MAGA cult of followers.

Silly me. I forgot we were dealing with an individual who is a total stranger to the truth.

The disruption a government shutdown would bring cannot be measured.  It doesn’t matter a damn bit to Elon Musk, to Donald Trump or to the rest of the MAGA cult who see their public service as being built on making lives miserable.

Trump, Congress: miles apart

Never in my wildest imagination, not ever, could I have thought that an incoming president would be so far removed from the Congress with whom he is supposed to govern as Donald J. Trump and the legislative body that takes office in less than a month.

Consider all the venom that has been spewed — by Democrats as well as from the Republican president — in the campaign that brought us a second Donald Trump term in the White House.

How do they get past the hatred? How do they set aside the anger expressed outwardly toward the other side?

Trump, quite naturally, has decided to ratchet the hatred up beyond all reason by saying that every individual who served on the Jan. 6 House committee should be tossed into jail. The criminal charge? He has none. They should be jailed, Trump said, merely because they opposed the way he flouted the Constitution by instigating the mob assault on the government on Jan. 6, 2021.

Oh, he fabricated a lie about the committee destroying evidence. Baloney! The committee did nothing of the sort.

It is that backdrop against which Trump will take office on Jan. 20. Congress will be seated earlier in the month. Presumably the House will choose its speaker, although that once again seems dicey, given the GOP’s paper-thin majority that might shrink to zero before Congress takes its seat.

All campaigns produce winners and losers. It used to be that losers would dust themselves off, reflect a bit on what went wrong, then got back to the work of governing. Democrats are still in shock over losing to a man so deeply flawed. Trump, meanwhile, is embarking on the revenge he promised he would seek.

Good government is gone. I am going to hope for its eventual return.

Feeling vulnerable

I am feeling an odd sense of vulnerability these days we await the second version of Donald Trump’s White House tour.

You see, he’s hired a couple of hot shots and hot heads to “reform” federal government spending. Zillionaire Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy have been yammering that “everything” is on the table for possible elimination.

You ask, “Everything?” That’s what these two dips**** say. That means, dare I suggest, Social Security.

Why the vulnerability? Because I rely on my Social Security income to enable me to live comfortably in North Texas. I just turned 75 and I am not willing to go back to work to shore up my income. I did that for a lot of years. I paid a lot of money into the SSI fund from which I am now drawing my income.

I am aware that financial advisers tell us we shouldn’t rely on SSI as our primary retirement income source. That’s fine … if you’re filthy rich, which I am not. I do have a retirement fund, but I refuse to spend it all on daily essentials. Therefore, I rely on SSI to buy groceries and help me pay utilities and so forth.

What will the feds do to that income source for me and millions of other old folks? That remains to be seen. I get the heebie-jeebies when I hear Musk and that loudmouth Ramaswamy blather on about the federal programs they plan to eliminate through that Government Efficiency program they head up.

Donald Trump says he won’t touch Social Security. Do you believe him? Hah! Me, neither.

Those clowns had better tread carefully if they start messing with our income stream.

New morality defined

Republicans have redefined morality, creating a version of the term many of their elders wouldn’t recognize.

The Grand Old Party that once campaigned for public office on a “character matters” platform and once went after a Democratic president hammer and tong because he messed around with women other than his wife now stands foursquare behind a president that has done far, far worse.

And no one seems to care.

Donald Trump has been called a man who builds his relationships on a “transactional” basis, in that he always is looking for something in return for his “friendship.” Let’s say his followers believe in a “transactional morality,” meaning that it doesn’t matter that the man is a slug as long as he adheres to public policy to their liking.

We have elected twice an individual who has denigrated a legitimate Vietnam War hero, mocked a handicapped New York Times reporter, admitted to serial philandering on all of his wives, acknowledged he has sexually assaulted women by grabbing them by their private areas, admitted he never has sought God’s forgiveness, been impeached twice for high crimes and misdemeanors, convicted by a jury on 34 felony counts, been found liable for the rape of a woman … and on and on it goes.

What’s the problem, the MAGA cultists ask. He selects judges who will toss aside a woman’s right to control her body, he does nothing to stem gun violence and vows to be “your retribution.”

Yes, we have entered a new era of morality in which we no longer judge a candidate on his behavior but only on whether he is a good fit politically.

This is a sad time for our still-great country.

Dade Phelan becomes a casualty

Dade Phelan became speaker of the Texas House of Representatives at what could be argued as the worst time possible … if you’re a moderate Republican.

Phelan this past weekend backed out of his bid for a third term as speaker, apparently counting the votes among his GOP caucus and realizing he was toast.

It’s a shame for Texas Republicans, for the state in general and for the cause of good government.

Phelan a Republican from Beaumont, fought the MAGA cultists who now are claiming a victory in the fight to continue Texas’s headlong lurch to the right. I don’t know who will succeed Phelan as speaker; I should really care about it … but I don’t.

I do know that whoever it is will continue the MAGA agenda aimed at discriminating against gay and transgender Texans. The next speaker no doubt will continue to push for strengthening Texas’s already harsh ban on abortions. And, yes, there will be border security issues to discuss and to enact.

Phelan’s worst sin appears to be his insistence that the “will of the House” work its way toward impeaching Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton. The MAGA goons called that a betrayal of their agenda. Not that it mattered, as Paxton was cleared of alleged misconduct by a Texas Senate that wanted to keep the fire-breather in office.

I am sorry to see Dade Phelan surrender to the MAGA crowd. He served with honor as speaker. I cannot really blame him, though, for turning his back on a battle he couldn’t possibly win in this polarized and divisive climate.

Chinks in MAGA armor?

There appears to be some chinks appearing in the armor shield that has surrounded Donald J. Trump.

A second key Cabinet selection now appears headed for the crapper with more revelations about sexual misconduct involving Defense secretary designate Pete Hegseth.

Dude is not qualified to lead the world’s most powerful military establishment, given his lack of administrative experience. Now we hear from credible sources that Hegseth drinks too much and accosts women too readily.

The always reliable Wall Street Journal reports that Trump is considering some candidates to replace Hegseth, including Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.

What does this mean in the MAGA world of blindly loyal Trumpkins? It suggests to me that the MAGA shield is showing faults and cracks.

Holiday gives me the willies

Why in the name of cheap-seat punditry have I gotten so queasy about skewering Donald J. Trump during this holiday season?

I mean, it’s not as if I have found anything at all to respect or admire about him. I still detest the notion of this fraud and con man returning to the White House. I am trying to imagine how in the world this clown is going to deliver anything resembling a heartfelt holiday greeting to the nation that doesn’t include something gratuitously self-serving or contains attack verbiage on the “fake news” or against all of those who feel as I do about him.

Maybe I am being overtaken by a universal sense of good cheer. It might be filling me with a touch of guilt about saying something negative when we’re supposed to be honoring a uniquely American holiday such as Thanksgiving. We’re giving thanks these days, right? I am for sure. I give thanks I live in a country that allows me to vent openly and even angrily about my government and those who run it.

Christmas is coming up. So is Hannukah. They are joyful holidays.

I have said so much about Trump during his nearly a decade in political life that I start repeating myself. I don’t want to do that. You don’t want to read it, either.

The season will pass eventually. Then I can return to the normal flow of commentary on High Plains Blogger. It will remain a largely political forum. I intend to continue sprinkling it with human interest comment, It will be about me, my ongoing journey, my family and my puppy.

Hey, it’s the season!

Trump’s list of vows sends chills

Donald Trump’s return to the White House sends more chilling signals than I can possibly count, but surely a few of them stand out.

The mass deportation and separation of illegally documented immigrants is one; the desire to let Ukraine fall to the Russian invaders is another.

The one Trump promise that well could keep awake at night is the one that pledges that grant blanket pardons for the traitors who stormed the Capitol Building on Jan. 6 intending to overturn the 2020 presidential election.

I don’t know about you, but seeking those hideous videos of the mob smashing windows, beating cops with poles, yelling “where’s Mike Pence” while brandishing gallows from which they threatened to hang the vice president continue to make my skin crawl.

And for Trump to declare that the assault was full of “love” simply goes too far beyond the pale to even elicit an intelligent response.

He vows to fight crime, and yet he’s a convicted felon. Go figure that one for me … if you dare try. Trump’s anti-immigrant screeds only will increase once he is sworn in as POTUS. Yet two of his three wives were immigrants. Have they “poisoned the blood” of the nation? Trump cannot tell the truth about anything, no matter how significant or trivial the issue.

These all are points to ponder as we prepare for the second Trump administration.

I will circle back, though, to this idea of pardoning the frothing criminals who followed this man’s instruction to “fight like hell” to “take back the government” on Jan. 6.

If we have learned anything about the ex- and future POTUS, when he vows to do the outrageous, we should believe him.

Trump fills out clown show cast

Donald J. Trump continues to fill out his cast of Cabinet-level goofballs, fruitcakes and assorted loyalists … just as he promised he would prior to the 2024 presidential election.

The latest cast member to sign on is Linda McMahon, the former exec with the World Wrestling and Entertainment outfit run by her husband, Vince McMahon. Linda McMahon has been nominated to be our nation’s education secretary.

Her education credentials? The silence you hear is evidence that she doesn’t have anything in her background. No administration experience. Nothing, man!

But … she is a Trump loyalist along with attorney general nominee and one-time DOJ investigative target Matt Gaetz, Fox News blowhard and defense nominee Pete Hegseth, Kennedy political scion and anti-vaxxer health and human services boss RFK Jr., and Russian agent and director of national intelligence nominee Tulsi Gabbard.

I mean, good grief! What the hell is the POTUS-elect seeking to do here?

The only good news I can find is that there appear to be enough Republican senators who are finding their long-squishy backbone to block many of the nuttiest of the nut jobs Trump has gathered around him.