Tag Archives: GOP

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.

legal news, local news, State news

Lt. Gov. deserves props

Dan Patrick deserves a good word from this blogger today … for the way he is conducting the trial of his fellow Republican, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton.

Patrick, of course, is the GOP Texas lieutenant governor who at the moment is presiding over Paxton’s impeachment trial. Patrick pledged to be impartial and non-biased when the Senate received the overwhelming impeachment articles from the Texas House.

I had harbored private doubts that Patrick could be faithful to his pledge. I was mistaken.

So very often in high-profile judicial or, in this case, quasi-judicial proceedings, the presiding judge seems to hog the spotlight. Example given? Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Lance Ito, who presided over the so-called “trial of the century” in 1995 in the case of OJ Simpson and whether he killed his former wife and her friend.

Ito let the lawyers go on and on, ad nauseum, refusing to constrain them, which he could have done as the presiding judge.

Dan Patrick has been hardly mentioned in this first week of the Paxton trial. Which is a good thing. He has let the lawyers for Paxton and the House have the floor and has administered the proceedings efficiently and without bias.

Why was I concerned about Patrick? Hey, he’s a politician … and a gregarious one at that!

Whether this impeachment trial results in a conviction or an acquittal shouldn’t hinge on Patrick’s conduct as the presiding officer. That doesn’t appear to be the case and for that I, as a keenly interested Texas resident, am grateful.

national news

Who is this new carnival barker?

Who in the world is Vivek Ramaswamy, who I believe is trying to emerge as the Republican Party’s new snake-oil vendor of choice?

Dude is 38 years of age. He’s never held a public office. I don’t yet know how he acquired his wealth … I’ll have to look it up. He talks some wild game about opposing further aid to Ukraine in its fight against Russia, and then says Donald Trump’s actions on 1/6 were “abhorrent” but he remains in Trump’s camp if the twice-impeached, four-times indicted former POTUS gets nominated by the GOP next summer.

Ramaswamy is weird, man.

This political newbie might be making some waves among Republican base voters, aka the MAGA morons on the far-right wing of a once-great political party.

What part of Ramaswamy’s background concerns me the most? It might be his lack of political exposure or experience. We saw what happened the last time Americans elected such an individual. He shot off his mouth and got impeached for seeking a political favor from a foreign head of state; he got impeached again for inciting the mob to storm the Capitol Building to stop the counting of Electoral College votes after the 2020 presidential election.

Do we want to hand another political neophyte the nuclear launch codes?

Hmmm … hell no!

local news

Wishing the best, but concerned …

Oh, how I want to give Keith Self the benefit of the doubt as he settles more firmly into his new public office: as a congressman representing the Third Congressional District of Texas.

Self is my elected representative, which means I have some skin in the game he is playing while seeking to earn his spurs as a junior member of the House of Representatives.

I have heard a good bit already from this former Collin County judge. To be candid, I am a bit alarmed that he’s bitten from the fruit offered by the MAGA-inspired, Freedom Caucus wing of the Republican Party.

He admitted at a meeting I attended the other day he voted for fire-breather Jim Jordan to be House speaker in order to get the eventual Man of the House, Kevin McCarthy, to agree to demands made by the MAGA crowd. McCarthy eventually buckled and the far-right-wingers who opposed McCarthy came around. Self was one of them.

He wants the House to inquire into whether to impeach President Biden. It made me go: What? Why? For what reason? He also is concerned that McCarthy might pull impeachment inquiry off the table, which is a non-starter in the Book According to Self. As we learned during Donald Trump’s twin impeachments, those who favor an inquiry generally want to take the next step. So … I’ll put Rep. Self in the category of congressmen and women who want to impeach the president.

To what end? For what good cause? It’s a mystery to me.

I was one of those North Texans who was quite sure that former Rep. Van Taylor of Allen would be re-elected in 2022. Silly me. I didn’t expect Taylor — a Republican — to end his campaign after revealing he had engaged in an affair with a woman once married to an officer of the Islamic State.

Self and Taylor were set to face each other in a GOP runoff. Taylor’s withdrawal handed the nomination to Self, who then defeated his Democratic opponent.

One thing that seems apparent to me is that Self will not follow the path forged by Taylor, who prided himself in working with Democrats, seeking consensus on ideas he hoped would lead to legislation.

But … it’s still early in Keith Self’s new career. Maybe he can find some bipartisan “religion” that can please skeptics such as me.

national news

Why punish ’em because of one man?

Never will I understand the “rationale” that has gripped the modern Republican Party, which is turning its ire on politicians who have the temerity to oppose a single individual … with zero regard to their established records.

You know to whom I refer. Donald Trump has established a cult following among so-called “core” Republicans. That core takes its vengeance out on politicians and political candidates who bitch out loud about the immorality and unfitness for public office that Trump exhibits multiple times daily.

Such political petulance has cost the GOP core several key figures in the ranks of politicians who formerly carried the party’s message forward.

Liz Cheney is one of the victims. She had the nerve to declare Trump to be an existential threat to our national political fabric. Her punishment was to be voted out in the 2022 GOP primary in Wyoming, which she represented in the U.S. House of Representatives.

She is as conservative as they come. Her record opposing abortion, gun control legislation, excessive taxes and so many other hot-button issues is intact. It’s not good enough for the MAGA morons who dominate the political landscape in her state.

Same for Sen. Mitt Romney of Utah. He voted to convict Trump in both of his Senate impeachment trials. Now comes word that the MAGA minions will “primary” him when his term comes up. What the hell? He was the GOP’s 2012 presidential nominee and remains a staunch, avid and vocal conservative. He also believes Trump is a chump, a phony and a fraud.

Those are just two prime examples of the disease that has infected a once-great political party. The GOP has become one man’s play thing to the detriment of those who believe in actual conservative values, not to mention to the rest of us who worry about the future of our democratic republic.

It’s all so sad and sickening.

crime news

Baffled beyond belief

Let me be abundantly clear about the state of play in the upcoming 2024 presidential election campaign.

I cannot understand and never will accept how it is that a former POTUS, twice impeached while he was in office who now stands indicted on allegations that he committed 91 felony crimes remains the favorite among those who subscribe to a major political party.

And that they are poised to nominate him to run for the office he lost in the previous election even if he is convicted of any of the felonies. 

I need someone to explain to me how a voting public can be so ignorant and blind to the reality posed by the consequences of a potential conviction. The man could face a sentence of effectively serving the rest of his life in prison.

Still, he might be nominated by the Republican Party to run for the presidency … yet again!

What the hell is wrong with this picture?

Donald Trump remains the top candidate for the GOP presidential nomination. He won’t show up for presidential debates to face his gaggle of GOP primary foes. His legal team is seeking to stall the start of four criminal trials in which Trump is a criminal defendant.

He said if he’s elected to the presidency, that he will be “the retribution” of those who believe he has been done wrong. He would pardon himself and the 1/6 traitors who sought to overturn the results of the 2020 election by launching the assault on our Capitol Building.

Some of Trump’s primary foes say his conduct was abhorrent and wrong … but they’d still support him if he’s the nominee.

Good grief!

I stand behind my belief he won’t be nominated. He might not even be eligible to run for office, given the Constitution’s stipulation that anyone who commits an insurrection or gives “aid and comfort’ to those who do is disqualified.

How in the world, though, have we come to the point where this is even a discussion topic?

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!

crime news, Donald Trump, legal news

Trump won’t testify … ever!

All this chatter I keep hearing from TV news talking heads about the possibility of Donald Trump testifying in any of the criminal trials awaiting him makes me want to laugh out loud.

Let’s settle the issue once and for all: Donald Trump will not testify in any of these trials. Why not? Because he cannot tell the truth. Thus, he becomes a candidate for perjury.

Trump cannot tell the truth about his involvement with the Jan. 6 assault on our government. He cannot speak truthfully about how he squirreled away those classified documents from the White House. He cannot speak truthfully about the co-defendants who also have been indicted.

Imagine him putting his hand on a holy book and swearing to tell the “truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.”

It won’t happen. No judge worth a damn is going to summon Trump to court and demand that he tell the truth.

Donald Trump cannot comply with a judge’s order.

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

GOP group shows cowardice

Admission time: I did not watch the initial Republican Party presidential “debate” in Milwaukee.

There. That said, I cannot comment on what I didn’t witness in real time. I can, however, offer a brief response to what I understand happened when a Fox Propaganda Channel moderator asked of the group of eight whether they would pledge to support the GOP nominee if it happens to be Donald Trump, who could be convicted of felonies against the U.S. government.

Six of them raised their hands, meaning they would support Trump if he’s the nominee. Two of them declined: former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson and former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie.

What does that tell me? It says that most of the individuals running for president are cowards, in that they cannot bring themselves to be critical of the prohibitive frontrunner for the GOP presidential nomination.

Sickening.