Tag Archives: GOP

national news, political news

Trump teaches master class on projection

Listening to Donald Trump rant and rail against RINOs provides us with a master class on projection in which someone with certain despicable traits seeks to project them onto others.

Trump is the master instructor on projection.

He calls those who oppose him Republicans in name only, RINOs. Trump is the RINO in chief, as he has tossed aside damn near every conceivable Republican tenet to achieve his standing on the American political landscape. Low taxes, smaller government, working for the “little guy,” ending wars? They’re all lies.

As for his labeling media outlets the purveyors of “fake news,” let us remember that the liar in chief got his political chops by seeking to convey the lie that Barack Obama was ineligible to run for president because he was born in another country. Yet he calls reporters “terrible,” and “despicable” because they ask him questions he cannot answer.

Projection, man. It’s all projection.

national news, political news

Independent voter? Less so now!

My list of acquaintances in North Texas is a lengthy one, as I have become acquainted with lots of folks as I move from place to place in my daily routine.

When they learn of what I did when I was a working man — as a journalist who spent 37 joyful practicing my craft — the question often comes: Oh, say, how do you lean politically? Are you a Democrat or a Republican?

For starters, my politics had nothing to do with my job as a journalist. I generally was able to check my partisan label at the door. It’s different these days. Yes, I still cover local communities in Collin County, but the issues never tread onto partisan ground. However, I keep my head in the big game of national politics.

Now comes an admission. For longer than I dare seek to remember, I have declined to hang a party label on my politics. I long considered myself to be an independent voter. I have split my ballot generously between Democrats and Republicans. My presidential votes, though, have been Democratic since 1972, when I cast my first vote president.

Today’s national mood, I am sad to acknowledge, is driving me more solidly into the Democratic camp. I haven’t changed my basic world view. I remain a deficit hawk and I am not going to embrace some of the far-left progressive policies — such as Medicare for all and forgiving all student loans — that have become all the rage. However, I do believe government has a significant role to play in supporting Americans who need help.

When I hear the MAGA morons extol the virtues of the MAGA chieftain disguised as the POTUS, I am reminded each day how little I think of them and the nitwit they follow. I want secure borders as much as the next American, but I also want my government to treat everyone who comes here — legally or otherwise — with a degree of compassion and humanity.

Therefore, it is becoming safer to say that anyone who cares to ask me whether I “belong” to a politial party, I can still say “no,” given that Texas doesn’t require us to register with any partisan organization … but I can say the Democrats appeal to more than ever.

And it has much to do with the blind, gullible and feckless fealty that too damn many Republicans keep expressing for Donald J. Trump.

local news, political news, State news

MAGA field launches suicide mission

Watching the enormous Texas Republican primary field trying to out-MAGA itself is sorta like watching a circular firing squad eliminate a traitor … in that there will be plenty of stray bullets to take out bystanders.

Actual conservatives are now being called “Republicans in name only” by Donald Trump loyalists who seek to keep the MAGA meister relevant to the current policy debate. They seem to ignore polling data that suggest Trump’s approval rating among all voters is cratering more rapidly than a Mar-a-Lago minute.

The MAGA crusade is good for the base of the party that still remains wedded to what passes for Trump’s philosophy — as if he actually had one, which he doesn’t.

Real conservatives like U.S. Sen. John Cornyn have been hung with the RINO tag. Same with state Rep. Candy Noble of McKinney, who’s been called a “liberal” by her primary foes. Congressman Chip Roy has been called “disloyal” to Trump by MAGA adherents; Roy answers that he is stands with Trump on virtually every policy one can mention; he is running for Texas attorney general!

The good news for the rest of us is that the MAGA cultists are likely to win many of these primary races, setting up the possibility of a massive congressional rout in favor of real patriots in the fall election. I can’t speak for what might occur in some of these Texas-centric races, as the state’s political makeup remains a bit of a mystery to me.

I will cast my vote in the other party’s primary, which seems to be progressing on my realistic, reasonable grounds. I still intend to wait for Election Day, March 3. I am praying my candidates don’t mess up between now and then.

Donald Trump

Trump drips with irony

Oooh, a recent campaign post by Donald Trump is so damn ironic that I cannot let it slide without a brief comment.

Someone who speaks for Trump inserted a claim against a Republican primary candidate and said the president accused another GOP candidate to be a “RINO.” Voters should turn away from this fellow because he’s a Republican in name only, and not the real deal.

In other words, if you are a Republican and you oppose Trump, why … you’re nothing more than a RINO.

Does anyone out there grasp the irony of that so-called accusation? I have been calling Trump a variety of epithets “in chief.” One of my more recent references has been to label him the nation’s RINO in chief. That’s right, Trump is not a serious Republican.

He is an egomaniac with delusions of grandeur — maybe even godhood — who wants the world to revolve around him. He wants to the world to adhere to his desire. He wants to spend us into oblivion to achieve whatever grandiose plan he has to seize and keep power. He wants to expand government, not shrink it. Trump doesn’t give a damn about policy and cannot tell you why leveling a regressive tax on Americans in the form of tariffs is good for them.

Trump has turned a once-great political party into a perverted shadow of itself. Is he a real Republican? Hardly. For him to label others what he has emerged to become is laughable on its face.

Except that it isn’t funny … and I am not laughing.

Neither should you.

national news, political news

Vote to avoid impeachment?

Donald J. Trump reportedly now is telling supporters he needs their vote to dodge what many have said from the get-go, which is that Democrats are sure to impeach Trump a third time if they regain control of the U.S. House of Representatives in the midterm election later this year.

I will continue to insist that impeachment isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Sure, it seemingly could stop legislation from moving forward if lawmakers get caught up in the drama of a presidential impeachment. Then again, legislation has all but sputtered and died as legislators have battled openly with the administration over matters that have little to do with policy.

So … what’s the diff?

What astounds me is that a sitting POTUS would appeal to his supporters on such a shallow level. Never mind the idiocy that keeps flowing from the administration. He wants to seize Greenland from Denmark; he believes Canada should become an American state; he has taken a sovereign leader captive and vowed to take over Venezuela. He put his name on the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts; he cheers the notion of Americans losing their jobs; he says not a damn thing about millions of Americans being stripped of their health insurance.

Impeachable offense, anyone? Anyone at all? There are a few of them in the list of misdeeds I have just mentioned.

And, of course, he continues to lie. Bald-faced lies. He says he won the 2024 election in a landslide. He says inflation was the worst in U.S. history when he took office. Holy crap! Dude cannot tell the truth on any issue. Nothing is beyond the liar in chief’s reach!

I think Trump is correct that Democrats will seek to impeach him in 2027. Their failure to do all they can to get this guy out of office will stigmatize them for the rest of time.

crime news, legal news, local news, national news

Impeachment coming? Sure, bring it!

Let’s assume for a moment that the political smart money is telling us the truth, that the next Congress is going to flip to Democratic control and that the House of Reps is going to launch an impeachment against Donald Trump.

We all have heard that Democrats might gain 30 seats on the Republicans who now control Congress. I can’t say whether the pundits think the 30-seat gain is at the top of their projection, at the bottom … or somewhere in the middle. If Trump continues on his slap-dash course it well could exceed the 30-seat turnover by a significant margin.

Is an impeachment necessary? I will allow my bias to peek through the haze and declare: Damn right it’s necessary! I will offer this caveat: I want Democrats to assure us that they can more than one thing at a time, that they can proceed with impeaching Trump and resume their constitutional role of making laws.

Rep. Hakeem Jeffries of New York is likely to be elected speaker and he ought to take a page from the book followed in Texas by then-Speaker Pete Laney. The West Texas cotton farmer said he always simply allowed “the will of the House” to have its way. And so it went during the years that Laney served as the Man of the House.

The will of the U.S. House should be allowed to play the hand it is dealt. If most members believe — as I do — that Trump has committed an impeachable offense or three, then it should act. It also should not allow the legislative process to get caught in a political vise that will clamp down around the White House.

We’ve all heard them say that lawmakers can “do more than one thing at a time.” Impeaching a president is serious business. So is legislating.

economic news, military news, national news

Trump: RINO in chief

Once upon a time, in a galaxy far, far away, the American Republican Party stood for principles the party deemed to be hard and fast … not to be trifled with.

Republicans opposed adding to the national debt. They opposed deficit spending each year on the federal budget. The GOP stood firm against “nation-building” wars overseas. Republicans stood with Democratic President Lyndon Johnson in passing the Voting Rights and Civil Rights acts of 1964 and 1965. The GOP saw the Soviet Union as a national enemy and committed to the destruction of the tyranny preached in the Kremlin.

Hmmm. Those days are gone. Likely forever. Never to be seen again.

Donald Trump is now what I call the Republican In Name Only in chief. He is leading a party that bears no resemblance to the party of Abraham Lincoln, Ronald Reagan or Richard Nixon.

I am trying to imagine President Reagan allowing the national debt to balloon to trillions of dollars. Or President Lincoln allowing the party to embrace white supremacists. Or President Nixon defending the USSR’s direct descendants, Russia, in disputes involving U.S. intelligence findings.

What we have now in charge in D.C., ladies and gents, is a party that has betrayed all those core values. It’s not just the president. He has GOP members of Congress, who are standing with him.

They all — not just Donald Trump — deserve our everlasting condemnation for the direction they have taken this great country.

national news

Year ends in frustration

I hereby declare that the final post on High Plains Blogger in 2025 will end with my hands thrown into the air accompanied by the sigh of frustration from an American patriot who still cannot grasp what has become of the country he loves more than life itself.

That would be me, of course.

The year that is drawing to a merciful close will give way soon to many new opportunities to correct what has gone so terribly wrong. I await 2026 with undying optimism that we’re going to snap out of it, we’ll come to our senses and we will begin charting the corrective course that will save us all.

Donald John Trump was elected in 2024 to another term as the White House gatekeeper. I am finding it difficult these days even to refer to him as president. I vowed after the 2016 election that I would decline to attach the word “President” directly in front of Trump’s name. I have been faithful to that pledge. I accept your congratulations.

Now that we’re one year into the second term, I cannot even refer to his second victory as a “re-election.” The dude did get his melon thumped in 2020 by President Biden and he debased the office even more by declaring his refusal to accept the result and then incited the insurrection on Jan. 6, 2021.

The individual is a disgrace.

The year was spent hiring incompetent boobs to run multibillion-dollar government agencies. The more I think about it, the more logical it seems that the imbecile in chief would surround himself with agency heads who at some level make the man in charge seem smarter than he is. It really hasn’t worked.

What is the remedy? Midterm election. We’re going to elect the entire and House one-third of the Senate in November 2026. The notion that the House is likely to flip from R to D when the ballots are counted gives me hope that a competent House speaker will be able to steer that congressional chamber back to doing what we expect of it. The House will return to governing!

We also have to consider that a third Trump impeachment may occur. I don’t want that to happen. If it does, I want the House to produce proof that could persuade enough GOP House members that they have proof beyond a reasonable doubt that Trump has violated his oath of loyalty to the Constitution.

The reconstruction of our democratic principles can begin in this new year. I will use this blog to do my tiny part to ensure the project gets completed.

media news

Political mystery: How does he get away with this?

One of the great American political mysteries keeps playing out and it continues to baffle many millions of Americans.

Donald Trump in the span of about three days totally reversed himself and told yet another in an infinite string of bald-faced lies as he sought to wiggle out of his initial statement.

Rachel Scott of ABC News asked Trump if he was going to release the video of the second strike in September of a speed boat off the Venezuela coast; the strike killed two survivors of an initial missile attack on the boat. Trump said he had “no problem” releasing it and said Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth could do “whatever he wanted” regarding the issue. Three days later, Scott followed up on her first question, reminding him that he said he would release the video, to which Trump said “You said that, I didn’t say it.” Then he turned to someone at the table and muttered, “She’s with ABC fake news.”

Trump’s Republican allies in Congress continue to keep letting him get away with (a) telling outright lies and (b) heaping verbal abuse on female reporters who are simply doing their job.

When in the name of decency and decorum will the GOP caucus in both congressional chambers wake up to what their hero is doing? He is denigrating his exalted office. He hurls epithets at journalists who are practicing a craft protected by the First Amendment to the Constitution.

He recently called a female reporter “piggie” while dismissing a question she posed to him aboard Air Force One. Trump continues to harangue reporters as being “stupid,” “incompetent” and purveyors of “fake news.”

Meanwhile, the men and women whose constitutionally granted power is being usurped by Trump sit on their hands and keep their lips zipped.

They are disgracing themselves and the offices they occupy.

national news, political news

The longer he stays …

Gotta make an admission … which is that the longer we have to endure Donald Trump’s ignorant idiocy the more I miss traditional Republicans, the men and women who stood for principles they hold dear.

I have admitted on this blog that for as long as I have voted for president, dating back to 1972, I have voted for Democratic nominees. It hasn’t been a partisan thing but rather based on the candidates’ philosophies and those intangibles we all seek in the individuals we choose to lead our nation.

I came close to flipping, in 1976. I had to hold my breath just a bit to vote for Jimmy Carter. I thought about casting a vote for President Gerald Ford. My feelings for President Ford were more or less based on one of those intangibles. I just liked the man.

Now I am yearning for someone who cares about principle and who acts on some moral authority he or she can claim. That includes Republicans!

We don’t have a principled man in the White House. We have an immoral/amoral moron. He sees every single political relationship he has forged as a transactional event, which he can parlay into something that benefits him. He has demonstrated racist qualities time and again. He is ignorant of the document he was supposed to protect and defend. Trump doesn’t appreciate that dissent not only should be welcomed, but it is guaranteed in the Constitution’s First Amendment.

Trump is a Republican In Name Only. The RINO in chief doesn’t adhere to traditional GOP principles. The Party of Lincoln, which welcomed political diversity, has been shoved aside. The party of Trump is something quite different … and despicable.

If only the real Republicans who are left standing in the political arena could find the backbone to stand up to this fraudster. If only …