Tag Archives: GOP

legal news, national news

This election cycle? It’s the real deal!

Every election cycle possibly dating back to the beginning of our great republic has produced a comment from a candidate or a pundit that “this election is the most important in our nation’s history.”

Well, gang, I have news for you. The one coming up in November is the real thing. This one likely will determine the future of our republic. It will center on a candidate who won’t be on any ballot in any state. It will focus on the current occupant of the White House, Donald J. Trump.

He’s not up for a vote. In fact, he’ll never face the voters again. And for that we all should cheer loudly.

This election matters … a lot! The House of Representatives is likely to flip from Republican to Democratic control. The GOP is clinging to a majority that is virtually meaningless. It’s down to a seat or two or maybe three. Hell, I cannot keep track of it. GOP operatives are saying out loud what many others have said for about the past year: The Republican Party is going to get creamed! Every House seat is up for election. I don’t know what the latest forecasts are projecting, but I keep hearing a 30- to 50-seat swing from GOP to Democratic control.

Then there’s the U.S. Senate. Until just recently, it had been thought that flipping the Senate from GOP to Democrat was too steep a hill to climb. Suddenly, there is real belief that the Senate could be in play. North Carolina could flip. So could Maine. And get ready for this little nugget: Texas, the GOP bastion, could be in play as well.

Indeed, I have heard from some key Texas Republican strategists who suggest that Democratic Senate nominee James Talarico has a serious chance of seizing the Senate seat now held by Republican John Cornyn, who is in a runoff against the deeply flawed MAGA darling, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton.

The economy is in the crapper. We’re at war with Iran. The POTUS keeps seizing power. Chaos pervades every executive branch agency.

Ladies and gentlemen, we have a prescription building for a first-class electoral blowout. It won’t please every American. However, I would be thrilled beyond measure to see my government return to the art of governing.

Donald Trump, State news

Cornyn’s time as senator is up?

If I were a betting man — and I damn sure am not — I might be inclined to think that Sen. John Cornyn is facing a serious challenge to his once-storied congressional career.

He’s going to face Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton on May 26 in a runoff election for the Senate seat Cornyn has occupied seemingly since The Flood. Why the gloomy outlook?

Cornyn finished first in a three-way Republican Party primary, winning 42% of the vote. Paxton finished second with 41%. Third place went to U.S. Rep. Wesley Hunt, who collected 13%.

Paxton and Hunt both paint Cornyn as a RINO, a ridiculous assertion on its face. If there is a more dedicated Republican in the Senate than Cornyn, I do not know who that would be. Indeed, Paxton and Donald Trump, his bestie in the White House, are the real Republicans in name only.

So, with the field narrowed to the top two GOP finishers, it falls on Paxton to seek Hunt voters to close the narrow gap between him and Cornyn. If the Hunt crowd is as MAGA gullible as I suspect they are, Paxton should have little trouble rounding up the support he needs to send Cornyn packing.

And what about Paxton? The guy is ethically challenged, to state the obvious. He was indicted early during his time as AG by a Collin County grand jury of securities trading allegations. He was supposed to go to trial long ago, but skated free of that episode. Several key legal aides quit the AG’s office and accused Paxton of corruption. The Republican-dominated House of Reps impeached Paxton, who then avoided conviction in the Texas Senate when Republican senators declined to follow their House colleagues’ lead.

If Paxton should manage to win the runoff, he will face a seriously rising star in the Texas Democratic Party, state Rep. James Talarico, who I will guess is dying to run against the ethically challenged AG.

We have just witnessed the opening act of a yearlong political drama. It’s going to get a whole lot rougher as we move on through the year. And if I were running the Democrat’s campaign, I just might be drooling at the chance to take on Ken Paxton.

First things first. Paxton has to win the GOP runoff. Here’s hoping for a donnybrookl

local news, political news

RINOs are everywhere!

Seems as if it takes damn little to be labeled a RINO these days … you know, a Republican in name only.

Donald Trump, the nation’s RINO in chief, throws the term around with utterly no understanding of the irony that he calls anyone a RINO.

Texas is going through its primary election today. State Rep. Jeff Leach has been called a RINO by his challenger Henry Thorsen. Why? Well, it seems that Leach had the temerity to serve as a prosecutor in Attorney General Ken Paxton’s impeachment trial in the Texas Senate.

Never mind the body of work that Leach compiled while representing Collin County in the Legislature. You turn against a crook like Paxton? You’re toast.

It’s happened to other anti-Trump Republicans, such as former U.S. Rep. Liz Cheney. She stood her ground and went for Trump’s jugular. She remains a conservative Republican. But she’s now out of office, scorned by the very party to which she once dedicated her political life.

Paxton and Trump are now besties. That’s the connection between the Texas AG and the POTUS.

I won’t vote in the Texas GOP primary today. I am going. to pull for Jeff Leach. I don’t know him well, but I do know him to be a conservative with a conscience. What’s more, he is no RINO!

Donald Trump, national news

Stage set for midterm wipeout

Donald J. Trump could have followed the path forged by every one of the men who preceded him in the office he occupies.

He could have reached out to Democrats and said, “I pledge to work with you to cure what ails us.” Well … he didn’t do that when he stood in front of a partially filled House of Reps chamber to deliver the State of the Union speech that has been widely panned.

Instead, he called Democrats names for their refusal to attend the speech. He accused them of inflating the cost of food, of following an “open border” policy pushed by former President Biden, of putting Americans in danger.

The SOTU didn’t go well for Trump. Polling data suggests that Americans saw straight through what he was doing, which was he talked to his MAGA base, seeking to rally the shrinking core of fervent Trumpkins to get out and vote.

I watched about half of Trump’s speech. I didn’t see the staredown he had with U.S. Sen. Mark Kelly of Arizona or when he introduced all the celebrities who attended the speech. I understand Democrats joined their GOP colleagues in applauding the U.S. men’s hockey team fresh from winning Olympic gold in Milan, Italy; the bipartisan ovation was a nice touch to be sure.

Trump, though, has set the table for a GOP rout when the midterm election comes around in November. I have no clue how many congressional seats the Democrats will gain. I am going to hope for all my worth that the Constitution will stand strong against Trump’s all but admitted attempt to rig the election.

I believe we are now witnessing the beginning of the end of Donald Trump’s stranglehold on the democracy the rest of us cherish.

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.