Tag Archives: Donald Trump

national security

Trump brings chaos back to White House

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Jeb Bush perhaps had the most apt description of Donald Trump’s candidacy back when the two men competed against each other for the 2016 Republican Party presidential nomination.

Bush, the former Florida governor, said Trump would be the “chaos president” if elected. Well, he was elected that year and by golly, he brought chaos into the Oval Office with him.

Here’s some cheery news for those who voted for him the second time around: The chaos hasn’t gone away, as there will be plenty more of it when he takes office on Jan. 20.

Spoiler alert … I was not among those who voted for Trump either time, but you knew that already. Allow me to say, “I told you as well that this would happen.” 

An attorney general nominee already has backed out amid a tidal wave of criticism over his (lack of) qualifications for the job. The defense secretary-designate is facing another storm of criticism, as is the proposed health and human services secretary, the next director of the national intelligence and the FBI director-designate.

Chaos, anyone? Anyone?

Trump keeps boasting of his intelligence. How he plans to recruit the “best people” to serve in his administration. He is recruiting nincompoops to key national security posts. I will concede that not all of his picks fall into that category, but damn!

What the hell is this guy thinking when he chooses a sworn anti-vaxxer to serve as HHS head, a guy who wants to destroy the FBI while serving as its director, an accused sexual assailant and a right-wing TV blowhard to run the Pentagon, and someone who sympathizes with an accused war criminal as DNI.

I thought we were better than to elect someone such as this guy. I guess I was mistaken.

legal news

Wray quits FBI, bring on the goons!

FBI director Christopher Wray’s resignation from his supposedly “non-political” post signals most clearly — as if we needed any more signals — what Donald Trump intends to do to the nation’s top police agency.

He intends to turn it into a cudgel with which he will beat his political foes into submission.

Wray’s resignation, which takes effect on President Biden’s last day in office, is a clear indication that Trump — who selected Wray for the FBI after he fired James Comey in 2017 — has no intention of following the law.

Comey got the boot because he wouldn’t profess blind loyalty to Trump. Wray pursued his job with the same dedication to the rule of law as other FBI leaders have done. The deal breaker for Trump was when Wray asked the former president to turn over classified documents he had taken from the White House and when Trump refused, Wray sought a court order to seize the documents at Mar-a-Lago. Again, he followed the law.

The nimrod Trump wants to take over as FBI boss, Kash Patel, has declared his intention to sic the FBI on Trump’s political foes. He has said he wants to close the Hoover FBI Building and turn it into a museum of the Deep State.

This, ladies and gentlemen, is a dark day in the transition from one administration to the next one. However, it is appearing that the next one is shaping precisely as the new president said it would.

Shame on us.

national security

How can Gabbard serve as DNI? She cannot!

How in the name of all that is holy and sacred can Donald Trump select a former Hawaii congresswoman who has zero intelligence background to be director of national intelligence?

Oh, wait! She’s a loyal Trumpkin. That’s all the next POTUS needs.

Tulsi Gabbard has zero business being considered for DNI. She was an obscure congresswoman. She was a Democrat once. Then she flipped to the Republican Party.

Events in Syria have called Gabbard’s many shortcomings into sharp focus. She once called former Syrian murderer Bashar al Assad a minor player. She met with the madman not long before he was deposed by rebels. Assad is gone from power, to the relief of millions of Syrians he terrorized during his reign.

Gabbard also is pals with Vladimir Putin, the thug/goon/tyrant in Moscow.

This is the individual Donald Trump wants to entrust our national security secrets? Give me a fu**ing break!

I am astonished way beyond belief at what Trump is seeking to do to our security apparatus. He distrusts our intelligence gatherers, which he all but admitted in that hideous 2018 presser in Helsinki.

My hope now is that Republicans in the U.S. Senate who will have to confirm this moron as DNI will come to their senses and reject her nomination out of hand.

Uncategorized

Musk and the Blowhard … what gives?

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Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy make quite a duo as they take up their undefined — or ill-defined — posts in the new presidential administration that is taking shape.

Musk is the richest man in the world. Ramaswamy is a loudmouth who ran for the Republican presidential nomination against the guy who won it all in 2024. They now form what is called the Department of Governmental Efficiency.

They want to slash trillions of dollars from the federal budget. They want to eliminate entire Cabinet offices. They have Donald Trump’s ear.

Several huge problems stand in their way. One is the Constitution. The nation’s governing document states clearly that Congress is in charge of budgeting. It’s been said over many years that “the president proposes, but the Congress disposes” of all budget items. That won’t change, no matter who is president.

Another obstacle that Musk and the Blowhard need to confront are the huge egos of the 535 men and women who serve in the legislative branch of our government. They all represent states and congressional districts with specific needs and they depend on their senators and House members to deliver the goods to the folks back home. They aren’t going to shed their constitutional authority just because a couple of know-it-alls order them to do it.

I keep hearing all this grand talk about what Musk and Ramaswamy will do cut government waste. Neither of these clowns — not even the guy with the bottomless pockets — can cut a damn thing without congressional approval.

Oh, and then we have the president. This fellow is the most mercurial, unpredictable, maddening individual ever to occupy this office. He often acts on the last thing someone tells him before decision time arrives.

The rich guy and the loudmouth must prepare themselves for the possibility that every grand idea they propose could get shot down in flames by the numbskull who sees himself as monarch rather than servant.

political news

Trump can govern without a majority

I am going to do something on this blog I once deemed impossible: give Donald Trump the benefit of the doubt as he prepares to take office as president of the United States.

Trump will be able to govern without winning an absolute majority of the ballots cast in the 2024 presidential election. His ability to govern doesn’t depend only on his winning percentage, though. It will depend on whether he is able to dispense with the rubbish that flows frequently from his mouth.

Eight times dating back to 1948, presidents have won election without earning a majority of the ballots cast. Trump has done so twice; so did Bill Clinton in 1992 and 1996; Richard Nixon squeaked into office in 1968; John Kennedy did so in 1960; Harry Truman, who everyone in the country thought would lose the 1948 contest, managed to win election.

The most controversial election, of course, occurred in 2000 when George W. Bush waited for a U.S. Supreme Court decision on the recounting of ballots in Florida. The court ruled 5-4 to stop the recount … with Bush holding a 500-vote lead in Florida. He won the state and then the presidency.

Trump and his MAGA team, however, are overstating the “mandate” they say he won. He doesn’t have a mandate. He will need to tread carefully as he assembles his executive team and as he prepares to enact policies he has pledged to do.

The question we all must ask is this: Is Trump capable of adjusting his “I am your retribution” posture to being the leader of a team upon which he will need to enact a legislative agenda? I am a strong critic of this individual, so I am inclined to believe he cannot pivot from being a top-tier asshole to becoming a statesman.

However, there always is a glimmer of hope that he can figure it out.

I intend to hope for the best.

crime news

Patel to weaponize FBI

Let me see if I have this straight: Donald J. Trump has accused the Biden administration of “weaponizing” the Justice Department to go after Trumpkins and other MAGA goons, yet the new president has selected a guy, Kash Patel, to run the FBI with the expressed purpose of finding political foes and prosecuting them for unknown reasons.

Talk about weaponization!

Patel, of course, has no business running the nation’s top police force. He is a Trump loyalist and so far has spoken the words the boss wants to hear. I use the term “boss” with caution, because in reality you and I are the bosses. Patel doesn’t see it that way. He sees the president as the boss, is answerable only to him and therefore must be held accountable only by the nimrod sitting behind the Resolute Desk.

Not true, not by a long shot.

Patel is likely to get picked apart by Senate Judiciary Committee members, maybe even some of his fellow Republicans.

I’m tellin’ ya, Donald Trump’s next term as president is going to be one for the books … likely the comic books.

local news

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!

national news

Will senators grow some courage?

Matt Gaetz is gone from Donald Trump’s newborn Cabinet, as he was toast from the moment the new POTUS announced him as attorney general.

Trump, though, still is far from finding his way into the clear.

He’s got Tulsi Gabbard as director of national intelligence, Robert Kennedy Jr. as head of health and human services, Pete Hegseth as defense secretary and maybe a half-dozen others with skeletons in their closets.

Senators have the right to confirm these picks. Trump, though, also has the right to grant recess appointments if the Senate is adjourned. It’s fair to ask: Will the Senate allow Trump to launch a political flea-flicker by denying them the right under the Constitution to debate and then vote on these nominees?

Something is whispering in my ear that senators won’t take kindly to being denied that right by a president who just might try some razzle-dazzle, particularly with the remaining troublesome appointees whose names are still under discussion.

That’s my hope, anyway. The other option would be for them to roll over and allow Trump to flatten them on his way to the Oval Office.

We’ll see what our senators are up to doing … and whether they have stiffened their spines.

Uncategorized

Tariffs will hurt us … not them!

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My head is about to explode as I try to figure out the logic behind Donald Trump’s threat to impose a 30% tariff on all good imported into the United States of America.

Indeed, whoever is advising the incoming moron in chief needs to have his or her head examined. Maybe a bug has eaten part of their brain, too … if you get my drift.

What no one is telling Trump is that these tariffs won’t be felt in countries such as China, Mexico, Canada and Japan, all nations from which we import billions of dollars of goods annually.

The 30% tariff will hit U.S. consumers straight in the pocketbook. We will pay more for these items. The tariffs will hit us hard, not the producers who make these items.

You want to see inflation run wild? Let’s just see how this plays out when the Commerce Department starts releasing Consumer Price Index data in the coming months.

Trump keeps bellowing how he wants to “put America first” when he returns to the White House. This notion he has pitched to the gullible among us will do nothing of the sort.

crime news, legal news, national news

Trump: Slipperiest man alive

Donald J. Trump has just earned a new title that smacks of royalty.

I hereby crown this guy King Donald, The Slipperiest Man Alive. The dude received this unofficial title when special counsel Jack Smith announced today he would move to dismiss all the federal charges leveled against Trump.

They include his role in the Jan. 6, 2021 assault on our government as well as his keeping of classified documents at his Florida estate.

What happened to force Smith to make this decision? Near as I can tell, it was the Supreme Court ruling that granted Trump immunity from prosecution while he sits in the Oval Office.

So, the two federal charges appear headed for the dustbin. All that’s left to prosecute is the Georgia case alleging that Trump sought to pressure state officials to “find” enough votes in Georgia to swing that state’s total in 2020 to Trump’s column.

The feds have no authority over DA Fani Willis’s right to prosecute that case as an elected state official. Then again, that case appears to be sucking wind at this stage.

Here we stand. A man who was impeached twice during his first term in office, convicted of 34 felony counts in New York on a hush-money payment to an adult film actress and then was charged in multiple cases on state and federal felonies has been re-elected to the nation’s highest office.

He now wears the crown awarded to the Slipperiest Man Alive.

Stunning … simply stunning.