Tag Archives: MAGA

national news

VP stands tall

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Kamala Harris made history four years ago when voters elected her as the nation’s first female vice president, the first Black and the first Asian American ever to hold the office.

Yep, she’s a complex individual … with an ethnic diversity that makes heads spin.

President Biden vowed to make her a consequential VPOTUS. While the jury is still out on whether he was faithful to that pledge, there can be no doubt these days about the value she brings to an embattled president. Biden is facing calls to step down from the top of Democratic Party ticket on the basis of his debate performance the other night in Atlanta.

I am one American who is so very torn. I don’t want him to step down, but I would accept his decision to do so if that’s what he decides.

Oh, as for Harris? She stands tall in the wings. Vice President Harris has emerged as the Biden administration’s most effective spokesperson on the issue of women’s reproductive rights. She is taking the fight straight to Donald Trump, who wants his old job back amid threats that he would undo the basic framework of our representative democracy.

The VP is speaking with courage and conviction and is emerging as someone who is (a) defending the president’s stellar record and (b) looks and sounds willing and able to lead a nation that chose her as vice president in 2020.

Kamala Harris might never have imagined being thrust into this role when she said “yes” to Biden’s request to join the ticket. Indeed, as an observer of American politics, I am finding it hard to grasp what might be unfolding in real time.

The drama that is playing itself out is almost too much to imagine … but it is. I am proud of the politician who made history when she joined the winning ticket four years ago.

Keep standing tall, Mme. Vice President.

national news

Gotta hold on tightly

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I have discovered that emotional roller coasters can be as upsetting as the real thing, such as one I used to ride at Jantzen Beach in my hometown of Portland, Ore.

That frightening monster is gone and I don’t ride roller coasters much these days. I do embark on emotional thrill rides based on the politics I continue to follow.

President Biden is now taking me on an emotional roller coaster. I am forced to hold on tightly with both hands. He had that hideous debate outing a little more than a week ago. It launched a series of calls for him to get out of the 2024 presidential race. He has stood firm, saying he isn’t “going anywhere.”

My initial reaction? I’m with you, Mr. President. Stay in! Fight like hell! Then doubt began to creep in. Eleven days after that hideous performance, my hope is being revved up a bit by the message that Biden is delivering.

We need to concentrate on Donald Trump, he bellows. Trump is the true danger to our way of life, to our democratic principles, to our very liberties.

I know that a few days cannot possibly define the future, but it appears to be that President Biden is finding his voice. He is speaking with crystal clarity, with passion and with a commitment to staying in the fight until they count the ballots.

I keep getting caught up in these moments. I realize they aren’t as much fun as the old days when we screamed at the thrill of racing around the track at high speed. The stakes today, though, are pretty damn high … which means I am going to stay committed to these moments when they present themselves.

national news

POTUS falls short

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My hope leading up to President Biden’s 22-minute interview with ABC News’s George Stephanopoulos was that Biden would hit it so damn far out of the park that we never would discuss whether he was “up to the job” of being president.

He whiffed.

Three or four times, Stephanopoulos asked Biden if he would consent to an independent test of his mental acuity. He declined to say “yes” or “no.” He said something about being “tested every day” while he continues to function as president.

Biden’s frightening debate performance prompted the interview. It was intended to dispel concerns about the president’s ability to do the job. Do I share those concerns? Not necessarily.

I do share the concern that the international chatter about the debate performance is damaging his re-election effort against a guy who has no business running for office …. let alone standing in position potentially to wrest it from the individual who defeated him four years ago.

We are entering uncharted waters, gang.

Joe Biden

Biden on the hot seat

All of us are entitled to change our mind on important matters … correct? Therefore, I am going to announce to you a shift in my thought process on the difficulty that President Biden is facing.

I have declared my desire that Biden stay in office, that he not back down, that he not forgo a re-election campaign. My commitment to that stance is beginning to waver.

The president is facing the kind of pressure to pull out that none of us has witnessed. He stumbled badly this past week in the debate with Donald Trump. He sounded confused. He looked even worse, appearing at times as if he couldn’t remember what he had just said or the latest lie that flew out of Trump’s overfed pie hole.

I am not going to wander down the alley that suggests that Biden has lost his snap that he should suspend his campaign and hand the effort over to a young gun.

That is his decision to make. Only the president can know if he is up to the task. I believe he is, but I am peering at him through a far-away prism. My thought at this moment is that if he makes that decision to pull out that I will support him.

Uncategorized

Stiffen the rules to run

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The next amendment to the Constitution should involve updating requirements to run for president. There are only 3 requirements, and at the time of its writing, that seemed logical. We no longer live in a world full of logical people; and it is illogical that a convicted felon should be allowed to run for office. We need people of good virtue and character. Donny boy offers neither, nor do his adamant supporters, as they have lost their once good character and virtues to a cult leader. But the founders never expected the country would face such a ridiculous crisis.

What you have just read didn’t come from my laptop. It came from an individual who reads this blog and who, by and large, endorses whatever point of view I manage to spew out there. I appreciate his support.

What this gentleman proposes is to stiffen the requirements for seeking high public office. He’s right that there is nothing in the Constitution that requires a candidate for POTUS to be free of criminal charges … let alone convictions.

This guy might be onto something, the more I think about it.

Indeed, the only thing that could keep Donald Trump from serving — God forbid — would be if he is sent to prison.

It’s not too much to ask to reserve the presidency and other high offices only for the best among us to run for them. When you think for just a moment about it, does the “best of us” include just those who haven’t been convicted of a felony?

I believe we could cast our net even farther than a felony conviction. I get that such a change might impinge on the notion that “anybody can be elected president.” Well, eliminating convicted felons from the candidate pool still leaves us with a huge field of hopefuls.

national news

Trump: luckiest pol … ever!

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Donald J. Trump is vying for the unofficial title of luckiest politician of all time.

Ponder this for a moment. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia died in early 2016 and President Obama sought to nominate Merrick Garland to the SCOTUS vacancy. The Senate’s premier obstructionist, GOP leader Mitch McConnell, intervened, saying that Obama didn’t have the right to nominate anyone in an election year. McConnell blocked Garland’s nomination hoping that Trump would win in 2016. Trump won in what will go down as the greatest political fluke in US history.

Then the new POTUS named three justices to the court.

Together, along with three other right-wing justices, they have determined that POTJSes have immunity against prosecution for crimes committed while performing their official duties. Trump already has been convicted of 34 felony counts, but that doesn’t stop him from running again.

Trial judges down the line are now hamstrung by the high court’s immunity ruling, possibly enabling Trump to run out the clock and hope — and man, this pains me to write this — that he wins the 2024 election … which would doom any chance of any conviction on any of the remaining trials.

That the presumptive GOP nominee is even in a position to win the next election baffles me beyond all measure. It is stunning in the extreme. This guy is without question the most immoral reprobate ever to seek high political office.

Yet there he is, riding this god-awful wave of good luck possibly right back into the White House, the one place on Earth where he never should be seen again.

Go … figure!

legal news

SCOTUS trashes another established notion

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Now that the U.S. Supreme Court has laid waste to another established legal tenet, let us look briefly at what might lie ahead.

The court, ruling 6 to 3, has decided that presidents do have presumed immunity from prosecution if they commit wrongdoing while sitting in the office. The court let stand the notion that a president can be prosecuted for acts he committed after he leaves office.

We all thought that “no one is above the law.” Well … that’s not quite true. It means, in this matter specifically, that Donald Trump was within legal authority to provoke the Jan. 6 onslaught on the Capitol and then do nothing to stop it while mobsters assaulted the cops, crashed through windows, defecated on the floor of our Capitol and threatened to execute the VP if he didn’t obey Trump’s command to overturn the result of the 2020 election … which Trump lost to Joe Biden!

Does this mean, therefore, that Joe Biden could send a special forces sniper team to assassinate his opponents before he leaves office? Of. course not … except that the court ruled that illegal acts might be protected.

When I served in the US Army long ago, I was told that we didn’t have to obey unlawful orders. We were instructed to resist them. Vice President Mike Pence received what to my mind was an unlawful order from Trump to “do the right thing” by stopping the certification of the 2020 election result. Pence has said all along he didn’t have the authority to act.

He followed the law and the US Constitution. Trump should be tried for issuing that order. SCOTUS, again in my view, got this ruling wrong.

legal news

No one is above the law? Pfffttt!

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If you thought for a nanosecond — as I did — that “no one is above the law,” then what we have received today from the U.S. Supreme Court is a decision that dispels such foolishness.

The court, ruling 6 to 3, has decided that Donald J. Trump is granted “presumptive immunity” from prosecution for acts committed while he was still in office. That includes pressuring Vice President Mike Pence to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election.

The six votes all came from Republican-appointed justices; the three dissenting justices all were selected by Democratic presidents. Who knew … right?

Chief Justice John Roberts wrote for the majority. According to The Hill: Roberts wrote that whenever the president and vice president are discussing official responsibilities, they are engaging in official conduct — and, presiding over the certification of the 2020 presidential election results is a constitutional and statutory duty of the vice president.

“The indictment’s allegations that Trump attempted to pressure the Vice President to take particular acts in connection with his role at the certification proceeding thus involve official conduct, and Trump is at least presumptively immune from prosecution for such conduct,” Roberts wrote.

The indictments of Trump presumed what Attorney General Merrick Garland has preached, that “no one is above the law.” Not true, according to the SCOTUS. The court’s logic applies even to discussion that involve knowingly conspiring to break the law.

SCOTUS did kick some of the indictments back to a lower court. More delay is coming up. The case involving the Jan. 6 assault on the government likely won’t go to trial until after the election.

Then, if — God forbid! — Trump wins, well … you know how that ends.

national news

Stay the course, Mr. POTUS

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You are getting boatloads of advice, Mr. President, on what to do in the wake of your dismal debate performance the other evening.

So, I reckon you won’t mind one more nugget from the Heartland.

This American patriot wants you to stay in the race. Don’t surrender to those who want to cut their losses, believing now that you are doomed to lose to Donald J. Trump. I am not one of them.

Advice nugget No. 1:  get rid of the team that prepped you for that first encounter in Atlanta. At the very least, shed yourself of the person in charge of the team.

I watched every cringeworthy moment of the debate, Mr. President. You looked to my eyes as if you were crammed full of facts. You unable to unload many of them on Trump, the pathological liar who demonstrated once more his inability to tell the truth. Every … single … thing that flew out of Trump’s mouth was a lie.

The editors of some of America’s great journalism institutions have swallowed “needs to quit” bait.

I am not taking that bait. There remains plenty of time for you get your campaign aimed in the correct direction, You also have another debate scheduled in September.  You have been through enough of these to know what you need to do,

Your foe is a shameful frontrunner who doesn’t give a damn about those of us out here in the heart of America. I believe in your decades of public service, Mr. President. I want other Americans to believe in them, too.

You, sir, are the only person who dan deliver that message.

national news, political news

How can GOP go through this change?

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Never, not ever in a zillion years, will I understand what has become of the modern Republican Party.

It has gone from being a party that prided itself on moral rectitude, on so-called “family values” and on insisting that character matters in selecting candidates for our cherished public offices to a cult-following mob of miscreants who tie their hay wagon to the heels of a man named Donald John Trump.

Trump stood before us this week and launched into a never-ending tirade of lies that will not draw a single rebuke from what passes as leadership within the once-Grand Old Party.

His brazenness defies logic.

I’ve already discussed briefly the abysmal performance turned in by President Biden. However, I am not going to join the amen chorus calling on him to step aside.

I am, however, going to call attention to the moral decline of the Republican Party. For the third presidential election cycle in a row, the GOP is nominating a convicted felon, an admitted sexual assailant, a serial philanderer, someone who has been found liable in a court of law for the rape of a woman.

There once was a time when the parties sought to nominate the best among us for our nation’s highest office. Donald Trump represents the worst of us.

If we Americans are so damn stupid to give this guy the keys to the White House once again, then we are in far worse condition as a nation than I ever thought possible.