Tag Archives: MAGA

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.

national news

Turning away from debate

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All eyes are turning — or at least many of them are doing so — toward the Atlanta stage where President Biden and Donald J. Trump are going to joust in that much-anticipated first presidential debate of the 2024 campaign.

This blog post is going to point itself elsewhere for the time being.

We have a lot of issues to settle in this angry world of ours.

How do we negotiate a settlement between Russia and Ukraine? How do we do the same in Gaza where Israel has gone to war with Hamas? How do we make sure Iran doesn’t acquire nuclear weapon capability? How do we secure our border? How do we control inflationary pressure on those things we purchase at the store? How can we improve public education?

Biden and Trump aren’t likely to come close to providing any solutions. We instead are going to focus on the show biz aspect of the joint appearance.

I am going to concentrate my energy on seeking solutions to the critical problems facing this nation. I am sure my phone will ring tonight after the debate. My friends and family will ask who I thought “won.” I won’t be callous and say, “I don’t know and I don’t care.,”

I suppose all of this is my way of lowering expectations for what happens this evening. Two men who are thought pretty universally to be profoundly unable to face the problems that trouble us won’t provide any answers,

It’s all for show, man. Got it? Good.

national news, political news

Waiting anxiously for debate

For a long time I have been cautious about referring to events when two or more politicians stand on a stage as “debates.”

They aren’t, really. they have allowed the candidates to pontificate and excoriate their foes. But they do occasionally bring moments of excitement. They even have helped turn elections in favor of candidates.

Do you remember the time in 1976 when President Ford said Eastern Europe was “not dominated” by the Soviet Union? Of course it was! He lost the election that year. Or when Ronald Reagan asked us in 1980 whether we were “better off than you were four years ago.” We weren’t. Reagan won in a landslide.

The format for the Thursday appearance with President Joe Biden and Donald J. Trump will be without a studio audience and will have a sound cutoff when the candidates exceed the time limit or when they tell a lie knowingly.

I am one American patriot who will wait anxiously to see how Trump handles the mike sound issue. He and his MAGA cult followers already are saying the debates is rigged. Who knew?

Something tells me we might see more than our share of meltdowns as Trump seeks to lie his way past the silent mikes. Will it influence the end of this miserable campaign? I damn sure hope so.

local news

Sanity grips city council

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How about that? Sanity reared its welcome head in the Texas Panhandle as Amarillo rejected a goofy notion of turning the city into a “sanctuary for the unborn.”

The Amarillo City Council voted against a measure that had many Texans — such as me — worried about how the city would enforce such a nutty notion.

The plan called for the city to prohibit anyone from using public roads and streets to obtain an abortion. It empowered residents to rat on their neighbors and friends who need to end a pregnancy but were denied that right because Texas has all but made the process illegal.

According to the Austin American-Statesman: Councilmember Tom Scherlen expressed concerns over the impact of the proposed anti-abortion ordinance on local companies. He said it may impact those that provide travel for abortion in their insurance plans and could impede economic development as future businesses may avoid relocating to the area if the ordinance was in effect.

Money does talk. In this case it spoke loudly enough to prevent a Texas city from falling victim to governmental idiocy.

national news

Stop at nothing? Oh … really?

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The gallery of politicians who have become the masters of the obvious has grown by one … a member of the U.S. House Republican caucus, Nancy Mace.

She told the Fox Propaganda Channel that the “left will stop at nothing to ensure” President Biden’s re-election.

My jaw damn near hit the deck as I thought: No … sh**!

You see, the MAGA right wing cult is gearing up to do precisely the same thing as they tell lie after lie to ensure that Donald J. Trump wins the election.

These right-wing pols can cease with the declarations about the mean ol’ woke politicians on the left.

International news

Biden restores compassion to immigration

Joe Biden has been vilified unfairly by his critics for what they contend is the president’s so-called “open border policy” on immigration.

The president is seeking, as of today, to strengthen our borders while seeking also to treat immigrants with compassion. He issued an executive order that aims to give undocumented spouses of immigrants a greater pathway to US citizenship.

The Texas Tribune reports: “President Biden has consistently used his executive powers to create additional legal pathways for immigrants, and today’s joyous announcement will help keep many of these mixed-status American families together,” U.S. Rep. Veronica Escobar said in a statement. Escobar is a national co-chair of Biden’s reelection campaign and introduced legislation, the American Families United Act, that would offer similar protections for undocumented spouses of U.S. citizens.

What is in his plan? Biden wants to make it easier for so-called Dreamers to qualify for work authorization; undocumented spouses of U.S. citizens will have to have lived in the United States for10 years to qualify for the authorization; those who qualify can apply for a three-year work permit.

None of this smacks of an “open border” policy to my eyes.

One of the major beneficiaries of this policy are those who came here as children when their parents entered the country illegally. The United States is the only country they have known. However, many Republicans — such as Donald Trump — want to deport them immediately. The don’t give a damn about keeping families together, or allowing them to continue to prosper in the only country they have known.

Biden announces protections for undocumented spouses of citizens | The Texas Tribune

I refer here to Deferred Action on Childhood Arrival, an executive order issued by President Obama that aims to grant a form of amnesty to those US residents who came here as children. Obama left office in January 2017 and Trump threatened to deport them all. Then Trump got defeated in 2020 and Biden seeks to restore compassion to our immigration policy.

DACA recipients and their spouses deserve to be treated with kindness, not with blind anger.

legal news

Will nominee show up at RNC?

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Given what I believe is happening with regard to convicted felon Donald Trump’s post-conviction antics, it is fair to wonder about this possibility.

It is that the 45th POTUS might be unable to attend the Republican Party nominating convention that will launch his candidacy against President Joe Biden.

Trump is going to be sentenced for the conviction handed down by the jury in NYC on 34 counts relating to an illegal hush money payment to an adult film actress, Stephanie Clifford, aka Stormy Daniels.

Sentencing occurs July 11. Four days later, GOP convention delegates will meet in Milwaukee to nominate Trump for another run for the White House.

Judge Juan Merchan has wide latitude here. He could sentence Trump to jail time; he could sentence him to probation. He could impose an immediate jail term; he could say Trump can wait several weeks before reporting to the slammer.

Suppose he gets jail time. Suppose the judge orders the 45th POTUS to report immediately to the hoosegow.

That means the GOP convention will nominate an individual who is in jail, serving time for felonies committed that sought to hide an extramarital tryst. Trump denies even knowing Clifford, let alone having sex with her in the hotel room years before running for POTUS in 2016.

He paid her 130 grand anyway. Go figure.

Oh, and he’s now been calling the judge a crook, the jury was rigged, the prosecutor was biased against him.

A judge usually looks for signs of contrition in criminal defendants. He is not getting a hint of it from this defendant.

Republican convention delegates, though, are blind to the reality that they are facing … that their next presidential nominee is a felon.