Monthly Archives: January 2024

political news

The race begins in earnest

I am going to revisit briefly an observation I made about the presumed frontrunner for the 2024 Republican Party presidential nomination.

I said a good while ago that I wasn’t sure the 45th POTUS would be the nominee. I want to reiterate that view.

The Iowa caucus begins Monday. The weather statewide is hideous. Temps will be minus 15 degrees; wind chill is expected to drive it to 35 degrees below zero. Chris Christie has dropped out of the race. The GOP campaign is now down to just four challengers to the former Liar in Chief: They are Nikki Haley, Vivek Ramaswamy, Asa Hutchinson and Ron DeSantis.

Haley appears poised to pick up a good bit of late support now that Christie is on the sidelines.

What does any of this mean? Beats the bejeebers out of me.

The one-time POTUS is miles ahead in the latest polling. Big f***ing deal, as the current president once said to Barack Obama as the then-POTUS was set to sign the Affordable Care Act into law.

I keep hearing grumbling that even some of the ex-POTUS’s cultists are growing weary of his incoherent rants. Does it mean an upset is in the making? What about New Hampshire, which is having its primary. Remember what happened there in 1968.

President Johnson was seeking re-election. The Democratic primary took place and lo and behold, Eugene McCarthy, the anti-Vietnam War candidate, finished a close second to LBJ. On March 31, Johnson announced in a televised speech to the nation a suspension of the bombing of North Vietnam and then, in a stunner, announced: “I will not seek, and will not accept, the nomination of my party for another term as your president.”

Thus, there is ample room for more surprises this time out.

I would be amazed if the 45th POTUS suffers a proverbial near-mortal wound as he seeks to shed the weight of upcoming criminal trials … but not terribly surprised.

If only …

local news, media news

The joy of putting politics aside

DRIPPING SPRINGS, Texas — One of the many joys of traveling — even for the briefest of periods — always is the distance I keep from the world of politics.

I spent a modestly successful career immersed in the comings and goings of politicians, their handlers and those who follow them. Even when I traveled with my wife, Kathy Anne, I scarfed up newspapers to (a) read how they were covering the issues of the day and (b) collect page design ideas I could apply to whatever newspaper where I was working.

Well, I no longer collect newspapers and I now am able to follow the news digitally.

So, my son and I ventured to the Hill Country to visit Kathy Anne’s brother and his two daughters, son-in-law and their daughters.

Politics, policy discussion, who’s up and down in the Republican presidential campaign? Pffttt! I couldn’t possibly care less about any of that!

But … our visit is about to end. We’ll be heading back to North Texas in short order. Then I’ll concern myself with issues and news of the day.

But, man, I do look forward to these getaways. They help cleanse my soul. That said, I am looking forward to the next one.

local news

GPS fails me … grrrr!

DRIPPING SPRINGS, Texas — I won’t spend a lot of time with this post, but here goes …

My normally reliable GPS, upon which I depend to blunder my way from point to point, let me down today as my son and I drove from North Texas to my brother-in-law’s home in Hays County.

No need to regale you with where it guided me. Suffice to say that I ended up in downtown Austin after getting caught in traffic. OK, so some of it was my fault; I could have positioned myself to be in the correct lane. Except that the GPS took me a way to my bro-in-law’s place with which I was unfamiliar.

The system does that to me on occasion. I guess it assesses current traffic conditions and then adjusts my route accordingly.

It just didn’t work this time.

But … we arrived and we’ll get caught up for the next day or so before we head for the house.

I think I will simply rely on the route I know well.

crime news, national news

Whether to nominate a felon

So help me I keep tilting in all directions ruminating over whether a once-great political party should nominate an indicted former POTUS for the job he wants to reclaim.

At the moment, I am inclined to just shrug and say: go ahead and nominate this clown, who well might be a convicted felon by the time the GOP nominating convention sends the ex-POTUS off to be defeated — once again — by President Joe Biden.

The former Liar in Chief keeps insulting judges who are presiding over his pending trials. He keeps hurling epithets at Jack Smith, the special counsel hired by Attorney General Merrick Garland to investigate allegations of criminal activity.

The one-time BS Artist in Chief will not be elected. All that is left is for President Biden to send him packing once again and have the two-time election loser ponder how he intends his time while fending off the hounds of justice.

These quandaries are difficult to shake. I might wake up in the morning feeling differently … but I doubt it.

local news

Recall the mayor … for this?

Dallas Democrats need to get over themselves and end his idiotic notion of seeking to recall Dallas Mayor Eric Johnson for one of the most ridiculous reasons I’ve ever seen.

What has Johnson done to earn this misplaced scorn? Has he been caught taking money from the public till? Did he make a horrible hiring decision? Has he created a “toxic work environment”? Did he suspend essential public services unilaterally?

Oh, no. None of that. His “crime” is that he changed parties, becoming a Republican after being re-elected recently as a Democrat.

Officially, the mayor is elected as a non-partisan politician. Johnson, though, has made no secret of his partisan leanings, having been a Democrat reportedly for a very long time.

He recently switched to the GOP, making some sort of statement about how he is more comfortable being a member of the other party. Has it affected the decisions he has made as mayor? No.

Dallas Democrats feel a sense of betrayal apparently because of Johnson’s switcheroo. Give me a break.

Recall efforts should be saved for serious transgressions that affect a politician’s performance. This effort is full of nonsense and idiocy.

Petitioners are seeking signatures to put the recall effort on the ballot. They have gathered something north of 1,000 names so far; they need more than 100,000 signatures.

They are wasting their time.

national news

So long, Chris Christie

Well … there goes my favorite Republican Party presidential candidate.

Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie today announced he has “no path toward the nomination,” and declared he is “suspending” his presidential campaign. I am going to ask one thing of the two-time presidential candidate: Keep up your relentless attacks on Donald Trump, and seek to remind the Trump cultists what the rest of us know … that Trump is “unfit for public office.”

Christie’s message simply had the reverse effect on the Trump base. It energized the MAGA cult, made ’em even more intent on working to ensure the crook’s nomination. Christie, I am sad to observe, simply never got out of single digits in polling data.

What, then, was the point, he asked today while speaking to a gathering of supporters in New Hampshire.

He said he won’t endorse President Biden. I get that. He continues to have a valuable message that is worth heeding. It is that Trump presents an existential threat to the nation.

Sorry your campaign never gained traction, governor. Stay vocal … and stay strong.

economic news, national news

Are we better off these days?

What in the world is it going to take to persuade Americans to shed their gloomy-Gus outlook on the U.S. economy?

You don’t need to answer that one. Just hear me out for a brief moment while I vent a bit of my frustration.

Here we are now officially in an election year. President Joe Biden is seeking another term, but he is facing headwinds that befuddle me. He is unable to persuade Americans that we are better off now than we were when he took office in January 2021.

Joblessness is down; employers are hiring tens of thousands of employees each month; inflation is down; interest rates are beginning to inch downward as well; retirement accounts are healthy; the stock market is setting records.

OK, I am going to set aside commenting on the border crisis and the phony investigations into alleged corruption involving the president.

Joe Biden has plenty of goods to sell Americans as he seeks re-election. He cannot seem to shake loose from Republicans who continue to feed the lie about the state of our economy.

They said we would plunge into recession. That the Dow would plummet. That inflation would gobble up Americans’ hard-earned savings accounts.

I don’t know about everyone else, but I am doing far better economically today than I was doing in 2020.

Should the president re-purpose the query that Ronald Reagan posed during the 1980 campaign against President Carter? He shouldn’t even consider it. I am certain that a similar question can be presented this year that would produce a far different response than the one Reagan used to devastating effect.

The very future of our nation depends on whether President Biden can find a way to vanquish forever the forces that keep lying to us about our nation’s economic health.

Donald Trump, local news, national news

No arguing with MAGAites

Command decisions come easily for me these days as a lone wolf who runs his own blog.

So … I am proud to announce that beginning this very moment I no longer am going to argue with the MAGA cultists who continue to back the idiocy preached by Donald Trump.

I just visited with a West Texas friend, who is far from a MAGA adherent, and we determined that there is no avenue of reason available when we engage a MAGA moron on policy matters.

They have swilled the Kool-Aid offered by Trump. It has seeped into their brain’s soft tissue. They are contaminated by the lies, the absolute lack of authenticity, the distortions blathered by Trump.

What, then, is the point of even trying to persuade them that their guy is a crook, who likely will be convicted (eventually!) of felonies relating to his denial of the 2020 presidential election, his theft of classified documents and the conspiracy to “find 11,780 votes” that would enable him to steal the electoral result in Georgia.

Does anyone see the irony? Trump accuses Democrats of trying to steal the 2020 election, but the only thievery taking place comes from Republicans!

From this moment forward, I no longer am going to debate with the MAGA morons. See y’all in the next life.

Uncategorized

Get well, Mr. Secretary, but still …

Now we know the nature of the illness that Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin sought to keep from the American public and the president of the United States.

It’s prostate cancer. I want to join Americans far and wide in wishing a speedy and complete recovery from a disease that strikes one in six Black Americans and one in eight of all Americans.

However, none of this lessens the nature of the mistake Austin made in hiding himself from public view for four days and even keeping his whereabouts a secret from those in the White House who had every reason in the world to know his status.

That includes Joe Biden, the commander in chief of the monstrous military operation that Lloyd Austin administers.

Biden was kept in the dark for four days during a period of extreme military tension. Wars have erupted in Ukraine and the Gaza Strip. Ukrainians are seeking to fend off an invading force of Russians; Israel is seeking to destroy the terrorist organization that sought to kill  thousands of Israelis with a hideous rocket attack on Oct. 7.

The United States is involved as it provides financial and military assistance to Ukraine and the Israeli Defense Force.

The secretary of Defense needs to be available 24/7 … period.

Secretary Austin need not lose his job over this mistake. He does need, however, to be scolded harshly by the president of the United States.

Austin was trying to protect his “privacy.” That’s a noble notion, except that the defense secretary is as public an official as anyone who holds that title, which means to me that he sacrifices his “rights of privacy,” particularly during these perilous times.

Still, I wish Lloyd Austin well and will pray he recovers from what ails him. Just don’t allow a recurrence of this sort of vanishing act!

media news, national news

Now, for social media’s negatives

Not long ago I spoke glowingly about social media’s ability to keep friends connected. Today, I want to offer a dart at social media’s ability to lift the celebrity profiles of politicians beyond where they deserve.

I am stunned at how freshmen and women in Congress become overnight celebrities, how their every utterance becomes headline news.

Progressives mined that wellspring a few years ago when Rep. Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez took her seat in the U.S. House. She got airtime, inches in print and attention usually reserved for much senior members.

She didn’t deserve it! Same with other progressives such as Rep. Rashida Tlaib.

Now, it’s the MAGA cultists getting this outsized attention. Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene, Matt Gaetz, and Lauren Boebert all can be seen and heard everywhere. They have become leaders within their Republican Party, just as AOC emerged as a leader within the Democratic Party.

Who or what is responsible? Social media. These pols have mined social media with cunning. Their celebrity status is both cheap and costly. It cost them little to attain this status. It has cost our system of government, though, to give these loudmouths attention they clearly do not deserve.