Tag Archives: 2024 election

national news

He defies the odds … again!

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I keep asking: How is this presidential campaign so dadgum close?

Democratic nominee Kamala Harris advises her staff to run this campaign as if she’s the underdog. The polling data I keep seeing suggest that it might not be as close as we are being led to believe.

Republican nominee Donald J. Trump keeps trotting out the same grievances that wore well in 2016, not so well in 2020.

I have concluded that Trump has managed to remake the Republican Party into something only he could admire. The holier-than-thou wing of the GOP gives Trump a pass on his sexual assaults, his philandering, his denigration of people with handicaps, his disrespect of war heroes captured and tortured during the Vietnam War.

GOP faithful are being led to believe him when he calls Biden the worst president in U.S. history. Yet they dismiss his multiple felony convictions, his admitting to cheating on all of his wives. The GOP holy rollers once disqualified candidates who didn’t meet the “character test.” Not now!

Kamala Harris stormed onto the political stage when President Biden performed that rarest of political acts: he gave up the enormous power of his office. Yes, there has been a surge of excitement over Harris’s 11th-hour candidacy. Trump, though, continues to pretend as if he has a chance of winning.

The GOP nominee’s pretense seems to play well among the gullible gang who comprise his base.

How in the world does this guy manage to make this a contest? I cannot find the answer.

political news

If only we could repeat this

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The relatively brief nature of this presidential campaign has been refreshing in one critical aspect.

We have had little time to grow tired of the Democratic presidential nominee, given that she didn’t enter the contest until President Biden dropped out of it.

Of course, we cannot say the same of the Republican Party’s nominee, because we all know him too well. He’s been on the political scene only since the summer of 2015, but we knew about him beforehand by virtue of his TV show and his various high-profile social exploits.

Vice President Kamala Harris, if you believe the polls, has taken a slim — but growing — lead over Donald Trump. She is starting to apply even more pressure to Trump. Harris wants a second debate with him. To be honest, I don’t think a second debate is necessary, other than perhaps to enable her to finish off the former POTUS.

Trump actually said he won’t run again if he loses to Harris. To which I only can laugh. You see, this guy cannot tell the truth on any issue, on any level, at any time, or in any location.

We’re heading into the home stretch of a dramatically abbreviated campaign. For that I am grateful. The VP does represent a welcome change, even as she runs as the current vice president.

May she continue to tighten the vise around her foe and send him packing for the rest of his miserable life.

political news, religious news

They are ‘evangelical hypocrites’

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For those among us who continue to proclaim their fealty to the Bible while condemning their neighbors in the context of a heated political campaign, allow me this brief reminder.

The New Testament places no qualifier on whom we should love. It doesn’t tell us to embrace only those who look like us. It doesn’t say to feed only our political allies. It makes no qualifying statement on who deserves our grace.

So, when you hear the garbage being spewed by those who purport to be “evangelical Christians” while they heap all those caveats on who Jesus Christ instructs them to receive their care, please understand that these are religious perverts. They have twisted the words inscribed centuries ago to fit a political narrative that has zero place in understanding the tenets of faith.

They are not “evangelical Christians.” They instead are evangelical hypocrites lurking among those of us who understand –and honor — the messages contained within our holy book.

Uncategorized

‘Greatest selfless act’

George Clooney is known for a lot of things: accomplished actor and filmmaker, bona fide “hunk,” noted family man in an industry not known for such a lifestyle.

Political scholarship doesn’t come to mind when I think of George Clooney.

Yet the actor has offered what I believe is a spot-on critique of President Biden when he calls the president’s decision to step down from his re-election campaign the “greatest selfless act” perhaps since the time George Washington decided that two terms as POTUS was enough.

Biden’s withdrawal from the campaign and his endorsement of Vice President Kamala Harris is the rarest of all acts, given that Biden surrendered the enormous power he possessed as POTUS.

That act of selflessness is going to ensure, in my mind, historians’ verdict on Biden’s presidency and his willingness to surrender the power that goes with occupying it.

Biden did not want to step aside after that debate performance that prompted the tongue-wagging that questioned his mental acuity. He faced enormous pressure from Democrats, his friends and allies … and from George Clooney, whose op-ed column in the New York Times shook the political world at its core.

It is President Biden, though, who deserves the bouquet, as his decision to surrender power well might save this country from madness and mayhem.

national news

No on launch code access

The advent of social media in our lives has brought us an unanticipated treat: memes that go “viral” and bear repeating.

Such as this one … and I am paraphrasing; Those who promoted lies about immigrants eating dogs and cats need to have their head examined, not receive access to our nation’s nuclear launch codes.

That’s pretty good, right? But Donald Trump is now doubling down on that idiocy he offered the other night while debating Vice President Kamala Harris. He said Springfield, Ohio, is the place where this lunacy is occurring. He’s going there soon to repeat it.

This individual is nuttier than a Snicker’s Bar. Dude can’t help himself … I reckon. I am certain as sure as I am sitting here that that he’ll never provide a scintilla of proof to back any of it up. He’ll just keep repeating it and the MAGA cultists will swallow it.

A quick post script: I met a family from Brisbane, Australia the other day while whiting for a ferry ride to Pireaus, Greece, from a charming place called Naxos. The Au,ssie dad was as certain as I am about Trump …. that the loon is off his rocker. What he cannot get, nor can I, is how Trump continues to make this presidential race a competitive affair.

My answer: Ignorance is tough to scrub away.

national news

Trump says ‘no mas!’

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Can you really blame Donald Trump for not wanting any more of Kamala Harris than what he got the other evening?

I totally get what he might be thinking: I’ve got too much to lose and probably not much to gain by standing toe-to-toe with the former district attorney/former California attorney general/and current vice president of the United States.

One debate whoopin’ is enough for the former POTUS.

The Democratic and Republican presidential nominees now will slug it out at a distance. We’ll get to hear Trump spit out his lies, his fabrications about such things as dogs and cats being eaten by immigrants. We won’t see a scintilla of grace from the GOP nominee who gets to run for POTUS for the third consecutive election cycle, despite his multiple felony convictions and other felony indictments awaiting trial.

He gets to join the ranks of “quitters” to go along with his membership in the club of losers.

national news

Trump: small and old

NAXOS, Greece — Of all the analysis I read after watching the Kamala Harris-Donald Trump debate, one media observation stands out.

Kamala Harris managed to make Trump look and sound “small and old” during their 90-minute insult fest.

The decisive moment likely came when she mentioned how Trump rally-goers have been leaving his rallies early out of boredom. Trump was having none of that, contending that his rallies are the greatest in human history; then he fires back with Harris being a “low IQ vice president” serving the “worst president in history.”

Well, there you go. Trump is 78 years of age, the oldest presidential nominee in the history of the republic. He also no longer has the presidential seal behind which he can hide.

Small and old? Yep … that’s Trump.

national news

Friendships suffer grievous collateral damage

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Quiz time, kids: What part of our political existence has suffered the most grievous example of collateral damage from the current political climate?

Time’s up. I’ll offer my own belief. The greatest casualty happens to be, in my view, the political friendships that at one time survived whatever political differences existing between politicians.

The wounds being inflicted these days almost appear to be mortal in nature. Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump calls Kamala Harris “not very smart.” He questions her ethnicity. The convicted felon accuses the current president, Joe Biden, of being the most corrupt politician in history.

For her part, Harris will not let anyone forget about the disgraceful conduct Trump endorsed during his term as POTUS.

There once was a time in this country when losing presidential candidates would lick their wounds, concede to the winner and then pledge to work with the winner to solve the nation’s problems. Trump brought us a whole new element into how not to lose an election. He never conceded he lost to Joe Biden in 2020 and then commenced to sic the mob onto Congress to stop the certification of the 2020 electoral result.

I will presume that Harris wins this election. Can you imagine Trump doing anything different from what he did in 2020? Hillary Rodham Clinton, who lost to Trump in 2016, even had the good taste and grace to offer to work with Trump as he sought to build his administration. So did Mitt Romney and John McCain, who lost to Barack Obama in 2012 and 2008, respectively.

These days political foes have become mortal enemies.

I much prefer the time when foes would batter each other with hammer and tong … and then shake hands when it ended. It’s the democratic way.

 

national news, political news

Harris seeks to continue ‘normal behavior’

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Joe Biden promised us in 2020 when he decided to run for president a return to what we all think of as “normal behavior” in our head of state.

The former vice ;president was appalled at the Charlottesville, Va., riot launched by Klansmen and Nazis and declared he would campaign for the “soul of our country.”

By and large the president has succeeded in restoring normal behavior and in recapturing our national soul.

He now wants to hand those tasks off to Vice President Kamala Harris, the current Democratic presidential nominee.

I, too, share in the desire for Harris to continue to trek toward normal behavior and I want her also to keep the scrub brush handy as she fights to restore a national soul damaged so egregiously by Donald Trump’s hot pursuit of an authoritarian presidency.

When you watch and listen to Harris and Trump side by side, it becomes — to my ear — literally impossible to believe that Trump’s inarticulateness ever can lead to anything good. Donald Trump does not have an original thought in that brainless skull of his.

I have to mention, too, that Trump cannot string enough sentences together to deliver any sort of cogent thought. Kamala Harris is fully capable of weaving thoughts into the fabric of sensible policy. That ability by itself sets her apart from the incompetent foe she faces as this campaign winds down to its finish.

media news, national news

Harris, Walz seek to clear the air

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Kamala Harris and Tim Walz, the 2024 Democratic Party presidential ticket, have been criticized unfairly because they haven’t been interviewed extensively by the national media.

Oh, my ….

Republicans have seized on this as a campaign talking point, suggesting that Harris and Walz are too afraid to field “tough questions” from the media on their various policy positions.

They will be put to the test Thursday when they sit with CNN anchor Dana Bash.

This is a bit of a gamble for Harris and Walz. Why? Because Donald Trump and J.D. Vance, their GOP foes, are going to allege — and you can take this to the bank — that they were given softball questions. Trump plays that joker card all the time. Vance, the loyal VP nominee, no doubt will buy into that specious notion.

I continue to hold Harris and Walz in the highest esteem. They have energized their Democratic Party. Harris’s sudden and dramatic emergence as the frontrunner after President Biden ended his candidacy has been a sight to behold.

If I were to place a wager on why the delay, I would suggest that Harris and Walz needed some time to hone their policy positions before facing the national media. Harris only has been running for president for a few weeks and Walz, well, came out of virtual nowhere to emerge as her VP running mate.

Will Bash challenge Harris and Walz if they lie to us? You can bet your oldest child that she will.

I long have thought of Dana Bash as a journalism pro. She is there to seek the truth. Whether the candidates deliver the whole truth likely will be determined by the bias of those Americans who will watch … and listen.