Tag Archives: MAGA

Donald Trump

Some issues defy reason

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Some issues in this world of ours simply defy the human brain’s ability to process certain facts.

For example: How does one justify supporting an admitted sexual assailant, a serial philanderer, an individual who never has sought forgiveness, and someone who denigrates prisoners of war, people with handicaps and a Gold Star family whose son died a hero?

I will go to my grave never understanding how POTUS No. 45 continues to generate the kind of support he gets from the MAGA cult base that latches onto his every lying pronouncement.

It does, though. And throughout all of this weird presidential campaign, the former dipsh** in chief is continuing to cling to a small, and statistically insignificant lead over the current president who in actuality has accomplished more in his first term than any other POTUS in US history.

I am done making political predictions. I have told friends and loved ones far and wide that the former liar in chief cannot possibly be elected POTUS again. I might be wrong. I am holding out, though, for some truth-telling to finally crack this numbskull’s veneer.

I will admit that my hope is beginning to take on an air of desperation. The puzzle, though, remains as to precisely how this moron continues gin up the support he has out here in Voterland.

national news

POTUS 45 wants a ‘third term’?

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POTUS No. 45 says he would like to hold the presidency for three terms. He said that? Oh, wait. He must’ve been “sarcastic.”

That cannot happen without amending the U.S. Constitution.

The 22nd Amendment limits presidents to two elected terms. The former Liar in Chief won election in 2016. He got defeated in 2020. He could — God forbid! — win it again this year.

That’s two terms, dude. You’re out after that.

I suppose he wants a third term. Maybe even a fourth.

C’mon.

The 22nd Amendment was ratified in 1951 after President Franklin D. Roosevelt won election to four terms; FDR died about a month after taking office for his fourth term in April 1945. Congressional Republicans had become alarmed at what they feared might become an “imperial presidency.” So, the GOP pushed the 22nd Amendment through.

Most of us know these days about the grandeur that No. 45 seeks, what with declarations about becoming a “dictator” for one day. He expresses admiration for dictators around the world. He wants to be one of them, I reckon.

However, our Constitution prohibits such nonsense from actually occurring. No., 45 needs to read the document. Oh, wait! He doesn’t read anything!

crime news

Don’t mess with this guy

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POTUS No. 45 is getting an object lesson on a fact of life, which is that he cannot control every single environment.

I haven’t been following this hush money trial too closely, but I have chuckled — sometimes out loud — at the examples of the judge not standing for the shenanigans that the former sexual assailant in chief has tried to pull in the courtroom.

And yesterday, Judge Juan Merchan told Robert Costello, a witness for the defense, to stop staring him down … or else face the consequence that the judge could level on him and the criminal defendant.

The former philanderer in chief is on trial for paying the adult film star known as Stormy Daniels 130 grand to keep quiet about a tumble that he denies occurred. Go figure … yes?

Now his future is in the hands of the judge and the jury impaneled to hear this tawdry case. As to the discomfort he might be feeling because he isn’t in charge of a damn thing, I don’t give a sh**.

The overfed crook will just have to suck it up.

national news

Collegiality? It’s a goner!

What the nation witnessed the other day in a congressional committee hearing room was a sterling example of how political adversaries have become “enemies” to each other.

What’s more, we also bore witness to how a divided Congress cannot govern when Democrats and Republicans — by and large — hate each other’s guts.

One rogue Republican, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, lit the fuse that ignited this storm with a tasteless remark about a Democratic colleague’s “fake eyelashes.” The colleague, Rep. Jasmine Crockett, took exception to it and fired back with equally tasteless put downs of MTG. Another Democrat, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, joined in the mud-slinging.

It was a hideous display of disgraceful manners.

Which brings me to a key point. Governing requires people on opposite sides to work together on occasion. That is how a representative democracy is supposed to work. It is how it has worked for centuries.

Until now.

Some of Democratic President Lyndon Johnson’s best friends and allies in the Senate were Republicans who helped him push through civil rights legislation in the 1960s. Republican President Ronald Reagan often relied on his friendship with his drinking buddy, Democratic House Speaker Thomas P. “Tip” O’Neill, to push legislation through the House in the 1980s. Democratic President Bill Clinton worked with GOP lawmakers to produce a balanced budget in the 1990s. GOP President George W. Bush worked with Democratic Senate icon Ted Kennedy on education reform in the early 2000s.

Were there sharp differences between these principals at the time? Of course there were! But they got it done.

What the hell happened to our government? It cannot work like this. It cannot benefit taxpayers like you and me — whose money pays for our government.

I don’t know about you, but I have had it up to here — and then some — with this kind of behavior.

education news, local news

GOP needs psychiatric help

Two pieces of campaign literature ended up in my mailbox this weekend that sent out a loud and clear message.

The Texas Republican Party is suffering from a form of schizophrenia I never have seen …. at least not to this degree. The examples showed up in competing flyers for two Republicans vying for a seat on the Texas State Board of Education.

Follow me for a moment on this, because it’s a beaut.

Pam Little is running against Jamie Kohlmann in the May 28 GOP runoff for SBOE’s District 12 seat. Little is the incumbent. She finished first in the primary but didn’t gather enough votes to win the GOP primary outright., Hence, the two of them are running off for the nomination.

Little has garnered the endorsement of GOP U.S. Rep. Keith Self, a loud-and-proud MAGA Republican who also has endorsed the election of POTUS No. 45 this fall.

What does Self say about Little? She’s a “strong conservative” who has taken a “bold stance against radical ideologies and focused on positive outcomes for students.” Little helped bring back “cursive writing,” she fought and won “to keep the woke agenda out of our social studies standards. Kohlmann, according to Self, has endorsed a “liberal Democrat” for the Dallas ISD school board and gave him money to assist him in his effort to be elected.

Let’s turn to Kohlmann’s ad. She accuses Little of “voting for radical DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion) policies” on the SBOE. Kohlmann accuses Little of contributing to “our kids … being brainwashed by woke liberal ideology.”

Sheesh, man!

I am baffled, bamboozled and befuddled. I know Rep. Self a little bit. I know him to be a staunch conservative. He’s a retired Army officer, a West Point graduate and a combat veteran. He speaks forcefully and with a full-throated ferocity in favor of the agenda pitched by POTUS 45. I am left to ask: Is this the kind of fellow who would endorse a thinly veiled “liberal Democrat?” I think not.

All of this simply demonstrates to me that the Texas Republican Party is as aimless, feckless and lacking in ideas as the national GOP.

national news

Answer these questions

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A reader of High Plains Blogger has responded with what sounds to me like a fascinating scenario regarding the June 27 debate agreed to by President Biden and his immediate predecessor … and the guy who wants to be his immediate successor.

He thinks it’s possible the former GOP POTUS will back out of the debate, despite his bravado.

My blog fan believes the president will press him on several key issues that he will have to answer. They are:

Lying about COVID being airborne; lying about the 2020 election being “stolen”; blocking the immigration bill; backing away from NATO; bragging about overturning Roe v. Wade; orchestrating the 1/6 attack on the Capitol.

Other readers of this blog, critics of it in fact, suggest that Joe Biden is toast, that his own show of bravado is nothing more than that, that the GOP nominee is going to eat his lunch.

Fat chance.

We all got a taste of the “debating skill” that POTUS No. 45 brings to the event. His performance in 2020 was, to put it mildly, shameful. He elicited perhaps the signature sound bite of that event when Joe Biden said, “Will you just shut up, man?”

No. 45 has not a policy idea to share. He cannot debate anything seriously, other than to repeat the lies he foments.

Yes, I am one American patriot who looks forward to what will develop at the end of next month.

 

local news, national news, religious news

‘No!” on travel ban

Barry Goldwater, I am supremely confident in asserting, is spinning in his grave out yonder in Arizona.

The late Arizona U.S. senator and father of the conservative movement would no doubt be aghast at what might be transpiring in Amarillo, where the city council is preparing to vote on an ordinance that would ban women from using local roads and highways to obtain an abortion out of state.

Goldwater used to preach that conservatism, as he understood the principle, kept government out of people’s lives. He was particularly leery of religion being used to dictate public policy.

Amarillo is pondering whether to knuckle under to far-right conservatives’ call to ban women from using local rights-of-way to obtain an abortion. Amarillo Mayor Cole Stanley said he doesn’t believe the council will approve the ordinance, which is being brought to the council on the strength of petitions circulated throughout the city.

The city has validated enough signatures to call for a vote, the Texas Tribune has reported.

What now?

If the council rejects the ban the issue, then it can go to voters for a citywide referendum, as I read the Tribune story. That would give the anti-abortion fanatics room to persuade most Amarillo voters to endorse the ban.

Again, Barry Goldwater would come unglued at the notion.

The Tribune reports: The original ordinance supporters want to see passed in the city does not call for pregnant women to be punished for having an abortion out of state. However, anti-abortion legal crusader Jonathan Mitchell has filed legal petitions seeking to depose women he claims traveled out of state for abortions. Mitchell is working with anti-abortion activists pushing the travel ban on a municipal level.

The proposed policy makes anyone who “aids and abet” the procedure vulnerable to a private lawsuit from other citizens. The enforcement is similar to Senate Bill 8, the Texas bill that banned almost all abortions in 2021, prior to the U.S. Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade. This is the only enforcement mechanism for the ordinance, which some council members have criticized as creating a system for neighbors to turn on each other to collect reward money.

Amarillo City Council must vote on abortion travel ban | The Texas Tribune

Limited government conservatism has given way to all-hands-on-deck conservatism … as long as the issue reflects a certain religious principle. Come to think of it, the nation’s founders would be appalled as well.

national news

Joe Biden: Sure, let’s debate … as in now!

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You gotta hand it to Joe Biden. The man knows how to steal the thunder from the twice-impeached, indicted Republican nominee-in-waiting who’s on trial for alleged illegal campaign spending.

President Biden today agreed to meet the former POTUS in a debate in June; the former guy also agreed. The two of them reportedly will meet in a venue sans audience members. It’ll just be the two of ’em in a room, along with a panel of journalists.

I kinda like the notion of the two men going head-to-head like that.

It’s interesting that the former Liar in Chief wouldn’t debate his GOP rivals during the primary campaign but jumped on the chance to joust with the president.

I understand they’ll also meet again in September, probably in a format more like what we’ve seen in recent election cycles.

Whatever. I expect this first debate could smash viewership records, given what’s at stake, which I believe could be the future of our representative democracy.

national news, political news

Listen to my friend, Mr. POTUS

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I have a friend with whom I share an interest in politics and public policy. She is well-read and is a student of the process that delivers policy decisions to us … for better or worse.

She believes President Biden is trailing the presumptive GOP presidential nominee because he has become tone-deaf to the current reality. Which is that not all Americans are feeling as good about the economy as the president thinks they are.

Thus, my friend surmises, he should stop crowing about the economy and appeal directly to the fear that many of us have about the possibility that the former Sexual Assailant in Chief just might win the presidency once again.

Biden needs to talk directly and incessantly about the threat to our democratic system that the wannabe dictator poses to our system.

Americans are historically proud of the liberty we enjoy. The GOP nominee-to-be is stated categorically that he intends to impose a dictatorship “for one day only” if he becomes POTUS. One day? Really? Do you think the former Liar in Chief will reinstate all our democratic norms?

He has boasted about his placing three justices on the Supreme Court, and their hand in revoking women’s right to terminate pregnancies. Roe v. Wade, the landmark 1973 SCOTUS decision is now history. Biden vows to restore it if he’s re-elected. His opponent promises to tighten the screws women’s reproductive rights.

Democratic political guru James Carville, no slouch on these matters, said recently that the Republican message has gained traction. The GOP nominee’s hush money trial isn’t making a dent in the lead Carville says he enjoys. Democrats are blowing it, Carville declared. Remember, this is the guy who coined the phrase in 1992 that “It’s the economy, stupid.” It worked for Bill Clinton.

Well, my friend is on board with the likes of Carville. She, too, wants Biden to crystallize his message, harden it to drive home the point that our democracy is in dire peril if Americans make the wrong choice at the ballot box this fall.

Listen to these people, Mr. President! They’re all pulling for you!

Donald Trump, political news

We have dumbed down our standards

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You are welcome to conclude whatever you wish about the statement that will follow in this blog … such as that I am the “master of the obvious.”

I don’t mind. Nor do I care.

The trial in New York on the hush money payment POTUS No. 45 made to Stormy Daniels — aka Stephanie Clifford — is revealing in the starkest terms possible how our political climate has dumbed down voters’ concern about character in the candidates who seek public office.

I haven’t been following the trial too closely, but I have gleaned enough from it to realize many things about the support that the one-time Philanderer in Chief is able to claim among the MAGA cultists around the country.

We have learned in graphic detail about Clifford’s assertion over what happened in the hotel room that night in 2006. The future POTUS’s wife had just given birth to his fifth child, yet there he was in the room dressing down to his silk skivvies asking the adult film actress to take a tumble with him.

Do you remember the day — I sure do! — when that kind of conduct was considered a deal-breaker? How about the sickening “Access Hollywood” recording in which the Groper in Chief boasted how he would grab women by their private parts? And that they enjoyed it because he was “famous”?

I do not get any of this! So help me, I do not understand how an individual who once held the office of POTUS, who wants it once again, continues to receive the level of support from American voters who do not now seem to give a sh** about the acknowledged behavior of the man who seeks their vote.

This drama will play out in due course. I am left to wonder: Are we really ready to toss aside the standards we once set for the people from whom we choose to lead this great country?

God help us if we take that perilous path.