Tag Archives: 2020 election

national news

Republicans for Biden? Hmm, sounds plausible

Joe Biden, the presumptive Democratic Party presidential nominee, has let slip a notion that has more than a tiny ring of truth to it.

He has said that some major Republican officeholders are pledging to help him defeat Donald Trump in this year’s election. These would be the so-called “never Trumpers” who believe — as I and many others do — that Trump is more of a cult leader than the head of a major political party.

Biden long has boasted of his ability to work across the aisle with Republicans. He did so for more than three decades as a U.S. senator and was able to swing a deal or three for President Obama during his eight years as vice president in the Obama administration.

This is far from unprecedented, of course. In 1972, Republican President Nixon had the “Democrats for Nixon” crowd work for his re-election against Democratic nominee Sen. George McGovern, who was considered too far out in left field to suit their taste. That one hurt, of course … but I digress.

Trump is not an actual Republican. He has no moral compass. He doesn’t adhere to an ideology. Trump panders to whoever has his attention in the moment. And don’t get me started on his categorical unfitness for the office of president of the United States.

“It is literally just forming,” according to one former top GOP official, speaking to the Daily Beast. “I’ve had several conversations with people who have approached me. It’s going to take off, it’s going to happen. The question is to what degree and form it does,” the official said.

We shall see. I am one American who hopes it does “take off.”

national news

How can Trump justify any of this?

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I am running out of ways to explain to myself — let alone to others — how Donald J. Trump continues to bob and weave his way out of political trouble.

On this man’s presidential watch we are witnessing a pandemic that I will acknowledge immediately he did not create. However, his nonresponse early on has led to the deaths that have caused unspeakable tragedy for tens of thousands of American families.

He is focusing mainly on the economic devastation. He says he wants to restart the economy. He is placing his emphasis on that desire. Meanwhile, the jobless rate today was reported to have surpassed 14 percent and non-farm private-sector jobs declined by — gulp! — more than 20 million in just the past month.

He blows it off! It was expected, he said. No worries, Trump said. The economy will bounce back bigger and better than ever. When? He doesn’t know. He cannot possibly know. Yet he pretends to know it’ll happen “soon.”

The Trump cultists buy into this clap trap.

The video and audio record is full of example after example of Trump declaring the pandemic was “under control.” That it would vanish like a “miracle.” My goodness! It has gone in precisely the opposite direction.

Americans are suffering. Business is shattered. In my entire life I’ve never witnessed anything like this. I tend to look toward Washington for some inkling that the president actually cares about me, my family, my friends, all Americans. This guy? He doesn’t give a sh**!

And yet …

He keeps showing signs that he just might wiggle his way back to a second term as president.

How does this clown do this?

The Democratic Party has a presumptive nominee, Joe Biden, who is laying low at the moment. He faces an allegation from a woman who accuses him of a sexual assault. Donald Trump has several such female accusers out there, so it behooves Trump to keep his mouth shut on this particular issue.

My hope is that Biden is able to make the coronavirus pandemic a campaign issue that he can hang around Trump’s neck. My loathing of Trump is well known to readers of this blog. He needs to go. He has disgraced the high office he occupies and continues to bring shame to the nation.

First things first. Joe Biden has to step off the sidelines and get back onto the field of play.

national news

Biden faces growing scrutiny … as if he hasn’t faced it already?

There’s something we should know about Joseph R. Biden Jr., as he prepares to take the Democratic Party presidential nomination to run against Donald Trump for the presidency.

It is that this man who’s now in his late 70s has been standing in the middle of the national spotlight since before he turned 30 years of age.

Biden is the presumptive Democratic nominee for president. He now faces allegations from a woman who has accused him of sexual assault in 1993, when he was a veteran U.S. senator from Delaware.

When and why did the national spotlight start shining on this fellow?

He ran for the Senate in 1972. He was elected to that seat before he was old enough to qualify to hold it; the U.S. Constitution says one must be at least 30 years of age to serve in the Senate, but Biden was 29 at the time of his election, but would turn 30 before he took the oath of office.

Then tragedy struck. His wife and daughter were killed in a traffic accident. The young senator-elect considered bowing out, thought about not serving. He was crushed, heartbroken. His allies talked into serving. So he took the oath with the spotlight shining brightly on him from the very beginning of his Senate career.

Biden took office as a single father to two young sons. He commuted back and forth daily between Capitol Hill and his home in Delaware. The nation continued to follow his emotional journey.

He found love again. Sen. Biden married his wife, Jill. They produced a daughter. Their love story became one of Washington’s ongoing feel-good sagas.

And so, with that tragedy behind, with his newfound love, his reputation as a champion for women’s rights on the line, we now are being asked to believe he would squander all of that by attacking Tara Reade, one of the senator’s staffers?

This one strains credulity. Yes, I know there are other stories of politicians who portray themselves as loving family men only to be revealed as cads, philanderers and moral alley cats. I think at this moment of former Sen. John Edwards, the North Carolina Democrat who cheated on his cancer-stricken wife with a woman who would give birth to his child.

Joe Biden isn’t the perfect man. No one can make a claim to perfection. Is he capable of throwing away a lifetime in politics and public service with an astonishingly stupid act such as what has been alleged?

I don’t think so.

media news

Memo to media: Stop calling ’em ‘briefings’

I have made a command decision regarding High Plains Blogger, which I am entitled to do since it’s, well … my blog.

I am no longer going to refer to the White House press room sessions as “briefings” that were called initially to offer the world an update on how Donald Trump’s administration is dealing with the response to the coronavirus pandemic. I want the media to cease using the “b” word as well.

These sessions have turned into campaign rallies. It’s that simple. Donald Trump no longer provides an ounce of new information. He no longer offers a ray of hope. He never has exhibited a scintilla of empathy or grief over the loss of life from the deadly viral infection.

It has killed more than 51,000 Americans. The death toll is going to surpass in a week or so the number of Americans who died during the Vietnam War; it already has killed more Americans than those who died during the Korean War. Donald Trump doesn’t say a word to mourn the loss of life.

Instead, he rails against the media, against Democrats, against (mostly Democratic) governors who criticize the administration’s response to the pandemic.

Thus, these sessions no longer qualify as “briefings.”

I will call them “rants” or “riffs.” I just wanted to let you know that I have had enough of Trump’s ignorant assertions about the “fantastic” he says he is doing to fight the virus.

That might change if he ever steps aside to let the medical experts he has enlisted to serve — so far — as mostly window dressing during these White House events.

To be clear, I consider the experts to be worth hearing. But only if they are allowed to offer their advice, their analysis and their assessment — without being interrupted by the Imbecile in Chief.

If that happens, then perhaps the media can resume calling these events “briefings.”

national news

Biden has locked himself in on a VP pick

REUTERS/Brian Snyder 

I have to admit that Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s commitment to selecting a woman as his running mate — presuming his nomination as the Democratic Party’s candidate for president — was a gutsy call.

He has effectively locked himself in. He must select a woman. To do otherwise, in my view, would doom Biden’s campaign against Donald John Trump.

Yet we hear the occasional chatter out there that New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, whose daily coronavirus pandemic briefings have produced a sort of cult following of their own must be considered a potential VP selection for Biden.

Hold on! The only way Biden is going to select Andrew Cuomo is if the governor undergoes a sex-change operation … as in right now! It ain’t gonna happen. Therefore, Joe Biden is not going to consider Andrew Cuomo for a vice-presidential slot on the 2020 Democratic ticket.

I’ll certainly concede that Cuomo well could find himself serving in some high-level capacity in a Biden administration. I can think of two tailor-made Cabinet posts that would work well for the country: attorney general and homeland security secretary come immediately to mind.

However, Joe Biden clearly is dialing in on a potential VP running mate. Whoever she is must rise to the one level of consideration that stands over all the rest: Is she equipped and qualified to step into the presidency?

This process will be exciting to watch unfold.

political news

Still prefer old-fashioned voting method, unless danger lurks

Readers of this blog know already that I prefer voting in person on Election Day, standing in a voting booth, selecting my candidates in secret.

That is how I would like to vote for president of the United States on Nov. 3. However, circumstances — and you know what they are — might force all of us to change the way we cast our ballots.

I am OK with that change, if the coronavirus pandemic isn’t sufficiently put down in time for Election Day.

A Texas judge has issued a ruling that greatly enhances absentee and mail-in voting in Texas. The ruling’s most direct impact will be on the July primary runoff contests that were pushed back from late May. That damn pandemic got in the way of our runoffs, too.

Looking ahead to the big day in November, it remains my fervent hope that federal election officials are seeking ways to allow all Americans the chance to vote by mail if circumstances demand it. And — of course — Donald John “Liar in Chief” Trump is railing against voting by mail.

He has leveled a specious argument that is similar to what he alleged after the 2016 election, that mail-in voting invites illegal voting by individuals. Again, just as he always does, Trump has leveled a charge without a scintilla of evidence to back it up. Do you recall how he alleged that 5 million undocumented immigrants cast votes in California enabling Hillary Rodham Clinton to roll up her impressive popular vote margin in 2016 over Trump? He never produced a shred of proof for any of that.

He’s at it again, saying a system that has worked well in the states that use mail-in voting is corrupt and that the results aren’t to be believed.

There is ample, overwhelming evidence to suggest that “widespread voter fraud” in this country is a phony argument. Yes, some ballots are cast illegally, but they comprise a teeny-tiny fraction of all the ballots cast.

Donald Trump likely is going to face Joe Biden later this year. The pandemic might preclude an election that we’ve always known it, resulting in a nationwide mail-in balloting system. We need not reinvent the wheel here.

Election experts in several states can help develop a mail-in national election system that is secure, that can be protected against potential fraud.

I am one American who prefers the pageantry of Election Day. I want to be able to cast my ballot the way I always have done when voting for president. If we cannot do so safely, without endangering our health, then I am all in on a mail-in system.

We must not knuckle under to the demagogic trash spewed by a president who — and this only is just my view — is sounding like someone who is petrified at the result a mail-in presidential election would produce.

national news

Stars are aligning for a Trump election defeat, however …

As I look ahead to the upcoming presidential election, I am tempted to fill myself with hope that we well might change presidents when all the ballots are counted.

Joe Biden is the presumptive Democratic Party nominee. He has to win a few more primary elections to corral enough convention delegates to win the nomination when the party convenes its convention, be it a virtual event or one with actual delegates meeting in Milwaukee.

Biden has garnered the endorsements of virtually all his former rivals in what once was a huge and diverse field of contenders. He also has scored the endorsement of the most popular Democrat in America, former President Barack Obama.

The economy has collapsed. Donald Trump’s response to the coronavirus pandemic has been pathetic, feckless, confused, chaotic. He once downplayed the threat and then has been caught flat-footed as it has killed more than 20,000 Americans; the number is going up.

However, let’s remember that the stars aligned in 2016 for a Trump defeat. Then he won. He captured enough Electoral College votes to defeat a supremely more qualified candidate, Hillary Rodham Clinton. The Trump defeat shocked virtually every political observer on Earth.

That result gives me pause to suggest that former Vice President Biden is a shoo-in to defeat the former reality TV celebrity/carnival barker/con man/charlatan/conspiracy theorist/habitual liar.

My sincere hope is that Biden’s campaign brain trust learns from the fluke that produced a Trump election in 2016, studies how this travesty occurred and attacks with full force the record that Donald Trump has produced.

Trump’s team already knows what it has to do to win re-election. It has to retain its base and energize it. They’ll turn Trump loose and allow him to rail and rant in that incoherent fashion that seems to play well in front of those campaign rallies.

At this moment, the stars are lining up to defeat this fraudulent president. Oh, how I hope they remain aligned … and how I hope that Joe Biden can deliver on his pledge to “restore the nation’s soul.”

national news

Cuomo to replace Biden? Seriously?

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Who in the world is actually thinking seriously about New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo being nominated by the Democratic Party to run against Donald Trump in the 2020 election?

Whoever harbors that thought has rocks in his or her noggin? It ain’t gonna happen! Nor should it happen!

Oh, and I believe I heard the former vice president of the United States declare categorically that he is going to recommend a woman to run with him once he secures the party’s presidential nomination. So, that rules out Gov. Cuomo to run as VP, unless he undergoes an emergency sex-change operation.

A reporter asked Cuomo about those two matters today at the governor’s daily coronavirus pandemic briefing in Albany, N.Y.

Joe Biden has earned the title of presumptive nominee by vanquishing a huge and qualified field challengers in the Democratic primary contest. He still needs about 600 more delegates to have enough votes to be nominated.

The notion that Gov. Cuomo, whose conduct during his daily briefings has been nothing short of spectacular, would somehow emerge as a late-blooming nominee is preposterous.

Cuomo today shot down the twin rumors in flames. He’s not going to accept a VP nomination and he’s not going to run for president. He said he’s got a full plate in front of him now, managing the impact of a killer disease on residents of the state he governs.

Let’s stop the political gossip, shall we?

national news

Trump team unveils its xenophobia

Ahhh, so this is how the 2020 presidential campaign is going to proceed.

The Donald John Trump re-election team is going to fabricate straw men, prey on people’s xenophobia and then suggest that a true-blue, red-blooded American politician is actually an agent representing a hostile power.

The Trump campaign has released a minute-long ad that implies that former Washington Gov. Gary Locke, who was born in Washington and who served as U.S. ambassador to China during the Obama administration, is a Chinese government agent.

Oh, I should mention that Locke is Chinese-American. He also is a friend and ally of Joseph R. Biden, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee.

This is, as former 2020 Democratic presidential candidate Andrew Yang, described it, “utter garbage.” He said also that “Gary Locke is as American as the day is long.”

The ad is intended to suggest that Biden is more loyal to China than he is to the United States, that he and his son, Hunter, have business dealings in the People’s Republic of China … which I guess in Trump’s vacuous noggin makes him disloyal.

It’s reprehensible in the extreme. The campaign’s effort to cast a native-born American as a foreign agent makes it even worse. Wherever he is, the late U.S. Sen. Joseph McCarthy — the infamous commie-hunter of the early 1950s — must be nodding in approval.

Disgraceful.

political news

Donald Trump: phony-baloney expert

It’s hard to make a determinative conclusion on this matter, but I have long been certain that Donald J. Trump is the prime No. 1 expert on dishing out phony-baloney nonsense.

He said this week that he opposes mail-in voting because it is fraught with corruption. The nation’s current president said mail-in voting invites illegal balloting, that those who aren’t registered to vote are able to do so.

Oh, and as he told his pals at Fox News, mail-in voting would deny the election of Republicans. Oh! That’s it! He said that the greater access to voting for Americans the lesser the chance of electing Republicans.

What an absolute crock of manure!

We face an election this November. We also are in the middle of a huge fight against coronavirus, which has killed more than 14,000 Americans. It is highly infectious and it well might compel this nation to fundamentally change the way we vote for president.

To be absolutely clear, I prefer the old-fashioned method of going to the polling place and casting my ballot while standing in a booth. I dislike early voting. I like the pageantry of Election Day.

But … I am not willing to risk my health or the health of others in the midst of this life-and-death struggle against COVID-19. So, I am willing to take part in a mail-in election.

Several states vote by mail already. Their elections are secure. The votes are calculated accurately. Registered voters get their ballots mailed to them at their homes. They are able to mark their ballots and send them back to the appropriate election agency.

It also increases voter turnout. Isn’t that what we want? Don’t we prefer that more citizens take part in this process than fewer of them? Isn’t that the essence of a democratic society? Not in Donald Trump’s view of the world.

The president wants to restrict voter turnout, sounding to my way of thinking that he endorses what they call “voter suppression.” What’s more, he is dipping into his treasure trove of “big lies” to persuade his base that mail-in voting is corrupt.

It isn’t any more suspect than what we have witnessed in our lifetimes already. Hmm. The 2000 presidential election and the Florida recount fiasco comes to mind.

Donald Trump’s shameless dishing out of baloney is on full display.

Despicable.