Tag Archives: MAGA

national news, political news

How does he maintain this grip?

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The afterlife awaits every one of us, as no one gets out of here alive.

When my day arrives — and I hope for damn sure it’s no time soon — I will head there with many political questions jostling through my noggin.

Chief among them will be trying to grasp how the 45th POTUS manages to maintain the grip he has secured around the throats of the MAGA cult he has created.

To be sure, it’s seemingly not as large a cult as it once was, but it’s every bit as vocal. The cultists so far are outshouting the rest of the Republican Party faithful … and I mean to say the “real Republicans” who cannot seem to shake loose the grip that the former Liar in Chief has on the MAGA crowd.

My belief in the goodness of humanity is being challenged daily by the ignorance demonstrated by those who glom onto the moron’s every statement. Even when he mangles words or confuses individuals (such as when he recently confused Joe Biden with Barack Obama), they still whoop and holler. Go … figure, man.

I will have to dish out some off-handed praise to the former Idiot in Chief. He has found the audience that adheres to his nonsense, and he speaks plainly to them in a language that only they seem to comprehend.

The rest of us?

We’re left in the dark … and the candidate doesn’t give a sh**!

media news, political news

Nothing wrong with ‘mainstream’

Conservatives far and wide take great joy in hurling the so-called “mainstream media” epithet at reporters and editors who tell them the truth about their favorite politicians.

I disagree, therefore, that the term should be used in that context. If the right-wingers out there are going to toss the term “mainstream media” at those of us who are (or used to be) employed by media organizations, they should include their pals who toil for conservative outlets, too.

Fox, Newsmax, Daily Wire, the NY Post, DC Examiner are every bit as “mainstream” as any other media organization. If we’re going to lump all media organizations under the “mainstream” umbrella, then for criminy sakes, include the righties, too.

I only would implore the right-wing media, though, to abandon the lies they promote about, oh, the 2020 election and the immediate past president’s non-response to the COVID pandemic.

But they’re still mainstream … you know?

legal news, media news, political news

Who’s the insane one?

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I suspect we’re going to see social media images like the one that appears on this brief blog post.

It gives anyone who backs the presumed Republican Party presidential nominee the what-for given the moron’s bizarre proclivities. The picture shows the ex-POTUS saluting a North Korean general, I presume in advance of his meeting with North Korean despot and murderer Kim Jong Un.

I cannot predict these images and texts will spell the difference in the upcoming election. They damn sure should!

To think that this idiot’s fans, cultists and minions would suggest that Joe Biden has lost his snap is, as the meme suggests, “laughably irrelevant.”

Except that I am not laughing.

media news, national news

NBC pulls its head out

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Just when I thought the world was going to hell, a major TV network has delivered the goods and thought better about a horrible hiring decision it had made.

NBC News withdrew its decision to hire former Republican Party chair Ronna McDaniel as an on-air political contributor.

I want to stand and cheer out loud! So … I will.

You see, NBC erred in hiring McDaniel after the former party chair had been complicit in the effort to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election; after she denied President Biden had been elected fairly; after she promoted The Big Lie put forth by the 2020 Republican Party presidential nominee.

She is far from just someone who once led a major political party. She is a purveyor lies and deception. That a TV network would put her on the air to offer political commentary was just too much to swallow. It drew tremendous blowback from its own employees and journalists everywhere.

The network today thought better of its own stupidity … and pulled Ronna McDaniel’s name off the table.

media news, national news, political news

Can it get worse for speaker?

I have asked a question in the headline atop this post that I believe I can answer.

Yes. It can get worse. It seems to be worsening daily for U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson, whose majority in the congressional chamber is now down to a single member. Meaning that the dude has virtually no governing majority.

Johnson is facing an insurrection — if you’ll pardon the use of the term — within his own party. The MAGA caucus led by Marjorie Taylor Greene wants him booted out. The reason escapes me. The guy is one of them! Still, MTG wants him gone, but hasn’t yet taken the final legislative step to get him removed, which would be to call for a vote of House members.

GOP congressmen are fleeing the chamber. Ken Buck of Colorado said so long, saying he can’t work in such a chaotic atmosphere.

The late Sen. John McCain used to demand that the Senate follow “regular order.” He should have spoken those words to the House, too. Regular order establishes a procedure for legislating that can seem boring, cumbersome and arcane. It sure beats the hell out of the madness we are witnessing these days with MAGA nitwits blathering constantly about how the House cannot allow Democrats to have any say in how the place functions.

The MAGA clowns are not interested in governing. Their only interest appears to be seeing their names in bold print in headlines across the country.

Speaker Johnson is presiding over all of this. He cannot control the House. The MAGA cultists are running amok and are running roughshod over the guy they chose when they booted his immediate predecessor, Kevin McCarthy, out of the speaker’s office.

Boy howdy, Mike Johnson is occupying the worst political office in D.C. It’s likely to get even worse.

Joe Biden, national news

Compromise: it works

President Biden signed into a law a $1.2 trillion spending bill that arrived at his desk after a deadline had lapsed.

The president didn’t hesitate for a nano-second to sign the bill and issued a statement that stated the obvious: Not everyone is totally pleased with what’s in it, but Congress got the job done thanks to some serious compromise.

Therein lies at the heart of what I call “good government.” Compromise works. It results in laws being enacted that are going to anger some folks, make others happy but in the end will keep our government running so that it can deliver needed services to those who need it.

The current rabble-rousers who seek to control Congress — the MAGA cultists who insist that it’s their way or the highway — don’t follow that truism. Oh, no. They continue to resist things in this latest spending package that threaten our allies, such as Israel or the Ukrainians who are fighting against Russian invaders.

Joe Biden sees government through an entirely different prism. He is, in reality, a creature of the government over which he now presides. He has worked in the federal system since January 1973, when he took office as a 30-year-old U.S. senator from Delaware. He served in the Senate until 2009, when he moved into the vice president’s office, where he worked for another eight years. He took four years off and then was elected president in 2000.

I am going to continue to embrace the view that compromise need not be synonymous with surrender of one’s principles.

If only the MAGA cultists and, yes, the far-left progressives would learn that there are times when they can accept compromise as an avenue to keep government functioning for the betterment of all Americans.

national news

Shut the hell up, MTG!

A follower of High Plains Blogger has posited an interesting theory on how we might rid ourselves of the nonsensical blather that flies out of the mouths of inexperienced members of Congress.

This individual writes: ” … perhaps it’s time for us to have some actual criteria other than residency and age in order to run for a seat in Congress (or the presidency). Perhaps some relevant education and experience would be nice? And I am all for making them take a lie detector test before taking their oath of office!”

Fascinating, yes? Well, I think so. I will add this caveat, though, to what this reader believes we should do: We already are able to judge candidates’ educational and professional backgrounds before decided for whom to vote.

The person under discussion happens to be one of the MAGA queens of Congress, Margorie Taylor-Greene of Georgia. She is running for just her third term in Congress. She was elected in 2020 and re-elected in 2022. Third time’s a charm perhaps to get her booted out of Congress?

The voters in her rural northeast Georgia district seem to know enough about her to give her a pass on the idiocy that keeps pouring forth from her pie hole.

She wants to boot Speaker Mike Johnson out of his office. Why? Beats me, other than he works with Democrats on occasion to prevent a government shutdown. That’s the “sin” he reportedly commits; he’s not loyal enough to the MAGA movement.

Greene is a politician in search of a stage, any stage to provide her a forum to be seen and heard far beyond her congressional district. She hasn’t authored a single piece of significant legislation. She makes herself known by her antics during presidential speeches to Congress and her behavior at committee hearings.

Of course, and this really goes without saying, a lie detector test never will occur. There must be something in the Constitution that prohibits that kind of restriction on pols running for Congress.

But, boy howdy, it is a tempting thought nevertheless.

national news

House speaker: world’s worst job

There can be zero doubt — none whatsoever — that the worst job in the world has to be speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives.

Particularly now, in this climate, with a slim Republican Party majority in the House being kicked around by a vocal minority mob of malcontents.

The malcontent in chief, Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, has filed a motion to remove Speaker Mike Johnson from his tenuous seat in power. It’s not a done deal, as Greene, R-Ga., said she hasn’t yet called for a vote on whether to kick Johnson to the curb.

You’ll remember that Johnson’s predecessor as speaker, Kevin McCarthy, was booted out because he had the stones to work with Democrats on a bipartisan government funding bill that forestalled a possible government shutdown. That didn’t suit MAGAites in the House, led by Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida, who filed a motion, called for the vote and got McCarthy kicked the hell out.

Johnson emerged as a successor. It took several House votes, just as it took the House 15 ballots to select McCarthy, but Johnson got the job. He promised to adhere to the MAGA agenda.

Oh, but wait! He then just recently worked with those dreaded Democrats on another, longer-term funding bill.

Enter the QAnon queen herself, Greene, to fire a warning shot at Johnson.

My goodness, the job is difficult enough, even without the melodrama attached by the MAGA blowhards in the House. It’s a damn important job, too, as its occupant is second in line to become president.

It is aggravating to see this office being held hostage by a gaggle of troublemakers intent on disrupting the so-called “regular order” and arguing against efforts to actually govern … which is what compromise is all about.

crime news, national news, political news

Outrage keeps mounting

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My wellspring of outrage seems to know no bounds, given the idiocy that keeps flowing from the overfed pie hole of the 2024 Republican Party presidential nominee in waiting.

He said the following recently to a crowd of MAGA minions cheering his every ridiculous proclamation: He will pardon all the so-called “hostages” who are jailed for their assault on the U.S. Capitol on 1/6 … if he’s elected president in November.

Yep. It’s now out there, on the record. The traitorous mob that sought to assassinate the then-vice president, Mike Pence, and killed a cop seeking to defend the Capitol, defecated on the floor of the government building and vowed to overturn the results of a free, fair and legal election would get a pardon from the former Moron in Chief.

Is there any sense of decency left in that individual? Don’t bother answering that one. There was no decency to start with and he is demonstrating with each political rally how utterly unhinged he has become.

 

Uncategorized

Civility isn’t dead after all!

For the past few years I have been presuming that collegiality and civility have died a slow, painful death, that they have been replaced by rancor and hatred for those with opposing points of view.

Then I read an editorial in the Dallas Morning News that told me to hold on, that it ain’t so.

The editorial talks about two justices of the U.S. Supreme Court, Amy Coney Barrett and Sonia Sotomayor, who spoke to the National Governors Association. They talked about how the justices can differ, but they do not see each other as enemies.

The editorial states, in part: Civility and compromise are values in our democracy that, as of late, are buried in bitter arguments or smothered in misinformation.

Barrett is a deeply conservative member of the high court; Sotomayor is an equally fervent progressive jurist. The editorial notes: “When we disagree, our pens are sharp. But on a personal level, we never translate that into our relationships with one another,” Sotomayor told the crowd at one event.

The DMN editorial takes particular note of the extraordinary friendship forged long ago by two justices, the late Antonin Scalia and the late Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Their friendship became a talking point around the country as to how people with widely divergent points of view can retain personal affection.

The editorial is posted here: Two Supreme Court justices are reminding us how to act like adults (dallasnews.com)

Barrett said: “We don’t speak in a hot way at our conferences,” Barrett said. “We don’t raise our voices no matter how hot-button the case is.”

I am heartened to hear the words of two jurists who have told the world what goes on behind closed doors at the nation’s highest court. May their secret be repeated in other governmental chambers — such as the Congress — where the principals do raise their voices and speak ill of each other.