Tag Archives: MAGA

national news

You have to watch it to believe it

I am not going to buy into the half-baked notion that Donald Trump is losing his marbles, much like the bullsh** that Trump’s team is peddling against Joe Biden, his presumptive Democratic Party opponent this fall.

Still, when you watch Donald Trump stand before reporters in front of the White House and then listen to his incoherent and incomprehensible riff about this and that, you start to wonder whether the president of the United States is afraid of losing.

I am sensing a serious fear factor weighing on Trump.

I see poll after poll suggest Biden is pulling farther ahead. I am not taking them to the bank just yet. You need to remember that President Hillary Clinton and President Michael Dukakis enjoyed wide margins against their foes in 2016 and in 1988; it didn’t work out well for them.

However, when you watch Trump make virtually no mention of the pandemic that has gripped the world and then launch into a campaign-rally riff at the White House, well … you get the picture, yes?

What’s even more amazing is how little connection all the myriad points he seeks to make have to each other. It all becomes a stream-of-consciousness tirade.

He boasts about what a great job his administration is doing to fight the pandemic, ignoring the 136,000 individuals in this country who have died from COVID-19. A nation with 4 percent of the world’s population has recorded 25 percent of the COVID infections and about the same percentage of deaths from the disease. That is success? Really?

Well, the campaign has begun. No need to wait for the traditional Labor Day kickoff. Trump is in full re-election campaign mode. Joe Biden is ramping up his effort to unseat Trump.

I will remain puzzled and baffled no doubt to the end, though, wondering how in the world Donald Trump can cling to the base of supporters who listen to the same nonsense that flows from this clown’s mouth that I hear.

They hear the Gospel according to The Donald.

I hear so much crap.

Go figure.

national news

Dear America: Happy birthday … hoping for a brighter day

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Dear America … on behalf of millions of others just like me I want to offer an apology.

I am sorry that the president of the United States couldn’t bring himself to say something worthy of the birthday you just celebrated.

Donald Trump stood before Mount Rushmore and then stood on the South Lawn of the White House and delivered two unforgettable speeches. We won’t remember them for the soaring rhetoric they should have contained. We will remember them for the raw anger, the division, the rage they planted.

This isn’t the way presidents usually commemorate your founding, but you knew that already. Presidents most commonly speak to our better angels, appealing to our sense of commonality, our quest to create a “more perfect Union.”

The Donald didn’t do that. He talked about angry mobs, the taking down of statues that “honor” traitors to the nation, generals who fought to overthrow the United States of America. He said those statues are part of “our history.” You bet they are. It is a history full of hate, of oppression, of enslavement of human beings. Donald Trump wants to preserve those monuments, keep them standing in public places. He is angry at those of us — fellow citizens — who protest them.

So he talked at length about that and about made-up assertions of the motives behind the demonstrations we have seen.

I am sorry he didn’t mention except in passing the pandemic that has afflicted so many thousands of American families. It has caused untold grief and misery. It has placed insurmountable burdens on heroic medical personnel. These Americans deserve our eternal gratitude but Trump didn’t see fit to offer it to them.

So, please accept my belated birthday wish along with this sincere hope for you, the nation I love with all my heart and the nation for which I went to war.

My hope is that we can deliver you a gift worthy of all that you represent. It would come in the form of a new president who is able to speak openly to our sense of decency and to, as Joe Biden has said, “restore our soul.”

America, I am forever grateful to have been born in this land. I pledge to do all I can to deliver this gift that you so richly deserve.

Here’s hoping for brighter days ahead.

national news

Trump campaign strategy has taken form

Donald Trump’s campaign theme has taken form. It is clear now what Trump intends to do while seeking re-election as president of the United States.

He is going to denigrate, degrade, disparage his Democratic Party foe, Joseph Biden. Donald Trump will not offer a clear vision for the future. He won’t tell us what he intends to do during a second term. Trump likely won’t even boast about what he allegedly accomplished during the term he is serving.

I have seen the TV ads that Donald Trump has approved. They speak to Biden’s mental acuity. They say the former vice president “is slipping.”

Well, I am not going to defend Joe Biden’s mental snap, other than to say that I believe he has plenty left in the tank to compete head to head against the Liar in Chief.

I have no intention of offering this critique of Trump to prompt him to develop a winning strategy. I do not believe he is capable of crafting a theme on which to run for re-election. He instead is wired to pummel straw men. He continually lambasted Hillary Clinton in 2016 over the email matter, suggesting nefarious motives for her use of a personal server while she was secretary of state.

Trump likely will copy that page from his winning playbook strategy in 2020. Joe Biden’s team must be aware of it — and I have no doubt it is — must be prepared to answer every single innuendo that Trump intends to hurl against the proverbial wall.

Donald Trump’s political career by all rights should come to a screeching halt once they count all the voters’ ballots cast on or before Nov. 3.

How might Biden respond? I hope he intends to tell us how he would react to crises and pledge to improve on the feckless, reckless and pointless response to the COVID-19 crisis we’ve seen from the Trump administration. I also hope he intends to speak passionately to the issue of civil rights, which is a topic that is foreign to Donald Trump.

Donald Trump is likely to bring the nastiness to a full boil quickly and will sustain it during the length of what looks to me to be the most vile presidential campaign in memory.

national news

Good news: This will be Trump’s final campaign!

Millions of us have been lamenting the presidency of Donald J. Trump since the moment he took the oath of office on Jan. 20, 2017.

It’s been a serious downer damn near every step along the way. Here, though, is some news that might bring the hint of a smile to your puss. This upcoming election will be Trump’s final campaign for the presidency.

Yep, win or lose, this is it! The U.S. Constitution — despite Trump’s public ruminations to the contrary — sets in stone that presidents can be elected to just two full terms in office. The Imbecile in Chief managed to get elected to that first term in 2016. He wants a second term … over my strongest objection imaginable.

Joe Biden must defeat him. How that will occur remains a work in progress.

Might a defeated Donald Trump seek another public office? Oh, sure. I suppose he can do that. The presidency, though, appears to be out of the question if Joe Biden is able to do what I hope he is able to do on Election Day 2020.

Having revealed a snippet of cheer for us to ponder as we gird for this campaign, I also feel the need to remind us of what is about to unfold. If you thought the 2016 campaign for president was as low as it could get, well I want to tell you that 2020 is likely to make the Donald Trump-Hillary Clinton scrap resemble a Girl Scout cookie sale.

Donald Trump is as ruthless an individual as any of us have ever witnessed in public life. He has no conscience, which means he lies without understanding the consequence he might suffer. He doesn’t care. He is not equipped with an ounce of shame.

So when he accuses Biden of committing crimes while serving as vice president during the Barack Obama administration, he does so blindly and with no thought to the defamatory nature of what flies out of his mouth. He will do the same thing with President Obama, just as he did for years fomenting the “birther” lie that Obama was not qualified to run for president.

We need to get ready for what is to come. The good news is that this will be the final time we’ll have to listen to this idiot’s campaign pitch. The best news will occur if Joe Biden emerges victorious from the campaign carnage that will ensue.

medical news

Dr. Anthony Fauci: cult hero

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Dr. Anthony Stephen Fauci might be the nerdiest cult hero in American history.

He has become the de facto voice of reason within the Donald Trump administration, which is led by a pathological liar who also happens to be an ignoramus. Fauci has been the primo truth-teller among the men and women who’ve been briefing us daily about the progress of the coronavirus pandemic and its impact on the United States.

He will turn 80 years of age next Christmas Eve. Fauci runs the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. He is a giant among the physicians and scientists who work with the National Institute of Health.

Fauci has been charged with helping craft the nation’s response to the pandemic as it has circled the globe, killing thousands of human beings. It has claimed more than 1,000 Americans and the United States is now the world’s most infected nation, with more than 120,000 Americans infected by the unique coronavirus known as COVID-19.

Dr. Fauci, though, is facing a monumental task while reporting to pandemic task force chairman Vice President Mike Pence, who in turn reports to Donald J. Trump. You see, Pence is the nation’s No. 1 suck-up to Trump and Trump is the nation’s No. 1 purveyor of fake news.

So, when Fauci contradicts the crap that flies out of Trump’s mouth,  he runs the risk of angering the Top Liar, who has demonstrated a propensity for removing those who fail to fall in line with whatever falsehood he is peddling.

Trump tries to persuade us that we’ve got this pandemic “under control.” We don’t have it under control. The cases of infection are increasing daily and they are threatening the economic health — not to mention the physical health — of the nation.

Meanwhile, we have Dr. Fauci trying to tell us the truth. A social media Fauci Fan Club has emerged. I’m grappling with whether I should join. I likely won’t do it, but it surely is tempting.

However, I remain wedded to my belief that the nation needs this wise and learned man more than ever as an antidote to the imbecile to whom he must answer.

national news

Impeachment drama set to end quietly, quickly

Is it just me or does the Donald John Trump impeachment saga, the one that seemed headed for a dramatic crescendo, now appears headed for a relatively quiet — but rapid-fire — finish?

John Bolton, the current president’s former national security adviser, emerged as a key potential witness, who would offer first-hand testimony to what he reportedly has written in his soon-to-be-published book that Trump offered a quid pro quo to Ukraine: a political favor in return for a military aid package.

Then just like that, the air left the room. U.S. Sen. Lamar Alexander, the lame-duck Tennessee Republican, announced he would vote against allowing Bolton to testify. The Senate trial appears headed for a conclusion later today and a vote on whether to convict or acquit Trump will seal the deal. Alexander’s statement seemed a bit quizzical. He said the House managers have “proved their case,” but that the charges leveled against Trump don’t “rise to the level of impeachment.”

So, POTUS stays put, doing even more damage to the country.

Damn! But … I won’t cry in my brew over it. The deal was done from the get-go, or so it appears. GOP senators — along with their House colleagues — seem to owe more loyalty to Donald Trump than to the Constitution.

Whatever. We have an election tap.

I am prepared to do whatever I can from my measly little perch out here in Trump Country to seek the ballot-box ouster of the most unfit, unqualified man ever to hold the presidency.

economic news

Tariffs harm U.S. economy, experts say

It turns out that Donald Trump’s alleged expertise on international trade policy is, shall we say, a bit overstated.

Put another way, the president’s decision to impose tariffs on imported goods has harmed U.S. taxpayers and cost American jobs he vowed would return in droves.

Whose analysis is this? The Federal Reserve has released a study laying out what it says has been the impact of the tariffs across the land. It hasn’t been good, according to the Fed analysis.

This likely will bring some recrimination from Trump, who will say the numbers are wrong, they’re cooked up in some star chamber kitchen and that they’re intended to throw the upcoming election into his opponents’ corner.

As The Hill reports: “We find that tariff increases enacted in 2018 are associated with relative reductions in manufacturing employment and relative increases in producer prices,” the report by Fed economists Aaron Flaaen and Justin Pierce reads.

This is pretty in line with what many economists have said all along about tariffs, which is that they don’t harm the producers of the goods being imported into this country, but that they inflate the prices we pay here.

Trump is having none of it. He keeps insisting that tariffs are part of a successful strategy to “put America first.” He wants to punish countries that don’t play fair in the game of international trade. I certainly understand the president’s stated reason for wanting a fairer playing field.

Why, though, must he invoke tariffs that do two things immediately? They boost prices on imported goods, which is a de facto tax and they rattle the daylights out of financial markets, affecting the retirement portfolios of millions of Americans … such as, well — my wife and me!

This so-called trade policy damn sure isn’t making America great again.

national news

How does POTUS find time to tweet like that … when he’s ‘working’?

Donald Trump visited on Christmas Day via laptop computer with troops overseas. He wished them a Merry Christmas and told ’em he was at Mar-a-Lago, the resort he owns in Florida.

He said he spends his time there “working.” Hmm. It got me thinking just a bit.

How does the president of the United States find time to fire off dozens of Twitter messages each day when he’s busy making America great again? Or solving the myriad problems he found on his desk when he took office? Or dealing with trouble spots around the world? Or looking for ways to put America first?

How in the world … ?

I guess perhaps the president mighta been, um, lying to the service personnel with whom he spoke when he said he was busy “working” at the glitzy resort where he spends a lot of his time.

You’ll recall, I’m sure, how he said he wouldn’t have time for golf once he became president. That turned out to be a false statement, too. His golf outings at various Trump-owned properties have totaled something on the order of $118 million; the cost covers security, transportation to and from the locations and assorted ancillary expenses.

Trump’s time working hasn’t interfered with his golf fetish. Understand something: I don’t begrudge the president playing golf as he is always “on the clock.” What is maddening is how he insisted repeatedly that he wouldn’t do such a thing. It’s the lying about it that I find so troubling.

So now he’s telling the troops in harm’s way he’s busy working at Mar-a-Lago, all the while firing Twitter rants about “evil Nancy” Pelosi, Democrats, the House that impeached him and the “hoax” investigations that have put many key aides in prison.

Weird.

national news

Overturn an election result? Well … yeah!

Congressional Republicans argue against the impeachment of Donald Trump on the basis of a belief that Democrats are seeking to “overturn the results of the 2016 presidential election.”

Hmm. You know, at one level I actually agree with that view.

However, here’s the deal: Three of the four presidential impeachments in this nation’s history have been intended to do that very thing. President Andrew Johnson’s impeachment in 1868 didn’t seek to overturn the preceding election; the nation re-elected President Lincoln in 1864 as the Civil War was still raging, but then the president was shot to death in April 1865, allowing Vice President Johnson to ascend to the presidency.

President Nixon was going to be impeached in 1974 before he quit the presidency. President Clinton was impeached in 1998. Did Democrats seek to overturn Nixon’s landslide re-election in 1972? Did Republicans want to do the same thing when they impeached Clinton in 1998 after he had won re-election in 1996? Well, yeah! They did!

So what is the rationale for this argument? Local officials are subject to recall petitions when they mess up. They, too, are elected to their office. Recall movements, therefore, are intended to “overturn” those results.

All this being said, I am not the least bit moved by the argument that an impeachment of a president is an effort to overturn an election. We can argue about the motives, I suppose, of why one side wants to impeach a president.

There can be no argument, though, on the consequence of such an act. Of course it reverses the result of the previous election. That’s what impeachment, I am willing to argue, is all about.

national news

Enemies cannot discuss difference with each other

My adventure into the belly of the political beast earlier this year revealed so much to me that I want to revisit a major part of what I learned.

I attended a Donald J. Trump “Keep America Great” political rally at the American Airlines Center in downtown Dallas. I stood in line for seemingly forever to get inside. I met some nice Trumpsters along the way, visited with them, exchanged small talk about our families.

As I walked in I heard one of Trump’s warmup acts bellow something from the podium that I believe sums up the dysfunction that has gripped today’s political climate.

It came from Dan Patrick, the fire-breathing Texas lieutenant governor and presiding officer of the Texas Senate.

Patrick called the Republicans’ adversaries “enemies.” Then he doubled down with the next sentence that flew out of his mouth. He acknowledged that, yes, he meant to say “enemies.” They aren’t mere opponents, but they are the “enemies” of freedom, liberty, upstanding moral values.

It occurred to me in the moment: That is precisely what has infected the nation’s political climate. Political foes cannot talk to each other if they view the other side as the “enemy.”

Were we able to talk to Hitler or Tojo or Mussolini during World War II? Or to Ho Chi Minh during the Vietnam War? Or to Osama bin Laden?

Dan Patrick’s “enemy” statement exemplifies the kind of politics that Donald Trump himself has promoted since the moment he declared his candidacy for the only public office he ever has sought. He labeled the press the “enemy of the people.” He has talked about Muslims as being enemies of Americans. He has referred to the refugees fleeing repression in Latin America as conducting an “invasion” of this country.

Trump, of course, isn’t the first politician to refer to political foes as the “enemy.” GOP firebrand Newt Gingrich said it was imperative during the 1994 congressional election for Republicans to persuade voters that Democrats were the “enemy of normal Americans.”

How do you debate your differences with someone who considers you to be the enemy?