Tag Archives: 2024 election

national news, political news

Sticking with Biden

Just so you know, I am standing firmly behind President Biden’s effort to win re-election to a second term in office.

Yes, I have read the polling data. I have heard the talking heads worrying their little noggins out over the polls that show the president trailing his Republican opponents. I have heard the concerns about his age.

I acknowledge fully the age issue is a serious one to be sure. He is about to turn 81. Life can go south in a hurry at that age. Believe me when I say that I have felt the crushing pain of watching a loved gone o from healthy to seriously unhealthy virtually overnight … and she was in her early 70s when we lost her.

However, I am not going to accept any arguments about mental acuity or loss of intellectual capacity in the president.

Joe Biden is fit for the job. I want him to stay at his post.

national news, political news

Girding already for … the grind

Make no mistake about this undeniable fact: The next presidential election is likely to drive me to the loony bin.

The Republican Party’s presidential primary field is winnowing down already. Tim Scott is out. So is Mike Pence. Others ought to take a powder as well. Vivek Ramaswamy and Nikki Haley got into a beef the other evening when Ramaswamy mentioned Haley’s daughter as a TikTok user, prompting Haley to call the loudmouth pretender “just scum.”

Meanwhile, President Biden is taking hits from within his Democratic Party over whether he ought to seek a second term. He is 80 years of age; the oldest man to occupy the presidency. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has abandoned the Democratic Party and is running for POTUS as an independent. Another guy has decided to run for the presidency too as a Democrat.

If I could manipulate the system, I would much rather see someone other than Donald Trump nominated by the GOP to run against the president. If it’s not meant to be, then we can kiss the Republican Party we’ve all known goodbye.

Trump doesn’t have a single policy principle he can tout as his own. He is pledging a scorched-Earth campaign to “eliminate” everyone who’s ever opposed him.

And … how in this ever-lovin’ world will Biden and Trump fare if we are forced to listen to them debate each other on the world stage? Do you remember the 2020 campaign, when Biden told the blathering Trump to “just shut up, man”?

I am going to offer a prayer to myself that I am able to keep my sanity as this campaign unfolds. While I’m at it, I’ll pray for anyone who’s having the same feelings of anxiety about the future of this great country. So much of that future is going to depend on whether Americans can reject the nonsense touted by the former POTUS.

Here’s hoping for the best.

national news, political news

What’s point of GOP debates?

I’ll concede I haven’t watched much of the three so-called “debates” among the Republican presidential candidates seeking their party’s 2024 nomination.

My disinterest boils down to two words: Donald Trump.

The prohibitive (ye gads!) frontrunner for the nomination hasn’t bothered to show up. Why should he? The MAGA cult continues to swoon over the twice-impeached, multiple indicted former POTUS … who stands a good chance of being a convicted felon before the 2024 GOP nominating convention.

The men and one woman who have shown up for these joint appearances have sought at varying levels to explain why they are better than Trump. I actually like what I hear from a couple of them: former Govs. Chris Christie of New Jersey and Nikki Haley of South Carolina are beginning to float my boat.

They remain far behind the frontrunner.

The GOP field is left, therefore, to blather on about this and that with little chance of winning the party’s nomination.

Which brings me back to my original thought: What is the point of these debates? These all are pretenders, not actual contenders for the presidency.

The GOP clown show will go on without the Clown in Chief. We all know what would occur were he to show up at one of these events. Every question posed would result in a litany of accusations from the pretenders aimed at the Big Man … who then would turn the event into a blizzard of epithets and personal insults.

We are left, therefore, with a pointless series of joint appearances that contribute virtually nothing to the election outcome.

What a waste of time!

national news

Do they want to lose?

Republicans running for president can stand behind their sanctimoniousness all they want, but the voters they seek aren’t buying into their rhetoric on at least one critical issue: abortion.

We heard most of the candidates standing on the Miami stage last night proclaim their “pro-life” principles. They oppose abortion and most of the debate participants want to place a national limit on when women can terminate a pregnancy. One notable exception was former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, who stands behind states’ ability to make those decisions.

That’s all fine. Except for this fact. The voters in GOP primary states aren’t buying it. They keep rejecting ballot measures and referenda calling for national limits Indeed, the voters take an entirely different view on abortion than these individuals who want to take office in January 2025.

Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina proclaimed loudly that he is a proud Christian and wants the nation to return to laws based on “Judeo-Christian principles,” but he forgot to mention something I believe is important: The founders created a secular government that adheres to a secular document, the Constitution. Voters seem to understand that fact more than the individuals who want to be elected POTUS.

Oh … and Donald Trump, who skipped the debate? He is unprincipled, untethered to any moral standard. His views on this stuff don’t matter one damn bit.

I am beginning to believe the notion put forward by a USA Today columnist, Ingrid Jacques, herself a conservative who doesn’t want President Biden and Vice President Harris re-elected.

She writes: “It kind of seems like they want to lose.”

national news

Wait for the trials … and convictions!

Norm Ornstein is one of those Washington, D.C., gray eminences whom the media turn to for a look at the political landscape and whether it is changing under our feet in real time.

Ornstein believes that Donald Trump’s current standing as the “frontrunner” for the 2024 presidential election is going to change “when and if the convictions” start rolling in from the felony criminal trials that await the former POTUS.

I believe he is correct. At least I hope he is correct. You see, the polling data showing Trump ahead of President Biden in several key battleground states simply baffles me beyond all measure.

Ornstein suggests that Biden could be in serious trouble if he is unable to persuade Americans that the successes he has enjoyed are the real deal. I believe they are, but he continues to underperform among voters who continue to tell pollsters that the country is headed in the “wrong direction.”

Huh? I don’t get it! Unemployment remains below 4%. Jobs keep piling up. Inflation, while still troublesome, is beginning to level off. The Fed appears set to put the brakes on interest rate increases.

Yes, we have war in the Middle East. And in Ukraine. Biden has held our alliances together.

The border crisis? It still is a serious problem, but it’s good to remember that we’re still detaining and deporting thousands of undocumented immigrants weekly.

“One of the things that I think is clear here is that most voters have paid no or little attention to Donald Trump’s legal problems,” Ornstein told MSNBC’s Ali Velshi. “That will change when we get criminal trials. And especially if and when we get convictions.”

It’s good to ask ourselves: Are Americans really and truly so stupid, gullible and ignorant that we want to elect a convicted felon as POTUS?

If we are, then this nation of ours is headed straight into the crapper.

We are much better than that.

national news

Polling data = real-time snapshot

All the polling data we are seeing these days showing a neck-and-neck race between President Joe Biden and the man he defeated in 2020 remind me of historical precedent.

Which is to say that today’s polling data don’t mean squat this far out from an upcoming election.

Yes, I have commented on my frustration that Donald Trump even can collect 35 to 40% of the electorate’s favor, given all he has said, done and demonstrated since he became a politician in 2015.

But I want to revisit some recent presidential polling history to remind you of how volatile these polls can become.

Remember that public opinion polls are merely a real-time snapshot of what is on people’s minds. Opinions change.

Prior to the 1984 election, Walter Mondale was seen as a legitimate challenger to President Reagan. The president was re-elected with an 18% margin and a 49-state Electoral College wipeout. In 1992, Ross Perot actually led President George H.W. Bush and former Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton. Perot finished with 19% of the vote and zero Electoral College votes, while Bill Clinton breezed to election.

Four years later, Sen. Bob Dole was neck-and-neck with the president, but then lost decisively. In 2008, Sen. John McCain was seen as a possible winner against Sen. Barack Obama; it didn’t happen. Obama was in danger four years later of losing to Mitt Romney; he won comfortably.

Today’s polling data mean next to nothing. Trump is going on trial on at least two of the indictments leveled against him prior to the GOP primary season. Americans are going to get a snootful from courtrooms about the way he conducted himself during his time in office and, most damaging, after he lost the 2020 election.

I am going to stand squarely on my view that Donald Trump is not electable in 2024. Period. He has no vision for the future, other than telling us how he intends to exact revenge on his foes. His unfitness for public office cannot be stated any more starkly than that.

The polling data will be there to remind us … in real time.

national news

Foundations take a stand for democracy

This kind of thing doesn’t happen every day, but it has and the fate of democracy in the United States well might benefit greatly from this statement.

Six presidential foundations have issued a statement calling for a revitalization of democratic principles ahead of the 2024 presidential campaign. The statement came initially from the George W. Bush Presidential Center in Dallas; cosigners are the LBJ Foundation in Austin, the Obama Foundation in Chicago, the George and Barbara Bush Foundation in College Station and the John F. Kennedy Center and Library in Boston.

The statement didn’t name names, but it didn’t need to. We all know who is the object of the statement’s warning … it would Donald J. Trump and his fixation with autocracy.

“As a diverse nation of people with different backgrounds and beliefs, democracy holds us together,” the groups said. “We are a country rooted in the rule of law, where the protection of the rights of all people is paramount. At the same time, we live among our fellow citizens, underscoring the importance of compassion, tolerance, pluralism, and respect for others.”

Presidential foundations call for return to democratic values ahead of 2024 elections (ketr.org)

Indeed, our nation’s founders launched a revolution against a government that sought to subjugate colonial residents to the iron fist of autocratic rule. What emerged from that conflict in the 18th century was a nation founded on the notion that peaceful dissent is part of our governing fabric.

Let us never lose sight of what our founders intended.

national news

Who is this new carnival barker?

Who in the world is Vivek Ramaswamy, who I believe is trying to emerge as the Republican Party’s new snake-oil vendor of choice?

Dude is 38 years of age. He’s never held a public office. I don’t yet know how he acquired his wealth … I’ll have to look it up. He talks some wild game about opposing further aid to Ukraine in its fight against Russia, and then says Donald Trump’s actions on 1/6 were “abhorrent” but he remains in Trump’s camp if the twice-impeached, four-times indicted former POTUS gets nominated by the GOP next summer.

Ramaswamy is weird, man.

This political newbie might be making some waves among Republican base voters, aka the MAGA morons on the far-right wing of a once-great political party.

What part of Ramaswamy’s background concerns me the most? It might be his lack of political exposure or experience. We saw what happened the last time Americans elected such an individual. He shot off his mouth and got impeached for seeking a political favor from a foreign head of state; he got impeached again for inciting the mob to storm the Capitol Building to stop the counting of Electoral College votes after the 2020 presidential election.

Do we want to hand another political neophyte the nuclear launch codes?

Hmmm … hell no!

national news

GOP group shows cowardice

Admission time: I did not watch the initial Republican Party presidential “debate” in Milwaukee.

There. That said, I cannot comment on what I didn’t witness in real time. I can, however, offer a brief response to what I understand happened when a Fox Propaganda Channel moderator asked of the group of eight whether they would pledge to support the GOP nominee if it happens to be Donald Trump, who could be convicted of felonies against the U.S. government.

Six of them raised their hands, meaning they would support Trump if he’s the nominee. Two of them declined: former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson and former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie.

What does that tell me? It says that most of the individuals running for president are cowards, in that they cannot bring themselves to be critical of the prohibitive frontrunner for the GOP presidential nomination.

Sickening.

crime news

Trump ‘defenders’ go on attack

Donald J. Trump’s “defenders” have a curious and frankly ingenious method of standing behind their cult hero.

Many of them acknowledge Trump’s multiple failings, but then engage in that curious game of “whataboutism” relating to President Biden.

They say things like, “Sure, Trump is crooked … but what about Joe Biden? He is, too! You know?”

A fellow with whom I am acquainted only casually is a frequent critic of this blog. He keeps insisting he doesn’t “give a sh**” about Trump. Except that he does. How do I know that? Because whenever I post a critical blog item about Trump — calling attention to his crooked past — this fellow jumps out of his skin long enough to tell me that Biden is even more crooked than Trump.

He mentions the Hunter Biden stuff (of course!) and then declares that Daddy Biden must be corrupt as well because someone alleges some connection between Hunter Biden’s business dealings and the president, who once served as VP.

The intent of this fellow’s whataboutism is to harm President Biden and benefit Trump. So … he doesn’t “give a sh** about Trump?” Of course he does! Just as I, too, “give a sh** about the ex-POTUS, although certainly not for the same reasons.

I simply must applaud the Trump cultists, though, for devising this strategy, which is proving to be effective. It has kept President Biden’s approval ratings down from where I believe they should be.

In the final analysis, though, this non-defense defense of an ex-POTUS will not return him to the White House. I take considerable comfort in believing that Donald John Trump is toast.