Tag Archives: Joe Biden

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Watergate rears its head

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The specter of Watergate is beginning to make its presence felt in President Biden’s fight to retain his status as the Democratic Party’s presumptive nominee for president.

His staff is meeting with prominent Democrats in the House and Senate, all of whom are expressing concern about Biden’s chances of winning re-election against Donald J. Trump, They want him to relinquish the nomination and hand it to a stronger candidate who can defeat Trump in the fall election.

The president, bedeviled by his shocking debate performance the other night, is standing firm. “I am not going anywhere!” he has bellowed.

OK, got it, Mr. President.

In the summer of 1974, the House was getting ready to impeach President Nixon over his role in covering up the Watergate scandal. A group of Republican senators — led by Barry Goldwater of Arizona and Hugh Scott of Pennsylvania — went to the White House to tell Nixon the following: The House is going to impeach you and the Senate is going to convict you. You should resign now.

Nixon took his friends’ advice and quit the presidency.

Do you see the symmetry between then and now?

It falls on the president to make his decision on what to do. It’s just feeling a bit to me as if a Watergate-era outcome might be in store.

Joe Biden, national news, political news

Most important … ever!

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My active involvement in presidential elections goes back a while, to 1972, when I cast my first vote for president.

And just as surely as the sun rises in the morning, every election cycle has contained the phrase “the most important election in our lifetime.”

I believe the 2024 election fits the bill. It’s the real thing. It appears to be the most important election in our nation’s storied history.

The candidates for president aren’t the best we can offer. The consequence of electing one of these men is what gives the result the heft it deserves.

Where do we stand? The Democratic Party nominee appears to be the incumbent, Joe Biden. Then again …

The president had that debate a few days ago and everything seems to have changed. The party of which he has been a faithful member might be turning on him. Or it might stand firm. He looked and sounded like a doddering old man in that debate and the party faithful is full of doubting members who are concerned about whether he’s up to the job.

The Republican Party nominee? Oh, brother. He is a former POTUS who got impeached twice while in office. He’s now a convicted felon. There might be more convictions on the way. Donald Trump has vowed to sic the Justice Department on his political foes. He well could end our support for Ukraine, which is fighting the Russian invaders. He vows to reverse virtually every law that Biden has signed. Trump has threatened to toss the U.S. Constitution into the shi**er on the first day of his administration.

Consequential election? The most important in US history?

It damn sure looks that way to me.

Are we really and truly ready to throw the very foundation of our government — the one other nations use as their model for freedom and liberty — away because a newly elected president wants to make friends with killers, despots and tyrants?

If we are then … God help us!

national news

Changing my mind daily

A member of my family called today to ask me: What do you think President Biden should do, stay in or pull out of the race?

I had to level with her. My mind changes daily. Yesterday I thought maybe he should pull out. Today I am thinking he should stay.

That’s my answer. It depends on what day it is and whether I have changed my mind overnight. I am prone to do so at my age. Old men like me have that right, if you know what I mean.

I keep hearing that more congressional Democrats are abandoning the president. They want to defeat Donald Trump. They say the ex-POTUS is an existential threat to our national security.

So … who has defeated him already? Who has the experience to take the case directly to Trump’s soft underbelly?

It’s Biden.

So, today I am sticking with President Biden all the way. However, I am feeling malleable.

national news

VP stands tall

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Kamala Harris made history four years ago when voters elected her as the nation’s first female vice president, the first Black and the first Asian American ever to hold the office.

Yep, she’s a complex individual … with an ethnic diversity that makes heads spin.

President Biden vowed to make her a consequential VPOTUS. While the jury is still out on whether he was faithful to that pledge, there can be no doubt these days about the value she brings to an embattled president. Biden is facing calls to step down from the top of Democratic Party ticket on the basis of his debate performance the other night in Atlanta.

I am one American who is so very torn. I don’t want him to step down, but I would accept his decision to do so if that’s what he decides.

Oh, as for Harris? She stands tall in the wings. Vice President Harris has emerged as the Biden administration’s most effective spokesperson on the issue of women’s reproductive rights. She is taking the fight straight to Donald Trump, who wants his old job back amid threats that he would undo the basic framework of our representative democracy.

The VP is speaking with courage and conviction and is emerging as someone who is (a) defending the president’s stellar record and (b) looks and sounds willing and able to lead a nation that chose her as vice president in 2020.

Kamala Harris might never have imagined being thrust into this role when she said “yes” to Biden’s request to join the ticket. Indeed, as an observer of American politics, I am finding it hard to grasp what might be unfolding in real time.

The drama that is playing itself out is almost too much to imagine … but it is. I am proud of the politician who made history when she joined the winning ticket four years ago.

Keep standing tall, Mme. Vice President.

national news

Gotta hold on tightly

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I have discovered that emotional roller coasters can be as upsetting as the real thing, such as one I used to ride at Jantzen Beach in my hometown of Portland, Ore.

That frightening monster is gone and I don’t ride roller coasters much these days. I do embark on emotional thrill rides based on the politics I continue to follow.

President Biden is now taking me on an emotional roller coaster. I am forced to hold on tightly with both hands. He had that hideous debate outing a little more than a week ago. It launched a series of calls for him to get out of the 2024 presidential race. He has stood firm, saying he isn’t “going anywhere.”

My initial reaction? I’m with you, Mr. President. Stay in! Fight like hell! Then doubt began to creep in. Eleven days after that hideous performance, my hope is being revved up a bit by the message that Biden is delivering.

We need to concentrate on Donald Trump, he bellows. Trump is the true danger to our way of life, to our democratic principles, to our very liberties.

I know that a few days cannot possibly define the future, but it appears to be that President Biden is finding his voice. He is speaking with crystal clarity, with passion and with a commitment to staying in the fight until they count the ballots.

I keep getting caught up in these moments. I realize they aren’t as much fun as the old days when we screamed at the thrill of racing around the track at high speed. The stakes today, though, are pretty damn high … which means I am going to stay committed to these moments when they present themselves.

Joe Biden

My mission: defeat Trump!

OK, kids. Here comes the latest proclamation from High Plains Blogger, which is that my public policy mission in life is to defeat Donald John Trump and end forever this reprobate’s lust for political power.

How does that happen? Beats me. I have this forum. I intend to light it up with every known lie, defamatory epithet, bizarre pronouncement that has flown out of this megalomaniacal moron’s piehole. I am going to remind readers of this blog that this POTUS wannabe has been convicted of multiple felonies!

Trump is a tangible, existential threat to our way of life, to our democratic system of governance, to our existence as the world’s pre-eminent nation.

I am going to get grief for this declaration from critics who accuse me of suffering from Trump Derangement Syndrome.

You know what? I admit that I do! Bring it, MAGA cultists!

I am concerned about whether President Biden is able to carry that message forward on our behalf. And, no, I do not believe he is incapacitated. I fear that the rumor mongering is going to overtake his candidacy. He might be unable to shake loose the political hyenas who have gripped him in their jaws.

Who should replace him as the Democrats’ standard bearer? I don’t have a clue. I do know this: Whoever emerges at the top of the Democratic ticket will have my support over the former Dipsh** in Chief who continues to masquerade as a Republican.

And, yes, that support extends to President Joe Biden should he stay in this race for its duration.

national news

POTUS falls short

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My hope leading up to President Biden’s 22-minute interview with ABC News’s George Stephanopoulos was that Biden would hit it so damn far out of the park that we never would discuss whether he was “up to the job” of being president.

He whiffed.

Three or four times, Stephanopoulos asked Biden if he would consent to an independent test of his mental acuity. He declined to say “yes” or “no.” He said something about being “tested every day” while he continues to function as president.

Biden’s frightening debate performance prompted the interview. It was intended to dispel concerns about the president’s ability to do the job. Do I share those concerns? Not necessarily.

I do share the concern that the international chatter about the debate performance is damaging his re-election effort against a guy who has no business running for office …. let alone standing in position potentially to wrest it from the individual who defeated him four years ago.

We are entering uncharted waters, gang.

Joe Biden

Biden on the hot seat

All of us are entitled to change our mind on important matters … correct? Therefore, I am going to announce to you a shift in my thought process on the difficulty that President Biden is facing.

I have declared my desire that Biden stay in office, that he not back down, that he not forgo a re-election campaign. My commitment to that stance is beginning to waver.

The president is facing the kind of pressure to pull out that none of us has witnessed. He stumbled badly this past week in the debate with Donald Trump. He sounded confused. He looked even worse, appearing at times as if he couldn’t remember what he had just said or the latest lie that flew out of Trump’s overfed pie hole.

I am not going to wander down the alley that suggests that Biden has lost his snap that he should suspend his campaign and hand the effort over to a young gun.

That is his decision to make. Only the president can know if he is up to the task. I believe he is, but I am peering at him through a far-away prism. My thought at this moment is that if he makes that decision to pull out that I will support him.

Joe Biden

Stop the armchair diagnoses!

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Everyone’s a doctor, a scientist, someone with inside knowledge on what makes total strangers tick.

You hear it especially when a prominent individual is forced to answer questions about his or her mental acuity. The most prominent person on Earth, President Biden, is facing those questions these days. He endured that hideous debate performance the other evening and now is being pressured to drop out of his race for re-election to the presidency.

Biden says he ain’t going to do it. He says he plans to soldier on. He says only he can defeat Donald J. Trump, which he did four years ago. A whole host of things now work in his favor: Trump’s convictions on felony counts; the nation’s economic revival; Trump’s continuing blather about The Big Lie; Biden’s ability to rally international support against the immoral Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Then the 81-year-old president stumbled badly in that debate against the consummate liar.

I’ll lay out my bias for you. Biden is not diminished to where he cannot do the job to which we elected him. Trump is patently unfit at any level one can imagine for the job he seeks. I base my assertions about Biden on what I have witnessed, albeit from a distance. I concluded long before he won the 2016 election that Trump’s professional experience and his personal proclivities render him unfit for public office.

I am going to hang with the president until he decides all by himself whether he wants to keep fighting for his job … and fighting for you and me.

national news

What is going on with POTUS?

What in the ever-lovin’ world have we come to in this country, debating whether to replace an incumbent president of the United States in the middle of his re-election campaign?

I have to ask this rhetorical question: Is President Biden the first incumbent ever to stumble and bumble his way through a televised debate? He isn’t!

Therefore, I am going to stick — for now — to my earlier thought that Democrats need to back off the dump-Biden bandwagon. The president’s family wants him to stay in the race, So do many Democrats, I am one American patriot who wants Biden to hang tough and to prepare for the next scheduled debate planned for September against Donald Trump.

Let’s understand something that needs attention at this moment. Replacing a presidential nominee who already has garnered enough convention delegates to win the nomination is a prescription for chaos. The delegates already are committed. Where they would do if Biden is thrown over is anyone’s guess.

Do I believe he can do the job? Yes I do, Give him the opportunity to prove he still is up to the task to which we elected him.