Tag Archives: Big Lie

State news

GOP: party of liars

It pains me to say this, but I feel as though I must get something off my chest. Whatever is left of the Republican Party has become a haven for liars.

The Texas Tribune, for instance, points out that Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton and one of the challengers in the GOP primary set for Tuesday, U.S. Rep. Louie Gohmert, happen to agree on a specious contention, that the 2020 election was “stolen” from Donald J. Trump.

As the Tribune reports: “The majority of Republican primary voters are very likely open to the argument that Joe Biden did not legitimately win the election,” said Jim Henson, a pollster and director of the Texas Politics Project. “It’s not a fringe position in the Republican party. It’s become orthodoxy.”

That “orthodoxy” suggests a narrow-mindedness I never thought I would see in what used to be considered one of the nation’s great political parties. It suggests a gullibility among a bloc of voters that portends danger ahead. Those who adhere to what everyone calls The Big Lie put our democratic process in dire peril of unraveling.

https://www.texastribune.org/2022/02/24/texas-attorney-general-election-integrity/

This is scary stuff, man.

Paxton has drawn the endorsement of Trump, even though Gohmert has been every bit the Trumpkin while representing East Texas in Congress. Indeed, Gohmert also has promoted another bit of “fake news” by suggesting that Barack Obama wasn’t qualified to serve as president because — you guessed it — he was “born in Kenya.”

You see, the once-Grand Ol Party has become an organization populated by ignorant cultists. It’s sickening in the extreme.

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national news, political news

Wanting to put the past … in the past

Almost nothing in this good old world would please me more than to put the past in the past, that we would just stop talking about the 2020 election, the one in which Joe Biden defeated Donald Trump.

If only we could put the past behind us.

The problem is that Trump keeps repeating The Big Lie. He keeps telling us the election was “stolen” from him. That Biden won only because dead people cast ballots and that elections officials in many key states were so corrupt that they manipulated ballots to create a Biden victory.

None of that happened! Hence, we have The Big Lie!

Why doesn’t Trump let the issue just wither away and die? Because he can’t. He won’t. He refuses to accept that he lost the election.

So, The Big Lies lives on. We keep talking about it. I don’t want to talk about it. I want to talk about the future. I want to look ahead.

I want Donald Trump to disappear. I want him to vanish behind the gilded gates at Mar-a-Lago, never to be heard from or seen again.

Go … away … Donald!

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national news, political news

GOP hotshot speaks for other GOPers

Chris Christie said something the other day that other distinguished Republicans reportedly think in private but are too chicken to say it out loud.

Christie, a former New Jersey governor, ex-presidential candidate and former confidant of Donald Trump, said this to radio gabber Hugh Hewitt:

“January 6 was a riot that was incited by Donald Trump in an effort to intimidate Mike Pence and the Congress into doing exactly what he said in his own words last week: overturn the election. He wanted the election to be overturned.”

There you have it. The truth spills out, again … this time from a Republican of some note.

Chris Christie said what a lot of Republican are thinking about January 6 (msn.com)

Perhaps the ex-governor is trying to restore his reputation as a tough talker who doesn’t give a damn about the consequences. Or perhaps — and this is likely a stretch — Christie is just plain fed up to his eyeballs with the incessance of The Big Lie that Trump keeps repeating, that the 2020 election was stolen from him.

Good grief! It was the most secure election in history. The guy Trump hired to ensure its security said so — and then got fired for telling us the truth.

I am glad to hear Gov. Christie say out loud what he should have said all along. If only other Republicans — and that includes the voters out here in the cheap seats — would agree with the words of wisdom.

And then act on them.

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national news, political news

You go, Marc Short!

Former Vice President Mike Pence’s chief of staff has found his voice along with his former boss in the wake of Donald Trump’s Big Lie and his insistence that Pence could summarily overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election.

Short told “Meet the Press” host Chuck Todd that “snake oil salesmen” filled Trump’s vacuous skull with notions that Pence had more authority than the Constitution allowed. That he could have overturned the results of several Joe Biden-won states into votes for Trump.

Uhh, No. He couldn’t do that. To his credit, the former VP didn’t do it. He stood on the rule of law, even though the POTUS pressured him to act way beyond his constitutional authority.

Pence has said that “Trump is wrong” to have made that demand. Now we hear from Pence’s No. 1 guy in the administration, his chief of staff.

What’s more, Short told Todd that President Biden was “duly elected president of the United States” in 2020. Well, it took him a while to come around. He did and for that I am grateful.

Short has now joined a sort of hall of honor in becoming a new target for Donald Trump’s brain-dead epithets.

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Donald Trump

Ex-POTUS shows his profound stupidity

(Photo by BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP via Getty Images)

Donald J. Trump’s ability to demonstrate his abject stupidity has become the stuff of political legend, or at least the stuff of tittering and gossip.

Mike Pence, who served as vice president in the Trump administration, has said the former Insurrectionist in Chief was “wrong” to suggest that the VP had the authority to “overturn” a duly constituted election. What was Trump’s response? He decided to hurl epithets not only at Trump, but also at “Old Crow Mitch McConnell,” whatever the hell that means.

You see, all Pence did in his talk to the Federalist Society the other day was to declare that the law is clear, that the vice president had zero authority to do what Trump demanded of him, which was to reject electoral votes cast for Joe Biden and award them to Trump.

Pence said he couldn’t do that. So … Donald, for cryin’ out loud, you need to stop fomenting The Big Lie about phony vote fraud. I know he won’t stop. He likely will go to his grave bellowing nonsensical trash about “corrupt” electoral processes and “rigged elections.”

Donald Trump will check out more than likely on the wave of stupidity on which he rode to public office in the first place.

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national news

Vote theft = profound irony

The irony of what we are learning through dribs and drabs of Donald John Trump’s culpability in the 1/6 insurrection is just too profound to ignore.

What have we learned? That Trump actually sought to “overturn” the results of the 2020 presidential election, according to his own words. That he pressured Vice President Mike Pence to disallow Electoral College votes that went to Joe Biden while Pence was presiding over the electoral vote certification on 1/6. That he allegedly met with White House staff prior to the riot to plot how he could “legally” call for the seizure of voting machines.

The best part is that we have a clear recording of Trump demanding that Georgia’s secretary of state, Brad Raffensberger, “find” 11,780 votes to swing the state from Biden’s corner to Trump’s. Voter theft? There it is!

And now think of this: Donald Trump’s Big Lie, that the 2020 election was “stolen” from him was being played out in real time by the then-president’s own effort to steal the election from the Biden, who won it fairly, squarely and legally.

Voter fraud? Vote theft? Trump alleges falsely that President Joe Biden’s team stole the election, all the while conspiring to do the same thing himself!

Wow, man!

The House 1/6 select committee is ramping up its probe into what occurred on that horrifying day. It is summoning key White House aides, including at least one member of Trump’s family — elder daughter Ivanka — to testify to what they knew and when they knew it. My creaky old bones are telling me that there could be some criminal indictments hurled by the committee in due course.

If so, then no one should be exempt. I shall repeat: No one should be exempt from the quest for the truth. That would include the man who masqueraded for four years as our head of state and commander in chief … the guy who sought to pilfer the election from the guy who won it honestly.

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national news

Anger makes me angry

Anger is an emotion that fills me with — yep, that’s right — anger, lots of anger.

I get angry with myself for feeling as angry as I do at times, particularly over matters or individuals I cannot control. The current political climate swirling around us provides me with the latest example of how angry I have become.

I am angry at the politicians and their sycophants who continue to keep The Big Lie alive and kicking. The Big Lie, as you know, purports to suggest that Donald Trump actually won the 2020 presidential election. He didn’t. He lost it bigly.

He came to Texas this past weekend and proclaimed, among many falsehoods, that the “election system is corrupt.” Dammit to hell, anyway! It isn’t! When he says such a thing, he defames the good men and women associated with both major political parties who take an oath to do their jobs with integrity and honesty and then follow that oath to the letter.

That makes me angry as hell. However, I also get angry with myself because the only weapon I have is this blog in which I can express my anger. I want to make a difference. I want this anger to sink into the thick skulls of the individuals who ignite these hard feelings. It doesn’t. I feel as though I am talking to the chair on which I am sitting at this moment.

My anger is visceral these days in a way I have never experienced. I find myself using harsh language when referencing the ex-POTUS. So help me, I never have used this kind of language when referring to POTUSes who never got my vote.

I want the anger to pass. I fear that the only way that’ll happen will be for the man who lights the fuse to disappear. I just will have to deal with my anger and seek to avoid getting so damn angry at myself.

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Uncategorized

Encounter proves a point

I am going to tell you about a brief — and fairly unpleasant — encounter I had with someone who believes retired Army Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn is “an honorable man.”

This person delivered a bit of proof I sought to make in an earlier blog post.

It was a social media encounter. This person and I belong to the same Facebook group that features conservative commentary. She wrote something about Flynn being an honorable man. I responded that I don’t think he’s honorable. I said he lied to the FBI, he sought to persuade Donald Trump to declare “martial law” to keep his job after losing the 2020 election to Joe Biden and he led the “lock her up!” chant at the GOP convention in 2016, wanting Hillary Clinton to be jailed over the email matter.

My foe said Flynn had been “exonerated” on all the charges brought against him. Thus, according to my acquaintance, he is honorable.

Her final response to me was that I am a “Democrat” and I adhere to the “fake news” being peddled by progressives. I am “involved with their ideology.”

I had made a point in an earlier blog post about the impossibility of discussing policy matters with those who adhere to Trump’s Big Lie. I believe my latest foe has proved my point. I will engage this person any longer. I did think it was useful to make this point in another post on this blog.

Debate is impossible | High Plains Blogger

It’s not that I believe I am a brilliant thinker. It’s just that every now and again individuals rise to the occasion to make me seem a lot smarter than I actually am.

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Uncategorized

Debate is impossible

1 Comment

There can be no doubt at all that one cannot debate intelligently the elements of The Big Lie when one side of this dispute comprises individuals who have sworn an oath of idiocy.

The Big Lie is being supported by the cultists who follow the garbage that flows from Donald Trump’s mouth about the phony theft of the 2020 presidential election.

They continue to say:

  • That Trump won the 2020 election.
  • That legislatures should decertify the Electoral College results showing that Joe Biden actually won that election.
  • That Trump will be returned to the presidency.
  • That the “insurrection” occurred in November 2020 when Americans cast their ballots for president.

These Americans are certifiably insane. You cannot engage in intelligent debate with morons … who are led by the Moron in Chief.

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media news

Trump got more than he deserves

One aspect of the National Public Radio interview that Donald J. Trump gave deals with the conduct of the interviewer juxtaposed with the treatment he got from the subject of his interview.

I am going to presume Trump agreed to the NPR interview that was broadcast this morning to spread his Big Lie beyond the base of support to which he still clings.

The interviewer, Steve Inskeep, is a professional journalist who enjoys great standing among those of us who love the craft of journalism. Inskeep did a great job maintaining his composure while withstanding Trump’s bellicosity.

He also gave the ex-president far more respect than I believe Donald Trump ever deserved. That’s just me, I suppose, but I believe it to be true.

That’s what journalists do. The speak respectfully to their subjects and give them every opportunity to explain themselves in detail. Trump chose to avoid any detailed explanation of The Big Lie involving allegations of voter fraud, electoral theft and that the 2020 presidential election was “rigged” to ensure Joe Biden’s victory.

A lesser man could have exploded at the viciousness of Trump’s lying. Inskeep, though, is a consummate professional. He knows his job is to give the subjects of his interviews the time they seek to explain their positions.

Except that Trump didn’t deliver any sort of detail. He did not attempt to offer any evidence of the specious allegations of vote fraud … because there is no evidence to offer.

Trump hung up the phone on Inskeep after nine minutes of haranguing and hectoring and interrupting him while he sought to ask probing questions.

Through it all, Steve Inskeep kept his composure and acted the part of the consummate professional. He did his job.

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