Tag Archives: MAGA

national news

Trump 2.0 no better than Trump 1.0

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Word out of D.C. is that the second version of the Donald Trump adminisration is different from the first one.

The pundit class suggests that this version of Trump came into office prepared for the rigors of the office, whereas the first time around he entered office with nary a clue about anything.

The difference appears to be that Trump knows this time what he wants to do and is going about his business with ruthlessness and callous disregard for how it affects the people whose lives he is changing.

That’s better than before? Hardly!

The area where Trump remains horribly ignorant is in understanding the limits of his power. Whereas the first version of Trump didn’t know what the hell he was doing, the second version of him knows what he wants … but then issues orders as if they have the force of law.

The don’t.

A president cannot summarily fire public service employees. Nor can he dismantle a Cabinet office created by Congress. Nor can a POTUS ignore willingly an order issued by a federal judge. Nor can a president demand a judge be impeached just because he or she issues an order that angers Trump.

It’s far worse than a mixed bag with this version of the once-former president. He might be more organized and more pulled together than he was when he stumbled into office in 2017.

He also is far more dangerous than many of us even imagined.

Uncategorized

World has gone mad!

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Let us be sure we don’t pussyfoot around the obvious … which is that our political world has gone stark-raving mad.

How can I make such a claim? I have a friend in Germany, a journalist and a student of American politics. He usually is spot on with his understanding of U.S. political trends, as he said they occasionally mirror developing trends in Germany.

My friend wrote me a note that led with this: “I don’t understrand what is happening to your country.”

The major concern for my friend is the U.S.’s new found friendship with an assassin, a killer, a dictator and a highly aggressive head of state, Vladimir Putin.

Putin invaded Ukraine three years ago in a bold-faced territory grab from a sovereign nation. Ukraine also is an ally of the United States. President Biden immediately went to NATO officials to enlist their support for our financial and materiel aid to Ukraine. He got it.

Now, Biden is retired. He’s gone back to Delaware and is playing with his grandkids. Meanwhile, the nimrod who succeeded him has cozied up to Putin, seeking to broker a cease fire. Donald Trump hasn’t made a single demand of Russia other than for the troops to stop firing at Ukrainians.

Therefore, my friend in the beautifiul Bavaria region of Germany is as confused as many of us are about what has become of this nation.

For the first time in U.S. history, we have turned our backs on a dependable ally — Ukraine — in favor of an aggressor state while the two countries are in the middle of a bloody ground war!

Therein lies my friend’s confusion. He doesn’t understand this country. Nor do I.

legal news

Would he dare seek a third term?

A member of my family, a fellow I consider to be a smart fellow, says he is concerned that Donald J. Trump will be able to finagle his way into a third term as POTUS.

He knows the Constitution’s 22nd Amendment limits the president to two elected terms. He knows that Trump has been elected twice.

I reminded my relative that Trump cannot do anything single-handedly. He needs Congress to amend the 22nd Amendment. Then he would need three-quarters of the 50 states to ratify it.

“It won’t happen,” I beseeched him. “Ohhhh, I don’t know,” came his reply.

The nation’s founders didn’t write a perfect governing document. It has been amended 27 times since its ratificationn in 1789. The founders, though, did set the bar quite high for those who want to change the framework of our democratic republic. They set strict legislative requirements and set a high standard for the number of state legislators needed to ratify an amendment.

Donald Trump, it seems to many of us, would like to be able to seek a third term as POTUS. But, he’ll be 83 years of age when his current term ends. The founders made it clear that to change the Constitutiion, pro-amendment fanatics need to jump through a lot of hoops to make it happen.

Trump and his moronic MAGA minions might think they hold all the cards to change the Constitution. They don’t. The founders made damn sure of the document’s strength by building in “checks and balances” to keep presidents in check.

It has worked so far. It will continue to do its job.

legal news

SCOTUS chief pushes back … a bit

Media reports saiy that U.S. Chief Justice John Roberts is pushing back on Donald Trump’s call to impeach federal judges who rule against him.

I consider the chief’s response to be a tepid rejoinder. Then again, the chief justice of the nation’s highest court need not scream and bellow in a manner resembling what Trump demonstrates.

Roberts said that impeaching a judge is an “inappropriate” form of protesting a court ruling. He said the appeals process has worked for two centuries and that should be the way to respond to a ruling one dislikes.

Fine. I get the message. I fear it will be lost on the Maniac in Chief.

What fascinates me, though, as I watch Trump bloviate about all the revenge he intends to seek is that the courts do remain reasonably solid in the checks and balances realm of our federal government. Trump’s moronic staffers suggest that certain judges lack jurisdictiion or standing to rule as they do.

That’s pure crap. The only body that makes that call is the nine-member Supreme Court, whose chief has laid out what the Constitution allows.

Judicial impeachment is off the table!

national news

Does this oath even matter?

Donald J. Trump took his presidential oath of office in January while doing something that wasn’t lost on me or millions of others: He did not put his hand on a Bible.

Thus, when he vowed to “defend and protect” the Constitution and the government under which the founders created, that must have given him some way out of sticking to the sacred oath presidents normally take.

That must be the only possible rationale he is applying as he and Elon Musk lay waste to the government he vowed to defend and protect.

The Trump vow to be his supporters’ “retribution” is playing out as he and Musk fire thousands of public servants, seeking to slash billions of dollars from the budget.

Trump now, I suppose, can look at himself in the mirror and say with an overfed straight face that he can do all this without violating any sacred oath. Good grief! The guy is without conscience, without any moral compass, without any sense of empathy or decency.

Why else would he bring Earth’s richest human being on board to do his dirty work? Musk has none of those aforementioned qualities, so he can issue orders from his DOGE platform. Indeed, Musk doesn’t even have to answer to voters, as he didn’t run for office. He’s a hired gun whose task is to be Trump’s hit man.

I wasn’t alert enough to expect this kind of blowback at the second Trump inaugural when I noticed that Trump didn’t put his hand on a Bible. The gesture likely meant nothing at all to a man with zero compassion for the lives he is grinding into the dirt.

local news

Love this service

I am going to sound like a self-righteous do-gooder with this brief blog post, so I’ll apologize in advance for anyone who takes it that way.

I deliver Meals on Wheels every Monday to about a dozen households in Princeton. It takes me a little more than an hour to deliver a hot meal, a bottle of milk and a dessert/snack to shut-ins.

It is truly a gratifying hour-plus I spend each week. Almost without exception these folks greet me with a smile and a good word. For many of them it is clear to me they don’t talk with anyone outside of immediate family. Many of them have timed my arrival, as it’s about the same each week. They open the door as I am walking to deliver the knock or ring the bell.

We engage in small talk. They wish me well. One sweet lady near the end of my route always instructs me to “be careful, darlin’.”

How in the world can one start your day any better than that?

And yet … here’s where the politics comes in. The Elon Musk/Donald Trump administration well might ponder a way to cut funding for thie program. I haven’t yet heard whether the Collin County branch of Meals on Wheels is in jeopardy. I only am left to hope that it somehow survives the draconian cuts that Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency is pondering.

Keep your grimy mitts off this valuable service we provide for those in need.

national news

RIP, Sen. Simpson

Alan Simpson has left this good Earth after spending a career in public life trying to make it a better place.

The U.S. senator from Wyoming wasn’t exactly the kind of public official I would have voted for had I been given the chance. However, he symbolized a bygone era that allowed politicians of vastly different points of view to remain friends even after they tussled over policy issues.

Simpson, who died yesterday at age 93, was as conservative as they come. He also was a good-hearted man who was able to maintain close friendships with the likes of he late Ted Kennedy, the Senate’s renowned “liberal lion,” with whom he fought over policy matters.

The Wyoming senator also was the subject of Tom Brokaw’s book, “The Greatest Generation.” Brokaw told the story of how young Alan befriended a boy who had been sent to Wyoming after the U..S. entered World War II. Robert Matsui was a Japanese-American who’s only “sin” was to be of Japanese descent. The government rounded up hundreds of thousands of Americans and sent them to camps away from the Pacific Coast.

Matsui and Simpson got acquainted through the chain link fence and the razor wire that kept young Bobby locked up. They retained their friendship once they both entered Congress, Simpson as the conservative from Wyoming and Matsui as the liberal from California.

Alan Simpson embodied one of the essential qualities of good government. He was able to set personal friendships aside to debate political matters. When the debate ended, he joined his friends on the other side and had a good laugh.

national news

CR = crappy governance

Continuing resolutions keep bailing our Congress out of fiscal calamity.

Congress diddles and farts around trying to call the bluff of the folks on the other side of the aisle. They dicker over how much to spend and the rest of us hold our breath waiting to see if they can find common ground before the government runs out of money and closes down.

The CR is a crappy way to run a government. It’s got to stop!

The U.S. Senate agreed in a bipartisan vote to accept a Republican budget proposal. Ten Senate Democrats joined their GOP colleagues in agreeing to keep the doors open or another six months.

Then they’ll cue the music for the next budget dance in late summer.

And we’ll go through the same nonsense all over again.

Republicans usually have been the government shutdown culprits. They have screeched the loudest about budget issues and threatened to shut ‘er down if they didn’t get their way. This time, Democrats played that stupid game, resisting the Donald Trump-Elon Musk gambit for wiping out thousands of jobs in an effort to make government “more efficient.”

This so-called budgeting nightmare isn’t more efficient. It is a travesty that subjects everyone to unneeded heartburn and anxiety over whether the government will remain a force for good in people’s lives

Frankly, I hope Democrats can find a way to head off the disaster that awaits if the Trump-Musk tandem gets its way. They should operate from a position of fiscal responsibility, which to my way of thinking means they need to keep our government fully functional.

The ongoing string of CRs isn’t a solution.

International news

Why is globalism evil?

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Donald J. Trump and his moronic MAGA followers decided about a decade agp to declare war on that thing they refer to these days as “globalism.”

They have all said they intend to “put America first,” even if that philosophy destroys our most successful international alliances. They are on track to destroy those alliances built on international fears of tyrants seeking to conquer the world.

Donald Trump came along nearly a decade ago to declare his presidential candidacy. He vowed to “make America great again,” believing foolishly that American somehow had surrendered its greatness. It never did. The country has remained great even during its most difficult crises.

Much of America’s greatness rested in its wilingness to become the leading nation in the global community of nations. Presidents of the United States assumed the unspecified role as leader of the free world. They did so with pride in the nation’s standing internationally.

Globalism, it was long thought, was a good thing. The world has “shrunk” in a figurative way with nations depending on each other for commerce, military aid and cultural exchanges. Globalism, therefore, was not considered a four-letter word.

That is, until Trump came along.

These days we hear from the MAGA minions that globalism lies at the core of perceived difficulties. Many of those so-called difficulties were figmants of political strategists’ imagination. Trump inherited the strongest economy in generations, yet he managed to persuade enough voters in 2024 that their retirement accounts were going straight into the crapper.

Well, many retirees are feeling pain now … but it’s caused by Trump’s tariffs and the uncertainty they bring.

Globalism is not the bogeyman the MAGA gang has made it out to be. It has helped keep us safe, it has generated trade and it has helped Americans keep the jobs they now are losing.

national news

Trump is a fool …

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Why have we elected a fool as president of the US of A?

Can’t explain why, but his inaction the other day as Elon Musk decided to go after Secretary of State Marco Rubio during a Cabinet meeting tells me Americans have elected a fool, who also happens to be a coward.

Reports from that meeting have disclosed that Musk — the unelected head of the Department for Government Efficiency — decided to chastise with malice Rubio’s handling of the orders that Musk has issued regarding layoffs at the State Department.

Rubio answered that he works a the pleasure of the president and not to Musk.

But what did The Man himself do about any of it? Not a damn thing! Hence, we must describe Donald Trump as a fool masquerading as the toughest man in the room. He is no such thing.

I happen to think relatively highly of Rubio, a former Republican senator from Florida. He once ran against Trump for the 2016 GOP presidential nomination. He called Trump a “con man” and a fraud, urging Americans to resist casting their ballots the so-called champion “for the little guy.”

Rubio sought while running against Trump to expose him for the blustering buffoon he has turned out to be. Then he became a Trump toadie once his former foe got elected POTUS.

What I must remind y’all is that Rubio stands high up in the presidential line of sucession, at No. 4 behind the VP, the House speaker, and the Senate president pro tempore.  Musk’s standing? It’s nowhere, as he was born in South Africa, made his billions and now has the ear of the POTUS.

For Elon Musk to dress down the nation’s top diplomat is a disgrace. That the president would allow it is even more disgraceful.

Yep. Americans have elected a fool to be our head of state.