Tag Archives: 2020 election

crime news, national news, political news

Disgust is sinking in

There can be no way to describe adequately what I am feeling now about the progress of the criminal proceedings against the 45th president of the United States.

Dude somehow is managing to run out the clock on several fronts. What’s even more disgusting is that he might be getting help from a supposedly “impartial” jurist who might be setting the table for an instructed verdict of acquittal in the federal case involving the ex-POTUS’s pilfering of classified documents.

U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon, whom the former Moron in Chief appointed to the federal bench, keeps issuing goofball rulings that benefit her fella … the aforementioned ex-POTUS.

The latest one has been vilified by legal scholars from stem to stern on its weirdness. Cannon has instructed prosecutors led by special counsel Jack Smith and the criminal defendant’s counsel to provide reams of “discovery” evidence on the eve of when the trial is supposed to start.

The complexity of the ruling reportedly suggests that the judge might be able to issue a bench ruling calling for an acquittal. If it holds up! That’s not a sure thing, or so I am led to believe.

The ex-POTUS also is stalling in the case involving the New York state trial on the hush money he paid to the porn actress to keep her quiet about a one-night stand the two of them had in 2006. The former Idiot in Chief denies ever engaging in sex with Stormy Daniels but cut her a $130,000 check to keep quiet about it. Go … figure!

The trial on the 1/6 assault on our government — the one the ex-POTUS provoked on the Ellipse — has been delayed.

Oh, and the Georgia case? Who knows what’ll happen there. A judge says the DA can stay on the job, but the fellow with whom she had a relationship has resigned as lead prosecutor.

All of this points to the chaos created by the former guy’s stalling tactics.

Let us not forget that he has said all along he is innocent of anything being accused. Despite that, he acts very much like someone with something serious to hide. The stalling and the proclamations of innocence just do not add up.

national news, political news

Stand down, Kari Lake

Kari Lake should have her noggin examined for signs of any life other than that which foments the idiocy that flies out of her mouth.

Lake is the Arizona Republican who is running for the U.S. Senate. She is an avid 2020 election denier and someone who has refused to concede she lost the Arizona governor’s race in 2022.

She wants the U.S. Supreme Court to declare that electronic voting is — get ready for it — unconstitutional!

According to MSN.com: The petition to the court alleges new evidence showing false statements made by defendants regarding the safeguards ensuring vote accuracy. Lake and Finchem’s lawyers argue for an amendment to their allegations on standing, aiming to demonstrate a likelihood of recurring harms in future elections similar to those alleged in the 2022 election.

Hang on a moment. The guy hired by the 45th POTUS to monitor the 2020 election declared it to be “the most secure election in U.S. history.” The former POTUS then fired him because he didn’t get the finding he desired.

Kari Lake Petitions US Supreme Court to Declare Electronic Voting Unconstitutional (msn.com)

What the hell is Lake trying to do? It is baffling in the extreme to believe this is a serious person who well could be elected to the Senate and, thus, be empowered to enact legislation that affects all of us.

That’s you and me, man.

Kari Lake is nuttier than a Snickers bar.

media news, national news, political news

Heartened by media performance

The so-called “mainstream media” are doing the job for which their practitioners signed on as they cover the campaign of the idiot who wants to return to the Oval Office.

I believe they have learned from the mistakes they made when they “covered” his initial campaign president starting with his announcement at the NYC tower that bears his name (for now!).

The media chose to essentially give him a pass on the lies that poured out of his mouth. They gave him space in newspapers and airtime on TV and radio, letting him say things about other politicians, immigrants, war heroes and the dispossessed without challenging the veracity of the claims he made.

Not so in this election cycle, or to some degree the 2020 election cycle when he sought to be re-elected as POTUS.

The four years of the moron’s time as president taught many in the media a bitter lesson, which was that it was duty-bound to call him a “liar” when they detected an untruth spilling out of his overfed pie hole. Only a few commentators, I recall at the time, had the fortitude to call him what he was, is and always will be: a liar.

The media now have the court system to buttress what many of us known all along. A New York court has determined, for instance, that The Former Guy lied to bankers about his wealth to obtain favorable loans. He overstated his self-proclaimed empire, he got caught doing it and has been adjudicated to be a bald-faced liar in a court of law.

Of course, we have The Big Lie, which the former Moron in Chief has used to suggest that the 2020 election was rigged against him. I’ve lost count of the number of court decisions that have declared those allegations to be false. He keeps fomenting The Big Lie and his cult followers continue to buy into it.

Moreover, the media now are reporting the lies up front and with all due vigor and professionalism. They didn’t do so when he first entered the political arena in the summer of 2015.

I am grateful that my former colleagues are doing their jobs now. May they continue to keep us informed … as they must.

national news, political news

Hey, it wasn’t a blowout!

Time for an admission from yours truly. I have been misrepresenting the nature of Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 presidential election.

So, today I am going to offer a mea culpa and set the record straight. It’s important to set the table for the probable rematch between President Biden and the fool he defeated four years ago.

Biden captured 306 electoral votes in 2020; he needed 270 of them to win. I took a quick look at the results from four key states that will be contested heavily this time around.

Arizona, Georgia, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania all voted for Joe Biden in 2020. Biden’s margin of victory in all four states was around 123,000 votes … total!

Had his opponent flipped 64,000 or so votes in those four states in 2020, he would have captured the 65 electoral votes that went to President Biden, who would have finished with 241 electoral votes, with 297 of them going to the former Idiot in Chief.

Imagine, too, that even with Biden’s 7 million popular vote cushion, he still would have lost to The Former Guy.

This is worth mentioning because the stakes in 2024 are even more grim than they were in 2020. The one-time Moron in Chief has vowed to be his supporters’ “retribution.” He has actually pledged to sic the Department of Justice on his foes … and to think he and his MAGA cult followers have accused President Biden of “weaponizing” the DOJ.

This idiot has yet to concede that he actually lost the 2020 election and vows to assume dictatorial powers “if only for a day” if he darkens the Oval Office door yet again.

Americans must not let this guy anywhere near the center of power ever again. Not … ever!

national news, political news

Polls aren’t predictors

I have to remind myself of an important fact as I ponder these public opinion polls showing President Biden possibly losing his re-election bid to the leading Republican challenger.

It is that the polls are not predictors of what will happen many months from now, but merely are snapshots of the public’s mood in the moment. What does that mean? It means that circumstances can change the public mood in dramatic fashion.

And, oh Lord, there are factors a-plenty out there that could change the minds of millions of Americans preparing to cast their votes for president.

We have several trials awaiting the GOP frontrunner. They are a dizzying array of felony charges. The former POTUS could be convicted of any of the felonies, from one accusing him of seeking to overturn the results of the 2020 election, to hiding classified documents in his posh digs in south Florida, to pressuring election officials in Georgia to “find” enough votes to award him that state’s electoral votes.

If a jury convicts him of any of them, he no longer can run for public office, let alone serve in the one he seeks. It’s on the books, man.

That means voters who currently favor the former POTUS in his bid to return to the office from which he was drummed out in 2020 will have to make decide whether they really want to vote for a convicted felon to become commander in chief of the world’s most powerful military and head of state of the world’s most indispensable nation.

The ex-POTUS can yelp and yammer all he wants about whatever decisions come down. The facts, though, will stand on the record forever if he is convicted of any of the serious charges that have been leveled against him.

President Biden has been a national politician for more than five decades. He knows his way around the political pea patch and no doubt will be able to exploit the obvious flaws in his opponent’s record … presuming, of course, that Republicans are foolish and stupid enough to nominate him.

Am I worried, therefore, about what these polls are telling us today? Nope. The worry will kick in on election eve if they are delivering the same message.

God help us if that occurs.

Donald Trump, local news, national news

No arguing with MAGAites

Command decisions come easily for me these days as a lone wolf who runs his own blog.

So … I am proud to announce that beginning this very moment I no longer am going to argue with the MAGA cultists who continue to back the idiocy preached by Donald Trump.

I just visited with a West Texas friend, who is far from a MAGA adherent, and we determined that there is no avenue of reason available when we engage a MAGA moron on policy matters.

They have swilled the Kool-Aid offered by Trump. It has seeped into their brain’s soft tissue. They are contaminated by the lies, the absolute lack of authenticity, the distortions blathered by Trump.

What, then, is the point of even trying to persuade them that their guy is a crook, who likely will be convicted (eventually!) of felonies relating to his denial of the 2020 presidential election, his theft of classified documents and the conspiracy to “find 11,780 votes” that would enable him to steal the electoral result in Georgia.

Does anyone see the irony? Trump accuses Democrats of trying to steal the 2020 election, but the only thievery taking place comes from Republicans!

From this moment forward, I no longer am going to debate with the MAGA morons. See y’all in the next life.

national news

Pence drops out … wow!

Former Vice President Mike Pence’s decision to end his 2024 presidential campaign speaks loudly about the state of affairs within what passes for today’s Republican Party.

Think for a moment about this. Of all the members of the previous administration, damn few of them have stood out as believing that their oaths of office were to the Constitution, not to the individual who led the government for four years from 2017 until 2021.

Pence was one of those who stood for the rule of law when Donald Trump and others sought to coerce him into overturning the results of the 2020 election. Pence said he had no authority to do anything other than what he did, which was to certify the election results and declare that Joe Biden had been elected president of the United States.

It is true, in my view, that Pence did little else of note during his term as VP.  But his refusal to disobey the law and the Constitution stands out.

And it cost him among Republican presidential primary voters, as they appear wedded to the propaganda peddled by the former POTUS.

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.

crime news, legal news, national news

FBI says ‘no insurrection’? Hmm …

I have been schooled by a critic of this blog who tells me the FBI can find no evidence of an “organized plot” to overturn the 2020 presidential election result.

This, for instance, comes from the Daily Beast: Over 570 alleged rioters have been arrested since the storming of the U.S. Capitol in January—but the FBI has reportedly found little evidence that the riot was an organized plot to overturn Donald Trump’s election defeat.

All righty. I will accept that. I must have been looking the other way when the FBI made that determination. I never have declared myself to be all-knowing all the time.

But … what does any of that do to the case leveled against Donald Trump? In my mind? Not much.

The grand jury that examined the 1/6 assault on our government did not cite “insurrection” as a specific charge against Trump. It speaks to obstruction of justice and other assorted crimes allegedly attributable to the ex-POTUS.

I am going to stand with the findings — as I have understood them — of special counsel Jack Smith’s team that Trump impeded efforts to quell the violence that day.

Again, from the Daily Beast: Reuters reports that the FBI has so far found scant evidence to suggest that the riot was centrally coordinated by far-right groups, the former president himself, or his close allies. 

OK, then. However, no one can deny the attack occurred. Nor can anyone deny that Trump delivered a speech that morning on the Ellipse that stirred a lot of individuals up. Many of them were video- and audio-recorded saying they were acting at Trump’s behest, which he delivered to them on the Ellipse. Is that a “centrally coordinated” event? Not in the strict sense of the terminology.

However, he could have stopped it. He could have issued a statement urging the mob to go home. He could have taken to Twitter to issue that call. He didn’t do anything of the sort. He watched it unfold from the White House.

And did nothing!

Am I a bit wiser now about the FBI’s view of what happened? Sure I am. I also remain convinced that Donald Trump needs to be held accountable for his role in what transpired on that horrible day.

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!