Tag Archives: 2024 election

Accusations aren’t ‘false’

A critic of High Plains Blogger has accused me of saying things about the presumed Republican Party presidential nominee that are false.

Well, I am going to challenge that allegation with this brief post.

He writes: You bash Trump with false accusations and give credit to Biden where’s there’s very little credit to be given.

Nothing I have said about the presumptive GOP nominee is “false.” As for “credit” being given to President Biden, I’ll save that comment for another post.

I have said for as long as I have been writing this blog — and it’s been many years — that I do not mind criticism of its content; just don’t ascribe impure motives to me for expressing these views. They are mine alone and I take responsibility for them. As for my motivation, some folks over the years have questioned my faith, and my patriotism. I take a back seat to no one on either matter.

My accusations against the 45th POTUS are based on what juries have determined, what legally constituted prosecutors have said in criminal indictments and even on the visual record of video and audio recordings the world has seen and heard with its own eyes and ears.

The falsehood or the truth about any of it has yet to be determined in courts of law. My sincere and fervent hope is that we get to those determinations sooner rather than later.

I am just going to make this point one more time — and it likely won’t be the final time: The idiot whom Republicans will nominate for POTUS is unfit for any public office in the land.

Democrats seek ‘all-blue vote’

National Democratic Party officials are asking those of us who fear the possibility of a Republican return to power in the White House to do something I find objectionable.

They want us to “vote all blue” throughout the ballots we are going to get on Nov. 5.

I am afraid I cannot do that. Voting straight-Democratic Party line at election time runs counter to my firmly held belief that voters need to examine every race individually and determine who is the better candidate for every position being contested.

I am planning to endorse the Democratic nominees for POTUS and for U.S. Senate in Texas. That’s no surprise to those who read this blog. What might surprise some of you is that I likely will cast my vote for Republican candidates farther down the ballot. Moreover, I am keeping an open mind on the race for the 3rd Congressional District in the U.S. House.

I happen to be acquainted with several candidates running for public office in Collin County, where I reside. They belong to both major parties. Am I going to punch the straight-party spot on the ballot without even considering the candidates who represent the other party? I cannot do that in good conscience.

Good government requires voters to exercise their due diligence. I consider myself to be a good-government progressive, which requires me — according to my own definition — to ensure I know the candidates’ stands on issues pertinent to the office they seek.

We have many good men and women running for public office in this county; many of them happen to be Republicans.

Do I want the Democrats to retain the White House? Yes! Do I want the Dems to strengthen their grip on the U.S. Senate? Again, yes. Do I want them to take control of the U.S. House? Ditto on that, too.

There are compelling issues at stake at the presidential and congressional levels. That is as far as it goes. Voting “all blue” means casting aside worthy candidates for the Texas Legislature and for countywide offices that in reality shouldn’t even be considered on partisan ballots.

I’m in on the “all blue” initiative … to a point.

Let the campaign commence

The strangest presidential campaign in my memory has begun in earnest … and the two major-party candidates haven’t even been nominated yet by their respective parties.

President Biden is running for re-election against the nimrod he defeated in 2020. For reasons that I cannot explain or understand, he is running — for the time being — as the underdog in this contest.

I don’t get it. The economy is rocking along. Americans clearly are better off than they were when he took office in January 2021. He campaigned on a pledge to restore our nation’s “soul,” and I believe he has succeeded. He’s got more work to do and in my view he has earned the right to finish the job.

But, oh my … this campaign is as weird as any I have seen in all my years watching and, in some cases, covering these events. In fact, it’s the weirdest campaign I can remember.

The Republican nominee-in-waiting is cozying up to dictators. He calls the Hungarian thug/despot a “strong leader” and sounds as if he wants to govern the United States the way his good pal governs Hungary. Oh, my God in heaven. Please … no!

He threatens to dismantle NATO, all but pledges to look the other way while Russian thug Vladimir Putin “does whatever the hell he wants” by attacking a NATO ally while he prosecutes the war in Ukraine.

All of that and more run totally counter to American ideals. Yet the dipsh** continues to lead in public opinion polling.

Are we that stupid, that ignorant, that cynical as a nation to let this guy have his way? May we all come to our senses between now and Nov. 5, when Election Day arrives.

How is this race even close?

I admit that I am slow on the uptake at times, particularly when it comes to certain political trends.

The state of the current presidential campaign is my latest example.

I will go to my grave more than likely wondering how in the name of God Almighty that President Joe Biden finds himself fighting for his political life against the likely Republican nominee.

The GOP nimrod pledged to craft an infrastructure plan. He didn’t. He pledged to build a wall on the southern border and make Mexico pay for it. He didn’t do that either. He said he would declare war on the COVID pandemic and fight like hell against it. Oh, man, he failed miserably.

Biden succeeded him in 2021 and got Congress to pass an infrastructure bill and then defeated the pandemic. Yeah, the border crisis has worsened, but he’s redoubling his efforts there.

The economy is rockin ‘n rollin’ and Joe Biden can take some credit for that.

It should be a runaway. Biden should be facing the prospect of a landslide victory in November. He likely won’t get one.

The former Liar in Chief figures to make it a close race. How in the world a twice-impeached and multiple indicted candidate is hanging in there is beyond my capacity to understand.

GOP about to go ’round the bend

What passes for a once-great American political party tonight appears ready to ’round the ol’ bend, from traditional conservatism to something few of us recognize.

A former POTUS who was impeached twice by the U.S. House and now stands indicted in four courts — two state and two federal — of high crimes is likely to win enough delegates to seal his nomination to the presidency in 2024.

God help us all!

I have refused to mention this clown’s name on this blog. My pledge to avoid mentioning it remains strong. I am deeply troubled that the party he claims to represent no longer appears to care about a politician’s character. Indeed, the fellow who’s likely to be nominated in 2024 doesn’t have any character; he lacks morals; he lacks compassion; he lacks grace.

He is unfit for public office.

However, he is poised to claim the nomination of a party he has co-opted and hijacked.

I cannot even fathom what many of the great Republicans of the past would think of what has become of their party.

End of ads looms … hooray!

I can state with a fair amount of confidence that the No. 1 reason I look forward to Primary Election Day 2024 is the cessation of the endless stream of political ads on TV.

Oh, brother. Spare me. Please!

They have been non-stop, repetitive, boring and only semi-truthful as far as I can determine.

The Republican Party primary is getting most of the attention, given the effort put forth by Texas Attorney General  Ken Paxton to defeat state legislators who favored his impeachment this past year.

And the next time I hear the words “true conservative” when describing these GOP candidates, I am likely to, well … aww hell, I don’t know. I might just curse out loud.

Liberals are called conservative and vice versa. This is just on the GOP side. Who do I believe? I don’t know. Nor do I care. That’s ignorance and apathy all rolled up into one Texas voter.

I am casting my ballot tomorrow morning. First thing. Going to the polling place in Princeton, where I am likely to run into a horde of campaign workers standing outside the designated wall of separation from the polling station.

I’ll just breeze on past ’em and cast my ballot.

Then I’ll get to wait for the next go-round in TV ads. For now, I am getting a breather. Not a day — or a moment — too soon.

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.

Wait for ‘RINO!’ epithet

Mitt Romney, the Republican junior senator from Utah, has made his choice for president clear … which is that he will “absolutely not” vote for the presumptive GOP nominee this year.

Romney famously called the former POTUS a “phony and a fraud” in 2016. Then he became the first senator to vote to convict a president from his own party when the former Liar in Chief stood trial in the first of two impeachments.

Romney says “character counts” for his vote. Thus, he cannot vote for the party’s nominee if it happens to be the idiot who stands ready to accept the Republican nomination.

The fans of the ex-POTUS are going to proclaim Romney to be a Republican In Name Only. Why? Because he isn’t loyal to the moron who once held the presidency.

Hey, Sen. Mitt Romney is much more of a Republican than the guy he opposes.

Turn out the lights, Nikki

Dandy Don Meredith, the late Dallas Cowboys quarterback who gained additional fame as an NFL broadcaster, used to sing the lyrics of a song during a blowout game on TV.

“Turn out the lights,” the pride of Mount Vernon, Texas, would sing, “the party’s over.”

Nikki Haley, the former South Carolina governor, had hoped for a breakthrough in her home state that had its Republican Party presidential primary this weekend. It didn’t occur. Instead, the breakthrough began for the former Idiot in Chief, whose crushing primary victory over Haley all but assures him the party’s presidential nomination.

Haley had said she would be in the hunt for the duration, win or lose at home. After the votes were counted, she changed her tune, saying she would stay in “at least through Super Tuesday.”

Super Tuesday occurs March 5. A lot of states are conducting their primaries that day. Texas is one of them. The last Texas poll I saw showed the former POTUS is swamping Haley by more than 30 points.

Where am I going with this? Haley will have to pack it in after Super Tuesday. She cannot win the party’s nomination. The bottom line is that the Republican Party will become the party of the ex-POTUS for the third consecutive general election.

The moron managed to win the 2016 election. He lost it in 2020. Both times he garnered far fewer actual votes than either Hillary Clinton or Joe Biden. A lot of wise men and women suggest now that the former Liar in Chief is in position to recapture the White House.

For the ever-lovin’ life of me I cannot fathom how this can happen. We have an enormous body of evidence to suggest that the chaos and confusion that occurred during this idiot’s term in office will be multiplied manyfold if a second term occurs. He vows to be his supporters’ “retribution.”

This person is a frightening — and, yes, evil — threat to our democracy. After Super Tuesday, it appears he will be the last man standing in one of the weirdest political primaries in memory.

Were he still among us, Dandy Don would be getting ready to sing.

Frustration builds with each mention of his name

My frustration level is being tested by the news media that keeps reporting on the status of the Republican Party campaign for president of the United States.

It ratchets up a little with each mention of the GOP frontrunner’s name. I know the media talking heads cannot refuse to mention him — by name. It is left, therefore, for chump bloggers like me to boycott any mention of him. So … that’s what I am doing. If you’re OK with that, thanks; if not, that’s too damn bad.

My frustration stems from this guy’s position as the frontrunner. That he’s even leading the remaining challenger at all is enough to send me into orbit. He is unfit for public office, but you’ve heard me say that many times already on High Plains Blogger.

This clown, though, is not unfit in what passes for the minds of his MAGA cult followers. They continue to whoop and holler at the lies that pour of his pie hole and he continues to believe that most Americans are buying into them. Earth to The Former Guy: Most of us out here know all about the fraudulent nature of your career.

One of the options I am employing to put a curb on my frustration level is to turn off the TV news channels. I don’t watch much national news these days; I do watch the local folks who do a good job telling us what is happening in North Texas.

By all that is normal — or what we used to define as normal — the former Moron in Chief has no business leading a formerly great political party’s race for the White House.

But not a damn thing in this whacked-out political world of ours is normal these days.