Tag Archives: GOP

national news, political news

Vote to avoid impeachment?

Donald J. Trump reportedly now is telling supporters he needs their vote to dodge what many have said from the get-go, which is that Democrats are sure to impeach Trump a third time if they regain control of the U.S. House of Representatives in the midterm election later this year.

I will continue to insist that impeachment isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Sure, it seemingly could stop legislation from moving forward if lawmakers get caught up in the drama of a presidential impeachment. Then again, legislation has all but sputtered and died as legislators have battled openly with the administration over matters that have little to do with policy.

So … what’s the diff?

What astounds me is that a sitting POTUS would appeal to his supporters on such a shallow level. Never mind the idiocy that keeps flowing from the administration. He wants to seize Greenland from Denmark; he believes Canada should become an American state; he has taken a sovereign leader captive and vowed to take over Venezuela. He put his name on the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts; he cheers the notion of Americans losing their jobs; he says not a damn thing about millions of Americans being stripped of their health insurance.

Impeachable offense, anyone? Anyone at all? There are a few of them in the list of misdeeds I have just mentioned.

And, of course, he continues to lie. Bald-faced lies. He says he won the 2024 election in a landslide. He says inflation was the worst in U.S. history when he took office. Holy crap! Dude cannot tell the truth on any issue. Nothing is beyond the liar in chief’s reach!

I think Trump is correct that Democrats will seek to impeach him in 2027. Their failure to do all they can to get this guy out of office will stigmatize them for the rest of time.

crime news, legal news, local news, national news

Impeachment coming? Sure, bring it!

Let’s assume for a moment that the political smart money is telling us the truth, that the next Congress is going to flip to Democratic control and that the House of Reps is going to launch an impeachment against Donald Trump.

We all have heard that Democrats might gain 30 seats on the Republicans who now control Congress. I can’t say whether the pundits think the 30-seat gain is at the top of their projection, at the bottom … or somewhere in the middle. If Trump continues on his slap-dash course it well could exceed the 30-seat turnover by a significant margin.

Is an impeachment necessary? I will allow my bias to peek through the haze and declare: Damn right it’s necessary! I will offer this caveat: I want Democrats to assure us that they can more than one thing at a time, that they can proceed with impeaching Trump and resume their constitutional role of making laws.

Rep. Hakeem Jeffries of New York is likely to be elected speaker and he ought to take a page from the book followed in Texas by then-Speaker Pete Laney. The West Texas cotton farmer said he always simply allowed “the will of the House” to have its way. And so it went during the years that Laney served as the Man of the House.

The will of the U.S. House should be allowed to play the hand it is dealt. If most members believe — as I do — that Trump has committed an impeachable offense or three, then it should act. It also should not allow the legislative process to get caught in a political vise that will clamp down around the White House.

We’ve all heard them say that lawmakers can “do more than one thing at a time.” Impeaching a president is serious business. So is legislating.

economic news, military news, national news

Trump: RINO in chief

Once upon a time, in a galaxy far, far away, the American Republican Party stood for principles the party deemed to be hard and fast … not to be trifled with.

Republicans opposed adding to the national debt. They opposed deficit spending each year on the federal budget. The GOP stood firm against “nation-building” wars overseas. Republicans stood with Democratic President Lyndon Johnson in passing the Voting Rights and Civil Rights acts of 1964 and 1965. The GOP saw the Soviet Union as a national enemy and committed to the destruction of the tyranny preached in the Kremlin.

Hmmm. Those days are gone. Likely forever. Never to be seen again.

Donald Trump is now what I call the Republican In Name Only in chief. He is leading a party that bears no resemblance to the party of Abraham Lincoln, Ronald Reagan or Richard Nixon.

I am trying to imagine President Reagan allowing the national debt to balloon to trillions of dollars. Or President Lincoln allowing the party to embrace white supremacists. Or President Nixon defending the USSR’s direct descendants, Russia, in disputes involving U.S. intelligence findings.

What we have now in charge in D.C., ladies and gents, is a party that has betrayed all those core values. It’s not just the president. He has GOP members of Congress, who are standing with him.

They all — not just Donald Trump — deserve our everlasting condemnation for the direction they have taken this great country.

national news

Year ends in frustration

I hereby declare that the final post on High Plains Blogger in 2025 will end with my hands thrown into the air accompanied by the sigh of frustration from an American patriot who still cannot grasp what has become of the country he loves more than life itself.

That would be me, of course.

The year that is drawing to a merciful close will give way soon to many new opportunities to correct what has gone so terribly wrong. I await 2026 with undying optimism that we’re going to snap out of it, we’ll come to our senses and we will begin charting the corrective course that will save us all.

Donald John Trump was elected in 2024 to another term as the White House gatekeeper. I am finding it difficult these days even to refer to him as president. I vowed after the 2016 election that I would decline to attach the word “President” directly in front of Trump’s name. I have been faithful to that pledge. I accept your congratulations.

Now that we’re one year into the second term, I cannot even refer to his second victory as a “re-election.” The dude did get his melon thumped in 2020 by President Biden and he debased the office even more by declaring his refusal to accept the result and then incited the insurrection on Jan. 6, 2021.

The individual is a disgrace.

The year was spent hiring incompetent boobs to run multibillion-dollar government agencies. The more I think about it, the more logical it seems that the imbecile in chief would surround himself with agency heads who at some level make the man in charge seem smarter than he is. It really hasn’t worked.

What is the remedy? Midterm election. We’re going to elect the entire and House one-third of the Senate in November 2026. The notion that the House is likely to flip from R to D when the ballots are counted gives me hope that a competent House speaker will be able to steer that congressional chamber back to doing what we expect of it. The House will return to governing!

We also have to consider that a third Trump impeachment may occur. I don’t want that to happen. If it does, I want the House to produce proof that could persuade enough GOP House members that they have proof beyond a reasonable doubt that Trump has violated his oath of loyalty to the Constitution.

The reconstruction of our democratic principles can begin in this new year. I will use this blog to do my tiny part to ensure the project gets completed.

media news

Political mystery: How does he get away with this?

One of the great American political mysteries keeps playing out and it continues to baffle many millions of Americans.

Donald Trump in the span of about three days totally reversed himself and told yet another in an infinite string of bald-faced lies as he sought to wiggle out of his initial statement.

Rachel Scott of ABC News asked Trump if he was going to release the video of the second strike in September of a speed boat off the Venezuela coast; the strike killed two survivors of an initial missile attack on the boat. Trump said he had “no problem” releasing it and said Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth could do “whatever he wanted” regarding the issue. Three days later, Scott followed up on her first question, reminding him that he said he would release the video, to which Trump said “You said that, I didn’t say it.” Then he turned to someone at the table and muttered, “She’s with ABC fake news.”

Trump’s Republican allies in Congress continue to keep letting him get away with (a) telling outright lies and (b) heaping verbal abuse on female reporters who are simply doing their job.

When in the name of decency and decorum will the GOP caucus in both congressional chambers wake up to what their hero is doing? He is denigrating his exalted office. He hurls epithets at journalists who are practicing a craft protected by the First Amendment to the Constitution.

He recently called a female reporter “piggie” while dismissing a question she posed to him aboard Air Force One. Trump continues to harangue reporters as being “stupid,” “incompetent” and purveyors of “fake news.”

Meanwhile, the men and women whose constitutionally granted power is being usurped by Trump sit on their hands and keep their lips zipped.

They are disgracing themselves and the offices they occupy.

national news, political news

The longer he stays …

Gotta make an admission … which is that the longer we have to endure Donald Trump’s ignorant idiocy the more I miss traditional Republicans, the men and women who stood for principles they hold dear.

I have admitted on this blog that for as long as I have voted for president, dating back to 1972, I have voted for Democratic nominees. It hasn’t been a partisan thing but rather based on the candidates’ philosophies and those intangibles we all seek in the individuals we choose to lead our nation.

I came close to flipping, in 1976. I had to hold my breath just a bit to vote for Jimmy Carter. I thought about casting a vote for President Gerald Ford. My feelings for President Ford were more or less based on one of those intangibles. I just liked the man.

Now I am yearning for someone who cares about principle and who acts on some moral authority he or she can claim. That includes Republicans!

We don’t have a principled man in the White House. We have an immoral/amoral moron. He sees every single political relationship he has forged as a transactional event, which he can parlay into something that benefits him. He has demonstrated racist qualities time and again. He is ignorant of the document he was supposed to protect and defend. Trump doesn’t appreciate that dissent not only should be welcomed, but it is guaranteed in the Constitution’s First Amendment.

Trump is a Republican In Name Only. The RINO in chief doesn’t adhere to traditional GOP principles. The Party of Lincoln, which welcomed political diversity, has been shoved aside. The party of Trump is something quite different … and despicable.

If only the real Republicans who are left standing in the political arena could find the backbone to stand up to this fraudster. If only …

national news, political news

Real reason for MTG’s departure?

As a rule, I dislike being called a cynic, but I have to take issue with Marjorie Taylor Greene’s stated reason for quitting Congress after five turbulent years representing a rural NW Georgia district.

She entered the House after the 2020 election with both guns blazing. She was a proud MAGA Republican dedicated to furthering the agenda favored by her fella … Donald Trump. She has fallen out of favor with the Big Man, who recently called her a “traitor” because she had the gumption to stand up for the victims of Jeffrey Epstein’s shenanigans. MTG sought to make peace in recent weeks by declaring she no longer would engage in the vitriol that became part of her brand. Well, I believe the congresswoman was about to find out that payback is a serious bitch! I believe the Republican Party is going to have its genitals handed to it after the 2026 midterm election and Greene, who always has struck me as a politician more dialed into the limelight than actual governing, was about to be shoved to the back shelf. Democrats who often were the victims of her barbs would not take kindly to her remaining among their midst were they to retake the majority in January 2027. Therein, I believe, lies the real reason for MTG’s stunning departure from Congress. She alluded briefly to the GOP’s immediate future in her statement, declaring that she does not want to subject her family to the Trumpian onslaught in a bitter GOP primary only to see the Republicans “lose the election.” I will say further that I am glad to know that MTG has thought better of her flame-throwing rhetoric and has vowed to take a more civil tone in discussing policy differences with Democrats. I salute her for standing by her principles … yes, even those with which I disagree. Marjorie Taylor Greene also knows that memories can last seemingly forever in Washington. Reality is a force with which not everyone can reckon.
political news

A word of caution

For those expecting High Plains Blogger to offer a full-throated endorsement of the California vote supporting Proposition 50 this week, let’s instead heed a word of caution over what we might have unleashed in this country.

It is a warning of rigged elections on both sides of the chasm.

Prop 50 was California’s answer to the Texas Legislature’s decision to approve a redistrict plan that could produce five more Republican seats in Congress. California Gov. Gavin Newsom said the Texas effort cannot stand. So, he launched an effort to ask voters to approve a statewide redistricting plan that counters the Texas decision. Californians did … in a huge way.

What they have done is given the California Assembly carte blanche to redraw lines that would enable the election of more Democrats to Congress to counter an anticipated GOP surge in Texas and other so-called “red states.” More “blue states” are planning similar efforts for the 2026 election cycle.

Do you get where I am going with this? I support the concept of electing more politicians who would oppose the chicanery being foisted on us by the Donald Trump administration. I am deeply troubled that Democrats are responding with an effort to “preserve democracy” with a process that is as rigged as the one Republicans are foisting on millions of other Americans.

That ain’t democracy, kids.

I am left to recall the words of the great Native American philosopher, Tonto, who would tell the Lone Ranger, “Two wrongs don’t make it right.” The path to restoring our democratic process should be more of a challenge than just rigging an election to produce candidates to our liking.

national news

Pols run close to ruining their own careers

Politicians dismiss public opinion polls all the time, especially those that tell them things they don’t want to hear.

They do so at considerable risk. Why say such a thing? Public opinion polls are speaking with one voice on this issue: the government shutdown. They are telling us that Americans are disgusted with Congress and the president over their refusal to reopen the government because Democrats insist on preserving elements of the Affordable Care Act that will provide insurance for millions of Americans.

Without the ACA — aka Obacare — tens of millions of Americans will lose their health coverage.

One party controls both congressional chambers; and the White House. No laws are being legislated. The House hasn’t even been in session. Speaker Mike Johnson decided to let ’em all go on vacation rather than stick around and do their job. Get this: All members of Congress are getting paid for their inaction. Listen up, gang: You and I are getting ripped off! None of us likes it.

I get that pollsters get a bum rap. They are right in many instances. Such as now. When they measure citizens’ angst over their government’s performance, Congress’ ratings head straight for the crapper.

We all know that members of Congress depend on their performance to guarantee they’ll continue their political careers. If they don’t get busy in a major hurry, my hunch is that voters in November 2026 will look for candidates who can step in and do the job for which the do-nothings are being paid.

crime news

Waiting for the wake up call

I will not venture a guess on when it might occur, but I am waiting for the wake up call to ring in the ears of the Republicans who occupy most of the seats in both chambers of Congress.

The call will come from the coscience of a once-great political party. It will sound the alarm that GOP members I hope hear and take seriously.

The wake up call is bound to remind the GOP majority for who it is working. It isn’t the man who keeps the chair warm in the Oval Office. They work for rank and file Americans, even those of us who didn’t vote for them and those who detest the idea that Donald Trump is being paid 400 grand annually to serve as POTUS.

One must presume that Trump might do something that is so outrageous that most members of Congress no longer can support that dipshit. President Nixon found the drop-dead moment in 1974 when the Supreme Court ordered him to turn over the Watergate tapes that had him ordering the CIA to cover up the Watergate caper.

Is such a moment awaiting Donald Trump? The man appears to have buffaloed the political right wing.

But I will hold out hope.