Tag Archives: insurrection

local news

How has my life changed?

Every now and then, I get a question from a High Plains Blogger reader that makes me struggle for an answer.

Such as this one, from a critic: How has my life been made worse by Donald Trump? He is likely to read this post and might respond to me, probably telling me I suffer from terminal Trump Derangement Syndrome. I’ll plead guilty to it.

Truth is, my life isn’t worse because of Trump. I’m on a fixed income and Trump has been unable to mess with it. I live comfortably in my North Texas home. I am making friends. I have two dogs who adore their daddy. I am enrolled in the Department of Veterans Affairs health care program, so my health insurance isn’t affected by Trump’s gutting of it.

None of this is about me. Trump’s ruination of our democratic republic has caused me some anxiety. He has made me jittery at times. My sleep deprivation is worsening and I suppose I could lay some of that at Trump’s feet.

I see polling data that tells me most Americans feel uneasy about the direction Trump is leading this nation. Americans dislike the tariffs, we’re angry that his promise to end inflation has flopped, his pledge to end the Russia-Ukraine war hasn’t borne fruit.

The most frightening act he’s committed was to pardon all the traitors who stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, including those convicted of attacking police officers assigned to keep law and order. And then he accuses President Biden’s border policies of endangering Americans because he lets felons enter the country illegally. Good ever-lovin’ grief, man!

Has my life been altered by the moron in chief? Not in a tangible way. I suppose it’s fair to ask whether the MAGA crowd has seen its life enhanced by the policies enacted in Trump’s name. If you’re worth billions of dollars, I suppose you’re breathing a bit more easily these days.

Meanwhile, I shall keep my eyes focused forward … to Nov. 3, Election Day.

Uncategorized

Is a Jan. 6 replay possible?

You have no need to answer the question posed in the headline, because I know the answer. Damn right it’s possible … and Donald Trump has signaled it himself. Imagine that, eh?

Trump said the other day he might not accept the results of the midterm election if they don’t go his way. Meaning that if voters react the way every pundit from Pensacola to Portland is suggesting. That is, voters are likely to show the Republican-led Congress the door and hand the House — and maybe the Senate — gavel to the Democrats.

What does non-acceptance mean? We saw it play out in horrifying and graphic terms on Jan. 6, 2021 when Trump provoked the insurrection and sent the mob to Capitol Hill to storm the seat of our federal government while Congress was certifying the Electoral College victory of Joe Biden over Trump in the 2020 presidential election.

Spare me the crap that he called for a “peaceful demonstration.” The moron did nothing for hours while the mob gathered and then stormed into the Capitol building, smashing windows and assaulting police officers assigned to protect the place.

Some folks died in that assault. Many others were hurt. Capitol cops were beaten by the mob. The traitors threatened the life of Vice President Mike Pence. Some mobsters even defecated on the floor of the Capitol building.

But … what did the felon in chief do when he took office in January 2025? He pardoned all of them! Including the most violent among them!

So, when this imbecile says he might not accept the results of another free, fair and legal election, no one on this side of the grass should doubt what could transpire.

national news

Interesting times? Ya think?

Can it be that we all are living in an era that is producing a political climate none of us ever saw coming? I believe that is the case.

Ponder for just a moment a short series of events:

We elected an an individual to the presidency with zero public service experience and whose notoriety was forged on a reality TV show in which he fired make-believe businesspeople.

This individual has insulted a Vietnam War hero, a Gold Star family, a reporter with a physical challenge, and all the men and women who have chosen to wear the uniform of the nation’s military.

He lost an election, declared it — without an ounce of proof — to be a fraud, then instigated an insurrection against the very government he once swore to protect and defend.

He ran a third time for the White House vowing to be the “retribution” of those who cling to his cockeyed views. And he has delivered mightily on that promise.

Donald Trump then vowed to purge the nation of undocumented immigrants and deployed a poorly trained, heavily armed, masked-up army of agents who have killed American citizens on the street, arrested thousands of others wrongly.

What has all of this produced? Chaos, misery, grief, anxiety, heartbreak … and any other sort of emotion one can define.

I am disgusted beyond all measure by what is transpiring in real time in this nation I love with all my heart.

The Chinese proverb about “living in interesting times” doesn’t come within a country mile of defining what we’re enduring these days. It’s frightening, but I’ll say it once more that we have plenty of constitutional weapons we can deploy to fight this hideous trend.

national news, political news

MAGA did it! Elections are work of demons!

If I were wearing a cap at this moment, I might be inclined to doff it in salute to the MAGA cult that comprises the bulk of what remains of the Republican Party.

Why the salute … even though it is a left-handed, fingers crossed tribute?

The MAGA morons seem to have successfully cast the American electoral process into enough doubt as to bring whole sale changes in the way many states conduct them. Texas is one of them. We’ve returned to paper ballots in Texas, tossing out the electronic ballots that used to streamline vote counting. We also have to provide photo ID when we go to the polls to vote.

It’s all been in the messaging and MAGA’s stern discipline in staying on message as it tells lie after lie after lie about the 2020 presidential election being “stolen” from Donald J. Trump. The MAGA cult is continuing the lies and they stick in the gullible minds of millions of Americans.

What saddens me endlessly is the damage that MAGA has done to the millions of hard working local and county officials across the nation who ensure that these elections are conducted freely, fairly and legally. I’ve worked some of the finest public officials in two states over the years covering elections and I have found them all to be men and women of good conscience. They did their jobs well and in accordance with state and federal laws.

MAGA is having none of it. Neither is their MAGA moron in chief, Trump, who just this week assailed the conduct the 2020 election. It is no coincidence, I should add, that the local jurisdictions Trump cited are those run by Black officials. Racism, anyone … anyone?

I believe the midterm election will be run legally. I place my faith in the men and women I know who are on the front line protecting our right to free and fair elections.

And the only election rigging I have seen has occurred in the Oval Office.

crime news

How can they deny the obvious?

I don’t why I am surprised, but the notion that Repuiblicans in Congress who fled for their safety on Jan. 6, 2021 are now denying what happened on the day of the insurrection does astound me beyond measure.

I cannot believe any of them when they say the attack on the Electoral College that day was no big deal, that Donald Trump did nothing wrong by refusing to call for the end of the traitors’ assault on the electoral process. Yet they did so again when special counsel Jack Smith offered testimony explaining the process that led his team to conclude beyond any doubt that Trump broke the law on that horrible day.

I will go to my grave without ever forgiving them for their betrayal of their oath to protect the Constitution and for allowing Trump to get away with the crimes he clearly committed.

 

crime news, national news, political news

Closer to the tipping point?

Every day, it seems, we appear to be creeping closer to the tipping point in which Donald J. Trump says something that will spell the end of his failed presidency.

He crossed another huge line this week by saying out loud and in public that six Democratic members of Congress are guilty of sedition, a crime that carries a punishment of death. That’s right. The POTUS has declared that six opposing members of Congress should be executed for speaking out against the orders that Trump is issuing.

What in the world is happening to this nation? Why are we allowing this moron to get away with these sorts of idiotic pronouncements? Here’s the worst of it: Not even a president of the United States who calls for the execution of political opposition could be convicted by a Senate controlled by members of his own political party … because they are in tacit agreement with this dipshit!

Public opinon polling suggests that Trump’s support among Americans is collapsing as he continues to scarf up more power for the executive branch. The polls aren’t “fake,” as Trump contends. They are real and they suggest that Trump’s MAGA base is shrinking before our eyes. When the likes of Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, D-Ga., turn on Trump then you know you are witnessing a sea change.

Suppose there was a chance to invoke the 25th Amendment to the Constitution, which contains a clause about removing the president who is deemed incompetent. Does anyone believe that a majority of this executive branch comprising diehard Trump loyalists is going to sign a document declaring the boss to be unfit for the office? It won’t happen.

That’s why I believe we’re only getting a lot closer to some tipping point that will spell the end of this moron’s time in office.

crime news

Trump nationalizes DC cops? Really … ?

Let’s stroll for a moment down a memory lane filled with frightening images and unprecedented presidential dereliction of duty.

Jan. 6, 2021 signaled the start of an insurrection against the federal government. Thousands of Americans stormed the Capitol Building that day, smashed through the windows of our government, battled DC and Capitol police, threatened the life of Vice President Mike Pence, defecated on the floor of the building, injured officers who were trying to protect Congress members … and Donald Trump didn’t lift a finger to halt it.

This weekend, Trump decided that crime had gotten so out of control in DC that it was time to nationalize the city’s police force, call up the National Guard to patrol the streets and issue arrest warrants. Was the weekend a horrendous one? No. It wasn’t. It was a typical time in the nation’s capital city.

Trump’s latest gambit is just one more dubious attempt to divert attention from the growing scandal involving the late Jeffrey Epstein, those files with all those names in them and whether Trump should release the files for public review to let us determine whether there’s anything incriminating about the POTUS.

Trump is a madman who is looking and sounding like a desperate individual looking for any and all methods to keep the law at bay.

If the numbskull in chief is going to insist on nationalizing the DC police force and deputizing the National Guard to make arrests, he’ll have to come clean with tangible evidence of a crime wave that he says is overtaking the nation’s capital city.

national news, political news

Voters are a confusing bunch

The run-of-the-mill American voter appears to suffer from some form of political schizophrenia.

Think about this for a moment, because that might be all the time you care to ponder what I am about to put forth.

Americans twice elected a young man who blazed trails everywhere he went, as the first Black editor of the Harvard Journalism Review, the first Black president of the United States, who was faithful to his wife and who avoided any semblance of scandal during his two terms in the White House.

Then voters in 2016 and in 2024 elected arguably the dumbest man ever to hold the office, who has acknowledged cheating on all three of his wives, who paid a porn actress to keep quiet about a sexual encounter he said never happened, who has never acknowledged a single failure in his professional life, who denigrates war heroes and Gold Star families, who evaded the draft during the Vietnam War, who selects certifiable morons to serve in the Cabinet, who lies at a breathtaking pace, who provoked an armed attack on the federal government to stop the certification of a free, fair and legal presidential election in 2020, the one that the president has never admitted he lost.

This is the kind of strange behavior that defies description. It challenges anyone to explain how an electorate can transform itself from a body of Americans dedicated to real-life change for the better to one that falls victim to a cretin’s call to follow him backward into the era of Jim Crow.

My hope is a simple one. That we can reverse what we have done to our nation in 2026 and again in 2028. We are far better than what we have delivered to ourselves in the form of a national government.

national news

Perverts misconstrue patriotism

So much of Donald J. Trump’s return to the White House offends me at almost every level imaginable, but one offense stands out among all the others.

It’s the notion that Trump appeals to Americans’ sense of “patriotism,” that those who adhere to this clown’s world view — such as it is — are more “patriotic” than the rest of us.

Wow!

I have some news for them, but it’s not an original thought from this patriot. It has come from many others. However, since I have this forum from which I can vent, I will do so with glee and gusto.

The perverts who slander the real patriots of this great nation contend that the Jan. 6, 2021 was an act of “peaceful protest.” Their president calls it a demonstration of “love.” My world view suggests that anyone who attacks a sworn police officer, who defecates on the Capitol grounds, who threatens to hang the sitting vice president is guilty of treason.

Donald Trump pardoned those individuals without regard to the nature of the crimes they committed. He has populated the executive branch of government with a collection of unfit and unqualified individuals.

Trump vows to sic the Justice Department on members of the media for their coverage of the events leading to and including the insurrection. He wants to prosecute career prosecutors for doing their jobs under the law.

And he is cheered every step of the way by the perverts who claim to be patriots.

Allow me to stand before you and declare with the fullest voice I can summon that I am a patriot. I pay my taxes willingly. I have worn the uniform of the U.S. Army and have gone into a war zone to serve my country. I cherish the sound of our National Anthem. I am the grandson of immigrants who chose to live in this great and glorious land and I am the son of a man who enlisted in the Navy on the very day this country fought back against the sneak attack on our forces in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii.

I also know this country has its faults. Our journey from our declaration of independence has hit a few bumps along the way. I also know that the founders sought to build a “more perfect Union,” but they knew they never could create “the perfect” nation.

I will not tolerate the idea that those who follow the idiocy preached by Donald John Trump are patriots. They do not know the meaning of the word.

national news

When will GOP awaken to travesty?

A good friend and I frequently engage in political discussions that usually do not engender a lot of dispute … given that we’re cut from the same partisan cloth.

She does pose a question I want to repeat here: When will the Republican Party’s elected officials realize and say so out loud the travesty they are supporting in the White House?

She’s an avid anti-Donald Trumper. So am I. I cannot answer her question. I do not know what it will take for the GOP to realize (a) that Trump is not an invincible collossus, (b) that he is just as fallible as the rest of us and (c) that their show of courage very well could play well among the millions of “silent majority” American out here.

Trump’s remarks in t he wake of the air crash that killed 67 people this week in Washington, D.C., were just the latest outrageous insult that Trump threw into the political blender. He followed that up with his declaration of war against the FBI by firing all the field agents in charge. Then came Trump’s nominee for FBI director, his pick for director of national intelligence and his health and human services secretary nominee flip-flopping all over earlier remarks they had made about the damage they sought to do to the “status quo.”

Trump is surrounding himself in the executive branch of government with people who are profoundly unqualified for the jobs they hold. Then again, they mirror the lack of qualifications by their benefactor for the job to which he has been elected twice.

My friend informed today she has written GOP U.S. Sen. John Cornyn of Texas a letter informing him of her intention to oppose every Republican candidate who continues to back Trump’s hostile takeover of the federal government. Cornyn, a former Bexar County trial judge, is one of the targets of her rage.

Her hope rests in a belief that Cornyn’s legal background might imbue him with the knowledge that facts matter. Americans have witnessed with their own eyes an insurrection against the government, the purging of the FBI, the appointment of certifiable numbskulls to the highest levels of government.

What do all these things have in common?

Donald John Trump!