Tag Archives: insurrection

legal news

This isn’t compromise … it’s betrayal

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In all the years I have been watching and covering politics — as a daily print journalist — I have seen my share of men and women make compromises to seek a greater good.

The decision by key Republican U.S. senators to back Attorney General Todd Blanche’s confirmation in the Senate, however, falls into a darker category. It is a betrayal of common decency, not to mention of the oath they all took to defend and protect the U.S. Constitution.

Sens. John Cornyn of Texas and Thom Tillis of North Carolina both had been critical of recent decisions by Donald J. Trump. They made noise about opposing Blanche’s confirmation. It turned out that’s what it was: just a lot of noise.

The same could be said of Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, a longtime foe of Trump. He, too, cast his vote to confirm Blanche, even though the new AG demonstrated repeatedly during his confirmation hearing that he had no intention of bucking the POTUS were he to issue an order that would violate the Constitution. Blanche, of course, served as Trump’s defense lawyer during his trials for various felonies of which he was convicted.

Accordingly, I am going to say a good word about Susan Collins of Maine, and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska,, who were the only GOP senators to stand on principle, rather than on blind fealty to a lame-duck president who has shown zero inclination to do anything for the good of the entire nation he was elected to lead.

Cornyn and Tillis’s plunge into the cavern is particularly odious. They had demanded a written commitment from Blanche that he would disallow the spending of $1.8 billion in taxpayer money to the traitorous felons convicted in the Jan. 6, 2021 insurrection against the government after the 2020 election that Trump lost to President Biden. They got a written promise from Blanche, but there remains a distinct possibility that he and/or Trump could renege on that promise. There is zero legal binding to it.

Cornyn and Tillis both went with the idiot in chief rather than sending a clear message that they stood on a matter of principle.

Blanche’s confirmation by a 50-49 partisan vote, indeed, was a dark day for the rule of law. The GOP will have to defend the indefensible before a voting public that has lost its patience with a once-great political party.

national news

Trump hangs on by a thread

Donald J. Trump keeps bragging about how great he is as a man and as a politician, about he won two of three presidential elections in a landslide.

Hmm. I gave that some thought, so I looked up a few numbers to try to put this man’s time in high office in its proper perspective. Let’s take a brief look at them, OK?

Trump ran in 2016 against Hillary Clinton. He finished that election with nearly 3 million fewer votes than Clinton, but won the Electoral College and, thus, became president.

He ran for re-election in 2020 and got whipped by Joe Biden, who tallied about 7 million more votes than Trump, who then protested Biden’s victory by launching the insurrection on Jan. 6, 2021.

Trump ran again in 2024 and beat Kamala Harris by about 2 million votes, and won the Electoral College, too.

I totaled up Trump’s popular votes in all three elections and came up with 212 million votes compared to 214 million votes tallied by Clinton, Biden and Harris combined.

Here’s my point.

Donald Trump can declare until his orange face turns blue, but the numbers don’t lie, unlike the liar in chief. Donald Trump did win all those “battleground states” in 2024 and I will give him credit for that. He fought hard to persuade voters in Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Nevada, Arizona and Georgia to support him. But across the vast nation, he still came up short of anything approaching the “landslide” he keeps saying he won.

Furthermore, in all three of those national elections on which Trump’s name was on the ballot, he fell short of scoring a majority. He finished with about 45% in 2016, 47% on 2020 and 49% in 2024.

A landslide usually describes a 10-point victory or greater. Trump has been hanging on by a single thread since the moment he took the oath of office in January 2017.

I believe he is going to see what a landslide actually looks like in about 88 days.

national security, political news

Game of election denial … breathtaking!

Never in my life — not ever! — have I witnessed a rhetorical game being played out to the extent that it has been regarding the result of the 2020 U.S. presidential election.

I’ve been around a bit, as I am now 76 years of age and have been following politics pretty closely for, oh, about the past 60 years.

Donald Trump’s choice to become the next director of national intelligence was merely the latest Trumpkin to play the word game with Democratic lawmakers. Jay Clayton, in testimony this week to a Senate committee, refused to say that President Biden won the 2020 election.

Here’s how Al Jazeera reported the exchange between Clayton and senators:

“Senators pressed Clayton about his views on the 2020 race between Biden and Trump, and he acknowledged that Biden had been ‘certified’ as the victor. But he avoided directly saying Biden ‘won’ the race.

“In one exchange, Democrat Jon Ossoff asked Clayton point-blank, “’Who won the 2020 election?’

“’I’m not going to do this with you,’ Clayton responded.

“’This is a job interview. We’ve established that you have an obligation to be honest and forthright with the committee,’ Ossoff replied. He then repeated, ‘Who won the 2020 election?’ Clayton responded that he had ‘already answered the question.'”

Clayton danced the same two-step with Sen. Mark Kelly of Arizona. He refused to say Biden “won” the 2020, but that he was “certified” the winner by virtue of the electoral votes he received.

It baffles me to end in sight why these individuals would choose to damage the integrity of the electoral system based on the Big Lie being fomented by the liar in chief. This game has been going on since that election, which President Biden won a slim but undeniable Electoral College majority and a 7 million popular vote majority. Trump, though, still has none of it and, of course, he instigated the Jan. 6, 2021, assault on the Capitol that injured hundreds of people and killed several others.

Trump’s team has repeatedly refused to answer the simplest of questions regarding the 2020 election. They have demonstrated their disgusting fealty to a convicted felon over the U.S. Constitution. They make me sick.

political news

Wanting a return to good wishes

I have been watching a video that went viral years ago, and it’s still making the rounds.

It shows President George W. Bush welcoming his successor, President-elect Barack Obama to the Oval Office. Joining them were three former presidents: George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter. The men are standing tall and straight and President Bush is addressing the cameras gathered.

He turns to the president-elect and tells him that despite their political differences, all these men have the same thing in common. They want the new president to succeed. Bush offered Obama those good wishes on behalf of all the men gathered.

And every time I watch the video, I cannot help but think — or believe — that we’ll likely won’t see that kind of presidential fellowship for the foreseeable future. I try like the dickens to imagine Donald Trump taking part in such an event one day near the end of his time in office. My mind’s eye just cannot capture that moment.

I wish for all my might to see that kind of gathering to return. When President Biden won the 2020 election, we saw an angry mob storm the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. You know what happened. Donald Trump never conceded that he lost. He still carries that complaint with him, alleging that the 2020 election was stolen.

So, what might we expect to occur if a Democrat happens to win the 2028 election? Will the incumbent fling open the White House doors to all his predecessors and stage the kind of rapprochement we saw in 2009? Do not hold your breath.

I cannot predict, either, what might occur if a Republican wins the 2028 election. I suppose it might depend on which end of the GOP the winner might emerge. I still enjoy seeing video evidence of how it used to be in this country, where a peaceful transition of power allowed grown politicians to put their anger aside and wish the very best to the new person who will take the reins.

national news

Can’t forget the epithets

Man, it is difficult for me to remove my mind from the imaginary flashback machine when I hear the GOP suck-ups heap praise on a man many of them once labeled with a number of highly unflattering descriptions.

They included terms such as: racist, narcissist, pathological liar, fraud, phony, ignoramus, moron … and my favorite, sniveling coward.

That was then, when Donald J. Trump was one of many Republicans seeking the party’s presidential nomination for the 2016 run for the U.S. presidency. A Democrat, Barack H. Obama, had just completed two successful terms as president and Trump lurked amont a large field of GOP contenders in the fight to succeed a man they once vilified with another set of epithets.

Trump got elected in 2016. He lost his bid for re-election in 2020. He won again in 2024. What became of all those name-callers? They joined the president’s MAGA cult and now label as Republican In Name Only anyone who dares speak ill of the guy who once provoked an insurrection in an attempt to overturn the2020 election results.

We’re in the midst of another election cycle and the former Trump critics today can’t stop cheering loudly for the guy who they once labeled — correctly, in my view — all those mean things I listed at the top of this blog post.

Our airwaves are being flooded at the moment by Republican runoff candidates seeking to “out-Trump” other Republicans. Ted Cruz stands behind Chip Roy who’s running for Texas attorney general by calling him the most dedicated Trumpkin in the U.S. House. Cruz, I should tell you, once labeled Trump a “sniveling coward.”

Well, Sen. Cruz, which is it … sniveling coward or the greatest statesman since Daniel Webster?

crime news

Bondi is now a ‘former U.S. attorney general’

Allow me to join the millions of Americans who today are cheering the news that Donald Trump has fired Pam Bondi from her post as U.S. attorney general.

I would say that “Pam, we hardly knew ye,” but that wouldn’t be true. We got to know a lot about Bondi during her year-long stint as AG. None of it good, from my perspective.

She proved to be every bit the sycophant that Trump sought when he plucked her from the ranks of Florida elected officials. She was so good at it that she should have embarrassed Trump with her hideous performances testifying — if you want to call it such — before congressional committees on matters involving Jeffrey Epstein and Trump’s pardon of the Jan. 6 traitors who sought to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election.

My favorite moment came when she lied under oath to a House committee, was called on that lie by Rep. Ted Lieu, D-Calif., and then bellowed “Don’t you ever accuse me of committing a crime!” Wait a sec, Mme. AG. The nation just heard you commit perjury when you said the record contains “no evidence” accusing Trump of committing a crime.

It damn sure does! Lieu brought it out for public display.

If the POTUS had an ounce of shame, he would be embarrassed by Bondi’s performance as AG.

Hit the road, Pam. Me? I’m going to watch the Artemis II mission head for the moon and cheer on those four brave astronauts as they continue to bring smiles to our faces.

national news

How did we ever make this mistake?

This much is certain, which is that every one of us is headed to the same place … some version of the Great Beyond. None of us gets out of here alive.

What is far from certain, I am afraid to conjecture, is trying to determine before they throw dirt on my face how in the world Americans managed to elect a certifiable dimwit to the highest office in the land. Not once, but twice!

The imbecile took office in January 2017 and immediately declared a ban on Muslims entering the Land of Opportunity. He never accepted that he lost the 2020 election to Joe Biden and then launched a violent insurrection to stop the peaceful transition of power.

Then he got elected again and on the first day of his second term, in January 2025, the moron pardoned every one of the violent traitors who took part in the assault on the federal government. He has surrounded himself with nincompoops, imbeciles, unfit individuals and called them the “best people” he could find to run the executive branch of government.

All the while, the self-described “king of debt” has piled trillions of dollars onto the mountain of red ink that towers over the federal budget. He gives tax cuts to the mega rich, takes money away that pays for health insurance for millions of others, he threatens the very alliances that keep us safe from the bad guys of the world.

And then? He gets caught in a scandal involving the pedophile and sex trafficker who hanged himself in a jail cell.

We once sought to elect the very best among us to the nation’s highest office. We have elected the most corrupt, immoral and despicable among us.

I realize I am walking across well-traveled ground. Retirement gives me time to allow my mind to wander a bit. I have granted my mind some idle time today. So, I thought I would share once this goofy notion that we all are responsible at some level for the hideous government we have produced.

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.