Tag Archives: Joe Biden

economic news, national news

He’s not my POTUS

Some of you who have read this blog over the span of many years might recall a pledge I made, which was to never insert the word “President” in front of Donald Trump’s name. I have been faithful to that pledge.

Why? Because he’s not my president and that is a feeling I never have experienced with any man who didn’t get my vote for high office. Every single day he is in office, Trump demonstrates he doesn’t give a damn about me, my family or any American who fits our profile.

And that is …

We pay our taxes on time (generally) without complaining, we serve our communities, we have worn the uniform and in many cases have gone to war when ordered, we play by the rules, we worship a holy God.

OK, you get the idea? Trump has many issues on his plate that present existential threats to our way of life. Does he deal with them in public, with the same aggressive nature he spends on trivial matters? Not in the least. Average patriotic Americans like my family members and me insist that he right some of those wrongs. He doesn’t give a damn about any of them.

He once told a reporter that he doesn’t spend any time worrying about the effect the Iran war was having on Americans’ financial condition. Never mind that the price of automobile fuel has doubled since we went to war with Iran, or that the worldwide tariffs he has imposed has spiked the price of damn near everything we buy at the grocery store.

My president would care about those effects on my family and me. Not this one.

He sickens me.

Donald Trump

Trump’s hair is the new ‘thing’? What the … ?

As if there isn’t enough to comment on regarding Donald J. Trump, there now appears to be a new “thing” on which some pundits have become fixated.

It happens to be Donald Trump’s new “do,” the hair on his noggin, the thing that has by itself become the subject of barbs, guffaws and speculation about what it’s covering up.

You want my take on what we’re seeing? I think it looks pretty good. All elements considered …

Let’s face facts, the POTUS isn’t exactly Chippendale/firefighter calendar material. So, he’s got a new “do.” To borrow a quote from President Biden … big fu***** deal!

Some of you might wonder, oh, geez, is the blogger going soft on the Orange Man? Hell no! He is leaving behind a legacy worthy of every bit of scorn imaginable. We have that Iran war, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, those destructive tariffs, the dude’s bizarre behavior on the world stage, the East Wing disaster, the Reflecting Pool, Trump’s obsession with gold trimmings and that idiotic notion of slapping his name on a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier that already carries the name of the only Black enlisted man so honored.

Trump’s hairdo? This is the final thing I likely ever will say about it.

national news, political news

If only we understood the truth

Flash back about six decades, to Jan. 6, 1961, when Vice President Richard Nixon performed a task that Donald Trump sought to prevent Vice President Mike Pence from performing.

Nixon had just lost a razor-thin election to President-elect John Kennedy. He might have had reason to contest the results from Cook County, Ill., but chose instead to let the numbers stand, giving JFK a narrow win in and ultimately the presidency. The vice president on Jan. 6 of ’61, certified the Electoral College count giving Kennedy and Vice President-elect Lyndon Johnson the keys to the Oval Office.

Prior to affirming the count, Nixon stood before his colleagues and said it was the first time in a century that a sitting VP had to certify an election result in which he was the losing candidate for president. However, he told the nation, that singular act spoke more eloquently about the greatness of the nation that it could conduct a peaceful transition of power from one party to the other, and then carry out the nation’s business.

Nixon understood something that Donald Trump never will grasp. Trump launched an insurrection on Jan. 6, 2021 after losing the 2020 election to President Joe Biden, damn near succeeding in stopping the Electoral College count. And I’ll be damned if Trump is still bitching about an election he contends was stolen from him.

Trump seemingly will never grasp the very notions that give this country its standing as the world’s indispensable nation.

Richard Nixon, of course, went on to be elected president in 1968 and then got himself into serious trouble by covering up a scandal that unfolded before the world in real time. That shining moment in 1961, though, stands out as a singular act that will stand for all time as a moment in which this great nation exhibited a profound moment of political grace.

local news, military news

What if Trump shows up … ?

Two weeks from takeoff from Love Field and I am beginning to run some things through my noggin and I should vanquish them … because none of them could actually take place.

Then again …

I am leaving on Sept. 11 for an overnight trip to Washington, D.C. I will be one of 45 veterans taking part in an Honor Flight, an event devised to salute military veterans for the service they gave to the country. I served for two years in the Army, from 1968 until 1970. I was sent to Vietnam for a time to work on airplanes and then assigned to the tactical operations center in Da Nang.

I came home and was greeted mostly with shrugs from friends. I didn’t get any “thank you for your service” greetings from strangers. That’s all changed. No longer do we treat service personnel as being at fault for our planners’ failures.

Honor Flights are designed to demonstrate a nation’s gratitude. Some of us on this trip are old enough to remember how we were treated when we completed our service in S.E. Asia.

OK, now about those thoughts.

Our trip coincides with the 25th year since the 9/11 attack by terrorists. My thought involves the four former presidents of the United States, all of whom should be honored for the work they did to bring the terrorist in chief, Osama bin Laden, to justice.

Will any of these men be around to greet us, or to receive our thanks for their service to the country? That’s what I am hoping will happen. Furthermore, I have a bit shared history with one of these gentlemen. I met then Texas Gov. George W. Bush in a personal 90-minute session I had with him in the summer of 1995. I have been hoping to see him again and remind him of that meeting and hope he remembers me.

The 9/11 attacks occurred during the first year of his time as president.

Barack Obama was on duty when the SEALs found bin Laden in May 2011. I have seen viral videos of him greeting veterans on earlier Honor Flights. Maybe he can find some time to do it again. Bill Clinton felt bin Laden’s wrath in 2000 when al-Qaeda terrorists blew a hole into the Navy destroyer USS Cole. Joe Biden was in the Situation Room as vice president the night of the SEAL raid. The former 46th president is ill with cancer, so I don’t expect to see him … but I would love to shake his hand and thank him for his 50 years of public service.

That brings us to the current president. What if he makes an appearance? My gut struggles with my brain. I detest the guy who is in office now. I respect and revere the office he occupies. What would I do if were standing in front of me? I would shake his hand … and that’s all I will say about that.

Will any of this occur? Probably not. I just wanted to let you know once again that am taking part in this Honor Flight with great pride and thanks of my own.

national news, political news

This POTUS takes job lightly

When the president of the United States spends hours each night sending out social media digs at political foes, or concentrates his anger at media reporters, or takes time to lament who’s to blame for a reflecting pool fiasco, or can’t complete construction of a billion-dollar ballroom where the East Wing once stood …

Well, you have a POTUS who cannot possibly be up to the job to which he was elected to do.

You have in Donald Trump an overfed showman who has started a war with Iran, backed an aggressor in the Kremlin for launching an illegal and immoral war against Ukraine and has alienated just about every valuable ally this nation has worked for decades to count on as a friend.

President Barack Obama recently said that a president who is serious about his job has — at minimum — perhaps 10 issues on his plate that require his undivided attention. And they have nothing to do with beautifying the White House.

It should be abundantly clear that Donald Trump was far more interested in becoming the POTUS than actually being that person. To be the commander in chief, the head of government and head of state requires laser-like focus. Trump exhibits none of that trait as he stumbles, bumbles and blathers his way through each day he is in office.

He continues to bitch about losing the 2020 election to President Joe Biden … and cannot bring himself to say a single empathetic word about the former president’s struggle against cancer. He continues to lie about presiding over the “the greatest economy the world has ever seen” when in fact the USA is teetering on the brink of bankruptcy.

This individual has sought to destroy our democratic republic. He cheapens the presidency every single day he sits in the Oval Office. Donald Trump has no business holding the office to which he was elected twice. What in the world is wrong with this nation?

national news

Trump outdoes himself … once again!

Donald Trump fielded a question over the weekend about news that President Biden’s cancer has spread from his prostate gland to his bones, apparently signaling a daunting turn for the 46th POTUS.

His answer was disgusting, but not the least bit surprising, given Trump’s lack of empathy for any human being on this Earth.

He called his predecessor a mean spirit, said he has trashed the reputations of his political adversaries. “So, no, I don’t feel sorry for him,” Trump said. Wow, man.

This is precisely why Donald Trump engenders such loathing among millions of Americans. And, yes, even from those who contend they support his ideas but dislike the man. All the POTUS had to say was simply something like this: “The president and I have profound differences, but I want to wish him well as he continues his struggle against cancer. I will say a prayer for Mrs. Biden and their children, Hunter and Ashley and their families.”

Even a milquetoast statement of empathy such as that could go a long way toward possibly redeeming Donald in the eyes of a nation that is growing so very weary of his continued insults.

This lack of compassion only proves what many of us have said all along, that Donald Trump carries none of what many of us think would be a normal sense decency.

This individual is wired in a way that bears no resemblance to anything you and I experience routinely as we go about a normal lifestyle.

I will pray for President Joe Biden, whose decency alone casts a gigantic shadow over the wreckage that Trump is bringing to the nation’s highest office.

national news, political news

Trump earns title of ‘loser’

One of Donald J. Trump’s favorite epithets appears to be “loser,” which he bestows on anyone he deems to be, um, well … not worthy of any description other than that one.

I want to hang the label round the flabby neck of the current POTUS, for he has assumed the title of loser in chief.

He keeps harping on an election he lost to Joe Biden. He has filed 60-some lawsuits and lost every one of them in various courts of law. Trump continues to tease us with the half-baked notion of running for a “fourth term” in the White House. Why four? He won the first race in 2016, claims to have won the second one in 2020, captured the presidency in 2024 and suggests the 22nd Amendment to the Constitution doesn’t apply to him … so he might run again. The amendment says he’s only able to win twice. He did so. At the end of the current term, he’s out. For keeps. Forever!

He backs candidates who win their Republican primaries. So, he can claim victories there. The test of success has come in general elections when his MAGA morons face real opposition. Then they lose. I am suggesting strongly they’ll keep losing throughout the 2026 midterm election season.

What does make the 47th POTUS? It makes him a loser. Pure and simple.

His legislative agenda — such as it is — is dead. He’s heading for certain impeachment once Democrats reclaim control of the House of Reps. Then it will fall on the Senate to determine if he stays in office. If the GOP keeps control of the Senate, he might hold on until the end of his term. If not, well, then the fun really begins.

The loser in chief’s legacy will be cast in stone.

local news, national news, political news

Nationwide electoral theft? Impossible!

Let’s visit briefly — shall we? — Donald Trump’s continual harping about the 2020 presidential election and how the result, a victory by Joe Biden over Trump, was an act of electoral theft.

It didn’t happen. Here’s how I know that to be so.

To suggest that a federal election was orchestrated to produce a winner ignores this undeniable fact, which is that our elections are conducted by individual states. Each state operates independently from other states. They all have their own system of counting ballots. They abide by rules set by their legislatures, and signed into law by governors.

Collin County, Texas, where I have lived for the past seven years, has a perfectly fine election system. It’s modern, it’s secure, and it’s free of the kind of corruption that Trump seems to believe exists in counties throughout the nation. He’s full of mule dookey.

The county’s election system is run by Stacey Kemp, a competent county clerk who oversees a staff of deputy clerks who are committed to upholding the oath they all take to defend and protect the Consitution of the United States.

Trump, though, sees this issue as a national matter. Indeed, he is looking for crimes that simply cannot exist in our electoral system.

I also should point out that our state electoral systems are not connected to the Internet, which Trump alleges is a prime source of the shenanigans he says occurs.

The POTUS went on the air the other night to relitigate a six-year-old gripe that has been tossed out in more than 60 lawsuits filed in courts from coast to coast. Let me also note here that many of the federal judges who have ruled against Trump have been nominated for their seats by Donald Trump … which tells me quite clearly that these men and women understand the law far more clearly than the dimwit who sits in the Oval Office.

medical news

Candidates’ health is of major concern

I can’t claim this as an original thought, because I am stealing it from a friend of mine, but candidates’ health must become a major issue in determining their fitness for a job.

We’ve had too many presidents of the United States taking office while hiding serious illness. My friend notes that President Wilson suffered a debilitating stroke during his second term, President Cleveland suffered from cancer, President Franklin Roosevelt sought to conceal his wheelchair, President Kennedy suffered from Addison’s disease.

All those ailments were serious enough to consider even now, so many years after these men served in the highest office in the land. Indeed, FDR won election to a fourth term in 1944 while suffering from an ailment that would kill him a month after taking office in 1945. He was virtually a dead man when he planned the final assault on the Axis Powers near the end of World War II.

We had those phony questions about President Biden’s mental acuity during his term in office. Leading that charade was former White House physician and current Texas Panhandle congressman and loudmouth Ronny Jackson.

But my point is that a candidate’s health must be front and center on the issue to be discussed and examined. The candidates ought to be required to present physicians statements as to their physical well-being … as well as their mental alertness. And they should be prepared to refute any claims of ill health if they arise during the campaign.

national news

Sen. Graham is gone, but damage is done

I wish I could speak well of Sen. Lindsey Graham now that he’s dead … but the hard truth is that I cannot in good conscience speak of him without tossing out a qualifier or two.

Graham was a South Carolina Republican who became one of Donald Trump’s fiercest allies in the Senate. And this was after he portrayed himself as one of Trump’s most ferocious critics. It makes me wonder: Which Lindsey Graham is the real thing and which one is the phony baloney fraud.

I will say this about Graham: He bucked Trump by becoming a close friend of Ukraine President Volodymr Zellensky, who had drawn Trump’s wrath because he had the temerity to stand up to Russian strongman/goon/thug Vladimir Putin’s illegal and immoral invasion of Ukraine. OK, that’s one positive thing.

Graham, though, became a shill for Trump, even after declaring “I’m out” when it came to the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the capital.

Graham also maintained close friendships with politicians on the other side. He was dear friends with former President Joe Biden and the late Sen. Joseph Lieberman. Graham once declared that Biden was the finest man ever knew in politics. Then he would remain silent as Trump trashed Biden repeatedly. What gives with that?

So, Lindsey Graham is gone. History will record that he was a complicated man driven by complex motives.

Still, I will wish him a peaceful rest in eternity.