Tag Archives: Kamala Harris

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‘Great’ precedes ‘good’

Walter Isaacson, a political journalist of some renown, believes that Donald Trump already has established himself as a “great” president, but now must work on becoming a “good” one.

The difference, if I heard Isaacson correctly on a TV interview, suggests that Trump already has established his place in history as a politician of significant presence. He has reshaped the political landscape in a way that bears no resemblance to what it used to look like.

His task now is to do some “good” for the country he governs. Isaacson called Trump’s triumph over Kamala Harris a sweeping victory, in that he carried all seven of the swing states being contested. Granted, he didn’t win the “landslide” he keeps suggesting.

It was an important victory nonetheless, Isaacson contends.

Still, Trump — and this is my view — needs to channel the rage he still carries from his 2020 defeat at the hands of Joe Biden into constructive legislation. Dude needs an agenda on which he can hang his hat. I don’t see one. Nor do I see any evidence from Trump that he can craft anything of the sort.

All of this makes me doubt that Trump ever will achieve the “good” part of the office he has won.

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Custom gets flushed

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Customarily, presidential inaugural speeches are intended to appeal to Americans’ highest ideals, setting a tone for the incoming administration to follow.

But … as is always the case with POTUS No. 47, custom got flushed down the crapper today. Donald J. Trump took his oath of office and then launched into all the campaign talking points he used to win the election in November.

He didn’t bother to thank his predecessor, President Biden, for his five decades of public service, or to congratulate his 2024 opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris, for the spirited campaign she waged against him.

Oh, no. None of that grace was to be heard in Trump’s speech. He railed yet again over what he called the decline of our nation, vowing to “make America great agaiin.”

It was vintage Trump. Frankly, it sickened me.

I decided to watch his speech hoping I might hear a word of grace from the man who violated the very oath he took in 2017. I hoped he might have learned a lesson or two from what I consider to be a failed presidency the first time around.

I was disappointed.

Just maybe, though, I shouldn’t have set my hopes too high.

national news

‘L’ word doesn’t exist

Donald Trump wallowed today in the “L” word to describe the 2024 presidential election.

In Trump’s universe, the “L” word is shorthand for “landslide.” He kept saying during a rambling, nonsensical presser with reporters in Mar-a-Lago, Fla., that he defeated Vice President Kamala Harris in a “landslide.”

Let me be crystal clear — again! No, he did not ride a landslide of votes to victory in 2024!

He made some remark about winning the popular vote by “millions of votes.” Let’s see, he pulled in fewer than 2.3 million more votes than Harris. Let’s also note that more than 155 million ballots were cast. Now, when you say “millions of votes” separated them, my own perspective tells me it’s more than what Trump rolled up against the VP. Yes, he won more votes than any Republican presidential candidate in history, so I’ll give him that.

But the landslide he said he scored does not exist.

I just want to be clear on that point.

I won’t go into the rest of the idiocy that flowed from this fellow’s mouth. Doing so would mean I would miss something critical.

Landslide? It did not occur in 2024.

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Electoral certification? Nothing to it … this time!

Just as some of us had predicted, Jan. 6 came and went today without a hitch. Congress met to certify the results of the 2024 presidential election and the vice president … who came out on the losing end of it, declared it official.

The deal was done, just as the U.S. Constitution prescribes it.

A point of context is in order, of course. Four years, another Congress and another vice president gathered in the Capitol to do that very thing. The nimrod who lost the election, Donald Trump, had other ideas. He said the result was rigged. He sent the mob to the Capitol to stop the process.

The attack on our government has relegated Jan. 6, 2021, to a list of infamous dates: Dec. 7, 1941, and Sept. 11, 2001, come immediately to mind. We now just refer to the latter date as “9/11” and we know what it means.

When you say “Jan. 6” these days, we know what you mean there as well.

It’s not supposed to be remembered in that fashion. It’s a routine event, conducted peacefully, orderly and in keeping with what the founders envisioned. It is the hallmark of our democratic republic.

Vice President Kamala Harris made me proud today when she declared that Donald Trump had been duly elected president. Not that Trump had won by defeating Harris, but that she did her constitutional duty without fear of an uprising.

It is how our government is supposed to work.

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Loser showed grace; the winner showed … up

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It was a little thing, but the gestures spoke volumes about the man who won the 2024 presidential election and the woman who lost it.

Vice President Kamala Harris conceded the election the day after they declared  Donald Trump the winner. In her speech, she told the crowd that she had phoned the president-elect to congratulate him on his victory. The response from her supporters gathered before her was understandably muted. But she made the gesture and acknowledged it publicly with grace and class.

How did Trump respond to his stunning victory? He stood before his rally goers … and didn’t say a single word about Kamala Harris.

To be candid, I found his snubbing of his opponent to be worthy of scorn.

I’ve listened to many winning candidates over many years watching elections and listened to the voice they used to accept victory. To a man, they have always recognized the concession call that came from the loser. To varying degrees, they also managed to speak well of the candidate’s losing effort. You’ve heard it, too: “I want to thank my opponent for the tough campaign and for accepting defeat with grace and dignity.”

We didn’t get that kind of magnanimous gesture from Trump. Nope. He chose to refuse to recognize the history that Harris made as the first woman of color ever nominated to run for the presidency. He also refused to recognize the spirited and, yes, hard-charging campaign she ran.

Am I dismayed at Trump’s lack of class in declaring victory? Yes. Am I surprised? Not one single bit!

national news, political news

Harris became … boring!

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Theories have been launched all over creation over why and how Vice President Kamala Harris’s campaign went from spectacular to one that took it on the chin on Election Day.

My theory, for what it’s worth? She became boring.

Here’s my point. As her campaign concluded, it began to dawn on me that I had heard it all before. Many times, in fact. She seemed to rely too heavily on applause lines and cliches.

To wit:

  • There’s more that unites us than separates us.
  • I know Donald Trump’s type.
  • I have only had one client in my years in public service: you, the people.
  • Donald Trump is an unserious man.
  • I never have asked what party people belonged to.  I only asked, “Are you OK?”
  • When we fight, we win!

I am sure there were many more examples. To be candid, I don’t remember them because I nodded off frequently during Harris’s rallies later on in the campaign.

I admit to being caught up in the excitement of Harris’s campaign after President Biden bowed out during the summer. My enthusiasm for her never waned and I voted proudly for her and for her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz.

But as I look back now just days after their loss, I am left only to wonder if Harris — and Walz, too — relied too heavily on the same ol’ applause lines that got our attention … but which had a limited lifespan on the trail that leads to the White House.

Make no mistake: Campaign-trail boredom is a deal breaker.

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Nation will survive

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Allow me this opportunity to speak well of the system of government that our nation’s founders created more than two centuries ago.

Friends of mine have said — and they are only half-joking — that they are going to leave the US of A in case the wrong candidate wins the next presidential election. Me? I am staying put. Why? Because my faith in the Constitution will remain strong.

I voted early for Vice President Kamala Harris and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz. I declared my preference for this contest a long time ago. I am a “never Trumper.” I never would cast my ballot for this totally unfit human being. I said so even before he rode the escalator in June 2015 to declare his intention to run for president in 2016.

Despite all the threats this guy has made, the Constitution has built in safeguards that those of us who oppose this individual can deploy. It does provide for impeachment. The courts — even with the right-wingers sitting on the bench — also can be summoned to make key decisions that could block what this madman would want to do.

I am hoping for a Harris-Walz victory. I make no bones about who I want to take the oath of office next January. However, I happen to love living in the greatest nation on Earth. I intend to stay here … for the duration of the time God gives me to breathe freely.

I have sought to use this blog as a weapon to defeat Donald Trump. The Constitution gives me the protection I need to continue using in case the worst event comes to pass.

However, I remain increasingly hopeful that the correct candidate will take her oath next January.

political news

Waiting with bated breath

Never in my entire — and admittedly lengthy — life can I remember waiting with such anticipation for the polls to close back east on Election Night.

That’s what I am doing today. It is mid-afternoon in North Texas. The polls close in New England and along the Atlantic Coast in about five hours. Once they do, we well might get an idea of whether the nation is returning to its old self of optimism and liberty … or whether we’re going to succumb to the dipshit notions pitched by a convicted felon, twice-impeached former POTUS.

You know what I want to happen. My gut and, yes, my trick knee are telling we might be going to sleep tonight with a hopeful smile. But it ain’t a lead-pipe cinch.

I heard enough of the campaign rhetoric. I have heard the sales pitches of both sides. I am now awaiting the results of what all those millions of campaign dollars have purchased for the candidates who spent them.

political news

Harris has the ‘big mo’

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Momentum well might be the great predictor of who finishes first in the 2024 presidential race.

From my North Texas vantage point, in a county that borders Democratic Party hotbed in Dallas County, it looks for all the world as if Vice President Kamala Harris has the “big mo” as she and Donald Trump gallop down the stretch.

Harris has declared she is going “all positive” in the final hours of this most bitter campaign. Trump’s strategy? He’s going in the other direction. Harris talks about her momentum. Trump refers to Democrats as members of a “demonic party.” Harris speaks of “joy in the morning.” Trump says an assailant would have to take out the “fake news” staffers to get to him, which he said “wouldn’t bother me.”

Who is sounding like a winner? Who’s the loser?

I dare not say out loud what I am hoping in my heart.

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Who’s up? Who’s down? Who can tell?

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Those damn political polls continue to confound me, as they tell conflicting stories all at the same time.

Vice President Kamala Harris is (a) on the verge of a blowout victory next week, (b) is locked in a dead heat with Donald Trump, or (c) might be facing a landslide loss to the former TV reality host turned POTUS.

I have quit trying to insert my own view into what I believe will happen. I am left with only offering what I hope will happen on Election Day.

My hope is that Harris is harvesting most of what is left of the undecided cache of voters who despite knowing all we need to know about the boorishness of Donald Trump remains on the fence.

He recently held that rally in Madison Square Garden that proved to be a hotbed of hate; he said former Congresswoman Liz Cheney should be executed by firing squad for opposing his election as president; he continues to defame Harris’s intelligence and the smarts of the senior military officers who have declared Trump to be a fascist.

I am going to go with what my heart wants to believe, that Harris is on the cusp of making history as the nation’s first female/first woman of color to be elected president of the United States.

I won’t venture into the guessing game of predicting the margin. Trump’s character has been revealed for all the world to see. My hope is that the world detests what it sees.