Tag Archives: MAGA

local news, political news

Cruz needs to be shown the door

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Of all the men and women I have watched in politics over many years as a journalist and now as a civilian with a keen interest in public policy, Ted Cruz stands tall among them as the most loathsome.

The junior U.S. senator from Texas keeps getting sliced and diced by the state’s largest newspaper — his hometown sheet, in fact — over this and that policy issue. The Houston Chronicle has peeled the bark off Cruz’s backside most recently over his blocking of high-speed Internet service coming to Texas.

But in reality, the Cruz Missile is now trying to rebrand himself as a bipartisan senator, someone with Democratic friends and colleagues. My goodness … this guy is utterly without shame.

He has spent the bulk of his nearly dozen years in the Senate doing two things: trying to advance his own political ambition and trashing Democrats at every opportunity.

He damn near lost his first re-election bid in 2018. Now he’s facing another Democrat who’s abandoning his House seat to challenge him. The foe this time is Colin Allred of Dallas.

Oh, how I want Allred to win. I want another senator who can work with pols on the other side of the still-great chasm. Our state’s senior senator, John Cornyn of San Antonio, at times shows promise in steering clear of the MAGA wing of the Republican Party.

Cornyn needs a partner in that bipartisan effort. From my vantage point, it doesn’t appear to me that Ted Cruz is wired in that manner.

Which is precisely why I want Colin Allred to give Ted Cruz the boot in the backside.

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Courts have become political

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Our nation’s founders, the men who crafted a federal judiciary they intended to remain “above politics,” surely are doing somersaults in their graves.

The nation’s federal judiciary has become a third political branch of government, not a branch intended only to determine the constitutionality of laws enacted by Congress and signed by the president.

Democratic senators have signed a petition that aims to stop “judge shopping” by conservative activists seeking judges who they believe will rule in their favor. Of particular concern is the federal court based in Amarillo and which is presided over by U.S. District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk, who was nominated for that seat by the 45th POTUS. Kacszmaryk succeeded a judicial legend in the Texas Panhandle, the late Mary Lou Robinson, of whom no one ever complained was being “too political” in her rulings.

Robinson was nominated by President Jimmy Carter in 1980 and served with distinction and high honor. Now comes Kaczmaryk, whom conservatives seek to overturn policies enacted by Democratic and progressive members of Congress and presidents.

Schumer, McConnell introduce judge shopping bills | The Texas Tribune

“As I have said before, the problem with venue shopping is not a judge in North Texas,” Senate GOP leader Mitch McConnell said from the Senate floor. “It’s a national problem driven by the ability of single judges everywhere to grant injunctions that are national in scope.”

The founders couldn’t possibly have envisioned this kind of mess developing within a judicial system they created.

crime news

This dude’s life about to get seriously uncomfy

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POTUS 45’s life is about to enter a world in which no man should have to visit …. but he’s got it coming to him.

The former Liar in Chief is going on trial beginning Monday in a New York state court on charges that he spent campaign money illegally by paying $130,000 to an adult film actress to keep her quiet about a one-night stand she alleges occurred between her and the future POTUS.

The former Philanderer in Chief denies it happened, but he paid her the money anyway. Go figure that one, folks.

The tryst allegedly occurred just as the ex-POTUS’s wife was caring for the couple’s then-infant son.

How long will this circus last? Some legal experts say it could be over in three weeks to a month once they seat a jury of the former Moron in Chief’s “peers.”

My favorite aspect of this is that because it’s a criminal trial, the defendant will be forced to sit through it all. He’ll get to watch the former alleged paramour tell jurors of what occurred in the hotel room that night. He’ll have to listen to his former lawyer/fixer/right-hand man tell them how the ex-POTUS ordered him to write the check.

Hey, it’ll be fun to watch.

national news, political news

Democracy is strong … not ‘fragile’

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Vice President Kamala Harris needs to take a deep breath and assess carefully the strength of the democratic republic she is governing alongside President Joe Biden.

Harris told an interviewer that the 2024 election well could be the “last democratic election” this country could have. Really, Mme. Vice President?

She frets that the presumed Republican presidential nominee could get elected and enact a permanent dictatorship. Thus, we have the end of democracy in this great nation of ours, she reckoned.

Kamala Harris agrees with interviewer that 2024 could be last US democratic election (yahoo.com)

Harris was speaking on a podcast hosted by Angie “Pumps” Sullivan. “I don’t think it’s hyperbolic to say this genuinely could be the last democratic election we ever have,” Sullivan said.

“You’re right,” Harris responded.

Excuse me, but I’ll butt in for a moment.

Sullivan is being hyperbolic in the extreme. For the VPOTUS to endorse that hyperbole is folly in the extreme.

All of this seems to presume that the GOP nominee is going to win the election. I am going out on that fragile limb and say, “No way in this world is that moron going to win the election this fall!”

Harris went on: “No, and I’m going to tell you. As vice president, I’ve now met with over 150 world leaders … in the last three international trips I’ve taken — which are going back to the end of last year through this year — world leaders have come up to me, expressing their real concern about this election,” Harris said.

What precisely do they know about the character of Americans? We have it totally within our power to stop this crazed lunatic from ascending to power yet again.

And make no mistake about it, the GOP nominee-to-be is flat-out nuts, a loon, and he poses an existential threat to the very government he once swore to “defend and protect.”

local news, political news, State news

Cruz seeks to rebrand himself … yeah, right

Rafael Edward Cruz, aka Ted Cruz, is trying to pull off the biggest rebranding effort in U.S. Senate history.

The Republican firebrand now calls himself a “bipartisan” member of the Senate, citing his working relationship and friendship (if you dare believe that) with leading Senate Democrats.

It’s a joke, I’m tellin’ ya. Except that I ain’t laughing at it … except perhaps in derision.

Cruz is in for another tough re-election fight, this time against Democratic U.S. Rep. Colin Allred of Dallas, who — according to many leading polls — is in a dead heat with the two-term senator. Cruz was first elected in 2012, then won a bitter re-election battle in 2018 against former Rep. Beto O’Rourke by about 3 percentage points.

Ted Cruz angles for a bipartisan rebrand | The Texas Tribune

Allred, serving his second term in the House, has established a bipartisan reputation in the lower chamber and says Cruz’s effort is a bald-faced sham. Allred told the Texas Tribune: “I don’t think Ted Cruz is fooling anybody,” Allred said. “He spent 12 years being the most divisive — and proudly so — partisan warrior in the United States. And I think it’s kind of laughable actually that at this point, when he’s in a close race, that he wants to now stress, ‘Oh, actually I have been working in a bipartisan way.’”

He’s nothing like the bipartisan statesman he is portraying himself to be. Recall how he filibustered in the Senate in trying to kill the Affordable Care Act. He has been a front-row election denier, questioning the validity of the 2020 presidential election that gave us Joe Biden as president. He has been virtually silent about the 1/6 assault on our government and has endorsed the 45th POTUS’s bid to win back the White House after losing to President Biden in 2020.

According to the Tribune: “When I first arrived in the Senate 12 years ago, there was such a thing as moderate Democrats. They existed. You could work them,” Cruz said at the Texas Public Policy Foundation’s Texas Policy Summit last month. “There aren’t any left. The Democrats, they hate Trump so much their brains have melted, and what’s happened is they have gone crazy off the edge to the left.”

Now he wants us to believe he’s willing to work with Democrats whose “brains have melted”?

Hah!

2016 election, national news, political news

Are we really that stupid?

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A member of my family and I disagree on the potential outcome of the 2024 presidential election.

My family member believes the 45th president is poised to regain the presidency. I disagree. He and I had an exchange that went something like this:

Family member: I think he’s going to win.

Me: No. He won’t win.

FM: You said the same thing in 2016 and look what happened.

Me: We have learned from the mistake we made as a nation. We aren’t going to make it again.

FM: I am not so sure about that. I don’t think we’ve learned anything. Besides, Biden didn’t win in 2020 by a landslide.

Me: I know. A few hundred thousand-vote switch in three states would have produced a vastly different result.

The exchange ended shortly after that. My family member does not want the 45th POTUS to win. He doesn’t exactly line up strongly in President Biden’s camp.

I do wish my family member had more faith in the collective intelligence of American voters. But … he doesn’t and I’ll accept his view that we are collection of gullible dummies. I, however, am going to stand on my wellspring of belief that we are smarter than we have demonstrated.

The former POTUS tapped into a heretofore mine of resentment in Americans’ hearts. He now vows to be “your retribution” for misperceived wrongs that have been committed against the former POTUS. He is going to unleash the Justice Department on his foes … and to think he accuses Biden of “weaponizing” the DOJ.

Are we really ready to welcome a return of this kind of political vengeance into the halls of power?

I think not.

medical news, national news, political news

Ex-POTUS now opposes national abortion ban … oh, really?

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POTUS No. 45 has just declared his opposition to a national ban on abortion, saying that states should have the final say on what happens within their borders.

What in the world are we to glean from the presumed Republican Party presidential nominee’s latest stance on abortion?

Let’s review for a moment this moron’s path through the abortion pea patch.

He once declared himself to be fully pro-choice on the issue. Then he ran for president in 2016 and promised to appoint judges who would overturn Roe v. Wade, the landmark 1973 Supreme Court ruling that inscribed a woman’s right to choose as a civil liberty. He kept that promise, with three judges named to the high court during his single — and hopefully only — presidential term. Republican senators declared their intention to enact a national ban, the former POTUS was silent. Now he says it’s up to the states.

While making that declaration, the former Idiot in Chief has boasted about “single-handedly overturning Roe v. Wade.”

Where does this clown stand on the issue? Don’t answer that. I think I know. He doesn’t stand anywhere on it.

He has no view. He has no policy.

crime news, national news, political news

Let the trial begin … and end

Eight days from now a judge in New York City is going to bang a gavel and call for the beginning of a trial.

It won’t be an ordinary trial. The criminal defendant will be a former president of the United States. He will make history by being the first ex-POTUS ever to stand trial.

The ex-POTUS has three more trials awaiting him once this one concludes. The others are more consequential in terms of the charges leveled against him. First things first, though.

The NYC trial is going to take the former POTUS off the campaign trail for as long as it takes to reach a conclusion. He’ll be in court listening to testimony alleging how he misused campaign funds to pay off an adult film actress to keep quiet about a one-night stand the two of them had, but which the former POTUS said didn’t happen.

Go figure.

The defendant cut a check for the actress totaling 130 grand to shut her up.

This might not be the biggest legal deal facing the former POTUS. Still, it’s pretty damn big. District Attorney Alvin Bragg has to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant did what has been alleged. It’s a criminal case, after all, so the bar is set high.

I will not shy away from — or apologize for — my hope that DA Bragg delivers the goods to the jury that will decide this matter. I want the former POTUS to be convicted of the crime that has been alleged. I also want him locked up and kept out of public view. He is an existential menace to the nation he seeks to lead once more.

God help us if there are enough stupid Americans out there to put him back into the Oval Office.

In many crucial ways, this is the most important trial in U.S. history. It’s going to make for the highest political drama any of have ever witnessed.

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Judge goes political … shamefully

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Judges are supposed to stay above and apart from political battles, at least that’s what I always have thought.

Oops. Not so fast. A Texas Supreme Court associate justice said the other day he believes Democrats are going to rig the 2024 election to keep the presumed Republican nominee from being elected president.

Justice John Devine needs to have his mouth washed out with soap. According to the Texas Tribune: “Do you really think the Democrats are going to roll over and let Trump be president again?” Devine asked in a keynote speech at the Texas Tea Party Republican Women’s 2023 Christmas event. “You think they’re just going to go away, all of a sudden find Jesus and [there will] be an honest election? I don’t think so.”

What is he saying? Is he implying crookedness in the election? Looks like it to me! It’s also totally inappropriate for a judge — who well might hear a case involving a two-party political dispute — to shoot off his mouth in such a fashion.

SCOTX Justice implies Democrats will cheat in 2024 election | The Texas Tribune

This is crap! The judge ought to know it, too.

“Judges should be honestly evaluating and applying our state’s laws, not giving partisan speeches baselessly accusing members of a different political party of ‘cheating’ in elections,” Houston County Attorney Christian Menefee said.

Justice John Devine needs to step away from the political fight.

national news, political news

Get out of the way, RFK Jr.

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Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is really pissing me off … in a serious sort of way.

Now he’s talking smack about the traitors who are jailed for storming the Capitol building on 1/6, refusing to call them what they are, criminals who were caught seeking to overturn the results of a free, fair, legal and moral election.

Democratic Party officials — many of whom with fond memories of Junior’s father and uncles — now want the independent presidential candidate to drop out of the race. I join them in their anger at RFK Jr., who’s sounding more like a crackpot than a serious candidate for POTUS.

Man, I never thought I was say these things about the scion of one of America’s great political families, and the second-oldest son of my first political hero.

The great Robert F. Kennedy no doubt would climb out of his Arlington National Cemetery grave — if he could — and deliver a serious ass-kicking to his son.

Does Junior not understand what this treasonous mob sought to do and does not appreciate the consequence he could bring to the result of an election he has zero chance of winning?