Tag Archives: POTUS

national news

Jimmy Carter: great American

A truly great man has departed this Earth, which is a better place today because this man chose to serve the world from an office in Washington, D.C.

President Jimmy Carter died today at age 100. We’re going to hear a lot in the next few days and weeks about his being the “greatest former president in U.S. history.” He was all of that, but I am not going to use that as a measuring stick to denigrate the four years this man served in the crucible of power as president.

Jimmy Carter did not preside over a failed presidency. There. I have gotten that out of the way. This good man, who came out of virtual nowhere to win the office in 1976, embarked on a series of initiatives that changed the world forever.

  • President Carter negotiated the handing over of the Panama Canal to Panama, which had sought control of the key passage. It was a difficult and complicated negotiation, fraught with controversy at the time. Ultimately, though, it has proved to be the wise decision.
  • The 39th president initiated diplomatic recognition of the People’s Republic of China. It meant severing our relations with Taiwan, but it was in keeping with this country’s “one-China” policy. Certainly, our relationship with China has had its ups and downs. However, it was the right call.
  • President Carter helped negotiate a lasting peace treaty between two sworn enemies, Israel and Egypt. He brought Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin to Camp David where they hammered out an ironclad peace agreement that stands to this very moment. Please note that Egypt has been silent since Israel went to war against Hamas after the terrorists’ rocket attack against Israel.

Yes, there were some serious setbacks that plagued the Carter presidency, chief among them being the 444-day Iranian hostage crisis. I want to call attention to this fact: Jimmy Carter negotiated for the hostages’ release until the very day Ronald Reagan took office in Washington in January 1981.

Rampant inflation inflicted deep wounds on Carter’s term. Reagan promised a brighter future. Voters elected him in a 1980 landslide.

Carter’s post-presidency saw him earn a Nobel Peace Prize for his work promoting human rights and free elections. He built houses for the poor. He established the Carter Center in Atlanta and used it as a platform to promote his ideals of justice for all.

Carter was a deeply devoted Christian who didn’t use his faith as a prop. He believed in Jesus’s teachings and lived in full devotion to what Jesus taught his believers.

President Jimmy Carter’s legacy is firm. May this good man rest in the eternal peace he has earned.

national news

POTUSes don’t ‘own’ these offices

I have heard enough of media commentators adding possessive adjectives to public offices … and so I want to vent briefly.

Repeatedly I hear news talking heads say things like “Donald Trump’s attorney general,” or “Joe Biden’s vice president,” or “Barack Obama’s secretary of state.”

Let me declare in the loudest voice I can muster: Presidents do not “own” these individuals or the public offices they occupy. We do. You and I. We pay for them with our tax money. We, I submit, are the bosses.

To be sure, this isn’t a major policy gripe. It’s all about style. I am willing to take swipes at presidents of both parties for committing what I believe is an overreach.

President Obama had an annoying habit of referring to “my Cabinet,” or “my national security team.” He seemed to take undue possession of the office he inherited on a temporary basis … although I do acknowledge he said he knew he was there just for a brief period.

The most egregious offender of this style lapse? As my Mom would say: I’ll give you three guesses and the first two don’t count. Donald J. Trump!

During his first tour in the White House, Trump would refer routinely to “my generals” when talking about military matters. He also routinely smothers Cabinet officials — all approved by U.S. senators — in the personal possessive adjectives I find so objectionable.

What do I wish presidents would say? I prefer the plural possessive description, you know … “our administration,” or “our Joint Chiefs of Staff.” We’re on the same team, at least that’s how the nation’s founders designed it.

national news

Biden shows his class

Joseph R. Biden Jr. is a much better man than I am … and he’s a damn sight better man than the nimrod who will succeed him as president of the United States at noon on Jan. 20.

I was frankly moved by the demonstration of class and grace that Biden showed toward Donald J. Trump in the Oval Office the other day when the two men met to discuss policy matters and the transition of power from one administration to the next one.

This was the sort of photo op media event that Trump denied Biden four years ago after Biden defeated Trump’s bid for re-election to the presidency. Accordingly, after what Trump did on Jan. 6 and after all the phony claims of being robbed of victory by unproven voter fraud, I would have expected Biden to say something crass to his successor. He didn’t go there … to his enormous credit!

I am going to say something nice about Trump, too. He accepted Biden’s hand and said that “politics is tough” and “not always nice,” and added that he looked forward to a smooth transition of power. As with almost everything that Trump declares out loud, it good to question his sincerity. I won’t do so — just yet!

Biden’s reverence for the institution of the presidency steered him toward the show of grace and dignity. To be honest I do not know what guided Trump’s demonstration in response to the president.

I want the new president to turn the page and act like a man who reveres the office he will inherit. Wanting it and expecting it, however, remain distant possibilities.

national news

Still can’t respect the man

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Allow me this simple declaration, which is that despite my being faithful to declining to refer to Donald Trump directly as president of the United States … I am going to keep pledge intact for the man’s second term as POTUS.

Why? Because even though I revere the office, I despise the man who is about to inherit it. Therefore, Trump has earned the right — in my mind — to have the word “President” published in this blog directly in front of his name.

My former media colleagues have bent over in every direction to ensure they refer to him as President-elect. Hell, I can’t even do that!

I accept his election. He won it fairly and squarely. I salute his campaign staff’s acumen in ensuring he visited all the right “battleground states” at the right time. His strategy paid off as he was able to win every one of them.

But damn! Dude conducted himself in the most disgusting manner imaginable down the stretch, with the worst demonstration of callousness occurring in the final week when he handled a microphone the way someone handles a male sex organ. Good grief! Remember, too, that did that in front of children who were scattered about in the rally crowd.

So … this man is elected president. He’s got four more years in the Oval Office. The Constitution forbids him from seeking office again.

I am going to commence holding my breath at noon on Jan. 20.

But I damn sure won’t be silent.

Donald Trump

Trump countdown is on

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Some of us out here have commenced the countdown clock to determine when Donald J. Trump is going to commit a profoundly foolish, stupid and potentially illegal act when he assumes the presidency on Jan. 20.

I am not making any bets. I don’t know when it will occur. I do have some notions, though, about what Trump might seek to do when he takes his hand off the holy book on inauguration day.

He could:

  • Pardon the traitors who were jailed for their attack on the government on Jan. 6, 2021.
  • Issue an executive order establishing a sky-high tariff on imported goods, which could trigger an inflation rate we haven’t seen in many decades.
  • Call Russian dictator Vladimir Putin and promise to end any support for Ukraine, which would clear the deck for Putin’s illegal invasion of Ukraine.
  • Issue another executive order calling for the mass deportation of 11 million U.S. residents who are here illegally.
  • Call flag officers back to active duty and then order them court-martialed for comments they made about Trump being a fascist. I am researching that idiotic notion to see if it’s legal. I’ll get back to you on that one.

Will he do any of them? Beats the daylights out of me. I’m just speculating, because that’s all I can do sitting here at some distance.

None of this, of course, includes any of the idiotic pronouncements he could make. I am wondering what could be the memorable from his second inaugural speech. The first one gave us “the American carnage ends” immediately. It didn’t.

The second Trump term well could be as chaotic as the first one.

Let’s all hold on with both hands.

national news

Praise for the unspoken

President Biden today deserves a bouquet for something he didn’t mention in his brief remarks to the nation.

He never mentioned — not a single time — any reference to the difficulty that led to his decision to withdraw his bid for re-election to the nation’s highest office.

I want to offer a hearty congratulations to the president for sticking to his script and for declining to enter the viper’s pit with the critics who continue to insist he has lost his edge, that he no longer is fit to hold the office to which we elected him in 2020.

He surrendered his campaign and endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris as his worthy successor, presuming she wins the election this November. Biden spoke of the high honor he earned by “serving as your president” and said the time has come to “pass the torch” to younger leaders.

Joe Biden will face history’s judgment in due course. I believe historians will treat his time as president with the dignity it deserves. He has been a consequential president with a lengthy list of accomplishments for which he can take credit.

I am proud of him and am proud to have cast my vote for Joe Biden as our commander in chief.

Uncategorized

Stiffen the rules to run

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The next amendment to the Constitution should involve updating requirements to run for president. There are only 3 requirements, and at the time of its writing, that seemed logical. We no longer live in a world full of logical people; and it is illogical that a convicted felon should be allowed to run for office. We need people of good virtue and character. Donny boy offers neither, nor do his adamant supporters, as they have lost their once good character and virtues to a cult leader. But the founders never expected the country would face such a ridiculous crisis.

What you have just read didn’t come from my laptop. It came from an individual who reads this blog and who, by and large, endorses whatever point of view I manage to spew out there. I appreciate his support.

What this gentleman proposes is to stiffen the requirements for seeking high public office. He’s right that there is nothing in the Constitution that requires a candidate for POTUS to be free of criminal charges … let alone convictions.

This guy might be onto something, the more I think about it.

Indeed, the only thing that could keep Donald Trump from serving — God forbid — would be if he is sent to prison.

It’s not too much to ask to reserve the presidency and other high offices only for the best among us to run for them. When you think for just a moment about it, does the “best of us” include just those who haven’t been convicted of a felony?

I believe we could cast our net even farther than a felony conviction. I get that such a change might impinge on the notion that “anybody can be elected president.” Well, eliminating convicted felons from the candidate pool still leaves us with a huge field of hopefuls.

national news

Keep blathering, ex-POTUS

POTUS No. 45 continues to exhibit loudly and clearly why he is so horribly unfit for public office.

He launched a tirade against Republican U.S. Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., because Cassidy cast a vote to convict the former POTUS of inciting an insurrection on 1/6. He called him the “worst senator in the United States.” He labeled him a “lamebrain.”

Bear in mind that the former Moron in Chief endorsed Cassidy’s re-election in 2020.

Trump rages against Louisiana Republican: ‘One of the worst Senators in the United States’ (msn.com)

Cassidy was one of seven Senate Republicans to vote to convict the ex-Liar in Chief on the impeachment filed against him by the House.

All of this just goes to show the astonishing petulance and petty boorishness that resides in what passes for the heart of the former POTUS.

Keep this in mind, too: After the Senate acquitted President Clinton of impeachment charges leveled against him in 1999, the president got to work — with Republicans in Congress — on a budget compromise that produced the first balanced federal budget in decades. That is how you govern. You take your lumps, then after that fight, you get back to work.

Does anyone with half a brain believe that is possible with this idiot?

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No need to ID this guy by name

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Everyone on Earth now likely knows the name of the next Republican Party presidential nominee, as he has captured the party nomination for the past three election cycles.

Thus, you won’t need to read his name on High Plains Blogger. I made a command decision some weeks ago to boycott the idiot’s name, to keep it off my blog posts … to the extent that I can.

There might be an occasion where I quote another politician who has to use his name. I am going to seek ways to write around it.

Why do this? It’s purely selfish. I am sick and fu**ing tired of seeing his name in print and hearing his name mentioned on broadcast media. The very sound of his name makes me feel like puking.

The sight of his overfed, over made-up face causes the same sort of revulsion.

I am wondering whether I should invoke a private drinking game tonight as President Biden delivers his State of the Union speech. Every time the president mentions his 2024 general election foe by name, I am thinking about taking a swig from a small bottle of ouzo I received the other day from a friend of mine.

If I do, I am likely to be wasted by the end of the evening.

President Biden clearly is preparing for a rematch against the former moron in chief he defeated in 2020. He mentions his name liberally whenever he speaks these days in public. That’s fine. It’s good to remind voters specifically who drove the economy into the tank with his feckless, reckless and careless response to the COVID crisis.

That’s a topic for another day.

Meantime, I will watch our president declare that the health of our union is strong and is getting stronger. I just hope my flask of ouzo will last the entire speech.

national news, political news

Ex-POTUS = TFG

You know already that I have offered a bit of a mea culpa for some harsh terms I applied to the MAGA cultists who follow the preachings of the former POTUS who’s running to get his office back.

I also have declared my intention to never mention the MAGA Daddy’s name in this blog.

I have settled on an alternate name for the ex-POTUS. It’s pretty tame, but it does have a nice ring off the old tongue. Thus, I simply will refer to him as The Former Guy, or TFG.

So, those who cheer, whoop, holler and snort at the idiocy that comes from TFG’s pie hole, will thenceforth be called TFG’s followers.

I have received some negative response to my decision to take a relatively high road regarding the TFG cult. Michelle Obama once said, “When they go low, we go high.” I get it, Mme. Former First Lady.

It doesn’t really matter whether this little ol’ North Texas blogger takes the high road or goes into the gutter. I am just going to offer my comments without denigrating the intelligence of those who endorse and embrace the rants of TFG.

I offer all of this understanding what we all know to be true. It is that TFG never has — and likely never will — apologize for the defamatory epithets he has hurled at his foes since the moment he became a politician.

Therefore, I believe I am entitled to say I am a better man than TFG.