Presidency

Bring Back Reason and Rhyme at Election Time!

Campaign slogans with and without exclamation points! Slogans have been a part of presidential campaigns since George Washington was fitted for his first set of wooden teeth. Washington himself didn’t need a slogan. He was, after all, the “Father of Our Country.” How could he lose? Then there was the I-cannot-tell-a-lie story that we now know was itself a lie dreamed up by a biographer. As we’re seeing in the preliminary rounds of the 2024 Presidential Election, [...]

READ MORE

By |2023-11-02T15:44:25+00:00November 2, 2023|Biden, Campaign Rhetoric, Democracy, Democrats, Elections, Presidency, Republicans, Trump|

Older but Wiser? We Can Only Hope

Are too many on Capitol Hill over the hill? I haven’t been writing blogs as often as I did a year or two ago, mostly because the world, especially the political world, has gone wacky. I can’t even make fun of this wackiness anymore, because these people are serious, and there are a lot of them out there. I should be enthused that, at this point, at least, two dudes much older than I will probably be [...]

READ MORE

By |2023-09-21T17:44:17+00:00September 21, 2023|Aging, Baby Boomers, death, Democrats, Humor, Old Age, Politics, Presidency, Republicans|

Hurtful and Hateful Humor Returns to American Politics

It’s one of the things that has made America great. Humor can be the great equalizer— from the wisecracking GI coping with wartime stress to the disaster victim refusing to submit to self-pity. It’s even prevalent in politics and government, though carefully rendered in political campaigns with mixed results. We think of Ronald Reagan, 73, and the oldest person ever to run for President at the time (both Trump and Biden were older in the last election) in the [...]

READ MORE

By |2023-06-28T19:26:03+00:00June 28, 2023|Campaign Rhetoric, Congress, Conservatives, Elections, Trump|

Terrorism Tamed to “Legitimate Political Discourse”

Does it? In a true Democracy, three Presidents since 1988 would have lost.  In a simple system of majority rule, Mr. Biden’s thumping margin of more than seven million votes would have been the last word. For that matter, so would Hillary Clinton’s national margin of nearly three million votes in 2016: Mr. Trump would not have had a 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue address in which to barricade himself in 2020. — Jedediah Britton-Purdy in the January 2, [...]

READ MORE

By |2022-02-06T04:10:43+00:00February 6, 2022|Biden, Conservatives, Elections, Electoral College, Terrorism, Trump, Voter Fraud, Voting|

Getting into Wars Easier than Getting Out of Them

Why can’t we remember the lessons of getting in and out of wars? We’ve had a tough time getting out of other countries’ wars, and we still haven’t figured out how to do it effectively. One option is not getting involved in these hostilities in the first place, either as advisors or combatants, but that’s not the American way. It’s become even worse as we sink deeper into the War on Terrorism, which is really the enemy [...]

READ MORE

By |2022-01-24T09:09:44+00:00August 18, 2021|Afghanistan, Biden, Evacuation, War|

Squandering Our Last Chance at Redemption?

GOP blows chance at redemption but the Shinola lives on in D.C. Was anyone really surprised when the U.S. Senate failed to impeach the former president? We all saw it coming. Just like we all saw the big lie about stealing the vote coming when Trump started jawing about it weeks before the election. The dude is so transparent— and I don’t mean transparent in a good way. I mean transparent because, as they say in poker, [...]

READ MORE

By |2022-01-24T09:09:55+00:00February 17, 2021|Congress, Conservatives, Impeachment, News Media, Paychecks, Politics|

For Some with Opinions, Ignorance Is Bliss

Everyone seems to have an opinion, but we all can’t be right. The only sin we never forgive is a difference of opinion. — Ralph Waldo Emerson I prefer not to respond to comments about my blog on Facebook, favorable or otherwise, because I’ve made my point and others can say what they want. Maybe we’ll all learn something. Getting caught up in a debate with someone who seems to be living in an alternate universe is [...]

READ MORE

A Pair of Republicans Worth Emulating

As the charges of voter fraud run their course, some party loyalists have stood their ground. I can’t think of a time when so many people — people who regard themselves as patriots are as distrustful of our democracy as today. Having a president who fuels that mistrust to the extent where supporters view everything around them as a conspiracy is certainly a big part of it. The election has been portrayed as a massive fraud with [...]

READ MORE

By |2022-01-24T09:09:56+00:00December 2, 2020|Conservatives, Conspiracies, Elections, Partisanship, Republicans, Voter Fraud|

Election Lesson: United We Stand; Divided We’ll Fall

Wailing in the White House won’t help bring us together. I must confess I resisted following the blow-by-blow coverage of the presidential election, which required much of last week to project a winner. My attitude was just let me know when it is all over but the shouting. Well, the election part is over, anyway. As usual the shouting, better described as wailing, comes from a president who fears becoming something he detests above all things— a [...]

READ MORE

A Voter’s Journey through Five Decades of Change

Actually, every vote counts toward another vote— from the electors, who are members of the Senate, House of Representatives, and three from the District of Columbia. It was a compromise and it complicates the majority-rules premise. This is my last blog before election day, and more people have already voted than will vote, as my wife and I will, at their local polling places next Tuesday. Changing the minds of voters at this point is very unlikely [...]

READ MORE

Go to Top