Posted in2024 election Donald Trump Joe Biden

After New Hampshire, it’s almost certainly Biden vs. Trump

Following tonight's vote in New Hampshire, it seems clear that Nikki Haley's odds of beating Donald Trump for the Republican presidential nomination are about as strong as me winning a billion dollars in a lottery. Same is true of Dean Phillips beating Joe Biden for the Democratic nomination, though his odds are even lower. Phillips is on track to get about 20% of the vote in New Hampshire, where Biden wasn't even on the ballot due to his commitment to have South Carolina be the first state to award Democratic delegates.  Losing so badly when votes for Biden had to…
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Posted in2024 election Donald Trump Joe Biden

Trump wins big in Iowa. May he lose big to Biden.

Living as I do in a vote-by-mail state where ballots are filled out in the comfort of one's home, then put in a mailbox with postage paid by Oregon's enlightened government, it baffles me why a state would vote in any other way. Like, by traveling to a site where you may have to stand in line for a long time before being able to vote. But that makes more sense than choosing a candidate in the Republican primary for president by having people attend caucuses in bitterly cold weather in mid-January where a couple of hours of discussion precedes…
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Posted in2024 election Donald Trump National politics

Republicans, January 6 criminals are prisoners, not hostages

It's a good thing that I don't have a blood pressure problem. If I did, I'd ask my doctor to increase my medication until the 2024 election is over in November, because the lies being spread by Donald Trump and his Republican sycophants are making me furious -- and it's just January 7. Which is one day after the three-year anniversary of the despicable insurrection, or riot if you prefer that word, at our nation's capitol in 2021.  Immediately after January 6 of that year most Republicans acknowledged that this violent attempt to prevent the certification of Joe Biden as…
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Posted in2024 election Donald Trump

Should Trump be banned from the Oregon ballot? I say, no.

Yesterday Colorado banned Trump from that state's primary ballot. The Colorado Supreme Court issued the decision, which almost certainly now will be appealed to the United States Supreme Court. A divided Colorado Supreme Court on Tuesday declared former President Donald Trump ineligible for the White House under the U.S. Constitution’s insurrection clause and removed him from the state’s presidential primary ballot, setting up a likely showdown in the nation’s highest court to decide whether the front-runner for the GOP nomination can remain in the race. The decision from a court whose justices were all appointed by Democratic governors marks the…
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Posted inDonald Trump Oregon politics

Election workers deserve our thanks in these divisive times

We should be thankful all of the time, not just around Thanksgiving. But it was auspicious timing for the Salem City Club to have an "Elections Under the Microscope" presentation last Friday, since I came away from the presentations by Marion County Clerk Bill Burgess and Polk County Clerk Kim Williams with an increased feeling of thankfulness for the often thankless job election workers do in these divisive times. Bill Burgess By divisive, naturally I'm referring to the indisputable fact that one of our two major national political parties, the Republican, is in the thrall of Donald Trump, a notorious…
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Posted in2024 election Donald Trump Joe Biden

I’m freaking out about Biden’s weakness against Trump

With a year to go until the 2024 presidential election, is it too soon for Democrats to freak out about the horrific New York Times/Siena College poll released yesterday? President Biden is trailing Donald J. Trump in five of the six most important battleground states one year before the 2024 election, suffering from enormous doubts about his age and deep dissatisfaction over his handling of the economy and a host of other issues, new polls by The New York Times and Siena College have found. The results show Mr. Biden losing to Mr. Trump, his likeliest Republican rival, by margins…
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Posted inDonald Trump

Meet the Press shouldn’t have interviewed Trump

I'm a big fan of Meet the Press. It's been a Sunday viewing habit of mine for as long as I can remember. I enjoyed Chuck Todd when he was the host. But he's no longer with Meet the Press. Today was the debut of Todd's replacement, Kristen Welker. The show was devoted to a taped interview Welker did with Donald Trump. A transcript of the interview is here. The best part of the interview for me was seeing how old Trump looks. Either his makeup artist has gone on strike, or the pressures of his four indictments is getting…
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Posted inDonald Trump

Trump’s mug shot has an artistic quality to it

I rarely praise Donald Trump. Can't remember the last time I did this, but it could have been his Operation Warp Speed that succeeded in getting Covid vaccines to Americans in record time.  Today was another occasion for Trumpian praise. I couldn't help but think, "Dude, your Fulton County mug shot is a work of art. Great pose, with just the right combination of malevolence and irritation in your look."I suspect Trump is happy with the mug shot also. By leaning forward he appears to have managed to capture the light and dark shading on the opposite sides of his…
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Posted inDonald Trump National politics

Georgia indictment of Trump should be wakeup call for GOP voters

A little while ago a Georgia grand jury indictment was unsealed, revealing that Donald Trump and 18 other people have been charged with criminal conspiracy for their efforts to overturn the legitimate 2020 election victory of Joe Biden in Georgia. Aug 14 (Reuters) - Former U.S. President Donald Trump was hit with a sweeping fourth set of criminal charges on Monday when a Georgia grand jury issued an indictment accusing him of efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss to Democrat Joe Biden. The charges, brought by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, add to the legal woes facing Trump,…
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Posted in2020 election Donald Trump National politics

Trump’s defenses against Jan. 6 indictment make no sense

Yesterday it filled my progressive heart with joy when I heard that Donald Trump had been indicted by the Justice Department on four counts related to his attempt to steal the 2020 election after Joe Biden was lawfully elected: three of conspiracy and one of obstruction. You can read the eminently readable 45 page indictment via this PDF file.Download Trump Indictment file Today it was amusing to hear the laughable defenses trotted out by Trump's attorneys for why their client is innocent of the charges. Those defenses are so weak, Trump might as well plead guilty tomorrow at his arraignment,…
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Posted inDonald Trump National politics

Trump’s federal indictment another first for the worst ex-president

Donald Trump likes to brag about himself. Well, today he got another #1 to add to his list of pseudo-accomplishments. Trump is the first former president to face federal charges. A New York Times story describes the well-deserved indictment.  The Justice Department on Thursday took the legally and politically momentous step of lodging federal criminal charges against former President Donald J. Trump, accusing him of mishandling classified documents he kept upon leaving office and then obstructing the government’s efforts to reclaim them. Mr. Trump confirmed on his social media platform that he had been indicted. The charges against him include…
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Posted inDonald Trump

Trump on CNN was horrifying. Also, disqualifying.

I had no plan to watch the Trump town hall on CNN yesterday. But it was still going when I drove home from a Tai Chi class around 6 pm, so I listened to it on satellite radio for about half an hour. It was ugly. Really ugly. Trump lied incessantly. He talked over the moderator, Kaitlan Collins. He called E. Jean Carroll, who had just won a civil lawsuit where Trump was found guilty of sexually abusing and defaming Carroll, a "wack job" and said the trial was "a rigged deal." The New Hampshire audience, mostly Republicans and a…
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Posted inDonald Trump National politics

Justice! Trump guilty of sexual abuse and defamation

Our legal system served E. Jean Carroll well today. Today a jury took just a few hours to find him guilty of sexually abusing and defaming her. Carroll was awarded $5 million in damages that Trump has to pay. A New York Times story starts off this way. A Manhattan jury on Tuesday found former President Donald J. Trump liable for sexually abusing and defaming E. Jean Carroll and awarded her $5 million in damages. More than a dozen women have accused Mr. Trump of sexual misconduct over the years, but this is the only allegation to be affirmed by…
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Posted inDonald Trump

Democratic worries about Trump indictment are overblown

Democrats worry about things going wrong politically even when they're going well. Republicans are optimistic about things going right politically even when they're going poorly. OK, that's a broad generalization. But there's still a lot of truth in what I just said.  Evidence in support of my thesis comes from the reaction to the indictment and arraignment of Donald Trump.  Yesterday Alvin Bragg, the Manhattan District Attorney, presented an outline of his case against Trump in a post-arraignment news conference. I thought he did fine.  Basically, a few weeks before the 2016 election Trump paid hush money to an adult…
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Posted inDonald Trump

Joyous day! Trump is indicted.

Nothing like an indictment of Donald Trump to make my day brighter. When I first saw a mention that a Manhattan grand jury had voted to indict him, I thought this might be a joke. But when I realized the news was true, I felt freaking great!  It's been a long time coming. Trump has been lying and cheating and stealing his way through life for many decades, yet until now had avoided a criminal indictment. So it was richly deserved, even if making a $130,000 hush money payment to a porn star just before the 2016 presidential election that…
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Posted inDonald Trump National politics

Israeli people fight authoritarianism in their country as GOP promotes it in U.S.

At the moment Israel is being torn apart by the attempt of their right-wing Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, to pass bills that would do away with the balance of power in that country by allowing the legislature to control the judiciary and stop investigations into wrongdoing by Netanyahu. If that sounds familiar, it's akin to what Republicans in our House of Representatives want to do to protect Donald Trump from prosecution.  A trio of House Republican committee chairs say the House of Representatives could soon take up legislation to strip state and local prosecutors of the authority to prosecute former…
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Posted inDonald Trump National politics

If a Democratic president acted like Trump, how would liberals react?

Today the January 6 committee held its final meeting to lay out criminal referrals to the Justice Department for potential prosecution.  The House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol accused former President Donald J. Trump on Monday of inciting insurrection, conspiracy to defraud the United States, obstruction of an act of Congress and one other federal crime as it referred him to the Justice Department for potential prosecution. The action, the first time in American history that Congress has referred a former president for criminal prosecution, is the coda to the committee’s 18-month investigation into Mr. Trump’s…
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Posted inDonald Trump National politics

Hopefully I don’t regret this blog post about Trump 2024

Yesterday Donald Trump announced that he's a candidate for president in 2024, a full two years before the election.  I can't stand Trump. But I'm pleased that he's running for the Republican nomination again. It'll be easy for me to explain why. I just hope that after the 2024 presidential election I don't take a look at this post and think, Brian, how could you have been so stupid? Wouldn't be the first time I've had that thought, of course. I think and do stupid stuff all the time. However, it's one thing to make a personal mistake, and a…
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Posted inDonald Trump

I love the photo of top secret documents found in Trump’s residence

When Trump is convicted of mishandling government documents, many of which were marked top secret, as I dearly hope will happen, this FBI photo will be part of the evidence that led to his downfall. There's so much to love about this photo. For one thing, it demolishes any argument Trump could make that he didn't know the documents were marked as classified.  The big red and yellow borders around the secret/top secret cover pages show that it would be impossible to miss that these were highly sensitive documents. Which, of course, belong to the U.S. Government, not Donald Trump,…
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Posted in2020 election Donald Trump

Let’s imagine President Hillary Clinton acting like Trump

I realize that almost everybody is biased toward the members of their own political "tribe." For sure, I am. I readily admit that I'm more willing to overlook transgressions of fellow Democrat politicians than Republican politicians. But I deeply doubt that most Democrats would put up with all the crap that Donald Trump has done as president and post-president. At least, nowhere near to the extent that Republicans still bow down at the Altar of Trump. If you're a Republican who disagrees with that assessment, here's a thought experiment for you to consider. Imagine this alternative reality... In November 2016…
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