National politics

I'm so old, I remember when Republicans deserved their nickname as the Grand Old Party, GOP. They were known as solid citizens, skilled in business, dedicated to fighting communism, defenders of freedom, committed to our Constitution, competent leaders. Those days are gone, at least when it comes to Republicans in Congress. Now the GOP is best known for dysfunction, incompetence, unreliability, lack of a moral compass, fealty only to Donald Trump. Today was a clear example of this. It was a remarkable Tuesday for political junkies like me. Any doubt that the GOP is better termed the POP, Pathetic Old…

At the risk of having my head explode, I've watched each of the debates between the non-Trump candidates for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination. Well, except for the last debate, which was on some network that I'd never heard of. Aside from Chris Christie, who I like when he bashes Trump, but not otherwise, the only other candidate who didn't totally disgust me is Nikki Haley. She actually made sense at times, particularly when she talked about foreign policy and the urgent need for the United States to keep supporting Ukraine. Haley is supposed to be the moderate alternative to…

If our major political parties were to undergo a psychiatric examination to determine whether Republicans or Democrats are acting most crazy, there's no doubt who would be committed to a mental hospital for some serious treatment. The Republican Party, of course. There's so many current examples of this -- including the perennial favorite, how the lying, incompetent, democracy-defying, obnoxious Donald Trump is the clear favorite to be the GOP presidential nominee in 2024 -- that I'm going to limit myself to two issues that are particularly dangerously crazy. Abortion and Ukraine. Look, I've got no problem with Republicans opposing abortion.…

Like most people, after Hamas terrorists brutally attacked Israeli civilians on October 7 my sympathies were almost totally with Israel. Sure, I was aware that Israel has treated Palestinians badly and has done little recently to move toward the two-state solution that is recognized by everybody except for far right Israelis as the best way to assure lasting peace between Israel and its neighbors. But I felt that Israel occupied the moral high ground after the Hamas attacks. Now, though, Israel is squandering that moral authority by the brutal way it is conducting war in Gaza, which is run by…

Here in Oregon, Republican politicians often try to look moderate because they're in a state that leans Democratic. But don't be fooled. These days, virtually every Republican office holder has to be a MAGA devotee of Donald Trump in order to be elected. So they buy into right-wing craziness, no matter how hard they may try to appear all centrist and reasonable. Case in point is the newly elected Speaker of the House of Representatives, Mike Johnson of Louisiana. If you've never heard of him, join the club. He isn't exactly a household name even in Washington D.C., much less…

It's no surprise when Republican politicians lie. Donald Trump has gotten us used to that, and his love of falsehoods has spread to others in his party. Still, I was shocked when I saw that members of the not-so-Grand Old Party were criticizing the Biden administration for supposedly providing $6 billion to Iran that had been used to support the recent attacks on Israel by Hamas, a Palestinian group backed by Iran. Aside from being flat-out wrong, it bothered me that Republicans would use a horrific attack on Israeli citizens for blatant political purposes. Here's the facts about this lie. …

It was an entertaining day for political junkies like me, especially those of us who are retired and could watch Kevin McCarthy being fired as Speaker of the House in real time. The pleasure was intensified by this being a battle between two truly obnoxious people, McCarthy and Representative Matt Gaetz -- a far-right House member who initiated the "move to vacate" procedure that ended up with the Speaker position being vacant because eight Republican House members and all of the Democratic House members who voted on this wanted McCarthy gone. So today, on a 216-210 vote, McCarthy became the…

I heartily enjoy watching Republicans self-destruct. It's so much more pleasant than seeing Democrats do the same thing, which for me is painful, since I'm a progressive.  However, the current Clown Car episode in the GOP-controlled House, though amusing on one level, is deadly serious on another, because Speaker McCarthy and the wacko MAGA extremists in his caucus are speedily driving the federal government toward a harmful shutdown. That will happen at 12:01 am tomorrow night, since that's when the federal fiscal year ends and the current budget is no more. Now, an entirely reasonable question is why Congress has…

This blog post is a partial apology to a couple of progressive friends of mine here in Salem, Oregon who I've argued with via email about the extent to which Putin was justified in viewing NATO's expansion into the former Soviet bloc countries as a provocation that he used as one of his excuses to invade Ukraine. I vociferously said that the NATO expansion was none of Russia's business, since NATO is all about defending member countries from attack, with Russia being the prime potential attacker. My friends, though, said in strong words that the United States and our allies…

War is bad. Unless it is a just war. Then war is good. Ukraine's war against Russia is a just war, since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022 and shows no sign of stopping that unprovoked aggression. That's why I support President Biden's decision to send cluster bombs to Ukraine. Cluster bombs have been banned by over 100 countries, but not by the United States or Russia.  Russia has used them against civilians in Ukraine. Ukraine, on the other hand, only will use them against the Russian military.  Today I heard a CNN interview with Wesley Clark, a retired U.S.…