White House Race- May 25, 2024

On this Memorial Day Weekend, I have a lot of negative observations about American politics. This week just seemed even weirder than usual,along with some other matters that are in the news recently. I am going to try to rant on a few of them..

Justice Samuel Alito may or may not have a weird wife.Who cares? We are of course just hearing about this years after it happened. The left, with its decade long tradition of playing dirty with judicial politics, just wants him to recuse himself or forced off the Supreme Court. I see no evidence that Alito is some sort of compromised MAGAphile. For one thing, he,along with every other Justice, has already ruled against Trump after the 2020 election. Flying the American flag upside down is not a good thing to do, even if you are pissed at your neighbor. However, despite what the media says, it is not a "symbol of the Insurrection." Yes, some idiots there were doing it, but flying the flag upside down as a sign of "distress" goes back long before Donald Trump was even a thought. Goofy people on the left and the right have been using it for a very long time, including when they are mad about elections.

What happened to the left wanting respect for "peaceful free speech" which has been in the news a lot lately. Do the Alitos not have that right as citizens? Now, we are hearing about a new flag, one I had never heard of, that is somehow supposed to be a "Trump flag" but no, it actually has historical connotations that date back to the Revolution and has long been flown by people for reasons that have nothing to do with Donald Trump. The Trump lackeys actually have their own stupid flags. Those were the ones that were mostly being marched illegally into the Capitol in January 2021. Most of the Insurrections, also were wearing shirts and pants on those days. That does not make those clothing items a "symbol of the Insurrection." Get over yourself hysterical leftists and deal with the big picture and the actual threats that Trump and his ilk present.

Along those lines, there was also a brouhaha of an image Trump or one of his minions posted on his social media during a break in his porn trial. There was a fake newspaper image talking about him being reelected and making reference in small print to a "Unified Reich." What this means, as we have seen before, is that Trump and his people do not pay attention to details when they post crap online that is done by others, and they had to take the post down. This sloppiness is course worthy of criticism in the political sense and Democrats should of course point that out. However, the reference to "Unified Reich" apparently is a reference to something from the 1870s in Germany and thus is not Trump promising to be a Nazi.Whomever decided to post the homemade fantasy memes almost certainly did not see the word. Again, focus on the big issues and what Trump himself is actually saying.

Joe Biden has been giving more speeches lately and it seems like after every one, the White House has to do "correct" several thing said in which Biden either misspeaks or says things that are simply factually untrue. This is nothing new however, Biden has been doing this for generations. Is it it really that surprising that he mixed up the words "recession" and "pandemic" in regards to what happened when he was Vice President. Trump supporters seem to think its a huge scandal. However, I will note that Biden's Vice Presidential years somehow cause a lot of confusion to him when he speaks. I think he may have hated that job.

What was really outrageous this week is the claim that Trump and his acolytes are using and trying to raise money off of claiming that Biden was trying to kill him and his family.Utter malarkey! The FBI raid on Mar-A-Lago had documents that contained standard language about the potential use of lethal force by agents. From what we have been told, those exact words are always included, regardless of the circumstances. Nobody from Biden's FBI was going to try to get into a shootout with Trump's Secret Service Agents. Let us put aside the fact that Biden did not even know (at least we are told) that a raid was going to occur in regards to classified documents that we now know that Trump had even more of them in his bedroom that he used to cover up a red light on his phone. The FBI action took place when they knew the Trumps were not there. These agents went in with polo shirts and baseball hats, trying to look inconspicuous, not ready for a gun battle. What Trump and his disgusting die-hards are doing by attacking the FBI in such a false and inflammatory way is truly dangerous. It is a much bigger deal with a stupid online post or a flag outside a judge's house.

On Tuesday, closing arguments will begin in a Manhattan courtroom. Then, the case will be in the hands of a jury. After a decision is made, if a decision is made, the presumptive Republican nominee for President will either be a convicted felon, or he will not be. One way or another, he will have three other trials pending. One way or another, he will try to use his status to his political advantage and as a money raising opportunity.

Also this week, something happened that I had hoped would not happen, but am not surprised it did. Former Republican Presidential candidate Nikki Haley, while not offering a glowing endorsement, said she would be voting for Donald Trump in November. Apparently, calling her "birdbrain", attacking her ethnic background, and her husband's military service was not a dealbreaker for her. I find it sad, but not at all surprising. I am glad I did not waste a vote for her in a Presidential primary after she dropped out. What she did was the precise reason Chris Christie said he could not endorse after he himself had dropped out. Haley looks again like just another craven politician. Out of all the other Republicans who ran for President this cycle, only Christie, Asa Hutchinson, and one other, have resisted endorsing Trump. The other? Former Vice President Mike Pence, who served under Trump. This year at least, he has shown more principle than Haley. It is also a reminder that among all the living people who have ever been the GOP nominee for President and Vice President (and some recently deceased ones would be going along with them), only Sarah Palin is openly supporting Trump. One cannot be completely sure about what Dan Quayle intends to do, but we know that Bush, Cheney, Romney, Ryan, and also Pence, are not for Trump. Three of those people were willing to vote for him in the past (not GWB or Mitt Romney.)

So what is Haley thinking? She says as imperfect as Trump is, Biden is worse. She did not seem to be making that distinction in her rhetoric during the final weeks of her campaign. The things she said this week she wants in a President is nowhere to be found in either Trump or Biden. She should be honest and just say she does not want to be blamed and simply wants a place at the Republican table for 2028, or maybe if something were to still happen between now and the convention. Not surprisingly, Trump is now acting a lot more positive towards Haley saying there will be a role on his team "somewhere." Still though, Trump has not done much to reach out to Haley primary voters and many of those people are Republicans who are simply anti-Trump and do not care what she did. I suppose I fit into that category, as I would have voted for Haley if I lived in one of the earliest states to have held contests. I always had a feeling she would cave though.

In 2028, I expect a still young Nikki Haley to run for President as a Republican again either saying "hey, I told you he couldn't win, but I still went ahead and did the right thing for the party" or "he won because I put aside my feelings and supported him." I hope the phony rationale she will give will at least be the former.

Tonight, there was some political theater as Donald Trump endorsed the Libertarian National Convention and asked them (sorta) to nominate him for President. This whole concept is very unprecedented in our American political history and you have to wonder what the Libertarians were even doing offering speaking slots to Trump and Robert Kennedy Jr., with some of their delegates wanting to endorse either of those two very non-small government people. Nobody does weird like the Libertarians do though. I have known that for decades, and they have only gotten weirder during the Trump era, just as Democrats and Republicans have gotten weirder and in many cases more extreme.

Putting aside his horrible isolationist views on foreign policy, there is nothing remotely "libertarian" about Trump on economic or social matters. Him trying to tell them otherwise was pretty sad. At least the principled Libertarians booed him tonight, showed him a thumbs down, or another finger up, and yelled at him to get off the stage. Frankly though, I would have expected more vocal outrage and acting out by those assorted weirdos and wackjobs. It was about a 6 out of 10 for what it could have been. I thought they were planning to drown him out with kazoos.

I am sure Trump was told by his people that there would be booing. It is all noteworthy because he usually only goes before fawning crowds (even this past week at a rally in the Bronx.) He has really never spoken before any sort of audience who was this hostile to him and his message. Some will give him points for showing up, but it had to bother his fragile ego to know there are people out there who truly hate him and are willing to express that to his face. The Libertarian Party delegates may not be a decent representation of the American people as a whole, but if Trump were to actually be exposed to "average Americans", he would see how unpopular he is and how people just do not want him to ever be President again. However, most of those people also feel the same way about his opponent.