Don’t Expect Biden To Be Impeached

They keep finding stuff at Joe Biden’s house in Wilmington, Delaware. I’m talking secret documents, top secret documents, classified documents, and I bet if they look long and hard enough, they’re going to find Jimmy Hoffa. Just sayin’.

And while they are setting their sights on the new Rehoboth Beach House that Biden recently purchased, don’t look for much to happen with this scandal overall. And there’s a really good reason for it.

The Republicans in the Senate don’t want to impeach Biden over this.

It’s not the Democrats, it’s the Republicans. And the reason is pretty simple. Apparently, there are quite a few people that had served in the government in Washington that actually have secret, top secret, and classified documents in their possession. They recently found some in Mike Pence’s house. I think this is just the tip of the iceberg. Something tells me that when the GOP doesn’t want to go after Biden, it’s gotta be for one of two reasons. Either they are hiding something themselves and don’t want to be caught, or they want nothing to do with a K-baby Harris presidency.

And frankly, either would be easy to solve. To solve the first reason, it’s simple. Burn the damn classified, secret, or top secret documents, and flush the ashes down the toilet. The second reason is a little tougher, but you first impeach K-baby Harris for incompetence, if you can get enough Democrats in the Senate to go along with it, THEN, you can impeach Biden on this scandal after that.

But alas, neither is going to happen. Most of the Republican Senators that have been interviewed on the subject simply say that finding these documents illegally in Biden’s possession does not rise to the level of an impeachable offense. The other thing that I think is going on here is the precise reason why I’ve said all along that you don’t want to impeach anyone in the Biden administration unless you can make it stick. Impeachment has a stink to it. And it doesn’t necessarily attach itself to the accused, but to the party bringing the impeachment.

When Bill Clinton was impeached back in the 1990’s he wore it as a badge of honor. It really was anything but, and in the end, lying turned out not to be an impeachable offense. Then with Donald Trump, neither time he was impeached reached that level. And in both cases, the Republicans, and the Democrats paid the price in the House. I think that is the over-riding reason why the Republicans are looking to avoid impeachment at all cost.

And it’s a pretty good reason. Why go through the time and the expense of an impeachment trial if you know going in there is no way you are going to get a conviction? That makes no sense whatsoever. Richard Nixon resigned because it became clear to him, not only would he be impeached, but he most likely would be convicted in the Senate over the whole Watergate coverup.

And speaking of coverup, that’s really what Biden needs to focus on here. In DC, it’s not usually the crime that gets you, it’s what you do to coverup that crime that ends up biting your rear end. Joe Biden saying “there’s no there there”, when it came to finding extra documents, and nefarious reasons for having the docs in the first place, was, in fact walking very close to a coverup. And Karine Jean Pierre has either been woefully neglected in the discussions on how to handle all of this, or she is just lying through her teeth. She has contended from the beginning that there were just a few documents found in Biden’s office, but the matter is closed and they are cooperating fully. It turns out that wasn’t true at all. And now the press is clamoring for her head on a platter for not giving them the answers they want (and deserve).

Therein lies really the person that may actually pay the most for this. KJP is guilty of lying, though my personal feeling is that she doesn’t have a clue what’s being said and decided in the Oval Office on this matter. She’s at the podium struggling to give the press something, and she has nothing to give. She doesn’t want to look like she’s out of the loop, but it’s becoming painfully obvious that she is. In the end, she’s going to either resign, or the Biden administration is going to fire her…mark my words.

As for Biden himself, he’s going to be Nixon-lite when it comes to this scandal. I will say right now that I don’t think he’s going to be able to pull himself out of this nose-dive in time to run for a second term in 2024. And that opens the door for the GOP even wider than it was!

Carry on world…you’re dismissed!

The Klain Problem

Ron Klain is not a name that is known by most Americans. He is Joe Biden’s White House Chief of Staff. Look at that as the real number two position in government. He is with Joe Biden basically every moment of every day. He gives Biden his opinion on how things are and how things should be done. And a lot of people both inside and outside of the administration, say that Ron Klain is the guy that is controlling the puppet strings that seem to be tied to Joe Biden.

And Ron Klain is going to be leaving soon.

There are several reasons for this. Chiefs of Staff typically don’t last throughout the term of a presidency. Donald Trump went through four of them in four years. Obama had three. Klain has been on board for two years. That’s an eternity as far as Chiefs of Staff are concerned!

And the reason Klain is leaving now probably doesn’t have much to do with his wanting to get back to private life, or having to do with wanting to spend “more time with the family”, which is always a great line to use if you’re leaving government work. It’s the fact that he sees the handwriting on the wall when it comes to the Biden presidency and he doesn’t want to be anywhere near it when the dog poo hits the proverbial fan.

Klain has caused the mess the country is in, as much if not more than Biden. But he had little to nothing to do with the latest scandal. Biden is the one that took classified documents, which is a federal crime, and stored them unsecured in his Washington DC office after leaving as Vice President, and in his garage and throughout his home in Wilmington Delaware. In neither location were the classified documents stored in what could be considered a secure manner.

Ron Klain has called the shots in the Biden White House since he got there. And don’t think for a minute that Biden has come up with anything on his own. Klain is the guy that has had to clean up a lot of Biden’s mis-steps, gaffes, foibles, and out and out lies. He and the whole communications department have had to work overtime to clean up Joe Biden’s loose lips. And I’m sure he’s thinking that he can’t keep doing this. It’s time he leaves, and that could very well mean that Biden’s ship sinks. Because that ship has been called so far, the USS Klain.

Now, having said that, I will readily admit that everyone on the face of this earth is replaceable. There isn’t one of us that can’t be replaced. And Ron Klain is no different. The question is, Biden has chosen Jeff Zients, someone with a lot of budget experience to replace Kalin. Is Zients going to let Biden call the shots? Or, as Klain, is he determined to be the shadow president?

I find it interesting that Biden has used the “hire by their gender, race, creed, color, sexual orientation” method for his Vice President, his current press secretary, and an appointment to the Supreme Court. Yet when it comes time to hire another Chief of Staff, the person he works closest with, he chooses to stay away from the above criteria. Interesting!

That is going to be what sets the tone for the Biden agenda moving into the second half of his term. And that is also going to say a lot as to how Biden approaches a House of Representatives controlled by the Republican party. To date, he hasn’t done much, if anything to negotiate his agenda with the GOP. We can blame Klain for that one. But we’ll have to wait and see if he digs in his heals, or if he relents and becomes the Joe Biden he said during the campaign can work across the aisle. Only time will tell.

Carry on world…you’re dismissed!

Does Trump Step In MORE Problems???

In 2016, when Donald Trump came down the escalator at Trump Tower in New York City to announce his candidacy for president, I was like a lot of you. I was amused. I didn’t think he was going to be any more than one of those celebrities that decides that they need something better to do with their life, and so they run for office. The country is full of them. Think about it. You’ve got people like Ronald Reagan (not a great example, he turned out pretty well), Sonny Bono, Fred Grandy, Jesse Ventura, Clint Eastwood, and Matthew McConaughey. I at first, put Trump in the same boat. He turned out to be a pretty decent president from a policy standpoint. From a political standpoint, he was a trainwreck.

And now he’s back…sort of.

The left obviously doesn’t want anything to do with Trump after his one term in office. Oh, they laughed at first, thinking he was just like all of the other celebs that think too highly of themselves. But they stopped laughing when he beat Hillary. Now, he’s decided that he’s going to run for a second term. And of course, the Dems couldn’t have rushed any faster to have the January 6th committee in the House finish up their investigation into his involvement in the Capitol riots of 2021 and get their report out there before losing control of Congress.

Personally, I don’t think the Democrats needed to worry. Trump is doing more damage to himself than they could ever do to him. His latest problem is he’s starting to jump on the evangelical leaders that were so enamored with him back in 2016 and 2020. Last week, Trump said that these leaders were showing “signs of disloyalty” toward him because they haven’t endorsed his third presidential run yet.

But influential evangelical pastor, Robert Jeffress said at a recent conference that he didn’t see the need to endorse a candidate two years out. He’s exactly right. First of all, you have no idea who in the world is running on either side of the coin. Second, even if Trump was your guy, you wait until the players are in before you start dishing out endorsements. I don’t really know anyone other than Kari Lake that has endorsed Trump yet. And she doesn’t carry a lot of weight in my book.

The problem with Trump right now is that he is a guy from the past. Biden is a guy from the past. Clinton is a guy from the past. These folks aren’t the future. You may have heard Nikki Haley say recently that it’s time for America to look to new and younger leadership. Trump and Biden are both going to be in the 80’s during the term of 2025 to January 2029. That’s not something a lot of people are clamoring about. You also have a lot of folks like me. They loved Trump’s policies, they hated his mannerisms. You don’t necessarily want a president that’s going to rely on name-calling, and bashing their opponents. You see with Biden, every time he pulls that stunt and starts talking trash about the Republicans, his poll numbers drop. It’s just easier to bash than to come up with creative ideas on solving the country’s problems.

So, I don’t think Donald Trump was in line at all with his comments. It’s not Trump’s place to scream at people that are “disloyal” to him. It’s more his place to EARN their loyalty once again. There will be a whole new field of candidates a year from today. Trump is once again going to have to show the world why he is the best candidate for the job from those that have chosen to run. The rest is all conversation. And you don’t assume (except maybe in your own mind) that America is going to run to your side this time, just because they did so eight years ago. That was a lifetime ago in politics. And Donald Trump’s chances for getting them back appear to be fading.

Carry on world…you’re dismissed!

Getting Your Story Straight

Joe Biden is in a pickle that will probably last right through his reelection bid in 2024. He got caught with secret and top secret documents illegally stored. First they were found at an office he kept in Washington, DC after he left the Obama White House. Then they found even more documents stored in his garage, and now they’ve found even more found in his house…by the way, the same house Hunter Biden was staying at during this time. And that, as I’ve said before, means a few things. Biden is apparently no better than Donald Trump when it comes to keeping classified, secret and top secret documents at his house. But it also means you probably aren’t going to be seeing Trump indicted for anything like that any time soon. Attorney General, Merrick Garland realizes that if he goes after Trump over the Mar-a-Lago raid, he needs to do the same to Biden, or he WILL be impeached!

So, let’s fast forward to the White House mouthpiece, Karine Jean-Pierre.

Poor KJP can’t seem to get her story straight. After the first document discover in Joe’s DC office were discovered, KJP came out to say that they were fully cooperating with the DOJ on this and that the matter was over. All of the documents had been recovered and turned over.

Oops.

Then they found more docs in Biden’s garage. And then subsequent docs were found in Biden’s home. And what did Jean-Pierre have to say about it? She never knew about it until the press corp uncovered it and she learned about it at the same time America did. No one in the Biden White House thought to clue her in on it apparently.

Then she was asked if someone higher up in the White House told her not to be forthcoming when it came to the discovery of the additional documents. Her answer was, “I have been forthcoming.” Uh-huh. And I ran a close second to Donald Trump in the Republican primary in 2020.

KJP refuses to say whether the search for these classified documents at Joe’s place has actually been concluded, or if there are going to be more documents found.

And this is problematic on several fronts.

First and foremost, you have the person that is telling the press corp that she isn’t in the loop when it comes to the information that is being ladled out at the White House. She doesn’t know. Or if she knows, she isn’t saying. That usually doesn’t bode well when the press is looking for answers. And it usually doesn’t bode well for the administration trying to hide the story.

It’s problematic because there is always a loss of credibility for the administration when something like this can’t be answered directly and openly. The press is feeling like you’re hiding something. That makes them dig even deeper, ala Woodward & Bernstein, to uncover what they most assuredly feel at this point is a scandal brewing. They see themselves being thrust a Pulitzer Prize if they are able to uncover it, and with it the fame and fortune for the rest of their lives.

And it’s problematic for another, more conspiratorial reason. Republicans are already asking the question, “What’s in those documents?” Are there items in there that the House Intelligence Committee would like to see because they implicate Joe and Hunter in their play for pay schemes they’ve allegedly foisted on Ukraine and China? Is there a smoking gun there? Biden has already shown that he can’t be trusted to tell the truth when it comes to stuff like this. He’s been caught in how many lies in his career? Hundreds? Thousands? Why in the world would anyone believe what he has to say about this? Remember, he told everyone countless times that “I never met with any of Hunter’s business associates and I never talked to him about his business dealings.” That turned into a crock that if you stepped in it, you’d need a new pair of shoes.

Why not just admit what you did wrong and get the story out there. I’ll say this about Bill Clinton. At least he was right about one thing. When YOU release the story, instead of letting the press find out about it, YOU get to control the story. But as Clinton also found out, you have to release the WHOLE story. You can’t just pick and choose what needs to be released because someone somewhere is going to find the truth. And if there is more to this story, and the Republican conspiracy folks happen to be right, impeachment may not only NOT be out of the question, it may be necessary.

Carry on world…you’re dismissed!

Let’s Not Hear Anymore About Mar-a-Lago Docs!

NOTE: TODAY’S BLOG IS NOT AVAILABLE IN PODCAST FORM. THE PODCAST WILL RETURN ON WEDNESDAY!

So, apparently, Donald Trump isn’t the only president around that liked to store classified (the DOJ’s words, not mine) documents in his home or office. Now, Attorney General, Merrick Garland is forced to start investigating the guy that appointed him to the position. That’s after it was discovered that there were not one, but two stacks of documents that Biden had been housing in his personal abodes. One was in his Washington, DC office that he kept after leaving the Vice Presidency. The other was found in the garage of his residence in Wilmington, Delaware.

So, can we now stop saying that Trump was guilty of treason for storing documents in Mar-a-Lago?

In case you weren’t aware, Garland has appointed Robert Hur, a Trump appointee as Special Council to go through and investigate the case where Biden seems to be as guilty as Trump was in keeping classified documents after they left office. What is going to be interesting is to see exactly what Garland is going to do regarding Trump and the Mar-a-Lago raid. If Garland wants to continue going down that road against Trump, he is almost certainly going to have to do the same thing for Biden. And the problem he runs into is, if he were to file charges against Trump, he most assuredly needs to do the same thing against Biden. Except there is a problem. You can’t charge a sitting president. He needs to be impeached and convicted first.

I actually have to give Garland some credit that he was rather quick to assign a special prosecutor in this case. And I have to give him credit that he has chosen a Trump appointee. I was really surprised that Garland did so to “underscore for the public the department’s commitment to both independence and accountability in particularly sensitive matters.” Apparently, this investigation into Biden has been underway for three months now. Initially, Garland had involved Chicago-based US District Attorney, John Lausch, also a Trump appointee, to look into the original matter which focused on Biden’s DC office. Biden’s attorneys told Lausch just before Christmas that they also found documents in Biden’s garage in Wilmington.

In case there is any confusion here, what we are witnessing with Biden is the exact same thing that had happened with Donald Trump. A former president (or VP in Biden’s case) storing classified documents in an unsecured and improper area. Now, if the Democrats are going to make a stink over Mar-a-Lago, there should be the same amount of stink thrown Biden’s way.

I would seriously think that Joe Biden, quite possibly like Donald Trump, should be excused from running for reelection in 2024. You know as well as I that won’t happen, but if he were actually as honest a politician as he claims he is, and continues to bash Trump for his foibles, he shouldn’t be announcing his candidacy for reelection at all. In fact, he should probably tell the world prior to the State of the Union address that he is indeed going to decline to run for reelection because of this incident. Then, and only then, can he tell Donald Trump he should do the same thing. Fair is fair, and if you’re wanting Trump to never run for office again, you’ve got to take the initiative and lead by example. Otherwise, Biden shows the whole world that he is no better than the criminal that the right has made him out to be as “the big guy” in Biden Inc.

Carry on world…you’re dismissed!

Biden FINALLY To Head To The Border

Joe Biden FINALLY realized the his border crisis isn’t going to go away on it’s own. As the emptying of Central America continues with millions of people from eight or nine countries continue to pour through Mexico in caravans to the US southern border, and then cross illegally into the United States, it has become a national embarrassment. Joe Biden has finally decided it’s time to act.

So, with thoughts on 2024, Biden has visited the southern border on Sunday, going to El Paso, during a visit with Mexican President, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador.

It’s really a stunning reversal of policy for Biden. He has nonchalantly remarked that he’s been working on the details of a southern border visit for some time. But of course, we all know what’s been happening. As millions of illegals pour across the southern border, with only about 10% being returned to their home countries due to Title 42, the onslaught has caused Republican Governors in Florida, Texas, and Arizona, and now Colorado’s Democrat Governor to send the illegals to various blue states, concentrating on Washington, DC, New York City, Philadelphia, and Chicago, all of whom have professed themselves to be “sanctuary cities”.

The real question is why Biden chose El Paso. Remember, when K-baby Harris went to the border, she visited the Border Patrol station in El Paso. Back then, El Paso was pretty tame. Now, with the latest surge of illegals coming across, no entry point into this country is safe. Biden got an eye opening experience.

My hunch is that Biden won’t take any of the blame for this debacle himself. He’ll blame Congress for not passing comprehensive immigration reform. And to a degree he’s right. Congress needs to do something, and they have kicked the can down the road repeatedly. Democrats blame Republicans, but yet, Democrats held sway in both houses of Congress over the past two years and nothing got passed. Republicans blame Democrats, but they are just as much to blame. Donald Trump had stemmed the flow of illegals with the border wall and the “Stay In Mexico” policy, but Congress could have passed something. Instead they balked.

What needs to happen is that there has to be a break in the logjam somewhere. Biden needs to do whatever he legally can do to stop the flow of illegals. And he can do plenty, as we saw with Trump. He can continue to build the border wall. He can keep the illegals on the Mexican side of the border until their immigration hearings. He can hire not 87,000 new IRS agents, but 87,000 new Border Patrol agents, and judges to hear the cases. That way he can make swift decisions and deport those that are seeking asylum without really needing it.

Biden’s plan, as he outlined last Thursday is to bring technology into the game. What the illegals are supposed to do now is take out their smartphones (they are dirt poor, but have smartphones?) and use an app to signal the Homeland Security folks that they want asylum. They then will get a decision as to whether or not they have been granted a hearing. If they have, they FLY to the United States, and present themselves to customs. Then they are supposed to have a hearing. On the surface it sounds like a nice band-aid, but only if Homeland Security only allows a few through in this manner. The current plan is to allow 30,000 a month from Cuba, Haiti, Venezuela, and Nicaragua. Nothing said about people from other countries.

There has to be some sort of solution to the problem of total chaos. It’s gotten to the point that Biden’s inaction has caused the whole problem to border on such seriousness that we may never be able to fix the border problem. If that’s the case, you’re going to see not only Governors sending busloads of illegals to other parts of the country, but you’re going to see citizens of those border states start to take matters into their own hands. And that would not be very good.

Think of it for a minute. You’ve got ranchers and farmers all along the border from California to Texas that have illegals trespassing on their property, and even breaking into their homes looking for food. What if those people decided to arm themselves against the illegals. You know, here in Arizona, we have a law that says if someone breaks into your home, you have the right to shoot to kill to protect your property. When the dead bodies of illegals that get shot by ordinary citizens starts to pile up, you’re going to have to see Congress and the President start to get involved and take this crisis more seriously. Either that, or it will be all out war.

Carry on world…you’re dismissed!

Why Are Dems’ Worried About Trump?

I have to laugh. Donald Trump is being vilified to this day for the four years he spent in office. The guy has been in Washington, DC for what? One day since he left office? And now the left keeps harping that he be brought up on charges by the Department of Justice so he can’t ever run for president again.

My question is, why are Democrats worried about Donald Trump?

They are spending all of their time looking in the rear view mirror. They should be looking ahead. They should be looking for a viable candidate that they can field in 2024 instead of worrying about someone that at this point in time doesn’t even look like he’ll make it to the nomination.

In their vile hatred of Trump, Democrats have thrown the kitchen sink at him, hoping to damage him enough to the point that he doesn’t win in 2024. My guess is Donald Trump won’t be the nominee for the Republicans in 2024. My guess is, he will drop out of the race at some point, if he’s not charged with any major crimes between now and then.

Let me be clear. You can look at probably ever single president we’ve had over the past 60 or 70 years, and could probably find some sort of crime that they could have been charged with. Certainly you can do that for Obama, and Trump, and Biden. And I bet you could find equally damning stuff on the Bush’s and Clinton. Same with Ford and Reagan. My point here is every single sitting president in my lifetime, with maybe the exception of Dwight D. Eisenhower, could have been charged with breaking the law at some point. It never happens because once out of office, the other party just moves on. Democrats are fearful that Trump has enough on Biden that he could expose him more than he’s already been exposed. And as I’ve said before, they don’t like the fact there is this neophyte politician that is going out there and winning the golden ticket with no experience and no career desires. Trump just outplayed everybody.

But Democrats are worried about the wrong guy. They should be worried about two things for the next couple of years. The first is, who are THEY going to run? You know Joe Biden is going to be primaried by at least a couple of Democrats who feel that 82 year olds are too old to be running the country. That’s without the GOP in the House uncovering damning evidence against Biden when they start investigating Hunter. The other thing they have to worry about is who the Republicans are actually going to pit against them. My hunch is, it’s not going to be Donald Trump. He’s turned off enough people in his party that I really don’t think he could win the nomination at this point anyway. I’d probably feel differently if Oz, Walker, Laxalt, Masters, and even Kari Lake had won. Had the Republicans managed to take over the Senate as well as the House, Trump would have been a threat in 2024. As it is, Democrats should worry more about Ron DeSantis.

But DeSantis is a career politician. He’s come up through the ranks. He won’t be embraced with love by the left, but they aren’t going to vilify him in the same way they have with Trump. And if DeSantis decides not to run, there are plenty of folks on the GOP side that will jump into the race that would have a better chance at beating Biden or whomever the Dems run. I mean, everyone I’ve heard except possibly Mike Pence and Kristi Noem have a decent shot.

Still, the Democrats are out to demonize Trump. Look at it this way. If any of his problems in New York actually amount to anything, if DOJ does indeed decide to do what no other Department of Justice has ever done and go after a former president for actions they took while in the White House, that would most likely taint Trump to the point he becomes a non-entity. Besides the fact, most people don’t want Trump to run again anyway. And you saw what happened the last time we had politicians that people didn’t want to run…Hillary Clinton and Jeb Bush both bought the farm.

Donald Trump is the least of Democrats worries. They just don’t realize yet. That’s what comes from being focused on the wrong things. If they would have fixed the border, lowered inflation, and worried more about crime than climate change, they probably could have kept the House of Representatives.

Carry on world…you’re dismissed!

Lake Loses Bid, Vows Appeal

Before we get going with today’s blog, as you can see with the HUGE banner above, you can now LISTEN to The Lone Cactus as a podcast on Amazon Music. Just go to amazon.com, and search for The Lone Cactus Podcast. You’ll see all of my blogs as podcasts if that’s how you choose to enjoy! OK, commercial is over!

I’m not sure if you’ve been following Kari Lake’s saga in her bid to become Governor of the state of Arizona. But if you haven’t, let me enlighten you. Kari Lake was a former newscaster for over 25 years on the Fox affiliate (channel 10) here in the Phoenix area. Now, being on Phoenix TV means you basically reach all of Arizona. There are only three cities of any size in this state. There is Phoenix, where about 60% of the population resides in Maricopa County, then you’ve got Tuscon to the south, and Flagstaff to the north. Tuscon has about a half million people. Flagstaff has 76,000. The drop-off after those two is severe.

Lake mentioned during her actual campaign that if she lost it would be due to ballot fraud. She wasn’t going to accept losing at any cost, regardless of how one-sided it was. It turned out, it wasn’t one-sided. She lost by a very close margin after all of the polls had her leading by three or four points, but usually within the margin of error. She immediately cried “FOUL”, saying that in Maricopa County, there were printer problems with the ballots and that a large number of the ballots weren’t counted as they should have been because someone messed with the printer settings. That meant that the scanner that actually tabulated the ballots couldn’t read the ballots and they were kicked out.

So, after losing to Katie Hobbs, who by the way, was the Secretary of State, and in charge of the election, Lake had several Republicans not certify the election. It wasn’t until a court ordered the election certified that it was done. At that point, Lake filed a lawsuit claiming ballot fraud.

She lost that lawsuit this past Saturday, when Maricopa County Superior Court Judge, Peter Thompson, a Jan Brewer appointee (former Republican Governor), ruled in favor of Hobbs, stating that Lake’s attorneys had failed to offer any legitimate proof that the ballots were tampered with in any way. Lake tweeted out Saturday morning after the ruling, “My Election Case provided the world with evidence that proves our elections are run outside of the law. This Judge did not rule in our favor. However, for the sake of restoring faith and honesty in our elections, I will appeal his ruling.”

Now, Lake has vowed to take it all the way to the United States Supreme Court. But she’d better hurry. Hobbs gets sworn in as Governor on January 2nd. I doubt the Supreme Court is going to hear anything between now and then. In fact, I think it’s a very long shot that they hear anything period. My guess is, they are going to reject the hearing altogether.

OK, that’s the backstory. Kari Lake has pulled a page right out of Donald Trump’s playbook. She let it be known very early on that she wasn’t going to accept defeat in the election, regardless. And she hasn’t. I think all of this positioning has actually done to her what it’s done to Trump, which is, it hurt her moving forward. It’s one thing if you lose a close election, and want to file a lawsuit to make sure it was legit. I get that. And she had some reason to believe that there was some shenanigans going on, especially with her opponent being the Secretary of State that basically ran the elections. But when you start off during the campaign saying it’s fraud if you lose, that doesn’t bode well. And when you refuse to accept defeat, even after the lawsuit, proclaimed dead by a judge from your own party, because your attorneys didn’t show any proof? Well, that hurts you in the long run. You become a sore loser.

Let’s look at the growing list of sore losers that refused to accept defeat. Go back to 2000. I know Al Gore eventually conceded the presidential election to George W. Bush, but he wasn’t gracious about it. And he hasn’t been elected to anything since (not that he’s tried!). Look at Georgia gubernatorial candidate, Stacey Abrams. She refused to accept the 2016 election results in that race. Then she race again in 2020, and lost by an even larger margin. Donald Trump continues to this day to deny he lost the election in 2020 to Joe Biden and has stated more than once that he should be installed as president, or at the very least there should be a “do-over” election. Now, he’s declared for the 2024 presidential race, and there are more people that are backing Ron DeSantis for the nomination than Trump. Kari Lake is going to face the exact same results.

She has been mentioned as someone that would take on either Kyrsten Sinema in 2024, or Mark Kelly in 2026 for their US Senate seat. I can’t see her winning the nomination, much less the general election. She needs to take Newsmax up on their job offer, and quietly slink off to Boca Raton, Florida and become an anchor there. It’s the best thing for her, and it’s the best thing for Arizona.

Carry on world…you’re dismissed!

Why Is Congress Focused So On Trump?

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I think it’s a fair question. Let’s face it. Democrats haven’t liked the guy since he came down the escalator at Trump Tower in New York and told the world he was going to be a candidate for president. Oh, at the time they thought it was cute. After all, what non-politician decides they are going to go for the brass ring right out of the box, and actually makes it? Well, apparently, Donald Trump did.

That’s really the underlying reason there is so much hatred in DC over him. Everyone of those politicians, with very few exceptions, have charted their careers to start out small and grow to being a Congressman or Senator in DC. And here comes someone with the nerve to think they can just jump right in and take over the highest office in the land? It’s like you or me thinking we can just jump in an Indy car, or a NASCAR, and win the Indy 500 or the Daytona 500. That’s the first problem.

The second problem is they didn’t like the ego. You gotta admit, Trump has an ego. And he’s not afraid to tell everyone that will listen that he’s the greatest. I’m just not so sure that’s the truth. That does have a way of grating on people’s nerves. And when you do it, while calling those that disagree with you names, that twists the knife just a little more.

Then you’ve got the fact that Trump just didn’t think that Joe Biden could actually beat him in 2020. He mocked him almost at every campaign stop. That’s going to have an effect as well. And when it was found out that Biden did indeed beat him, well, he’s got to save face somehow.

Now add to that this whole protest thing on January 6th, 2021. And Trump’s insistence that Mike Pence not certify the results of the election. He obviously never got to know Mike Pence. He’s a go along to get along type of guy. He always has been. And while Trump likes to make waves, Pence is looking for a way to reconcile differences. It’s just who he is.

So is it any wonder that Democrats in the House and Senate want nothing to do with Donald Trump any longer? In case you missed the last dig, the Omnibus Spending Bill had a message in it when the Dems’ added the Electoral Count Act. In case Trump, or anyone else thought there was a legal way to allow the Vice President not to accept and certify the vote in Congress, this took away any chance of that happening again. Trump’s response was that it should have been left the way it is in case of fraud.

But that’s not going to happen. The thing that the neophyte politicians have to learn is that in elections, someone wins, and someone loses. And sometimes, when you’ve poured your heart and soul into a campaign, not to mention millions of dollars in Trump’s case, it really hurts to come out on the short end. But that’s the game you play. I really think it’s very rare in this country that fraud pops it’s ugly head enough to sway a national election. And, I’ve yet to be convinced that it happened to the degree that it could have changed the 2020 presidential affair. I’m sure some of it happened. Just not enough to make a loser out of a winner. Put it this way…I’ve yet to see the proof. Neither have any of the judges that heard the lawsuits, both Republican and Democrat.

In the end, the democracy will continue in some sense. This is something that basically was done to poke at Trump, just like the January 6th Committee poked at him by referring criminal charges to the DOJ. I don’t think Merrick Garland is stupid enough to bring charges, but you never know. He was stupid enough to take Joe Biden’s nomination for Attorney General, wasn’t he?

Carry on world…you’re dismissed!

Is Kari Lake OK?

I supported Kari Lake in her run for Arizona Governor. Not because Donald Trump endorsed her. That had nothing to do with it. And not because I thought she was the better qualified candidate for the job. She wasn’t. Katie Hobbs, who so far, has won the race and will take over the seat on Sunday, January 2nd, was much more qualified. She was after all, the Secretary of State. Now, I’m not saying she was great in that job, or that she’ll be a good Governor. Only time will tell. But on the surface, she has more political experience than Lake, who was a newscaster for the Fox affiliate out here for like 25 years.

But I’m beginning to wonder if Kari Lake is OK.

Lake was speaking at Mar-a-Lago last Thursday night at a Trump function. Here’s what she had to say: “To watch these evil bastards…to watch them steal this in broad daylight, and if they think they are going to get away with it, they messed with the wrong bitch.”

Yikes!

I mean, I get it that she’s upset that she was leading in the polls right up to election day. It was within the margin of error on most polls, but she was indeed leading. And since the election, she has come out and said numerous times that the election was stolen from her. She recently got a limited win, when a judge said that her team could look at 50 ballots that she said spoiled and not counted. They’ll get a look at a random 50 ballots, and have a chance to see another 50 ballots from six separate Maricopa County polling places.

Lake has maintained from the get-go that there were printer and tabulation issues in 70 of the county’s 223 polling places. She claimed that there were tabulator breakdowns at 59% of the voting places on election day. And that when all is said and done, she is the rightful Governor of the State of Arizona.

The election, however has been court ordered to be verified, and it was. Governor Doug Ducey, and Secretary of State, Katie Hobbs (yes, the same person that’s going to be sworn in as the new Governor) both certified the results as a result of that court order.

Now, that’s the backstory. I understand that when you’re in a close election, and you lose, you have a tendency to want to believe the election was stolen from you. And I’m not saying it wasn’t. I’m saying you have to let this stuff play out. And it is playing out, but Arizona isn’t Florida. It’s more like California in that it takes forever around here to get election results tabulated. Don’t forget, they just finished the Maricopa Country recount of thousands of ballots this year from the 2020 presidential race. Donald Trump had claimed that Maricopa County had problems and that HIS race was stolen from him. Well, the Republican officials that performed the audit at the State Fairgrounds (taking over the arena where they hold the concerts), showed that Joe Biden did indeed beat Trump, and actually beat him by a wider margin than originally thought.

I am interested to see how this plays out. Democrats did exceptionally well in most of the down-ballot races here in November. They took most of the state-wide offices, leaving I think Kimberly Yee who won reelection, was the only state office holder to win from the Republican side. Maybe they also got the Superintendent of Schools, I’m not quite sure I remember that one!

But it’s troubling to hear Kari Lake talk like that. I know she’s upset…but that’s not the type of person I want to run our state. I think she would be tougher on the border issue than Hobbs, and I think she probably would have problems working across the aisle with the Dems in the State House. But I’m really perplexed that she’d take the rather radical stance that she’s taking. Now, I may very well get proven wrong. If those ballots show irregularities, hey, I’m all for an all-out recount looking for hanging chads and the like (we don’t do that here…we fill in boxes with Sharpies). But it seemed to me Lake was very early to call this a fraudulent election. She did it during the campaign. It was almost like she knew if she lost she was going to cry foul. In elections, you have winners and you have losers. And in a lot of cases, especially in purple states like AZ, they are close. At some point, you have to pull up the big-boy pants and admit defeat.

I’ll wait for the results of these ballot checks…but I hope Lake does it with class, not like Trump did. We don’t need another Donald Trump (one is too many at times!)

Carry on world…you’re dismissed!