Month: July 2024

Will Rogers joked on different occasions, “I’m not a member of any organized political party… I’m a Democrat.”

Then he would follow with a serious point, “But really, I don’t take sides with anybody politically. I kid those folks. But I know that they all get in there and do the best they can. None of ‘em from any party are going to purposely ruin the country.”

Will wrote in 1928, “The Parties will never be changed as long as we live, for you can’t change human nature.” (WA #278, Apr. 22, 1928) I think Will was too optimistic. The Democratic party of Harry Truman and John F. Kennedy is not the same party today. Republicans have also changed.

Will walked a fine line, often using humor to make a serious point, “I certainly know that a comedian can only last till he either takes himself serious or his audience takes him serious, and I don’t want either one of those to happen to me till I am dead, if then.” DT #1538, June 28, 1931

So, I’m going out on a limb tonight with my observations about Kamala Harris. If you disagree, don’t blame Will.

We always heard about political deals made in a “Smoke-filled room”. This time I think the deal was made in a Ladies Powder room.

Democrats claim that Republicans, especially Trump, are a “threat to democracy.” So various Democrat leaders forced out Joe Biden, who received 14,000,000 votes in the 2024 primaries, and anointed Kamala Harris, who received zero. Was that “preserving democracy?” When she ran for President in 2020, she received no votes in a primary and none at the Democratic National convention.

V-P Harris is so determined to win Michigan and Minnesota with the Palestinian vote, I’m surprised she hasn’t named Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib as her running mate.

She may go against the DEI defining principles of the Democratic Party and name a white man. But not a Jew. Preferably someone non-religious (except Muslim). You will remember, as a Senator she voted against Amy Coney Barrett for Supreme Court because she was religious.

She wants to eliminate ICE, the agency responsible for deporting immigrants who are here illegally, comparing ICE to the Ku Klux Klan.

She wants to eliminate “fracking.” Hydraulic fracturing of gas and oil wells has been common for more than 60 years, making our major energy supply more economical. After eliminating fracking, she wants to eliminate all fossil fuels. She broke a tie vote in the Senate that approved the $750 Billion (misnamed) Inflation Reduction Act. And if Sen. Joe Manchin hadn’t resisted for months, it would have cost twice as much.

She claims that defunding police makes cities safer. She wants to take meat off the “food pyramid” and ban plastic straws.

Does she support Israel? She blames Israel for failing to get over a hundred hostages released (including 8 Americans) rather than blaming Hamas and Iran. She wants a “cease fire” instead of encouraging Israel to wipe out Hamas terrorists.

Kamala Harris is a strong Liberal from San Francisco. I have good friends in San Francisco, from both Parties. Some love her and can’t wait to vote for her again. Others see her in the same vein as ousted district attorney Chesa Boudin, Gov. Newsome, who is bankrupting the state, and former Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who has enriched herself. Her parents are natives of India and Jamacia. Both were professors at Stanford University.

Surprise!! Will Rogers received more delegate votes at a Democratic National Convention than Kamala Harris has. She ran in 2020 and got zero votes.

At the 1932 Democratic Convention Will Rogers got 22 votes on the sixth day. (Read Will’s version of that day below.)

Historic quote by Will Rogers:

        “Politics ain’t on the level.  I was only in ’em for an hour but in that short space of time somebody stole 22 votes from me. I was sitting there in the press stand asleep and wasn’t bothering a soul when they woke me up and said Oklahoma had started me on the way to the White House with 22 Votes.

          I dropped off to sleep again, and that’s when somebody touched me for my whole roll, took the whole 22 votes, didn’t even leave me a vote to get breakfast on.

Course I realize now that I should have stayed awake and protected my interest, but it was the only time I had ever entered national politics and I didn’t look for the boys to nick me so quick.  Course I should have had a manager but the whole thing come on me so sudden and I was so sleepy. No man can listen to thirty-five nominating speeches and hold his head up.  And I am sure some of these that did the nominating can never hold theirs up again.

Now I don’t want you to think that I am belittling the importance of those 22 votes. They was worth something there at that time. Not in money, mind you, for there is not $2.80 in the whole convention. 

But they buy ’em with promises of offices. I expect at that minute Roosevelt’s bunch would have given me Secretary of State for that 22. And I could have sold Al Smith for maybe Mayor of New York. Ritchie would have given me the whole State of Maryland with the Vice Presidency thrown in just for amusement sake.

And what do I do? Go to sleep and wake up without even the support of the Virgin Islands.”  Article #6, Democratic Convention, July 2,1932

For the second week in a row, I am tossing out most of what I already wrote. Maybe I should leave my computer off until Sunday evening.

President Biden announced this afternoon he will not be the Democrat candidate for 2024. He wants Kamala Harris to succeed him.

VP Harris is not a shoo-in because she is less popular than Biden. She has not won a single vote in a primary election. In the 2020 campaign she dropped out before the Iowa caucuses. Of course, she did not run in the 2024 primaries because her boss was the “chosen one.” However, any prominent young Democrat who challenges her, especially a white man, would be committing political suicide.

The Democratic National Convention is scheduled to start Aug. 19. In reality, it started today. If VP Harris is the pick for President, the race will be for her running mate.

You may remember my comments last week about the 1924 Republican convention. As Will Rogers wrote, that convention 100 years ago, was simply to choose a VP. Two leading candidates turned it down! Will any top Democrat accept the VP slot with Kamala Harris?

West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin just announced he may challenge Kamala Harris. With all the chaos, this is another reflection to 1924. If you don’t know the history, you will be shocked. The 1924 Democratic convention lasted 17 days! Sixteen candidates received votes. It required 103 ballots before the delegates agreed on a candidate for President. Yes, 103 ballots! And the candidate they finally agreed on was John W. Davis. He is the only person to be selected as a nominee for President from the state of… West Virginia.

The Republican convention ended with a rousing unanimous endorsement of the Trump-Vance ticket. Republicans seem to be happy with the selection of JD Vance for VP. He’s a young Senator from Middleton, Ohio, with deep roots in eastern Kentucky. He is better known as the author of “Hillbilly Elegy” than as a politician.

Donald Trump gave a 90-minute acceptance speech Thursday night. That was too long for several folks in the media (and many watching at home). I think he did it as a challenge to Joe Biden. If Kamala Harris speaks on the closing night of the Democratic Convention, she may keep it to half an hour just to limit the risk of too many uncontrollable bouts of laughter.

The Secret Service is expected to be the most elite agency in the government. But last Saturday was a colossal failure. The Secret Service has 7000 people, but they couldn’t spare enough of them to adequately prepare and protect the presumed Republican nominee for President. Director Kimberly Cheatle refuses to resign and Biden has not fired her.

The 20-year-old killer was a “rank amateur”, but he was smart. One of the brightest students in his high school class. So why didn’t he go to college?  He fired 8 shots before a Secret Service sharpshooter killed him with one shot. The first shot at Trump was accurate, within a half inch of killing him. But the other 7 were far off target. If he had been steady, probably a couple Secret Service agents (the ones who did their job exactly as trained) would have died. Instead, three men in the stands behind Trump were hit. Cory Comperatore was killed.

In the hour before Trump was shot, officials missed opportunities to foil the attempted assignation. Here is one you probably have not heard speculated. When the killer was spotted on a roof, a local policeman was helped by a fellow officer to reach the edge of the roof. He was holding on with both hands when the killer turned and pointed the rifle at him. He dropped to the ground. He and his partner immediately got on their “radio” to warn about the shooter. Did they call the Secret Service? No, there was no direct communication connection. So the delay allowed the shooter to fire at Trump.

But suppose, as soon as the policeman dropped to the ground, he would have pulled out his gun and fired several shots into the air. What would have happened? Hearing shots, the Secret Service agents near Trump would have immediately got him on the floor of the stage and laid on top of him.

I don’t know how the 20-year-old would have reacted. But Trump would not have gotten shot.

Historic quote by Will Rogers:

“If we got one-tenth what was promised to us in these acceptance speeches there wouldn’t be any inducement to want to go to Heaven.” DT #645, Aug. 20, 1928

This is not the same column I started yesterday morning.

A 20-year-old killer at a Trump Rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, tried to change history. Based on what we know now, his first shot nicked Donald Trump’s right ear. Fortunately, Trump had turned his head facing in the general direction of the shooter. If he had been facing the audience… we would likely be noting July 13, 2024 as the date former President and 2024 Republican candidate Donald Trump was assassinated.

The killer apparently fired 3 more shots, killing Cory Comperatore, and severely injuring two other men. Those shots were aimed at Trump, missed him, and hit these three who were unfortunately sitting in the line of fire.

The top leaders of the Secret Service are being blamed for not recognizing the potential for an assassin to shoot from the roof of a building only 160 yards away. And a local police officer climbed a ladder to the roof, engaged with the man, but retreated back to the ground.

Question: have we reached the point in this country where a police officer refuses to shoot a man, who is obviously intending to kill someone, because of public backlash for “killing a guy who had done nothing wrong?”  Also, the two Secret Service snipers appear to be looking in the direction of the killer before he shot Trump. Were they waiting for orders that would allow them to “shoot first?”

With the Republican National Convention starting tomorrow in Milwaukee, let’s look back 100 years.

Will Rogers attended the 1924 Republican Convention in Cleveland. He wrote five “Convention Articles,” June 9-13. President Coolidge was the obvious choice to continue as their candidate. The intrigue was in selecting a V-P. Two prominent Republicans turned it down (Senator Borah of Idaho and Illinois Governor Frank Lowden). On the third ballot, Charles Dawes won the nomination.

Here are a few quotes from Will’s Republican Convention Articles, 1924:

“(Republicans) preach Economy, and here are hundreds of thousands of dollars being wasted to ship all these Delegates to a place to announce something that everybody  in the United States knew six months ago.  He could have been nominated by post card.” 

      “Mr. Mondell in his Chairmanship keynote speech (repeated) the same gag that Mr. Burton finished his with yesterday: ‘We want Republicans that will stick together, not Republicans in name only.’” [probably the first use of RINO]

      “Why at the last Republican Convention [1920] they were days nominating Mr. Harding and just as they were putting on their hats to leave, someone happened to think, ‘Why, we haven’t nominated a Vice President.’ So someone who happened to have read  of  the  Boston  police  strike  suggested  Mr.  Coolidge, so they nominated him that minute, and the others went home to read the next day who he was.”

       “Mr. Coolidge has gained well deserved fame by being our first public official to know when not to say anything.”

Will’s five columns, in their entirety, have more humor (and maybe more valuable information) than anything you will read this week from Milwaukee. I’m tempted to print one a day on Facebook.

I hope you enjoyed colorful Fireworks in your local town or city. Or backyard.

In Washington, the “fireworks” in the Biden-Harris campaign generated more heat than light, and more fizzles than powerful booms.

The taped interview on ABC Friday failed to show President Biden as a strong leader. NATO leaders will be in town this week, giving him opportunities to shine on a world stage. Getting the President in front of reporters, even if it’s only between 10:00 and 4:00, is essential to restoring confidence in his mental capacity to serve another term.

Speaking of reporters, last week I wrote about the journalists with direct access to the White House: “Why did they accept the obvious lies about what terrific shape Biden was in ‘behind closed doors?’ The apparent answer is that they were in on the deception.”

This week, my question is: Why haven’t those lying journalists been fired? Or why haven’t they resigned en masse? Many of them changed from a bulldog during the Trump years to a lapdog with Biden.

The CEOs of several networks and major newspapers must do a clean sweep of the biased journalists covering the White House (and their editors). So, who do you replace them with? My suggestion is to hire people who are covering sports, especially radio broadcasters of basketball and football. The play-by-play announcers report accurately what they see and hear. They are well trained and experienced. When they summarize at the end of the basketball game that your team won 85 to 80 you know it’s the truth. You won’t find out the next day that your team lost 75 to 62.

President Biden insists the debate was a “one-off.” He had a bad night because of jet lag and a cold. Do you wonder how he did during the rehearsals? I’m sure they videotaped the 90-minute practice debates, with moderators and Trump impersonators, on at least 2 or 3 nights. If he was brilliant in those practice sessions, then we’ll believe he had an off night.

The chaos among leaders of the Democrat Party is because of the fear of losing not only to Donald Trump, but losing seats in Congress and the Senate. Logically, if the President is truly suffering mentally, the 25^th Amendment would allow him to be removed and replaced by the Vice-President. But they know a President Kamala Harris at the top of the ticket would probably be worse.

The dilemma goes back to the 2020 election when Biden promised to select a woman of color as V-P. That narrowed the field to a handful of prospects. He promised to serve one term. The obvious choice to run in 2024 would have been V-P Kamala Harris. But in various tasks she was assigned, such as “Border Czar,” she demonstrated no competence to serve as President. So, an older, mentally challenged Joe Biden was selected as the designated candidate for 2024 and ran without serious challenge, winning all primary elections overwhelmingly.

Based on what we have seen of President Biden’s decline, who is making decisions in the Oval Office? While First Lady Jill Biden is leading her husband around and helping him, a growing concern is that Hunter Biden is the main “adviser” to his dad. Both Jill and Hunter are determined to enjoy the perks of the Presidency for another 4 years.

Jill Biden’s role reminds us of another First Lady a hundred years ago. Woodrow Wilson was elected President in 1912 and served two terms. He suffered a paralyzing stroke in October 1919 that left him incapacitated. His second wife, Edith Wilson, who he married a year after his first wife died in 1914, kept the President isolated and proceeded to handle the day-to-day responsibilities of the Executive Office for the next year and a half. Many historians refer to Edith Wilson as the first female President.

Are you wondering, why didn’t Vice-President Thomas Riley Marshall take over? Will Rogers wrote an entire “Weekly Article” praising him, with these closing sentences, “Tom Marshall was an AMERICAN if there ever was one, and he knew, and he cared. Show me another man that would have refused the Presidency when the Senate wanted him to take it when President Wilson was so very ill! But NO, he was loyal and he was modest. There are thousands of wonderful things that could be placed as an Inscription on his tomb… I would like to see the following one, “WHAT THIS COUNTRY NEEDS IS MORE TOM MARSHALLS.” WA #131, June 14, 1925

        Historic quote by Will Rogers:

“I’m not a member of any organized political party… I’m a Democrat.”