THE LATER ROUNDS:...President Joe Biden Is Still Punching...They All Want Him Out Of The Race...He Keeps Taking Blows...But Is Still Standing...Will He Drop Out, Or See His Corner Throw-In The Towel... Fight Project 2025?...The Crowd Roars, But Only Joe Biden Knows...

 

By DUARDO PAZ-MARTINEZ

McALLEN, Texas |...They're doing their darndest to push him out. Calls in turgid news editorials at the biggest newspapers in the land of late. Senior Democratic senators and congressmen. It's a rolling fear that President Joe Biden's age, 81, is simply too much to overcome ahead of the crucial November General Election.

But is it?

No one really knows, no matter what the learned pundits and editorial boards tell you. As the song says, we've never been this way before.

And we're led to believe that only Biden knows whether he'll stay in the hunt, or whether coming events lead him off the stage. They say his wife Jill may be the one to decide.

The president has had a rough few weeks. That "doddering Grandpa" performance at the First Debate with equally old Republican Donald J. Trump, 78, is still white-hot in the daily news cycle. The development has even shut Trump up of late, his backers saying Trump is just letting Biden twist in the wind.

As my old pal Melissa used to say, "Quien sobby?"

Well, yeah, that's where are this fine no-hurricane morning in the magical Rio Grande Valley, Land of Eternal Hope and Dreams. It's a sure bet Valleyites are hoping Biden wins the election. What Trump would do with welfare (food stamps and housing assistance) is well-known. That right-wing Project 2025 he supports explains it quite clearly - no more freebies.

That one is one crazy existential plan, but desperate Republicans have time to draft such idiotic plans. We have posted an informational graphic below of exactly what these White Supremacists have in mind.

I suspect that it will not find support in the RGV.

Well, it could not be any clearer, could it? Wow. I know, I know that's just another overused word, like extremist. Only there is no question the mission of this project is aimed at certain people. The plan is backed by the conservative Heritage Foundation, a group of folks who believe their station in American life is now past being threatened by non-White citizens.

They frown at California and Texas now being more Black & Brown than White.

It is to be expected, and it has been coming for a long time.

Joe Biden fights Project 2025, as do many other Whites. The plan is silly and ridiculous, but what do you say to the ever-fearful amongst us? You'd have to know your way around our ditzy American Politics to grab at every nuance of who we are and where we're going as a nation.

Project 2025 is not nuanced. It is now in your face.

As is the November Election.

Yes, we could keep telling you Biden is the way to go for continued happiness, but perhaps it's time that you got there on your own. Take your brain for a reality spin, yeah.

The bell has sounded for the 10th Round...Five to go...

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THEY'LL BE BACK:...Trump Getting A Pass At The Moment As Biden Gets Walloped...The Press Playing Ping-Pong...Republicans Will Get Theirs In The Lead-In To November Election...News Reporters Also Fear Dictators...Can't Go For That...

By DUARDO PAZ-MARTINEZ

McALLEN, Texas |...Real Newsmen know the drill. The story will be taken to its end and then it'll make a predictable turn. For now, the Press is all over President Joe Biden after a woeful Debate One performance. Soon enough, that same press will switch its aim and point their guns on flawed Republican Donald J. Trump.

Bank it.

We've been there. Newsrooms will buzz up the angles and editors will call meetings. The Story of The Day is never the Story of The Year. Democrats know it, as do Republicans. The week's punching bag has a habit of being you for now and him next week.

Biden will likely survive the media's call that he leave the campaign. He's 81, see. Too old and visibly painful to watch and hear. Photos show an old man trying to hang on, his dutiful wife at his side, some pundits saying she whispers answers in his ear during interviews. It's a horrible optic.

But the plot twists in politics are part of the journey. Every candidate knows there will be good and bad weeks. One misstep and all will be on his/her case. A rebound of sorts will follow, as supporters rush to the scene of the crash. New Ads and speeches clear the way for a comeback.

Joe Biden has been there many times before. And the press has been there with him.

Donald Trump is enjoying the lack of media attention, but it won't last.

American politics is a seesaw. One hour you may be up, but the next one will have you down. Opponents will lob criticism grenades at you while you're down. It's called "The Test" and mettle of a candidate for public office. You see it in local and state elections, but kit is magnified at the national level.

Come September, the same tireless news media that is hounding Democrat Joe Biden now will have exhausted themselves of Biden stories and openly head for new meat. That hamburger will be Trump and his campaign.

Yes, the media trailed Trump for most of the year prior to Biden's debate stumble, as it should have.

This daily assault on Biden, however, is merely a break.

Know this: Donald Trump will be sunk in the Fall...No news reporter wants a dictator...

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THE GRILLING SEASON:...Biden Nuked In Network Interview...Next?...Time To Drop Trump's Rump On The Hot Coals...Acid Test Here For The Republican? ...He'd Never Sit For It...He'll Steam...And Wait On Calls For Chicken...Americans Will Set The Table...

 

By DUARDO PAZ-MARTINEZ

SOUTH PADRE ISLAND, Texas |...Okay, now go grill the other guy. We're waiting on nasty Hurricane Beryl to drop in on our local island paradise and cooling off a bit, only, well, our national politics are also white-hot.

Embattled Democrat Joe Biden got the ABC News treatment last night, fielding more than enough questions about his health, his plans and his advanced age. It was a grilling on network TV, of the like we have not seen this election season.

The president stays in the picture.

Biden let go his anger at being forced out of the presidential race just because he had a bad first debate with Republican reptilian Donald J. Trump last week.

"I'm staying in the race," Biden said, repeating what he'd earlier in the day told attendees at a rally in Wisconsin. Maybe if God came down and asked him to quit, Biden explained.

God's not coming.

The interview served a purpose, I suppose. It fell into that annoying duty we in the Big-Time press used to call the "Folo." following the rising angle a story is taking. Go with it until the over is over. Tomorrow will bring yet another angle, perhaps the one in which calls become loud enough to demand Trump sit down with network TV, not friendly FOX News, and himself take the heat. Trump won't do, but that will be another story.

The campaigns roll onward to cash-it day in November.

Whether Joe Biden decides to leave the race is a nagging question, but we wonder why the test he's being put to is also not being faced by the certain Republican nominee. No, that party gets the bullhorn and not the chair in front of a hard-quizzing interrogator.

Trump couldn't handle the truth, as Jack Nicholson might say about here.

Biden is 81 years old and paying the price for aging. Trump is 78 and not seeing that blow up on his fat face.

Something's wrong with this picture. Grilling makes no concessions. Meat will burn to your pleasure.

Joe Biden is being the transparent presidential candidate.

Trump doesn't have the brains or balls to do what Joe Biden did last night in sitting down to field tough questions from interviewer George Stephanopoulos while fighting for his vision of the nation.

Artful Dodger Trump has never fought for America, as we all know...

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THE CONSTITUTION:......A Long, Long-Held Belief Somewhat Fading In The Afternoon Sun...Turns Out To Be Just Another Government Fold-Out...Donald J. Trump Wants To Be King...Founder Adams Would Be Mortified...Americans Inhale...

 

By DUARDO PAZ-MARTINEZ

McALLEN, Texas |...We're there, there at the old wooden bridge to something else. Who and how many will cross to the other side? More than a few Americans are asking that very question as our political world explodes. Shards of a country cracked wide open fly across the land.

Will it be a president or a king?

Our 2024 presidential election will soon tell the tale, but, kids, the miles-long rollercoaster has left the loading zone. Buckle up! The time for decisions is here and how we answer a few questions will tell us whether we go and where we will go. Already, the clouds turn dark, the evenings halt at going into the dead of night, the sun musters itself for another day.

I'm of the opinion that America will never be our Old America after this hoedown.

Why would anyone think that they could upend more than 200 years of believing in something so defined by the country's fathers, namely that, here, from sea to shining sea, no one is above the law. Excuse me while I get pissed, while I reach for my alcohol drink, while I down it in anger.

Republican candidate Donald J. Trump cares only about himself. That we have seen and heard for eight long and turbulent years. No mystery in that guy. Off his odd four-year term as president from 2016 to 2020 we got more than enough evidence of his aims and weaknesses. Now, he seeks the same office again out of desperation.

Four cases of wrongdoing, one conviction by a jury, three trials to go, some 50 additional charges to resolve. Any other defendant would have long been gone down the sewer pipe of needed justice. Trump endures, backed by millions of so-called MAGA cultists who see an entirely different candidate, one they say will save the country from internal destruction.

They want immigrants from Norway, those with white skin. We're not getting those; we're getting the darker ones who come and do work ever-bitching MAGA types would never do. Would a Trump presidency rid us of the Black-dominated National Basketball Association?

The NFL? Professional boxing? Interracial marriages? They're already dealing with diversity in the workplace and doing it with a sharp axe.

 Back then, in the late-1700s, Poor John Adams easily imagined that American revolutionaries were founding a government of laws, not of men. But we now know that Trump’s ideal is a government not even of men, but of a man - his own unprecedented and astonishing self.

The hallowed Constitution will keep getting reviewed. That ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court last week to do with presidential "immunity" is a blow at its concept. Laws are for the many but not the few. The Court opened up a can of beans, dealing good news to Trump, who claimed absolute immunity for his actions as president, and bad news for federal prosecutors armed with so much evidence that to say they have a mountain of it is to downplay the amount.

Many of us in this star-crossed country have looked the other way every time a new angle to our freedom is thrown in our faces, as they did with this latest High Court's surprise ruling and with a litany of legal moves that only delay true justice.

Donald Trump is the luckiest American ever.

He remains above the law...

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ON DECK:...Vice President Kamala Harris Ready & Willing...President Joe Biden Says He's Not Quitting 2024 Race After One Lousy Debate, But...Politics Is Our National Pastime...Your Bookie's On Line Two...

 

By DUARDO PAZ-MARTINEZ

McALLEN,. Texas |...There's an adage in professional baseball that says a midseason slump is no time to worry. "You don't win the World Series in July," goes the well-known line.

And so it is in national politics.

We're there, in early-July, and the noise coming from the upper deck is such that President Joe Biden is being written-off as a Big Game loser, even as we bat in the bottom of the third inning. There are miles to go before we rest, as the poem says.

One bad debate performance, like a 10-to-nothing whipping in a home game, does not define the season. We are hip to the rally in the later innings idea, the one that says comebacks have been known to stun the fans and the league.

Not that we're ignorant to the idea that Democrat Joe Biden has lost his fast ball, but we're keeping a close eye on him as he takes the mound for the fourth inning.

Over there, in the bullpen, is our capable reliever: Kamala Harris.

Our feeling is that she is more than capable to amble in and finish the job. The 59-year-old Harris, of Jamaican and Indian descent, is a knife-sharp cookie with her own pitches. Harris is an attorney with plenty of governmental experience. More than the opposing Republican, one convicted felon Donald J. Trump, the screwball artist with a rabid following.

He leads the league in hit batsman, fines and suspensions. At present, he also is facing three criminal trials and some 80 felony charges.

Kamala Harris is clean.

The current vice-president is a former U.S. Senator from California, a former Attorney General of California and a former District Attorney in San Francisco. She is a graduate of Howard University, the University of California and Hastings College of Law. 

In Congress, she pumped her national profile by pointedly questioning Trump administration officials during Senate hearings. Included in that effort was a feisty give & take with Trump's second Supreme Court nominee, Brett Kavanaugh, who was accused of sexual assault.

Harris has been low-key during the Biden Administration, as happens with VEEPS.

But on occasions, he smarts have exhibited themselves nicely.

Following Biden's horrible debate performance last week, it was Harris who strolled out to say the president was not as awful as was being painted by Republicans and the press. Her calm demeanor and careful, but pointed speech offered a side of her Americans have rarely seen.

Crazed Republicans often mention her ethnicity, always noting that should Biden falter, well, a dark-skinned person will occupy The White House. The dig is a racist one and aimed at dinging her popularity. It is a criticism that likely will fall by the wayside with women voters, a voter bloc weakness for Republicans out to pass a national abortion ban.

We're hanging-in and watching this critical ballgame, even as we know there is more spectacular and disappointing action to come as the rest of the wild season unfolds.

The pitching mound is at once a rewarding and unforgiving showcase.

Joe Biden is still throwing hard stuff, knowing full-well he has a game "saver" ready to amble in...

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HORROR:...And Then They Came For America...Two Hundred-Plus Years And What?...400,000 Americans Dead In World War II...58,000 Killed In 'Nam...For This?...For A Draft Dodger?...Enter Stephen King...

 

By DUARDO PAZ-MARTINEZ

McALLEN, Texas |...Perhaps it is okay that a well-known writer of horror comes forth with an apropos line. What the Hell, right? I mean, everybody's talking, so why not Stephen King, the author of some of the scariest fiction around.   

". . . Overturning Roe (vs. Wade, over abortion rights) took power from women," King wrote yesterday on social media. "Today's decision takes power from all of us."

He was referencing the now famous ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court on Republican Donald J. Trump's claim to absolute immunity. He's not alone. Writing is spanning the sky, from all recognizable angles and from all political sides.

Joe Biden is done, they say. Democrats need to replace him as their 2024 presidential candidate. He is old at age 81 and worse than a convicted felon. America cannot withstand another four years of Joe Biden.

Conversely, the scribes have given Republican convicted felon Donald J. Trump perhaps his best, best week ever as a candidate and even as a Human Being. The U.S. Supreme Court obviously thinks Trump is okay for the nation's highest post. He's a paunchy 78 and showing it, too. But the week was about putting Biden down and normalizing the criminal.

It's the U.S.A., kids. All in on the freedom to do this and that, right? Hang the charges on the hat rack and let the voters decide in November. Even a felon can run for president. We're Number 1 and all that shit.

The fallout, however, is a battered citizenry asked to play police in all of this.

Grand and trial juries have spoken and spoken loudly about Trump's criminal activity, yet none of it has stuck. The Orange Dud has yet to suffer, other than spending a few days at his recent NY trial in that hush money case that saw him convicted of 34 fucking charges.

Trump's still out there, free and clear. Even his probation interview, a requirement after his conviction, was handled via Zoom online. No walking into an interview room to face a hard-ass bureaucrat, no drug test, no hard questions. They say it was over in 20 minutes. Tell that to your cousin who was busted for two joints and still sits in federal prison.

No, America, don't come at me with what dictators are doing to their defenseless citizens in Third World countries.

Not after this. Not after what we're seeing and hearing, seeing with our own eyes.

Writer Stephen King has been a prolific critic of felon Donald Trump, often issuing blistering assessments of the goings-on. He's been whipped by right-wing MAGA types, but he's not stopping. The plot is too good.

A bloody horror story where everybody dies in the end.

That's what we've become. Bang the drum slowly one more time...

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MIDNIGHT IN AMERICA:...It's Getting Late. Do You Know Where Your Rights Are Going?...Deeper And Deeper Into The Abyss...Supreme Court Hands Us A Dictator...Our President Is Now Immune, More Than Ever, From Prosecution...Strongman Donald Trump Is Again "Proud To Be An American"...

 

By DUARDO PAZ-MARTINEZ

BROWNSVILLE, Texas |...There's no other way to look at it, not if you keep up with daily events. The president's speech hours after the latest Supreme Court ruling says much. Angry Republican Donald J. Trump's campaign for president has boiled over into detestation.

He wants to be a dictator. President Joe Biden calls it dangerous for the citizenry.

It's the result of yesterday's surprise ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court in which the issue of absolute presidential immunity sought by Trump was roundly endorsed by the nation's High Court. That came in a 6-3 decision, with all Republican-appointed justices going along with the idea, but it came. The three justices appointed by Democrats dissented strongly.

Trump roundly lauded the decision, which beyond asserting his position that a president cannot do the job without full immunity, well, also continued his ceaseless effort to delay a trial in Washington, D.C. to do with Trump's involvement in the January 6, 2021 riot at the Capitol Building - a needed trial now so far down the road as to go beyond the November General Election.

Trump keeps winning, yes.

What's America to do? I mean, people in the city and lunch-bucket towns. What recourse do they have, if they believe in government checks & balances, as most American students are taught in school. What can anyone do?

Nothing. Except vote. That's it. Congress is not going to challenge the Supreme Court. The president can oppose or decry it, but he's not going after the partisan justices. President Biden apparently could after this ruling, but he won't. It's not his style.

Pro-Trump Americans, meanwhile, are giddy as all get-out. For them, the living room has become the bedroom. MAGA disciples were all across the Internet minutes after the ruling, insisting that all the legal problems faced by Trump are now suspect (since a president, they noted, can do anything he wants).

These are largely old White Americans in graying hair and goatees, their women with the forearms of a plumber. Noisy, mouthy Americans - the sort of individuals we used to assign to uncultured Nicaragua and Panama.

But it's a new day and anything can happen.

The election cannot come soon enough. Until then, the country is held hostage by the ridiculous words of convicted felon Donald J. Trump and actions from his band of racist bigots.

Is it a Dark Day in America, as some pundits are saying?

No, not really.

This is nothing more than rootless excitement, brought into the living room by the news of the day. We're surviving in a time of unsurpassed bleakness where the landscape of failures has opened up to reveal our dismal glamour.

We're still the United States of America, the world's however-roiled best country. You could go along with those who say we need to return to the calmer days of yesteryear. But that's just a dream still carried by our aging, dying population.

Geriatric absurdity is temporary. This too shall pass...

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MEDIA IS THE MESSAGE:...Playing Its Role, Or Mudding The Waters?...One Debate And Country Falls Apart...How Major Outlets Had It...Plus, Supreme Court Ruling Favors Trump...See Our Comments...

 

By DUARDO PAZ-MARTINEZ

McALLEN, Texas |...There is a well-known analogy most reporters would know well, often laugh at and perhaps even say it's the damned truth - picture a row of blackbirds on a powerline flying in one by one and then, when startled by something, they all fly off one by one to go check it out.

You're seeing a bit of it now in our busy national press corps on this presidential debate story that lingers here days after the event. Never mind the war in Ukraine, the other one in Gaza or a weekend shooting with racial overtones in Nebraska.

The Big Story must be chased down.

That is what newsroom honchos are telling their top political reporters these days. It is a story with better legs than the actress Juliet Prowse, said to have once had the most gorgeous legs in Hollywood.

We reel at some of the high-energy punditry making the rounds, but we also know that we live in a time when everyone has a bullhorn at the ready. You don't have time for all the freaking, highfalutin podcasts out there. Same for a zillion blogs out to have their say.

There is, however, evidence of what we mean. A review of recent post-debate headlines reveals a somewhat known belief that the news media plays its own game, often believing influence is key in their business, at times right and at others wrong, at times well-meaning and at others simply offering the partisan company line. 

Headlines of some major news organizations following the debate:

The New York Times: Biden Struggles as Trump Blusters in Contentious Debate

The Washington Post: Biden struggles, Trump deflects questions

The Wall Street Journal: Biden Crashed in First Clash With Trump

Politico: "Biden is toast"

Axios: Biden blunders dominate combative debate with Trump

NBC News: Biden sends Democrats into a panic; Trump unleashes bad information

CBS News: Presidential debate highlights from Trump and Biden’s first showdown of 2024

CNN: Biden’s poor showing and Trump’s repeated deflection

MSNBC: Biden stumbles; Trump caveats election results question

USA Today: Biden supporters alarmed after president’s debate struggles

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Your particular take on events is just as good as theirs. That's where we are in communications. The country has more than enough news and even more news angles. Each of the outlets listed above has its own niche in the industry - whether playing to the left, the right or the middle.

White noise is what it also used to be called.

Should we worry about it? No, not really. There are plenty of outlets simply off the grid, as they say. They gladly push hellbent lies to aid their cause, candidate or boss. That, we say, is well and good, 'cause it can be balanced by visiting other sites and reading a different story of the same news.

Once, Americans had three main news sources in ABC, CBS and NBC - the initial major networks. But that was 50-60 years ago. Cable TV followed it, and then came the world-changing Internet. Said to be in the rise is the availability of news on your cellphone.

Who knows exactly how much influence these news organizations have singularly and collectively.

All I can know is my own time. Yes, I make the rounds to stay informed.

Perhaps that's what we all should do. There are good reasons to criticize the concept of a free press. It's a jungle out there. Crazy rumors and crazier lies abound. But they do offer glimpses of current life, available all day and all night by way of your keyboard fingertips or television, a literal avalanche of good and bad news, accompanying photography included in the informational package.

This back and forth regarding last Thursday's presidential debate is hot, but it, too, will fade. Just keep watching those winging blackbirds on the powerlines...

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JOE'S NOT QUITTING:...Atlanta Newspaper Joins Chorus...President Should Quit The Race...Sub-Par Debate Performance Fuels Calls...Trump Still The Felon Trump...Biden is Old, But Political Comebacks Fill Our History Books...

 

By DUARDO PAZ-MARTINEZ

McALLEN, Texas |...It's easy in our hurry-up, throwaway society to write off anything and anyone, especially in national politics. Truman-Dewey in '48 ring a bell? Bill Clinton in '92? Classic comeback stories are easy to find.

A bad debate is not the end for President Joe Biden.

He may yet leave the 2024 race, but it won't be because of his politics or age or raspy voice or phlegm-filled lungs. He's 81 years old, but fighting like Hell to stay in the race against his hated rival, convicted felon Donald J. Trump of the noisy, racist MAGA crowd.

One day after his lackluster performance at the contest's first debate, Biden was back on the campaign trail in red North Carolina, telling everyone at his rally that the Fat Lady has yet to sing. 

"Folks, I don't walk as easy as I used to. I don't speak as smoothly as I used to. I don't debate as well as I used to," Biden told the crowd. "But I know what I do know: I know how to tell the truth, I know right from wrong, and I know how to do this job, I know how to get things done."

"And I know, like millions of Americans know: When you get knocked down, you get back up!" he concluded, with an upward thrust of his fist.

In newspapers and broadcast shows, the president was being written off right and left. The influential New York Times wants him out of the race, as does the Miami Herald and the Philadelphia Inquirer. This morning, it is The Atlanta Journal-Constitution joining the call.  MSNBC's pro-Biden show "Morning Joe" called on him to leave the fight to someone younger.

It's not in the Biden family blood to simply concede, walk away like a politician unable, unwilling to fight.

Trump, meanwhile, moaned and groan as is his wont about not getting credit for "a great debate." If only!

A crap-tired America goes to the polls later this year, on November 5th, knowing exactly what it has in candidates this time around. Yes, the debate was cringe-worthy and a huge disappointment for Democrats. And Republicans had a right to be glad their legally-crippled 78-year-old horse managed to make it around the track without a major flub, although lies spat out of his mouth bit like farts after one too many avocado tacos.

Life went on the next morning, yet talk was cheap.

The nagging secondary problem for our once-proud land is that we have a literal mountain range of pundits spewing their angles and prognostications.

A robust Conversation is good, we say.

But it is still early in the game. The striking contrasts between both candidates remains and all it takes is a mini-stumble from the other side to reverse the tide, flip the tortilla or get everybody excited about the latest turn of events.

There is a good reason why the World Series, the NBA Finals and the NCAA College Football playoffs are not a one-game affair.

Joe Biden is still in it...

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SUN RECORDS:...Books And Movies Tell Us About Such Things...Never Knowing About That Prankster Real Love...We All Have One Or Two Or Three Back There...Willie: "I'll Love You Till The Day I Die"...

A VERY GOOD WEEK:...But, For Convicted Felon Trump, The End Game Is All That Matters...Biden's Poor Debate Showing Helped, But Did Not Solve His Many Problems...Even The Best Coffee Taste Fades...

 

By DUARDO PAZ-MARTINEZ

McvALLEN, Texas |...It should be said again that political campaigns ebb and flow, often throwing candidates up against the wall of reality and more often dealing them news they'd rather not hear.

Donald J. Trump, flawed-as-all-Hell candidate for the Republican Party's presidential nomination, had a very good week. Not that he contributed to it personally, but his lying ways at last Thursday's presidential debate against President Joe Biden did not hurt him.

Biden's nursing home performance overshadowed a gully wash of lies Trump managed to get in during the 90-mimute televised debate.

Who was keeping count when all eyes were on 81-year-old Biden acting like a 91-year-old?

But, as they say in professional baseball, the game's not over until it's over. In presidential campaigns, the game is 100 innings, and you get 15 outs per inning. Or, if we use boxing for the analogy, this fight is a 35-rounder in an outdoor ring, in Nevada, on a 110-degree afternoon.

We're still early in the contest. The fight continues.

Biden has a chance to recover and, well, Trump may or may not stay out of jail after his July 11th sentencing for that New York hush money trial conviction. I'm telling you. The first debate's result may end up being nothing more than a long, long foul fly ball. Or a nasty uppercut in the 21st round that becomes merely one point in the scoring card.

We're hip to the trip.

And the news will keep being weird.

A New York Times poll (yes, that liberal NY Times) has 78-year-old Trump far ahead of Biden after the debate. Whoda thunk it, eh? The New York Times?

Kids, just ride the rollercoaster and enjoy the wildness.

It's who we depressing Americans are these days - people out to be used and abused, while being asked to laugh and moan and groan, told to take our societal medicine when we go to bed and awaken the next day ready for some more news from that part of our civic duty ledger that has us addicted to the political winds whipping our faces silly...  

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DEBATE ONE:...Joe Biden Jolts His Audience...Even Democrats See The Problem...Donald Trump Is Still The Liar...It Was Joe's Age In Full Display...81 and Aging...Republicans Giddy This Ayem...

 

By DUARDO PAZ-MARTINEZ

McALLEN, Texas |...It was anything but riveting television. Last night's debate between presidential candidates Joe Biden and Donald Trump had all the markings of a nursing home food fight. America has never before known a cat fight where both cats were merely meowing.

I agonized for 90 full minutes.

The election is not until early November, but, folks, we're in a fight for the future of this country. To even think of banking on 81-yearold Biden, the Democrat, or 78-year-old Trump, the fake Republican, is to bank on a pair of has-beens.

Disappointment came like waves fueled by an arriving hurricane.

Joe Biden had been postured by Republicans as a debater who would arrive "all jacked-up on Mountain Dew," the so-called energy drink. Instead, it was as if he'd been given the strongest of sedatives. The man looked half-asleep; his face often frozen on the TV screen in what could also be interpreted as that horrible malady known medically as Stiff Body Syndrome.

Trump, meanwhile, was a cavalcade of weirdo facial expressions all throughout the debate, his answers to questions a mountain of lies the CNN moderators never challenged. He even had the gall to deny he ever said military veterans are "suckers and losers," even as a former U.S. Army general insisted he heard the convicted felon say it during an observance of the 1944 D-Day invasion in France.

That from Trump we expected; what Joe Biden delivered was the shocking part.

It'll be a time for a load of soul-searching for Democrats today and in the coming weeks. This was not the feisty, glib Joe Biden that dazzled Congress during his most recent State of The Union address, when he looked fresh and sharp and came across as the witty one we did not see last night.

Our assessment: Good luck, Democrats.

Corrupt, convicted, legally mired Donald Trump is not the answer to many of our social problems, but, last night, at least he looked halfway alive.

Joe Biden had his chance to put troubled Trump away, and he flubbed it.

Perhaps not because he wanted to, but because the optic of an old man in serious political discourse was too tough of a verbal obstacle course for him.

Neither candidate, we would say, lost a single supporter after this performance.

We only wonder about those finicky independent voters who forever look for that single maker-breaker event or utterance from a candidate to vote up or down...

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DOWN TO THE SUNLESS SEA:...Tonight's Debate Teases Something Or Another...America Grabs The Boring Mantle...Whatever Became Of Excellence?... Presidential Debate Inspires No One...Groan...

 

By DUARDO PAZ-MARTINEZ

McALLEN, Texas |...Where to begin with these two old guys? Debate Night is here and, well, there is so much to write about President Joe Biden and his Republican opponent in this year's election, one Donald J. Trump.

Can you just say that one, Democrat Biden, is the clean one and the other is a convicted felon?

Will America care to know the details of both campaigns? The vote is a crucial one. Biden promises a continuation of his steady approach to democracy values, while Trump is head-over-heels in love with a dictatorial style.

At first glance, the choice would seem to be a very easy one.

Today's busy Americans, however, are a troubled lot. Yes, pundits keep noting that Trump's voting base is, at best, 30% of eligible voters, adding that it alone is not enough to win a national election. Conversely, other Americans wonder if perhaps Biden's age (81) is a problem.

Who knows?

Tonight, the two aspirants will debate in Atlanta.

Age is a factor. Both men are up in the clouds, with Trump walking in at 78 years old. The advanced elderly side of both men is clearly visible in their posture and, some say, manner of thinking. It's been written many times already, but whichever of these two wins will be the oldest president ever at an inauguration.

But politically the differences are wide and getting wider.

It is Democrats against Republicans one more time, only these Republicans are not your father's Republicans. These Republicans have gladly picked up the often racist and bigoted flag to deliver a tone not seen in our politics for more than a century.

Secondary issues are abortion and immigration.

Biden is 100% for availing a woman her rights to her body on abortion and, lately, a fan of asylum restrictions for immigrants. Trump wants a national ban on abortion and a complete shutdown of the southern border, his past dealings with immigration spikes including separation of children from their parents.

Both of those topics are sure to surface at tonight's debate.

The only thing in the way of answers being important is that, at this stage, many voters have already made up their mind.

The clash is familiar; the script and manner of how these candidates got there is not...

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A DEATH IN TOWN:...Stunning News On The Death Of Brownsville's Carlos Cascos...Cardiac Arrest While Driving On South Padre Island...He Was 71...A Life Well-Spent...As Cameron County Judge And Texas Secretary Of State...

 

STAFF REPORT

BROWNSVILLE, Texas |...Social Media reports have it that former Cameron County Judge and Texas Secretary of State Carlos Cascos has died. Initial information went to Cascos apparently suffering a heart attack and crashing his vehicle while on South Padre Island.

Story-hungry bloggers in Brownsville quickly spread the news.

The 71-year-old Cascos ranks high among the best-known politicians in town, up there with former U.S. Ambassador to Mexico Tony Garza, former State Rep. Rene Oliveira and former City Commissioner Ben R. Neece, the latter two also recently deceased.

An accessible outspoken defender of his troubled Republican Party, Cascos nonetheless talked-up his personal conservative roots, never quite defending the party's current leadership but always believing the good days of yesteryear would eventually return.

His own admirable political journey is one of ever-steady advance and accomplishment. Born in Matamoros, Mexico, Cascos came to the U.S. at a young age and proceeded to live the American Dream. After high school here, he graduated from the University of Texas-Austin with an accounting degree and owned his own accounting firm in town.

Politics had him in the Democrat Party when younger, but Cascos always said the area's dominant party never gave him the opportunities he got from the local GOP, which endorsed his run for Cameron County Judge. In 2015, he was named Texas Secretary of State by Republican Gov. Greg Abbott, a post Cascos held for two years.

Of late, he had taken a rather statesmanlike posture in Brownsville, occasionally taking part in political discussions and always there for news reporters looking for a story.

His passing is only the latest in a string of deaths that has taken some of the city's longtime leaders.

A generally humble man, Carlos Cascos never talked about his legacy or played up his many accomplishments.

His was the journey of an honest man looking not for fame or riches but simply to help his fellow citizens...

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SUN RECORDS:...The King Laughing It Up In Vegas Concert...This About The Time He Found Out Wife Priscilla Was Shagging Her Karate Instructor, A Dude Named Mike Stone..."Are You Lonesome Tonight"...

THE DIM & DIRTY ROAD:...A Rudderless Campaign To Nowhere...Hispanic Republican Mayra Flores Has No Second Or Third Gear...For Her, It's Still 2022...A Distinctive Smell Of Defeat In The Air...

 

By DUARDO PAZ-MARTINEZ

HARLINGEN, Texas |...Everybody knows exactly what is wrong with our republic. You can sit down at a bar and quickly hear the moaning and groaning. Same for most breakfast eateries. The words ring thick and vicious, sentences no longer interested in getting along.

I've been wondering about our politics for weeks now, always ready and willing to see a turn for the better but always turned away at the door. The price of admission is too high - your brain.

Here locally, it is the latest run for Congress being fashioned by a sort of tragic figure we all know as Republican candidate Mayra Flores, shown in photo above. What can you say about a 38-year-old woman so lost in the political landscape that to call her a dreamer is to believe that every dream is now a nightmare.

Miss Flores is going nowhere in her current campaign for the 34th Congressional District seat presently held by Democrat Vicente Gonzalez, a rather entrenched politician uninterested in losing to a woman born in Burgos, Mexico and educated at a city college in McAllen.

He's an attorney and she's a respiratory technician. His education is wide-ranging; Mayra's is lacking in government, economics, world history, finances and the sciences.

It is the easiest call we've had this year. Gonzalez will defeat her once more in the November General Election, in what are characterizing as another beating by more than 11,000 votes. That would be the same margin of victory Gonzalez celebrated two years ago.

The disappointment will be bitter, as most of us - and Miss Flores - remember she served a brief 6-month stint in Congress between the summer and end of 2022, after winning a Special Election following the retirement of then-Congressman Filemon Vela.

She likely remembers it as the shining highlight of her life. It was the equivalent of an actress coming off a job at a soda fountain counter to win an Academy Award. The thrill was nothing short of spectacular exhilaration, rivaling perhaps a much-awaited marriage proposal.

But then she lost that November day.

The interim has been a slog of sorts for Mayra Flores. She is a sought-after interview on Right-Wing media channels and has posed for photos alongside some Republican heavyweights, like Texas AG Ken Paxton.

Back home, the campaign has not been as exciting from one day to the next. She staged a daily visit to Rio Grande Valley eateries most of last month, visiting the restaurants in what she said was support of small businesses. The payoff of meeting crowds of potential voters was not there, however. Still, she has photos with the business owners for her Facebook page.

That ended and we next saw her inviting Right-Wing Congressman Cory Mills of Florida to join her for a rally at the economic Junction Cafe in Pharr, where the turnout was more than disappointing. She beat on against the current, as the novelist F. Scott Fitzgerald might say about here. Looking for the green light and hoping for a spark of sorts.

We have not seen it.

Instead, it is a wallowing we discern in her effort. Perhaps she has seen the writing on the voting booth wall, or maybe she, like us, knows most challenger candidates do not make up an 11,000-vote defeat. Indeed, we have not seen anything that would tell us she has been moving within the district's geography, which includes roughly half of the valley but also a chunk of the Texas Coast all the way to Corpus Christi and a little beyond.

Meanwhile, Congressman Gonzalez (shown in photo below) has been busy announcing federal money approved for his district pretty much weekly, from a little over a million dollars for dredging at the Port of Brownsville to almost $5 million for a new control tower at Valley International Airport here in Harlingen.

And Gonzalez has seen to it that he gets the press coverage.

Mayra Flores? It's as if this is her first rodeo.

There is no excitement chasing her campaign and the loud voice she used in 2022 seems to have mellowed. Still, she is a ground-floor fan of Donald J. Trump and that she will always let you know.

Perhaps she'll surprise us in the coming weeks. Maybe she has a rabbit in her hat she's yet to pull. Or, she has simply realized that there is no path to victory. South Texas is a unique political land. Running for office on the dirtied coattails of a flawed and selfish New Yorker likely is a problem away from the partisan rah-rah sessions.

Once, we admired her cheek and boldness.

There was a belief that we needed a loud voice in Congress, someone to get the attention of leaders and allow the Rio Grande Valley to grab its place on the national stage. Mayra Flores seemed to be auditioning for that part with every bit of harsh criticism she aimed at her opponent.

That annoying, fighting, grating Mayra Flores has not been around on this campaign.

This much is true: The daily desperate grind of an underdog political campaign eventually drains even the most-inspired candidates. Mayra Flores may be out of gas, the desire of a once-beckoning political career perhaps gone.

Pity...

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SUN MEMORIES:...Those Halcyon Days In My Life...Reporting From Mexico For The Houston Post...."Love in Mexico"...What A Time It Was...

HIGH NOON:...Presidential Debate In Atlanta...For President Joe Biden, A Showdown With A Convicted Felon...For Republican Donald Trump, Yet Another Chance For Redemption...On The Latter, Don't Bet On It...Abortion & Immigration Front Center...

 

By DUARDO PAZ-MARTINEZ

McALLEN, Texas |...Welcome to the World Series of Darkness, as the saying goes on matters such as this one. It'll be a presidential debate but stash the usual reverence. Biden vs. Trump is new territory. A night of "firsts" awaits interested Americans here a bit more than four months before the November General Election.

Never, ever, in the grand, 64-year history of these televised events has any political party ever postured a convicted felon like Republican Donald J. Trump, a candidate arriving two weeks before sentencing following his recent conviction in a New York courtroom of financial irregularities.

And that's just the 78-year-old's recently acquired baggage. He's still on the hook for three other trials, one in Washington, D.C. (the January 6th insurrection mess), one in Florida (the classified documents he took when leaving office) and one in Georgia (2020 election interference).

Democrat Joe Biden, meanwhile, again will see television viewers noting his every move and word. He's 81 and some say he's too old for the job.

Abortion and immigration will be key issues expected to be hashed about in Thursday night's presidential debate.

President Biden no doubt will pounce on Trump's backing of a national ban on abortion, while Trump will paint an oversized canvas of that so-called "massive invasion" of immigrants at the southern border. Both issues are on the minds of voters, with most women said to be anxious to dim Trump's bright bulb on that issue, as will be those Americans who want not one more immigrant admitted into the country.

It may not be being billed as an election for or against Fascism, but, for many, that is what the vote in November will be - Democracy itself on trial. Trump is seen as the dictator wannabe, a candidate who has said he would be a dictator but only for Day One if elected. That he even went there is enough for his supporters and his detractors. No candidate for this office has ever uttered those words.

Joe Biden will likely focus his debate language on his accomplishments in office, efforts that include low unemployment and high job numbers. His appeal to young voters will no doubt include his cancellation of college student loans and his steady progress on improving the nation's infrastructure. Biden may also play up his stoic defense of Ukraine in its war with Russia and his general support of Israel against the terrorist organization Hamas.

Somewhere in there, Biden will also address his executive order on the asylum issue as it relates to the border and immigration. His recent policy adjustment, damned by Republicans, has led to sizeable drops in apprehension of undocumented immigrants in recent weeks, according to officials with the U.S. Border Patrol.

For Trump, the debate task also includes an ability to speak to the issues, his candidacy and what it means for the country - beyond his usual histrionics, something independent voters have found to be tiring of late, to the point that, more and more, attendance at his rallies keeps dwindling.

Swimming under the current will be the question: "Is this America, or what?"

Trump's creation of his Make America Great Again (MAGA) has injected national politics with a loud and proud following seemingly not interested in anything but Trump and what Trump has to say. MAGA disdains and discounts pretty much any and all of criticism aimed at their candidate - charges, trials and jury verdicts included.

It is an odd time in America, but people in most other countries also will be tuning in. Many Europeans remember Trump's term as president (2016-2021) as a time of great anxiety. His open support of Russia's Vladimir Putin never sat well with leaders of other countries, as also did his interest in withdrawing the U.S. from the NATO alliance.

Trump's fondness for the Russian leader remains as strong as ever and his position on NATO has likely not changed. In fact, he has said the war in Ukraine would end the day he assumed the presidency. Biden has labeled that pure folly and further denigrated the friendship with the leader of a nation out to destroy America.

Just how deeply discussion of the issues will go on the Cable News Network (CNN) debate is anybody's guess. Moderating the event will be Jake Tapper and Dana Bash, two veteran journalists who have taken Trump to task in their reporting.

For President Biden, it will be another opportunity to shine, as he did in the State of The Union earlier this year.

Viewers will note that the debate forum will not include a live audience. Both Biden and Trump also will see their microphones turned off when not speaking, both novel to this occasion. That should rid the debate of what became constant interruptions by Trump during the 2020 debate.

Projections and pundit analysis have it that it will be viewed by perhaps the largest television audience ever.

We're way far down the road from the first JFK/Nixon televised debate on October 21, 1960.

Biden fits the traditional political mold of those two candidates; Trump, sadly, is still the wild card...

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SUN RECORDS:...The Heart & Soul Of My Beloved Mexico...All Those Bus And Train And Airplane Rides Back In The Day...Here, The Great Marco Antonio Solís..."Cuando Te Acuerdes De Mi"...

SATURDAY SHORTS:...Trump's Veep, A Collection Of Troubled Kids...Salivating Dudes Willing And A Load Of Hungry Broads Auditioning...But, Uh, What Became Of Texas Gov. Greg Abbott's Chances?...

 

By DUARDO PAZ-MARTINEZ

McALLEN, Texas |...Knowing Donald J. Trump as we do by now, it will not be a Black. He keeps ragging on President Joe Biden's Veep and she's Black, so there you go. Blacks Tim Scott, Ben Carson, Byron Donalds and Vivek Ramaswamy are out.

Place your big bet in Vegas on that one. It'll win.

No, Trump is not looking for a virile male, either. He fully believes he is that and much more.

So, count out Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and Doug Burgum. (Oh, Aaron Rodgers, too)

A woman? Perhaps, but not wild Amazon Marjorie Taylor Greene. She's too spastic and not the model for formal education Trump so admires. He keeps saying he's smart because an uncle was a prof at prestigious M.I.T. The Arizona flash Kari Lake? Uh, no. She blew it by spending all her free time at Mar-a-Lago and we know how Trump feels about the same broad just hanging around.

New York congresswoman Elise Stefanik? She's too damned plain for Trump's glitzy tastes. The man-like Sarah Huckabee Sanders of plain-dumb Arkansas? A drawn-out maybe, but she, too, is too rural. Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii? Don't think so. A Democrat not all that long ago, but a loudmouth, so...

South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem? The coulda-been here. But she shot and killed her little dog. FOX News has-been Tucker Carlson? I'd venture to say that Trump likely hates anyone who fades like this Bozo.

That leaves Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance from his talked-about list. Is he the one? There is not much Mike Pence is this late-comer, but he has sucked-up to Trump like a crazed sumbitch.

They're all cold-blooded MAGA types, yes. Any of the above-mentioned names could get the finger and they would all say, "Thank you."

But I do wonder why Texas Gov. Greg Abbott never made the list.

Geez, Louise, there for a while, Abbott was singing Trump's praises like Cher used to sing Sonny's. Que paso, Greg? It's a question we would ask both Abbott and Trump, although....we also know that Trump disdains any sort of physical disability in people he likes and keeps around hm.

Too bad for our governor, but, man, that "invasion at the border" song Abbott sang for long weeks earlier this year sure pleased Trump...

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SUNBEAMS:...A Plain Valley Woman Moves West ...Looking For Love...Men At Large...A Day At The Grocery Store...Every Pear You Take...

 

By PATRICK ALCATRAZ / Fiction Editor

BROWNSVILLE, Texas |...Mona loved to see wild water in motion, whether in her glass-enclosed bathtub or at the lake or at the ocean. For her, every arriving wave was the essence of a potential boyfriend.

That last fat one here at the beach had to be the manager at work, a lecherous sort who'd just been dumped by his wife in a spectacular tale that was making its way into the local newspaper.

Picky, forty-year-old Mona was intrigued.

The indifferent Pacific never failed her. Day after day after wave after wave; she lapped it all up, at times with a tonguing of her lips, in the same manner that she ate convenience store popsicles and hard candy.

"I've got much to offer a man!" she would say aloud into the ocean headwinds. "Look at me, man! ...I'm the best game in town."

And, yes, she was. Mona Lisa De Leon, daughter of Brownsville, Texas, had left her scorching, humid bordertown for the beaches of California now going on 13 years ago.

One boyfriend in all that time, a fireman in Modesto. Mona Lisa thought highly of herself, of her chaste ways especially. Never an easy date even by California standards, she always let it be known that giving it up before the 10th date was a street harlot's move.

Then one day in April, she met Dan Pine at the corner grocery store, in the produce aisle, where she handled apples prior to tossing a few into her grocery cart. Dan strolled up and said go with pears.

Mona looked up to see the most rugged man she'd ever laid eyes on. No man back home looked like this. His heavy, bushy beard was like a pair on gray briefs all rolled up into a ball.

And so, she went ahead and bagged a half-dozen Bartlett pears, agreed to go out with Dan and then proceeded to live happily ever after with him.

When he died in a car crash 35 years later, Mona planted a young pear tree in her backyard and the tree is yielding the sweetest pears you'd want to taste...

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SUN FLICKS:...From the 1996 Movie "Trees Lounge," Starring The Goofy Steve Buscemi...This tune by the band Hayden...Cool, Neighborhood Bar...

THE WEDNESDAY CLUB:...Writing This Week Is Supreme Court Associate Justice Samuel Alito...He's Pumped...And Thinking About Losing His Grouchy Wife...He's Got His Eye On Sexy Lauren Boebert, The Fondling Republican...

 

By SAMUEL ALITO/ Special To The Sun

PORT ISABEL, Texas |...Well, Martha-Ann just wanted to get away from it all. Washington, D.C. and our home in neighboring Virginia just weren't the places for love anymore. Too many people bitching up that way. They jumped all over my wife over the manner in which she flies flags outside our home. Runs'em up upside down.

What can I tell you that you don't already know?

But we're here and here we'll stay a few days. At the Port Isabel Yacht Club, although I've not seen a single yacht. Maybe they'll come for the July Fourth Regatta.

In any case, I suppose I should tell you that the wife is troubled. She keeps asking me if I still love her. The press has been especially hard on her. She looks like heck. Her moptop gray hair has turned whitish, and with that roundish face, well, she could easily be mistaken down here for a big, fat seagull.

We've been married a long time. From those days before I joined the Supreme Court and became a bigot, someone out to offer political dogma and not interpretation of our beloved Constitution. Forgive me Lord, for I have sinned.

And now I feel like sinning again.

My wife bores me. Hopefully, the news media won't grab that and run with it. I mean, we've been on the cover of Rolling Stone and even some lowly bloggers have given us heck. I'm Italian and I want to fight back, put my fist down a reporter's throat and boot up his or her ass. That's how we'd do it in Mafia-run Sicily, where my family tree was first planted and grew like a sumbitch.

It was that story out of Denver that drew me to her, I can now say. Who exactly is "her," you might ask. Well, as the Beach Boys like to say at the beginning of their songs, it's Colorado Congresswoman Lauren Boebert. She loops me, and I don't know what to do.

I was mesmerized by that episode of Lauren (Gosh, I want so much to say her name, all day long) at that showing of Beetlejuice where she was caught fondling her male date and being fondled. It was like a soft-porn scene from an Erich Segal novel (Love Story), with me playing Ryan O'Neil and sweet Lauren being Ali McGraw. You know, I had a dream in which, well, there we were. Lauren even called me "preppie." I woke up smiling.

So, who knows where this will go?

I'm due back at my seat on the High Court in a few days, but I'm not rushed. My colleague Clarence Thomas turned me onto this Texas zillionaire by the name of Crow and, well, we can get up there in no time at all aboard his private jet.

Tonight, here at the P.I. Yacht Club, I will fess it all up to Martha-Ann.

My wife is not good at taking horrible news, but what the heck, right?

I'm a Supreme Court bad ass these days...

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[EDITOR'S NOTE:...This is the inaugural installment of a weekly feature in which we publish writing by noted politicians and other celebrities...always in a satirical vein, of course...]

REPUBLICAN WOMEN:...Bold, Hostile And Out There...Anywhere But The Kitchen...Power-Hungry And Saying It Out Loud...Yes, Add Our Own Mayra Flores And Monica De La Cruz To That Parade...

 

By DUARDO PAZ-MARTINEZ

McALLEN, Texas |...It's an interesting study in our women, yes, but both of the ones in this topic are dead-set on joining their Republican Party brethren come hell or high water in the kitchen. They do not want to cook, or even shop for comestibles.

These women want political action, underhanded games and absolute power.

Forget Sarah Palin. She'd cower before today's GOP women.

All you have to do is take even a side-glance at ever-aggrieved Georgia Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene ("Bleach blonde, bad build, butch body") and see the clear growth in boldness. Greene demands attention. So does her troubled Colorado sweetheart, Lauren Boebert, a mother who disdained her son's appearance in court for burglary but attended Donald J. Trump's "Hush Money" trial in New York.

Nancy Mace, the South Carolina GOP congresswoman has been loud and more visible lately, even after her entire office staff resigned citing a "toxic" environment - whatever and all that may mean. Her counterpart in upstate New York, Elise Stefanik, has transformed from a genial and quiet representative to a Trump-approved hellcat now apparently on The Donald's short Veep list.

Then there is Lara Trump, the daughter-in-law now a co-leader of the Republican National Committee and her bellicose ways. She's the one who said any and all monies gathered by the RNC would go to Trump's presidential campaign and legal fund.

They grab the microphone, the interview occasion and they let it rip. Damn that crap about a women's place being in the home, kitchen and bedroom. There is something to be admired about that, only, in the case of these brazen political operatives, it at times can get annoying.

Enter 34th Congressional District candidate Mayra Flores, the darling of right-wing media for a brief shining moment back in 2022, when she actually won the seat in a Special Election and served it for six months, before being routed by Democrat Vicente Gonzalez in that year's November election - swamped, as in by more than 11,000 votes.

Flores bellowed, shrieked and filled her political days with excitement heretofore unseen in the Rio Grande Valley. She seems to have quieted down a bit in her current campaign, but it's still early in the journey. It has to be a tough gig if all you have at hand is words of /praise for Trump and not yourself.

The same goes for District 15 Congresswoman Monica De La Cruz, the picture-perfect image of a smiling 50-year-old divorcee who just looks out of place in national politics. Does Monica cook? We ask that in jest, but it's something to wonder about, especially after Flores was caught taking cook-out photos off the Internet and claiming them for herself.

Not to be so down on women in politics, but there is such a thing as class.

Yes, today's campaigns for office are nothing short of a barroom brawl, but one wonders: How much has Trump's lawless ways influenced his party's females? You answer that.

And who knows about the New Republican Women and the upcoming election. Storms never last, as they say in weather and song. We'll see. There is simply too much contradiction. You can pick an issue and ask about why Republican women don't scream against their own party.

The abortion issue, for one. Republican Party bigwigs want to outlaw them from coast to coast. But, really, when is the last time you heard any Republican woman defend that women's right. I mean, if we believe in freedoms, of course - your body being your body.

Not a peep. Let Donald speak his mind and we'll follow. Sheeple in cute sundresses (Monica De La Cruz, shown in photo above, at left), some in tight jeans and cowgirl boots (Mayra Flores). Yeah, never mind the pain. I suspect both of these politicians cry themselves to sleep.

The Republican Party is out to oppress women. How can Flores, shown with hefty load of BBQ in photo at right, and De La Cruz even dream of leading such a party? They cannot.

It is a sick joke to be sure.

Perhaps that's why we rarely see a Republican woman smiling congenially in photos or on TV, or even laughing sincerely.

The image-of-choice they have chosen is one of tireless bitterness and a flowing disgust that has to take a toll on the brain.

Male Republican candidates are extremists these days, and the women aboard that rolling Conestoga wagon sit alongside, rifle in hand, anger at the ready...

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