White House Correspondents Association Annual Meeting 2026

The Urgent Need For Generational Change In Congress

Ronald 7 Comments

Both houses of Congress are overly “elderly”, and polls indicate Americans want an age cap and term limits, in order to modernize the institution, and make it relevant to the younger generations which feel they are not adequately represented.

The average member of the House of Representatives is 58, and in the Senate, it is 65, and the present Congress is the third oldest in US history.

Fortunately, some members who are elderly are retiring, and a few have passed away, but still there are cases of members who simply do not believe in the concept of retirement.

So we have Senator Chuck Grassley of Iowa, nearing age 93 in September, who is Senate President Pro Tempore, third in line of Presidential succession, who would have become President if a horrible tragedy had occurred at the recent White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner in late April.

There are some members of Congress who are effective at an advanced age, but public office should not be a lifetime job, and it would inspire more younger Americans to vote if they could see people they can relate to, in public office.

An age limit of 75 seems reasonable, and thankfully, there are younger contenders running for election in the Midterm Elections of 2026, as this blogger has written about before.

Hopefully, there will be a “youth wave” moving forward, and many of these seekers of becoming part of Congress succeed in November.

Dangerous To Have Presidential Succession Group In One Place Off Government Protected Buildings, As Occurred At Washington Hilton Hotel!

Ronald 10 Comments

The horrifying incident of a gunman at the Washington Hilton Hotel during the White House Correspondents Association Annual Dinner was more than just a threat to the President of the United States and the 2,500 guests, many of them journalists.

It also was the reality that MOST of the group under the 1947 Presidential Succession Act were also there, truly a dangerous and unacceptable scenario.

13 members of the Presidential succession were at the event, including Vice President JD Vance and Speaker of the House Mike Johnson.

But also almost all of the Cabinet Officers were present, leaving an alarming situation.

The only people under the Presidential Succession Act NOT present were:

President Pro Tempore of the Senate Chuck Grassley of Iowa, nearing age 93;

Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins;

Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick;

The two “Acting” Secretaries–Attorney General Todd Blanche, and Secretary of Labor Keith Sonderling were there, who some observers would say are not eligible to succeed to the Presidency, as they have not been selected yet as the successors in those posts, and have not been confirmed.

Also, it is unclear if Scott Turner, Secretary of Housing and Urban Development and Doug Collins, Secretary of Veterans Affairs were present at the event.

There was no formal “Designated Survivor” chosen before the event in case of a tragedy.

Never again can the federal government allow even the unlikely scenario that occurred on April 25 to happen again.

Growing Threat Of Political Violence A Danger To America’s Future!

Ronald 9 Comments

The reverberations from the attack on the White House Correspondents Association Annual Dinner at the Washington Hilton Hotel on Saturday, April 25 are massive, as it was a total shock to the 2,500 attendees and all of the Donald Trump government figures that were in danger from the crazed attack by Cole Tomas Allen, and it will take a long time to be fully processed.

While the gunman did not get through the perimeter at the hotel, the thought that such an attack could be mounted at all, is stunning.

The gunman had a whole set of grievances regarding what Donald Trump and his administration have been perpetrating in the 15 months since Trump came back to leadership of the federal government. And he specifically referred to Trump as a pedophile and rapist, relating to the Epstein files.

It is clear that the level of political violence is a menace to the long range stability of the government and American society.

It is highly concerning that it has come to the point that all members of Congress now require private security for their own safety, and their staffs are under constant threat as well.

This confrontational, “in your face” antagonism among members of both the Republican and Democratic parties, endangers all Americans, and has led to bloodshed and physical attacks that remind us of the pre Civil War period in the 1850s, as has been documented by various historical scholarly studies.

And the ability of unstable people to acquire guns in a society in which gun rights are seen as more important than general public safety is an alarm bell that makes one fear the future.

Shocking Threat Against Trump And Everyone At White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner

Ronald 9 Comments

In a totally shocking event, a lone gunman breached the Washington Hilton Hotel, the site of the shooting of President Ronald Reagan on March 30, 1981, in an attempt to harm President Donald Trump, and in theory, all those in the line of Presidential succession, at the White House Correspondents Association Annual Dinner.

About 2,500 attendees at the annual event were all in the line of danger from the crazed gunman, Cole Tomas Allen, a well educated resident of California, who graduated California Institute of Technology, graduating in 2017 with a mechanical engineering degree, and later gained a masters degree in computer science, and someone said to be thought to be no threat to anyone, based on people who know him.

This is a terrifying event, and the thought that the line of succession was endangered, is sobering. This is the result of the division that has become the norm in America in recent years; the easy accessibility of guns; and the reality of widespread mental illness.

While the gunman did not get into the actual ballroom where the event occurred, it is still horrifying and traumatic that such an event could occur in a well protected hotel by the Secret Service.

Political violence is a disease that is eating away at American domestic and international security.

The constant rising threats against members of Congress, as well as the executive and judicial branch, is a never ending crisis.

One does not have to be supportive of anyone in government, but the horrors of constant threats against individuals in all branches of government is a crisis that needs to be addressed in a sane manner.