national news

White House ‘A real dump’? Why, I never …

This story might not amount to much over the long haul, but for the moment it has legs and it is beginning to scamper onto TV news reports.

Donald John Trump reportedly told members of his posh New Jersey golf club that one reason he spends so much time away from his Washington, D.C., residence is because the White House is “a real dump.”

By the way, the picture attached to this post is of my wife and yours truly this past June standing in front of the “dump” that reportedly drew the president’s derision. Honestly, it looked quite lovely to us.

The president has spent a lot of time while in office at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida. I’ve never seen it, but I hear it’s quite posh. It’s full of glitz and glam. It’s got lots of fancy chandeliers and solid-gold fixtures. It’s quite decadent, or so I’m led to believe.

Same for the president’s Trump Tower apartment in Manhattan and for his New Jersey golf club, where he told club members about his digs at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.

The White House doesn’t measure up to Trump’s standards — allegedly!

I guess perhaps the president doesn’t grasp that it’s not his house. It’s our house. Yours and mine, dear reader. Yeah, the president is an American citizens, so he has a bit of buy-in, too. He doesn’t grasp the history associated with this structure or the fact that it stands as the symbol of the exalted office that Trump now occupies.

The president is merely a tenant there, along with first lady Melania Trump and their son, Barron.

The Trumpkins across the land will ignore this impertinent utterance. Imagine, though, for just a moment this hypothetical scenario: What might the reaction be if, say, Barack H. Obama had said such a thing about the People’s House?

Well, the current president gets a pass because he “tells it like it is.”

Actually, he has just offended millions of “homeowners” who take pride in the White House and who appreciate and understand what it means to citizens of the greatest nation on Earth.

media news, national news

To tweet or not to tweet …

William Shakespeare likely wouldn’t ponder that notion if he were around today.

But we’re going to give it a shot here briefly.

Twitter is emerging as the social medium of choice for some high-powered individuals. Members of Congress use it. Journalists, too. Same for assorted entertainment celebrities.

And, of course, the president of the United States. That brings me to the subject of this blog post: Should the president keep using Twitter?

I’m torn by the notion of Donald John Trump Sr. continuing to use Twitter. On one hand, the manner in which he uses it is troubling in the extreme. He fires off these 140-character messages in the wee hours of the morning. I don’t object to him doing so per se. The troubling aspect comes in the consequences of those messages.

Don’t get me wrong. I use Twitter too. This blog is distributed on Twitter, along with Facebook, LinkedIn and Google. I use the medium to advance my own commentary on “politics, public policy and life experience.” It helps me expand my audience, which is every blogger’s mission. Twitter has helped me build my daily blog “hits”; while my audience has expanded manifold since I founded High Plains Blogger, it’s still not enough. Hey, it’s never enough!

I also send out tweets that comment by themselves on current policy matters and this and/or that other stuff. I’ve done so more than 16,000 times since signing up on Twitter while I was still working for the Amarillo Globe-News. I got into the game right away and have enjoyed using Twitter to convey pithy comments.

But I’m just a chump former print journalist who lives out here in the middle of Flyover Country. The consequences of my tweets pale in comparison to what occurs when the president of the United States fires them into cyberspace.

Trump on occasion has abused the medium, such as when he tweeted a policy change regarding transgender Americans serving in the military. That is far more than just a comment on news of the day. It signaled a fundamental policy shift: that the president had declared that transgender citizens no longer could serve in the armed forces. What’s more, he sent the tweet without consulting with the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Defense Department or his senior White House staff.

That’s abuse of social media, dear reader.

Do I wish the president would cease and desist on Twitter? No. If it’s used properly, it can be a useful tool to communicate — even for the president. The trouble with Trump is that he lacks any impulse control and cannot discern prudent use of the medium from imprudent use of it.

I’ve heard many folks say they want Trump to continue using Twitter. I do, too. However, my wish for the president is that he use it with wisdom and discernment.

Is he capable of such a thing? Oh … probably not.

national news

Trump channeling Nixon?

The Washington media chatterers keep making comparisons between Donald John Trump and Richard Milhous Nixon.

They note certain symmetry between the two presidents of the United States. President Nixon became involved in covering up the Watergate break-in just days after it occurred. How do we know that? It was all tape-recorded. Trump, meanwhile, is now being accused of covering up his own involvement with Russians who reportedly meddled in our 2016 presidential election.

The difference between the men’s conduct, though, is stark in one important aspect. Nixon got into trouble near the end of his first term; he would be re-elected in a landslide in 1972, and then the crap really hit the fan. Trump has been president only for a few months; he still has years to go before the end of his current term — and the crap is beginning to hit the fan already.

I am not going to predict that Trump’s presidency will end the way Nixon’s did. The lies, dissembling, the switching of stories, the dramatic and drastic personnel changes at the highest levels of executive governance all are beginning to alarm many of us.

John Kelly stepped with both feet into this maelstrom when he became the new White House chief of staff this week. He scored a big victory in his first hours on the job by getting communications director Anthony “Mooch” Scaramucci booted out of the White House. Whether that initial move portends better days, weeks and months ahead at the White House remains a gaping, open question.

The Nixon comparisons only are going to mount with every revelation that is revealed. As Ruth Marcus notes in her Washington Post column, the White House is imploding.

It’s almost impossible for me to grasp the notion that all of this is happening at the very beginning of Donald Trump’s term as president. What in the world lies ahead?

national news

‘Like any father … ‘

Sarah Huckabee Sanders needs to get a grip on this indisputable fact: The man she serves as White House press secretary is not your ordinary, run-of-the-mill parent who loves his children.

Donald John Trump is the president of the United States. So, when the press aide says the president was helping his son with public remarks to the public about a controversial meeting “like any father would,” she sets aside the fact that Trump is not like “any father.”

Sure, the president is still a father and a grandfather.

Sanders’s comment deals with questions into whether the president helped his son, Donald Trump Jr., craft a misleading statement about the nature of his meeting with a Russian lawyer who invited Don Jr. to meet with her because — allegedly — she had some dirt on Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Trump’s role as a parent in this context has been eclipsed — for better and/or worse — by his role as president of the United States, the head of state of the greatest nation on Earth.

He ain’t just “any father.”

political news

A joke, Mr. President? Why not apologize?

Sarah Huckabee Sanders has inherited the least desirable job in America: White House press secretary.

She is assigned to defend statements that pour out of the mouth of the president of the United States, who recently told law enforcement officials that they need not concern themselves with treating criminal suspects with respect.

It’s OK to rough up those who are arrested, Donald John Trump Sr. said.

Sanders’ answer to that? The president was making a joke, she said.

Wow! I missed that one. I didn’t see it as a joke. I was offended. So were top cops across the land. So were politicians in both parties.

This, therefore, begs the question: Why not apologize for a misconstrued joke, Mr. President?

I get that Trump isn’t inclined to apologize for anything. He hasn’t said he’s sorry for a single thing he has said since becoming a politician in June 2015. The insults? The mocking of disabled individuals? The defamation of political opponents? The furthering of “fake news” involving President Barack Obama’s place of birth? Nothing, man.

Pols apologize all the time for jokes that fall flat. Heck, I’d even settle for one of those phony “If I offended anyone … “ non-apologies we hear on occasion. Yes, even one of those would be welcome if it were to come from the lips of the Non-Apologist in Chief.

Was he joking, or not? The president’s silence on this matter of police conduct suggests — to me — that he meant what he said.

national news

Special counsel’s plate getting quite full

Robert Mueller keeps getting more information than he can digest at a single sitting.

Yep, the special counsel assigned to examine Russian government meddling into our electoral process and allegations that the Donald J. Trump campaign colluded with the Russians is getting a good bit more, um, complicated.

The Washington Post is reporting, for instance, that the president told Donald John Trump Jr. how he should describe a meeting Don Jr. had with a Russian lawyer who invited him to meet so he could receive some alleged dirt on Hillary Rodham Clinton.

The president’s lawyer denies the story outright. Other Trump defenders accuse the Post of conveying “fake news.”

But, oh, this is the stuff of serious political intrigue.

Don Jr. supposedly reported the meeting was to be about “Russian adoption policy.” That wasn’t the case, according to the Post, which reports that young Don got instructions from Dad the President on what to say.

I believe that might constitute a serious obstruction of justice matter … if it’s true. The Post, of course, stands by its story, while the White House denies all of it.

Don Jr. isn’t talking. Imagine that.

Recall that another special counsel, Kenneth Starr, started looking into a real estate deal involving President and Mrs. Clinton. Then more tidbits began flying over his transom. Eventually, Starr got wind of a relationship Bill Clinton was having with a young White House intern. Starr poked around a little more and, well, the rest is history.

Mueller has the same latitude as Starr as he pursues the Russia matter. Stories such as the one published by the Post give him even more grist to pore through as he continues his pursuit of the truth behind the Russia story.

national news

Happy Trails, Part 34

2 Comments

A word to the wise: Read road signs very carefully when traveling far from home. If you fail to do so, you might find yourself tooling down some road to nowhere … but it will cost you!

My wife and I returned home this past weekend from our latest sojourn across the United States of America; we opened our mail and found a notice from the Interstate 495/95 Express Lanes toll authority in northern Virginia.

We had been assessed a “toll violation” because in June we found ourselves driving in the “express lane” with no way on God’s Earth to get off.

The violation won’t cost us an arm and both legs, so we’ll pay it. I called the toll authority this morning to “protest” the notice. I was told after explaining to the robotic-sounding “customer service representative” that the “invoice is still valid.”

I applaud the toll authority for being so efficient in its handling of my call. Believe me, I actually doubted I was conversing with a living, breathing human being even though she gave me her name when she picked up the phone on the other end of the line. That’s the good news.

The bad news, if you don’t mind my calling it that, is that the toll authority representative didn’t quite grasp the nature of the “protest” I was filing. It’s not that my wife and I don’t think we broke any rules; we did when we ended up on that express lane. It’s just that the highway was under construction, rendering the GPS on our truck virtually useless, the signage was imprecise, traffic was heavy and we found ourselves — quite by accident — on a toll road without the proper “express pass” tag attached to our vehicle.

Furthermore, we had to travel several miles southbound from suburban Washington, D.C., toward our RV campsite before we could exit the express lane.

This all happened while we were visiting our niece and her husband, who live in Washington. We drove to a metro train station, and rode the train into the district each day of our visit. We would return to the Franconia-Springfield Station, drive our truck out of the parking garage and then head back to our RV site.

Somehow, on this particular evening, we got a bit befuddled by the road construction. On June 12, zigged when we should have zagged and got caught in that seemingly endless journey along an express lane.

Hey, that kind of thing happens to out-of-towners, am I right?

I told Robot Lady we’d pay the fine. She offered nothing in the way of a word of sympathy for our anxiety or frustration over the signage, heavy traffic and road construction. She merely instructed us to “stay away from the left lane when you see those white signs.”

Gee. Thanks. Will do.

religious news

Don’t try to predict what God intends

Don’t you just love it when evangelists try to predict what’s on the mind and in the heart of The Almighty?

This little video snippet suggests two points to me.

One is that no one — no matter how godly he claims to be — should try to predict what God is going to do, or how he’s going to act if you do something that displeases him.

The other is that it’s perilous to meld spiritual matters into political ones, particularly when they involve the current president of the United States of America.

The video here is of Jim Bakker, the once-famous televangelist who’s pitching something called the “Trump Prophecies.” He says something about how Americans should be wary of what God will do if they go against the president’s agenda, his purpose in leading in the country — whatever the heck that all means.

Trump is doing God’s work on Earth, Bakker seems to suggest.

How does this guy know these things? Earth to Bakker: God’s work defies humankind’s meager, fallible ability to make bold predictions.

That’s why he’s God and none of us mere mortals — and that includes Jimmy Bakker — are not. Got it? Good!

My second point simply is that it continues to baffle me to the max why certain evangelical leaders remain faithful to Donald John Trump Sr. Can anyone out there point me to an example of how this man ever demonstrated a commitment to the Lord’s teachings prior to his being elected president of the United States?

This guy says things about women that should flummox evangelicals. He politicizes a speech at the Boy Scout Jamboree, injecting politics into an event aimed at paying tribute to the kindness and good work of the Boy Scouts of America. He continually demonstrates a level of narcissism and self-aggrandizement that run absolutely counter to the way Jesus lived during his brief time on Earth.

But these evangelicals love this guy!

Go figure, man.

If you can comprehend this, then y’all are far better individuals than I ever thought of being.

national news

What? It’s only been 193 days?

One hundred ninety-three days ago, Donald John Trump Sr. placed his hand on a Bible and took an oath as president of the United States.

Is it me or does it seem like an eternity? Why does it seem as though we’ve endured this man’s fumbles and foibles for an interminable length of time?

I’m wondering how the nation will be able to suck it up for the next nearly four years.

The White House chaos is exhausting even for those of us out here, hundreds of miles away. How does the president of the United States manage to keep his head in the game? How in the world does his staff cope with the utter pandemonium that pervades virtually every action within the White House?

It has only been 193 days? I’m worn out already. I need to catch my breath, get my second and third winds, and trudge on watching this drama continue to play out.

legal news, national news

Oh, that POTUS, what a card

Newly minted White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders sought to tamp down criticism of Donald Trump’s call for cops to rough up suspects.

The president was “making a joke,” Sanders said.

Oh, now I get it. Why didn’t I realize it in the moment when the president told cops in Long Island, N.Y., that they shouldn’t have to presume that criminal suspects are innocent until a court proves them guilty?

I know why it didn’t dawn on me — or on police chiefs across the nation. It’s because no one took it as a joke. They took it as a statement of principle from Trump. They issued statements individually and collectively that police shouldn’t rough up criminal suspects; they also condemned the president’s statements on the subject.

They are sensitive to police relations with the communities they serve, owing to repeated incidents of police-involved shootings in connection with the deaths of African-Americans.

But, hey! He was joking, said press secretary Sanders.

“I believe he was making a joke at the time,” Sanders said during today’s White House press briefing.

Actually, the president did make a reasonable call for the end to the notorious gang MS-13, in his remarks to police in Suffolk County, N.Y. Then he twisted off into this rough-’em-up rhetoric.

“When you see these towns and when you see these thugs being thrown into the paddy wagon, you just see them thrown in. Rough, I said. Please don’t be too nice,” Trump said. “Like when you guys put somebody in the car and you’re protecting their head, you know? The way you put their hand over. Like, don’t hit their head, and they’ve just killed somebody? Don’t hit their head? I said, ‘You can take the hand away, OK?’”

Nice try, Sarah Sanders. You might “believe” the president was joking. Many of the rest of us — including the men and women who lead local police agencies — don’t see it that way.

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