national news

Happy birthday, Dad

This is a picture of my father. His name was Pete Kanelis.

My sis snapped this picture in 1979, a year before Dad died in a boating accident that to this day still gives me great pain. He was 59 years of age when he died in the accident just north of Vancouver, British Columbia, where he was cavorting with friends and business associates on a business/fishing trip.

I want to mention Dad to you today because Saturday would have been his 96th birthday.

Apart from the obvious feelings of loss and grief I felt for seemingly the longest time in my life, my feelings today as I remember Dad are a bit more, oh, philosophical.

Fate dealt us all quite a blow that day when the call came to me the day after Dad died. The very last thing I said to him before he departed Portland for Canada was, “I’ll see you Wednesday.” The call arrived on a Monday morning. The news was terrible.

I think of Dad — and Mom, too — in ways that boggle my mind at times.

What would they be like had they lived long enough to grow old? What kind of old folks would they have been? As it is, I have spent a good bit more time on Earth than either of them were able to do. Mom died four years after Dad at the age of 61.

I have my own theory — and that’s all it can be — about how Dad and Mom would have aged had they been given the opportunity. Dad was one of seven siblings and he — more than any of his brothers and sisters — valued family relationships. My sense is that he likely would have been a bit clingy, that he might have resisted the career opportunity I sought when my wife, sons and I moved to Texas in 1984. Mom would have been more accepting of it. Had she been able to grow old without Dad, I believe as well that Mom would have returned more to be like the young woman — full of vim of vigor — that she recalled occasionally about herself.

The thing about fate, though, is that you cannot take it back. You cannot relive moments that come and go. Life doesn’t give us any do-overs.

So … with that I am left only to wish that Dad were here to celebrate his 96th birthday. If only fate hadn’t intervened.

I still miss him every day.

International news, national news, political news

What? A back-channel phone line with Kremlin?

I know Donald Trump’s son-in-law is entitled to an innocence presumption.

Jared Kushner has now been shoved to the front row of a growing investigation into what the Trump presidential campaign may have done in connection with the Russian government.

The latest live grenade to explode deals with a report that Kushner and the Russians sought to set up a secret line through which the Trump team could communicate with the Kremlin, the seat of the Russian government in the heart of Moscow.

If it’s true — and I’ll presume that special counsel Robert Mueller will make that determination in due course — then it’s fair to ask: What would Kushner seek to keep secret from normal communications channels?

Some analysts are suggesting that this latest report might be a “game change” in the growing controversy. (I am going to refrain from calling it a “scandal” until we know a whole lot more.)

The Mueller investigation is going to determine whether the Trump campaign colluded with Russians seeking to influence the 2016 presidential election. Trump says “no.” His buddy, Russian President Vladimir Putin, says “nyet.”

If this latest revelation is a game-changer, then I’m believing that Donald J. Trump’s tenure as president is about to enter some seriously tenuous territory.

media news

‘Russia thing’ is producing a form of vertigo

I no longer am an active member of the so-called “mainstream media.”

Thus, I am merely a watcher and reader of news. So help me, though, the speed and intensity of the “breaking news” that keeps busting out is making my head spin.

I refer to the Donald Trump/Russia/Jared Kushner/Michael Flynn/FBI director firing/special counsel elements that keep bursting out with bombshell after bombshell.

I’ll just say that I am immensely proud of the media’s role in revealing these stories. The New York Times and the Washington Post news staffs have been performing an immense public service in their work to root out all the information they can find.

Good on ’em. Keep up the great work.

For now, though, I think I’ll need a dose of Dramamine.

national news

Kushner, under scrutiny, to lead WH ‘war room’

How does this work?

Jared Kushner, Donald Trump’s son-in-law, has been identified as the subject of an FBI investigation into “the Russia thing” that is bedeviling the Trump administration.

Now we hear that Kushner is going to lead a team effort within the White House to combat the myriad questions that keep dogging the president, his campaign and his senior White House staff — of which Kushner is a member!

How in the world does Kushner separate himself from the very probe while leading the effort to fight it?

To be fair, the FBI is likely to look into what Kushner knows about the Russia matter, not what he has done … allegedly.

The young man is about to undertake a multi-tasking effort that might not have any equal in American political history.

media news, national news, political news

No jokes about ‘shooting’ reporters, Gov. Abbott

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has signed a bill that reduces by a good bit the first-time fee for Texans seeking to obtain a concealed handgun carry permit.

I am one of those Texans who formerly opposed the concealed handgun carry legislation when it was first enacted in 1995; my position has evolved over time … more or less. Suffice to say that while I no longer oppose it, I am unwilling to sign on as an avid proponent. I have accepted the law. I trust you’ll understand my point here.

Then the governor did something that borders on gauche. He went to a shooting range, fired a few rounds at a target and then joked that he would carry the target around “in case I see any reporters.”

Yuk, yuk, yuk …

https://www.texastribune.org/2017/05/26/texas-gov-greg-abbott-signs-measure-reduce-handgun-license-fee/

The timing of the governor’s joke, however, makes it a good bit less “funny” than it otherwise might be.

You see, they just had this election up yonder in Montana this week. The Republican candidate, Greg Gianforte, decided earlier in the week to “body slam” a reporter, Ben Jacobs, who asked him about the GOP health care overhaul bill. Gianforte didn’t like the question, so he struck out — quite literally — at the reporter.

Montanans elected Gianforte anyway to the at-large congressional seat he was contesting with Democrat Rob Quist.

I draw that comparison only to illustrate the coarsening of debate in this country. The president of the United States has declared the media to be “the enemy of the American people,” and some folks — even, apparently, some candidates for Congress — appear to have bought into that line of manure.

Thus, I just caution the Texas governor against using that kind of language, out loud, in public, where others can hear him.

Gov. Abbott meant it as a joke. I know it’s a joke. Not everyone, though, is going to take it that way.

business news, International news

POTUS ‘tells it like it is’ abroad

Donald J. Trump’s supporters like to say the president merely “tells it like it is.”

Others of us prefer to say he tells it like he thinks it is.

He is abroad, finishing up his first overseas trip as president and he’s managing — as only the president — to demonstrate a stunning lack of diplomatic skill.

Get this, his assessment of Germany, one of our nation’s strongest allies and trading partners: “The Germans are bad, very bad,” he said. “See the millions of cars they are selling to the U.S. Terrible. We will stop this.”

What? Stop it. How? He wants to start a trade war with Germany because it peddles cars to American consumers?

Vox.com is a known liberal-leaning website, but it offers an interesting analysis of how Trump’s lack of diplomatic skill is hurting him and the country he represents.

https://www.vox.com/world/2017/5/26/15698824/trump-germany-bad-trade-cars

As Vox reports: “First, it’s worth noting that the language Trump reportedly used in the meeting is yet another example of his total lack of nuance or finesse. Trump likes to cast the world in black and white and use superlative language. Things are ‘terrific,’ or they are ‘terrible.’

“Trump speaks this way on domestic issues as well, but in international affairs his vulgarity as a speaker is amplified. Diplomacy requires gentle touches and subtle signaling that simultaneously maintains stable relationships while having the power to pressure or persuade. Slamming the Germans, a vital US ally, as ‘very bad’ and saying you need to ‘Stop’ them from selling cars to the US is, well, the opposite of that.”

Vox also notes that German automakers also operate many manufacturing plants in the United States, employing Americans and paying them well to produce these motor vehicles.

That the president wouldn’t recognize that is just another sign of his complete ignorance about the world and the inter-connectedness among nations.

International news

Trump started out well at NATO, then …

Donald J. Trump actually knows how to deliver the right message at the right moment.

Such as when the president spoke Thursday at the NATO summit in Brussels of the terrible tragedy that befell the United Kingdom in that massacre in Manchester, England. The president called for a moment of silence and told British Prime Minister Teresa May that the alliance stands foursquare behind her beleaguered nation.

Then, at about the 4:50 mark of this video, the president decided to scold members of our nation’s oldest alliance by reminding them that they need to “pay more” for their defense. And, by golly, he actually cited threats from Russia as a concern with which NATO must deal.

I could not help but notice the looks on the president’s fellow heads of state and government as he reminded them publicly that many member nations aren’t paying what they supposedly have pledged to pay for NATO’s defense. They looked at each other, they looked at their feet, a couple of them seemed to snicker.

I understand that Trump was elected in 2016 on the pledge to “put America first.” He spoke at the NATO meeting of the burden that American taxpayers are bearing  because of so-called deadbeats in Europe who aren’t shouldering their financial obligations.

I am left to wonder: Is that really how one talks to allies — in public?

political news

So much for an upset under the Big Sky

U.S. Rep.-elect Greg Gianforte won a special election last night despite punching out a reporter — allegedly — who had the nerve to ask him a question about health care overhaul legislation.

Democratic activists in Montana might be able to take away some solace — despite the defeat at the hands of the Republican opponent.

Gianforte was elected to Montana’s at-large congressional district. He defeated Democratic opponent Rob Quist by fewer than 7 percentage points in a state that voted for Donald J. Trump by more than 20 percent in the 2016 presidential election. Gianforte and Quist ran for the congressional seat vacated by Ryan Zinke, who became interior secretary in the Trump administration.

There’s another hopeful sign for Democrats. Gianforte will stand for re-election next year, which gives Democrats a better chance to make their case that this guy might be temperamentally unfit to represent Montana in the U.S. House of Representatives.

Ben Jacobs, a reporter for the Guardian newspaper, asked Gianforte to comment about the GOP health care legislation. Gianforte responded by “body slamming” Jacobs; he broke the young reporter’s glasses and inflicted a slight injury to one of his elbows. The sheriff’s department filed misdemeanor assault charges against Gianforte.

Here’s the thing: The incident occurred late in the campaign, just two days before the ballots were counted. Montana also is a vote-by-mail state, which means most of the ballots were cast before Gianforte lost his temper against a reporter doing his job — allegedly.

Do you think politics has gotten coarser during this Age of Donald J. Trump? Yeah, I believe so. The late, great Texas U.S. Sen. Lloyd Bentsen’s adage about politics being a “contact sport” isn’t supposed to be taken literally.

business news, International news, national news, political news

Wouldn’t tax returns answer a lot of Russia questions?

I keep circling back to an issue that just won’t disappear.

Those tax returns that Donald J. Trump insists on keeping secret might answer a lot of questions about the president of the United States and his reluctance to say anything negative about Russia and its president/strongman/killer Vladimir Putin.

Trump won’t release them. He is dismissing a four-decade-old custom for presidential candidates and for presidents. They’ve all released them for public review. Except the current president.

I keep asking: How come? Trump keeps yapping about an “audit.” Two points here: The Internal Revenue Service — which doesn’t comment on specific audits — says an audit does not prevent someone from releasing those returns to the public; furthermore, Trump never has even proved that the IRS is auditing him.

He demanded repeatedly that Barack Obama produce a birth certificate to prove his constitutional eligibility to serve as president. How about Trump provide a letter from the IRS that declares that he’s being audited?

Amid all this is the swirl of Russia and whether the president has business dealings with Russian oligarchs and government officials. The president says he has none. He expects us to believe him. Sure thing, Mr. President. He also expected us to believe that Barack Obama wiretapped his campaign offices, that millions of illegal immigrants voted for Hillary Clinton and that thousands of Muslims cheered the collapse of the World Trade Center on 9/11.

Tax returns would reveal whether the president has any business dealings in Russia. If he has been telling us the truth about that matter, then the returns would validate his assertion. Wouldn’t they? If he’s not being truthful, well, the returns would reveal that, too. Am I correct on that?

I am left only to conclude that the tax returns the president refuses to release to the public contain something he doesn’t want us to see. Do they involve Russia, Mr. President? Do they reveal why you won’t speak ill of your pal Vlad Putin?

national news

By all means, yank Kushner’s top-secret clearance

Congressional Democrats are making a reasonable demand of the Trump administration, which is to strip White House adviser Jared Kushner of his top-secret security clearance … at least for the time being.

It’s not a simple task, of course. Kushner happens to be the son-in-law to the president of the United States. He’s also under “scrutiny” by the FBI, which is conducting a wide-ranging investigation into I’ve grown fond of calling the “Russia thing.”

That “thing” involves potential contact between the Trump presidential campaign and the Russian government. Kushner happens to be a principal actor in all that drama.

Trump hired him to be a senior adviser. Kushner doesn’t get paid but he has unfettered access to the president. He does not have any prior government experience. He has zero credentials to deal with foreign government leaders, yet the president considers him “qualified” to be a liaison between the administration and governments in the Middle East.

He’s also known to be a successful businessman. He’s had plenty of exposure to Russian business executive and government officials. Has he crossed any lines that might pose serious trouble for his father-in-law? That’s what the FBI is investigating.

Until the FBI reaches its conclusion, and if that conclusion clears Kushner, he has no business sitting at the president’s side during high-level meetings. He shouldn’t be privy to information reserved for the president and his national security team.

Let’s allow the FBI probe to continue. If the young man skates into the clear, fine. If not … well, then we’ve got a whole set of other problems with which to deal.

Until then, Kushner should be sitting at the kids’ table — in another room away from where national secrets are being discussed.

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