International news

Good vs. evil ‘has nothing to do with religion’

Great day in the morning! Could it be that the Trump administration finally is awakening to the reality of what this “global war on terrorism” is all about?

Donald J. Trump stood before a large room full of Muslim heads of state, potentates, kings and crown princes and spoke for 35 minutes without uttering the words “radical Islamic terrorism.”

Instead, he framed the fight against international terror in much the same language used by his two immediate predecessors — Republican George W. Bush and Democrat Barack H. Obama — as a war of “good vs. evil.”

Then up stepped Secretary of State Rex Tillerson to say that the conflict between our side and the other side “has nothing to do with religion.”

Really! He said that. He echoed the long-awaited and much-belated message the president delivered.

I hope hell hasn’t frozen over. I hope Earth will continue to spin on its axis. I trust the sun will rise in the east tomorrow morning — and beyond.

http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/334474-tillerson-in-saudi-arabia-this-is-a-fight-of-good-against-evil

“And I think the context of all of this where the President begins his journey here at the home of the Muslim faith under the leadership of the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosque – this great faith, the Muslims – then to travel to the home of Judaism and then to the great leader of Christianity, that the President is clearly indicating that this fight of good against evil has nothing to do with religion,” Tillerson said in a press conference after the president’s speech.

Trump and his team have sounded alarmingly bellicose ever since the billionaire business mogul entered politics by running for the presidency. He once pledged to ban “all Muslims” from entering the United States. While running for office, Trump said “Islam hates America.” Once elected, he sought to impose a travel ban on refugees fleeing certain Muslim countries; that effort is tied up in the federal court system that has ruled it unconstitutional.

Today, the president sounded quite different as it regards this war against terror.

The religious perversion that has overcome the monsters who purport to be Muslim too often gets lost in the United States. Too many Americans have taken the bait that “Islam” is the enemy. It is no such thing. The enemy are those who commit these heinous acts around the world — mostly against Muslims — in the name of a great religion.

President Bush made that point immediately after 9/11. President Obama continued to recite that mantra, often to criticism that he was a “Muslim terrorist sympathizer.”

I doubt we’ll hear any such fecal matter coming from those who continue to support Donald John Trump. Nor should we ever have heard it.

International news

Well stated, Mr. President

2 Comments

I am a man of my word who once declared I would speak well of Donald J. Trump when the moment presented itself.

Today is that day.

I just listened to the president’s speech to a gathering of Muslim heads of state and was impressed with what he did not say during his remarks: “radical Islamic terrorism.”

The president today delivered — by far! — his most nuanced, sophisticated foreign-policy speech as it regards our nation’s fight against international terrorism. For that I applaud him.

He spoke to an Arab summit meeting in Saudi Arabia, the country that is home to Islam’s two holiest shrines. He spoke of Islam as a “great faith.” He also repeated a mantra first delivered by President George W. Bush in the aftermath of 9/11 and repeated by President Barack Obama during his two terms in office: It was that we are not at war with a faith, but we are at war with “criminals” who have perverted it.

“We are not here to lecture — we are not here to tell other people how to live, what to do, who to be, or how to worship. Instead, we are here to offer partnership — based on shared interests and values,” Trump said.

http://www.politico.com/story/2017/05/21/trump-islam-terrorism-238643

The speech signals a remarkable about-face for a president who as a candidate and also earlier in his still-brief tenure in office would sail off into unscripted riffs about our war against terror. None of that occurred today. He spoke like the leader of the world’s most powerful nation.

Now … does this wipe away his problems at home? No. He still has the “Russia thing” with which to contend and a special prosecutor is going to look deeply into whether crimes were committed during Trump’s campaign for the presidency.

Today, though, marked a serious change in tone from someone who is leading our nation in its on-going fight against international terror.

Well stated, Mr. President.

media news, national news

Trump, as POTUS, has nowhere to hide

The Atlantic magazine has published a lengthy article detailing the difficulties facing Donald John Trump.

It goes through a lot of what many of us know already: his missteps, his hiring decisions, his carelessness with classified information and, of course, his international relationships.

Here’s the article:

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/05/all-the-kings-men/526980/

It paints a grim picture and suggests that Trump’s presidency is collapsing before our eyes.

Maybe it is. Maybe not.

The most interesting analysis in my mind, though, comes near the end. The Atlantic notes that as a private business executive, Trump could fire people at will; he was the CEO and no one would dare question his authority. As a candidate for the only public office he ever sought, the presidency, he could change the subject when he misspoke or — more likely — revealed some dark spot in his heart.

As president, though, he has nowhere to hide. He must stand front and center for every single thing he does or says.

And, yes, the media are there to watch, to listen and to report his dealings to the world. It’s what the media do.

The president no longer can get away with blaming “fake news” media reports. Every wound from which he suffers has been self-inflicted by someone whose business acumen simply doesn’t translate to political knowledge.

legal news, national news

Comey set to return to center stage

I understand James Comey is a good lawyer.

He knows the consequences of committing perjury. He understands that when he takes an oath he is bound to tell the whole truth.

The former FBI director, whom Donald J. Trump fired just the other day, is heading to Capitol Hill in a few days to talk to the Senate Intelligence Committee.

Reports now are surfacing that Comey is going to tell senators that the president sought to meddle in an investigation Comey was leading. Trump is the focus of the investigation, which now has been taken over by special counsel Robert Mueller. Comey said the FBI was examining whether the Trump campaign colluded with Russians seeking to influence the 2016 presidential election.

Trump denies collusion. He has told TV networks and other media that he fired Comey because of the “Russia thing” and Comey’s investigation into the actions of former national security adviser Michael Flynn. He also reportedly blabbed as much to Russian dignitaries who were visiting him in the Oval Office; the Russians have denied that Trump said discussed Comey.

Hmmm.

Comey on the stand

Now we’ll get to hear from the former FBI director himself. I’m quite certain that senators — particularly those on the Democratic side of the dais — are going to get right to the heart of the Big Question.

Did the president of the United States — in your opinion — obstruct justice by asking the FBI director to shut down his probe of Flynn and the campaign’s Russia connection?

Be sure you tell us the whole truth, Mr. Comey.

business news, local news

Here’s an idea: How about sprucing up AMA?

Amarillo Mayor Ginger Nelson rode into office partly on the strength of an ambitious six-point campaign platform.

It pays a lot of attention to economic development, fiscal responsibility, accountability to taxpayers and even makes a nod toward improving the appearance of public rights-of-way along our interstate highways.

I didn’t see any mention of Rick Husband Amarillo International Airport. Indeed, I am keeping my copy of an Amarillo Globe-News story that profiled Nelson’s campaign platform; my intent is to remind myself of issues she is addressing and which of them she needs to devote more attention.

About the airport.

I just returned this evening from a quick trip to AMA and noticed a couple of things about the site.

One is that the grounds immediately around the covered parking structures look better than they have looked in recent months. The grass is cut and trimmed. I did notice a number of weeds sprouting through the pavement in the parking lot. Tsk, tsk.

The other thing I continually notice as I drive along Airport Drive is that it, um, is so non-descript. I didn’t notice a “Welcome to Amarillo” sign, or any roadside artwork that depicts the personality of the community travelers are visiting … many for the first time, or perhaps for the only time.

I make the point about AMA for this reason: In the 1990s, the city spent a lot of tax money to subsidize jet traffic provided by American Airlines. The idea of spending Amarillo Economic Development Corporation sales tax revenue on these jet aircraft was to make air travel more comfortable for business travelers. The AEDC subsidy was intended to lure business to Amarillo. It drew its share of criticism from other communities. Frankly, it sounded like so much sour grapes.

I found the strategy to be innovative, aggressive and ambitious. The city ended the subsidy. American Airlines pulled the jets out of its Amarillo-to-D/FW route — for a time. Then the airline brought jet traffic back to AMA, as did United Airlines and Continental; Southwest always flew jets in and out of AMA.

The city once staked a lot of public money on air service at its airport. What’s more, in recent years the city has renovated and remodeled AMA, modernizing the terminal, turning it into an attractive site.

We have a new mayor and an entirely new City Council making policy at City Hall. Our new city manager, Jared Miller, came here from San Marcos with a reputation as someone who emphasized economic development.

I’ll throw this idea out to them all for consideration: How about developing some sort of strategy to make Rick Husband Amarillo International Airport a good bit more inviting to those who come here from the Metroplex, from Houston, Denver, from Las Vegas or from Phoenix?

There might be a business opportunity to be gained for the city if the traveler gets a first-glimpse look at what the city has to offer on his or her way out of the airport.

Just some food for thought, folks.

national news, political news

No matter the result, blowback will be ugly

Donald J. Trump’s current political troubles are likely to end one of two ways.

The special counsel and two congressional committees will find criminal conduct involving the president, his campaign and the Russian government — and he’ll be impeached and possibly convicted.

Or …

The special counsel and those committees will come up empty and will decide there’s no “there” there. The president will be absolved of wrongdoing and he’ll complete his term in office.

Either outcome bodes ugly for those of who have an interest in government, in politics and in public policy. The ugliness will be the result of the president’s reaction to either outcome.

History already has shown that Trump cannot — or will not — let go of the past. Witness his continual recitation of his stunning, shocking victory in the 2016 presidential election.

Consider the potential outcomes:

Trump gets impeached and then convicted. The president will not go quietly. He will not leave office as President Nixon did in August 1974 and then disappear for years. We won’t see Trump fly away aboard Marine One from the White House lawn, grinning broadly, waving to his friends, White House staff and political supporters.

Oh, no. He’ll be angry. He’ll be lashing out continually against the media, Democrats, turncoat Republicans, Congress in general. He might even call for the abolition of the U.S. Constitution for all I know.

Once in some form of retirement, he’ll be tweeting his fingers to the bone. He’ll be dishing out insults by the minute, let alone the hour. He’ll threaten to sue anyone for any reason that comes to mind.

And the media he hates — allegedly — will lap it up, report it dutifully and give him all the platform he needs to seek some form of revenge against the system that “betrayed” him.

If the president is impeached and then acquitted by the Senate, well, ratchet all of the previous up by a factor of, oh, several thousand.

The president is clean. This outcome could be just as ugly as the other one.

Think of how the president is going to play this one out. He’ll stage campaign-style rallies. He’ll savage the media and his political enemies. He likely could re-tell the story of his “historic” electoral victory over Hillary Rodham Clinton. The president is not likely to accept victory like a gentleman, praise the system for doing its job, thank the special counsel, Robert Mueller, for his service to the country and wish him well as he returns to private law practice.

The president will seethe and stew over the very idea that he would be the subject of an FBI probe, of an investigation by the legislative branch of government.

Moreover, he’ll do all of it in public. He likely would seize the limelight at every opportunity. He’ll create opportunities when they don’t present themselves.

All of this is my way of telling you that no matter the outcome of these investigations, we — the American public — are going to be disserved by the president of the United States.

Just as he showed during the 2016 GOP primary campaign, he exhibited a clearly defined “sore loser” trait. When he won the whole thing, he has shown as well that he is a “sore winner.”

Thus, I am not looking forward to the end of this investigation, no matter how it turns out.

International news, political news, religious news

Melania goes scarf-less? Heaven forbid!

Melania Trump has arrived with her husband, the president of the United States, in Saudi Arabia.

She and her husband, Donald Trump, strode down the stairway from Air Force One and greeted the Saudi king.

Oh, but wait! Her head was uncovered. She wasn’t wearing a scarf, per Muslim custom. Where’s the outrage? The recrimination? The howls of disrespect?

There wasn’t any. Nor should there be.

Hey, let’s hold on! Michelle Obama did the same thing when she and her husband, also the president of the United States, went to the Middle East a couple of years ago. Her head was uncovered, too. Oh, but the conservative media went semi-nuts.

So did at least one notable Republican politician. His name? Donald John Trump! That, truth be told, is what makes this an issue worthy of a brief blog post.

Being of a more tolerant strain as it regards religion, I am not bothered in the least that non-Muslim female dignitaries don’t cover their heads when they travel to Muslim-majority nations. They aren’t “dishonoring” their hosts.

Let’s stay focused on the aim of these visits, which has nothing to do with making fashion statements.

national news, political news

Jeb Bush says ‘I told you so’

Dear Jeb,

OK. You win. Sort of.

You’re saying you warned us about Donald J. Trump becoming a “chaos president.” Now you’re crowing a little bit too loudly about the prediction that has come true.

Let me admonish you, though, on a key point: You were far from being the only observer to make such an observation.

Granted, many of us didn’t precisely use the term “chaos president,” as you claim to have done. A lot of pols around the country — especially some Republicans just like yourself — used some quite harsh language to describe the fellow who won the election this past year.

Mitt Romney warned of electing a “phony” and a “fraud”; Rick Perry called Trump a “cancer on conservatism”; Ted Cruz, another Texan, described Trump as “amoral.” There were others, but you get the point.

A lot of us out here in Flyover Country referred to Trump’s unfitness for the office. The implication, although not stated explicitly, was that his absolute ignorance about public policy, politics, public service and government would lead to the kind of chaos that has erupted in just the first 100-some days of his presidency.

It’s all coming to pass.

Will it doom this guy? Will it result in impeachment and conviction in the Senate? Will it force him to quit before the House impeaches him?

I am not going to bet the farm on any of it. He should have been toast while running for office when he said Sen. John McCain wasn’t a real “war hero,” or when he mocked that New York Times reporter’s disability, or when he acknowledged grabbing women by their private parts, or when he disparaged the Gold Star couple who spoke against him at the Democratic National Convention.

Jeb, he not only withstood all of that tempest, he parlayed it in some perverse fashion to shore up his standing among your party’s “base.”

Yep, he’s the “chaos president,” just as you said it would be.

Make no mistake, Jeb. I detest the guy as much as you do. Maybe more. It is appalling in the extreme that he managed to win the election.

I now plan to wait for the special counsel to do his job. We’ll get to hear from James Comey shortly when the former FBI director tells the Senate Intelligence Committee what it needs to hear.

And we’ll all get to watch as the chaos continues — and you’ll get to gloat some more.

military news, national news

POTUS’s self-interest knows no limits

“No politician in history, and I say this with great surety, has been treated worse or more unfairly.”

That bit of self-pity came from the mouth of Donald J. Trump, the 45th president of the United States.

What’s more interesting to me, though, is the venue in which he uttered it.

The president spoke those words this week to a group of students graduating from the U.S. Coast Guard Academy. These are young men and women who have just received their officers’ commissions and are going to serve their country.

Many of them are going to put their lives on the line. They are going to thrust themselves into harm’s way. They will protect the nation against those who seek to harm Americans. They will patrol our coasts. The Coast Guard has sent service personnel into combat overseas, such as those who served with valor and gallantry during the Vietnam War.

These young Americans didn’t need to hear whining from the president about “unfair” treatment by the media. They didn’t deserve to be treated to yet another griping session from Donald Trump about the trouble he has brought on all by himself.

Sure, the president offered words of encouragement and congratulations to these young people. He wished them well as they commit their lives to public service.

However, he soiled commencement speech with that fit of petulance that was inappropriate, given the audience that heard it.

national news

President continues his insult tirade

One of the many promises Donald J. Trump made when he became president was that he would “act like a president.” He would talk like one, too.

He was elected to the highest office in America after burying his Republican primary foes in a mudslide of insults. Then he turned his insult machine loose on Democratic nominee Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Lyin’ Ted Cruz, Low Energy Jeb Bush, Little Marco Rubio all ran against Trump in the GOP primary. Trump also told an interviewer that Sen. John McCain was a Vietnam War hero “only because he was captured; I like people who aren’t captured, OK?”

Then he turned his guns loose on Crooked Hillary Clinton. He urged on campaign rally crowds to yell “Lock her up!”

His core of supporters didn’t mind. Trump merely was “telling it like it is,” they said. He’s not a politician, they insisted. He talks like the rest of us, they added.

Has he stopped hurling insults now that he’s president?

Nope. Not a chance. Now we hear — from the “fake news” mainstream media outlets such as the New York Times — that he fired FBI Director James Comey because he’s a “nut job,” that he’s “crazy.”

Ah, yes. That’s how the president refers to the nation’s top federal cop, America’s top law enforcement officer. A nut job. He’s crazy.

Who heard the president offer this bit of presidential dignity? The Russian foreign minister and Russia’s ambassador to the United States. They were invited into the Oval Office on a suggestion from Russian President/dictator/killer Vladimir  Putin, who asked Trump to have these fellows stop by for a visit.

Oh, and then there’s this: Trump banned American journalists from the meeting. The Russian news agency, Tass, was present. Tass photographers took pictures of the meeting.

If you’ll forgive me for borrowing a term that Trump himself used in one of his endless string of tweets: This man’s behavior is so “unpresidented.”

Commentary on politics, current events and life experience