Category Archives: national news

national news

No MAGA hats at Goodyear prompts Trump outrage? Good grief!

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Donald J. Trump has spun into a dizzying maelstrom of political madness.

Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. has declared that employees cannot wear MAGA hats while they’re at work. Yep, MAGA stands for “Make America Great Again,” which was Trump’s signature campaign theme in 2016.

Trump’s response? It was to call for a boycott of Goodyear tires. He did so via Twitter, declaring that there are “better” tires to put on our vehicles than Goodyear.

Except for this little bit of context. Goodyear’s MAGA hat ban is in keeping with its corporate policy banning partisan wardrobe statements that go above and beyond those that call for justice and racial understanding.

So, that means Trump’s boycott call is yet another hysterical overreaction to a non-story, a non-event, a non-controversial private company policy statement — which echoes policies enacted throughout corporate America.

Donald Trump campaigned for the presidency in 2016 while proclaiming that he is a non-politician, that he is a self-made business mogul who “tells it like it is.” He has managed, though, to politicize damn near everything around him, such as the wildly errant Twitter rant against Goodyear.

Oh, and the self-made crap? That was yet another lie!

He is out of control and, dare I say so yet again, totally unfit for the job he wants to keep.

Get him outta there!

medical news, national news

Success slips away in COVID fight

(AP Photo/Jeffrey Phelps)

The signs all around us tell a grim tale of failure, not success, in the ongoing battle against the COVID-19 virus that continues to sweep across the world’s wealthiest, most advanced nation.

The U.S. death toll has surpassed 170,000; the infection toll is more than 5 million. More telling is that that infection rate is accelerating, meaning that more people are getting sick every day than they were, say, a month ago.

And yet, Donald Trump keeps telling us we’re succeeding. Really, Mr. President? How in the name of medical science can this fellow possibly claim a success rate when we’re getting sicker by the day and when the fatalities keep mounting.

Remember, too, this little factoid: The United States comprises roughly 4 percent of the world’s population, but we account for roughly 25 percent of the world’s infection from the coronavirus.

Four percent vs. 25 percent. Hmm. That comparison simply blows my mind.

Against all of that, we’re going to hear from Donald Trump’s re-election team that we’re doing great. The nation’s economy is adding jobs at a stupendous rate. They will look straight past the monumental job loss that occurred when the pandemic tightened its grip on our business community, costing us roughly 30 million jobs over a three-month span.

That job loss, I should add, eliminated all the jobs created during the decade-long economic expansion that began on the watch of President Barack H. Obama, who took office in January 2009 amid the then-worst economic recession since the Great Depression. The current economic collapse makes the 2008-09 Great Recession look timid and tepid by comparison.

I mention all of this because I will await word on how Donald Trump intends to defend his response to the global pandemic. To my way of thinking — and perhaps the thinking of most Americans — his initial non-response has produced the infection and death rates that are now savaging our nation.

So, yes, Donald Trump must take responsibility for the misery he caused by failing to respond quickly and decisively enough when the pandemic first presented itself.

How does Donald Trump defend his pitiful record against what we know has transpired?

national news

Why the squabble over GOP support?

I hear that some Democrats are miffed because their virtual presidential nominating committee includes testimonials for Joe Biden from, get ready for it, Republicans.

My answer: Get used to it.

The presumed Democratic presidential nominee is known as a bipartisan kind of guy. He worked across the aisle during his 36 years as a U.S. senator from Delaware. As vice president, he did the same thing, working with Republican legislators on critical fiscal matters.

That the Democratic presidential nominee would welcome the endorsement of Republicans is no surprise. One of his best friends in the Senate was the late John McCain, the Republican Vietnam War hero. McCain was no fan of Donald Trump. The late senator’s wife, Cindy, is going to line up behind her friend Joe Biden’s candidacy.

So has former Ohio Gov. John Kasich, former EPA administrator and New Jersey Gov. Christine Todd Whitman, former U.S. Rep. Susan Molinari and former Secretary of State Colin Powell.

Democrats who are grumbling about the infusion of Republicans standing up for the Democratic nominee need to get over themselves.

Their party is on the verge of nominating someone who knows the value of compromise and who uses that concept to further the cause of good government legislation.

The nation needs more of the bipartisan spirit that Joe Biden seeks to bring to the office of president of the United States.

national news

Trump unhinged

I am trying to fathom the reasons that millions of American voters are continuing to argue for the re-election of the man pictured here.

So help me I am at a total loss.

Donald Trump keeps threatening to do bodily harm to our democratic process if the November presidential election doesn’t turn out the way he wants.

He is indicating he might not accept the result of an election that favors Joseph R. Biden Jr. He already has said that a Biden victory would guarantee a “rigged” election. So he’ll do what? Demand a recount? Toss the ballots out? Start over?

Then he said he deserves a “do-over” because President Obama and Vice President Biden “spied” on his campaign during the 2016 election season. Spied? Oh, that was when the FBI and others reported to the Obama administration that Russians were interfering in the election, so the Obama folks wanted to take a closer look at it.

The FBI already has determined there was no “spying.” That hasn’t shut Trump’s pie hole.

The latest gem is that he might seek a third term if — and I am swallowing hard to say these next few words — he wins re-election.

Oh, but wait. The U.S. Constitution’s 22nd Amendment says a president can be elected twice. That’s it. No more. Is he going to demand an amendment to the Constitution? Good luck with that one, Donald.

Watching The Donald flail and flounder this way simply brings to mind my astonishment in the support he continues to pull from the roughly 40 percent (give or take) of the American voting public. What on Earth, in the name of political sanity, do they see in this individual?

The third term suggestion might be some sort of Trumpian joke, although The Donald seems to possess no discernible sense of humor. The “spying” allegation is just one more smear that Trump insists on leveling at Barack Obama, given what I believe is his intense envy at the sophistication his immediate predecessor demonstrated during his two terms in office.

Whether to accept the election result if former VP Biden wins? In some sort of macabre way, many of us saw that one coming long ago … about the time he rode down that Trump Tower escalator to declare his candidacy for the only public office he ever sought.

Trump is unhinged.

national news

The moment swept me away

I find myself at times trying to avoid getting caught up in moments when I see things occurring in real time.

It happened to me Monday night watching the opening of the Democratic National Committee’s virtual presidential nominating convention.

I have no need to stipulate that I want Joe Biden to become the next president. Oops! I just did!

Watching the assorted celebrities, politicians and oh yes, former first lady Michelle Obama make their case for why Biden is the right man at the right time to correct the wrong policies that Donald Trump has enacted almost swept me out of my chair.

The first night event was quite stirring, with testimonials from pandemic victims’ loved ones, from Republican politicians speaking on behalf of a Democratic politician. I also must give a shout out to the spine-tingling way the DNC presented the singing of the National Anthem.

I am left to wonder: How are the Republicans going to top this? How does Trump make anyone apart from the fervent base feel better about re-electing him as president? What is he going to say? How is he going to say it?

I am acutely aware that the Republican National Committee has its share of marketing geniuses and gurus. They’ll put on a show, too. Right now I am having difficulty imagining how they will top what the Democrats are prepared to deliver as the 2020 presidential campaign kicks into high gear.

national news

You go, John Kasich

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I’ll be brief.

John Kasich was my favorite Republican running for president in 2016. Had he won the GOP nomination, he likely would have gotten my vote over Hillary Clinton. Tonight he affirmed precisely why I admire the former Ohio governor.

He didn’t swill the Donald Trump Kool-Aid after losing to the eventual GOP nominee. He stands on the principle of good government.

He said he supports Joe Biden for president, even despite the men’s disagreements on policy. “That’s all right,” he said tonight in remarks to the Democratic National Convention. “That’s America.”

Yes it is, Gov. Kasich. Thank you for standing on principle.

national news

Time for a vision

There won’t be cheering crowds. No balloon drops. No demonstrations of delegates wearing goofy hats and festooned with buttons of all sizes, colors and slogans.

No. The Democratic National Convention is going to be a “virtual” event with speakers talking to the nation from their own living rooms, or their dens, or their basements.

What has to happen at this event, in my humble view, is not unique to this uniquely delivered political event. What we need is to hear a vision for the future from presidential nominee Joe Biden, from vice-presidential nominee Kamala Harris and from the assortment of speakers who will talk to us over the course of the next four days.

You see, that element has existed in political conventions going back through the history of our great and beloved republic.

I do not expect to hear a futuristic vision from Donald Trump, the Republican whose party convention occurs next week. Trump is trading on division and disunity, on distrust of others and on fear. I look for him to keep beating that drum all the way to the election.

What’s left for Democrats? They have to lay out a plan for how they intend to fix what Trump has damaged. Trump has wrecked our international alliances; he was impeached over his attempts to bribe a foreign leader for dirt on Joe Biden; he has sought to dismantle environmental protections; Trump has threatened to deport U.S. residents who came here as children because their parents sneaked into the country without proper documentation.

The Democrats’ strategy is as traditional as any part of this nominating process that hasn’t been altered by the coronavirus pandemic. They need to speak plainly and honestly to Americans who will tune in.

I will be one of them. I am awaiting a message of hope and revival and I damn sure don’t need a cheering crowd to persuade me to prefer their message over the fear-mongering that will come from Donald Trump.

national news

Yes, Trump is a racist

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I tried for all I was worth to avoid hanging the racist label on Donald J. Trump.

This effort came in the wake of the individual’s history of hateful rhetoric aimed at African-Americans, Latinos and even Asians.

Trump has pushed me over the proverbial cliff with his latest birther non-response to questions that have arisen regarding U.S. Sen. Kamala Harris.

Trump is a racist. There. I’ve said it. I also mean it.

Trump was given a chance yet again this past weekend to disavow the hideous lie that the first African-American/South Asian to run as a major-party vice-presidential candidate is not qualified because of her citizenship. He did not say what he should have said, which was: Of course she’s qualified and I welcome her to the campaign. 

Trump danced around the question and said it was beyond his scope to comment. Ridiculous!

Trump fomented the birther lie about President Obama, the first black president of the United States. Now he’s doing the same thing to Sen. Harris. Obama was born in Honolulu; Harris was born in Oakland, Calif. They both are U.S. citizens. The discussion should end. The president, though, keeps it alive by refusing the declare categorically that this rumor is a racist rant.

Instead, Donald Trump takes his place among the racists.

Despicable.

national news

Who’s he calling ‘nasty’?

This mini-photo gallery showed up today on my Facebook feed and I thought it to be worth a brief comment here.

The three “nasty women” from the top down are Hillary Rodham, former first lady/U.S. senator/secretary of state/Democratic presidential nominee; Elizabeth Warren, a current U.S. senator and former presidential candidate; and Kamala Harris, another current senator and the pending Democratic nominee for vice president.

The guy on the left, of course, is … well, you know who it is. He has thrown the “nasty” epithet at all of those distinguished women.

Oh, the fourth woman? That’s Ghislaine Maxwell, former girlfriend/confidante/alleged “recruiter” of victims for the late millionaire Jeffrey Epstein, the pedophile and sexual assailant who hanged himself in a New York City jail cell.

Donald Trump said he wanted to “wish her well” as she faces charges of being an accomplice to Epstein’s hideous behavior with underage girls.

Where I come from, Maxwell’s (alleged) conduct is way beyond “nasty.”

However, this social media illustration does speak volumes about the principles and what passes for a moral compass that drives Donald J. Trump.

May we ponder this for just a moment while we think about who we want sitting in the Oval Office?

national news

Rigged election? Yeah, maybe

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I think I have figured out how the 2020 election is going to be “rigged.”

Donald Trump has launched what might become a self-fulfilling prophecy with his incessant yammering about how the election will be the “most corrupt in history.” The corruption well might come from Trump his own self.

He is seeking to withhold funds for the Postal Service to prevent the USPS from conducting mail-in voting. He contends that mail-in voting is inherently corrupt; he makes that accusation without a scintilla of evidence, quite naturally.

So he wants to suppress the vote. He wants to discourage Americans from voting, even as many of us fear being infected by the coronavirus pandemic that is killing about 1,000 Americans each day.

Trump wants to deny Americans the right to vote? That, I submit, is corruption at its worst.

So, what Trump is proposing is to taint the voting process, to produce the “most corrupt election in American history.”

Is that what Donald Trump would call a promise kept?