Category Archives: national news

national news, political news

‘Scandals’ won’t end? Of course they won’t!

imrs

The headline from the Washington Post was funny when I saw it.

Then I noticed who wrote the essay over which the headline was posted. Then I chuckled out loud.

“The Clinton scandals will never stop,” the headline blared. The byline belongs to Ed Rogers, a noted Republican operative.

If you add two plus two, you come up with four. So, if you believe what Rogers theorizes, then it all adds up. Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton’s “scandals” won’t die because Republicans like Rogers won’t allow it … ever!

https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-partisan/wp/2016/11/03/the-clinton-scandals-will-never-stop/

Clinton has been in the public eye since before her husband, Bill Clinton, was elected president in 1992. The foes of the two politicians have been digging for dirt for longer than most of us can remember.

Whitewater, Vince Foster, sexual misbehavior, the Clinton Foundation, the Clinton Global Initiative, e-mails, “pay for play.”

I am sure I have missed something, but you get the idea.

The late Rev. Jerry Falwell once produced a video called “The Clinton Chronicles” that alleged that the Clintons were responsible for the murders of their political foes. How in the world he got away without being sued for defamation is beyond me.

If Clinton wins the election in three days, you can bet some serious American money that the “scandals” will stay in the news.

Republicans will make damn sure of it.

media news, national news, political news

Irony clouds Melania’s message

cyberbullying

I hope y’all are sitting down.

I’m about to say something positive about Melania Trump, wife of the Republican presidential nominee who — in my view — is totally unfit and unqualified to occupy the office he is seeking.

She spoke this week about cyber bullying and said she intends to make that her signature issue if she becomes first lady.

The issue is a noble one. The goal is equally noble. She has articulated a serious problem in contemporary society. Children shouldn’t be bullied in any context, she said, particularly by faceless and nameless abusers who hide their identity in the vast reaches of cyberspace.

The problem, though, is the messenger. Melania Trump is married to a serial cyber bully. Donald Trump has used his Twitter account to bully and insult women, Gold Star parents, Muslims, Hispanics, immigrants … you name ’em, he’s bullied ’em.

The irony of Melania’s first lady theme is too obvious to ignore.

Still, the issue — standing alone and separate from the context in which she delivered it — is a worthy one.

business news, media news, national news, political news

Right-wrong track polls tell only part of story

thbigcx2wm

One of my social media friends thinks I spend too much time blogging about Donald J. Trump.

I heard him. So I think I’ll shift gears for a moment or two.

Those polls that measure whether Americans think we’re heading on the right or wrong track puzzle me. Take a look at the latest RealClearPolitics average of polls on that subject.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/other/direction_of_country-902.html

What these averages don’t necessarily say up front is whether Americans want the nation’s directly to veer sharply to the right or sharply to the left.

I generally pay little attention to these polls.

The RCP average says there’s a 30-plus percentage variance, meaning that about one-third more Americans think the country is heading on the “wrong track.”

No one has ever polled me on the subject. If one were to ask me, I’d say we’re doing just fine. I heard the U.S. Labor Department jobs report this morning and learned we added 161,000 non-farm jobs in October; the jobless rate declined to 4.9 percent; wages went up.

Is that a wrong track indicator regarding the economy?

I don’t think so.

Foreign policy issues? Well, we haven’t been hit by a major terror attack since 9/11. We keep killing terrorists around the world. Our alliances seem solid.

Federal budget policy? The deficit has been cut by one-third during the past eight years. Is it still too great? Yes. It’s heading in the “right direction.”

I’m digressing.

Right track-wrong track polls tell only part of the story.

national news, Sports news

Cubs’ celebration goes the right way

cubs

Have you noticed what you haven’t heard about in the wake of the Chicago Cubs’ historic victory in the World Series?

It’s the apparent lack of violence as Cubs fans have celebrated their team’s big win over the Cleveland Indians.

We’ve heard of many instances over many years about fans’ enthusiasm erupting into violence as they “celebrate” their teams’ big victories. Cubs fans waited 108 years for this one, although surely no one today was around when the North Side team actually won the Fall Classic way back when.

They still have a parade to stage through the city. I’ll wish them well as they continue their partying and carrying on.

And the lack of violence? It seems genuinely poetic that it would be Chicago — the City With Broad Shoulders, the Windy City and the city with the terrible reputation for crime — would react in such a positive manner to this huge athletic victory.

I’m happy for them. I also am happy for the rest of the nation that can enjoy a bit of vicarious thrill as Chicago jumps for joy.

national news, political news

Trump’s ‘record’ demands his defeat

botsford161102trumporlando76341478120891

Donald J. Trump’s reported rally in the closing days of this desultory presidential campaign is relying on the ignorance of those who seem to have forgotten what he’s said throughout his astonishing quest for the nation’s highest office.

He has lied … repeatedly. He has praised dictators. He has declared himself to be above the law. Trump has ignored due process as it relates to his political opponent, Hillary Rodham Clinton. He has mocked disabled Americans, a notable prisoner of war, women, immigrants, a Gold Star family.

Check this out from the Washington Post:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-only-way-trump-can-win/2016/11/02/1512d15c-a07c-11e6-a44d-cc2898cfab06_story.html

From the Post: “Most politicians are caught in falsehoods from time to time. Mr. Trump revels in them, and when caught simply repeats the lie, more loudly. Similarly, he trades in conspiracy theories that he must know to be false, the more lurid the better: that President Obama was born in Kenya, that Vincent Foster and Antonin Scalia were murdered, that Ted Cruz’s father was involved in the assassination of President Kennedy.”

In recent days, FBI Director James Comey has said he has uncovered more e-mails involving Clinton. He has presented zero hard evidence of anything untoward. Trump has convicted Clinton of corruption and of committing crimes.

The Trumpkins have bought into it … all of it.

As the Post notes, Americans who have been so critical of President Obama for an alleged lack of love of country have become infatuated with the notion that Trump vows to “make America great again.” More from the Post:

“It is mystifying that so many Republicans, after criticizing Mr. Obama for eight years for showing insufficient pride in the United States, would attach themselves to someone who has such contempt for the country, its institutions and its values. U.S. generals have been ‘reduced to rubble,’ the U.S. Army cannot fight, U.S. cities are ‘hell,”’U.S. wealth has been ‘stripped‘ away by global interests, the electoral system is ‘one big, ugly lie.’ To each of these disasters, Mr. Trump offers phony solutions (Mexico will pay to build a wall) or none at all. He has neither the interest nor the capacity to suggest actual policies.”

I hope Americans haven’t forgotten completely how this clown has behaved, the insults he has hurled in every direction and at everyone who opposes him. Is this the kind of individual we want representing the greatest nation on Earth?

media news, national news, political news

Cyber bullying must stop … no kidding!

melania

Melania Trump said what?

She wants to make cyber bullying the top priority of her potential first ladyship?

Oh, the irony. The lack of spousal awareness. This is amazing!

Trump’s major solo speech today highlighted what she wants to do in case her husband Donald gets elected president next week.

Cyber bullying is her target. It’s got to end, she said.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/melania-trump-says-she%e2%80%99ll-fight-cyber-bullying-as-first-lady/ar-AAjREmA?li=BBnbcA1

OK, she can start at home. With her husband.

Donald Trump has used his Twitter account to call broadcast journalist Megyn Kelly a “bimbo.” He has used it also to allege the existence of “sex tapes” involving former Miss Universe Alicia Machado, about whom he has said many other unflattering things … also on social media.

She said this, among other things: “Our culture has gotten too mean and too rough, especially to children and teenagers,” Trump said Thursday afternoon in Pennsylvania.

Melania Trump, quite naturally, made no mention of her husband’s cyber-bullying history.

Trust me on this: The irony cannot possibly be lost on many of us who understand just how much her husband has contributed to the coarsening of political discourse.

national news, political news, Sports news

World Series dominates the news … thank goodness!

world-series-chicago-cubs-v-cleveland-indians-game-seven

I awoke this morning, turned on the TV, surfed the major networks’ morning talk shows and discovered the following: The Chicago Cubs won the World Series!

The election? That desultory exercise in democracy? The miserable contest between Hillary Rodham Clinton and Donald J. Trump? It took a back seat to the really big news of the previous night.

What a wonderful relief from the home stretch of this campaign!

To be candid, I didn’t have a dog in the World Series fight. I didn’t particularly care which team won. I get that Cubs fans waited 108 years since their team’s last World Series win. The Cleveland Indians have their own futility streak; the Indians haven’t won since 1948.

The joy in Chicago is overwhelming. Good for them!

And good for the rest of us who have been given a slight — and all too brief — respite from the hideous campaign for the presidency.

national news, political news

Battleground state getting bloody

darrylglenn

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. — I’m getting a taste of what we’ve been missing in Texas.

Since we don’t live in a “battleground state,” my wife and I have been spared the barrage of TV commercials from Donald J. Trump and Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Moreover, since we don’t have any serious statewide races to decide this election cycle, we’ve also been spared some of the amazing down-ballot campaign rhetoric voters are hearing in this battleground.

Darryl Glenn is a Republican running for the U.S. Senate in Colorado. He is seeking to unseat Democratic incumbent Sen. Michael Bennett.

A 30-second TV spot from Bennett asks voters if they know who Glenn is. The spot highlights a recording of Glenn saying that he is “running against Democrats.” And, he adds, he is campaigning “against evil.”

Democrats personify “evil,” says the Republican.

Oh, brother.

Twenty-two years ago, a Republican House of Representatives firebrand named Newt Gingrich led a partisan revolution that resulted in the GOP takeover of both houses of Congress.

He instructed his Contract With America brigade to paint “Democrats as the enemy of normal Americans.” The enemy. Not a mere political adversary. The enemy, man.

Now the enemy has morphed — in the mind of another Republican — into evil.

See what we’ve been missing at home? Have you missed it? Neither have I.

national news, political news

Chaotic campaign becomes even more chaotic

161027094402-new-hillary-clinton-donald-trump-composite-5-super-tease

You want chaos on the election trail? Pandemonium in the board room? Shock in our living rooms?

Welcome to Presidential Election 2016, which is heading for what looks like the wildest finish in history. Why, this might even top the 2000 election, where Al Gore won more popular votes than George W. Bush, but lost the presidency because Bush got one more Electoral College vote than he needed.

I’m not going to predict that this campaign will end with that scenario. The grenade that FBI Director James Comey tossed into the middle of this fight has the potential of upsetting everything we thought about the bizarre nature of this bizarre campaign.

He said he’s found more e-mails that might have something to do with Hillary Clinton’s on-going e-mail controversy. We don’t know what’s in them. We don’t even know if she sent them.

Donald Trump calls it the “mother lode.”

I keep hearing two things: (1) The polls are tightening and (2) few voters’ minds have been changed because of what Comey has said.

Are we really and truly going to elect someone — Trump — who has admitted to behaving boorishly? Are we going to elect an individual with a string of failed businesses, lawsuits, allegations of sexual assault leveled against him?

We’re going to do this because the FBI director has inserted himself and his agency into the middle of a presidential campaign while saying virtually nothing of substance about what he might — or might not — have on one of the candidates?

Am I happy with the choices we face? No. I wish the major parties had nominated different candidates for president. We’re stuck, though, with these. We’re left with a choice. Of the two major-party nominees, the choice is clear — to me.

If only we could rid ourselves of the chaos.

media news, national news, political news

KKK newspaper ‘endorses’ Trump: enough said

donald

Hillary Rodham Clinton has loaded up on newspaper endorsements.

Donald J. Trump has gotten, well, just a few of them.

Then he received a most telling send-off from — I trust y’all are sitting down for this one — the official newspaper of the Ku Klux Klan.

This one takes my breath away.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2016/11/01/the-kkks-official-newspaper-has-endorsed-donald-trump-for-president/

Check this out from the Washington Post:

“While Trump wants to make America great again, we have to ask ourselves, ‘What made America great in the first place?’ ” the article continues. “The short answer to that is simple. America was great not because of what our forefathers did — but because of who our forefathers were.

“America was founded as a White Christian Republic. And as a White Christian Republic it became great.”

I guess the publisher of the Crusader needs to read the U.S. Constitution, which he obviously hasn’t read. The “forefathers” created a secular nation … but I digress.

The Crusader speaks for the Klan, arguably the nation’s most infamous hate group.

The guy who runs the Crusader said the paper isn’t “endorsing” Trump. OK, but the paper sure likes what the Republican presidential nominee is peddling.

I’m out.