Category Archives: political news

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Giuliani is right: AG Sessions made the correct call

Hell must have frozen over … even in this oppressive heat!

How else does one explain that Rudolph Giuliani has spoken words of wisdom about U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions?

Giuliani said Sessions made the correct call when he decided to recuse himself from anything to do with the Russia controversy surrounding the Trump administration. I happen to agree that, yes, the AG did the right thing. He is too close to the president and could not possibly be considered an unbiased investigator into this matter of whether the Russians sought to meddle in the 2016 presidential election.

It’s entirely possible that Sessions is on his way out. Donald J. Trump might replace him. Giuliani sought to tamp down reports that he would succeed Sessions at Justice by endorsing his decision to recuse himself.

The president has done a masterful job of undercutting his top cop. It’s not that I consider Sessions all that trustworthy. It’s merely that Trump has yet again trampled all over one of his top Cabinet officials. He tweeted over the weekend that the “beleaguered” Sessions should be investigating Hillary Rodham Clinton. Good grief! Sessions is beleaguered because of the president himself! Trump told the New York Times he wouldn’t have selected Sessions if he knew that the AG would recuse himself from “the Russia thing.”

Trump goes after AG

As for the man formerly known as America’s Mayor, Giuliani, he wouldn’t be any better, other than he’s now on record as endorsing Sessions’s decision to bow out of the Russia matter.

And, yes, the chaos continues. Let’s all stay tuned.

medical news, national news, political news

This is how Trump refuses to ‘own’ his failures

Well now. Donald Trump is tweeting something about “repercussions” if Senate Republicans fail to enact a health care insurance overhaul that would “repeal and replace” the Affordable Care Act.

This must be what the president means when he says he won’t “own” any failure to approve this legislation.

I believe the president must own it. He must take responsibility. He is the nation’s top Republican — even if he is a Republican In Name Only, aka a RINO, in the hearts of many true believers.

That’s not how sees it. He’s now suggesting via Twitter that he’ll somehow punish Republicans on Capitol Hill if they fail to do his bidding.

Explain yourself, Mr. President.

First things first. He needs to offer some detail on what his bidding entails. What does he want, specifically, in a health care overhaul? Oh, I almost forgot. The president is just too damn busy “making America great again” to worry about the details of legislation that aims to affect one-sixth of the American economy.

The Congressional Budget Office doesn’t like the GOP plan. It will cost millions of Americans their insurance plan and it cuts too much money from Medicaid, which enables Americans to afford health insurance.

Just as President Truman famously posted the sign on his desk proclaiming “The Buck Stops Here,” Donald Trump is now infamously declaring that others will pay the price for his own failures as head of a once-great American political party.

In my humble view, presidents don’t earn their tickets into the pantheon of greatness by refusing to “own” their mistakes. The GOP health care plan is a doozy of a mistake, Mr. President. It’s on you.

International news, national news, political news

Trump going to war with his ‘friends’

Donald J. Trump’s latest Twitter tirade takes aim at a most fascinating target: his fellow Republicans.

The president is now threatening reprisals against GOP members of Congress who fail to rise to his defense against growing questions about whether he broke the law while winning the presidency.

I guess I’m slow on the uptake. I am having difficulty imagining what in the world Trump hopes to accomplish by issuing these threats.

Some of his fellow Republicans are questioning the circumstances surrounding the president’s relationships with Russians who — according to U.S. intelligence experts — sought to meddle in our 2016 election.

“It’s very sad that Republicans, even some that were carried over the line on my back, do very little to protect their President,” Trump wrote on Twitter.

The president is going to need these folks. All of them, it seems. Yet he keeps pounding away at those upon he must depend.

Congressional Democrats are long gone. They aren’t going to stand up for a single Trump initiative, nor will they give him a break on the Russia investigation taking shape within the special counsel’s office and on congressional committees.

Trump also wrote: “As the phony Russian Witch Hunt continues, two groups are laughing at this excuse for a lost election taking hold, Democrats and Russians!”

This message has a ring of truth to it. Yes, Democrats are laughing as Trump and the Republicans keep tripping over themselves and each other while trying to fend off the criticism.

And what about the Russians? You’re damn right they’re laughing. They have accomplished their prime objectives, according to U.S. intelligence analysts: Their preferred candidate won the 2016 election and they also have managed to cast serious doubt on the integrity of the U.S. electoral system.

national news, political news

This is the face of hubris

ST. PAUL, Minn. — I’ve been writing a lot lately about political hubris, incompetence and naivete.

Take a look at this picture. It’s the face of all three of those traits.

It belongs to the late Wendell Anderson, the former governor of Minnesota. We came to the Twin Cities to visit a family member. I heard Anderson’s name mentioned on a local news broadcast. I began to recall something he did back in 1976.

Sen. Walter Mondale got elected vice president of the United States. Gov. Anderson decided he wanted to replace Mondale in the Senate. So he quit the governorship and then asked the new governor, Rudy Perpich, to appoint Anderson to the Senate seat that Mondale vacated.

State law prohibited Anderson — who was born and died in this city — from appointing himself, so he did the next best thing.

How did Minnesota voters react to this? They were angry about it. Anderson stood for election 1978 and got beat. Indeed, the entire Democrat-Farm Labor ticket took a battering that year over Anderson’s fit of hubris. Perpich got the boot, too.

This all came to mind as I continue to watch the madness and chaos unfolding in Washington.

Politicians should take a lesson from Wendell Anderson. Sadly, they don’t … and they won’t.

business news, International news, national news, political news

Tax returns might reveal the whole truth

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Here they come again.

Those still-missing Donald J. Trump tax returns have returned to front row of discussion topics relating to the Russian probe into the president’s 2016 campaign.

Trump hasn’t released them. He has broken a 40-year streak of disclosures from presidential candidates. He keeps saying he’s “under audit” by the Internal Revenue Service.

But wait! Special counsel Robert Mueller is now thought to be examining the Trump business empire’s dealings that might have something to do with the Russian government, which has been linked to allegations that it sought to influence the 2016 presidential election outcome.

Won’t those tax returns tell the public whether Trump’s businesses had any skin in the game? Won’t they reveal the truth? Couldn’t they possibly clear the air? Might they tell us that Trump has been truthful, that he has no business dealings with Russia?

Or, might they tell us something else?

I know I’m repeating myself. That’s too bad. Those tax returns need to go before the public.

media news, national news, political news

Spicer quits, chaos continues

The longest-running open secret came to fruition today with the resignation of Sean Spicer as White House press secretary.

Spicer was thought to be on his way out long ago. He sealed the deal today when Donald J. Trump announced that Anthony Scaramucci would become the new White House communications director.

That meant curtains for Spicer, who reportedly disagreed vehemently with the choice.

To be candid, I am left with decidedly mixed feelings about Spicer’s departure. At one level, I had some sympathy for a press flack who was charged with defending presidential policies in front of the White House press corps. The president, though, made that job even more difficult — indeed, damn near impossible — by contradicting his own messages hourly. Spicer then was left to fend for himself as he sought to explain what the president meant to say or do.

At another level, I was dismayed that Spicer — the former press spokesman for the Republican National Committee — continued in the role for as long as he did.

Consider, too, the strange — to my ears, at least — statement by Scaramucci about Spicer’s departure. “I hope he goes on to make a tremendous amount of money,” he said. Huh? What about saluting his service to the country? Or to the president?

Then, of course, this came from the president himself, who said in a statement that Spicer will succeed, adding, “Just look at this ratings.” What the … ?

I suppose we’ll all just wait for Spicer to tell us what really went on behind the scenes in a White House known above and beyond anything else for its confusion and chaos.

Do you expect the new press flack, Sarah Huckabee Sanders and the new communications boss, to assuage media concerns about the White House’s ability to administer anything?

Neither do I.

medical news, national news, political news

Take the hint, Mitch: Nation hates Trumpcare

Memo to Mitch McConnell: Give it up on trying to resurrect the Senate Republican plan to replace the Affordable Care Act.

The word now from the U.S. Senate majority leader is that he is going to reopen negotiations on the failed GOP plan. He is trying to woo Republicans who (a) oppose the legislation or (b) are straddling the fence.

McConnell could not muster up the 50 votes he needed to approve the Senate plan. GOP conservatives hate it because it too much of the ACA; GOP moderates hate it because it casts too many Americans off the rolls of the insured.

The nation’s Republican in chief, Donald Trump, is refusing to “own” the GOP caucus failure.

One final point: Public opinion polls show a 17 percent approval rating for the Republican plan.

Hey, who needs those stinkin’ polls, right, Mr. Majority Leader?

McConnell is fueled by this desire, or so it seems, to rid the law of anything with Barack H. Obama’s name on it. Recall that he said right after Obama’s election that his “No. 1 priority” was to make Obama a one-term president.

He’s now gunning for a consolation prize, which is to toss the ACA into the crapper.

Pay attention, Mr. Leader: Your plan is no better in the eyes of Americans who now have health insurance for the first time in their lives. You and your fellow Republican senators work for them — for us, sir! You need to do our bidding.

national news, political news

Time for you to quit, Mr. Attorney General

If I read Donald Trump’s comments about Attorney General Jeff Sessions correctly, it appears the president is pretty damn angry at the man he picked to lead the Department of Justice.

It also looks as though Trump’s confidence in his AG has vanished, which suggests to me that it’s time for the attorney general to hit the road.

The president has broken sharply with one of his earliest U.S. Senate supporters, saying he never would have picked Sessions if the attorney general would recuse himself from a deepening investigation into Trump’s connections with Russian government officials. Actually, Sessions’s recusal was one of the more noble aspects of his time as AG, given that he couldn’t possibly be trusted to be impartial and unbiased as he was a key player in Trump’s transition team after the 2016 election.

Trump is showing signs of extreme anxiety as the special counsel’s investigation picks up momentum. Indeed, the president also said in an interview with the New York Times that the counsel, Robert Mueller, must stay away from the Trump family financial issues as he pursues the facts behind the so-called “Russia thing.”

As for Sessions, he can’t do his job as the nation’s top legal eagle. The man who appointed now appears to have lost faith in him because he decided to do the right thing by recusing himself. Beyond all of that, his own testimony before Senate committee members has been rife with holes and has produced seemingly more questions than answers about his own role in the Russia matter.

And so … the mystery deepens and the crisis continues.

International news, legal news, national news, political news

Obstruction of justice, anyone? Anyone?

James Comey believes that Donald J. Trump has obstructed justice.

That is the conclusion of a legal analyst who’s been following “the Russia thing” as closely as anyone in the United States of America.

Comey is the former FBI director whom the president fired because, according to Jeffrey Toobin, Comey declined to pledge complete loyalty to the president. Comey’s agency was conducting an investigation into whether Trump’s presidential campaign colluded with Russian government officials who are believed to have hacked into our nation’s electoral process.

Toobin’s article appeared in The New Yorker. He lays out what Comey would tell the Senate Intelligence Committee.

Here’s The New Yorker article.

I encourage you to read it.

So many questions to be asked. So many answers yet to be found.

Something tells me the roughest part of the ride awaits the president and his embattled team.

medical news, national news, political news

You’re up, congressional Democrats

Congressional Democrats — in both chambers of Capitol Hill’s legislative body — now have a chance to make good on where congressional Republicans have face-planted.

The GOP wanted to replace the Affordable Care Act. They wanted first to repeal the law, then substitute something else in its place. They just couldn’t cobble together a law that pleased everyone within their caucus, let alone the rest of this vast country.

They have cratered. Their repeal and replace effort is done. Gone. Kaput. Toast.

What’s left? Oh, wait! They can work with congressional Democrats. They can figure out a way to make changes to the ACA, if only congressional Republicans can stomach the idea of maintaining something with Barack H. Obama’s name on it.

In order, though, for Republicans to reach across the aisle, their legislative colleagues — Democrats, I must add — need to offer a starting point.

Suppose it comes to a repair and revamp effort on the ACA, what might the Democrats offer as their chief sticking point?

Are premiums too high? Do Americans have enough choices of doctors? Are there ways to actually make the ACA more, um, affordable for every American who applies for insurance under the government plan?

Democrats have said they are willing to work with Republicans to improve the ACA. To get the discussion started, though, we need to hear from Democratic political leadership on where they intend to start.

We’ve hearing a lot of yapping and yammering from Republicans — for too long, if you were to ask my opinion. Now it’s time for Democrats to take the stage.