Category Archives: political news

medical news, national news, political news

Trump tweets … but only in generalities

Donald J. Trump fired up his Twitter gun in Paris and declared he has “pen in hand” and will sign the U.S. Senate Republican health care bill when it reaches his desk.

OK. That’s it.

Others have commented on this, but I’ll weigh in, too. Have you noticed that the president never — not a single time — discusses the guts of the GOP plan to repeal the Affordable Care Act? He doesn’t ever discuss the Medicaid cuts, or the Congressional Budget Office assessment, or precisely how — in his view — the ACA is failing. He just says it is and then goes on to the next thing, whatever that may be.

The notion that the president operates in a detail-free zone on legislation is no surprise or any big scoop. I get that.

Read the bill, Mr. President

One might think, though, that the titular head of a major political party would at least have a working knowledge of his party’s legislative priorities. Repealing the ACA and replacing it with whatever the Republican majorities in Congress come up with seems to fall into the category of “major legislative priority.”

Donald Trump doesn’t bother to acquaint himself with the nuts and bolts. Nor does he exhibit a scintilla of interest in obtaining any particular knowledge of anything.

Have you noticed how often he inserts the words “I think … ” into his pronouncements? If he thinks it, then that’s all we need to know or hear from the president.

Senate Republican leaders are trying to amend the abomination they have presented to their members. They’re maintaining some taxes that the ACA contains to deal with opioid addiction. The replacement bill still reduces Medicaid allotments by about $800 billion over the next decade, leaving about 15 million American uninsured by 2026.

Does the president endorse those specific elements? If so, could he explain to Americans why he endorses it?

Probably not. That will require some study and analysis. Donald Trump is a big-picture kind of guy. He’s too busy “making America great again.”

Sigh …

national news, political news

Jimmy Carter: embodiment of public service, humanity

Former President Jimmy Carter is resting tonight in a hospital in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, where he collapsed doing the Lord’s work.

He was working on a construction site for Habitat for Humanity, an organization with which he has been associated since leaving the presidency in January 1981.

President Carter, who’s 92 years of age, holds an unusual record as the former president who’s lived more years after leaving the White House than any of his predecessors.

My point here, though, is to make two make comments.

One is that this man has done more for humankind since leaving the pinnacle of power than any of the men who preceded him — or succeeded him.

My second point is to scold those who continue to hold Jimmy Carter up as some sort of model of fecklessness. He deserves nothing of that kind of treatment.

His defeat for re-election was stunning in its scope. Ronald Reagan swept him out of office by winning 44 states in a landslide of historic proportions. How was that possible? Because The Gipper and his campaign team managed to lay all of the nation’s troubles at Carter’s feet.

The Iranian hostage crisis dragged on for 444 days, beginning in November 1979. President Carter’s team worked tirelessly during that entire time to negotiate the release of the individuals held captive by those radicals who passed themselves off as “students.” Yes, we experienced that tragic failed rescue attempt in April 1980 that ended with planes crashing in the desert and eight Air Force Special Forces troops dying in the inferno. Was that the president’s fault? Did he err in attempting such a daring rescue? That debate will continue for as long as human beings are alive to debate it.

The blame is a consequence of failure, fair or not.

The president, though, did manage to broker a Middle East peace agreement between Egypt and Israel. The treaty stands to this day, thanks to the tireless work done at Camp David by Jimmy Carter, who browbeat, cajoled and persuaded Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin to sign the deal — and then shake hands in 1978 in that epic White House photo op.

That handshake, though, had its consequences. President Sadat was assassinated in 1981 by Islamic extremists who hated him for seeking peace with Israel. Indeed, the late Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin would be killed in 1995 by a Zionist extremist who loathed the warrior Rabin for the handshake he had at the White House with PLO leader Yasser Arafat after another deal brokered by President Bill Clinton.

Jimmy Carter, I submit, does not deserve to be scorned the way he has been by Republicans and assorted Democrats over the years.

I’ll concede he won’t be ranked as the greatest of the great U.S. presidents. He had his flaws — as all human beings have them.

However, the humanity this great man has demonstrated over many decades gives him a special place in my own heart.

President Carter has preached to his fellow Habitat for Humanity workers to stay hydrated. He collapsed from, get this, dehydration.

Listen to yourself, Mr. President. And get better. This dangerous and hostile world still needs you.

national news, political news

Parties change, politicians don’t

One of the nation’s more well-known Republicans has bolted his party. I’m going to presume for the purposes of this blog post that it’s because the Party of Lincoln has become the Party of Trump and Joe Scarborough no longer is comfortable with that association.

Scarborough — who says he’ll register as an independent — is now host of an MSNBC talk show, “Morning Joe,” which he co-hosts with Mika Brzezinski. They’ve been in the news of late, with Donald J. Trump tweeting some nasty comments about Brzezinski, who happens to be Scarborough’s fiancée. It’s complicated, yes?

But the Scarborough’s departure from the GOP is part of a trend that swings in both directions, involving both major parties. It happens when a particular political party veers into an dramatically different direction. Such is the case with the Republican Party that nominated an inexperienced entertainer as its presidential nominee who then has behaved like someone who is clueless about political decorum, norms and custom.

Oh, and he’s also someone who continues on the same insult and innuendo barrage that got him nominated and then elected.

Scarborough is no Republican In Name Only, although I’m sure the devoted Trumpkins out there will call him a RINO as often as possible. He once voted to impeach President Clinton when he was serving in the House of Representatives from Florida. He fancies himself as a serious conservative thinker and commentator. He joins a few other long time prominent Republicans who have left the party for essentially the same reason. The noted Washington Post columnist George Will is the most notable example.

Here in Texas, we’ve seen a dramatic shift in the other direction over many years as the state shifted from true blue to deep red. Democrats became Republicans because of the shift in Democratic Party ideology. I can think of several individuals: former state Rep. Warren Chisum of Pampa; the late former Gov. John Connally; former Gov. Rick Perry. They all were Democrats when they entered public life. They are far from the only Texas Democrats who would no longer feel comfortable with the party of their political “birth.”

So, now it’s Scarborough who’s bolted the GOP.

My hunch? We’re going to see more political out-migration.

national news, political news

Is there a Howard Baker out there?

The great Howard Baker asked a question for the ages in 1974.

“What did the president know,” the late Republican U.S. senator from Tennessee asked, “and when did he know it?”

Baker was serving as vice chairman — and ranking Republican — of the U.S. Senate select committee that was investigating the Watergate scandal that eventually forced President Nixon to resign and sent several of his top aides to prison.

The question came during one of the many hearings the committee was conducting to ferret out the truth of what was blown off initially as a “third-rate burglary” of the Democratic National Committee offices at the Watergate office complex in Washington, D.C.

I know that pundits have posed the question. I also have heard some pols ask it in the context of conversation.

But now we are being faced with the same scenario that confronted President Nixon and his top campaign and White House aides. It involves a meeting involving Donald J. Trump Jr., Jared Kushner (son-in-law of the president), and Paul Manafort, head of Donald J. Trump’s presidential campaign. They met with a Russian lawyer who sent them all an email advising them that the Russian government had some dirt on Hillary Rodham Clinton it wanted to pass on to the Trump campaign.

The revelation of the email now focuses investigators more sharply on whether the Trump campaign cooperated with Russian officials who were hacking into our electoral system, seeking to undermine Clinton’s effort to defeat Trump.

Did the three men — two of whom are members of the Republican presidential candidate’s family — advise the Big Man of the meeting in advance?

What did the president know during the campaign and when did he know it?

I am awaiting that question to come in some formal venue — say, at a congressional hearing. I also am awaiting the president’s answer.

Is there another Howard Baker out there among congressional Republicans who would dare ask that question?

International news, national news, political news

Is that a smoking gun over there?

Hmm. That smoldering around the White House is beginning to reveal its source … maybe, perhaps, possibly.

Then again, maybe not.

Donald J. Trump Jr. has just released a head-scratching set of emails that detail some information he received from the Russian government about dirt it had dug up on Hillary Rodham Clinton, who was running against Donald J. Trump Sr. for president of the United States.

Don Jr. told the Russians “I love it” that they have dirt on Hillary. You see, Junior was working on Dad’s campaign. The Russians wanted Donald Sr. to become the next president and apparently were doing things to facilitate that event.

Now we see that Don Jr. has been dragged right into the middle of this growing controversy. He ended up meeting with a Russian lawyer, along with campaign chief Paul Manafort and Jared Kushner, husband of Ivanka Trump (Don’s sis and the president’s daughter) and now a key White House policy adviser.

Here’s a new Question of the Day: Do you really and truly believe that none of these people — all of whom were up to their armpits in trying to get Daddy Trump elected president — would have kept any of this from him while he was campaigning for the high and exalted office?

The head-scratching, by the way, is occurring among legal eagles and pols around Washington who are wondering whether Don Jr.’s own legal counsel actually advised him to release this information to the public.

The hits just keep on comin’, man.

Check out the story here.

I’m betting there’ll be a good bit more to digest as we move forward.

International news, national news, political news

Ex-DNI: Evidence of hacking points to Moscow

James Clapper has contradicted the president of the United States, who says “others” might have hacked into the U.S. electoral system along with the Russians.

Not so, says the former director of national intelligence. The Russians did it. There’s no evidence of any other nation getting involved.

I’ll go with ex-DNI Clapper on this one.

Clapper is clear: It’s the Russians

Donald J. Trump keeps trying to blanket Russian government goons in political cover by suggesting that other nations might be involved. He famously alluded to some 400-pound guy lying in bed somewhere who might be hacking into our electoral process.

The president keeps demonstrating this outrageous reluctance to drop the hammer on Russian President Vladimir Putin. Meanwhile, the intelligence professionals — the folks who do that kind of work for a living — say something quite different.

I’m inclined to believe the career spooks’ assessment of what went down during the 2016 presidential election.

International news, national news, political news

‘Everybody knows’ Russia meddled in election

Has the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations gone rogue? Is Nikki Haley speaking out of turn when she seems to dispute the president’s view of who hacked into our nation’s election in 2016?

Haley has said that “everybody knows that Russia meddled in our election.” She made the remarks in TV interviews to be broadcast Sunday.

Actually, Mme. Ambassador, while everybody may know that to be true, not quite everybody is willing to say so out loud, on the record, in public.

One of the more prominent officials who remains publicly unconvinced happens to be Donald J. Trump. Intelligence agencies have concluded the Russians meddled; politicians from both political parties have said the same thing.

The president? He keeps giving the Russians political cover by saying that “other countries” might have interfered, too. He met Russian President Vladimir Putin this week in Hamburg, Germany, and supposed “pressed” Putin on what the Russians did. Putin denied doing anything, as if he expects the rest of us to believe the word of a former communist KGB spy.

Haley has broken with Trump already on Russia. She has been harsh in her critique of Putin’s government, while the president continues to pull his punches.

Now she has said what just about the entire civilized world has come to accept: that the Russians sought to undermine our electoral process, that they in effect declared war on our system of government.

If only the president would concur.

political news, State news

A higher-office campaign in the making?

The Texas Bathroom Bill is going to be on the agenda for the upcoming special session of the Texas Legislature.

Given that I no longer predict things political, I won’t say this is going to happen. Instead, I’ll just offer my lack of surprise if it does … which is whether Texas House Speaker Joe Straus is angling for a potential run for higher office in 2018.

Straus hates Senate Bill 6, which is the Bathroom Bill that got torpedoed in the regular legislative session. Who loves the bill? That would be Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, who runs the Texas Senate.

Apparently, Gov. Greg Abbott favors the bill sufficiently to put it on the Legislature’s lengthy list of issues to consider for its special session.

According to the Texas Tribune: “I’m not a lawyer, but I am a Texan,” Straus said. “I’m disgusted by all this. Tell the lieutenant governor I don’t want the suicide of a single Texan on my hands.”

Straus said he is concerned about a potential spike in suicide among transgender Texans. The bill under consideration would require individuals to use public restrooms that align with the gender noted on their birth certificate. Is it discriminatory against transgender people? Straus thinks so, as do I.

Check out the Tribune story.

Straus will be up for re-election next year as well in his San Antonio House district. Were he to run for, say, lieutenant governor or governor in the Republican primary, he would be unable to seek GOP nomination for his House seat at the same time.

However, Straus is sounding quite like a champion for those who oppose the Bathroom Bill and his “disgust” over the legislation might spur him to seek higher office.

I believe I will plan to keep my eyes and ears open to this fellow’s immediate future.

International news, national news, political news

No, Mr. President; Obama did react to Russian hacking

Donald J. Trump keeps harping on a canard, which is that Barack Obama “did nothing” when he learned in the summer of 2016 about Russian efforts to hack into our electoral process.

Wrong, Mr. President.

Trump keeps dodging the question about whether he believes the Russians sought to influence the 2016 presidential election. Today, he once again gave the Russians some political cover by saying that “other countries” are hacking us, too.

My point here, though, is that President Obama did react to reports of Russian hacking.

He imposed economic sanctions against individuals; he tossed Russian diplomats out of the United States; he closed two Russian diplomatic compounds — all of this in reaction to reports of Russian hacking.

Trump is having none of it. He wants to divert attention from the questions and suspicion that continues to swirl around him regarding the Russians and whatever — if any — relationship they had with the Trump presidential campaign.

I get that presidents have blamed their immediate predecessors for real and imagined problems. Obama laid a lot of blame at the feet of his predecessor, George W. Bush — although he did give the Bush administration plenty of credit for the work it had done in helping locate Osama bin Laden prior to the May 2011 commando raid that killed the al-Qaeda leader.

Is there ever going to be a moment when the current president would offer a good word to his immediate predecessor? Don’t hold your breath. I won’t.

As for Trump’s insistence that Obama did “nothing” to respond to Russian hackers, that’s just another lie.

International news, political news

Trump remains in Russia-meddling denial

Donald J. Trump got the question straight up and directly: Does he believe the Russians meddled in the 2016 presidential election?

How did the president respond to the question from NBC News’s Hallie Jackson today on the eve of the G20 summit in Hamburg, Germany? Sure, Russia meddled, but so did other nations, according to Trump. He couldn’t say which nations. They’ve all been doing it for a long time, the president said.

Then he sailed off into what’s becoming the classic Trump tactic: diversion, deflection and denial. He then blamed President Barack Obama’s administration for failing to do anything about Russia when it knew in July of 2016 about reports of meddling. He mentioned that the election didn’t occur until November and then asked, rhetorically of course, “Why didn’t the Obama administration do anything about it?”

Good grief, Mr. President. That’s not the question. The reporter asked about what he believes occurred and whether he stands with the U.S. intelligence agencies’ assessment that Russia acted alone in seeking to corrupt the U.S. electoral process.

Oh, I fear this bodes poorly for the president’s meeting Friday with Russian President Vladimir Putin and whether Trump is going to confront Putin directly on what seemingly the rest of the world apparently knows: that Russia got its hands quite dirty while interfering in the election of the president of the United States.