Category Archives: political news

Trump is every bit the politician

Donald Trump speaks during the National Rifle Association's annual meeting in Nashville, Tennessee April 10, 2015.  REUTERS/Harrison McClary  - RTR4WVBQ

Donald J. Trump’s surrogates and fans keep repeating the same inaccurate mantra about the Republican presidential nominee.

One of them repeated it this morning to MSNBC anchor Kate Snow.

They say he “is not a politician.”

I beg to differ. Vehemently.

Here’s why.

Trump became a politician the moment a year ago when he announced his candidacy for the presidency of the United States. Was he a politician before that moment? Well, no. You know his story: real estate mogul, business owner, reality TV celebrity, beauty pageant operator … and some other stuff that has nothing to do with running a country.

But the dictionary defines politicians as those individuals who seek or hold political office.

There. That settles it for me.

Trump is a politician.

Now, will the Trumpkins stop repeating an untruth about their candidate?

Oh, wait …

Rhetorical license? It’s worse than that

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Hollywood often is accused of taking too much “artistic license” while portraying historical events.

We all get that.

Can a politician, therefore, be accused of uttering statements with more than just a tad “rhetorical license”? Do they say things for effect? Well, sure they do.

But then you get Donald J. Trump saying things that are utterly astonishing in the extreme.

Such as when he said yesterday that President Barack H. Obama and Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Rodham Clinton are the “founder” and “co-founder,” respectively, of the Islamic State.

I’ve just recently reassembled my noggin after it exploded when I heard that ridiculous assertion.

http://www.cnn.com/2016/08/11/politics/trump-obama-isis/index.html?sr=fbCNN081116/trump-obama-isis1042AMStoryLink&linkId=27549373

If the GOP nominee had been watching “the shows” to study up on foreign policy — which he has said he has done — he would have known what the rest of us know. It is that we are killing ISIS soldiers daily; we are targeting and killing ISIS leaders; we are in the midst of destroying the monstrous terrorist organization.

Gosh, why do you suppose the “founder” of ISIS would want to kill his very creation?

I understand fully that we can expect more of this from Trump. We’re going to hear some rhetorical flourishes as well from Clinton — and perhaps even from the president himself — as this campaign lurches toward Election Day on Nov. 8.

It’s just important to understand that just as filmmakers occasionally stretch the truth to make an artistic truth, politicians are known to much the same the thing.

Only in Trump’s case, his lying has dangerous consequences.

Memo to GOP: Let your nominee finish his race

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More and more Republicans are saying it: get rid of our presidential nominee.

Dump Trump. Ditch Donald.

The latest Republican to speak out is talk-show host — and former GOP congressman — Joe Scarborough. He says Donald J. Trump has disqualified himself as a presidential candidate.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-partisan/wp/2016/08/09/the-gop-must-dump-trump/?utm_term=.e3ce0dbe3fe2

I believe I must remind Scarborough of the following: Republican Party primary voters had the opportunity all along the way to look to someone else when given the chance.

They chose to go with Donald Trump.

He won the GOP nomination fair and square. He scored a first-ballot win at the Cleveland convention.

Sure, Trump has made a hash of his campaign. His statements have boggled our minds. He is demonstrating time and time again his total unfitness for the job.

How, though, does the party ditch a nominee now?

My own sense is that the party ought to let the man finish what he’s begun. Let him complete the race. Let him continue to embarrass himself.

The party can recover. Political parties have ways to do it. The Republicans rebuilt their conservative coalition after the 1964 disaster when Barry Goldwater got trampled by Lyndon Johnson. Democrats did the same thing after getting battered by Richard Nixon’s landslide win over George McGovern in 1972.

It’s a bit late in the game for the Republican Party to change nominees now.

What’s more, as someone who has no intention of voting for Donald Trump — and who cannot stand the idea of his ever getting anywhere near the Oval Office — I plan to enjoy this supreme narcissist getting his noggin thumped.

Birtherism will live forever

obama

I thought I was done writing about birthers, those individuals who keep insisting that President Barack Obama was born in a country other than the United States of America.

Silly me.

A new poll is out. It says that more than 70 percent of Republicans believe the president was not born in the United States, that he was born in a foreign country, that he’s somehow not a legitimate president.

http://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2016-election/poll-persistent-partisan-divide-over-birther-question-n627446?cid=sm_tw

This might be the last time I’ll ever write about it. Then again, it might not be.

Allow me to make a couple of points.

First, the president produced a long-firm birth certificate that declares he was born in Honolulu, Hawaii in August 1961, two years after Hawaii became one of the 50 states. He showed it to all of us .

That doesn’t seem to satisfy Republicans who continue to insist that he’s a foreigner.

Second, we also had this discussion with former Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz, who actually was born in another country. He was born in Canada — to an American mother and a Cuban father. Cruz, though, said he was a U.S. citizen by virtue of his mother’s citizenship.

Which brings me back to the point about Obama’s citizenship. His mother was a U.S. citizen, too; his father — who he barely knew — was Kenyan.

And that brings us to the final point.

If Barack H. Obama had been born on, oh, Mars to an American mother and a foreign-born father, he still would be eligible to run — and serve — as president of the United States.

But that partisan divide keeps this non-story alive and kicking.

The Constitution doesn’t stipulate precisely that a presidential candidate must be born within the nation’s borders. It says only that a “natural-born” citizen is eligible to run and serve.

In both instances, Sen. Cruz and President Obama are eligible to run for and serve as president.

However, in the matter involving the current president, he’s produced a U.S. birth certificate. It’s too bad, though, that most Republicans still seem to refuse to believe their lying eyes.

Presidents should speak precisely … and with clarity

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I am not going to ascribe some nefarious motive behind what Donald J. Trump said about the Second Amendment and Hillary Rodham Clinton.

I do not know what he meant when he said “Second Amendment people” might take care of Clinton if she’s elected president and appoints judges who might be unfriendly to gun owners’ rights.

The Republican presidential nominee has come under withering criticism for seemingly — according to some folks — suggesting someone should actually harm the Democratic presidential nominee.

The troubling aspect up front for me is the lack of clarity and precision that keeps pouring out of Trump’s pie hole when he makes statements such as his latest stumble-bum utterance.

He wants to be president of the United States, allegedly.

That means he must follow a number of rules associated with being head of state and government.

One of them has to be to speak with absolute clarity all the time.

I’m trying to imagine Trump letting slip some ridiculous assertion about a world leader or an international trouble spot that gets lost in the translation. These things do happen, you know.

What if, for example, he repeats his belief that Japan and South Korea should be able to develop nukes as a defense against North Korea? How is that tinhorn despot Kim Jong Un going to interpret it? Would he then, on a whim, decide to attack South Korea believing that his peninsula neighbors are about to explode a nuclear device?

The kind of loose and careless talk — which is what he exhibited with his Second Amendment remarks in North Carolina — cannot be tolerated in someone who presents himself as a serious candidate for the U.S. presidency.

Trump steps in it … again

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Donald J. Trump has shown a remarkable ability to say things that those who hear them can interpret in ways that he may not have intended.

He did it again today at a North Carolina campaign rally.

The Republican presidential nominee fired up his crowd by declaring that Democratic nominee Hillary Rodham Clinton “essentially” intends to dismantle the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

He said: “By the way, if she gets to pick her judges, nothing you can do folks. Though the Second Amendment people, maybe there is, I don’t know.”

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/pence-defends-trump-he-was-rallying-gun-owners-to-vote/ar-BBvrMFw?li=BBnb7Kz

Unlike many folks who blog or pontificate on politics, I am not a mind-reader. Therefore, I am not going to presume what Trump meant to say.

Some suggest he meant that “Second Amendment people” could do serious harm to Clinton if she appoints judges to the federal judiciary who will gut gun owners’ rights.

Others, such as GOP vice-presidential nominee Mike Pence, said that he meant only to encourage those “Second Amendment people” to vote for president this fall.

Hmmm.

Trump, to no one’s surprise, hasn’t yet clarified his own remarks. He has chosen, I suppose, to leave it to others to parse his statement.

There is a pattern here. Trump says things with little appreciation for the consequences of what he utters.

It’s interesting to me that at the moment he spoke about the “Second Amendment people,” he never offered any detail, such as, oh: “There’s nothing you can do, folks, although the Second Amendment people can be sure to get out and vote for me, because I will protect the rights of gun owners.”

He didn’t do that.

Now we’re left to wonder what this guy actually means.

Mr. Trump, allow me to be among the many who’ve warned you already: Words have consequences.

Gen. McCaffrey lines up … against Trump!

khan

One more critique of a leading American who’s abandoned Donald J. Trump … and then I’m out for the rest of the day.

This one comes from retired Army Gen. Barry McCaffrey.

http://www.seattletimes.com/opinion/donald-trump-is-an-abusive-braggart-unfit-to-lead-our-armed-forces/

McCaffrey wrote an essay in the Seattle Times in which he said the following: Trump, the Republican presidential nominee, is “unfit” to become president of the United States.

The “final straw” was Trump’s attack on a Gold Star Mother. McCaffrey writes: “Trump’s cruel cultural jab at Ghazala Kahn as a grieving Gold Star mother is simply the final straw. In my judgment, Trump, if elected, would provoke a political and constitutional crisis within a year.”

Khan’s son, Army Capt. Humayun Khan, was killed in Iraq in 2004 trying to protect the men under his command. The Khan family is of Muslim faith. Mom and Dad Khan criticized Trump at the Democratic National Convention. Trump’s response was to say they had “no right” to criticize him and then he speculated out loud that Mrs. Khan’s silence was mandated by her Muslim faith.

It was a disgraceful display by someone who is seeking to become our head of state.

It also was too much for Gen. McCaffrey.

Something tells me the general’s rebuke won’t be the last.

Another GOP leader abandons Trump

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I’m trying to remember the last time a major party presidential nominee suffered the embarrassments that have fallen all over Donald J. Trump.

They’re coming in the form of leaders within his own party who are saying the same thing: They cannot support his presidential candidacy.

I guess you have to go back to, say, 1972, when Democrats abandoned the candidacy of anti-Vietnam War insurgent Sen. George McGovern.

U.S. Sen. Susan Collins of Maine has joined the growing ranks of Republicans who are tossing Trump aside.

She writes of her opposition to Trump in a Washington Post essay:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/gop-senator-why-i-cannot-support-trump/2016/08/08/821095be-5d7e-11e6-9d2f-b1a3564181a1_story.html

Collins writes: “My conclusion about Mr. Trump’s unsuitability for office is based on his disregard for the precept of treating others with respect, an idea that should transcend politics. Instead, he opts to mock the vulnerable and inflame prejudices by attacking ethnic and religious minorities. Three incidents in particular have led me to the inescapable conclusion that Mr. Trump lacks the temperament, self-discipline and judgment required to be president. ”

The incidents were Trump’s mocking of a New York Times reporter’s physical disability, his suggestion that a judge couldn’t preside over a case involving Trump University because of his ethnic heritage and his ridiculous feud with the parents of a slain U.S. Army soldier.

Collins has concluded, along with others within the party, that Trump is not fit for the office he seeks.

Will she support Democratic nominee Hillary Rodham Clinton? Collins calls herself a “lifelong Republican,” which makes me believe she won’t cast her ballot for Clinton.

Still, she is denying her own party’s nominee her ultimate endorsement.

If I were a betting man, I’d bet we’ll see more of the same in the weeks to come.

Character takes center stage in campaign

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Michael Dukakis once declared during the 1988 presidential campaign that the issue that year was about “competence.”

Pure and simple, the Democratic nominee said. The voters would judge whether he or Vice President George H.W. Bush was competent enough to run the country.

Voters went for Bush.

This year, according to a Politico report, the issue is “character.”

It’s also about trustworthiness, which is an element of character.

Republican nominee Donald J. Trump and Democratic nominee Hillary Rodham Clinton are busy trading barrages over who between them is fit — or unfit — to become commander in chief.

http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/08/does-anyone-care-about-issues-anymore-or-only-whether-trump-is-crazy-214150

So far it’s clear to me that the GOP nominee’s fitness poses the greater concern.

He fluffs a response to a question about the “nuclear triad.” He says he won’t rule out the use of nuclear weapons. He gives his tacit blessing for other nations to acquire nukes.

Then we have his litany of insults, put-downs and mocking of others. A reporter with a physical disability. His various nicknames and childish rejoinders. His statements about women, a distinguished U.S. senator/war hero. His assertion that a judge cannot adjudicate a case involving Trump University simply because of his ethnic heritage. His ridiculous and gratuitous attack against a Gold Star family.

Character? Does this suggest a candidate with character?

Sure, Hillary Clinton is hardly the paragon of virtue. She has her own character issues with which to deal. Again, though, to my eyes they pale in comparison to the astonishing demonstrations that Trump has put forth.

Character will become the signature issue of this campaign.

As Politico reports: “To be clear: The candidates’ brands of invective are not equivalent. Nothing can quite compare with Trump’s endless—and seemingly spontaneous—flow of crude characterizations of anyone who would cross him. For better or worse, Clinton’s attacks are much subtler, and probably more strategic, since her own high negative poll ratings make it imperative that she portray Trump as so unpredictable, and even unstable, as to be an unacceptable choice for president.”

This campaign is getting uglier by the day.

Texas turning ‘purple’? Maybe … but not just yet

Donald Trump gestures while speaking surrounded by people whose families were victims of illegal immigrants on July 10, 2015 while meeting with the press at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel in Beverly Hills, California, where some shared their stories of the loss of a loved one. The US business magnate Trump, who is running for president in the 2016 presidential elections, angered members of the Latino community with recent comments but says he will win the Latino vote. AFP PHOTO / FREDERIC J. BROWN        (Photo credit should read FREDERIC J. BROWN/AFP/Getty Images)

George Will is a conservative columnist/pundit who — no surprise here — detests Donald J. Trump, the Republican Party’s presidential nominee.

He has written an essay, moreover, that makes an intriguing suggestion. It is that Trump’s presidential candidacy just might turn one of the nation’s most Republican-leaning states into something far less so.

I refer to Texas.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/will-texas-become-another-brick-in-the-democrats-blue-wall/2016/07/20/08b55f5e-4de0-11e6-a422-83ab49ed5e6a_story.html

My own sense is that Democratic nominee Hillary Rodham Clinton has a long way to go just yet in making Texas truly competitive in this election.

Will, though, suggests that the time is closer than some of us believe.

He notes that Dallas County has gone from solidly Republican to solidly Democratic. He reminds us that Hispanics and Asians are two fast-growing minorities. He speaks as well about how Texas is mirroring the nation’s turn toward a majority-minority population.

All of that plays into Clinton’s push to become president.

Texas, though, hasn’t elected a Democrat to any statewide office since 1994. Will says that’s the longest statewide GOP winning streak in the nation.

My own sense is that if Texas becomes moderately competitive in the Clinton vs. Trump contest — meaning if Clinton can close to within, say, 5 or 6 percentage of Trump — then we’re going to see a serious blowout in the making.

If she somehow manages to win the state’s 38 electoral votes — and that can happen only if Latinos and African-Americans turn out in record numbers — then the blowout can be of historic proportions.

Will it happen in Texas?

Maybe soon. Just not right now.