Category Archives: political news

We’re all sinners . . . and need forgiveness

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Donald Trump’s stumbling over the name of a New Testament book Monday seems to punctuate something many of us believed already.

The candidate’s bald-face pandering to a certain Republican Party voting bloc is unseemly on its face.

Trump stood before a “record crowd” at Liberty University and proclaimed the virtues of “Two Corinthians.”

OK, I am not a biblical scholar by any stretch of the imagination, but I do know the name of the book that contains the Apostle Paul’s “second letter” to the people of Corinth. Moreover, I’ve read “Second Corinthians” many times over the years.

Trump, though, has said something else that reveals the pandering element of his pitch to Christian voters. It is that he’s never sought forgiveness because “I don’t need it.”

Trump  didn’t say it overtly, but statements such as that suggest he believes he is without sin. Now, the Bible I’ve read my entire life tells me that we’re all sinners. Every single human being who’s ever been born needs forgiveness for his or her sins.

I don’t intend to pick apart every single thing Trump said at Liberty University, nor do I intend to question Trump’s personal faith journey. Maybe it’s the real thing. Then again . . . well, I just don’t know.

I do recognize pandering when I see and hear it.

Look, I know that politicians pander. It’s part of their DNA. They have to pander to persuade voters that they — the politician — understands them.

Some politicians do it better than others. Trump has said all along he’s not a “career politician.” His performance at Liberty University certainly proves the point — and not necessarily in a way that should make the candidate proud.

Check this out.

 

Don’t be overly ‘audacious,’ Mr. President

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President Obama hardly seems like an “audacious” fellow.

Remember the “No Drama Obama” mantra during his first term in the White House? That was meant to describe a president who disliked being overly aggressive in the pursuit of foreign or domestic policy.

I guess that’s about to change now that the president is entering his final year in office.

He wants to ponder “audacious” executive actions, things he can do unilaterally without the approval of Congress.

Presidential prerogative is an important element of governing. I’ve long believed in it, given that the president is elected nationally.

Barack Obama has used the power of his office — granted by the U.S. Constitution — relatively sparingly during his seven years in the White House. However, some of the orders he’s issued — such as those on immigration and on gun control — have caused considerable consternation.

Are they illegal? Is he “lawless,” as some Republican presidential candidates keep alleging as they toss out the red meat to their supporters from the stump? No on both counts, in my view.

But the president’s “audacious” use of executive authority clearly must have its limits.

I will continue to have a large measure of faith that the legal eagles in the Justice Department and in the White House’s West Wing know the limits set forth in the Constitution. What’s more, the president keeps reminding us that he taught constitutional law once.

So, if Congress isn’t going to help govern the country along with the White House, proceed, Mr. President.

But please, young man, be careful.

 

UK leaders want to ban Trump?

Republican presidential candidate, businessman Donald Trump, speaks during a rally coinciding with Pearl Harbor Day at Patriots Point aboard the aircraft carrier USS Yorktown in Mt. Pleasant, S.C., Monday, Dec. 7, 2015. (AP Photo/Mic Smith)

Donald Trump has insulted his way to the top of the Republican Party presidential heap.

Suffice to say that if British Parliament members had a vote in this country, why, they would do all they could to keep anyone from endorsing Trump.

The House of Commons today debated whether to ban Trump from entering the United Kingdom. It’s all in the wake of Trump’s call to ban Muslims from entering the United States, as well as plenty of other things Trump has said along the presidential campaign trail.

To be honest, I don’t think that Parliament needs to debate this issue. Indeed, the decision rests ultimately with the British home secretary.

Still, we’ve heard a snootful from the Brits about Trump.

It ain’t pretty.

Trump doesn’t care who he insults. He should, at least in this case.

Great Britain is arguably our most loyal ally on the planet. Sure, we shook off the bonds of the British Empire in the 18th century and then fought them again in the early 19th century. Since then? We have been side by side through two world wars, the Cold War and now in the war against international terrorism.

What on Earth could be transpiring here if the Brits were to actually ban someone from entering their country if that certain someone happened to be elected president of the United States of America?

I’m not predicting either event will occur: Trump’s election and the home secretary’s decision to ban him from entering his country.

But members of the British Parliament have delivered a stunning rebuke of a guy who wants to become the next “leader of the Free World.”

Does he care? Again . . . he’d better.

 

Hillary says she’ll ask for Bill’s advice . . . duh?

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This might qualify is a dumb question.

It came Sunday night during the Democratic Party presidential debate and the questioner wondered whether Hillary Rodham Clinton would seek the advice of the 42nd president of the United States.

Wow! Do you think?

Why wouldn’t she? Bill Clinton left office in January 2001 with a 65 percent approval rating, and that was after he’d been impeached by the House of Representatives.

I totally understand that the former president had, um, some issues relating to a certain White House intern. I’m also aware of the official reason for the impeachment, that he committed perjury to a federal grand jury that asked him directly about the relationship.

But let’s get real here. Bill Clinton’s presidency was a rousing success. Was it totally free of tragedy? Of course not.

However, if the former first lady/U.S. senator/secretary of state is elected this November as the nation’s 45th president, she’d be stupid beyond belief not to enlist the advice of her husband.

Bill Clinton presided over eight years of superb economic growth in this country. The president — with support from Congress — managed to balance the federal budget and left office with the budget operating in the black for the first time since seemingly forever.

Is the former president’s advice worth obtaining?

Yeah, I kind of think so.

 

GOP contest is a two-man match race

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Will Rahn, writing for the Daily Beast, has concluded that the Republican Party presidential primary campaign has settled into a two-man race.

It happens to comprise perhaps the two unlikeliest candidates of the field . . . but there’s a third highly unlikely guy out there who’s been left in the dust.

Donald J. Trump vs. Ted Cruz.

That’s who the GOP has left to decide in this primary battle, Rahn writes.

A part of me is saddened  by that possibility. Another part of me wonders if either Trump or Cruz really and truly can defeat whomever the Democrats nominate.

It’s looking a bit dicier at this moment for one-time prohibitive Democratic favorite Hillary Rodham Clinton. She once was thought to be invincible. No longer.

Still, I am trying to grasp the notion of either Trump or Cruz being able to defeat Clinton in a national election. I cannot get there.

Both men represent the so-called “outsider” wing of the party, even though Cruz has been a member of the U.S. Senate since January 2013; I guess that means he isn’t an entrenched member of Congress.

The once-enormous GOP field had a number of highly qualified individuals seeking the presidential nomination. My favorites, if you consider their skill and experience, were John Kasich, Jeb Bush, Marco Rubio, Chris Christie and Rand Paul. They remain my personal favorites.

Then we had Ben Carson, the retired pediatric neurosurgeon seeking election to the only public office he’s ever sought. He isn’t qualified and that’s all I intend to say about that.

The rest of the field? I’ll just shrug.

We’re going to be left with Trump and Cruz fighting it out to the end, says the Daily Beast writer.

It appears to me at least that the Republican Party is morphing into a political organization that some truly great Americans — Dwight Eisenhower, Ronald Reagan and Barry Goldwater — wouldn’t recognize.

 

 

What’s with this ‘national poll’?

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More often than not I’m going to look carefully at public opinion poll results.

In this election season, we’re being inundated with them. Republican-leaning polls say one thing; Democratic-leaning polls say another. I prefer to look most closely at polls unaffiliated with either party, or certain ideological think tanks, or media outlets I know to have bias in either direction.

But one recent poll has me wondering: Is this one even relevant to anything?

Hillary Clinton leads Bernie Sanders by 25 percentage points nationally, according to a poll released by NBC News and the Wall Street Journal.

The relevancy issue?

Well, consider a couple of things.

They’re both running for the Democratic Party presidential nomination, which means that they’re not going to face each other in a national election. Therefore, they are battling state by state: Iowa, then New Hampshire, then South Carolina . . . and on it goes.

They’ll get to Texas in early March.

Therefore, whether Clinton beats Sanders by a single percent or a million percent in a national poll doesn’t matter one bit.

How are they faring in each state?

The poll does compare the candidates’ chances against a potential Republican nominee and it shows Clinton faring better against the GOP foe than Sanders.

That’s relevant, I guess.

However, these polls pitting one candidate against the other running in the same party primary simply doesn’t register with me.

 

So very wrong about Campaign ’16 . . . so far

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I’ve said it more times than I can remember, which is that I’m wrong far more frequently than I am right.

My political prognostication skill has been exposed for what it is: shaky . . . at best.

Thus, I am prepared to acknowledge how wrong I’ve been about the current campaign for the presidency. My wrongness tracks along both parties’ trails.

First, the Republicans.

Donald J. Trump’s candidacy has withstood the candidate’s own serious shortcomings as a presidential aspirant, let alone his actual ability to govern.

Never in a zillion years did I think he’d still be in this campaign — let alone leading the GOP gaggle of candidates — after the countless insults he has hurled along the way.

Sen. John McCain’s valor during the Vietnam War doesn’t make him a hero? The ridiculous back/forth with broadcast journalist Megyn Kelly during the first presidential debate? His assertion that he’ll build a wall along our southern border and force Mexico to pay for it? His revealing Sen. Lindsey Graham’s cell phone number? His proposal to ban all Muslims from entering the United States? His assertion that he witnessed “thousands of Muslims cheering” the collapse of the World Trade Center on 9/11?

OK, I’ve left some of ’em out.

Despite all that, this guy continues to lead the pack.

Anger among GOP voters? That’s what is moving this man forward? If that is the case, then the Republican Party “base” is lost its sanity.

During President Obama’s State of the Union speech, I tried to imagine Donald Trump standing at that lectern offering high-minded, soaring rhetoric designed to lay the groundwork for how he intends to govern. Imagine him as well standing on the steps of the U.S. Capitol next January offering his inaugural speech to the nation as its 45th president.

All I hear coming from this guy are blustering, blistering insults.

Is that really what we want in the next president of the United States? Our head of state? Our commander in chief?

Now for the Democrats.

I once thought Hillary Rodham Clinton’s nomination was a shoo-in. She had it locked up. Nothing, or no one, would derail the Hillary Express on its way to the nomination and to the White House.

Then came Bernie Sanders, the democratic socialist with a campaign theme that has resonated with his party’s base. Break up the big banks, de-fang the Wall Street power brokers, spread the wealth around, lift up everyone’s wages and reduce the income gap between the very rich and the rest of the country.

Republicans have made a lot of hay over Benghazi, which has become a form of political shorthand that means: Clinton lied about what she knew about the attack on the U.S. consulate in that Libyan city. There’s a congressional select committee that’s still looking for something to torpedo Clinton’s presidential campaign.

Meanwhile, Sanders — the independent U.S. senator from Vermont — is drawing huge, enthusiastic crowds. He’s ahead by a good bit in New Hampshire, the site of the nation’s first primary vote and is now virtually tied with Clinton in Iowa, which is about to kick off the voting with its caucuses.

Do I believe Hillary Clinton will be denied the nomination? No. But it sure ain’t the coronation I thought it would be when this campaign began.

Let me add, too, that I do not believe Donald Trump will be the Republican nominee. I have some faith — although it’s been hammered — that the Republican Party brass comprises reasonable, intelligent and sane men and women who understand the consequences of nominating someone whose main skill lies in his ability to insult anyone who disagrees with him.

I don’t like acknowledging how wrong I have been.

Still, I feel better now for saying so out loud.

 

Anger: It’s strewn all along the campaign trail

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I guess you can sum up the tone of the 2016 presidential campaign with a single word.

Anger.

I might live in a dream world, although I doubt it. Donald J. Trump, the leading Republican presidential candidate, and Bernie Sanders, the surprising Democratic candidate, apparently have tapped a vein that neither of them would be able to find on my body.

Voters are angry with the status quo. They hate politics and politicians. So, many of them are turning to so-called “outsiders” for relief from what they say ails the nation.

Isn’t that interesting? Ironic, too, if you want my take on it.

Trump and Sanders by the very definition of the word are politicians. Never mind that Trump made his fortune selling real estate, developing ritzy hotels and appearing on reality TV. Or disregard that Sanders has been a small-town mayor, member of the U.S. House of Representatives and now is a U.S. senator. They’re not “politicians” the way we’ve understood the word.

To quote the great fictional TV character U.S. Army Col. Sherman T. Potter: buffalo bagels!

They both are pursuing the granddaddy of American political offices, the presidency. Thus, they are politicians. Let’s stop pretending they aren’t, OK?

I don’t know what’s fueling the anger. From my vantage point, I remain the eternal optimist. Our national economy has recovered; we remain the strongest nation on the planet — by a mile, maybe two; we have avoided another 9/11-style terror attack since that hideous event more than 14 years ago; the price of gasoline is falling; we’re making strides in protecting our environment; our budget deficit has been cut by three-quarters.

And people are angry?

I believe the gloom-and-doomers have won the national shouting match. They’ve out-yelled the rest of us who, by our very nature, are not inclined to rouse rabbles and raise hell.

So, people are sick and tired of politicians.

Well, all right then.

The nation will be hearing a lot more from those purporting to be outsiders and those who have some actual experience running a massive government.

You may choose to believe — or disbelieve — this final point. I am willing to listen to the outsiders. I want to hear their solutions. I also am willing to consider all they have to offer.

The late House Speaker Tip O’Neill used to say “all politics is local.”

I believe, though, that for me politics is personal. I am happy with my lot in life, with the direction my life is taking. I believe I have it within my power to guide my own destiny.

Government is not in the way. It does not threaten me or those I love.

I also know that there will be those who read this blog who will call me “naïve,” “Pollyanna,” “ignorant,” “bleeding-heart” . . . whatever. Fine. Go ahead.

I’ll let the shouters keep trying to drown out the rest of us. I also am awaiting to hear some semblance of a solution from any of them.

First, they need to persuade me that we need one in the first place.

I’m all ears.

Oops . . . another loan goes unreported

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Here it goes again.

First it was a loan from Goldman Sachs to his 2012 U.S. Senate campaign that has caused some head-scratching. Now a second loan to Ted Cruz’s campaign has been discovered to have been omitted from required election campaign filings.

Is there a third, or fourth or fifth loan out there that the Republican presidential candidate failed to report properly?

The second loan was a $500,000 sum from Citibank directly to Cruz’s Senate campaign in Texas.

The GOP presidential contender’s campaign said the failure to report the loans to the Federal Election Commission was “inadvertent” and would be corrected.

OK, fine.

I’ll point a couple of quick points.

One is that Cruz campaigned for the Senate against Wall Street giant banking institutions. Yet he took money from the one of the big ones, which also employed his wife at the time.

Two is that Cruz has been tossing the word “lawless” around with abandon while describing the Obama administration’s actions. Let’s be careful — shall we? — with that kind of harsh language, senator.

Hey, maybe all this is as Cruz’s campaign describes it. An oversight that can be corrected quickly.

If, however, we get more of this kind of thing trickling out, it’s fair to wonder if a pattern is beginning to emerge.

 

 

Tough talk rises from GOP debate

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New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie said the following at the latest Republican Party presidential debate Thursday night.

Frankly, it’s a hoot.

“Mr. President, we’re not against you. We’re against your policies,” Christie said. “The American people have rejected your agenda and now you’re trying to go around it. That’s not right. It’s not constitutional. And we are going to kick your rear end out of the White House come this fall.”

This is the guy who told a constituent to “sit down and shut up!” when the constituent — for whom Christie works in New Jersey — had the temerity to issue a critical statement at a public event. I’m trying to imagine myself telling any of the bosses for whom I worked to “sit down and shut up!”

It’s the kind of rhetoric that seems to endear him to many within the GOP.

But the idea that the Republican presidential nominee, whoever he or she is, will kick the president’s “rear end out of the White House come this fall” misses a fundamental point.

Barack Obama isn’t on the ballot. The U.S. Constitution places term limits on him. The 22nd Amendment says a president can be elected twice to the office. That’s it. Two and out, man.

Barack Obama was elected in 2008, winning 365 electoral votes while capturing more than 10 million more popular votes than Republican nominee Sen. John McCain; he was re-elected in 2012 with 332 electoral votes, while defeating GOP nominee Mitt Romney by nearly 5 million popular votes. He needed 270 electoral votes to win both times. His Electoral College majorities in both elections were substantial.

So, have “the American people rejected” the president’s agenda?

Seems to me — and I’m just tossing this out from the Flyover Country peanut gallery — that the president’s agenda played pretty well in the past two presidential elections.

The president is going to leave the White House a year from now on his own terms. He isn’t going to get his rear end “kicked out” of the place.

However, the tough talk that Christie — not to mention the other GOP hopefuls who debated the other night — sounds good to those who want to hear it.

If only it were true.