Category Archives: political news

political news

‘Anchor babies’ becomes campaign buzz phrase

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Anchor babies. That’s the newest catch-phrase that is drawing some criticism for the way it sounds in describing some U.S. citizens.

Donald Trump is using the term. So is Jeb Bush. The two Republican presidential candidates — who’ve been batting each other around lately — seem to agree on the use of the term.

It’s meant to define individuals who were born in the United States to foreign nationals. They become U.S. citizens by virtue of their birthright — as prescribed in the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

But get this: Three other GOP presidential candidates actually are “anchor babies.” Marco Rubio was born in the United States to Cuban parents. Ted Cruz was born in Canada to an American mother and a Cuban father. And then there’s Bobby Jindal, born in the U.S. to Indians. All three men are “anchor babies.”

Trump wants to repeal the 14th Amendment that grants U.S. citizenship to “anchor babies.” Rubio opposes Trump’s view about birthright citizenship.

It’s another issue that’s threatening to split the GOP field.

 

political news

Anti-PC rhetoric becomes code for rudeness

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You’ve heard politicians say, “Don’t Mess with Texas.”

They say such things to convey some sort of macho image. The phrase they quote, of course, came into being in the 1980s when the Texas General Land Office sought to call attention to littering.

Not very macho, right?

Politicians today are fond of debunking “political correctness.” Oh, they say, “That’s just so PC. Let’s cut that crap and speak the truth.”

Actually, what I find happening to political correctness is that it’s becoming a punching bag for politicians who think it’s OK to be crass, rude, uncaring or lacking in humanity.

Pay attention, Donald Trump. I’m talking about you.

I agree that political correctness at times can be taken too far. Politically correct speech at times does drive me a bit batty. Maybe the most maddening example of PC language appears under photos of hunters who’ve killed game. The caption might refer to the hunter posing with a beast he or he has just “harvested,” to which I say, “BS, man. You ‘harvest’ cotton or wheat.”

Trump uses the anti-PC dodge whenever the media question the intemperate language he uses to describe his Republican Party primary field opponents. Jeb Bush is a “loser”; Lindsey Graham is an “idiot.”

Yes, some of them have hurled personal insults at Trump, too, but Trump tends to employ the anti-PC dodge as his justification for saying outrageous things about other human beings.

Perhaps politicians ought to think more about the Golden Rule than about whether it’s OK to toss political correctness into the toilet.

 

national news, political news

Birthright citizenship: tough to eliminate

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baby citizens

A part of the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution says this:

“All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside.”

It’s clear, yes? Everyone born in this country is a citizen of this country.

Why, then, do some Republicans — maybe most of them — want to amend the Constitution to single out those who have the misfortune of being born to individuals who are here illegally?

GOP presidential frontrunner Donald Trump wants to end the “birthright citizenship” clause of the 14th Amendment. He’s led the amen chorus on that one. Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker has joined him.

But as Eric Greider of Texas Monthly points out, some Republican presidential candidates are standing for the Constitution. Former Texas Gov. Rick Perry is one of them; so is U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida; same for former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush.

What do these men have in common? They all have been elected in states with substantial Latino populations, which of course is the audience being targeted by those who want to repeal birthright citizenship.

If we get rid of this citizenship provision, we will have to amend the Constitution. Don’t conservatives generally stand foursquare behind the nation’s governing document?

 

 

national news, political news

Clinton needs to steel herself over server

Hillary Rodham Clinton is getting the third, fourth and maybe the fifth degrees over this server business.

The Democrats’ presidential frontrunner is under fire over the way she handled e-mail communications while she was serving as secretary of state and her use of a personal e-mail server to conduct State Department business.

She cut off a press conference when the question kept coming about the server issue and whether she destroyed information that belongs to the public.

At one level, this continuing investigation has partisan politics written all over it. Republicans do not want her to become the 45th president of the United States; thus, it’s understandable that they would do whatever they can to deny her the office.

The e-mail controversy — and I refuse to call it a “scandal” — has given them a quiver full of ammo to fire at former secretary of state.

She said today she did everything that is prescribed by law and insisted she broke no laws.

On a human level, I understand her continuing frustration over the continuing coverage of this matter.

On another level, though, I want this matter settled. She has turned her server over to the Department of Justice. My hope is that Clinton will answer all the questions posed to her.

At some point it will have to become as obvious to the rest of the country — as it is to Clinton — that the investigations into the e-mail matter will produce zero criminal culpability.

Therefore, all the politicians involved in seeking to undermine her candidacy will realize they are doing more damage to themselves than they are to her.

First things first, though. Hillary Clinton needs to deliver all the goods about this e-mail business for thorough public inspection.

political news

TV shows provide Trump all he needs to know about ISIL

I almost forgot this one.

Here goes …

“Meet the Press” moderator Chuck Todd asked Donald Trump this past weekend how he planned to fight the Islamic State. He said he’d wipe out the bad guys. Would he deploy American troops? He said “yes,” more or less.

Then came the question: Who gives you military advice?

Trump’s answer: He watches the news talk shows and that’s where he gets the information and expertise he needs to do battle with ISIL.

Interesting, yes?

I think so. Here’s why.

Because the military experts who show up on these news talk shows cannot possibly tell the TV audience all the details involved in launching military campaigns. They might or might not have access to privileged information. You know, the classified stuff that only they can know and must be kept out of the public domain.

But that doesn’t matter to Trump.

He watches TV news talk shows.

They tell him all he needs to know.

It’s reassuring, isn’t it?

 

national news, political news

Trump continues to confound

So help me, I was certain that Donald Trump sank his presidential campaign when he made light of John McCain’s heroic service during the Vietnam War.

It didn’t happen.

I was certain that he would implode during that first Republican joint appearance with nine other “leading” GOP candidates.

That didn’t happen, either.

Then he got into that public feud with Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly over that ghastly remark he made about the source of “the blood.”

Hey, no problem.

Trump said “I’ll build a wall” to keep illegal immigrants from entering the U.S. through its southern border. Yep, he’s going to do all this all by his ownself.

I don’t pretend to be an expert on this stuff.

The latest poll numbers show that Trump is putting some distance between himself and the rest of the GOP field — which comprises some serious, intelligent and accomplished individuals.

What in the world is happening here? Have we become so celebrity conscious that we (meaning the Republican Party’s most faithful voters) place celebrity above actual knowledge of things, such as, say, the limits of the office at stake?

Trump is sounding like someone who wants to take singular control of the federal government. All those first-person singular references to all the action he intends to take suggest he doesn’t understand that the U.S. Constitution inhibits the power of the presidency.

Checks and balances, Donald?

The current president, Barack Obama, has used his own executive authority rationally and in accordance with the law … and yet we keep hearing from GOP leaders about the “lawlessness” they insist pervades the Obama administration.

Just wait’ll they see what a President Trump might try … not that it’ll matter to them.

And yet the man continues to set the pace in a field of highly qualified GOP contenders.

What in the world gives?

 

legal news, national news, political news

Woodward knows a ‘scandal’ when he sees one

Bob Woodward knows his way around a political scandal.

He once was a young police reporter working for the Metro desk at the Washington Post. Then some goofballs broke into the Democratic Party National Committee headquarters at the Watergate office complex. Woodward and Carl Bernstein, another young reporter, began smelling a scandal in the works.

It turned out to be a big one. President Richard Nixon ended up resigning when it was learned he ordered the cover-up of the burglary.

Woodward sees a similarity between then and what’s happening now with Hillary Rodham Clinton’s e-mail controversy. The e-mail matter deals with messages Clinton sent on her personal server that might have contained highly classified information while she was serving as secretary of state.

According to The Hill: “’Follow the trail here,’ Woodward said on MSNBC’s ‘Morning Joe,’ noting that emails erased from Clinton’s private server when she led the State Department were either sent or received by someone else, too.”

Clinton erased the e-mails, just like those audiotapes were erased back in the 1970s as the Watergate scandal began to creep up on President Nixon. That’s according to Woodward.

The man knows what a scandal looks like. The Clinton e-mail controversy isn’t a scandal. At least not yet.

political news

Birthers now targeting Sen. Cruz

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) speaks during the Family Leadership Summit in Ames, Iowa, on Aug. 10.

Ted Cruz wants to be president of the United States.

Is he constitutionally qualified to run for the office, let alone occupy it?

That is the question of the moment.

The birther movement has returned. This ought to be fun.

The freshman Republican senator from Texas was born in Canada. His mother is an American citizen; Daddy Cruz is from Cuba. My understanding of the U.S. Constitution tells me that Momma Cruz’s U.S. citizenship makes him eligible, regardless of the fact that he was born in another country.

But what the heck. That apparently isn’t quite as clear as it seems.

Mom and Dad Cruz might have become Canadian citizens prior to young Ted’s birth. The question that needs to be answered is this: Did Ted’s mother surrender her U.S. citizenship if she became a Canadian citizen?

If she didn’t, then there’s no problem. If he did, well, then Sen. Cruz has a problem.

This problem has dogged Barack Obama ever since he emerged as a possible presidential candidate prior to the 2008 election. Those on the right insisted he needed to prove he was born in Hawaii and not in Kenya, where his father was born. If we apply the same logic to Cruz’s citizenship — that he earned U.S. citizenship merely because his mother is an American — then such a question never should have mattered as it regarded Barack Obama; his mother was an American, too.

The birthers are back.

They’ll pursue Ted Cruz with the same passion they pursued Barack Obama … I’m quite sure.

International news, national news, political news

Get Mexico to pay for a wall? How do we do that?

GRA030 MELILLA, 22/10/2014.- Agentes de Policía junto a algunos de los ochenta inmigrantes que están encaramados desde primera hora a la valla de Melilla, fronteriza con Marruecos, tras el último intento de entrar en la ciudad autonóma protagonizado por varios centenares de subsaharianos, algunos de los cuales, al menos una docena, ha conseguido superar el vallado perimetral. EFE/Francisco G. Guerrero

Donald Trump has revealed his position paper on illegal immigration.

It appeals to a lot of Americans — apparently.

He wants to build an impenetrable wall; he wants to get rid of birthright citizenship; he demands that we deport all 11 million immigrants who are here illegally.

The question remains of the leading Republican Party presidential candidate: How do we do this?

I think the nuttiest notion deals with how we persuade Mexico to pay for building the wall. I’m trying to understand how a foreign government could demand something like that of, oh, the United States of America!

Would an American president stand still for such a demand? Would our Congress be willing to spend the money? Of course not!

I am wondering how a President Trump (those two words make my fingers tremble as I type them) could possibly expect Mexico to foot the bill for an enormous wall stretching from the mouth of the Rio Grande River to the Pacific Ocean.

And what, I must ask, would such a demand do to the long-standing friendship between the nations?

As the Washington Post reported: “… Trump says that undocumented immigrants ‘have to go,’ and he has vowed to undo President Obama’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program.”

The president issued an executive order that seek in part to protect temporarily those who were brought here when they were children from deportation. Trump would undo that order, round up those protected from deportation and send them back to the country their parents fled … even though they have grown up as Americans?

Someone has to explain to me how that is a humane policy.

national news, political news

Candidacy breeds generosity?

trump at fair

Donald Trump flew into the Iowa State Fair this weekend aboard his fancy helicopter.

He regaled the crowds and then gave children gathered around him free rides aboard the bird.

My wife wondered: “That’s all fine. It’s nice that Trump did that. My question is this — how many free rides to kids did he give before he became a candidate for president?”

Hey, maybe he’s the most generous billionaire real-estate mogul/reality TV star who’s ever lived. Or … maybe he’ a Scrooge.

My wife poses an interesting question that speaks to a larger issue.

You measure someone’s character by what he does when no one’s looking.