Category Archives: political news

International news, media news, national news, political news

Yes, Mr. POTUS, however …

Donald J. Trump said the following in advance of his meeting today with Vladimir Putin: “I think we will end up having an extraordinary relationship. I really think the world wants to see us get along.”

Great, Mr. President. I happen to agree with the notion that the “world wants to see us get along.”

But first things first.

Donald Trump needs to clear the air, lay down the law, get down to brass tacks … pick your throw-away phrase.

The president needs at the outset to deal forthrightly and in the strongest terms possible with the notion that Russian meddling in our electoral process is a total non-starter. He cannot continue to pass the Russian attack on our system of government off as somehow routine. He cannot say that “everyone does it,” and that the Russians are no worse than any other great power that seeks to do the same thing.

The two men are meeting at this moment. Whatever they said to each other behind closed doors remains a mystery.

I want to have faith that the president of the United States would give the president of Russia the trashing he deserves for doing what he did in 2016.

I am saddened at the lack of such faith that Donald Trump will do the right thing on behalf of the electoral system he took an oath to protect and defend.

Only then could the nations “get along.”

national news, political news

What do you mean by ‘everybody,’ Mr. President?

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Donald J. Trump sat down with Piers Morgan and made yet another astonishing exaggeration, which compels me to disabuse him of the idiocy he put out there.

Morgan asked the president if there is any doubt he will seek re-election in 2020. Trump said he’s all in for a re-election bid.

“Everybody wants me to run” for a second term, he said.

Huh? Wha … ? Eh? Everybody wants him to run?

Count me out, Mr. President. I am not a member of the Everybody Brigade he is citing.

Not only do I want him to walk away after his term, I want him booted out before the end of his term. Although I must concede that a President Mike Pence gives me pause as well, but for reasons that deal more with public policy than with general incompetence, ignorance, arrogance and rhetorical idiocy.

OK, I get that I’m likely nitpicking what Trump said about “everybody” wanting him to run again. However, if we’re being asked to take the president at his word, then I cannot remain silent when he blathers such absolute nonsense.

International news, national news, political news

Dear Mr. POTUS: Show Vlad the indictment

Dear Mr. President:

I know for a fact that you won’t listen to a blogger from way out here in Flyover Country, although I have moved closer to Dallas in recent weeks.

But that meeting you’ve got planned Monday with Vladimir Putin shouldn’t take place. The Justice Department — run by your appointees — has delivered a 29-page indictment of 12 Russian military intelligence officers; I like calling them “goons,” because that’s what they are … allegedly.

But if you’re going to go proceed with that Putin meeting, you need to take a copy of the indictment, slip it into a manila folder and then hand it to him. Then you need to tell him to answer for the contents of the folder.

Take my word for this, Mr. President: Putin will know what the indictment says. He’ll have read it many times. He’ll know it inside and out.

But you need to hold this killer accountable for the actions of his military brass. It appears clear that if they are guilty of what’s been alleged in the criminal complaint that they acted on Putin’s orders. He’s the top military man in Russia, just as you are the commander in chief in this country.

Are you going to do what you swore to do when you became president, which is protect the United States of America against its adversaries? Or are you going to continue to roll over and accept Putin’s denials that he attacked our electoral system?

You once accused the system of being “rigged” when the media were reporting that your Democratic foe was likely to win the 2016 election. Well, the election (allegedly) might have been “rigged” after all.

But not in the way you thought it would.

national news, political news

Deep State? What in the world is it?

I want to tell you about an encounter I had this morning with a stranger. He lives near my wife and me in North Texas.

He is a nice enough fellow. I didn’t get his name. I suspect I’ll see him again. We chatted this morning for a few minutes. He is politically astute and apparently is concerned about the deep divisions that exist in our great country.

Then he tossed out the term du jour, the current bogeyman of the right and far right: Yep, I’m talking about the Deep State.

I recently looked it up. It is meant to define institutions and people immune from voters’ wishes and whims. The fellow I met this morning says the Deep State exists. It’s real and its a profound threat … he said.

The Deep State — whatever it is — has taken form in the eyes of many Americans. I cannot confirm this, but it seems that those who believe in the Deep State threat appear to entertain a lot of conspiracy theories.

They find conspiracies at every turn. They don’t believe historians’ accounts of certain monumental events: political assassinations, huge terror attacks, mind-blowing technological and scientific achievements.

My neighbor didn’t get into too much detail about the Deep State or how he believes it is manipulating current events. He said the Deep State “has always existed.” He referred to big-money movers and shakers, huge financial institutions. Those are historical Deep State activists who have pulled the strings that dictate how our elected leaders should act.

A member of Congress is under investigation for allegedly looking the other way while a college sports doctor sexually abused athletes; he blames the Deep State for concocting this controversy. Donald Trump’s allies say all the attention being paid to allegations that his presidential campaign “colluded” with Russians spooks are part of the Deep State conspiracy.

The Deep State, whatever the hell it is, has become a throwaway term. It has become the term of art that some Americans want to blame for everything that is going wrong these days.

I am not wired that way. I don’t consider myself to be naive. I’m closing in on 70 years of life on this good Earth. I’ve been able to travel around the world. I had a modestly successful career in journalism. I managed to keep my eyes and ears wide open as I pursued by craft.

The Deep State is not entirely a figment of right-wing conspiracy goofballs’ imagination. Nor is it, in my view, a mysterious monster lurking in the shadows.

The Deep State is getting far too much “credit” than it deserves.

national news, political news

Another clumsy diversion from POTUS

I believe they call it “projection,” where someone seeks to project blame on to someone else.

Check out this tweet from Donald J. Trump regarding the Department of Justice indictment against 12 Russians on charges they conspired to meddle in the 2016 presidential election.

The stories you heard about the 12 Russians yesterday took place during the Obama Administration, not the Trump Administration. Why didn’t they do something about it, especially when it was reported that President Obama was informed by the FBI in September, before the Election?

What is the president trying to do here? I think I’ve got it.

He is trying to say that the Obama administration should have stopped the attack on our electoral system and that because the president didn’t act immediately, that it’s not the Trump campaign’s fault that the Russians interfered in our election.

Sorry, Mr. President. That doesn’t cut it.

The Trump campaign should have blown the whistle on the Russians in real time, the moment they came to whomever in the campaign with some dirty goods on Democratic nominee Hillary Rodham Clinton.

The Trumpsters didn’t act, either. Therefore, it’s on them.

The Trump campaign’s failure to act has led us to the appointment of a special counsel — Robert Mueller — who is seeking to slog his way through the thicket of evidence to determine whether there was collusion with the Russians.

Meanwhile, the president needs to stop trying to lay blame at the feet of others.

national news, political news

It’s the timing, man!

What are we to make of the timing of two key events in the 2016 presidential campaign?

Donald J. Trump in July of that year invited the Russian government to find the missing 30,000 e-mails that Hillary Rodham Clinton deleted from her file at the U.S. State Department.

Here is the GOP nominee making that invitation:

Then … according to an indictment handed down against 12 Russian military intelligence officers, on that very day they began hacking into the Democratic nominee’s files.

Coincidence? I think not. Neither does the legal team headed by special counsel Robert Mueller or the deputy attorney general, Rod Rosenstein, who appointed Mueller to the special counsel post.

I have believed since the beginning of this probe that Mueller’s so-called “witch hunt” is nothing of the sort.

International news, national news, political news

How will we know what comes from this meeting?

Donald J. Trump and Vladimir Putin are set to meet in Helsinki, Finland.

Trump says he’ll bring up the Russian meddling in our 2016 election. Now the question: What will Putin say in response?

How about the bigger question: How in the name of bilateral diplomacy are we ever going to know what Putin says?

The two men are going to meet one on one. No senior aides will be present. Only the presidents’ interpreters will be in the room.

Trump is a liar. Putin is a liar; Putin also is a killer, which gives me pause about the future of the interpreter Putin is bringing into the room with him. The Russian interpreter had better do his job correctly … if you get my drift.

Putin will deny meddling in the election. Trump will have the combined assessment of every intelligence agency at his command that has determined the Russians did attack our electoral system. Is the president going to throw that assessment back at his Kremlin colleague?

Oh, and now we have the indictments of 12 Russian intelligence officials. Robert Mueller has indicted them for their role in interfering in our election. This is a big one, folks. But do you know what? It could get even bigger!

How? Mueller well might be preparing to indict the Americans who were complicit in what the Russians allegedly did.

But … the U.S. president will meet with the Russian president. The proverbial elephant in the room will be the meddling matter. If only we could trust our president to tell us the truth about what he discusses with his Russian counterpart. Vladimir Putin most certainly isn’t to be trusted.

I fear about the certain lack of trust in our president, as well.

political news, State news

A word of caution to Beto’s supporters

Beto O’Rourke has raised more money than Ted Cruz in the race for Cruz’s U.S. Senate seat.

I am cheered by that news. I want the Democratic congressman from El Paso to defeat the Cruz Missile.

That said, I want to offer a brief word of caution. More money doesn’t necessarily translate to more votes.

Here is what the Texas Tribune is reporting:

Beto O’Rourke, the Democratic nominee for U.S. Senate in Texas, raised more than $10.4 million over the past three months, he announced Wednesday, revealing a sum that takes his already massive fundraising to new heights.

And the El Paso congressman again vastly outraised the Republican incumbent, Ted Cruz, who took in less than half of his challenger’s haul — $4.6 million — in the same time, according to his campaign. O’Rourke also took a decisive lead in cash on hand over Cruz with four months to Election Day, $14 million to $10.4 million.

O’Rourke’s latest haul is easily his biggest yet — topping the $6.7 million he raked in during the first quarter, which was far more than Cruz raised for the same period. Cruz’s second-quarter fundraising also was his largest yet, though not nearly enough to keep up with O’Rourke’s torrid pace.

O’Rourke has now outraised Cruz for every period but one since O’Rourke launched his Senate bid in March 2017.

I’ll conclude simply by reminding Beto’s Brigade that longtime Democratic U.S. Rep. Joe Crowley outspent his primary challenger Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez by 18-to-1 this past month … and he still lost the primary.

legal news, national news, political news

Yes, presidents can be investigated and indicted

Having offered admittedly muted praise for Judge Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court, I now want to challenge an assertion he has made about whether presidents can be indicted.

He has changed his mind on that one. Kavanaugh once worked for Kenneth Starr while Starr was investigating President Clinton, who eventually got impeached for lying to a grand jury and for — that’s right — obstruction of justice.

Kavanaugh was up to his armpits in assisting the counsel’s task of finding criminality in a president’s behavior.

Then he switched gears. Kavanaugh has since written that presidents have too much to do, too much on their plate to be distracted by potentially criminal investigations. Let me think. Is he providing cover for, oh, the guy who nominated him to the Supreme Court?

Here’s my point.

Of course presidents can be investigated. They aren’t above the law. They must be held to the same standard as their constituents, which is the entire country.

President Clinton was able to perform his presidential duties while he was under investigation and, indeed, while he was being impeached by the House of Representatives and tried by the Senate.

The same is true for President Nixon, who was under investigation for myriad offenses relating to Watergate. The House Judiciary Committee passed articles of impeachment and then the president resigned. Was he able to do his job while all of this was occurring? Of course he was!

My strong hunch is that the Senate Judiciary Committee that will consider Judge Kavanaugh’s nomination will ask him directly and pointedly about what he thought while working for Kenneth Starr and what he thinks these days now that Donald Trump wants him to serve on the highest court in the land.

I hope someone on the panel asks him: What made you change your mind, Judge?

legal news, national news, political news

Time to praise SCOTUS selection

I am feeling so good over the rescue of the Thai boys and their soccer coach from that flooded cave in northern Thailand that I want to offer a good word for Donald John Trump’s selection to the U.S. Supreme Court.

I’ll stipulate up front that you’ll deem this to be faint praise, but it’s praise nonetheless.

Appeals Court Judge Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination to the Supreme Court has angered the crackpot Trump “base.” They’re none too happy with Kavanaugh, fearing that he doesn’t appear to be as firmly opposed to Roe v. Wade as the base continues to be. Former U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania chided the president for surrendering to what he called the “Washington elite” by selecting Kavanaugh.

To be sure, the justice nominee is a conservative. He appears to be what one could call a “mainstream conservative,” not a goofball/wack-job conservative.

He has pledged to be independent and to study the law as it is written, not as one wishes it were written.

Is this the kind of judge I would have selected? Of course not! However, Trump is the president of the United States.

By anyone’s measure, Kavanaugh is supremely qualified to serve on the high court. He’s a Yale Law School grad, meaning that the entire Supreme Court would comprise Ivy League legal eagles if Kavanaugh is confirmed by the U.S. Senate.

The Senate will nitpick the daylights out of Kavanaugh’s lengthy written record. Senators will need to examine Kavanaugh’s views on health care, as well as on whether sitting presidents can be indicted for criminal offenses. His record suggests he might tilt the “wrong way” on both of those issues.

I continue to believe that while Kavanaugh’s conservative credentials might solidify the court’s right-leaning bias, it doesn’t guarantee it necessarily on every single key ruling that would come before the Supreme Court.

That seeming uncertainty, I submit, is what might be driving the Trump bloc of “base” voters nuts.