Category Archives: political news

national news, political news

Tough to keep track of all the lies

White House communications officials — to a person — have the toughest jobs in America. Of that I am now convinced.

They have to respond to mistruths — yes, outright lies — muttered by the man for whom they all work.

Donald J. Trump, the president of the United States, provides an endless supply of them. It’s stunning.

Two of them poured out of his pie hole just this week. The White House communications team had to acknowledge that, yep, they were false.

Trump appeared before the Boy Scout Jamboree and delivered a patently hideous speech that injected partisan politics into a patently non-political event. He said Scout leaders called him to tell him that was the greatest speech ever delivered to the Jamboree.

They never called. Indeed, the head of Boy Scouts of America issued an apology for the tone and tenor of the president’s speech.

Then came the statement, again from Trump, that Mexico’s President Enrique Pena Nieto phoned him to congratulate Trump on cracking down on illegal immigration into the United States from Mexico.

Uhhh, that call never was made, either.

This is part and parcel of the president’s modus operandi: tell a lie and then never, ever atone for it by acknowledging — at minimum — that he might have “misspoken.”

I get that Trump is far from the first politician to fudge the truth. Then-Sen. Barack Obama once made a mention while he was running for president of “all 57 states” in this country. Oops! He missed that one by seven. Do you also remember how Hillary Clinton once told of dodging hostile gunfire while landing in Bosnia? That was a more egregious error.

The current president, though, is making a mockery of the truth. Former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper has accused the Trump administration of launching an “assault on the truth” as it seeks to bob-and-weave its way through the Russia investigation.

The assault is being coordinated — and I use that term with caution — by the man at the top. He cannot help himself. He cannot tell the truth.

How in the name of efficacy does he get away with this?

International news, national news, political news, State news

Rick Perry at Homeland Security? Interesting idea

Reports are surfacing that Energy Secretary Rick Perry is being considered for a major Cabinet shift within the Trump administration.

The Texas Tribune reports that Perry might move to the Homeland Security Department to become the new secretary there, replacing John Kelly, who’s taken the thankless job of White House chief of staff.

That the former Texas governor is under consideration for the Homeland Security job makes plenty of sense to me. I believe he could be a good fit in that post.

He served for 14 years as governor of Texas, which has the longest border with Mexico of all the states along our southern border. He understands the issue of border security as well as any leading politician.

As the Texas Tribune reports, though, a shift of this importance signals a dramatic — some would say unbelievable — evolution in the relationship between Gov. Perry and Donald J. Trump. Perry once campaigned for the presidency against Trump. Perry then called his fellow Republican a “cancer on conservatism.” Trump ridiculed Perry after the former governor started wearing eyeglasses, suggesting Perry did so only to make himself look smarter.

All that changed, though, after Trump’s election. The two men buried the hatchet — and not in each other’s backs. The Energy Department job was Perry’s reward from the man who beat him for the GOP presidential nomination.

Is the former governor the perfect pick for Homeland Security? No, but in one way — to my way of thinking — he actually could be better than the man he would succeed. Perry’s record as Texas governor suggests a more reasonable immigration outlook than the one John Kelly espoused while he ran DHS. Perry’s understanding of border issues, earned by his years as governor of a large and important state, tells me he well could be a stellar choice to lead the Department of Homeland Security.

Cue the music and let’s see whether this latest report puts Rick Perry into the DHS chair.

International news, national news, political news

Open wide, Mr. President, and swallow this bill

Congress has just force-fed Donald J. Trump a heaping helping of his least-favorite veggie, chased down with a bitter concoction of political reality.

The president signed a bill that imposes tough new sanctions on Russia. He doesn’t like the bill. He signed it anyway, then took a series of shots at Congress for — as the president implied — undermining executive authority to conduct foreign policy.

Poor guy. What lawmakers have done is hold him more accountable for the way he deals with Russia, the nation that meddled in our 2016 presidential election.

Trump continues to remain virtually silent on the meddling matter. He has said utterly nothing in public about the harsh retaliation that Vladimir Putin recently took in response to the sanctions bill; the Russian president ordered the expulsion of 755 U.S. diplomats and foreign service staffers. Trump’s reaction? Silence, nothing.

So now we have imposed more sanctions on Russia. The president needs congressional authority to lighten them, which gets under Trump’s paper-thin skin.

He lashed out at Congress for its inability to approve a bill to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act and said he, alone, is able to negotiate better deals with foreign powers than those nincompoops on Capitol Hill.

Meanwhile, the probe into Russia’s meddling continues. The president needs to let that investigation proceed full throttle. If it produces nothing, then Donald Trump can crow himself hoarse. If it comes up with something, um, incriminating, then he has to deal with whatever consequences fall into his lap.

If the president isn’t going to speak out on behalf of our electoral system, then it behooves Congress to articulate a nation’s outrage. That is what lawmakers have done with this sanctions bill — and they have forced it down the president’s throat. Good for them!

political news

A joke, Mr. President? Why not apologize?

Sarah Huckabee Sanders has inherited the least desirable job in America: White House press secretary.

She is assigned to defend statements that pour out of the mouth of the president of the United States, who recently told law enforcement officials that they need not concern themselves with treating criminal suspects with respect.

It’s OK to rough up those who are arrested, Donald John Trump Sr. said.

Sanders’ answer to that? The president was making a joke, she said.

Wow! I missed that one. I didn’t see it as a joke. I was offended. So were top cops across the land. So were politicians in both parties.

This, therefore, begs the question: Why not apologize for a misconstrued joke, Mr. President?

I get that Trump isn’t inclined to apologize for anything. He hasn’t said he’s sorry for a single thing he has said since becoming a politician in June 2015. The insults? The mocking of disabled individuals? The defamation of political opponents? The furthering of “fake news” involving President Barack Obama’s place of birth? Nothing, man.

Pols apologize all the time for jokes that fall flat. Heck, I’d even settle for one of those phony “If I offended anyone … “ non-apologies we hear on occasion. Yes, even one of those would be welcome if it were to come from the lips of the Non-Apologist in Chief.

Was he joking, or not? The president’s silence on this matter of police conduct suggests — to me — that he meant what he said.

national news, political news

Great start, Gen. Kelly!

Donald John Trump Sr. welcomed new White House chief of staff John Kelly to his post this morning.

The president predicted that Kelly would do a “spectacular job” in the West Wing. I’m going to presume a bit here, but it looks as though the new chief of staff is off to a rip-roarin’ start.

Within hours of being sworn in, Kelly got the president to give White House communications director Anthony “Mooch” Scaramucci the heave-ho — 10 days after Trump hired him!

There’s no nice way to say this, but Mooch conducted himself like a maniac in his White House job. He has no comparable experience that would have commended him for the job and, oh brother, it showed.

Kelly brings an entirely different skill set to his chief of staff job, which he assumed after Reince Priebus got the axe this past week. Kelly is a retired Marine Corps general; he has 45 years of service in the military; he is a combat veteran — and a Gold Star father, having suffered the terrible tragedy of losing a son in combat in Afghanistan.

The president’s prediction of a “spectacular” performance by his new chief of staff was delivered quickly by the new guy.

Gen. Kelly has a long, steep mountain to climb before completing the task of converting the White House from an Animal House into a “fine-tuned” center of government operations.

His first full day at his new post suggests he is up to the task.

Then again, it’s only been a day. Gen. Kelly still has yet another wildfire to control. That would be the president of the United States.

national news, political news

Republicans become party of diverse thought

I want to offer a good word or three about today’s Republican Party.

Yes, I’ve been beating them up a good bit of late. The GOP has deserved the drubbing. However, I want to speak to something that became evident after Donald John Trump Sr. tweeted out his decision to ban transgender Americans from serving in the armed forces.

The Republican Party has exhibited a profound sense of diverse thought on that issue.

On one side, we have heard some of the more predictable reactions. Former Texas Gov. Rick Perry — who’s now energy secretary in the Trump administration — said he supports the president “totally” in his decision to ban transgender citizens from service in defense of the nation. Fellow Texan, state Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller — a fellow not known for thoughtful rhetoric — said the armed forces are “no place for social experimentation.”

Then came the push back from other notable Republican pols. Many members of Congress expressed disappointment and dismay that Trump would use Twitter to announce such a staggering policy shift.

Then came a highly personal statement from U.S. Sen. Orrin Hatch, the Utah lawmaker known as one of the Senate’s more conservative members. Transgender individuals do not “choose” to change their sexual identity, Hatch said. “They are born that way,” he added. Sen. Hatch said it is unfair to hold that against them.

The GOP has demonstrated considerable diversity as well in this debate over whether to repeal the Affordable Care Act. The moderate wing of the Republican caucus dislikes many of the provisions contained in the GOP-authored bill; it cuts too much from Medicaid, for example. The TEA Party/conservative wing of the caucus dislikes the overhaul because it doesn’t go far enough in repealing the ACA, the signature legislation authored by Democrats during the Obama administration.

Democrats, meanwhile, speak with a single voice on those and many other issues. It must be Democrats’ universal disdain for Trump and the fact that he managed to win the 2016 presidential election against Hillary Rodham Clinton. Believe me, I understand their anger on that one!

However, the Republican Party has shown itself to be more willing to expose its differences in the months since Trump became president.

For that, I applaud Republicans.

Oh, and yes, the stalling of the Trump “agenda” — whatever it is — has played a key part in earning my praise.

national news, political news

Trump: ‘Unfit for command’

Douglas Brinkley and I are on the same page, we’re singing off the same song sheet, we are of like minds.

There. I don’t intend to cast myself as a knowledgeable presidential historian in the mold of Brinkley, but he has said out loud what many of us across the land have believed all along.

It is that Donald John Trump Sr. is “unfit for command.” He is not fit to hold the office he occupies. The president of the United States is in hopelessly over his head, out of his depth.

The basis for Brinkley’s harsh analysis lies in the “chaos” that pervades the White House. Brinkley points specifically to Anthony “Mooch” Scaramucci, the newly named White House communications director. Mooch has managed to accentuate the chaos by virtue of that hideous, profane interview he gave to The New Yorker in which he described former White House chief of staff Reince Priebus — and I hate using this terminology — as a “f*****g schizophrenic, a paranoiac.”

I must point out that Priebus was still the chief of staff when Mooch made that ghastly assessment. The president booted Priebus out of his job a few days later.

What kind of head of state and head of government allows an underling to use that kind of language in public to describe a fellow federal staff member? What kind of man tolerates that kind of behavior?

Oh, wait! It’s the kind of man who said years ago that he has grabbed women by their genitals; he has said Sen. John McCain was a “war hero only because he was captured” by the enemy during the Vietnam War; he is the individual who mocked a disabled journalist; he is the candidate who thinks nothing of lying and of defaming political opponents; he is a president who calls the media “the enemy of the American people.”

Many of us have believed all along that Trump is “unfit for command.”

Welcome aboard, Professor Brinkley.

medical news, national news, political news

Trump ponders new display of heartlessness

Donald John Trump Sr.’s next potential display of heartless public policy would hit yours truly a good bit more personally.

The president is now considering whether to end government subsidies of health insurance plans until Congress repeals the Affordable Care Act. Such a move would render health insurance utterly unaffordable for millions of Americans. I happen to know that because our household benefited greatly from the subsidy.

Does the president have a clue as to what he’s pondering? Does he have any feeling in what passes for a heart for those who would be affected by a decision to pull the plug on these subsidies?

My wife and I had to purchase health insurance to cover my wife after her post-employment insurance plan expired. The ACA required us to purchase it under the “individual mandate” provision. We sought counsel with our insurance agent, who shopped around for a provider who could cover us. She found it and then we applied online — through healthcare.gov — for the subsidy; we got it approved and my wife was able to be covered by health insurance under the ACA.

That policy expired the day she became eligible for Medicare.

But the point here is that if Trump decides to end the ACA subsidy, he is going to deprive millions of Americans — just like my wife and me — of an opportunity to purchase health insurance.

This is how Trump is proposing to let the ACA “implode”?

At what cost, Mr. President?

So help me, Donald Trump Sr. disgusts me to my core.

national news, political news

Listen to this senator

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h1YpvX0dEHM

This video lasts 4 minutes and 34 seconds. It is part of a speech that U.S. Sen. John McCain delivered in the midst of an impassioned debate on the Senate floor about whether to repeal the Affordable Care Act.

McCain came back to Capitol Hill to cast a decisive vote against repeal and replacement of the ACA, effectively killing the Republican effort to affect one-sixth of the U.S. economy.

McCain’s speech, though, deals mostly with the political process that has rendered the Senate virtually impotent. The body has become infected with a win-at-any-cost mentality that McCain says strips the Senate of the title of being “the world’s greatest deliberative body.”

McCain — who’s battling brain cancer — took responsibility for being part of the problem. He would go on later to call for a return to “regular order.” He wants the Senate — and I presume the House of Representatives, too — to return to process that encourages compromise and cooperation among lawmakers of both political parties.

It’s not that way now. The word “compromise” has become an epithet. Sen. McCain is right to call for a return to the old way of doing things on Capitol Hill. It’s the only way out of the morass that has engulfed the nation’s legislative branch of government.

Listen to this snippet. It speaks volumes about a brave and heroic American. Our political system needs many more just like him.

national news, political news

Hold on, Rep. Waters!

Donald John Trump Sr. isn’t the only American politician who needs to bind up his hands to keep him from abusing his Twitter account.

U.S. Rep. Maxine Waters? I’m talking about you!

The California Democrat is one of the president’s most vocal and consistent critics. She fired off a tweet that said Vice President Pence already is planning his inauguration in anticipation of Trump’s impeachment and conviction of assorted “high crimes and misdemeanors.” She said former White House press flack Sean Spicer and ex-chief of staff Reince Priebus will “lead the transition.”

Read my lips here: I take a back seat to no one in my disdain for this president and the way he has conducted himself. But impeachment is not even close to occurring.

Waters has been around Capitol Hill for a long time. I am going to presume she does an adequate job representing her California congressional district, given that she’s been re-elected numerous times since her first election to Congress in 1990.

She tends to make a national name for herself, though, by popping off during heated political debates. It’s getting pretty damn hot in Washington these days, as I believe we all can attest.

Waters isn’t the first anti-Trumpkin to talk openly about impeachment. Fellow Democratic U.S. Rep. Al Green of Texas has filed articles of impeachment, but it isn’t going anywhere — at least not yet.

But this business of using Twitter as a platform to make these kinds goofy political pronouncements is beginning to annoy many of us. You may count me as among the annoyed.