Category Archives: Donald Trump

Donald Trump

Trump ‘is not a white supremacist’

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Donald Trump deserves criticism for his tepid response to incidents involving white racists, bigots, nationalists, supremacists.

I am going to agree with acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney, though, when he defends the president by saying he “is not a white supremacist.”

Mulvaney made a talk-show appearance Sunday in which he defended the president’s speeches calling for religious liberty and individual liberty. He said also that Trump does not subscribe to the white supremacy doctrine.

I believe Mulvaney.

My wish is for the president to declare categorically, unequivocally and without an ounce of reservation that acts such as the horrific massacre in New Zealand the other day must be condemned with full-throated passion.

Trump doesn’t do that. He is unable or perhaps unwilling to speak to Americans about the evil of such acts. The president hasn’t yet found it within himself to declare open warfare against those who hate other human beings on racial, ethnic or religious grounds.

I want the president to say those things. He needs to speak to us candidly, frankly and with passion.

I do not believe he is a white supremacist, as Mulvaney has declared. However, he needs to demonstrate his willingness to condemn the actions of those groups that have cheered his election as president of the United States.

Donald Trump, national news

‘No collusion,’ Mr. President? Let’s wait on that one

 

Donald J. Trump has a “no collusion” fetish.

He keeps invoking the “no collusion” mantra even when it’s irrelevant to the issue of the day.

Take the Paul Manafort sentence handed down the other day. The president’s former campaign chairman got a 47-month sentence for tax fraud and assorted other crimes. None of them had a thing to do with the allegations that the campaign “colluded” with Russians who attacked our electoral system in 2016.

Yet there was the president of the United States, crowing about how the judge found no evidence of collusion with Russians.

Hey, Mr. President? That issue isn’t even on the table in this discussion. Manafort’s sentence didn’t have a single thing to do with collusion.

Oh, and Mr. President, we’re still awaiting Robert Mueller report that he supposedly is preparing to submit to Attorney General William Barr.

That is where we’re going to find out — more than likely — whether there is any Russian hanky-panky related to your 2016 presidential campaign.

So . . . POTUS needs to settle down and wait for the report silently.

Yeah, I know. I’m asking for the impossible.

Donald Trump

‘I, alone, can fix it’

This image showed up overnight on my Facebook feed.

It speaks to the absences among many key advisory posts in Donald Trump’s administration.

I agree with the notion that he has “no clue.” However, think of this for just a moment:

He told the entire world at the Republican Party’s presidential nominating convention in the summer of 2016 that “I, alone, can fix” the problems bedeviling the United States of America.

OK, so Trump has an “acting” chief of staff; he has nominated a U.N. envoy, as he has nominated a defense chief.

Still it does seem quite possible that, before the end of his presidency, he’ll get a chance to show the world whether he “alone” can fix anything.

Donald Trump

POTUS to block ‘fake news’ outlets? No can do

Oh, please, Mr. President. You cannot do what you are threatening to do.

Just because the Democratic National Committee chairman, Tom Perez, has decided that Fox News is too much in bed with you and your administration and has ruled that Fox cannot host any Democratic primary debates this coming year, you cannot invoke the power of your high office to retaliate.

Really, Mr. President? The First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution expressly forbids that kind of interference from the government in the affairs of a free press. Really. It’s in there, Mr. President.

Tom Perez’s gambit falls outside the constitutional prohibition of such activity, given that the Constitution doesn’t even mention political parties.

What you are threatening to do, sir, flies directly in the face of what the founders intended when they provided specific protections for a private enterprise known as the “free press.” It’s the only such protection written into the Constitution. You would do well to read it, grasp what it means and stop this idiotic tit-for-tat game you’re playing with the media.

But I get that it plays well with your base. They love the grandstanding, the posturing, the hyperbole. They think you’re “telling it like it is.”

Actually, Mr. President, you’re telling it like you believe it is. Since your true believers agree with you, that’s all that matters to you.

Settle down, sir. Just stop that idiotic relationship with Fox News. Stop calling Sean Hannity and asking him for policy advice. He doesn’t know enough about the real world to give you any counsel that’s worth a damn as it is.

Donald Trump

How does the Christian ‘base’ like POTUS’s potty mouth?

I’m scratching my head — and not because it itches.

I am wondering something about Donald Trump’s two-hour tirade today at the Conservative Political Action Conference meeting.

He stood before the faithful and laid out a profanity-laced harangue against the media, Democrats, special counsel Robert Mueller, socialists.

The word “sh**” and certain variations of it were on full display today.

My wonderment? A big part of the president’s “base” includes the evangelical Christian movement. They like Trump’s judicial appointments; they support his statements about prayer in school; they adhere to his newly found pro-life stance on abortion. They don’t mind that he mocks individuals’ speech, such as what he did today in mimicking former AG Jeff Sessions’ Southern drawl.

They give him a pass on his serial philandering on all three of his wives. They say every person is entitled to God’s grace.

But wait. Do they really like a president who spews filthy language in public? Is that the tone and tenor of a Godly man?

Trump goes wild at CPAC

Please don’t remind me that other presidents have salted their language. Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon, John F. Kennedy, George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama all were known to utter profanity in private. Heck, “W” did so in my presence, to me, about five years before he was elected president.

But I don’t ever remember any of those men lacing their language with the profanity that flies out of Trump’s pie hole during public speeches, such as what he did today.

I don’t get it.

Is that how he “tells it like it is”?

Donald Trump, International news

How in the world can POTUS ‘like’ a murderous tyrant?

Donald Trump’s best friends among the ranks of world leaders seem to have something in common. They’re tyrants, strongmen, autocrats, dictators . . . any and/or all of the above.

His latest demonstration of such were his statements about how much he likes North Korean tyrant Kim Jong Un. It begs the critical question: How is it that the president of the United States of America “like” someone such as Kim Jong Un.

For the record, Kim Jong Un is starving his people while he lives in relative opulence; Kim has murdered members of his own family because they disagree with his policies; he terrorizes his subjects mercilessly; he threatens South Korea with nuclear annihilation.

Then he lied about not knowing about the imprisonment of an American college student, Otto Warmbier, who then was relegated to a vegetative state and released; Warmbier died as a result of his captivity.

Trump said he believes Kim’s denial that he was aware of Warmbier’s mistreatment.

He groveled at Russian strongman Vladimir Putin, who denied attacking our electoral system in 2016. Trump swallowed Putin’s denial over the assessment of the nation’s intelligence community that determined the Russians did attack us in 2016.

When a U.S. resident journalist was killed in Turkey by Saudi agents, Trump accepted the denial that Saudi prince Mohammad bin Salman ordered the killing of Jamal Khashoggi.

Trump’s latest display of infatuation with a tyrant — Kim Jong Un — reveals a dangerous trend. The president of the United States — who occupies the most powerful office on Earth — acts with astonishing weakness when he takes the word of a killer.

Donald Trump, national news

Now it’s Jared Kushner in the hot seat . . . sheesh!

Good grief! My head is hurting.

As if the scandals surrounding the president’s possible violation of the Emoluments Clause, the Robert Mueller investigation, the hush money payments to a porn star weren’t enough — now we hear that the First Son-in-Law, Jared Kushner is the midst of yet another potential scandal.

Donald Trump said he didn’t do anything to grease it for Kushner to get a top-secret security clearance to work in the White House. Kushner’s wife, Ivanka Trump, said the same thing.

Then comes reporting that — yep! — the president did, in fact, order that Kushner get the security clearance. The president threw his weight around to assure that Kushner, the guy with zero government experience or exposure, would get the top clearance offered to key White House advisers.

When does this baloney stop? When do we stop being jarred by the president’s astonishing lies?

I think I know when it’ll happen. That will occur when Donald Trump walks out of the White House for the final time.

Oh, how I hope it’s sooner rather than later.

Donald Trump, International news

Immigration reform? Remember that matter?

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The nation is getting all tangled up in this discussion over whether to build Trump’s Wall along our southern border.

Democrats and a growing number of Republicans don’t want it; Donald Trump’s followers — led by the cadre of talk-radio blowhards — are all for it.

What I am not hearing — maybe I’m not paying enough attention — is any serious discussion about how we might actually apply a permanent repair to the problem of illegal immigration.

How about turning our attention to serious immigration reform legislation?

We keep making feeble attempts at it. We get sidetracked and discouraged because too many members of Congress are resisting those calls for reform.

Then we hear about data that tell us that a huge percentage of those who are in the United States illegally are those whose work visas have expired. So, they arrive here legally but become illegal residents because those visas have run out. These one-time legal residence then are called “criminals” and “lawbreakers.” The become fodder for the president and his supporters to erect that wall along our southern border.

Can’t there be a concerted push to hire more administrative personnel for the Immigration and Naturalization Service to process these visas or to speed up citizenship requests from those who want to become Americans?

The president did offer a form of compromise during that partial government shutdown by suggesting a three-year reprieve from deportation for so-called Dreamers, those who were brought here as children when their parents sneaked in illegally. That’s a start. However, Donald Trump connected that idea with more money to build his wall, which made it a non-starter for those who oppose The Trump Wall.

So now the president has declared a “national emergency.” There is no such thing on our border with Mexico. The only “emergency,” it seems to me, rests with the interminable delays that occur when foreign-born residents’ work visas run out or when they seek citizenship to the Land of Opportunity.

How about getting busy applying a permanent repair to the problem?

Donald Trump, national news, political news

Run, Gov. Weld, run!

Wouldn’t it be just a kick in the backside if William Weld re-creates a Eugene McCarthy moment in the 2020 race for the presidency of the United States?

Weld, the former Republican governor of Massachusetts, has formed an exploratory committee to determine whether to mount a primary challenge against Donald Trump. Weld said many other Republicans “exhibit all the symptoms of Stockholm syndrome, identifying with their captor.”

Weld ran for vice president in 2016 on the Libertarian ticket headed by former New Mexico Gov. Gary Johnson. The ticket didn’t do too well, gathering just 4.5 million votes, or about 3 percent of the total.

He wants back into the fight, this time as a Republican.

The McCarthy moment? In 1968, the Vietnam War was raging and Sen. McCarthy, a Minnesota Democrat, mounted a Democratic Party primary challenge against President Lyndon Johnson. McCarthy — a vehement anti-war candidate — took his campaign to the nation’s first primary state, New Hampshire.

He then finished a very strong second to President Johnson, sending shockwaves through the Democratic Party establishment. McCarthy’s strong showing brought Sen. Robert F. Kennedy into the race. Then on March 31, 1968, LBJ spoke to the nation to announce an end to the bombing campaign against North Vietnam — and then said he would not seek or accept the Democratic nomination “for another term as your president.”

History does have a way of repeating itself. If only Gov. Weld can mount any sort of serious challenge to the wack job serving as president of the United States.

One’s hope must spring eternal. Mine does.

Donald Trump, national news

Still waiting for that ‘presidential’ moment

A critic or two of my blog has noted that I continue to resist referring to Donald Trump by placing the term “President” in front of his name. They don’t like it, calling me disrespectful of the man who was duly elected to the nation’s highest office.

So help me, as the Good Lord is my witness, I am waiting for that moment — or perhaps a sequence of moments — when I can feel as if the president of the United States has earned that honor from yours truly.

It hasn’t arrived. I don’t know if it will. I want it to arrive. I feel like the guy waiting for the bus or the train that’s overdue. I keep craning my neck, standing on my tiptoes, looking for all I can for some sign that the vehicle is on its way.

The same is true with Donald Trump.

As a presidential candidate, the man disgraced himself and the office he sought with behavior that is utterly beyond repugnant. The denigration of the late Sen. John McCain’s heroic service to the nation as a prisoner during the Vietnam War; the mocking of New York Times reporter Serge Kovaleski’s serious neuro-muscular disability; the insults he hurled at his Republican primary foes; the hideous implication, for example, that Sen. Ted Cruz’s father was complicit in President Kennedy’s murder.

Also, we had that years-long lie that Trump fomented about President Obama’s eligibility to run for and to serve as president of the United States; Trump was one of the founders of the so-called “Birther Movement.”

He brought all that, and more, into the White House when he won the 2016 election.

Since taking office, he has acted like the carnival barker he became as a candidate. His incessant Twitter messaging, the manner in which he has fired Cabinet officials and assorted high-level federal officers have contributed to the idiocy that he promotes.

There have been moments of lucidity from this president. He pitched a much-needed effort on federal sentencing reform; he struck at Syria when it gassed its citizens.

The rest of it has been not worthy of the office this individual occupies.

I want to be able to string the words “President” and “Trump” together consecutively.  I cannot do it.

Maybe one day. Something tells me I shouldn’t hold my breath.