Category Archives: Donald Trump

Donald Trump

Waiting for POTUS to deliver the goods

I wrote a blog post in December 2016 that laid out some of the things that could produce a good word from High Plains Blogger about Donald John Trump Sr.

Nearly two years later, I am still waiting for the president to deliver the goods on what I had hoped — with all sincerity — would happen and, thus, enable me to write something wholly positive about the job he is doing.

https://highplainsblogger.com/2016/12/hoping-for-trump-to-earn-praise/

My strong fear now is that Donald Trump is beyond help. He cannot earn a good word, ever, from this blog.

But as I noted in the earlier blog post … there’s always tomorrow.

Maybe. Possibly.

Donald Trump

Trump praise getting harder to deliver

I truly hoped to be able to write good words of praise for Donald J. Trump. Honest. I write truthfully about that.

But dang it! Events keep overtaking me. And the president. These events keep precluding High Plains Blogger from offering unqualified praise for positive events emanating from the Trump administration.

Convictions, guilty pleas, presidential harangues against career federal prosecutors, threats to fire the special counsel and the attorney general.

At almost every turn, Donald Trump keeps acting like a guilty party in all these investigations swirling around him and his deeply troubled and flawed presidency.

How can a critic, such as me, look past all this stuff? How can one assess whatever good comes from the administration without adding some sort of caveat that shrouds praise in something, oh, less praiseworthy?

I’m on the verge of surrendering to all this negativity. I just might have to give up looking for reasons to write positive blog entries.

The hard part involves offering praise for the sake of praise. No strings attached. No qualifiers needed.

The president keeps sinking more deeply into the morass.

Donald Trump, media news

Trump keeps playing to his rabid, er, fervent base

Call him whatever you like — or maybe whatever I like.

Liar in Chief. Purveryor of Fake News in Chief. Prevaricator in Chief.

Donald J. Trump is continuing a sustained attack on the media, calling them — and yes, this man has some stones — merchants of “fake news.” This, coming from the man who promoted the lie that Barack Obama was not qualified to serve as president because, according to Trump, he was born abroad.

As The Hill reported: “I just cannot state strongly enough how totally dishonest much of the Media is. Truth doesn’t matter to them, they only have their hatred & agenda,” Trump tweeted Thursday morning.

Trump believes this attack-the-media strategy is a winner. He is mistaken.

He comes off in my mind — and in the minds of millions of other patriotic Americans — as a goon seeking to intimidate those who work in a craft protected specifically by the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

Trump has gone after CNN and NBC. Occasionally he rails against The New York Times and The Washington Post. Damn, I wish he would say something about High Plains Blogger … but I fear he doesn’t see this blog from little ol’ me way out here in the heartland.

Oh, well.

But the president is treading on some dangerous turf as he continues to disparage the media, whose function includes a duty to hold government accountable. That means those who run the government, and that means the president of the United States.

Every one of Trump’s presidential predecessors has understood that necessity; some understood it more fully than others, to be sure.

This clown, this carnival barker, this unethical and corrupt-to-the-core wanna-be tyrant doesn’t get it.

He is a disgrace to his office.

Donald Trump

McCain ‘partially to blame’ for WH flag mess? Uh, huh

U.S. Sen. James Inhofe says the late Sen. John McCain is “partially to blame” for the White House messing up the protocol of lowering flags to honor the Arizona Republican who died over the weekend.

Partially to blame? Well, let’s explore that briefly.

The White House staff had difficulty deciding when to lower the flags to honor the late senator. But, according to Inhofe, McCain could be crusty, a bit mean and rude. He spoke angrily to and about Donald J. Trump. Thus, the blame for the White House protocol SNAFU falls partially on the senator.

“We are dealing with a hero when we deal with Senator McCain,” Inhofe said. “He wasn’t always the most lovable person to be around, but he was a fighter and never shied away from a good fight.”

What crap!

Everyone in Washington knows about Sen. McCain’s occasional temper bursts. Yes, he could be harsh. However, Donald Trump started this feud with that hideous, ridiculous and ghastly statement that McCain was a Vietnam War hero “only because he was captured. I like people who aren’t captured, OK?”

It went downhill from there.

I don’t accept the notion that Sen. McCain is “partially to blame,” or even to blame just a tiny bit for the president’s lack of class and dignity. Trump has disrespected McCain at every turn ever since the “only because he was captured” idiocy during the 2016 presidential campaign.

John McCain served this country in myriad ways that are totally foreign to Donald Trump’s life prior to his becoming a politician.

I am one American who stands foursquare behind the fallen senator.

Donald Trump

White House makes a mess of standard tribute

Let’s call it what it appears to be: a major-league clusterf***.

Someone at the White House — where Donald J. Trump resides with his wife and young son — lowered the flag atop the building to half-staff immediately after U.S. Sen. John McCain’s death this past weekend.

Then the flag went back to the top of the staff.

And then it came down again today. The president issued a “thoughts and prayers” statement to Sen. McCain’s family initially, and then issued a statement saying that despite the two men’s differences over “politics and policy,” the president said “I respect his service” to the country.

Gosh. Overwhelming, yes? Well … no. It isn’t. But you know that already.

Read CNN.com’s report here.

Actually, the president has yet to make any kind of statement saluting the late senator’s enormous contributions to his nation, his 60 years of public service — including his more than five years as a Vietnam War prisoner as a captive of North Vietnam. Trump denigrated McCain’s war service and the heroism he displayed while being held captive. And as McCain fought the cancer that killed him, Trump continued to blast the senator over his “no” vote to repeal the Affordable Care Act.

Of course, McCain issued a directive that the president shouldn’t attend his funeral. Instead, the senator asked former Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama to deliver eulogies in his honor. And, yes, Vice President Mike Pence — a former congressional colleague of Sen. McCain — will represent the Trump administration.

Dear reader, we are witnessing yet again the clumsiness and ineptitude of the Donald J. Trump administration over a ceremonial duty that should be second nature.

Shameful.

Donald Trump, national news

Disinvited to a leading senator’s funeral?

I cannot remember this ever happening: a president of the United States is disinvited to the funeral of a leading political figure … of his own political party at that!

They’ll have a funeral soon for the late Sen. John McCain — and, yes, it’s strange to type the word “late” in front of this man’s name — but the president of the United States, Donald Trump, has been told not to attend. McCain reportedly said he didn’t want the president there.

The two men had serious political differences to be sure. However, Trump took it to a different level. He denigrated the senator’s Vietnam War record; and while McCain was fighting the cancer that killed him, he continued to rail against him for casting a “no” vote that preserved the Affordable Care Act.

McCain had enough. He let it be known he didn’t want Trump at his funeral.

I don’t know what the president will do. His presence will serve as a serious distraction, given all the trouble he is in on so many fronts.

I just hope Sen. McCain will get the farewell he deserves from men and women he respected — and who respected him in return.

Donald Trump

Is the president going to slit his own (political) throat?

How can Donald J. Trump make things worse than they are already?

Here’s a scenario to ponder: He can fire U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions after the midterm elections, nominate a new person to lead the Justice Department, then he can fire special counsel Robert Mueller and hope the Senate confirms a new AG who’ll shut down the investigation that Mueller has been conducting for more than a year.

Can you say “impeachment”?

Read The Hill report here.

The president clearly has no trust in the current AG because of Sessions’s decision to recuse himself from anything to do with the Russia investigation. The special counsel is trying to determine whether there was any conspiracy by the Trump presidential campaign to collude with Russians seeking to influence the 2016 election outcome.

Does he fire the AG? Does he then nominate someone who’ll do the president’s bidding? Does the AG nominee pledge some sort of fealty to the president even if it means he doesn’t follow the law?

Trump, to no one’s surprise, has concocted a phony excuse for his displeasure with Sessions. “Never took control of the Justice Department,” Trump said on “Fox & Friends.”  “And it’s sort of a regrettable thing.”

What utter crap! Sessions’s “mistake” was to recuse himself from the Russia matter. Why? Because the AG couldn’t possibly lead an investigation into a presidential campaign in which he was a major player. So he did the only thing he could do under DOJ rules of conduct.

Is the president capable of turning a bad situation into something so very much worse? You’re damn straight he can.

Donald Trump, legal news, national news, political news

Sessions’s days as AG are counting down?

Donald J. Trump has just made the case for why U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions had no choice but to recuse himself from the investigation into “The Russia Thing.”

Of course, he doesn’t see it that way, because he has no understanding of government ethics or, for that matter, government decency.

Sessions has fired back at another round of criticism from the president. He said, “While I am Attorney General, the actions of the Department of Justice will not be improperly influenced by political considerations. I demand the highest standards, and where they are not met, I take action.” He added in a Fox News interview: “However, no nation has a more talented, more dedicated group of law enforcement investigators and prosecutors than the United States.”

Trump went yet another tear against Sessions, criticizing him for his recusal. What is his rationale? Get a load of this, as reported by The Hill: “Even my enemies say that, ‘Jeff Sessions should have told you he was going to recuse himself, and then you wouldn’t have put him in,’” Trump said in an interview that aired Thursday.

Trump also said that he only selected Sessions, previously a senator from Alabama, to be his top law enforcement officer because of his “loyalty” during the campaign.

“He was on the campaign. You know, the only reason I gave him the job was because I felt loyalty,” Trump said. “He was an original supporter.”

Jeff Sessions could not be called upon to lead an investigation into a campaign in which he was an integral part. The Department of Justice has deeply rooted codes of conduct that preclude the AG from leading such a probe. Sessions — a man for whom I have little actual regard, mind you — recognized the blatant conflict of interest and pulled himself out of the investigation into whether there was “collusion” between Russian government agents and the Trump campaign.

For the president, moreover, to continue to malign the integrity of the professional team assembled at DOJ is reprehensible on its face.

The attorney general is right to praise the quality of the men and women who do the grunt work for the Department of Justice. The president is dead wrong to disrespect and disparage them.

Donald Trump, national news

Sen. Graham then and now on impeachment

Darn that public domain. Sometimes it can come back and bite public officials in the backside.

Take it away, Sen. Lindsey Graham.

The South Carolina Republican once helped prosecute President Bill Clinton when the 42nd president was being impeached by the U.S. House of Representatives. Graham was a House member at the time.

He said way back then, “You don’t even have to be convicted of a crime to lose your job in this constitutional republic if this body determines your conduct as a public official is clearly out of bounds in your role.” He added, “Impeachment is not about punishment. Impeachment is about cleansing the office. Impeachment is about restoring honor and integrity to the office.”

MSNBC commentator Lawrence O’Donnell dug up Graham’s former view of impeachment. Of course, that was when a Democratic president got into trouble. The GOP lawmaker had a different view about impeachment than he does today.

It seems that Sen. Graham thinks a president must be charged with an actual crime to be impeached.

According to The Hill: Graham said in a statement Tuesday that “the American legal system is working its will” but that “there have yet to be charges or convictions for colluding with the Russian government by any member of the Trump campaign” after another Trump associate, Paul Manafort, was found guilty of eight charges related to financial crimes.

Which is it, Sen. Graham? O’Donnell is imploring reporters to question Graham carefully about his apparent change of heart, mind or whatever.

Donald Trump’s former campaign chairman is now a convicted felon. There well might be much more to come from special counsel Robert Mueller as he continues his probe into Russian involvement in our 2016 presidential election.

As for Graham’s earlier statements about “cleansing” the presidency, I have to agree that the current president has soiled it in many ways. The current president is absolutely lacking in “honor and integrity” at almost any level one can imagine.

I certainly will await Sen. Graham’s explanation on how his view on the basis for impeachment has, um, evolved.

Donald Trump

Is Trump believable at any level? Um, no!

These online polls that show up on MSN.com really knock me out.

The latest one asks whether Paul Manafort’s conviction this week on eight felony counts of tax fraud and money laundering make me less likely to believe Donald J. Trump.

I was astounded to see that 48 percent of respondents said “no”; 47 percent of them said “yes.”

I was among the 47 percent.

Although the more I think about it, I don’t know how the president of the United States can be any less believable at any level.

I do not trust him for one nanosecond. Not for an instant. A New York minute. I trust him as far as I can throw a 239-pound human being.

Do you get my drift? Of course you do!

Trump cannot tell the whole unvarnished truth on anything, at any level, for any reason … or so it appears to me.

Manafort is Trump’s former 2016 campaign chairman, the guy Trump said worked for him “only a little while.” He spoke as if he barely knows the guy. Give me a break, will ya?

Do I believe Trump? Umm, no.