Category Archives: Donald Trump

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.

Donald Trump

Trump has the ‘mother of bad days’

So much for “rigged witch hunt.”

Donald J. Trump’s former campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, is now a convicted felon after a Virginia jury today returned guilty verdicts on eight counts of assorted tax and money laundering charges; jurors were deadlocked on 10 more counts, so the judge declared a mistrial on the unresolved accusations.

Then there’s Michael Cohen, the president’s one-time confidant/fixer/personal lawyer who pleaded guilty to tax fraud, bank fraud and campaign law violations. He now is set to tell special counsel Robert Mueller all he knows about his dealings with the president.

Hmmm. I think that constitutes a bad day for the president. As in a really, seriously bad day.

Trump, of course, has lashed out at the criminal justice system, at Mueller, Cohen … whoever.

And make no mistake, Trump said the Manafort conviction had nothing to do with “Russian collusion.” Well, duh. No one said it did. That’s all being looked at separately, Mr. President.

Something tells me we have a president getting into some serious trouble. Here’s the annoying fly in the ointment: Trump has the power — and he might have the inclination — to worsen that trouble by issuing a pardon to Manafort. Hey, he’s got the authority to do it, just as he reminds us.

If he does take that leap, well … let’s just say the fecal matter is going to hit multiple fans all at once.

Donald Trump

How will history judge this presidency?

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We’re not yet halfway through Donald J. Trump’s term as president and already I feel compelled to wonder about a critically important historical element.

How in the name of presidential history are historians going to assess the time that Trump served as president of the United States.

Whether this man finishes his term and — God forbid! — wins re-election to a second term in 2020, I feel confident in asserting that historians must toss out all the standard metrics in assessing Trump’s impact on the nation.

He has managed in just less than two years to enrage our allies, give comfort to some of our adversaries, insult politicians around the world and in this country, use Twitter as his primary vehicle to convey U.S. government policy, launch a worldwide trade war, bust the federal budget with a tax cut, enable hate groups to feel more emboldened than they have in decades.

How will historians judge this individual’s presidency?

He took office after campaigning on a pledge (mostly unspoken but understood all the same) to throw out the standard playbook. I would rate that as the campaign pledge to which he has been most faithful.

Accordingly, those who make their living writing tomes and white papers analyzing the historical significance of major political figures will have to toss their own standard operating procedures into the crapper.

There will be plenty of caveats to attach to this guy’s presidency. There will be the nature of his razor-thin victory — which he keeps describing as “historic” and “record-breaking”; there will be the special counsel investigation and whatever findings it produces regarding collusion and obstruction of justice; there will be the extraordinary number of key Trump aides and Cabinet officers who’ve either been indicted, fired or resigned under pressure.

Just as President Bill Clinton’s obituary will include the term “impeachment,” I feel that Donald Trump’s obit will have some mention of all the ethical and potentially legal troubles that have followed him into the White House.

I’m left to wonder, too: Who will portray Donald Trump when they make a movie about this guy’s presidency?

Presidential historians are going to earn their grant money — bigly — when they sit down to write the book on the 45th president.

Donald Trump

Facts are facts, period, Mr. Mayor … really!

Rudy Giuliani seems to have swilled Kellyanne Conway’s potion that allows for the belief in “alternative facts.”

Conway is the White House senior policy adviser to coined the “alternative facts” gem while responding to questions about then-White House press secretary Sean Spicer’s various assertions about this and that.

Now we have Donald Trump’s current personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, telling CNN’s Chris Cuomo that “nowadays … facts are the eyes of the beholder.”

Whoa! Hold on, Mr. Mayor.

From where I come from, facts are facts. There can be disputing the nature of facts. You either tell the truth or you lie.

Giuliani was responding to questions from Cuomo about the president’s harsh words about another former White House aide, Omarosa Manigault Newman.

Giuliani made the “eye of the beholder” crack, to which Cuomo reminded him that there’s no such qualifier involved with “facts.”

As USA Today reported: Whether intended in humor or not, the former New York mayor’s remark feeds into a perception among critics that the Trump administration often rejects objective facts and tries to confuse the public about what is true. 

Trump’s rejection of facts dates back at least to his refusal to accept that former President Barack Obama was a U.S. citizen despite being presented with conclusive evidence.

If all this idiocy didn’t involve the very credibility of our head of state, I would be laughing my behind off.

I’m not laughing now … any more than I laughed at Kellyanne Conway’s “alternative facts” nonsense.

Donald Trump, military news

No parade? Yes! Keep it canceled!

Money does talk. Especially when it represents skyrocketing costs for an event that contributes nothing of significance.

Donald J. Trump wanted to stage a military parade down Pennsylvania Avenue to show the world just how big and strong the United States military is, as if the world doesn’t know it already.

The cost was set initially at $12 million. Oh, but then came some new cost estimates: They hit $92 million.

The president canceled the parade. The Pentagon said it might schedule it a year from now. Is the cost going to decline? I doubt it strongly. “The Department of Defense and White House have been planning a parade to honor America’s military veterans and commemorate the centennial of World War I,” said Col. Rob Manning on Thursday. “We originally targeted November 10, 2018 for this event but have now agreed to explore opportunities in 2019.”

Good grief! You can “honor” the vets in any number of ways without traipsing down Pennsylvania Avenue in a parade!

Of course, the president decided to blame “local politicians” for the cost escalation, which made the event an even greater non-starter than it was when Trump pitched the idea in the first place.

Military parades of the type Trump wanted are intended to allow tinhorn bullies and tyrants a chance to show off their hardware, to deter anyone from messing with ’em. You see these kinds of events in places like, oh, Pyongyang or Moscow, Beijing or Tehran.

Do we really need to see this kind of exhibitionism in Washington, D.C.? Of course not.

I’m all in with what the American Legion said about the parade notion. The money that would be spent to show off our hardware could be spent more productively to help veterans’ care.

“There is only one person who wants this parade,” according to a senior military official.

Ridiculous. As in worthy of ridicule.

Donald Trump

‘Revoke my clearance, too’

William McRaven is an unabashed American patriot. He is a former Navy SEAL, former U.S. Special Operations Force commanding officer, a retired Navy admiral.

He also supervised the May 2011 Navy SEAL/CIA commando operation that killed Osama bin Laden.

He also is critical of the president of the United States, Donald J. Trump.

McRaven, who’s about to leave his current post as University of Texas System chancellor, has dared the president to revoke his security clearance. He said he wants the revocation so that he can stand in solidarity with former CIA Director John Brennan, who had his clearance yanked by the president.

Trump acted in a remarkable and breathtaking fit of pique at Brennan because the former top spook has been harshly critical of the president. Why, Trump just won’t have any of that.

As MSN.com reported: “[Brennan] is a man of unparalleled integrity, whose honesty and character have never been in question, except by those who don’t know him,” retired Navy Adm. William McRaven wrote in an op-ed for The Washington Post.

“Therefore, I would consider it an honor if you would revoke my security clearance as well, so I can add my name to the list of men and women who have spoken up against your presidency,” he wrote.

I heard some chatter today that Trump supporters are actually questioning McRaven’s love of country because of his criticism of the president.

To think anyone would question this man’s patriotism simply boggles my mind. Or the minds of reasonable people anywhere.

Donald Trump

Once again: What damage has Brennan done?

A few congressional Republicans have joined their Democratic colleagues in criticizing Donald Trump for revoking the security clearance of former CIA Director John Brennan.

The president’s reason? Brennan has acted “erratically” with his criticism of the administration.

I need to pose this question one more (and perhaps final) time: What has the ex-CIA boss said that has damaged national security?

The Hill has reported on the reaction. Read about it here.

Yes, he’s been harsh. And, yes, he has been vocal in his criticism of the president. Perhaps he should dial it back a bit, but he need not go silent just because Donald Trump dislikes the nature of his criticism.

The president’s reaction is, in the words of some Democratic members of Congress, the stuff of a “banana republic.”

Donald Trump

Trump vs. Brennan: Gloves come off

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I have no idea whether this Twitter exchange had anything to do with Donald Trump revoking former CIA Director John Brennan’s security clearance …

But I wouldn’t be surprised if there is some linkage.

The president has exhibited a shameful display of petulance and idiotic pique at a man whose expertise on vital national security matters he has just tossed into the crapper.

And I have to ask: Why in the world would the president do this?

Oh, I know. It’s because he is a thin-skinned narcissist with delusions of grandeur/godhood.

Brennan’s tweet speaks to the equally idiotic language he used to dismiss Omarosa Manigault Newman, the former White House aide who chief of staff John Kelly fired.

Don’t misunderstand me here. I do not trust Newman, either. However, the presidency used to demand that its occupant demonstrate some level of dignity, decorum and “probity,” a term that Brennan used.

Whatever her beef with the president — or his with her — she didn’t deserve to be talked about in that tone by the head of state of the world’s greatest nation.

And this circles back — every single time — to the issue of whether Donald Trump is morally or intellectually fit to hold the office to which he was elected.

He is unfit at every level imaginable.

Brennan has been denied a security clearance. That, by itself, is a shame. The good news is that Trump’s petulance won’t silence this erudite critic.

Donald Trump, national news

Trump revives concept of ‘enemies list’

The sometimes-sinister spirit of Richard M. Nixon apparently has returned from the dead to whisper in the ear of Donald J. Trump.

The current president mirrored the former president’s enemies list by revoking the top security clearance of former CIA Director John Brennan. In a remarkable fit of petulance, pique and piggishness, the president did this to punish Brennan for what he called “erratic behavior.”

Did the former CIA boss reveal any national security secrets? Did he blab classified information to enemy states? Did he in any way compromise our ability to defend ourselves against foreign foes?

No to all of the above.

Brennan’s “sin” is to criticize the president.

What is wrong with that? Oh, nothing at all. It’s protected speech, according to the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. But you see, Donald Trump just won’t have any of that. He just cannot stomach the idea of a former CIA director, a man with immense national security chops — who could be of invaluable assistance to the president’s national security team — speaking negatively about administration policy.

The New York Times reported: In a tweet this week, Mr. Brennan criticized Mr. Trump for the language that the president used to attack Omarosa Manigault Newman, his former top aide, who he called a “dog.”

Mr. Brennan wrote, “It’s astounding how often you fail to live up to minimum standards of decency, civility, & probity. Seems like you will never understand what it means to be president, nor what it takes to be a good, decent, & honest person. So disheartening, so dangerous for our Nation.”

Years ago, President Nixon developed an enemies list comprising members of the Democratic Party, radical left-wing protest groups, certain members of the media and, frankly, damn near any prominent American who spoke ill of him in the late 1960s and early 1970s.

Nearly five decades later, his most recent presidential descendant has resurrected that notion by revoking the security clearance of a dedicated public servant and a man with tremendous knowledge of all things relating to protecting this great nation.

Shameful.

Donald Trump, International news

This is a ‘disaster,’ Mr. President?

Take a good look at the graphic just below these few words. They tell me a fascinating story about the “disaster” Donald Trump says he inherited when he was sworn in as president of the United States.

It’s a poll conducted by the Pew Research Center. I get that some of Donald J. Trump’s “base” will dismiss the poll because of some phony “liberal bias” issue folks will say skew these numbers. In reality, Pew is a legitimate polling outfit and first-class think tank that offers analysis across the political spectrum.

Confidence among these five key allied nations of the United States has plummeted since Trump became president. The biggest decline in confidence comes from Germany, which registered an 86 percent approval rating during the Barack Obama years, but has fallen to just 11 percent during the Trump era. Might there be some German anger over the way Trump has treated Chancellor Angela Merkel?

It does seem a bit weird that Trump kept yapping about inheriting a “disaster” when took office. The polling here among these five key allied nations suggest something quite different. Make no mistake: It does matter what other nations think of this country and its leadership.

I’m led to conclude that Donald Trump brought the “disaster” with him into the White House.