Category Archives: Donald Trump

Donald Trump, national news

No way should Mueller cut off the Russia probe

My ears are about to burst into flames. Or … maybe my head is about to explode, blowing my noggin into smithereens.

Donald Trump’s legal team — led by the likes of Rudy Giuliani and Jay Sekulow — keep yapping that special counsel Robert Mueller needs to call his examination of “The Russia Thing” to a halt. He needs to end it now, they say.

Giuliani suggests Mueller has done something potentially illegal. He ain’t spilling the beans, as if he has any beans to spill.

Look, Mueller is a former FBI director who served under Presidents George W. Bush and Barack H. Obama. He took office right after 9/11. He is a pro. He is a dedicated public servant. He is a decorated Marine who saw combat during the Vietnam War.

He also is a meticulous lawyer who has been tasked by the Department of Justice to find out whether the Trump presidential campaign colluded with Russians who attacked our electoral system.

Mueller’s appointment by DOJ also was hailed universally by Republicans and Democrats. Don’t you remember that? I damn sure do. He deserved the high praise he got from both sides of the aisle.

What’s changed? Only this, as far as I can tell: Mueller is tightening the rope around the White House and well might have discovered something hinky within the Trump campaign, even though the president keeps declaring there was “no collusion.”

I don’t want to take Donald Trump’s word for it. The president’s penchant for prevarication precludes anyone from taking anything he says seriously.

I prefer to hear the final verdict from Robert Mueller.

That is, if my ears don’t catch fire and my skull doesn’t explode listening to the rants from Donald Trump’s loudmouth legal eagles.

Donald Trump, national news

Space Force: Its relevance is diminishing

The more I think about the idea creating a Space Force — the less I think about it … if you know what I mean.

Donald Trump wants to create a new military branch devoted exclusively to fighting enemies in outer space.

As I ponder it, I think: Huh? Doesn’t NASA have that responsibility already? And doesn’t the U.S. Air Force have a Space Command that devotes its considerable intellectual power, know-how and technology to defending us from attacks that might come from beyond our atmosphere?

We’ve got the North American Aerospace Defense Command — a joint U.S.-Canadian operation. There’s also the Strategic Air Command. The Navy has its own capabilities as well.

Yet the president wants to commit $8 billion more in defense spending to create a Space Force? Where’s he going to get the money? Don’t anyone even think of suggesting he should take the funds from domestic programs the Trump administration wants to gut anyway.

The notion of a Space Force has given late-night comics plenty of grist for their joke writers. I won’t go there, although I was amused to hear Vice President Mike Pence extend “greetings from the president of the United States” in a tone of voice suggesting he was talking to a roomful of extraterrestrials.

Donald Trump, national news

Trump condemns ‘all types of racism’?

Donald John “Equivocator in Chief” Trump this morning issued a statement that condemned racism.

Not only that, the president chose to condemn “all types of racism.” I have been stewing over that qualifier for a good bit of the day and I have decided that Trump chose that language in his tweet for the same reason he chooses to suggest that nations other than Russia are attacking our electoral system.

Do you remember when he said in the wake of the Charlottesville, Va., riot how there was blame to go around to “all sides”? Do you also recall him saying after the riot between white supremacists and those who oppose them that there were “very fine people … on both sides”?

You see, the president who portrays himself as the toughest guy on the block cannot deal forthrightly with those we all know are evil. He chooses to spread the blame around and, thus, lessen the impact of his remarks.

After that hideous press conference in Helsinki in June when he had the chance to confront Vladimir Putin over the Russian attack on our 2016 election, he had to issue a “clarification” of what he said. He stated initially that he didn’t know why Russia “would” interfere. Then the next day he changed the word “would” to “wouldn’t,” but then waffled by suggesting that other nations were doing it, too.

Now he condemns “all types of racism” on this weekend where the nation will commemorate the tragic riot that exploded in Charlottesville one year ago.

I’ll be candid. The only form of racism worthy of condemnation in this context is the type of the hatred against African Americans and other ethnic and religious minorities by groups such as the KKK, the neo-Nazis and assorted white supremacists. This discussion doesn’t include other “types of racism.”

So, when the president waters down his condemnation first by offering it in a sterile Twitter message and then adding “all types of racism” suggests to me that he doesn’t really condemn the kind of racism that is under discussion.

We are referring, Mr. President, only to Klansmen, neo-Nazis and white supremacists.

Donald Trump, national news

Trump doing the impossible: gaining sympathy for AG

Donald John Trump is trying to execute an impossible stunt.

He is seeking to turn Attorney General Jeff Sessions into a sympathetic character in the drama that’s unfolding in Washington, D.C.

Trump fired off a tweet that said, among other things, that “Our A.G. is scared stiff and Missing in Action. It is all starting to be revealed – not pretty.”

Trump wants Sessions to be quicker to defend him against critics who suggest there’s something to the “Russia thing” that special counsel is investigating.

Now he says Sessions is MIA and a scaredy-cat to boot?

Let’s review for a brief moment.

Sessions had to recuse himself from the Russia collusion probe because of his ties to the Trump presidential campaign. That meant that the AG couldn’t investigate himself. So, he recused himself — as he should have done. It was the proper course to take.

Then he squandered much of that good will be revealing that hideous immigration policy that takes children away from their illegal immigrant parents.

Now the president has decided to hang the AG out to dry for at least the third or fourth time by declaring he is scared to act.

Good grief, Mr. President. Shut … up!

Donald Trump

POTUS condemns ‘all types of racism’

The riots in Charlottesville a year ago resulted in senseless death and division. We must come together as a nation. I condemn all types of racism and acts of violence. Peace to ALL Americans!

There it is. Right there is Donald J. Trump’s statement condemning racism in the United States.

OK. What do we make of this? Is the statement going to be the president’s final word on the subject? It came, of course, via Twitter. He flashed it out there from his vacation home in New Jersey.

I so want to believe this is enough. I want to feel assured that Donald Trump won’t ever utter another insensitive statement, such as ridiculing foes who happen to be African-American by denigrating their intelligence. To black Americans, that represents the “mother of all dog whistles,” given that racists too often question the intelligence of African-Americans.

There, of course, is so much more the president can say about racism. He can fill in many blanks, telling us how we should deal with hate groups, those who commit hate crimes, those who afflict victims solely because of their race.

Moreover, he could say these things on live television. He could speak to us from the Oval Office. He could look us in the eye, enabling us to judge the sincerity by watching how he spells out he intends to “condemn all types of racism.”

This weekend we’re going to commemorate the year since the Charlottesville, Va., riot that killed a young counter protester. Klansmen, Nazis and other white supremacists marched to protest the removal of a statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee.

He spoke of “very fine people … on both sides” of that tragic disturbance.

Just maybe the president could find it within himself to acknowledge that he made a grievous error by lifting the hate groups to the same moral standing of those who protested against them.

That would tell me a great deal more about his commitment to battling racism than a sterile tweet.

Donald Trump

Let’s compare apples to apples

Five days ago, Donald J. Trump posted a message on Twitter that proclaimed for the umpteenth time that his poll numbers are “better” than those posted by former President Obama.

He wrote: Presidential Approval numbers are very good – strong economy, military and just about everything else. Better numbers than Obama at this point, by far. We are winning on just about every front and for that reason there will not be a Blue Wave, but there might be a Red Wave!

The raw polling data can be disputed. However, I feel the need to look briefly at the comparative moments in time of both men’s presidencies.

Barack Obama took office on Jan. 20, 2009 while the nation’s economy was in free fall. Banks were closing. Investment firms were collapsing. People were losing their jobs by the thousands daily.

By August 2010, the economy had not yet made the turn, but it was starting to show signs of life. It got so good that Obama was re-elected in 2012 and the jobless rate continued to decline right up until the end of his presidency.

Enter Donald Trump, who took the oath on Jan. 20, 2017. The economy was in far better shape than it was when his immediate predecessor took office.

I give the president credit for the great job numbers that have accrued since he took office. But it’s good to understand that he started with a much higher benchmark than the one Obama inherited eight years earlier.

I just hope that Trump’s damaging trade wars with the EU, China, Canada and Mexico don’t undo much of the good that has occurred. I fear there the damage is beginning to stretch our economy at the seams.

Donald Trump

Why now do we talk about POTUS and racial intolerance?

I came into this world more than 68 years ago. My first memory of anything takes me back to when I was around 3 years of age.

Over many of the next nearly seven decades I have been fairly politically dialed in. I have had a great interest in politics and public policy. I was able to shake Bobby Kennedy’s hand in May 1968, a week before he died at the hands of an assassin. I returned from the Army in 1970 and became a college campus volunteer for George McGovern’s failed campaign in 1972. I have been able to cover two national presidential political conventions.

Thus, I must declare that this time in our history — during the presidency of Donald John Trump — is the first time I can recall such widespread discussion of whether the president of the United States is friendly to white supremacist hate groups.

This upcoming weekend will mark the first year since the riot exploded in Charlottesville, Va., the incident that started with white supremacists protested the removal from a public park of a statue of Gen. Robert E. Lee.

It got ugly. Counter protesters challenged the haters. A young woman died when she was run over in the melee; a young man associated with the hate groups has been charged with murder.

Donald Trump has refused to condemn the white supremacists singularly. He has been virtually silent about the Klan and the neo-Nazis.

I was born during the Truman years. My first presidential memory is of Dwight Eisenhower. Every single president from Ike’s era has not been the subject of this kind of discussion.

Until now. Trump has broken the mold. He is the first president in my lengthy memory who continues to be associated in the minds of many Americans with those who espouse the kind of violence that the rest of us condemn with a full-throated roar.

We are witnessing a scary precedent coming from an equally scary president.

So … sad.

Donald Trump, Sports news

It’s not about flag, military, or love of country, Mr. POTUS

The 2018 National Football League season is about to commence and once again — as we were a year ago — we’ll be talking as much about players kneeling as much as we’ll talk about touchdowns, first downs and superlative athletic prowess.

The NFL has issued an edict at the suggestion of Donald Trump that requires players who are on the field to stand while they play the National Anthem.

Some players are ignoring the mandate. They are continuing to kneel in protest of law enforcement policy relating to African-Americans. Some of them are raising a clenched fist. The players are angry that police in some communities treat black citizens differently from other Americans.

Of course, the president has managed to twist and contort the argument into something it is not. He blames the players — almost of them black — of disrespecting the flag and the military men and women who fight to defend it. He did so again this week. He is demanding the players who kneel be suspended by their team.

C’mon, man! It’s not about a player’s love of country. It’s about policing. It’s about the treatment of some Americans by law enforcement.

To suggest that the players are disrespecting our military, or the flag, or the nation is to reduce this discussion into another litany of maximum demagoguery.

Do I wish the players had employed another method to protest? Yes. However, I recognize what they’re doing, what they’re saying and we should allow them the opportunity to speak out.

Hey, it’s in the U.S. Constitution!

Donald Trump, national news

What happened to the ‘Dog Days of August’?

There used to be a phenomenon in journalism, where newspaper reporters and editors would bemoan the “Dog Days of August. ”

Congress would go on recess, with U.S. senators and House members scattering hither and yon. Out of sight, out of mind.

Oh, and the president would go on vacation, hiding away with his wife and kids; maybe enjoying themselves with extended family members and perhaps a few good friends.

News days got slow.

No more, man! Not with this president or this Congress. I want to thank Donald Trump and congressional leadership for providing bloggers such as me and full-time print and broadcast journalists with plenty of grist that will carry us through the era known formerly as the Dog Days.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has kept senators on the job through the summer recess. House members have gone about doing whatever it is they when they’re not prowling the Capitol Hill halls of power.

As for the president, he hasn’t let up one bit while he vacations in New Jersey with his wife and son, Barron.

He’s gone after pro football players yet again for protesting police practices against African Americans. He keeps harping on that “witch hunt” that has produced several indictments from the special counsel who’s looking for answers to The Russia Thing. He launched creation of the Space Force, the sixth military branch.

There’s no let-up. We’ll all need to buck ourselves up as we prepare for the home stretch leading toward the highly consequential midterm election.

Let’s all get plenty rest. We’ll need our strength.

Donald Trump, national news, political news

Welcome to our ranks, Mr. and Mrs. Knavs

The United States gained at least two new citizens this week.

They are Viktor and Amalija Knavs, natives of Slovenia in central Europe. Oh, yes. They are the parents of first lady Melania Trump.

I welcome them. They likely are fine folks. They will add to the rich texture of this nation of immigrants.

However, there’s this little catch: They became U.S. citizens under the same sort of system that their son-in-law, the president of the United States, continues to rail against.

He calls it “chain migration,” which allows people to enter this country with relatives in tow. You might have heard Donald Trump bellow how chain migration enables immigrants to bring their cousins, in-laws, all sorts of kinfolk. He wants to end it. Trump wants to limit immigration — even those who come here legally — to those who would qualify on “merit.”

I won’t condemn the Knavses for coming here. I welcome them. I know they’ll have a good life as Americans. They’ll be able to be a larger part of their grandson Barron’s life as he continues to come of age in that strange environment within the White House.

However, they might need to toughen their skin as they hear critics who ask aloud why they were able to come here under a policy that conservatives — led by the president — want to discontinue.

Oh, wait …