Category Archives: Donald Trump

Donald Trump

Here’s your chance to step up, Mr. POTUS

It’s been a year since an event produced one of the many dark moments that have shrouded the presidency of Donald John Trump.

Some white supremacists/Klansmen/Nazis marched in Charlottesville, Va., to protest the taking down of a Confederate general’s statue from a public park. A riot ensued. A young female counterprotester was run down and killed.

Then the president said there were “good people — on both sides!” of the dispute. Yep, he elevated the haters to a level of moral equivalence to those who protested against them.

There’s going to be a white supremacist rally this weekend in front of the White House to commemorate the one year that passed since the Charlottesville tragedy. There well might be counterprotesters present to speak against them. The first family won’t be there; they’re vacationing in New Jersey.

Hmm. Let me think. What can possibly go wrong?

Here’s the chance for the president of the United States to say something he has continually declined to do during his still-brief career in politics: denounce and condemn the hatred espoused by race-baiters and the hate groups that have compiled an unmistakable history of killing Americans only because they were born with different skin color.

Donald J. Trump needs to step up. He needs to express himself in terms that we all can understand. He needs to speak to those of us who do not comprise his “base.”

Has he been totally silent? No, but when the president has spoken to this issue, he looks for all the world — at least to many Americans — as if he’s doing so under some measure of duress. The criticism of these groups does not come naturally to this individual.

He now is faced with the chance to say what he has needed to say all along. The president needs to show leadership that demonstrates that the elected leader of this great nation will not tolerate hatred … period!

Do I expect it from him? Hah!

Donald Trump

Read this column about Trump

I want to use this brief blog post to ask you to read a column by a noted columnist for the New York Times.

Thomas Friedman, a Pulitzer Prize winner and a man with a smart and reasoned head on his shoulders, thinks the media need to provide Donald Trump with blanket coverage of his campaign rallies.

Read Friedman’s column here.

Friedman’s essay is a beaut. He suggests that the more Americans watch Trump fly off the rails at these campaign rallies, the more they might understand what many of us have known all along: that he is unfit for the office to which he won election in 2016.

His insults. His histrionic behavior. His utterly undignified and unpresidential demeanor. His mocking of foes. His idiotic lies.

They all come to the fore at these rallies.

Friedman dismisses the calls by some anti-Trump folks who want the media to ignore Trump’s rallies. He says quite the opposite.

He wants “blanket coverage.” The public needs to watch this individual in action. Just maybe enough Americans will start to get the picture. Donald Trump is not fit for the high office he occupies.

As Friedman writes: “I just know that the G.O.P. Congress and Fox News are too compromised to ever tell Trump, ‘Enough.ā€™ But there are decent Republican moderates who, while they may never pull the lever for a Democrat, just might get too disgusted to vote. Itā€™s the best hope. So letā€™s keep them fully informed about our president.”

Donald Trump, local news, national security, political news

If POTUS campaigns for Cruz, here’s a thought

The more I think about it the less likely it appears that Donald John Trump will accept U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz’s invitation to campaign for Cruz’s re-election bid.

I have this feeling in my gut that the men detest each other.

Trump called Cruz “Lyin’ Ted” during the 2016 GOP presidential campaign. Cruz called Trump an “amoral narcissist” and a “pathological liar.” Trump linked Cruz’s father with the JFK murder in Dallas in 1963. Cruz called Trump out for denigrating his family, including his wife, Heidi.

How can they share a stage together? My view? They can’t.

But if Trump proves me wrong — and that’s always entirely possible, if not likely — he ought to come to Collin County. This is strong Republican county just north of Dallas County. It’s tailor-made for someone of the Cruz Missile’s ilk. I haven’t lived here long enough to get a full reading of the lay of the land, but my hunch is that Trump has a reservoir of popularity here.

What’s more, we have a nice venue just around the corner from where my wife and I live. It’s the Allen Event Center. It seats a lot of folks. It’s a modern facility. It’s within walking distance of our residence.

I so want to attend a Trump political rally. You know, of course, it’s not because I want to cheer his every idiotic utterance. It’s not because I want Ted Cruz to win re-election. No, I plan to support Democratic challenger Beto O’Rourke.

My intent is to attend this rally with notebook and pen in hand. I crave additional grist for High Plains Blogger.

Sadly, I fear that it won’t happen.

Maybe I can persuade the president to come this way.

Donald Trump

Ex-astronaut: Space Force ‘redundant’ and ‘wasteful’

That settles it. Donald Trump’s idea of establishing a new military branch is a non-starter. If you’ll pardon the pun, it shouldn’t get off the ground.

He wants to create a Space Force, which would operate in outer space. According to one notable former astronaut, the idea is “redundant” and “wasteful.”

So said Mark Kelly, a former shuttle and International Space Station astronaut. I want to add that Kelly also is married to former U.S. Rep. Gabby Gifford of Arizona, who was gravely woundedĀ  when she suffered a gunshot wound to the head. Kelly and Gifford have become staunch gun-control advocates and have become as well staunch foes of Donald Trump.

That all said, Kelly offers an expert’s view of this Space Force idea.

“There is a threat out there,” Kelly said, “but it’s being handled by the U.S. Air Force today, doesn’t make sense to build a whole other level of bureaucracy in an incredibly bureaucratic [Defense Department],” he added.

The Space Force idea is too expensive, especially at a time when we’re acquiring even more national debt and while the annual budget deficit is exploding. Moreover, it makes no sense to duplicate the efforts to patrol outer space by existing military branches, which — by the way — are the finest in the world.

Let’s ground the Space Force before it takes off.

Donald Trump, environmental news

POTUS fails to perform this simple task

Donald J. Trump’s supporters don’t ever seem to hail the president’s empathy, his compassion, his sensitivity to others.

Have you noticed that?

Consider what a veteran broadcast journalist, Dan Rather, has tweeted about the president.

There are many difficult things for presidents to do. Finding space in your schedule (and soul) to speak empathetically about Americans suffering from natural disasters (wildfires, hurricanes) shouldn’t be one of them. And yet Pres. Trump routinely fails in this human instinct.

The president cannot seem to bring himself to express any support for these victims. Instead, he has chosen to blast environmental laws in a nonsensical attack on the wrong culprit.

Donald Trump has failed to perform one of those tasks that we all expect of our president. Ronald Reagan rose to the occasion, as did George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama. All of them had reason to speak to the nation about the suffering our fellow Americans experienced. They comforted the heartbroken. They fulfilled the role of Comforter in Chief.

The current president cannot bring himself to do what is expected of him? Shameful.

Donald Trump, media news

Media ‘not supposed to be the story’

CNN chief White House correspondent Jim Acosta is a man to whom I can relate. More or less.

He made an appearance last night on “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert” and asserted that the media aren’t supposed to be the story they are covering. Indeed, Acosta has become a media “celebrity” because of his frequent public clashes with White House press officials — notably press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders. Plus, Donald J. Trump continues to single out Acosta and CNN as purveyors of what he calls “fake news.”

The Hill reports: ā€œDo you worry that the president points at yā€™all so much and thereā€™s a natural need to respond as a human being that you end up being the story when thatā€™s not really the goal of your journalism?ā€ Colbert asked Acosta on the CBS “Late Show” host Wednesday night.

ā€œWeā€™re not supposed to be the story, you know. Thatā€™s not why Iā€™m out there,” Acosta responded. “I get accused of that from time to time, and my attitude is ā€˜Listen, Iā€™m allowed to care about this country as much as anybody else.'”

I, too, lament the way the media have become part of the story. In a perfect world — and this one has never been perfect — the media would report the news and remain in the shadows. I liken it to the sports referee who no one notices, until the ref does something stupid or otherwise noteworthy.

The president chooses to make the media the story by continuing to hammer them over the way they cover his administration.

He won’t simply allow the media to do their job. He won’t accept that not all news is positive. He doesn’t recognize the media’s role in holding public officials accountable. Therefore, he ratchets up the volume whenever he fires off those tweets accusing the media of being the “enemy of the people.”

That all said, the notion that Acosta would agree to appear on a late-night TV show with a host who has been notably critical of the president suggests that he isn’t exactly walking the walk in terms of seeking anonymity.

His message about the media’s role — as the chronicler of events — is on point. The media mustn’t become “the story,” and that precludes CNN’s chief White House reporter from appearing on a national TV show.

Donald Trump, national news, political news

Birtherism falls along racial lines

Now that some of us have raised the “racism” issue as it concerns Donald Trump’s pointed — and quite specific — criticism of African-American political foes, I want to revisit the issue of “birtherism.”

Trump made a lot of noise years ago about whether Barack Obama was qualified to run for president. He based his questions about the lie that Obama was born in Kenya. Therefore, he couldn’t run for president because, according to the U.S. Constitution, Obama wasn’t a “natural-born” citizen of America.

Obama, of course, was born in Hawaii in 1961. He said so at the outset. He finally produced a birth certificate to prove it. That wasn’t good enough for Trump and many others.

Why did Trump and others continue to foment the lie?

Uhh, let me see. Oh, I think it’s race. Obama’s father was a Kenyan. His mother was from Kansas. Dad was black; Mom was white. Get it?

Now, for the other noted “birther” case. It involves U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, the Texas Republican who ran against Trump for the Republican Party presidential nomination in 2016.

Cruz actually was born outside the United States. He was born in Canada. His father is Cuban. His mother is an American.

Sen. Cruz was able to quell the questions with a simple — and generally accepted — interpretation of the Constitution. Since his mother is a U.S. citizen, Baby Ted became a U.S. citizen immediately upon his birth. Therefore, he qualifies as a “natural-born” citizen simply because of his mother’s citizenship.

Hey, that same logic works for the former president, too. His mother was a U.S. citizen, making him an American the moment he came into this wold. Except that wouldn’t fly in the minds of his critics … and that includes the president of the United States.

And all of that presumes he was born somewhere other than the United States! He was born in the U.S.A., but the questions continue to linger even to this day among most Americans who consider themselves to be Republicans.

Is race a factor? Hmm. I believe it is.

Donald Trump

Avoid ‘perjury trap’? Sure, just tell the truth!

The president of the United States is highly unlikely to appear voluntarily before the special counsel who is examining whether the president’s 2016 campaign colluded with Russian hackers who interfered in our election.

I say that wishing Donald Trump would agree to meet with Robert Mueller.

Trump said last year that he was “100 percent” in favor of meeting with Mueller. Silly us, particularly those of us who took the president at his word in the moment. He lied to us then. He likely would lie to Mueller and his legal team.

Therein is the reason why the president won’t agree to meet voluntarily with Mueller. Trump’s legal team fears what they call a “perjury trap.” That is as phony a dodge as anything they have said regarding Trump and this investigation.

The most sure-fire way to avoid committing perjury is for the president to tell the truth. If the special counsel or one of his deputies were to ask him a direct question, he should answer it with equal directness — and with the “whole truth.”

If the president were wired to tell the truth instead of lie constantly, this “perjury trap” nonsense would be irrelevant. Except that this president is wired to prevaricate, to fabricate and to lie through is teeth.

That’s why he won’t meet with Robert Mueller. At least not of his own volition.

Donald Trump

‘Your favorite president’? Hardly, Mr. POTUS

Donald J. Trump clearly isn’t talking to me. I know he doesn’t know me from Adam, doesn’t give a rip what I think about anything.

However, he put this Twitter message out that said:

The Republicans have now won 8 out of 9 House Seats, yet if you listen to the Fake News Media you would think we are being clobbered. Why canā€™t they play it straight, so unfair to the Republican Party and in particular, your favorite President!

What does he mean “your favorite President!”?

My favorite president left office on Jan. 20, 2017.

Everyone knew the president would brag about the election results. He took credit for GOP victories in the U.S. House of Representatives. I get that the GOP won eight out of nine seats. Those numbers don’t tell the whole story, kind of like the way Trump doesn’t tell the whole story about his own election to the presidency in 2016. Instead, he fabricates the circumstance of his election, calling it a “record,” most lopsided victory since Ronald Reagan’s re-election in 1984 … blah, blah, blah.

So now he’s yapping about his party’s victories. They are by the skin of the president’s teeth. In congressional districts where Democrats have no business being competitive.

Hey, I understand that a win is a win and that winners are defined clearly as those who get more votes than the other guy.

These wins, though, don’t deserve all the braggin’ they’re getting from Donald Trump.

Donald Trump, legal news

Troubles dog lawmaker and … Trump

Chris Collins isn’t exactly your run-of-the-mill back-bench member of the U.S. House of Representatives.

He’s a Republican from upstate New York. He now is in a good bit of legal trouble, taken been into custody by the FBI on an insider trading charge. He has pleaded not guilty. Yes, Rep. Collins is entitled to mount a vigorous defense.

However, he also is known for something else: Collins was the first member of Congress to endorse Donald J. Trump’s candidacy for the presidency of the United States.

Right there is what makes this case a good bit larger than it otherwise might be.

Collins has been accused of calling members of his family to deliver some insider information on the purchase of drug-company stocks. It’s a serious charge to be sure. Rep. Collins also allegedly was brazen and blatant in his flouting of the law. He allegedly boasted about it.

Then we have the political backdrop of the upcoming midterm election. Democrats think they have momentum on their side in their attempt to flip Congress back to Democratic control.

This burgeoning difficulty regarding Rep. Collins, the pledge to “drain the swamp” and the assertions that this guy thinks he’s above the law doesn’t bode well for Republicans.

Then we have the president …