Monthly Archives: December 2016

military news

The world changed 75 years ago

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pearl-harbor

It took a sneak attack on American warships moored in a Honolulu bay to change the world forever.

The attack occurred 75 years ago at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. Japanese pilots taking off from Japanese aircraft carriers swooped in over the harbor on that Sunday morning. They strafed and bombed the ships, sinking several of them where they were docked. They did the same thing to our Army aircraft at Hickam Field.

Thousands of American sailors and soldiers died that day.

The nation was shocked beyond its ability to believe what had just happened. Think of it today as the “original 9/11.” Most Americans weren’t prepared to cope with the idea that a foreign power could strike us on our soil, killing our military personnel.

President Roosevelt stood the next day before a joint congressional assembly and asked for a declaration of war. It came quickly and overwhelmingly.

We stood united. We rallied ourselves. We mobilized. We turned our huge industrial capacity into a weapons-making machine.

All told, our nation sent 16 million Americans into the fight against the Japanese … and against the Nazi Germans and the Italians in Europe.

We seemingly don’t fight “righteous” wars these days. Our nation remains divided in the extreme as we continue to battle international terrorists in faraway places. Indeed, today’s division has its roots arguably as we fought the Korean War, then the Vietnam War.

World War II was different. We coalesced behind the president. We drafted young men into the military and sent them into harm’s way.

We created “The Greatest Generation,” which was given that title in a book of that name written by legendary broadcast journalist Tom Brokaw. It truly was the greatest generation.

Many of us today owe our very existence to the men who fought the tyrants and returned home safely to start their families. I am one of them. My late father was among the 16 million. I am proud of what he did in the Navy to save our nation from the tyranny that presented a clear danger to this great nation.

We ushered in the nuclear age and near the end of that world war, we used that terrible weapon against those provoked us into the fight. The Japanese started it; we ended it. Just like that.

Thus, the world changed forever.

Those men who answered the nation’s call to battle are dying now. Only a fraction of them remain with us. They are in their 90s.

I’ll be out and about for the next couple of days. I believe I am going to thank any of those men I see wearing a ball cap with the words “World War II veteran” embroidered on it.

We owe them everything.

national news, political news

Not yet time to ‘move on’

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Some of my social media friends and contacts are asking me a good question. It goes something like this:

“When are you going to quit bashing the new president and move on?”

My answer? Not anytime soon.

I’ll parse the question in two parts.

First, I don’t consider my criticism of the president-elect as a “bashing.” It’s been harsh at times. I’ve made no apologies for feeling deeply disappointed about the election outcome. I didn’t want Donald J. Trump elected. My preference was for Hillary Rodham Clinton.

I’ve gone on and on in this forum about how unqualified and unfit Trump is for the office he is about to assume.

Enough said there.

Time to move on? Time to get on board? Not yet. Maybe not ever. It’s too early yet for me to make that call.

Trump’s lack of government experience has presented itself frequently as he has begun the transition from private business mogul to the most powerful man on Earth.

His Cabinet selections have been a mixed bag. That’s the best thing I can say for him. He’s a faux populist who’s filling his Cabinet with mega-rich folks. I get that he’s more comfortable with those who run in the same circles as he does. He’s also recommending individuals for some posts who quite possibly will seek to roll back many of the progressive reforms enacted during the past eight years.

Trump spoke by phone to the president of Taiwan and in the process tossed aside decades of diplomatic protocol by conversing with someone who governs a country with which we have zero diplomatic relations.

Will all of this — and more — produce an effective presidency? I hope it does. I also hope the president succeeds in doing whatever it is he wants to do. Then again, I am not yet sure what on God’s Earth he actually intends to do. Trump isn’t driven by any ideology I can identify, other than seeking to call attention to himself.

I’ll keep on being critical of Trump. I won’t call him names. I won’t hang labels on him the way, um, he has done to others.

If he does something good, I’ll say so.

Until then, I do, though, reserve the right — as a red-blooded American citizen, Army veteran and someone who pays his taxes every year — to criticize the man who’s about to become president of the United States of America.

The U.S. Constitution gives us all that right. I intend to exercise it with vigor.

medical news, national news, political news

Huck weighs in on HUD pick

06carsoncity-master768

Mike Huckabee has joined the tweeter in chief in communicating with Americans about public policy.

Here’s a fascinating Twitter message from the one-time presidential candidate/Arkansas governor/Baptist preacher: “Ben Carson is first HUD Sec to have actually lived in gov’t housing. Fancy Nancy Pelosi says he’s not qualified; is she racist or just dumb?”

There you have it. Ben Carson is qualified to run the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development because he once lived in a public housing project.

Is that what Huck has said?

I am absolutely certain that Gov. Huckabee would expand on Dr. Carson’s alleged qualifications when asked.

However, I cannot get past the statement that Dr. Carson made a week after the election, that he didn’t want to serve in Donald Trump’s Cabinet. A close Carson associate said the doctor — one of the world’s renowned pediatric neurosurgeons — isn’t qualified to run a federal agency.

If Huckabee’s logic holds up, I guess I’m qualified to pilot a jet airliner because I’ve flown several hundred thousand miles on them; I’m also qualified to practice dentistry because I’ve had root canals done on my teeth.

Don’t misread me here. I admire Dr. Carson’s skill as a brain surgeon. He has performed great work on young patients in need of medical miracles.

However, living in a public housing development does not give one the qualifications needed to manage a massive federal agency. Beyond that, he has zero government experience. Of course, neither does the man who has nominated him to become HUD secretary.

I will await with eager anticipation the grilling that Dr. Carson is going to get from the U.S. Senate committee that will recommend whether he gets the job he once said he didn’t want.

environmental news, national news

Trump finds religion on climate change?

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I thought Donald J. Trump called the issue of climate change a “hoax” promoted by China as a way to harm U.S. industries.

Isn’t that what he said while campaigning for president of the United States?

OK. He did say that.

Why, then, did he and his daughter Ivanka meet with former Vice President Al Gore today? Gore’s signature issue is — yep — climate change. He’s written books about it. He has delivered countless lectures about how he believes human beings have contributed greatly the changing climate around the world. He won the Nobel Peace Prize for his work on the subject.

Gore also has taken more than his share of ridicule from political conservatives who debunk the notion he puts forth and which has been supported by the vast majority of scientists worldwide.

http://www.politico.com/blogs/donald-trump-administration/2016/12/al-gore-trump-meeting-232203

Gore was quite circumspect when talking to reporters after the meeting. He revealed next to nothing about what they discussed.

My guess? Gore talked to the president-elect about climate change and sought to persuade him that it is far from a hoax.

International news, military news, national news, political news

One person’s ‘serious mistake’ is OK; another deserves to be ‘locked up’

petraeus

I’m trying to keep all this straight. Man, it’s a struggle.

David Petraeus, a retired U.S. Army general and former head of the CIA, admitted to sharing classified information with his mistress. He paid a hefty price politically for it; he resigned as the nation’s top spook.

Hillary Rodham Clinton, while serving as secretary of state, used a personal e-mail server. She was accused by her political foes of letting classified information get out where it shouldn’t belong. She lost the presidential election amid calls from Donald J. Trump, the man who defeated her, that she should be jailed for unspecified and unproven allegations of wrongdoing.

Petraeus, though, is now being considered for secretary of state by the very same man — Donald Trump — who said Clinton needed to be tossed into the slammer.

What gives?

I don’t doubt Petraeus’s tremendous service to the country while he wore the Army uniform. He commanded our fighting personnel in this difficult struggle against international terror organizations.

http://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/petraeus-mishandling-classified-information-i-made-serious-mistake-n691721

I am just having difficulty processing how one person can admit to doing something illegal but still be considered for high office and other one can be only accused by her political opponents of breaking the law and be scorned.

national news, political news

Trump redefines electoral ‘landslide’

trump-won-election-landslide

Donald J. Trump is measuring electoral landslides with a different set of parameters than most of us.

The president-elect keeps saying he won the election this past month “in a landslide” over Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Hmm. I wonder about that.

When I was studying political science in college, I always believed an electoral landslide — when talking about presidential elections — usually meant something akin to a 10-percentage-point popular vote margin, give or take.

The landslide elections in my lifetime occurred in 1952 and 1956, with Dwight Eisenhower’s two election victories over Adlai Stevenson; 1964, with Lyndon Johnson’s landslide win over Barry Goldwater; 1980 and 1984, with Ronald Reagan’s wins over Jimmy Carter and Walter Mondale.

The 1988 election with George H.W. Bush defeating Michael Dukakis came close to a landslide.

Then you can measure Electoral College landslides, which often don’t coincide with popular vote landslides. George H.W. Bush scored an Electoral College landslide over Dukakis; Bill Clinton rolled up big Electoral College margins over Bush in 1992 and Bob Dole in 1996; Barack Obama’s electoral-vote victory in 2008 over John McCain could be called a landslide.

Now, back to the president-elect’s preposterous assertion of a “landslide” victory over Hillary Clinton.

He’s now trailing the loser by 2.6 million votes nationally. Yes, Trump won the Electoral College vote by a comfortable margin, at 306-232 — but it ain’t a landslide by what I consider to be most people’s measuring stick.

By all means, Trump won the election. He’s going to be the next president. However, the president-elect needs to stop with the delusion that he won by a landslide.

It was a squeaker, dude, in a deeply divided nation. Furthermore, he would do well to listen to the views expressed by the majority of those who voted against him.

International news

Japan’s PM to visit site where ‘day of infamy’ occurred

abe

Shinzo Abe is coming to America.

It’s no ordinary visit for a Japanese prime minister. Oh, no. He’s going to a place burned in the memories of millions of Americans.

Pearl Harbor awaits the visit of the first Japanese head of government since a bright sunny day in December 1941.

On Dec. 7, the United States entered World War II after its naval and air forces were attacked by Japanese bombers and fighter planes. Roughly 3,000 Americans died in that sneak attack. President Roosevelt stood before Congress the next day and declared we had been attacked “yesterday, Dec. 7, 1941, a date which will live … in infamy.”

The president  sought a declaration of war; Congress gave it to him — and the world changed forever.

Prime Minister Abe is coming to Pearl Harbor to meet with President Obama.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/abe-to-make-first-pearl-harbor-visit-by-japan-leader/ar-AAl9vUm?li=BBmkt5R&ocid=spartandhp

This visit very well could mark a remarkable day of atonement for the Japanese government.

Abe said in a statement announcing the Dec. 26-27 visit: “I’d like to make it (meeting with Obama) an opportunity to send a message to the world that we will further strengthen and maintain our alliance towards the future,” he said. “And at the same time, I want to make it an opportunity to signal the value of Japan-US reconciliation.”

The prime minister’s wife, Akie, visited Pearl Harbor earlier this year, touring the USS Arizona Memorial, where she laid flowers and prayed.

There’s been a good bit of that sort of thing over the years as Japanese tourists journey to Pearl Harbor. Aging men — many of whom fought against Americans during the war — have come to Pearl Harbor to pray and to seek forgiveness for their country’s role in initiating the carnage that erupted all across the Pacific Theater after what FDR labeled a “dastardly” act.

President Obama visited Hiroshima earlier this year, speaking to the world about the dangers of nuclear weaponry. He didn’t apologize for President Truman’s decision on Aug. 6, 1945 to drop an atomic bomb on Hiroshima. Nor should he have done so.

The war ended a few days later. It’s been argued during the decades since that use of the atomic weapons on Hiroshima and Nagasaki likely saved many more lives than they took. Still, the debate continues.

Now the focus turns to Prime Minister Abe’s return visit to Pearl Harbor. Does he make amends? Does he issue a formal apology to the United States for the actions of his predecessors?

My own feeling is that an apology is due. Whatever he says, though, I am certain it will be heartfelt and will, as he said, speak to the “reconciliation” that has drawn the United States and Japan closer in the years that came after that horrible “day of infamy.”

It should be a historic and profoundly meaningful visit, depending, of course, on what the prime minister tells the world.

medical news, national news, political news

Dr. Carson changes his mind; he is ‘qualified’ after all

dr-carson

Was I hearing things a week after the presidential election?

I could swear I heard — and read — something from Dr. Ben Carson and his closest associates in which he declared he didn’t want a job in Donald J. Trump’s Cabinet because, in Carson’s view, he wasn’t qualified to run a federal agency.

That’s not his skill set … supposedly.

https://highplainsblogger.com/2016/11/carson-opts-out-of-cabinet-post-but-why/

Carson ran for the Republican Party’s presidential nomination and was one of 16 pretenders to get crushed by the Trump juggernaut.

So, what precisely is Dr. Carson’s skill? He’s a renowned pediatric neurosurgeon. He has performed what amount to medical miracles on children in need of them. His brilliance as an MD is beyond reproach.

Now, though, he’s being tossed into a brand new arena. Trump has nominated him to run the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.

I don’t understand this choice.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/trump-taps-former-campaign-rival-carson-as-housing-secretary/ar-AAl9QAE?li=BBnb7Kz

As The Associated Press reported: “In a statement, Trump says he’s ‘thrilled to nominate’ Carson, saying he “has a brilliant mind and is passionate about strengthening communities and families within those communities.” Great! Does the passion qualify him to manage a massive federal agency? Time will reveal that in due course.

If the president-elect were to ask me, I’d say Carson would be a better fit as secretary of health and human services or as surgeon general. Trump seek my advice.

As for his ability to run HUD, I’ll just suggest that managing a massive federal bureaucracy ain’t exactly brain surgery … if you get my drift.

national news, political news

Imagine the surprise: Hillary’s foes will keep looking

2 Comments

clinton-chaffetz

Let me see a show of hands.

Who is surprised that congressional Republicans are going to keep looking for something — anything! — to hang around Hillary Rodham Clinton’s neck?

I didn’t think so. No one, yes?

U.S. House Oversight Committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, said he’s going to pursue an investigation into whether Clinton committed perjury to Congress while testifying about her use of a personal e-mail server while she was secretary of state.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/clinton-opponents-vow-to-continue-their-pursuit/ar-AAl87tn?li=BBnb7Kz

Let’s see how this goes. The FBI investigated Clinton thoroughly and determined she didn’t commit any crimes. Did the feds determine she lied under oath to Congress? Umm, no. Did they find any other criminality? Again, no.

That won’t prevent Chaffetz and other GOP lawmakers from continuing to search for someone with which to charge the defeated Democratic presidential nominee.

As The Hill reports: “‘A political election does not extinguish the need for transparency, truth and justice,’ he told Fox News this week.” The Hill adds that Judicial Watch, a conservative watchdog group, also plans to stay on the hunt. Hmm. Imagine that.

I get that Chairman Chaffetz doesn’t want an election by itself to spell the end of a congressional probe. What I don’t get is why Chaffetz wants to keep scouring after the FBI has made its determination that “no reasonable prosecutor” would seek an indictment alleging criminality against Clinton.

If he had the goods on Clinton, surely he could have produced it long ago.

What’s more, Donald J. Trump, who’s about to become president, has said he no longer wants to pursue a probe of Clinton.

None of that, however, is likely to stop Chaffetz and other GOP zealots from continuing their incessant march into more dead ends.

Enough, already!

national news, political news

Needing help accepting this outcome … fully

o-donald-trump-facebook

A friend of mine has acknowledged a greater-than-normal disappointment in the presidential election result.

He said he’s having trouble accepting that Donald J. Trump is now the president-elect of the United States of America.

I am now going to admit the same thing.

Just as my friend said, I’ve voted for losing presidential candidates many times over the years. I’ve voted in 12 presidential elections, dating back to 1972. My record as of Nov. 8 is now 5-7 … that’s five winners and seven losers.

I know how it feels to be on the losing side.

This one is different than all the rest of them. It’s even different from my first vote, when Sen. George McGovern got smashed to smithereens in a 49-state blowout to President Nixon. I was young, full of piddle and vinegar, just home from service in the Army, newly married and I worked my butt off in my hometown to elect a good and decent man to the presidency.

It’s not that I believe Trump was inferior to his chief opponent, Hillary Rodham Clinton. It’s deeper than that. He’s patently unfit for the office. I will maintain that belief more than likely for the entire time he serves as president.

That could change. Trump could prove me wrong. He could turn out to be a quick study. He could muster some semblance of the decorum needed to serve as head of state and the leader of our government. Trump could actually grasp the concept of limited presidential power and he could accede to the will of another co-equal branch of government, the one on Capitol Hill, aka Congress.

I cannot get past the notion, though, that he’s going to try to run roughshod over the system. That he’s going to do some incredibly stupid things, issue some incompetent — or unlawful — orders.

I want none of that to happen. I want the new president to succeed. In some perverse way, I’m actually pulling for him. I know that sounds like a huge contradiction, given what I’ve written already in this post, along with what I’ve stated in countless previous posts on this blog.

It’s not. I have declared already that I do not subscribe to the hope that he will fail. Presidential failure means failure for the entire country. I will not forsake my citizenship; I won’t move to another nation. I will stay put and speak out whenever I feel like it. I’ll praise the good things Trump does and will criticize the bad.

So help me, I cannot yet come to grips with the notion that this guy — the former reality TV celebrity, the hotel mogul, the guy who admits to cheating on his wives, who acknowledges seeking to impose his sexual will on women, who mocked a physically disabled reporter, denigrated Gold Star parents and flung insults at opponents — is about to become the 45th president of the United States.

It’s not like the previous times I’ve voted for the losing candidate. Yes, I know Trump won the election fair and square. I accept the fact that he won the required number of electoral votes. And yes … he will be my president.

I’m just having trouble moving forward and putting the result behind me.

Do I need an intervention?