The juxtaposition of two events is startling to behold.
Donald Trump told Fox News that he gives himself an A+ grade in his handling of the coronavirus pandemic.
He said that on the day the U.S. death count from the virus surpassed 200,000 people. Their lives have ended and the lives of their loved ones have been changed forever.
Outside the White House, a reporter asked Trump how he responds to the death count. His answer? He turned to another reporter and asked, “Next question?”
The commander in chief cannot speak to the death count, he won’t answer for it, he won’t hold himself accountable at any level for the misery that has occurred on his watch.
Yet he grades himself with an A+?
Is this guy serious? Of course he thinks of himself in the most glowing, glorious and gleeful terms.
I kinda think U.S. Sen. Mitt Romney of Utah has missed a key point in the fight over whether Donald Trump should proceed quickly with nominating someone to the U.S. Supreme Court in the wake of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s death.
Romney said he would support moving forward quickly, endorsing the idea of a rapid-fire confirmation process, despite assurances from many key GOP senators in 2016 that they would oppose such a thing, even with a Republican president awaiting the chance to nominate someone in a presidential election year.
Sen. Romney declared Tuesday that there nothing “in the stars” that requires the SCOTUS to be a “liberal” court. That was his public declaration in stating his support for moving ahead. I am scratching my head over that one, Mitt.
We all get that elections have consequences. Trump promised to select conservative judges. He is delivering on the pledge. It’s the timing of it, the idea that an election now no longer stands as an impediment to the president being able to select someone. The GOP sang an entirely different tune in 2016 when Justice Antonin Scalia died and President Obama sought to name Merrick Garland to the high court. GOP Senate leaders — namely Majority Leader Mitch McConnell — slammed the brakes on that, declaring that the “people deserve a voice” in determining who sits on the Supreme Court.
Well, they deserve as much of a voice today as they did then.
That’s the beef. It has little to do with whether a president can select who he wants.
I was hoping Mitt Romney would put principle above party — just as he did when he was the lone GOP senator to vote to convict Trump of abuse of power in his Senate impeachment trial.
I’ve been stewing about this ever since I saw the ad the first time a couple of weeks ago, so now I will vent just a bit.
M.J. Hegar is running for the U.S. Senate in Texas occupied by John Cornyn. She defeated state Sen. Royce West of Dallas in a Democratic Party primary runoff for the right to challenge the Republican incumbent.
But I think she’s treading into an off-putting campaign strategy, one in which she seems to boast about her own military service in Afghanistan. She talks about her time as an Air Force helicopter pilot, about being shot down and then kind of crows about being awarded a Silver Star and Purple Heart for her actions on the battlefield.
I don’t begrudge Hegar’s service. I honor it and I respect it greatly. I do, though, believe it is unbecoming for her to seemingly boast about her service in a paid political ad. That is the kind of commentary that should be left for others to say on her behalf. Those who perform heroically in combat customarily are reluctant to talk about such deeds.
Yes, other political candidates have run for office after serving with valor and heroism on the battlefield. I don’t recall hearing them — speaking in their own voice — seemingly boast about it.
I guess you could say that politics at times can travel full circle.
Consider this: The wife of the man against whom Joe Biden ran in 2008 has endorsed the 2020 Democratic Party presidential nominee’s bid for the presidency of the United States.
Cindy McCain, wife of the late senator and Vietnam War hero John McCain, says Biden is the “only man” who speaks for the nation’s values.
At one level this endorsement isn’t surprising. Biden and McCain were the best of friends. They came from different parties; they differed politically and philosophically. They also shared a love of country and a commitment to serving the public. Biden’s path took him to the Senate by the time he turned 30 while McCain’s journey took him to the Navy and then to the Vietnam War, where he was shot down and imprisoned (and tortured repeatedly) for more than five years; he came home in 1973 and became a successful politician.
Biden ran as vice president on a ticket led by Barack Obama in 2008. They defeated the GOP ticket led by U.S. Sen. McCain, who ran with Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as his running mate.
Biden and McCain never let their political differences interfere with the deep affection and respect they had for each other.
So it was today that Cindy McCain endorsed Joe Biden’s bid to become president. Sen. McCain would be quite pleased.
I will spare you the various and assorted nicknames that have been plastered onto U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.
He stands before me now as the government’s premier hypocrite. The hypocrite to end all hypocrites. The man who gives hypocrisy a bad name.
I know that he’s far from alone in the hypocrite cabal. Government is full of them. And yes, both parties have their share of hypocrites.
However, the Kentucky Republican is relishing in his hypocrisy. The man who stiffed President Obama from filling a Supreme Court seat because he didn’t want to do in an election year is ramrodding a Donald Trump pending selection to probable confirmation … in an election year!
The difference? Obama is a Democrat; Trump is a Republican.
And yet the hypocrite in chief blames Democrats for “playing politics” with the federal judiciary. Excuse me while I puke!
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg had the bad form to die less than 50 days prior to the next presidential election. That hasn’t stopped McConnell from unleashing his partisan hounds. He vows to get a nominee confirmed before the election.
Oh, what about that presidential election year taboo? Well, that was then. Principle doesn’t apply when there is a partisan political advantage to be explored.
Dang, I almost wish I could move to Kentucky to campaign actively against this clown’s re-election. That won’t happen. I will have to rely on this blog to vent my rage at the way this guy manipulates the levers of power to his maximum political advantage.
Maybe I should admire how this guy can do this. I would, except that his ends all work at cross purposes with my own world view. I do not want Donald Trump to nominate a third justice to the Supreme Court. He is going to select some far right-wing ideologue … while pretending to agree with whatever judicial philosophy guides her.
And this is being brought to bear by the hypocrite in chief.
This, I suggest, gives us all the reason in the world to vote Donald Trump out of office.
It has been said more times than I care to recall that “elections have consequences.”
That truism is playing out in real time as I write these few words.
Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s death has opened the door wide for the most unfit man ever to hold the office of president to nominate his third selection to the nation’s Supreme Court.
You want consequences? The court, if Trump’s nominee gets confirmed, will be locked in a solid 6 to 3 conservative majority possibly for a generation.
Yes, this is what we get when we elect someone with no moral compass, no ideological basis, no authentic sense of what justice really means to the nation’s highest office.
Trump says he’s going to nominate a woman to succeed Ginsburg. I always am struck, by the way, at Trump’s use of platitudes to describe individuals. He calls Judge Amy Coney Barrett, one of the frontrunners to be nominated, as “fantastic,” that she’s a “brilliant lawyer,” that she’ll do a “great job.” What is missing in these platitudes is any sense that Trump knows anything of substance about the individuals he is considering.
How in the name of electoral power do we rectify what’s about to happen? I believe the first and perhaps last option is to ensure that Trump gets defeated, that Americans elect Joseph R. Biden as their next president. I know that electing Biden won’t undo the damage that Trump might inflict on our federal judiciary — given his penchant for heeding the advice of far-right-wing commentators and thinkers. Electing Biden does set the predicate for a longer-term repair of the damage that Trump will inflict.
Thus, the upcoming election — shall we say — has intense consequence on the future of our nation.
If you disbelieve the value of elections and the consequences they can produce, I present to you Exhibit A: Donald John Trump’s fluke victory in 2016.
It’s fair to ask: Is Donald Trump going to venture to the Capitol Building to pay his respects to the first woman ever to lie in repose in that structure?
Yes, that would be the late U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
Trump has said that Justice Ginsburg led an “amazing life.” So far, that’s the extent of his public comments on the passing of the judicial icon.
Make no mistake that politics plays a role here. Does Trump possibly anger the wacky MAGA base of supporters who fervently oppose virtually all the opinions that Ginsburg rendered during her 27 years on the high court simply by appearing next to RBG’s casket?
The hypocrisy ringing throughout the halls of the nation’s Capitol Building is becoming the stuff of legend.
Four years ago, Republican U.S. senators said time and time again that no president should be allowed to fill a Supreme Court seat during an election year. They didn’t qualify the assertion. They didn’t stipulate presidents of any particular party.
They said no president, none, should move forward with selecting a justice when we have a presidential election on tap.
You will recall in early 2016 when Justice Antonin Scalia died suddenly. President Barack Obama wanted to name a successor. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said “not so fast.” He slammed the brakes on a nomination.
GOP senators stepped up and said the same thing. No president should select someone for a lifetime during an election year.
Recall that Scalia died nearly 10 months before the 2016 presidential election. Now we have Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who died just 48 days prior to the next election.
Republican senators are ignoring their own assertion. They now want to rush a nomination forward before the Nov. 3 election.
What happened to the 2016 mantra of “giving the people a voice” in who should sit on the Supreme Court? Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida even went so far as to say he would make that demand when we have a Republican president. Hey, Marco, we have one now … bub! What say you these days about seating someone to succeed Ruth Bader Ginsburg? I know. It’s full steam ahead!
The people still deserve a voice before the Senate acts on Donald Trump’s expected nomination of someone to succeed the great Justice Ginsburg. If the Senate GOP thought it was true in 2016 when Barack Obama sought to fill a post vacated by Justice Scalia’s death, then it should hold to that philosophy now.
Right? Oh wait! The Party of Trump doesn’t believe in ethics, fairness, truth-telling and honor.
I have been voting for president in every election since 1972.
Not once have I felt such intense personal loathing for the man who sits in the president’s office … until right now.
Actually, my visceral animosity dates back to the evening when I heard Donald Trump had won enough Electoral College votes to become the nation’s 45th president.
Then it started. The intensely personal and persistent rage at the thought that Americans had sent this carnival barker into the Oval Office, given him access to the most dangerous weapon system ever created and handed him the keys to governing a nation that in a fit of anger forgot about the standards is used to set for the individual who they choose to lead us.
It’s not that I oppose Trump’s ideology. He doesn’t possess anything of the sort. He has no set of guiding principles. Trump does not adhere to a fundamental set of values. He views political relationships as transactional events; you do this for me and I’ll do that for you.
This individual had zero public service experience under his belt. He continues to exhibit zero interest in public service even now as he occupies the presidency.
The record of chock full of anecdotes and recollections of those with whom he has worked about how he talks about others, how he feels about Americans who idolize him. There is the prevailing sense that he detests the rank-and-file Trumpkins who flock to his rallies and cheer the lies that fly out of his mouth.
I have harbored these thoughts about Trump since before he became president. I didn’t want him to win the Republican Party presidential nomination in 2016. I damn sure didn’t want him to defeat Hillary Clinton who, despite her own flaws, was eminently more qualified to serve as our head of state and commander in chief than the individual who won the election.
So, here we are. Another election is on tap. Trump is in pandering mode to be sure. He will select someone to sit on the Supreme Court in the wake of the great Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s death. My hunch is that he doesn’t know the first thing about any of the finalists he is considering, other than how they might appeal to elements of his political base.
He has failed the test of leadership at every level possible.
I understand that Scripture tells us about new doors opening when one slams shut.
It happened to me in 2012. A career in print journalism came to a screeching halt in August of that year. I was adrift for just a little while.
Then a friend from Panhandle PBS got in touch with me. Linda Pitner was general manager of the public TV station — affiliated with Amarillo College — at the time. She wanted to know if I would like to write a blog for the stations’ web site.
Would I? Of course I would! With that, a career that came to an end got restarted in an entirely new form at Panhandle PBS. I was doing things for public TV that my former employer at the Amarillo Globe-News didn’t think I could do. I had joined the world of online journalism.
I have to say that I had a serious blast writing that blog and doing the kind of video blogs — such as the one I attached to this brief post. The gig didn’t last an overly long time. Panhandle PBS brought in a new GM eventually and he decided that my services no longer fit the direction he wanted to take the station.
We parted company. That didn’t end my blogging time.
A local CBS affiliate GM asked me the same thing Pitner did: Would I like to write for KFDA-NewsChannel 10? Of course I would, I told Brent McClure. So, he hired me as a freelancer to write features for the website. I would write them and then the on-air news anchors would introduce the features in a brief segment during the evening newscasts. They would assemble video presentations to complement the text I had submitted to the website.
That, too, was a seriously good time for this longtime print guy. The KFDA gig, though, came to an end when budget constraints kicked in. No worries for me.
My wife and I gravitated from Amarillo to the Metroplex in 2018. The fun continues.
Another friend of mine — who is news director at KETR-FM public radio — gave me a shout. Mark Haslett and I worked together at the Globe-News for a time; prior to that he was an executive at High Plains Public Radio in Amarillo, so we knew each other pretty well.
Haslett asked if I would — you guessed it — write a blog for KETR, which is affiliated with Texas A&M University-Commerce. Why, yes! I would! So I have been writing a blog for KETR and once again am having the time of my life.
That’s not the end of it. When we settled in Princeton, just east of McKinney and just a bit northeast of our granddaughter in Allen, I put a feeler out to the publisher of the Princeton Herald. Did they need a freelance reporter? The publisher, Sonia Duggan, said “yes.” So … she and I agreed that I could write for the Farmersville Times, which is another weekly newspaper in a group of weeklies Duggan owns with her husband, Chad Engbrock.
Therefore, I have come full circle. I am now covering city council and school board meetings for a weekly newspaper, along with banging out the occasional feature article.
