Tag Archives: 2016 election

political news

How does Trump plan to make his re-election case?

Donald J. Trump is going to ask Americans to re-elect him to another term as president of the United States. I am baffled to the max over this question: How is he going to make the case that he has earned a second term?

Trump got elected in 2016 by demonizing his opponent, Hillary Rodham Clinton and by stoking fear of enemies outside of our borders and of those within them. He promised to vanquish them all. He told us that “I, alone” can repair all that ailed the nation.

Well, he hasn’t.

He has been bedeviled by questions concerning his relationships — business, personal and political — with foreign governments. He claims today that he has been “exonerated.” He hasn’t been cleared of anything. That’s another story.

As he ramps up his re-election campaign, Donald Trump is facing a critical question. How is he going to sell himself for another four years in the White House?

I am reminded a bit of the late Texas Gov. Ann Richards, who ran for re-election as governor in 1994 against a political novice, a fellow named George W. Bush. Richards was thought of at the time to be highly popular. She had good — if not great — public approval ratings.

She made a critical error during her first term. She vetoed legislation that would have referred a concealed handgun carry bill to the voters for their endorsement. The veto enraged gun enthusiasts.

More than that, though, Richards hardly spoke of how she would govern during a second term. She spent a lot of public time blasting George W. Bush, calling him a lightweight and a “jerk.” Bush remained focused on his campaign themes.

Bush ended up winning. Richards was gone.

There ought to be a lesson for Trump here. Except that he won’t accept it. He won’t campaign on a second-term vision because, in my view, he doesn’t have one. Heck, he didn’t have a first-term vision, other than banning Muslims from traveling to this country, building The Wall along our southern border and eliminating the Affordable Care Act.

He stoked fear and loathing. He appealed to our darker instincts.

Is he going to brighten his vision for the future? Hah! Hardly! A 70-something-year-old man isn’t likely to change the strategy that won him election to the first public office he ever sought.

In my humble view, these basic tenets remain the same today as they were when Trump rode down the Trump Tower escalator to announce his presidential candidacy:

  • Donald Trump is unfit at every level imaginable to be president.
  • Trump will continue to be the fear monger in chief.
  • He will continue to lie incessantly.
  • Trump will demonize his opponents in the most venal, disgusting, disgraceful, personal terms.

Donald Trump doesn’t deserve re-election any more than he deserved election in the first place. I intend to do everything within my meager power — through this forum — to make that case.

International news

Russia probe was a ‘disgrace’? What about the Russian attack?

Donald Trump has been mounting a full-throated, frontal assault on the investigation into The Russia Thing by special counsel Robert Mueller III.

Yes, the president is attacking the probe as a “witch hunt,” and a “disgrace to our country.” Mueller reportedly concluded that the Trump presidential campaign did not “collude” with Russian goons who attacked our electoral system. It’s an open question on the issue of obstruction of justice.

But Trump keeps declaring he received “total exoneration” while piling on and on and on over Mueller’s exhaustive investigation.

I am left to wonder: Why doesn’t the president declare the Russian interference in our electoral process to be a “disgrace” to the nation? Where is the president’s alarm that the Russians were able and willing — according to Mueller — hack into our election data bases and seek to distribute false information about Hillary Clinton? Isn’t that what one would call “fake news”?

Oh, and then the Russians actually did launch their attack on the same day that candidate Donald Trump invited them to look for those missing e-mails that the Clinton team reportedly trashed. Isn’t that at least as much of a national “disgrace” as the Russian attack in the first place?

Trump’s disgraceful misrepresentation of “disgraceful” conduct continues to demonstrate fully to me that the man is unfit for public office of any sort, let alone as the president of the United States.

He impugns the integrity of Mueller, a former FBI director, a decorated Vietnam War combat veteran and a man known for meticulous preparation in the performance of his legal duties.

The “national disgrace” occurred not with the probe. It occurred when the Russians interfered in our cherished electoral system.

Where is the condemnation of that, Mr. President?

national news, political news

Shameless POTUS continues to keep his tax returns secret

I cannot stop shaking my head.

Three Democratic candidates for president — U.S. Sens. Kirsten Gillibrand and Kamala Harris and Washington Gov. Jay Inslee — have released their income tax return statements for public review. What’s more, they are daring the president of the United States, Donald Trump, to do the same.

Good luck, senators and Gov. Inslee. It won’t happen. He won’t be shamed into doing what he should have done when he declared his candidacy in June 2015. Why? Because this individual is utterly shameless. He is beyond redemption in the shame department.

He said after riding down the Trump Tower escalator on campaign announcement day that his tax returns were “under audit.” He then said he would release ’em when the audit was complete. He called it “routine.” So, how long does a “routine” audit take? I’m guessing it doesn’t take more than three years!

The plain truth is that Trump never has produced even a perfunctory letter from the Internal Revenue Service informing him of the audit.

Yes, I believe the president of the United States lied about the audit. My strong hunch is that he wasn’t being audited by the IRS and that he used the audit dodge as a pretext to keep his finances hidden from public view.

While I’m thinking about it, Sens. Gillibrand and Harris ought to inform their Senate colleague, Bernie Sanders — another candidate for POTUS — to do the same thing. Sanders’ excuse was equally lame when he declined to release his returns when he ran for president in 2016; he said something about how “boring” they would be. Really? Let us be the judge of that, Sen. Sanders.

We’re going to go through another election cycle with Donald Trump holding fast to his lie about an IRS audit. He won’t release his returns voluntarily. It’s quite possible Congress could force him to do what previous presidents and presidential candidates have done for decades, which is reveal to the public their income sources and how much they paid in taxes to the government they seek to oversee.

Nice try, senators and governor. If only Donald Trump had a sense of honor to do the right thing. He just doesn’t.

national news

Hoping the end of probe would . . . be the end!

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Silly me.

I had this naïve thought that Robert Mueller’s report to the attorney general into whether Donald Trump’s campaign colluded with Russians would be the end of the story.

The special counsel would wrap up his findings, hand them to AG William Barr, who then would tell the public what Mueller had found out. We’d all know — for better or for worse — what went down during the 2016 presidential election.

Then this happened: Mueller essentially cleared Trump and his team of conspiring to collude with Russians who interfered with our election; but then he remained silent on whether Trump obstructed justice by seeking to block any further examination into top aides.

What’s more, Barr issued a four-page “summary” of Mueller’s findings. Not everyone believes Barr’s assessment of what Mueller determined. They contend that Barr is a Trump toadie, handpicked by the president to run interference for him.

Now we’re waiting on the full report from Barr, who promises “transparency.” I am forced to ask: How much of it is he going to show us?

I tend to trust William Barr. I also tend to believe him when he says he will let Americans see as much of Mueller’s findings as he can under the law. I do not need to know the deepest national secrets. All any of us ought to see is the body of evidence that Mueller had collected and from which he drew his conclusions.

Of course, I do have questions now about why Mueller would remain silent on the obstruction of justice matter. Barr said Mueller determined that even though he lacked credible evidence of obstruction, he didn’t “exonerate” the president; Trump, quite expectedly, calls it all a “total exoneration,” which is yet another Trump lie.

I’m going to pose another question: If we presume the worst, that Barr withholds parts of Mueller’s report that might be damaging to the president, would the special counsel be willing to blow the whistle on what the AG is hiding from public view?

Oh, how I want to know the whole truth. My hope of knowing it upon the end of Robert Mueller’s probe has been quashed.

national news

Oops! Or so it should go for Rep. Schiff

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U.S. House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff needs to invoke a four-letter utterance made famous by a Trump Cabinet official who once ran for president of the United States.

Oops! That’s what Energy Secretary Rick Perry said when he couldn’t think of the third agency he would shut down were he elected president in 2012.

Well, Chairman Schiff is now eating his words in an “oops” moment.

Stand down, Mr. Chairman

He said that he knew of “more than circumstantial evidence” that Donald Trump’s presidential campaign colluded with Russians who attacked our electoral system in 2016.

Except that special counsel Robert Mueller disagreed with Schiff. He filed his report over the weekend and concluded that he didn’t have enough to charge the Trump team with collusion.

House and Senate Republicans are steamed at Schiff. They say he owes Trump and apology. House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy has demanded that his fellow Californian resign from his Intel Committee chairmanship, if not from the House altogether.

That is an overreach. Perhaps he could apologize whenever the president says he’s sorry for fomenting lies about Barack Obama’s birth, or for mocking the New York Times reporter’s disability, or for saying the late John McCain was a “war hero only because he was captured” during the Vietnam War.

Schiff is standing behind his belief that there’s more to learn about collusion, although he said he accepts Mueller’s judgment.

The Intelligence Committee chairman needs to stand down on this collusion matter. Robert Mueller looked high and low for criminal behavior. He didn’t find it. I get that Schiff is unhappy with the result; so are many millions of other Americans . . . me included.

But that’s what we got.

As for the obstruction of justice matter, Mueller was decidedly non-committal.

Perhaps, though, Chairman Schiff ought to just say “oops!” and go on to the next thing, whatever it is.

legal news

No collusion? OK, but let’s look a bit closer at obstruction

I get that Donald Trump’s presidential campaign did not collude — in the eyes of the special counsel — with Russians who attacked our electoral system in 2016.

The president is right to proclaim “complete exoneration” — on that point! I accept special counsel Robert Mueller’s findings.

Is it too much to ask, nonetheless, for a more thorough look at the issue of whether Trump or his team obstructed justice? I think it’s a fair request.

Congressional Democrats are clamoring for more information on the obstruction matter. Attorney General William Barr’s summary of Mueller’s findings takes note that Mueller did not “exonerate” the president on the obstruction of justice issue, even though Trump said he did. Well, Trump is known to, um, bend the truth a bit . . . you know?

Mueller reportedly found evidence on both sides of the fence. He learned there was evidence that the president did obstruct justice, but that it didn’t rise to the level of criminality. OK, let’s see what he found.

The attorney general hasn’t yet made that call. It is believed he’ll take his time deciding whether to release that portion of Mueller’s findings to Congress and to the public.

I am one of millions of Americans who wants to know what Mueller learned and on what basis he determined that he could not prosecute Donald Trump for obstructing the search for the truth regarding the Russian attack on our electoral system.

national news

Support Mueller’s work, however . . . let’s see more of it

I feel the need to reiterate with emphasis: I accept special counsel Robert Mueller’s findings regarding the president of the United States, that he didn’t “collude” with Russians who hacked our electoral system in 2016.

I trust Mueller as a man of high integrity.

However, all the work and the public expense that went into Mueller’s findings compel the attorney general to release the bulk of that effort to the public.

AG William Barr’s four-page summary of what Mueller has concluded reportedly has created an ebullient mood in the White House. At one level, I, too, am glad to know that Donald Trump didn’t commit any crimes related to collusion with Russian government goons.

Mueller, though, has concluded that the president is not “exonerated” from questions about obstruction of justice. So, let’s see the whole thing, shall we?

I have no intention of impugning Mueller’s integrity. I have sought to defend this good man, former FBI director, a combat veteran of the Vietnam War against attacks by those on the right — starting with the president of the United States. I do not believe there is anything in the details of what he uncovered that will change my view of Mueller and the effort he put forth in making his determination.

Americans just have the right to see his findings in as much detail as possible for themselves.

national news

‘No collusion, no obstruction’

I said I would accept whatever conclusion that special counsel Robert Mueller III reached regarding whether Donald Trump “colluded” with Russians who attacked our election in2016.

He has delivered his verdict: There is no evidence of collusion, no evidence of obstruction of justice.

I accept his findings. I do so not because I am happy about what the special counsel has determined. I accept it because I believe implicitly in Mueller’s thoroughness, his integrity, his professionalism.

Do I believe this is the end of the line for those who still question the president’s motivation? Does this mean there’s nothing to questions about whether Trump is profiting from dealings with foreign leaders and governments? Uh, no on both counts.

But . . . Mueller’s findings, which he delivered to Attorney General William Barr this past Friday, have cleared the president of criminal behavior as it regards collusion or obstruction of justice.

On that score, I welcome the news that the president of the United States did not work in tandem with a hostile foreign power to influence the outcome of a presidential election.

However, my acceptance of Mueller’s findings notwithstanding, I want to challenge the assertion that Trump made that the authorities need to look at “the other side.” He means Democrats and their 2016 presidential nominee, Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Mr. President, they have looked carefully at Clinton, at Democrats and others on their side of the aisle. The FBI drew the same type of conclusion that Mueller has just delivered: no criminality.

There’s more investigating to be done, by Congress and by federal prosecutors in the Southern District of New York.

Mueller’s work is done. Good. He’s earned some time off.

I’ll just add that although he says there was “no collusion” or “no obstruction,” Mueller has not — contrary to what the president has said via Twitter — provided “total exoneration.”

More to come.

national news

Now . . . the wait begins

Robert Mueller III has handed off the report the world has been waiting for to Attorney General William Barr.

Well . . .

His work is finished! Now it’s up to the attorney general to do the right thing, which is to say that he must release Mueller’s findings to Congress and to the rest of us. That would be you, me and the rest of Americans whose money paid for this two-year-long probe into allegations of “collusion” between Donald Trump’s campaign and Russians who interfered with our election in 2016.

Mueller has submitted a letter to Barr. He hasn’t revealed a single thing about what’s in the report. The AG likely has a good idea of what’s in it; he likely knew what it contains even before he received it.

I understand that there are limits to what the AG can and should release. He doesn’t want to implicate individuals who aren’t charged with crimes, if anyone has been implicated in potential criminal activity.

However, now that Mueller’s work is done, it should not take the attorney general very long to determine how much to divulge to Americans — such as me — who are waiting to know what Mueller has found.

To borrow a Watergate-era phrase: Do not, Mr. AG, keep us twisting in the wind.

national news

By all means, take POTUS’s word for it: release Mueller report

I shall disagree with Donald Trump’s view that Robert Mueller is not qualified to “write a report” because he didn’t get any votes.

However, I will agree with the president that the report Mueller finishes and submits to Attorney General William Barr needs to be made public.

A deputy attorney general selected Mueller to investigate allegations of collusion between the Trump campaign and Russian operatives. He reportedly is nearing the end of his probe.

The president has declared that he’d be “OK” with Mueller releasing the report. He said the public deserves to see the result of his work.

Yes, we do deserve to see it!

Trump yammered a bit about Mueller not getting any votes. The president noted the “historic” nature of his 2016 victory for president. Yeah, it was “historic” all right.

The public has many questions that need answers.

I agree with the president. Release the report. Make it public. Let us all see what Mueller has concluded.