Tag Archives: Barack Obama

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Trump anti-Obama pettiness continues to grow

This story doesn’t surprise me one little bit.

Donald Trump reportedly is refusing to unveil a portrait of Barack H. Obama in a White House ceremony, breaking a 42-year tradition dating back to the days of Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter.

The ceremony has become part of the White House tradition of one president honoring the service of his immediate predecessor. Not this time.

President Carter started this tradition in 1978 when he invited former President Ford to the White House to unveil the portrait of the 38th president. Presidents Carter and Ford, even after their brutal and bruising campaign in 1976, became fast friends.

President Obama and his successor likely never will achieve anything even approaching civility.

Trump has accused Obama of illegal activities; he recently called him a “grossly incompetent” president; he has sought openly to dismantle any vestige of the Obama administration.

For his part, Obama has been largely quiet … until recently.

Now it’s Trump who will decline to unveil the portrait of his immediate predecessor in what looks like yet another disgraceful, disgusting and dispiriting example of petty petulance.

President Obama in 2012 welcomed his immediate predecessor, President Bush, to the White House for a portrait unveiling. These men are not political allies. However, they exhibit great respect for their service to the country.

If you watch this video, you’ll understand what I mean by referring to Donald Trump’s pettiness.

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Trump vs. Obama … ‘er Biden?

Donald Trump has been asking for it. He’s been needling, ridiculing and criticizing his immediate presidential predecessor since the moment he won the 2016 election.

Now he’s getting a portion of what he has dished out. He doesn’t like it. He called former President Barack Obama a “grossly incompetent president.” Indeed, Trump’s response to Obama’s chiding tells me plenty about the fundamental differences between these two individuals.

One of them is urbane, erudite, sophisticated. He speaks with high-minded nobility, such as what we heard Saturday night during his “virtual” commencement remarks to the nation’s high school class of 2020.

The other one is, well, crude, petulant, petty. He resorts to name-calling. He deals in innuendo, defamation of character. We have heard that, too, and we’re going to hear a lot more of it from this fellow.

Barack Obama and Donald Trump just might go at each other’s throats before this election season winds down.

But wait! Only one of these guys is running for public office in 2020. It’s Trump! He’s got an opponent out there and it’s not Barack Obama! It’s the guy who served nobly for two terms as vice president of the United States during the Obama administration.

Joe Biden has been holed up in his Wilmington, Del., basement during the coronavirus pandemic. Meanwhile, the former president has endorsed Biden’s presidential candidacy and has made it abundantly clear he intends to work hard to ensure his election this November.

Biden and Obama, though, have a difficult dance to perform. Biden will emerge in due course — and I hope it’s soon — as the Democratic Party’s titular leader. He slogged and slugged his way through a grueling primary process against a record number of primary opponents. Biden stands alone as Donald Trump’s most pressing immediate political threat.

However, Barack Obama’s standing as the nation’s most engaging political figure threatens to eclipse the former vice president. None of this, of course, doesn’t matter one damn bit to Donald Trump, who’ll continue his insufferable tirades against the former president.

Through it all, we just might be able to take a full measure of the smallness of the individual who wants a second term as president of the United States. If Barack Obama can reveal more of that to us through his measured, dignified commentary on the quality of our current leadership, then so much the better … for Joe Biden.

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Imagine — if you can — Donald Trump giving this speech

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OK, I just cannot resist the obvious temptation that I know has crossed the minds of many millions of Americans.

I just watched Barack H. Obama deliver the “virtual” commencement speech to the nation’s graduation high school Class of 2020. It was a marvelous — albeit brief — speech to graduating seniors.

The thought that crossed my mind? I am seeking to imagine the current president of the United States, Donald J. Trump, talking to these young Americans with the wisdom, the love and empathy that we heard from President Obama.

By all rights, given what has transpired in this nation over the course of the past two months, it should have been Donald Trump delivering this virtual commencement speech. It was on his watch that the global coronavirus pandemic shut down traditional commencement ceremonies at high schools all across the land.

But, no! We heard from Barack Obama, who stepped up to deliver a message of hope to our the next generation of leaders who now must make their way into an uncertain world.

Yes, he delivered the goods.

medical news

What? Mitch says he’s wrong?

I guess hell can freeze over on occasion.

U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has admitted to speaking incorrectly about an issue involving former President Obama.

McConnell said erroneously that the Obama administration didn’t leave the Donald Trump administration with a pandemic response action plan.

D’oh! Turns out the former president did leave a 69-page playbook for the Trump team to use in case a pandemic were to erupt. “I was wrong,” McConnell said in a Fox News interview.

Now, it turns out that the Trump team didn’t look at it. I guess it had something to do with Barack Obama’s name on it, which I am going to presume made Donald Trump go berserk, given his irrational envy of anything associated with President Obama.

Well, it’s good to know that even the mighty Mitch McConnell can admit to making a mistake. Do not expect anything of the sort coming from Donald John Trump.

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Trump Derangement Syndrome? Hah!

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ROBYN BECK/AFP/Getty Images

Critics of this blog have accused me over the past three or four years of suffering from what they call Trump Derangement Syndrome.

Why, they just cannot grasp why I am so dedicated to the removal from office of Donald J. Trump, the winner of the biggest electoral fluke in U.S. political history.

Well, I now will throw that TDS accusation back at them.

Whatever affliction from which I suffer pales in comparison to the Obama Derangement Syndrome that has befallen Donald J. Trump.

Allow me this blinding example …

Donald Trump is caught in the middle of a worldwide pandemic that is killing thousands of Americans every single day; more than 85,000 of us have died at last count. That casualty count is mounting at a frightening pace.

Trump’s early response was despicable in the extreme. He has failed at every level imaginable to show leadership.

So, what does he do while he should be formulating a national strategy to fight this killer viral infection? He accuses former President Obama of committing a crime. He says the Senate needs to summon Obama to testify before the Justice Committee to answer questions about why he “unmasked” former national security adviser Michael Flynn, who was talking to Russian officials while the Russians were attacking our electoral system.

Donald Trump is seeking to deflect attention from his miserable failure to lead the country in the midst of a medical and economic crisis.

This president is doing something that not even Richard Nixon — the only president to resign from office — thought of doing. To be sure, President Nixon compiled his enemies list and abused the power of his office. Donald Trump has accused Barack Obama has committed an illegal act and has in effect called for him to be jailed.

That is what I call Obama Derangement Syndrome. It’s serious and dangerous. If what I suffer from is Trump Derangement Syndrome — and it compels me to keep speaking out against this demented, deranged president — then I am all in!

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Trump piles on a new charge without evidence

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Donald Trump’s list of unsubstantiated allegations keeps growing.

He now has accused former President Barack Obama of committing a crime. The crime alleges something to do with former national security adviser Michael Flynn and whether President Obama conspired with the FBI to investigate whether Flynn had conspired with Russians who attacked our electoral system in 2016.

When reporters asked Trump about “Obamagate,” he said the media know the nature of the crime.

This is disgraceful.

It comes from the Imbecile in Chief who has alleged that millions of illegal immigrants voted for Hillary Clinton in 2016; he accused the Obama administration of “spying” on his campaign; now he has launched new conspiracy campaign against his immediate presidential predecessor.

Donald Trump is channeling the shady ghost of the late Sen. Joseph McCarthy, the infamous commie-hunter from Wisconsin who smeared the reputations of dozens of public servants in the 1950s.

Only this time Trump is actually one-upping McCarthy by accusing his predecessor of committing a crime, which is tantamount to what he is alleging with this Flynn business.

He calls the Obama administration “the most corrupt” in U.S. history, which is laughable on its face, given that so many of Trump’s former associates, campaign aides have pleaded guilty to criminal activity.

Michael Flynn is one of them. He pleaded guilty twice to lying to the FBI about the Russian attack on our election. Then he took it back. Now he has the Justice Department seeking to have the guilty plea wiped off the books.

So now we have Donald Trump seeking yet another diversion from reality by leveling a specious allegation against Barack Obama.

Astonishing.

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Why put the muzzle on these medical experts?

This must be the “chaos” that Barack H. Obama referred to in that leaked phone call to the Obama Alumni Association.

The former president of the United States has categorized Donald Trump’s response to the coronavirus pandemic as “chaotic.” Yep. He said it. I believe it.

So now we have this: Drs. Antony Fauci and Deborah Birx, two of the nation’s leading infectious disease experts, reportedly are being shoved aside while Trump seeks to concentrate on cheerleading the nation back to economic vitality.

It matters not a damn bit to Trump that Fauci and Birx have actual expertise to offer the nation as it seeks answers to the pandemic that has killed 80,000 Americans and is threatening to kill many thousands more of us.

As Politico reports: The broader turn away from the health issues at the core of such a all-encompassing national emergency is just the latest chapter in a communications strategy that’s long confounded and frustrated public health experts.

Trump is more interested in his own political future than in the health of his fellow Americans. That is the major takeaway I am getting from all of this back and forth.

We are dealing first and foremost with a health crisis. Americans are being felled by the thousands each day. Many of those sickened are dying, for crying out loud! Yes, we also have an economic crisis with which to deal. However, Donald Trump must not shun the experts who are supposed to offer clear-headed, objective analysis of the health risks to a nation that needs it far more than it needs cheerleading and exhortations to get back to work.

And it’s the chaos that serves as the common thread that runs through Donald Trump’s mish-mash approach to solving a problem that needs maximum focus … which needs to fix itself on the health of Americans.

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Obama weighing in — finally! — on the 2020 election

Barack Hussein Obama is speaking out, labeling Donald John Trump’s response to the coronavirus pandemic as “chaotic,” and criticizing the Justice Department decision to forgo prosecuting an admitted perjurer.

So, you might ask: What is a former president doing here? Isn’t it “normal” for a president to remain quiet about how his successor is doing? Sure it’s normal. Indeed, President Obama has been quiet.

Except for this: Donald Trump keeps invoking his immediate predecessor’s name, criticizing his policies and declaring — mostly without justification — that he has fixed the things that Obama got wrong.

A leaked phone call to a group called the Obama Alumni Association has the former president describing Trump’s response to pandemic as “chaotic” because Trump has been too preoccupied with “what’s in it for me?” rather than fixating on the problem and the suffering of his fellow Americans. Obama also is going all-in for Joe Biden, the presumptive Democratic nominee and vows to work as hard as he can to ensure Biden’s election this fall.

I normally would take some alarm at a former president playing such an active role in a campaign involving his immediate successor. However, Trump — as I have noted — brought all this on himself by continually seeking to denigrate the service that Obama rendered during his two terms as president.

A quick review: Obama inherited an economy in free fall; he pushed Congress to enact stimulus packages to rescue the economy; the nation began a 10-year job-growth climb; he ordered the commando raid that killed Osama bin Laden; the State Department negotiated a deal to deny Iran access to nuclear weapons; he reduced the annual federal budget deficit by two-thirds; he handed Trump a robust economy.

Trump, though, doesn’t see it that way. So he keeps seeking to criticize Obama.

Now it appears that it’s game on for the former president.

Hey, I don’t hide my affection for the former president and my disdain for the current clown masquerading as president. Thus, if the current White House occupant wants to invoke President Obama’s name continually, well … bring it. I’m quite sure Barack Obama can find plenty more to say in response.

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Stars are aligning for a Trump election defeat, however …

As I look ahead to the upcoming presidential election, I am tempted to fill myself with hope that we well might change presidents when all the ballots are counted.

Joe Biden is the presumptive Democratic Party nominee. He has to win a few more primary elections to corral enough convention delegates to win the nomination when the party convenes its convention, be it a virtual event or one with actual delegates meeting in Milwaukee.

Biden has garnered the endorsements of virtually all his former rivals in what once was a huge and diverse field of contenders. He also has scored the endorsement of the most popular Democrat in America, former President Barack Obama.

The economy has collapsed. Donald Trump’s response to the coronavirus pandemic has been pathetic, feckless, confused, chaotic. He once downplayed the threat and then has been caught flat-footed as it has killed more than 20,000 Americans; the number is going up.

However, let’s remember that the stars aligned in 2016 for a Trump defeat. Then he won. He captured enough Electoral College votes to defeat a supremely more qualified candidate, Hillary Rodham Clinton. The Trump defeat shocked virtually every political observer on Earth.

That result gives me pause to suggest that former Vice President Biden is a shoo-in to defeat the former reality TV celebrity/carnival barker/con man/charlatan/conspiracy theorist/habitual liar.

My sincere hope is that Biden’s campaign brain trust learns from the fluke that produced a Trump election in 2016, studies how this travesty occurred and attacks with full force the record that Donald Trump has produced.

Trump’s team already knows what it has to do to win re-election. It has to retain its base and energize it. They’ll turn Trump loose and allow him to rail and rant in that incoherent fashion that seems to play well in front of those campaign rallies.

At this moment, the stars are lining up to defeat this fraudulent president. Oh, how I hope they remain aligned … and how I hope that Joe Biden can deliver on his pledge to “restore the nation’s soul.”

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This man offers hope for our future

This video is about 30 minutes long. It was recorded in the summer of 2017.

I have nothing to add to this. I just want to encourage you to watch it and to listen to the message delivered by a newly former president of the United States, Barack Hussein Obama, as he accepted the John F. Kennedy Profile in Courage Award.

It speaks volumes about the ideals we need to attain once again for this great country.