Tag Archives: GOP

national news, political news

It’s come to this: sexual conduct will decide this election?

trump-rampage-continues-republic

It’s down to the wire between Democrat Hillary Clinton and Republican Donald Trump.

With all the issues that separate the parties’ presidential nominees — trade, climate change, jobs, war and peace, terrorism — we’re left now to decide this election on … sexual misconduct.

The allegations are pouring in now.

The New York Times has published more stories about women alleging that Trump groped them. Trump is vowing to sue the newspaper. The Washington Post released that hideous video recording of Trump talking to “Access Hollywood” about his attempts to seduce a married woman and what he can get away with because of his “star” status.

Trump is now threatening to stay away next week from the final debate with Clinton because, he says, the debate format is “rigged.”

The GOP nominee’s poll numbers are plummeting. Meanwhile, Clinton’s team is airing feel-good TV ads extolling her work with children and women’s issues.

Trump’s own words — heard on the video recording — have caused many of his congressional supporters to revoke their endorsements, resulting in a virtual declaration of war against the Republican Party by its own presidential nominee!

Who in this world ever would have thought that could happen? Even in this utterly nonsensical election year?

I don’t know about you, but I am looking forward to watching this circus act come to an end on the Eighth of November.

national news, political news

Pence almost channels McCain … almost!

Republican vice presidential candidate Indiana Gov. Mike Pence speaks at a campaign rally, in Denver, Wednesday, Aug. 3, 2016. (AP Photo/Brennan Linsley)

Indiana Gov. Mike Pence, the Republican nominee for vice president of the United States, had a chance the other day to do something his running mate, Donald J. Trump, keeps refusing to do.

A supporter in a crowd to which Pence was speaking and threatened a “revolution” if Democratic nominee Hillary Rodham Clinton wins the presidential election. She talked of Clinton’s “corruption” and insisted that she and other Trumpsters would rise up in revolt if their ticket loses the race.

Pence then waved her off. “Don’t say that,” he said, walking away.

Now, at one level I find Gov. Pence’s mild admonition refreshing and necessary. He told the woman that “there will be a revolution on Nov. 8,” meaning — in his view — voters would elect the Trump-Pence ticket.

Sure thing, governor. Whatever you say.

However, he could have done something more, something akin to what Sen. John McCain did while running for the presidency in 2008.

Sen. McCain, the GOP nominee in that contest, was told by a supporter eight years ago that Sen. Barack Obama wasn’t an American, that she doubted his legitimacy as a candidate.

McCain shut her down. He told her point blank that Obama is a patriot, a fine American, a “friend” of his with whom he has serious policy disagreements.

That is the kind of response we have needed to hear more of from President Obama’s critics. Instead, we have witnessed Trump laugh such nonsense off. He doesn’t challenge these ridiculous assertions from his fervent supporters. Indeed, his own rhetoric foments talk of “revolution” and promotes the scurrilous accusations that the current president somehow isn’t the legitimate head of state.

I’m glad that Gov. Pence reacted in the manner that he did.

My only wish is that he would have channeled Sen. McCain’s own response to a similarly ludicrous assertion in an earlier campaign.

national news, political news

Trump is committing political suicide

694940094001_5164431143001_examining-speaker-ryan-s-history-of-support-for-donald-trump

I have reached the incontrovertible conclusion that Donald J. Trump has just taken flight on a political kamikaze mission.

The Republican presidential nominee has determined two things:

* He cannot defeat Democratic nominee Hillary Rodham Clinton in the race for president.

* He is going to take as many of the Republican establishment hierarchy with him as he goes down in flames.

That can be the only conclusion to draw from his declaration of war against House Speaker Paul Ryan, arguably the nation’s most powerful Republican, the second in line in presidential succession, the guy who runs the legislative chamber where all fiscal matters are given birth.

I don’t have personal knowledge, of course, that Trump has surrendered the contest to Clinton. I merely am able to see and hear with my own eyes and ears what is happening.

He has been heard saying some hideous things about women. His poll numbers are plummeting. He didn’t deliver the goods in that second debate with Clinton. The polls are accelerating in Clinton’s favor.

Trump cannot win.

Moreover, I read today an item that suggests that independent candidate Evan McMullen, the Republican/Mormon challenger to both Clinton and Trump, has pulled even with them both, putting reliably Republican Utah of all places — where McMullen lives — into play.

They’re calling it a “scorched Earth” retreat. Trump says he is “unshackled” now by Ryan’s declaration that he won’t defend Trump or campaign on his behalf. Trump’s going to take the gloves off — not just with Clinton but with Republicans.

His tweet machine is being revved up for the final month of this miserable campaign. Trump is indicating a desire to let ‘er rip with snark-filled comments about Ryan, Clinton, Sen. John McCain — and anyone else who speaks critically of the nominee’s lack of credentials, qualifications, temperament or moral fitness to hold the job he is seeking.

It’s just amazing in the extreme that Trump would seek to take on the speaker of the House in this manner. All it tells me at this point is that he knows he hasn’t a chance of winning. So, he’s locked and loaded and is going out with guns blazing.

 

national news, political news

Two essays illustrate GOP civil war

aptopix-gop-2016-deba_horo

A once-great political party is at war with itself.

It is engaging in rhetorical combat over the fate of its presidential  nominee, Donald J. Trump.

I found two essays that illustrate the point. They come from longtime Republican-friendly columnists.

One of them is Michael Gerson, a former George W. Bush speechwriter who now writes essays for the Washington Post.

Gerson calls Trump a contemptible politician who is leading a party toward destruction.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2016/10/10/a_politician_–_and_a_party_–_deserving_of_contempt_132023.html

The other of them is Byron York, who writes for the Washington Examiner, one of two conservative alternative newspapers serving the nation’s capital.

York takes a far different view of Trump and his possible future as a political candidate.

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/article/2604117

The party is tearing itself into tiny pieces over Trump’s candidacy. It’s been a long time coming, starting about the time Trump began winning primary contests at the start of the year.

The Republican establishment — to which Gerson once belonged — began wringing its hands over the prospect of a Trump nomination. Trump began targeting another Bush, the former president’s brother, Jeb, who once ran for president in the GOP primary.

York sees it differently. He said Trump “weathered the sex portion” of the second debate with Hillary Clinton and may have righted his listing campaign ship.

I happen to agree with Gerson. Trump’s contemptible campaign reflects directly on a contemptible candidate.

I’m seeing the polling data that’s come out since the release of that nasty video recording of Trump talking about how he treats women and since the second debate with the Democratic nominee. It looks bad for Trump.

What’s more, with the speaker of the House, Paul Ryan, saying he no longer can “defend” Trump or campaign with him — and dozens of other GOP lawmakers deserting him — the party finally has turned its back on its presidential nominee. It has surrendered the election to the Democrats, to Hillary Clinton and, yes, to President Barack Obama.

The polls? Trump bellowed loudly about them when they were trending toward him. He’s now dissing them. He’s dredging up the nutty idea that he’s going to lose a “rigged” election.

The civil war within this once-great political party rages on.

national news, political news

Calls for Trump to quit race are mounting, but …

donald

The Deseret News of Salt Lake City has joined a growing chorus around the country in demanding that Donald J. Trump, the Republican nominee for president, quit his campaign.

The editorial is attached here:

http://www.deseretnews.com/article/865664336/In-our-opinion-Donald-Trump-should-resign-his-candidacy.html

He probably won’t quit, although I hate to predict anything at this point of a growing scandal that only promises to get worse.

My own sense is that Trump is thinking about it, considering at some level to call it quits, to hand this presidential nomination over to VP nominee Mike Pence.

He has vowed to go the distance.

Frankly, I want him to stay in the race. It’s not that I want this man to redeem himself. I believe that politically speaking he is beyond redemption.

Republican Party primary voters very well could have known this kind of news would splatter itself all over the campaign. Yet they punched their ticket next to a man who “tells it like it is,” who eschews “political correctness,” who has promised to “build a wall” to keep out the Mexican “rapists, drug dealers and killers” and who has pledged to ban all Muslims from entering the United States of America.

Oh, the personal stuff? The three marriages and his boasts about all his sexual conquests, the language he uses to describe women? Pfftt! Doesn’t matter, man.

Trump “isn’t a politician,” the mantra goes. Well, actually he became a politician the moment he rode down the escalator at Trump Tower to announce his campaign for the presidency.

The media are largely complicit, too, in allowing this man to get to this point. They didn’t call him out immediately for the lies he told about seeing “thousands of Muslims cheering” the collapse of the Twin Towers on 9/11, or for the phony excuses he gives for refusing to release his income tax returns.

The Deseret News has taken a bold step in calling for Trump to quit the race. I get that it dislikes Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton, too, and cannot endorse her candidacy.

There will be more of this kind of demand in the days to come before the election.

Let us not kid ourselves, though. The Republican Party’s primary voters have made their choice. It’s Donald J. Trump. They now must swallow what he fed them on his march to their party’s presidential nomination.

national news, political news

What might happen next with Donald J. Trump?

A woman holds signs depicting the head of Republican presidential candidate businessman Donald Trump as she waits to enter the auditorium to hear him speak, Wednesday, Aug. 19, 2015, at Pinkerton Academy in Derry, N.H. (AP Photo/Mary Schwalm)

Let’s roll out a few notions about what could happen to Donald J. Trump’s crumbling presidential candidacy.

Here’s what we know:

* Trump was caught on tape saying some unbelievable, hideous and profane things about women. We’ve all heard the tape.

* Many Republicans in both houses of Congress are calling for Trump to step down, to quit as their party’s presidential nominee. I’m waiting, however, for my own congressman — Republican Mac Thornberry — to issue a statement of any kind regarding his party nominee’s conduct.

* House Speaker Paul Ryan was going to appear with Trump at a campaign rally in Wisconsin, then he disinvited the nominee.

* Trump has issued a Twitter statement that vows he “never” will quit the race, that he will not let his supporters down.

* Polling after the first “debate” with Democratic nominee Hillary Rodham Clinton has shown Trump slipping dramatically; the revelation revealed in this horrific audio recording are sure to accelerate the polling free fall.

I refer occasionally to my trick knee. It’s acting up this afternoon just a bit and it’s telling me something I thought I’d never hear.

It’s telling me that the probability of a Trump withdrawal is increasing. How do I know this? I don’t.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/pressure-mounts-on-trump-to-step-aside/ar-BBxaPaB?li=BBmkt5R&ocid=spartandhp

The pressure is building from within the Republican Party. Key Democrats don’t want Trump to pull out; they see him as their ticket not only to retaining the White House, but getting control of the Senate and possibly making serious inroads in trimming the GOP majority in the House of Reps.

That’s what is driving the Republican big wigs to persuade Trump to pull out.

He’s not going to be elected president. Indeed, he well now could lose the race in a huge fashion on Nov. 8. The bigger the margin of victory for Clinton, the greater chances of a Senate flip back to Democratic control.

Am I predicting a Trump withdrawal? No. I’m out of the predicting game, remember?

But if this guy has any sense — at all — of the disaster that awaits him and the party he only recently adopted as his own, then he ought to rethink that pledge to “never drop out” of the campaign.

In fact, when a politician is forced to say he’ll never do something, then we know he’s at least thinking about it.

entertainment news, national news, political news

Hits just keep coming for Trump

bbx9hr9

This link is worth your time. It’s from the Washington Post. It contains a video of Republican presidential nominee Donald J. Trump talking about — what else? — women.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/trump-recorded-having-extremely-lewd-conversation-about-women-in-2005/ar-BBx95Fw?li=BBnb7Kz

It’s extremely disgusting. It’s lewd. It’s vulgar. It’s contains language that includes what my late father used to call the “functional four-letter word.”

It was recorded in 2005, just 11 years ago, when the future presidential nominee was not quite 60 years of age. He was a grown man, on the cusp of senior citizenship when he was heard saying some remarkably vulgar things about women.

I just do not know how many more of these examples of hideous conduct many voters in American can tolerate from a major-party candidate for president of the United States.

Someone will have to explain to me how this does not disqualify someone serving as head of state of the greatest nation on Earth.

national news, political news

Looking ‘presidential’ doesn’t erase the record

Clinton-and-Trump

The Sunday-morning news talk show chatter is full of speculation about one of the major-party candidates for president of the United States.

Will the Republican, Donald J. Trump, look “presidential” when he faces Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton in their first joint appearance Monday night?

Looking “presidential,” I feel compelled to add, does not erase the record of profoundly non-presidential moments in the campaign to date.

The endless list of insults does not vanish simply because the deliverer of those insults looks presidential.

The hideous mocking of a disabled reporter? The bizarre back-and-forth with Marco Rubio that centered on the candidates’ manhood during a Republican primary debate? Trump’s awful response to a journalist’s question about how he treats women? His stream-of-consciousness policy changes on immigration?

Whether the GOP nominee “looks presidential” during this highly anticipated event with the Democratic nominee will not wipe away the lengthy demonstrations to the contrary.

national news, political news

What if roles were reversed?

clinton and trump

Do you want a good idea of the lunacy attached to this year’s presidential election campaign?

Try this on for size.

It’s making the rounds on social media, but I’ll share it here.

Just suppose Hillary Rodham Clinton was mother to five children from three husbands. Suppose, also, that she had cheated on two of her husbands and then bragged about it. What do you suppose would be the reaction from conservatives?

They’d be outraged. They’d vilify the Democratic nominee for flouting the very “family values” to which conservatives adhere.

Why, then, aren’t political conservatives as outraged that the Republican nominee, Donald Trump, has produced five children with three wives, cheated openly on two of them and then boasted about it in public?

Gosh. There’s that terrible “double standard” so prevalent these days.

Trump keeps assailing Hillary Clinton’s husband because of his own alleged indiscretions — and the Clinton haters cheer him on while ignoring the amazing irony in Donald Trump’s attempt to grasp some kind of moral high ground.

Where is the outrage? Where is the indignation?

Someone has to explain to me how this guy gets away with this astonishing hypocrisy.

national news, political news

Kasich: the last principled GOP ex-candidate standing

kasich

John Kasich and Ted Cruz took Donald J. Trump’s march to the Republican presidential nomination down to the wire.

They finally conceded this summer that the real estate mogul/reality TV celebrity would be their party’s nominee.

Sen. Cruz, R-Texas, attended the GOP convention in Cleveland and received a torrent of boos from delegates for encouraging them to “vote your conscience.” He declined at that moment to endorse Trump.

Kasich, who governs Ohio, didn’t attend the convention in his home state. He still hasn’t endorsed Trump.

Whereas Cruz’s initial refusal was based on Trump’s repeated insults against Heidi Cruz, the candidate’s wife, and his father, Rafael, Kasich has kept his distance because Trump — in Kasich’s view — simply doesn’t represent the tradition of a once-great political party.

Cruz swilled the Kool-Aid and today announced he would vote for Trump in November. Kasich hasn’t said anything of the kind.

I had hoped Sen. Cruz would remain on the sidelines. Now it’s up to Kasich to demonstrate that at least one Republican leader has the stones to stand on principle.

Gov. Kasich remains my favorite Republican presidential candidate. Indeed, had he been the nominee instead of Trump, there stood an excellent chance that I would have voted Republican for president this year — for the first time since I began voting in 1972.

I’m still wrestling with what I’m going to do this year.

Kasich should have been the nominee, given his record of success as a leader in Congress and his cooperation with President Bill Clinton in achieving a balanced federal budget.

Sadly, none of that seemed to matter to the red-meat carnivores who comprise the base of the Republican Party.

My hope remains that Gov. Kasich will remain at arm’s length from this year’s GOP nominee.

I’ve noted all along that Kasich was the rare grown-up in this year’s GOP presidential campaign. He hasn’t let me down yet.