Tag Archives: Hillary Clinton

national news, political news

POTUS wasn’t elected ‘easily’ … honest!

As long as Donald John Trump continues to re-litigate the 2016 presidential election, allow me a brief moment to set the record straight.

The president said in that frightening, mind-blowing press conference this week with Vladimir Putin that he was elected “easily” over Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Let’s see. How easy was it?.

Trump finished with 304 electoral votes; Clinton ended up with 227. To be elected, a candidate needs 270 electoral votes.

Trump went over the top on the strength of about 80,000 votes in three critical states: Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania. A 40,000-vote switch in those states and Clinton wins the election.

Clinton finished with nearly 3 million more popular votes than Trump.

Let me state once again for the record: Donald John Trump was elected fairly and squarely, but not “easily.”

Stop telling that ridiculous lie, Mr. President.

national news, political news

Another clumsy diversion from POTUS

I believe they call it “projection,” where someone seeks to project blame on to someone else.

Check out this tweet from Donald J. Trump regarding the Department of Justice indictment against 12 Russians on charges they conspired to meddle in the 2016 presidential election.

The stories you heard about the 12 Russians yesterday took place during the Obama Administration, not the Trump Administration. Why didn’t they do something about it, especially when it was reported that President Obama was informed by the FBI in September, before the Election?

What is the president trying to do here? I think I’ve got it.

He is trying to say that the Obama administration should have stopped the attack on our electoral system and that because the president didn’t act immediately, that it’s not the Trump campaign’s fault that the Russians interfered in our election.

Sorry, Mr. President. That doesn’t cut it.

The Trump campaign should have blown the whistle on the Russians in real time, the moment they came to whomever in the campaign with some dirty goods on Democratic nominee Hillary Rodham Clinton.

The Trumpsters didn’t act, either. Therefore, it’s on them.

The Trump campaign’s failure to act has led us to the appointment of a special counsel — Robert Mueller — who is seeking to slog his way through the thicket of evidence to determine whether there was collusion with the Russians.

Meanwhile, the president needs to stop trying to lay blame at the feet of others.

national news, political news

It’s the timing, man!

What are we to make of the timing of two key events in the 2016 presidential campaign?

Donald J. Trump in July of that year invited the Russian government to find the missing 30,000 e-mails that Hillary Rodham Clinton deleted from her file at the U.S. State Department.

Here is the GOP nominee making that invitation:

Then … according to an indictment handed down against 12 Russian military intelligence officers, on that very day they began hacking into the Democratic nominee’s files.

Coincidence? I think not. Neither does the legal team headed by special counsel Robert Mueller or the deputy attorney general, Rod Rosenstein, who appointed Mueller to the special counsel post.

I have believed since the beginning of this probe that Mueller’s so-called “witch hunt” is nothing of the sort.

national news

Hillary talked for hours; now it’s Trump’s turn

Evan McMullin, who ran for president as an independent in 2016, poses an interesting thought via Twitter.

McMullin wrote: Hillary Clinton testified to the House Benghazi Committee in public for 11 hours and won’t even sit with the special counsel for a minute. Now, why is that?

He might have posed his question rhetorically, but I think I can answer it for him.

I believe it’s because Donald Trump doesn’t want to get trapped into lying under oath, which I believe is entirely possible, if not probable.

You should recall that the U.S. House of Representatives impeached President Bill Clinton in 1998 for lying to a grand jury. He took an oath to tell the truth. He didn’t. The House used perjury as the basis for its impeachment.

Special counsel Robert Mueller might want to summon the president to talk about whether his 2016 campaign colluded with Russians who interfered in our election. Trump, in my view, cannot tell the truth. He is not wired for truthfulness.

It’s dangerous for him to talk to a meticulous lawyer, such as Mueller.

national news

‘Trump-bashing’ to continue

Some readers of this blog — those who support Donald J. Trump — keep calling me out because I continue to “bash” the president.

Two answers are in order. The short answer: So what? The longer answer: There’s going to be more of it; allow me to explain.

Donald John Trump Sr. campaigned for the presidency with a campaign that was awash in insults and innuendo against his foes in the Republican Party primary, then against his Democratic opponent, Hillary Clinton, and also against the media.

What he’s getting from critics, such as me, simply is a payback for the kind of campaign he waged to attain the nation’s highest office.

Never in my many years of watching politics at this level have I seen a politician employ such negativity, such anger, such outrage. Donald Trump took office on Jan. 20, 2017 by giving an abbreviated, but quite grim inaugural speech.

I didn’t hear a call to our nation’s better angels. I heard anger and rage at what he called the “American carnage.”

What does the president expect in return? He should have anticipated that the reaction from those on the other side of the vast political chasm would take the form it has taken.

O.n the very first day of his campaign, the day he announced his candidacy, Trump went for the throats of illegal immigrants, calling them “rapists, murderers and drug dealers,” while admitting “there are some fine people, I’m sure.”

That’s where it started. It is where he continued on his way to the GOP nomination and then to the election. It is the path he has chosen since he settled into the Oval Office.

Yes, I’m going to continue “bashing” the president. And, yes, I also am going to speak positively about him and his policies when circumstances merit it.

Believe it or not, I truly am tired of speaking badly of the president. I’ll let up when I feel like it.

national news

Comey has done the impossible: He has ‘pissed off’ everyone

James Comey once ran the FBI. Then he inserted himself into the climactic end of the 2016 presidential election.

He announced he was taking a fresh look at the email controversy that dogged Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton’s campaign. He did so 11 days before the election that would send Donald Trump to the White House.

Democrats were enraged at Comey.

Then he declined to give the new president, Trump, a loyalty pledge. He was conducting an investigation into whether the Trump campaign “colluded” with Russians who meddled in our election.

Trump became very angry. In May 2017 he fired Comey.

The president has then launched into a Comey-basing campaign ever since.

As RealClearPolitics has reported: “Whether you agree with them or not, they were good decisions in the way that they were made and values that guided them,” Comey said. “I actually think in the long run people will see that… I really hope that in the long sweep of things, it will be clear that we weren’t on anybody’s side.”

“Most Republicans don’t talk to me anymore,” he also said, “I’ve succeeded in pissing off everyone.”

See Comey’s interview with the Aspen Ideas Festival here.

When I think about that, I liken the bipartisan anger at Comey to what journalists often encounter while they report the news. If both sides of an controversial issue are angry with the journalist, then he or she is doing his or her job.

Thus, James Comey feels as if he did his job.

“The long sweep of things” will make that determination … eventually.

national news

Let the Mueller probe continue … and conclude

Congressional Republicans keep harping on the length of time special counsel Robert Mueller has been investigating whether the Donald Trump presidential campaign “colluded” with Russians who meddled in our 2016 election.

They keep saying it’s gone on too long. They want Mueller to wrap it up now.

Hold on here.

Mueller’s probe hasn’t lasted as long as the Whitewater investigation that ended up with President Clinton’s impeachment; or as long as the Iran-Contra probe; or as long as the Benghazi probe that looked for years to find criminality against Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Mueller has been given the opportunity to find the truth to a highly complicated set of issues. The president keeps saying there was “no collusion.” He keeps calling the investigation a “witch hunt.”

If that’s the case, then let the probe continue to its conclusion.

And has anyone noticed that Mueller’s team has been water tight? There have been zero leaks? Can the president’s team make that claim? No.

Let the special counsel reach his conclusion at his own meticulous pace. Then let the man deliver his report to the nation.

And stop griping, Republican partisans, about the length of time he’s taking.

national news

The national mood is getting more sour by the day

Am I feeling the burn out there?

The national mood, which wasn’t great prior to the 2016 presidential election, appears to be worsening.

Yep. I’m sure of it, actually.

Donald Trump Sr. pledged to unify the country after being elected president. How has he done? Uh, terribly. Maybe that’s just me, but I don’t think so.

Yes, congressional Democrats are stunned that their candidate, Hillary Clinton, lost to this guy. She should have won in a landslide. She didn’t. Democrats haven’t gotten over it … yet!

Now, that takes us to the guy who won. How has he done in the “gracious winner” department? Let’s see. He keeps harping on his record-breaking victory, which it wasn’t. Trump keeps reminding us how Democrats supposedly favor things like high crime, high taxes, open borders … those kinds of things. He won’t meet with Democrats to discuss legislative priorities.

The president has continued to stick his thumb in the eye of his foes. He yaps, yammers and yelps about how it’s everyone else’s fault that his legislative agenda gets stalled.

He disparages the FBI, the Department of Justice and the special counsel (Robert Mueller) who has been given the task of finding out whether the Trump campaign “colluded” with Russians who meddled in our electoral process.

And now …

The president has implemented an executive policy of “zero tolerance” on our southern border. The policy allows for the separating of children from their parents. Educators, clergy, human services experts, lawmakers (many from his own Republican Party) are aghast at the policy. They call it institutionalized “child abuse.” Four former first ladies have said the same thing independently about the policy: that it is inhumane.

There is a virtual uprising seemingly about to occur.

Trump’s response? He calls the children and their parents a threat to our nation. Hey, what about those Russian goons who meddled in our election, Mr. President? When are you going to drop the hammer on them? Ever?

Meanwhile, the nation is more divided than ever. Americans are growing angrier by the day.

Hey, it occurs to me yet again that the Russians’ attempt to sow discord and disunion … is working!

national news

The word ‘lie’ becomes part of the debate

There once was a time when Donald J. Trump would spout an untruth that the media would virtually ignore it.

I cannot remember the precise reason why the newly minted presidential candidate was getting a pass from the media. I just recall that the media didn’t hang the “lie” word on his prevarications.

Maybe it had something to do with the media refusing to take his candidacy as seriously as they should have in those early days. The media viewed Trump’s candidacy as a sideshow, a joke, a publicity stunt.

Then as the one-time reality TV celebrity began winning primaries and knocking off the 16 other Republican Party primary opponents — all of whom were more qualified than Trump — the media began taking notice.

These days, now that Trump is president of the United States — the media have caught on with the reality of this individual. He is a liar. His lying is pathological. He cannot tell the truth.

He has lied continually. He speaks, sound comes out of his mouth, his lips move — and he lies.

As I listen to the TV commentary and read the media reports about the untruths he tells, I keep hearing the words “lie,” “lying” and “liar” attached to the message he delivers and to the man who delivers it.

His most recent spate of lies occurred on the White House driveway. Trump sauntered toward media representatives and appeared to launch into a spontaneous media availability. It wasn’t spontaneous by any stretch of the imagination.

For nearly an hour, the president lied to our face. He told untruths about all manner of things relating to the Justice Department’s inspector general report on James Comey and the Hillary Clinton e-mail controversy, on Paul Manafort’s role in the 2016 Trump campaign and all kinds of other matters.

The media have taken specific note of his lying. They are telling us the truth about Trump’s lies.

Unless it’s happened beyond my earshot, I haven’t heard the president’s defenders actually call him a man who tells the truth.

So, here we are. The man few of us took seriously enough to deserve the title of “liar” has emerged as the Liar in Chief.

But … some of us still insist he is “telling it like it is.”

Shocking.

national news

This is how you ‘unify’ the country? No way!

Democrats can fix their forced family breakup at the Border by working with Republicans on new legislation, for a change! This is why we need more Republicans elected in November. Democrats are good at only three things, High Taxes, High Crime and Obstruction. Sad!

There you have it. One more tweet from the president of the United States of America, the fellow who promised to “unify” the country after his election in 2016.

Donald J. Trump is failing miserably in keeping that particular promise.

Trump’s election came after one of the bitterest and most bizarre political campaigns in U.S. history. He entered the presidential race after ignoring any aspect of public service for his entire working life. He insulted and denigrated a competent and qualified field of GOP candidates en route to capturing the party’s presidential nomination.

Then he insulted and denigrated his Democratic opponent, Hillary Clinton, on his way to the stunning Electoral College victory he scored.

Trump’s inaugural address was nothing short of grim and ghastly. The only line anyone seems to remember is the one about “the American carnage” stopping “right here and right now.”

Democrats now have taken on the role of high tax, high crime obstructionists in Trump’s view of the world.

Presidents assume power presumably understanding that they make decisions on everyone’s behalf, even those who voted against them. Trump has decided instead to talk directly — and exclusively — to the bloc of voters who have hung with him.

To suggest that those of the other party are interested only in promoting high crime, high taxes and obstructionism is a direct slap in the face of tens of millions of Americans, many of whom actually want the president to succeed.

I happen to be one of those Americans. I didn’t vote for Trump. I won’t vote for him in 2020, presuming he’s still in office and gets nominated again by his party. I align myself more with Democrats than with Republicans.

That all said, I do not consider high taxes, high crime and obstructionism to be the prescription for American greatness.

Unity, Mr. President? When are you going to deliver on that pledge?