Tag Archives: John McCain

military news, national news

Transgender ban shakes ’em up in military

Donald J. Trump has issued another stunner. He possesses an endless, bottomless supply of them.

The president tweeted something today about a total ban on transgender Americans serving in the U.S. military. He contends that the cost of providing them health care is too onerous.

But … does he provide any evidence that transgender service personnel are any less capable than others? Does he suggest that they cannot do the duties of their military obligation? Is he suggesting that individuals who have changed their sexual identity are unpatriotic?

This is yet another disgraceful example of presidential caprice. He said he talked it over with “my generals and military experts” and has determined that transgender service personnel — who comprise a tiny fraction of the more than 1.3 million individuals in uniform — no longer can wear their nation’s military uniform.

His tweet apparently caught the Pentagon brass by surprise; it also stunned many in Congress who didn’t know the president was going to make the declaration. As The Hill reports as well, U.S. House Armed Services Committee Chairman Mac Thornberry — yours truly’s  member of Congress — was notably silent on the policy decision.

Read the story from The Hill here.

Congressional Republicans, not to mention Democrats, were angry at the presidential tweet.

Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John McCain said Trump’s policy pronouncements via Twitter are an unacceptable vehicle. He, too, was kept out of the loop.

The president appears — yet again! — to be appeasing his base at the expense of the rest of the nation he was elected to govern.

I am now going to await some evidence from the president that transgender military personnel have harmed the nation’s ability to defend itself.

It’s going to be a long wait, but that’s all right. I can find the patience.

national news, political news

Trump continues to disgrace his office

I simply am at a loss to understand the president of the United States.

He continues to exhibit an utter disregard for presidential decorum, such as the most recent “performance” he staged at the Boy Scout Jamboree.

Donald John Trump stood before about 40,000 Scouts and their leaders and decided to make a political speech. He denigrated his immediate predecessor, Barack H. Obama, for allegedly failing to appear at a Jamboree; he was wrong, as Obama attended the 2010 event. He tore into Hillary Rodham Clinton, who he defeated in the 2016 election. Trump excoriated Congress for failing to enact a Republican-authored health care bill.

On and on he went …

The Boy Scout Jamboree is among the last places on Earth one would expect to hear such a political diatribe. That didn’t deter this guy.

Let me point out here that Trump never became a Scout; Obama did. For him to criticize President Obama was akin to his declaring that former Vietnam War prisoner Sen. John McCain was a hero “only because he was captured; I like those who aren’t captured, OK?” Oh, yes, Trump never served in the military, while McCain flew combat missions on fighter jets during the Vietnam War.

I won’t belabor the point too much longer, but I feel the need to say that never in my entire life have I felt the utter disdain for a president of the United States that I do for the current White House resident. I cannot attach the terms “President” and “Trump” consecutively.

I say this yet again even thought I do accept that Trump was elected fairly and squarely. He won more electoral votes than Hillary Clinton and won enough of them to be elected president. I do not subscribe to the idea that the Russian meddling in 2016 was decisive; Trump likely would have won even without the Russians’ interference.

However, he continues to disgrace the office. He sickens me at many levels. I’ve lost count of the “last straw” comments he has made since becoming a full-time politician. The Boy Scout riff is just the latest. I’m sure there’ll be more.

national news

‘Give it hell,’ Sen. McCain

I’ve opposed many of John McCain’s public policy pronouncements over the years. None of that opposition, though, has stood in the way of my admiration for him as a dedicated public servant who brought a hero’s stature to his service in the U.S. Senate.

Sen. McCain, the Arizona Republican, is now in the fight of his life.

Doctors removed a blood clot from near his eye and now have revealed that the veteran lawmaker is suffering from an aggressive form of brain cancer.

His daughter Meghan calls him the “toughest person” she’s ever known. Tributes have poured in from throughout the nation, across the political chasm that divides the nation.

Donald Trump and his wife, first lady Melania Trump, sent their  “thoughts and prayers.” Former Presidents Clinton and George H.W. Bush sent their heartfelt prayers as well.

Barack Obama, with whom Sen. McCain tussled as the two men ran for the presidency in 2008 and while Obama served two terms as president, said this in a message via Twitter: “John McCain is an American hero & one of the bravest fighters I’ve ever known. Cancer doesn’t know what it’s up against. Give it hell, John.”

Check out the messages to Sen. McCain.

He earned his hero status the hard way by being shot down during the Vietnam War and by being held captive for more than five years by North Vietnam. He was tortured, beaten to within inches of his life, denied medical treatment for the injuries he suffered when his plane crashed into a lake in downtown Hanoi.

But he persevered. He struggled. He fought back.

As President Obama said, “Cancer doesn’t know what it’s up against.”

John McCain became a national figure the moment he entered Congress and he has served the nation with honor.

We’re pulling for you, senator.

medical news, national news, political news

Get well, Sen. McCain, and vote to nix GOP health plan

It is with heartfelt concern for a great American that I must point out a fascinating irony relating to his current medical condition.

U.S. Sen. John McCain is recovering from surgery to remove a blood clot in his skull. I honor this great man’s service to the country and the extreme sacrifice he paid when he was held captive for five years during the Vietnam War.

I wish him a complete recovery.

The irony? It exists in the debate that the Senate Republican caucus us having over a health care plan it has cobbled together ostensibly to replace the Affordable Care Act.

The Senate GOP has put together a plan that the Congressional Budget Office says will cut millions of Americans out of their health insurance in the next decade. It will slash Medicaid spending that helps poor Americans pay for health insurance. It lacks the “heart” that the president of the United States said he wanted.

Meanwhile, Sen. McCain is getting some of the best health insurance possible because of his government service.

What is wrong with this juxtaposition? Nothing in and of itself, of course. It’s just that McCain is one of those Senate Republicans reportedly straddling the fence: does he support the bill or oppose it?

Senate GOP leader Mitch McConnell debated any further open consideration of the bill until McCain returns to the Senate. He needs McCain’s “yes” vote. I should add that McConnell and many of his Senate Republican colleagues are part of a distinct American minority: only 17 percent of Americans favor the GOP monstrosity.

I wish nothing but the best for Sen. McCain. I want him to return to the Senate full of his usual ration of p** and vinegar. I also would prefer that he oppose the Senate health plan.

national news

McCain showing his fickle side

John McCain once called Barack Obama a “feckless” foreign policy president.

He nagged the president continually over this and that foreign policy matter. Obama wasn’t tough enough; he wasn’t stern enough; he failed to deliver on his myriad threats against bad guys around the world.

Now, though, the Arizona Republican U.S. senator — and President Obama’s 2008 rival for the presidency — says the 44th president exhibited more international leadership than his successor, Donald John Trump.

Hey, what gives? President Obama’s “fecklessness” looks good now to the fickle senator.

Trump mistakes prove maddening

American “leadership” around the world has suffered under the Trump administration’s missteps, misstatements and mistakes, according to McCain.

I’ll concede a couple of points about McCain. One is that I didn’t support his presidential candidacy in 2008. Two is that he has served his country with rare honor and distinction, owing to his years as a Vietnam prisoner of war and the brutal treatment he suffered at the hands of his captors. Those years as a prisoner give him credibility that most other politicians cannot claim for themselves.

I believe he takes a stark view of American leadership and assesses it in bold strokes.

It might be now that McCain has come to appreciate — as many millions of other Americans — that the presidency requires a level of understanding and knowledge of the complex relationships this country has built with nations around the world.

Trump doesn’t get it. Sen. McCain has acknowledged as much, albeit begrudgingly. Is he being fickle? Maybe. I also believe he is correct.

national news

President continues his insult tirade

One of the many promises Donald J. Trump made when he became president was that he would “act like a president.” He would talk like one, too.

He was elected to the highest office in America after burying his Republican primary foes in a mudslide of insults. Then he turned his insult machine loose on Democratic nominee Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Lyin’ Ted Cruz, Low Energy Jeb Bush, Little Marco Rubio all ran against Trump in the GOP primary. Trump also told an interviewer that Sen. John McCain was a Vietnam War hero “only because he was captured; I like people who aren’t captured, OK?”

Then he turned his guns loose on Crooked Hillary Clinton. He urged on campaign rally crowds to yell “Lock her up!”

His core of supporters didn’t mind. Trump merely was “telling it like it is,” they said. He’s not a politician, they insisted. He talks like the rest of us, they added.

Has he stopped hurling insults now that he’s president?

Nope. Not a chance. Now we hear — from the “fake news” mainstream media outlets such as the New York Times — that he fired FBI Director James Comey because he’s a “nut job,” that he’s “crazy.”

Ah, yes. That’s how the president refers to the nation’s top federal cop, America’s top law enforcement officer. A nut job. He’s crazy.

Who heard the president offer this bit of presidential dignity? The Russian foreign minister and Russia’s ambassador to the United States. They were invited into the Oval Office on a suggestion from Russian President/dictator/killer Vladimir  Putin, who asked Trump to have these fellows stop by for a visit.

Oh, and then there’s this: Trump banned American journalists from the meeting. The Russian news agency, Tass, was present. Tass photographers took pictures of the meeting.

If you’ll forgive me for borrowing a term that Trump himself used in one of his endless string of tweets: This man’s behavior is so “unpresidented.”

national news, political news

Palin? … Palin? … Palin?

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I am risking getting some grief from readers of this blog by mentioning it … but where is Sarah Palin?

We all remember the former half-term Alaska governor, the 2008 Republican vice-presidential nominee, the former Fox News “contributor,” the former reality TV celebrity.

She was an ardent and vocal critic of the Affordable Care Act. You remember that, too?

She was out there yapping about “death panels” and how bureaucrats would determine who gets to live and who must die.

Palin also was an equally ardent supporter of Donald J. Trump’s candidacy for president and was thought to be a possible selection for veterans affairs secretary when the president was picking his Cabinet.

With all the debate and discussion about “repealing and replacing” the ACA, I keep waiting for Palin to weigh in. I await her pearls of wisdom about the best way to replace the ACA.

Where in the world is she? Has she retreated to Wasilla, Alaska, from where she emerged in 2008 to become U.S. Sen. John McCain’s running mate?

I know what you’re thinking about yours truly: You’ve trashed Palin incessantly; you cannot contain yourself every single time she opens her mouth; you don’t take her seriously. Why do you want to hear from her?

My answer? I don’t know. I just do.

She did become a major political figure, if only for a brief period. Running for VP on a major-party ticket made her a big deal. The McCain-Palin ticket did garner more than 59 million votes in the 2008 election — which ain’t bad, man!

Palin did become a darling of political conservatives, even as she went “rogue.” Her Fox colleagues welcomed her, as did those who watch the cable channel. I am going to presume, moreover, that she retains a considerable fan following among those very conservatives.

I’m not one of her fans. However, she bitched up a storm about the ACA when it was being debated in Congress and then enacted into law.

Here’s your chance, Sarah. Speak up! Tell us how we should provide a better health insurance plan for Americans.

military news, national news, political news

McCain: Prove it or drop it, Mr. President

John McCain is demonstrating yet again that he still might be angry at Donald J. Trump’s insulting assertion during the 2016 campaign that the former Navy pilot is a “war hero only because he was captured” by the enemy during the Vietnam War.

Whatever the motive, the Arizona Republican U.S. senator is on point with this declaration: Either provide proof that former President Obama wiretapped your offices during the 2016 campaign or retract it.

The president has done nothing to suggest he has a shred of evidence to back up his scurrilous contention that Obama ordered a wiretap. He has essentially defamed his predecessor by accusing him of committing a felony.

Trump has all the intelligence capabilities available to him to deliver the goods. He hasn’t. Absent any “goods,” he needs to take it all back, admit what many of us know already — that he sought to divert attention from the Russia election-meddling matter.

But, wait! The two things — allegations of Russian meddling and the wiretap allegation — are related!

national news, political news

Uh, Mr. President? Listen to Sen. McCain — for once!

John McCain has laid it on the line to the president of the United States.

If you’re going to make an explosive allegation against your predecessor, Mr. President, it is imperative that you tell Americans the “basis on which” you are making that allegation.

That’s what McCain has told Donald J. Trump to do.

Trump ignited a firestorm over the weekend when he rolled out of the sack at 6 in the morning and fired off a tweet that said President Barack Obama “ordered” a wiretap of Trump’s offices in New York.

No proof. No evidence. No attribution. Nothing accompanied the tweet. But the flames began burning out of control.

McCain says a simple tweet isn’t good enough.

To my ears, it sounds as though the Arizona Republican — and 2008 GOP presidential nominee — doesn’t exactly believe what Trump has asserted.

At issue, of course, is the reported relationship between Trump’s campaign and Russian government officials. Trump asserts that Obama had the phones bugged so he could eavesdrop on Trump’s campaign officials to learn whether there was a relationship with a foreign government during the 2016 presidential campaign.

Trump has accused Obama of breaking the law. He has essentially called his predecessor a felon. Presidents cannot order phones to be bugged. These things occur through a warrant issued by a federal judge at the behest of the Justice Department.

Sen. McCain is insisting that Donald Trump tell us the basis of his wild-ass allegation.

Well, Mr. President? What is it? Talk to us. You are the president of the United States of America. You owe us — your bosses — a complete and thorough explanation.

military news

McMaster: right man for national security adviser

Some of us thought Michael Flynn was a bad choice for national security adviser from the get-go.

He had called Islam a “cancer” and that Americans’ fear of Muslims was justified. Then the retired Army lieutenant general reportedly lied to the vice president about the nature of some talks he had with Russian government agents during the 2016 presidential campaign.

If you’ll forgive the chest-thumping, here’s what I wrote in early December.

https://highplainsblogger.com/2016/12/get-rid-of-flynn-as-national-security-adviser/

He got the boot from the president.

Now we have another Army three-star, H.R. McMaster, coming in to be the national security adviser. He’s a renowned military scholar and deep thinker who says, among other things, that Russia is a pre-eminent threat and that our war against terror shouldn’t morph into a war against Islam.

I feel significantly better about this guy than I did about his immediate predecessor.

I believe Donald Trump has chosen well in filling this highly critical staff post.

Even critics of the president, such as Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John McCain, speak highly of McMaster. Indeed, McCain speaks well of the president’s national security team. McCain added that he “could not imagine a better, more capable national security team than the one we have right now.”

The question I will continue to have is whether the new national security adviser will be able to provide unfettered, unfiltered and unambiguous advice to Trump — without the influence of senior political strategist Steve Bannon, who Trump has installed as a member of the National Security Council principals committee.

A lot of sharp military minds believe Bannon’s role on that panel is a huge mistake. One of them, former Joint Chiefs Chairman Mike Mullen, said the NSC’s principals committee must be absolutely clear of politics; Bannon’s presence there, Mullen said, politicizes it egregiously.

McMaster reportedly received assurances from the president that he’ll be able to hire the staff he wants and will be allowed to proceed in the manner in which the adviser must proceed. He will have full and complete access to the president and will be able to give him the assessment he needs about national security threats.

The Flynn story is far from over.

However, the national security team now appears to have added a valuable new member to help protect Americans against our nation’s enemies.