Tag Archives: Ronald Reagan

national news, political news

Trump needs to start acting like a ‘unifier’

A supporter of Republican presidential hopeful Donald Trump scuffles with a protestor during a rally in Richmond, Va., Wednesday, Oct. 14, 2015. (AP Photo/Steve Helber)

Donald J. Trump today postponed a campaign rally because of the threat of violence.

Hmm. Where do I begin?

The Republican presidential campaign frontrunner has been the focus of some unseemly and potentially dangerous confrontations of late. Protestors have shown up at his campaign events; they’ve been shouted down by Trumpsters seeking to silence the anti-Trump voices; fights have broken out; one man has been arrested for assault after he sucker-punched a protestor being escorted out of a rally location in North Carolina.

Trump’s reaction to all of this? Well, it’s been — shall we say — a bit muted. Except, of course, when he’s exhorted his supporters to punch protestors in the face or exhibit some other form of forceful retaliation.

I listened to some commentary this evening after the postponement of a Trump rally in Chicago. An interesting thought came from David Gergen, a CNN political analyst and a former official in several presidential administrations: Nixon, Ford, Reagan, George H.W. Bush and Clinton.

Gergen’s advice to Trump: If you’re going to proclaim yourself to be a unifier, then you need to do a lot more to tamp down the anger upon which you’ve built your (so far) successful campaign for president.

Gergen said tonight previous campaigns have drawn hu-u-u-u-u-ge crowds.

He mentioned Barack Obama’s 2008 campaign, Ronald Reagan’s 1980 campaign and John F. Kennedy’s 1960 campaign.

None of them fostered the violence we’ve seen at these Trump rallies, Gergen noted. Why? “They were positive,” he said. All three men promoted positive agendas for change and they all sought to appeal to the voters’ better angels.

Gergen noted he disliked including Trump with Reagan because, he said, “It does a disservice to President Reagan.” Indeed, it does. Trump, though, needs to heed the words of this bipartisan wise man.

The violence has to stop. One individual has it within his power to restore order, civility and decorum to the important task of delivering a campaign message.

That would be the candidate who is seeking the votes of Americans across the land.

Tone down the angry talk, Donald Trump.

national news, political news

Hey, these guys got along, too!

1 Comment

newt

The politics of the moment has this way of inflicting a case of selective amnesia among politicians.

Take last night’s 12th — and possibly final — Republican Party presidential debate with Donald J. Trump, Rafael Edward Cruz, Marco Rubio and John Kasich as providing an example of that peculiar malady.

One of them (I can’t remember who) brought up President Reagan’s famous buddy-buddy relationship with House Speaker Tip O’Neill. The two men — one Republican, one Democrat — worked well together.

Sure they did. I honor them for that cooperation.

So did a couple of other well-known pols. Democratic President Bill Clinton and Republican House Speaker Newt Gingrich also managed to find common ground when the need arose. And it did, particularly as it regarded the need to balance the federal budget.

None of these current GOP candidates, though, mentions that political partnership.

We all know why that is the case, of course.

It’s because the president’s wife, Hillary Rodham Clinton, wants to ascend to the office her husband once occupied.

Why, we just can’t give Bill Clinton any props for doing what the current president and the current congressional leadership seem unable — or perhaps unwilling — to do.

I’m the first to acknowledge that the Clinton-Gingrich relationship never evolved into the personal public friendship that Reagan and O’Neill developed.

The Gipper and the Tipper would share some spirits once they were off the clock, setting politics aside; it’s been reported widely how they would swap stories between them and laugh at the foolishness of the day.

I don’t believe I’ve ever heard of similar moments of non-political fellowship involving Bill and Newtie.

However, they certainly did form a valuable political partnership during the time Gingrich was speaker. It’s understandable, I suppose, that the Republicans running for president would choose to ignore it.

I’ll just have to rely on Hillary Clinton to remind the rest of us how bipartisan cooperation can work.

She was there, too.

 

 

medical news, national news

Nancy Reagan’s lasting legacy: Alzheimer’s awareness

gty_ladies_nancy_kb_120626_wmain

Nancy Reagan will be remembered for many noble and good things.

The former first lady — who died this past weekend at age 94 — was a champion for her husband, the 40th president of the United States. She became arguably his closest advisor and by many accounts was his best friend. She sought to protect his image and his legacy and most historians today she succeeded famously at protecting both of those things.

She also was an advocate for Alzheimer’s research and that’s what I want to focus on here.

You see, many of us have intimate knowledge of that disease.

On Nov. 5, 1994, President Reagan penned that astonishingly poignant farewell letter to the nation as he disclosed his diagnosis. He and his bride then said their “long goodbye” to each other. Nearly a decade later, President Reagan would succumb to the complications of that disease.

Read the president’s letter here.

I’ve told you at times of my own experience with the disease, having watched my mother wither away and die 32 years ago from its effects at the too-tender age of 61. Take my word for it: It ain’t pretty.

Other family members of well-known Americans have taken up the cause for Alzheimer’s research. I think most often of Maria Shriver, whose father — Sargent Shriver — was rendered helpless by the affliction before he died. Shriver has vowed to carry the fight forward.

Nancy Reagan sought to raise research funds. She lobbied Congress to do more for the families who are the actual sufferers of this malady. They are the victims, who watch their loved ones lose their cognitive skill, their memory, their ability to do simple things, such as bathe and eat.

All those things happened to her beloved husband and she fought as hard as she could until the day he died and later — until her own health deteriorated.

The world she leaves behind needs more powerful advocates who will take up the cudgel for other family members who must endure the heartbreak of Alzheimer’s disease.

Thank you, Mrs. Reagan, for the waging this noble effort.

We haven’t finished the fight just yet, but we’re a lot closer to declaring victory.

 

national news, political news

Why the qualified tribute to Mrs. Reagan?

bal-nancyphoto0611

The nation has heard from many leading political figures commenting on the death of former first lady Nancy Reagan.

They’ve all been lovely and heartfelt.

Still, consider this statement from U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, a Democratic candidate for president:

“No matter your party or political ideology, this is a sad day for America. Nancy Reagan was an exemplary first lady. A devoted partner, she was her husband’s most trusted advisor and, as such, served our country well. Even after her time in the White House, she was an outspoken advocate for stem-cell research to find a cure for Alzheimer’s. Nancy Reagan had a good heart, and she will be dearly missed.”

Is it just me or did Sen. Sanders offer something of a qualifier with that first clause: “No matter your party or political affiliation …”?

I venture to guess that most adult Americans who are even remotely aware of the current presidential campaign know that Sanders leans sharply to the left and that the late President and Mrs. Reagan leaned sharply in the other direction.

I don’t mean to parse and nitpick Sen. Sanders’ statement to death, but it seems to me he could have just started with, “This is a sad day for America” and gone on from there. The rest of the statement came straight from his heart.

One sees this kind of qualification added to tributes to those who have passed on. Lefties do it when righties depart this world and righties do it as well to the lefties who leave us.

Hey, maybe I’ve got too much time on my hands to worry about such things.

Any thoughts here? Am I off base?

 

national news, political news

America is still great

hillary

Hillary Clinton might have punched the perfect campaign theme button when she declared victory in this past weekend’s South Carolina Democratic presidential primary.

She took dead aim at Donald J. Trump’s pledge to “make America great again.” The Republican primary frontrunner keeps asserting that the United States no longer is the greatest nation Earth, that it has ceded its greatness to trade rivals such as China and, get this, Mexico. He asserts that foreign governments no longer “fear” this country.

Clinton has a different view. It is that the United States “always has been great,” and she declared it to her fans while basking in the victory glow in South Carolina.

Indeed, the Trump message — depending on how you interpret it — can be seen as a supreme insult to the men and women who serve t protect us. It also insults the career diplomats, foreign service officers, domestic agency staffers and all the rest of those who serve within the public sector at the will of the American taxpayer.

Did I say “insult”? I almost forgot. That’s how Trump has endeared himself to those who claim to be Trumpsters.

I choose not to march to that cadence.

Trump’s fear-mongering, negativity and the message that borders on bigotry might play well among those who have swallowed the notion that we are in steep decline.

Others, though, should keep reminding us — just as Ronald Reagan did so eloquently while proclaiming it was “Morning in America” — that our nation’s best days are still to come.

That’s a big part of Hillary Clinton’s victory message.

There’s no need to “make America great again,” she said.

We’re still the greatest nation on the planet.

 

political news, State news

Mischief possible on Election Day?

Texas-calendar

Texas’ open primary system is going to be on display.

As it should.

The state’s election system provides opportunity for polling-station mischief. There might be some of it played out Tuesday, but in this wacky, unpredictable, topsy-turvy election season it would seem to be the diciest of propositions.

Texans aren’t “registered” with political parties. We go to the polls with unmarked voter registration cards. We choose which primary to cast ballots: Democrat or Republican. We can zig or zag our way to the polling station of our choice.

How does the mischief come into play? There could be those who are loyal to one party but who might venture into the other party’s polling place to vote the candidate they believe will be the weakest against the candidate of their choice.

Parties are able to muster up concerted efforts in that regard, although it’s at times difficult to prove.

In 2008, heavily Republican precincts in Texas saw a huge spike in Democratic primary voter activity as Sens. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama battled for their party’s nomination. Clinton won the primary and it was whispered that a lot of Republicans crossed over to vote for her hoping Democrats would nominate her to run against Sen. John McCain in the fall.

Indeed, I spoke to several Republican friends who actually admitted to doing precisely that: voting for Clinton and hoping she would be nominated.

It didn’t work out that way; Obama got the Democratic nod and went on to thump McCain in the general election.

Can such a thing happen on Tuesday? I keep reading about Republican Party “establishment” honchos sweating bullets over the prospect of Donald J. Trump winning their party’s nomination. Might that spur some Democrats to cross over to vote for Trump hoping to push the reality TV celebrity and real estate mogul toward the GOP nomination?

In another time and era, perhaps that could be the case. This  year? Well, it might be a case of being “careful what you wish for” if such a conspiracy materializes across Texas. Democrats wanted Republicans to nominate Ronald Reagan in 1980 — and look how that turned out.

I’ve never been one to “waste” a vote by playing that game. I tend to cherish my vote as something that gives me pride. I’m not seeking to sound righteous. I’m just saying that in my humble view, game-playing with one’s vote cheapens this rite of citizenship.

Of course, I cannot possibly pretend to speak for others.

Let’s just see how it plays out.

 

legal news, national news, political news

Act on the president’s court nominee

gettyimages-505901208-6ba58e5bee050257b43c9d62a921035a661e4702-s900-c85

I remain strongly in support of presidential prerogative.

It’s been one of my core beliefs ever since I started thinking seriously about policy, politics and government.

When I read stories over the past few days about how Senate Republicans plan to block President Obama’s pick for the U.S. Supreme Court — before even knowing who it is — it sends me into deep orbit.

The GOP is digging in. So is the White House.

In my view, the president’s constitutional authority should override the Senate’s role in this decision.

I’ll reiterate here something I hope hasn’t been lost on those who read this blog. My belief in presidential prerogative crosses party lines. This isn’t a partisan issue with me.

In 1991, Republican President George H.W. Bush nominated Clarence Thomas to the high court to replace Justice Thurgood Marshall. I stood behind the president on that pick while working for a newspaper in Beaumont. Did the president overstate Thomas’s qualifications for the court by calling the “most qualified man” he could find? Yes, he did.

But that was his call to make. George H.W. Bush was our president, who had been elected decisively in 1988. He earned the right to select someone with whom he felt comfortable. As for the allegations of sexual harassment that arose late in the confirmation process, well, I didn’t buy entirely into what was being alleged.

Four years earlier, President Ronald Reagan selected Robert Bork to the court. Was he the kind of jurist I would have picked? Heavens no! But that wasn’t my call to make. It belonged to the president. The Senate saw it differently and rejected Bork’s nomination to the court — despite Bork’s well-known brilliance and knowledge of constitutional law — on grounds that he would fundamentally reshape the direction of the Constitution.

The process worked as it was intended, even though I believed then as well in the principle of presidential prerogative.

Barack Obama is equally entitled — just as any of his predecessors have been — to put someone forward to sit on the nation’s highest judicial authority. The death of conservative icon Antonin Scalia has shocked us all. The court won’t stop functioning with only eight justices.

The larger problem, though, might lie in the Senate, where Democrats are vowing revenge if Republicans follow through with their threat to block the president’s court nominee from even getting a hearing.

The Senate could shut down. Government could stop. The upper congressional chamber could become a logjam of legislation approved by the House, which cannot become law over a dispute that Senate Republicans will have started.

For what purpose? To deny the president of the “other party” a chance to fulfill his constitutional duty, to which a majority of Americans entrusted to him twice with their votes.

Republicans want to wait for the next president to take office. They are gambling that the 45th president will be one of their own. It’s a risky gamble, though, that threatens to stymie everything else that their own constituents elected them to do — which is to govern.

legal news, national news, political news

It’s all about the court balance

90

President Obama picked up the phone today and made a couple of important calls.

One of them went to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell; the other went to Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Charles Grassley. Both men are Republicans. The president is a Democrat.

The president informed the senators he intends to make a pick for the U.S. Supreme Court. And, according to White House press secretary Josh Earnest, Sens. McConnell and Grassley both voted in favor of President Reagan’s “lame duck” selection of Anthony Kennedy to join the court in 1988, which was just as much of an election year as 2016.

McConnell, though, says the current president should notpick the next justice. That task belongs to the next president, he said.

What has changed?

It’s the balance of the court. It means everything. Every single thing.

You see, the late Justice Antonin Scalia, the man Obama wants to replace, was a conservative stalwart on the court. The president is not a conservative; therefore, his appointee won’t echo the judicial philosophy of Justice Scalia.

The next justice — if he or she is approved by the current Senate before the end of this year — is likely to change the fundamental balance of the court, which has comprised a thin conservative majority.

Senate Republicans don’t want the court balance to change. They’ll do whatever they can to prevent the president from making the pick.

There’s just this one little issue that, by my way of thinking, should matter more than anything else. The Constitution grants the president the authority to make the appointment, which this president said he’s going to do. It also grants the Senate the authority to vote whether to approve or deny the appointment. It doesn’t require the Senate to act.

If the Republican-controlled Senate is going to stymie the president, then it faces a serious charge of obstruction. Senate Republicans keep denying the obstructionist label.

A failure, though, to act in a timely fashion on this appointment gives even the casual observer ample cause to suggest that, by golly, we have just witnessed a case of political obstruction.

If the president selects someone who is eminently qualified and who has a proven record of judicial moderation — which conservatives still will see a serious break with the conservative judicial record built by the late Justice Scalia — then shouldn’t the Senate give that nominee a fair hearing and a timely vote?

I would say “yes.” Without equivocation.

 

legal news, national news, political news

Election-year vacancies . . . all the rage

ap_mitch-mcconnell_ap-photo9-wi-640x427

As long as we’re talking about filling a Supreme Court vacancy during an election year . . .

Republican senators don’t want to consider a potential nominee who’ll be offered by President Obama. They want the next president to send someone for their consideration. Barack Obama is a “lame duck,” they say.

The last lame-duck president to send a nominee to the Senate was Ronald Reagan. The Senate confirmed Anthony Kennedy to the Supreme Court in 1988.

So, you might be asking: Is it a common occurrence for the president to send a Supreme Court nominee to the Senate during an election year, lame-duck status or not?

I looked it up. Here’s what I found.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt nominated Frank Murphy, who was confirmed in 1940.

Dwight Eisenhower recommended William Brennan; the Senate confirmed him in 1956.

Richard Nixon sent two nominees to the Senate during an election cycle: Lewis Powell and William Rehnquist; the Senate confirmed them in 1972.

Let’s go back a bit farther. William Howard Taft nominated Mahlon Pitney, who was confirmed in 1912. Woodrow Wilson nominated Louis Brandeis and John Clarke, both of whom were confirmed in 1916.

This election-year moratorium nonsense being promoted by the likes of Senate Mitch McConnell and other Republicans should be revealed for what it is: a cheap political ploy to deny a Democratic president the opportunity to fulfill his constitutional duty.

Granted, all the examples I cited here — except for President Reagan’s nomination of Justice Kennedy — do not involve “lame duck” presidents.

The phoniness of McConnell’s desire to block any attempt by Obama to fill a vacancy created by Justice Antonin Scalia’s tragic death is transparent and obvious, given what has transpired in the past 100 years.

How about allowing President Obama to do the job to which he was elected twice to perform?

 

legal news, national news, political news

Get ready for the biggest fight of all

Supreme-Court-blue-sky

The fight over immigration?

Or the Affordable Care Act?

Or budget priorities?

How about gay marriage?

All of those battles between President Barack Obama and the U.S. Congress are going to pale in comparison to what’s coming up: the battle to find a suitable nominee to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Justice Antonin Scalia’s sudden and tragic death Saturday has caused political apoplexy in both sides of the divide in Washington.

Democrats want the president to nominate someone sooner rather than later. Republicans want the nomination to wait until after the election, with the hope that one of their own will occupy the White House beginning Jan. 20, 2017.

President Obama indicated last night he’s inclined to move forward, to nominate someone and to insist on a “timely vote.”

He is correct to insist that he be allowed to fulfill his constitutional responsibility and that the Senate fulfill its own duties.

One of the Republican candidates, Sen. Marco Rubio, said last night that no one has been appointed during an election year. He’s half-right. President Reagan appointed Anthony Kennedy to the high court in 1987; a Democratically controlled Senate confirmed him in 1988, which certainly was an election year.

Consider this, though: Justice Kennedy succeeded another GOP nominee, the late Justice Lewis Powell (picked by President Nixon). Kennedy’s appointment and confirmation did not fundamentally change the balance of the court.

This vacancy is different. By a lot.

Justice Scalia was a towering figure among the conservative majority that serves on the court. Whoever Obama selects surely will tilt to the left.

Therein lies the fight.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Republican, said the vacancy should be filled after the election, adding that the “American people deserve a voice” in determining who sits on the court.

He could not be more off base. Yes, the voters deserve a voice. However, they spoke decisively about that in November 2012 when they re-elected Barack Obama as president.

Indeed, elections have consequences. There can arguably no greater consequence than determining who gets to select candidates to sit on the nation’s highest court.

The president — whoever he or she is — has a constitutional responsibility to act on a timely manner when these vacancies occur. Moreover, the Senate has an equal responsibility to vote up or down on anyone nominated by the president.

I’ve long believed in presidential prerogative — and my belief in that has never wavered regardless of the president’s party affiliation.

So, let’s mourn the death of a distinguished and, in the president’s words “consequential” justice. Then let us allow the president to do the job allowed by the Constitution and then let us demand that the Senate do its job by voting on whoever the president selects to fill this critical court vacancy.