Tag Archives: Fox News

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Finally … the end of this campaign is near

presidential-debate

We have family members visiting us and I’m giving some semi-serious thought to having something of a tailgate party Wednesday in advance of the third — and thankfully, final — face-off between Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton and Republican Donald J. Trump.

Political junkies have heard it already: The campaign is essentially over. Trump scuttled his presidential bid with that hideous recording of him talking about how he feels about women.

It’s now Clinton’s election to lose. You know, as an aside, I’ve never been comfortable with that phrase, given that I don’t really know what it means.

But the two of ’em are going to square off in the final debate. Fox News’s Chris Wallace will moderate this event. I have complete confidence in his ability to grill them with equal ferocity.

Having said something about a tailgate party, I’ll now stipulate that the end of this campaign cannot arrive soon enough.

It’s been a miserable affair.

About the only thing I’ve learned is that a once-towering American political party has nominated someone — Trump — who has proven to be totally, categorically and unequivocally unqualified to become president of the United States.

So … let’s finish it off.

national news, political news

What happened to Trump’s high praise for Clintons?

donald-trump-hillary-clinton

Many eyes will be on Chris Wallace when the two major-party candidates for president square off later this week.

The Fox News anchor will moderate the upcoming debate between Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton and Republican Donald J. Trump.

I have a long list of questions that Wallace ought to ask. I know he’s likely to ask Clinton about the e-mails being leaked and whether they undermine her ethical standards. I also believe he’ll ask Trump about that “Access Hollywood” recording about the GOP nominee’s conduct with women.

But here’s a potential set of questions I hope Wallace will ask. They should go to Trump:

“Mr. Trump, you once praised Hillary Clinton as a ‘great person.’ You have played golf with her husband, the former president. You have attended parties with them. You’ve been photographed arm-in-arm with both of them.

“What changed? How did the former president and the current Democratic nominee for that office go from being friends of yours to becoming mortal political enemies?”

There’s something potentially revealing to me about Trump’s change in attitude toward the Clintons, now that he’s launched this scorched-Earth campaign against Hillary while seeking to drag Bill into the discussion over his wife’s fitness to become president.

It’s fair to wonder if Trump is nothing more than an opportunistic back-stabber. It’s also fair to ask if he schmoozed with the Clintons for self-serving purposes only. It’s also fair to wonder if he still harbors warm-and-fuzzy feelings toward them and he’s saying all these venomous things about Hillary for purely political purposes.

Trump did, after all, declare that he said those nasty things about women for “entertainment.”

 

media news, national news, political news

Media stars jousting over candidates of their choice

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My list of pet peeves has grown over the years as I have grown older.

I don’t call myself a curmudgeon, but I do at times come off as a fuddy-duddy. Some things about contemporary journalism, for instance, annoy me greatly.

Such as when reporters and commentators become newsmakers. My old-school thought is that they should be apart from the action. They can report on it and, yes, comment on it without making hay.

That all said, now we have two Fox News stars jousting with each other. News anchor Megyn Kelly has become a “supporter” of Hillary Rodham Clinton, says avid Donald J. Trump ally Sean Hannity.

http://www.politico.com/story/2016/10/megyn-kelly-sean-hannity-trade-barbs-over-trump-treatment-229220

The feud is on.

Hannity is a commentator. He is a strong conservative voice on the “fair and balanced” cable network. He’s been in Trump’s camp since the beginning of this presidential campaign.

Now he’s decided to challenge Kelly, who serves another function at Fox; she is a news anchor. She’s also a pretty solid journalist. Kelly had the bad form, I guess in Hannity’s view, to ask Trump some tough questions way back during that first GOP primary debate. She wanted Trump to explain his highly offensive comments about women. The exchange that ensued sparked a feud that continues to this day.

That makes Kelly a Hillary Clinton supporter, according to Hannity.

I should note that of the two, Megyn Kelly is the one with a journalism education and professional background. Hannity lacks those educational credentials; he’s a talker.

I, frankly, don’t much care who she intends to vote for when the time comes. It shouldn’t even be a topic for public discussion. But then we have Hannity — who doesn’t hide his own bias — trying to make noise … which is all this is, in my humble view.

These media stars need to settle down. They ought to stop firing their barbs at each other and concentrate on the individuals and policies on which they report and offer opinion.

Who’s the major culprit in this goofy exchange?

Sean Hannity. Of course!

My advice to the young man? Knock it off, dude, and keep on shilling for Trump.

media news, national news, political news

Trump now must decide: Do I show up to debate Hillary?

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I cannot believe some media outlets are actually asking this question seriously.

Is Donald Trump going to agree to debate Hillary Rodham Clinton now that we know who will moderate these three events, or will he back out?

Clinton, the Democratic presidential nominee, has agreed to face Republican nominee Trump who, apparently, hasn’t yet agreed formally to show for any or all of them.

It seems that he wanted to see who the networks would select as moderators. Now he knows.

NBC’s Lester Holt will moderate the first one; ABC’s Martha Raddatz and CNN’s Anderson Cooper get the second one; Fox News’s Chris Wallace gets the third one.

All are capable journalists. All are tough-minded.

And all of them, apparently, have had some “issues” with Trump.

Thus, we get the question about whether the GOP nominee will show up.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/donald-trump-wanted-to-%E2%80%98see-who-the-moderators-are%E2%80%99-now-that-he-has-will-he-debate/ar-AAiu2ho?li=BBmkt5R

The tempest over his feud with Fox’s Megyn Kelly is going down already as a serious back story of this amazingly unpredictable campaign. Trump didn’t show up for a debate when he learned Kelly would be one of the co-moderators. His absence obviously didn’t harm his nomination chances.

Trump has bitched about moderators before. All of the journalists named as moderators have questioned Trump hard on some of the answers he has given. Will his notoriously thin skin prevent him from being questioned yet again?

He’s also griped that the debates were scheduled opposite televised NFL games, which he said would drive down viewership of the debate — which, quite naturally, he alleges is a conspiracy to get Clinton elected.

The only thing I can surmise if Trump were actually to refuse to show up for any of these three joint appearances is that some of the conspiracy theorists are right about one thing: Trump is throwing this election because he truly doesn’t want to be elected president of the United States.

media news, national news, political news

Moderators become part of the campaign ’16 story

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Admit it if you dare.

You’ve been wondering who would moderate the three joint appearances scheduled with Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Rodham Clinton and Republican nominee Donald J. Trump.

Now we know.

Lester Holt of NBC will do the first one; ABC’s Martha Raddatz and CNN’s Anderson Cooper will co-moderate the second; Fox’s Chris Wallace gets the call for the third one.

This normally wouldn’t be a y-u-u-u-u-g-e deal, except for what happened in the first GOP gathering in 2015 when Trump bristled openly at the first question posed by Fox News’s Megyn Kelly, who had the “gall” to ask Trump about his previous statements about women. You know, the “fat pigs” stuff.

Trump didn’t like the question. Not only that, he kept up the feud through much of the GOP primary campaign, refusing to participate in a later event moderated by the same Megyn Kelly.

He demonstrated a preposterous level of petulance.

He made the media the issue, which plays well with the Republican base, given that they hate the media, too.

Moderators aren’t supposed to become part of a political story. This year they have been. Remember, too, when CNN’s Candy Crowley in 2012 corrected GOP nominee Mitt Romney’s assertion that President Obama didn’t refer to the Benghazi attack as an act of terror.

Oh, but this is a new era. Trump has ensured that the media will become part of the narrative because, as he discovered, the base of his party’s voters love gnawing on that red meat.

Will he go after Holt, or Raddatz, or Cooper or Wallace?

Or, will any of them provoke a fiery response with a question that Trump deems to be untoward?

Gosh, I’m getting all tingly now just waiting for it.

media news, national news, political news

O’Reilly: Slaves were ‘well-fed’ … seriously?

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Bill O’Reilly once taught history to students.

I wonder if he imparted this little tidbit to the young’ns  gathered in his classroom, which is that the slaves who helped build the White House were “well-fed” and well-cared for.

I also wonder if he told them the rest of it, which is that under federal law at the time, they still were considered to be “personal property” of their owners, that they were three-fifths human and that they were no better off than, say, farm animals.

O’Reilly made his feelings known about slavery the other day after first lady Michelle Obama told the Democratic National Convention about living in the house built by slaves. She spoke also of the pride she feels that her daughters have been able to play on the White House lawn, given the slave labor that went into building the structure.

O’Reilly just had to chime on in his “O’Reilly Factor” cable show by seeming to suggest that slave life was OK because the slaves’ masters fed them well and gave them “decent lodging.”

Well, I feed my dog well, too. My puppy lives in a nice home; he’s comfortable. But for crying out loud, he’s still a dog!

http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/michelle-obama-bill-oreilly-fact-check-white-house-built-slaves-well-fed-decent-lodgings#.V5jR0-nbQk4.twitter

I likely shouldn’t give a damn what Bill O’Reilly thinks. The issue, though, is that many Americans do give a damn.

I have members of my family who glom onto his commentary. They worship the guy. Thus, if O’Reilly says it, why it just has to be true … or so these family members have actually told me.

It might be that the crux of O’Reilly’s critique of the first lady’s comments were that slaves were among the workers who helped build the White House, that others were part of the construction crew as well.

But geez, man, why suggest that their living conditions somehow justifies the ownership of human beings as pieces of property?

media news, national news, political news

Trump shows another example of ‘unfitness’

Hillary Rodham Clinton has coined a new mantra to describe her opponent in this autumn’s campaign for the presidency of the United States.

She says Donald J. Trump is “temperamentally unfit” to become president. My sense is that she’s going to hammer relentlessly on that point.

The Democrats’ presumed nominee has been handed yet another example.

Trump has revoked the credentials of The Washington Post, banning the newspaper from covering his events.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/trump-revokes-post-press-credentials-calling-the-paper-dishonest-and-phony/2016/06/13/f9a61a72-31aa-11e6-95c0-2a6873031302_story.html

Trump is unhappy with the coverage the Post is providing for his campaign. He called the paper “phony” and “dishonest.” Sound familiar? He’s said the same thing about, oh, the New York Times, Fox News and CNN.

He gets his dander up when media outlets report things about his campaign that do not cast him in the most positive light imaginable.

It’s the modus operandi of the presumed GOP nominee.

As the paper reported: “In a statement, Post Executive Editor Martin Baron said: ‘Donald Trump’s decision to revoke The Washington Post’s press credentials is nothing less than a repudiation of the role of a free and independent press. When coverage doesn’t correspond to what the candidate wants it to be, then a news organization is banished.

“‘The Post will continue to cover Donald Trump as it has all along — honorably, honestly, accurately, energetically and unflinchingly,’ Baron continued. ‘We’re proud of our coverage, and we’re going to keep at it.”’

Does he not get that intense media coverage is part of the deal to which he agreed when he decided to seek the Republican presidential nomination?

What am I thinking? Of course he doesn’t get it.

He doesn’t get anything.

Thus, we see yet another example of his temperamental unfitness for the presidency.

national news, political news

This man must think the media will go soft on him

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump reads from a list of donations to veteran's groups, during a news conference in New York, Tuesday, May 31, 2016. (AP Photo/Richard Drew) ORG XMIT: NYRD102

Donald J. Trump’s exhibition of petulance was a sight to behold.

Standing before reporters who had gathered to question him about whether he’d actually raised the money he said he had raised for veterans, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee sought to turn the tables on the questioners.

He called one of them a “sleaze.” He called another one a “loser.” He called the media “dishonest,” and the political media even more dishonest than that.

http://www.politico.com/story/2016/05/trump-veterans-donations-223730

He proclaimed that he didn’t want to make the veterans contributions a big public deal. Oh, but when he backed out of a Fox News debate, he said out loud and in public that he’d raised $6 million and given a million bucks himself.

Media representatives have questioned whether Trump actually raised the money for the veterans. They want Trump to account for the money.

And for that they get called “sleazy”?

Does this individual — the GOP nominee in waiting — expect the media to back off in the highly unlikely event he’s ever elected president?

Listen to the press conference in its entirety. It’s gone viral out there in Social Media Land.

Then get back to me and tell me this guy really is suited for the job he is seeking.

 

International news, national news, political news

Declare war against ISIS?

donald-trump

Donald J. Trump has this annoying habit of talking past whatever point he’s trying to sell.

The presumptive Republican presidential nominee told Fox News’s Bill O’Reilly last night he’d be willing to consider asking Congress for a declaration of war against the Islamic State and other terrorist organizations.

I’ve talked already about that in this blog. It’s not an altogether nutty idea, unlike so many of the things that fly out of Trump’s mouth.

https://highplainsblogger.com/2014/09/time-for-a-declaration-of-war/

Then he goes on.

Trump told O’Reilly that the United States is letting “tens of thousands” of terrorists into the country.

Really? Tens of bleeping thousands of ’em, Donald?

http://www.politico.com/story/2016/05/trump-terror-declaration-war-223497

There you have it. The candidate of fear strikes again.

He tosses out statements with no basis in fact. There is not a single shred of evidence that “tens of thousands” of terrorists have taken up residents in the United States. Indeed, the Department of Homeland Security, the FBI, the Border Patrol, state and local police agencies, Drug Enforcement Agency and the whole array of agencies charged with protecting us are rounding up bad guys every single day.

As for the war declaration, I don’t have a particular problem with that, either.

However, I see it more as a proactive approach to fighting terrorists rather than as a reactive one.

Will it ever occur? I doubt it, not even if Donald Trump were to (here comes that shudder again) become the next president.

International news

‘Benghazi’ chairman admits what was thought all along

Former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton reacts as she is introduced to speak at the Massachusetts Conference for Women in Boston, Thursday, Dec. 4, 2014. (AP Photo/Elise Amendola)

This item is making the rounds throughout social media.

To wit:

In the most outlandish version of this story, President Obama or Hillary Clinton ordered the military to “stand down” rather than come to the aid of the Americans who were under attack.

Earlier this week, a letter from two House Democrats to Rep. Trey Gowdy, the South Carolina Republican who is chairing the select committee investigating the Benghazi attack, revealed that the GOP’s own chief investigator acknowledged during the investigation that nothing “could have been done differently to affect the outcome in Benghazi.”

…In an interview on Fox News today, Gowdy responded to this newly released information by acknowledging, “Whether or not they could have gotten there in time, I don’t think there is any issue with respect to that — they couldn’t.”

Chairman Gowdy, thus, has acknowledged that the four brave Americans who died in the firefight at the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya, were doomed from the start.

Terrorists attacked the compound. They set it afire. They exchanged fire with security personnel. Four individuals — including Christopher Stevens, the U.S. ambassador to Libya, died.

Ever since that tragic event, congressional Republicans have sought to deliver the goods on then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. They’ve accused her of lying, of covering up the events.

Her response to many of these allegations has been at times clumsy and inarticulate. There have been confusing answers regarding a video that allegedly sparked the riot at the consulate.

This entire tragedy has taken on a life of its own.

The central question, though, has been whether U.S. officials did enough to stave off the deaths of those who were killed.

Chairman Gowdy now seems to have answered that question.

They did all they could do.