Tag Archives: Barack Obama

military news

Wanting next POTUS to rescind transgender ban

Donald Trump took office as president and began issuing a flurry of executive orders, even though he criticized Barack Obama for his use of executive authority when he was president of the United States.

One of the orders he issued revoked an Obama order that allowed transgender Americans to serve openly in the U.S. military. Trump listened to his base of supporters and rescinded the previous order.

He is now getting his re-election campaign ramped up. Many of the Democrats seeking to succeed him want to yank the transgender ban off the books and allow those patriotic Americans to don the uniform of their country while serving in the military.

I fully support lifting the ban. Even the Washington Examiner, a newspaper friendly to the Trump agenda, has urged the president to take a second look at the transgender ban.

Trump offered a number of dubious assertions seeking to justify his decision to rescind the previous executive order. The worst of those reasons had something to do with the money that the Defense Department would be spending on personnel who would be in various stages of what is called “gender reassignment.” The counter argument to that notion, of course, came from those who noted the enormous amount of money the Pentagon spends on medication to correct maladies such as, oh, “erectile dysfunction.”

Without doubt, though, the most ironic aspect of Trump’s decision dealt with his denying Americans’ desire to serve their country when, back in the day, Trump avoided/evaded such service during the Vietnam War. He secured the now widely derided medical exemption relating to alleged “bone spurs” that Trump said he suffered on his feet.

For this president to deny Americans the opportunity to serve, which they seek to do voluntarily, is ridiculous on its face.

Furthermore, I equate the military transgender ban with the idiotic Bathroom Bill that the 2017 Texas Legislature considered enacting. You’ll recall that one, yes? The Senate approved a bill that required people to use public restrooms in accordance with their gender at birth; it was meant clearly to discriminate against transgendered individuals. The Texas House, led by then-Republican House Speaker Joe Straus, killed the idea in a special session.

Whoever succeeds Trump — whether it’s after this upcoming election or the next one — has vowed to restore some justice to our military ranks. My fervent hope is that the opportunity comes sooner rather than later.

legal news

DACA appears to be on the ropes at SCOTUS

The word out of Washington, D.C. is out: The U.S. Supreme Court’s conservative majority appears to be readying a decision that will enable the deportation of U.S. residents who were brought here illegally as children by their parents.

Donald Trump sought to have them sent back to their country of origin, even though these individuals know only life in the United States. They are the Deferred Action on Childhood Arrivals recipients.

DACA might be on the ropes.

The court will issue its decision in mid-2020, at the height of the presidential election. One should be wary of trying to predict what the court will rule.

The president has seated two new members on the court, giving him a narrow but solid conservative majority. I realize that elections have consequences and we well might learn next year just how dramatic those consequences can get.

President Obama issued an executive order that granted temporary amnesty from deportation for DACA recipients. Trump took office and then rescinded that order. Critics, such as yours truly, have called the rescission a heartless act. DACA recipients by and large have grown up as de facto Americans. They aren’t citizens, but they are full-fledged residents of this country. Many of them have become successful in many endeavors.

What would happen to them if they are sent to countries they do not know?

Well, the highest court in America will deliver its decision in due course. The hearing today, according to those who heard it, suggests the court is leaning heavily toward backing Trump on DACA.

This well could be a sad moment for many hundreds of thousands of U.S. residents.

national news

Fix the DACA mess; restore humaneness to our immigration policy

 ROBYN BECK/AFP/Getty Images)

A Facebook friend, a man I actually know and respect, brought up a point on an earlier blog post that I want to acknowledge here.

He agrees with my belief that the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency needs to be repaired, not eliminated, but he cautions about the need to deal with the Deferred Action on Childhood Arrivals matter as well.

He is correct.

DACA recipients are being punished unjustly only because they were children when their parents sneaked them into the country illegally. The Donald Trump administration wants them deported. The president rescinded an executive order that President Obama signed that gave DACA residents a form of temporary amnesty from deportation.

ICE is under orders to find these folks and detain them.

This isn’t right. It’s cruel and it is inhumane to deport DACA recipients, many of whom have excelled scholastically in the only country they’ve ever known.

I should point out as well two previous Texas governors — George W. Bush and Rick Perry, both Republicans — have all but embraced the idea contained in the DACA executive order that Obama signed. They have supported initiatives, for instances, to grant DACA students in-state tuition at public colleges and universities in Texas. Why? Because they recognize the contributions these young students can make if they are allowed to succeed while continuing to reside in Texas.

ICE can do much good for the country as we seek to reform our immigration policy. I also agree with former Vice President Joe Biden, who’s campaigning for president, that the best way to ensure a thorough and lasting repair of ICE is to change presidents. Donald Trump won’t do it.

Indeed, DACA reform must be part of any effort to re-humanize our nation’s immigration policy.

national news

Don Jr. is in dire need of a reality check

Donald J. Trump Jr. is hawking a book with his name on it that, he says, seeks to fight back against what he calls mean-spirited attacks from the far left wing of the political spectrum.

Then he goes a step or three too far. He has declared on live TV that Republicans have sat back for “too long” while the left beats the daylights out of them with their attack machine.

Wow, man! Hold on for a second or two. Let’s take a walk along the political memory lane.

1972: President Nixon was running for re-election. His Democratic opponent was U.S. Sen. George McGovern, a fervent Vietnam War critic. He wanted the United States to end the war immediately. The Republican Party and the president’s re-election committee labeled McGovern a patsy, a wimp, a dovish coward. They questioned his patriotism and love of country. Oh, and then there’s this: Sen. McGovern was a decorated World War II U.S. Army Air Force bomber pilot who flew into harm’s way in Europe.

There’s that.

1992: President George H.W. Bush ran for re-election against Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton. The Republican National Committee, along with heavily financed political action groups, sought to link Gov. Clinton and his wife, Hillary Rodham Clinton, to the deaths of former aides. The implication was that the Clintons were somehow complicit in their deaths. The attacks continued even after Clinton was elected that year, with some on the right suggesting that they murdered their close friend Vincent Foster, who committed suicide shortly after President Clinton took office.

That’s an example, too.

2004: U.S. Sen. John Kerry was the Democratic presidential nominee. Prior to becoming a U.S. senator, he held elective office in Massachusetts. Prior to that he was part of a group called Vietnam Veterans Against the War. And, yes, he also had served heroically in Vietnam as a Navy swift boat officer. He was awarded several medals, including the Bronze Star, Silver Star and Purple Heart. But some foes on the right decided to “Swift Boat” Kerry, suggesting he didn’t really serve with valor. They launched a vicious, defamatory attack on his character. One of the chief financial sponsors of that hideous attack was the late Boone Pickens, the former Amarillo oil and natural gas tycoon.

OK, I have one more example.

2008: U.S. Sen. Barack Obama ran for president as the Democratic nominee. Some notable Republicans felt compelled to question whether the African-American presidential nominee was qualified to run for the office. They said he was born in Kenya. They challenged his constitutional eligibility. Obama said he was born in Hawaii in 1961. His mother was white; his father was a black Kenyan. He didn’t know his father and was raised by his mother and her parents, who lived in Kansas. All of his efforts to persuade his critics fell on largely deaf ears.

One set of deaf ears happened to belong to Donald J. Trump Sr., the current president of the United States and father of the nincompoop who is saying that Republicans have been silent for too long.

My point is this: Don Jr. needs to stop lying about alleged Republican “silence” in this toxic and vicious political climate. They have contributed more than their share of poison.

religious news

Trump’s weird association with evangelicals takes an even weirder turn

It looks as though the nation’s strangest political alliance has taken a strange new twist.

Donald Trump has hired a thrice-married, money-loving televangelist to be his link to the evangelical Christian community that continues to support the president, even in the wake of a mountain of impeachment evidence that is piling up all around him.

This person’s name is Paula White. She is far from your run-of-the-mill person of the cloth. She has been marred by marital scandal. She lives in a glitzy mansion in Florida. She reportedly believes God wants believers to gather wealth. She delivers her ministry on television.

Doesn’t sound so, oh, very Trumpian? I believe it does.

The New York Times noted some fascinating spiritual comparisons.

The Times reported that Presidents Eisenhower and Nixon turned the Rev. Billy Graham, who the Times said was “so ubiquitous he became known as America’s Pastor.” President Obama turned to Rick Warren, whose best-selling book “The Purpose Driven Life” became the second best-selling hardcover book in American history; the No. 1 best-seller is, um, The Bible.

Read the Times story here.

Paula White comes from a vastly different mold than previous presidential pastors. She is, shall we say, more than a tad unconventional in her approach to God’s holy word.

She preaches something called “the prosperity gospel,” which the Times reports has drawn widespread criticism from mainstream religious leaders. Imagine that … if you can.

But there she is, working within the White House as a sort of “spiritual adviser” to a president who, to my way of thinking, has lived one of the most un-Christian lives of any notable public figure I’ve ever seen.

Didn’t he once tell us that he’s never sought “forgiveness”? He has admitted cheating on two of his three wives; and there’s plenty of evidence that he’s fooled around on Wife No. 3. He has preached a doctrine of toughness to obtain business success. Trump has mocked others’ physical disabilities, their appearance, their intelligence.

Does any of that resemble what Jesus Christ would endorse?

Don’t answer that.

Now he has someone named Paula White advising him. She will work to shore up his religious movement support.

Weird, man.

International news

No one’s keeping score, Mr. POTUS … except you!

Donald Trump is now engaging in a “Can you top this?” game involving the dispatching of international terrorists.

Disgusting!

The president had the gall to say that the killing of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi was “bigger” than the 2011 killing of Osama bin Laden. While he was taking questions from reporters Sunday after announcing al-Baghdadi’s death at the hands of Army Delta Force commandos, Trump decided — and this is no surprise — to suggest he had one-upped the mission authorized by President Barack H. Obama to kill bin Laden.

Oh, he did say that killing the al-Qaeda leader, bin Laden, was “big,” but then he said taking out the Islamic State honcho was an even more significant event.

Well, I won’t enter a debate over which death was bigger. It is pointless and irrelevant.

I just want to re-state what I said earlier, which is that al-Baghdadi’s death was a gigantic blow to ISIS. Moreover, I applaud the president’s decision to authorize the mission.

It was huge. Then again, so was the Navy SEAL mission to kill bin Laden, who masterminded the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington that killed 3,000 innocent victims in both cities.

Why in the world does the president of the United States choose to cheapen a monumental military victory with an idiotic boast that this take-down was bigger than an earlier one?

Utterly bizarre.

International news

Trump ‘spikes the football’ in announcing terror leader’s death

I did not intend to venture down this alley, but now that I have given it some thought …

Donald Trump’s announcement of the death of Islamic State mastermind Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi contained language that seemed, well, more than a bit over the top.

Delta Force special operations commandos launched a raid overnight that resulted in al-Baghdadi’s death. The commander in chief tweeted a message about “something really big” happening and then this morning went on TV to tell the world that al-Baghdadi is dead.

However, the president went much farther than merely telling us about the bravery and precision of our special forces. He talked about how al-Baghdadi “died like a dog,” how he was a “coward,” how he was whimpering and sobbing before he detonated the suicide vest strapped to his body.

So I am left to wonder: Why did Donald Trump feel the need to prance and preen over the death of a monster? Why did he spike the proverbial football and seemingly gloat over the mission he authorized?

According to Time.com: Trump was doing more than running down an adversary; he was actively trying to break the spell al-Baghdadi holds over his followers, says a White House official. “He felt it was important to mock this guy,” the official says, adding that Trump wanted to “rub in everybody’s face that this guy was killing and ordering rape of thousands of people and at the end of the day blew himself up with his three kids rather than fight.”

Make no mistake. I applaud the decision to launch the mission. The president could have chosen other options that carried less risk to our special forces. He chose instead to rely on the extraordinary skill of our soldiers who carried out the mission with extraordinary precision and professionalism.

I am thinking at this moment of the evening of May 1, 2011 when President Barack Obama told the world of the SEAL mission that killed Osama bin Laden. He spoke for about 9 minutes. He told us bin Laden was dead; he hailed the men who conducted the mission; he heaped praise on our intelligence team that toiled for many years over two administrations to find bin Laden; he offered words of comfort to the friends and loved ones of the 3,000 people who died on 9/11. He asked for God’s blessing on the United States of America and then walked away from the microphone.

Trump didn’t do that this morning. He went into extraordinary detail about what he perceived about al-Baghdadi’s final moments on Earth.

The president seemed — if you’ll pardon my use of the term — to “glorify” the circumstances of al-Baghdadi’s death.

It was unbecoming. It was, oh, let’s see, so very un-presidential.

International news, military news

POTUS makes courageous call in authorizing raid

It must be said — and I’ll say it here — that Donald John Trump made a gutsy call in authorizing the raid that killed Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi somewhere in Syria overnight.

Commanders in chief on occasion face life-and-death decisions that given all the moving parts of highly complicated military operations can result in tragedy.

The president’s authorization of a mission to send Delta Force soldiers and CIA commandos into Syria to kill the Islamic State leader was one of those nail-biters.

Barack Obama faced a similar situation in 2011 when he made the call to send in SEALs and CIA agents to kill Osama bin Laden. The president knew then that that the operation was based on what he called a “55-45 probability” that bin Laden was actually in the compound where they ended up killing him. He was. The mission succeeded famously and the nation cheered its outcome.

So it should be with the al-Baghdadi raid.

I get that presidents don’t shoulder weapons themselves, or pull the trigger, or fly aircraft into harm’s way. The responsibility of success o failure rests solely on their shoulders.

Thus, when they make these decisions they must face the possibility of tragic consequences if one of those many moving parts falls apart. When they do, the mission can fail. Think of the Desert One Iranian hostage rescue mission that ended tragically in 1980 and think, too, of the terrible burden that President Jimmy Carter likely carries to this very day.

President John F. Kennedy said famously after the disastrous Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba that “victory has a thousand fathers, but defeat is an orphan.” He took the failure heat all by himself.

The al-Baghdadi raid was a huge success. The capability of our military special forces is unparalleled in all of human history. The Delta Force team served the nation and the world well. To that end, the president who sent the soldiers on this perilous mission deserves credit for making a courageous call.

He has eliminated an example of, um, “human scum.”

national news

Obama, Clinton remind us how presidents should act and sound

I was damn near overwhelmed today as I listened to the tributes that poured forth for the memory of the late U.S. Rep. Elijah Cummings.

I want to mention specifically the remarks offered by two former presidents of the United States: Barack H. Obama and Bill Clinton.

The thought was inescapable. How wonderful it was to hear two men who used to occupy the White House who could speak in cogent sentences, who could remain focused intently on an individual they were asked to honor with their words, who could avoid traipsing off into nonsensical riffs about this or that.

Presidents Obama and Clinton embody so much of what we do not have in the current president. They spoke from their heart. They talked of Cummings’ strength, which he exhibited routinely through his compassion, empathy and caring for others.

I could not help but ask myself: Could I ever imagine that kind of rhetoric coming from the mouth of Donald J. Trump? The answer is plainly obvious: Hell no!

Obama and Clinton clearly were not perfect presidents. They made mistakes. Clinton, of course, made what congressional Republicans considered to be an impeachable mistake.

These men, though, always preserved an air of dignity about themselves and their exalted office. They elevated themselves to the occasion brought to them by their position. They understood that their rhetoric mattered.

Today, they reminded us how it used to be when the president stood before the nation to speak of a political icon. They reminded us how it always should be.

What’s more, they have reminded us of what is missing in the man who has succeeded them.

national news

U.S. Code § 2381.Treason

I found the federal law that discusses treason.

It says the following: Whoever, owing allegiance to the United States, levies war against them or adheres to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort within the United States or elsewhere, is guilty of treason and shall suffer death, or shall be imprisoned not less than five years and fined under this title but not less than $10,000; and shall be incapable of holding any office under the United States.

Got it! If you give “aid and comfort” to a nation with which we are at war, then you have committed an act of treason. The punishment of which can be death.

Now … I mention this because Donald Trump has accused Barack Obama of committing a “treasonous act” by “spying” on Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign.

Hyperbolic? Exaggeration? Is Trump just trying to make news?

He has told the author of a new book about the Trump administration that President Obama committed an act of treason by spying on him. Doug Wead has written a book, “Inside Trump’s White House: The Real Story of His Presidency.” Trump told Wead about what he thinks of what he has alleged occurred.

I believe, though, that the FBI has determined that it has no evidence of espionage. It has essentially cleared the former president of wrongdoing.

And yet …

The president continues to toss this kind of fiery rhetoric around as if no one really cares to challenge the things he says.

“What they did was treasonous. Okay? It was treasonous,” Trump told Wead. Actually, it wasn’t.

For the president to defame another president with a bogus allegation that implies an extreme form of punishment is the very definition of reprehensible.