Tag Archives: POTUS

media news

‘Fake News’ becomes part of the political vernacular

Donald Trump has done it. He has turned a ridiculous epithet into part of our national vernacular.

I refer to “Fake News,” the term he uses to describe any coverage he deems to be negative. He calls it “fake,” continuing the incessant mantra he began about the time he entered political life in June 2015.

He announced his presidential campaign and not long afterward began hurling the “Fake News” around.

It has stuck. Who knew?

You see, what makes this label so remarkable is its source. Donald Trump once called himself the “king of debt.” He’s actually the “king of fake news.”

He has lied so often, on so many levels that for this individual to accuse anyone in the media of peddling “fake” information simply defies logic.

However, he has gotten away with it!

I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised. I mean, this carnival barker/huckster/charlatan/serial liar managed to get elected president of the United States in the first place.

He has defied every political norm known to most of us. Why, then, should it surprise anyone that he could turn “Fake News” into something ingrained in our national political vocabulary?

I offer a tip of the proverbial hat to a most unlikely recipient of this salute. You’ve done it, Mr. President. You have created a monster in your own image.

national news

Waiting for Trumpsters to make positive case for POTUS’s re-election

The 2020 presidential election campaign is still in its formative stages. Democrats still are winnowing down a huge field of contenders/pretenders for their party’s nomination. Meanwhile, Donald Trump is gearing up as the Republicans’ nominee.

OK, so what might we expect to hear from the Trump Team as it seeks to get its man re-elected?

The economy will be front and center of Trump’s theme. Fine. The numbers have been good. Unemployment is low. Job growth has been brisk. However, there are danger signs lurking. Economists suggest a recession might be in the country’s near future.

However, even though he denigrates his immediate predecessor’s record over two terms as president, Trump did inherit an economy that was in far better shape than the one that dropped onto President Barack Obama’s lap in January 2009.

Beyond that, I want to hear from Trump’s allies why this man who has masqueraded as president deserves to be re-elected. I want them to make a positive case for him.

I’ll be clear that there’s nothing they can tell me that will change my mind. In my view, Trump is unfit for office. Name any category you wish — previous experience, business acumen, morality, ideology, presidential behavior — in my view he fails every test you can imagine.

I am willing to listen to those who are willing to make the case.

Who will stand up, grab a microphone and tell us that Donald Trump possesses all the essential qualities we expect in a president. Who will say he is compassionate? Or that he listens to Americans? Or that he studies the issues before acting on them? Or that he grasps the complexities of his office, or the massive federal government?

Trump’s own strategy likely will be steeped in innuendo, just as it was in 2016 when he surprised the political world by defeating Hillary Rodham Clinton. He won’t proclaim his own virtues, other than those he fabricates: his intelligence and his memory.

Trump’s campaign team will have to craft a message that echoes the boss’s own penchant for tearing down the opposition, just as it did when he won the previous presidential election.

Is that enough to send this guy back to the Oval Office for another four years? No. It damn sure isn’t.

However, I am awaiting something that resembles a positive message. To be candid, I likely won’t know how to react if I hear one.

Maybe I will just laugh out loud.

national news

Nadler: POTUS ‘ought to be impeached,’ but first …

U.S. House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler has declared his belief that Donald Trump “ought to be impeached.”

I happen to agree with him — to a point.

Nadler believes the president has committed impeachable offenses. So do I. He seems to think the House of Representatives has the votes to impeach the president. As do I.

But … there’s this matter about whether the public is fully on board. Nadler is hedging enough to forestall any rush to impeach the president. I am not sure the public is sufficiently behind an impeachment effort to make it stick, or to persuade enough U.S. senators to convict Trump and toss him out of office after a trial for the charges the House would bring against him.

The conviction bar is far higher than the impeachment bar. The House — with its 235-200 Democratic cushion — needs a simple majority to lodge a formal complaint against the president. The Senate requires two-thirds of its members to convict Trump; Republicans control 53 seats. I do not believe there are enough GOP senators who have the courage to convict to boot the carnival barker out of the office to which he was elected.

There is Chairman Nadler’s conundrum.

The Judiciary Committee has effectively launched impeachment proceedings against Trump. Will it produce enough actual, concrete, tangible evidence that Trump has committed a “high crime and misdemeanor” to warrant impeachment?

Sure, but the process has to play out. It’s a political event, to be sure. Some Democrats keep talking about doing their “constitutional duty.” Fine, but to what end?

If the goal of impeachment is to persuade enough Americans and their elected representatives in the House and Senate to kick Trump out of office, then I believe the pro-impeachment brigade has more miles to march.

political news

On the hunt for Trump supporter

GOLDEN, British Columbia — I received a grim prediction from a resident of Vancouver, B.C.: My hunt for a Canadian who supports Donald J. Trump is likely to prove futile.

No worries. I intend to keep looking for that individual.

My acquaintance, a retired biochemist who is on his way to Regina, Saskatchewan to see family members, told me that Trump supporters in this country are a scarce commodity.

What is this gentleman’s view of the president of the United States?

“He is too unpredictable,” he said. “He just doesn’t act presidential,” he continued. “We expect more, I guess, from the president of the United States.”

Does that sound familiar? Sure it does. We might have this lengthy divide between our two countries, but we do share the same massive — and magnificent — continent. Most Americans and Canadians appear to be of like minds regarding the president, according to the gentleman.

What’s more, this fellow we met told us a quick story about his father. “My dad happens to be an American,” he said. My new friend explained that when Trump was running for president in 2016, his father — who he described as a “right wing thinking” sort of fellow — was all for Trump. “He just thought Trump was going to ‘make America great again,’ and all that kind of thing,” he friend said.

His father’s view now?

“Dad has changed his mind,” he said.

My acquaintance didn’t say it directly, but his slight chuckle while discussing Donald Trump seems to reveal a view my cousin revealed to me about a Canadian friend of his. Canadians are laughing at us Americans. OK, I get it. Except that none of this man’s tenure in office is funny.

So, the hunt goes on.

I hope the retired biochemist is mistaken. I am going to keep searching for a pro-Trump Canadian.

Y’all will be among the first to know if I find that person.

Donald Trump, national news

It’s strictly personal, Mr. President

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There is no nice way to say this, Mr. President, so I’ll just blurt it out.

My loathing of your presidency is a product of my feelings toward you. It’s personal, Mr. President.

You’ve enacted several policy positions with which I disagree. Your rolling back of clean air and water requirements, for example. Your decision to ban transgender Americans from serving in the military — which you avoided doing during the Vietnam War — is another. Your insistence on repealing the Affordable Care Act when some tinkering would suffice is yet another. I could go on. I won’t.

No, Mr. President, it’s almost exclusively personal with me. It’s visceral. I feel it in my gut.

I felt that way when you and Melania rode down that escalator at Trump Tower, when you announced your presidential candidacy, and then trashed Mexicans as rapists, murderers and assorted other felons was too much for me right out of the chute.

Your entire adult life has been geared toward self-enrichment. You didn’t have a single moment of public service on your resume. Your behavior is well-chronicled: the cheating — alleged and acknowledged — on all three of your wives; the hideous videos of you at professional wrestling matches; the “Access Hollywood” interview.

Hey, I’m only touching on the matters that come to my mind in the moment.

Your conduct as president has been nearly as hideous. Your trashing of our allies. Your denigration of our intelligence analysts who say the Russians interfered in our election. Your standing behind dictators such as Vladimir Putin, Kim Jong Un and an assortment of other tin horn tyrants around the world.

Of course, there’s also the serial lying. You cannot tell the truth. You are pathological. Your lying knows no bounds. You lie when you need not lie.

And I cannot let pass your repeated denigration of a legitimate war hero, the late John McCain, who fought, suffered and nearly died during the Vietnam War. He resisted his captors valiantly and you had the unmitigated gall to say he was a “hero only because he was captured.” You sickened me with that statement, Mr. President.

For that matter, you continue to sicken me every moment you serve as our head of state/commander in chief.

I just had to get this off my chest. I know it won’t do a damn bit of good. You likely won’t see these words. Some of your supporters will and they might give me grief for expressing myself in this manner.

Too bad. I want you out of office at the earliest possible moment.

There. Now I feel better.

International news

Looking for what I believe is a rarity: Canadian supporter of Trump

KAMLOOPS, British Columbia — I am on a mission.

Somewhere out there in the vast nation that borders the United States of America are likely to be folks who believe Donald J. Trump is the greatest thing to American politics since pockets on shirts.

I want to find at least one of them.

My intention is to look for Canadians who will answer this simple question: Do you think the president of the United States is doing a good job for his country and for yours?

That’s a reasonably neutral query. When I announced my plans to seek out Canadians’ opinion on a man I detest, I sought to make it clear that I didn’t intend to skewer the questions in search of particular answers. I do intend to remain faithful to that pledge.

And if I find a Trumpster among our Canadian hosts I intend to ask them for specifics about why they think he’s such a darn noble statesman.

They might be hard to find. I keep hearing anecdotal stuff about the president’s low opinion ratings in Canada, where — to be candid — Canadians aren’t too keen on their prime minister, Justin Trudeau, either.

Maybe they’re all a bunch of soreheads. Eh?

I’ll do my best. Wish me luck.

national news

How will Donald Trump depart the presidency?

Hey, it’s worth asking: Am I the only American who wonders just how Donald Trump is going to leave the presidency, particularly if he happens to lose the 2020 election?

I wonder because of all the norms that the president has tossed into the crapper since taking office more than two years ago.

He makes policy pronouncements via Twitter; he uses the social medium to fire Cabinet officials and top executive branch leaders; he berates our allies while cozying up to our foes; he lies through his teeth on every level imaginable. You get my point.

Suppose he loses the election in 2020. What in the name of good losers is he going to do? Will he pledge to work for a smooth transition with whomever defeats him? Will he go quietly into the night to pursue a new life as a private citizen? Will he form a foundation that does good work? Will he write his memoir? Will he select a site for a presidential library?

Pardon me while I laugh out loud.

He won’t do any of that. You know it, too. He’s going to go out kicking and screaming. He’ll bitch about the election being “rigged” and he’ll launch a never-ending Twitter tirade against any and all of his foes.

President Bush 41 lost his re-election bid to Bill Clinton in 1992. He went out with class. President Carter did as well when he got clobbered in 1980 by Ronald Reagan. President Ford lost his bid for election in 1976 and became good friends with the man who beat him, Jimmy Carter.

Do you believe Donald Trump will exhibit that kind of class when he exits the White House, either in 2021 should he lose his bid for re-election or — and perish the thought — in 2025 if he manages to finish a second term as president?

I know. It’s laughable on its face.

environmental news

They’re calling it ‘Sharpiegate’ … sheesh!

I wish I could have avoided referring to this latest Donald Trump controversy as a “gate”-type matter, but I guess I must.

They’re calling it “Sharpiegate” now. This is the story involving the president producing a map showing that, by golly, Alabama was in the path of Hurricane Dorian’s destruction.

You know what happened next, right? The National Weather Service contradicted the president’s assertion. Trump wouldn’t/couldn’t admit he goofed. So he trots out the map with the Sharpie-drawn line extending from the “cone of uncertainty” that the NWS had established regarding Dorian’s path.

Now the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration has weighed in. NOAA backs Trump’s assertion.

I fear all NOAA has done is feed Trump’s never-ending Twitter tirade appetite. The president will bask in whatever NOAA has presumed.

NOAA vs. NWS

How about we end this matter? How about we no longer are fixated over whether Trump drew that line extending from that cone of uncertainty. I have no doubt he did, but that shouldn’t consume us.

Oh, wait! If the media plan to let it go, will the president follow suit? Or is he going to keep stirring it up for the media to report on it … and then accuse the media of peddling “fake news”?

My head is about to explode.

national news

Trump cannot be believed about anything!

1 Comment

This likely goes without saying, but I’ll say it anyway.

Donald Trump is so manifestly untrustworthy that I no longer can believe a single word that flies out of his mouth.

Every declaration this man has made since becoming a politician in June 2015 has been fraught with falsehood. I don’t know why or how it is that it took me so long to make my own non-belief declaration about the president of the United States.

I guess I’m just a bit slow on the uptake.

I’ve been saying since the moment he rode down that Trump Tower escalator to declare his presidential candidacy that Trump is unfit for the office. I based my belief in his  unfitness on a number of issues relating to his personal history, his lack of understanding of government, his behavior.

I didn’t factor in his obsession with lying.

Everything he says needs to be fact-checked. All of Trump’s proclamations need to be run through screeners. Not a single statement that comes from the POTUS can be believed.

Nothing! Zero. It’s all phony. It’s all, shall we say, “fake news.”

Here’s the rich part: The president continues to blast the media for reporting “fake news.” Do the media get everything right every single time? No. Of course not. However, the media do manage to retract stories, offer clarifications, or corrections, or make expressions of “regret” for misreporting events and statements that public figures make.

Trump, though, cannot own any single falsehood. He cannot acknowledge his lying. He must make matters worse by lying about his lies.

I am done believing a single thing Donald Trump says.

national news

Trump’s lying might be overtaking him … finally!

Donald Trump’s lying is boundless, endless, bottomless.

He lies about big things. Little things. Important things. Trivial things.

The president recently said that Alabama was in the path of Hurricane Dorian. The weather forecasters said, um, no … it wasn’t. Did the president own a mistake, a misstatement, a slight bit of confusion? No. He made it worse.

He produced a map with a Sharpie line drawn beyond the official boundaries showing the impact that Dorian would have on the southeastern United States. Who put the line there? Who thought to include Alabama in Dorian’s path? Was it, oh, Donald Trump?

He then blathered on about early “models” showed Alabama in line to be clobbered by Dorian. No. It wasn’t. It never was part of the impact zone.

So this brings me to a critical point. Why does the president continue to lie even when a simple mea culpa would clear him even with his most ardent critics?

There is a growing line of thought that the president’s “pathology” forces him to lie. He is pathologically incapable of telling the truth. He cannot speak with any semblance of honesty on any topic at any time.

He has lied about how he made his zillions. He lies about what he witnesses at the time of national crisis. He has lied about attending funerals of “friends” who died on 9/11. Has lied about his father’s place of birth.

On and on it goes.

He lies about every single issue one can imagine.

The Alabama lie is just the latest. It also just might start to reveal even to his most ardent supporters that he cannot be trusted to tell the truth about anything at all.

That prompts another question: How do these Trump fanatics justify their continuing to stand by this pathological liar?