Tag Archives: Twitter

To tweet or not to tweet …

August 2, 2017 kanelis2012

William Shakespeare likely wouldn’t ponder that notion if he were around today.

But we’re going to give it a shot here briefly.

Twitter is emerging as the social medium of choice for some high-powered individuals. Members of Congress use it. Journalists, too. Same for assorted entertainment celebrities.

And, of course, the president of the United States. That brings me to the subject of this blog post: Should the president keep using Twitter?

I’m torn by the notion of Donald John Trump Sr. continuing to use Twitter. On one hand, the manner in which he uses it is troubling in the extreme. He fires off these 140-character messages in the wee hours of the morning. I don’t object to him doing so per se. The troubling aspect comes in the consequences of those messages.

Don’t get me wrong. I use Twitter too. This blog is distributed on Twitter, along with Facebook, LinkedIn and Google. I use the medium to advance my own commentary on “politics, public policy and life experience.” It helps me expand my audience, which is every blogger’s mission. Twitter has helped me build my daily blog “hits”; while my audience has expanded manifold since I founded High Plains Blogger, it’s still not enough. Hey, it’s never enough!

I also send out tweets that comment by themselves on current policy matters and this and/or that other stuff. I’ve done so more than 16,000 times since signing up on Twitter while I was still working for the Amarillo Globe-News. I got into the game right away and have enjoyed using Twitter to convey pithy comments.

But I’m just a chump former print journalist who lives out here in the middle of Flyover Country. The consequences of my tweets pale in comparison to what occurs when the president of the United States fires them into cyberspace.

Trump on occasion has abused the medium, such as when he tweeted a policy change regarding transgender Americans serving in the military. That is far more than just a comment on news of the day. It signaled a fundamental policy shift: that the president had declared that transgender citizens no longer could serve in the armed forces. What’s more, he sent the tweet without consulting with the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Defense Department or his senior White House staff.

That’s abuse of social media, dear reader.

Do I wish the president would cease and desist on Twitter? No. If it’s used properly, it can be a useful tool to communicate — even for the president. The trouble with Trump is that he lacks any impulse control and cannot discern prudent use of the medium from imprudent use of it.

I’ve heard many folks say they want Trump to continue using Twitter. I do, too. However, my wish for the president is that he use it with wisdom and discernment.

Is he capable of such a thing? Oh … probably not.

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Hold on, Rep. Waters!

July 30, 2017 kanelis2012

Donald John Trump Sr. isn’t the only American politician who needs to bind up his hands to keep him from abusing his Twitter account.

U.S. Rep. Maxine Waters? I’m talking about you!

The California Democrat is one of the president’s most vocal and consistent critics. She fired off a tweet that said Vice President Pence already is planning his inauguration in anticipation of Trump’s impeachment and conviction of assorted “high crimes and misdemeanors.” She said former White House press flack Sean Spicer and ex-chief of staff Reince Priebus will “lead the transition.”

Read my lips here: I take a back seat to no one in my disdain for this president and the way he has conducted himself. But impeachment is not even close to occurring.

Waters has been around Capitol Hill for a long time. I am going to presume she does an adequate job representing her California congressional district, given that she’s been re-elected numerous times since her first election to Congress in 1990.

She tends to make a national name for herself, though, by popping off during heated political debates. It’s getting pretty damn hot in Washington these days, as I believe we all can attest.

Waters isn’t the first anti-Trumpkin to talk openly about impeachment. Fellow Democratic U.S. Rep. Al Green of Texas has filed articles of impeachment, but it isn’t going anywhere — at least not yet.

But this business of using Twitter as a platform to make these kinds goofy political pronouncements is beginning to annoy many of us. You may count me as among the annoyed.

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What about the ‘idiot in chief,’ Gen. Kelly?

July 30, 2017 kanelis2012

The new White House chief of staff is being described as someone who won’t “suffer idiots.”

No surprise there. John Kelly is a retired Marine Corps general. He’s been tested in combat during his 45 years in uniform. He has suffered grievous tragedy with the loss of his son who was killed in action in Afghanistan. Until this week, he led the Department of Homeland Security. Then the president of the United States asked him to take over as White House chief of staff.

Those who know Gen. Kelly say he brooks no foolishness.

That brings us to the fundamental point. The most successful White House chiefs of staff control virtually every word that flows from 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. In this age of social media, that should include the Twitter network operated by Donald John Trump.

Is the new chief of staff going to demand from the president that he — as in Kelly — has complete control? Will the chief be able to screen the tweets the president decides to fire off? Will he have veto power over the idiocy that occasionally flies into cyber space?

According to The Washington Post: “He knows how to do this: with common sense and good leadership,” said Kelly’s longtime friend, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to offer frank opinions. “He won’t suffer idiots and fools.”

Idiots and fools, eh?

The idiot in chief also is the fool in chief. They are the same man, who was elected president of the United States in a campaign that defied virtually every single bit of conventional wisdom known to politics.

He vowed to become “more presidential” once he took office. Trump has veered precisely into the opposite direction, as he has become less presidential.

It now falls on the new White House chief of staff to rein in The Boss. I’m unsure how Gen. Kelly is going to harness the most ignorant man ever to hold the highest office in the land.

It’s been said that former chief of staff Reince Priebus’s tenure is the shortest in U.S. history. If the new guy doesn’t get some guarantees from the president that he’ll actually get to take charge of the staff, Priebus’s record may be smashed in a matter of days.

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Trump going to war with his ‘friends’

July 24, 2017 kanelis2012

Donald J. Trump’s latest Twitter tirade takes aim at a most fascinating target: his fellow Republicans.

The president is now threatening reprisals against GOP members of Congress who fail to rise to his defense against growing questions about whether he broke the law while winning the presidency.

I guess I’m slow on the uptake. I am having difficulty imagining what in the world Trump hopes to accomplish by issuing these threats.

Some of his fellow Republicans are questioning the circumstances surrounding the president’s relationships with Russians who — according to U.S. intelligence experts — sought to meddle in our 2016 election.

“It’s very sad that Republicans, even some that were carried over the line on my back, do very little to protect their President,” Trump wrote on Twitter.

The president is going to need these folks. All of them, it seems. Yet he keeps pounding away at those upon he must depend.

Congressional Democrats are long gone. They aren’t going to stand up for a single Trump initiative, nor will they give him a break on the Russia investigation taking shape within the special counsel’s office and on congressional committees.

Trump also wrote: “As the phony Russian Witch Hunt continues, two groups are laughing at this excuse for a lost election taking hold, Democrats and Russians!”

This message has a ring of truth to it. Yes, Democrats are laughing as Trump and the Republicans keep tripping over themselves and each other while trying to fend off the criticism.

And what about the Russians? You’re damn right they’re laughing. They have accomplished their prime objectives, according to U.S. intelligence analysts: Their preferred candidate won the 2016 election and they also have managed to cast serious doubt on the integrity of the U.S. electoral system.

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Trump tweets … but only in generalities

July 14, 2017 kanelis2012

Donald J. Trump fired up his Twitter gun in Paris and declared he has “pen in hand” and will sign the U.S. Senate Republican health care bill when it reaches his desk.

OK. That’s it.

Others have commented on this, but I’ll weigh in, too. Have you noticed that the president never — not a single time — discusses the guts of the GOP plan to repeal the Affordable Care Act? He doesn’t ever discuss the Medicaid cuts, or the Congressional Budget Office assessment, or precisely how — in his view — the ACA is failing. He just says it is and then goes on to the next thing, whatever that may be.

The notion that the president operates in a detail-free zone on legislation is no surprise or any big scoop. I get that.

Read the bill, Mr. President

One might think, though, that the titular head of a major political party would at least have a working knowledge of his party’s legislative priorities. Repealing the ACA and replacing it with whatever the Republican majorities in Congress come up with seems to fall into the category of “major legislative priority.”

Donald Trump doesn’t bother to acquaint himself with the nuts and bolts. Nor does he exhibit a scintilla of interest in obtaining any particular knowledge of anything.

Have you noticed how often he inserts the words “I think … ” into his pronouncements? If he thinks it, then that’s all we need to know or hear from the president.

Senate Republican leaders are trying to amend the abomination they have presented to their members. They’re maintaining some taxes that the ACA contains to deal with opioid addiction. The replacement bill still reduces Medicaid allotments by about $800 billion over the next decade, leaving about 15 million American uninsured by 2026.

Does the president endorse those specific elements? If so, could he explain to Americans why he endorses it?

Probably not. That will require some study and analysis. Donald Trump is a big-picture kind of guy. He’s too busy “making America great again.”

Sigh …

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Donald John Trump: Grifter?

July 3, 2017 kanelis2012 2 Comments

The term “grifter” isn’t one that I toss around as a matter of routine.

It’s a fairly new addition to the English lexicon. I found a definition that read: “Someone who swindles others.”

Grifter equals swindler. Got that? Good.

Well, I heard a contemporary political pundit the other day use the term to describe Donald John Trump, the nation’s 45th president of the United States. My first reaction was “ouch, man!”

The guy on TV didn’t articulate in precisely what context Trump is a “grifter.” I’ll make a bit of a leap right here. I am going to presume he means that the president has swindled Americans into believing the things he said he would do right away if he were elected to the very first office he ever sought.

He’d toss out the Affordable Care Act and replace it with something else; he’d negotiate a deal to secure peace in the Middle East; he would pull the United States out of the North American Free Trade Act; he would act more “presidential” and stop using Twitter as much as he did while running for the presidency; he would stay on the job at the White House and forgo golfing outings at any of his many luxurious resorts.

By my count that would be zero for five — and just on those particular pledges he made! Were there others? Sure. Let’s just stick with those for a moment. They’re pretty major things.

I haven’t (yet) mentioned the Trump University matter in which he settled with some plaintiffs who said they were, um, swindled out of money they paid for Trump’s defunct school. How about the money he said he would donate to veterans’ causes, but still hasn’t done so?

I’m not yet certain that the term “grifter” is going to become a regular part of my vocabulary. I get what it means and what it implies about the president of the United States.

It does seem to fit this individual’s modus operandi — as a businessman, TV celebrity and now as our head of state and commander in chief.

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Trump changes presidency … not for the better!

July 2, 2017 kanelis2012

Here’s another broken campaign promise from Donald John Trump.

He said he would change his approach if he were elected president of the United States, that he would become “more presidential.”

It hasn’t happened. The 71-year-old man who now is president isn’t going to change. He has demonstrated with graphic clarity his unwillingness to lend dignity to his comportment.

Indeed, this individual is changing the office he occupies.

Think of this for a moment. He goes to war with his foes, critics — and, yes, the media. He does so via Twitter. He has elevated a certain social medium to the level of venue for his policy pronouncements. The Trump White House acknowledges that his tweets become the official word of the president of the United States, our head of state, our commander in chief, the most powerful man on the planet.

Do you get it? He is lowering the office to his level! Rather than elevating his own standing to that of the exalted office to which he was elected, Trump is reducing the office a sort of playground, one populated by an overaged juvenile delinquent.

The president has disgraced his office. I would rue the day that he disgraces the great nation he is supposed to lead. However, the rest of us are better than the man who purports to be our leader.

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Violence against reporters? Hmm … you be the judge

July 2, 2017 kanelis2012

The hits just keep on comin’.

The president of the United States — the man with the itchy Twitter finger — has done it again. He has tweeted a video depicting him punching out someone from CNN.

Is Donald John Trump promoting violence against the media?

Take a look right here.

Trump has failed to keep a number of campaign promises. He said he would act more “presidential” were he elected to the office. He promised to unify a nation divided badly by a rancorous political campaign. He vowed to “make America great again.”

The first two pledges have been abject failures; the third one, the “make America great” pledge was empty, as the nation already is great.

He has vented repeatedly on Twitter. He is using the social medium to — in effect — articulate presidential policy. It’s coming to us in the form we are witnessing now with the then-entertainer tackling an individual who he has portrayed as a member of a cable television news network.

What will happen if someone actually acts on what he or she has just seen on Twitter? Is it right to hold the president responsible for such action?

You be the judge.

This individual is a disgrace.

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Trump might have a form of ‘keyboard-itis’

July 2, 2017 kanelis2012

A couple of TV talking heads have tossed out a theory in the past few days about Donald John Trump’s tweet tantrums that seems to make sense to me.

It goes something like this: The president of the United States assumes a different personality when he wakes up in the wee hours and fires out those angry, personal and vulgar Twitter messages. He’s not the same guy … they said.

Hmmm. I have given that some thought. It finally dawned on me: Yeah! He’s just like some of my own social media “friends.” I know the type. I am related — truth be told — to one of those individuals.

The word on Trump is that in person he can be kind, generous, affable; I’ve heard it said he’s a wonderful dinner companion. Then he picks up his telecommunications device, or sits behind a computer keyboard and becomes a raging animal. A monster. A sort of Mr. Hyde!

I get some pretty harsh responses to blog posts from some of my own acquaintances. They’re snarky, smart-alecky, borderline disrespectful.

One fellow I’ve known for a number of years actually “unfriended” me from Facebook after we got into a snit over something he had written to a member of my family. He was a constant — and annoying — critic of this blog. I guess you might consider him to be a “troll.” He seemed to pounce like a cat on a rat whenever I wrote something positive about, oh, President Barack H. Obama.

Then we would share a meal somewhere. We got along famously when we sat at the same lunch table. We would talk about this and that, laugh at our disagreements. Then we’d go our separate ways and end our visit with a handshake and a man-hug.

This is my way of saying that I can understand fully that Donald Trump might assume a different persona when he fires off those tweets. It doesn’t excuse his uncivil behavior or his disgraceful demeaning of the exalted office he occupies.

His defenders say he is acting like any human being would act. That’s fine. Except for this little caveat: He isn’t any human being. He’s the president of the United States of America, for crying out loud! He has been elected to the nation’s highest office. He has an obligation, therefore, to conduct himself in a manner befitting his standing as the world’s most powerful man.

Even when he sits down in front of a computer keyboard.

I hope there can be a cure for keyboard-itis.

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