Tag Archives: 2016 election

environmental news, national news

People suffer from wildfire horror and POTUS says … what?

Nine people have died. Thousands of acres of land have been destroyed. Hundreds of homes have gone up in flames.

And the president of the United States shoots out a Twitter message that says:

“There is no reason for these massive, deadly and costly forest fires in California except that forest management is so poor. Billions of dollars are given each year, with so many lives lost, all because of gross mismanagement of the forests. Remedy now, or no more Fed payments!

Donald John Trump has a heart of stone. Wouldn’t you agree? Don’t answer that. There’s no need.

Once again we see the president lashing out instead of reaching out. Americans are suffering grievous loss of property and, yes, lives.

Why is that? Might it be that — hmm — the victims live in California, one of those “coastal enclaves” that voted in 2016 for Hillary Clinton over Trump?

Scott McLean, a spokesman for Cal Fire — which handles forest management — said of the president’s tweet, “It’s disappointing that he says these things.”

It sounds as if McLean is pulling his punches a bit. It is far more than merely “disappointing.” Donald Trump’s demonstration of heartlessness is disgraceful.

However, it’s the kind of reaction we have grown accustomed to hearing from the president of the United States.

national news

No regrets in supporting Hillary … none!

Americans are going to vote Tuesday for members of Congress and a whole host of statewide and local offices.

And, yes, Donald John Trump will be on the proverbial ballot, too. He has said so, telling voters at his campaign rallies to “vote for me.”

I don’t have the burden of voting for Trump again, or voting for whatever it is he stands for. I cast my 2016 ballot for Hillary Rodham Clinton.

I want to declare right here that I don’t regret that vote for an instant. Not one bit.

We lived in Randall County, Texas, when we voted in the 2016 presidential election. We were among the 15 percent of voters who cast their ballots for Hillary; Trump carried Randall County with 80.15 percent of the vote, which is no great shakes, given the county’s heavy GOP tilt.

Hillary Clinton would have been subjected to a level of questioning and interrogation that Trump is facing right now. Of that I have no doubt. The difference, I am certain, would be that she would keep her mouth shut. She wouldn’t be tweeting her fingers to the nub over every crazy turn the Republicans would take their investigation.

She would know and appreciate the meaning of “acting presidential.” She would conduct herself with dignity and with grace. She would have kept the United States involved in the Paris Climate Accord, which is intended to reduce carbon emissions worldwide; she would have kept the Iran nuclear deal in force; she would have refrained from offending our NATO allies; Hillary would have known better than to hurl baseless accusations against opponents.

I concede readily that she wasn’t the perfect candidate. Then again, I haven’t yet seen political perfection among any of the candidates who have received my voting support.

Her years as first lady, then as a U.S. senator and then as secretary of state prepared her amply for the job of president.

She just fluffed her chance in 2016. I do not want her to run again. She’s had her time in the arena. I trust she’ll stay on the sidelines and let someone else pick up the banner she carried to a near-victory two years ago.

I just felt compelled to stand foursquare behind a decision I made two years ago to vote for someone who I am convinced would be superior to the fellow who defeated her.

political news, State news

Early vote numbers look like a record-breaker

Texans appear to be answering the call.

Final unofficial early vote totals for this year’s midterm election tell a potentially amazing story that might portend a record year in Texas electoral history.

About 4.9 million Texans have voted early. That number exceeds the total number of ballots cast in the 2014 midterm election. We still have Election Day awaiting us Tuesday. There will be a chance, therefore, for Texans not only to smash the previous midterm vote record to smithereens, but also to approach presidential election year vote totals.

Who knows? Maybe we’ll break the 2016 turnout.

Conventional political wisdom suggests that big midterm election turnouts traditionally bode well for Democrats. I am hoping that’s the case, not just in Texas but around the country. The U.S. House is poised to flip from Republican to Democratic control next January. That gives the so-called “other party” a chance at controlling legislative flow in one congressional chamber. The Senate remains a high hurdle, a steep hill for Democrats to clear.

But … there’s a flicker of hope — based on those early vote totals in Texas — that Democrats might be able to flip a Republican seat. It remains a long shot, from all that I can gather. Beto O’Rourke is mounting a stiff and stern challenge against Ted Cruz. The young Democratic congressman from El Paso has trudged through all 254 Texas counties, telling voters they should support him rather than the Republican incumbent.

I am one of those Texans who will vote Tuesday for O’Rourke. My hope is that there will be enough other Texans who will join me. Cruz long has been seen — even by many of his Senate colleagues — as a self-centered egotist far more interested in his own ambition than in the people he was elected in 2012 to serve.

O’Rourke has pledged, from what I understand, to serve his entire six-year Senate term if elected; Cruz has declined to make that pledge if he is re-elected. What does that tell you? It tells me the Cruz Missile is considering whether to launch another presidential bid in 2020, even against his new BFF, Donald Trump, who he once called a “sniveling coward” and an “amoral” and “pathological liar.”

Are we going to break records Tuesday? I do hope so.

national news

Obama asks: Why are the winners still angry?

Yamiche Alcindor, a correspondent for PBS, posted this Twitter message earlier today.

Pres Obama as protesters heckle him in Miami: “Why is it that the folks who won the election are so mad all the time? … Like when I won the presidency, at least my side felt pretty good. It tells you something interesting, that even the folks that are in charge are still mad.”

The former president ventured to South Florida to campaign for Democratic gubernatorial candidate Andrew Gillem and U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson, another Democrat.

He encountered hecklers. He engaged them directly.  The former president does pose an interesting question. The folks who oppose him and the candidates he supports are those who won the 2016 election.

They and their political party control the White House and both legislative chambers of Congress. They’re in charge! It’s their show!

Yet they’re still angry? What gives?

national news, political news

Clinging to a hint of conventional wisdom

Donald John Trump’s election as president of the United States should have taught us all a valuable lesson.

It would to be toss conventional wisdom straight into the crapper.

A first-time candidate for any public office had no business defeating a former first lady, former U.S. senator and former secretary of state. But he did. He whipped Hillary Rodham Clinton. Not by a lot. But he won.

That all said, I am going to cling to a bit of conventional wisdom as the 2018 midterm election comes hurtling toward us. It is this: 29 million ballots were cast nationally in early voting, compared to 21 million early votes cast prior to Election Day 2014. The conventional wisdom holds that the bigger the turnout the better it is for Democratic Party candidates.

This could portend a good thing for the immediate future of our system of government.

I know what you’re thinking. Sure, you’d say that. You’re a Democratic partisan. You’re biased toward those weak-kneed, socialist-leaning Democrats. You’ve stated your bias against the president. You can’t get over the fact that he was elected president.

Actually, my bias rests with divided government. Yes, I am unhappy that Trump won. I wanted Hillary Clinton to be elected president and I would support again today if I had the chance.

I’ll continue to rail against the president for as long as he holds the office to which he was elected legitimately and according to the U.S. Constitution.

However, good government needs a better form of “checks and balance” to stem the tide that Trump is trying to ride. He has hijacked the Republican Party and has turned into the Party of Trump. It’s now a party that foments fear, incivility, prejudice. It speaks Trump’s language. By that I suggest that absent any serious dissent from within the GOP’s congressional ranks, Trump is virtually unfettered, given that the GOP controls both congressional chambers.

That well might change after the midterm election. The House of Representatives appears likely to swing into Democratic control. The Democrats will handle the committee gavels. Democrats will decide the flow of legislation. Democrats will call the shots in the People’s House.

Moreover, they will act as a careful check against the Republican stampede that Trump wants to trigger.

Tax cuts for the wealthy? Slashing Medicare and Medicaid? Appropriating money to build that damn wall across our southern border? If Trump and the GOP maintain control of Congress — both House and Senate — the game is over. If Democrats manage to wrest control of the chamber where tax matters originate, then we’ve got a chance that Trump will be taught a lesson in how divided government works.

Conventional wisdom might be an endangered species. It’s still alive and breathing. It well might rise again to help produce a federal government that actually works.

If you haven’t voted already, you have a big day awaiting you next Tuesday. Be sure your voice is heard.

national news

‘Overwhelming victory’? Actually, no … not even close

I have given Sarah Huckabee Sanders the benefit of the doubt during her time as White House press secretary.

She’s got a tough job, speaking for a president who lies out of both sides of his mouth. I didn’t actually believe Sanders was a fellow liar, incapable of telling the truth. Until just recently.

She declared at a press briefing that Donald Trump won an “overwhelming victory” in the 2016 presidential election.

Oh, my. Sigh. I want to revisit a matter that I’ve looked at already. It just needs a revisiting.

Donald Trump collected nearly 3 million fewer popular votes than Hillary Rodham Clinton. The totals are: Trump, 62,985,134, or 45.93 percent; Clinton, 65,853,652, or 48.02 percent. Clinton won the popular vote by a significant margin, although she didn’t win an outright majority of popular ballots.

Trump won the Electoral College vote — which is where it matters — by a 304-227 margin. He needed 270 electoral votes to be elected.

Overwhelming margin? Let’s see. If three swing states that Trump won — Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania — had flipped fewer than 80,000 votes, Clinton would have won the Electoral College by three votes and, thus, would have been elected president.

OK, please let me stipulate — once again — that Trump was elected legitimately. I believe in the Electoral College and I don’t want it repealed. Trump managed to pull off one of the nation’s most historic upsets by campaigning in precisely the right states at precisely the right time in a hard-fought, bitter and nasty campaign.

The president keeps casting his victory in historic terms. He keeps saying he won handily. He didn’t. Sarah Sanders knows he didn’t. I know he didn’t and if he’s honest with himself — even if he cannot be honest with the rest of us — Donald Trump knows it, too.

In a way, Trump’s victory was historic in at least one sense. Damn few so-called “experts” thought he’d win. He did. Despite having no public service experience, let alone any interest in it prior to running for president, Trump was elected to the only public office he’s ever sought.

Overwhelming victory? Not even close. So, Mme. Press Secretary, stop repeating that lie.

State news

Due process anyone? Anyone?

Hey, what happened to due process, the presumption of innocence, the, um, rule of law?

Ted Cruz, the Republican running for re-election to the U.S. Senate in Texas, fired off a real knee-slapper Tuesday night in response to a supporter yelling “Lock him up!” in reference to Democratic challenger Beto O’Rourke.

“Well, you know, there’s a double-occupancy cell with Hillary Clinton,” Cruz said. “Y’all are gonna get me in trouble with that,” he added at a campaign rally in Georgetown, Texas.

Doesn’t that just crack you up? That guy is hilarious, man!

Hillary Clinton was the object of GOP mobs yelling “Lock her up!” during the 2016 presidential campaign. They were just so darn angry over that email matter, Benghazi and other assorted fabricated crimes that they were ready to send her in shackles to the nearest — or farthest — penitentiary possible.

Now it’s Beto O’Rourke feeling the Republicans’ burn as he campaigns against the Cruz Missile.

I am unaware of anything in O’Rourke’s history that would prompt such a ridiculous shout-out from a Cruz clown.

Oh, but hey. That’s just politics … I guess.

national news

Call it a day, Sen. Sanders

I am going to admit that I ain’t feelin’ the Bern.

There’s chatter churning out there that U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, the Vermont independent who aligns with the Democrats, is considering another presidential run in 2020.

Please! No! Not again!

Sanders sang a one-note aria while running for the Democratic Party presidential nomination in 2016: It centered on income inequality and how the “1 percent is holding the vast majority of wealth” in this country.

I supported Hillary Clinton’s candidacy over Bernie Sanders, mainly because I felt uncomfortable with Sanders’s lack of stated understanding of the whole range of foreign and domestic issues that any president confronts.

Now he’s considering another run at it. A Politico story tells how he is setting up a showdown with U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, the Massachusetts Democrat who’s also considering a presidential run in two years.

I’m not yet sure who should get the party’s nomination to challenge Donald Trump for the presidency, assuming he runs for re-election.

Sen. Sanders is nowhere to be found on my list of preferred candidates. It has nothing to do with his acknowledgment of being what he calls a “democratic socialist.” I do agree in part with his view that too few people in this country control too much wealth. I do not believe his notion of providing a free public college/university education for all Americans is even possible, let alone reasonable.

He’s had his run. He came up short in 2016. I still believe the Democratic Party’s best chance at winning the White House rests with someone fresh and new.

Sen. Sanders is neither of those things.

Don’t do it, Bernie.

national news

Don’t keep the findings secret, Mr. Special Counsel

There’s some chatter developing about the conclusions that special counsel Robert Mueller might reach at the end of his investigation into what Donald Trump referred to as “the Russia thing.”

It goes something like this: There might not be an explosive finding that spells the end of Donald Trump’s administration; moreover, Mueller might not allow the findings to be made public.

None of us can control the first part. The second part, about secrecy, we can. I want to urge the special counsel to make damn sure the public gets to see the conclusions he draws.

My goodness! The Department of Justice charged Mueller with determining whether there was any “collusion” between Trump’s presidential campaign and Russian operatives who hacked into our electoral system and sought to influence the outcome of the 2016 presidential election. The DOJ is our agency. It runs on our tax money. We are the bosses. We have a right — if not a need — to know the investigation’s outcome and how Mueller and his legal team reached it.

As Politico reports: “That’s just the way this works,” said John Q. Barrett, a former associate counsel who worked under independent counsel Lawrence Walsh during the Reagan-era investigation into secret U.S. arms sales to Iran. “Mueller is a criminal investigator. He’s not government oversight and he’s not a historian.”

But he is operating on the public’s time and on its dime.

To my way of thinking, that entitles the public to know the outcome and how Mueller’s team reached its conclusion.

national news

Keep it civil, Hillary

I have been on a mission quest for more political civility. It won’t end any time soon. I now want to issue some advice to a woman who should have won the 2016 presidential election, but who got the surprise of her political life.

Hillary Rodham Clinton needs an attitude check.

Clinton has told interviewers the time for civil public debate will occur when and if Democrats win control of Congress after next month’s midterm election. Until then? All bets are off, she says.

Republicans only understand “strength,” she said. She said Democrats cannot deal with a political party that won’t adhere to a code of civil discourse and debate.

The only option, according to the World of Hillary, is to take the fight straight to the GOP. Hit them as hard as they hit you, she said.

C’mon, Mme. Secretary/former senator/former first lady! 

That kind of attitude only begets more anger. It is unbecoming of someone who had my vote in 2016. Just for the record, I don’t regret for one second — or an instant! — casting my presidential vote for Hillary Clinton.

My hope is that we can return sooner rather than later to a time when Democrats and Republicans can work together, rather than at cross purposes. I want a return to an era when Republican lawmakers, such as the late Sen. Everett Dirksen of Illinois, locked arms with Democratic presidents, such as the late Lyndon Johnson. Or when Democratic lawmakers, such as the late Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts, did the same with Republican presidents, such as George W. Bush.

Dirksen and Johnson helped forge the Voting Rights and Civil Rights acts; Kennedy and Bush helped formulate sweeping education reform.

These days, the two sides lob grenades at each other from a distance. That is not in the interest of good government.

I remain a bit of an idealist on this, but I believe one of the political parties can set the example for the other one to follow. If Hillary is right, that the GOP only understands “strength,” the remedy could be to show the other side an ability and willingness to bridge the great divide.