Tag Archives: Barack Obama

national news, national security

Gabbard and the ‘t’ word

Some words need never to be said given the extreme weight of what they mean … unless the object of that word has done something that deserves its use.

Former President Barack Obama has been called, essentially, a traitor to the nation he served for more than a decade. Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard tossed the word “treason” out during a discussion of what she was “proof” that Obama fiddled with intelligence reports that accuse Russia of meddling in the 2016 presidential election.

Gabbard doesn’t possess a shred of proof of that accusation. Instead of fixing like a laser on actual national security concerns, Gabbard is relitigating the 2016 election … which, I hasten to add, Donald Trump won! Trump garnered more Electoral College votes than Hillary Clinton. Period. Full stop. And all that rhetorical nonsense.

So, what the hell is Gabbard doing by seeking to bring up an issue that has been decided? Oh, wait! I know why! She wants to divert our attention from the Jeffrey Epstein matter and whether the late Epstein and Trump were besties during the time Epstein was shopping for underage girls to pawn off on clients in a sex trafficking scheme.

Gabbard is running amok with dangerous language that she should not use. Surely she knows the penalty for treason, right? If not, here it is: If convicted, it’s death!

I want to alert High Plains Blogger critics that I have refrained from accusing Trump of treason. Other have done so. That’s their call. Mine is to pull that punch … at least until we have evidence of a treasonous act.

To that end, DNI Gabbard needs to keep her trap shut!

national news, political news

Voters are a confusing bunch

The run-of-the-mill American voter appears to suffer from some form of political schizophrenia.

Think about this for a moment, because that might be all the time you care to ponder what I am about to put forth.

Americans twice elected a young man who blazed trails everywhere he went, as the first Black editor of the Harvard Journalism Review, the first Black president of the United States, who was faithful to his wife and who avoided any semblance of scandal during his two terms in the White House.

Then voters in 2016 and in 2024 elected arguably the dumbest man ever to hold the office, who has acknowledged cheating on all three of his wives, who paid a porn actress to keep quiet about a sexual encounter he said never happened, who has never acknowledged a single failure in his professional life, who denigrates war heroes and Gold Star families, who evaded the draft during the Vietnam War, who selects certifiable morons to serve in the Cabinet, who lies at a breathtaking pace, who provoked an armed attack on the federal government to stop the certification of a free, fair and legal presidential election in 2020, the one that the president has never admitted he lost.

This is the kind of strange behavior that defies description. It challenges anyone to explain how an electorate can transform itself from a body of Americans dedicated to real-life change for the better to one that falls victim to a cretin’s call to follow him backward into the era of Jim Crow.

My hope is a simple one. That we can reverse what we have done to our nation in 2026 and again in 2028. We are far better than what we have delivered to ourselves in the form of a national government.

military news

What about the oath?

Every so often I spend part of my day at home watching YouTube of news events, many of which involve the president of the United States acting in his role as commander in chief.

I saw one the other day and it compels me to share something that President Obama said while awarding the Medal of Honor to a Navy SEAL. He said the special forces that operate in all our military branches adhere to a code that says they shouldn’t seek attention or glory for the actions they perform in defense of our country. They operate in the shadows, he said, eschewing the limelight.

The comments drew me immediately to the conduct of a SEAL who took part in the May 2011 raid that killed Osama bin Laden. The individual apparently didn’t adhere to the special forces vow to remain anonymous.

Oh, no. Instead, this fellow decided to make a big deal out of what he said happened that night in Pakistan when SEALs and their Army pilots landed in the compound where bin Laden was hiding. This guy claimed to have fired the shots that killed bin Laden. He’s written a book about it. He’s appeared on TV talk shows to tell the world about what he said he did.

The young man who received the Medal of Honor from President Obama is what is described as a “special warfare operator.” Obama made the point that the fellow, who’s now retired from the Navy, would rather be anywhere else in the world than at the White House surrounded by officials, well-wishers and TV cameras.

That’s the way heroes roll. They do their job at great risk to their own safety. Then they go home. They await the next order to suit up and deploy into harm’s way.

The SEAL to seemingly boast about his role in taking out bin Laden only cheapens what went down that moonless night in Pakistan. I just wish he would have kept his trap shut.

Uncategorized

How did she escape blame?

I want to revisit one of the darker chapters in our nation’s glorious story, the 9/11 terror attack that killed 3,000 or so innocent victims.

Netflix has produced a three-part documentary that chronicles the effort to hunt down Osama bin Laden, mastermind behind the 9/11 attack. It’s more than four hours of really gripping TV. It takes the viewer through all the pre-9/11 attempts to hit the United States. There are interviews with key officials from the Clinton, Bush and Obama administrations.

We remember what happened that day. It was a gorgeous September morning in New York. A jetliner crashed into one of the Twin Towers. Then a second plane tore into the other Tower. A third plane smashed into the Pentagon. A fourth jet crashed into a Pennsylvania field after passengers fought with hijackers for control of the doomed craft.

The documentary sought to assess responsibilty for the catastrophic intelligence failures that produced the tragedy. I didn’t hear one time the name of an individual at the center of the intelligence network, nor did I hear a single reference made to anything she did or didn’t do: Condoleezza Rice, national security adviser for President Bush.

It has been a major puzzle to me how in the world she has escaped any recrimination for the failure to detect or act on any clue that might have materialized prior to the events of that horrifying day. I recall at the time as the nation endured the shock of what happened that no one seemed to mention Rice’s name publicly. My goodness, she was at center of our nation’s intelligence-gathering network.

President Bush selected Rice to be his national security adviser because she is known to be a deep thinker, a critical analyst, one who studies her craft thoroughly … and for my money, someone who should be held accountable for whatever failings occurred on her watch that led to the mass murders and destruction of the World Trade Center.

The series concludes with a detailed look at the planning that went into the eventual killing of bin Laden by the SEALs. I was struck by this nugget as well. President Obama was told that his national security team had less evidence of bin Laden’s presence in that Pakisani compound than what was used to persuade Americans that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. He didn’t have the WMD and we went to war in March 2003. All Obama had was purely circumstantial evidence that bin Laden was in the compound.

I am still waiting to learn, though, whether Condoleezza Rice ever will be asked to answer this question: Did you do all you could have done to prevent 9/11?

national news

No explanation needed, Mrs. Obama

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Former first lady Michelle Obama finds herself feeling the need to explain why she stayed away from Donald J. Trump’s inauguration.

Allow me this bit of candor. There is not a reason on Earth for Michelle Obama to explain a single thing. Not to me, or to you. Or to anyone.

She stayed away because, in my view, she could not stand the thought of making nice with those who have demonized her, along with her husband and all of the couple’s political friends. What is so mysterious about that? Not a damn thing!

Even more troubling came the whispering about the state of the Obamas’ marriage. OK, she stayed away from Trump’s inauguration. Then she went MIA for the funeral of former President Carter. Her husband was there, along with former President Clinton and President Biden and, of course, the incoming Trump.

Again, Mrs. Obama didn’t need to rework her schedule to fit in a public appearance with Trump. Yet, the questions persisted about the Obamas’ marriage.

Finally, it fell to the former president to declare publicly that he and his wife are fine and that the rest of the world needs to butt the hell out.

Michelle Obama conducted herself with class, grace, good humor and style during her eight years as first lady. She also recognized that as the nation’s first Black presidential couple, she had to do her job to perfection. And she did!

To her everlasting credit, the former first lady responded to pressure to explain her absence from the ceremony involving the return of a totally unfit human being to the presidency. It’s a shame that she deemed it necessary to explain herself.

national news

We are the ‘United States of America’ … yes?

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While listening to congressional Republicans preen and prance over the conditions they demand for disaster aid to California fire victims, I am reminded of a speech delivered in 2004 by a young upstart politician from Illinois.

State Sen. Barack Obama delivered the Democratic Party convention keynote speech in Boston. He told conventioneers that this nation doesn’t comprise “red states or blue states,” but said “we are the United States of America.”

So it should always be, particularly when Americans are in dire peril recovering from disasters such as those wildfires that have ravaged southern California. Recall, too, that when hurricanes destroyed much of North and South Carolina, and Florida — all regions that voted for Donald Trump in 2020 — Democratic President Joe Biden didn’t hesitate in sending disaster aid to those states.

Such magnanimity isn’t on display these days as Republicans led by Donald Trump attach conditions to disaster aid aimed at helping Californians who live in a state that voted heavily for Biden in 2020 and Vice President Kamala Harris in 2024.

Is this a fundamental difference between Democrats and Republicans. Democrats seemingly put partisanship aside when the call goes out for aid to all Americans regardless of whom they support at the ballot box. Republicans, though, seemingly make up conditions for aid to deliver to those Americans who vote the other way at election time.

Barack Obama had it right in 2004. We’re supposed to all live within the United States of America.

Uncategorized

Good call to move inaugural indoors, however …

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The decision to move the Monday presidential inaugural indoors is a good call for one obvious reason: it protects spectators and participants from the bitter cold expected to slam into the nation’s capital this weekend.

They’re going to open the Rotunda to the event that will feature Donald John Trump taking the oath of office for president. The Rotunda has a capacity of a couple hundred people. Which brings me to another, less obvious, issue related to the inaugural.

Moving the event indoors removes a discussion topic from the table: the size of the crowd gathered to witness it.

Or does it … ?

In 2017, Trump offered yet another obvious lie by saying his inaugural crowd set a record. Photographic evidence of the Mall crowd told a different story. The first Barack Obama presidential inaugural crowd in 2009 was far larger; for that matter, the second Obama inaugural in 2013 drew a larger crowd than Trump’s. Yet, Trump was having none of it.

Why is this important for today? I am waiting for ways that Trump will spin the interest in his inaugural crowd into something that won’t exist. I am all but certain he and his PR team will find a way to suggest that the “waiting list” for tickets to related inaugural events will soar into the millions of Americans.

Of course, none of this matters in the grand scheme of events. It will matter only if Trump and his team make a big deal out of it. I expect them fully to fixate on the trivial … which is what the narcissist in chief would require them to do.

national news

POTUSes don’t ‘own’ these offices

I have heard enough of media commentators adding possessive adjectives to public offices … and so I want to vent briefly.

Repeatedly I hear news talking heads say things like “Donald Trump’s attorney general,” or “Joe Biden’s vice president,” or “Barack Obama’s secretary of state.”

Let me declare in the loudest voice I can muster: Presidents do not “own” these individuals or the public offices they occupy. We do. You and I. We pay for them with our tax money. We, I submit, are the bosses.

To be sure, this isn’t a major policy gripe. It’s all about style. I am willing to take swipes at presidents of both parties for committing what I believe is an overreach.

President Obama had an annoying habit of referring to “my Cabinet,” or “my national security team.” He seemed to take undue possession of the office he inherited on a temporary basis … although I do acknowledge he said he knew he was there just for a brief period.

The most egregious offender of this style lapse? As my Mom would say: I’ll give you three guesses and the first two don’t count. Donald J. Trump!

During his first tour in the White House, Trump would refer routinely to “my generals” when talking about military matters. He also routinely smothers Cabinet officials — all approved by U.S. senators — in the personal possessive adjectives I find so objectionable.

What do I wish presidents would say? I prefer the plural possessive description, you know … “our administration,” or “our Joint Chiefs of Staff.” We’re on the same team, at least that’s how the nation’s founders designed it.

legal news, national news

McConnell leaves cheap legacy

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I won’t think often of Mitch McConnell once he leaves his post as US Senate Republican leader.

But when I do …

I will remember the cheap partisan game he played by blocking President Obama’s decision to name a justice to the U.S. Supreme Court.

You remember, right. Justice Antonin Scalia was vacationing in Texas when he died suddenly in February 2016. Scalia was the intellectual leader of the conservatives who sat on the high court. A brilliant jurist to be sure. Obama had a right under the Constitution to select a successor.

President Obama paid his respects to Justice Scalia and then turned to the D.C. appellate court and nominated Judge Merrick Garland to succeed Scalia. Garland, by all accounts, was a serious judge, fair-minded and scholarly and, yes, a good bit more liberal in his judicial philosophy than Justice Scalia.

Not so fast, said McConnell, who then led the GOP majority in the Senate. The president shouldn’t be allowed to make an appointment in an election year. He said there would be no confirmation hearing for Garland. The Senate would wait for the election results, McConnell said.  He took a huge gamble, as Donald Trump was a decided underdog in early 2016 in his race against Democratic Party nominee Hillary Rodham Clinton.

What happened? Donald Trump got elected, took the oath in January 2017 and then selected conservative judge Neil Gorsuch to succeed Scalia.

I shall be clear.  McConnell acted legally. He had the right as Senate majority leader to block the president’s nomination.

However, McConnell’s stiff of a president from doing his constitutional duty still doesn’t pass this blogger’s smell test.

The tactic stunk to the highest of the heavens and that should stand as this partisan hack’s most enduring legacy.

national news

What does the VP do?

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Critics of Kamala Harris continue to knock me out, bowl me over and simply slay me with their line of criticism.

It goes something like this: What has she done in the nearly four years she has served as VP in the Biden administration?

They contend that she’s been little more than a potted plant in Cabinet meetings, in the Situation Room, or any Oval Office conference led by President Biden.

Biden, of course, says she has been a vital member of his inner circle.

Here’s something we all need to ponder: The US Constitution purposely created the vice presidency with no actual power. All the VP can do under the law is break tie votes in the US Senate, where the VP serves as presiding officer. Vice President Harris has been called upon to break those tie votes when a sharply divided, even-steven Senate cannot find a majority vote to enact legislation.

President Obama has said many times over the years that Vice President Biden often was the last person to leave a Cabinet meeting and Biden often would tell Obama where he disagreed with a policy decision. Obama said he valued that disagreement, as it helped him maintain some level of perspective.

Biden has said much the same thing about Harris.

Biden has asked Harris to be his point person on reproductive rights and on border security issues. As near as I can tell, she has done well on both matters.

Does she have any real authority? No more than any of the men who preceded her. I will say, though, that the office is far more than what that crusty Texan, Vice President John Nance Garner, described of the office he held under FDR.

It is far more worthwhile than a “bucket of warm piss.”

And it has prepared Kamala Harris for the next — and final — step toward the pinnacle of power.