Tag Archives: 2016 election

national news

Trump aides should ‘reevaluate’ their role? Do you think?

Trey Gowdy, the lame-duck South Carolina congressman who recently worked over FBI agent Peter Strzok over his conduct in the Russia interference investigation, has taken the gloves off — more or less — with members of the Trump administration.

Gowdy made an appearance today on “Fox News Sunday” and said that members of the administration should consider quitting if Donald Trump continues to ignore their best advice on how to handle Russia and other matters.

According to The Hill: “It can be proven beyond any evidentiary burden that Russia is not our friend and they tried to attack us in 2016,” Gowdy told host Bret Baier. “So the president either needs to rely on the people that he has chosen to advise him, or those advisers need to reevaluate whether or not they can serve in this administration. But the disconnect cannot continue.”

“Need to reevaluate whether or not they can serve … “?

I’d be willing to bet real American money that those advisers already are reevaluating their future with the Trump administration. They are likely doing it privately, swearing loved ones to secrecy.

The true shocker would occur if some of them actually turned in their West Wing security badges and walked out the door.

Indeed, the president has demonstrated an astonishing capacity to ignore the advice he gets from the “best people” who are equipped with the “best minds” with whom he has surrounded himself.

Moreover, he has shown a mind-boggling willingness to blindside those advisers with tweets and other pronouncements that one might expect to have been done only with close consultation with those experts.

Exhibit A: The amazing reaction from Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats to news that Trump had invited Vladimir Putin to the White House for a second summit later this year. “OK,” Coats said with a tone of exasperation. “That’s going to be special.”

How can someone as accomplished and serious as Coats — a two-time Republican U.S. senator from Indiana — actually avoid “reevaluating” whether he should remain as part of the Trump national security team?

Chaos and confusion continue to reign supreme in the Trump administration.

national news

‘Your favorite President did nothing wrong’?

I cannot let this Twitter message pass without a brief rejoinder.

Donald John Trump wrote this: Inconceivable that the government would break into a lawyer’s office (early in the morning) – almost unheard of. Even more inconceivable that a lawyer would tape a client – totally unheard of & perhaps illegal. The good news is that your favorite President did nothing wrong!

It’s the final sentence that is worth a comment.

“Your favorite President did nothing wrong,” Trump writes.

By golly, he’s right. Barack Obama didn’t shame himself in front of the world while kowtowing to Vladimir Putin. Nor did he refuse to acknowledge the Russian attack on our electoral system. Or denigrate the U.S. intelligence agencies’ capabilities. Or try to take it all back with a clumsy and inarticulate reference to “double negatives.”

My “favorite president” is doing just fine, thank you very much.

As for the current president, well, I’m anxiously awaiting the findings of the special counsel to settle matters.

national news, political news

It wasn’t mere ‘meddling,’ it was an attack

I have just made a command decision as the publisher of High Plains Blogger.

No longer will I refer to the Russian attack on our electoral system, on our democratic process merely as an act of “meddling.”

It was a full-frontal assault on our electoral process. It was an attack on our way of life.

I got the idea from a letter to the editor I saw this morning on Twitter. I think the letter was from the New York Times. The writer compared “meddling” to the butting in by nosy relatives on the business of family members.

I thought, “Wow! I get that.” Not the nosy relatives thing, but the notion that “meddling” is far too mild a term to describe what the Russians did during our 2016 presidential election.

Thus, I made the decision to henceforth refer to that act using terminology that more aptly describes its impact.

Am I going to assert that the Russian attack actually produced a Donald Trump victory over Hillary Rodham Clinton? I won’t go there. At least not just yet. I will await the results from Robert Mueller’s exhaustive probe into potential “collusion” between the Trump campaign and Russian goons ordered by Vladimir Putin to launch their attack on our system.

In the future, though, do not look for the word “meddling” from this blog to describe what I consider to be damn near an act of war on our democratic process by a hostile nation.

national news

‘Attack on our system’? Sure thing, Mr. POTUS

An FBI raid on the office of a former Donald Trump lawyer and confidant is back in the news.

It turns out the FBI obtained record from Michael Cohen that he recorded a conversation with the then-president elect, Donald Trump, about a payment to a Playboy model with whom Trump allegedly had a relationship about a decade ago.

I mention the FBI raid because I just watched Trump’s reaction to the raid earlier this year. Perhaps you remember what he said. He called it an “attack on our system.” He vilified the FBI for conducting what he called an illegal raid on a “good man,” Cohen.

Given what we know these days about the Russian attack on our democratic system, I find the president’s assertion that the FBI rises to that level utterly absurd on its face.

The attack on our system occurred in Moscow when Vladimir Putin ordered the hacking of Democratic operatives’ files in an effort to influence the outcome of the 2016 presidential election.

And the raid itself? It was done properly. The FBI obtained a federal court order, as required by law. Indeed, Cohen himself said the agents were courteous and respectful while they scooped up the evidence they sought and delivered to special counsel Robert Mueller.

All this baloney about “witch hunt,” and “attacks on our system” need to be put in their proper perspective. To hear the president of the United States use this kind of language only intensifies what we know to be the facts about this man’s election.

The attack came not from within, but from the Kremlin.

national news

Putin’s ‘worst enemy’? Let’s see about that one

Donald John Trump now vows to be Vladimir Putin’s “worst enemy” if the men’s attempts at friendship fails.

Sure. I’ll buy that. Actually, I won’t.

You see, the president has been handed every opportunity already to become the Russian president’s “worst enemy.” He has taken a pass.

You saw that astonishing press conference in Helsinki. Trump had a chance to confront Putin on the world stage. He didn’t. Instead, he said Putin’s denial of attacking the U.S. political system in 2016 was “very strong” and “powerful.”

Trump has hit back at the critics. He said something on CNBC about those who have said he should have been tougher on Putin. Trump offered some goofy straw man, asking whether his critics wanted him to walk over to Putin, get directly in his face and yell at him.

Of course not, Mr. President.

All many of us want is for you to look Putin in the eye and say, “Mr. President, we will not stand for your interfering in our electoral system. Americans consider that a hostile — and I am one of them — and we will respond accordingly.”

He didn’t do that … apparently. He stood there and then rolled over.

Now he contends that he’ll be Putin’s “worst nightmare”? Give me a break.

Yet again, he takes another shot at former President Obama, who he has called a “patsy” in his relationship with Putin. Oh, brother. The president needs to give that one up, too.

The president so far has demonstrated a profound reluctance to talk straight to this nation’s adversary. Tough talk to American media won’t do the job, Mr. President.

International news

Let’s be friends, but first …

Donald J. Trump wants to be “friends” with Russia.

The president wants his country to get along well with another country that has demonstrated its willingness — and ability — to wreak havoc on the United States political system.

At one level I understand and appreciate the president’s desire to make nice with Russia and with its president, Vladimir Putin.

But first things first.

True bilateral “friendship” ought to mirror interpersonal friendships in this manner: The nations must be able to clear the air over differences that exist between them. There exists a tremendous wall between the United States and Russia. To wit:

Ukraine, Crimea, Syria, Iran, Middle East peace, the Baltic States and, oh yeah, that attack on our democratic process in 2016!

OK, where do we start?

If the president is intent on forging a true “friendship” between the United States and Russia, he needs to lay down the law on all those issues. There cannot be any misunderstanding about U.S. intentions if we are to craft a new kind of relationship with this rival state.

And I want to clear the air on one point. Russia is our “rival” only militarily. The Russians possess a lot of nuclear weapons, held over from the Soviet Union era. The nation is a third-rate economic power; I heard this week that Russia ranks as the world’s 30th-largest economic power. Thirtieth!

Texas ranks at No. 11 worldwide; California is No. 5!

Russia is huge geographically, and it covers 11 time zones, but it is losing population. It is a nation in decline!

Thus, Russia is not a major “trading partner” with the United States. It can barely sustain itself economically.

It is from that position of strength that the president has allowed this nation to sink to the Russians’ level while he grovels at Putin’s feet over the 2016 election attack.

If we’re going to make friends with Russia — and Trump is correct to assert that a friendship with Russia is better for us and the world than an adversarial relationship — then we need to set the record straight on a whole array of issues and differences.

That has to come first. The “friendship” then can follow suit.

national news

Trump asks Putin to White House? Wow!

Donald J. Trump’s ignorance is on full display for all the world to see.

Think about this for a brief moment.

The president of the United States disgraces himself at that press conference in Helsinki. He disparages the intelligence agencies’ view that Russia meddled in our election. He takes Vladimir Putin’s side. The media go ballistic. So do politicians on both sides of the divide.

Then he tries to take some of it back. He does so clumsily at a Cabinet meeting, reading from some prepared text, only to ad lib that “others may have” interfered in our election. Politicians keep going nuts. Same for the media coverage.

With the president being pilloried and pounded, what does he do? He orders national security adviser John Bolton to invite Putin to the White House for another summit in the fall. White House press flack Sarah Huckabee Sanders told the world about that gem via Twitter.

Oh, and then there’s the surprise sprung on his director of national intelligence, Dan Coats, who found out about the invitation while being interviewed on TV. NBC News’s Andrea Mitchell told Coats about the invitation on live TV. Coats did not know about it. The nation’s top intelligence officer was left in the lurch.

I am left to wonder: Is the president operating in a hermetically sealed booth? Does he not hear anything … at all?

What in the name of electoral collusion is going to occur if Putin accepts this invitation, comes to the White House and meets — presumably in private yet again — with his presidential puppet?

International news

Putin surely ordered the ’16 election attack

Donald J. Trump has been fielding some direct questions to which he is offering some strangely oblique answers.

CBS News anchor Jeff Glor asked the president whether he thinks Vladimir Putin is “responsible” for the 2016 attack on the U.S. electoral system by Russian goons.

Trump’s answer has me scratching my noggin. Sure he’s responsible, Trump said, because “he’s the leader of his country” just as Trump is the leader of this country.

Huh? That’s it?

Actually, the consensus among the nation’s intelligence community has been pretty forthright: Vladimir Putin ordered the attack; he called the shots.

The CIA, FBI, National Security Agency … all of ’em … say the same thing. Putin was up to his armpits in this undeclared war against the U.S. electoral process.

So, for the president to pass it off solely as a function of Putin’s standing as the “leader of his country” once again demonstrates what many of us already have feared. Putin has cast some sort of spell over the Trump.

Or, he’s got some goods on the president. Allegedly. Maybe. Possibly.

I’m getting antsy. I hope the special counsel, Robert Mueller, finishes his investigation sooner rather than later.

International news

Did the walls have ears in that Trump-Putin meeting room?

This inquiring mind wants to know and I suspect I am not alone.

What in the world did the presidents of the United States and Russia talk about in that Helsinki meeting room when they were alone, except for their respective translators?

We heard what Donald Trump said he Vladimir Putin discussed. Do we believe the president? Should we believe him? Umm. No and no.

So, how do we — the public, the citizens Trump represents as the president — learn what was discussed?

Hey, here’s an idea: Summon the U.S. translator to Capitol Hill and have that individual talk to members of Congress; have the translator take an oath and then question the translator vigorously.

Now, having said that, I am willing to let the translator conduct a “classified” briefing. There’s no particular need to open the hearing up to the public if the translator is going to discuss security-sensitive issues.

Donald Trump disserved the public dramatically at the jaw-dropping press conference with Vladimir Putin. Officials in both major political parties have called it the “most disgraceful performance” by a president in their memory. I concur with that view … and my memory goes back a good while. Ike, JFK, LBJ, Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush 41, Clinton, Bush 43 and Obama never sucked up the way Trump did to the leader of a foreign hostile power in front of the world — and in the presence of that hostile leader.

Trump and Putin spent a couple of hours out of the world’s earshot. There were no national security aides present. No secretary of state, no foreign minister, no defense ministers. Just the two of them — Vlad and The Donald.

What did Trump promise Putin? What does Putin have on Trump? Why in the world would Trump denigrate our intelligence agencies’ view that Russia meddled in our 2016 election while accepting Putin’s “strong and powerful” denial?

Inquiring minds want to know.

They need to know.

national news

Collusion: still a wide open question

Donald J. Trump keeps insisting that “there was no collusion.”

He does so repeatedly. With vigor. With passion. With emphasis.

My gut tells me the president is protesting far too much. He calls special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation a “rigged witch hunt.” He says the allegations against his 2016 presidential campaign are “phony,” that they’re a “hoax” concocted by Democratic Party pols who are still sore at losing the election two years ago.

Let’s take a breather, shall we?

Mueller’s investigation is going to conclude eventually. I hope it’s soon. To that extent, I agree with the president that I want the probe to wind down sooner rather than later.

But … and this is critical: The investigation must be allowed to reach its conclusion under its own power.

Mueller is not the partisan hack that Trump and his allies accuse him of being. He is a dedicated public servant. He served as FBI director under two administrations, Republican and Democrat. He took office right after 9/11 and stayed on for a couple of years after George W. Bush left office; he served well under the Obama administration.

The president’s constant bitching about “witch hunts” and “phony” allegations ring hollow. It’s instructive that Mueller has imposed air-tight discipline on his legal team while Donald Trump’s team keeps yapping about “corrupt investigation” and threats of impeaching the deputy attorney general who appointed Mueller to the special counsel job.

I am aware that there’s nothing illegal about colluding with a foreign government. This investigation, though, won’t concern itself with whether anyone broke the law if they worked in tandem with Russian goons who attacked this country’s political system.

The public needs to focus also on whether it was right, presuming that Mueller’s team reaches that conclusion.

If the Trump campaign colluded with the Russians, then we’re going to witness the unraveling of an administration. The Mueller team will deliver its findings in due course.

If it determines there was no collusion, as the president insists, then I fear the tumult won’t subside. I am inclined to accept whatever conclusion Mueller reaches.

If only Americans could rely on Donald J. Trump to accept such findings and then move on. He won’t.

This much I know already: Robert Mueller is still hard at work seeking answers to questions that have lingered since the 2016 election. Let the man and his legal team finish their task.