Tag Archives: Barack Obama

business news

GM owes its existence to government?

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Donald John “Smart Gut” Trump has blasted General Motors for closing plants and for announcing plans to lay off as many as 15,000 employees as part of a company restructuring.

I laughed when I heard the president declare that the government “saved” GM “and this is the thanks we get.”

Oh, wait! That rescue mission was launched during the first term of President Obama. Do you remember that one? The auto industry was in trouble. The new president got Congress to approve a massive bailout for automakers. The money propped them up, helped preserve them; it saved them from collapse.

Then the automakers paid the government back for the money they received!

I guess what rankles Trump the most is that GM’s decision to lay off those workers turns one of the president’s signature campaign promises into, well, an empty campaign promise.

political news

Waiting for unqualified praise of POTUS

I have to make a confession.

It is that whenever I feel the need to offer an encouraging word about Donald J. Trump I am drawn to the need to somehow hedge on it, to offer a qualifier of sorts. Maybe one day, and I have no idea when, I’ll be able to offer praise to the president without having to call attention to all the negative things I’ve said about him.

He recently announced a criminal justice reform notion that would give federal judges more flexibility in handing out sentences; they currently are bound by mandatory sentencing policies. I think the overhaul is a good thing. I said so, too, with praise for the president. But, damn! I had to mention a pledge I made that I would say something good when he merited it; that’s the qualifier, man.

I truly want to get past that. Sadly, I have little hope that this president is going to allow me to do that.

President Bush, shortly after the 2008 election, brought all the former presidents to the White House to greet the president-elect, Barack H. Obama. President Bush wished the new man “success.” Sure, he opposed his election, but he told the president-elect that if he succeeds, the country succeeds.

I know I should be a bigger man that I’ve been at times with regard to the current president. I just cannot help myself. My distaste for his ascending to the first public office he ever sought is palpable and visceral. I’m not proud of it.

I merely acknowledge it.

This blog will continue to offer criticism of the president. I am afraid the critical comments will vastly outnumber the positive comments for well past the foreseeable future.

Just maybe, though, that day might arrive and I’ll be able to offer an encouraging word without referencing the discouraging words.

military news

Trump doubles down on bin Laden raid criticism . . . but, why?

Donald John Trump had the hubris and the gall to criticize the head of U.S. Special Operations Command for not taking down Osama bin Laden sooner than he did.

Retired Admiral William McRaven coordinated the raid that on May 1, 2011 killed bin Laden in a daring operation. Trump’s response to criticism from McRaven, who said Trump’s assault on the media poses the “greatest threat to democracy” he has seen was to disparage the bin Laden mission.

Here’s my question: What difference would it have made had U.S. intelligence been able to confirm bin Laden’s location earlier and then we killed him earlier.

Everyone with any semblance of common sense knows this truth about bin Laden and al-Qaeda, the terrorist organization he led: Another religious pervert would step in immediately after bin Laden would be taken out. That is what has happened since the SEALs and the CIA operatives killed the monster in Pakistan. It makes no difference when bin Laden met his death.

As for Trump’s assertion that McRaven somehow was responsible for the timing of the raid, I need to remind Trump of one more thing.

McRaven was in the military; his obligation was to follow lawful orders. The order came from President Obama after U.S. intelligence, through painstaking work over the course of two presidential administrations, had concluded without a doubt that bin Laden could be found and eliminated.

All that aside, for the current president — who many refer to as Private Bone Spurs, owing to his avoidance of service during the Vietnam War — to criticize a heroic Navy SEAL who has served with honor and heroism during his decades in uniform is laughable and disgraceful on its face.

legal news

Sen. Grassley weighs in on Trump-Roberts ‘feud’

Donald J. Trump is continuing to beat the drum against U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts, who is likely to show needed restraint. I trust he’ll let the president continue his infantile tirade on matters on which he knows next to nothing.

Trump called some U.S. troops stationed overseas and continued his tirade over criticism the chief justice made about the president’s reference to an “Obama judge.” He sought to inform the president that that federal judges are “independent” and not partisan. That, of course, fell on Trump’s deaf ears.

So, then this happened: U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley defended Trump, saying that Roberts didn’t criticize President Obama when the president in 2010 “attacked” Justice Samuel Alito during a State of the Union speech.

Good job, Mr. Chairman, except you got quite wrong.

President Obama didn’t “attack” Alito; he criticized the Supreme Court’s decision on the Citizens United case that opened up campaign finance to corporations, allowing them to spend unlimited amounts of money on political races. He stated his view that the torrent of money would further corrupt the U.S. political system.

Justice Alito famously shook his head while sitting in front of the president and muttered “not true.” Obama, I repeat, did not single any justice out . . . which is quite different from what Trump has done with the chief justice.

To be fair, Obama was wrong to criticize the court in that setting. Most of the justices were sitting in a group in the audience on Capitol Hill. Democrats in the chamber cheered the president; the justices had to take it. I said at the time — and I’ll repeat it here — that President Obama’s criticism was done in the wrong place and in the wrong setting.

There is no equivalence to be found in what Donald Trump is doing now and what Barack Obama did then. As Chief Justice Roberts, I hope he’s done commenting on this ridiculous spat that the president initiated with his ill-informed and ill-tempered remark about an “Obama judge.”

national news

Hypocrisy is flourishing in the White House!

Let’s just call him the Hypocrite in Chief.

Donald J. Trump has been caught in yet another example of bald-faced, categorical and unqualified hypocrisy.

His daughter Ivanka has been caught using her personal e-mail account to transmit messages pertaining to government business. Was any of it classified? Was she able to send messages that compromised our national security? Oh, probably not.

But the point is this: Daddy Trump spent two whole years telling the world that in his view Hillary Clinton committed “several felonies” while using her personal e-mail while she was secretary of state. He led chants of “Lock her up!” at campaign rallies.

Now his older daughter is caught doing essentially the same thing. His response? Pfftt! Not parallel, he says.

Moreover, he called Clinton “stupid” for not knowing the rules. Was all of that lost on Ivanka, who now says she didn’t know the rules about e-mail use when she took her post as a senior adviser to her father?

Remember, too, how he criticized President Obama for playing too much golf? How he — Trump — wouldn’t have time to play golf, that he’ll be too busy “making America great again”?

He’s turned Obama into a weekend duffer. This president, the guy who ridiculed his predecessor unjustly, has lapped the field — and then some! — with his golf outings.

I do not begrudge the golf per se. I’ve said all along that presidents are never off the clock; they remain in constant contact with their key aides, advisers and national security team.

I do begrudge the golf only because of Trump’s hypocrisy on that matter — and on so many others.

Simply astonishing.

International news

Looking back at bin Laden raid

The nation has been talking in recent days about the commando raid that took out Osama bin Laden.

I thought I’d share with you a video of President Obama announcing “to the nation and the world” the death of the terrorist leader. Here it is:

Perhaps the most relevant point I want to emphasize here is the president’s explanation of the tireless work done by anti-terrorism experts working for two presidential administrations. President Bush’s team began the hunt for bin Laden shortly after 9/11, then handed it off to President Obama’s team.

It took time, patience and perseverance for our intelligence community to find bin Laden in that compound in Pakistan.

Yet there came the unfounded and idiotic criticism from Donald J. Trump that the team that took out bin Laden should have done it “much sooner.” He laid the criticism at the feet of retired Admiral William McRaven, the man who coordinated the effort that resulted in bin Laden’s death in May 2011.

Trump doesn’t know what transpired between 9/11 and the raid that eliminated bin Laden. So his criticism of McRaven is tasteless, ignorant and despicable.

I thought you might want to hear from Trump’s immediate predecessor, Barack Obama, how this huge event came to pass.

military news

Commander in chief shows disregard for military

I have to ask: How in the name of pride in our military does the president of the United States get away with the utter denigration he heaps on distinguished military personnel?

Donald Trump did it (in)famously in 2016 when he said the late U.S. Sen. John McCain was a “war hero only because he was captured. I like people who aren’t captured.”

Trump went on to win the presidential election after declaring he knows “more about ISIS than the generals.” Then he surrounded himself with current and former four-star officers, proclaiming some sort of phony affinity for the expertise they bring.

And now the latest tumult has erupted. The president has disparaged the May 2011 raid that killed 9/11 mastermind Osama bin Laden and, particularly, the man who coordinated that effort, retired Admiral William McRaven.

McRaven, a decorated Navy SEAL, headed the Special Operations Command when President Obama issued the order to kill bin Laden.

Trump now says we should have taken bin Laden down “a lot sooner.” Again, the commander in chief has denigrated a war hero and has mocked the effort that was carried out with precision and professionalism by a dedicated team of SEALs, Army Green Beret pilots and CIA deep-cover operatives.

Moreover, he gets away with it! The “base” that adores him gives him a pass. They don’t care that the commander in chief thinks so little of the brave men and women who volunteer to do something that the president waffled on when he had the chance when he was of draft age during the Vietnam War.

I do not get it. I never will get it.

military news

What if Obama had done any of this?

“We should be intellectually honest here at this table that if President Obama had missed Veterans Day or missed the Armistice ceremony in France for the 100th anniversary of World War I, my head would have exploded right here on this table in front of all of you.”

So said Meghan McCain, daughter of the late, great Republican U.S. senator, John McCain, and a co-host of the TV show “The View.”

I believe she speaks for a lot of Americans who are dismayed, disgusted and so very disappointed in recent actions and remarks by Donald J. Trump, the president of the United States.

So many on the right and the far right have been strangely silent regarding the president’s recent action — or inaction — in Europe. He declined to attend a ceremony in France honoring the Americans who fell during World War I, then skipped Veterans Day services at Arlington National Cemetery.

Now, to his credit, the president did express some regret at failing to show for the Arlington cemetery event. That doesn’t excuse what he declined to do in the moment.

Couple all of that with what he has said in recent days about the raid that killed Osama bin Laden and the disparaging he has leveled at the Navy admiral, William McRaven, who coordinated the May 2011 assault and you have even more reason for “heads to explode.”

They aren’t. Except for Meghan McCain, a self-described political conservative.

Yes, just try to imagine the reaction had all of this come from a liberal Democrat. It is pointless to suggest how progressives, such as yours truly, would react had any of this occurred on Barack Obama’s watch. Thankfully, I don’t recall it ever happening prior to Donald Trump becoming president.

I do believe Meghan McCain’s assertion about her own noggin “exploding” on national TV.

military news

RNC backs POTUS in attack on McRaven

Well, here we go.

The Republican National Committee, I guess to few people’s surprise, has backed Donald J. Trump in his idiotic attack on the Navy SEAL who coordinated the raid that killed Osama bin Laden.

The RNC says that retired Admiral William McRaven “reportedly” was on Hillary Rodham Clinton’s short list of potential running mates when she ran for president in 2016.

Hold … the … phone!

The president went off on McRaven during an interview on “Fox News Sunday.” He contended that the Special Operations Command chief was a “Hillary Clinton backer” while he was criticizing him for not getting bin Laden “a lot sooner” than he did.

“Fox News Sunday” host Chris Wallace sought to mention that McRaven was a SEAL at the time of the bin Laden raid, but that didn’t dissuade Trump from alleging that McRaven was some sort of partisan hack.

What a joke!

Whether he was on anyone’s short list is utterly beside the point.

McRaven retired from the Navy after 37 years of service in 2014. Clinton ran for president two years after that. The raid that McRaven coordinated occurred on President Obama’s watch. The date was in May 2011, when McRaven was an active-duty Navy officer.

His colleagues all have testified to a person that McRaven is the consummate military professional who didn’t put politics ahead of his mission. Indeed, he has responded to Trump’s criticism by noting that he served under President George W. Bush as well as under President Obama. Republican or Democrat, it didn’t matter to McRaven.

So, for the president to accuse him of being some sort of cheap partisan disserves not only Admiral McRaven, but also the SEALs as well as other Special Forces troops in the Army, Air Force and Marine Corps . . .  not to mention all the men and women who wear the uniform in defense of the country.

It shouldn’t surprise anyone, I suppose, that the RNC would weigh in with its own cheap political shot.

Despicable.

military news

This tempest just won’t go away

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The tumult caused by Donald Trump’s disparagement of a heroic Navy SEAL continues at full boil.

Why is that? Because the president of the United States won’t back down from the hideous criticism he leveled at retired Admiral William McRaven, the fellow who coordinated the May 2011 commando raid that took down Osama bin Laden.

McRaven, who’s now a private citizen, had criticized the president’s war on the media as a grave “threat to democracy.” Trump then responded in an interview with “Fox News Sunday” host Chris Wallace that McRaven should have gotten bin Laden “much sooner.”

Yep, he criticized the architect of the operation. He in effect denigrated the service of a heroic American warrior, who spent 37 years wearing the uniform in service to his country. He was injured training to become a SEAL. He also led the team that captured the late Iraqi tyrant Saddam Hussein in 2003.

So, for this president — who actually avoided service during the Vietnam War — to criticize a hero simply is beyond my own ability to comprehend. He called McRaven a political hack, a Hillary Clinton “backer” and a fan of President Obama.

Admiral McRaven is as admirable a man as one could find.

Donald Trump? He, um, isn’t.

Still, this tempest just won’t quit.