Tag Archives: Donald Trump

Donald Trump, national news

Do not disbelieve Trump’s warnings

Donald Trump’s pathological lying makes it impossible for me to believe virtually nothing that flies out of his yapper.

Except for one thing.

That would be the warnings he has issued about what he intends to do when he becomes president of the United States of America.

When he has said he lost “many friends” on 9/11, we learned he attended zero funerals for his friends after that tragedy. He boasts about his “landslide” victory in 2016 when in fact he lost the popular vote and was elected solely on the basis of the Electoral College. He inflates his net worth, his intelligence and says he hires only “the best people”; all lies.

But he says he will toss the Constitution aside on his first day in office and will govern “like a dictator” for one day. That kind of boast … I believe.

He has said he intends to pardon many of the Jan. 6 traitors imprisoned after being convicted of seeking to overturn the 2020 election. He vows to let Russia “do whatever the hell they want” with Ukraine. He intends to “drill baby, drill” even though we’re now producing more petroleum than ever in our history.

Trump will take office with plenty of executive authority at his disposal. He says his 2024 victory gave him a “mandate” to use that power. Well, it did nothing of the sort. His victory was narrow. He will deploy that authority immediately upon taking office, or so he has vowed.

I will take him at his word on that, but on nothing else.

business news, International news

No, you cannot just ‘take back’ canal

Donald J. Trump is all bluster and fake bravado and zero substance and knowledge of the limits of the power of the office he is about to inherit.

He said he wants to “take back” the Panama Canal from the country that owns it outright, Panama. Why? Because he doesn’t like the steep fees the Panamanians are charging U.S.-flag ships using the canal.

Good grief! Panama took over the canal decades ago in a deal worked out with the U.S. government. It belongs to them! Panama is a sovereign nation that can do whatever it chooses with its assets. The United States has zero legal authority to seize property owned and operated by another nation.

I get that Trump doesn’t like the fees being charged U.S. shipping. I don’t particularly like it either. However, disliking another nation’s policies does not give us the inherent right to do the kind of thing that Trump is suggesting.

Let’s all get ready for this kind of nonsense to repeat itself for the next four years.

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.

national news

Why explain who rules the roost?

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When a man waiting to become president of the United States feels the need to explain that, yes, he’s in charge and not some hireling, well … then the next POTUS might be in serious jeopardy.

Donald J. Trump has been dogged by chatter that Elon Musk, the zillionaire businessman brought on board to offer Trump budget-cutting ideas, has emerged as “co-president.” Trump told a group of supporters that Musk is not a co-president and that he — Trump, that is — is in charge of the incoming administration.

Trump also had to remind his cultists that Musk won’t become president because — get ready for it — he wasn’t born in the U.S.A. Musk is a native of South Africa, born to South African parents.

When does a president-elect feel the need to explain himself in that manner? It seems to me that the Musk talk is getting under Trump’s skin. Oh, and he has a vice president-elect, J.D. Vance, who has been pushed aside and barely mentioned out loud as being an active player in the transition from the Joe Biden administration.

This is a bizarre phenomenon we are witnessing in the chaos that is preceding Donald Trump returning to the White House.

God help us.

national news

Churchill would be appalled

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Winston Churchill once described democracy as cumbersome, awkward, prone to mistakes but still the best system of government ever devised.

The British statesman who led the UK through its darkest hours during World War II would be appalled at what is transpiring these days in the world’s foremost democratic republic, the United States of America.

The world’s premier democracy cannot approve a long-term budget to fund its massive government. It depends on those damn “continuing resolutions” that keep the money flowing for three to six months. Then our Congress returns to hassling among its members over whether to extend the debt ceiling, spend money on essential government projects, protect the environment, engage in foreign relations … all those kinds of things.

What’s happened to our government? For one thing, a once-great political party, the Republican Party, has been hijacked by the MAGA cabal of rabble-rousers who have less interest in government than in raising hell. Democrats, meanwhile, have staked out positions on the far left that remain out of reach for anyone in the middle, let alone the far right, to reach.

The MAGA cultist in chief, Donald Trump, has brought on board two unelected know-it-alls — Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy — to offer advice on how to slash trillions of dollars from the federal budget. One of these yahoos, Musk, is the richest man in the world. Do you think he cares about or understands the importance the federal government has for millions of ordinary Americans? Of course not!

But they’ve got Trump’s ear. That’s all that matters to a man about to take the reins a second time as the nation’s chief executive.

Winston Churchill died in 1965, long before Trump entered the political world, so he didn’t get to witness what the rest of us have seen. He believed in his view of democracy … but I have to wonder what he might say about the mess that the MAGA crowd has made of the “best form of government” ever devised.

Uncategorized

Dems keep government open … thank goodness!

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What in the name of good governance is happening here, with Congress once again dodging a government shutdown bullet.

The House, facing a Friday deadline to provide money to keep the government open, approved a three-month funding extension. It sent the measure to the Senate, which then piddled around for a few hours before approving the measure, sending it to President Biden’s desk for his signature.

Call me a fuddy-duddy, but I am one American patriot who is sick and tired of this brinkmanship orchestrated in large part by the MAGA wing of a once-great Republican Party.

Donald Trump and his first buddy, Elon Musk, torpedoed a measure worked out by both parties, contending they need to suspend the debt ceiling requirement. Then Republicans cobbled together a new version, only to watch it go down in flames.

Both sides got together a second time and approved a measure that ignores the Trump-Musk demand on the debt ceiling; it passed overwhelmingly. Then it went to the Senate, where Democrats maintain nominal control of the upper chamber. Senators approved it early today.

It will get Biden’s signature likely before the sun comes up over North Texas.

These are called “continuing resolutions.” They are a patchwork of measures. They solve no problems. They deal with no long-term solutions. They give us zero confidence they can ever solve the governance issues that need a resolution.

I’ve been yapping and yammering about good government lately. I’ll keep bringing it up until Republicans, dominated by the MAGA goons in Congress — and very soon by the guy in the White House — learn how to actually govern.

national news

Trump, Congress: miles apart

Never in my wildest imagination, not ever, could I have thought that an incoming president would be so far removed from the Congress with whom he is supposed to govern as Donald J. Trump and the legislative body that takes office in less than a month.

Consider all the venom that has been spewed — by Democrats as well as from the Republican president — in the campaign that brought us a second Donald Trump term in the White House.

How do they get past the hatred? How do they set aside the anger expressed outwardly toward the other side?

Trump, quite naturally, has decided to ratchet the hatred up beyond all reason by saying that every individual who served on the Jan. 6 House committee should be tossed into jail. The criminal charge? He has none. They should be jailed, Trump said, merely because they opposed the way he flouted the Constitution by instigating the mob assault on the government on Jan. 6, 2021.

Oh, he fabricated a lie about the committee destroying evidence. Baloney! The committee did nothing of the sort.

It is that backdrop against which Trump will take office on Jan. 20. Congress will be seated earlier in the month. Presumably the House will choose its speaker, although that once again seems dicey, given the GOP’s paper-thin majority that might shrink to zero before Congress takes its seat.

All campaigns produce winners and losers. It used to be that losers would dust themselves off, reflect a bit on what went wrong, then got back to the work of governing. Democrats are still in shock over losing to a man so deeply flawed. Trump, meanwhile, is embarking on the revenge he promised he would seek.

Good government is gone. I am going to hope for its eventual return.

economic news

Feeling vulnerable

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I am feeling an odd sense of vulnerability these days we await the second version of Donald Trump’s White House tour.

You see, he’s hired a couple of hot shots and hot heads to “reform” federal government spending. Zillionaire Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy have been yammering that “everything” is on the table for possible elimination.

You ask, “Everything?” That’s what these two dips**** say. That means, dare I suggest, Social Security.

Why the vulnerability? Because I rely on my Social Security income to enable me to live comfortably in North Texas. I just turned 75 and I am not willing to go back to work to shore up my income. I did that for a lot of years. I paid a lot of money into the SSI fund from which I am now drawing my income.

I am aware that financial advisers tell us we shouldn’t rely on SSI as our primary retirement income source. That’s fine … if you’re filthy rich, which I am not. I do have a retirement fund, but I refuse to spend it all on daily essentials. Therefore, I rely on SSI to buy groceries and help me pay utilities and so forth.

What will the feds do to that income source for me and millions of other old folks? That remains to be seen. I get the heebie-jeebies when I hear Musk and that loudmouth Ramaswamy blather on about the federal programs they plan to eliminate through that Government Efficiency program they head up.

Donald Trump says he won’t touch Social Security. Do you believe him? Hah! Me, neither.

Those clowns had better tread carefully if they start messing with our income stream.

national news

New morality defined

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Republicans have redefined morality, creating a version of the term many of their elders wouldn’t recognize.

The Grand Old Party that once campaigned for public office on a “character matters” platform and once went after a Democratic president hammer and tong because he messed around with women other than his wife now stands foursquare behind a president that has done far, far worse.

And no one seems to care.

Donald Trump has been called a man who builds his relationships on a “transactional” basis, in that he always is looking for something in return for his “friendship.” Let’s say his followers believe in a “transactional morality,” meaning that it doesn’t matter that the man is a slug as long as he adheres to public policy to their liking.

We have elected twice an individual who has denigrated a legitimate Vietnam War hero, mocked a handicapped New York Times reporter, admitted to serial philandering on all of his wives, acknowledged he has sexually assaulted women by grabbing them by their private areas, admitted he never has sought God’s forgiveness, been impeached twice for high crimes and misdemeanors, convicted by a jury on 34 felony counts, been found liable for the rape of a woman … and on and on it goes.

What’s the problem, the MAGA cultists ask. He selects judges who will toss aside a woman’s right to control her body, he does nothing to stem gun violence and vows to be “your retribution.”

Yes, we have entered a new era of morality in which we no longer judge a candidate on his behavior but only on whether he is a good fit politically.

This is a sad time for our still-great country.

national news

POTUS still has prerogative

You may choose to believe or disbelieve this notion — given my intense criticism of the current president of the United States — but I do believe that elections have consequences.

One of those consequences allows presidents to build their administrations with men and women with whom they feel comfortable.

However, basic qualifications for a high-level Cabinet post must be included in whomever gets the nod from a president. That brings me to a central point of this blog post, which is that several of Donald Trump’s choices lack any experience pertinent to the job to which they have been chosen by the POTUS.

Pete Hegseth has never run anything in his life, let alone a massive bureaucracy like the Pentagon; RFK Jr. has zero experience administrating public health policy; Tulsi Gabbard has no experience in espionage; Kash Patel wants to destroy the FBI, an agency Trump has selected him to run.

President George H.W. Bush nominated Clarence Thomas in 1991 to succeed Thurgood Marshall on the Supreme Court. He called Judge Thomas “the most qualified” man in America to succeed the nation’s first Black SCOTUS justice. I disagreed with his description of Thomas, but I wrote then that he was the president and he deserved to nominate who he wanted. Thomas at least was qualified in the strictest sense of the word to serve.

Trump is including a cast of clowns to join his administration. Yeah, elections have consequences, but they appear to be biting back on the man who claims a “mandate” that enables him to pick a team of losers.

That is not how anyone ever should define “good government.”