Tag Archives: Barack Obama

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.

national news

A+, Mr. President? I don’t think so

Mr. President, you are entitled to your opinion. As am I, sir.

You give yourself an A+ grade for the first two years of your presidency. I wouldn’t grade your performance anywhere near that high.

I laughed when I heard about Chris Wallace’s question to you, mentioning Presidents Washington and Lincoln, Franklin Roosevelt and Reagan. I also laughed when he asked if you belonged in those men’s company.

Then you gave yourself that A+ grade.

You’re killin’ me, Mr. President.

You keep taking credit for the economy. I applaud the job figures that keep coming in each month while you’ve been in office. Yep, they’re great. But you ought to know — and I wish you did realize it — that presidents can’t take all the credit they think they deserve. I must remind you — yet again! — that you inherited an economy that was in good shape, unlike the economy that your predecessor inherited when he took office in January 2009.

There have been more than the normal number of hiccups along the way. Your key staff keeps turning over regularly. Not to mention the Cabinet posts that keep opening up. You fire folks. They quit under criticism. And yet you keep yammering about the hordes of individuals who are just chomping at the bit waiting to come to work in the White House.

Whatever you say, Mr. President. I just don’t believe it. Nor do others of my ilk, who outnumber those of your ilk by a good bit.

Keep deluding yourself, Mr. President, into thinking you deserve an A+ plus. Others of us believe differently. I won’t assign a grade. I’ll leave that others.

Just know that it ain’t nearly as good as the one you gave yourself.

 

military news

The warrior responds to POTUS

Back and forth they go.

The president and the decorated Navy SEAL are at each other’s throats. I’m pulling for the SEAL.

Donald Trump — as is his tendency — fired off a totally inappropriate tweet challenging whether the head of the U.S. Special Operations Command could have taken out Osama bin Laden “sooner” than he did.

That commander is retired Admiral William McRaven, on whose watch U.S. commandos killed the 9/11 mastermind in a firefight in Pakistan.

McRaven had the temerity to declare that Trump’s attack on the media presents the “greatest threat” to the nation. Trump responded with that hideous Twitter taunt about the bin Laden raid.

McRaven has answered the president. He stands by his comment about Trump’s attack on the media. Trump also had accused McRaven of “backing” Hillary Clinton. McRaven said “no.” He isn’t a fan of the former Democratic presidential candidate. He also said he backs all presidents, because he respects the office. McRaven also notes in his response that he served under Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama while leading the Special Operations Command.

He told Trump, “When you undermine the people’s right to a free press and freedom of speech and expression, then you threaten the Constitution and all for which it stands.”

If only the president understood the damage he does with his reckless and feckless rhetoric.

International news, military news

Trump hits back … at the warrior who got Osama bin Laden!

Donald Trump isn’t known for picking his targets with much care or thought. His “shoot-and-aim” approach to firing criticism scores points with his base; not so much with the rest of us.

Fox News’s Chris Wallace asked the president to respond to former Admiral William McRaven’s criticism that the greatest threat to America is Trump’s demonization of the media.

The president’s response? He wonders why McRaven, the former head of the U.S. Special Forces Command, didn’t bring justice to Osama bin Laden sooner than he did.

You see, McRaven — a retired Navy SEAL — was on duty in May 2011 when U.S. commandos flew into Pakistan and engaged in a firefight with the al-Qaeda leader’s garrison. The troops then killed bin Laden — the 9/11 mastermind — and transported his corpse to the USS Carl Vinson, where he was given a “burial at sea.”

Trump said to Wallace that McRaven could have gotten bin Laden sooner than he did. He seemed to imply incompetent military and intelligence leadership as the reason that bin Laden was able to hide in plain sight in Abbattobad, Pakistan. He called McRaven a “fan” of Hillary Clinton and “backer” of Barack Obama. I’ll add here that Clinton was the secretary of state at the time of the raid and, oh yes, Obama was the president who issued the order to launch the mission, which I should add was carried out with no loss of American lives.

Take a look at Trump’s answer to Wallace’s question about whether the president would give credit for the mission that took down bin Laden: “They took him down but — look, look, there’s news right there, he lived in Pakistan, we’re supporting Pakistan, we’re giving them $1.3 billion a year, which we don’t give them anymore, by the way, I ended it because they don’t do anything for us, they don’t do a damn thing for us.”

Huh?

national news

POTUS’s patriotism at issue?

I guess I’m missing something here.

Barack Obama’s critics were hair-trigger quick to criticize the president as “unpatriotic,” concocting all kinds of reasons to lay that unfair criticism on him.

So, his successor, Donald J. Trump, goes to Europe to commemorate the 100th year since the end of World War I. What does he (not) do? He declines to attend a ceremony at an American cemetery outside of Paris, citing inclement weather; dozens of other heads of state attended the ceremony.

The president then attends another ceremony the next day before coming home.

Then he declines to visit Arlington National Cemetery on Monday, the day the government recognizes as Veterans Day. Neither did the vice president.

And yet … the critics who blasted President Obama continually over his alleged lack of love of country have been quiet about Donald Trump’s absence at two places honoring our fallen warriors.

Hmm. Hypocrisy, anyone?

national news

Say it ain’t so, Hillary

Hillary, Hillary, Hillary …

Your former campaign aide, Mark Penn, says he thinks you’re going to run for president a third time in 2020.

I’m going to implore you to put the kibosh on this talk right now. You keep saying you have “no intention” to run, yet you say “I want to be president.”

Understand this: I marked my ballot for “Hillary Rodham Clinton” with pride and conviction in 2016. I would do so again in 2020 if you manage to win the Democratic Party presidential nomination. I would have not a single qualm about doing so were it to be you vs. Donald J. Trump.

Here’s the problem, Hillary. I fear a repeat of 2016. Trump made mincemeat out of you in the closing days of that campaign. Your campaign disserved you and the nation by keeping you away from Wisconsin during the general election effort. Your loss in that state by a fraction of a percentage point contributed to Trump’s shocking victory. You know that already.

Yeah, I know you wouldn’t make the same mistake.

That’s not the point, though. As much as I admire all you’ve done throughout your time in the public arena, I hear the same rumbling you have heard: the public has developed a case of Clinton Fatigue.

Barack Obama’s derisive “You’re likable enough, Hillary” putdown in 2008 set the table for what happened to you in 2016. As profoundly unqualified and unfit Donald Trump was to seek the presidency — let alone actually be president — he managed to reveal the perception of your unlikability to just enough voters in key states to win a race he had no business winning.

I am one American who doesn’t want to see a repeat of that travesty.

My request is a simple one: Issue a statement that declares, “I am not going to run for president of the United States ever again. I have had my time in the arena. It is time for me to step aside and turn this fight over to the young Turks within my party.”

Do it. Please.

national news

Former first lady takes ‘birther’ lie quite personally

To be honest, I never gave a thought to the view expressed by former first lady Michelle Obama regarding the hideous lie fomented by her husband’s successor as president of the United States.

Donald J. Trump for years kept repeating the lie that Barack Obama was born outside the United States and, thus, was not qualified to seek the presidency let alone serve as president. I viewed the lie from the outside, considering it to be a racist rant intended to demonize the first African-American ever elected to the presidency.

Trump eventually tossed out a throwaway line at the end of another set of remarks that the president “was born in the United States.” Then he returned later to the casting of doubt over the truth of Obama’s place of birth.

Now the former first lady has written in her memoir “Becoming” that she cannot “forgive” Trump because, in her view, he put her family in potential danger from “wingnuts and kooks” who might pick up a loaded gun and head to Washington to harm the Obamas’ two daughters.

Michelle Obama’s criticism of Donald Trump will resonate with millions of Americans. It, of course, will sound hollow to millions of others, those who subscribe to Trump’s idiotic lie.

As for Donald Trump himself, I have no doubt at all — none whatsoever — that Michelle Obama’s criticism has zoomed straight through is vacuous skull.

He doesn’t give a damn!

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

Trump scraps domestic terror effort

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Does it surprise you to learn that Donald J. Trump plans to toss out an Obama-era program to finance an effort to root out the causes of domestic terrorism?

Yeah, me neither.

That’s the plan, though, as the president reportedly is going to discontinue a grant program created by the Barack Obama administration that was supposed to be funded yearly. But no! The Trump administration said it’s a one-time-only grant. So the Department of Homeland Security won’t keep it going.

The timing of this announcement is stunning as well.

It comes a week after Cesar Sayoc was arrested on charges that he sent pipe bombs to opponents of Donald Trump, as well as to a major media outlet. They’re all Democrats, either politicians or Democratic political figures. Did I mention that two of the intended targets were former presidents of the United States and one of them is a former vice president? There. I just did.

So the president doesn’t want to keep this effort going.

Why is that? Oh, it’s no doubt going to be argued by some — and I can buy their argument — that Trump wants to get rid of it because it originated during Barack Obama’s time as president.

The Countering Violent Extremism Grant spends $10 million annually on efforts to examine the causes of domestic violence and terrorism. Yes, it’s a scourge in this country. Hate groups have gotten more brazen in recent years. The slaughter of 11 congregants at the Pittsburgh synagogue symbolizes what I’m talking about; a suspect has been arrested and charged with 29 hate-crime-related felonies.

But the president wants to discontinue a valuable grant aimed at rooting out domestic terrorism?

Sickening.

national news

Calling the Obamas and Clintons? ‘We’ll pass’

I want to hand Donald J. Trump a most left-handed compliment.

The president at least had the stones to acknowledge that he won’t do the decent thing as it regards two of his presidential predecessors.

Cesar Sayoc was arrested in Florida by the FBI in connection with a series of pipe bombs sent to various Democratic political figures and to CNN. Two of the intended victims of the domestic terrorists were former Presidents Barack Obama and Bill Clinton.

A reporter asked Trump this week if he intended to call his predecessors presumably to assure them that they are safe and that the administration will do all it can to ensure their safety and that of all Americans.

Trump said, “We’ll pass.”

There you have it. The decent thing to do would be to … oh, you know what that is.

Disgraceful.