Tag Archives: White House

media news, national news

Trump shows more juvenile petulance

The nation’s juvenile delinquent in chief just keeps demonstrating his unfitness for a job that requires a huge measure of dignity.

Donald John Trump Sr. fired up his Twitter finger to retweet an animated image of the president hitting Hillary Rodham Clinton with a golf ball.

Pretty funny, huh? Oh, not at all!

But that’s the president of the United States of America for you. He just cannot stop insulting his political foes and critics. He just cannot resist the temptation to illustrate why so many of his fellow Americans detest the notion of his occupying the White House.

It goes without saying that heads of state need to conduct themselves with dignity and decorum. Trump doesn’t understand the tradition that accompanies the office he won in 2016, defeating Clinton in one of the most raucous and divisive elections in our nation’s history.

Trump’s Twitter tirades need to stop. They won’t, of course. The president will continue to denigrate others through this social medium for as long as his base of supporters keep cheering him on.

What the heck. He’s pandering to his base on many levels, forsaking the rest of the country that didn’t support his election in the first place.

Adam Schiff, the ranking member of the U.S. House Intelligence Committee, calls it “distressing that we have a president who will tweet and retweet things as juvenile as that.”

I’ll add another word: disgraceful.

However, the president is going to “make America great again.”

Aren’t you proud of him? Neither am I.

national news

GOP about to ‘eat its young’?

The late Texas state Sen. Teel Bivins of Amarillo used to joke that congressional and legislative reapportionment every decade was an opportunity for the Republican Party “to eat its young.”

His humor, I guess, was aimed at how Republicans — and I’ll presume Democrats, too — would redraw boundaries to make their own members vulnerable to political challenge.

I never quite understood Bivins’s example, but we might be about to witness a political war taking shape among Republicans that will produce some intraparty casualties. Stephen K. Bannon, the former White House chief strategist, has said the party is about to go to war with itself.

There will be the Bannon wing — comprising uber-nationalists/isolationists — against the “establishment wing” of the GOP.

He told “60 Minutes” that the Bannonites and the establishment types are going to fight tooth and nail for the attention and affection of the president of the United States. Bannon believes that the Republican majority in Congress is disserving Donald J. Trump. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and House Speaker Paul Ryan do not want Trump’s “populist message” to succeed, according to Bannon, who intends to fight for that message.

Bannon no longer draws a government salary, but he’s stands atop a formidable forum as editor in chief of Breitbart News, the media company from which he entered the White House at the start of the Trump administration. Bannon is a frightening dude, given his company’s occasional rants promoting anti-Semitic and white nationalist views.

I’m not particularly concerned about the outcome of this internecine battle. I don’t support the president’s agenda. Nor do I want Bannon anywhere near the center of power. The president chose well when he asked John Kelly to be White House chief of staff; indeed, Kelly is the reason that Bannon no longer advises the president from within the West Wing’s walls. That doesn’t mean Bannon has disappeared.

I’m quite sure that if the fight erupts within the party that the president’s ability to govern will suffer, given any evidence within the administration — starting with the man at the top — of any political skill or knowledge.

As for the Republican tendency to “eat its young” … bon appetit.

national news

Bannon got the boot, but he’s still around

I am going to admit something that critics of this blog will applaud: I am wrong far more than I am right.

So, when I am right — or when my suspicion turns out to be correct — I feel a need to call attention to it.

Stephen K. Bannon got the boot recently as one of Donald Trump’s key White House advisers. Chief of staff John Kelly showed Bannon the door. My suspicion was that Bannon wouldn’t disappear entirely, that he’d remain a factor in the president’s policymaking.

Dammit anyway! Bannon appears to be hanging around.

Here is what I posted on Aug. 20:

https://highplainsblogger.com/2017/08/bannons-gone-but-is-he-really/

Bannon returned to his roots, as editor of the far-right-wing publication Breitbart News. He reportedly chats with the president, according to sources in the White House, when John Kelly isn’t around. Think about that for a moment. Does that sound like the action of a junior high schooler who steals a cigarette from Dad when the old man is looking the other way?

The bigger issue, though, is that Bannon’s ultra-right-wing world view — his anti-globalism, uber nationalistic, allegedly racist ideology — will continue to help inform whatever passes for policy from the president.

Bannon is a scary dude. He didn’t belong on the National Security Council. Trump eventually removed him from that post. He didn’t belong anywhere near the Oval Office, but there he was, sitting next to Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law who also has no business being near the center of power.

So he gets shown the door out the back of the West Wing. He now vows to be Trump’s “wing man,” that he’ll work to keep the GOP based fired up and putting pressure on the president to do their bidding.

Bannon is no longer employed by the White House. If only he was actually gone.

national news

Letter from ‘BO’ now seems oddly unwelcome to DT

Under normal circumstances, a letter from one president of the United States to his successor wouldn’t seem to be worthy of much attention.

These aren’t normal times. For starters, Donald J. Trump isn’t your “normal” president. He spoke kindly of his immediate predecessor, Barack H. Obama, when the two men met face to face for the first time in the Oval Office right after Trump’s election as president.

It went downhill from there. Rapidly. Angrily.

So, when CNN released the contents of the traditional note that presidents leave behind, it’s worth noting the outreach that President Obama extended to his successor.

The note ends with this: Michelle and I wish you and Melania the very best as you embark on this great adventure, and know that we stand ready to help in any ways which we can.

I do not doubt the former president’s good wishes for the Trumps. I’d like to throw away my doubt about how the new president felt about the former president upon visiting him in the Oval Office. But I cannot.

Here’s the full note from Obama to Trump.

If only the president hadn’t defamed the former president with that scurrilous and baseless claim about wiretapping the Trump campaign’s offices in Trump Tower. Or if only he would resist the temptation to say again and again about the “mess” he inherited from the 44th president, which I happen to believe is another lie.

Trump’s loud mouth and his boisterous criticism of All Things Obama appear aimed at pleasing only the base within his own Republican Party while ignoring the support that the former president enjoyed among millions of other Americans.

So now we know what the former president wrote to the man who took his place in the Oval Office. To me, the most poignant passage in the note deals with the transitory nature of the office.

It reads: (W)e are just temporary occupants of this office. That makes us guardians of those democratic institutions and traditions — like rule of law, separation of powers, equal protection and civil liberties — that our forebears fought and bled for. Regardless of the push and pull of daily politics, it’s up to us to leave those instruments of our democracy at least as strong as we found them.

There’s no need to elaborate on whether I believe Donald Trump — to date — has kept faith with that bit of advice.

national news, political news

Trump and Kelly: no ‘bromance’ likely here

Donald Trump became president of the United States with so many shortcomings, it’s futile to list them here.

I’ll just mention one of them: He doesn’t know that running an executive branch of government requires order, discipline and a strict adherence to the chain of command.

So, he took office and hired a decent young man as White House chief of staff, Reince Priebus. The only problem Priebus had was that he couldn’t instill any of those qualities in the White House operation. Chaos erupted daily, if not hourly.

Then he was gone. In came another type of manager: John Kelly, a retired Marine Corps general, the former secretary of homeland security. Kelly instilled a ton of discipline and order. He booted “Mooch” Scaramucci from the communications director job; he showed chief strategist Stephen Bannon the door. Sebastian Gorka, the so-called “terrorism expert” was out the door next. He has limited access to the Oval Office. He has bossed the staff around like the good Marine he is.

But as the New York Times story notes, he grates on the president — and the feeling is quite mutual.

Read the Time story here.

I was hoping that Trump’s appointment of Kelly might turn things around, that the White House might function as it is designed to function. It’s looking more and more that Kelly might not make the grade.

The problem starts at the very top. As the Times reports: “It is inevitable that a guy who will not be contained and does not want to be handled or managed was going to rebel against the latest manager who wanted to control him,” said Roger Stone, the longtime Trump adviser, who believes Mr. Kelly represents a kind of management coup by “the triumvirate” of two powerful retired generals — Mr. Kelly and Jim Mattis, the defense secretary — and one general who is still in the Army, the national security adviser, Lt. Gen H. R. McMaster.

Trump simply isn’t wired to follow a protocol that is not of his own making. He boasted repeatedly along the campaign trail that his stellar business success would hold him in good stead as president. It ain’t working out so well.

And let’s remember how the president accepted the Republican Party’s presidential nomination and declared that “I, alone” can solve every problem from which the nation suffers.

Uhh, no. You cannot, Mr. President. The office requires teamwork. It requires cooperation. And order. I should add discipline.

Gen. Kelly is trying to do his job. If only his boss would allow him.

national news

Hoping for a lengthy stay for Tillerson

I’m allowed to eat a bit of crow, aren’t I?

I was one of those who was skeptical about Rex Tillerson’s appointment as secretary of state in the Trump administration. In recent days and weeks, though, I’ve become a believer in the former ExxonMobil mogul’s ability to do the job and to speak for the United States of America.

There’s reporting that Tillerson might not be long for Donald Trump’s administration. He might not stay on the job for a year. He might bail early.

I hope he stays on. I hope he can find a way to work with that clown wagon known as the Trump administration.

My fear is that the clock has begun ticking on Secretary Tillerson’s tenure.

The president might have started the moment he heard Tillerson tell Chris Wallace on “Fox News Sunday” that “the president speaks for himself.” The context of that response, though, is most telling.

Wallace asked Tillerson about the Charlottesville riot and the nation’s mood in the wake of the violence that erupted. Tillerson said the world understands the State Department’s commitment to human rights.

Wallace then asked about whether the president concurs. That’s when Tillerson responded with the “speaks for himself” comment.

To my ears, it sounded as though the secretary was putting some distance between the department he runs and the man to whom Tillerson reports — the president.

As the Washington Post reported: “And some who have recently seen Tillerson say the former ExxonMobil chief executive — unaccustomed to taking orders from a superior, let alone one as capricious as Trump — also seems to be ready to end his State Department tenure. He has grumbled privately to (White House chief of staff John) Kelly about Trump’s recent controversies, said two people familiar with their relationship.”

Damn!

Tillerson exhibited some much-needed sanity, maturity and intelligence in that moment. The nation needs more of it.

national news

Gen. Kelly leaves giant footprint

Sebastian Gorka has been shown the White House door.

Who is this clown, ‘er , West Wing aide? He is, or was, one of Donald Trump’s anti-globalist whisperers. He’s a Hungarian-born guy who was hired by the president to be an “expert” on terrorism.

It turns out Gorka’s academic and foreign policy credentials aren’t nearly as sparkling as he let on. It also turns out that the guy didn’t actually have any duties. He just sort of … was just there.

White House chief of staff John Kelly, thus, apparently decided he’d darkened the White House door enough. So he kicked Gorka to the curb. Good deal.

Let’s see. Since Kelly took over as chief of staff from Reince Priebus he’s managed to:

Kick communications director Anthony “Mooch” Scaramucci out of the White House; usher uber-anti globalist Stephen K. Bannon out of the West Wing; and now it’s Gorka who’s gone.

All that’s left is to finish cleaning the White House of the some of the other radicals who are perched throughout the inner circle; policy adviser/speechwriter Stephen Miller comes to mind immediately.

Gen. Kelly, of course, cannot control the president’s impulses, which run wild every morning when he awakes and grabs his cell phone to start firing off those tweets.

Sebastian Gorka’s departure, though, is a welcome step as the retired Marine Corps general seeks to establish some semblance of sanity within the White House.

military news, national news

Oh, and then the transgender ban takes hold

The president is still looking for a problem to apply in need of a solution.

Donald Trump’s “solution” is to ban transgender individuals from serving in the U.S. military. The problem? Someone will have to explain that one to me, because I don’t believe a problem exists.

On a day when Texas is facing a catastrophic hurricane, the president pardons a highly controversial former Arizona sheriff, Joe Arpaio, who was convicted of disobeying a federal judge’s lawful order.

He also issued a directive to institute a transgender ban for the armed forces.

Holy moly, Mr. President!

The transgender ban — along with the Arpaio pardon — are initiatives aimed at appealing to the 35 percent of Americans who still think Trump is doing a good job as president. The rest of us? Trump doesn’t care what we think. Nor does he care that the transgender ban effectively removes a patriotic cadre of Americans who are dedicated to serving in the nation’s armed forces — something, I feel compelled to note with emphasis, that Trump never did.

When the president first announced his intention to issue the ban on transgender Americans serving in the military, he said something about the supposedly large medical costs associated with transgender Americans. It was noted at the time that the military spends many times more on Viagra prescriptions than it does on the transgender issue.

The president once more has disgraced himself and his high office.

political news

It helps to know what you don’t know

One of the gazillion things that have been said of Donald John Trump is that the president of the United States “doesn’t know what he doesn’t know.”

He seems to be the Bubble Boy of American politics, insulated from the effects of the barbs and boulders tossed at him. Or so he thinks.

Now comes former U.S. House Speaker Newt Gingrich to offer a bit of specificity, which is that Trump doesn’t realize just how “isolated” he has become.

Critics of this blog will recall that I’ve dismissed Newt in the past as a know-nothing has-been, a philanderer who in the late 1990s made a big case against former President Clinton over his, um, philandering. 

On this one, though, Newt might be on to something. He said on Fox News: “On the Hill, he has far more people willing to sit to one side and not help him right now, and I think that he needs to recognize he’s taken a good first step with bringing in Gen. (John) Kelly (as chief of staff), but he needs to think about what has not worked.”

Trump’s term as president is in trouble. He has declared open warfare on fellow Republicans. Democrats detest him already, so they need zero push to resist every single thing he proposes. He cannot fill key deputy Cabinet posts, or senior White House staff jobs. The roster of federal judgeships remains largely vacant.

The president’s legislative agenda has high-centered. It has no traction. Tax reform is likely to get stalled. He won’t get the money he wants to build that wall along our southern border. Congressional leaders are going to increase the budgetary debt ceiling despite what the president says.

Trump once boasted that “I, alone” can fix what’s wrong.

No, Mr. President. You cannot. It is impossible.

He doesn’t know what he doesn’t know … which is dangerous not just for him, but for the country.

national news

Leave the boy alone!

If I had a message to deliver today to my friends and former media colleagues, it would be this: Quit sniping at Barron Trump!

A conservative writer decided to chide the first son, who’s 11 years of age, by the way, for the way he was dressed during a recent public appearance.

“The youngest Trump doesn’t have any responsibilities as the president’s son, but the least he could do is dress the part when he steps out in public,” entertainment reporter Ford Springer wrote in the story published Monday by the Daily Caller, a conservative news publication.

In rushed none other than Chelsea Clinton, daughter of former President Bill Clinton and Hillary Rodham Clinton. Chelsea wrote in a tweet: It’s high time the media & everyone leave Barron Trump alone & let him have the private childhood he deserves.

You go, Chelsea!

Clinton’s comment drew a word of thanks from Barron’s mother, first lady Melania Trump, who thanked the former first daughter publicly with a tweet of her own.

Living in the fish bowl known as the White House is tough enough. Indeed, young Barron is going to be hearing a lot of harsh criticism leveled at his dad. Having to endure that criticism of his father is difficult all by itself — even if Dad has it coming!

The same can be said of Barron’s fully grown siblings: Ivanka, Don Jr., and Eric. They’re in the public arena, getting involved with policy matters that affect all Americans.

The boy, though, is off limits!