Tag Archives: POTUS

2016 election, Donald Trump, national news

Still can’t connect the words ‘President’ and ‘Trump’

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It is with some measure of regret that I must announce that more than 18 months into Donald Trump’s term as president I remain unable to connect the words “President” and “Trump” consecutively.

I wish it were different. Honest. I do wish it! I am no closer to making that leap than I was when he won the election in November 2016.

It’s not the president’s policies that bother me to this extent. Heck, I disagreed with many of his predecessors repeatedly. I disagreed with President Bush’s decision to go to war in Iraq; I have disagreed with President Obama’s seemingly personal ownership of public offices during his time in the White House; there was President Clinton’s perjury about over the Lewinsky relationship.

And on it goes.

All of those men, though, knew how to act. They behaved in a manner that lent dignity to their high and exalted office.

No, the problem I continue to have with Donald Trump remains of a personal nature. Yes, I disagree with his policy. However, were he ever to start acting, sounding and comporting himself like the head of state/head of government/commander in chief/leader of the free world, there would be a significant difference in the way I refer to him in his blog.

He does none of that.

Let’s just flash back a couple of days to that hideous re-election campaign rally in Pennsylvania. He pranced around the stage. He referred to a member of Congress as “a low IQ person”; he keeps referring to the media as the “enemy of the people” and purveyors of “fake, fake, disgusting news.”

He lies incessantly, to the point that I cannot take a single, solitary statement that flies out of his mouth at face value. Nothing! I am suspicious of every word he utters, every proclamation he makes.

How in the world can I refer to this individual by attaching his duly elected title directly in front of his name? I cannot.

I won’t give up every shred of hope that one day he’ll get it. That one day he’ll learn how to conduct himself with dignity and decorum. You see, I am an eternal optimist.

I want this guy to start acting  and sounding like a president. I just don’t expect it of him.

national news, political news

POTUS turns back on intelligence chiefs

The nation’s top intelligence and national security gurus stood before the nation this week at the White House and declared what many of knew already.

The Russians attacked our democratic system in 2016 and are engaging in a similar attack at this moment, trying to disrupt the 2018 midterm election.

All of them said the same thing. They sang in perfect harmony.

Then the president of the United States jetted off to a campaign rally in Pennsylvania. He rambled on for more than an hour. He trashed the “fake news” media. He railed against Democrats. The president called the Russian attack a “hoax.”

Do you think Donald John “Stable Genius” Trump Sr. would deign to offer some perspective or context about what the nation’s intelligence hierarchy had said just a little earlier in the day in the White House? Heavens no!

Trump was intent on whipping up the crowd that gathered to hear his campaign pitch. Mission accomplished, Mr. President.

He continues to dismiss this Russian attack. He continues to give short shrift to the need to protect our democratic process against future attacks. He ignores the “blinking red lights” that Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats said are warning us of impending peril at the hands of hostile-power cyber warriors.

As I listen to the president’s voice keep rising, and as I watch him rant and rail against his foes, my fear keeps getting reaffirmed.

The president is not living up to the sacred oath he took to protect the government and, thus, our nation, against our enemies.

business news

No photo ID needed … usually

I am 68 years of age. I look my age. I’ve got the gray in my hair to prove it.

I don’t usually have to produce photo identification when I go to the grocery store to purchase, um, some lettuce, a loaf of bread or even something to drink.

Now, if it’s an adult beverage, which I enjoy now and then, I will put the beverage in my shopping cart and roll it to the checkout stand.

Then I might — I repeat, might — ask the checker, “Do you want to see my ID” to prove I am of age to buy the adult beverage? Most of the time, they laugh and say, “No, uh, that’s all right.”

But occasionally, they play along. “Sure thing,” he or she might say. I gleefully pull out my driver’s license to show that I am, indeed, old enough to purchase the beverage. Then I boast about “being carded.”

Unlike what the president of the United States asserted Tuesday at that Florida campaign rally, that’s the only time I’ve ever had to show ID at the grocery store.

So there.

national news

U.S. attorney general: disgusting partisan hack

I’ll just get this off my chest up front: U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions is a sorry excuse for a high-level federal law enforcement official.

The AG stood this week before a crowd of conservative high school students who began chanting “Lock her up!”, referencing the idiotic e-mail controversy that centers on former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Rather than do the right thing, which would have been to silence the crowd and remind them of the “rule of law” and “due process,” the AG chuckled nervously and repeated the chant from the podium. He then said something about “hearing that chant” during the 2016 presidential campaign.

I once was willing to give Sessions the benefit of the doubt, given his decision to recuse himself from the “Russia thing” probe at the Justice Department. No longer.

Sessions had the chance to show some statesmanship, to demonstrate that he lives by the rule of law. Instead, when the students began chanting “Lock her up!” he gravitated back to his partisan roots. He once was a Republican U.S. senator from Alabama who, before he was elected to that body, was rejected by the Senate for a federal judgeship because of racially tinged statements he had made.

Now the nation’s chief law enforcement officer has seen fit to continue the idiocy associated with a failed — and quite lengthy — investigation into a controversy that’s been decided.

The AG has joined the president of the United States in disgracing his high office.

Shameful.

national news

Wanting some old-fashioned decorum from POTUS

Call me old-fashioned. Maybe even a geezer if you’re so inclined.

I get that under our system of government, “anyone” can be elected president. I thought that truism bore the ultimate fruit when we elected and re-elected an African-American to the presidency in 2008 and 2012. Barack Obama’s life story was itself a tale to behold, irrespective of his racial makeup.

Silly me. I was so wrong.

The 2016 election victory by Donald John Trump Sr. provided the most incontrovertible demonstration of that notion. If someone like Trump can win a presidential election, then, by God, anyone can win the big prize.

So, we elect a guy with zero prior public service exposure. His ignorance of government, politics, public policy has been breathtaking in its scope.

His fans applaud his missteps, his goofiness and, oh yes, his dangerous tendencies, including his seeming desire to obtain authoritarian status.

I’m a traditionalist, though, in at least one regard. While I embrace the notion that anyone can be elected president, I still want the president to be better than the average American. I want the president to conduct himself with dignity and decorum.

Trump doesn’t do that. His use of Twitter is the shiniest example that comes to mind. I read those tweets and I shudder at their inarticulateness. The misspelled words, the use of capital letters, the mangled syntax … it all just drives me nuts. I mean, the social medium recently expanded the capacity available for Twitter users. Can’t the president take some time to at least construct a message that makes sense? Or one that at least is readable?

I guess not.

He’s just content to, um, “tell it like it is.”

Meanwhile, the dignity and stature of the highest office in the land — and arguably the most important elected office in the world — continues to suffer.

national news

Looking ahead — already! — to Trump departure

Forgive me for getting ahead of myself, but I cannot help but think about how Donald J. Trump is going to leave the world stage when his time comes.

My gut tells me it won’t be pretty, no matter the terms of the president’s departure.

He’ll either leave after one term in January 2021; or he could get a second term and he’ll leave in January 2025.

Or … he’ll leave before the end of either term. If you get my drift.

The custom is that presidents hand over the keys to the White House to their successor. They get on the helicopter and fly away toward retirement. They then serve their retirement years in relative quiet, pursuing this and/or that cause.

Do you really think Trump will go out with that usual customary class and grace? I don’t. I fear he’ll keep yapping well beyond his years in the White House.

And that’s if he is able to walk away on his own terms, either after one term or — God forbid! — two terms.

If he is forced out by issues that have preoccupied many of us for most of his term to date in office, well, we will need to settle in for an indeterminate siege from the 45th president of the United States.

I’ll need to put these thoughts aside for the time being and concern myself with the issues of the day.

They concern whether the president colluded with Russians who attacked our electoral system. Hey, they’re real. They aren’t a “hoax.”

national news

POTUS won’t take the bait: Yes, Putin lied

CBS News anchor Jeff Glor sat right in front of Donald J. Trump and asked him directly this week: Did Vladimir Putin lie when he denied the Russians meddled in our 2016 election?

The president had just declared in his conversation with Glor that he believed — finally! — the U.S. intelligence assessment that Russia attacked our electoral process.

So, Glor asked the obvious question about the Russian president’s veracity. Trump wouldn’t go there. He wouldn’t call Putin a liar.

Hmm. OK, I’ll do it for him. Yes, Mr. President, Vladimir Putin lied when he denied the Russians’ culpability. Indeed, he has crafted his entire career as a KGB agent and as a politician by lying. He has turned lying into an art form.

Putin is a pro at prevarication.

Indeed, Vladimir Putin is far better at lying than — dare I say it — Donald John Trump.

national news, political news

What do you mean by ‘everybody,’ Mr. President?

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Donald J. Trump sat down with Piers Morgan and made yet another astonishing exaggeration, which compels me to disabuse him of the idiocy he put out there.

Morgan asked the president if there is any doubt he will seek re-election in 2020. Trump said he’s all in for a re-election bid.

“Everybody wants me to run” for a second term, he said.

Huh? Wha … ? Eh? Everybody wants him to run?

Count me out, Mr. President. I am not a member of the Everybody Brigade he is citing.

Not only do I want him to walk away after his term, I want him booted out before the end of his term. Although I must concede that a President Mike Pence gives me pause as well, but for reasons that deal more with public policy than with general incompetence, ignorance, arrogance and rhetorical idiocy.

OK, I get that I’m likely nitpicking what Trump said about “everybody” wanting him to run again. However, if we’re being asked to take the president at his word, then I cannot remain silent when he blathers such absolute nonsense.

national news

Will the SCOTUS announcement center on POTUS?

I believe it’s fair to wonder aloud about how Donald Trump is going to handle his planned announcement of the next person he will nominate for a spot on the U.S. Supreme Court.

I am wondering how much time the president is going to spend talking about the quality of the selection process, about how much time he spent poring over the finalists’ qualifications and about how conscientious he was in selecting the nominee?

In short, will this announcement be at least as much about the president as it is about the person he will nominate?

We’re going to find out soon. Let it be said that I don’t give a rip about the brilliance of Trump’s selection process. I do care about whether this individual is qualified and whether he or she will become a judicial activist.

national news

This is far from a ‘fine-tuned machine’

An often-quoted cliche goes something like this: Change is the only constant in this world.

If you’re a member of the Trump administration’s senior staff, you’re right in the midst of change. It’s constant. It comes in blinding bursts.

The New Yorker magazine offers a fascinating look at what Donald J. Trump once called a “fine-tuned machine.” That would be his administration and the senior staff members who comprise it.

According to The New Yorker: Turnover among the White House staff, already record-setting in Trump’s first year, has spiked recently, now that no one is really in charge. Late last month, Martha Joynt Kumar, a scholar who has tracked White House staff during the past six Presidencies, reported that the Trump White House has an astonishing turnover rate of sixty-one per cent so far among its top-level advisers. No other Administration she has tracked comes close: Trump’s two immediate predecessors were at fourteen per cent (Barack Obama) and five percent (George W. Bush) at this point in their Presidencies. Bill Clinton, the highest after Trump, was at forty-two per cent, and that number was mostly made up of advisers who were reassigned to other senior White House roles, not fired or pushed out, according to Kumar.

There’s more from The New Yorker: The Trump Cabinet has been similarly tumultuous: Pruitt’s departure, on Thursday, adds to a list that already included a fired Secretary of State, a fired Secretary of Health and Human Services, and a fired Veteran Affairs Secretary, as well as a vacancy that was created when Kelly moved from the Department of Homeland Security to replace Trump’s fired first chief of staff, Reince Priebus. All together, Trump’s Cabinet has the fastest turnover rate of any Administration in a hundred years. Tenures are so short that Kumar is now reporting on the turnover among the second and third waves of aides. And it could be that Trump has no problem with this situation, or even with the seemingly untenable situation of having a chief of staff who is regularly reported to be on his way out. 

Read the entire New Yorker article here.

Trump’s delusion has become almost legendary now that he’s been in office for the past 18 months. He keeps boasting about how well everything is going. How much he has accomplished. How he can pick from the crowds of “the best people” who are lining up to work in the West Wing.

It ain’t happening, Mr. President. So quit lying about the “fine-tuned machine” that is misfiring seemingly every hour at the White House.