Tag Archives: POTUS

national news

Connecting some dots inside the White House

I feel like connecting a few dots. So … here goes.

The 2016 Republican Party presidential nominee was revealed in a decade-old recording boasting about how he could grab women by their “pu***” because his status as a “star” gave him license.

The nominee, Donald John Trump, was elected president.

He declares war on media outlets that he finds disagreeable. He calls them “fake news” and then submits to interviews almost exclusively with Fox News, which was run by the late Roger Ailes.

Ailes, meanwhile, gets hit with complaints of sexual harassment by a number of high-profile female journalists; Megyn Kelly and Gretchen Carlson are two of them.

Ailes gets the boot. But his No. 2 man, Bill Shine, stands with him and allegedly covers up for the boss.

Then, just this week, Shine — who left Fox News — has been named deputy White House chief of staff in charge of communications.

So, we have the president — who has a history of sexual harassment complaints leveled against him by many women — hires a guy with a sexual harassment history of his own. The White House underling is now director of communications for the administration.

It’s fair to wonder about Trump’s values. He never rails against accusations of sexual harassment. He defends those against whom these complaints are leveled; he called former Fox News commentator Bill O’Reilly — who also faced such accusations — a “good man.”

Trump reportedly takes a dim view of the “Me Too” and “Time’s Up” movements, believing that the women who make accusations against powerful men are off base.

Oh, and then his former personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, paid Stormy Daniels $130,000 in hush money to keep quiet about a tryst that Trump says never happened.

What do you suppose is the common denominator here? Let’s see. I think it’s boorish behavior toward women, which appears to have Donald Trump’s fingerprints all over it.

national news

Give pols and their families some space

I have noted many times in this blog that presidents of the United States are “never off the clock.” They become presidents, meaning they have the awesome power of the office at their fingertips even when they’re not sitting in the Oval Office or in the Situation Room.

That said, presidents deserve some time to spend with their families. That courtesy most certainly extends to their staff. To their Cabinet officers. To other politicians. To those who make or administer public policy.

The issue has risen to the level of public discourse in recent days. I maintain that as much as I might criticize a politician’s public policy decisions, I find it offensive to accost them while they are spending time with their family or other loved ones.

national news

Chaos continues to call the cadence at White House

I am struck by the pace of the chaos that continues to roil the White House.

More to the point, I am struck by how the president of the United States manages to awaken each morning seemingly believing that the day is going to produce more chaos, confusion and controversy.

How in the world does he live like that? How does he work that way? How does he govern in such a manner?

Donald Trump certainly gave us fair warning after he was elected in 2016. He told us he would be “unconventional.” He promised that he wouldn’t do things the way any of his presidential predecessors had done them.

Oh, man. He was right! He has delivered on that pledge — bigly!

The question remains: How in the name of good governance does the president continue to function in that manner?

I do not get it. At all!

International news

Irony just doesn’t disappear

I cannot get past the irony of the U.S. attorney general citing Scripture as a justification for a policy that came from the Donald J. Trump administration.

It is fair to presume that AG Jeff Sessions was speaking on behalf of the president when he cited Romans 13 — a New Testament passage — to justify a policy that allows border security agents to take children from their parents who enter the United States of America illegally.

When Sessions told us how the Apostle Paul instructed his listeners to follow the government’s law, I was struck by this thought immediately: Has there been any U.S. president in the past century who is less familiar with biblical teachings that Donald Trump?

Thus, if Sessions was speaking on Trump’s behalf, are we then to believe that the president (a) endorsed what the AG said or (b) even knows what Paul wrote in his letter to the Romans.

I should note, too, that Romans 13 also has been used to justify human bondage, such as slavery. Given the president’s seeming tolerance of white supremacists (such as what he displayed in 2017 in the wake of the Charlottesville, Va., riot) then maybe it’s not such a stretch after all.

I was offended in the extreme to hear Sessions cite New Testament  Scripture to defend the policy that has resulted in roughly 2,000 children being separated from their parents while enforcing this so-called “no tolerance” immigration policy.

It is inhumane, cruel and about as non-Christian as it gets. What in the name of all that is holy and sacred would Jesus Christ himself think of this policy? None of us was around when Jesus walked the Earth, but those of us who know anything about the Bible might conclude he would be aghast at such a policy.

For the attorney general, speaking on behalf of arguably the most amoral president in U.S. history, to use the holy word to justify an inhumane public policy is shameful on its face.

national news, political news

Trump is violating his oath of office

Donald J. Trump took an oath to protect and defend the U.S. Constitution and to protect our system of government from those who would seek to pervert it.

The Russians sought to pervert that government and our electoral process. The FBI got wind of it in real time during the 2016 presidential election and sought to use a confidential informant to get to the bottom of it.

Donald Trump’s response? He now accuses the FBI of “spying” on his campaign. He has lashed out at the FBI for doing its job, for seeking to do the very thing Trump’s oath called on him to do — which is to protect us against foreign interference.

The president has tossed that oath aside. He doesn’t give a damn about it! He doesn’t care that the Russians interfered in 2016 and are likely doing so in 2018; they well might try again in 2020.

Trump’s assertions and allegations against the FBI are virtually unprecedented in presidential history. Imagine for just a moment any president making up conspiracies. How should we react to the notion that our head of state is so dismissive of the FBI that he would put a confidential informant in jeopardy by referring to him as a “spy” empowered by the FBI to do political damage to his campaign?

The president is violating his oath. He is putting this country in the path of potentially grave peril.

Trump is proving a point I have sought to make since he announced his presidential campaign: He is categorically unfit for the office to which he was elected.

media news

Call a halt to media war, Mr. POTUS

It’s getting tiresome.

With actual foes and enemies of this country looking to do us harm, our head of state is concentrating his fire on the media. Russians have attacked our electoral system; North Koreans want to build nuclear bombs; Syrians are getting gassed by their government.

Donald Trump is fixated over reporting on his presidential administration.

He calls any negative press coverage “fake news.”

What’s more, it’s been revealed that he told CBS News’s Leslie Stahl that he continues the anti-media barrage to sow distrust among the public. If the media report negatively on the administration, Trump told Stahl, the public won’t believe them.

See? It’s part of the Trump strategy!

Those of us who toiled in the media are sickened by it. They are ashamed of the president who is assailing men and women who pledge to report the truth and do that very thing to the best of their ability.

Previous presidents of both parties have endured their share of media negativity. Do they declare war against the media? Do they accuse the media of being the “enemy of the American people”? Do they insist that “most” members of the media are “dishonest people”?

No. They recognize the media has a role to play, which is to hold public officials accountable.

Trump doesn’t get it. He doesn’t understand the media’s role in protecting this country.

He lies. He embellishes. He condemns the media. Constantly!

Frightening.

media news

Twitter overuse brings this kind of embarrassment

Donald Trump’s incessant use, overuse — and some of us have suggested misuse — of Twitter as a vehicle for his public statements produces moments such as what happened today.

The president sought to tweet a statement welcoming his wife home from the hospital after she underwent kidney surgery.

Except that he misspelled her name, referring to the first lady as “Melanie,” not Melania.

As a former Texas governor once said so (in)famously: Oops.

The president — or someone on his staff — deleted the mistake. Trump then issued the proper welcome with the proper spelling of the first lady’s name.

I have stopped criticizing Trump’s use of Twitter to make policy pronouncements, although his use of the social medium to fire Cabinet officials and others in his administration is troublesome, to say the very least.

I don’t even know if Trump himself is actually tweeting these messages or if it is being done by some intern. Whoever it is, Americans deserve at the very least to have their head of state, head of government and commander in chief being able to spell the name of his wife.

Arrgghhh!

International news

Wishing success for the country … as always

I have been grappling with conflicting emotions ever since, oh, Jan. 20, 2017 — the day Donald John Trump took office as president of the United States.

You know, without a shadow of a doubt, about my feelings of him as president. He is unfit for the office at almost every level imaginable, in my view at least. However, he was elected to the office under the rules provided by the U.S. Constitution. I don’t quibble with that. Not for a moment.

Do I wish him success? Well, yes. But only grudgingly.

The better question might be: Do I wish the nation success? Yes. Without any malice at all.

Where is the disconnect? It probably rests in Trump’s penchant for gracelessness when the moments demand grace and class.

When good economic news presents itself, the president is prone to boast out loud, taking all the credit for himself and never giving credit to anyone else, such as — oh, let me think — his predecessor for leaving the nation in much better economic health than he found it eight years earlier.

Trump stands on the cusp of achieving possibly a monumental breakthrough with an enemy of the United States. He’ll meet next month in Singapore with North Korean despot Kim Jong Un. It will be the first face-to-face meeting between U.S. and North Korean heads of state.

Do I wish, hope and pray for a positive outcome? Do I hope that Kim agrees to de-nuke the Korean Peninsula? Do I want the nations to forge a “normal diplomatic relationship”? Of course I do. I want the nation to succeed.

Trump, though, is likely — as he has demonstrated so many times in the past — to piddle all over the good feelings that should come from a successful U.S.-North Korea summit. How will he handle it? Will he boast that none of this would have been possible with anyone other than him at the helm?

I remain adamantly opposed the idea of Donald Trump serving as president of my country. That opposition is unlikely to dissipate any time soon — if ever!

However, I always want the nation to prosper, to succeed, to continue its march along its path of greatness.

Yes, even with Donald John Trump as president.

national news, political news

Is this guy the new Donald Trump?

I have no idea what West Virginia Republicans are going to do today when they have their primary election to nominate someone to run for the U.S. Senate.

The word out of that state is that Don Blankenship, the former coal mine owner who served jail time in connection with a mine tragedy that killed 29 of his employees, might win the primary. Whoever wins would face Democratic U.S. Sen. Joe Manchin this fall.

By all rights, Blankenship shouldn’t even be in the hunt. He should be a fourth- or fifth-tier candidate. He’s going after the Taiwan-born wife of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, accusing McConnell of relying on money from Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao’s “China family.”

The guy is a rube, pure and simple.

Oh, but let’s not count this clown out. Why not? I have two words for you to ponder: Donald Trump.

Trump got elected president of the United States in 2016 after defeating a large and eminently qualified field of GOP candidates. Trump’s qualifications for the presidency? He told it “like it is.” He entered the presidential race with absolutely zero public service experience, or any demonstrated commitment to it.

He blanketed his foes with insults and innuendo. He mocked some of them for their looks.

Republicans then nominated this guy to run for the presidency … against a former secretary of state, a former U.S. senator and a former first lady, Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Trump continued his insults. He led campaign chants of “Lock her up!” over a matter where there were no criminal charges brought.

Then he won the presidency.

This just goes to show that “anybody can be elected president.”

If that’s true for Donald Trump, who would dare say that Don Blankenship cannot follow the lead of the carnival barker who is serving as our head of state?

national news

Looking for a redeeming quality in POTUS

Matthew Dowd wondered today why none of Donald Trump’s defenders is defending his integrity, his honesty, his character.

The Republican political operative posed a fascinating question. It got me thinking a bit. I came up with this: I cannot find — and, yes, I am a harsh critic of this president — a single redeeming quality that is worthy of defense.

I am a devoted fan of Barack Obama and Bill Clinton — even though I was disgusted by President Clinton’s conduct with the intern during his second term. I didn’t support George W. Bush’s presidency, but having had the honor of talking at length with him when he was governor of Texas, I found him to be engaging, devoted to his family and far smarter than many media snobs gave him credit for being.

I have said for many years that W’s father, George H.W. Bush, was the most qualified man ever to seek the presidency: World War II combat vet, successful businessman, CIA director, U.N. ambassador, special envoy to China, Republican Party chairman, vice president of the United States. And, yes, he is devoted to his marvelous family.

Ronald Reagan and Gerald Ford both were decent men who became president after difficult tenures of their predecessors. President Ford might be the most underrated man ever to hold the office. I admired him greatly for the civility and decency he brought to the White House after the turmoil and tempest of the Watergate scandal. President Reagan could skewer his foes with the best of them, but he did so with wit and grace.

President Jimmy Carter was without question the godliest man who has served in the office during my lifetime.

This brings me back to Donald Trump. A serial adulterer. A man who lies on all matters, big and small. He treats women harshly. He insults his foes and has ridiculed a journalist with a serious physical handicap. He has hurled epithets at a Gold Star family. He has denigrated the Vietnam War service of a distinguished U.S. senator, while dismissing the fact that he sought to avoid service in that bloody conflict.

Do I disagree with every policy pronouncement Trump has made? No. I support his call for tougher border security. I applaud his get-tough approach to Syria. I wish him well as he prepares for a potentially landmark summit meeting with North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un.

However, I cannot find a redeeming personal quality about the president worth defending.

Part of me wishes I could find one. Just one!  I’ll keep looking, searching and hoping something surfaces.