Tag Archives: Donald Trump

national news

Why explain who rules the roost?

3 Comments

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

10 Comments

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!

1 Comment

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

1 Comment

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

1 Comment

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.”

national security

Trump brings chaos back to White House

2 Comments

Jeb Bush perhaps had the most apt description of Donald Trump’s candidacy back when the two men competed against each other for the 2016 Republican Party presidential nomination.

Bush, the former Florida governor, said Trump would be the “chaos president” if elected. Well, he was elected that year and by golly, he brought chaos into the Oval Office with him.

Here’s some cheery news for those who voted for him the second time around: The chaos hasn’t gone away, as there will be plenty more of it when he takes office on Jan. 20.

Spoiler alert … I was not among those who voted for Trump either time, but you knew that already. Allow me to say, “I told you as well that this would happen.” 

An attorney general nominee already has backed out amid a tidal wave of criticism over his (lack of) qualifications for the job. The defense secretary-designate is facing another storm of criticism, as is the proposed health and human services secretary, the next director of the national intelligence and the FBI director-designate.

Chaos, anyone? Anyone?

Trump keeps boasting of his intelligence. How he plans to recruit the “best people” to serve in his administration. He is recruiting nincompoops to key national security posts. I will concede that not all of his picks fall into that category, but damn!

What the hell is this guy thinking when he chooses a sworn anti-vaxxer to serve as HHS head, a guy who wants to destroy the FBI while serving as its director, an accused sexual assailant and a right-wing TV blowhard to run the Pentagon, and someone who sympathizes with an accused war criminal as DNI.

I thought we were better than to elect someone such as this guy. I guess I was mistaken.

legal news

Wray quits FBI, bring on the goons!

FBI director Christopher Wray’s resignation from his supposedly “non-political” post signals most clearly — as if we needed any more signals — what Donald Trump intends to do to the nation’s top police agency.

He intends to turn it into a cudgel with which he will beat his political foes into submission.

Wray’s resignation, which takes effect on President Biden’s last day in office, is a clear indication that Trump — who selected Wray for the FBI after he fired James Comey in 2017 — has no intention of following the law.

Comey got the boot because he wouldn’t profess blind loyalty to Trump. Wray pursued his job with the same dedication to the rule of law as other FBI leaders have done. The deal breaker for Trump was when Wray asked the former president to turn over classified documents he had taken from the White House and when Trump refused, Wray sought a court order to seize the documents at Mar-a-Lago. Again, he followed the law.

The nimrod Trump wants to take over as FBI boss, Kash Patel, has declared his intention to sic the FBI on Trump’s political foes. He has said he wants to close the Hoover FBI Building and turn it into a museum of the Deep State.

This, ladies and gentlemen, is a dark day in the transition from one administration to the next one. However, it is appearing that the next one is shaping precisely as the new president said it would.

Shame on us.

national security

How can Gabbard serve as DNI? She cannot!

How in the name of all that is holy and sacred can Donald Trump select a former Hawaii congresswoman who has zero intelligence background to be director of national intelligence?

Oh, wait! She’s a loyal Trumpkin. That’s all the next POTUS needs.

Tulsi Gabbard has zero business being considered for DNI. She was an obscure congresswoman. She was a Democrat once. Then she flipped to the Republican Party.

Events in Syria have called Gabbard’s many shortcomings into sharp focus. She once called former Syrian murderer Bashar al Assad a minor player. She met with the madman not long before he was deposed by rebels. Assad is gone from power, to the relief of millions of Syrians he terrorized during his reign.

Gabbard also is pals with Vladimir Putin, the thug/goon/tyrant in Moscow.

This is the individual Donald Trump wants to entrust our national security secrets? Give me a fu**ing break!

I am astonished way beyond belief at what Trump is seeking to do to our security apparatus. He distrusts our intelligence gatherers, which he all but admitted in that hideous 2018 presser in Helsinki.

My hope now is that Republicans in the U.S. Senate who will have to confirm this moron as DNI will come to their senses and reject her nomination out of hand.