Tag Archives: POTUS

national news, political news

What has become of the GOP?

What would Honest Abe, Teddy Roosevelt and Ike think of what’s become of the Republican Party? If only we could ask ’em.

Above is a tweet I posted two years ago wondering about the state of today’s GOP and how it was abducted by a form of “populism” that has no real resemblance to the movement that I had grown to understand.

Donald J. Trump got elected president on a pledge to do certain things, all of which he said at the time would be “easy.”

Build a wall along our southern border? Piece of cake.

Make Mexico pay for it? No sweat.

Negotiate the “best trade deals” in U.S. history? Done deal.

Craft a new health care program? Got it.

Cut taxes for everyone? Perfecto.

And so it went. How has he done? Not too well, by my way of looking at it.

As for the “populist” angle he pursued while running for office, the president hasn’t fulfilled that promise either. He continues to hobnob at his extravagant resorts. I haven’t seen him visiting housing projects, or tour squalid neighborhoods in Appalachia.

Indeed, Housing Secretary Ben Carson recently announced a desire to triple the rent paid by low-income residents of government housing. Dr. Carson then said his idea would “incentivize” residents to improve their lot in life and get them out of housing projects.

Man, that’s just so damn populist of him. Don’t you think?

Back to my Twitter message of two years ago. What, precisely, does the Republican Party stand for these days? Does it go along merely with what the president desires, even though this president had no history of political activism — let alone political experience of any kind — before he ran for the highest office in the land?

The party of Abe, TR and Ike is now the party of Trump.

President Lincoln stood for unifying the nation; President Theodore Roosevelt was an environmental champion; President Eisenhower sought to return the nation to a peace footing after so many years of open warfare in Europe, the Pacific and in Korea.

What does Trump believe? He touts his hatred of the media, he stiffs the opposing party at every turn, he is ravaged by an endless series of controversies — and a scandal or three — and he promises to “make America great again” by bullying our allies.

I’ll give him props for one potentially huge achievement, if he can pull it off: getting North Korea to back off its nuclear program.

However, a success there doesn’t erase the rest of the nastiness that has pervaded this man’s presidency.

Abe, TR and Ike are spinning in their graves.

national news

How do we keep the lies straight?

My head is continuing to spin on a swivel as I watch and listen to the explanations, excuses and walking back of statements regarding Donald Trump, Michael Cohen, Rudy Guiliani and Stormy Daniels.

Here is what is most confusing to me: Does a lawyer who works for his or her client do anything “on the client’s behalf” without telling the client?

I refer to that hush money payment that the lawyer, Michael Cohen, made to Stormy Daniels, the porn star who alleges having a one-night tryst with Donald Trump (Cohen’s client). Trump says he didn’t have sex with Daniels … but Cohen made the payment anyway.

Enter the former New York mayor, Giuliani, who now serves on the president’s legal team.

Trump has denied any knowledge of Cohen’s payment to Daniels to keep her quiet about the (alleged) tumble she took with Trump. Then the ex-mayor says Trump knew about it after all. Giuliani adds that Cohen made the payment without telling Trump precisely why he made it.

Huh? Do I have that essentially correct?

A lawyer worth a damn — and it’s not clear to me that Cohen fits that description — doesn’t shell out a six-figure payment to someone on the client’s behalf without telling him in the moment, if not beforehand. Isn’t that what good lawyers do?

I’m not a lawyer. That’s patently obvious. Another lawyer, though, is certainly paying careful attention to all of this. He’s a good one, too. That would be special counsel Robert Mueller, who has hired a legal team that is poring over all of the bobbing, weaving, dodging and ducking.

Stay alert, Mr. Special Counsel.

International news

‘Very honorable’? Kim Jong Un? Huh?

Donald J. Trump is buttering up the guy he used to ridicule as Little Rocket Man.

The president of the United States calls the North Korean dictator, Kim Jong Un, “very honorable” and “very open” in advance of the planned summit between the two leaders set for sometime in May or June.

I wasn’t keen on the Little Rocket Man epithet, given that it sounded unseemly for the president of the United States to use such language to describe another sovereign nation’s leader.

However, I must take issue with Trump’s latest assessment of Kim Jong Un.

A dictator and despot who allows his people to starve while he pours untold amounts of money into building a military infrastructure isn’t “honorable.” A guy who has members of his own family murdered is the farthest thing from “honorable.” A leader who threatens nuclear holocaust against his neighbors and then fires missiles over their heads to intimidate them isn’t “honorable” by any stretch of the imagination.

I get that the president is talking about Kim Jong Un’s conduct in the run-up to the planned summit.

Let’s cool the talk about honor as it regards this guy. He is still a dangerous actor performing on a perilous world stage.

International news

Future POTUS asked about hookers? Seriously?

Is this what we have produced? Rumors about a future president of the United States asking about Russian prostitutes and disputes over whether someone threatened a porn star if she blabbed about her tryst with the future president?

Holy cow, dudes! What is going on here?

I do not know how to react to any of this. Nor do I know how precisely to process. I am left to just vent on this blog about the lowlife quality of the discussion revolving a man who would aspire to become head of state of the world’s most indispensable nation.

I’ve been watching presidential politics for some time. Sure, we had rumors about infidelity regarding former presidents; long after one of them was dead we learned that, yes, he did cheat on his wife while living in the White House.

This stuff about the current president, though, goes beyond all of that. Donald J. Trump is being swallowed whole — quite possibly — by reports that his personal lawyer may “flip” and turn against him. Trump might fire the special counsel that is looking into all of this and more; or he might fire the deputy U.S. attorney general who appointed the special counsel; or he might fire both of them.

Then we’re hearing about possible presidential pardons.

What is the common denominator? Sex, man! Sex with a porn queen and with a former Playboy Bunny/centerfold model! And maybe sex with Russian hookers who Russian strongman Vladimir Putin describes as the “most beautiful in the world”?

I feel like throwing up.

national news

Does ‘innocence’ require ‘flip’ preparation?

This is confusing to me.

Donald J. Trump keeps denying he had a tryst with Stormy Daniels, the porn queen. The president’s personal lawyer and so-called “fixer,” Michael Cohen, has acknowledged paying Daniels $130,000 in hush money to keep quiet about the tumble she took with Trump in 2006.

But …

Now we get word that the Trump legal team — or what’s left of it — is preparing to respond if Cohen “flips” and cooperates with special counsel Robert Mueller who might be looking at whether there are some other issues to examine relating to the alleged dozen-year-old sexual encounter.

Does someone who didn’t do what has been alleged have reason to “prepare” for someone to cooperate with investigators?

I keep wondering what the “flip prep” entails and whether the Trump team is going to challenge Cohen’s credibility, call him a liar, impugn his integrity, you know … do the kind of thing Trump has done with others who have accused him doing something improper.

I can’t stop believing that Trump and Cohen have something for which to prepare — and it’s not good for either of them.

national news

Obama is relaxed; many of us wish he could return

Barack H. Obama seems to have found his second wind as a private citizen. Same with Michelle Obama.

The two of them hardly ever are photographed without big smiles on their faces. The former president is enjoying his time away from the spotlight, as is the former first lady.

Oh, this fills many of us with wistful thoughts. If only we could get him back. That can’t happen. The U.S. Constitution limits presidents to two elected terms. Barack Obama did his time. Now he’s out among some of us.

Sure, he’s making a ton of scratch making speeches. He is kicking a lot of his post-presidential income back to community projects near and dear to his heart. He is following the course set by many of his predecessors.

George W. Bush has taken up painting, has biked with wounded veterans (including in Palo Duro Canyon) and has opened his presidential library in Dallas; Bill Clinton is hard at work on his Clinton Global Initiative Foundation, also making speeches and getting mixed up in politics from time to time; Jimmy Carter builds houses for Habitat for Humanity and teaches Sunday school in Plains, Ga.; George H.W. Bush is in poor health, but he, too, enjoys retired life.

I suppose it would tempting for Obama to fire back at his successor, Donald Trump, who seems to need a foil; he relishes the notion of dismantling many of his immediate predecessor’s successes and he does so while firing off broadsides via stump speeches and tweets.

Therein lies one of the many differences between Obama and Trump. The current president simply cannot stand being criticized; the former president might not like it, but he maintains his silence … mostly.

As much as I would like to have Barack Obama back in command of the situation, I know — and appreciate — his sense of freedom from the rigors of serving in the nation’s highest public office.

I wish him well. I also hope he doesn’t disappear. Many of his countrymen and women still enjoy listening to his soaring rhetoric far more than the trash talk that pours forth from the guy who succeeded him.

media news

Try to push another cause, Mrs. Trump

I’ve already spoken admirably of first lady Melania Trump’s call to end cyber bullying, even though I recognize — along with millions of others — that she needs to reel in her husband.

I hate suggesting this, but I now fear that the first lady’s effort — noble as it is — has become a lost cause.

She cannot speak on the issue anywhere in this country without being ridiculed by those who insist that Donald Trump’s use of Twitter is a form of cyber bullying. And it certainly qualifies as such!

Mrs. Trump made a mistake when she declared that to be her No. 1 priority for as long as she serves as first lady. She cannot control her husband. Hell, no one can control him!

The president continues to rail via Twitter against foes in this country. He chides his opponents and critics, often with intemperate language that doesn’t measure up to the high standards he should be setting as our head of state and government.

Trump made what sounded like a serious pledge when he said he wouldn’t tweet once he became president. It turned out to be yet another sham, another flim-flam … another outright lie!

And I fear that his lying has undercut his wife’s noble quest to protect our young people against cyber bullying that too often crosses the line of decency. Too many of them have harmed themselves grievously after they have been insulted and bullied via social media.

My request of the first lady: Give up that particular fight and turn to something else.

media news, national news

Donald Trump: Coward in Chief

You might not believe this, but it pains me to suggest the following.

The president of the United States is a coward. He is afraid to confront people who displease him. Thus, he relies on long-distance communications techniques to tell them, “You’re fired!”

I’m sure you remember now Donald J. Trump made “You’re fired” a phrase that took off throughout popular culture. He even developed that snake-like strike gesture with his hand in telling those on “Celebrity Apprentice” that they didn’t make the grade.

How does the man who now has become president handle these duties? He does it through other means.

He fired off a tweet announcing the firing of FBI Director James Comey while Comey was in California preparing to speak to law enforcement officials; he fired off another tweet to give Secretary of State Rex Tillerson the boot; he used the same medium to inform White House chief of staff Reince Priebus that he was out; most recently, he did the same thing while firing national security adviser H.R. McMaster and Veterans Affairs Secretary David Shulkin.

What kind of CEO — which the president is — does such a thing?

I’ve always thought the boss summoned someone to his or her office, read the underling the riot act and then dismissed them summarily to their face. That would be a boss who’s worth a damn, someone who has the courage of his or convictions to speak candidly to someone who doesn’t do what the boss expects.

Trump doesn’t seem to operate this way. Now we’re hearing disputes over whether Shulkin resigned or was fired as VA secretary. Shulkin says he was canned; the White House contends he was resigned.

Of course, some politicians are weighing in. U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson, a Wisconsin Republican, told “Meet the Press” that “It’s not the way I’d do it,” referring to the manner that Trump used to dismiss Shulkin.

I guess Sen. Johnson believes Shulkin’s account of his departure from the VA.

Johnson, moreover, believes Trump’s childish and callous termination methods will affect recruitment of future administration officials. “I think the president does need to understand the effect it has on attracting other people,” Johnson said.

Gee! Do ya think?

Trump will continue to delude himself into thinking he’s running a tight ship, that he’s got everything — and everyone — under control.

He is wrong! He also is a coward!

national news

Oh, the irony of this proclamation

Donald J. Trump’s proclamation utterly drips with irony.  It is soaked in it.

The president has declared April to be National Sexual Assault and Awareness Month. I am left to declare: Wow! Double and triple wow!

The man who has admitted to groping women now has put his name on a campaign to call attention to it. He has invited a month-long campaign of snickers mixed with outrage from women — and men — on whom the irony isn’t lost at all.

“Sexual assault crimes remain tragically common in our society,” the president’s proclamation read. “And offenders too often evade accountability.”

Think of the latter part of that previous quotation. “Offenders too often evade accountability.” Gosh, does the president have anyone in mind? I do. So do millions of others.

While assorted public figures — from Hollywood moguls and actors to prominent politicians — have seen their careers vaporized by scandal, one man retains his position as the most powerful individual on Earth. That would be, um, Donald John Trump.

Women have accused him of varying degrees of sexual misbehavior. Some have filed lawsuits. He denies the allegations. Strangely, the women who come from different chapters in Trump’s pre-presidential life, all tell essentially the same story. They have the ring of credibility, despite Trump’s assertion that they’re all liars — which is hilarious given the president’s penchant for prevarication.

Trump has zero moral authority to declare anything close to what he has declared for the upcoming month. He did anyway.

The man has no shortage of hubris.

national news

‘She’s not my type’

Blogger’s Note: On the advice of a family member, I am going to resume using the name of the porn star who allegedly had sex with Donald J. Trump.

The president of the United States has delivered one of the more curious “denials” of a tryst with a porn star that I’ve ever heard.

“She’s not my type,” Donald J. Trump said of Stormy Daniels, the woman who said on “60 Minutes” this past Sunday that she and the future president had a one-night stand in a hotel room back in 2006.

Is that curious, or what? How does the president get away with saying something like that?

It reminds me of the time another woman said during the 2016 presidential campaign that candidate Donald Trump had groped her. The Republican nominee made some snarky comment that her physical appearance didn’t meet his high standards for the type of women he would choose to grope. “Look at her,” he said.

Now this?

For what it’s worth, I found Daniels’s interview with Anderson Cooper to be highly believable. All of it, man! Even the part about someone approaching her in a parking lot and threatening her with bodily harm if she sold her story to a publication.

That so-called “denial” simply blows my mind.

I guess it prompts the question: “Uh, Mr. President, what type of woman would be your type?”