Tag Archives: Barack Obama

Donald Trump, national news, political news

Birtherism falls along racial lines

Now that some of us have raised the “racism” issue as it concerns Donald Trump’s pointed — and quite specific — criticism of African-American political foes, I want to revisit the issue of “birtherism.”

Trump made a lot of noise years ago about whether Barack Obama was qualified to run for president. He based his questions about the lie that Obama was born in Kenya. Therefore, he couldn’t run for president because, according to the U.S. Constitution, Obama wasn’t a “natural-born” citizen of America.

Obama, of course, was born in Hawaii in 1961. He said so at the outset. He finally produced a birth certificate to prove it. That wasn’t good enough for Trump and many others.

Why did Trump and others continue to foment the lie?

Uhh, let me see. Oh, I think it’s race. Obama’s father was a Kenyan. His mother was from Kansas. Dad was black; Mom was white. Get it?

Now, for the other noted “birther” case. It involves U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, the Texas Republican who ran against Trump for the Republican Party presidential nomination in 2016.

Cruz actually was born outside the United States. He was born in Canada. His father is Cuban. His mother is an American.

Sen. Cruz was able to quell the questions with a simple — and generally accepted — interpretation of the Constitution. Since his mother is a U.S. citizen, Baby Ted became a U.S. citizen immediately upon his birth. Therefore, he qualifies as a “natural-born” citizen simply because of his mother’s citizenship.

Hey, that same logic works for the former president, too. His mother was a U.S. citizen, making him an American the moment he came into this wold. Except that wouldn’t fly in the minds of his critics … and that includes the president of the United States.

And all of that presumes he was born somewhere other than the United States! He was born in the U.S.A., but the questions continue to linger even to this day among most Americans who consider themselves to be Republicans.

Is race a factor? Hmm. I believe it is.

national news, political news

Just wondering about bipartisan endorsements

Presidents proclaim their desire for bipartisanship. Yes, I am inclined to include even Donald John Trump in that notion.

There, that all said, what might happen if former President Barack Obama — who this past week issued his first round of endorsements ahead of this year’s midterm election — had decided to throw in a token Republican?

He would have been excoriated as a political traitor, a turncoat, a panderer.

Yes, such an endorsement would have been virtually unprecedented.

The former president went with an all-Democrat slate of endorsees. That’s fine. It’s expected.

It all changes, though, when presidents take office and bemoan the lack of help from “the other party” when they seek to get legislation approved.

What we have here is a never-ending conflict between the partisan goal of electing those of your own party and the act of governing with members of both political parties.

State news

Wishing a former governor could weigh in on DACA

I am quite aware that Rick Perry’s job as energy secretary inhibits the areas on which he can comment publicly. He is limited to talking about energy policy.

You see, he also is a former Texas governor who — if memory serves — got into some hot water with hard-line conservatives within his party because of his relatively generous views about undocumented immigrants.

The Republican governor used to support the idea of allowing undocumented immigrants who grew up in Texas, who came of age here, to enroll in colleges and universities while paying in-state tuition rates. Those rates are considerably less expensive than those who live out of state and who choose to attend higher education institutions in Texas.

Thus, I wish the former governor could speak out against the notion of ending the Deferred Action on Childhood Arrivals, which is what the Trump administration — which Perry now serves as energy boss — wants to eliminate.

The Texas Attorney General’s Office is going to court next week to continue the fight on behalf of the Trump administration.

As the Texas Tribune reports: On Aug. 8, federal District Judge Andrew Hanen will hear the state’s request to have the program preliminarily halted while the issue meanders its way through the federal court system. The hearing comes nearly a year after President Donald Trump promised to end DACA in September by phasing it out over six months. But three different courts have since ruled that the administration must keep the program —which protects immigrants brought into the U.S. as children from deportation and allows them to obtain a two-year work permit — intact for now.

DACA was created by the Obama administration. It is intended to grant temporary reprieve from deportation of those who were brought to this country illegally by their parents. Many DACA recipients came here as babies; they know only life in the United States. They need not be deported, given that many of them already have established themselves as de facto citizens of this country.

Donald Trump wants to eliminate it, seemingly only because it was left over by the presidency of Barack Obama.

If only the secretary of energy, Rick Perry, who was right about his more humane view of how we treat these immigrants could be heard within the president’s inner circle.

local news, national news, political news, State news

Beto and Barack vs. Cruz and The Donald?

Barack H. Obama has issued his first round of Democratic Party endorsements in advance of the midterm election.

Democratic U.S. Senate nominee Beto O’Rourke no doubt was wanting the 44th president to endorse his candidacy against Republican U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz. He didn’t get it.

Some of my Republican-leaning social media acquaintances have reminded me that the ex-president stiffed O’Rourke. I’ll answer them here: The Obama endorsements are likely to be followed by another round prior to the election.

It’s fair to ask: Do these endorsements really matter? Does an endorsement from a president who lost Texas by double digits in 2008 and 2012 pack enough political ummpph to carry Beto O’Rourke across the finish line ahead of the Cruz Missile? That’s problematic at best.

I would pay real money, though, to attend a campaign rally featuring Barack Obama. Now that I live in Collin County, just one county north of Dallas County — which Obama won in his two presidential election bids — there is at least a remote chance he might come here to campaign for Beto.

As for the GOP side, I am wondering about whether Donald Trump will stump for Sen. Cruz. He well might harbor some reticence. Why? Cruz did say some really harsh things about his then-Republican Party primary foe — that would be Trump — back in 2016. He called Trump “amoral,” a “pathological liar” and a guy with zero decency.

Cruz has taken a different tack, naturally, since then. But that other stuff is still out there in the public domain. It provides ample grist for foes to use against Cruz. And against Trump, for that matter.

national news

Yesterday’s ‘fib’ becomes a full-blown ‘lie’

It’s hard to remember at times how the media used to treat Donald J. Trump’s penchant for prevarication.

They called his truth-twisting mere “fibs.” Or “misstatements.” Or they used similarly tepid terminology.

Then he got elected president. His telling of fiction continued.

It finally dawned on media members. The president was lying, as in knowingly disseminating false information.

I will admit to being among those who initially were reluctant to use the “L-word” in describing Trump’s unwillingness to tell the truth. I won’t say he is “unable” to speak truthfully; I believe he is fully capable of telling the truth but he merely chooses to lie.

I am not going to equate Trump’s lying to what many conservatives accused former President Obama of saying as he sought to defend the Affordable Care Act. Obama had said Americans could “choose their own doctor” under the ACA; it turned out to be untrue. Did the president lie, as in knowingly say something he knew to be false? I do not believe that’s the case; I happen to believe the president made that statement believing it to be true.

Trump’s lying comes from a different source. His lying is pathological, as former Republican Party presidential primary opponents such as U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz have described it. That doesn’t excuse him from speaking falsely.

He stands before the nation and makes false statements about:

The size of his electoral victory, the nation’s economic growth, the state of the nation when he took office, his toughness with Russia, wiretapping of his campaign office in 2016, Hillary Clinton’s popular vote margin coming from illegal immigrants voting for president … and, oh yes, Barack Obama’s place of birth.

And on it goes. The lying never stops.

The lies have piled up from the moment he entered the world of politics in June 2015, at the moment he rode down that escalator at Trump Tower.

The media were slow on the uptake at first. They have wised up, awakened and are now calling these falsehoods what they are.

They are lies. The president is a liar.

media news

Liar in Chief: the real enemy of the people

Of all the hypocritical utterances that have poured out of Donald J. Trump’s mouth since he became a politician, the one that continues to gall me in the extreme is his ongoing epithet that the media comprise “fake news” and are the “enemy of the people.”

The very idea that the president of the United States, one of the godfathers of the “birther” movement, would use the term “fake news” to reporters who are doing their job.

And for the president to describe the media as the “enemy of the people” is dangerous on its face, and not just to individual reporters, but to one of the bedrocks of our democratic system.

Trump and the New York Times’s publisher, A.G. Sulzberger, met recently to talk about the president’s ongoing bullying of the media. Trump tweeted out yet another irrational tirade against “fake news.”

My goodness. How in the world does this individual look at himself in the mirror?

He has lied continually. The birther movement was intended to question whether Barack Obama was born in the United States; he was, but that didn’t stop Trump from continuing the lie. Fake news? There you have it.

He lied about witnessing “thousands of Muslims cheering” the collapse of the Twin Towers on 9/11. Trump lied about Obama ordering the bugging of his campaign office in 2016. He lied about millions of illegal immigrants voting for Hillary Clinton, giving her the 3 million popular vote margin over Trump.

He lies and lies some more.

To think that this individual has the unmitigated gall, therefore, to accuse the media of promulgating “fake news.”

Just who, I must ask, is the real “enemy of the people”?

It’s someone in power who would promote the lies that we have heard repeatedly since he began seeking the nation’s highest office.

Donald Trump is the enemy of the people he was elected to lead.

business news, economic news, national news

Some perspective, please, on GDP numbers

Donald J. Trump is damn proud of the Gross Domestic Product report given this week, showing the economy grew at an annual rate of 4.1 percent.

Good news, yes? Sure it is! It’s even great news! But hold on, Mr. President. It ain’t “historic,” as you contend.

And, in fact, the rate of growth might not last, thanks to the trade war the president has launched with, oh, Canada, Mexico, China, the European Union … and maybe even the outer planets of our solar system.

As CBS News is reporting, the president didn’t inherit a “fixer-upper economy.” He took command of an economy in good condition. It has been on an upward spiral for, oh, the past eight years.

However, the president yet again took pains to disparage the growth rate during the Obama administration years. And, as is the norm, the criticism of President Obama’s handling of the economy was incorrect.

As CBS News noted: While Mr. Trump praised the 4.1 percent annual growth rate in the second quarter, the economy exceeded that level four times during the Obama presidency: in 2009, 2011 and twice in 2014.

The latest numbers are quite good. There’s no mistaking it. Are they sustainable? The trade war impact on various economic sectors will reveal that in due course.

In the meantime, the president and his team — who gripe about Trump Derangement Syndrome afflicting their critics — should check their own vital signs to see if they can ever shake their Obama Derangement Syndrome symptoms.

national news

Democrats ‘obstruct’ and ‘resist’? They learned from the best

Donald John Trump suffers acute short-term memory loss.

Take a quick gander at this message, which he sent out via Twitter:

The only things the Democrats do well is “Resist,” which is their campaign slogan, and “Obstruct.” Cryin’ Chuck Schumer has almost 400 great American people that are waiting “forever” to serve our Country! A total disgrace. Mitch M should not let them go home until all approved!

Sigh and double-sigh!

“Mitch M” is Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, whose picture should appear next to the dictionary definition of “obstructionist.” Why is that?

Well, he obstructed President Barack Obama’s choice for the U.S. Supreme Court seat vacated by the death of Justice Antonin Scalia. Obama nominated federal judge Merrick Garland, a supremely qualified candidate. McConnell obstructed the nomination even before the president announced it, declaring that in 2016 there would be an election first and that Obama would not be allowed to fill this seat even though he had nearly a year to go before moving aside for the next president.

Obstructionist, Mr. President? “Mitch M” is the king of obstructionists.

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

Obama, Hillary … it’s all their fault?

1 Comment

Donald John “Stable Genius” Trump Sr. fired off yet another in an infinite string of idiotic tweets.

This came out earlier today: So President Obama knew about Russia before the Election. Why didn’t he do something about it? Why didn’t he tell our campaign? Because it is all a big hoax, that’s why, and he thought Crooked Hillary was going to win!!!

A big hoax. There you have it.

Why, then, is the president making such a big deal out of special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into alleged collusion between Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign and the Russian goons who attacked our democratic process?

Because … it’s not a hoax.

It’s real. Trump knows it. His team knows it. He is diverting attention from it.

Let’s stay tuned and hang on with both hands.