Tag Archives: John McCain

Donald Trump

Trump: the gift that keeps on giving

I am shaking my head to the point that I am getting a headache.

Donald Trump cannot let go of his dislike of a deceased U.S. senator/war hero/statesman.

Today at a rally in Lima, Ohio, the president had the stones to say that he never got a “thank you” for what he did to ensure that the late John McCain got the sendoff he deserved after he died of brain cancer in August 2018.

My ever-lovin’ word. What in the world has happened to this guy, the president of the United States?

Probably nothing. We are witnessing the narcissist in chief in full regalia.

He said it didn’t matter to him that the McCain family never thanked him. Really? Then why did he mention it at all? Because, I am certain, it does matter.

Sen. McCain’s daughter, TV personality Meghan, said today that her dad would be laughing uncontrollably at the president’s fixation with him seven months after his death. She urged the nation to not feel sorry for her or her family, but instead to feel sorry for the president’s family . . . as they are having to put up with this individual’s nonsense.

It is utterly pointless to urge the president to pipe down with his denigration of Sen. McCain. He won’t. Trump is incapable of exhibiting any semblance of basic decency. He is an indecent individual who holds the highest office in the land and arguably the most exalted public office on Earth.

It have to ask: How much more can this nation of ours take?

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Mitt weighs in on Trump’s McCain derangement syndrome

“I can’t understand why the president would, once again, disparage a man as exemplary as my friend John McCain: Heroic, courageous, patriotic, honorable, self-effacing, empathetic, and driven by duty to family, country and God.”

So wrote Utah’s junior U.S. senator, Mitt Romney, about Donald Trump’s obvious fixation with the late senator from Arizona.

Honestly, Sen. Romney, few of us out here can grasp what in the name of human decency has infected Trump.

I didn’t vote for Sen. McCain when he ran for president in 2008. That does not diminish my respect for the exemplary and heroic service he delivered to this nation in war and later in political service.

Indeed, for the president to say what he has said in these months since McCain died of brain cancer speaks so graphically about that individual’s absence of character.

I’m with you, Sen. Romney.

I hasten to add that you were right in 2016 when you called Trump a “phony” and a “fraud.” He demonstrates both qualities damn near every day.

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‘I was never a fan’ of John McCain

Oh, Mr. President. Can’t you just end this bashing John McCain idiocy?

A reporter asks you to comment on your repeated attacks on the late Arizona senator and you have to say you’ve “never been a fan” of your fellow Republican and that you “never will” be a fan.

And of course it only escalates the feud you’re having with the senator’s family, notably his daughter, Meghan, who continues to pile-drive you with comments about how you cannot measure up as a man to her beloved father.

Mr. President, you can stop this right now. When reporters ask you to comment, just ignore ’em. Or, you can say something like this:

“I am no longer going to comment on Sen. John McCain. I have said all I intend to say. You know how I feel. I am done commenting. I now intend to move on. I am going to make America great again.”

OK, the last part is a joke. But you get my drift, Mr. President.

You started this feud in 2015 with that ghastly denigration of Sen. McCain’s heroic service during the Vietnam War when he was taken captive and tortured for more than five years. That you — who avoided military service during that time — would stoop to such hideous criticism is repulsive in the extreme.

Enough is enough, Mr. President.

We all get that you’re mad that Sen. McCain voted “no” on repealing the Affordable Care Act. We get that his insistence that you stay away from his funeral chaps your hide. We also get that you’re doubly incensed that he asked Presidents Obama and Bush to eulogize him.

I, for one, have heard enough from you regarding Sen. McCain.

His daughter is right. You cannot measure up to the man he was. He stood at the gates of hell and survived to serve the country he loved while you served yourself and your quest for more personal enrichment.

Just end this idiocy.

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Trump keeps blurring the line of decency

I cannot let Donald Trump’s incessant, relentless and utterly classless attacks on a genuine American hero pass without comment.

The president launched the Mother of Twitter Tirades over the weekend. One of Trump’s targets, not surprisingly, was the late U.S. Sen. John McCain, the war hero who got under the president’s skin because of his fearless resistance to the president’s policies and pronouncements.

McCain died in August 2018 of brain cancer. He voted dramatically against a plan to repeal the Affordable Care Act. He also has challenged Trump’s style of confrontational governance and sought to restore a semblance of what he called “regular order” to the U.S. Senate.

Trump continues to attack the late senator. Why he persists is absolutely beyond me.

His latest attack against McCain challenged the senator’s release of information related to the “dossier” related to allegations that Trump’s campaign colluded with Russians who attacked our electoral system. Trump lied about the timing of when McCain leaked the dossier information to the FBI, saying he did so to harm Trump’s presidential campaign; the leak came after the November 2016 election.

Trump infamously declared in 2015 that McCain is “not a war hero. He’s a hero only because he was captured. I like people who aren’t captured. OK?” McCain served the nation heroically by any measure possible during the Vietnam War. He was shot down over Hanoi, taken captive and held for more than five yeas as a prisoner of war.

For the president of the United States — the commander in chief — to denigrate a war hero after avoiding military service during that war because of the questionable existence of bone spurs wreaks of indecency of the lowest order.

The McCain-Trump relationship went downhill from that moment.

And now that the senator has succumbed, the president continues to attack him. He continues his assault on the memory of a fellow Republican who contributed more in service to this country than the president ever will contribute. Ever!

Quite obviously none of us is privy to the president’s personal thoughts. We instead get to read his public pronouncements that, I’ll presume, put many of his private thoughts on the public record.

Donald Trump has shown us time and again what many of us already believe . . . that he disgraces this country.

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Uh, Mr. President, Sen. McCain cannot respond

Mr. President, you need to give it a rest. Give it up. Stop invoking the memory of a generally respected — if not beloved — U.S. senator.

I refer to the late John McCain, whom you have decided to criticize posthumously yet again.

I get that Sen. McCain cast a critical vote against repealing the Affordable Care Act. It still sticks in your craw. Good grief, man! Get over it!

Now you’ve decided to take on the late senator over his role in the release of that “dossier” involving Russian interference in our election.

Look, it was bad enough that you said Sen. McCain was a Vietnam War hero “only because he was captured.” And that you “like people who aren’t captured. OK?” That was an unforgivable denigration of an actual war hero who fought in a conflict that you managed to avoid — or evade — because of those dubious “bone spurs.”

Sen. McCain died this past summer after spending a lifetime serving the country he loved. Why do you insist on continuing this campaign against his memory? That you would disparage this career public servant who thrust himself into harm’s way in wartime is abhorrent on its face

The senator’s daughter — TV personality Meghan McCain — is right to respond to your ridiculous criticism by saying the country “never will love” you the way it does her father.

I know I might as well beseech the chair I’m sitting on at the moment for all the good it will do to implore you to exercise some common decency.

But I’ll try nevertheless.

Knock off the hideous criticism of someone who is unable to respond to your juvenile petulance.

International news

Far-right pundit goes after the ‘ghost’ of a statesman

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I’ll just get this off my chest from the get-go: Michelle Malkin makes me sick.

The Fox News contributor and far-right columnist took it upon herself at a conference of fellow far-righties to attack the late U.S. Sen. John McCain, who she called a “grifter.” She said McCain, who died in August of brain cancer, didn’t do enough to secure our borders against illegal immigrants.

She was speaking at the Conservative Political Action Conference, which has become a haven in recent years for far-right activists to vent their frustration not just at the rest of the country, but also at members of the Republican Party who don’t see the world through the same prism as they do.

Malkin said this to the CPAC crowd: “And yes, I’m looking at you, the ghost of John McCain. It’s the GOP sellouts, not just the radical open-borders left that is in bed with the immigration saboteurs. Those are the real grifters.”

Sen. McCain’s wife, Cindy (pictured above), fired back at Malkin via Twitter, saying that “You never knew @SenJohnMcCain. You should be so lucky.”

Indeed, Malkin and others of her stripe are making a lot of hay against those who favor increased border security but see no need to spend billions of dollars while seizing Americans’ private property to erect a structure along our southern border. And to what end? Illegal border crossings have plummeted in recent years, negating the phony notion of a “national emergency” existing along our border.

As for attacking Sen. McCain, Malkin and others of her ilk continue to act as shameless demagogues. Malkin’s “grifter” crack got her a standing ovation from the CPAC crowd. It didn’t do anything to advance the only solution worth discussing: comprehensive immigration reform.

Donald Trump, national news

Still waiting for that ‘presidential’ moment

A critic or two of my blog has noted that I continue to resist referring to Donald Trump by placing the term “President” in front of his name. They don’t like it, calling me disrespectful of the man who was duly elected to the nation’s highest office.

So help me, as the Good Lord is my witness, I am waiting for that moment — or perhaps a sequence of moments — when I can feel as if the president of the United States has earned that honor from yours truly.

It hasn’t arrived. I don’t know if it will. I want it to arrive. I feel like the guy waiting for the bus or the train that’s overdue. I keep craning my neck, standing on my tiptoes, looking for all I can for some sign that the vehicle is on its way.

The same is true with Donald Trump.

As a presidential candidate, the man disgraced himself and the office he sought with behavior that is utterly beyond repugnant. The denigration of the late Sen. John McCain’s heroic service to the nation as a prisoner during the Vietnam War; the mocking of New York Times reporter Serge Kovaleski’s serious neuro-muscular disability; the insults he hurled at his Republican primary foes; the hideous implication, for example, that Sen. Ted Cruz’s father was complicit in President Kennedy’s murder.

Also, we had that years-long lie that Trump fomented about President Obama’s eligibility to run for and to serve as president of the United States; Trump was one of the founders of the so-called “Birther Movement.”

He brought all that, and more, into the White House when he won the 2016 election.

Since taking office, he has acted like the carnival barker he became as a candidate. His incessant Twitter messaging, the manner in which he has fired Cabinet officials and assorted high-level federal officers have contributed to the idiocy that he promotes.

There have been moments of lucidity from this president. He pitched a much-needed effort on federal sentencing reform; he struck at Syria when it gassed its citizens.

The rest of it has been not worthy of the office this individual occupies.

I want to be able to string the words “President” and “Trump” together consecutively.  I cannot do it.

Maybe one day. Something tells me I shouldn’t hold my breath.

Donald Trump, national news

The daughter’s voice keeps Dad in the game

John McCain is no longer among us, but his voice lives on.

You see, he produced a daughter who has become quite vigilant in protecting the late senator’s legacy. Moreover, she has become a vehement critic of the man who once had the indecency to denigrate Sen. McCain’s valiant and heroic service during the Vietnam War.

Meghan McCain clearly is her father’s daughter. She most recently said she wished that Donald Trump’s daughter Ivanka and her husband, Jared Kushner, had not attended the memorial service where Meghan McCain eulogized her father.

Meghan McCain speaks to Stephen Colbert

It was candidate Donald Trump who once said infamously that Sen. McCain was a “war hero only because he was captured. I like people that aren’t captured. OK?” That profoundly callous utterance drew much-deserved condemnation from many millions of Americans; I was one of them.

McCain was a Navy aviator who was shot down over Hanoi in 1967 during the Vietnam War. He was held captive for more than five years. He rejected an offer for an early release and for that he suffered more torture from his captors.

Meghan McCain has taken that particular criticism personally, as she should. Moreover, she has taken personally the continual slights and digs that the president slung at her father while he was battling the cancer that took his life this past summer.

As one American who took Donald Trump’s hideous statement about someone who fought bravely for his country I continue to embrace the passionate views expressed by the valiant warrior’s daughter. She speaks not only for herself, but for many others who believe as she does about the (lack of) character the president continues to exhibit.

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Obama speaks fundamental truth about a statesman

I feel the need as the year winds down to share with you this video of Barack H. Obama eulogizing the late John S. McCain.

It’s about 19 minutes long. You need to set aside some time to watch it. I am gripped and saddened by the unspoken truth that the former president speaks about his former rival and how it reflects on the present day.

President Obama speaks at length about the differences he and Sen. McCain had between them. He speaks of when the two of them would meet in the Oval Office just to chat, “about policy . . . and about family.”

He tells us that even though the two of them held profoundly different world views that they both understood that “we are on the same team.”

I want to bring this to your attention yet again just to remind us all of what is missing in today’s discourse. The current president and many of our congressional leaders cannot seem to accept that they, too, are supposed to be on the same team. Have you heard Donald J. Trump say anything remotely like that? Or, for that matter, have you heard it from many of his foes on Capitol Hill?

The poison that has infected the current climate needs to be cleansed, wiped away. Will it disappear any time soon? Not likely.

I just hope there’s a residual sense of what Barack Obama recalled about John McCain left that it can someday be revived and returned.

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What ‘policy change’ could Trump enact? Let me think

A fellow I do not know, but someone who reads this blog, has posed an interesting question that I have chosen to answer with a blog post.

He asks: (High Plains Blogger), other than stepping down, what policy could Trump enact to change your mind about him?

Fair question, right? You bet it is. It deserves an answer. So, here goes.

The president can surrender his effort to build The Wall. He can stop insisting that Mexico pay for it. He surely must know he cannot order another sovereign government to do his bidding. He should recognize that The Wall won’t solve anything. He should simply ask Congress to spend more money to enhance existing methods to curb illegal immigration.

Trump can stop demonizing refugees, implying that those seeking asylum comprise gang members, terrorists and assorted felons intent on murder, rape, human trafficking, drug dealing . . . you name it.

The president can acknowledge publicly that Russia is our No. 1 geopolitical adversary and that Russian operatives sought to influence the 2016 presidential election. Along those lines, he can demand the immediate extradition to the United States of the dozen or so Russians indicted for criminal activity related to that effort.

Trump can apologize for demonizing his foes. He can atone for the hideous insults he has hurled at the media, at members of his own Republican Party. One place to start would be to publicly apologize to the family of the late Sen. John McCain, the Republican who stood at the gates of hell while he was imprisoned during the Vietnam War. Trump’s statement that McCain was a “hero only because he was captured” was hideous in the extreme.

Donald Trump can learn to act like the president of the United States of America. He can behave with decorum and dignity. He can stop his ceaseless Twitter tirades. He can learn how to treat Cabinet officials with respect, and stop informing them of their departure through those petulant tweets.

Sure, a resignation would be my preferred solution to ending the Trump Era in modern presidential politics. Donald Trump need not exercise that option as the only way out. A close second-best option would be to see him denied the GOP nomination in 2020; absent that, for him to be defeated in the 2020 general election.

However, having laid out these notions, I do not expect the president to change his mind, enact any new executive policies that would make me or other critics better of him.

Therefore, the criticism from this forum will continue.