Tag Archives: Kellyanne Conway

Paging Kellyanne Conway; hello, Kellyanne?

February 28, 2017 kanelis2012

Is it me or has Kellyanne Conway gone missing?

Is she MIA? Do we need to call out an all-points bulletin to find her?

Immediately after Donald J. Trump was elected president, you couldn’t escape Conway. She was everywhere. Conway was able to make appearances on every cable and broadcast news show on the air. She was seemingly being interviewed by news anchors all at once.

A lot of media talking heads spoke kindly of Conway. She seemed to be on first-name bases with Chuck, George, Sean, Chris, Robin, Jake, Wolf … all of ’em! They welcomed her with open arms.

I used to joke that former Amarillo Mayor Debra McCartt defied the laws of physics by being everywhere at once. The same thing might have been said of Conway, who after the 2016 presidential election was appointed senior policy adviser to the new president.

Then she spoke of “alternative facts.” She had this way of saying that the president was “100 percent behind me” after she spoke about a terror attack that didn’t occur, the fictitious attack in Bowling Green, Ky.

Oops! “Morning Joe” hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski disinvited her from future appearances on their MSNBC show. Why? She had lost her credibility with them.

Reports abounded that Trump had reeled her in. The White House denied it.

Then again …

Conway has been virtually absent over the past, oh, two weeks.

Hello? Kellyanne? Are you out there? Somewhere?

legal news, national news, political news

Trump team continues to ‘unify’ Congress

February 10, 2017 kanelis2012

Donald Trump’s effort to “unify” Congress is continuing to produce a bumper harvest.

For instance, the U.S. House Oversight Committee chairman, Republican Jason Chaffetz of Utah, has called for an investigation into senior White House adviser Kellyanne Conway’s apparent shilling for Ivanka Trump’s line of clothing. Ranking Democratic committee member Elijah Cummings of Maryland joined Chaffetz in seeking to know whether Conway violated federal ethics laws.

The lawmakers sent a letter to the head of the Office of Government Ethics, Walter Shaub, Jr., suggesting that Conway’s appearance on “Fox and Friends” could have crossed the line that bans federal officials from promoting private business endeavors.

Chaffetz and Cummings have recommended punishment for Conway.

Trump, quite naturally, is standing by Conway, who has told the media that the president is “100 percent behind me.”

Ethics just keep getting in the way.

The president’s myriad business interests — along with those of his grown children — are likely to continue dogging the administration until all of the Trumps decide to divest themselves of all that lucrative activity.

Meanwhile, I will give the president a left-handed compliment. He vowed to “unify” the country. He is keeping that pledge by unifying some of our elected representatives — although clearly not in ways he envisioned.

national news, political news

No, Kellyanne, critics aren’t ‘haters’

February 5, 2017 kanelis2012

My dear mother taught me a few life lessons: Don’t wish your life away; keep an open mind; don’t “hate” anyone.

The last one stands out at this moment as I ponder the comments from Donald Trump’s senior adviser Kellyanne Conway, who calls critics of a recent gaffe “haters.”

No, ma’am. We aren’t haters. Actually, I haven’t yet weighed in on the gaffe, in which you mistakenly referred to a “massacre” at Bowling Green, Ky., that never occurred.

Conway did own up to her mistake quickly after the stuff hit the fan. She said she “misspoke” when she made the reference in an MSNBC interview. Do the critics “hate” her for saying such a thing? I would hope not.

I only can speak for myself on this one, but I don’t hate Kellyanne Conway. What I do hate, though, are the untrue statements that pour out of the mouths of the president himself and so many of his closest advisers. Maybe they believe what they say. Perhaps they know they are telling untruths … or lying.

I am amused — in a perverse sort of way — with so many of things Conway has said. She referred to “alternative facts” the other day in another TV interview. “Meet the Press” moderator Chuck Todd told her that “alternative facts are falsehoods.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2017/02/04/i-misspoke-one-word-kellyanne-conway-calls-her-critics-haters-after-bowling-green-fiasco/?postshare=1501486251399743&tid=ss_tw&utm_term=.7e6601dfc4fc

I get that Conway is feeling chastened by critics. As a senior adviser to the president of the United States, it’s not too much to ask her to tell the truth — the whole truth — at all times.

Honest to goodness, though, I don’t hate her when she falls short. I just hate the words that come out of her mouth.

media news, national news, political news

‘Alternative facts’ will become Trumpster’s new ID

January 23, 2017 kanelis2012

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IcBblq-QOo4

Kellyanne Conway parlayed her experience as a public opinion pollster to a successful run as a presidential campaign manager.

She’s now a senior adviser to the new president of the United States.

Conway now has become the face and the voice of one of the more remarkable verbal miscues many of us have heard in some time.

She talked this morning about White House press secretary Sean Spicer’s version of a silly story dealing with the size of the crowd at Donald J. Trump’s inaugural. Then she referred to something called Spicer’s “alternative facts.”

“Meet the Press” moderator Chuck Todd then sought to clarify what he heard by responding that there are facts and there are falsehoods.

Thus, a punchline was born.

This business of electing a new president is quite serious, indeed. I don’t intend to beat this horse any deader than it is, but in its way, Conway’s “alternative facts” notion seems to be the perfect metaphor for the discussion that prompted it.

Spicer’s angry rejoinder to the media about their reporting of the crowd size was ridiculous on its face. Then came Conway’s “alternative facts” gaffe.

Conway’s role as senior adviser requires her to speak well of her boss. I get it. Honest, I do. I don’t know what she’s thinking privately, of course, but it seems quite reasonable to believe she might be kicking herself tonight for uttering that silly statement.

Maybe she ought to take a page from former Texas Gov. Rick Perry, the president’s pick to become energy secretary. Perry said this past week he now regrets calling for the elimination of the Department of Energy when he, too, was running for president.

Conway might consider taking a couple of days away from media representatives and then tell them “I regret” providing so much grist for late-night comedians.

I am one American who would accept her contrition.

business news, national news

Shocking! Trump won’t release tax returns

January 22, 2017 kanelis2012

White House senior adviser Kellyanne Conway said a few things this morning that didn’t surprise me.

Perhaps the least-surprising statement was that her boss, Donald J. Trump, won’t release his tax returns for public review.

There. Having said that, the fact that it doesn’t surprise anyone doesn’t make it any less outrageous.

The president quite clearly should release the returns. He didn’t do so during his winning fight for the Republican nomination; he refused to do so while waging his winning campaign for the presidency.

He’s been relying on the dodge that the IRS was conducting a “routine audit.” The IRS has countered — while declining to comment on the specifics of an audit — that such a thing doesn’t preclude release of those returns for public scrutiny.

Now, though, the stakes have been raised to a new level since the election and the swearing-in of the president. There are swirling questions about whether the president has business dealings in Russia and, specifically with interests tied to the Russian government — which is the very government that has been accused of meddling in our presidential electoral process.

Trump has denied any such business ventures.

However, if the Watergate scandal taught us anything at all, it is that the public cannot take the president’s word on its face. To be fair, that rule has applied to many politicians before and after the scandal that toppled one of Trump’s predecessors.

If only this president would agree to disclose proof of what he has declared. Believe me, if he has no dealings with Russian government officials, he could start to rebuild the trust he will need to govern.

entertainment news, national news

Trump to make use of his ‘spare time’

December 11, 2016 kanelis2012

Kellyanne Conway is a master spinner.

I actually kind of admire Donald J. Trump’s winning campaign manager’s skill at political spin.

Let’s consider her answer to questions about the president-elect’s decision to remain as executive producer of “Celebrity Apprentice.”

Trump will do his “Apprentice” work in his “spare time,” Conway is saying. Spare time? Yep. When the president isn’t busy providing for our national defense, creating millions of jobs for Americans and fighting ISIS terrorists to the hilt, he’s going to devote some of his energy to the reality TV show he started.

The president has a full day on most days anyway. In Trump’s case — if we are to take his campaign rhetoric at face value — he’ll be busy as the dickens “making America great again.” How is he ever going to have the time to work on “Celebrity Apprentice” episodes?

Conway noted that President Obama spent a lot of time on the golf course during his eight years in office. Indeed, I argued on this blog that the president is never off the clock, that he’s the head of state 24/7.

So it will be with Donald Trump. He’ll be at the helm every waking moment of every day he serves as president of the United States.

If a president can take time playing a round of golf to relax, I suppose another president can take time to produce a reality TV show.

Of course, the TV show and the compensation the president will earn from it does present a situation that the network’s news division — NBC in this instance — will have in covering the president.

In the meantime, I will stand by an earlier comment, which is that a president who doubles as a reality TV show producer — and this is just for starters — is just plain weird.

national news, political news

‘Undercover voter’ equals ‘shamed voter’

August 24, 2016 kanelis2012

Kellyanne Conway earned her chops as a pollster and spinmeister.

Consider, then, what Republican presidential nominee Donald J. Trump’s new campaign manager has said.

It is that polls would show Trump doing better if “undercover voters” would reveal to pollsters that they are voting for her guy.

I’m trying to understand what she’s saying here.

I think that she’s suggesting that Trump’s millions of voters are too ashamed to admit out loud to strangers that they’re planning to vote this fellow.

Am I mistaken? Is that what “undercover voter” means?

If you’re committed to a candidate for high public office and someone calls you to conduct a public opinion survey, it would follow — normally, I guess — that you would be unafraid to tell the pollster how you think about an upcoming election.

Trump’s supporters, according to Conway, are keeping their thoughts to themselves.

Someone explain that one to me.

Please?

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/kellyanne-conway-polls-undercover-trump-voter

High Plains Blogger