Tag Archives: Barack Obama

legal news, national news, political news

Do the people deserve to be heard this time?

U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell had this to say in February 2016 as it regarded President Barack Obama’s desire to nominate someone to replace the U.S. Supreme Court Justice  Antonin Scalia: The American people should have a voice in the selection of their next Supreme Court Justice.

Hmm. What do you think of that?

Here we are, in June 2018. The Supreme Court has just been opened up yet again. Justice Anthony Kennedy has announced his retirement. Sen. McConnell said he intends to push for a Senate vote by this fall.

Hey! Wait a minute!

We have an election coming up. One-third of the Senate, which must confirm the next appointee, is on the ballot. It could swing from narrow Republican control to Democratic control after the November midterm election.

Don’t the “American people” have the right to be heard in the selection of the next Supreme Court justice? Don’t they, Mr. Leader?

That was his bogus rationale in blocking Merrick Garland’s nomination from President Obama in 2016. The president had a year left in his tenure. We had a presidential election coming up later that year. McConnell said “no way” on the nomination. He blocked it. He obstructed the president. He then — in a shameful display of a lack of self-awareness — accused Democrats of “playing politics” when they insisted that the Senate hold confirmation hearings and then vote on Garland’s nomination.

If anyone “played politics” with that nomination, it was Mitch McConnell!

Now, the leader wants to fast-track the latest Supreme Court nomination on the eve of an equally important election that could determine the ideological and partisan balance in the body that must confirm this nomination.

Does this election count as much as the 2016 presidential election? Aren’t U.S. senators members of a “co-equal branch of government”? Or is the majority leader going to play politics yet again by ramrodding this nomination through — before the people have the chance to have their voices heard?

national news

Obstructionism pays off for Sen. McConnell

Who says obstructionism doesn’t pay dividends … bigly?

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia died in Texas in 2016. Within hours of his death, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell announced that President Obama would not be allowed to fill the seat left vacant by the conservative icon’s death.

Obama nominated U.S. District Judge Merrick Garland to the court. McConnell didn’t even allow Garland a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing. The nomination didn’t go anywhere.

Donald John Trump defeated Hillary Rodham Clinton in the 2016 election. Trump then selected Neil Gorsuch for the high court. The Senate confirmed him.

Today, the court upheld Trump’s travel ban. The vote was 5 to 4. Gorsuch voted with the majority.

Obstructionism doesn’t pay? Oh, you bet it does.

legal news, Uncategorized

Yep, elections do have serious consequences

Oh, brother. Is there any more proof needed about the impact of presidential elections than the decision today handed down by the U.S. Supreme Court?

The high court ruled 5-4 today to uphold Donald J. Trump’s travel ban involving countries from a handful of mostly Muslim countries.

The conservative majority voted with the president; the liberal minority voted against him.

There you have it. Trump’s travel ban will stand. He will crow about it. He’ll proclaim that the court is a body comprising men of wisdom; bear in mind that the three women who sit on the court today voted against the travel ban. Had the decision gone the other way, he would declare the court to be “too political,” he would chastise the justices’ knowledge of the U.S. Constitution (if you can believe it).

The court decision today has reaffirmed the president’s decision to discriminate against people based on their religious faith. Nice.

The partisan vote on the court today also has brought a smile to another leading politician: U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, whose obstructionism in the final year of the Barack Obama presidency denied Trump’s predecessor the right to fill a seat created by the sudden death of Justice Antonin Scalia. The Constitution gives the president the right to nominate judges; it also grants the Senate the right to “advise and consent” on those nominations. The Senate majority leader decided to obstruct the president’s ability to do his job.

President Obama nominated a solid moderate, Merrick Garland, to succeed Scalia. McConnell put the kibosh on it, declaring almost immediately after Scalia’s death that the president would not be able to fill the seat. McConnell would block it. And he did.

A new president was elected and it turned out to be Donald Trump, who then nominated Neil Gorsuch, who was approved narrowly by the Senate. Gorsuch proved to be the deciding vote in today’s ruling that upholds the Trump travel ban.

Do elections have consequences? You bet they do.

Frightening, yes? In my humble view — given the stakes involved at the Supreme Court — most assuredly.

environmental news

Alternative energy deserves props, too, Gov. Abbott

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott is proud of the role his state plays in achieving national energy independence.

He wrote via Twitter: Because of Texas, America is now energy independent. Because of TEXAS, we will NEVER AGAIN depend on Foreign Oil Cartels for energy.

Boy, howdy, governor.

Except that his tweet and the accompanying hashtags suggest to me that he is ignoring another key element of this nation’s quest to free itself from foreign energy sources.

Alternative energy.

Wind power. Hydro power. Solar power. Nuclear power. C’mon, Gov. Abbott. Offer a word as well to those energy sources that received some federal government assistance during the previous administration … yes, the one led by Barack H. Obama.

President Obama gave way to Donald J. Trump in January 2017 and the new president began dismantling some of the rules and regulations that gave energy producers incentive to search for alternative sources of energy.

Trump said he wanted to restore the fossil fuel industry. Oil, natural gas and coal have been pushed to the front, while he has all but ignored any public discussion about those alternative sources.

Clean air? Clean water? The president and his Environmental Protection Agency director, Scott Pruitt, have stripped away those regulations, too. Trump and Pruitt call them “job killers.”

The nation achieved its energy independence in the years immediately preceding Trump’s election as president.

Sure, we still need oil. West Texas oil fields are pulling a lot of it out of the ground. Let us remember, though: Those fuel sources won’t last forever.

The wind will be around for long after we pump the final barrel of oil. So will the sun. Both of those sources are, shall we say, a whole lot cleaner and a whole lot more sustainable.

national news

Yes, on renaming Virginia highway!

Good job, Alexandria (Va.) City Council.

The council has yanked the name of an American traitor off a highway that runs from Arlington to Richmond.

It thoroughfare was formerly known as the Jefferson Davis Highway. Its new name will be the Richmond Highway.

Jefferson Davis, of course, was the president of the Confederate States of America. The CSA decided in 1861 to declare war against the United States of America. Confederate artillery gunners then opened fire on the Union garrison at Fort Sumpter, S.C.

Thus, the Civil War began. It would end four years later with roughly 600,000 men dying on battlefields throughout the North and South.

Jefferson Davis’s complicity in launching that war is beyond dispute. He was a traitor to the nation. Do we honor such individuals? Should we honor them? Of course not! Indeed, a school in Richmond will be renamed in honor of Barack H. Obama, after carrying the name of Confederate Army Gen. (and another traitor) J.E.B. Stuart.

As The Hill reported: There has been a massive push to rename markers and landmarks named after members of the Confederacy following the Charleston shooting and the Charlottesville, Va., white supremacy rally last year.

Accordingly, the Alexandria City Council has just struck down one more tribute to an infamous historical figure.

military news

Saluting is back in the news

Whether to salute is back in the news.

Donald Trump was recorded saluting a North Korean general in what appears to be an awkward, unscripted moment. The president extended his hand, the general saluted him, the president then returned the salute.

It looked clumsy.

This mini-kerfuffle does bring to mind a discussion that emerges from time to time: Does a president return salutes from military personnel? Should he do so?

Recent presidents have done so. It’s appropriate, given their role as commander in chief. Presidents Obama, Bush (43) and Clinton all did it; so did President Reagan. Bill Clinton, as I recall, needed some schooling on how to salute, given that his initial efforts looked a bit, well, clumsy as well. Active-duty military personnel and veterans picked up on it right away.

Donald Trump’s return of these salutes look just fine to me. He snaps it properly. Perhaps he learned how to salute during his years in military school prior to heading off to college.

I like watching presidents return these salutes, as long as they know what they’re doing when they snap them back at military personnel who initiate them.

As for the current president’s clumsy moment in Singapore, it’s no big deal.

International news

Whether to bow or salute?

Do you remember the time President Barack Obama was criticized/ridiculed/condemned for supposedly bowing before Saudi King Abdullah.

I’ve seen the video of that encounter. Critics said the president of the United States shouldn’t humiliate himself by bowing before a foreign head of state.

Now we have Obama’s successor, Donald Trump, returning an awkward salute from a North Korean general. You’ve seen the video, yes? The president walked down a line of dignitaries. He extended his hand. He did so with the general, who then saluted the president; Trump returned the salute.

Can he do that? Should he do that? I mean, North Korea is an “enemy state” that technically is still at war with the United States and the rest of the world. At least we weren’t at war with Saudi Arabia when Barack Obama greeted that country’s monarch.

Still, the Trump salute probably is not as big a deal as many critics might make of it, any more than the Obama bow before the Saudi king denigrated the nation he was elected to lead.

The bigger problem for Trump is the rhetoric he has used to describe Kim Jong Un, the North Korean dictator whose policies should qualify him as deserving of standing trial for crimes against humanity. Trump calls this despot “honorable” and a “great negotiator.”

International news

What if Obama had done this?

Barack H. Obama once stated he would be willing to meet with North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un.

Those on the political right vilified the president for even suggesting such a thing. He’s naive, unprepared, too willing to surrender to the bad guys, they said.

Donald J. Trump came into office. He launched a name-calling campaign against Kim Jong Un. Then he accepted an invitation to meet with him. The president “canceled” the meeting, but then the two sides worked out their differences.

The right’s reaction? The president deserves a Nobel Peace Prize. He’s brilliant! He’s done the impossible!

Hey, I give the president kudos for meeting with Kim, although I concede that my view on that meeting had changed a bit from a year ago, when I said he shouldn’t meet with Kim. Sill, I hope it produces something constructive and, yes, peaceful!

If only the GOP “base” would have recognized what’s good for their guy also might have worked for his immediate predecessor.

Duplicitous.

International news

Obama didn’t ‘allow’ annexation of Crimea

This won’t surprise regular readers of this blog, but I agree with former Obama administration national security adviser Susan Rice’s assertion that Donald Trump has taken an outrageous position with regard to Russia and its former membership in the Group of Eight nations.

Trump wants the now G-7 nations to bring Russia back into its fold. Susan Rice said the following, according to The Hill: Rice said Trump made “a disgraceful statement” when he said Obama “allowed Russia to take Crimea.”

“Rather than understand Russia is our adversary, Russia had taken on behavior that is absolutely reprehensible… for the president of the United States to suggest all that is forgotten, that we are together, that we are fine with one country annexing another country’s sovereign territory is outrageous,” Rice said.

Russia took another nation’s territory by force. It has done not a damn thing to rectify its aggression against Ukraine. It has continued to prop up a dictatorial regime in Syria. Oh, and it meddled in our 2016 election.

Rice is suggesting that Trump is divorced from any semblance of reality by asking for Russia’s re-inclusion into the G-7 nations comprising the world’s greatest economic powers.

The president’s desire to bring Russia back after the nations kicked it out after annexing Crimea has been met with almost unanimous scorn by the rest of the G-7; only Italy has backed the president’s request.

Moreover, Trump’s continual harping on actions taken by his immediate predecessor, Barack Obama, seem to suggest some sort of sick fixation with the 44th president. He keeps singling him out specifically, making preposterous assertions that he “allowed” Russia to take Crimea. It begs the question: What would Donald Trump had done if he had been in the Oval Office, making the tough call? Does anyone actually believe he would have put “boots on the ground” to prevent a Russian takeover? Give me a break, man!

I have stayed away from asserting in this blog that Russia might have the goods on Trump, that it might be holding some deep, dark secrets about the president’s business dealings in Russia.

These continuing assertions from Trump that all is forgiven with regard to Russia are making me wonder about those reports about Russia and possible business connections with the Trump Organization.

Disgraceful.

national news

Dick Cheney … where are you?

Of all the public figures who has shown no reluctance to speak out after leaving public office, the one to whom I refer has grown strangely silent.

Former Vice President Richard B. Cheney has gone dark. At least he has remained out of my earshot.

This is the guy who was quick to lambaste President Barack Obama during Obama’s two terms in office. He once referred to Obama as the “worst president in my lifetime.”

This blog took the former veep to task for declining to follow the lead of the man for whom he worked, President George W. Bush, who has remained quiet during his post-presidential time.

But now, with all this discussion swirling around President Obama’s successor, I keep waiting for some pearls of wisdom from Vice President Cheney.

I know he is able to put forward cogent thoughts. I heard recently he spoke at a college commencement. I cannot recall whether he weighed in on some of the issues of the day.

Seriously, the man who exhibited a rhetorical hair-trigger when it involved one president would seem willing to fire away with public comments regarding another one. Isn’t that right?

Hey, I’m no fan of Vice President Cheney. I just believe he has something of value to add to the cacophony of noise that’s pouring out of the halls of power.