Tag Archives: POTUS

national news

Once more … about immigrants

I cannot resist offering another comment on that unpresidential epithet about immigrants from Haiti and Africa.

It might be my final comment. Then again, maybe not.

Donald John “Stable Genius” Trump’s fit of pique earlier this week about immigrants who come here from s***hole countries hits me personally.

I am a direct descendant of Americans who chose to come to this country from a part of the world that once was considered a s***hole. All four of my grandparents were ethnic Greeks. They risked all they had to come to this country in the early 20th century.

What I haven’t discussed in this blog is how Greeks were treated by other immigrant groups with whom they lived in the Land of Opportunity. Perhaps you are aware that groups such as the Ku Klux Klan sought to intimidate Greeks who had settled in the United States. The Klan considered Greeks to be, um, subpar.

I will not equate what happened to those early Greek-Americans with what the Klan did to African-Americans at the time, or even to Vietnamese immigrants who came to this country in the 1970s after the end of the Vietnam War. Please know, though, that some Americans thought little of immigrants who came here from southern Europe.

They were thought to be from a s***hole place.

Discussion about immigration always catches my attention. It is because I grew up with a keen awareness of my ethnic background. My grandmothers particularly were keen to instruct my sisters and me about our heritage.

They were proud Greeks and they imbued that pride in all of their grandchildren.

So, when the president of the United States disparages immigrants who come here willingly from s***hole nations, he raises my hackles. Donald Trump’s racist ignorance might not raise the hackles of other Americans. Whatever. We all have our own consciences and I wouldn’t dare interject my own values into another American’s heart or mind.

I simply will express my utter outrage that the leader of the world’s greatest nation has chosen to play favorites with those who want to craft a better life for themselves and their descendants.

My grandparents would be appalled.

***

Here is part of the inscription inside the base of the Statue of Liberty:

“Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”

The president has dishonored those time-honored words.

International news

Trump blames Obama as he cancels foreign trip? Yeah, right!

Who in the name of international embarrassment does Donald John Trump think he’s kidding?

The president announced overnight that  he’s canceling a planned trip to Great Britain … because, he said, his predecessor agreed to a deal that cost the United States too much to build a new embassy in London.

Huh? What? Eh?

It’s Barack Obama’s fault that the president isn’t going to take part in a state visit with this nation’s most valuable ally?

This is just my view own view — and I suspect others share it too — but the real reason is quite different. He’s not going to Britain because he would be hooted off the island nation. The Brits cannot stand the U.S. president, who said the mayor of London didn’t do enough to prevent attacks by Islamist terrorists; I’ll add here that the mayor happens to be a Muslim — and Trump made the tasteless remark in the wake of just such an attack!

There’s also that issue of the travel ban that Trump has sought to impose against Muslims seeking entry into the United States.

Yep. The Brits are angry. Prime Minister Teresa May also has received her share of insults from the president.

Donald Trump, though, thinks he governs a nation of 300 million rubes, dolts who cannot grasp the obvious.

Which is that the president of the United States is a embarrassing our nation daily.

Shameful.

national news

This just in: Oprah won’t run in 2020

This “scoop” comes from a member of my family: “You don’t need to worry about Oprah running for president; she isn’t going to do it.”

There you have it. Why? Because Oprah Winfrey isn’t going to give up being the world’s most powerful and revered woman. She isn’t going to expose herself to the denigration that would await her if she were to run against Donald John “Stable Genius” Trump Sr.

She won’t “lower herself” to Trump’s level, my family member said.

So, is that what will happen? I’m inclined to believe the assessment I have received.

I am no expert. I am no soothsayer. I cannot predict what celebrities will do. I once said publicly that former first lady Hillary Clinton wouldn’t run for the U.S. Senate in 2000. Wrong!

Winfrey brought ’em to their feet at the Golden Globes show this past weekend. She roared that “a new day is on the horizon!” Women no longer will be intimidated, shamed, abused, assaulted by men, she said. Hmm. Did she have anyone in mind? Oh, wait! Maybe it’s the president of the United States!

But … my family member believes Oprah won’t enter the 2020 presidential contest.

“She’ll go to her grave with her incredible wealth and reputation intact,” she said.

I’m good with that.

entertainment news, national news, political news

Celebrity candidates for POTUS?

Donald Trump’s election as president of the United States has ushered in a new era in American politics.

It’s the Era of Celebrity Candidates.

The latest such celeb to rise to the top is none other than Oprah Winfrey, who brought ’em to their feet Sunday night at the Golden Globes award show. Her fellow entertainers are all agog at the prospect of Oprah running for president against the incumbent.

Indeed, Trump once told talk show host Larry King that Oprah Winfrey would be his ideal running mate. In 1999, Trump called Winfrey a “very special woman,” “really fantastic.” Do you think he’d say the same thing now? Don’t answer that.

https://highplainsblogger.com/2017/05/more-celebrities-set-to-run-for-potus-oh-please/

I’ve heard the names of other celebrities mentioned. The actor Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, and singer and celebrity husband Kanye West to name just three. Doesn’t just make your heart start fluttering? Me, neither.

Trump’s election brought the country to a new threshold. It teaches us that anyone can be elected president. I mean, if someone with no understanding of government, or any interest in learning about it, or someone with the load of personal baggage that Trump packed around can get elected, then anyone can.

Has the president’s election in 2016 unleashed a horde of celebrities who want to follow his footsteps into the Oval Office.

I sincerely hope we can catch our breath long enough to ponder whether any such candidate has what it takes to do the most difficult job on Earth.

The current celebrity officeholder keeps demonstrating — at least to yours truly’s mind — that he is not up to the task.

national news, political news

Trump continues to demonstrate unfitness for his office

Lightweight Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, a total flunky for Chuck Schumer and someone who would come to my office “begging” for campaign contributions not so long ago (and would do anything for them), is now in the ring fighting against Trump. Very disloyal to Bill & Crooked-USED!

What you see here is another demonstration from the president of the United States of his utter tone deafness.

It is a tweet from Donald John Trump Sr.

It also shows many millions of Americans — including yours truly — how totally unfit he is for the office he occupies.

He says Sen. Gillibrand “would do anything for them,” implying that she would do something of a sexual nature to obtain a campaign contribution from Trump.

This man has shown at every level imaginable an absolute lack of decency. An editorial in USA Today provides a profound and stark commentary on the president’s shameful demeanor. What I find remarkable about this editorial is that comes from a publication that does not possess a fiery, partisan editorial policy.

USA Today calls Trump “uniquely awful” and declares that he is not fit to “clean the toilets at Barack Obama’s presidential library or shine George W. Bush’s shoes.”

As the paper notes: “Not to mention calling white supremacists ‘very fine people,’ pardoning a lawless sheriff, firing a respected FBI director, and pushing the Justice Department to investigate his political foes.

Read the editorial here.

Yet, despite this serial demonstration of a lack of humanity and common decency, Trump’s supporters stand by their man. They applaud him for “telling it like it is.” They endorse his nativism and tribalism and call it “populism.”

Donald Trump is unfit to be president.

As USA Today’s editorial concludes: The nation doesn’t seek nor expect perfect presidents, and some have certainly been deeply flawed. But a president who shows such disrespect for the truth, for ethics, for the basic duties of the job and for decency toward others fails at the very essence of what has always made America great.

He should resign from the presidency.

national news

When do we demand POTUS to quit?

If we’re going to demand the resignation of a U.S. senator for sexual misconduct allegations …

And demand that a candidate for the Senate step aside because of accusations that he molested underage girls …

And applaud the firing of TV news hosts, anchors and commentators because they, too, faced accusations of sexual misconduct …

When are we going to make these demands of the president of the United States of America? I mean, the head of state of the world’s greatest nation has been heard on tape admitting to groping women, kissing them against their will. He’s actually boasted about barging in on half-dressed beauty pageant contestants’ dressing room.

And the president also has been accused by women of groping them, forcing himself on them. His reaction? He calls them “liars” and once threatened to sue them. He hasn’t followed through on his threat.

When do we start making demands on the Big Man, whose list of sexual transgressions are well-documented. He’s actually admitted to them. Yet we’re giving this guy a pass while dropping the hammer on other powerful men in government, the media and in the entertainment industry?

I’ve noted already how politics often results in punishment that can be called unfair. We concede “it’s just politics.”

When do we call it what it is: blatant hypocrisy?

national news, political news

Time for Conyers to call it a career?

OK. I’ll answer the question posed in the headline over this blog post.

Yes, I believe it’s time for U.S. Rep. John Conyers to call it quits. It’s time for the congressman who has served for more than five decades in the House of Representatives to return to civilian life.

Conyers, a Democrat, is facing mounting pressure from the Congressional Black Caucus to resign in the wake of a third woman who’s accused Conyers of making improper sexual advances.

Conyers is damaged

Conyers already has acknowledged paying one woman a $27,000 settlement, even while denying he did anything wrong.

He is the longest-serving member of the House. He’s been called an “icon” by House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, who said he is entitled to “due process.”

Well, I’m not sure how you define due process in a political climate. Conyers has not been charged with a crime. He has now become a major “distraction” for legislative colleagues.

This sexual abuse network of scandals is reaching across party lines. It is insidious and it is inflicting serious — and potentially grievous — damage in the halls of government. Members of both congressional chambers stand accused of extreme misbehavior toward women; indeed, similar allegations have soiled the president of the United States.

A Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate also is facing calls from within his own party to pull out of his contest.

Conyers already has stepped down from his leadership post on the House Judiciary Committee. I am afraid that isn’t enough.

Rep. Conyers’s career is sullied and soiled by the accusations of sexual harassment.

It’s over. Or at least it should be.

national news, political news

Trump shrinks a big office

I wish I had thought of this, but since I didn’t I’ll deliver appropriate credit to the source of this piece of wisdom.

It comes from U.S. Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., who fired off this tweet today about Donald J. Trump Sr.:

“The President would have left American students in a foreign jail because their families didn’t lavish sufficient praise on him. How can someone in such a big office be so small?”

What a great question, even though it’s more or less a rhetorical inquiry. Here’s another twist on it: How can Trump shrink the high office he won a year ago in one of those most stunning political upsets in U.S. history? I think it shrunk the very moment he took the oath of office.

POTUS shrinks his office

The object of Schiff’s retort concerns the Twitter tussle that Trump entered with LaVar Ball, the father of one of three UCLA student/athletes who were charged with shoplifting at a high-end store in the People’s Republic of China.

Trump talked to Chinese leaders while visiting that country and reportedly persuaded them to release the young men instead of convicting them and sentencing them to potentially years-long prison sentences. LaVar Ball then tweeted that Trump didn’t do anything to obtain the release of his son and the other athletes.

Then the president decided to fire back at Ball — a man known for his big mouth and outsized public presence in the lives of his athletically gifted sons.

He said he “should have left them in jail” because LaVar Ball didn’t lavish enough praise on the president for his efforts.

That is one way a small man can occupy such a big office. Indeed, Trump is managing to shrink the office itself with his persistently petulant behavior.

Trump has turned this remarkable “skill” into an art form.

national news

What a year it has been, eh?

I am going to give Donald J. Trump and his presidential election team some props.

Hell hasn’t frozen over. I just want to share a brief word about how this man pulled off the most stunning political upset I’ve ever witnessed.

He won a presidential election one year ago. No one outside of his team really thought he’d win. At least they weren’t saying so publicly. I cannot know what they were thinking in private.

I was one American who was certain that voters would make history on Nov. 8, 2016 by electing the first woman as president of the United States. My money was on Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Silly me. Silly all those so-called “experts.” Voters made history, all right, by electing a guy with no public service experience. None. Zero. He surprised us all.

What’s more, he did it despite saying the most outrageous things I’ve ever heard. He won despite mocking his opponents, hurling insults left and right, spewing outright lies almost daily. He won despite exhibiting profound ignorance of government and the political process.

I once declared that Donald Trump would be “my president” in spite of the fact that I voted — along with a significant plurality of Americans — for the other major-party candidate on the ballot. Yes, he is my president. I am not happy about it.

In the year since the election I’ve tried to figure out just how he did it. How did this carnival barker/clown pull off this huge upset? I guess I’ll go with the view that he spoke the Language of the Everyman. He tapped into that latent anger at The Establishment. He managed to persuade enough voters in just the right states that the nation was going to hell when in fact it has been in economic recovery since 2009.

He pushed forward the lie that he would “make America great again.” If you think about it, he managed with that slogan to insult the greatness of this nation that’s always existed through good times and bad.

I’ll have more to say later as we look back on the year since Trump’s inauguration. For now, it’s good to reflect on what truly was a historic presidential election.

You can’t see me do it, but at this moment I am shaking my head.

media news, national news

How does Trump justify his media hatred?

The hate/hate relationship Donald John Trump has with the media has baffled me from the beginning of his presidency.

You see, the man ought to be thanking the media for the role they played in advancing his presidential candidacy. It hasn’t worked out that way. He has become the media’s Enemy No. 1. And how? Because he fired the first shot in the war.

The media’s making of a presidential candidacy became evident from the candidate’s first day on the campaign trail. He rode down that elevator at Trump Tower in June 2015 and a “love affair” was born.

Trump made outlandish statements from Day One. The media didn’t challenge him. The media seemed reluctant to call the candidate what he was: a liar.

When he announced his plan to ban Muslims from entering the country, he said he witnessed “thousands of Muslims cheering” the collapse of the Twin Towers; he didn’t witness any such thing. He said he lost “many friends” in the Twin Towers; he didn’t lose any friends.

Did the media challenge him in real time for the lies he told? No. They generally let them ride.

Prior to his running for the first public office he ever sought — the presidency — Trump loved the media exposure as long as it promoted his business ventures. He loved the media as well. He chummed around with media moguls.

Eventually, and it took a while, the media began to wise up to how the candidate was playing them. They started, um, doing their job.

It’s been said that the media should “comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable.” That’s what they do. It’s part of their charge as professionals. Trump is among the more, uh, comfortable people in public life; he kept telling us how fabulously wealthy he is. And smart, too.

It’s gone downhill ever since. His election as president has turned the one-time media lover into a media hater. He labels the media as the “enemy of the American people.” His standard retort to anything he deems negative is to call it “fake news.” Trump commits the unconscionable act of singling out individual reporters and the news organizations they represent. He lies continually and the media keep calling him out.

It truly is an amazing turn of events. The president of the United States has declared war on the very institution he needs to inform the public of whatever message he wants to deliver.

Every single one of the president’s predecessors has experienced difficulty with the media during their time in the office Trump now occupies. They all understood something that Trump ignores: The media kept them accountable for their actions.

The media are doing now what they should have been doing from the very beginning of this guy’s campaign for the presidency.