Tag Archives: 2016 election

national news

Another Trump campaign nut case emerges

No one had heard of Sam Nunberg until special counsel Robert Mueller decided to subpoena him to testify before a federal grand jury.

So what does this guy do? He blusters and bellows that he won’t answer the call to testify before the panel that is looking into whether Donald Trump’s presidential campaign colluded with Russians who meddled in our electoral process.

And then …

Nunberg has second thoughts. He says he might testify after all.

Oh, but first he went on cable news broadcasts — CNN, Fox, MSNBC — to offer lots of goofy bluster about how he “laughed” at the subpoena.

My initial question was this: Who in the hell is this guy?

I have learned that he attended some meetings and has some inside information about what Donald Trump might know. He has said some disparaging things about his former boss.

This clown is playing with some seriously hot fire if he intends to stiff the special counsel. Mueller is no fool. He’s not a partisan hack. He is a former FBI director and a first-class lawyer. Mueller is known to be meticulous in his approach to evidence-gathering and highly circumspect about what he says in public.

A loudmouth like Nunberg is the antithesis of Mueller. Sadly, he is the kind of clown with whom Donald Trump has surrounded himself.

Come to think of it, he mirrors the Big Man himself.

Weird.

national news

AG Jeff Sessions deserves some support

So help me, I cannot quite explain why I am about to write these next few words. U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions has become a sympathetic character in a presidential administration that appears to be unraveling before our eyes.

Donald J. Trump is getting pinched by a special counsel who was appointed by the Justice Department because the AG did the right thing by recusing himself from what Trump has called the “Russia thing.” Why did he do that? Because the attorney general was a key Trump campaign adviser and then moved directly into the Trump presidential transition team that has been ensnared by allegations of “collusion” with Russians seeking to interfere in our 2016 presidential election.

Sessions’s recusal has enraged the president, who’s now taking to disparaging him publicly via Twitter. The men have a frosty relationship, even though Sessions was among Trump’s earliest supporters in the U.S. Senate, where Sessions served before being picked to run the Justice Department.

What can the president do? Does he fire Sessions? Yeah, good luck with that — and with finding someone the Senate can confirm. The word is out about the president: No one worth a damn wants to work for this guy. He’s making a mess of everything he touches. He cannot govern. He cannot administer a political organization such as the White House.

That shouldn’t surprise a single American. Trump had no government experience. He had no political credibility. He cannot keep key White House advisers. I mean, he has just received the resignation from the fourth White House communications director in a little more than a year.

Sessions now stands as a man with a semblance of ethical conduct — and for that he is being punished by the president of the United States, who calls a decision to hire inspector general lawyers to conduct a probe “disgraceful.”

Trump also has said that had he known Sessions would recuse himself from the Russia probe he would have nominated someone with more “loyalty” to the president. Hey, that’s not why these people serve. They serve to protect and defend the U.S. Constitution, just like the president.

From my vantage point, the president is doing a pi**-poor job of fulfilling the oath he took.

As for Sessions, as much as I opposed his appointment in the first place, I am fearful of the bloodbath that will occur if he calls it quits and the president tries to pick someone to do his bidding.

Good luck with that, Mr. President.

national news

Is this the beginning of the end?

Andrew Sullivan can be forgiven, at least by me, for engaging in a bit of wishful thinking.

He posits out loud about whether Donald Trump finally — finally! — might be facing a form of political doomsday. He writes in “New York” magazine that special counsel Robert Mueller is hot on a trail that could produce evidence that the Trump campaign defrauded the United States while working with a foreign power.

He calls it the closest thing Mueller could find to “collusion.”

Is this the end? Is Trump toast? Sullivan likely hopes it’s true. Frankly, so do I.

The proverbial Cat With Nine Lives has nothing on this guy, the president of the United States. He should have been toast long ago. He survived after:

  • Calling Sen. John McCain a war hero “only because he was captured” by North Vietnam during the Vietnam War.
  • Mimicking a New York Times reporter’s physical disability.
  • Criticizing a Muslim couple whose son was killed in action fighting for the United States against Muslim terrorists in Iraq.
  • Admitting on that “Access Hollywood” tape that he groped women, grabbing them by their genitals.
  • Being caught telling lie after lie after lie all along the campaign trail.

The man got elected president. He didn’t go down in flames, even though in a normal election year he likely would have been dismissed as the clown that he has proven himself to be.

I am not yet willing to hold my breath waiting for Mueller’s investigation to sink Trump.

I’ve said all along — and I’ll likely say it many more times — that this man is unfit for the job to which he was elected. If only he had faced an opponent who wasn’t so badly damaged herself.

Still, I join in Sullivan’s wishful thought process. This guy is way out of his league, dealing with serving the public and acting presidential … you know, that kind of thing.

entertainment news, national news, political news

Trump opens door to new breed of pundit

Donald J. Trump’s election as president of the United States has been a godsend to so many Americans. Those who support him think he’s the best thing to happen since pockets on shirts. Those who oppose him think, well, quite a bit differently. I’ll leave it at that.

I believe we all can agree that his election has opened doors to many new types of political pundits. My favorite new breed is the late-night comic.

Most of them are teeing off on the president nightly. They are giving him the what-for on any manner of issue. And, oh brother, he keeps proving so much grist.

As expected, though, the late-night comics’ incessant barrage has drawn criticism from those who believe that entertainers — such as these comics in particular — are “not qualified to comment on political matters.”

That brought, in my view,  a classic response from one of those comics. Jimmy Kimmel answered the other day that Trump’s election as president gives him all the credibility he needs to comment on his performance in office.

“I mean, we elected Donald Trump as president of the United States,” Kimmel answered recently with a healthy dose of faux astonishment. I guess I should mention that Trump is as qualified to be president than the comics are to comment on him.

Trump vowed to bring jobs back to this country as part of his “America first” plan and his strategy to “make America great again.”

Trump’s election has delivered an unintended benefit. He has delivered huge stashes of political humor ammunition to those who work in his former calling — in the entertainment industry.

legal news, national news, political news

Who should we trust in this battle of wills?

Whenever the president of the United States challenges the credibility of the special counsel assigned to examine alleged collusion with Russian hackers, I believe I will think first of the article I have attached to this blog post.

The Washington Post article goes into great detail about the similarities and the differences between Donald John Trump and Robert Swan Mueller III.

When the president suggests that the former FBI director is unfit to conduct a probe into “The Russia Thing,” it would be good to understand from where both these men came and the choices they have made.

The Post piece tells of how they both were born into wealth. They both attended private schools. They attended Ivy League universities.

One of them chose after college to get into his father’s business. The other — pained by the Vietnam War combat death of a lifelong friend — chose to enlist in the Marine Corps and report for duty in the war that killed his friend.

Trump built a fabulous business and entertainment career with help from his father. Mueller decided to pursue a career in public service — starting with his duty on battlefields far from the comforts of home.

Trump has become a loudmouth and a braggart. Mueller became something quite different; he rarely talks about himself in public.

Trump got elected president of the United States amid considerable consternation over whether he is up to the job. Mueller got selected for the special counsel job of investigating the Trump campaign’s allegedly improper ties to Russian hackers amid universal praise and acclaim that he was the perfect man for his new job.

The investigation is ongoing. Mueller isn’t going to divulge when he intends to finish it. He will keep plowing straight ahead. He won’t be deterred by efforts to derail, divert, deflect, degrade and disparage his investigation.

I will place my faith in the career prosecutor rather than a novice politician whose entire professional life has been built on self-enrichment and self-aggrandizement.

national news

Now it’s Trump vs. McMaster … imagine that!

So much buzz, so little time to process it all.

Donald Trump fired off a tweet over the weekend that took aim at a remarkable target: the man who provides him national security advice.

H.R. McMaster said at an international conference that special counsel Robert Mueller’s indictment of several Russians on charges of 2016 election meddling provides “incontrovertible” proof that the Russians launched an attack on our electoral system.

Trump’s response was to say that McMaster “forgot” to say that the indictments didn’t accuse the Trump campaign of “collusion,” that it didn’t help the Russians hack into our system; nor did McMaster say that the meddling actually influenced the outcome, according to the president.

So, the battle is joined. As Politico notes, the two men have been at odds ever since McMaster replaced the disgraced Michael Flynn as national security adviser.

Here is the Politico story

Who knew? I mean, McMaster is a highly decorated U.S. Army three-star general, a man with tremendous attention to detail. He is a national security scholar who now works for a man who doesn’t have the interest or inclination to study anything. The president flies by the seat of his pants and reacts viscerally to crises.

Is there any wonder that Gen. McMaster and the president would be at odds?

Hardly.

We are left to wonder how this White House, the president and his top aides ever are able to concur on anything. Who in the world gives this president advice he actually heeds?

The answer is no one.

national news

Now this: Mueller indicts Russians for meddling

Let’s see. If we’re keeping score, the tab is piling up against Donald Trump’s claim that the Russians didn’t interfere in our 2016 presidential election.

The nation’s top spooks, the folks who run our intelligence agencies, say in unison that the Russians meddled in our election.

Now, today, we get word that special counsel Robert Mueller has indicted 13 Russians and three Russian companies for — drum roll! — interfering in our election.

But … the president of the United States is willing to take the word of a former KGB boss, Vladimir Putin, that he didn’t do what our intelligence experts say he did. Donald Trump is the lone denier in all of this.

To be clear, the indictments don’t suggest any collusion from the Trump campaign. The president might take some solace in that knowledge, although there’s still more to be determined by Mueller’s legal team as it pores through all the material that has piled up.

Nor do the indictments say that the Russian hackers’ activity actually affected the outcome. They did not determine the outcome. I get that, too.

Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who announced the indictments, said the Russians did accomplish their mission in their meddling, which was to cause “discord” and to throw doubt over our nation’s electoral process.

When will the president ever acknowledge what is now widely known? My hunch: He’ll take his denial with him to the grave.

Weird.

national news, political news

Hoping for a ‘Sen. Romney’

I cannot believe I am about to write this blog post.

No kidding, I am excited about Mitt Romney’s candidacy for the U.S. Senate from Utah.

The 2012 Republican Party’s presidential nominee didn’t get my vote when he ran against President Barack H. Obama. That was then. Six years later, he now stands as a possible deterrent to another Republican, the current president of the United States, Donald John “Stable Genius” Trump.

Romney wants to succeed Orrin Hatch in the U.S. Senate. He has some Utah connection, although he will face the “carpetbagger” charge from those who might oppose his candidacy. Romney ran for the Senate in Massachusetts, losing in 1994 to the late Sen. Ted Kennedy. He then was elected governor of the Bay State. Mitt has lived most recently in southern California.

But in 2002, he did step in to rescue the Salt Lake City Winter Olympics. Plus, he has strong ties to the Mormon Church — which is headquartered in Utah — and is arguably the nation’s most well-known Mormon.

A Sen. Romney would take office as a leading lawmaker. There will be no “getting acquainted” with this guy. He’s a known quantity, a national political figure of considerable renown.

He also has had his run-ins with Donald Trump. Romney famously called Trump a “fraud” and a “phony” during the  2016 presidential campaign. Thus, Romney potentially could serve as a check on the president’s sometimes-weird instincts.

Yes, I realize he auditioned for a secretary of state appointment in the Trump administration. I also know he likely groveled a bit to get the nod. I don’t hold it against him.

To be honest, I think I would like Mitt Romney if I ever got the chance to meet him. For starters, a Republican who would challenge Trump’s legitimacy as a serious politician is OK in my book.

Mitt Romney becomes the prohibitive favorite to succeed Sen. Hatch. I now will hope he can win this seat — and turn up the heat under the president.

International news

Spooks say it again: Russia meddled in 2016!

The nation’s leading intelligence agency heads all sat in a row in front of a congressional committee.

Then they all said the same thing: Russia interfered in our 2016 presidential election and they intend to do the same thing during our 2018 midterm election.

There you have it.

Except that the men’s boss, the president of the United States, isn’t buying it. Donald John Trump continues to insist that it’s not yet proven that Russia meddled. The president, moreover, says that Vladimir Putin, the Russian president, told him he had no hand in the meddling. Trump apparently has bought into Putin’s denial … as if the Russian strongman is going to say a single thing different.

The Hill reports: “There should be no doubt that Russia perceived its past efforts as successful and views the 2018 midterm elections as a potential target for Russian influence operations,” Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats said during his opening remarks at a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing.

He also warned lawmakers that Moscow is “likely to pursue even more aggressive cyberattacks” against future elections in an effort to undermine U.S. democracy.

I don’t need to remind anyone — but I guess I will anyhow — that Coats is no squishy Democratic liberal. He’s a former Republican senator from Indiana, whom Trump appointed to lead the national intelligence team.

I think I’ll accept Coats’ version of what he and the others — including the director of the FBI and the CIA — are saying about Russia’s acknowledged effort to subvert the U.S. electoral process.

If only the president himself would admit the obvious.

If only …

national news

Due process, Mr. President?

Donald Trump has had an epiphany. Maybe?

I’m trying to understand how this guy, the president, can call for “due process” when he’s demonstrated a remarkable and shameful tendency to forgo it when it involves his political foes.

Now he says that Rob Porter, the former White House staff secretary who’s accused by former wives and a former girlfriend of spousal abuse is entitled to “due process.” He and a former speechwriter, who also quit this week, are being railroaded out of their jobs by mere allegations, according to the president.

Wow! Can you believe it? The president insists on “due process” to determine their guilt or innocence.

Back when he just a mere hotel/real estate mogul, Trump called for punishing five young men who had been exonerated of raping a woman in Central Park. They were the Central Park Five. Trump didn’t think for a second about due process for those individuals.

How about when he was running for president and he declared his belief that U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz’s father was somehow implicated in the assassination of President Kennedy? Oh, his evidence was a photograph he saw in, um, the National Enquirer, of Rafael Cruz and Lee Harvey Oswald. I must mention that Cruz was running against Trump for the Republican presidential nomination. Due process? Hah!

Let’s not forget the “Lock her up!” chants regarding Hillary Rodham Clinton, Trump’s opponent in the 2016 general election. Trump campaign crowds would launch into the chant and, oh yes, Trump would egg them on. Did the former secretary of state and U.S. senator deserve “due process”? Or was she fair game just because she was a politician running for the same office as the guy who beat her?

If only the president would have shown as much concern for “due process” in the not-too-distant past. His previous carelessness only heightens the skepticism when he shoots off his mouth about this current spate of White House chaos.