Tag Archives: 2016 election

national news

Trump trashes FBI yet again

Put yourself in the shoes of a professional law enforcement officer with desires to work for the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Your director works at the pleasure of the president of the United States. The FBI director’s job is to manage arguably the world’s premier investigative agency. Yet the president calls out the management of your agency almost daily, using language one hears on junior high school playgrounds.

The FBI has long been considered a place where trained professionals do their jobs with skill and precision. Yet the president — the nation’s top dog — keeps questioning its competence and its professionalism.

POTUS takes aim at FBI

Donald J. Trump seeks to embark on a sort of scorched-Earth policy with regard to the FBI. The man he chose to lead the agency, Christopher Wray, is now being hamstrung by the man who hired him. Wray cannot shake himself loose from the shackles that Trump clamps around his ankles.

The president keeps invoking the name of the man he fired, James Comey, who was investigating whether Trump’s presidential campaign colluded with Russian hackers who sought to influence the 2016 election outcome. And, yes, he attaches epithets to Comey’s name, along with that of Hillary Rodham Clinton, the president’s election opponent.

Now the president has joined the conservative chorus in seeking the departure of Andrew McCabe, who was Comey’s chief deputy at the FBI. Trump has accused McCabe of being too cozy with Clinton while the agency was investigating her use of private email servers while she was secretary of state during the first term of the Obama administration.

I guess I just cannot put myself into the shoes of anyone with designs of becoming an FBI agent. The president’s Twitter tirades against the FBI cannot possibly be a lure to anyone who seeks to serve their country.

International news, national news, political news

Memo to GOP: Remember ‘Benghazi’?

Republicans in Congress and their friends in the media are now singing loudly from the same political hymnal.

They want special counsel Robert Mueller to either be fired or they want him to conclude his investigation into the “Russia thing.”

Oh, they have such short memories.

I feel compelled to remind them all of one word: Benghazi.

The GOP conducted an investigation with seemingly no end. It involved then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and whether she committed some sort of crime in relation to the attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya. The attack killed four Americans, including the nation’s ambassador to Libya.

They held hearings. They brought Clinton before congressional panels. They quizzed her, berated her, threatened to “lock her up!” over the chaos that ensued from that tragic event.

It went on for years. From 2012 until 2016. It cost millions of dollars of public funds.

Now we have Mueller on the hunt for the truth behind another highly sensitive matter: whether Donald Trump’s presidential campaign colluded with Russian government officials who sought to meddle in our 2016 presidential election.

They now are alleging bias in the Mueller team. They point to two staffers who exchange pro-Hillary email and text messages — before Mueller fired them when their antipathy toward Trump became known.

Some in the conservative media are pressuring the president to fire Mueller. Big mistake, folks! The president says there’s no evidence of collusion. Fine. Then, let Mueller’s team reach that conclusion on its own.

As for the calls for the special counsel to wrap up his probe, Republicans on Capitol Hill and around the country need to examine their own conduct during another probe involving a prominent Democratic politician.

If we’re going to demand a thorough probe into alleged wrongdoing, then it must apply to everyone.

Isn’t that only fair?

national news

‘Rumor’ has a strange way of becoming fact

I frequently was told when I was working as a print journalist that one should never rely on “rumor” as the basis for a news story.

However, the difficulty about reporting on the presidency of Donald J. Trump is that rumor, indeed, can become fact when no one expects it to happen.

U.S. Rep. Jackie Speier says that a “rumor” is floating around Capitol Hill that the president is going to fire special counsel Robert Mueller perhaps before Christmas.

Trump plays with fire

Speier sits on the House Intelligence Committee that is looking at whether the Trump campaign colluded with Russians who interfered in our 2016 presidential election. The attorney general, Jeff Sessions, recused himself from anything to do with the Russia matter; Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein then selected Mueller — a career prosecutor and former FBI director — to lead the probe. Mueller’s selection was hailed universally at the time; Republicans and Democrats praised Mueller for his integrity, meticulousness and seriousness.

Will the “rumor” come true? I surely hope it does not.

The president keeps insisting that Mueller’s probe is heading into a blind alley. There’s nothing to the “collusion” accusation, Trump insists. OK, then. Let the probe continue. Let the special counsel complete his work. If he comes up empty, he’ll say so. Game over.

If not, well, then we’ve got a problem — and the president’s problem only will intensify if he fires Mueller before his work is finished.

political news

Mitch McConnell: partisan powerhouse

Oh, how I wanted to give U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell the benefit of the doubt.

I didn’t like the way he stonewalled Barack Obama’s choice for the Supreme Court after Antonin Scalia died in 2016. Then he turned around and said all the right things about Roy Moore, the religious zealot — who also has been accused of sexually abusing girls; McConnell said Moore is unfit to serve in the Senate and he wanted him to end his candidacy.

Now the Republican from Kentucky is showing who he really is: a partisan powerhouse hack.

He doesn’t want to wait for Alabama U.S. Sen.-elect Doug Jones — the Democrat who beat Moore this week in that special election — to take his seat before voting on the GOP-authored tax cut bill. Moore is a certain “no” vote on the bill.

But wait! Seven years ago, a Republican was elected to the Senate from Massachusetts and McConnell insisted that the Senate wait for Scott Brown to take his seat before voting on whether to repeal the Affordable Care Act.

Which is it, Mr. Majority Leader? Is it right for one party to gum up the works, but not for the other party?

I refer to McConnell’s successful obstruction of President Obama’s nomination of Merrick Garland to the high court for a reason as well. McConnell wanted to hold off on confirming a Supreme Court pick until after the 2016 election. He was hoping Donald Trump would defeat Hillary Clinton, even though almost no one thought he would. His gamble paid off.

However, while obstructing the president, he accused Democrats of “playing politics” with the nomination by insisting that Judge Garland get a hearing and a vote. I trust you see the irony in that statement, as McConnell was “playing politics” like the master politician he has proven to be.

Now the Senate Republican majority is poised to foist a tax cut that will explode the federal budget deficit on Americans; analyses suggest it will benefit the wealthiest Americans while burdening the rest of us. But that’s OK, says Mitch. Bring it on!

Don’t wait for a duly elected Democrat to take his seat. We gotta get this bill to the president’s desk because we’re desperate for a win.

Oh, and never mind what he said before about Sen.-elect Brown. Hey, if Americans can ignore what the president says about his political foes, surely they’ll give McConnell a pass on his brazen duplicity.

national news

So many lies, only one winner?

Politifact has announced perhaps my favorite award category of all time: Lie of the Year.

It’s a fact-checking website that has declared its 2017 Lie of the Year to be Donald J. Trump’s assertion that Russian interference in our electoral process is a made-up story that Democrats fabricated as an excuse for why Hillary Clinton lost the 2016 election.

I have to admit that’s a good one.

The president has disparaged the nation’s intelligence-gathering network and has stood behind Russian strongman Vladimir Putin’s “denial” that the Russians hacked into our electoral system.

In fact, there have been so many lies it’s hard to pick just one.

Barack Obama ordered the wiretap of Trump’s campaign office? That’s a good one, too. Millions of illegal immigrants voted for Hillary in 2016, giving her a 3 million popular vote victory? That’s a serious knee-slapper. The president’s electoral victory was the greatest since President Reagan’s re-election in 1984? I can’t stop laughing at that one.

Actually, though, I think Politifact has chosen well. The “Russia thing” hoax lie is really rich, man.

Trump likely would be in the running for lying every year he’s been in politics. My favorite 2016 lie is how he would “stop tweeting” once he became president. And the 2015 winner would have to be that Trump’s refusal to release his tax returns was because of an on-going Internal Revenue Service “audit.”

Come to think of it, has the IRS completed that audit? Was there ever an IRS audit?

Liar, liar …

International news

Tillerson bucks Trump again … this time on Russia

What?

You mean to say that Secretary of State Rex Tillerson thinks Russia interfered in the 2016 presidential election?

Why, I thought the president of the United States has called it “fake news,” that the Russians wouldn’t do such a thing, that their president, Vladimir Putin, told him they didn’t do it — and that Donald Trump believes him!

Isn’t that what we’ve been told by the Liar in Chief?

Tillerson reportedly made his feelings known privately. But I guess they aren’t quite so private these days now that the world knows what the secretary of state believes about the Russian hanky-panky.

The secretary is on thin ice as it is with the president, who’s reportedly working on an exit strategy to remove Tillerson and replace him with CIA Director Mike Pompeo. Tillerson opposed Trump’s decision to de-certify the Iran nuclear deal, and the withdrawal from the Paris climate change accord.

He called the president a “moron” and then pointedly declined to take it back when he was asked about it.

Now we have this item in which Tillerson bucks the Big Man yet again on the Russian interference matter. Actually, Tillerson is far from alone in believing the Russians sought to meddle in the election. If anything, it’s Trump who’s singing solo in his refusal to sign on to what intelligence analysts all have said happened.

However, Trump is the president. Tillerson works at his “pleasure.” My guess is that the president is not feeling too pleased with this latest sign of diplomatic mutiny.

national news, political news

Weirdness persists in Alabama contest

Just how bizarre is the contemporary political climate?

We can start with the election in November 2016 of Donald John Trump Sr., as president of the United States. A man with no public service experience, a record of crude behavior and with no knowledge of government became the head of state of the world’s greatest nation.

That’s pretty weird, yes? Yes. It is. In my view.

So, let’s try this one on.

Two men are running for a U.S. Senate seat from Alabama. One of them, Republican Roy Moore is accused of sexual abuse against women; one woman has alleged that Moore tried to seduce her when she was just 14 years of age. The other candidate is Democrat Doug Jones, a former federal prosecutor who secured the conviction of two Klansmen implicated in that hideous 1963 bombing of a Baptist church that killed four African-American girls.

Who’s leading the race? The candidate accused of child molestation. That would be Moore.

Here’s weirdness kicker: Moore has been MIA in the campaign’s final days. He has had zero public appearances; Jones, meanwhile, has been campaigning across the state, shaking hands, kissing babies, making his case.

But … Moore still leads. Barely, but he still leads. The race might be too close to call.

Bizarre.

national news

Actually, Mme. Press Secretary, election didn’t settle it

Sarah Huckabee Sanders says the 2016 presidential election decided what voters think about the accusations by women against Donald Trump.

Let me ponder that for a moment. Umm, actually it didn’t settle it. Or perhaps it did in a way that Sanders didn’t intend.

Several women have accused the president of behaving badly toward them; they have alleged incidents of groping, unwanted kissing and assorted tomfoolery they didn’t seek or want.

This is news today because of the sexual abuse allegations that have brought the downfall of Hollywood moguls, actors and politicians. Trump remains untouched. Some senators have called on Trump to resign, just as three members of Congress have done. Other critics are suggesting an ethics investigation is in order.

Oh, what did the election settle? Sanders said Trump’s Electoral College victory meant the issue is gone.

Nope. It isn’t.

Let’s see. How did Trump do in the popular vote? He received 62,985,134 votes. Oh, and how many votes went to Hillary Rodham Clinton? 65,853,652.

That’s a difference of 2,850,518 votes … in Hillary’s favor.

Thus, I do believe Sarah Sanders is mistaken if she thinks the election settled anything.

International news

Take it easy with the ‘P-word,’ Mr. President

Donald John Trump isn’t known for possessing any sense of circumspection. He kind of blurts words out without thinking of how they might sound.

Such as when he endorsed Roy Moore in his race to become the next U.S. senator from Alabama. He said he doesn’t want a “puppet of Nancy Pelosi or Chuck Schumer” to serve in the Senate, referring to the Democrat in the race, Doug Jones.

Imagine the president calling anyone a “puppet.” How can someone who many of us believe is a puppet of Russian strongman Vladimir Putin hang that pejorative tag on another politician?

The Russian government, which Putin runs with an iron fist, interfered in our 2016 election. Intelligence analysts believe Putin wanted Trump to defeat Hillary Rodham Clinton. Trump has refused to acknowledge publicly what the nation’s top intelligence agencies have said already about Putin’s involvement in meddling in our electoral process.

Other analysts contend that Putin is playing Trump.

Let me think for a moment.

Isn’t that how someone manipulates a political puppet?

national news, political news

Dare we say, ‘Lock him up’?

It’s difficult to feel much sympathy for retired Army Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn.

He has pleaded guilty to lying under oath to the FBI about when and with whom he met with the Russian government. He faces a possible prison sentence — once he finishes cooperating with special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into that “Russia thing.”

I doubt he’ll serve prison time. But that’s just me. Whether he remains free or in behind bars might depend on the quality of the goods he delivers to Mueller’s team of legal eagles.

However, Flynn now is being cast in a curious role in this probe. He stands to become the star witness for the special counsel’s office in its search for answers into whether the Donald J. Trump presidential campaign colluded with the Russian government that hacked into our 2016 presidential election process.

Here’s the juxtaposition that cannot be ignored:

Flynn stood at the podium in the summer of 2016 during the Republican National Convention and led the GOP faithful into that ghastly chant “Lock her up!” — the reference being aimed at Hillary Rodham Clinton and her use of her personal e-mail service while she was serving as secretary of state during President Obama’s first term.

I use the term “ghastly” because such conduct was totally unbecoming of a man with a distinguished military career who morphed into a leading politician’s national security adviser. Flynn, though, took the low road in that preposterous display.

Will this guy be locked up? Will he get the kind of punishment he urged for a political foe?

It’s tempting to shout “Lock him up!” I won’t do it, though.

Oh, wait! Maybe I just did.