Tag Archives: Barack Obama

International news, national news

DACA recipients being chewed up, spit out

I am angry on behalf of millions of U.S. residents who do not deserve the fate that might await them.

They are individuals who came to this country because their parents sneaked across our border illegally. Mom and Dad Illegal Immigrant brought their children with them because, being good parents, they didn’t want to leave them in the country they were fleeing.

They are being kicked around by congressional Republicans who want to send them back because they don’t want to extend protection offered them during the Obama administration. It’s called the Deferred Action on Childhood Arrivals order, or DACA.

Republicans want Congress to approve money to start building that “big, beautiful wall” across our southern border. Democrats don’t want the wall and instead are pushing for an extension of the DACA protection that Donald J. Trump wants to eliminate.

But what about those U.S. residents who know only life in the United States and do not want to return to a country they don’t know? Do they deserve to be kicked out of here because their parents sneaked them in? I do not believe they deserve that fate.

DACA recipients might fall victim in this game of political chicken that could result in a partial shutdown of the federal government. If the money runs out Friday, the feds close the door on government agencies.

DACA recipients are being held hostage.

President Obama extended the DACA protection as a form of temporary amnesty for those facing deportation. Its intent is to give these folks a way to obtain citizenship or legal immigrant status. Trump sees it differently. He doesn’t want to extend the protection because — as I understand it — his Republican base wants to toss all illegal immigrants out of the country.

Even those who came of age here, who have virtually — or absolutely — zero memory of the country from where they came. Many of these young people have gotten their education in the United States, they have worked hard and paid their taxes. They have become part of our national fabric — even without the necessary papers to prove they are here legally.

This drama is going to play out in due course.

If only the politicians in Washington would understand the consequences of their actions on all those who live in this country.

Do they really intend to round these folks up and send them to a strange land?

national news

Sen. Flake launches well-aimed barrage against …

He didn’t mention his target by name or even by title, but everyone who heard U.S. Sen. Jeff Flake’s speech today know of whom he spoke.

Flake, the lame-duck Arizona Republican, was talking about Donald John Trump Sr., president of the United States.

Flake’s scathing remarks spoke to an assault on the truth by the “most powerful person in government.” Yes, he called the president a liar.

He also scorched Trump for his ongoing assault on the media and lambasted him for undermining a valuable institution charged with holding government accountable for its actions.

Here is Flake’s speech.

Flake’s speech came just a day after his Arizona colleague, Sen. John McCain, wrote in a Washington Post commentary that Trump needs to stop his criticism of the media and stop invoking the “fake news” criticism of those media reports with which he disagrees.

The White House response was quite predictable. It spoke of the lousy poll numbers staring Flake in the face, which many have said caused him to announce his retirement from the Senate at the end of the year; he won’t stand for re-election.

Of course, the poll numbers retort dodges the point that Flake sought to make. Which is that Donald Trump has torn the truth to shreds with his constant prevarication and his frontal assault on those whose job is to report to the public about what the public’s government is doing for — or to — the people to whom those in government must answer.

Here’s a final thought …

If congressional Republicans are going to criticize how the president has conducted himself while in office, shouldn’t they mention him by name?

I mean, they chewed former President Barack Obama out for failing to mention the words “radical Islamic terrorists” as he spoke about the nation’s ongoing war against terrorism.

We all know about whom Sen. Flake was referring. He should have mentioned his name just to remove any smidgen of doubt.

I’ll close with these words from Jeff Flake himself: We are a mature democracy – it is well past time that we stop excusing or ignoring – or worse, endorsing — these attacks on the truth. For if we compromise the truth for the sake of our politics, we are lost.

Well stated, senator.

medical news, national news

‘Girther’ movement, anyone?

I have followed a longstanding policy to avoid making fun of people’s names or their appearance.

Then along came Donald John Trump, who ran for president of the United States and, yes, along the way made an annoying habit of needling his political foes over their appearance.

Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky? Some of the women who accused him of sexual impropriety? Carly Fiorina?

Trump said some hideous things about them.

So, the president is now fair game to those of us who, um, feel compelled to comment on some aspects of his physical appearance.

I’m howling at the idea of a new movement that’s springing up around the country. It’s called the “Girther Movement,” which is meant to call attention to the president’s ample waistline. Oh, yeah, it also reminds us all of the “birther movement” that Trump used to call attention to the lies about President Obama’s place of birth.

The White House physician, Ronny Jackson, says the president weighs in at 239 pounds; he stands 6 foot 3 inches tall and he is close to being declared “obese,” according to Dr. Jackson.

Some folks are questioning whether Trump really and truly weighs a mere 239 pounds, suggesting that he is, um, a good bit heftier.

Trump may be the smartest, richest, least racist person any of us have ever seen.

But … he is far from the fittest. He loves his cheeseburgers, Diet Cokes and doesn’t exercise a lick — or so we’re led to believe.

Girther movement? Sure. Sign me up.

national news

President is never ‘off the clock’

The nuclear missile strike that wasn’t this past weekend brought to mind something I’ve yapped about for the past several years.

It is that presidents of the United States are never “off the clock.” They’re never more than a phone call — or a text message — away from being summoned immediately back to work.

Case in point: When the president was informed that Hawaii residents were panicking over what they thought was an incoming ballistic missile, he was on the golf course. He was playing golf at his resort in south Florida.

The “missile strike” turned out to be a false alarm caused by human error.

Donald J. Trump, though, was summoned by national security aides to tend to the issue immediately. He was called off the golf course and hustled to wherever he went to stand by and to monitor the situation.

Back when Barack Obama was president, Trump and other critics yammered constantly about all the time Obama was spending on the golf course. I countered through this blog that the criticism was unfounded, unjustified and undeserved. I made the point that presidents are on call 24/7. They’re always on the job. They cannot hand it off to someone else.

I’ll say the same thing with Trump in charge. Never mind that he plays more golf than Obama; that’s not the point here.

My point is that any criticism of Trump playing golf while Americans were scrambling for cover in response to a false alarm ignores a fundamental point: Presidents of the United States are not entitled to a single minute as private citizens. They aren’t.

They have to respond to any real or potential emergency — even when they’re playing golf.

International news, national news

An ’embarrassment’? Yeah, do ya think?

Chuck Hagel isn’t your run-of-the-mill Donald John Trump critic.

He once served as defense secretary for President Obama. Oh, but wait! The man isn’t a squishy liberal. He also is a former Republican senator from Nebraska, one of the many states known to be rock-ribbed, red-state Republican bastions. Hagel also is a Vietnam War veteran, serving there in the U.S. Army. He’s been in battle and knows its consequences.

So, when Chuck Hagel calls the president an “embarrassment” to the nation, well, I tend to listen to him.

Hagel sat down with the Lincoln (Neb.) Star-Journal in which he unloaded on the president. He tore into him for his reported “sh**hole countries” comment describing Haiti, El Salvador and nations in Africa that account for many immigrants coming into the United States.

“Donald Trump is doing great damage to our country internationally,” Hagel told the newspaper.

He said lawmakers take an oath to defend the Constitution and not stand blindly behind any individual or their political party. “I was philosophically a Republican with a conservative voting record,” Hagel said, “but that did not mean I would always go along with the party.”

So, he’s not going along. He is speaking from his heart and telling us what’s on his mind. Moreover, he is speaking for a lot of his fellow Americans — such as yours truly — when he tells us that the president is embarrassing us.

I happen to be embarrassed — and ashamed — by the conduct of the man who is our head of state.

Thus, I share Secretary/Sen. Hagel’s pain.

media news, national news

No such thing as ‘off the record’

Michael Smerconish is a smart commentator and CNN TV host.

He offered a prime piece of political wisdom this morning when he said, “There’s no such thing as ‘off the record.'”

There it is. A lesson that no doubt has not been lost on the “stable genius” who sits in the Oval Office of the White House. Donald Trump clearly knew that when he described African nations and Haiti as “sh**hole countries” would be picked up and flashed around the world.

As Smerconish noted today, seemingly everyone has a smart phone equipped with a camera and a recording device.

When the president blurts out a racist comment, or when he makes declarations that are sure to offend millions of Americans — let alone billions of other world inhabitants — he is speaking only to a narrow audience: his political base, the 30-some percent of Americans who stand with him no matter what.

As Smerconish noted today, Barack Obama was caught telling a fundraising crowd that many Americans “cling to their guns” and their religious faith; four years later, Mitt Romney was overheard telling a crowd that “47 percent of Americans” who live on government programs will vote for President Obama “no matter what.”

The world is listening to these politicians.

I get that Trump’s sh**hole comments aren’t a precise parallel to the examples cited already. Still, Donald Trump called an entire continent a place full of “sh**hole” countries populated by dark-skinned people. Lawmakers heard him say it and have declared they heard it. Such a statement sounds pretty damn racist to me.

He has offended millions of Americans.

Trump doesn’t care. His base hangs with him.

national news

Does the president ever surprise us?

The more I think about it, the less surprised I get over the epithet that flew out of Donald John Trump’s mouth earlier this week.

I refer to his questioning why the United States accepts immigrants from “sh**hole countries” such as Haiti and those in Africa.

African Union member states have called on a retraction and an apology from the president of the United States. Democratic politicians in this country are howling about the racist-sounding rant the president leveled during a White House meeting to discuss immigration issues.

But this comment merely is the latest in a disturbing pattern of behavior that Trump has demonstrated for many years.

He questioned Barack Obama’s legitimacy as president; he called white supremacists, Klansmen and neo-Nazis “very fine people”; he said an Indiana-born federal judge couldn’t adjudicate a case because of his Mexican heritage; he has attacked a Muslim Gold Star family; he called Mexican immigrants criminals; he called for a ban on all Muslims entering this country.

And on and on it goes. Seemingly forever.

He cannot control his impulse to denigrate groups of people. He seems always inclined to target darker-skinned people or non-Christians. He plays solely to his political base.

Why is it a surprise, then, that he would blurt out an epithet about “sh**hole countries comprising dark-skinned citizens?

It’s not. The surprise would come if Trump ever could find a way to offer a word of kindness and compassion for those who want to come here in search of a better life.

I do not expect that from Donald Trump.

national news

Is there a Liars Anonymous organization?

Donald Trump needs an intervention.

The president of the United States cannot tell the truth. He cannot state simply the reality of any situation he confronts, or that stands in his way.

Trump decided to lie like a rug yet again when he announced his decision to cancel a planned state visit to Great Britain. His excuse? He said former President Barack Obama brokered a bad deal to purchase the site for a new U.S. Embassy in London.

Trump blasted his immediate predecessor for paying too much public money to relocate the embassy.

So, that was his pretext for deciding against visiting the UK?

Two points are worth making here.

One is that his stated reason is as transparently phony as it can possibly get. The president doesn’t need to fabricate a reason to avoid going somewhere. The real reason clearly has to be that Brits cannot stand him. He was going to run straight into the teeth of intense public protests were he to visit Great Britain.

He has insulted British Prime Minister Teresa May; he has hurled ill-founded criticism of London’s mayor, Sadiq Khan, who happens to be a Muslim (and we certainly know how Trump feels about those who practice the Islamic faith).

The second point is this: The deal to purchase the embassy site was brokered under the administration of President George W. Bush. It was finalized in 2008, the year before Barack H. Obama took office.

Donald Trump has a serious grudge against Barack Obama. What fuels it? Is it that the former president exhibited the class and grace that the current president lacks? Is it the former president’s continued high standing among Americans? Is it because of the former president’s racial … oh, you know.

Donald Trump cannot tell the truth. He is a pathological liar.

He needs to enroll in a Liars Anonymous session — if there’s one available … and declare: My name is Donald and I am a liar.

 

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.

political news

Birtherism: It’s back!

Political nut jobs have this annoying way of getting attention they don’t deserve.

The newest Exhibit A of this phenomenon happens to be the new Republican candidate for the U.S. senator from Arizona, the former Maricopa County sheriff and convicted (and later pardoned) felon Joe Arpaio.

The ex-sheriff says former President Obama’s birth certificate is a phony document. He doesn’t believe the 44th president was born in Hawaii. He said he has “evidence” that the president served two terms illegally. Will he produce the “evidence”? No, he said on CNN last night.

He had this exchange with Chris Cuomo:

“We have the evidence, nobody will talk about it, nobody will look at it, and anytime you want to come down or anybody we’ll be glad to show you the evidence,” Arpaio said.
Cuomo pressed Arpaio again on the topic: “So you believe that President Obama’s birth certificate is a phony?”
“No doubt about it,” Arpaio said.
Ugghh! No, double, maybe triple ugghh!
This is the guy, lest we forget, who was convicted of disobeying a federal court order that mandated he stop profiling Hispanics in his quest to find illegal immigrants. He then was pardoned by the president of the United States, the nation’s “birther in chief,” Donald John Trump Sr.
Now he wants to serve in the U.S. Senate?
Please. No!