Tag Archives: POTUS

Enough of the excuses … Hillary lost!

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I am growing weary of the constant blame-gaming that’s going on among those who wanted Hillary Rodham Clinton to become president of the United States.

By all means, I preferred her over the candidate who won. I’ve already stipulated as much — many times! — on this blog.

She didn’t win. She lost. Hillary was thought to be the prohibitive favorite to become the next president. She didn’t get there.

And yet, we keep hearing that FBI James Comey’s 11th-hour letter to Congress about those pesky e-mails doomed Clinton’s campaign. Now we hear that the Russian hackers might have tilted the election in Donald J. Trump’s favor.

On the first matter, there’s nothing anyone can prove about Comey’s last-minute intervention. On the second matter, there ought to be a special commission convened — independent of Congress — to examine what the Russkies did, how they did it and recommend ways to protect us from future hackers. Hey, we convened such a commission after the 9/11 attacks.

Former President Bill Clinton, one of New York’s presidential electors, chimed in today about Comey and the Russians.

A lot of things went wrong with the former president’s wife’s campaign. If anyone needs to take the hickey on this stunning loss, it ought to be folks such as Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta and campaign manager Robby Mook.

Hillary Clinton should have put herself miles ahead of Trump by the time Comey’s letter came out. She fell short.

Who gets the blame? Hillary Clinton and her team need to look inward.

Is this when Trump becomes ‘presidential’?

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It’s official … finally!

The Electoral College voted today and put Donald J. Trump on track to become the next president of the United States.

I’ll offer the perfunctory congratulations to the president-elect.

Now, though, I want to make a request of him: I want him to start sounding and acting like the future head of state of the greatest nation on Earth.

There’s a certain form of irony in what we’ve witnessed from the president-elect. He says certain things about the state of our great nation. He vows to “make America great again”; he has ridiculed our military, our intelligence network, our political leadership, Congress, certain members of his own political party and certainly the Democratic Party leadership.

With all of that rhetoric coming forth from the president-elect, what have we seen him do at those “thank you tour” rallies? He’s exhibited much of the buffoonery he displayed throughout his campaign. A protester was hauled out one rally and Trump said from the podium, “Get him outta here.”

We’ve heard zero high-minded rhetoric from the next president as he has toured the country. Yet … he vowed to sound more “presidential” as he prepares to take office.

It has happened. There’s no sign it will happen.

Trump has been elected officially, though. The electors put him over the top.

So, let’s start hearing something of substance from the new guy. How about talking to the entire nation, Mr. President-elect, not just to those who voted for you?

He vowed to be “president for all Americans.” It’s time he started at least sounding as if he means it.

This isn’t sounding ‘presidential,’ Donald

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xFaH9Y2Mtmo

Donald J. Trump made a lot of promises along the campaign trail, which is no surprise, given that politicians do that sort of thing while they campaign for public office.

One of them was that he would be more “presidential” if voters elected him to the highest office in America.

This video is of the president-elect’s latest “thank you” rally. It took place in Orlando, Fla.

I’m waiting for him to start sounding “presidential.” He didn’t do so at this rally. He hasn’t done so at any of these events he’s held after winning the presidency.

Trump hasn’t changed his tone one tiny bit. He’s still spouting the buffoonery that won him so many fans all along the campaign trail.

The tenor of these rallies is filling me with interest in precisely how the next president is going to address the nation after he takes the oath of office.

Donald Trump well might deliver one of the more, um, memorable inaugural speeches in the history of the Republic.

POTUS will moonlight as executive producer

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump speaks with members of the press, Monday, Sept. 5, 2016, aboard his campaign plane, while flying over Ohio. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

This has to be almost poetic in nature, if you think about it.

Donald J. Trump won election to the first public office he ever sought. It’s a big one, for sure: president of the United States of America.

He knows next to zero about governance, so he’ll be learning much of it while working on the job.

Then there’s this: The new president is going to remain attached to the reality TV show that gave him notoriety, “The Apprentice.” He’ll be an executive producer of the show that will be hosted by former body builder/California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, who will inherit the role Trump once played, getting the chance to say “You’re fired!” to would-be business executives.

This is just plain weird, man. Strange in the extreme. Goofy to the max.

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/maybe-the-answer-is-that-he-can-t-divest

The president of the United States usually has a pretty full plate. He’s got to do things like, oh, protect us against our enemies, rev up the economy, ensure domestic tranquility and be the spokesman for the greatest nation on Earth.

How is this guy going to have time to devote to being executive producer of a TV show?

I guess the poetic element comes in as we realize that the president will be more or less serving as an “apprentice” in his own right while working his day job as head of state and head of government.

Thus, his role as executive producer of “The Apprentice” would appear to be a perfect fit.

Good … grief!

Trump making a simple matter so very complicated

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I am having trouble understanding what it is about conflict of interest that Donald J. Trump doesn’t get.

The president-elect has an enormous business empire. He has contacts throughout the world. He has enriched himself beyond most people’s imagination.

Now he’s about to become president of the United States. What should a man with all that wealth do to avoid even the appearance of conflict of interest?

Let’s see, how about selling those business interests outright? Or, how about putting them into a blind trust, let someone manage those interests — and stay the hell away from everything having to do with those business interests?

Is the president-elect going to do either of those things? Apparently not, according to the New York Times.

Trump now is letting it be known he intends to keep at least an interest in his businesses while his daughter Ivanka and her husband, Jared Kushner, run them.

Daddy Trump will still be involved, if only on the fringes, with the business empire he has built.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/07/us/politics/trump-organization-ivanka-trump.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=first-column-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news&_r=0

The U.S. Constitution refers to “emoluments,” and states that the president must not make money dealing with foreign governments. The next president is treading dangerously close — as long as he retains an “interest” in his business — of violating the emoluments clause of the Constitution. His businesses have extensive relationships with many foreign governments.

This shouldn’t be a close call. This should be an easy decision for the president to make. If something presents the potential for conflict of interest, you must act aggressively to remove the element that creates that potential conflict.

Trump is not about to quit the office he fought so hard to win. The only alternative is for him to quit the business. Sell it. Put it into a blind trust. Have nothing — not a single, solitary thing — to do with it.

Why doesn’t he get it?

Trump, Obama now have become BFFs?

obama-and-trump

Donald J. Trump is making my head spin.

The man who demonized President Barack Obama as someone who wasn’t elected legitimately because he was born somewhere other than the United States now is seeking his immediate predecessor’s advice on Cabinet picks?

Is that what I’m hearing?

Trump told “Today Show” host Matt Lauer this morning that he and the president are getting along famously these days. He’s consulting with him. He considers the president to be a “terrific guy.”

http://www.politico.com/story/2016/12/trump-obama-consultation-cabinet-232304

Wow, man! I get that politics often is a contact sport. I also get that political foes can put past hostilities aside. The president-elect, though, is having to do so on many fronts.

House Speaker Paul Ryan called Trump’s statements about Muslims “racist.” Now he and Trump are speaking daily, Ryan said. The 2012 Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney said Trump is a “fraud,” a “phony,” a “con man.” Now he is considered a frontrunner to become secretary of state in the Trump administration.

The president-elect’s relationship with the president?

Trump was one of the leaders of the “birther” movement. He sought to turn Obama into some kind of pretend president. Then he said in a single sentence that the president was “born in the United States. Period.”

That makes it all better?

I am having trouble believing it. Just as I am having trouble believing Mitt now no longer considers Trump to be a fraud, phony and a con man.

Suppose it’s all true, however. I guess it only demonstrates what we think of politicians, which is that they rarely tell us what’s truly in their heart, that it’s all just so much baloney.

‘Ready for Joe!’ in 2020?

Vice President Joe Biden addresses the Human Rights Campaign Spring Equity Convention in Washington, Friday, March 6, 2015. Biden said the same human rights that African Americans fought for in Selma, Alabama, are at stake for gay rights activists today. Biden is drawing parallels between the civil rights and gay rights movements in a speech to the Human Rights Campaign, a gay rights group. (AP Photo/Cliff Owen)

Joe Biden said “farewell” today to the U.S. Senate, where he served for 36 years before becoming vice president of the United States in 2009.

Then he joked that he might not be going anywhere after all.

Or … was he joking?

The vice president said he won’t rule out a run for the presidency in 2020. He’s not saying he will, mind you. He’s just not saying “no.”

Here we go with the speculation.

It’s how it goes these days. We get through one presidential election and the guessing begins for the next one. The VP has leavened the discussion just a bit.

There was this from NBCNews.com: “I doubt that there is any member of the caucus that would say if you’re making alist of the top three people he’s just about at the top of that list,” said House Democratic Whip Steny Hoyer of Maryland.

Hoyer was talking about Biden, of course.

http://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/farewell-visits-capitol-hill-joe-biden-teases-2020-run-n692626

I’m not going to get into the guessing game here. Let’s just note the obvious, which is that the vice president will be 78 years of age in 2020. Who was the oldest man to seek the presidency? That would be Sen. Bob Dole, who was 73 when he lost to President Clinton in 1996.

I wanted Biden to run this year. Four years from now?

I’m going to wait before getting too worked up.

Trumps won’t be ‘slumming it’ in White House

white-house

The Donald J. Trump family is quite used to an opulent lifestyle.

Posh resorts, jet airplanes, gawdy fixtures … all that kind of thing.

What are they getting now as they prepare for their new lives as the world’s most visible and gawked-at family — except, perhaps, for the Kardashians?

More of the same, only to a somewhat lesser degree. They’ll be fine.

The Man of the House says he’s going to forgo the $400,000 annual salary. He doesn’t need the money. The president-elect intends to collect a dollar a year, which he said not long ago is required by law. That means he can return nearly $1.6 million to the U.S. Treasury during the four years he’s in office.

It won’t amount to more than spitting into the ocean, but hey, it’s still a good bit of dough.

But think of this, too. The Trump clan is going to get to live in a pretty nice house. They’re going to have security like they’ve never seen. That airplane the president uses for official business — dubbed Air Force One when he’s aboard — ain’t bad, either. The Trumps can rest assured that the big blue-and-white Boeing 747 is decked out with the finest technology ever assembled for a single flying machine.

The Trumps won’t be driving their own motor vehicles for at least the next four years. They’ll have chauffeurs at the wheel, highly trained Secret Service security agents opening doors for them and staffers ensuring that their every wish is met and every command is followed to the letter — which likely is something to which they’ve become quite accustomed already … given the old man’s reported penchant for that kind of detail.

All this speculation is quite relevant, given the Trumps’ lifestyle and y-u-u-u-g-e success — which the president-elect boasted about continually while running for the first public office he’s ever sought.

I’m just hoping now as the new first family gets set to step into the public spotlight we don’t hear any griping from them about how they’re slumming it on the people’s dime.

Yep, Trump is ‘my president’ … for better or worse

trump-wins

I’m hearing some troubling notions from those who voted on the losing side of a presidential election.

Donald J. Trump, some of them are saying, “is not my president. I didn’t vote the guy and he ain’t my president.”

At the risk of sounding sanctimonious and self-righteous, I’d like to offer a rebuke to that sentiment.

I didn’t vote for him, either. I detest the notion that he is about to become the 45th president of the United States. My visceral loathing of him is deeper than anything I’ve felt for any of his predecessors.

He is my president, though.

Why? Because as president he will offer policy prescriptions that affect every American. I’m one of ’em.

I intend to fight him whenever I can through this blog. It’s my right as an American to speak my mind and to protest what my government is doing. I will do so vigorously when the moment presents itself — and so far, those moments are coming with stunning frequency.

Trump is my president, nevertheless.

This “ain’t my president” mantra is far from new. Republicans/conservatives yapped the same nonsense when Barack Obama was elected in 2008 and re-elected in 2012. Democrats/liberals yammered the same lame refrain when George W. Bush was elected in 2000 and re-elected in 2004. You can go back as far as you want in history and dig up statements from those who said the very same thing about past presidents.

Me? My inclination — no matter the outcome — has been to accept the result. I might not endorse it. Sure, I’ve swallowed hard plenty since the Nov. 8 election. I’ve done so before.

I won’t, though, accept the idea that the man who’s about to take the oath of office isn’t my president.

I detest the notion of Trump having the word “President” stated and/or written with his name. I also reserve the right to be critical — even harshly so — of my president.

Obama might speak out as a former POTUS? Bad idea

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Barack Obama is sending some signals that he might not leave the public arena once his successor takes office.

The 44th president of the United States might keep speaking out even as the 45th president, Donald J. Trump, begins his term.

Let’s think for a moment about that.

OK. I’ve thought about it. It’s a bad notion. I hope the president rethinks his temptation to keep speaking out.

I have applauded two former presidents — George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush — for their decisions to stay away from the rough-and-tumble. Both men have declared their intention to stay out of the limelight. They both have said essentially the same thing: They had their time in the arena; it’s time to cede the spotlight to someone else.

I was particularly pleased that George W. Bush remained faithful to that pledge, particularly while former Vice President Dick Cheney kept popping off about President Obama’s foreign policy decisions. I urged Cheney to follow his former boss’s lead: Keep your trap shut, Mr. Vice President.

https://highplainsblogger.com/2009/03/follow-your-boss-lead-mr-vice-president/

Barack Obama’s time is coming to an end. He will have plenty of work to occupy his time while he returns to some semblance of a private life. He’s got a presidential library to plan and develop. He can set up a foundation that continues to speak to the issues near to his heart; the state of race relations comes to mind.

Should he provide post-presidential critiques of decisions that come from the man who’ll succeed him? I hope he keeps his thoughts to himself.

As many of his predecessors have noted, we have only one president at a time. The guy who’ll sit in the Oval Office will get plenty of hits from the rest of us out here in the peanut gallery.