Tag Archives: Donald Trump

International news, Uncategorized

Russians able to declare victory?

If you assume — as I do — that Russian spooks intended to disrupt the American political system by their hacking and disseminating “fake news,” then isn’t it fair to presume that they can declare victory?

Or, to put it another way: Mission accomplished.

I mean, think of it.

The Russians interfered in our electoral system. U.S. intelligence agencies have determined that to be a fact. All of them concur that Russia sought to disrupt our electoral process.

It’s not yet clear just how they intended to swing the election to Donald J. Trump’s favor. Trump won. He hasn’t spoken angrily about Russia. Or about Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Meanwhile, congressional investigators are turning themselves inside out trying to find out about the “Russia thing.” The Department of Justice has appointed special counsel Robert Mueller to lead the FBI investigation. Our attorney general has had to recuse himself from anything to do with Russia.

Congressional Democrats are talking now openly about impeaching the president. The FBI is looking at whether the Trump campaign “colluded” with Russian government operatives.

And the president’s legislative agenda — health care overhaul, tax reform, building that damn wall — is stalled completely. None of it is likely to get advanced.

Do you get my drift? The Russians have succeeded, actually, in accomplishing what they intended when they got involved in our electoral process in the first place.

Now, let’s all wait for the president to possibly, potentially lessen those sanctions we leveled against the Russians for their aggression in Ukraine.

Is that a crazy notion? Not even …

International news, national news

More like a stand-up double, maybe, Mr. President

The president of the United States believes he “hit a home run” on his first trip abroad as head of state.

I believe I will disagree with Donald J. Trump on that one.

“But we have been gone for close to nine days. This will be nine days. And I think we hit a home run no matter where we are,” Trump said in Italy as he prepared to return home — and into the political maelstrom that awaits.

Let’s review:

* He started in Saudi Arabia and delivered an acceptable speech to a room full of kings, presidents and potentates about the threat of international terrorism. It’s interesting that he would make such a speech in a country that has done next to nothing to curb its breeding of terrorists. Hey, wasn’t Osama bin Laden a Saudi native?

* Trump ventured to Israel, where was met by government officials who were steamed that he revealed classified secrets to Russian visitors earlier that had come from Israeli intelligence officials. Lord knows what Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu likely told him in private.

* Then he went to the Vatican and met with Pope Francis, who he had criticized while campaigning for the presidency because the Holy Father disagreed with some public policy statements the candidate had made.

* Trump then ventured to Brussels, where he scolded NATO allies because some of them aren’t paying enough for the defense of Europe against Russian threats and those threats presented by terrorists. The reactions of the heads of state and government who heard the lecture couldn’t have been more instructive; they couldn’t believe the president would dress them down in such a public manner.

http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/335416-trump-at-conclusion-of-first-foreign-trip-i-think-we-hit-a-home-run

Along the way, the president was met with concern, a bit of anger over past statements. By my way of reasoning, he didn’t do much to assuage the concerns of world leaders who are concerned about the absence of any public service experience in his background.

Home run, Mr. President? Hardly. I’d say you hit — maybe — a stand-up double.

International news

Don’t go public with private concerns, Mr. POTUS

I feel the need to flesh out a bit a point I made briefly in an earlier blog post, but which seems to have gotten some traction among the various TV talking heads commenting on that particular point.

Donald J. Trump delivered a scolding lecture to fellow NATO heads of state and government about whether their countries are paying their fair share of the alliance’s defense.

I will ask again: Why couldn’t the president have delivered that message in private instead of standing in front the whole wide world and telling the NATO nations’ leaders about how “unfair” it is to saddle American taxpayers with such a burden?

Other presidents have griped about the cost of paying for NATO defense, but they’ve done so more discreetly. Then they would stand out front and declare solidarity with NATO. Trump did some of that the other day, but his message was diluted by the scolding he delivered about the price tag of providing for the defense of western Europe.

NATO nations certainly have stepped up in response to direct threats against member states, such as when 9/11 occurred. The president was good enough to acknowledge that NATO fighting personnel answered the call to fight the terrorist monsters who killed so many of our citizens on that terrible day.

But what we heard in Brussels was the rhetoric of a man who doesn’t know anything about diplomacy and how to use it effectively to achieve a common purpose.

national news

If Hillary needed to be ‘locked up’ over e-mails …

Let’s assume for a moment the very worst about Jared Kushner, son-in-law and senior adviser to Donald J. Trump.

The Washington Post is reporting that Kushner suggested to Russian government officials that the Trump transition team set up a secret line of communication between the Russian embassy to the United States and the Kremlin.

OK, to be completely fair — the story might not be true. My sense, though, is that it’s there is something significant happening to the Trump administration.

So, if the Post is correct and Kushner was able to secure a back-channel line between the Trump team and the Kremlin — using Russian communications equipment — how does that compare with what the Trump campaign alleged about Hillary Rodham Clinton’s use of her personal e-mail server?

Do you remember the chants of “Lock her up!” coming from those Trump campaign rallies? Do you recall that disgraced former Trump national security adviser Michael Flynn helped lead those chants himself?

What Kushner is reported to have sought makes Hillary’s use of personal e-mail accounts look so, so quaint.

Think of this. The Post is reporting that Kushner wanted to use Russian intelligence equipment to transmit communications between the Trump team and the highest level of government in Moscow. Did this young man have a clue that Russians monitor carefully all communications between their embassies and the Kremlin?

I guess we now can understand a good bit more clearly why the FBI had declared Kushner to be a “person of interest” in its investigation of what the president called “the Russia thing.”

The Russia thing is growing a lot of legs.

International news, national news, political news

What? A back-channel phone line with Kremlin?

I know Donald Trump’s son-in-law is entitled to an innocence presumption.

Jared Kushner has now been shoved to the front row of a growing investigation into what the Trump presidential campaign may have done in connection with the Russian government.

The latest live grenade to explode deals with a report that Kushner and the Russians sought to set up a secret line through which the Trump team could communicate with the Kremlin, the seat of the Russian government in the heart of Moscow.

If it’s true — and I’ll presume that special counsel Robert Mueller will make that determination in due course — then it’s fair to ask: What would Kushner seek to keep secret from normal communications channels?

Some analysts are suggesting that this latest report might be a “game change” in the growing controversy. (I am going to refrain from calling it a “scandal” until we know a whole lot more.)

The Mueller investigation is going to determine whether the Trump campaign colluded with Russians seeking to influence the 2016 presidential election. Trump says “no.” His buddy, Russian President Vladimir Putin, says “nyet.”

If this latest revelation is a game-changer, then I’m believing that Donald J. Trump’s tenure as president is about to enter some seriously tenuous territory.

media news

‘Russia thing’ is producing a form of vertigo

I no longer am an active member of the so-called “mainstream media.”

Thus, I am merely a watcher and reader of news. So help me, though, the speed and intensity of the “breaking news” that keeps busting out is making my head spin.

I refer to the Donald Trump/Russia/Jared Kushner/Michael Flynn/FBI director firing/special counsel elements that keep bursting out with bombshell after bombshell.

I’ll just say that I am immensely proud of the media’s role in revealing these stories. The New York Times and the Washington Post news staffs have been performing an immense public service in their work to root out all the information they can find.

Good on ’em. Keep up the great work.

For now, though, I think I’ll need a dose of Dramamine.

national news

Kushner, under scrutiny, to lead WH ‘war room’

How does this work?

Jared Kushner, Donald Trump’s son-in-law, has been identified as the subject of an FBI investigation into “the Russia thing” that is bedeviling the Trump administration.

Now we hear that Kushner is going to lead a team effort within the White House to combat the myriad questions that keep dogging the president, his campaign and his senior White House staff — of which Kushner is a member!

How in the world does Kushner separate himself from the very probe while leading the effort to fight it?

To be fair, the FBI is likely to look into what Kushner knows about the Russia matter, not what he has done … allegedly.

The young man is about to undertake a multi-tasking effort that might not have any equal in American political history.

business news, International news

POTUS ‘tells it like it is’ abroad

Donald J. Trump’s supporters like to say the president merely “tells it like it is.”

Others of us prefer to say he tells it like he thinks it is.

He is abroad, finishing up his first overseas trip as president and he’s managing — as only the president — to demonstrate a stunning lack of diplomatic skill.

Get this, his assessment of Germany, one of our nation’s strongest allies and trading partners: “The Germans are bad, very bad,” he said. “See the millions of cars they are selling to the U.S. Terrible. We will stop this.”

What? Stop it. How? He wants to start a trade war with Germany because it peddles cars to American consumers?

Vox.com is a known liberal-leaning website, but it offers an interesting analysis of how Trump’s lack of diplomatic skill is hurting him and the country he represents.

https://www.vox.com/world/2017/5/26/15698824/trump-germany-bad-trade-cars

As Vox reports: “First, it’s worth noting that the language Trump reportedly used in the meeting is yet another example of his total lack of nuance or finesse. Trump likes to cast the world in black and white and use superlative language. Things are ‘terrific,’ or they are ‘terrible.’

“Trump speaks this way on domestic issues as well, but in international affairs his vulgarity as a speaker is amplified. Diplomacy requires gentle touches and subtle signaling that simultaneously maintains stable relationships while having the power to pressure or persuade. Slamming the Germans, a vital US ally, as ‘very bad’ and saying you need to ‘Stop’ them from selling cars to the US is, well, the opposite of that.”

Vox also notes that German automakers also operate many manufacturing plants in the United States, employing Americans and paying them well to produce these motor vehicles.

That the president wouldn’t recognize that is just another sign of his complete ignorance about the world and the inter-connectedness among nations.

International news

Trump started out well at NATO, then …

Donald J. Trump actually knows how to deliver the right message at the right moment.

Such as when the president spoke Thursday at the NATO summit in Brussels of the terrible tragedy that befell the United Kingdom in that massacre in Manchester, England. The president called for a moment of silence and told British Prime Minister Teresa May that the alliance stands foursquare behind her beleaguered nation.

Then, at about the 4:50 mark of this video, the president decided to scold members of our nation’s oldest alliance by reminding them that they need to “pay more” for their defense. And, by golly, he actually cited threats from Russia as a concern with which NATO must deal.

I could not help but notice the looks on the president’s fellow heads of state and government as he reminded them publicly that many member nations aren’t paying what they supposedly have pledged to pay for NATO’s defense. They looked at each other, they looked at their feet, a couple of them seemed to snicker.

I understand that Trump was elected in 2016 on the pledge to “put America first.” He spoke at the NATO meeting of the burden that American taxpayers are bearing  because of so-called deadbeats in Europe who aren’t shouldering their financial obligations.

I am left to wonder: Is that really how one talks to allies — in public?

political news

So much for an upset under the Big Sky

U.S. Rep.-elect Greg Gianforte won a special election last night despite punching out a reporter — allegedly — who had the nerve to ask him a question about health care overhaul legislation.

Democratic activists in Montana might be able to take away some solace — despite the defeat at the hands of the Republican opponent.

Gianforte was elected to Montana’s at-large congressional district. He defeated Democratic opponent Rob Quist by fewer than 7 percentage points in a state that voted for Donald J. Trump by more than 20 percent in the 2016 presidential election. Gianforte and Quist ran for the congressional seat vacated by Ryan Zinke, who became interior secretary in the Trump administration.

There’s another hopeful sign for Democrats. Gianforte will stand for re-election next year, which gives Democrats a better chance to make their case that this guy might be temperamentally unfit to represent Montana in the U.S. House of Representatives.

Ben Jacobs, a reporter for the Guardian newspaper, asked Gianforte to comment about the GOP health care legislation. Gianforte responded by “body slamming” Jacobs; he broke the young reporter’s glasses and inflicted a slight injury to one of his elbows. The sheriff’s department filed misdemeanor assault charges against Gianforte.

Here’s the thing: The incident occurred late in the campaign, just two days before the ballots were counted. Montana also is a vote-by-mail state, which means most of the ballots were cast before Gianforte lost his temper against a reporter doing his job — allegedly.

Do you think politics has gotten coarser during this Age of Donald J. Trump? Yeah, I believe so. The late, great Texas U.S. Sen. Lloyd Bentsen’s adage about politics being a “contact sport” isn’t supposed to be taken literally.