Tag Archives: Hillary Clinton

national news

How is Trump able to make morality an issue?

gop-2016-trump

I’m perplexed and puzzled by so much of Republican Donald J. Trump’s nomination for the presidency of the United States.

Perhaps no set of issues baffles me more than Trump’s ability to make morality an issue to use against his opponent, Democratic nominee Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Trump has gleefully told us that Bill Clinton’s misbehavior while he was president is relevant in this campaign. He questions why Hillary Clinton has stayed with him. He asserts some sort of moral authority that, to my way of thinking, he simply does not possess.

Trump is now married to his third wife. His first two marriages ended in divorce.

While his first marriage was ending, Trump actually boasted out loud and in public about his sexual infidelity. He has bragged about his extramarital sexual conquests.

I cannot help but think of these things when this guy campaigns for the presidency of the United States and throws out canards about a previous president’s misbehavior.

Someone needs to help me understand: How does this guy get away with this kind of duplicity?

Seriously. Can someone out there explain it me?

media news, national news, political news

Moderators become part of the campaign ’16 story

03moderators-combo-master768

Admit it if you dare.

You’ve been wondering who would moderate the three joint appearances scheduled with Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Rodham Clinton and Republican nominee Donald J. Trump.

Now we know.

Lester Holt of NBC will do the first one; ABC’s Martha Raddatz and CNN’s Anderson Cooper will co-moderate the second; Fox’s Chris Wallace gets the call for the third one.

This normally wouldn’t be a y-u-u-u-u-g-e deal, except for what happened in the first GOP gathering in 2015 when Trump bristled openly at the first question posed by Fox News’s Megyn Kelly, who had the “gall” to ask Trump about his previous statements about women. You know, the “fat pigs” stuff.

Trump didn’t like the question. Not only that, he kept up the feud through much of the GOP primary campaign, refusing to participate in a later event moderated by the same Megyn Kelly.

He demonstrated a preposterous level of petulance.

He made the media the issue, which plays well with the Republican base, given that they hate the media, too.

Moderators aren’t supposed to become part of a political story. This year they have been. Remember, too, when CNN’s Candy Crowley in 2012 corrected GOP nominee Mitt Romney’s assertion that President Obama didn’t refer to the Benghazi attack as an act of terror.

Oh, but this is a new era. Trump has ensured that the media will become part of the narrative because, as he discovered, the base of his party’s voters love gnawing on that red meat.

Will he go after Holt, or Raddatz, or Cooper or Wallace?

Or, will any of them provoke a fiery response with a question that Trump deems to be untoward?

Gosh, I’m getting all tingly now just waiting for it.

media news, national news, political news

Clinton stiff-arming of media needs to end

hillary and media

It’s safe to say — I truly believe — that Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Rodham Clinton doesn’t feel “protected” by the so-called “liberal media.”

She doesn’t believe the media have given her a break in all her years in public life. Nor does she believe broadcast and print journalist Ajust stand around looking at their shoes when the subject of the myriad controversies come up regarding her life on the public stage.

Why else, do you suppose, does she keep the media at such a distance?

My response to all of that is: too bad, Mme. Secretary; it’s time you start letting the media do their job.

According to Politico, Clinton’s relationship with the media is about to undergo a fundamental change. I believe it’s for the better.

After Labor Day, the media will be allowed aboard “a ‘Stronger Together’-wrapped 737 from New York to Ohio to Iowa, and remain flying companions for the final stretch of the campaign.”

http://www.politico.com/story/2016/09/hillary-clinton-reporters-press-227700#ixzz4JD3z5zXd

Clinton distrusts the national media, believing that they have been unfair in covering her and her husband, the 42nd president of the United States. Until now, she has flown separately from event to event without the media aboard her campaign plane. She can afford the luxury of doing so, given the huge amount of campaign cash she has socked away.

She remains the favorite to win the election this year and become the nation’s 45th — and its first female — president.

But those of us in the media — and that includes those of us who used to work in this field full time — want her to speak to the public through the media. It’s been damn near a year since she had a full-blown news conference where she fields tough and probing questions from reporters.

I don’t need to lecture Clinton on this matter, but I’ll say it anyway: The media serve as the public’s eyes and ears on matters of public policy. Seeking the highest political office in the nation is of compelling public and national interest. The media are entrusted with reporting how these candidates seek to govern and the only way to get anything resembling a definitive answer is to ask them directly.

Republican nominee Donald J. Trump, to his credit, has been more accessible to the media than Clinton. Indeed, he’s gladly seized the spotlight as Clinton has been content in recent weeks to let Trump’s troubles dominate the news cycles.

Hillary Clinton certainly cannot govern this way if she’s elected. Nor should she be think she can continue to stiff-arm the media as she campaigns for the world’s most visible and powerful public office.

So, she thinks she’s been mistreated?

Get over it. Talk to us … through the media.

legal news, national news, political news

Judge Garland’s future hangs in election balance

FILE - In this May 1, 2008, file photo, Judge Merrick B. Garland is seen at the federal courthouse in Washington. President Obama is expected to nominate Federal Appeals Court Judge Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak, File)

Merrick Garland isn’t allowed to campaign actively for partisan political candidates.

You see, he must follow certain judicial canons that prohibit him from such activity.

I’m betting he’s chomping at the bit nonetheless.

Garland is the federal judge who has been nominated for a seat on the U.S. Supreme Court. President Obama made the nomination, only to run straight into a Republican roadblock erected by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell who said the president shouldn’t get to fill the ninth seat on the court; that task should belong to the next president.

McConnell made that demand believing the next president would be a Republican. Then the GOP nominated Donald J. Trump. My gut tells me now that McConnell isn’t too keen on Trump, who I believe is going to lose the presidential election to Democratic nominee Hillary Rodham Clinton.

That eventuality puts Garland back in the driver’s seat.

If Clinton wins, then McConnell well might feel the necessity to proceed with Judiciary Committee hearings and then a floor vote on Garland’s nomination during a lame-duck congressional session.

If Hillary Clinton is the next president, then it’s almost certain that she will nominate someone who is more to the left than the centrist Garland, who Obama chose because of his superb judicial temperament — and the fact that the Senate approved him overwhelmingly to a seat on the D.C. District Court in 1997.

There’s another calculation McConnell needs to make: Clinton’s victory well could swing the Senate’s balance of power back to the Democrats. And that makes it even more critical for the Republicans — who would run the Senate until the new folks take office in January — to at least exert some measure of control over the proceeding.

Yes, this election is important. Don’t you think?

national news, political news

Happy Labor Day weekend, y’all; now, get ready to rumble!

clinton and trump

This Labor Day weekend is going to be a special event for my wife and me.

Our wedding anniversary arrives on Sunday. It’s No. 45 for us. We’re having the time of our lives.

The holiday occurs on Monday.

It’s the unofficial “End of Summer.” Children are back in school. Life returns to some semblance of normal for millions of us.

And then …

We get to watch two individuals battle for the presidency of the United States of America. It won’t be pretty.

Let me revise that statement: This presidential campaign is going to be butt-ugly!

I’ve been watching this campaign intently for longer than I care to admit. I shall admit right along with many others that Donald J. Trump’s nomination as the Republican Party’s candidate for president is arguably the most astonishing political event I’ve ever witnessed in my 66 years on the Good Earth.

I did not think it would happen. It did.

As for the Democratic nominee, Hillary Rodham Clinton, I once considered her to be destined to win the presidency in a way not seen since, oh, Dwight Eisenhower was destined to win in 1952.

That hasn’t happened, either. She’s still the favorite. She might become the prohibitive favorite by the time Election Day rolls around.

The two major-party candidates, though, are going to slug it out.

Some pundits are comparing the Clinton’s current strategy to Muhammad Ali’s tactic of leaning on the ropes and letting heavyweight boxing champion George Foreman punch himself out. By the eighth round of their fight in Zaire, Foreman was spent and Ali flattened him for a knockout.

The campaign will get uglier than it is at the moment — if that’s at all possible. They’re calling each other racists and bigots. Trump says Clinton lacks the “stamina” to do the job; Clinton says Trump’s temperament and lack of judgment make him “unfit” to run the greatest nation on Earth.

There’s plenty more of that in store for us.

Will the candidates tell us what they intend to do for us? Will they lay out some detail to explain how they’re going to work with Congress to govern effectively?

I expect neither of those things to happen.

Therefore, I intend to enjoy the dickens out of this Labor Day weekend.

The home stretch of this presidential election will be anything but a joy ride.

national news, political news

‘Running out the clock’? Hardly

hillary-up-close

I keep hearing reports of how Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Rodham Clinton is “running out the clock” against Republican opponent Donald J. Trump.

The suggestion is that she’s got the Electoral College locked up and that she’s not going to do anything to put that sure thing in jeopardy.

She’s ceded the political stage to Trump in recent weeks. He’s taken full advantage of Clinton’s generosity.

In doing so, Clinton is giving Trump some more ammo to fire at her … which is that she “lacks the stamina” the be commander in chief.

Here’s what I’m thinking might happen.

We’re coming up on the Labor Day weekend. We’ll all grill some burgers, hot dogs and brisket, pay tribute to working men and women, watch a little college football.

Then on Tuesday, my strong hunch is that Hillary Clinton is going to launch her campaign full bore, going stride for stride with Trump.

You know and I know — and so does Trump and his team know — that Clinton’s brain trust has developed a strategy for dealing with Trump’s seemingly countless flaws as a national political candidate. They start with his utter lack of knowledge of, well … anything.

Is she running out the clock?

I doubt it.

Seriously.

national news, political news

Weiner saga getting weirder — if that’s at all possible

AAiorCY

The hits just keep on coming for Anthony “Carlos Danger” Weiner.

New York state child protection authorities are now investigating whether the former Democratic congressman might have endangered his young son by putting him in a “sexting” picture that Weiner sent to a woman he had never met.

The picture shows the man known formerly to other women as “Carlos Danger” lying in his skivvies next to a boy thought to be the son he had with top Hillary Clinton aide Huma Abedin.

Abedin has left her husband, announcing a separation hours after the latest sexting reports were made public.

This story probably ought to just go away. Weiner ought to just disappear, never to be seen or heard from in the public domain ever again. Abedin ought to be able to go on with her life as a key aide and adviser to the Democratic presidential nominee.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/child-welfare-agency-launches-investigation-into-anthony-weiner/ar-AAiomPQ?li=BBmkt5R

It has captured the attention — if not the imagination — of many Americans. Why? Weiner once was considered a rising political star. He was a brash congressional loudmouth who then quit Congress when reports first surfaced of his penchant for showing off his manhood to women other than his wife.

Yes, I wish this clown would disappear.

First, though, New York state authorities need to determine if anything untoward occurred with this man and his son.

In the meantime, many of Americans — likely yours truly included, I’m sad to admit — will stay tuned to see how this story plays out.

I’m hoping to learn that nothing bad happened. That would save the youngster from a lot of pain. It also would save the rest of us from having to read about the boy’s idiotic dad.

 

national news, political news

Even the fact checkers have become suspect

0609fact_check

I’m puzzled about fact checkers.

These are the folks and organizations that check the accuracy of declarations that politicians make.

They were at it again after Donald J. Trump’s fiery immigration speech. They sought to parse many of Trump’s contentions about illegal immigration.

Why the puzzlement?

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/factcheckingthecandidates/fact-checking-donald-trump%E2%80%99s-immigration-speech/ar-AAilszb?li=BBmkt5R&ocid=spartandhp

Well, many observers contend the fact checkers are as biased as the politicians, or the “liberal media,” or the print and broadcast pundits.

Hillary Clinton’s speeches get examined, too. The fact checkers “check the facts” relating to her declarations. She once proclaimed that she worked well across the aisle with Republicans to approve legislation that benefited the country. A fact checker determined that Clinton clearly overstated her bipartisan approach to legislating. Biased?

Trump’s “facts” get “checked” constantly. Indeed, there’s so much to verify, given the Republican presidential nominee’s penchant for saying that are demonstrably untrue. My favorite untruth is Trump’s assertion that he witnessed “thousands” of Muslims cheering the collapse of the World Trade Center. It didn’t happen, man.

I’m still trying to process this fact checking thing, though, to determine if the fact checkers are looking for holes in candidates’ statements because they disagree in principle with the politician they’re examining.

The ranks of the totally trustworthy are shrinking all around us.

national news, political news

9/11 to bring relief from campaign

911-september-11th-attacks

Now, for a little good news regarding the dismal campaign for the presidency of the United States.

Both major-party nominees — Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton and Republican Donald J. Trump — have agreed to suspend campaigning for a day.

That day will be Sept. 11, which happens to be the 15th year since the terrorists attacked the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and crashed a third jetliner into a Pennsylvania field.

An aside: I hesitate to use the word “anniversary” to define this event … if you get my drift.

http://www.politico.com/story/2016/08/trump-clinton-september-11-campaigns-227559

We all remember how we heard the terrible news. We all remember the horror, the shock, the grief, the sickening feeling we felt as we watched the events unfold on that terrible day.

That day ought to be a day of reflection over what happened and a day of solemn prayer for the nation that continues to fight on against the evil forces that seek to destroy us.

It has become something of a tradition since 9/11. President Bush and Sen. John Kerry suspended their campaigns in 2004, as did Sens. Barack Obama and John McCain in 2008; indeed, Obama and McCain appeared together at an event at Ground Zero in lower Manhattan. In 2012, President Obama and former Gov. Mitt Romney held events, but those events memorialized the victims of the attack.

We need not hear the candidates’ yammering on this solemn date.

national news, political news

Awaiting first joint Clinton-Trump joint appearance

Clinton-Trump-debate-jpg

OK, I’ll admit it.

I am anxiously awaiting the first joint appearance in four weeks between Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Rodham Clinton and her Republican opponent, Donald J. Trump.

I won’t call it a “debate,” because it isn’t going to be one. They’ll answer questions from a moderator and likely will be unable to question each other.

Why the anxiousness?

I keep hearing and reading things about the way Trump is preparing for this event. He’s relying on ousted Fox News president Roger Ailes, his son Donald Jr., his daughter Ivanka and his new campaign chairman Steve Bannon.

There’s also buzz about how Trump isn’t going to have mock exchanges with stand-ins.

We all saw how he dismantled his GOP primary opponents. He mugged at them, called them names — e.g., Lyin’ Ted and Little Marco.

He faces someone in Clinton, though, who is as unflappable as they come. She’s been through these one-on-one exchanges before, in 2008 against a young U.S. senator named Barack Obama and again this year against U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders.

Her own preparation likely is going to be as comprehensive as possible. Just how does one prepare for a candidate whose style has been compared to that of a nuclear bomb, or a runaway freight train?

She must expected to the totally unexpected.

There will be two more of these joint appearances with Clinton and Trump, as well as one with the VP picks, U.S. Sen. Tim Kaine and Gov. Mike Pence.

This first one, though, well might be the whole show, the ballgame, the big enchilada.

I’m going to look for two things relating to body language:

* How will they greet each other when they walk onto the stage? Will they exchange warm handshakes, with them grabbing the person’s elbow with the “off hand”? Or will they greet each other with what amounts to a “pinkie handshake” while avoiding eye contact?

* How will it end? Will they still smile at the end of it? Or will Trump’s insults, invective and innuendo be too much for Clinton to take? Or will Trump snub his opponent after she continues to bombard him over his “unfitness to be commander in chief”?

They say the TV audience will be y-u-u-u-g-e.

I believe it. I’ll be one of many millions seeking to take some measure of these individuals.

I’ll have the popcorn ready.