Tag Archives: Donald Trump

national news, political news

Executive authority now becomes OK, yes, Mr. President?

I recall hearing time and again during the 2016 presidential campaign that Barack H. Obama’s use of executive authority was somehow a bad thing.

The president shouldn’t govern by executive fiat, said many of his critics, such as the Republican nominee for president, Donald John Trump.

Hmm. Well, times have changed, haven’t they?

Trump is now the president. He’s assumed the role of chief executive of the federal government. By golly, the man has found that executive authority isn’t such a bad thing after all.

Indeed, as that supposedly “phony” 100-day threshold approaches, the current president is left to proclaim the only victories of his new term have come via executive order.

Oh, and he’s also suffered some embarrassment through this activity as well, such as when the federal judiciary knocked down two of his travel bans for those coming here from Muslim-majority countries.

Through executive authority, Trump is demonstrating his ability to use the power granted to him by virtue of his election. I get that. I respect the authority granted to the president and I won’t condemn him for using it, per se.

What boggles my mind is how he continues to get away with the rhetorical gymnastics he performs routinely and how he manages to bluster his way out of what he said earlier.

He said while campaigning he wouldn’t have time for golf; he said would be at the White House 24/7 working to bring back all those jobs that have gone offshore; he promised to repeal the Affordable Care Act and replace it with something else.

He’s done essentially two things during his first 100 days as president: He nominated a Supreme Court justice, who was confirmed by the U.S. Senate and he ordered a missile strike against Syrian military targets in response to Syrians’ use of chemical weapons against civilians.

Legislative accomplishment? Nothing, man. The president has relied almost exclusively on his executive authority — which he condemned when another president did the same thing.

business news, national news, political news

Tax ‘reform’ unveiled … now let’s see how it affects POTUS

I believe another mega-rich guy, the Texan H. Ross Perot, once said that the “devil is in the details.”

With that, one of the details of Donald John Trump’s tax proposal must include just how this “reform” affects the individual who has pitched it.

Yes, I’m talking about tax returns. Release them, Mr. President.

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin says the president will not release those tax returns. There’s been enough information released already, he said. I disagree, quite naturally, with what the secretary suggests.

The major points about the president’s tax plan include a dramatic reduction — from 35 percent to 15 percent — in corporate income taxes for small businesses and a huge increase in the standard deduction for individuals’ tax returns.

As The Hill reported: “The plan would repeal taxes that mostly affect wealthy Americans, such as the alternative minimum tax for individuals and the estate tax. But it would also ‘eliminate targeted tax breaks that mainly benefit the wealthiest taxpayers,’ according to the one-page outline released Wednesday.”

Why is release of the president’s tax returns relevant? He has not divested himself of his huge business interests. Therefore, he stands to be affected in some fashion by what he has pitched. Americans have the right to know just how Donald Trump’s portfolio is affected.

He isn’t likely to release those returns just because many of his fellow Americans want him to do so. Still, it’s worth making the demand yet again. I believe I will keep yammering about the returns during Trump’s time in office.

But here’s another wrinkle.

How does the tax plan affect revenue to pay for at least two major Trump proposals: infrastructure repair and, yep, that dadgum wall.

Trump wants to spend about a trillion bucks to fix highways, bridges and airports. Will these tax cuts reduce cash flow into the Treasury, making it impossible to “pay as you go” on these projects?

Oh, and the wall is going to cost — according to varying estimates — as much as $25 billion. How does the president intend to pay for that project? Do not tell me “Mexico is going to pay for it.” That will not happen. 

As it’s often said: The president proposes, Congress disposes. You can bet your last nickel that congressional progressives will continue to insist that Trump release his tax returns as condition for any tax overhaul.

My gut tells me the disposition of this tax plan — absent the president’s release of his tax returns — continues to be one of the great mysteries in the nation’s capital.

business news, International news, national news, political news

Now it’s NAFTA in the crosshairs

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Let me try to figure this out.

Donald J. Trump gets elected president and then launches a war of words with Mexico’s President Enrique Pena Nieto over whether Mexico will pay for construction of “the wall” between our two countries.

Then this week the president announces plan to impose a 20-percent import tariff on lumber coming from Canada, which shares an even longer border with the United States.

Oh, and today we get word that the Trump administration is considering a wholesale withdrawal from the North American Free Trade Agreement, which would bust up one of the largest trade agreements in world history.

Yes, the president is trying to put “America first,” but at what cost?

NAFTA has been demonized wrongly as a job killer. It’s been no such thing. It has sought to open up trade lanes among these three giant North American neighbors, allowing a freer flow of goods in and out of the United States to two of our strongest allies.

NAFTA order being drafted

Automation has been the No 1 job killer in this country. No trade war, or blustering about putting America first, or any chest-thumping on the world stage is going to reverse the automation trend that has occurred in industrialized nations around the world.

For the life of me I cannot figure the president out.

He calls China a “currency manipulator” and then backs totally away from that assertion, looking for China’s help in stopping North Korea’s march toward becoming a nuclear power. Trump has yet to condemn Russia fully for meddling in our 2016 presidential election, although he has sounded a bit angrier about Russian involvement in the Syrian civil war. He scolds Australia’s prime minister over the phone and then hangs up on him. Trump declines to shake hands with German Chancellor Angela Merkel in a White House photo op.

He’s now launching trade wars against two of our largest trading partners.

Someone … pass the Pepto. Please.

International news, national news, political news

‘Wall’ taking various forms

Donald J. Trump’s “big, beautiful wall” isn’t going to be built anytime soon. If ever.

The wall is supposed to stretch along the United States’ southern border. The president vowed — loudly, in fact — that the wall would be among his first priorities during his first 100 days in office.

Well, the wall became part of the debate over how to avoid a government shutdown, that was reported to occur on Friday, on Day 99 of Trump’s term in office.

Congressional Republicans have pulled the wall out of the budget negotiation. Trump’s wall has been put on ice once again.

What is making me shake my head is the argument over the cost of the boondoggle. The president insists it won’t cost more than $10 billion. Congressional budget estimates put the cost at $25 billion-plus. Trump wanted a fraction of that amount included in this budget proposal; he won’t get even that.

Here’s where it gets real confusing: The cost disparity appears to center on the nature of the wall. Is it a real wall, concrete, rebar, razor wire and all that? Is it just a fence? Is it some kind of “cyber” wall with computer-operated cameras scanning the landscape?

Trump keeps talking as though it’s the real thing — the concrete/rebar/razor wire kind. It’s going to be sunk deeply into the soil along our border with Mexico. It keeps getting higher every time a critic in Mexico lambastes the president.

And speaking of Mexico, didn’t the president insist on the stump this past year that “Mexico is going to pay for the wall”? Well, they aren’t. We cannot make a sovereign nation do anything against its will — short of invading it and occupying it.

No the money is going to come out of our pockets. Yours and mine. Are you ready to pay for a wall that won’t work? Me neither.

We are witnessing the mother of all cluster f****, dear reader.

The wall is crumbling before it’s being built.

Do I favor an open border that allows bad guys to sneak into this country? Of course not! A wall is not the answer. And I haven’t even addressed in this blog post the logistics of building such a structure along thousands of miles.

I am willing to support strict enforcement at entry points all along both of our borders to ensure we keep criminals out of the country.

Good grief, man. If money is an issue, then spend it on beefing up existing border enforcement policies.

national news, political news

Still waiting for POTUS to act, sound like one

A critic of High Plains Blogger scolded me recently about how I reference the commander in chief, Donald J. Trump.

The critic wants me to use the term “President” in front of his last name. I told him I would consider it.

I’ve thought about it for a bit of time and have decided … that I cannot make that leap. I just cannot — at least not yet — connect the words “President” and “Trump” consecutively.

It’s not that I disrespect the office. Indeed, I have great respect for the presidency. I’ve harbored that respect going back to the early 1950s, when I became aware of the office and the man who occupied it.

I was born in December 1949, when Harry Truman was president of the United States. He left office in January 1953, when I was just barely 3 years of age. The first president I remember was Dwight D. Eisenhower. To borrow a phrase, I liked Ike.

My first vote for president came in 1972. I voted for George McGovern, who got trampled by President Nixon. I’ve voted for plenty of losing candidates and my share of winning ones ever since. I’ve always managed to refer to the men I voted against by their title. Why? Because they were dignified, they knew how to act and speak like the leader of the free world, the commander in chief, the head of state of the greatest nation on Earth.

The man who occupies the office now hasn’t yet learned how to do that. He keeps saying patently goofy things. He keeps behaving strangely.

Am I still angry at the outcome of the 2016 election? Sure I am. That’s patently obvious to readers of this blog; it damn sure is obvious to the critic who scolded me. I won’t apologize for harboring the anger that a profoundly unfit man got elected to the highest office in the land. Nor will I apologize for declining to refer to him by the title he earned through his election.

Donald Trump has to earn it. To date, he has fallen short. His penchant for prevarication is an outrage. His ignorance of government and the mechanics of how to govern is annoying in the extreme.

And I also am waiting for a full-throated apology for the “fake news” lie he kept alive by asserting that Barack Hussein Obama was constitutionally unqualified to serve as president of the United States. Trump kept alive the lie that Obama was born in Africa and therefore was not a “natural born citizen” of the nation he governed successfully for two terms. Donald Trump was the disgraceful godfather of the “birther” movement.

I hope the man grows into the office. I want him to succeed. Honestly, I do.

Until he does and until he demonstrates some level of the decorum the office deserves, I will refuse — with all due respect — my critic’s demand that I change the way to which I refer to the president.

national news, political news

100 days: real — or phony — benchmark for POTUS?

Donald John Trump now calls the 100-day threshold for presidential performance a phony standard.

That’s not what he was saying, however, while he was running for the office in 2016. He said repeatedly — and loudly — that he would do more than any other president in U.S. history during his first 100 days in office.

How has he done?

Repeal of the Affordable Care Act? Nothing. Tax reform? Zip. Infrastructure renovation? Forget it. The Wall on the southern border? Ha!

Yes, the president has signed a lot of executive orders. I like a few of them; most of them are clunkers.

Legislative accomplishment? The president has come up empty.

That means the 100-day report card — when it comes due — is going to record a pretty dismal job performance. Unless, of course, you’re Donald Trump, who’s been saying in consecutive breaths that he’s done more than any president in history and that the 100-day benchmark doesn’t mean a damn thing.

Trump’s victory in the 2016 election rewrote the political calculus on so many levels. He wasn’t supposed to win; he didn’t know anything about government; he insulted too many key political demographic groups.

Despite all of that he won the Electoral College by a comfortable — if not a massive — margin over Hillary Clinton.

He’s parlayed that changing political dynamic into some sort of success in his own mind.

I’m not buying the president’s version of success. And, yes, the 100-day marker for first-term presidents does matter, no matter what the current president might think publicly about it.

military news, national news

‘Congratulations’ to Purple Heart recipient?

This video offers something instructive about the president of the United States.

Critics of this blog will see this as a nitpicking, trivial observation. Perhaps it is — at some level. At another level, it illustrates to me that the president doesn’t quite grasp the notion of “service to one’s country.” At least not yet.

He pinned a Purple Heart medal on U.S. Army Sergeant First Class Alvaro Barrientos. Donald Trump said that when he heard about the award ceremony, he wanted to “do it myself.” I give the president high marks for wanting to honor the young man who lost part of a leg while fighting for his country in Afghanistan.

But then he said something I find weird. He offered SFC Barrientos “congratulations” for receiving the medal.

Congratulations?

To be fair, I don’t know what the president said to the young soldier privately when he whispered to him. Nor do I know what he said to his wife, who stood nearby while the president pinned the medal on SFC Barrientos’s shirt.

But the public offering of “congratulations” to someone who lost part of his body on a far-away battlefield is inappropriate.

I don’t need to remind the president that the soldier didn’t compete for the medal. He didn’t want to be maimed. He served heroically. He deserves a nation’s thanks and gratitude … not its congratulations.

My hope is that the president learns the ins and outs of these public ceremonial events. No, they don’t shape public policy or have tangible impact on the lives of anyone other than those who are taking part directly in them.

The optics, though, matter … a lot!

Sergeant First Class Barrientos? Thank you for your heroic service to our nation.

national news

These are the ‘thoughts’ of the 45th POTUS?

I am going to attach a link to this blog that really ought to stand alone, with little — if any — comment from yours truly.

It’s the transcript of an Associated Press interview conducted with Donald J. Trump, the nation’s 45th president.

One comment has jumped out and received considerable media attention already. It’s the part where the president talks about his ratings on CBS News’ talk show, “Face the Nation,” and how his appearance on the show boosted the ratings to a place not seen since the 9/11 terror attacks.

Narcissism, anyone? Hmmm?

Beyond that, if you read the entire transcript, perhaps you might draw the same conclusion that I have drawn, which is this individual cannot communicate. He cannot focus. He cannot think clearly and express himself concisely.

Here’s the interview.

It’s full of sentence fragments, stream-of-consciousness riffs and rants, and an amazing lack of empathy or compassion.

I am left to ask: Is this how one “tells it like it is”?

national news, political news

Trump keeps taking narcissism to new levels

My trusty American Heritage dictionary defines “narcissism” this way: An excessive love or admiration for oneself.

Do you think Donald J. Trump fits the bill?

Consider what he told The Associated Press in a rambling interview that seems to make zero sense when you read the transcript.

One of the things he mentioned was how the TV news/talk show ratings would zoom upward whenever he appeared on them. He said they were the “best since 9/11.”

Let that sink for a moment or two. The president of the United States somehow sought to equate the soaring ratings he brought to TV news shows to their coverage of one of the worst days in the history of the Republic.

Nearly 3,000 people died when the Twin Towers collapsed in Lower Manhattan, N.Y. More victims died at the Pentagon. Even more perished in that Pennsylvania field after passengers battled valiantly against terrorists aboard a doomed jetliner.

And yet …

The president manages to meld that terrible, horrifying tragedy with his TV ratings?

Trump is redefining narcissism. Indeed, they need to put his picture next to the dictionary definition of the word.

International news, national news, political news

No, not everyone loves the border wall idea

Before I launch into my latest criticism of Donald J. Trump, I want to stipulate something up front.

I recognize that politicians of all stripes play to their “base.” Whether on the left or the right, they know from where they draw their political strength.

There. That said, the president’s belief that the border wall he wants to build between the United States and Mexico is popular with his base and, thus, is worth doing is utter nonsense.

He isn’t just the president of the Republican Party faithful who got him elected — along with a few million formerly loyal Democrats. He represents all 300-plus million Americans. Take it from me, Mr. President, not all of us are the least bit fond of the idea of walling off this country from one of our nation’s most loyal allies.

The wall won’t work. It won’t keep bad guys from coming into the country. It will separate families. It will create untold misery. It also is highly impractical — if not impossible — to build, given all the technical and legal issues involved with property condemnation and how the two countries were to settle the myriad issues relating to its construction.

According to the Washington Post: In a recent interview with the Associated Press, Trump said: “People want the border. My base really wants the border. My base really wants it.”

Really, Mr. President? Do I need to remind this individual that the base comprises a tiny minority of Americans. Indeed, this man finished second in the popular vote count to Hillary Rodham Clinton. Sure, he won where it counted — the Electoral College — but the popular vote disparity wasn’t even close.

He’s not the first pol to proclaim his base’s support for controversial policy initiatives. He won’t be the last.

However, he is the man of the moment. Remember, sir, that you are every American’s president, whether you — or millions of your constituents — care to admit it.