Tag Archives: Donald Trump

media news

Apologize, Mr. President, just say you’re sorry

Dear Mr. President,

I have no idea whether you or your staff reads the stuff that comes from this blog, but I’ll offer this bit of advice anyway.

Say you’re sorry for defaming Barack Obama. Admit you made a mistake. Come clean with an admission that you woke up one morning, that you weren’t quite awake or alert before you blurted out that tweet in which you accused the former president of wiretapping your campaign offices at Trump Tower.

The jig’s up, Mr. President. The FBI director, the guy who many Democrats believe torpedoed Hillary Clinton’s campaign with that e-mail-related letter to Congress on the eve of the election, has just blown your wiretapping tweet to bits.

He said he has no information to confirm what you have alleged. He said the Justice Department has no information either in any of its branch offices.

I get that you don’t apologize. I’ve heard all that stuff about you — and from you, sir. I have read about how you said you’ve never sought forgiveness.

Take my word for it, Mr. President: an apology doesn’t signal weakness. On the contrary, it signals strength. It tells us that you are man enough to own up to making a mistake.

Mr. President, you need a serious reset here. These tweets of yours are damaging the country at many levels. They compromise our national security; they send bizarre messages to our allies; they make you sound like a know-nothing teenager.

In the case of the Obama wiretapping allegation — which the FBI director has shot down in flames — they expose you to accusations of slander and defamation.

C’mon, Mr. President. Just say you’re sorry. Pledge to us you’ll close your Twitter account, and then do it.

The presidency deserves to be occupied by a grownup.

So far, sir, you aren’t acting like one.

legal news

Democrats sharpening their long knives

U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee Democrats are making it plain: They don’t want Judge Neil Gorsuch to take a seat on the U.S. Supreme Court.

Oh, my.

What these folks do not seem to understand — or choose to ignore — is this simple point: Judge Gorsuch’s confirmation to the nation’s highest court will not tilt the court’s ideological balance one tiny bit from where it was when the late Antonin Scalia served on it.

Not one bit. Not one iota.

Scalia, who died a year ago, was a conservative jurist, and an iconic one at that. Gorsuch is a conservative jurist. Yet we hear Democrats, such as Sen. Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, declare his intention to all he can to block Gorsuch’s confirmation; that includes a “filibuster,” Blumenthal said.

Give me a break, man!

This fight is unwinnable. Gorsuch will need 60 votes in the Senate to be confirmed; if it appears he’ll fall short of the magic number, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Republican, will change the rules to allow a simple majority to confirm Judge Gorsuch.

So, what’s the big deal? Gorsuch at worst will mirror Justice Scalia’s view of the U.S. Constitution.

Democrats need to sharpen their long knives — and then put them back in their scabbards and save them for when it really matters.

Such as when a liberal justice leaves the court. That’s when the court’s ideological balance becomes the defining issue.

Not this time.

International news, national news

Now it’s the Germans feeling Trump’s wrath

Let’s see. How many more vital U.S. allies can the president of the United States anger?

He tells Mexico that it will pay for a wall across our nations’ shared border; Mexico says “no way, dude!”

Trump calls Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Trumbull and then berates him over his country’s immigration policy before hanging up on him.

The president first accuses his immediate predecessor of wiretapping his offices and then accuses the British intelligence agency of colluding with President Obama; the Brits denied it, angrily.

Now it’s the Germans, who Trump now says have to pay more for their participation in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.

Germany has rejected Trump’s demand. The Germans say they don’t owe a “debt” to NATO and won’t do what the U.S. president has suggested.

Meanwhile, the 45th president treats Russia with kid gloves; he calls Vladimir Putin a “strong leader” and says he wants to make nice with the Russians, who are doing all they can to make life miserable for the United States and our allies.

Who’s next for Trump? Maybe he can build a wall across our northern border to keep Americans from fleeing to Canada … and then demand the Canadians pay for it, too!

legal news, national news, political news

Collusion or not? Let’s wait for the FBI to do its job

FBI Director James Comey today dropped two more live grenades into our laps.

The first one is that the FBI can find no evidence, zero, that President Barack Obama ordered a wiretap of Donald J. Trump’s campaign office in Trump Tower. He cannot locate any indication that any order was given by a federal judge; he cannot find evidence of any sort of surveillance.

So …

The suggestion that the president of the United States essentially defamed his predecessor — when he tweeted the allegation of wiretapping — now has been given some credence.

The bigger grenade might be the second disclosure that Comey made to the U.S. House Intelligence Committee.

It is that the FBI is investigating whether the Trump campaign colluded with the Russian government to influence the outcome of the 2016 presidential election.

Comey said FBI policy usually doesn’t allow comment on active investigations. The director made an exception in this case. The public interest is too great to ignore, he said.

What in the world does that mean?

I believe that if the FBI determines there was collusion, that the Trump campaign worked actively with Russian spooks/goons/intelligence officers to torpedo the campaign of Hillary Rodham Clinton … well, I think we have a certifiable impeachable offense on our hands.

To be fair, there hasn’t been a shred of evidence presented yet to suggest any such collusion. There’s been a lot of chatter, gossip and what might be called charitably “circumstantial evidence.” We cannot go on circumstance, however. We need incontrovertible proof, man!

Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Comey told committee members that this probe will require lots of time to complete. It’s complicated and detailed, he said.

Take all the time you need, Mr. FBI Director. I think we can wait for a detailed answer, no matter your conclusion.

national news

Trump said he wouldn’t take vacations … honestly!

https://www.truthexaminer.com/2017/03/watch-this-video-where-donald-trump-says-hell-never-take-vacations-watch-here/

Take a look at this video. It’s only a few seconds in length.

It shows presidential candidate Donald J. Trump and a former Republican Party primary opponent, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie.

Trump is pledging he’ll never take vacations. The job of president, he said, is too big. It’s too important. It’s too demanding for the president to take any vacations.

Hmmm.

What’s he done since becoming president? He’s jetted off aboard Air Force One to his posh resort in South Florida. Oh yes ! He’s played a lot of golf, too.

I don’t begrudge him the time off, or the golf.

I do begrudge him for, um, telling yet another lie about how he intended to conduct himself as president of the United States.

Hey, I know it’s no big deal. But really … ?

national news, political news

Palin? … Palin? … Palin?

3 Comments

I am risking getting some grief from readers of this blog by mentioning it … but where is Sarah Palin?

We all remember the former half-term Alaska governor, the 2008 Republican vice-presidential nominee, the former Fox News “contributor,” the former reality TV celebrity.

She was an ardent and vocal critic of the Affordable Care Act. You remember that, too?

She was out there yapping about “death panels” and how bureaucrats would determine who gets to live and who must die.

Palin also was an equally ardent supporter of Donald J. Trump’s candidacy for president and was thought to be a possible selection for veterans affairs secretary when the president was picking his Cabinet.

With all the debate and discussion about “repealing and replacing” the ACA, I keep waiting for Palin to weigh in. I await her pearls of wisdom about the best way to replace the ACA.

Where in the world is she? Has she retreated to Wasilla, Alaska, from where she emerged in 2008 to become U.S. Sen. John McCain’s running mate?

I know what you’re thinking about yours truly: You’ve trashed Palin incessantly; you cannot contain yourself every single time she opens her mouth; you don’t take her seriously. Why do you want to hear from her?

My answer? I don’t know. I just do.

She did become a major political figure, if only for a brief period. Running for VP on a major-party ticket made her a big deal. The McCain-Palin ticket did garner more than 59 million votes in the 2008 election — which ain’t bad, man!

Palin did become a darling of political conservatives, even as she went “rogue.” Her Fox colleagues welcomed her, as did those who watch the cable channel. I am going to presume, moreover, that she retains a considerable fan following among those very conservatives.

I’m not one of her fans. However, she bitched up a storm about the ACA when it was being debated in Congress and then enacted into law.

Here’s your chance, Sarah. Speak up! Tell us how we should provide a better health insurance plan for Americans.

national news, political news

Democrats becoming the new ‘Party of No’

Accuracy is the first rule of journalism.

Fairness, arguably, is the second rule.

I always sought to be accurate and fair during my nearly 37 years toiling in daily print journalism. Therefore, my sense of fairness compels me to suggest that the Democratic Party should refrain from becoming the new Party of No.

Democrats were poised to seize control of the federal government once the ballots were counted during the 2016 presidential election. Then the unthinkable happened: Donald J. Trump defeated Hillary Rodham Clinton, the Senate didn’t flip to Democratic control and the House remained solidly in Republican hands.

Democrats found themselves, quite unexpectedly, in the political wilderness.

I was one of those commentators — using this blog as my forum — to rail, rant and rave against Republicans’ obstruction of every damn thing that Democratic President Barack Obama sought to do. Health care reform, economic stimulus, you name it. If Obama wanted, Republicans were sure to oppose it.

The GOP proved their obstructionist mettle with the president’s nomination of Merrick Garland to join the Supreme Court after Antonin Scalia’s death a year ago.

So, what are Democrats supposed to do?

Do they return the “favor” and become the new Party of No?

I hope not.

Don’t misunderstand me. I detest the idea that Donald Trump is president as much as many millions of other Americans. However, he is the president. He won the Electoral College majority he needed.

Just as I always have believed that “good government” requires compromise and cooperation between the two major parties, I believe that principle still can apply as Democrats do battle with the Republican in the White House and the Republicans who control both chambers of Congress.

Should they sacrifice whatever principles for which they stand? No more than anyone should expect Republicans to sacrifice their own principles.

I understand the anger that many in Washington are feeling right now. Just two months in the presidency of Donald Trump, Democrats still cannot get past the idea that they managed to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.

Is that Republicans’ fault? Democratic chieftains need to own it.

They have their agenda, although to be honest, I’m not yet entirely sure what it is. They’ve just elected a new party chairman and they need to get their ducks lined up. They need to dust off their policy books.

They need to argue their point with Republicans. Somehow there needs to be some common ground. Health care overhaul? Federal budgeting? Environmental regulations? The myriad foreign policy trouble spots?

Party of No

It’s not enough to just say “no” to everything Republicans want to do. Good government requires a loyal opposition to perform in a manner that the very term defines: to oppose the party in power, but to be loyal to the government they all take an oath to uphold.

I dislike this Party of No business that’s beginning to take form in Washington. Republicans played the part badly when we had a Democrat in the White House. I don’t envision Democrats doing so with any more grace now that a Republican has taken his seat behind that big desk in the Oval Office.

legal news, national news, political news

Rep. Schiff: We’re at the ‘bottom’ of wiretap story

Adam Schiff strikes me as a thoughtful young man.

He’s the ranking Democrat on the U.S. House Intelligence Committee. He and the Republican chairman, Deven Nunes, also of California, have become a sort of tag-team that seeks to get Donald Trump to produce proof of a dangerous allegation he has made about former President Obama.

Today, Schiff said on “Meet the Press” that Congress appears to have reached “the bottom” of the president’s assertion — that Obama ordered a wiretap of Trump’s offices in New York City.

There is no “bottom,” Schiff said. No proof. No evidence. No substantiation. The president, said the congressman, has now introduced a dangerous new standard for recklessness that could have profound impact on any business the United States seeks to conduct at home or abroad.

Indeed, how are our allies going to react to anything that comes from the president’s Twitter account? He’s already dragged the British intelligence network into this tawdry matter, asserting that the Brits had a hand in the alleged wiretap.

He stood with German Chancellor Angela Merkel and sought to lure her into the ongoing matter, suggesting that Obama had wiretapped Merkel and other European allies.

The president is not backing off. He’s offering not a hint of proof. Nor is he offering the scent of contrition.

What in the world is this man — the president of the United States — going to do next? Who else is he going to slander?

We might find out plenty this week when FBI Director James Comey walks onto Capitol Hill to testify about what he knows and whether there was any authorization given to do what Trump has accused the former president of doing.

I would think the FBI boss would know.

If not, well, Rep. Schiff is right. We’ve found the bottom of this story. And as the late Gertrude Stein once said of Oakland, Calif.: We’ve found “there is no there there.”

legal news

‘Ideological balance’ not a SCOTUS issue

Reuters News Agency has declared in a headline that Neil Gorsuch’s selection to the U.S. Supreme Court means the court’s “ideological balance” is at stake.

Excuse me for a moment while I clear my throat.

Cough, cough …

Um, no. It isn’t.

Judge Gorsuch has been tapped by Donald J. Trump to succeed the late Justice Antonin Scalia. As my dear old Dad would say, “It’s six to one, half-dozen to the other.”

Gorsuch is a conservative. So was Scalia. And yet, progressive thinkers are all a-flutter  because Gorsuch, they say, according to Reuters, “that he is a pro-business, social conservative insufficiently independent of the president.”

Do they think Scalia would have been any different had he not died before Trump took office? Do they think Gorsuch is going to somehow become so persuasive in his opinions and writings that he is going to bring some progressive court justices to his side of an argument?

Let’s get a grip here.

Scalia was an iconic figure among judicial conservatives. It’s not yet clear whether Gorsuch will attain that kind of status if he gets confirmed to the Supreme Court.

My advice to Senate Democrats and their progressive allies in the judicial community is this: Save your ammunition for the day one of the high court’s liberal justices takes a hike.

Although I agree fully that Trump never should have been given the chance to replace Scalia. That task should have been fulfilled by his presidential predecessor, Barack Obama, who nominated an equally qualified jurist, Merrick Garland, to take his place on the high court. Senate Republicans played bald-faced politics, declaring that Obama didn’t have the right to appoint someone to the court; that task, they argued, belonged to the next president.

That’s utter horse manure. The GOP’s tactic worked. Trump got elected and now he has appointed a judicial conservative to the court — just as he pledged he would do.

As one who stands foursquare behind presidential prerogative on issues such as this, I recognize that elections have consequences.

One “consequence” of the 2016 election is that Trump has chosen a “well-qualified” jurist — in the words of the American Bar Association — to become the next Supreme Court justice. There is no “ideological balance” to discuss with this selection.

What about the next one? And what if it involves the departure of a liberal justice?

Well, that’s a different matter altogether.

national news, political news

Government teaches POTUS a stern, necessary lesson

It’s been a lot of fun watching the president of the United States getting the education of his life about how the U.S. government actually works.

It’s not how he wants it to work. Donald J. Trump cannot snap his fingers and make things happen just because, well, he can. Oh no. The system is designed precisely to prevent such things from happening.

Trump got elected while promising to “drain the swamp” and get things done. “I alone” can repair what ails the country, Trump declared at his nominating convention this past summer.

No, sir. You alone can’t do a damn thing!

Which is fine by me. Think of it.

* He seeks to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act with something called the American Health Care Act; then he and congressional Republican leaders run smack into the TEA Party caucus within the GOP, which hates the AHCA. Oh, and those damn Democrats hate it, too!

* Trump declared his desire to ban all Muslims from entering the United States. Then after being elected he cobbles together a measure to ban refugees from seven Muslim-majority nations from entering the United States. Who steps in? The courts. No can do, Mr. President. A federal judge in Washington state strikes down the first ban; then the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upholds the judge.

* He tries again. Trump reintroduces what he calls a “watered-down version” of the first ban. The courts strike again. Uh, Mr. President, this order violates the Establishment Clause of the U.S. Constitution, the one that says government cannot favor one religion over any other; it’s in the First Amendment, Mr. President. You ought to read it.

* His budget? The president seeks to boost defense spending by $54 billion while cutting myriad programs that help poor Americans. Meals on Wheels … for example? Gone. Congress has declared the president’s proposed budget to be essentially DOA, which is the way it’s done in Washington, Mr. President.

As it’s been said often, sir: The president proposes, while Congress disposes.

He’s getting grief from Americans who are angry because his wife and young son aren’t living in the White House, costing the government many millions of extra dollars to keep them safe while they live in Trump Tower — in New York City!

More grief is coming from those who wonder why the president keeps jetting off seemingly every weekend to his glitzy, decadent resort in Palm Beach, Fla. That’s costing a lot of dough, too.

It’s all not very, um, populist of you, Mr. President.

This business mogul is used to getting things done his way. He is learning that the presidency doesn’t allow that kind of thing.

You see, one cannot govern the United States of America the way you’d run a business. I don’t give a damn what anyone says to the contrary. You see, the founders had it right when they crafted a government full of all kinds of restraints, checks and balances, and assorted roadblocks to prevent an omnipotent presidency.

Welcome to the world of governance, Mr. President.