Tag Archives: Donald Trump

business news

Get ready for economic ‘war,’ Texas cattle ranchers

The 45th president of the United States has launched a multi-front war: against the media and against our nation’s major trading partners.

I’ve discussed the media war already. The growing trade war is another critter altogether.

The Dallas Morning News has published an interesting essay that suggests the first victim of the trade war will be — get ready for this one! — the cattle producers from Texas, of all places.

Why is that so strange, so ironic? It could be that Donald J. Trump had no more loyal ballot-box supporters in the 2016 presidential election than those who produce beef in the Lone Star State.

So, what does the new president do? He goes straight after Mexico, a leading importer of Texas beef. He tells Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto that Mexico will pay for that “beautiful wall” Trump plans to build along our southern border; Pena Nieto says “no, we won’t!”

The irony is rich, indeed. Trump pulled the United States out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, which would have opened up another huge market for Texas red meat. That deal is a goner, too.

Much of the rest of Trump Country — throughout the agricultural Midwest — is going to feel the pain of the president’s trade war.

As Richard Parker’s essay in the DMN notes: “Texas ranchers, though, will not be alone for long. Beef producers from Nebraska to the Dakotas face the same problems. So do grain farmers in Kansas and the snow-covered corn fields of Iowa, just like tomato farmers in California and Florida and autoworkers in Michigan, longshoremen, truckers and railway workers in Miami and Houston and Long Beach. These will be the first casualties of a trade war.”

It’s amazing to some of us that the president would launch into this kind of blundering bluster without thinking of the consequences that his most loyal grassroots political allies will suffer as a result.

As Parker notes: “The irony, of course, is that states like Texas, the plains states and Michigan all helped put Trump in office. But the cows in pasture don’t care about politics. And cowboys rightly don’t care about irony, even if they are to be its first casualties.”

media news, national news, political news

‘W’: Free press is ‘indispensable to democracy’

Maybe you remember the bumper stickers with President George W. Bush’s face on them, with the caption: Do you miss him?

The message was meant as a dig at President Barack H. Obama.

Well, I didn’t miss him then. I do miss him now that a new president is in charge … and who’s decided to wage open war against the media.

President Bush said on “Today” that a free and strong media are “indispensable to democracy.”

Trump doesn’t grasp the notion that the media play a critical role in assuring that public officials — even the president of the United States — always stay on the straight and narrow.

“I consider the media to be indispensable to democracy. … Power can be very addictive,” he told NBC’s “Today.” Do you think?

George W. Bush is among a handful of men who have held those reins of power. He did so for two terms. While his record is a mixed one, he always seemed to comprehend the limits inherent in the power of the presidency.

Two presidents later, we have a guy in the White House who is trying to manipulate the media in ways most of never have seen. He seeks to shut out major media organizations from press briefings; he seeks to curry favor with “friendly reporters”; he blasts reporters and organizations openly for being “dishonest” and purveyors of what he calls “fake news.”

The First Amendment guarantees a “free press.” It prohibits the government from interfering in the media’s effort to do their duty.

Trump doesn’t get it. President Bush does get it. “We need an independent media to hold people like me to account,” “W” said.

Do I miss the 43rd president?

Yes. I do.

International news, national news, political news

It’s not too early to call for special prosecutor

The White House says it’s too early to call for a special prosecutor to investigate the president’s relationship with Russian government officials.

Actually, it’s not too early. Not at all.

At issue is whether U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions should lead that probe. I don’t believe he should. Neither do congressional Democrats. Nor do a number of leading congressional Republicans.

We are entering some seriously rough waters as they regard the president of the United States.

Donald J. Trump has this curious man-crush on Russian President Vladimir Putin, whose own government has been accused of trying to manipulate the 2016 U.S. presidential election. Intelligence organizations have declared that the Russians tried to hack into our political computer networks in that endeavor; Trump keeps denying it happened.

There is a compelling need to get to the truth. Sessions is too close, too friendly, too allied with Trump to be trusted to give such an investigation the push it needs.

White House spokespersons are calling on Congress to launch investigations. I, for one, am not sure I can trust Congress to conduct such a thorough, bipartisan probe; I point to the ridiculous investigation into Hillary Rodham Clinton’s e-mail “scandal,” which produced nothing on which to prosecute the former secretary of state.

This story has many alleys down which investigators should travel.

Did the president order former national security adviser Michael Flynn to talk to the Russian ambassador about lifting sanctions leveled against the Russians? When did Flynn lie to the vice president about those discussions and did the president know about it before the vice president knew? Was there a violation of the Logan Act prohibiting unauthorized agents from negotiating with foreign governments?

Who’s going to find the truth?

Special prosecutors aren’t a new concept. Congress has appointed them, they have produced riveting results.

Donald Trump might be in serious trouble. Then again, he might be as clean as he says he is.

Let’s turn a special prosecutor team loose to find the truth.

Now!

local news, political news

No predictions coming for this year’s mayoral contest

You can’t miss them. They’re sprouting up everywhere, kind of like that spring clover you see on the High Plains of Texas.

Lawn signs touting the candidacy of Ginger Nelson have shown up all over our neighborhood. I expect more of them.

Nelson is running for mayor of Amarillo. She’s already earned my vote. I make no apologies for deciding this early.

Now comes the question, which I received today: Do I think she’s going to win?

I am not predicting nothin’. No way. No how. No never mind.

She should win. She’s got a detailed campaign platform. She has a lengthy to-do list of items she wants accomplished during her time as mayor … if she wins, of course.

If you haven’t seen her platform, take a look right here.

Why won’t I predict her victory? Because my record at such things is terrible! That’s why.

* I once wrote that Hillary Rodham Clinton was set to roll to a potentially historic landslide victory for president of the United States in the 2016 election. Umm, she didn’t.

* I also wrote that there was no way on God’s Earth that Donald “Smart Person” Trump ever would be nominated for — let alone elected — president of the United States. Hah! Silly me.

* I once wrote that Hillary never would run for the U.S. Senate in 2000 because, after all, many of those senators voted to convict her husband of the “impeachable offense” of lying about his affair with what’s-her-name. She did run — and she won.

* I also once said Army Gen. Colin Powell would run for president in 1996 against Hillary’s husband. He opted out.

So, you see, I am terrible at these parlor games.

Nelson should win. She has the backing of some influential folks in Amarillo. She’s got the experience from her time on the Amarillo Economic Development Corporation. She has the smarts and the professional background as a lawyer and businesswoman to move the city forward. She has the speaking skill and public presence required to use her office as a bully pulpit.

Am I going to predict such a thing?

No way, man! I’ll just hope for the best.

political news

No ‘dissing the president,’ members of Congress

In the interest of fairness and magnanimity, I am offering a word of caution to congressional Democrats who will be listening this week to the Republican president of the United States.

Put your handheld telecommunications devices away. Stick ’em in your pocket. Leave ’em with aides. Don’t be texting on them, or tweeting during the time Donald John Trump is at the podium telling you about his “historic landslide election victory” over Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Eight years ago I posted a blog item on members of Congress dissing then-President Barack Hussein Obama during his speech to Congress. It was the first such speech to lawmakers during his presidency. Trump is making his first such speech this week.

Here is what I wrote in February 2009

Respect compels all members to listen to the president. Sure, they’ll get his remarks in advance … at least that’s been the custom. Then again, this president seems to delight in defying custom and tradition. Maybe he’ll surprise everyone.

Whatever.

I hate watching members of Congress looking down at those damn smart phones, I-pads, BlackBerrys — whatever the hell they carry around — while the leader of the free world is talking to them.

Look at this way: One individual is elected nationally; two if you count the vice president, who’ll be sitting behind the president next to the speaker of the House. The rest of those pols are elected either from one of 50 states or from one of 435 congressional districts.

Listen up when the president is talking to you. Sit up straight and pay attention. Oh, and Democrats, no shouts of “You lie!” either. Your Republican colleague who did that to President Obama during one of his speeches should have been slapped in the puss.

Afterward? Sure, all bets are off. Have at it.

national news, political news

GOP lawmaker gets it right: appoint a special prosecutor

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Well … as I live and breathe.

Republican U.S. Rep. Darrell Issa of California — one of Hillary Rodham Clinton’s most fervent nemeses on Capitol Hill — has shown his reasonable side.

Issa believes a special prosecutor should be appointed to investigate allegations about Donald J. Trump’s connections to the Russian government.

U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions is the wrong man to lead such a probe, Issa told Bill Maher on his “Real Time” TV show.

Issa said, according to the Associated Press: “You’re right that you cannot have somebody — a friend of mine, Jeff Sessions — who was on the campaign and who is an appointee. You’re going to need to use the special prosecutor’s statute and office.”

How about that?

Issa makes the case that Sessions is too close to the president and too much in Trump’s hip pocket to be a faithful and committed investigator into allegations about the president’s relationships with Russian government officials.

Intelligence agencies have determined that Russian hackers sought to influence the 2016 presidential election. Trump keeps denying it, calling such reporting “fake news.” What’s more, there now are questions about whether the Trump campaign had improper contact with Russian intelligence officials during the campaign while the government was (allegedly) trying to sway the election in Trump’s favor.

Sessions role in the campaign? He was the first U.S. senator to endorse Trump; he spoke in Trump’s favor at the Republican convention this past summer; he joined the campaign as a national security adviser; and then he got appointed attorney general by the same president who should be investigated for improper conduct.

It’s to be expected that Democrats would insist on a special prosecutor. To hear such demands come from Republicans — let alone one who pursued a leading Democratic politician seemingly forever — provides a need push in the drive to find the unvarnished truth in this ongoing story.

national news, political news

What a difference a year makes for CPAC

It’s been said that a “week is a lifetime in politics.”

So is a month, or perhaps an hour.

If any of those time measurements amount to a lifetime, how does a year compute?

I pose the question because of what transpired this week at the Conservative Political Action Conference, where Donald J. Trump took the place by storm, prompting rousing applause and cheers, declaring that CPAC finally had one of their own as president.

Do you recall what CPAC speakers were saying a year ago to equally rousing cheers and applause? They were calling Trump a phony conservative. You had the likes of U.S. Sens. Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz talking trash about Trump. The crowd ate it up, swallowed it whole.

Trump then went on to vanquish those two, and a host of other Republicans to take command of the GOP and ultimately to become elected president of the United States.

What gives? How fickle are these CPACers? I believe they’re quite fickle. You see, the president is still the same guy who got the raspberry a year ago.

Trump was supposed to speak to CPAC a year ago. Then he backed out, fearing his immigration policies would provoke disturbances at the conference … or so he said.

CPAC conservatives used to embrace free trade. They used to consider Russia to be a mortal enemy of the United States. They frowned on politicians who led less-than-upstanding personal lives.

Trump — the thrice-married admitted philanderer, free trade foe and supposed pal of Vladimir Putin — gets elected and then stands before CPAC to soak up all the cheers that once went to other Republicans.

What on this ever-lovin’ Earth am I missing?

media news

Trump declines to mingle with ‘the enemy’

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We might have seen this one coming.

Donald J. Trump announced today he won’t attend the annual White House Correspondents Dinner, an event that attracts noted journalists, assorted celebrities and politicians — and usually features a blistering bit of self-deprecation and jabs at others from the president of the United States.

It’s a whole lot of fun for those who attend. At least it’s supposed to be fun.

Trump, though, will forgo the event. “I will not be attending the White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner this year. Please wish everyone well and have a great evening!,” Trump wrote on Twitter.

Is anyone surprised? Really? I didn’t think so. Trump, after all, has labeled the media the “enemy of the people.” Why would he want to mingle with such “dishonest” individuals and organizations?

The president has gone on the warpath against the mainstream media, going so far as to ban certain media organizations from attending routine White House press briefings. He has called them “fake news” outlets. He has accused the media of making stories up, of hiding their sources and attribution.

It is all — if I may borrow a term — “unpresidented” of the president to say these things about the media.

However, the White House Correspondents Dinner has been notable at many levels for many years. Perhaps the most notable event occurred in 2011, when then-President Obama joked about Trump — who was in the audience — concocting all sorts of conspiracy theories, starting with whether the president was born in the U.S. of A. Trump, at the time a mere real estate mogul and reality TV celebrity, took the ribbing stone-faced

What we didn’t know at the time, of course, was that earlier that day Obama had approved the commando mission to kill Osama bin Laden, who was holed up in a Pakistan compound. The president  carried on as if he didn’t have a care in the world.

The dinner, which occurs on April 29, will no doubt include plenty of barbs tossed at the president from the podium.

I’m willing to consider taking bets on whether Trump unloads via Twitter in response when they start flying at him. That shouldn’t surprise anyone, either.

business news, national news, political news

POTUS takes credit he doesn’t deserve

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Flash! National debt drops a tad, while the president of the United States takes credit for it!

Hold on for just a New York minute, shall we?

Donald J. Trump shouldn’t be taking credit for a slight dip in the national debt, any more than Barack Obama should have taken the hickey for it when it blipped up in the first month of his administration.

However, do not expect that to inhibit the new president from taking credit on such matters.

The president has shown this habit of taking credit for positive things but then passing off negative elements as if he’s some sort of innocent bystander.

The New York Times reported: “The federal debt is determined by the government’s decisions about taxing and spending, and by the strength of the American economy. The debt was increasing rapidly in early 2009 because the economy was in free fall, and because of policy decisions made during the administration of President George W. Bush.

“The debt is rising more slowly now because economic growth has strengthened and because of policy decisions made during Mr. Obama’s administration. But the debt is on a clear upward trend. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimated in January that the debt would increase by $559 billion in the current fiscal year, ending in September.”

Trump has been in office for a whole month. He’s got 47 more of them to go. The president, though, is so darn quick with his Twitter trigger finger that he cannot help but assume this minor downtick in the debt is all his doing.

We’d better get used to this kind of thing.

Oh, the fact-checkers will be busy.

media news, national news, political news

Do as Trump says, not as he does

Donald J. Trump cracks me up.

Except that I’m not laughing with the president, but rather I’m laughing at him for the preposterous declarations he makes about the media — and what he does before and after he makes them.

Trump stood before the Conservative Political Action Conference audience this week and excoriated the media — the “enemy of the people,” remember — for using anonymous sources.

What, then, occurred that makes this attack so laughable?

His White House staff talked to a select group of media on the grounds that they be allowed to speak anonymously.

D’oh! Huh? Eh? What the … ?

Trump’s CPAC rant was the latest ramping up of his war against the media, the folks whose task is to report to their own constituents what is going on with the White House, the president’s staff and, by golly, the president himself.

This ridiculous and nonsensical rant in which he blasts the media for granting anonymity to sources only demonstrates the president’s utter ignorance of the traditional role between the media and the White House.

It’s supposed to be adversarial. Every single president — regardless of party or ideology — has bitched about his treatment by the media. Some have taken that complaint to more intense levels than others; President Nixon’s troubles come to mind.

However, every single one of them has said essentially the same thing: The media treat me unfairly; they’re too harsh; they’re too probing; they pry too much and too deeply.

The treatment Trump is getting is really no different than what has occurred since the founding of the Republic.

Now, for him to blast the media for granting anonymity — while allowing his staff to request it of the media — simply makes me shake my head in sheer amazement at this president’s ignorance.