Tag Archives: Donald Trump

national news, political news

Trump is going where no one can survive … politically

Donald J. Trump is now waging open warfare against the media, the FBI, his immediate predecessor, congressional Democrats and now quite possibly a growing number of congressional Republicans.

I wonder who and/or what is next for this president.

He has accused former President Obama of breaking the law by ordering a wiretap of Trump Tower. FBI Director James Comey reportedly has stated he is “incredulous” at what Trump has alleged. Congressional Democrats are livid and they want heads to roll. Congressional Republicans are more tepid in their response, but are suggesting they have “seen no evidence” of an illegal wiretap.

The media? They merely are reporting all of this.

Trump ignores analysis by his national security and intelligence team and is relying on “news” coming from right-wing outlets such as Breitbart. com and a bevy of radio talk-show hosts whose self-proclaimed mission is to discredit a president — Barack Obama — who they detest.

The danger of Trump’s mindless blathering is beginning to frighten a lot of observers in this country and perhaps beyond our borders.

This all takes me back to the campaign we’ve just endured.

Weren’t there warnings issued by folks who questioned the temperament and fitness of the man who would be elected president? Didn’t these critics tell us that Trump was not capable of managing his own narrative, let alone crafting an agenda that would govern the greatest nation on Earth?

We are witnessing a remarkable coming apart of a still-young presidency. The president himself is dismantling his administration with this ridiculous assertion that Barack Obama has broken the law, which stipulates that the president cannot “order” a wiretap.

No proof has come forward. No evidence has been presented. This allegation is as specious as the many other lies he has told ever since he declared his presidential candidacy.

The birther baloney, the Muslims cheering the fall of the Twin Towers on 9/11, the illegal immigrants voting for Hillary Clinton … all of them and more! They are lies.

As for Obama — who’s now officially a “private citizen” — the thought occurs to me: Does he have grounds to sue his successor for slander, for defamation? Would he take this clown to court?

national news, political news

Trump no more believable now than before

Donald J. Trump has leveled a patently preposterous notion that Barack Obama “ordered” a wiretap at Trump Tower in New York City.

The president wants us to believe him. He’s a truth-teller. He’s the man now. He says it’s a “fact” that the former president broke the law, committed a felony. Does this individual — Trump — have a record of believability?

How about a quick review. Donald Trump has said:

* Thousands of Muslims cheered the collapse of the Twin Towers during the 9/11 terrorist attack. They didn’t.

* President Obama was born in Kenya and was not qualified to serve in the office to which he was elected twice. Another falsehood.

* U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz’s father might have been complicit in the murder of President Kennedy. False.

* “Millions of illegal immigrants” voted for Hillary Clinton, providing her with her significant popular vote plurality over Trump in the 2016 presidential election. Didn’t happen.

Must I add that at no time did the candidate-turned-president offer a shred of proof for any of the things he had uttered out loud? Yet many voters believed him. Trump “tells it like it is,” they insisted. No, he made it up. He fabricated it. He lied through his teeth.

I also should remind you that when he said during his press conference three weeks ago that he scored the biggest Electoral College victory “since Ronald Reagan,” he said that it was something “I was told.” That was the defense he mounted after being challenged directly by “enemy of the people” media reps that his assertion about his electoral vote victory was patently false.

With that string of prevarications and lies, we now are being told to believe this latest whopper, that Barack Obama “ordered” wiretaps.

I cannot believe to this very moment that Donald John Trump was actually elected president of the United States.

But he was.

And no … I won’t “get over it.”

national news

Benghazi boss: no evidence of wiretap

Trey Gowdy isn’t exactly a spectator sitting in the cheap seats.

The chairman of a U.S. House select committee that sought some criminality in Hillary Rodham Clinton’s handling of the infamous siege at Benghazi, Libya, now weighs in on the preposterous claim by Donald J. Trump, who accuses Barack Obama of wiretapping his Trump Tower offices.

There’s no evidence that any such thing happened, says Gowdy, a South Carolina Republican lawmaker.

I am not prone to be complimentary of Gowdy, but this fellow might know something that your run-of-the-mill congressperson doesn’t know. His Benghazi panel went after Clinton for a couple of years over that firefight at the U.S. consulate. It found nothing on which to hang on the former secretary of state. The panel, though, was privy to reams of classified information.

“I don’t think the FBI is the Obama team, and I don’t think the men and women who are career prosecutors at [the Department of Justice] belong to any team other than a blindfolded woman holding a pair of scales,” Gowdy told Fox News, referencing the Greek goddess Themis, who represents justice and trust.

The president, though, keeps insisting that his predecessor tapped his phones, looking for dirt on the Trump campaign’s alleged relationship with the Russian government. The relationship is critical, given that intelligence agencies have concluded Russia sought to influence the results of the 2016 election in Trump’s favor.

I am one who believes the president has made it up, that he has concocted a faux scandal to rile his base and to divert attention from the controversies that are dogging him.

It appears that hell has frozen over and that I agree with something that Trey Gowdy has said.

national news, political news

By all means, let’s investigate this wiretap malarkey

I just answered “yes” to one of those “online polls” posted on MSN.com’s home page.

The question was this: Should there be an investigation of Trump’s allegation of wiretapping by the Obama administration?

Why “yes”? Why endorse the idea of a probe?

It’s simple. I don’t believe for an instant, a nanosecond, that President Obama was in any way responsible for any kind of wiretap of Trump Tower. I believe that Donald J. Trump made it up. He fabricated an allegation to divert attention from other matters plaguing his administration.

This is the president’s modus operandi, as he’s demonstrated time and again since announcing his candidacy in the summer of 2015. The heat gets too warm under his backside, he fires off a tweet making an outrageous declaration.

He did so again this past weekend with that ridiculous tweet accusing President Obama — with zero evidence — of “ordering” a wiretap, which of course he cannot do legally. Someone, according to Trump, tapped his Trump Tower offices looking for evidence that his campaign had inappropriate or illegal contact with the Russian government, which intelligence authorities have concluded sought to influence the 2016 election, to help Trump get elected.

I realize a congressional investigation — which Trump is seeking — would be costly. I also realize it would divert members of Congress from the myriad other tasks that await them, and for which the public already is paying them good money to address.

You know, things like the budget, national defense, public education — not to mention the many individual concerns that can be found that are unique to each of 435 congressional districts and in each of the 50 states.

If such a probe is done in a bipartisan manner, then I truly believe it would expose Trump to be the fraudulent, petulant liar many millions of us believe him to be.

Not that it would dampen Trumpkins’ enthusiasm for their guy.

Just get it on the record.

media news, national news, political news

Hoping for a cure for Trump Fatigue

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I am going to steel myself for a lengthy, winding and probably tiresome period as the media continue to report on the myriad troubles bedeviling the Donald John Trump administration.

Is there a cure out there for what looks like a case of acute Trump Fatigue?

If someone can find it, let me know … please!

Trump’s time in office is all of six weeks old now. Every single day seems to produce something of consequence. It might be relatively minor. It might be, oh, yuuuge.

The biggest event so far has been the president’s baseless, evidence-free assertion that his predecessor, Barack H. Obama, ordered a wiretap of the Trump Tower offices in New York City.

The former president has denied it. The FBI director, James Comey, has asked the Justice Department to ignore it. Now the president has called on Congress to investigate it.

It all centers on those damn Russians and whether they sought to influence the 2016 election — and whether they colluded with candidate Trump and his team as they were seeking to undermine Hillary Clinton’s campaign.

Folks, this battle is just beginning and for those of us out here who have an interest in good government, public service and the once-noble craft of politics, we are heading for an ugly, raucous, tumultuous, possibly critical time in our nation’s history.

As the essay attached to this blog notes, we are entering uncharted waters as it regards the presidency of the United States.

Here it is.

So, the Trump administration begins where — as some have noted — the Nixon administration ended in August 1974. Think about this for just a moment.

The Watergate break-in occurred in June 1972. The media barely covered it at first. Then one tip led to another and two years later, the House Judiciary Committee approved articles of impeachment, a key Republican senator — Barry Goldwater — told President Nixon he didn’t have any Senate support to acquit him if the case went to trial, and then the president quit.

Trump has been in office for just a few weeks and the questions are swirling around him with increasing volume and velocity.

The president seemingly always has been keyed toward finding ways to bring attention to himself. Well, now he has the whole world watching and waiting for the next chapter to unfold in this amazing drama.

If only we can stand it.

In the meantime, I will await the miracle cure for Trump Fatigue.

legal news, national news, political news

Are the wheels flying off Trump’s ‘fine-tuned machine’?

“A fine-tuned machine” does not experience the kind of malfunctions we are witnessing within Donald J. Trump’s administration.

For instance, it doesn’t produce an FBI director asking the Justice Department to dismiss an explosive allegation coming from the president of the United States against his immediate predecessor.

FBI Director James Comey wants the Justice Department to toss out Trump’s allegation — delivered this weekend in a tweet — that Barack Obama ordered spooks to wiretap Trump’s offices in Trump Tower.

Why would they do such a thing, which they have denied doing? It would be to look for evidence that Trump’s campaign was colluding with Russian officials to interfere with the U.S. presidential election.

Trump calls it a “fact” that such a thing occurred. Comey, in an apparent act of open rebellion against the president, says, um, no it isn’t. It didn’t happen. At this moment, DOJ officials haven’t done as Comey has asked.

Ladies and gents, we are witnessing perhaps the first shots of open warfare within the Trump administration. It might be Trump v. Comey in this fight.

Ex-DNI denies wiretap allegation.

Former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper said on “Meet the Press” this morning that any such order to wiretap Trump’s office would have had to come from a federal judge, who would have determined probable cause to issue such an order. The DNI, said Clapper, would be made aware of it.

Clapper said it never occurred during his time as DNI.

Comey has taken up Clapper’s side in this fight.

The “fine-tuned machine” — which is how the president described his administration during that infamous press conference a couple of weeks ago — appears set to explode in flames.

What happens now? The president might fire Comey. What do you suppose would be the public reaction to such an event?

The president, moreover, is reportedly furious at Attorney General Jeff Sessions for recusing himself from an investigation into Russia’s alleged effort to influence the presidential election.

Does that sound to you like a “fine-tuned machine” that is humming along on all cylinders? Me neither.

My … goodness.

***

Comey’s request of the DOJ to drop this wiretap nonsense is fascinating at another level as well. The FBI director heaved that political grenade into Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign 11 days before Election Day informing her of a letter he had sent to Congress asking for a re-examination of that e-mail controversy that dogged her all along the way.

Clinton blames that letter for stopping her momentum and for giving Trump the ammo he needed to blast her presidential campaign to smithereens.

Now he turns on the individual he supposedly helped get elected?

Lock ‘n load!

International news, media news

Tweets diminish Trump’s ‘moral authority’

Thomas Friedman is a journalist of considerable reputation.

He might, in the words of Donald J. Trump, be an “enemy of the people,” but the New York Times columnist has a well-established base of knowledge of world affairs.

Consider his take on the president’s use of Twitter as a primary form of communication.

Friedman appeared this morning on “Meet the Press” and he asserted that Trump’s “moral authority” is being damaged by his random rants that go out in the wee hours from wherever he happens to be at the moment.

He noted that the president is going to Europe soon to meet with other heads of government and heads of state. They are our allies. Our friends. Our partners.

How will the U.S. president respond to these meetings? What might he say about President So-and-So or about Prime Minister What’s-His-Name?

Does the president’s Twitter fetish diminish the trust that these world leaders have in the head of the greatest nation on Earth?

Friedman believes Trump’s use of this social medium ultimately could cause great damage to this country’s standing among other world leaders who depend on America to be the source of reason, strength and wisdom.

Trump’s demonstrated careless use of Twitter undermines all of it.

The president is playing a dangerous game.

national news

Just wondering: Can’t POTUS get proof if he demands it?

The thought occurs to me this morning …

If the president of the United States accuses his predecessor of a crime, can’t he gather up the proof of that allegation on demand? Can’t the president call the spooks, the spies, the prosecutors, anyone who can prove something happened and then produce the proof of what he has alleged.

Donald Trump’s tweet over the weekend that Barack Obama ordered a wire tap on Trump Tower offices has ignited the mother of political firestorms. The president hasn’t proved anything. He has offered nothing but a tweet that said “it is a fact” that his predecessor ordered the wire tap because of some belief that there might be collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russian government to influence the outcome of the 2016 presidential election.

A fact? Is that what you say, Mr. President?

Sir, you are in command of the world’s greatest intelligence network — no matter what you have said about it. I believe you are able to obtain proof on demand.

legal news

President ‘furious’ over Sessions recusal? Settle down, sir

Donald John Trump reportedly is steamed that the attorney general has taken himself out of the Russia investigation game.

The president appears to have been furious with his staff and with AG Jeff Sessions over the AG’s decision to recuse himself from investigating possible illegalities involving the Trump campaign and the Russian government.

Sessions told the Senate Judiciary Committee that he had no contact with the Russians. Then it turns out he did; he then admitted as much.

That’s when he pulled out under mounting pressure from Republicans and Democrats.

What in the name of Watergate does the president fail to understand about the AG’s necessary decision to pull out of this probe?

Sessions did the right thing by recusing himself. Most of out us here — even those of us in the middle of Trump Country — understand that the attorney general has acted appropriately.

I am not going to join the amen chorus in calling for Sessions to quit … at least not yet. The AG needs to ensure that he stays totally clear of any discussions among the career prosecutors who work for him as they regard what they might find in the immediate future regarding Trump’s (alleged) relationship with the Russian government.

Trump’s supposed anger at Sessions, though, merely demonstrates — as if we need any more demonstrations — the president’s utter ignorance about propriety.

This tumult is far from over. My hope — certainly not my expectation — would be for the president of the United States to settle down and to let this massive apparatus called the “federal government” do what it’s designed to do.

It has a lot of moving parts and some of those parts now must find the truth behind whether the president’s campaign did anything illegal by negotiating with a government that our nation’s spy network says tried to influence a presidential election.

national news, political news

‘The bottom’ of Trump’s wiretap will be bare

U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham promises to “get to the bottom” of the president’s allegation that his predecessor wiretapped Trump Tower.

OK, then. The South Carolina Republican has expressed his deep worry about what Donald J. Trump has alleged.

Did President Obama order an illegal wiretap? Is there a “there” there? Or, did Trump make it up? Did the president decide to fire off a storm of tweets alleging something that is patently ridiculous on its face?

Trump said Obama wiretapped the Trump Tower offices to prove that the president-elect had conversations with Russian officials. This controversy is boiling to a scandal status.

Here is what I think Sen. Graham is going to find.

Nothing! I believe the “bottom” of this specious claim is going to reveal yet another bald-faced lie from the president of the United States.