Monthly Archives: February 2020

International news

Trump denies Russians are helping him … imagine that!

(Photo by Chris McGrath/Getty Images)

Of course Donald John Trump would deny the Russians are helping him win re-election.

Of course, too, that he would blame the story on Democrats seeking to undermine his effort to win a second presidential term.

Except for this known fact: The president asked another foreign government, Ukraine, to help him win re-election by digging up dirt on a potential political rival. There’s also the denial that Russians delivered in Trump’s presence, which Trump endorsed despite the analysis of the U.S. intelligence network.

Donald Trump’s corrupt tendencies are on full display as this story continues to grow more legs and wings.

Trump fired former acting Director of National Intelligence Joseph Maguire because the former DNI had the temerity to brief congressional leaders of both parties about what his office had learned, that Russians are working to attack our electoral system this year, just as they did in 2016. The source of Trump’s anger? That Maguire would tell Democrats while doing his job as the nation’s top intelligence officer.

He now has installed Richard Grenell, a longstanding Trump loyalist, as the latest acting DNI. Grenell has no intelligence experience; he has no background on which to draw even as he fills this post on a temporary basis. He’s a Trump toadie who won’t give an honest and unvarnished assessment of national security threats to the commander in chief.

You want more corruption evidence? How about reports that Trump has instructed the White House personnel office to purge the administration of anyone who has even whispered a negative statement about the president? He wants nothing but yes men and women.

Donald Trump scares the daylights out of me.

national news

Is this for real? Sanders is becoming a prohibitive favorite?

My friends to the left aren’t going to like reading this, but that’s too bad. I happen to believe that Democratic Party primary voters are on the cusp of slitting their own proverbial throats if they think Sen. Bernie Sanders will defeat Donald John Trump in this year’s presidential election.

Sanders is the flavor of the moment. He is likely to win the Nevada caucus this weekend. He is gearing up for a big show in California on Super Tuesday, on March 3.

I cannot predict how a Trump-Sanders matchup will end, but it certainly appears as though the current president will be primed to win re-election in a significant manner. By that I believe it might turn into a landslide.

That, I submit, would be the most disastrous outcome imaginable.

Donald Trump needs to lose this election. The country needs for him to lose it. Is the Democratic Party going to do so by nominating a “democratic socialist” who has declared war on billionaires, who pledges massive wealth redistribution, who wants to provide free college education and free health care in that Medicare For All proposal?

Umm. No. Trump is quite likely to defeat Sanders. That’s my humble view, for whatever it’s worth.

I continue to prefer a more centrist approach. I want Democrats to nominate someone who can work with Republicans. I want the party nominee to be someone with legislative heft, with gravitas.

My first choice would be Joe Biden. I want the former vice president to collect himself and to start showing some signs of the formidable figure I believe he can become. That’s my hope.

My fear is that Democrats are hurtling toward the nation’s second consecutive presidential election travesty.

media news

Time of My Life, Part 46: Serving as ‘country coordinator’

One always should know that there are individuals who know far more than you do, who know their way around bureaucratic mazes and who can be of invaluable help when you are assigned what looks like a monumental task.

So it was back in the fall of 1989 as I helped prepare for a lengthy overseas journey as part of the National Conference of Editorial Writers, a professional association to which I belonged.

NCEW would send teams abroad on factfinding missions. That year, NCEW chose to venture to Southeast Asia: to Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam. Several of us on that delegation happened to be veterans of the Vietnam War, which made the journey even more special.

But then came this little wrinkle: NCEW wanted individuals to volunteer to serve as “country coordinators.” What is that? Well, it meant that we needed individuals to take the lead in establishing contacts with government officials in the host countries we would be touring. One NCEW member coordinated the Thailand leg, another did the same for Cambodia. Hey, no sweat, right? Not exactly.

I signed up to be a country coordinator for the Vietnam leg of that trip. Here’s the deal: The United States and Vietnam did not have official diplomatic relations; that didn’t happen until 1995. That meant the United States had no embassy in Vietnam. We had no official U.S.-Vietnam channel through which we could communicate.

That required yours truly to work with the Vietnamese mission at the United Nations. However, we were part of a huge network of experts who knew all the contacts we needed to make with the Vietnamese government.

I called on someone I knew only by reputation. His name was George Esper, who served as special correspondent during the Vietnam War. I read his bylined stories for years during the war. He was based in Boston at the time of our journey preparation. I called him at the AP bureau there.

Esper could not have been more accommodating, nicer and generous with his time and expertise.

He gave me the names of officials throughout Vietnam that we could arrange to meet while we traveled through the country. He offered me contact information at the Vietnamese U.N. mission, through which I would be working to finalize the details of our stay in that country.

Esper cautioned me about some of the roadblocks we might face, but also told me about how the Vietnamese would treat their American visitors.

Esper’s expertise was invaluable. I cherished the relationship I was able to build with him over the phone as we talked continually about our planning.

I regret that I never was able to shake this man’s hand. He died some years ago. However, the aid he offered and made our journey into a once-hostile — but gorgeous — land even more memorable.

political news

Hoping for a credible alternative to current POTUS

I have voted in every presidential election since 1972.

I have been forced to think long and hard before marking my ballot precisely once during all those elections. The rest of my choices have come easily.

I can think only of one instance where I might suffer from a touch of anxiety as we get ready to vote for president in 2020. It involves one of the Democrats seeking to run against Donald John Trump.

That individual would be Sen. Bernie Sanders, the independent from Vermont who’s running in the Democratic Party presidential primary.

I dislike Sanders’ pie-in-the-sky approach to policy. He wants to enact a Medicare for All medical plan; he wants all college students to attend college free of charge; he continues to rail against billionaires, making us think of that immense wealth is inherently evil.

Thus, I have to square my reluctance to embrace his policies with what I perceive would be the alternative if Sanders gets nominated and then must run against Trump.

You probably have presumed correctly that my view of Trump’s unfitness for the presidency means there is no way on God’s Earth I can support this guy with my vote.

My strong preference is a politician who takes a more centrist approach to governing. I prefer a pol who can work with fellow pols on both sides of the great divide. Sanders isn’t wired that way. Neither, I should add, is Trump.

I mention Sanders because he is the current frontrunner for the Democratic Party nomination for president. I have no clue how he’ll hold up under intense scrutiny by his fellow primary candidates.

I would much prefer to cast my ballot without having to consider the consequence of my vote. I fear that Sen. Sanders would force me toward that direction.

Will it force me to vote for the current president? Not a chance!

I just want the opponent to win.

national news

Trump reaction to intelligence on Russian attack appears highly instructive

If you’re the president of the United States and your intelligence gurus give you information about a hostile foreign power’s effort to undermine our electoral system, you would want to blow the whistle on the foreign power. Isn’t that right?

Not if you’re Donald John Trump, the current president.

He wants to keep it secret. He didn’t want Congress to know about a report from the intelligence community that Russia had launched another attack on our election. Trump was so adamant about keeping it secret that he fired the acting director of national intelligence, Joseph Maguire, because he had the nerve to spill the beans to congressional overseers that Russians are working to help Trump win re-election.

Nope, can’t do that, Joe. Trump then brought in a fierce loyalist, Richard Grennell, to become the new acting DNI. Grennell is going to do Trump’s bidding.

This is all being reported with extreme credibility by The New York Times.

Donald Trump is demonstrating to us all yet again how fundamentally dangerous he is as the president. He wants to obstruct Congress from knowing this information not because of any concern over the integrity of the electoral system. Oh no. His reason is because he fears that congressional Democrats are going to use this information against him as he campaigns for re-election.

How many ways does this guy have to demonstrate that he is interested only in his own political backside? How many times does he have to show that he cares next to nothing about protecting our political institutions against foreign interference?

How many times does he have to violate his oath of office in order for Republicans in Congress to become as enraged at this guy’s conduct as the rest of us?

I have to say it again, with gusto: Donald Trump is not fit to serve as president of the United States. The nation needs for him to lose the next election. The nation needs as well to be protected from this guy’s abuse of power.

Donald John Trump is an existential threat to all the values we cherish as a nation.

International news

You mean the Russians are interfering again? Wow! Who’da thunk it?

It can’t be. The Russians cannot possibly attack our electoral system yet again after what they did in 2016. Can they?

I guess they can! The New York Times is reporting that the Russians are at it once more. Indeed, now we hear that Donald John Trump, the nation’s current president, was so angry over the news that he fired the acting director of national intelligence and installed a loyalist into the job as the latest acting  DNI.

Actually, it is being reported that Trump got mad because the former acting DNI, Joseph Maguire, consented to a congressional briefing. That’s reportedly why he replaced him with U.S. ambassador to Germany Richard Grennell, a guy with zero experience at any level of intelligence, let alone at the director of national intelligence level.

Let’s remember that Trump dismissed the 2016 election attack, most infamously in 2018 at the Helsinki press event in which he stood next to Russian strongman Vladimir Putin and backed Putin’s denial over the U.S. intelligence agencies’ assessment that Russia had interfered in the previous presidential election.

Now we hear that the Russians have done it again!

This is scary in the extreme. Trump already is known to have solicited another foreign government, Ukraine, for a political favor. It got him impeached by the House of Representatives.

Here come the Russians once more, working to re-elect the president. They want to ensure that Trump gets a second term as POTUS, a move that is sure to sow as many seeds of anger and mistrust in our electoral system that the 2016 attack managed to accomplish.

Think of it. That’s precisely what the Russians want to do.

Didn’t the president take an oath to protect this nation against its enemies? Didn’t he vow to keep us and our institutions safe from this kind of attack?

What the … whatever?

national news

Takeaway from Democratic debate? Let’s take a look

I am unwilling and unable to declare a definitive “winner” in the ninth Democratic Party presidential primary debate.

However, I am pretty sure the hands-down “loser” turned out to be the new guy on the stage, the zillionaire who has stood aside during the first four primary/caucus states.

Yep, Michael Bloomberg took incoming in a volume many of us have never seen quite like this. Right out of the chute the rockets and mortar shells started falling all around the former New York City mayor.

All five of the other Democrats on the joint appearance stage launched attacks on him for:

  • His treatment of women.
  •  The non-disclosure agreements that the women signed after leaving employment in the city he once governed.
  •  His former endorsement of “stop and frisk.”
  •  His immense wealth.
  •  The manner in which he governed the nation’s largest city.

For all I know, the other primary foes were ready to blast him for the color of ties he wears.

It wasn’t pretty to watch.

To be sure, Bloomberg didn’t handle it well. He bristled openly. He shrugged. He rolled his eyes.

Sure, he fired back, mentioning that Bernie Sanders — the self-described “democratic socialist” — is a “millionaire who owns three houses.”

I guess my major takeaway is that the possible real “winner” in this exchange was Donald John Trump, the current POTUS against whom these individuals want to run.

Oh, good! Just think that we’ll have more of these coming up as the Democrats keep on chuggin’ down the road toward their convention, which is likely to produce yet another dramatic saga if no one shows up with enough delegates to secure a nomination the first ballot.

national news

Trump turns to another of the ‘best people’

Is this the best that the president of the United States can do?

He has hired U.S. ambassador to Germany, a fellow named Richard Grenell, to take charge of the nation’s intelligence network. Have I mentioned that Grenell has zero experience at intelligence-gathering at any level and that he will be named “acting” director of national intelligence? Well, I just did.

This is a monumentally stupid appointment.

Grenell wouldn’t face Senate confirmation were he to remain on “acting” status. He reportedly has said that Donald Trump will select a permanent DNI soon. I am not holding my breath in anticipation of that appointment coming.

The preposterous nature of this appointment is made clear by Trump’s insistence that they’re pounding down the door of the White House, that he seemingly has to fight off the hordes of qualified applicants seeking to work in his administration. That he would make such an idiotic assertion is laughable in the extreme.

Grenell has no business running the nation’s vast intelligence network. That is a job that requires skill and knowledge. It requires a keen understanding of the crises that confront our agencies at every turn. It demands that the DNI be able to give unvarnished assessments of national security threats to the Big Man in the Oval Office … and it demands that the president be willing to accept what the DNI tells him!

Does any of that sound like the manner in which the current president operates? Of course not!

national news

Yep, Trump has turned our politics on its ear

To my mind, the most glaring example of just how much our political world has been turned upside down occurred in the wake of a noted Republican U.S. senator’s vote to convict Donald Trump of abuse of power.

Think of it more a moment.

Mitt Romney, a Republican’s Republican — the party’s presidential nominee in 2012 — was the lone GOP senator to break ranks with the party by deciding to convict Trump of an impeachable offense during the Senate impeachment trial.

The reaction to Romney’s courageous stand? It was to vilify him by Republicans who are standing foursquare behind the man I consider to be the Republican In Name Only in chief. Yes, Donald Trump is the RINO in chief. He’s a man with no history of backing GOP policies prior to running for president as a Republican in 2016.

The president who never sought a public office prior to seeking the presidency four years ago has clamped a stranglehold on the party. Meanwhile, an actual Republican — such as Mitt Romney — is being pounded, pummeled and pilloried because he was voting his conscience.

The head of the Conservative Political Action Conference told Romney to stay away. Others on the right wing said Romney could place himself in physical danger were he to attend the CPAC event.

Trump, who embodies the phony Republican, has become the real thing in the eyes of those who are beholden to him. Yes, the man with no ideological or moral grounding except to policies that benefit him personally has become the epitome of a political party with which he has no history.

Bizarre.

legal news

RINO in chief is angering real Republicans … finally?

Donald John Trump is the quintessential Republican In Name Only.

Of that there ought to be little discussion. He is the RINO in chief of the party under whose banner he ran for president in 2016.

Now some of the actual Republicans within the GOP are urging the current president to leave his mitts off of William Barr’s Department of Justice apparatus.

Is the RINO in chief going to listen? Will he cease denigrating the Justice Department professional prosecutors? Will he let the AG do his job, which is to serve as the nation’s top law enforcement official — contrary to what Trump has said, declaring himself to be the nation’s top cop. No. He won’t do any of it. Not ever.

One of those actual Republicans, U.S. Sen. John Cornyn of Texas, said this: “The president does have a tendency to lash out and I think in this case he would be well advised to try to temper that.”

No kidding, senator? Cornyn has just “advised” him to do what he suggests.

As for Barr, he has disappointed me terribly. I had high hope that he’d take his post as AG and restore its integrity, which had been sullied by the incessant berating of former AG Jeff Sessions by the RINO in chief. After all, he had served as attorney general near the end of President Bush 41’s term in office. He brought experience running the DOJ the right way.

It hasn’t happened. The RINO in chief is worsening the Barr era at Justice by tweeting constantly about pending criminal cases. Barr reportedly is threatening to quit; other media reports say he isn’t going anywhere.

Meanwhile, the DOJ career prosecutors and their legal staffs are being whipsawed and buggy-whipped by the turmoil.

I am wondering at this moment: How in the world does the attorney general actually stomach all this tempest if he is serious about the expression of angst over Trump’s Twitter tirades?