Tag Archives: Donald Trump

national news, political news

You mean we have four whole years of this?

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Donald John Trump is making me crazy.

Yes, I am about to go nuts watching the evening news as it regards the 45th president of the United States.

He’s been in office for seven whole days and it seems like he’s been there … um, forever!

He signs an executive order starting to repeal the Affordable Care Act; he accuses millions of illegal immigrants of voting for Hillary Clinton, then announces a “major investigation” into the matter; he starts a trade war with Mexico over that country’s refusal to pay for the “beautiful wall” he wants to build; he continues to cozy up to Vladimir Putin; then several key State Department staffers quit, leaving him with some senior advisers in that key Cabinet agency.

He’s at war with the media. Chaos reins.

Good grief, folks! I cannot stand this.

Honest to goodness, I can’t quite put my finger on which development startles me the most.

No Drama Obama sought to run the country in a more even-handed manner. Did it work? Well, yes. It did. The nation is better off than it was when Barack Obama took office. He turned it all over to “Smart Person” Trump.

My eternal optimism is being tested like hardly ever before. Why? Because the president of the United States — who took office without a single solitary moment of public service experience — is seeking to chart a new course through some unknown territory.

I don’t want to wish my life away, but … is it 2020 yet?

International news

Amazing fight developing between ‘friendly’ neighbors

So it has come down to this.

Donald J. Trump trumpets the need for “better relations” with Russia while dismissing reports from U.S. intelligence officials say that Russian hackers tried to interfere in our presidential election.

Meanwhile, the president is spoiling for an all-out trade war with the nation that shares our southern border — Mexico — over that country’s refusal to pay for a wall that Trump wants to build along that entire border.

Is the new president mad, stupid — or both?

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/pushed-into-corner-mexican-president-punches-back/ar-AAmi9Az?li=BBmkt5R&ocid=spartandhp

He’s also — apparently — lying about who canceled the meeting next week between himself and Mexico’s president, Enrique Pena Nieto. Trump said it was a mutual decision; Pena Nieto insists he broke it off.

You know what? I’m inclined to believe President Pena Nieto, given our own president’s lengthy history of prevarication.

Trump insists that Mexico will pay for the wall, which congressional leaders estimate could cost as much as $15 billion to build. How? Trump said he might impose a stiff trade tariff on all good imported from Mexico. How might Mexico respond? Oh, with a tariff of its own on all goods that country imports from the United States.

Yep. It could produce a serious trade war between two ostensibly friendly nations.

What in the name of all that is holy is Donald Trump trying to do?

Furthermore, he talks about Mexico as having the upper hand here. He said Mexico has to treat the United States “fairly.” Uh, news flash, Mr. President: We’re the big dog on this block.

Someone has to explain to me how the president can look so blindly at the threat posed by Russian hackers while getting his hackles up over Mexico’s refusal to knuckle under to demands that well might impugn that country’s sovereignty.

media news

Trump’s policy guru steps up media fight

Steve Bannon’s role as the Trump administration’s chief strategist now appears to involve his taking on a new duty as attack dog.

His target? The media, which he calls the “opposition party.”

Knock it off, Mr. Strategist. You know nothing of which you speak.

Bannon said the media should be “humiliated” and should just “keep quiet and listen for a while.”

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/trump%E2%80%99s-chief-strategist-says-news-media-should-%E2%80%98keep-its-mouth-shut%E2%80%99/ar-AAmhL9O?li=BBmkt5R&ocid=spartandhp

That’s not the way it works, Mr. Strategist.

Here’s the deal. The media are empowered to speak freely and openly. It’s in the Constitution. Take a look at it, Mr. Strategist. It’s easy to find … right there in the very First Amendment.

Thus, the media have the protection to blab all they want about whatever floats their boat. If they believe the president is mistaken on a policy matter, it becomes the media’s job to comment and to offer a different perspective.

Just maybe, Mr. Strategist, y’all ought to hear what the media have to say, take a moment and listen to what much of the rest of the country is saying as well about your boss’s ideas.

Building the wall and making Mexico pay for it? Banning all refugees from entering the United States, if only temporarily? Rolling back trade policies? Repealing the Affordable Care Act with nothing in the wings to replace it?

Some of us out here, Mr. Strategist, think some of Donald Trump’s ideas are flat wrong. We rely on the media to speak out for us. And, oh yes, some of us have our own vehicles with which to speak. Yours truly is using one of them right now — at this very moment — to do just that.

The media aren’t the “opposition party,” Mr. Strategist. The media simply are doing their job, just as you are doing your job.

media news

Media become pols’ chosen villain

The president of the United States is taking dead aim at the national political media.

He calls them “dishonest.” Donald Trump even has called reporters “among the most dishonest people on Earth.”

Ouch and double-ouch!

Of course, I don’t believe that.

But I did scrounge up an earlier item I posted on this blog about one political medium that I found implicitly fair, honest and accurate.

It’s the Cable-Satellite Public Affairs Network. I had an experience with C-SPAN that I want to re-share again today.

https://highplainsblogger.com/2016/01/c-span-worked-miracles-with-this-spot/

I posted this item nearly a year ago. It is intended to speak the nuanced skill associated with editing video recording and making the interviewee sound a whole lot smarter than he is. In my case, that’s what C-SPAN did to near perfection.

National Public Radio did the same thing — again to yours truly — during the 2008 presidential campaign. NPR wanted to talk to two newspaper editors from disparate regions of the country. They got in touch with me at the Amarillo Globe-News, which serves a solidly Republican region; NPR also talked to the editor of the Dayton Daily News, where the Barack Obama-John McCain was much more competitive.

Again, NPR worked its magic. I stammered my way through a 30-minute conversation with the radio host and my colleague in Dayton. But you didn’t hear all that clumsiness when NPR aired on its “Weekend Edition” broadcast. Here is what I wrote about that experience:

https://highplainsblogger.com/2010/02/npr-reaches-out-to-the-heartland/

I want to stand up for my colleagues in the media.

They aren’t “dishonest.” Those who work for actual news organizations — not the purveyors of fake news — do so in good conscience and with the singular mission to report the truth.

 

International news

Build a wall? With our money, Mr. President? No thank you

Donald J. Trump is continuing his war of words with our nation’s southern neighbor.

The president says he still plans to build a wall between the United States and Mexico. He keeps making boasts about making Mexico pay for it because “they’re sending rapists, murderers and drug dealers” into the United States.

Of course, the president never has stipulated who he means by “they.” Let’s presume something for a moment: Trump is referring to the Mexican government.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/official-mexicos-president-considering-scrapping-us-trip/ar-AAmfCw3?li=BBmkt5R&ocid=spartandhp

Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto has responded on two fronts.

First, he is considering scrapping a planned visit to the United States to meet with the new president over his latest remarks about the wall.

Second, he’s continuing to insist that Mexico ain’t paying for the wall. Period. End of discussion.

According to The Associated Press: “Pena Nieto said he regrets and condemns the decision to build the wall, saying ‘I have said time and time again, Mexico will not pay for any wall.'”

So, the question must be posed to Donald Trump: What part of “no” doesn’t he understand?

Is he going to storm Mexico’s presidential palace at Los Pinos with weapons drawn and demand they pay? Is he going to launch an all-out trade war with one of this nation’s major trading partners?

Absent Mexico paying for the wall, then the final option is to saddle U.S. taxpayers with a monstrous bill to pay for a project that has little chance of succeeding at what Trump intends for it: which is to stop illegal immigration in its tracks.

He calls U.S. immigration policy the equivalent of “catch and release.”

If the Mexican president were to ask me, I’d say he ought to go to the meeting with Trump and tell him to his face: We won’t pay for it! Then he ought to tell his colleague: Mr. President, let’s work together to strengthen border security with more reasonable and achievable strategies; this build-a-wall notion is nutty and it will … not … work!

Perhaps he also can tell the U.S. president that he ought to apologize for demonizing the Mexican government — and Mexican citizens in general. That won’t happen, but President Pena Nieto ought to go on the record with the demand.

medical news, national news, political news

Economist is now practicing medicine?

Knock it off, Paul Krugman.

I get that you’re a smart fellow, Nobel laureate and all.

But your Nobel Prize is in economics, not medicine.

Why, then, are you trying to diagnose a supposedly “obvious” mental illness for the president of the United States?

http://www.businessinsider.com/paul-krugman-trump-mentally-ill-2017-1

Krugman leans left in his economic theory. He opposes Trump at every conceivable level. Heck, so do I. So do most of those Americans who voted in the 2016 election.

But for crying out loud, Professor Krugman. You need not fire off tweets alleging something about which you have no knowledge.

Sure, the president is acting kind of goofy. He campaigned as a serious goofball. I get all of that.

No one, though, except a medical doctor is qualified to toss out assertions like the one Krugman has tossed. Not even if he is a smarty-pants economist.

national news, political news

Trump hears critics … calls for vote probe

I’ll take all the credit I deserve for this bit of news.

Donald J. Trump has called for a full investigation of the allegations he has made about illegal immigrants voting en masse for Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential election. He said that so many of them voted illegally that they cost him the popular vote margin — as if it that matters. I mean, c’mon, Mr. President! You won the Electoral College … in a self-described “landslide.” That’s where it counts, right?

Yes, I was one of the many critics of the president’s blind assertion about illegal voting activity. He offered zero evidence, proof or attribution to the assertion that as many as 5 million illegal immigrants voted for Hillary.

Now he says he wants to get to the bottom of it.

Fine. Go for it, Mr. President.

But perhaps you ought to commission an independent investigation to do the job. I had called on you to sic the Department of Justice on the matter. Now I’m not so sure DOJ would be fully independent and would reach the incontrovertible decision that would settle this matter.

I happen to be among those who doesn’t believe what you have alleged. Thus, I don’t want DOJ investigators to fabricate conclusions based on what you — the boss — have alleged.

Independent investigations aren’t out of the question. They have plenty of precedent.

The president has leveled a full frontal assault on the integrity of the electoral process with his allegations. He has attacked our democratic process. He has implied that our state and local elections officials lack the integrity protect our system against illegal voting activity.

Let’s get to the truth, shall we, wherever it leads us.

national news

Trump continues to promote a lie

The president of the United States is perpetuating another lie … allegedly.

This one involves the phony charge that as many as 5 million “illegal immigrants” cast ballots in the 2016 presidential election — all of them for Hillary Rodham Clinton.

It was those votes, Donald J. Trump insists, that cost him the popular vote margin over his challenger.

This is as ridiculous an assertion as anyone can hear from a newly sworn in president of the United States.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/trump-won%E2%80%99t-back-down-from-his-voting-fraud-lie-here-are-the-facts/ar-AAmbXBM?li=BBmkt5R&ocid=spartandhp

White House press spokesman said today — again! — that the president believes it to be true. He hasn’t cited a single provable fact to back any of it up. Trump hasn’t provided a scintilla of evidence of a single vote cast by someone who is in this country illegally.

But this is Trump’s modus operandi: You say something enough and you demonize the target of your falsehood sufficiently to provide a shadow of a doubt. Sound familiar? It should. It was the same kind of shameful/shameless tactic he used to keep alive the lie about President Barack Obama’s place of birth. To this day, polls are showing that most Republican voters actually believe the former president was not qualified constitutionally to hold the office he held for two successful terms. That is Trump’s work.

Here’s an idea for the president to consider.

Why not launch a Justice Department investigation to prove the claims the president is making. Heck, the president has the power to turn the DOJ hounds loose. He should do so. Now!

He’s got a pal running the FBI. James Comey’s letter to Congress casting doubt on those “damn e-mails” from Clinton while she was secretary of state is considered a possible turning point in the election outcome. Sic the FBI boss loose on this caper, Mr. President.

The president continues to make a mockery of our electoral process with this specious allegation about “millions of illegal immigrants” casting ballots.

Oh, wait! We also have that Russian hacking thing, too.

First things first. Either put up, Mr. President, or shut up!

national news

U.S. remains strong and resilient, despite the chaos

A friend of mine and I were chatting briefly Monday about the state of affairs in Washington after the inauguration of Donald J. Trump.

“What do you think about how things are going?” my friend asked.

“I don’t know. I’m worried,” I answered.

We chatted about the media relations that the Trump administration seems intent on destroying. “Hey, CNN gave the press guy good marks for his press briefing,” my friend said, “and if CNN says it’s OK, then it must be OK, right?” He clearly was tossing a dig at CNN’s purported “liberal bias.”

He added, “I think we’re going to be just fine.” Oh, yes. I am quite sure my friend voted for Trump.

Then it dawned on me. We’ve been through muc worse than what we’re experiencing now. Nothing, though, quite matches the unique quality of the weirdness taking place as Trump settles into the presidency after two terms of Barack Obama.

Watergate? That was worse and we got through it. World War II? Hey, how does one compare any conflict with that event? We got through that one, too. The Great Depression? We survived and then prospered. The Civil War? Other countries endure such bloodshed and never are the same. We did and went on to continue our march toward international greatness.

I, thus, take a form of perverse comfort in knowing that our system of government is crafted to see us through crises. Do I rank the current transition from one president to another as one of those? Not really.

However, it’s damn weird. I hope our system can make provisions for the strangeness of it all. I’m guessing it will.

national news

Chaos continues as Trump takes charge

My goodness. The chaos, the pandemonium, the confusion.

It’s just what Donald J. Trump has ordered … allegedly.

That was some wild weekend as Trump became president of the United States.

* The president delivered 16-minute inaugural speech that re-stated the winning themes of his presidential campaign and painted a dark picture of gloom and “carnage” in the United States of America.

* The next day, White House press secretary Sean Spicer meets the press corps for the first time and delivers a five-minute scolding of what he said was a deliberate misreporting of the size of the crowd at the inauguration. Amazing!

* Meanwhile, White House senior adviser Kellyanne Conway said Spicer was delivering a set of “alternative facts,” prompting “Meet the Press” moderator Chuck Todd to remind her that “alternative facts are falsehoods.”

* Then … the president goes to the CIA ostensibly to pay tribute to the agents who’ve fallen in the line of duty then excoriates the media as a “dishonest” group of people.

* As all this was occurring, several million people around the world hit the streets to march in protest of Trump’s inauguration.

* Finally, Trump told congressional leaders he lost the popular vote to Hillary Clinton because as many as 5 million illegal immigrants cast ballots against him.

Is this what we’re going to get for the next four years? Is this what our allies abroad are going to witness as the 45th president’s administration tries to gain its footing?

He told us he would campaign unconventionally. It now appears that unconventional governance is going to follow.

I’ve got to catch my breath.