Tag Archives: Donald Trump

International news, national news, political news

Smooth transition running into serious bumps

russian-hacker

There goes my trick knee again. It’s throbbing. My gut is grumbling. My fingers are tingling.

Something is telling me that the “smooth and seamless transition” from the Obama administration to the Trump administration is going to become a lot less smooth and seamless.

Why? Gosh. Let me think. Oh! It’s that Russian hacking thing, I reckon.

Donald J. Trump is dismissing — and dissing — the intelligence community’s assessment that Russian spooks hacked into our cyber network and sought to affect the presidential election.

President Obama, meanwhile, is declaring his intention before he leaves office in a little more than month to strike back at the Russians.

Who’s reacting correctly here, the president or the president-elect?

I’m going to go with the man who’s still on the watch in the Oval Office.

Trump’s stated view that the CIA is all wet and his belief that the Russians didn’t do anything wrong is a profoundly dangerous posture to take, given what we know about Russian President Vladimir Putin’s world view and his demonstrated ability to commit atrocious mischief whenever the opportunity presents itself.

Barack Obama is planning to take action against the Russians, while hoping for an easy handoff to the man who’ll succeed him.

The transition could be made a lot smoother if the new guy, Trump, would accept what the intelligence community already knows. The Russians aren’t our friends and they aren’t likely to become friends if they detect they have a patsy sitting behind that big desk in the Oval Office.

My hope, of course, is that the president retains the dignity he has brought to the office and ensures as smooth a transition as possible. If only, though, this Russian hacking matter hadn’t gotten in the way.

International news, Uncategorized

POTUS planning to take final shot at Russians

obama_putin

Donald J. Trump doesn’t believe the findings of the CIA and other intelligence officials that Russia sought to influence the 2016 presidential election.

I’ll presume, therefore, that he won’t take any action against them.

But here’s the thing, dear reader: We have a president on duty who does believe the CIA analysis, who has expressed outrage at the idea of foreign intervention in our electoral process — and who has vowed that he will act “in our own time” to retaliate against the hacking nation.

President Obama is in office until Jan. 20. It is sounding increasingly likely that he’ll do something to punish the Russians for what the CIA and others have said they’ve done. The specifics of what they did remain unclear, but the president’s longtime adversary, Russian strongman Vladimir Putin, also appears complicit in what has transpired.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/obama-says-%E2%80%98we-will%E2%80%99-retaliate-against-russia-for-election-hacking/ar-AAlCY8m?li=BBmkt5R&ocid=spartandhp

My guess would be that Obama will act in ways that might be difficult to undo. Trade sanctions? Diplomatic pressure? Retaliatory hacking of Russian cyber activity?

Obama said on National Public Radio this morning that some of the options being considered would be public and would be reported; other options might be done in secret. That’s the beauty — if you want to call it such — of being in charge of a vast intelligence network that can do these things undercover, out of sight.

The Russians need to know that what they did cannot be tolerated by any government, let alone by the United States of America.

If the new president is going to dismiss the fact-based information gathered by the CIA, then it falls on the current president to act while he still has the stroke to do so.

Go for it, Mr. President!

political news, Uncategorized

The case for un-electing Donald Trump

trump

I’m such a fence-straddler on this one.

Our nation’s presidential electors are meeting Monday to choose the next president of the United States. Do they proceed with electing Donald J. Trump, who 306 electoral votes — 36 more than he needs — or do they deny him the votes and throw the election either to candidate he defeated or to the House of Representatives?

The Albany (N.Y.) Times-Union has declared in an editorial that the electors should deny Trump the presidency.

http://www.timesunion.com/opinion/article/Electors-reject-Mr-Trump-10796574.php

Oh, man. I’ve read the editorial twice; I’ll read it some more. The paper makes a strong argument for the electors to yank the presidency away from someone who is wholly unprepared, unqualified and unfit for the job.

Electors from most of the states, though, are bound by state rules that require them to remain faithful to the will of their states’ majority. Other state electors — such as those from Texas — aren’t bound by those rules.

The U.S. Constitution allows such a rebellion to occur. It doesn’t quite address the chaos that would ensue if electors were to deny the Electoral College winner the presidency.

It’s never happened in the history of the Republic, although the House has chosen a president: John Quincy Adams in 1824.

So help me, I cannot yet take that leap.

I agree with the Times-Union’s assessment of Trump’s ability to do the job. His campaign-style “thank you” rallies are troubling in the extreme; he should be spending his time learning about the details of governing a nation comprising more than 300 million citizens. He’s selecting a collection of individuals for his Cabinet who have limited experience dealing with the agencies they would lead and in some cases are openly hostile to the policies they are being asked to implement.

And we have this issue of alleged Russian tampering with our electoral process. Did the president-elect benefit directly from foreign interference?

It is true, as the editorial points out, that the founders set up the Electoral College to shield the nation against “foreign influence.”

The founders also set up a mechanism for Congress to act as a check against presidential overreach. It’s called impeachment. If a president crosses any one of the many boundaries set up to limit the power of the office, the House can intercede with articles of impeachment, followed by a trial in the Senate.

I’m going to give this some more thought. I might get to you later, before the Electoral College meets.

I’ve been watching the presidential electoral process closely for four decades and I’ve never seen questions like these raised prior to the transition of one presidency to another.

It’s beginning to stress me out.

national news

Hoping for Trump to earn praise

150806212843-07-fox-debate-trump-0806-super-169

Those of you who read this blog regularly might be thinking: What will it take for this guy — that would be yours truly — to say something truly positive about Donald J. Trump?

I’ve said I’m trying to keep an open mind about the next president of the United States. And, no, “trying to keep an open mind” isn’t code for “not a chance in hell” I’ll ever say anything good about the guy. I mean what I am saying here.

What will it take? What can this guy do to earn my unvarnished, unqualified praise?

Let me think:

* He can order a military strike that destroys the Islamic State, forcing the terrorists to give up the fight.

* Trump can enact policies that bring jobs back to the United States of America, which he contends are fleeing this country by the thousands for places like Mexico and China.

* He can implement border policies that effectively end illegal immigration into the U.S. of A.

* The president can persuade Congress to pass laws that incentivize private businesses to hire more people, thus reducing the jobless rate even more than the dramatic reduction we’ve seen already during the Obama administration.

* POTUS can get Congress to reduce taxes on all Americans while spending money on infrastructure improvements without piling up the national debt and increasing the annual federal budget deficit.

* He can order the next attorney general to go to war against hate groups that have risen to prominence since he announced his presidential candidacy.

* Trump can issue a heartfelt apology — the real thing, man, not just some phony “If I have offended anyone …” non-apology — to the many individuals and groups he denigrated while running for the presidency.

These are the issues that come to mind immediately. I’d settle for any one or two of these things to occur. I am on board if he is able to do any of it.

My confidence remains quite low, I am saddened to say, that he’ll do any of it.

However, there’s always tomorrow.

national news

‘Get over it’? Sure, when y’all get over your own selves

trump-wins

The “Get over it!” mantra is beginning to grate on my nerves.

It’s coming from those who are glad to see Donald J. Trump elected president of the United States. The mantra is aimed at the rest of the country — more than half of those who cast ballots, actually — who voted for someone else.

They can’t “get over it.”

I don’t quite consider myself in that category of disgruntled voter. Maybe others see me as one of the sore losers. I don’t like being perceived that way. I am doing my best to level my criticism of the president-elect in a way that focuses more on the issues as I see them.

I will admit to occasionally challenging the man’s temperamental fitness for the job, but then again, that’s an issue, too.

The annoyance over the calls to get over it stems from the eight-year bitch session that’s been under way since Barack Hussein Obama was elected president.

A lot of folks haven’t gotten over that seminal event. The election in 2008 of the first African-American as head of state and head of government of the greatest nation on Earth just hasn’t gone over with a certain segment of this nation.

Sure, they’ll respond with, “I am not a racist, but …” And, no, I am not hanging the “racist” label on all of the president’s critics.

I understand that the man’s policies themselves have angered a lot of Americans. We had that big economic stimulus package that rescued several segments of our then-failing economy; we got the Affordable Care Act, over the strenuous objections of Republicans; he granted a temporary reprieve for about 5 million illegal immigrants through the use of an executive order.

I happen to support all those aforementioned actions. That’s just me. I’m one of those Americans who voted twice for the president.

We are a sharply divided nation. The election of Donald J. Trump enhances and emphasizes that division in ways we haven’t seen in some time.

I am still struggling with the idea that Trump will become the next president. I’ll “get over it” … eventually. I promise.

Just don’t keep reminding me to “get over it.” The more you say it the more I am likely to resist.

International news

Russia story may never go away

aala31c

CIA officials keep putting the heat on Donald J. Trump and his friends in Russia.

They now are asserting that Russian computer hackers actually did try to get Trump elected president of the United States.

What I am not yet clear about, though, is what precisely did the Russians do. How precisely did they seek to do what CIA spooks are alleging?

I happen to believe the broad outlines of what the CIA is asserting. I believe the reports that Russia tried to get their hands into our electoral process. It’s not a figment of Democrats’ imagination, as Trump says in response. It’s not the media, either, that are fomenting a lie, as Trump and his team also seem to imply.

This story is growing more legs than a centipede.

Furthermore, I am having even more trouble with Trump’s continual rebuff of what the career spooks at the CIA are saying. He’ll need these individuals, these intelligence teams, once he becomes president. They will be providing him mountains of intelligence daily — or however often Trump chooses to receive it.

When trouble erupts around the world — and it will, no doubt — the president needs the analysis.

It’s fair to wonder how this relationship between the White House and the intelligence network is going to work if the president keeps denigrating the work of the pros who toil day and night compiling information about our international adversaries.

I continue to believe the president-elect needs to get on board with the concerns being expressed and stop saying up front these concerns lack veracity.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/us-officials-putin-personally-involved-in-us-election-hack/ar-AAlzZQI?li=BBnb7Kz

The CIA says Russian President Vladimir Putin himself got involved. This happens to be someone who has praised Trump and who has received reciprocal praise from the president-elect. Putin also ran the KGB during the Soviet era; if you haven’t heard, the KGB was a ruthless spy organization.

Thus, this story continues to spread. It’s making me quite nervous.

International news

What about The Wall, Gen. Kelly?

greatwalloftrump

Donald J. Trump’s very first specious campaign promise en route to his being elected president of the United States was that he would build a “beautiful wall” along the length of our nation’s southern border.

He would secure our border with Mexico against those hordes or rapists, murders, drug dealers and, oh yes, international terrorists intent on destroying the United States of America.

And he’d make Mexico pay for it, too! That, of course, drew the expected rebuke from Mexican officials who said, in effect, “Oh, no we won’t.”

Now we have a Homeland Security secretary-designate, retired Marine Gen. John Kelly, on board with the still-forming Trump administration.

What about that wall, Gen. Kelly?

Are we going to build it? Do you support the president-elect on that nonsensical notion? And what about the “deportation force,” general? Are you going to hire all the thousands of homeland security agents it will take to round up the 11 million — or so — illegal immigrants living in this country?

Trump’s initial campaign pledge makes the homeland security appointment all that more important. The way I figure it, if Trump was going to make illegal immigration his signature issue — which he did when he rode down the Trump Tower elevator the day he announced his candidacy — then he meant for it to be the most important promise he’d make.

It’s interesting to me that we’ve heard nary a peep from Gen. Kelly — or the president-elect, for that matter — on the strategy we’re going to employ to build the wall.

Let’s hear it, guys!

national news, political news

Here’s a possible constitutional crisis of major proportion

electoral-college-banner

Those 538 men and women who are set to meet Monday to elect the next president of the United States are poised to make some serious history, one way or the other.

Most of them come from states that voted for Donald J. Trump, the Republican, over Hillary Rodham Clinton, the Democrat. They comprise the Electoral College, which the nation’s founders established in the 18th century to choose the person who would govern the country.

Here’s the big-time catch: some of them are “faithless,” which means they aren’t necessarily bound by the dictates of their states’ majorities. Add to that some major-league questions about whether Russian intelligence agents and computer hackers influenced the outcome the election and you have a situation of monumental proportions brewing … possibly.

Enough of those electors might decide they can’t vote for Trump and, thus, deny the president-elect the 270 electoral votes he needs to take office in January.

What happens then if, say, not enough of them switch their votes to Clinton, making her the next president? The U.S. House of Representatives, controlled by the GOP, then gets to pick the next president.

I don’t believe this will happen. I believe Trump will collect enough votes from the Electoral College to take the oath on Jan. 20. He will become the 45th president of the United States; Mike Pence will become the vice president.

Trump likely will have the Cabinet chosen by then. The U.S. Senate committees charged with recommending whether these nominees should be confirmed will get to work and make those critical decisions.

But some of the electors have asked to be briefed fully by the U.S. intelligence apparatus on what the Russians did and whether they actually influenced the outcome of the election. Just suppose the spooks tell the electors that, yep, the Russkies succeeded in getting their man elected. What happens then if you’re an elector from a state that voted for Trump and you can’t in good conscience cast your vote for the winner?

Lots of answers yet to come forward before the big day next week.

This could be the most fascinating supposedly pro forma electoral procedure in the history of the Republic.

It could be …

environmental news

Why these picks for Energy and the EPA?

perry

Donald J. Trump one day will meet with the media.

One day … perhaps.

When he does, the president-elect might have to answer a set of questions from journalists. They deal with two key Cabinet picks.

Why did he choose two men — Scott Pruitt as the head of the Environmental Protection Agency and Rick Perry as secretary of energy — after they both have all but declared war on the agencies they will be asked to lead?

Pruitt is no fan of the EPA. As Oklahoma attorney general, he has sued the agency time and again for this and that reason. He’s allied with the fossil fuel industry. He seems to hate the clean-air rules the EPA has laid down. He doesn’t believe that climate change is real — and dangerous.

Former Texas Gov. Perry in 2011 said he wanted to eliminate the Energy Department … or at least he tried to say so, but he got hung up in that “oops” moment during a Republican presidential debate.

I’m puzzled by these two picks. I have some hope that Perry might have changed his mind about the Energy Department. I’m not at all comfortable with Pruitt and his continued commitment to battle the very agency he is being asked to oversee.

I just hope the president-elect takes some time to explain to many of us out here what in the world he is thinking about these two critical agencies.

International news, national news, political news

Here’s how you could have handled the Russia problem

President George W Bush visits CIA Headquarters, March 20, 2001.

Donald J. Trump didn’t ask me for my opinion on this, but I’ll give it to him anyway … not that it matters in Trump World.

CIA officials have concluded that Russian computer hackers had some impact on the 2016 presidential election. To what end, they haven’t disclosed; it’s highly classified at the moment.

They aren’t alone in that assessment. Other intelligence agencies and independent experts also have reached that conclusion.

So, what does the president-elect do? He dismisses the CIA’s findings. He says he doesn’t believe them. He says the Russians didn’t do what has been alleged. He blames Democrats for fomenting a false allegation. How does he know any of that? He doesn’t.

A better response would have been for Trump to do the following: Stand before the media and issue a statement.

Thank you, ladies and gentlemen of the press. I want to issue a brief statement. There’ll be no questions.

The news from the CIA is troubling in the extreme. I hereby join President Obama in calling for a full review of the findings and a public disclosure — to the extent that it is possible — of what, if anything, transpired in the Kremlin that might have had an impact on the election.

I am acutely aware of my statements throughout the campaign that the election would be “rigged” in favor of my opponent, Hillary Clinton. As I’ve noted on other campaign-related matters, I said some things for “dramatic effect.” The “rigged election” allegation was one of them.

I did not envision the “rigged election” charge coming back on me and my campaign in this matter.

Do I believe the Russians tilted the election in my favor? No. But you shouldn’t just take my word for it.

I remain confident that a thorough review of the evidence and the facts will determine we would have won anyway.

But let’s find out the truth of what happened, starting with the review that the president has demanded from the intelligence community.

He didn’t say anything like that. Instead, he has denigrated the intelligence community, as he has done with many other facets of government.

Trump’s stubborn denial of any possible hanky-panky — and his stated disbelief in the work of the CIA’s professional intelligence officers — only darkens the clouds forming over his administration.

The questions only will deepen the distrust many Americans are expressing at this moment over what might have transpired on Election Day.