Tag Archives: Donald Trump

national news

New president might face huge intraparty hurdle

mcconnel-and-trump

Donald Trump has good reason to smile.

He won the presidency over someone thought to be the prohibitive favorite. He is now selecting members of his team … to mixed reviews to be sure. Hey, what difference does it make? He won the election.

Now comes the sternest of tests for the new president. He has to govern alongside the very members of Congress he disparaged whenever he could; he demonized them; he called them names, such as “loser.”

I’m not talking about Democrats, mind you. I’m talking about Republicans who control both congressional chambers.

They’re grinning these days, too. I’m not sure whether they’re happy to be working with a fellow Republican (In Name Only) or whether they’re anticipating being able to stick it to the guy who called them all those nasty names.

http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/12/republican-party-obstructionism-victory-trump-214498

The Politico story attached to this post talks about how the Republicans’ strategy of “no” worked so well against President Obama. It also reminds us of how that strategy enabled them to win back the House of Representatives in 2010, the Senate in 2014 and now the White House in 2016.

Who do they get as president? The guy from within Republican ranks who ran against them!

All this sets up an interesting dichotomy for Republicans, many of whom are those “establishment” types who don’t trust Trump as being truly one of them.

It’s a given, of course, that Democrats who detest Trump are going to do all they can to stop anything the new president wants to do — much like Republicans sought to do when Barack Obama arrived in the Oval Office. The Politico article reminds us that the president got his $800 billion economic stimulus package approved in 2009 with virtually zero GOP support.

How is Trump going to cope with those Republicans who will resist him on, say, his enormous proposed infrastructure project? They keep telling us the Treasury doesn’t have the money.

I guess Trump could remind them that they didn’t have the money to go to war against al-Qaeda and the Taliban in 2001, but they did — while approving tax cuts proposed by President Bush. My guess is that GOP leaders in the House and Senate wouldn’t like to hear such a thing coming from one of their own.

We talked during the length of the election campaign that we were entering a new era. This would be the most unconventional election in history. That presumed a Hillary Clinton victory, for crying out loud.

The other person won. Let’s get ready for the most unconventional governance in U.S. history.

My often-trusty trick knee tells me the Republicans who run Capitol Hill might try to wipe the smile off Donald Trump’s face.

International news, national news

No equivalency between phone call and comments about Castro

2 Comments

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Mike Pence knows better than to attach a false equivalency to two events.

One of them involved comments from U.S. officials about the death of Cuban dictator Fidel Castro; the other involved a phone call from the leader of a nation — with which the United States has no diplomatic relations — to the president-elect.

The vice president-elect said this morning he cannot understand why the phone call is getting all the criticism while praise to Castro is overlooked.

Please, Mr. Vice President-elect.

Donald Trump’s 10-minute conversation this past week with the president of Taiwan has smacked decades of U.S. diplomatic protocol right in the face. The People’s Republic of China has filed a formal complaint, declaring that the “one-China policy” that the United States has followed has been compromised egregiously by Trump’s congratulatory phone call from Taiwanese president Tsai Ing-wen.

Meanwhile, according to Pence, the death of Castro has drawn some muted praise of the late Cuban dictator from Obama administration officials. Even the president himself has delivered remarks that some have interpreted as complimentary.

The Taiwan-China dustup, though, is far more serious.

Taiwan’s very creation came at the end of a bloody civil war in China that the communists won. The nationalists who once governed China fled to Taiwan in 1949 to set up a new government. The United States recognized the Taiwan version of China until 1979, when it declared it would recognize the PRC.

You want a complicated relationship? There you have it.

What if China decides to retaliate against the United States by launching, say, a trade war? What if the PRC decides to yank its ambassador out of Washington? What if the PRC goads Taiwan into declaring its independence from China, giving the Chinese a pretext to launch a military attack against the nation it considers to be a “renegade province”?

There can be no equivalence attached to saying some mildly nice things about a dictator and the serious breach of protocol that the president-elect has committed.

entertainment news

C’mon, Donald … grow a set and let ‘SNL’ have its fun!

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Donald J. Trump defends his use of Twitter because of its currency as a “modern” form of communication.

But, honest to bleeping goodness, Mr. President-elect. Get a grip here!

“Saturday Night Live” has been poking fun at presidents and presidents-elect since it first went on the air in 1975. Presidents Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush the Elder, Clinton, Bush the Younger and Obama all have felt the good-natured barbs tossed by the “SNL” cast.

I guess I need to remind the president-elect how George H.W. Bush invited “SNL” comedian Dana Carvey to the White House to participate in a 1992 Christmas party the president was hosting for his staff. Carvey introduced the president as the president, doing his famous impression of GHW Bush. The president loved it!

Now? We get these idiotic tweets from the next president, bitching about how “SNL” is unfunny and “unwatchable.”

Suck it up, Mr. President-elect. If you’re as tough as you say you are in dealing with foreign leaders — friend and foe alike — you need to learn to accept a little good-natured satire.

It’s part of the job … that you sought willingly.

business news, national news, political news

‘Emoluments clause’ to be put to stern test

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I am not a constitutional scholar, but I know enough about the document to be able to talk about most of its contents with at least a smattering of intelligence

But a new phrase has popped up on many Americans’ radar in recent months. It’s the “emoluments clause” of the U.S. Constitution.

It’s contained in Article I. It’s the final clause in Section 9. It reads:

“No Title of Nobility shall be granted by the United States: And no Person holding any Office of Profit or Trust under them, shall, without the Consent of the Congress, accept of any present, Emolument, Office, or Title, of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince, or foreign State.”

Why the interest in this relatively obscure portion of the nation’s government document?

http://www.heritage.org/constitution/#!/articles/1/essays/68/emoluments-clause

We have a president-elect, Donald J. Trump, who possesses business interests that span the globe. He has done a lot of business with kings, princes and foreign states. He’s gotten money from them, enriching himself — and his family.

Now that he’s about to become president of the United States, we’re hearing more chatter about this emoluments clause … just as we did during the campaign when Trump’s allies used it to describe the so-called favors Hillary Rodham Clinton earned while she and her family ran the Clinton Foundation and the Clinton Global Initiative.

Those Hillary haters are quiet about Trump’s dealings.

Trump has announced he’s going to turn everything over to his children: Ivanka, Don Jr. and Eric. He’s going to walk away from the myriad business dealings.

That would be OK, except that he is planning to hand it all over the Younger Trumps. My hunch is that they’ll remain in his family and, thus, will rake in the revenue derived from whatever deals they strike.

What’s the better option for Trump? Sell it all. Liquidate everything and remove yourself entirely from every single aspect of the business. Give the kids their portion of what you get from the sale and let them invest their largesse any way they wish.

Absent a  complete and total severance from these business dealings, we are about to hear a lot more about the emoluments clause. It will not be pretty.

State news

Rep. McCaul: Solid choice, maybe, for Homeland Security

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I’ve spent a good deal of time criticizing some of Donald J. Trump’s picks for his Cabinet.

I now will say something good about someone under consideration for a key national security post: Rep. Michael McCaul might become secretary of homeland security in the Trump administration.

McCaul would be a solid choice.

The only remotely negative thing that comes to mind is that he reportedly is the richest member of Congress, so he would be continuing Trump’s pattern of picking rich folks to help him govern the country.

Beyond that? Well, McCaul has law enforcement experience and has chaired the House Homeland Security Committee.

It also is good that McCaul hails from Texas, one of the states on the front line of this homeland security debate.

Some critics have suggested that McCaul isn’t tough enough on illegal immigration. As the Texas Tribune reported: “In recent days, McCaul has come under fire from illegal immigration opponents who claim he has not been tough enough on the problem in Congress. In a TV interview Wednesday, McCaul called such criticism ‘incredulous and inflammatory and … slanderous.'”

https://www.texastribune.org/2016/12/02/cruz-praises-mccaul-trump-mulls-cabinet-job-him/

I like the fact that McCaul has congressional experience and that he represents a congressional district in a state where the homeland security issue has become arguably the most acute in the country.

From what I’ve heard from Rep. McCaul over the years, he doesn’t come across as a screamer. Instead, he sounds relatively reasonable and nuanced — which is a quality that Trump is going to need once he becomes president.

McCaul’s most vocal backer well might be U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, a fellow Texan. It’s an interesting twist, too, as the Tribune reports, given that many Republicans have hoped McCaul would challenge Cruz for the GOP Senate nomination in 2018.

Hmm. Imagine that. Cruz now wants him ensconced in the Trump administration — and perhaps out of the way of his own run for re-election.

Whatever. Rep. McCaul would be a good fit at the Department of Homeland Security.

national news, political news

On second thought, Palin talks herself out of job?

palin

Sarah Palin must not want a job in the Trump administration after all.

How else does one explain the former half-term Alaska governor going after the president-elect’s deal to save those Carrier jobs in Indiana? She calls it “crony capitalism,” which is shorthand for a policy that gives tax breaks to political allies and large corporations.

Donald J. Trump took credit for allegedly persuading Carrier — the Indiana-based air conditioning and heating company — from moving jobs off shore. In exchange, the company was able to get a big tax break from the state of Indiana, which is governed by Mike Pence, the soon-to-be vice president of the United States.

Palin, meanwhile, had emerged as a possible candidate to become secretary of veterans affairs. Ugghh! Perish that thought.

http://thehill.com/homenews/news/308575-palin-slams-crony-capitalism-after-trump-seals-carrier-deal

Now she pops off — goes “rogue,” if you will — by declaring the Trump deal with Carrier is no good.

“When government steps in arbitrarily with individual subsidies, favoring one business over others, it sets inconsistent, unfair, illogical precedent,” Palin wrote in an essay. “Then, special interests creep in and manipulate markets. Republicans oppose this, remember?”

OK, the Carrier deal has nothing to do with overseeing veterans issues. So, is Palin wrong to speak out against this crony capitalism idea? Not really.

Then again, she has just tossed a mud ball at the guy with whom she supposedly is trying to curry favor. She wants a job in the Cabinet.

I would say her chances of getting any nod in a Trump administration normally would be tossed into the crapper … that is, until I recall all those mean things Mitt Romney said about Trump during the GOP primary campaign.

What does Mitt get for speaking the brutal truth about the president-elect? A nice dinner at a Trump-owned eatery and a possible nomination as secretary of state.

International news

Study up on U.S.-China-Taiwan relations, Mr. President-elect

taiwan-president

Donald J. Trump has committed one of two egregious errors by conversing on the telephone with the leader of a country with which the United States has no diplomatic relations.

The president-elect either doesn’t know about the “one-China policy” to which the United States has adhered since the end of World War II, or he does know about it and decided to flout it willfully.

Trump spoke on the telephone this week with Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen. It was the first time a U.S. president-elect has spoken to the leader of Taiwan since the two countries severed diplomatic relations in 1979. The conversation has resulted in a formal complaint from the People’s Republic of China, which considers Taiwan to be a “renegade province” and has vowed to take it back, by force if necessary.

The PRC-Taiwan relationship is amazingly complicated. It also sits at the heart of U.S.-China relations, given that this country has entered into a defense pact to protect Taiwan in the event of an attack by the PRC.

So, the president-elect — who is still about seven weeks away from taking office — has decided to step into the middle of this mess. Either he made the call to Taipei or received a call from the island nation. Whichever happened, Trump shouldn’t have made the call, nor should he have received it.

And that brings me to my point. The man has made a serious error.

Trump’s ignorance about geopolitical relationships manifested itself repeatedly during the presidential campaign. He said it would be OK for Japan and South Korea to have nuclear weapons; he said the same thing about Saudi Arabia; he once said NATO nations should have to pay for U.S. protection in case Russia attacked the alliance; he has vowed to force Mexico to pay for the “beautiful wall” he intends to build along our southern border.

He was elected anyway.

The New York Times has done a good job of explaining the Taiwan-China controversy. Here’s the link to the Times’ explainer:

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/03/world/asia/trump-taiwan-and-china-the-controversy-explained.html?_r=0

Trump has got to wrap his arms around a lot of nuanced relationships that involve the country he is about to govern and its myriad friends and foes around the globe. The PRC-Taiwan relationship is among the most sensitive, complicated and fragile any world leader can imagine.

Having been to Taiwan five times since 1989, I’ve developed a pretty good understanding of the country and its place in the world. It is a vibrant economic powerhouse. Its military machine is pretty stout, as well, thanks in large measure to the weapons it buys from the United States and other nations willing to sell to the Taiwanese.

More than six decades after the nationalist government fled the mainland to the island, most of Taiwan’s residents today were born on the island; many of them still have family on the mainland but they are Taiwanese first. Much has changed as Taiwan has evolved into a de facto independent nation.

One fundamental aspect, though, remains the same. China will not recognize Taiwan as an independent nation. Moreover, the United States maintains an embassy in China — and does not have one in Taiwan.

The president-elect needs to tread extra carefully here. The consequences of further mistakes are too grave to even contemplate.

media news, national news, political news

Media actually called the ’16 election … really!

voting

This just in: The media called the 2016 presidential  election correctly … sort of.

Hillary Rodham Clinton is leading Donald J. Trump by just a shade less than 2 percentage points in the popular vote. She’s up by 2.5 million votes and the number might climb.

So, why are the media taking such a battering over “missing” the results? Oh, yes. The Electoral College.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/elections/live_results/2016_general/president/map.html

The media and the pollsters all across the country might have been too transfixed by the overall national mood and less intrigued by what was happening in rural communities blanketing those critical “swing states” that voted for Trump on Nov. 8.

I won’t give the media a pass.

I’ll just note that the RealClearPolitics average of polls had Clinton leading Trump nationally by 2 to 5 percentage points. She’s going to finish with a 2-percentage point “victory” in the popular vote.

That won’t get her a ticket — let alone the keys — to the White House.

If the media fell short, they missed the signs that were developing in rural America that propelled Donald Trump to the victory that shocked ’em all.

International news

Phone call to Taiwan may signal huge rift

taiwan

Do you want yet another example of Donald J. Trump’s ignorance about geopolitics and the relationships between governments?

Try this one: The president-elect today called the president of Taiwan in what’s believed to the first head of state discussion between leaders of the nations since 1979. Big deal? It sure is. The United States does not have diplomatic relations with Taiwan.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/cheats/2016/12/02/trump-call-taiwan-risk-china-rift.html?via=desktop&source=copyurl

I believe we have the makings of a potentially huge rift between the United States and the People’s Republic of China.

So, what’s the PRC’s stake in this?

Well, Taiwan was created after a bloody civil war in China after World War II. The Kuomintang nationalist government that used to rule China fled to Taiwan after being defeated by the communists led by Mao Tse-Tung. The commies have been saying since 1949 that Taiwan is a “renegade province” and have vowed to take it back — with brute force, if need be.

The United States recognized the Taiwan government until 1979, when we decided to recognize the PRC. Given the communists’ “one-China policy,” the United States had to sever its ties with Taiwan; U.S. policy could not accommodate a second “China.”

Therein lies the crux of the issue here. Trump might not understand fully the highly complicated PRC-Taiwan relationship and how that plays into U.S. policy regarding the PRC and Taiwan.

“The Chinese leadership will see this as a highly provocative action, of historic proportions,” said Evan Medeiros, former Asia director at the White House national security council.

I don’t profess to be an expert on this relationship, but I have made five visits to Taiwan over many years. The first visit was in 1989; I returned in 1994, 1999, 2007 and 2010.

Taiwan has evolved into a modern, sophisticated, technically advanced country in the 66 years since the Kuomintang fled the mainland. It is virtually “independent” as it is, but the government dare not declare its independence openly out of concern that the PRC would retaliate with an armed invasion of the island nation.

Doesn’t the U.S. president-elect understand the ramifications of a simple phone call to Taiwan’s president, Tsai Ying-wen?

Sure, Trump savaged the Chinese during his campaign over the jobs it has taken from American workers. Therefore, the PRC leadership might feel threatened by the prospect of a Trump presidency.

This phone call, though, to the leader of a nation with which the United States has zero diplomatic relationship ratchets up concerns on the Asia mainland about whether the new U.S. president understands the meaning of diplomatic protocol.

Believe this, Mr. President-elect, geopolitical protocol matters … a lot!

military news

Palin at VA? Say it ain’t so, Donald

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I might be getting ahead of myself with this particular concern … but I’ll express it anyway.

Donald J. Trump is said to be considering whether to consider Sarah Palin — yep, that one — for a spot in his Cabinet. She wants to lead the Department of Veterans Affairs.

The one-time half-term Alaska governor wants to lead a huge department roiled in controversy. She wants the president-elect to put her in charge of fixing what is wrong with a massive federal agency charged with caring for millions of American veterans.

I cannot think of a prominent American politician who is more unqualified for this task than Gov. Palin. Lord knows I’ve been critical of some of Trump’s other appointees: Jeff Sessions as attorney general and Betsy DeVos at Education are two of the more awful choices. Then we have the white supremacist Steven Bannon serving as Trump’s chief political adviser/strategist in the White House.

Palin, though, would utterly take the cake.

She is not a veteran. Her claim to fame is her failed bid to become vice president on the 2008 Republican ticket led by U.S. Sen. John McCain (who, frankly, would be a superb candidate for the Department of Veterans Affairs post). She had her stint as a reality TV celebrity, a Fox News contributor and the mother of children who have gotten into scrapes with the law.

She quit the Alaska governorship halfway through her first term, citing the pressures of the job. Good grief, lady! You ain’t seen stress until you’ve tried to repair the Department of Veterans Affairs!

As a veteran myself, I was horrified and personally offended by reports of vets dying while waiting for health care. The former VA secretary, retired Army Gen. Eric Shinseki, had to quit. The department is still struggling to regain its footing.

The idea of putting Sarah Palin in charge of this project makes me shudder.

The president-elect hasn’t said with absolute certainty that she’s on a short list for VA secretary. I hope he thinks better of it.

As for Palin, my hope is that she recedes into the shadows.

She has no business running the Department of Veterans Affairs.