Tag Archives: Donald Trump

local news

Cool it with the Twitter account, Mr. President-elect

twitter-logo-bird

I know that Donald J. Trump wouldn’t ever heed this bit of advice from little ol’ me, mainly because he likely won’t see what I’m about to say … but I’ll offer it anyway.

Cease and desist with the constant tweeting, Mr. President-elect. You’re the Big Man now and you ought to pick your battles with a lot more care and caution.

A story in the Washington Post illustrates just how much damage this fellow — Trump — can do to someone who objects to some of his policy pronouncements.

The story talks about how, when he was running for president, Trump responded to a woman who challenged whether he was fair to women. Trump tweeted that the woman was a “plant” and called her an “arrogant young woman.”

Good grief, man! She was a citizen, a potential constituent making a comment about things he had said.

Here’s the story:

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/this-is-what-happens-when-donald-trump-attacks-a-private-citizen-on-twitter/ar-AAljS3f?li=BBmkt5R&ocid=spartandhp

Since his election, Trump has used his Twitter account with amazing result.

He told the world about how he talked with the president of Taiwan — a nation with which we have no diplomatic ties — roiling relations with the People’s Republic of China and causing potentially devastating friction between the two great nation; he called for cancellation of an order for a new Air Force One jetliner to be developed by Boeing, causing the aircraft manufacturer’s stock value to plunge; he called a union leader a “liar” after the leader challenged Trump’s assertion that he had saved more than 1,000 jobs in Indiana.

Trump, of course, defends his use of this particular social medium, saying it’s the way people communicate these days.

Uh, Mr. President-elect, you ain’t like the rest of us. You are about to possess immense power to influence global events. You are going to be the Top Dog, the Big Magilla, the Main Man. You’ll inherit a Twitter account set up for the president of the United States.

How about using it wisely? Use it with discretion. Be circumspect and careful. How about traveling along the high road at all times?

The new president ought to leave the incessant tweeting and other cheap social media banter … to shlubs like me.

business news, national news, political news

Trump making a simple matter so very complicated

08divest-top-master768

I am having trouble understanding what it is about conflict of interest that Donald J. Trump doesn’t get.

The president-elect has an enormous business empire. He has contacts throughout the world. He has enriched himself beyond most people’s imagination.

Now he’s about to become president of the United States. What should a man with all that wealth do to avoid even the appearance of conflict of interest?

Let’s see, how about selling those business interests outright? Or, how about putting them into a blind trust, let someone manage those interests — and stay the hell away from everything having to do with those business interests?

Is the president-elect going to do either of those things? Apparently not, according to the New York Times.

Trump now is letting it be known he intends to keep at least an interest in his businesses while his daughter Ivanka and her husband, Jared Kushner, run them.

Daddy Trump will still be involved, if only on the fringes, with the business empire he has built.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/07/us/politics/trump-organization-ivanka-trump.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=first-column-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news&_r=0

The U.S. Constitution refers to “emoluments,” and states that the president must not make money dealing with foreign governments. The next president is treading dangerously close — as long as he retains an “interest” in his business — of violating the emoluments clause of the Constitution. His businesses have extensive relationships with many foreign governments.

This shouldn’t be a close call. This should be an easy decision for the president to make. If something presents the potential for conflict of interest, you must act aggressively to remove the element that creates that potential conflict.

Trump is not about to quit the office he fought so hard to win. The only alternative is for him to quit the business. Sell it. Put it into a blind trust. Have nothing — not a single, solitary thing — to do with it.

Why doesn’t he get it?

national news

Political correctness afflicts more than liberals

2 Comments

pc

Political conservatives — and the man who’s about to become president of the United States — made a lot of noise blasting what they call “political correctness.”

They griped that liberals hid behind politically correct terms to avoid offending someone. Donald J. Trump essentially blamed political correctness for the shooting at that Orlando, Fla., nightclub where dozens of people died at the hands of a radical Islamic terrorist.

Allow me this brief retort. PCness ain’t the sole province of those on the left. Righties have fallen into the same so-called trap.

I refer to the term “alt-right.” It’s become a common phrase meant to avoid calling what those on the political fringe really represent. They represent racism, white supremacy, neo-Nazis.

I once thought the term originated on the left. I would hear left-leaning commentators using the term. It’s now shifted, as the lefties have wised up to the notion that “alt-right” has become a code for the white supremacists.

Now we hear from conservatives who have glommed on to that term. They certainly won’t identify the white supremacists among their ranks by that name. They will seek a form of refuge behind the politically correct terminology, just as they have accused liberals of doing.

And while we’re at it, let’s not refer to the lies being pushed out there as “fake news.”

Politicians get accused of lying all the time, even when they merely misspeak or say something they might not know to be lies.

This so-called “fake news” is nothing but lies. Those who put these bogus stories out there do so knowing they are lying.

Fake news? Nope. They are lies.

Alt-right? Hardly. It’s a PC version of white supremacy.

political news, State news

Texas might bind electors to vote for winner

7c2a3338_jpg_800x1000_q100

Is it a good idea for the Texas Legislature to enact a law that forces presidential electors to remain faithful to the oath they take?

Yes.

Another Texas Republican elector, Christopher Suprun of Dallas, has declared he won’t cast his vote next week for Donald J. Trump, who won the state’s 38 electoral votes. He hasn’t said for whom he’ll vote, but it has drawn a response from Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, who said he’s going to look into whether the Legislature will write a law that binds future electors to their pledge.

I think that’s a reasonable requirement. Texas would join 29 other states that have similar laws on the books.

Suprun joins another GOP elector, Art Sisneros, in denying Trump their electoral votes. There’s a big difference, though, in the two men’s decision. Suprun will cast his vote; Sisneros, on the other hand, took the more noble approach and quit his post as an elector. Sisneros said he couldn’t in good conscience vote for Trump — but neither could he violate the oath he took when he signed on as an elector.

https://www.texastribune.org/2016/12/07/patrick-rogue-texas-elector-could-lead-binding-law/

I don’t suppose Patrick would seek a law that prevents electors from quitting, as Sisneros did. However, Suprun’s decision is a bit troublesome. The difficulty, in my mind, has nothing to do with Trump. I wouldn’t vote for Trump, either.

Instead, it’s related directly to the oath this elector took to keep faith with the state’s voters, who gave the president-elect a 9 percentage point victory over Democratic nominee Hillary Rodham Clinton.

These public oaths don’t by themselves bind those who take them to remain faithful. But they should. These electors sign on as loyal Republicans or Democrats. Trump won the GOP nomination fair and square and won the presidential election under the rules laid out by the U.S. Constitution.

Patrick and the Legislature cannot enact a law quickly enough to make Suprun toe the line. They ought to do so for future presidential elections. Fair is fair.

national news, political news

Trump, Obama now have become BFFs?

obama-and-trump

Donald J. Trump is making my head spin.

The man who demonized President Barack Obama as someone who wasn’t elected legitimately because he was born somewhere other than the United States now is seeking his immediate predecessor’s advice on Cabinet picks?

Is that what I’m hearing?

Trump told “Today Show” host Matt Lauer this morning that he and the president are getting along famously these days. He’s consulting with him. He considers the president to be a “terrific guy.”

http://www.politico.com/story/2016/12/trump-obama-consultation-cabinet-232304

Wow, man! I get that politics often is a contact sport. I also get that political foes can put past hostilities aside. The president-elect, though, is having to do so on many fronts.

House Speaker Paul Ryan called Trump’s statements about Muslims “racist.” Now he and Trump are speaking daily, Ryan said. The 2012 Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney said Trump is a “fraud,” a “phony,” a “con man.” Now he is considered a frontrunner to become secretary of state in the Trump administration.

The president-elect’s relationship with the president?

Trump was one of the leaders of the “birther” movement. He sought to turn Obama into some kind of pretend president. Then he said in a single sentence that the president was “born in the United States. Period.”

That makes it all better?

I am having trouble believing it. Just as I am having trouble believing Mitt now no longer considers Trump to be a fraud, phony and a con man.

Suppose it’s all true, however. I guess it only demonstrates what we think of politicians, which is that they rarely tell us what’s truly in their heart, that it’s all just so much baloney.

media news, national news, political news

Time’s ‘Person of the Year’ is a no-brainer

trump

Here it comes: a good word about Donald J. Trump.

Time magazine’s Person of the Year is the 45th president of the United States. When the magazine’s editor in chief, Nancy Gibbs, was asked this morning whether this was a difficult choice, she said that it wasn’t. It was an easy choice, given how Trump managed to win the presidency by breaking virtually every known rule of conventional political wisdom.

I happen to agree with this choice.

http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/12/07/504662237/time-magazine-names-donald-trump-person-of-the-year?utm_campaign=storyshare&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_medium=social

I’m not going to get into the discussion about how the magazine has named some pretty despicable characters as its Person of the Year. They include, say, the Ayatollah Khomeini, Adolph Hitler and Josef Stalin (twice).

It’s fairly customary for the magazine to honor newly elected presidents for this honor. So it’s no surprise that the newest elected president would get the nod as Person of the Year.

Look long and hard at virtually every aspect of Trump’s winning campaign: his lack of “ground game,” his insults, his bizarre behavior, his apparent complete ignorance of the principles of governance, the fact that the presidency is the first office he’s ever sought.

It’s good to examine what so many so-called “experts” said about his chances of being nominated, let alone being elected. He was dismissed as a joke, a circus act, a carnival barker, a huckster.

Here he now stands, ready to assume the role of commander in chief and head of state of the greatest nation on Earth.

All of that, by itself, qualifies this guy as Person of the Year.

Gibbs was right to say this was an easy call.

Now we’ll await this man’s ascension to the highest office in the land and we’ll see whether he has learned anything about the job he is about to do.

military news

Trump surrounded by ‘know-nothing’ generals?

kelly

First it was Michael Flynn.

Then came James Mattis.

Now we hear that John Kelly is joining the Donald J. Trump administration. What do these men have in common?

They’re all retired generals. Flynn is a soldier; Mattis and Kelly are Marines. Among them they have 11 stars on their epaulets. Army Lt. Gen. Flynn will be the national security adviser; Marine Gen. Mattis will be defense secretary; Marine Gen. Kelly is slated to be nominated to lead the homeland security department.

Hey, didn’t Trump say he knows “more than the generals, believe me” about ISIS?

It might be that perhaps he’s rethinking that bold — and reckless — boast. If so, then he ought to acknowledge as much.

But here’s another fascinating aspect of these men: They’re all blunt talkers. They speak their mind. They are take-no-prisoners kinds of men when it comes to policy discussion and debate.

The Flynn-Mattis relationship might be particularly fascinating to watch, given the traditional tension that exists between the national security chief and the defense boss.

Moreover, will these men’s penchant for candor and frankness work well with a president known to be, um, less than receptive to other people’s points of view, let alone these so-called truth-tellers?

This could be dramatic in the extreme.

national news, political news

Obama critics won’t stop name-calling, either

1 Comment

93464f48-0602-480f-afbc-a574e0c27869-large16x9_trump_leak

It’s going to be a difficult transition for many millions of Americans from the Obama presidency to the Trump presidency.

I totally am in that camp. I’m one of those Americans who’s going to have a tough time making that switch.

Yes, some critics of this blog — and some acquaintances of mine — have questioned why I keep commenting negatively about Donald J. Trump. “Move on,” they say. “Get over it,” they admonish me.

Well, OK. I will get over it. I will move on … eventually.

Perhaps I should offer a deal for those critics to ponder. How about many of them stop hurling epithets at the current president?

I don’t associate with those who’ve been amazingly harsh toward Barack Obama, his lovely wife Michelle — and even those precious and beautiful daughters of theirs, Malia and Sasha.

You no doubt have heard some of the hate that has spewed forth against the first family. Much of it is based on the president’s policies. Much of it also is based on more visceral feelings.

Let’s not pussyfoot around here. There has been a racial component to the criticism against the first family. No, I am not pointing the accusatory finger at all the critics. Those who’ve said things publicly through social media, though, have conducted a shameful smear campaign against  the president and his family.

Will I be able eventually to accept fully the election of Donald J. Trump as president of the United States? I am going to make every effort possible to do so.

But I won’t be badgered, pestered or browbeaten into doing so by those who have kept yammering negatively against the current president over matters that transcend public policy.

It’s not that I intend to deliberately return what others have flung at the man Trump is succeeding as president. Those who have said many ugly and hurtful things, though, need to understand that some of these wounds will take time to heal.

So, if some of us continue to complain out loud — and vociferously — about the policies being proposed by the current president, I’ll offer this response: Get over it!

International news, military news, national news, political news

Get rid of Flynn as national security adviser

1 Comment

flynn

President George W. Bush was quite adamant when we went to war in 2001 against radical Islamic terrorists that we were not going to war against Islam.

President Barack Obama has echoed that mantra ever since.

So, who does the president-elect bring in as national security adviser, the guy who’ll advise him on how to fight groups such as al-Qaeda and the Islamic State? A retired Army three-star general who calls Islam a “cancer” and says Americans’ fear of Islam is “rational.”

Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, moreover, apparently has ties with multiple foreign governments.

Flynn is now the target of groups asking Donald J. Trump to rescind Flynn’s appointment as national security adviser. They cite concerns over Flynn’s statements about Islam, Iran and whether his views would jeopardize a hoped-for peaceful settlement of the ongoing dispute between Israel and the Palestinian Authority.

http://www.politico.com/story/2016/12/michael-flynn-trump-appointment-advocacy-groups-232208

I don’t expect the president-elect to heed their call.

Indeed, Flynn is a noted hothead. He’s a brilliant military tactician. He also has the kind of personality that would clash immediately and often with the likes of retired Marine Corps Gen. James Mattis, who is Trump’s pick to be the secretary of defense; I will add that Gen. Mattis is a well-chronicled hothead himself, someone known to speak his mind freely.

The issue, though, is Flynn and whether he’s a good fit to become national security adviser.

The advocacy groups asking Trump to rethink his appointment believe he is a terrible fit.

I happen to agree.

The national security adviser is a staff position and, thus, is not subject to Senate confirmation. Gen. Flynn’s status rests solely with the president he would serve.

Get rid of him, Mr. President-elect.

national news, political news

Trump trashes Carson, then selects him for HUD post

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RbxWRavwvhA

Take a look at this video.

It’s from a November 2015 campaign rally in Iowa. Donald J. Trump is talking about the man he’s just picked to head the Department of Housing and Urban Development, Dr. Ben Carson.

I’ll let the video speak for itself.

You are welcome to draw your own conclusions about why the president-elect would choose someone he said has an incurable “pathological disorder” to help run a major federal agency.

Go figure.