national news

Bolton joins line of national security advisers in trashing POTUS

James Mattis pounded Donald Trump, saying he is intentionally seeking to divide the nation.

John Kelly said the nation needs to do a better job of assessing the character and competence of those who seek elective public office.

John Bolton says Donald Trump is unfit for public office and says he endangers our national security by looking first at his re-election chances and how any decision affects them.

Mattis and Kelly are former Marine Corps generals; Mattis served as defense secretary and Kelly served as homeland security secretary and then White House chief of staff. Bolton is a former U.N. ambassador and a longstanding conservative foreign policy hawk.

These are just the latest in a long line of national security officials who once worked for Trump. What do they have in common? They are trashing a sitting U.S. president. They are telling us that Donald Trump is dangerous, uninformed, unwilling to become informed.

Let’s not forget, too, that Rex Tillerson, the former secretary of state, once called Trump a “fu**ing moron.”

As I look at a reasonably big picture, I see an executive government branch in a state of absolute chaos and pandemonium. This is all a function of a president who now wants to win a second term. My goodness! There can be no way in the world we should allow this to continue.

And I can say that even while setting aside that the Nitwit in Chief has committed at least two impeachable offenses and should have been convicted in that Senate trial that acquitted him.

God help us if this clown wins the upcoming election!

national news

Why the sparse crowd in Tulsa? Here’s a thought or two

1 Comment

Donald J. “Blame Placer in Chief” Trump was quick to lay out some excuses for the poor showing at his big-time campaign rally in Tulsa, Okla.

He blamed the media; he blamed Democrats for putting out “fake news” about the pandemic. I have a couple of other thoughts to ponder.

One is that Oklahomans and others who thought to attend got cold feet because of the coronavirus pandemic that is still sickening and killing Americans each day. They decided to heed the warnings of medical experts who said an indoor rally with thousands of folks packed in next to each presented too great a risk.

The other is that just maybe Donald Trump’s shtick is wearing out. I listened to parts of his rant. I didn’t hear a single new initiative. I didn’t hear him offer a single fresh idea of where he wanted to lead the country in a second term. Trump didn’t offer anything that sounded like a vision for the future.

No, instead he regurgitated almost the entire story line from the 2016 campaign against Hillary Clinton. He just changed the name from “Clinton” to “Biden,” as in Joe Biden, the presumed 2020 Democratic Party presidential nominee.

It well might be that the Trump “base” has grown weary of the tired rant that keeps pouring forth from the guy who promised to “tell it like it is,” that he would “drain the swamp” and that “I, alone” can repair what he said ails the nation.

He skulked off of Marine One after it landed on the White House lawn after the rally looking like he’d been rode hard and put up wet. Indeed, reports have surfaced today about how Trump is “furious” with the turnout and he just can’t find enough people to blame for the fact that the  presidency under his watch has been exposed as a fraud.

We can all rest assured that Donald Trump will keep looking for others to blame for the miserable shortcomings he has revealed since pilfering the presidency.

national news

KKK = Confederate flag

I cannot let this photo stand without offering a brief comment about the juxtaposition of two key elements this picture contains.

Look at the fellow gesturing. He is a Ku Klux Klansman demonstrating in 2017 in Charlottesville, Va., the site of that terrible riot that killed a young woman protesting against the Klan, neo-Nazis and assorted white supremacists.

Now, look at the flags flying behind him. Do you see a familiar pattern? It’s the Confederate flag, the piece of cloth that some Americans want to keep displaying in public places because it “symbolizes heritage” and is a “piece of American history.”

It seems to be lost on those pro-Rebel flag folks that the KKK stands with that flag because of what it represents: the maintaining of slavery in states that seceded from the Union in 1861 and launched the Civil War, the bloodiest conflict in U.S. history. Then again, maybe it isn’t lost on them at all!

The Confederate flag represents the very thing that the moron seen in this picture snapped by the New York Post represents.

It represents oppression, which my reading of history tells me caused our founders to create this nation in the first place, to live in a place free of the kind of oppression symbolized by the Confederate flag.

Spare me, then, the clap-trap about “history” and “heritage.”

national news

Human rights, Mr. POTUS?

John Bolton’s scathing memoir about his time as national security adviser to Donald John “Numbskull in Chief” Trump is full of information and disclosures that have become part of the common knowledge that many Americans already have about the president of the United States.

It does have at least one new element that I want to examine briefly.

Bolton’s book, “The Room Where It Happened,” discusses how China’s leadership told Trump about its plans to build concentration camps to house about 1 million Muslims in China. Trump’s reaction was, in effect, “No sweat, guys. You do what you gotta do.”

That paints an amazingly vivid picture of one of Trump’s many failings as a world leader. He doesn’t give a damn about human rights. He lavishes praise on strongmen. Trump speaks to the leadership qualities of the likes of North Korea’s murderous tyrant Kim Jong Un; he, of course, admires Soviet strongman Vladimir Putin; he touts the strength of Turkey’s Reccip Erdogan.

What do they all have in common? They are dictators who imprison their countrymen and women. In Kim’s case, he starves them while building a nuclear arsenal to go along with a massive conventional military machine.

Has Trump ever questioned publicly the plight of those who live under the iron fist of any of these individuals? Has he ever condemned them for their failure to acknowledge the human rights that we all have?

Now we hear this revelation about Trump giving China a pass on erecting concentration camps to suppress a religious minority. It comes from Bolton’s book, a tome I have suggested is nothing more than a money-maker for the former national security adviser.

I just felt the need to suggest that Bolton’s book tells us as well that Donald Trump’s interest in human rights and in the condition of his fellow travels is, well … non-existent.

Shameful.

national news

Trump trots out flag-burning non-starter

3 Comments

Donald Trump’s mediocre campaign rally today produced few talking points, but one of them does surface.

He said from the podium in Tulsa, Okla., that anyone who burns Old Glory should be arrested, charged and if convicted sent to jail for a year.

Huh? Earth to The Donald: The Supreme Court has settled that one. It said that burning the Stars and Stripes in a political protest is protected under the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. It is, according to the court, a legitimate form of protest against government policy.

I agree with Trump on one point only: Anyone who burns a flag in my presence is not going to win me over to whatever point of view they are espousing. I hate the act and am repulsed by it. However, it’s a legit form of protest that the nation’s founders protected when they wrote the First Amendment.

Then again, political reality never gets in Trump’s way when he’s trying to ignite the cheers of his fans at political rallies.

Donald Trump

The rally? It didn’t go quite as planned

1 Comment

What do we glean from Donald John Trump’s return to the campaign rally podium?

He stood in an arena in Tulsa, Okla., that he said he would pack with 19,000 screaming Trumpkins. All those empty seats were meant, I suppose, to disguise the fanatics.

The Trump re-election team had to cancel some outdoor events. Why? Low turnout.

Trump blathers on in his rally. He rambles incoherently. He spent about 20 to 30 minutes showing how he could lift a glass of water with a single hand.

Oh, and then we have the lack of social distancing among those who were in the arena, the lack of face masks, the lack of care being taken to avoid coming down with COVID-19. Sigh.

Donald Trump’s return to the 2020 presidential campaign trail, to my eyes, has encountered some serious trouble as the Carnival Barker in Chief seeks to win re-election to a second term.

I won’t lose a bit of sleep over any of this.

national news

Hey, Mr. VPOTUS, black lives do matter

Vice President Mike Pence had a chance Friday to say the words “black lives matter.”

He chose to avoid saying them. Maybe he thinks he’ll be struck by lightning, or will ignite in some form of spontaneous combustion simply by uttering the words. Instead, he told a TV interviewer:

“Let me just say that what happened to George Floyd was a tragedy,” Pence said Friday. “And in this nation, especially on Juneteenth, we celebrate the fact that from the founding of this nation, we cherish the ideal that all of us are created equal and endowed by our creator with certain inalienable rights. And so all lives matter in a very real sense.”

The death of George Floyd in Minneapolis has given the Black Lives Matter movement additional impetus. Floyd’s death at the hands of white police officers has spawned protests.

As it has happened in the past when Black Lives Matter becomes part of the national dialogue, those who take umbrage at the term pervert it, suggesting that Black Lives Matter devalues everyone else’s lives. It does no such thing, which I sense is what kept the VP from saying the words.

If I could prepared his response, I might have him say something like this: “Yes, black lives matter just as much as white lives matter, Latino lives matter, Asian lives matter, native American lives matter. We are created equal in the eyes of our Creator.”

See? That’s not so bad. Mr. Vice President, you and the Racist in Chief need to say the words.

national news

Bolton saves his best for his book deal … not the country

The more I think of John Bolton, the angrier I become.

Yes, I have plenty of anger at Donald Trump, for whom Bolton worked as national security adviser for 17 months before being fired … or before he resigned. That’s a given, you know?

My anger at Bolton stems from what he could have said a year ago, when the House of Representatives began discussing seriously whether to impeach Trump on abuse of power. Bolton, after all was “In The Room Where It Happened,” and has written a memoir of that title.

The truth is that Bolton hasn’t said anything that millions of us either knew or suspected all along about Trump.

He could have spilled the beans on what he saw and heard. He chose to remain silent while the House prepared its impeachment articles to present to the Senate, which put Trump on trial for abusing the power of his office and for obstructing Congress.

House and Senate Republicans — except for Sen. Mitt Romney — exhibited profound cowardice by refusing to accept the obvious, that Donald Trump had abused the immense power of his office and obstructed Congress’s efforts to get at the truth.

They were led, in my view, toward their cowardly den by John Bolton. He choked. He could have laid it out there in vivid detail. Bolton could have subjected himself to harsh questioning by Trump’s sycophantic supporters and, more than likely, held his own.

He didn’t do that. Instead, he chose to save himself for the release of his book, from which he intends to make a healthy fortune.

I wanted a reason to cheer Bolton. I find myself jeering him. It’s not that he fits my ideal for public service. I dislike his world view. However, we keep hearing about what tough dude he is, how principled he remains, how he wouldn’t be intimidated by Donald Trump.

It all sounds like so much crap now.

Would any of this changed the minds of GOP senators and House members who gave Trump a pass on the crimes he committed? Probably not nearly enough to turn acquittal into conviction in the Senate.

It simply offends and galls me terribly that John Bolton is getting all this exposure now, that the media are slobbering all over this guy just because he’s telling us now what he should have disclosed much earlier … when it really mattered.

national news

Trump, Barr engage in liar’s contest

This is fantastic!

Attorney General William Barr says he asked Donald Trump to fire Southern District of New York U.S. Attorney Geoffrey Berman, so Trump did what he was asked by the AG to do.

You got that?

Wait! Trump said he played no part in Berman’s dismissal; it’s all Barr’s doing, he said.

Who’s telling the truth? Why should we even care to know, given both men’s penchant for lying?

Berman had been asked to resign the SDNY post, but he declined, saying he wanted to stay on the job until the Justice Department found a suitable replacement. However, DOJ or the White House couldn’t wait. So … someone fired Berman.

You see, Berman’s office was eyeball-deep in a probe of Donald Trump’s personal financial matters, including the release of those tax returns that Trump once upon a time pledged to release to the public once he got through what he called a “routine audit.”

Berman is out. The question of the day: Who did the deed?

My guess? Donald Trump told Barr to can the prosecutor. Why? He was getting too close to rooting out the corruption that runs rampant throughout the Trump White House operation.

national news

Joe Biden: most memorable comeback in history?

If the 2020 presidential election plays out as I hope it will — and I will not take my preferred outcome for granted — then we are going to witness a truly historic political event.

We are going to witness what I believe could be the most astonishing political comeback in U.S. history.

Joe Biden will be nominated soon by the Democratic Party to take on Donald Trump, the Republican incumbent president of the United States. The winds are blowing briskly at Biden’s back … at the moment. I pray they will carry him to victory, enabling him to repair the damage Trump has brought to our republic.

How in the world did Biden get to this place?

He was elected to the Senate in 1972; then his wife and daughter died in a horrific auto accident. Young Joe Biden thought about quitting, as he had two young sons — both of whom were injured badly in that wreck, but who suddenly were without their mother. His Senate colleagues talked him into staying.

He sought the 1988 nomination. He was proud of bellowing about his working-class background. Oops! Wait! It turned out he was lifting comments, almost verbatim, from a British politician, Neil Kinnock, who came from similar hardscrabble beginnings. Biden was caught copying those remarks. He dropped out, embarrassed and possibly ashamed of himself.

Two decades later, he ran again for president. He got thumped in the early primaries by a young Illinois senator, a fellow named Barack Hussein Obama. Biden called it quits in the 2008 campaign. Obama then won the nomination, but before that he tapped Biden on the shoulder and asked him to join him on what the two of them would call “an incredible journey.” The Obama-Biden ticket won that race and served two successful terms at the top of the political chain of command.

Now comes 2020. Biden decides to run again for president. He gets shellacked in the early primaries. Iowa and New Hampshire didn’t go well … at all! He would bide his time. Biden waited for a key endorsement from a South Carolina political godfather, U.S. Rep. James Clyburn, a senior member of the Congressional Black Caucus. Clyburn gave Biden a ringing endorsement. Biden won the South Carolina primary. He then won practically every other primary after that.

The man whose campaign was thought to be on life support then turned into a raging juggernaut.

He now stands on the precipice of becoming elected to the nation’s highest office. His entry into the Senate was nearly doomed by tragedy; his first run for president got derailed by the candidate’s own rhetorical carelessness; his second presidential run was steamrolled by a charismatic young pol; and his third presidential campaign needed a key endorsement by a leading African-American politician to get new life.

Do you get my point? Joseph R. Biden Jr. has been left for political dead more times than he cares to recall. I suggest that even if he loses to Trump, his comeback still will look impressive.

A victory, though, would put this working-class hero in a league all to himself.

Commentary on politics, current events and life experience