Tag Archives: Donald Trump

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Does this officer deserve the Medal of Honor?

Humayun-Khan

This isn’t an original thought. Others have said this on social media, but I’m going to chime in briefly.

The late U.S. Army Capt. Humayun Khan has been in the news lately. He was killed in Iraq in 2004 when an enemy explosive device detonated. Capt. Khan was trying to save his men when he was killed.

His parents, Kzhir and Ghazala Khan, stood before the Democratic National Convention this past week and Mr. Khan delivered a soliloquy that opposed the candidacy of Republican presidential nominee Donald J. Trump.

The firestorm that erupted from Trump’s crass response to the Khans’ support of Hillary Rodham Clinton hasn’t yet abated. Trump said the Khans, who are Muslim, had “no right” to criticize him. Actually, of course, they had every right as proud American citizens.

The thought I’m putting forward here?

Humayun Khan, from what I’ve heard acted with extreme heroism on the battlefield in Iraq. As one of my social media friends noted today, Khan’s action was tantamount to throwing his body on a hand grenade, which is the kind of action that has produced Medal of Honor recipients.

Therefore, it seems fair and reasonable to wonder whether Humayun Khan deserves consideration for the Medal of Honor.

Well … ?

national news, political news

Trump learning that, yes, news can be ‘bad’

donald-trump

Donald J. Trump’s first-ever political campaign has turned into a train wreck.

And yet, the Republican presidential nominee, keeps operating on the notion that there’s no such thing as “negative publicity.”

Actually, of course, there is such a thing. Trump has begun bleeding profusely. He’s exsanguinated so badly that in the past 24 hours or so there is actual talk among Republicans about how they might be able to take their presidential campaign forward without Trump as the party’s nominee.

Count me as one American who doesn’t think Trump will quit, although it’s an interesting notion to consider.

https://highplainsblogger.com/2016/08/try-this-conspiracy-theory-on-for-size/

Several news organizations are reporting that GOP leaders are trying to (a) get Trump to reset his campaign, (b) persuade him to start acting like a serious presidential candidate and (c) figure out how to persuade Trump to drop and then find a way to nominate someone else.

Trump’s campaign performance has been disgraceful, comical, ridiculous and nonsensical.

Were he to quit the race, though, would be to hand Democratic nominee Hillary Rodham Clinton the keys to the White House. Moreover, it would be the perfect prescription for a 50-state sweep by Clinton, which would flip the Senate and the House of Representatives from GOP to Democratic control.

The Republican brass might need to rethink the seriousness of any effort to get Trump to quit the campaign.

They would have to cope with the outrage of the Trumpkins who voted for Trump during the GOP primary. He collected a lot of them — which he has been more than eager to remind us all along the way. Are they going to vote blindly for the replacement nominee, whoever he is? You may stop laughing now.

But for now, the Trump campaign is bleeding. His foes smell it.

national news, political news

Try this conspiracy theory on for size

2 Comments

donald-trump-s-presidential-campaign-manager-arrested-1459339462-4920.jpg

Those who believe conspiracies exist behind every decision or public policy action might be inclined at this moment to believe the following …

That the Republican Party’s presidential nominee, Donald J. Trump, really doesn’t want the job for which he has been campaigning and is throwing the election on purpose.

Do not count me as a conspiracy theorist. I believe men have walked on the moon, that the 9/11 attacks were a surprise and that Lee Harvey Oswald alone killed President Kennedy.

The Trump phenomenon, however, has me thinking — yet again — about whether the guy really wants to become president of the United States.

He gets his party’s nomination, then sits through four days of watching the Democrats nominate Hillary Rodham Clinton the next week.

Then, right out of the chute after Clinton secures the nomination, Trump goes after the parents of a fallen U.S. Army soldier who happened to be Muslim, and then insists that a crying baby be removed from a rally at which he was speaking. Then he said he wished he could have earned a Purple Heart in combat.

What in the name of the Theater of the Absurd is going on here?

Time and time and time again, Trump has demonstrated a complete lack of understanding of anything regarding governance. He reportedly quizzed a senior campaign staffer about why the United States was prohibited from using nuclear weapons; Trump’s campaign has denied that he asked the question. OK, Don … whatever you say.

The Republican Party brass can’t stand him. His campaign appears to be disintegrating before our eyes.

Is it on purpose? Is the GOP nominee deliberately sabotaging his campaign so he can stick it in the collective eyes and/or ears of those who fear for their party’s viability as a legitimate political instrument?

Look, I don’t know if any of this is true. It’s just that the unpredictability factor of this campaign makes it impossible to dismiss what — in normal times — would seem to be preposterous in the extreme.

Nothing at all would surprise at this point.

After all, the Republican Party nominated this guy to run for president of the United States of America. Is there anything more preposterous than that?

national news, political news

What happened to ‘more presidential’ Trump?

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It seems so long ago now.

Donald J. Trump vowed to be the “most presidential” candidate in U.S. history once he secured the Republican Party’s nomination.

He got the GOP nod and what does he do?

He attacks the parents of a slain U.S. Muslim soldier and then declares he cannot support House Speaker Paul Ryan or U.S. Sen. John McCain — two leading Republicans — in their bids for re-election to Congress.

The McCain non-endorsement is weird.

Trump said something the other day about never liking McCain. He disrespected the senator’s record. Gosh, it makes me wonder: He must have really meant it when he said months ago that McCain was a Vietnam War hero “only because he got captured. I like people who weren’t captured, OK?”

Trump calls himself a unifier and has vowed to unite his party.

Hmmm. We’re all still waiting for that to occur.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-refuses-to-endorse-paul-ryan-in-gop-primary-im-just-not-quite-there-yet/2016/08/02/1449f028-58e9-11e6-831d-0324760ca856_story.html?hpid=hp_no-name_no-name%3Apage%2Fbreaking-news-bar&tid=a_breakingnews

Ryan and McCain, most interestingly, have endorsed Trump, even though they have disagreed with some statements he has made, most recently his comments that were critical of Khzir and Ghazala Khan, whose son Humayun, was killed in Iraq in 2004.

Indeed, President Obama has waded into the GOP feud by wondering out loud why party leaders haven’t rescinded their endorsement of Trump over the hideous statements he has made.

Party unity? A cohesive voice? A more “presidential-sounding” candidate carrying the Republican Party banner?

None of the above is nowhere in sight.

military news, national news, political news

‘Unfit to serve as president’

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The headline atop this blog comes from the mouth of the president of the United States.

Barack Obama said that about Republican presidential nominee Donald J. Trump.

That an incumbent president would say such a thing about a candidate who wants to succeed him is astonishing on its face. Here’s the thing, though. The president is correct.

http://www.politico.com/story/2016/08/obama-trump-226564

Obama took the question today at a press conference with the Singapore president. Is Trump fit to be president? The president said the GOP nominee is “wholly unprepared” to occupy the most powerful office in the world.

But then the president got to the crux of his remarks in response to the question. When will the Republican political leadership decide it has had “enough” of Trump? he asked.

OK, it’s more or less a rhetorical question. It appears that folks such as House Speaker Paul Ryan, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and other congressional leaders have no intention — at least not yet — of taking back their endorsements.

Ryan in particular has spoken strongly against certain statements and policy positions that Trump has posited. He’s called the GOP presidential nominee’s proposal to ban Muslim immigrants a “racist” policy. He keeps insisting that he has significant policy differences with Trump.

Yet he endorses his candidacy?

Now we have the latest, the building feud between Trump and the Gold Star parents of a young Army captain who died in combat in 2004. The captain and his parents are Muslims. The parents have spoken out against Trump’s candidacy. Trump’s response to the parents’ criticism has been condemned from all corners, including from some Republicans.

That is the latest basis for President Obama’s assertion that Trump is unfit and “wholly unprepared” to become president of the United States.

When, indeed, will the leadership of the political party he is leading into political battle going to say “enough is enough”?

military news, national news, political news

U.S. citizens have every right to speak out

bush and trump

Donald J. Trump needs to take a lesson from the latest Republican president, George W. Bush.

He needs one. He won’t do so. This is a fellow who’s never sought forgiveness. Isn’t that what he’s told us?

The GOP’s current presidential nominee has said that the parents of U.S. Army Capt. Humayun Khan have “no right” to speak out against his candidacy for the presidency. The Khans stood before the Democratic National Convention, where Khzir Khan gave an impassioned speech against Trump’s candidacy.

They are Gold Star parents. They are U.S. citizens. They are Muslims. Their son died in Iraq in 2004 while protecting his men from enemy fire.

Flash back to when President Bush was in office.

Cindy Sheehan is another Gold Star mother who protested outside the president’s Central Texas ranch for nearly 30 days while the president was taking some time away from the Oval Office. Her son died in Iraq. Sheehan protested the president’s war policy. She accused the president of lying the nation into war.

What was President Bush’s response? He said he “sympathizes” with Cindy Sheehan. He also said that she has every right to speak out. “This is America,” he said, noting that citizens are guaranteed the right to speak against the government.

Trump said a Gold Star family has “no right” to speak out against him. Bush said another Gold Star family enjoys the rights of citizenship to protest his policies against the war.

Which one of them has responded appropriately?

Let’s see. I believe I’ll go with George W. Bush.

The longer Trump continues his beef with the Kzhir and Ghazala Khan, the longer the backlash will continue … and build.

And the longer he will continue to disgrace himself.

national news, political news

Polls go up, they’re good; they go down, they’re ‘rigged’

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Donald J. Trump has made quite a show of trumpeting his “great” poll numbers while rolling to the Republican Party presidential nomination.

Indeed, the real estate mogul’s main selling point for months has been those polls. They’re up, therefore they’re legit.

But wait! The polls lately are trending in another direction.

Hillary Rodham Clinton has retaken the lead over Trump in their campaign for the presidency. The Democratic nominee has gotten an expected “bounce” from her highly successful convention.

Trump’s view of polls now?

They’re “rigged,” he says. He doesn’t believe them. CNN and some other media organizations are cooking the numbers to show Clinton with a phony lead, Trump says.

OK, then.

Let’s just shield Trump from all the bad news that inevitably will come his way, just as it flows toward Clinton when things don’t always go in the direction she prefers.

As for his fixation only with positive poll numbers and his outright rejection of those surveys that show him down against his opponent, I have just a simple piece of advice.

Suck it up, soldier! The only “poll” that counts is the one on Election Day. Then again, my gut tells me the GOP nominee is going to get another dose of very bad news when that day arrives.

national news, political news

Nobility of politics facing serious challenge

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I’ve long believed in the nobility of politics and public service.

Yes, they’re related. To attain one measure of public service, one must endure the political rough-and-tumble.

My very first political “hero,” Sen. Robert F. Kennedy, would talk occasionally about politics as being a noble pursuit. RFK imbued in me an interest in the political process just about the time I was coming of age. Then, in a tragic spasm of violence in that Los Angeles hotel kitchen after RFK won the most important political victory of his career, he was gone.

My love of politics remained.

This election season, I fear, is going to put my political affection to a severe challenge. I’ve noted already in a tweet that this election cycle just might “cure” me of my political addiction … political junkie that I am.

I don’t want to be cured. I want to remain engaged in the political process. I mean, heck man, I studied political science in college and came away from my post-secondary education with a keen interest in the process that elects people who purport to become our leaders.

What can we expect from the next presidential election campaign?

I fear it will be little of anything truly positive.

Already I’ve noted that this election cycle is presenting me with the unhappiest set of choices I can remember. I’ve been able to vote in every presidential election since 1972. I voted with great pride in that election, just a couple of years after being discharged from the U.S. Army.

I was full — if you’ll pardon the pithy language — of piss and vinegar … and I wanted the political process to be full of it, too.

I’m feeling quite a bit different this time around.

The two candidates for the highest office in the land don’t fill me with much joy. In fact, one of them — you know the fellow to whom I refer — fills me with dread. The other one? Well, she still has to prove herself.

I’m waiting to be won over yet again. I fear, though, that the Campaign 2016 misery index is going to send us all scampering to the tall grass.

Yes, I’m a political addict.

I hate the idea, though, of being “cured” of the addiction.

military news, national news, political news, State news

Gov. Abbott weighs in on Khan kerfuffle

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Now it’s Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s turn to speak out against remarks aimed at the parents of a slain U.S. Army hero.

Abbott, the state’s Republican chief executive who’s now backing GOP presidential nominee Donald J. Trump after backing Ted Cruz initially in the party’s presidential primary, said this, according to the Texas Tribune:

“The service and devotion of Gold Star families to America cannot be questioned,” Abbott said in a statement provided Monday to The Texas Tribune. “Captain [Humayun] Khan, like many heroes who paid the ultimate sacrifice, will be forever remembered for their service in protecting the freedoms we cherish in America.

https://www.texastribune.org/2016/08/01/trump-attacks-greg-abbott-muslim-soldier/

OK, governor. Good words. But like so many Republican political leaders who now are backing Trump — who’s been battling Capt. Khan’s parents, Kzhir and Ghazala Khan, over their statements against the GOP nominee — he declined to say the rest of what needed to be said.

If he would have asked me to write his statement, I would have added: “Therefore, it is disgraceful that our party’s nominee, Donald Trump, would soil Capt. Khan’s service in such a manner by criticizing his parents for exercising their constitutional rights — as U.S. citizens — to speak out in a public political forum.”

Capt. Khan, a U.S. Army officer who happened to be Muslim, died in Iraq in 2004 while protecting soldiers under his command from the enemy. His parents spoke out at the Democratic convention against Trump’s candidacy.

Trump has said Kzhir Khan had “no right” to criticize him.

Actually, as a U.S. citizen, Mr. Khan had every right.

military news, national news, political news

So many Trump insult targets … where to begin?

trump-military

Donald J. Trump’s insult-fueled rise to the Republican Party’s presidential nomination makes observers like me torn as to which one of the insults causes the most disgust.

I’ll comment today on the invective he has hurled at our military establishment.

Trump continually calls our military a “disaster.” He laments what he calls a failed foreign policy and the allegation that “we don’t win anymore.”

Two points need attention.

One of them is that Trump has no military service in his record. He doesn’t have any real understanding of military life, of military chain of command, of the stresses associated with serving during a time of war, let alone in a war zone.

To be fair, Barack Obama has no military experience, either. Nor does Hillary Rodham Clinton, the current Democratic Party presidential nominee. Then again, they have nothing but high praise for the men and women who serve in our military.

That this kind of criticism would fly out of the mouth of someone who sought multiple deferments during the Vietnam War disgusts me in the extreme.

The second point of contention is that I have several members of my family  who’ve served in the military during the past two decades. A young cousin served in the Navy; another first cousin of mine is currently serving in the Army — and has gone through several deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan; a young nephew of mine saw heavy combat during one of his two tours in Iraq while he served with an Army armored unit that breached the Iraqi frontier at the beginning of the Iraq War in March 2003; and another nephew is currently serving in the U.S. Air Force.

They all have served — right along with their fellow servicemen and women — with honor.

I resent highly any inference from a presidential candidate that their service has been a “disaster.”

And yet this clown’s insults fly over the heads of supporters who hear him utter them, and which — in my view — defame the very men and women he seeks to lead as their commander in chief.

Go figure.