Tag Archives: Hillary Clinton

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Getting ready for a pile of negativity

Clinton-and-Trump

I am steeling myself for what I know is coming.

The election of the next president of the United States is going to be an ugly, nasty affair.

It’s a function, I suppose, of anger among the electorate. I am having difficulty processing the reasons why folks are so angry.

My larger sense, though, is that the negativity will be fueled by quality of the two major-party nominees.

Republican Donald J. Trump will be nominated first. This coming week in Cleveland, delegates will gather to send this fellow off to do battle with the Democratic nominee.

Hillary Rodham Clinton will receive the Democrats’ nomination.

Both of these individuals will pack a large load of negative baggage onto the campaign trail. Trump’s unfavorable rating is the 70 percent range; Clinton’s is in the high 50s, low 60s.

So, with little to commend these folks’ positive attributes, they and their campaigns are likely to resort to extreme negativity to tell us all why the other candidate is so repugnant.

I came of age in the late 1960s. I remember a time when the nation was torn to shreds by political unrest. The Vietnam War was going badly. My first political hero, Robert F. Kennedy, was gunned down while he campaigned for the presidency … two months after an assassin killed Martin Luther King Jr. The year was 1968 and it will go down as the most tumultuous year of the final half of the 20th century.

RFK used to consider politics to be a “noble profession” and I bought into it. My belief in its nobility, though, has taken plenty of hits over the years. Money has corrupted the system. We keep seeing the same faces and hearing the same voices every four years.

And that brings us to this campaign.

Are the major-party candidates driven by their grand vision? Will they offer us chapter-and-verse dissertations on why they represent the very best of Americans?

I am not holding my breath.

If my fears prove to be true — that Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton will drive voters to stay home rather than having their voices heard at the ballot box — then we can lay a good chunk of the blame at the negativity we will have heard.

Let’s all get ready for what we know is coming.

national news, political news

Mike Pence: ‘attack dog’

pence

Commentators all over the country are saying essentially the same thing about Mike Pence, the Republican vice-presidential nominee-to-be.

He will assume the role of presidential nominee Donald J. Trump’s “attack dog.”

That has me scratching my noggin.

Does that mean Trump actually needs someone now to take the fight to Hillary Rodham Clinton and the Democrats? Hasn’t the GOP candidate done a good job of that already, all by himself?

http://www.politico.com/story/2016/07/mike-pence-radio-show-225661

Pence said all the right things this morning when Trump trotted him out and introduced him as his running mate. He cited two reasons for accepting this challenge, the second of which was that Hillary Rodham Clinton shouldn’t ever become president of the United States. With that he received the biggest applause he would get from the crowd assembled inside the meeting room.

Pence will be an attack dog, but my strong hunch is that his attacks are going to look mighty tame compared to what Trump has launched already throughout this campaign.

Look what Trump did to every one of his Republican rivals? He was able to hang labels on several of them. He pilloried some of them with insults. For good measure, he tossed out some innuendo — such as when he implied that Sen. Ted Cruz’s father might have been complicit in President Kennedy’s murder.

Did it bother his ardent fans? Oh, no. It endeared him to them.

Gov. Mike Pence’s attack dog role will represent a “doubling down” of a strategy that Donald Trump has employed already with astonishing success.

national news, political news

Trump talks about ‘Trump’ while introducing Gov. Pence

pence-and-trump1

I watched Donald J. Trump make his big announcement this morning.

He stood before a row of Old Glories to introduce Indiana Gov. Mike Pence as his Republican Party vice-presidential running mate.

I sat there, in front of my TV. I waited. And waited. And waited some more. I waited for Trump to stop talking about himself — often in the third person — and waited for him to say something good about the guy with whom he’ll run for the White House.

The presumptive GOP nominee prattled on and on for nearly 30 minutes, boasting about his primary victory over a huge field of candidates.

He railed against Democratic nominee Hillary Rodham Clinton. He talked about how free trade is bad for America, about how NAFTA has siphoned jobs from the United States to Mexico.

Then he got around to introducing Pence, who then delivered a fairly straightforward pasting of Clinton and the Democrats. He also said a few nice words about Trump, who he called a “good man.”

Pence, by the way, voted in favor of NAFTA and CAFTA while he served in the House of Representatives. The two candidates are going to have to come to an understanding on trade policy, yes?

Mike Pence’s big day turned out to be, oh, Donald Trump’s big day.

Is that a surprise? Heavens no!

The commentators who opined about the Pence roll-out noted something quite interesting: Sen. John McCain of Arizona spoke for 7 minutes while introducing Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin in 2008; former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney spoke for about 10 minutes before unveiling Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin in 2012.

McCain and Romney spent their entire time talking about their running mates. That moment was about them, not the men at the top of their tickets.

Trump didn’t do it that way.

Naturally!

International news, national news, political news

Trump, Pence ignore a key element in ISIS’s creation

pence trump

Did I hear this correctly?

That Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama are responsible for the horror that the Islamic State is bringing to the world? Did Republican presidential nominee Donald J. Trump assert such a thing today? And did I hear his vice-presidential running mate, Mike Pence, echo such rubbish?

I believe that’s the case.

So, I think it’s time to set the record straight. Wish me luck.

http://www.politico.com/story/2016/07/trump-pence-vp-225652

The responsibility for ISIS belongs primarily with former President George W. Bush, who in March 2003 decided to topple Saddam Hussein’s government in Iraq. We invaded Iraq with phony “evidence” that Saddam possessed weapons of mass destruction. We got him and his Sunni government tossed out.

Oh, and what happened then?

A whole lot of Sunni Muslims became angry with our invasion and decided to strike back at the Iraqi government.

The Islamic State then came into being.

For Trump and Pence and other vocal critics of President Obama and Hillary Clinton to suggest that their policies have given rise to ISIS is a malicious lie.

The president inherited the troubles brought about by the Iraq War. They didn’t create them.

What can we expect, though. A presidential campaign is going to produce vastly overheated rhetoric from both sides.

Trump, with his penchant for attaching epithets such as “Lyin’ Ted” on his foes, is sure to hurl far more than his fair share of lies at Hillary Clinton.

He and his running mate did so again today.

national news, political news

Big week looms for Republican Party

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BN-NZ909_noonan_partyoftrump_20160512180839

I’m not yet sure how much of the Republican National Convention I’m going to watch.

Keynote speech? Sure. Except I don’t know who’s giving it.

Presidential nominee acceptance speech? Absolutely, if only to see if Donald J. Trump veers too wildly off script.

This I do know: The Party of Lincoln/Reagan is going to become the Party of Trump.

God help ’em.

I’m still trying to figure out how the Republican Party establishment plans to speak glowingly of the man they’re about to nominate for the presidency of the United States. He has spent the bulk of the primary season hurling insults in every direction, including at the Republican Party brass! Political memories often become surprisingly short, but they also have this way of retaining insults for an amazingly long time.

Which leads me to believe that the establishment types are going to have little time on the podium during the four-day event in Cleveland.

It’ll be left to the assorted celebrities who’ve lined up behind Trump’s insurgent candidacy. He’s been crowing all along how he doesn’t “need” the power brokers who run the GOP. We’re about to learn whether his boasting will come true.

Just suppose, too, that absent any public service record that the Trumpkins can tout, what will be left for them to say from the convention podium.

Oh! I think I know. They’re going to unsheathe the long knives and plunge them into the Democratic nominee, Hillary Rodham Clinton.

She will be portrayed as the daughter of Satan. They’re plan — in the words of the late GOP chairman Lee Atwater — “peel the bark” off the Democrats’ presidential candidate.

Yes, indeed. Given that the Republicans are going first in this year’s political nominating convention cycle, they’ll get to set the tone for the campaign for the White House.

Rest assured, Democrats have their own burdens to bear with Clinton. So, they’ll be loaded to the teeth when they convene their convention in Philadelphia right after the Republicans adjourn their convention in Cleveland.

Get ready, folks, for a heck of a wild ride beginning next week.

national news, political news

VP picks don’t matter … really

here-are-the-top-vice-president-picks-for-donald-trump-and-hillary-clinton_1

Donald J. Trump is getting set to have the most important day of his presidential campaign.

He’s going to announce his selection as a vice-presidential running mate.

No need for a show of hands — if you get my drift. But does anyone out there in Blog World really think Trump’s selection is going to matter, that it’s going to sway anyone’s vote, that it’s going to be determinative of this election?

For that matter, do you think Hillary Rodham Clinton’s choice is going to matter, either?

The only way these picks might determine anything is if they select absolute dogs, losers, Fruit Loops. I don’t expect that to happen Friday or a week from Friday.

Recent political history is full of questionable VP picks. Richard Nixon selected Spiro Agnew in 1968; the Republicans won a squeaker that year and rolled to a historic landslide four years later. George H.W. Bush picked Dan Quayle in 1988 and then piled up a huge victory.

I guess you could make the case that John McCain’s hail-Mary selection of Sarah Palin in 2008 might have turned off some voters, but I believe McCain would have lost anyway.

One of the more interesting selections — to my way of thinking — was Lloyd Bentsen, the Texan who ran with presidential nominee Michael Dukakis in 1988. More than a few Democrats were grousing that year that Bentsen and Dukakis should have traded positions on the ticket.

But this year’s focus has been solely — and not entirely in a flattering way — focused on Republican Trump and Democrat Clinton.

These are two of the most polarizing figures ever to be nominated by the major parties. So, whoever they select will be relegated to the shadows.

I agree, though, that Trump’s selection is drawing the most attention, mostly because the pool of potential GOP stars is so shallow. The word is that he’s leaning toward former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, Indiana Gov. Mike Pence and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie.

However, given Trump’s mercurial behavior, there’s a part of me that wonders if he’s going to stun us all with someone no one ever saw coming.

Sure, we’ll then chatter about it for a time.

Then it’ll be Trump being Trump … and the insults will fly.

national news, political news

Litmus test for VP hopefuls? You bet

The-Litmus-Test-ICON-v3

Politicians all sing in unison when the question involves “litmus tests.”

They “never” apply such tests, politicians say. They don’t “believe in litmus tests.”

They all are lying.

I mention litmus tests because both major-party presidential nominees-to-be are about to select their vice-presidential running mates. Should Republican Donald J. Trump and Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton require their VP picks to pass these litmus tests?

Sure they should.

In reality, though, there really is just one question that presidential nominees should always ask their VP choices: Are you ready to become president in the event something happens to me?

Trump is now apparently ready to choose between former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and Indiana Gov. Mike Pence. Both of those fellows no doubt would answer “yes” to the Big Question. The task for the campaign, though, is to persuade a majority of voters that they would be able to step into the job on a moment’s notice.

Clinton is facing a similar decision. Her field of hopefuls is much deeper than Trump’s. Sen. Tim Kaine of Virginia? Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts? Hey, how about the guy who’s got the job now, Joe Biden? All of them surely would answer “yes” to the litmus test question.

Another possible Clinton choice has been rumored to be Julian Castro, the current housing secretary and former mayor of San Antonio. He’d answer “yes,” too, but some of us wonder whether he truly would be able to step into the box.

But when presidents are looking for people to fill key positions, you can damn sure bet that they have a set of policies and principles they demand of those they are considering.

Does that constitute a litmus test? Of course it does.

Consider the test that Ronald Reagan put his VP hopefuls through in 1980. Were they pro-life or pro-choice on abortion? That appeared to be a major question the hopefuls needed to answer correctly. Reagan settled on George H.W. Bush who, during his time in Congress, had been nicknamed “Rubbers” because of his strong voting record in support of organizations such as Planned Parenthood. Bush became an ardent pro-life candidate the instant he said “yes” to the Gipper.

Do you think Ronald Reagan had a “litmus test” that Bush had to pass? Absolutely!

So it will be this time around, just as it always has been.

If politicians say they don’t have “litmus tests,” they’re lying.

political news

Get ready for record low turnout … possibly

jeb-bush-donkey-hotey

John Ellis Bush likely spoke for a lot of Americans over the weekend.

He doesn’t like Donald J. Trump and he won’t vote for him for president. Nor does he trust Hillary Rodham Clinton, so she won’t get his vote, either.

Bush — aka “Jeb” — is quite likely going to leave the top of his ballot blank when the time comes for him to vote.

He said it “breaks my heart” that he cannot support the Republican Party nominee, Trump. But he and the presumptive GOP nominee have some history that Bush cannot set aside.

Bush told MSBNC’s Nicolle Wallace — a former communications director for President George W.  Bush — that Trump has conducted what amounts to a successful mutiny of the Republican Party. He praises the real estate mogul/TV celebrity for winning the party nomination fair and square. Trump, though, did it by tapping into a voter sentiment that none of the other GOP candidates — including Jeb Bush — could locate.

This makes me think my earlier prediction of a potentially record-low-turnout election might not be too far off the mark.

The current record belongs to the 1996 contest that saw President Bill Clinton re-elected over Bob Dole and Ross Perot with just a 49 percent turnout of eligible voters.

Now we have polling data that tell us Hillary Clinton and Trump are profoundly disliked by most voters. FBI Director James Comey’s stunning critique of Clinton’s handling of classified information on her personal e-mail server has only heightened voters’ mistrust of her … and to think that the director then said he wouldn’t recommend criminal charges be brought against her!

As for Trump, well, I won’t weigh in here. You know how much I despise that guy.

Jeb Bush won’t attend the GOP convention. Neither will his brother and father — two former presidents. Nor will Mitt Romney or John McCain, the party’s two most recent presidential nominee.

Oh, and the governor of the state where the convention will take place? Ohio Gov. John Kasich, another former Republican presidential candidate, won’t darken the door at the Cleveland arena where delegates are going to nominate Donald Trump.

Let’s face the daunting reality that a lot of Americans just might follow Jeb’s lead and stay home.

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Yes, Justice Ginsburg crossed that ‘line’

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ginsburg

When judges get appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court, they usually follow a set of certain practices.

One of them is to keep their partisan political views to themselves.

Sure, their judicial philosophy often reveals their political leanings, but that’s for others to assume.

With that said, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg has crossed a line separating the judicial branch from the rest of the federal government structure.

She said the following: “I can’t imagine what this place would be — I can’t imagine what the country would be — with Donald Trump as our president,” Ginsburg told the New York Times’s Adam Liptak. “For the country, it could be four years. For the court, it could be — I don’t even want to contemplate that.”

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/in-bashing-donald-trump-some-say-ruth-bader-ginsburg-just-crossed-a-very-important-line/ar-BBucVZt?li=BBmkt5R&ocid=spartandhp

Ginsburg’s reference is to presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald J. Trump.

Very bad call, Mme. Justice.

It’s OK for justices to think certain things about politicians. It’s quite inappropriate for them to say it out loud. Judicial decorum dictates that they stay above the political fray. These individuals aren’t politicians. Presidents nominate them and the Senate confirms them on the basis of how they determine the constitutionality of federal law.

Justice Ginsburg, selected for the high court in 1993 by President Bill Clinton, would seem to have an axe to grind given her statements criticizing Trump’s candidacy. Trump, after all, is running against the wife of the man who selected her to the Supreme Court.

Don’t misunderstand me on this point: I have trouble contemplating a Trump presidency, too.

I, though, am not a member of the highest court in the nation. I can say these things out loud. Justice Ginsburg needed to keep her mouth shut.

national news, political news

Partisan political debate will wait just a bit longer

dallas tribute

I don’t know about you, but I’m still trying to process the gravity of the events that took place last week.

Which means that I’m not yet ready to rejoin the political debate.

The “Main Event,” if you want to call it that, was the shooting in Dallas that killed five police officers, stunned a great American city and the nation and has — for the most part — brought many Americans together in the search for national healing.

The gunman is dead as the result of a totally justifiable use of force by the Dallas Police Department. Demonstrators in two other cities — where two young black men died in police-related shootings — have continued to march.

They’re all connected.

In precisely one week, Republicans will gather in Cleveland to nominate their presidential candidate. It’s likely going to be Donald J. Trump. I’ll have plenty to say about him and about his certain Democratic Party foe, Hillary Rodham Clinton.

But as this week begins, I intend to focus instead on the interfaith memorial service set for Tuesday in Dallas. There will be some luminaries present to pay tribute to the fallen men.

President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden are two of them. A third one is former President George W. Bush.

I haven’t heard as of this very moment whether either Clinton or Trump will attend. Wouldn’t it be a remarkable sight to see the two nominees sitting side by side, heads bowed in prayer, perhaps holding hands in the spirit of unity?

I won’t hold my breath waiting for that to happen.

We’ll get the political stuff fired up in due course.

For now, though, let’s simply honor the men who died while upholding their solemn oath to protect and serve their community.