Tag Archives: Donald Trump

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The impossible has happened … now what?

LAS VEGAS, NV - APRIL 28: Chairman and President of the Trump Organization Donald Trump yells 'you're fired' after speaking to several GOP women's group at the Treasure Island Hotel & Casino April 28, 2011 in Las Vegas, Nevada. Trump has been testing the waters with stops across the nation in recent weeks and has created media waves by questioning whether President Barack Obama was born in the United States. (Photo by David Becker/Getty Images)

Now that the impossibly ridiculous has occurred — and Donald Trump has become the latest Republican presidential candidate — it’s perhaps time to assess briefly whether this guy actually has a shot at being elected president of the world’s greatest nation.

This picture of The Donald ought to suggest that there’s no way on God’s Green Earth that he’ll take up residence in the White House on Jan. 20, 2017.

Diplomacy? Nuance? Sensitivity? Is that the face of a man who understands any of that? Say what you will about politicians in general, but it does take some degree of finesse to navigate through tricky pathways.

The Donald doesn’t possess it. What he does possess, though, is conceit, ego, self-absorption, narcissism and self-aggrandizement.

How do those traits play? In the world of popular culture, they play well. Why do you think The Kardashians are so successful? They possess zero actual talent. But there they stand — in front of us constantly.

I put Donald Trump in that category of celebrity.

Which is why it’s treacherous to rule him out completely as a serious contender for — oh, I am loath to say this — for the presidency.

Strange things can happen in this insane world of ours.

Trump is a creature of this popular culture that places zero value on people’s compassion or their ability to actually lead.

He boasts about his fabulous wealth, not giving a damn about those who count getting through the day a major accomplishment. He bellows that “I will make America great again,” all by himself, no doubt. He puts preposterous notions into the public domain questioning whether the current president is constitutionally qualified to hold the office to which he was elected twice.

In that weird, wacky world out there, these things seem to resonate with enough people to — dare I say it? — make him a legitimate candidate for the most powerful public office in the world.

Am I predicting a Trump presidency? Not for a nano-second. But I’m telling ya, the guy’s going to make noise out there. And some folks are actually going to listen to it.

What the heck. I’ll look on the bright side. The Donald’s going to give folks like me plenty of rhetorical ammo.

I’m locked and loaded.

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So much for predicting The Donald’s future

Roll this around for a moment.

President … Trump.

Yep, Donald Trump did what I truly didn’t think he would do. He declared he is running for the Republican Party’s presidential nomination in 2016.

On the one hand, the idea of a President Trump could render me catatonic if I were to give it too much thought. On the other hand, the idea of The Donald having to answer questions about public policy, diplomacy, the nuance of governing and balancing the powers of government makes me shiver with anticipation.

Trump declares White House bid

“I want to make America great again,” he declared today. America’s not great now? We’re not the world’s pre-eminent military power? We’re not leading the fight against international terrorists? We haven’t recovered from the Great Recession of 2008-09?

The Donald doesn’t think so, I guess.

The GOP field is full of serious individuals. One of them, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, joined the field Monday, bringing the total number of GOP candidates to 11; the Democratic field has four of candidates.

Donald Trump is not a serious candidate for the presidency of the United States.

But you know? Given the guy’s celebrity status and the infatuation of such status fostered by today’s pop culture, well, almost anything can happen.

I fear that anything just might occur.

 

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Trump won’t join GOP field

I’m going out on a limb with this one.

But here goes: The Donald — aka Donald Trump — is not going to announce this morning he is running for the Republican presidential nomination.

His “big announcement” might come in the next few minutes, so I have to hurry.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/trump-set-to-announce-2016-plans/ar-BBlcMsR

He’s going to reveal his wealth. He’ll tell us that he wants to keep making zillions of dollars and he cannot do so if he’s taking the measly 400 grand he would earn annually as president of the United States. Then again, if he doesn’t need the money, he can give it to charity.

I just cannot fathom this guy subjecting himself to the scrutiny he would get — not just from the media, but from the other more serious candidates running for the GOP nomination.

I now will hold my breath.

national news, political news

The Donald calls this man a ‘clown’?

Words fail me.

Donald Trump has called out one of the smartest commentators/pundits on television, calling him a “clown.”

Dr. Charles Krauthammer was the target of The Donald’s vitriol. Why? Because the commentator had the bad taste to point out that Trump’s poll standing is in the toilet (although he didn’t use that term; it’s mine).

Trump hits back at ‘dummy’ Fox News pundit

Trump called Krauthammer a “dummy” and maybe a few other unprintable words as well.

The Donald is talking about running for the Republican presidential nomination next year. I don’t think he’s seriously considering such a thing.

Krauthammer is one of Fox News’s go-to guys on the political commentary desk. Do I agree with Krauthammer? Hardly ever. But, man, the guy’s smart.

I should remind you here that Krauthammer once was a medical doctor. He worked as a psychiatrist. I don’t believe “clowns” and “dummies” get medical degrees from reputable universities, as Dr. Krauthammer did.

The real clown here is Donald Trump, a self-absorbed egomaniac with absolutely no sense of self-awareness.

He’s a smart businessman — I reckon. But business smarts do not translate to political smarts — which The Donald demonstrates every time he opens his trap.

 

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Feeling badly about scolding Obama

Let’s assume for a moment that my prediction that Donald Trump won’t run for president next year turns out to be wrong.

If he does declare his candidacy, I might be forced to eat some crow regarding my recent scolding of President Obama for using the first-person singular pronoun too liberally while accepting credit for the good things he’s done as president.

Barack Obama is a piker compared to The Donald.

Trump told the Des Moines Register that he’s the “most successful candidate ever to run” for president. He declared “the American dream is dead,” and then said he’d bring it back all my himself. He said he’d wipe out the Islamic State quickly and its elimination would be a “beautiful thing.”

Sheesh!

Can this guy really and truly be serious? Is he really, honestly going to run for president and use his immense personal wealth as a reason to elect him?

Mr. President, I don’t want to take back what I said, but I will if Donald Trump declares his intention to succeed you in the White House.

My head is about to explode.

 

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Why the fixation with The Donald?

Why, media? Why?

Why do you — and I guess, me — keep writing about Donald Trump in the context of a presidential campaign?

The Donald isn’t going to run for president of the United States. Not this time, not ever.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/05/21/megyn-kelly-donald-trump_n_7350412.html?ncid=edlinkushpmg00000078&utm_source=thinkprogress.org&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=pubexchange_facebook

How do I know this? Well, I don’t know it. I just feel it in my bones.

The man’s got that TV show that earns him lots of money. That’s what he appears to be about, anyhow. Money. He boasts about how much of it he has. He’s not shy about flaunting his wealth. For the life of me I don’t understand why some people don’t take extreme offense at his self-aggrandizing.

But he does.

He’s made a complete ass of himself during the entire Obama presidency questioning whether the president is constitutionally eligible to hold the office to which he was elected and re-elected. He continues to act the part of buffoon and clown.

But now he’s saying he’s going to announce his candidacy sometime in June? That’s what he told Megyn Kelly.

I will not hold my breath waiting for that announcement.

It’s not going to come.

Then again, if it does … well, the fun will really begin as the Republicans start searching for their 2016 presidential nominee.

 

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Birthers beware: Obama going to Kenya

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This story is utterly hilarious and I cannot wait for President Obama to jaunt down the steps of Air Force One in Nairobi, the capital city of Kenya, of all places.

The president is visiting the African country and is likely to stick straight in the eyes — and ears — of the so-called “birthers” who keep yapping that he wasn’t born in the United States and that he is somehow not qualified to be president.

To which I say: So bleeping what?

http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/237384-former-nh-gov-obama-is-inciting-birthers-with-kenya-trip

Former New Hampshire Gov. John Sununu, a player in the Republican Party hierarchy, thinks the president’s trip is going to energize the birthers. These are the clowns, such as Donald Trump, U.S. Rep. Louie Gohmert of Texas and perhaps a majority of the Texas Legislature for all I know, who keep implying that if Obama was born in Africa that he’s somehow disqualified from holding the office to which he was elected twice.

I have a two-word response: Ted Cruz.

The junior senator from Texas and GOP presidential candidate was in fact born in Canada. His mother is American, his father is Cuban. He’s been declared a U.S. citizen by every constitutional scholar under the sun. President Obama’s mother was American, his father was Kenyan. However, Barack Obama was born in Hawaii — but that hasn’t stopped the crackpot wing of the Republican Party from continuing to raise this birth issue whenever the opportunity presents itself.

Gov. Sununu thinks it well might rise again when the president jets off to Kenya later this year. “I think his trip back to Kenya is going to create a lot of chatter and commentary amongst some of the hard right who still don’t see him as having been born in the U.S.,” he said on Fox News’s “America’s Newsroom.”

The place of his birth doesn’t matter. He was born in Hawaii, U.S.A. Even if he wasn’t born in one of our 50 states, his mother’s citizenship makes this entire chatter moot.

The president’s upcoming Kenya trip only illustrates one thing: He’s got his mojo back.

Enjoy yourself, Mr. President.

 

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The Donald remakes birther argument

Donald Trump is at it again.

The hotel/casino mogul who keeps insisting that Barack Obama is not qualified to hold the office of the presidency now suggests that Ted Cruz is ineligible to become president.

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/donald-trump-ted-cruz-birther-233710183.html

Trump keeps yammering that Obama was born abroad, even though it is has been known for decades he was born in Hawaii. Actually, The Donald is misinterpreting the U.S. Constitution with the birther argument against Obama.

He’s also now doing the same thing with Ted Cruz, the Republican U.S. senator from Texas who today announced his campaign for the presidency.

Cruz was born in Canada. His mother is American; his father is Cuban. Cruz’s U.S. citizenship was established the moment he was born because of Mom’s U.S. citizenship.

End of argument.

Not so, with The Donald, who’s considering a run for the GOP presidential nomination himself.

The Donald does not know of which he speaks when he yammers about constitutional qualifications relating to President Obama and Sen. Cruz.

That won’t shut him up. Too bad for that.

 

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Circus act convenes in Iowa

Call him the ringmaster. That would be Congressman Steve King of Iowa, the Republicans’ leading critic of immigration reform and the individual hosting something called the Iowa Freedom Summit.

It should be a showcase for what’s left of the Republican Party’s intellectual heft. There’s still plenty left, but the party’s center-stage attention has been hijacked by some seriously radical individuals — such as Rep. King.

http://www.politico.com/story/2015/01/steve-king-iowa-summit-immigration-dreamers-114552.html?hp=c4_3

Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin is there, along with Donald Trump, former Texas Gov. Rick Perry, U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, ex-Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, Dr. Ben Carson and Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker. But … all is not lost here. New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie also is there and I count Christie among the grownups of the party, a guy prone to actually thinking rationally and reasonably.

He’s no doubt going to trot out his conservative credentials to the summit attendees because, well, he’s thinking of running for president next year and the starting point in the campaign is in Iowa, where those GOP caucuses are dominated by the evangelical Christian wing of the party.

The news out of the Iowa event has been twofold: Palin and Trump both have expressed “serious” interest in running for the White House in 2016. Seriously. They’re thinking about it.

Look, the more the merrier. That’s how I see it. Neither of them is a legitimate contender for the presidency of the world’s greatest nation. By my count, I see maybe two individuals at this summit who should be taken seriously: the aforementioned Christie and Scott Walker.

The other serious candidates-in-waiting — Mitt Romney, Jeb Bush, Marco Rubio and Rand Paul — aren’t there. Why? Because they’ve all staked out moderate positions here and there that just don’t comport with the far right wing of the party.

The ringmaster, King, is playing this event beautifully — I will acknowledge. He’s getting a lot of attention and, by golly, he’s getting that GOP base all fired up.

Let the fun continue.

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Go, Louie, go for the speaker's job!

This might be the best news yet of the new year — which, I know, is just four days old.

U.S. Rep. Louie Gohmert, R-TEA Party Fringe, has just announced he’s going to challenge John Boehner as speaker of the House of Representatives.

How does it get any better than that?

Gohmert, you see, is in the running as well for being the goofiest member of Congress. He’s got some competition for that honor. The previous frontrunner was fellow Texan Steve Stockman, who had the bad form to challenge Sen. John Cornyn in the GOP primary this past spring; he lost badly. He’s now out of the House. Right up there, too, is Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa, who said illegal immigrants are packing illegal drug across the border while running on “calves the size of cantaloupes.”

Gohmert hails from East Texas and he’s challenging fellow Republican Donald Trump for the unofficial title of “birther in chief.” He and The Donald just do not believe that President Obama was born in the United States of America, in Hawaii, and that — by golly — he’s constitutionally qualified to serve in the office to which he was elected twice.

Now he’s running for speaker. He told his pal Tucker Carlson on Fox News that someone needs to challenge Boehner. Gohmert says he’s gotten “a lot” of support to mount that challenge.

I’d love to ask him how he defines the measure of so-called support. Maybe it is a lot. It surely must be vocal because that’s how the TEA party wing of the GOP operates. It outshouts the other side within the Republican Party and then it outshouts the Democrats.

Hey, the truth is he’s just firing a shot across Boehner’s bow. He’s telling the speaker to watch his right flank. The TEA party will be watching, waiting and looking for any opportunity to undermine the speaker’s instincts to work with the other side.

I’m still glad to see Rep. Gohmert step up — even if it does embarrass some Texas residents back home who really would prefer that he shut his trap.