Tag Archives: Donald Trump

political news

Trump once praised ‘universal health care,’ too

Here’s a quick addendum to an earlier blog post.

I mentioned how Donald Trump had flipped-flopped on a number of positions.

I forgot to mention his views on universal health care.

‘Meet the Press’ tracks Trump’s flip-flops

He used to favor universal health care; now he opposes it, particularly in the form of the Affordable Care Act, aka Obamacare.

I get that pols occasionally change their minds. President Obama used to oppose gay marriage; he now supports it. Secretary of State John Kerry voted for authorization to go to war in Iraq before he opposed it.

But check out the link from today’s “Meet the Press” segment attached to this post about The Donald.

Pretty amazing … in my oh-so-humble view.

political news

Trump: flip-flopper extraordinaire

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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)

Donald Trump’s true identity might be a little harder to determine than we thought.

“Meet the Press” today took note of some important changes in Trump’s political evolution.

* He used to be “pro-choice” on abortion. He said in 1999 that he detested abortion, but insisted that obtaining one should be the woman’s prerogative. Today? “I’m pro-life,” he says.

* Trump once said that he admires and likes Hillary Rodham Clinton; he also expressed affection for her husband, former President Bill Clinton. He now calls her the “worst secretary of state in the nation’s history.” He probably speaks differently of the former president as well.

* The Donald once said that Barack Obama was a man of considerable accomplishment. These days he says the president is feckless and has been a disaster.

Those are just three examples.

The Republican Party presidential candidate needs to explain himself. Trust me on this: His Republican opponents are going to be ready to pounce. If hell freezes over and he gets the GOP nomination next summer, well, just wait until the Democrats get him in their sights.

national news, political news

Goldberg gets it about The Donald

Donald Trump is taking fire not just from liberals but from conservatives.

Amazing, if you ask me.

OK, you didn’t ask, but I’ll offer my opinion anyway.

The latest broadside comes from Jonah Goldberg, who I consider to be one of the better, smarter conservative pundits around. I always enjoy reading his world view, even though I generally disagree with it.

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/421045/donald-trump-fraud

But where it regards The Donald, well, young Jonah is on point. You need to read his essay here. If you’re in the right frame of mind, as I happened to be when I read, you’ll laugh out loud. No kidding!

Here’s a tiny bit of what he wrote:

“… what I find so gaudy about Trump is his constant reference to the fact that he made a lot of money, and his expectation that it somehow makes him immune to criticism or means that he’s a better person than his GOP competitors, never mind yours truly.”

I’ve already taken note of Trump’s continual references to how rich he is. Some of my own critics have wondered if I’m envious of his wealth. No. I’m not.

His yammering about his wealth — which some have suggested isn’t nearly as immense as he says it is — simply drives me crazy. One more tidbit from Goldberg: “He’s a bore who overcompensates for his insecurities by talking about how awesome he is, often in the third person. Jonah can’t stand that.”

And yet, in this wacky world of ours, his boastfulness is getting traction by those who think it all translates into leadership.

Another key point in Goldberg’s essay is how thin-skinned Trump is, how he bristles at criticism. Trump has fired back at his critics, such as Goldberg, which puzzles the young columnist, who wondered why someone who considers himself to be “master of the Universe” would get upset anything anyone said about him.

We’ve clearly entered a new age, or perhaps been transported without our knowledge into a parallel political universe.

The behavior that The Donald is exhibiting is precisely the kind of thing that in another time would have resulted in his being laughed off the political stage. The prancing and preening he does would be grist for ridicule from serious politicians.

These days they’re taking this guy seriously.

And with good reason. The Donald is at or near the top of every public opinion poll of Republican voters.

I believe Jonah Goldberg has a point: The Donald’s fans need an intervention.

political news

What? I’m sticking up for Ted Cruz?

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) gestures as the key speaker at the annual Reagan Republican Dinner in Des Moines, Iowa, Friday, October 25, 2013. (David Peterson/MCT via Getty Images)

I’m feeling oddly out of sorts these days.

Why? Well, I’m feeling a bit of sympathy for a patently unsympathetic politician: U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas.

Readers of this blog know that I do not intend to vote for Sen. Cruz for president of the United States. But two things have happened in recent weeks that make me want to stand with him.

http://www.politico.com/story/2015/07/ted-cruz-feud-new-york-times-119981.html?hp=t4_r

He’s now feuding with the New York Times over the paper’s refusal to include his new memoir, “A Time for Truth,” on its list of best-selling books. It’s selling like crazy, being scarfed up from book shelves by supporters who want to read the junior senator’s words of wisdom and how he intends to rescue the United States of America.

Cruz and his allies say the NYT snub is pure partisanship. The liberal publication won’t give this conservative pol the time of day, let alone list his memoir on its vaunted best-seller list.

Cruz’s feud is going win him more friends on the right. I won’t join his campaign, but it does seem a bit churlish on the Times’s part to exclude him from the best-seller list.

The second aspect involves The Donald, who’s bringing up the “birther” controversy all over again. Sen. Cruz is the target this time. Donald Trump said that because Cruz was born in Canada, he’s not qualified to serve as president. “Natural-born citizen,” in Trump’s mind, means he a candidate must be born in the U.S.; that’s how he interprets the Constitution.

Trump is wrong.

Cruz’s mother is an American citizen. That grants him U.S. citizenship by birth. Cruz could have been born on Mars — which is where I sometimes think is Trump’s place of birth — and he still would be qualified to run for and serve as president in the highly unlikely event he is elected next year.

Trump tried to pull the birther stunt on Barack Obama, even though the president actually was born in Hawaii. He’s at it once again with Cruz.

Hey, I’m just trying to be fair here. I might dislike Cruz’s philosophy and don’t want him elected president of the United States. However, I know mistreatment when I see it. Cruz is getting a bum deal from the New York Times.

As for the birther crap that comes from Donald Trump’s pie hole, well … enough said on that.

political news

The Donald presents so many avenues of disgust

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DonladTrumpHair

There’s so much to detest about Donald Trump.

I almost don’t where to begin.

His anti-immigrant rant? As the grandson of immigrants — yes, legal immigrants — I was appalled at his description of Mexicans as “rapists, drug dealers and murders,” and “oh, yes, some good ones.”

How about his birther stance? He still thinks President Obama was born in a foreign country, despite having an American mother, which qualifies him for the office he’s held for nearly two full terms. Now he’s going after Ted Cruz, who actually was born in another country, but his mother is an American as well.

I’m beginning to settle on one aspect of Trump I find most annoying. It’s his insistence that he’s “really rich.”

He brags about it. He boasts of all the money he has. He seeks to parlay that good fortune into what he’d do as president, which is create jobs. “I’m a great job creator,” he says.

http://www.politico.com/story/2015/07/dump-on-trump-119932.html?hp=lc1_4

How do you suppose his boasting about wealth is going to play to the very people he wants to win over if he is to have a prayer of being nominated by the Republican Party, let alone elected president of the United States? My guess is that it won’t play well — at all.

He’s going to brag on TV about his wealth. Imagine being a single parent, struggling to make ends meet. You’ve got several children who need food, clothing and shelter. You can barely provide any of that. And then you’re going to hear someone who wants to become your president keep bragging about his material wealth, about all those tall buildings that have his name on them, all his bling, glitter.

How does that make you feel?

I’m a middle-class guy. I’ve had a nice life. My wife and I don’t need too much to consider ourselves successful.

All that boasting makes me crazy!

He’s going after his fellow GOP candidates. They’re returning fire aggressively, as are the Democratic candidates.

I will await with great anticipation the first Republican presidential joint appearance to see how The Donald handles the blistering he’s going to get.

From now on, though, shut up with the “I’m really rich” crap, OK, Donald?

business news

Trump’s ‘brilliance’ questioned

I get a lot of Facebook posts from former U.S. Labor Secretary Robert Reich, who’s teaching these days at the University of California, but who remains dialed in to what’s happening politically.

Here is his latest rant … about The Donald.

“This morning I heard an apologist for Donald Trump say ‘at least he’s a brilliant businessman.’

“Baloney. Trump companies have filed for corporate bankruptcy four separate times. If you or I went bankrupt, all our assets would be used to repay our debts. If you’re a former student who can’t pay your student debt, or an underwater homeowner who can’t make a mortgage payment, you can’t even file for bankruptcy. But Trump has used bankruptcy and corporate laws to shield his personal fortune, allowing him to amass huge debts with little or no downside risk while enjoying all the upside gains.

“Trump also made his fortune by squeezing employees. As Bloomberg Business reports today, Trump operates one of the stingiest 401(k) plans in America. You can’t even join it until you spend a year as an employee, and Trump’s contribution doesn’t kick in for six years – the slowest vesting schedule allowed under U.S. law. Between March 2009 and June 2012, Trump suspended all contributions.

“He’s no brilliant businessman. He typifies the modern corporate CEO who’s rigged the rules, reaped giant personal rewards, and left communities and employees stranded.”

I think in Reich’s view, Donald Trump is a legend in his own mind.

Come to think of it, that’s my view as well.

political news

NBC to Trump: You’re fired

Quite obviously, Donald Trump’s announcement that he’s running for president contained some remarks that stunned a lot of folks when they heard it.

I was one of them. So were the executives at NBC Universal, which today severed its relationship with The Donald. Why? The man’s comments about immigrants were, shall we say, inflammatory in the extreme.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/nbc-fires-trump-over-insults-to-mexicans/ar-AAcirjp

This was my “favorite” part of Trump’s tirade as he declared his candidacy for the Republican presidential nomination: “They’re bringing drugs, they’re bringing crime, they’re rapists, and some I assume are good people, but I speak to border guards and they tell us what we are getting.”

“And some I assume are good people.”

There you have it. An afterthought. A token reference to those who are coming here to improve their lives.

He kept saying that Mexico is “sending” criminals to the United States. Who in Mexico is “sending” these folks?

NBC Universal said it cannot sanction Trump’s xenophobic rants.

Univision, the Spanish-language TV network, also has ended its business relationship with Trump.

The Donald’s reaction? He’s not backing down, which surprises no one.

The more he speaks, the less serious he becomes.

Keep talking, Donald.

legal news, national news, political news

Trump favors ‘traditional marriage’

The Donald opened himself up for some snickering.

I’ll admit that I snickered a bit when I heard Donald Trump declare that he favors “traditional marriage” and that he disagrees with the Supreme Court decision to legalize gay marriage.

Trump: ‘I’m for traditional marriage’

I won’t pass judgment here. Members of my family have been married more than once.

But this is the kind of thing that The Donald will face as he answers questions from the media while he campaigns for the Republican presidential nomination.

He’s on his third marriage. He’s been divorced twice. Trump’s life is now officially an open book — not that it wasn’t before he declared his presidential candidacy.

When the host of CNN’s “State of the Union,” Jake Tapper, pressed him on the traditional marriage matter and whether he was qualified to speak on it, given his own marital history, Trump talked of how his business activity got in the way of his relationships.

To his credit, Tapper told Trump he didn’t care to hear why his first two marriages failed.

When The Donald, though, steps into some of these particularly tricky issues, he’d better watch where his foot lands. There could be a political land mine or two out there.

 

political news

The Donald is now 2nd in GOP polling?

How have times changed in this country?

Consider that a three-times married (and twice divorced) real estate mogul, host of a reality TV show, self-proclaimed “very rich” guy, someone who puts his name on skyscrapers and brags about it is now the No. 2 candidate among all the Republicans running for president of the United States of America.

Trump surges to second in 2016 GOP poll

The latest Fox News poll puts Donald Trump in second place behind a more serious candidate, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush.

Roll that one around.

Donald … Trump. He’s No. 2 in a field of 13 and growing.

Oh, my.

national news, political news

Trump: grand marshal of the clown parade

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Donald Trump decided during his 45-minute presidential campaign announcement speech to trash as many groups of people and individuals as he could.

Well done, Donald.

http://www.politico.com/story/2015/06/donald-trump-mexicans-comment-119100.html?hp=rc4_4

I’ll admit that I didn’t have the stomach to sit through the entire speech, but my favorite part occurred when he dissed Mexicans.

Immigrants are coming into the country to rape, murder and steal from Americans. He said that “I’m sure good people” are coming as well, adding the “good people” reference almost as an afterthought.

He thinks conservative columnist/TV pundit Charles Krauthammer is “overrated.” He trashed all his Republican rivals as being half-hearted and afraid to speak the truth.

As this campaign unfolds, though, I’m waiting anxiously for the Birther in Chief — Trump — to raise the issue of Sen. Ted Cruz’s legitimacy as a candidate, just as continues to do with the current president, Barack Obama.

Cruz was born in Canada; his father is Cuban, his mother is American. Thus, he’s an American citizen by birth — just like President Obama, except that the president was born in one of the 50 United States of America.

Will The Donald suggest that Ted Cruz is not qualified to run for, let alone serve as president?

Gosh, I hope he does — and then reveals why he deserves to be in the lead car in the Parade of Clowns.