Tag Archives: Donald Trump

political news

TV shows provide Trump all he needs to know about ISIL

I almost forgot this one.

Here goes …

“Meet the Press” moderator Chuck Todd asked Donald Trump this past weekend how he planned to fight the Islamic State. He said he’d wipe out the bad guys. Would he deploy American troops? He said “yes,” more or less.

Then came the question: Who gives you military advice?

Trump’s answer: He watches the news talk shows and that’s where he gets the information and expertise he needs to do battle with ISIL.

Interesting, yes?

I think so. Here’s why.

Because the military experts who show up on these news talk shows cannot possibly tell the TV audience all the details involved in launching military campaigns. They might or might not have access to privileged information. You know, the classified stuff that only they can know and must be kept out of the public domain.

But that doesn’t matter to Trump.

He watches TV news talk shows.

They tell him all he needs to know.

It’s reassuring, isn’t it?

 

national news, political news

Trump continues to confound

So help me, I was certain that Donald Trump sank his presidential campaign when he made light of John McCain’s heroic service during the Vietnam War.

It didn’t happen.

I was certain that he would implode during that first Republican joint appearance with nine other “leading” GOP candidates.

That didn’t happen, either.

Then he got into that public feud with Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly over that ghastly remark he made about the source of “the blood.”

Hey, no problem.

Trump said “I’ll build a wall” to keep illegal immigrants from entering the U.S. through its southern border. Yep, he’s going to do all this all by his ownself.

I don’t pretend to be an expert on this stuff.

The latest poll numbers show that Trump is putting some distance between himself and the rest of the GOP field — which comprises some serious, intelligent and accomplished individuals.

What in the world is happening here? Have we become so celebrity conscious that we (meaning the Republican Party’s most faithful voters) place celebrity above actual knowledge of things, such as, say, the limits of the office at stake?

Trump is sounding like someone who wants to take singular control of the federal government. All those first-person singular references to all the action he intends to take suggest he doesn’t understand that the U.S. Constitution inhibits the power of the presidency.

Checks and balances, Donald?

The current president, Barack Obama, has used his own executive authority rationally and in accordance with the law … and yet we keep hearing from GOP leaders about the “lawlessness” they insist pervades the Obama administration.

Just wait’ll they see what a President Trump might try … not that it’ll matter to them.

And yet the man continues to set the pace in a field of highly qualified GOP contenders.

What in the world gives?

 

International news, national news, political news

Get Mexico to pay for a wall? How do we do that?

GRA030 MELILLA, 22/10/2014.- Agentes de Policía junto a algunos de los ochenta inmigrantes que están encaramados desde primera hora a la valla de Melilla, fronteriza con Marruecos, tras el último intento de entrar en la ciudad autonóma protagonizado por varios centenares de subsaharianos, algunos de los cuales, al menos una docena, ha conseguido superar el vallado perimetral. EFE/Francisco G. Guerrero

Donald Trump has revealed his position paper on illegal immigration.

It appeals to a lot of Americans — apparently.

He wants to build an impenetrable wall; he wants to get rid of birthright citizenship; he demands that we deport all 11 million immigrants who are here illegally.

The question remains of the leading Republican Party presidential candidate: How do we do this?

I think the nuttiest notion deals with how we persuade Mexico to pay for building the wall. I’m trying to understand how a foreign government could demand something like that of, oh, the United States of America!

Would an American president stand still for such a demand? Would our Congress be willing to spend the money? Of course not!

I am wondering how a President Trump (those two words make my fingers tremble as I type them) could possibly expect Mexico to foot the bill for an enormous wall stretching from the mouth of the Rio Grande River to the Pacific Ocean.

And what, I must ask, would such a demand do to the long-standing friendship between the nations?

As the Washington Post reported: “… Trump says that undocumented immigrants ‘have to go,’ and he has vowed to undo President Obama’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program.”

The president issued an executive order that seek in part to protect temporarily those who were brought here when they were children from deportation. Trump would undo that order, round up those protected from deportation and send them back to the country their parents fled … even though they have grown up as Americans?

Someone has to explain to me how that is a humane policy.

national news, political news

Candidacy breeds generosity?

trump at fair

Donald Trump flew into the Iowa State Fair this weekend aboard his fancy helicopter.

He regaled the crowds and then gave children gathered around him free rides aboard the bird.

My wife wondered: “That’s all fine. It’s nice that Trump did that. My question is this — how many free rides to kids did he give before he became a candidate for president?”

Hey, maybe he’s the most generous billionaire real-estate mogul/reality TV star who’s ever lived. Or … maybe he’ a Scrooge.

My wife poses an interesting question that speaks to a larger issue.

You measure someone’s character by what he does when no one’s looking.

 

national news, political news, Uncategorized

Trump: Deport ’em all … now!

alg-donald-trump-jpg

Donald Trump is going to unveil his immigration reform package.

It shouldn’t take long for him to tell us his plans if he is elected president of the United States. As I understand it, the plan will look something like this:

Build a wall and then deport all the undocumented immigrants immediately.

If there is anything that resembles a centerpiece of the Trump campaign, immigration appears to fit that description. He made quite a splash regarding immigrants when he announced his candidacy in June. Mexico, he said, is “sending” criminals to the United States. Murderers, rapists and drug dealers are being sent here. “Some, I assume, are good people,” he added as an afterthought.

Trump said he plan to rescind President Obama’s executive order granting temporary amnesty for as many as 5 million illegal immigrants, which of course has drawn high praise from Republican audiences. “We will work with them. They have to go,” Trump said. “We either have a country or we don’t have a country.”

I have just a couple of thoughts regarding the Trump Immigration Reform Plan.

How much will it cost to build an impenetrable wall across our southern border? Do we have the money?

How does he intend to search for and locate every one of the undocumented immigrants who are living here? And what does he intend to do with the children of those undocumented individuals who were born in the United States and have earned U.S. citizenship just by being born in this country?

And what might Trump propose to do with those individuals who entered the country illegally but who have become successful businessmen and women?

All of this is going to require the detail, nuance and thoughtfulness that’s been missing in Trump’s campaign to date.

Then again, why should he provide it now? Those polls that show the real estate mogul leading the GOP field suggest many of the party’s primary voters don’t care about those things.

 

national news, political news

Turn out the lights, Gov. Perry

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The late “Dandy Don” Meredith would sing, “Turn out the lights, the party’s over,” whenever a team was getting blown out on Monday Night Football telecasts.

It now appears that another Texan, former Gov. Rick Perry, may need to follow that advice, according to those who say they’re in the know.

Perry is out of money. He has quit paying his campaign staff. His second run for the presidency of the United States is likely to end perhaps before the first actual Republican Party primary contests in Iowa and New Hampshire.

A part of me wishes it wouldn’t end.

Perry worked quite hard in the period between his first presidential run and this one to rehabilitate his image. His first effort ended in early 2012 after the infamous GOP debate “oops” moment. This time, he was better prepared. But the primary faithful began tuning into other candidates. Indeed, there are 16 others running for the party’s presidential nomination.

Perry said this week he’s “in it to win it.” Sure he is. That’s what you expect him to say.

However, even after his blistering critique of GOP frontrunner Donald Trump’s bizarre pronouncements, his own well-defined message and the “retail political” skill he employs in meeting and greeting potential voters — a skill he honed to perfection while being elected to three full terms as Texas governor — he remains far back of the front tier of GOP candidates.

The winnowing of this large Republican field will begin in due course. It might be soon.

As one New Hampshire Republican said of Perry, “He is out of money and out of time.”

Is the party over? Looks like it from here.

 

 

national news, political news

Open White House race = many candidates

alGore_1515233c

Here’s a fact of political life in America.

When there’s no incumbent involved in a campaign, you invite all comers to seek the office that’s being vacated. Everyone, or so it seems, becomes interested in the office at stake.

Such is the case with the White House. A two-term president, Barack Obama, is prohibited from running again. He’s bowing out in January 2017. The Republican field is as full as I’ve seen it in more than four decades watching this stuff; 16 men and one woman are running on the GOP side. It’s becoming quite an entertaining spectacle — to say the very least.

The Democrats? Well, until about two, maybe three weeks ago, it seemed that Hillary Clinton had that nomination in the bag. She still is the heavy favorite.

But she’s not going to anointed as the party nominee next summer, or so it appears. Vermont U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders has closed a once-huge gap. Former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley is taking aim at Clinton, as is ex-Rhode Island Gov. Lincoln Chafee. We haven’t heard much yet from ex- Virginia U.S. Sen. Jim Webb.

But now we hear of a couple of big names — as in really big names — possibly entering the Democratic Party primary field.

One of them is Vice President Joe Biden.

The other? Get ready: It might former Vice President Albert Gore Jr.

Some media outlets are reporting that “insiders” are discussing the possibility of a Gore candidacy. My reaction? Holy crap!

He damn near was elected in 2000, winning more popular votes than George W. Bush, who was elected because he won a bare majority of electoral votes. What many folks have forgotten about that election is this: Had the vice president won his home state of Tennessee in 2000, there would have been no recount controversy in Florida, no “hanging chad” examination, no narrow Supreme Court ruling to determine who won that state’s critical electoral votes. Gore lost his home state to Bush. There you have it.

This election already is shaping as the most entertaining in at least a couple of generations. The thundering herd of Republicans is being overshadowed by a billionaire hotel mogul/entertainer/wheeler-dealer. The Democratic field is being dominated by a self-proclaimed “democratic socialist” drawing huge crowds and a former secretary of state with growing problems stemming from her use of a personal email account to conduct State Department business.

Will two men who’ve served a “heartbeat away” from the presidency now join the field?

We know that Vice President Biden is considering it. As for Al Gore? Stay tuned and hang on … maybe.

 

national news, political news

Trump keeps drawing me back

trump-hair

Donald Trump keeps reminding me that promises to consider ignoring him are hard to keep.

I said something earlier about whether I should consider imposing a moratorium on commenting on Trump’s blathering. Then I turn on the TV news talk shows I like watching and what do I see? Commentators, analysts, “strategists” from both parties and other so-called experts talking about Trump.

How can I remain silent? How can I ignore the things that have captured all these political junkies’ attention?

I cannot do it.

Trump called a press conference today, his first meeting with the media since the Fox News-sponsored joint appearance this past week.

Did he offer anything of substance? No.

Did Trump give a specific example of how he plans to create more jobs than any politician in history? No.

Did he offer any regret for the over-the-top statements he’s made about, oh, women? No.

He did, however, manage to poke fun at the U.S. ambassador to Japan, Caroline Kennedy. Interesting, yes? As Joan Walsh of Salon magazine noted in a tweet, he could have cited the political process associated with ambassadorships in general, but he chose to single out the late President Kennedy’s daughter.

But he said he adores women.

Trump said the polls are giving political cover and allowing him to keep shooting off his mouth in this careless manner.

Yes they are, Donald.

For now.

 

media news

Good for you, Megyn Kelly

megyn_kelly4

This isn’t a perfect world.

There. Having stipulated that, one element of a perfect world — would we ever achieve it — would be that journalists wouldn’t become part of the story they cover.

I prefer to think of journalists as, say, the football referee you never notice during the heat of the game. So it should be with those who cover the news.

Unfortunately, and this is more true about broadcast journalists than those who work in the print media, we see occasions when journalists become part of the story.

Stand up, Megyn Kelly. Take a bow.

Kelly had the temerity during this past week’s Republican presidential joint appearance, to ask Donald Trump about statements he’d made about women. He has referred to them in highly disparaging terms. Trump tried to slough it off by saying he referred only to Rosie O’Donnell. The crowd laughed.

Kelly, though, persisted with her question, which was a patently fair and pertinent question to the leading GOP presidential candidate.

Trump didn’t see it that way, saying the next day she had blood in her eyes and had “blood coming from her wherever.” The statement was reprehensible on its face. Republicans and Democrats alike have condemned the comment and demanded Trump’s apology to Kelly.

He then said Kelly, a Fox News anchor who was one of three network moderators at the Fox-sponsored joint appearance, should apologize to him for asking the question in the first place.

Kelly, though, said she won’t apologize for anything. She said she was employing “good journalism” in seeking an answer to a relevant question.

None of this should be about a journalist, whose job ought to be to stay out of the way. Megyn Kelly asked an appropriate question of a leading candidate for the presidency and got a proverbial pie in the face for doing her job.

 

national news, political news

How might Trump bow out?

donald-trump

This might require a bit of imagination, but I’ll pose the question anyway.

How do you suppose Donald Trump is going to end his futile campaign to be nominated by the Republican Party for president of the United States?

http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/donald-trump-the-cringe-worthy-crossroads?cid=sm_fb_maddow

Much of the chatter now is that Trump’s latest detestable insult — delivered to Fox News moderator Megyn Kelly — has put his campaign at a “crossroads.” Does he continue on or does he start looking for a possible way to bow out?

The latest polling information suggests he hasn’t been hurt by that hideous statement about Kelly having “blood coming out of her wherever.” Kelly had asked Trump to respond to contentions that he’s a sexist. That particular statement from Trump tells us all that Kelly’s question — which she posed during this past week’s joint appearance with the 10 leading GOP candidates — was spot on.

Candidates often merely suspend their campaigns when things go badly. In this social media age, one forum might be to just put out an Internet message, post it on Twitter, or Facebook, or on some website.

Then they’re gone.

Trump? He isn’t wired that way.

My guess is that once his support begins to crater — and I believe it will — that he’ll make some kind of big show about it, blaming everyone under the sun except himself for the amazingly stupid things he has said about fellow politicians, media representatives, other GOP candidates, the president of the United States … you name it, he’s hurled an insult in every direction possible.

I’ll be waiting with bated breath. Something tells me his withdrawal from the race might be worth the price of admission all by itself.