Tag Archives: Barack Obama

national news, political news

Why keep bashing Trump? Here’s why

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A fellow with whom I’m acquainted via Facebook posed an interesting question to me today: Why do I insist on using High Plains Blogger to bash Donald J. Trump continually and why don’t I look at a particular story regarding Barack Obama’s treatment of veterans while he has been president?

Well, the story he mentioned turned out to be false.

To the other point about bashing the president-elect, I am going to answer it right here. Donald Trump deserves it!

I do not intend to look the other way when the next president does something with which I agree. Unfortunately — for him and for the rest of the country — he keeps stepping in it as he prepares to become president.

Furthermore, and this is probably more directly to the point, the level of criticism that Trump leveled at his foes entitles him to some equal measure of it in return.

Do you recall the countless incidents during the Republican Party primary and during the general election campaign when Trump said some remarkably ghastly things about his foes.

The mocking nicknames. The innuendo. The outright lies. The demonstrably false accusations.

Dare I also mention the continued years-long lie he promulgated about President Obama’s place of birth? D’oh! I just did.

Trump is about to become president. Part of the presidency’s  unwritten job description means that he’s going to get pounded by critics. It goes with the territory. Surely he knows that. If he doesn’t, then he knows far less about politics and government — not to mention the unique American character — than many of us ever thought.

I intend fully to provide my share of criticism toward Trump as we all move forward.

And, no, I do not want him to fail. Were that to happen, the entire country would suffer. I intend to remain a U.S. citizen and a resident of this great country — which entitles me to use this blog as a venue to criticize the president whenever I damn well feel like it.

I’m just waiting for him to do something worthy of praise.

International news, national news

Trump brings his campaign promise to where it started

Donald J. Trump has brought it all home.

The next president of the United States is still insisting that Mexico is going to pay for that big wall he plans to build across our southern border. He pitched the wall during his first day campaigning for the presidency.

It’ll be a repayment, he says. U.S. taxpayers are going to foot the bill initially, but Trump insists that Mexico will pay us back for the billions of dollars we’ll spend. He wants Americans to pay for sealing off the southern border “for the sake of speed.”

Good bleeping luck with that, Mr. President-elect.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/trump-on-border-wall-mexico-will-pay-us-back/ar-BBxXkeO?li=BBnb7Kz

As with virtually all of his proposals, Trump doesn’t specify just how he intends to make Mexico pay. He doesn’t deliver any details on how he will force a sovereign government to fork over the money to this government. Nor does he explain how he is going to persuade Mexican government officials to change their minds after saying quite loudly that in no way would Mexico pay for the wall.

No, the president-elect doesn’t operate that way. He functions with bluster and bravado. He issues threats — even to trusted allies and, in this case, a nation that shares a 2,000-mile-long border with the United States.

It is my belief, too, that Trump has misstated grossly the current U.S. government’s performance as it seeks to stem the tide of illegal immigration. President Obama might go down as the deporter in chief, having overseen record numbers of deportations of undocumented immigrants coming into this country during his eight years as president.

Our borders traditionally have been unguarded. Our immigration enforcement, though, has continued. Have we been able to secure every foot of our borders — both northern and southern? No. That has never — not in the history of our republic — been possible.

Does a wall provide the ultimate solution? No. Desperate people will find a way to sneak through any barrier we erect. Walls don’t necessarily deter the most determined individuals.

As for saddling U.S. taxpayers with the initial bill to pay the wall, Trump will have to explain where he’ll get the money. He’s going to cut taxes, remember? He’s going to spend a trillion bucks on improving our bridges and highways, too. He’s going to shore up our military.

Build a wall? With what, Mr. President-elect.

Be sure, also, to tell us precisely how you intend to force Mexico to foot the bill.

International news, military news

ISIS or ISIL … pick which one you want to hate

Defense Secretary Ash Carter invoked a term that I find puzzling.

It’s not in a negative way, just a puzzling way.

Appearing this morning on “Meet the Press,” Carter was responding to a question from moderator Chuck Todd, who used the term “ISIS.” Carter answered him using the term “ISIL.”

ISIS, ISIL. Tomato, tom-ah-to.

President Obama for some time has been calling the terrorist monsters ISIL, which stands for Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant. The more, um, colloquial term has been ISIS, which stands for Islamic State of Iraq and Syria.

The Levant describes a geographical region that covers roughly the nations bordering the eastern Mediterranean Sea. They comprise the site of the ongoing struggle against Islamic terrorists.

I suppose that, given the reach of the Islamic State, that “ISIL” seems a bit more appropriate, as it has done its murderous deeds throughout the eastern Med — and beyond.

Secretary of State John Kerry has been using the term “Daesh” when discussing ISIS/ISIL. Daesh is seen in the Islamic world as an epithet, a slur against the terrorists who comprise this monstrous group.

We all know, of course, how the Islamic State has elevated its profile from something President Obama once called the “JV team” of international terrorists. They’re the first-stringers these days, the varsity, Public Enemy No. 1 worldwide.

It really matters not one damn bit whether we call them “ISIS, ISIL” or “Daesh.” I’d prefer to call them all “dead.” We have killed many thousands of them since 9/11, but there no doubt remain many more to hunt down and, in the parlance so often used, “remove from the battlefield.”

I continue to have faith we’ll be able to do that — one day. I hope to be alive to welcome that event.

business news

Well done on job growth, Mr. President

The final monthly job-growth report card is in on President Obama’s two terms.

* 156,000 non-farm jobs were added to the nation’s payrolls in December.

* Joblessness ticked up to 4.7 percent.

* The president goes out of office while the nation enjoys 75 consecutive months of job growth, the longest such streak since 1939.

Not bad a legacy, Mr. President.

To be sure, the economic recovery hasn’t been as robust as Obama’s team would have wished. Wages haven’t grown as much; many jobs have been lost to automation as well as some companies have decided to take them offshore.

However, I need to say once again — with emphasis! — that the economy is nowhere near the dire straits that Obama’s foes have suggested. The foe in chief, the president-elect, injected a lot of unfounded fear in the hearts and minds of voters with suggestions that the economy was heading straight to hell. Donald J. Trump parlayed that fear into enough votes to be elected president.

http://thehill.com/policy/finance/312977-december-jobs-report

We aren’t where we need to be economically. The nation, though, is a heck of a lot closer to that destination than it was when Barack Obama became president of the United States.

Well done, sir.

military news

POTUS pays glowing tribute to those ‘who do the work’

Barack Obama said it as well as it can possibly be said.

The president bid farewell this week to the men and women who serve and protect us. They wear the uniform of the “greatest military in the history of the world,” he said.

The president reminded them — and the rest of the nation — that he is the “front man.” As commander in chief of that awesome military establishment, he gets his share of the credit for the successes achieved in defense of the nation.

“You do the work,” he told the men and women who he served as commander in chief.

Americans heard a lot of rhetoric during the recent presidential campaign about a military establishment in decline. They heard from the president-elect, who declared he knows “more about ISIS than the general.” Americans were subjected to put-downs and insults of our military forces who fight every day against international terrorists.

That kind of characterization does them a profound disservice.

I was glad to hear the commander in chief say the things he said to Defense Secretary Ashton Carter, to Vice President Joe Biden, to the Joint Chiefs of Staff, to the service secretaries and to the warriors who take essentially the same oath taken by the president himself.

President Obama also stated correctly that the young Americans who answer the call to put themselves in harm’s way “are among the greatest generations.”

Let us never forget what they do.

Thank you as well, Mr. President, for your service to the country.

national news

Size may matter at the next inaugural

Size became something of a back-story issue during the 2016 presidential campaign.

Donald J. Trump boasted continually about the size of the crowds at his rallies. He compared them to those of his Republican Party primary rivals and then to those of Democratic Party nominee Hillary Rodham Clinton.

And, oh yeah, size of an entirely different kind became a talking point during one of those endless GOP presidential debate with Trump and his horde of challengers. I won’t go any further with that one.

But, take a peek at the picture attached to this blog post.

It was taken on Jan. 20, 2009, when Barack H. Obama delivered his first inaugural speech in front of the U.S. Capitol Building. The size of that crowd is now generally accepted as the largest assemblage ever for a presidential inaugural. The previous record crowd was thought to be at President Lyndon Johnson’s inaugural on Jan. 20, 1965.

LBJ had just been elected in his own right in a historic landslide and he — like Obama — took office amid a national mood of hope for a better day. Lord knows the country had gone through the tragic nightmare of a presidential assassination in November 1963.

My thought, then, is this: Will Donald Trump be able to boast about the size of the crowd that gathers before him in 14 days as he delivers his inaugural speech?

That ol’ trick knee of mine is telling me the Trump inaugural crowd is going to be, um, substantially smaller than the one pictured with his post.

And it well could speak volumes about the hope — or the lack of hope — much of the country will feel when the new president takes the oath of office.

But, hey. It’s only a crowd and in this context — in the world of Trump — size really doesn’t matter.

Or does it?

legal news, national news, political news

SCOTUS fight drips with irony

I cannot resist commenting on the irony that envelops the upcoming fight over filling the ninth seat on the U.S. Supreme Court.

Donald J. Trump is going to nominate someone to fill the seat vacated by the death of conservative icon Justice Antonin Scalia. U.S. Senate Democrats are vowing to fight whoever the new president nominates.

For the record, I’ll stipulate once again that I believe strongly in presidential prerogative on these appointments. I believe the president deserves to select whoever he wants to sit on the highest court; I also believe in the Senate’s “advise and consent” role in deciding whether to approve these nominations.

http://www.politico.com/story/2017/01/senate-supreme-court-fight-mitch-mcconnell-chuck-schumer-233194

But here’s where the irony covers this discussion.

Senate Republicans blocked President Barack Obama’s effort to nominate a centrist jurist, Merrick Garland, to the seat after Scalia died. They denied Garland a hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee. They said within hours of Scalia’s death that Obama must not be allowed to fill the seat; that task, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said, belonged to the new president.

Senate Republicans denied Barack Obama the opportunity to fulfill his constitutional responsibility. They engaged in a shameless — and shameful — game of politics.

Their response now? Why, they just cannot believe that Democrats might vote en masse against anyone Trump nominates. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer vows that Democrats are going to dig in against anyone Trump picks for the court.

Revenge, anyone?

Senate Democrats likely cannot do what Republicans did when they denied Merrick Garland even a hearing to determine whether he should take a seat on the Supreme Court.

Indeed, the court needs a ninth vote to avoid deadlocked decisions. For that matter, the court should have welcomed the ninth justice long ago when President Obama nominated Merrick Garland.

Ahh, the irony is rich. Isn’t it?

national news

Obama prepares to bid us farewell; I will miss him

President Barack H. Obama is getting ready to bid a nation he led farewell.

It will occur on Jan. 10. He’ll deliver a speech in his hometown of Chicago. What do you suppose he will say?

Let’s dispense with the obvious: He’ll talk about the economic crisis he inherited, and from which his policies helped save the nation from collapse; he’ll tell us about providing health insurance to 20 million Americans; he will remind us of how we managed to kill Osama bin Laden; he will tell us of a shrinking annual budget deficit and diminishing unemployment rate.

I am going to miss this man’s style, grace, his commanding presence and the hope he continues to instill in millions of my fellow Americans.

Has it been a hiccup-free presidency over the past years? Of course not. The so-called “JV team” known as the Islamic State has become a top-drawer international enemy; Russia has re-emerged as a global threat; we’re still at war against terrorists in Afghanistan and Iraq.

But I am not going to declare that this man has been a “failed president.” I am confident that history will judge him quite differently than that. It likely will judge him as a consequential president, if not a great one.

I hope he doesn’t forgo a statement during his farewell speech that reminds us of the obstruction that occurred almost from the very beginning of his presidency. The Senate Republican leader, Mitch McConnell (in)famously told us in 2009 that his “No. 1 priority” would be to make Barack Obama a “one-term president.”

Republicans fought the Democratic president at every step. One of them shouted from the congressional gallery during a State of the Union speech that “You lie!” when he said that undocumented immigrants wouldn’t benefit from the Affordable Care Act. When do you recall such utter disrespect being demonstrated against any president? Never, right?

Barack Obama is going to give way to Donald J. Trump on Jan. 20. I am going to do my level best to keep a civil tongue in my mouth and refrain from ad hominem personal attacks against the new president.

I will continue to support the man for whom I voted twice for president. He shouldn’t disappear from the public stage. I do hope, though, he shows the restraint that his immediate predecessor — George W. Bush — has exhibited while his successor takes the reins of power.

In the meantime, I am looking forward with decidedly mixed feelings about his farewell speech to a nation that well might miss his presence on the national stage.

International news, national news

CIA gets ‘blame’ for Russian hackers?

Here comes the counterattack from the right wing.

U.S. Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa — a fire-breathing conservative — says he believes the CIA and the National Security Agency “leaked” the info about Russians hacking into the U.S. electoral process.

Income White House press secretary Sean Spicer says there is no evidence linking Russians spooks to allegations that they meddled in our 2016 election. “There is zero evidence that they actually influenced the election,” Spicer told the Fox News Channel.

Really? Well, I don’t want to believe such a thing could happen, I am waiting to learn more about what’s been determined so far to draw my own conclusion.

http://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/312394-king-suggests-cia-and-nsa-leaked-information-on-russian-election

OK, then. I have a suggestion.

Why doesn’t the CIA provide some of the evidence it says it has that leads the U.S. spy agency to conclude the Russians did do what’s been alleged.

Should the CIA spill all the beans? Should it reveal every secret it has gathered? No. But surely there must be an avenue for the CIA to disclose to Americans interested in determining what effect — if any — this activity might have had on the outcome of the election.

As it stands now we are left to listen to empty platitudes from allies of the president-elect, who continues to dismiss — if not denigrate — the ability of the CIA and other intelligence professionals to assess national security threats.

And this brings to mind a final thought: How does a politician like Donald J. Trump get away with denigrate our intelligence gatherers while seeming to support an international adversary, such as Russia?

Imagine what those on the right would say if, oh, Barack Obama would do such a thing.

International news, national news

Come clean with hacking info, Mr. President-elect

Oh, that Donald J. Trump.

He just cannot keep his trap shut. He now says he has information about the infamous election hacking that “others don’t know.”

I cannot stop thinking about the president-elect’s assertion a number of years ago that he had information about President Barack Obama’s place of birth that others didn’t know.

The birther in chief led the rumor monger parade in asserting that Barack Obama’s presidency was illegitimate. He said he had dispatched teams of spooks to Hawaii to learn the “truth” about the president’s place of birth; it wasn’t in Hawaii, the then-reality TV celebrity said.

It turned out that Trump had nothing. Zero. He was full of bull corn.

Now he has information about whether Russians hacked into our election system? That he knows things others don’t know? That our professional spies and intelligence officials don’t have the goods on the Russians?

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/trump-says-he-has-hacking-information-others-%e2%80%98don%e2%80%99t-know%e2%80%99/ar-BBxLW3t?li=BBnb7Kz

Trump keeps expressing skepticism about the CIA analysis, citing bogus intelligence reports about weapons of mass destruction prior to the start of the Iraq War in 2003. Hmm. Has anyone suggested to Trump that the WMD “analysis” might have been forwarded by the neocons who comprised President Bush’s inner circle of advisers, that it didn’t come necessarily from the CIA or the Defense Intelligence Agency?

Stop teasing us, Mr. President-elect, with nutty notions that you’re smarter than the intelligence officers who are charged with keeping us safe from our adversaries.