Tag Archives: Hillary Clinton

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Really … a Sanders-Trump debate a bad idea

Negative

I feel compelled to make an admission.

I was kidding when I sent out tweets that cheered the thought of a potential debate between Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders and presumptive Republican nominee Donald J. Trump.

Yeah, I know. I shouldn’t kid about such serious matters.

One of these guys will be nominated by his party to run for president. It won’t be Sen. Sanders. It’s going to be the showman/carnival barker/rumor monger Trump.

The very idea of one guy who won’t be nominated debating the other guy who will is frankly preposterous — were you to ask me for my opinion.

Trump backed out, if you believe one version of how it came unraveled. He supposedly wanted Sanders to pay several million bucks up front. I’m not sure who would have gotten the dough.

But these debates ought to be reserved now — at this point in the campaign — for the individuals who’ll be nominated by the major parties. And, yes, if a third-party candidate gets enough public support, then invite that individual to take part, too.

So many conventional rules have been broken during this primary campaign. They start with the fact that Trump has survived this far into the GOP primary, given his unending string of insults, innuendo, lies and hourly flip-flops on controversial public policy statements.

The Republican and Democratic debates have been watched by the public not so much for the information one can glean from them, but for the entertainment value they bring to the serious process of nominating a presidential candidate.

Trump now has enough delegates in his pocket to be nominated in Cleveland. Clinton will have enough in her pocket very soon to get her party’s nomination in Philly.

Let’s focus now on how these two individuals are going to prep for what promises to be a series of barn burner debates.

 

national news, political news

Trump’s new ‘friends’ signal hateful campaign

donald

No doubt about it: This year’s presidential campaign will be decided on negativity with extreme prejudice.

Consider what’s going on here with the Republican Party’s coalescing behind presumptive nominee Donald J. Trump, the guy the party establishment once loathed to the point of wanting to dump him at the GOP convention this summer.

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie calls Trump “unfit” to be president; then he endorses him. Former Texas Gov. Rick Perry describes Trump as a “cancer on conservatism”; then he endorses him. House Speaker Paul Ryan calls Trump’s proposed ban on Muslims as “not a conservative value” and “un-American”; now he’s considering an endorsement. Florida Sen. Marco Rubio labels Trump a “con man”; now he’s about to lend his endorsement to the guy who dubbed him Little Marco.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/rubio-signals-support-for-trump/ar-BBtyUXN?li=BBnb7Kz

What do all these pols have in common? A loathing of Hillary Clinton, the Democrats’ probable nominee.

Make no mistake on this: Clinton is going pretty damn negative on Trump already.

The GOP establishment, though, now appears set to back the guy they once detested because they it cannot stomach the idea of another Clinton taking office in the White House.

What does that portend for the quality of this campaign?

I’d wager some serious dough it’s going to be the Mother, Father, Aunt, Uncle and Second Cousin of Negative Campaigns.

Yeah, some of you are going to argue, “Hey, man, it’s just politics.”

Actually, it need not be “just politics.” This ought to be a campaign of ideas, pitting one candidate’s philosophy, ideology and grand world view against the other one.

There’s only element missing: All of the above as they pertain to Donald Trump.

national news, political news

How do you campaign against a moving target?

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So much about this presidential campaign is a puzzle and I’m having trouble finding the pieces to complete it.

I’ll start and finish with Donald J. Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee.

He has tossed every single bit of conventional wisdom into the Dumpster. Trump has no public service experience; he has demonstrated zero understanding of how government works; he has blustered, bullied and bloviated his way to this point in the campaign; his insults and innuendo should have doomed his candidacy months ago; his personal history is, well, checkered.

To my way of thinking, the most confusing element of this campaign is the absence of any philosophical grounding for this individual.

In normal election years, Democrats nominate a candidate who stands for a set of principles; Republicans do the same.

Hillary Clinton is about to become the Democratic nominee. She, too, has switched positions on occasion as she battles Sen. Bernie Sanders for her party’s nomination.

But one gets a general idea of Clinton’s world view: It seems to tilt left, with a more hawkish view of the use of military power than her more progressive political brethren.

Trump? Where does this guy stand? On anything?

He changes his positions almost hourly. Women should face punishment if they obtain an abortion; on second thought, he didn’t mean that. He would ban Muslims from entering the United States; oh, wait, that’s just a “suggestion.” He once was pro-choice on abortion; now he’s pro-life. He once called Hillary Clinton “great”; now he calls her “Crooked Hillary.” He said Mexico is sending drug dealers, rapists and killers into this country: but he says “I love Hispanics.” He has boasted about his philandering; now he seeks to woo the evangelical voters who comprise much of the GOP “base.”

How is Clinton going to campaign against any of that? How is she going to pit her ideas against his ideas, when he doesn’t seem to stand on a single principle — other than furthering his own ambition?

The late Gertrude Stein once said of Oakland, Calif., that “there is no ‘there’ there.”

I’m sensing that Trump lacks a “there.”

national news, political news

‘Damn e-mails’ return to center stage

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mails

Back in the old days, when Sen. Bernie Sanders and Hillary Rodham Clinton actually were treating each other nicely, Sanders offered this often-quoted quip: “I am tired of hearing about your damn e-mails.”

I’ve got bad news for you, Sen. Sanders. We’re going to hear about those “damn e-mails” for a while longer.

The State Department’s inspector general has issued a report that says then-Secretary of State Clinton flouted department policy in her use of a personal e-mail server when communicating about State Department issues.

Does this doom Clinton’s assured nomination as the next Democratic Party presidential nominee? No. It’s going to damage her. Why? Republicans will make sure of it.

http://thehill.com/policy/national-security/281192-watchdog-agency-hits-clinton-top-aides-on-records-policy

I am not giving this report the short shrift. I get the concern about policy violations. What’s unclear to me, though, is whether any of the information Clinton passed on her personal server ever was captured by our nation’s enemies? Did any of them ever use that information to harm our national security?

What’s more, as Clinton has said in pushing back, other secretaries of state have used personal e-mail accounts. Colin Powell, Condoleezza Rice, Madeleine Albright? They did, too.

Did they ever compromise national security? I haven’t heard evidence of it regarding those officials, either.

http://thehill.com/regulation/national-security/281220-clinton-campaign-insists-email-setup-not-unique

I was troubled when word came out about the use of personal e-mail servers to convey public information. My major concern then was whether information actually compromised our national security. All the congressional inquiries and probes haven’t yet made that determination.

However, that won’t stop the chatter and the intense criticism. It goes with the political territory.

Bernie Sanders’ wish won’t come true any time soon.

 

national news, political news

Let ‘tradition’ stand regarding tax returns

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Call me a traditionalist.

U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden, an Oregon Democrat, wants Congress to enact legislation that requires presidential candidates to release their tax returns for public inspection.

With all due respect to my home boy, I think the bill is an overreach.

Wyden is responding to presumptive Republican presidential frontrunner Donald J. Trump’s refusal to release his returns. Trump contends his returns are under audit by the Internal Revenue Service, to which the IRS has responded “so what?”; an audit doesn’t preclude the release of the returns.

http://thehill.com/business-a-lobbying/281194-dem-senator-offers-bill-to-require-candidates-to-release-tax-returns

The tradition has been for presidential candidates to release their returns. They’ve been doing it since 1976, the first election after the Watergate constitutional crisis that forced President Nixon to resign.

My own sense is that tradition ought to stand.

I believe candidates’ refusal to release those returns give voters a key gauge of their character. It gives voters a chance to determine a candidate’s trustworthiness. It enables voters to use such refusal as a measuring stick as to whether the candidate deserves their ballot-box endorsement.

To be sure, Wyden has a dog in this fight. He has endorsed Democratic frontrunner Hillary Rodham Clinton, who in turn has been blasting Trump to smithereens over his refusal to release his tax returns.

I get Sen. Wyden’s bias.

I also believe “tradition” ought to stand as a de facto rule. Let the presidential candidates decide whether to comply … and then let voters decide on the correctness of their refusal.

 

 

national news, political news

Another shameful accusation comes forth

vince-foster

Donald J. Trump keeps tossing accusations against the wall.

Some of them stick in the minds of those who’ve been supporting his Republican presidential campaign.

This one, though, belongs in the trash bin.

In his effort to smear Democratic Party frontrunner Hillary Rodham Clinton, Trump has thrown out the name of one Vincent Foster, a close friend of Hillary and Bill Clinton who in 1993 went to a park in Washington, D.C., and killed himself.

So, what did Trump do? He called Foster’s death “fishy.” He’s now resurrecting a long-debunked notion that the Clintons had somehow been parties to their dear friend’s death. Right-wing hatemongers dredged up conspiracy theories throughout most of Bill Clinton’s presidency.

CNN commentator Jake Tapper took note of Trump’s latest smear.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2016/05/24/cnns_jake_tapper_trumps_vince_foster_accusations_are_outrageous_and_long_ago_debunked.html

Tapper said: “The notion that this was a murder is a fiction born of delusion and untethered to reality and contradicted by evidence reviewed in at least six investigations, one of them by Ken Starr, hardly a Bill Clinton defender.”

Trump, though, has thrown out this ridiculous notion.

I am reminded of the scolding that Joseph Welch, special counsel to the Army, during those infamous Senate hearings in the 1950s when Sen. Joseph McCarthy was looking for communists operating within the federal government.

Welch asked McCarthy, “Have you no sense of decency?”

Donald Trump long ago sunk to those depths. His latest outrageous accusation is despicable in the extreme.

national news, political news

Is this election going to set a low-turnout record?

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Some months ago I mentioned to friends that I thought the 2016 election would produce a low-turnout result.

My friends laughed me out of the proverbial room. Why? They were certain that if the major-party presidential nominees were going to be Hillary Rodham Clinton and Donald J. Trump that they would energize their parties’ respective bases like no other candidate could do.

Well, here we are. Trump is the presumptive Republican nominee; Clinton hasn’t quite achieved presumptive status yet, but she’s going to be the Democratic nominee, just as she boasted the other day to CNN’s Chris Cuomo.

What do I think now about the turnout?

It’s going to be low. How do I know that? I don’t know it.

But the talk all around Pundit World centers on the high negative feelings that both candidates engender among voters. Trump polls about 70 percent unfavorable; Clinton’s unfavorable rating sits at around 60 percent.

The previous low-turnout record belongs to President Bill Clinton and U.S. Sen. Bob Dole, who ran against each other in 1996. Clinton won re-election that year with just 49 percent of eligible Americans actually voting that year. Clinton, of course, didn’t collect a majority that year, winning a healthy plurality, just as he did four years earlier; third-party candidate Ross Perot sucked enough votes away to deny the president a majority.

I have to agree with those who say that Clinton and Trump both are deeply wounded frontrunners. Trump’s failings are too numerous to mention; at every level one can mention, Trump is the most unfit major-party candidate ever to seek the presidency. Clinton’s been scrutinized carefully for more than two decades and she continues to suffer from this perception that she’s shifty and untrustworthy.

I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve heard people say — either to me directly or to others — that they’re going to sit this one out. Republicans cannot vote for Clinton, even though they cannot stomach the idea of Trump carrying their party’s banner into battle.

Democrats aren’t going to walk the plank in favor of Trump.

Where do they turn? A third-party candidate still might emerge to capture the imagination of voters who are disgusted with the major parties’ selections.

If no one emerges, well, this election is looking as though it will set a dubious record for non-involvement.

Is that a mandate the winner will embrace?

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Yep, this campaign is going to get real nasty

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melania-trump

DailyKos is a lefty website dedicated to promoting liberal causes and candidates.

There you go. I’ve stipulated that I understand where this outfit’s bias lies.

It posted a picture of Melania Trump, wife of the presumptive Republican Party presidential nominee Donald Trump. Mrs. Trump is wearing a thong, she’s toting a pistol and is standing on the wing of her hubby’s airplane.

The picture is, shall we say, not very dignified.

Take a gander here:

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2016/5/21/1529429/-Trump-s-wife-posing-with-gun-Thong-and-Boots-And-they-had-a-problem-with-Michelle-s-bare-arms?detail=facebook

Is this what’s happening in this presidential campaign? We’re now going to be seeing more pictures of Melania Trump — a former model and beauty queen — posing in such a provocative manner?

Here’s the fascinating element of this picture: Trumpkins are giving Melania a pass. Imagine if, say, Michelle Obama were photographed in this manner. What might their response be to that?

True, liberals are using these kinds of images to suggest that Mrs. Trump’s history would stain her activities as first lady if she and her husband move into the White House.

I should point out that the picture was taken some years ago, I guess when Melania Trump was still earning an income striking these kinds of poses.

Her husband is making Hillary Clinton’s husband, the former president of the United States, an issue in his campaign. It might follow, then, that turnabout is fair play and that Melania’s past is fair game as well.

Sure, the former president got impeached because he lied about an affair he had with a White House intern. Does that worsen his wife’s credentials as a potential president.

My wish is for the candidates and their supporters to keep the spouses out of the argument.

If that wish isn’t to be granted, then I fear we’re going to see more pictures of Melania Trump striking poses not usually identified with first ladies.

 

national news, political news

Unqualified … and unfit to become POTUS

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I am so very reluctant to put words in other people’s mouths, but I cannot resist the urge here.

The probable Democratic Party presidential nominee, Hillary Rodham Clinton, said the other day that presumptive GOP nominee Donald J. Trump is “unqualified” to become president of the United States.

I beg to differ. He’s not only unqualified. He is unfit for the job.

Technically, Trump is qualified. He is a U.S. citizen; he’s well past the minimum age. He doesn’t have a felony conviction (I am presuming).

It’s the fitness that matters more to me.

The dictionary provides an inadequate definition of the term “unfit.” Its primary definition is “inappropriate.” Yeah, do you think?

A man with no public service record who refuses to release his tax returns wants to trust us to do the right thing. A reality TV celebrity who once operated beauty pageants wants to become the head of state of the world’s greatest nation. Someone who has lied repeatedly ever since becoming a candidate for the Republican Party nomination wants to become the moral leader of this nation.

Trump has no philosophical grounding. His world view depends on the last person to whom he has spoken. He changes his views at every opportunity.

Someone with zero grasp of governing wants to become the chief executive of the United States of America. He wants to “build a wall” to keep illegal immigrants out. He wants to ban Muslims from entering the country.

Trump wants to take the United States out of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. He wants to kill family members of terrorists. He says it’s OK if Japan and South Korea develop nuclear arsenals. He wants to talk directly to North Korean dictator/nutcase Kim Jong Un.

Trump has mocked an individual with a serious physical handicap. He has said amazingly crass things to — and about — women. He says the Mexican government is deliberately sending “rapists, drug dealers and murderers” into the United States.

No, the issue here isn’t his qualifications. It’s his fitness for the job.

Donald Trump fails the fitness test at every level imaginable.

 

national news, political news

Third party looking more like an option … really

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ORLANDO, FL - SEPTEMBER 22: Former New Mexico Gov. Gary Johnson speaks in the Fox News/Google GOP Debate at the Orange County Convention Center on September 22, 2011 in Orlando, Florida. The debate featured the nine Republican candidates two days before the Florida straw poll. (Photo by Mark Wilson/Getty Images)

I am a dedicated two-party presidential election traditionalist.

My tendency is to dismiss third-party candidacies. My thought always has been that they have no chance of winning, therefore I won’t waste my vote, which I value greatly.

I am now about to announce that I am considering following the lead of one of my sons, who declared just the other day that he’s likely to vote for someone other than Donald J. Trump and Hillary Clinton.

There, I’ve announced it.

Two former moderate Republican governors have teamed up as Libertarians seeking to run for president and vice president.

New Mexico’s Gary Johnson is running for president; he’s tapped Massachusetts’ William Weld as his running mate.

The Libertarian Party must nominate them. My strong hunch is that they will.

This won’t be Gov. Johnson’s first rodeo. He ran four years ago and collected about a million votes. I’ll bet you some serious money he and Gov. Weld will do a lot better than that this year.

The last major alternative to the two parties came in 1992 when Henry Ross Perot challenged President George H.W. Bush and Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton. He won 19 million votes, but not a single Electoral College vote.

And, no … he didn’t cost President Bush his bid for re-election. I’ve seen ample polling data that suggest that even without Perot on the ballot that Clinton would have won by roughly the same margin he rolled up in 1992.

Why am I thinking about a third party? I’m not entirely thrilled with Hillary Clinton as the Democratic nominee. Trump never — in a zillion years — would get my vote.

Don’t misinterpret me here. I haven’t yet committed to a third party candidate. I’m merely thinking about it, which by itself represents a major shift from my normal political thought process.

Johnson’s major claim to political fame was his call for legalization of marijuana. I was working for a newspaper — the Amarillo Globe-News — at the time he issued that call and the paper’s corporate ownership never would support legalization of marijuana; therefore, I wrote editorials criticizing Gov. Johnson’s “wacky” notion. I’m now writing my own blog, under my own name, and my view on that issue is, well, evolving.

Weld is another moderate former GOP governor. No single stands out, but I’ve long perceived him to be far from what’s becoming the Republican “mainstream” that wants to round up illegal immigrants, wants to criminalize abortion and wants to send American troops into battle at the slightest sound of gunfire.

Yes, this is just another example of how wacky this election campaign has become.