Tag Archives: CIA

Trump is wearing me out

February 13, 2017 kanelis2012

I’ve long considered myself to be a fairly modern fellow … but I do like tradition.

I dislike the designated hitter rule in baseball, I dislike what I call “gymnasium football” that is played in stadiums with roofs, I prefer to eat my salad before consuming my entrée — and I want presidents of the United States to behave in a manner befitting the office.

Donald J. Trump cannot fix the first three examples, but he damn sure can address the final one, dealing with how he handles himself as president.

We aren’t even one stinking month into Trump’s term in office and I am worn out already. I don’t know if I have the stamina to keep up with this guy’s weird/bizarre/goofy machinations.

The tweeting. The strange utterances. The strange phone calls with world leaders. His feuds with congressional leaders. The strange roles his sons and daughter are playing in his administration. The notion that his wife won’t live in the White House while hubby seeks to “make America great again.”

None of this is what I consider to be “normal.”

What continues to trouble me about this fellow is that I cannot figure out to what ever-lovin’ end is he seeking to accomplish.

Trump had zero public service experience when he announced his candidacy for the presidency in July 2015. His entire adult life has been geared toward personal enrichment. Public service never has been on this man’s radar. He doesn’t know what public service entails.

And not yet one month into his presidency, he isn’t showing any indication that I can discern that he grasps the concept of public service.

He stands before the National Prayer Breakfast audience and asks them to pray for the man who succeeded him as host of “Celebrity Apprentice”; he goes to the CIA and — standing before a wall that honors fallen CIA officers — talks about his electoral vote “landslide”; he berates Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull over his country’s immigration policy and then hangs up on the head of government of a nation that arguably is our most loyal ally.

Presidents of the United States don’t normally behave like this.

Holy cow, man! We’ve got 47 more months of this!

Maybe.

national news

Chaos continues as Trump takes charge

January 24, 2017 kanelis2012

My goodness. The chaos, the pandemonium, the confusion.

It’s just what Donald J. Trump has ordered … allegedly.

That was some wild weekend as Trump became president of the United States.

* The president delivered 16-minute inaugural speech that re-stated the winning themes of his presidential campaign and painted a dark picture of gloom and “carnage” in the United States of America.

* The next day, White House press secretary Sean Spicer meets the press corps for the first time and delivers a five-minute scolding of what he said was a deliberate misreporting of the size of the crowd at the inauguration. Amazing!

* Meanwhile, White House senior adviser Kellyanne Conway said Spicer was delivering a set of “alternative facts,” prompting “Meet the Press” moderator Chuck Todd to remind her that “alternative facts are falsehoods.”

* Then … the president goes to the CIA ostensibly to pay tribute to the agents who’ve fallen in the line of duty then excoriates the media as a “dishonest” group of people.

* As all this was occurring, several million people around the world hit the streets to march in protest of Trump’s inauguration.

* Finally, Trump told congressional leaders he lost the popular vote to Hillary Clinton because as many as 5 million illegal immigrants cast ballots against him.

Is this what we’re going to get for the next four years? Is this what our allies abroad are going to witness as the 45th president’s administration tries to gain its footing?

He told us he would campaign unconventionally. It now appears that unconventional governance is going to follow.

I’ve got to catch my breath.

national news, political news

Ex-CIA boss ‘deeply saddened and angered’

January 22, 2017 kanelis2012

John Brennan believes the new president of the United States conducted a “shameful” display in a most inappropriate place.

I happen to agree with him.

Brennan is the former CIA director who reportedly is “deeply saddened and angered” that Donald J. Trump would stand before the CIA Memorial Wall to chastise the media for its reporting of the crowd size at the president’s inaugural ceremony.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/ex-cia-director-trump-should-be-ashamed-of-himself/ar-AAm6e3y?li=BBnb7Kz

The Hill reported this, quoting former CIA deputy chief of staff Nick Shapiro: “Former CIA director Brennan is deeply saddened and angered at Donald Trump’s despicable display of self-aggrandizement in front of CIA’s Memorial Wall of Agency heroes. Brennan says that Trump should be ashamed of himself,” Shapiro said in a pair of tweets.

Yep, that’s the president.

The Memorial Wall contains 117 stars that memorialize the CIA agents who’ve made the ultimate sacrifice in the line of duty for the United States. They are heroes. It’s a place of honor and dignity. It is not the place for anyone — even the president — to make patently political statements.

Yet there he was today. He virtually ignored the sacrifice made by the individuals honored on that wall. The president chose instead to make cheap political points.

The former CIA director is correct. The president’s actions were a “despicable display of self-aggrandizement.”

local news

Get well, Mr. President and Mrs. Bush

January 19, 2017 kanelis2012

First, a confession … and then a salute.

I didn’t vote for George H.W. Bush either time I had the chance to do so. Not in 1988 or in 1992 when he ran for president. For that matter, I didn’t vote either for the ticket led by Ronald Reagan in 1980 and 1984 when Bush ran as The Gipper’s vice-presidential running mate.

But as the years have sped by I have developed a tremendous amount of respect for the 41st president of the United States.

In 2007, I had the high honor of shaking his hand and engaging him in about 45 seconds of conversation. They took a picture of the president and me (sorry to be a name dropper) and I display it proudly in my home.

The president isn’t well these days; he is battling pneumonia. I worry about him — and about his wife, Barbara, who’s also in the hospital — as I write these few words.

I’ve said for many years that I have long thought that George Bush was the most singularly qualified man ever to hold the office of president. His life story goes back to his days as the son of a U.S. senator from Connecticut; then he enlisted in the Navy and became a decorated fighter pilot who was shot down over the Pacific Ocean during World War II; he came home to build a business; he served two terms in Congress from Houston; he led the CIA, served as ambassador to the United Nations, led the Republican Party and served as special envoy to China; he was elected twice as vice president and then as president.

That, dear reader, is what I call a full and rewarding life.

The moment I shook his hand I said, “Mr. President, I just want to thank you for your service to this country.” He seemed to actually appreciate the expression of gratitude and thanks. He nodded and gave back a simple “thank you.” I hope he sensed my deep sincerity.

He has been in poor health. Hey, he’s 94 years of age.

Still, I want him to recover from this latest bout. The nation can use his wisdom and his grace.

Get well, President and Mrs. Bush.

national news, political news

Trump continues scorched-Earth rhetorical policy

January 17, 2017 kanelis2012

We’ve been wondering around our house for, oh, the entire length of the election season and now as the new president gets ready to take office.

It is this: Is Donald J. Trump seeking to undermine his presidency the way he seemed to inflict damage on his candidacy?

You’ll recall the campaign. He offended Hispanics right off the bat; he denigrated Sen. John McCain’s record as a Vietnam War hero; he criticized a Gold Star couple; he mocked a disabled New York Times reporter; he admitted to Billy Bush that he’d groped women by grabbing them in their private parts.

None of that mattered. Trump won the election, despite his seemingly deliberate effort to torpedo himself.

Now he’s getting ready for the inauguration. What does he do?

He continues to disparage intelligence professionals who insist that Russian spooks launched a cyberwar to influence the election; he keeps tweeting idiotic messages in response to criticisms great and small; he declares war on the media; he declines to say he trusts German Chancellor Angela Merkel more than he trusts Russian President Vladimir Putin; he fires back at a legendary member of Congress, John Lewis, who questioned Trump’s legitimacy as president, saying Lewis is “all talk, no action”; he accuses CIA Director John Brennan of possibly leaking classified information about alleged Russian hacking.

Sheesh, man!

What’s this guy doing?

He’s got to work with the intelligence pros beginning the moment he takes his hand off the Bible on Friday, shakes the hand of Chief Justice John Roberts and becomes president. How in the world does he work with the dedicated intelligence staffers who will remain after John Brennan leaves to make way for Trump’s pick to be CIA director?

How is he going to work with African-Americans after labeling Lewis — Congress’ most venerated member and a champion of civil and voting rights marches — be an “all talk” kind of individual?

And how is this individual going to assure staunch and trusted allies, such as Chancellor Merkel, that he trusts her implicitly and really and truly doesn’t equate her trust level with that of the former head of the KGB in Moscow?

Let’s all get ready, dear reader, for the roughest ride imaginable.

International news, national news

CIA boss issues stern, correct warning to Trump

January 15, 2017 kanelis2012

The time will arrive, possibly quite soon after Donald J. Trump becomes president of the United States, when the new president will ask for advice from his intelligence network.

What will he think when the spooks tell him that, oh, the Russians are about to launch an attack on Ukraine, or on the Baltic States, or on Georgia? How might he respond to reports from the CIA that Russians are killing civilians in Syria?

CIA Director John Brennan said today that Trump is treading onto some dangerous territory with his continued dismissal and disparagement of the CIA over its findings that Russian hackers sought to influence the 2016 presidential election.

He needs to make peace with the intelligence professionals who work in the trenches of the CIA, of the Defense Intelligence Agency, the National Security Agency and the FBI.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/cia-director-warns-trump-as-tensions-rise-with-intelligence-agencies/ar-AAlTpg8?li=BBnb7Kz

Brennan said this — among other things — on “Fox News Sunday”: “What I do find outrageous is equating intelligence community with Nazi Germany,” said Brennan, who served in the administrations of Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama. “I do take great umbrage at that, and there is no basis for Mr. Trump to point fingers at the intelligence community for leaking information that was already available publicly.”

Trump’s continual dismissal of the intelligence apparatus goes directly against traditional Republican orthodoxy, which historically has sided with the spies when questions arise about foreign threats to the nation. Indeed, Trump’s tweet tirades against the CIA have drawn pointed criticism from GOP officials as well as from Democrats.

Then we have Brennan, who served Republican President George W. Bush and Democratic President Barack Obama weighing in with stern words of warning for the next president.

As Bloomberg News reported about Brennan’s “Fox News Sunday” appearance: Brennan admonished Trump, who’s recently suggested he might lift sanctions on Russia, “to be mindful that he doesn’t yet, I think, have a full appreciation/understanding of what the implications are of such a move” amid Russia’s actions in Ukraine, Syria and online. He added that Trump “needs to be very, very careful.”

Does the new president have an appreciation or understanding of anything having to do with national security?

This is the kind of thing that frightens the daylights out of millions of Americans.

I am one of them.

military news

New defense boss breaks with commander in chief-to-be

January 12, 2017 kanelis2012

Imagine that … the man picked to lead the Defense Department thinks Russia is our No. 1 worldwide adversary and he’s sounding a good bit more anti-Kremlin than the man who nominated him, Donald J. Trump.

What’s going on here? Sanity is breaking out within the budding Trump administration.

Trump’s CIA director-designate, Mike Pompeo, calls waterboarding a form of “torture” and says he would refuse to obey a direct order to invoke “enhanced interrogation” techniques on enemy captives. Trump campaigned on a pledge to restore waterboarding.

Now we hear from Defense Secretary-designate James Mattis, who tells us that Russia is our top adversary and that the United States should honor the nuclear arms-production agreement it struck with Iran. Let’s see: Trump is buddies with Vladimir Putin and he says he’ll tear up the Iran nuke treaty when he takes office.

Mattis isn’t too keen on either matter, he told the Senate Armed Services Committee.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/senate-set-to-question-trumps-pentagon-pick-veteran-marine-gen-james-mattis/2017/01/11/b3c6946a-d816-11e6-9a36-1d296534b31e_story.html?hpid=hp_hp-top-table-main_no-name%3Ahomepage%2Fstory&utm_term=.2af606a6369a

Mattis is a retired Marine Corps general with plenty of combat experience. The man is a plain-spoken, in-your-face general-grade officer.

He said this about the Iran nuclear deal: “I think it is in an imperfect arms control agreement — it’s not a friendship treaty. But when America gives her word, we have to live up to it and work with our allies.”

I’m beginning to believe Trump might be surrounding himself with at least a couple of reasonable minds on his national security team.

He will need their wise counsel. I hope the hothead/know-it-all/commander in chief chooses to heed it.

International news, political news

Sanity emerges from among one of Trump’s picks

January 12, 2017 kanelis2012

How about this, folks?

The man picked to be the next CIA director said today that he would “absolutely not” follow a direct order to torture enemy combatants in the search for information from them.

That includes waterboarding, according to Kansas U.S. Rep. Mike Pompeo, who is Donald Trump’s pick to be the nation’s head spook.

http://thehill.com/policy/national-security/313972-pompeo-would-absolutely-not-obey-torture-order-from-trump

I’ve been hoping to be able to speak well of a Trump appointee. Rep. Pompeo has given me the opportunity.

Pompeo is known to be a combative fellow. He struck a reasonable and moderate tone today as he testified before a Senate committee that is considering his pick to lead the CIA.

He doesn’t envision the new president issuing an order to torture enemy prisoner, Pompeo said under questioning from Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif. I hope he is correct in his assumption about the new commander in chief.

Certain forms of torture have been referred to euphemistically as “enhanced interrogation techniques.” According to The Hill: Asked if he could commit to senators that the CIA is “out of the enhanced interrogation business,” Pompeo affirmed that, “You have my full commitment.”

The new CIA boss will need to held accountable to that pledge.

I’m glad he made it.

High Plains Blogger