Tag Archives: State Department

national news, political news

Surely, Mitt doesn’t need a paycheck

Mitt Romney once called it exactly right about Donald Trump.

He called the next president of the United States a “phony,” a “fraud.” Romney questioned whether Trump was hiding some potentially criminal activity by refusing to release his tax returns.

The 2012 Republican presidential nominee said some amazingly harsh things about the 45th president. Romney endeared himself so much to many Americans — me included — that we actually begin thinking kindly of him, wishing he were the GOP candidate instead of Trump.

Why, I even began referring to him by his first name, which actually is his middle name. Mitt this, Mitt that.

So, what in the world is Mitt doing by making himself available to be considered for secretary of state in the Trump administration?

Hey, Mitt’s a rich guy, too. He doesn’t need the money. Nor does he need to the embarrassment of representing Donald Trump’s world view to a world still reeling by the very thought of Trump becoming president of the greatest nation on Earth.

Doesn’t the next president recall what Mitt said in 2012 about Russia? I’ll remind him here. Mitt declared that Russia presented the “greatest global geopolitical threat” to the United States. Trump, meanwhile, is accepting high praise from Russian strongman/dictator/former spook Vladimir Putin. Which is it? Greatest threat or potential ally?

Frankly, Mitt’s assessment looks more accurate and prescient than anything Trump has said about Russia.

Then we have the nature of the criticism. The video I’ve attached to this blog post is quite revealing. It’s only 17 minutes long. But it’s a doozy.

Oh, and Trump’s response to it? He called Mitt a “loser” who “begged” Trump for his endorsement four years ago.

Say it won’t happen, Mitt. Tell us that you’re just stringing Trump along. While you’re at it, when you get him in that room in private at Trump Tower, please reiterate what you said about him on the campaign trail. It was all true then … and it’s true to this very day.

You’re better than this, Mitt.

International news, national news, political news

Here’s the first and last question for next secretary of state

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Biden-1

Reports indicate that if Hillary Rodham Clinton is elected president next week that she is ready to start vetting a short list of potential secretaries of state.

Vice President Joe Biden reportedly is at the top of that short list.

Biden served six terms in the U.S. Senate before being elected vice president in 2008. He retains many close personal friendships with his former Senate colleagues, given that as VP he served also as president of the Senate.

He’s also a first-cabin foreign policy expert.

So, what do you think would be the first question the Senate Foreign Relations Committee will ask when it begins its hearing to determine whether to confirm Biden — or anyone a President-elect Clinton would nominate?

“Do you intend to use a personal e-mail server to communicate with staffers while serving as the next secretary of state?”

I think I know the answer.

 

national news, political news

ISIS set to take over U.S.?

aais07c

Donald J. Trump is sounding like a desperate man.

The Republican presidential nominee, apparently recognizing the lengthening odds of him winning the election next month, now says that the Islamic State could “take over” the United States if Hillary Rodham Clinton is elected president.

Seriously? Well, that’s what he said.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/trump-islamic-state-may-take-over-us-if-clinton-wins/ar-AAiS2AB?li=BBnb7Kz

According to USA Today: “They are hoping and praying that Hillary Clinton becomes president of the United States, because they’ll take over not only that part of the world, they’ll take over this country,” Trump told backers in Ocala, Fla.

So. There you have it.

The candidate on whose watch as secretary of state U.S. commandos killed Osama bin Laden is going to run up the white flag as ISIS steamrolls into this country. That’s the Trump view.

Allow me to make this brief observation.

Donald Trump may think he knows “more about the terrorists than the generals,” but Hillary Clinton actually does know more about every aspect of government — and that includes national security — than her political opponent for the presidency.

Trump’s rants are sounding more desperate by the day — if not the hour — as he looks for ways to torpedo his foe.

As for Trump’s assertion that the country has “never been so low,” then perhaps he can explain why we remain the preferred destination for immigrants seeking a better life for themselves and their families.

national news, political news

‘Because you’d be in jail’

trump-vs-clinton

Donald J. Trump scored perhaps the biggest knee-slapper of the evening at his debate Sunday night with Hillary Rodham Clinton.

He said she’d “be in jail” if he were president.

Why? Well, I’d like to visit that notion for a moment.

Trump has been accusing Clinton of breaking the law while she was secretary of state. He and other Clinton critics have presumed her guilt for unspecified “crimes.” Trump also has tried and convicted Clinton’s husband, the former president of the United States, of various crimes against women. He called President Clinton the “worst abuser” of women in the history of the American politics.

To punctuate whatever point he sought to make Sunday night, Trump brought four women with him to St. Louis, all of whom have accused the Clintons of various crimes against them.

That’s it, then! They’re guilty because these women said so.

How about holding on for a second.

The FBI examined whether Hillary Clinton broke any laws by using her private e-mail account while serving as secretary of state. She testified before Congress for 11 hours over that very issue. FBI Director James Comey — the Republican career prosecutor who runs the agency — determined that there was nothing on which he could prosecute Clinton. In other words, she didn’t break any laws.

It doesn’t stop there.

Congressional critics now have accused Clinton of perjuring herself in her testimony. That’s it. They have leveled the accusation. Have they brought formal charges? No. Have they produced proof of her committing a crime? No again.

They’ve just leveled the accusation.

As for her husband … and the women whom Trump flew to St. Louis to create a spectacle in the debate hall, they, too, have leveled accusations.

Has anyone brought formal charges against the former president? No. Has any of them testified — under oath — in a courtroom to accuse the president of raping, groping or otherwise abusing them? No.

He, too, is presumed guilty of these accusations. I hesitate to call them “charges” because, I must stipulate again, he’s never been charged with a crime.

What we are witnessing is a perversion of the legal system that is supposed to presume someone is innocent until prosecuting authorities can prove guilt.

Both of these individuals — Bill and Hillary Clinton — have their flaws. I don’t for a second deny that. Their flaws are personal and political.

However, in all the accusations brought before both of them, only Bill Clinton has been charged formally with a “high crime and misdemeanor.” It involved lying to a federal grand jury about his relationship with a young White House intern. The House of Representatives impeached him for it.

Then he was acquitted of the charges by the Senate. He was allowed to finish his second term as president.

Are these two individuals guilty of any of the crimes others have accused them of committing? No.

They deserve the same presumption of innocence to which all American citizens are entitled.

Moreover, the know-nothings who keep saying otherwise ought to adhere to the laws they allegedly cherish.

national news, political news

E-mail story is getting more convoluted

email-marketing

I am willing to admit the obvious, which is that sometimes I am a bit slow on the uptake.

Things can and do get past me. The swirl of news events at times overwhelms me to the point that I cannot keep straight the particulars of this or that controversy/scandal.

The Hillary Rodham Clinton e-mail matter provides a case in point.

She used her personal server while leading the State Department. The question then became whether she distributed classified or “highly classified” information on this server.

The FBI investigated it. So did the U.S. House Government Oversight Committee.

The FBI concluded that it couldn’t find a reason to prosecute Clinton for any illegal activity. FBI Director James Comey, though, did provide a pile of critical analysis of Clinton’s handling of the e-mails, calling it “reckless,” and “careless.”

Now, though, Donald J. Trump is accusing Clinton of “illegal” use of her personal e-mail server.

Didn’t the feds determine already that she didn’t break the law, or that they couldn’t find reasonable grounds to recommend an indictment?

Trump, the Republican presidential nominee, has goaded Russia into looking for 30,000-something missing e-mails. The House Oversight and Judiciary committees are looking for proof that Clinton committed perjury when she testified before Congress.

Then we hear about 15,000 more e-mails that have surfaced. What does that mean? Anything?

The Democratic presidential nominee has endured a serious media and political scrubbing over all of this.

She hasn’t been accused formally of a single criminal act.

And yet …

Republicans keep calling her a criminal. They want to “lock her up!”

My head is spinning.

I need help.

International news, national news, political news

Trump now pitches ‘extreme vetting’ of Muslims

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Donald J. Trump’s proposal to ban Muslims from entering the United States has morphed into something he calls “extreme vetting.”

Is that any more acceptable?

That depends, I suppose.

If you’re frightened beyond all reason over allowing any Muslims into the country, then the presumptive Republican presidential nominee’s apparent change in policy is a “weakening” of his get-tough stance.

On the other hand, if you wonder just how U.S. immigration and customs officials are going to conduct this so-called “extreme vetting” — as I do — then this plan is just another goofy notion that well might change in the next day or two.

Oh, and there’s also that constitutional issue. The First Amendment lists three basic liberties, the first one of which just happens to be the freedom to worship whichever faith you choose.

Trump is going to accept the GOP presidential nomination this week in Cleveland. He’s selected Indiana Gov. Mike Pence as his running mate. Pence, interestingly, has declared Trump’s anti-Muslim rhetoric to be antithetical to American values.

Aw, but what the heck? What’s wrong with a few disagreements among political allies? That sounded like Trump’s rationale for selecting someone with whom he has some serious policy disagreements.

Does the “extreme vetting” bring the two GOP candidates closer on this particular difference of opinion? Time will tell, I suppose.

Whether it’s an outright ban or a regimen of “extreme vetting” of people based on their religious faith, the GOP nominee’s precept is built out of fear and panic. It also ignores the reality that federal security forces are intercepting and detaining suspected bad guys every single day.

Trump keeps insisting that we need to be more vigilant, more alert, more resolute in defending ourselves against terrorists.

The 9/11 attacks nearly 15 years ago — Can you believe that? — exposed the nation to the harshest reality imaginable, which is that we were vulnerable to that kind of horror. We were vulnerable to such evil for a long time before it actually happened.

I believe we are a lot less vulnerable to it today, based on the terrible lessons learned from that horrifying event.

What’s more, defending ourselves against a lone-wolf attacker is difficult in the extreme, as Secretary of State John Kerry noted over the weekend.

He made a fascinating point Sunday morning, which is that U.S. national security forces have to be on guard and totally alert every minute of every single day of the year. Meanwhile, a terrorist has to be sharp for just a few minutes in order to conduct a successful strike against us.

“Extreme vetting” or an outright ban of Muslims will not protect us totally and fully against the evil that lurks out there.

Such language, though, does create a catchy political sound bite.

national news, political news

Time for Clinton to meet the press … head-on

hillary

As one who used to make his living trying to hold politicians accountable for their words and deeds, I am perplexed by Hillary Clinton’s aversion to answer questions from the media.

Politico Magazine calls it her “phobia” of press conferences.

Count me as someone who believes the Democratic Party’s presumptive presidential nominee should stand firm in front of microphones and answer the tough questions she knows would come at her during a formal press conference.

http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/07/hillary-clintons-press-conference-phobia-214026

As Politico reports, Clinton hasn’t done so since December 2015. When CNN’s Jake Tapper asked her about that, according to Politico, Clinton “blithely” told him that she’d get around to it eventually.

Mme. Secretary, a lot has transpired since the end of this past year.

We’ve had the House Select Benghazi Committee complete its work. FBI Director James Comey announced just the other day that he won’t recommend bringing criminal charges against her in the e-mail controversy, which effectively ends that tumult. Republicans in Congress, though, plan to look some more into whether the FBI did its due diligence in examining the e-mail matter.

And oh yes, she’s got this presidential campaign and she ought to answer some of the weird insults that GOP candidate Donald J. Trump keeps tossing her way.

I get that politicians of all stripes are skittish when the press starts poking around. But hey, it’s their job to ask difficult questions when they need answers.

It’s also the politicians’ job to answer those questions when the media start asking them.

It’s not as if Hillary Clinton is a stranger to this exercise. She served as Arkansas first lady, then the nation’s first lady, then a U.S. senator from New York (which has a notoriously ferocious media climate) and then secretary of state.

She’s now campaigning for the most important office in the nation — if not the world!

It’s not going to get any easier for her from this moment on.

Inquiring minds, Mme. Secretary, are asking for answers to many serious questions.

legal news, national news, political news

Clinton need not be shut out of classified access

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Let’s settle down just a bit, U.S. House Speaker Paul Ryan.

The Wisconsin Republican said Wednesday that Hillary Rodham Clinton should be denied access to “classified material” after she becomes the Democratic Party’s nominee for president of the United States.

Why? Because of her handling of the e-mails while she was secretary of state and because, according to the speaker, it “looks like” the FBI gave her preferential treatment in its yearlong investigation into her use of a personal e-mail server while she led the State Department.

It’s been customary for decades to allow presidential and vice-presidential nominees access to national security briefings while they campaign for the White House. Ryan got it when he ran for VP four years ago along with GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney.

I thought the best response to this statement of outrage from Ryan came from famed defense lawyer and constitutional law professor Alan Dershowitz. He said on CNN Wednesday that — in light of FBI Director James Comey’s stern tongue-lashing in announcing he would recommend no criminal charges be brought against Clinton — that the former secretary of state would be careful in the extreme in reviewing this classified material.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/ryan-block-clintons-access-to-classified-materials/ar-BBu0Vt8?li=BBmkt5R

Ryan, of course, won’t be called off. Quite naturally — and expectedly — he’s angry that the FBI and the Justice Department have decided that Clinton didn’t commit any crimes. He’s going to proceed with a Republican investigation into the FBI probe to determine whether Comey and his staff of career prosecutors did their job fairly, without bias and without outside influence.

It’s quite obvious to me that Ryan’s mind is made up, that the FBI was in the tank for the Democratic presidential candidate. This GOP investigation won’t answer any questions.

For her part, Clinton needs to face the partisan outrage head-on. I hope she does so. Will she be able to quell the partisan anger? No.

In the meantime, Clinton she should be able — as a candidate for president — to receive the national security briefings that has gone to previous nominees.

legal news, national news, political news

Public mistrust casts pall over FBI’s findings

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This is what it’s come to in this country.

The head of the nation’s leading federal investigative agency offers a compelling argument for why he isn’t recommending a criminal indictment against a candidate for president.

And yet there remains doubt over whether the FBI did its job with integrity and professionalism.

FBI Director James Comey offered a detail explanation of his agency’s findings today in determining that it wouldn’t recommend seeking an indictment against Hillary Clinton over her use of a personal e-mail server while she served as secretary of state.

Here’s his statement in full. It’s worth reading.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/06/us/transcript-james-comey-hillary-clinton-emails.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=a-lede-package-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news&_r=1

Sure, he has scolded Clinton for being “careless” in her handling of e-mail messages sent from her server. But in his careful language, Comey assures us that no prosecutor worth a damn would find any reasonable cause to seek criminal charges over what transpired during Clinton’s tenure at the State Department.

Moreover, I also accept the declaration that the FBI director did his job with integrity.

As Comey said this morning: “I know there will be intense public debate in the wake of this recommendation, as there was throughout this investigation. What I can assure the American people is that this investigation was done competently, honestly, and independently. No outside influence of any kind was brought to bear.”

I accept those findings.

media news, national news, political news

‘Not indicted’ doesn’t mean ‘in the clear’

james-comey

I just love social media responses to big news stories.

It’s usually pretty hysterical. Take the announcement today that the FBI will not seek an indictment of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton over her use of a personal e-mail server while she was in that highly sensitive public office.

FBI Director James Comey said Clinton was “extremely careless” in her use of the server; he said she did plenty of things wrong, but nothing on which he could seek criminal charges.

It has given social media users all over the nation reason to extol the Democratic presidential candidate’s “guilt” over a variety of transgressions.

They’re saying she “lied,” that she’s “corrupt,” that Comey and the feds were “bought off by Clinton money,” that the Clintons’ privileged status among the political elite bought her leniency that others would have received.

None of that, of course, has been proved. The accusers will say, “Who needs proof? I just know it’s all true!” It all rests in the hearts and minds of those who are disposed to, well, hate the former secretary of state.

What about the rest of us? Folks such as, oh, yours truly?

I’m going to take Comey at his word that his career prosecutors — the individuals who are not political appointees — came up empty in their search for criminal culpability. To my way of thinking, when investigators cannot offer proof to merit a charge of wrongdoing, then that’s the end of the criminal aspect of this on-going controversy.

Oh, but its political element still burns white-hot.

Clinton will have to call a press conference and face the music publicly about the things Comey said about how she conducted herself while leading the State Department.

I know those media confrontations make Clinton uncomfortable. Indeed, one gets the sense she detests reporters generally, although no one has ever asked her directly, in public, for the record about what she thinks of the media.

I also am aware that no matter how forthcoming she is that it won’t quell the critics. They’ll continue to find holes in her public statements; why, they’ll even create holes in them just to foster their own arguments against her presidential candidacy.

We live in the social media age. For better or worse, Americans are forming a lot of their opinions about public figures based on 140-character messages sent out on Twitter, or on messages posted on Facebook or other social media platforms.

Hillary Clinton has known this about our world and I trust she understood it when she decided to seek the nation’s highest office.

It’s tough out there, Mme. Secretary. Deal with it.