Tag Archives: Barack Obama

national news, political news

9/11 to bring relief from campaign

911-september-11th-attacks

Now, for a little good news regarding the dismal campaign for the presidency of the United States.

Both major-party nominees — Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton and Republican Donald J. Trump — have agreed to suspend campaigning for a day.

That day will be Sept. 11, which happens to be the 15th year since the terrorists attacked the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and crashed a third jetliner into a Pennsylvania field.

An aside: I hesitate to use the word “anniversary” to define this event … if you get my drift.

http://www.politico.com/story/2016/08/trump-clinton-september-11-campaigns-227559

We all remember how we heard the terrible news. We all remember the horror, the shock, the grief, the sickening feeling we felt as we watched the events unfold on that terrible day.

That day ought to be a day of reflection over what happened and a day of solemn prayer for the nation that continues to fight on against the evil forces that seek to destroy us.

It has become something of a tradition since 9/11. President Bush and Sen. John Kerry suspended their campaigns in 2004, as did Sens. Barack Obama and John McCain in 2008; indeed, Obama and McCain appeared together at an event at Ground Zero in lower Manhattan. In 2012, President Obama and former Gov. Mitt Romney held events, but those events memorialized the victims of the attack.

We need not hear the candidates’ yammering on this solemn date.

national news, political news

Is it ‘Dr.’ David Plouffe these days?

plouffe

Now, now, now, David Plouffe.

Let’s not venture where we do not belong.

Not long ago, I — among others out here in the peanut gallery — got all over Katrina Pierson, a spokeswoman for Donald J. Trump, for issuing what amounted to a medical diagnosis of Hillary Clinton.

Pierson said the Democratic presidential nominee suffers from “dysphasia,” a neurological disorder.

“Ugghh!” we all thought. Knock it off, Ms. Pierson, we said.

Now it’s Plouffe weighing in, declaring that Trump — the Republican nominee — is a “psychopath” and that he “meets the clinical definition” of psychopathic behavior.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2016/08/28/david_plouffe_donald_trump_is_a_psychopath_–_he_meets_the_clinical_definition.html

To his credit, “Meet the Press” moderator Chuck Todd called Plouffe down for issuing his own diagnosis, pointing out that he doesn’t have a medical degree or a degree “in psychology.”

Plouffe kind of shrugged and admitted he isn’t trained as a shrink.

David Plouffe is a brilliant political strategist, having engineered Barack Obama’s winning presidential campaign in 2008 and later serving as a senior political adviser in the White House.

He’s no doctor. So, let’s cease the medical diagnoses.

As Todd told Plouffe, “This is what gets voters so frustrated.”

national news, political news

Now … about that doctor’s note

donald health

As long as we’re talking about records — or the lack thereof — let’s visit briefly about that strange doctor’s note Donald J. Trump produced that proclaimed him the most physically fit presidential candidate in world history.

OK, so I exaggerated that description.

Trump pulled this note out in late 2015 to tell us that he is fit as a fiddle. Dr. Harold Bornstein has been the Republican presidential nominee’s physician since 1980. Now we hear that the doc wrote it in five minutes while sitting in a limo that Trump had sent for him.

Some of the language that Dr. Bornstein used to describe Trump’s physical fitness for the presidency seemed, well, a bit unusual and not written in the kind of tone one expects from a medical doctor. It doesn’t read like a clinical analysis.

Trump’s blood pressure is “astonishingly excellent.” His stamina is “extraordinary.”

And get a load of this. According to Politico: “It begins ‘To Whom My Concerns,’ and says that Bornstein’s most recent medical examination of Trump ‘showed only positive results’ — medical terminology that usually indicates confirmation of a certain condition.”

http://www.politico.com/story/2016/08/donald-trump-doctor-letter-227464#ixzz4IX8HKzAn

Trump said he would produce a “full medical report.” He showed us the letter instead. Here it is:

https://www.donaldjtrump.com/images/uploads/trump_health_record.pdf

It’s worth mentioning here because Trump and his surrogates keep suggesting that Democratic nominee Hillary Rodham Clinton’s health isn’t up to par. A spokeswoman who lacks any medical training has diagnosed dysphasia in Clinton. Former New York Mayor Rudy Guiliani has said repeatedly that something is physically wrong with Clinton.

So, here’s what we ought to do.

Let’s all insist that both candidates produce detailed medical reports on their physical condition that do not contain such hysterical and flowery descriptions of the candidates’ well-being.

Trump and his surrogates have started this idiotic questioning of Clinton’s health. Trump also has insisted that Barack Obama isn’t a real American and has questioned the president’s academic record.

It’s time now for Donald Trump to deliver the real goods on his own physical condition.

Oh, and those tax returns, too!

national news, political news

Presidential ‘vacations’ … don’t occur

vacations-retreats-10-A

Barack Obama is back at his post in the Oval Office.

He’s making decisions, doing things that presidents do during the course of their regular work day.

Welcome back to the People’s House, Mr. President. But I am not going to ding you for spending some time away from the place with your wife and daughters.

Presidents don’t take “vacations” the way you and I do. They do not “get away from it all.” The “all” follows them wherever they do. The guy with the “football” — the briefcase containing the nuclear launch codes — is never more than a few yards from the commander in chief. The president gets national security and domestic issue briefings daily. He’s never off the clock.

Now, I say this having already said that the president needed to go to Louisiana to tour the horrific flood damage. He could have taken a day from his “vacation” to hug some folks in trouble.

He chose not to do that, going instead to Louisiana after returning to the White House. Well, no harm done.

All this yammering about the president’s “vacation” ignores the point I’ve tried to make here. I’ve never — ever — made presidential vacations an issue. President George W. Bush spent many more days away from the White House than his successor. Big deal, man! President Bush had the same security briefings while he was cutting brush at his Central Texas ranch. Same with Presidents Bill Clinton, George H.W. Bush and Ronald Reagan.

So, let’s stop carping about presidential “vacations.”

They don’t exist the way you and I experience them. That’s because the president of the United States occupies the most demanding job on the planet.

national news, political news

‘Outreach’ to African-Americans lies beyond Trump’s grasp

Donald J. Trump is trying to pander, er, reach out to African-American voters.

The Republican Party’s presidential nominee is plotting a curious course in that direction.

He’s held a couple of rallies in recent days. One was in suburban Milwaukee, Wisc., the other was in suburban Detroit, Mich.

I emphasize the “suburban” aspect for a specific reason.

He was standing in front of virtually all-white audiences telling them, apparently, about how terrible life has become for black residents of inner-city neighborhoods. “What the hell do you have to lose?” Trump asked, supposedly speaking over the heads of those who were standing in front of him. He was asking the larger audience that wasn’t there, the African-American voting bloc that — as of this moment — is giving the GOP nominee about 1 percent of its support.

It’s been reported that an avowed segregationist — the late Alabama Gov. George Corley Wallace — polled 3 percent of the black vote when he ran as an independent candidate for president in 1968.

A better, more sincere way to reach out to Americans is to speak to them directly. Venture into their neighborhoods. Look them in the eye, tell them you care about them and offer them demonstrative evidence that you have cared for them before.

Other politicians have employed that strategy while campaigning for African-American votes. I think specifically of the late Robert F. Kennedy and Bill Clinton.

Sure, President Clinton has had his hiccups regarding race relations, such as his occasionally frosty relationship with the Rev. Jesse Jackson and with Barack Obama and the time he scolded the rap singer Sister Souljah for spouting lyrics that promoted violence.

As for RFK, well, those of who are around at that time remember vividly his venturing into an Indianapolis neighborhood the night of April 4, 1968 to tell the black audience before him that Dr. Martin Luther King Jr had just been assassinated in Memphis, Tenn. Many of America’s cities erupted in violence that night. Indy, though, remained calm.

These days, such “outreach” by a leading politician consists of screeds shouted from podiums in affluent neighborhoods.

I’m trying to imagine Donald Trump following RFK’s example.

Nope. I can’t picture it.

political news, State news

Trump confounds them by holding rally … in Texas!

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Donald J. Trump has said many times how he has surrounded himself with “the best people” to run his presidential campaign.

If they are “the best,” one can ask, why do they keep sending him (a) to states he has no chance of winning and (b) to states he has virtually no chance of losing in the upcoming election?

As Ross Ramsey of the Texas Tribune points out, Trump is coming to Austin — the one in Texas — for a political rally this week.

https://www.texastribune.org/2016/08/22/analysis-texas-august-funny-place-trump-rally/

It’s an interesting call.

Trump, the Republican nominee, is losing all the battleground states to Democratic nominee Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Florida, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Missouri, North Carolina … they all need to hear from the GOP candidate.

Texans appear to have their minds made up. They’re going with Trump — apparently — even though a recent PPP poll said Trump leads Clinton by just 6 percentage points. That marks a significant whittling of the margin that Mitt Romney won by in 2012 over Barack Obama.

Trump, though, is going to stage a rally in Texas.

Go figure.

Shoot, as long as he’s in Texas, he ought to fly Trump One — or whatever they’re calling that jet of his — to Amarillo, where I know he’d get a hero’s welcome.

International news, national news, political news

Michele Bachmann: She’s b-a-a-a-c-k!

bachmanntrump

It’s hard to believe that for a time during the 2012 Republican Party presidential primary — brief as it was — this individual was a leading contender for the party’s presidential nomination.

I refer, of course, to Michele Bachmann, a former member of Congress from Minnesota.

Here is what she told Minnesota Public Radio: “He also recognizes there is a threat around the world, not just here in Minnesota, of radical Islam. I wish our President Obama also understood the threat of radical Islam and took it seriously.”

Bachmann is referring to her new pupil, Republican presidential nominee Donald J. Trump, who she is now advising on foreign policy.

For the umpteenth time, I feel the need to remind the president’s critics — even a particular congressional has-been — of something regarding the nation’s fight against international terrorists.

Barack Obama is as dedicated as any of those critics are in seeking out and killing terrorists, and, yes, that includes the radical Islamists.

While I, too, wish that the president would refer to the Islamists by name as he talks to the nation about the threat, I do not for a single, solitary instant believe he is doesn’t take them “seriously.”

I feel the need to restate something I’ve declared already: We’re killing terrorists daily in the field. Our air strikes are decimating them in Syria, Iraq and in other Middle East hideouts; our special operations forces are hunting them down on the ground and are coordinating with local armed forces and militia in killing them. Our intelligence apparatus is working with international allies every hour of every day to stop terrorist conspiracies.

These ill-informed critics keep harping on the attacks that do occur. They never acknowledge — not surprisingly — that we’re stopping many more attacks from occurring because of our highly capable intelligence operatives.

Still, none of this stops demagogues such as Michele Bachmann from repeating the tired canard about Barack Obama’s alleged lack of commitment to fighting the terrorists.

Earth to Bachmann: The president is fighting them and killing them.

national news, political news

POTUS set to tour Louisiana flood zone

louisiana-floods

Well, here you go.

President Obama has said he’s going to Louisiana next week to see first hand the damage caused by the historic flood.

I’m glad to know he’s going to size it up in person.

Yes, I wrote that he should go. Republican presidential nominee Donald J. Trump and his running mate, Mike Pence, made a show of it today by venturing to the flood zone. They went despite being asked to stay away by Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards.

It’s interesting to me that candidates can do nothing to help. They do manage to score some political points, which Trump sought to do.

Presidents, though, do bring loads of gravitas to such visits.

http://www.politico.com/story/2016/08/obama-louisiana-flooding-visit-227209

For that reason, I’m glad Barack Obama is going to fulfill an unwritten but always understood job requirement. It is to be the comforter in chief. Obama is good at it.

Lord knows he’s had enough experience embracing grieving Americans caught in the midst of crisis.

https://highplainsblogger.com/2016/08/president-ought-to-take-a-look-at-the-flood-damage/

 

 

national news

President ought to take a look at the flood damage

1 Comment

491294-louisiana-flood-reuters

I am one of those who believes Barack Obama should take day away from his vacation to do something quite presidential.

He ought to take a jet ride south from Martha’s Vineyard, Mass., to tour the flood damage of Louisiana. He ought to spend just a bit of time talking to local residents, local officials, state officials and his Homeland Security staff to get an up-close look at Mother Nature’s fury.

Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards has said he’d rather have the president wait before going there.

Look, this isn’t written into the president’s job description. It’s understood, though, that when Americans are hurting their head of state sometimes gets called upon to offer personal words of comfort, love and support.

A historic flood, to my mind, counts as one of those times.

Chris Cillizza of the Washington Post makes an interesting argument that the president famously doesn’t always do things just because they look right.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/08/18/heres-why-president-obama-isnt-stopping-his-vacation-to-visit-the-louisiana-flooding/

I get that, too.

However, this president did join the amen chorus of critics in 2005 when President Bush staged that noted flyover during in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, which wiped out much of New Orleans. The critics all said Bush needed to set foot on the ground and the flyover became something of a symbol of alleged presidential nonchalance about the suffering that befell one of America’s great cities.

Cillizza writes: “Presidents don’t get vacations — they just get a change of scenery,” Nancy Reagan famously told critics of her husband’s regular trips to the family’s ranch. Work, especially in this digital age, follows you around.

I get that, too.

Presidents, though, assume the role of “comforter in chief.” Obama has performed that role masterfully many times during his two terms in office. Whether he’s embraced family members of those slain in spasms of violence or gone to natural disaster sites — such as when he went to the Jersey Shore after Super Storm Sandy devastated that region — he’s been there.

Some folks in Louisiana need comforting right now.

business news, national news, political news

Tax returns, Mr. Trump … tax returns

hillary

Hillary Rodham Clinton and her Democratic running mate, Tim Kaine, have released their tax returns.

Now it’s time for Donald Trump and his running Republican running mate, MIke Pence, to do the same.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/clinton-releases-2015-tax-return-prods-trump-to-do-the-same/ar-BBvyxbS?li=BBmkt5R&ocid=spartandhp

This issue will not go away. Nor should it as long as Trump continues to hide behind some kind of phony excuse about the Internal Revenue Service audit.

IRS officials say an audit doesn’t prevent someone from releasing returns to the public.

Here’s an interesting twist to the Trump refusal to do what other presidential candidates have been doing since 1976: it’s that he has been insisting that President Obama release his academic records at Harvard; he bitched about the president’s birth, insisting that he release his birth certificate to prove he actually was born in the United States.

Now, with the focus on his own tax returns — and his continuing boasts about how rich and successful he has been — Trump refuses to let us all in on what should be public knowledge.

How much is he really worth? How much has he given to charity? How much does he pay in taxes? What is the nature of his foreign investments?

We’ve seen Hillary Clinton’s returns. She and her husband made a lot of money this past year. They also paid a significant portion in taxes. They gave to charity, although most of that charitable giving went to their foundation.

It’s your turn, Donald Trump.