Tag Archives: Al Gore

national news

Give it a rest, Mr. POTUS … you won the ’16 election!

Donald Trump is not the first president to win the office by virtue of the Electoral College while losing what’s called the “popular vote.”

He is the first president, though, to keep yapping, yammering and blathering about the popular vote “loss.” He won’t give it a rest.

Uh, Mr. President? You won the damn election in 2016. The U.S. Constitution allows candidates to score enough Electoral College votes to win the election even if they fail to garner enough of the people’s actual votes to make it a clean sweep.

He won’t let go of the idiocy he keeps repeating that “illegal immigrants” cast votes for Hillary Clinton.

Good grief, dude. President Bush lost the popular vote in 2000 to then-Vice President Al Gore. It boiled down to counting those ballots in Florida. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled eventually that the ballot counting needed to stop. When it did end, Bush had 537 more votes than Gore had in Florida. He won the state’s electoral votes and, thus, Bush was elected president. It was done according to what the Constitution allows.

Did the 43rd president bitch and moan about losing the popular vote nationally to Al Gore? No! He took office and went to work immediately.

It’s too late for Trump to get to work now that he’s more than halfway through his term. He will keep griping about the alleged voter fraud. He won’t offer any evidence, or provide a shred of proof. He’ll just keep bloviating about it.

Donald Trump only validates the belief of many of us that political career is as fraudulent as his business career.

local news

Happy Trails, Part 149: ‘Smart home,’ is it?

It’s come down to this: No longer do we just move into a structure, call it “home” and then arrange some furniture to make it comfortable.

That’s only part of it these days. In the 21st century, we now have a home that is equipped with technology that enables it to do certain things for us, such as turn lights on and off, play music, adjust the furnace temperature; if we were so inclined we could acquire technology that irrigates the lawn . . . all on voice command.

I refer to “Alexa,” the technology of the space age.

Indeed, I cannot help but think of “HAL,” the machine that took over the space ship in “2001: A Space Odyssey.” You remember how that turned out. “HAL” became a monster.

Will this happen with “Alexa”? I’m sure it won’t.

However, I am utterly amazed, amused and astonished at how much “Alexa” can do for us.

That’s what we got when we purchased this home in Princeton, Texas. I have to say that this is all pretty darn slick.

This retired guy is learning a whole lot of new things about “smart home” living.

We can peek at those on the front porch and answer the doorbell without opening the door. We can listen to music of our choice: name the genre and the system will play it for us.

I never thought retirement would introduce us to this whole new world. Then again, back when I started working for a living in print journalism I never imagine the course that newspapers would take with the invention and development of the Internet (thanks a bunch, Al Gore). 

We’re continuing to settle into our new digs. It’s going to take some added adjustment. But . . . that’s OK. After all we’ve been through on this life journey my wife and I started more than 47 years ago, the rest of it will be an easy ride.

political news

Don’t mess with Electoral College

I am a blue voter who lives in a red state. I tilt toward Democratic candidates for president while residing in heavily Republican Texas.

Now that I’ve got that out of the way, I want to redeclare my view that efforts to circumvent the Electoral College are counterproductive. They shouldn’t go forward.

However, it appears that Democrats in states that lean blue are intent on monkeying around with the Electoral College with legislation that bypasses the system codified in the U.S. Constitution by the nation’s founders.

They want their states to cast their electoral votes for whichever candidate wins the popular vote. It’s part of what is called the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact.

Is the nation’s electoral system in peril of breaking down? I don’t believe that is the case.

We have had 59 presidenti

al elections in this country since its founding. Only five times has the candidate with fewer votes been elected president.

However, what has alarmed those who want to overhaul the electoral system insist that such a trend is in danger of escalating. They point out that it’s happened twice just since 2000! George W. Bush was elected that year despite getting about a half-million fewer votes than Al Gore. Then in 2016 Donald Trump was elected with nearly 3 million fewer votes than Hillary Rodham Clinton.

It fascinates me to know that the move to tinker with the Electoral College is coming from aggrieved Democrats, given that the 2000 and 2016 elections went to the Republican nominee for president.

We are witnessing what I believe is a knee-jerk reaction to an overblown issue. It kind of reminds of me how Republicans in Congress pushed for enactment of the 22nd Amendment limiting presidents to two elected terms; they did so after Democrat Franklin D. Roosevelt won election to four consecutive terms as president.

Let me reiterate an essential point. If we’re going to change the electoral system, then eliminate the Electoral College. It is an absurd notion to tweak and tug at the edges of the system.

I happen to still believe in the Electoral College system of choosing our president. I endorse the idea that it helps spread the power among more states, giving less-populated states a stronger voice in choosing our head of state.

If we’re going to mess with the Electoral College, then go all the way.

Or else leave it the hell alone!

national news, political news

‘Florida’ becomes new synonym for election incompetence

Move over, Texas. You — I mean “we” — are being replaced as the butt of jokes related to election incompetence and possible corruption.

There once was a time when Texas was known for dead people casting ballots in, say, tiny Duval County in the southern part of the state. It was thought that the cadaver vote vaulted Lyndon Baines Johnson into Congress.

As a transplant who moved to Texas more than three decades ago, I am not proud of the state’s former reputation as a cesspool for political corruption. In that regard, I feel sorry for the conscientious Floridians who now are living with the same level of skepticism.

Broward County, Fla., is in the news again. It isn’t good.

Trouble looms for 2020

They’re trying to determine the winner of two red-hot races in Florida: the campaign for governor and for U.S. Senate. The attention focuses on Broward County, home to around 2 million residents. Thus, they cast a lot of votes in that south Florida county.

They can’t seem to get ’em counted. There might be an automatic recount. Or maybe it’ll be a manual recount.

Republican Gov. Rick Scott holds a narrow lead over U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson — at the moment! GOP U.S. Rep. Ron DeSantis is barely ahead of Democratic Tallahassee Mayor Andrew Gillum. Scott and DeSantis have (more or less) declared victory. Nelson and Gillum aren’t conceding. They’re waiting … and waiting … and waiting for all the ballots to be counted.

Of course, this is far from the first time Florida has been at the epicenter of questionable electoral issues. You remember the 2000 presidential election, yes? It came down to an aborted recount of the contest between Texas Gov. George W. Bush and Vice President Albert Gore Jr. The winner would rake in the state’s Electoral College votes and win the presidency. The U.S. Supreme Court ended up ordering the vote count stopped and when it did, Gov. Bush had 537 more votes — out of more than 5.8 million ballots cast — than Vice President Gore. The court ruling came on a 5-4 vote; the five GOP appointed justices voted to stop the count, with the four Democratic appointed justices dissenting.

Well, the rest — as they say — is history.

This resident of Texas is glad to have my state kicked off the (alleged) voter fraud pedestal.

As a patriotic American, though, I do hope that our fellow Americans in Florida can cure what ails that state’s electoral process. Our political process needs to be free of this kind of turmoil.

I just pray the Russians aren’t involved.

national news

Trump seeks to spend political capital he doesn’t have

The nation is full of Republicans who identify closely with the Grand Old Party — and who don’t identify with the nation’s top Republican.

The president of the United States, Donald Trump, has done his level best to strip the bark off the hides of leading GOP politicians. To what end remains one of the major questions of the moment.

Matthew Dowd is a true-blue Republican. He’s a Texan with close ties to former President George W. Bush. He’s also a Never Trump kind of Republican. Dowd is a seasoned political operative who knows his way around the Republican Party pea patch.

He said something quite instructive about how these two Republican presidents — Bush and Trump — sought to get their terms in office off and running.

Dowd, speaking Sunday on “ABC This Week,” talked of how President Bush was elected under shaky circumstances. He lost the popular vote in 2000 to Albert Gore Jr. and earned enough Electoral College votes through a U.S. Supreme Court ruling.

What did the president do, knowing he lacked political capital? Dowd recalled how Bush reached across the aisle to work with Democrats on key legislation. He cited President Bush’s partnership with the late Democratic U.S. Sen. Ted Kennedy on education reform. He sought out Democrats to craft an immigration reform package as well.

As Dowd noted, that’s how presidents lacking in capital seek to build on their shaky political base.

How has Trump responded? Quite the opposite. He lost the popular vote to Hillary Clinton by nearly 3 million ballots. He won the Electoral College majority by a total of 80,000 votes in three key swing states that voted twice for Barack Obama.

Trump’s strategy has been to thumb his nose at congressional Democrats. He has sought a Republican-only legislative agenda, except that he cannot manage to bring all the members of his own party — given the wide diversity of ideology within the GOP — under the same roof.

Therein lies a critical difference between Bush and Trump.

President Bush was able to work with Democrats who ran the Texas Legislature during the years he served as Texas governor from 1995 to 2000. He knew how to legislate and he took that government experience with him to the White House in January 2001.

Donald Trump has none of that experience. Zeeero! He ran on his record as business mogul and said he would govern the country the way he ran his business empire. No … can … do, Mr. President.

Nor can the president govern a nation with a population that voted for his opponent by appealing exclusively to his core supporters.

Will the president ever learn that lesson? Uhh, probably not.

political news

Mr. VP? Bush won, you lost in 2000

Al Gore has returned to the public arena in a big way.

He’s pitching a documentary film, a sequel to “An Inconvenient Truth.” The former vice president also has suggested something quite provocative about the 2000 election, which he lost by the narrowest margin possible to George W. Bush.

“I think I carried Florida,” Gore told Bill Maher on Maher’s TV show the other night.

Yep, Gore thinks he won the state that decided the election.

Bush won, Gore lost.

Actually, Mr. Vice President, you didn’t win it. Bush did. The former Texas governor won Florida by 537 votes, giving him enough Electoral College votes to be elected. The final electoral vote total was Bush 271, Gore 266; Bush needed 270 electoral votes to win. Game over.

Yes, we know the story about the U.S. Supreme Court’s 5-4 decision that stopped the recount of ballots in Florida. The five Republican-appointed justices voted to end the count; the four Democratic appointees wanted it to continue.

Moreover, a Knight-Ridder/Miami Herald study suggested later that Bush would have won Florida by an even wider margin had the recount continued.

I’ll stipulate here that I wanted Gore to be elected president in 2000. I was dismayed that the court ruled as it did.

However, the system worked precisely as prescribed by the U.S. Constitution. Although I wanted a different outcome, I never have challenged the legitimacy of President Bush’s election.

Neither should the man he defeated.

environmental news

Gore was ‘wrong’ about Trump

Albert Gore Jr. must possess a bottomless wellspring of hope in his soul.

The former vice president told Stephen Colbert this week that he had hoped Donald J. Trump would change his mind regarding his decision to pull the United States out of the Paris climate change accord.

He has given up. The former VP says on Colbert’s late-night talk show that Trump is beyond redemption regarding climate change, which has been Gore’s signature issue since leaving the vice presidency in January 2001.

According to The Hill: “I went to Trump Tower after the election,” said Gore, who was on the show to promote his new movie, “An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power.”

“I thought that there was a chance he would come to his senses. But I was wrong.”

The former vice president perhaps can take some solace in the belief — at least I believe it — that Trump doesn’t understand climate change or that he doesn’t grasp the theories floated by scientists around the world that human activity is a major cause of the planet’s changing climate.

Science means nothing to the reality TV celebrity-turned-president of the United States.

It doesn’t make Al Gore feel any better, to be sure. Perhaps his wellspring of hope is diminished somewhat as it regards the president of the United States.

national news, political news

Hold on, Rep. Lewis!

I have great respect and admiration for John Lewis, one of the most iconic members of the U.S. House of Representatives.

This brave and gallant man who was nearly beaten to death during the civil-rights marches of the 1960s, has not only survived, but he has become one of the great voices of Congress.

But he is getting way ahead of himself when he calls Donald J. Trump an “illegitimate” president.

Why is that? Rep. Lewis is concerned about the Russian involvement in our electoral process and allegations that Russian geeks/spooks sought to influence the outcome of the 2016 presidential election — in Trump’s favor.

http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/314234-john-lewis-trump-isnt-a-legitimate-president

Let’s hold on, sir!

I happen to share your distaste of Trump as a president. Believe me, I preferred the other major-party candidate over the Republican nominee. I also am concerned about the Russian involvement as confirmed by U.S. intelligence agencies.

However, nothing at all has been established about whether Russian hackers had any tangible impact on the outcome of the election. No one has proved that Russians tilted significant numbers of Americans to vote for Trump over Clinton.

I’ve never been prone to question the “legitimacy” of presidents elected in a controversial manner. I never once, not for a second, questioned President George W. Bush’s election in 2000 — even with the Supreme Court ruling and the fact that he got fewer popular votes than Al Gore. The U.S. Constitution worked as it was supposed to work in that election and Bush’s presidency was granted its legitimacy at that time.

Donald Trump won more Electoral College votes than Hillary Clinton. He, too, is a “legitimate” president-elect by virtue of collecting enough of the votes that count to be elected.

Unless someone can determine beyond a doubt that Russians — or some mysterious unknown intervener — actually had a tangible impact on the 2016 presidential election, then calling Trump’s presidency “illegitimate” is a major step too far.

Do I wish the outcome had been different? Absolutely! It wasn’t. Too bad for those of us who voted for someone else. I’m going to wait to see how this Russian-hacking probe plays out.

environmental news, national news

Trump finds religion on climate change?

rtr_al_gore_jc_150813_16x9_992

I thought Donald J. Trump called the issue of climate change a “hoax” promoted by China as a way to harm U.S. industries.

Isn’t that what he said while campaigning for president of the United States?

OK. He did say that.

Why, then, did he and his daughter Ivanka meet with former Vice President Al Gore today? Gore’s signature issue is — yep — climate change. He’s written books about it. He has delivered countless lectures about how he believes human beings have contributed greatly the changing climate around the world. He won the Nobel Peace Prize for his work on the subject.

Gore also has taken more than his share of ridicule from political conservatives who debunk the notion he puts forth and which has been supported by the vast majority of scientists worldwide.

http://www.politico.com/blogs/donald-trump-administration/2016/12/al-gore-trump-meeting-232203

Gore was quite circumspect when talking to reporters after the meeting. He revealed next to nothing about what they discussed.

My guess? Gore talked to the president-elect about climate change and sought to persuade him that it is far from a hoax.

national news, political news

Trump ‘mandate’ getting smaller by the day

hillary

Donald J. Trump’s so-called presidential election “mandate” is disappearing right before his eyes.

The president-elect has captured the Electoral College vote by a healthy — if not overwhelming — margin. He’ll finish with 306 electoral votes to Hillary Rodham Clinton’s 232 votes. Of course, that assumes that all the electors earmarked for both candidates actually vote that way when they take the tally in December.

I’ll be intrigued, though, to hear whether Trump declares his election is a “mandate” to do all the things he wants to do: build the wall, ban Muslims, toss out trade agreements, “bomb the s*** out of ISIS,” you know … stuff like that.

Clinton’s popular vote margin has surpassed 1 million ballots, with the “lead” sure to grow as vote-counters tally up ballots in Clinton-friendly states such as California.

I don’t for a second doubt the legitimacy of Trump’s victory. He won where it counted. To be sure, Clinton will draw small comfort in knowing she collected more ballots nationally than the man who “defeated” her.

However, I think it’s worth stating that the winner needs to take some care — if he’s capable of demonstrating that trait — in crowing about whatever “mandate” he thinks he got from an election that clearly is sending mixed messages throughout the nation and around the world.

The mandate is shrinking each day.

***

Indeed, I cannot help but think of a friend of mine, the late Buddy Seewald of Amarillo, who once talked describe the local effort in the Texas Panhandle to “re-defeat” President Bush in 2004. Bush, then the Texas governor, won the presidency in 2000 in a manner similar to the way Trump was elected: He got the requisite number of electoral votes — with a major boost from the U.S. Supreme Court — while losing the popular vote to Vice President Al Gore.

Might that be the rallying cry if Donald Trump runs for re-election in 2020? It works for me.

http://www.politico.com/story/2016/11/clinton-popular-vote-trump-2016-election-231434