Tag Archives: John Podesta

International news

Trump tweets about this on eve of big meeting?

Donald J. Trump had a full day that began with a typically bizarre fit of petulance from the president of the United States.

Trump was set to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin. They talked about Russian meddling with U.S. electoral processes; they announced a cease fire in parts of Syria; they agreed to move forward with bilateral relations.

Big stuff, right?

So what does the president tweet about this morning? He launched into a Twitter tirade against former Hillary Clinton campaign director John Podesta. Trump said “everybody” at the G20 summit he is attending is “talking about” Podesta and that ridiculous e-mail controversy that engulfed the Clinton campaign.

Everybody is talking about it? Every(bleeping)body, Mr. President?

I’m not going to dive into the details of what Trump tweeted. I do feel the need to wonder: What goes through the president’s mind when he is facing such a huge bilateral meeting? Can’t this guy focus on the issue of the day — which has done at all to do with Podesta, Hillary Clinton, or e-mails?

Podesta fired back. He called Trump a “whack job.”

I’ll just conclude that the president lacks anything approaching the kind of singular focus he needs to meet the huge challenges of the office he occupies.

national news, political news

Enough of the excuses … Hillary lost!

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I am growing weary of the constant blame-gaming that’s going on among those who wanted Hillary Rodham Clinton to become president of the United States.

By all means, I preferred her over theĀ candidate who won. I’ve already stipulated as much — many times! — on this blog.

She didn’t win. She lost. Hillary was thought to be the prohibitive favorite to become the next president. She didn’t get there.

And yet, we keep hearing that FBI James Comey’s 11th-hour letter to Congress about those pesky e-mails doomed Clinton’s campaign. Now we hear that the Russian hackers might have tilted the election in Donald J. Trump’s favor.

On the first matter, there’s nothing anyone can prove about Comey’s last-minute intervention. On the second matter, there ought to be a special commission convened — independent of Congress — to examine what the Russkies did, how they did it and recommend ways to protect us from future hackers. Hey, we convened such a commission after the 9/11 attacks.

Former President Bill Clinton, one of New York’s presidential electors, chimed in today about Comey and the Russians.

A lot of things went wrong with the former president’s wife’s campaign. If anyone needs to take the hickey on this stunning loss, it ought to be folks such as Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta and campaign manager Robby Mook.

Hillary Clinton should have put herself miles ahead of Trump by the time Comey’s letter came out. She fell short.

Who gets the blame? Hillary Clinton and her team needĀ to look inward.

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Podesta gets off to rocky White House start

Well, that was a bit of a stumble for the new guy in the White House.

John Podesta, former White House chief of staff during the Clinton administration, has taken on a new role as special adviser to President Obama. OK, so far.

Then we hear about an interview he did some time back in which he compared congressional Republicans to the Jonestown, Guyana cult led by the maniac Jim Jones, the one ended with the mass suicide of more than 900 men, women and children.

Podesta said this right about the time the president was ready to commence his second term: “They need to focus on executive action given that they are facing a second term against a cult worthy of Jonestown in charge of one of the houses of Congress,ā€ Podesta told Politico Magazine.

http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/193524-podesta-apologizes-for-gop-jonestown-cult-comparison

Bad call, Mr. Podesta.

He has apologized to House Speaker John Boehner, someone Podesta said he has long “respected.”

Podesta is supposed to one of the grownups who work in the West Wing. I reckon he’ll get his big boy persona into gear soon as he provides special advice and counsel to the rest of the Obama White House team.

However, given the hard feelings that linger between the White House and congressional Republicans, I’m quite sure many in the GOP aren’t going to accept the apology and just move on.

Too bad.