Tag Archives: Sadiq Khan

International news

Way to go, Mr. POTUS: arrive in UK and then insult London mayor

Donald Trump has delivered a stern message to his hosts in the United Kingdom.

He don’t need no stinkin’ diplomacy.

The president of the United States landed in London and then immediately hurled an insult at that city’s presiding elected official, Mayor Sadiq Khan, who he called a “stone cold loser.”

Oh, yes. He also said that Mayor Khan is doing a “terrible job as mayor” and has been “foolishly nasty to the visiting president of the United States.”

I suppose I need to mention that Khan is a Muslim, the first Muslim ever elected mayor of London. Khan also has taken umbrage at the president’s travel ban to the United States by all Muslims, which I suppose means that Khan can’t ever visit the former Colonies on official business. I mean, it’s not as though there might be some business to be done with the UK’s stellar political, economic and military ally ā€¦ correct?

The president won’t listen to anyone, but he needs to understand something about diplomacy. It’s OK to think certain things about politicians, or perhaps say things in private to them. Why unleash these Twitter tirades into the universe, entering those epithets into the public domain and insulting the mayor of one of the world’s great cities?

What’s more, the president relies solely on empty platitudes, never once citing a specific example of why a fellow elected official is doing such a “terrible job.” That’s how this POTUS rolls, as we Americans have learned all too well.

Sadiq Khan isn’t the “stone cold loser” in this instance, Mr. President.

You are!

environmental news

Give POTUS the dickens on climate change, Your Highness

Climate change is happening. It isn’t a hoax. It isn’t a made-up figment of billions of Earthlings’ imagination. Honest. It’s happening right now in real time.

One of the world’s pre-eminent climate-change activists happens to be the United Kingdom’s monarch-in-waiting, Prince Charles.

Prince Charles is going to play host soon to Donald Trump, president of the United States and one of the world’s pre-eminent climate-change deniers.

Thus, the visit is filled with controversy, and Trump hasn’t even arrived yet.

Trump has said climate-change is a hoax drummed up by China, which he alleges is trying to undermine the U.S. fossil fuel industry. Of course, as he does with virtually every allegation he makes, the president doesn’t offer a shred of evidence to buttress whatever he says.

Prince Charles agreed to meet with the president when he makes his initial state visit to the U.K. These visits usually involve a meeting with Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II. Any meeting with her son, the heir to the throne, isn’t required of visiting heads of state.

But it’s good that Trump will meet with the prince.

It also is my fondest hope that Prince Charles raises the issue of climate change with Donald Trump. Oh, I wish I could be the proverbial fly in whatever room where such a meeting would occur . . . although I doubt there will be a fly anywhere near the two men, if you get what I mean.

There’s also the situation involving the possible meeting between Trump and Sadiq Khan, the Muslim mayor of London. Trump has spoken ill of Muslims, saying how they “hate America”; he has tried to enact travel bans of Muslims to the United States. Along the way, he has managed to offend Muslim worshipers, such as Mayor Khan.

The issue at hand, though, is whether the planet’s climate is changing and what the world’s leading industrialized nations are doing to minimize the damage being done to our ecosystem. The Brits are being proactive, responding to the rhetoric espoused by the Duke of Windsor and other environmental activists. Americans, though, are hamstrung by the president’s rescinding of environmental regulations aimed at curbing carbon emissions, a serious cause of Earth’s annual warming.

Give the president the dickens on climate change, Your Highness.

I am one American who is on your side. I am quite sure I’m not alone.

national news

Is there a Liars Anonymous organization?

Donald Trump needs an intervention.

The president of the United States cannot tell the truth. He cannot state simply the reality of any situation he confronts, or that stands in his way.

Trump decided to lie like a rug yet again when he announced his decision to cancel a planned state visit to Great Britain. His excuse? He said former President Barack Obama brokered a bad deal to purchase the site for a new U.S. Embassy in London.

Trump blasted his immediate predecessor for paying too much public money to relocate the embassy.

So, that was his pretext for deciding against visiting the UK?

Two points are worth making here.

One is that his stated reason is as transparently phony as it can possibly get. The president doesn’t need to fabricate a reason to avoid going somewhere. The real reason clearly has to be that Brits cannot stand him. He was going to run straight into the teeth of intense public protests were he to visit Great Britain.

He has insulted British Prime Minister Teresa May; he has hurled ill-founded criticism of London’s mayor, Sadiq Khan, who happens to be a Muslim (and we certainly know how Trump feels about those who practice the Islamic faith).

The second point is this: The deal to purchase the embassy site was brokered under the administration of President George W. Bush. It was finalized in 2008, the year before Barack H. Obama took office.

Donald Trump has a serious grudge against Barack Obama. What fuels it? Is it that the former president exhibited the class and grace that the current president lacks? Is it the former president’s continued high standing among Americans? Is it because of the former president’s racial … oh, you know.

Donald Trump cannot tell the truth. He is a pathological liar.

He needs to enroll in a Liars Anonymous session — if there’s one available … and declare: My name is Donald and I am a liar.

 

International news

Is Trump about to get disinvited?

It’s not every day that a foreign nation disinvites the president of the United States who is scheduled to pay a state visit abroad?

But get a load of this: London Mayor Sadiq Khan is asking British Prime Minister Teresa May to cancel’s Donald J. Trump’s state visit to the United Kingdom.

Why? Oh, let’s see. London was hit by a terrorist attack; the U.S. president tweeted out a message that took Mayor Khan’s comments out of context and initiated an across-the-pond feud between Washington and London.

http://thehill.com/policy/international/336468-london-mayor-calls-for-cancellation-of-trump-state-visit-to-uk?rnd=1496712775

This is yet another example of the president’s awkward performance on the world stage. Tragedy strikes a nation and the president sends tweets that reflect a knee-jerk impulse. In the case of his feud with Sadiq Khan, the president assumed he said London shouldn’t be “concerned” about terrorists; the mayor said no such thing.

Now the mayor is saying that the United Kingdom needs a trustworthy ally in the president of the United States, and that it doesn’t have one in Donald J. Trump.

International news, national news, political news, religious news

Mayor to Trump: Thanks, but no thanks

Sadiq Khan

Sadiq Khan made history by becoming the first Muslim ever elected mayor of London.

He’s a distinguished man who apparently doesn’t like other politicians patronizing him.

So, when presumptive Republican Party presidential nominee Donald J. Trump offered to grant the mayor-elect an “exception” to a proposed ban on Muslims visiting the United States, Khan offered a terse “no thanks.”

This is precisely the kind of reaction Trump should have gotten in response to his ridiculous — and patently unconstitutional — proposal to ban people from entering the United States on the basis of their religious belief.

Trump issued the call in the wake of the Paris terror attacks. He said he would, if elected president, work to ban all Muslims from entering the United States. Why? He said the threat of Islamic terrorism coming to this country is too great.

Trump does not grasp the idiocy of this proclamation.

Mayor-elect Khan has rejected Trump’s offer to exempt him from the ban. He wonders about how other Muslims would react if they want to come to the United States “on holiday.” What if they want to go to Disneyland, Khan asked, but they can’t because “President Trump” says they aren’t welcome here?

The First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution allows absolute freedom to worship as one believes. It has been interpreted during the past two-plus centuries to mean that no one should be discriminated against because of their religious faith.

Trump has proposed something that utterly flouts one of the basic tenets on which this country was founded.

Sadiq Khan — the duly elected mayor of one of the world’s truly great cities — saw through it immediately.

He understands what it means to be an American more than theĀ individual who is poised to be nominated to run for the presidency of the United States.