Category Archives: Donald Trump
Russian Election Hacking
In 2012 President Obama told Russian President Medvedev he would be much more flexible after the election. Obama thought his remarks were private but he was speaking into an open mic in front of tv cameras.
Lucky for him, there was no Republican narrative of Russian election hacking in 2012. It might have seemed plausible, considering the fact that Obama repeatedly mocked Romney for insisting that Russia was our number one enemy. Also, in 2009, Obama halted a missile defense system in Poland and The Czech Republic. Romney described that act as “a gift to Russia.”
Russian Hacking
If the Russians had any incentive to hack a U.S. election, 2012 would seem to be the ticket. After that election they felt comfortable enough to invade Crimea without fear of U.S. sanctions. Obama only got tough with Russia on his way out the door in December 2016. He imposed sanctions after Hillary lost and the Russians were accused of hacking John Podesta’s emails. Which, btw, is the only reason we know Donna Brazile fed debate questions to Hillary.
Those sanctions are the ones Michael Flynn is accused of discussing in December with the Russian ambassador. We know about that, not through an open mic, but from leaked classified U.S. intelligence.
Buy Ivanka Dresses Or Else
When Nordstrom dropped Ivanka Trump’s fashion line, President Trump tweeted. He accused the company of treating his daughter unfairly.
Ivanka
Trump isn’t the first president to defend his daughter. A Washington Post music critic once gave Margaret Truman a bad review for a singing performance. Her father, President Harry Truman, gave him hell:
In response to Washington Post Music Critic Paul Hume’s December 6, 1950, review of Margaret Truman’s singing performance at Constitution Hall, stating,
“Miss Truman is a unique American phenomenon with a pleasant voice of little size and fair quality (she) cannot sing very well is flat a good deal of the time�more last night than at any time we have heard her in past years � has not improved in the years we have heard her � (and) still cannot sing with anything approaching professional finish.”
President Truman responded with the following letter to Hume:
THE WHITE HOUSE
WASHINGTON
Dec. 6, 1950
Mr. Hume:
I’ve just read your lousy review of Margaret’s concert. I’ve come to the conclusion that you are an “eight ulcer man on four ulcer pay.”
It seems to me that you are a frustrated old man who wishes he could have been successful. When you write such poppy-cock as was in the back section of the paper you work for it shows conclusively that you’re off the beam and at least four of your ulcers are at work.
Some day I hope to meet you. When that happens you’ll need a new nose, a lot of beefsteak for black eyes, and perhaps a supporter below!
Pegler, a gutter snipe, is a gentleman alongside you. I hope you’ll accept that statement as a worse insult than a reflection on your ancestry.
H.S.T.
Resist The Vote
What the people carrying “Resist” signs really don’t like are the Deplorables who voted for Trump.
An October Huffington Post headline read “Trump’s Refusal to Accept Election Results has Americans fuming.” And Hillary called Trump a “threat to Democracy” for refusing to say in advance he’d accept the results of the election.
Resist
But Trump won and now the shoe’s on the other foot. A Reason headline about protesters at Berkley says, “Thugs indulge their Weimar Dreams and Become the Totalitarians They Claim to Hate.”
Killing Putin
In his Super Bowl interview with President Trump, Bill O’Reilly accused the Russian President of killing people. Trump’s response? “You think our country’s so innocent?”
That made me think of one of my favorite exchanges between Michael Corleone and Kay Adams:
Michael: My father is no different than any powerful man, any man with power, like a president or senator.
Kay: Do you know how naive you sound, Michael? Presidents and senators don’t have men killed.
Michael: Oh. Who’s being naive, Kay?
Except Trump is president, not a mob boss. Now who’s being naive?
Putin
Anyway, I got the idea for this cartoon from a Holman Jenkins column in the WSJ.
His assessment of Trump’s comments was, “unwise, spoken by somebody with a thin grasp of his circumstances.” But he went on to say, “Trump, clumsily, was actually keeping up a longstanding U.S. policy of covering up for Mr. Putin.” Then Jenkins detailed the Ryazan bombing plot by Putin security thugs to frame Chechen terrorists. It rarely gets mentioned by American officials. Jenkins thinks that’s because everybody wants to make a deal with Putin.
He concludes, “Read a certain way, Mr. Trump’s comments make him the first U.S. president to address Mr. Putin’s real nature.”
BTW: Not climbing on the assassination chic bandwagon or anything here with the title. Just having a little fun with a commentator’s line of books.
Acting Attorney General Sally Yates Fired
Apparently Sally Yates is just another protester resisting the Trump presidency. Except that she’s the Acting Attorney General. Or was. President Trump fired her when she refused to carry out his immigration law revisions.
Sally Yates Profile
Senator Chuck Schumer immediately tried to compare the firing to Nixon’s Saturday night massacre. The wily crying senator even worked in a Kennedy allusion, calling Yates “a profile in courage”. Harvard Law professor Alan Dershowitz was having none of it. He said, “Yates was an Obama holdover who made a serious mistake by making a political decision rather than a legal one.”
Carl M. Cannon in Real Clear Politics says Yates is more a “profile in partisanship.” He says that Yates “shouldn’t still be in that job at the Department of Justice. Jeff Sessions should be, and Chuck Schumer is the reason he’s not.”
