Columnist.
President-elect Donald Trump is reportedly considering seriously at least two men for the critical position of secretary of state. One, former presidential candidate Mitt Romney, has divided the Trump team between those who think it is a good idea and those who think Romney's severe criticism of Trump during the campaign disqualifies him.
In a statement following the death of Cuban dictator Fidel Castro, President Obama spoke of "the countless ways in which (Castro) altered the course of individual lives, families, and of the Cuban nation."
President-elect Donald Trump says Brandon Victor Dixon, the actor who currently plays Aaron Burr in the Broadway musical "Hamilton," should apologize for his tacky lecturing of Vice-President-elect Mike Pence about diversity and the "fear" of people like himself, an African-American, about a Trump-Pence administration.
That race continues to be a major source of anxiety and division in America is an undeniable fact. While some politicians continue to use race to divide, Harvard Professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. is trying again to bridge the gap in his latest PBS documentary series "Black America Since MLK."
Three years ago when Republicans were battling President Obama over the debt ceiling and a government shutdown, the president said, "You don't like a particular policy or a particular president? Then argue for your position. Go out there and win an election."
It didn't take long. Journalists, editorial writers and columnists who hate Donald Trump and consistently opposed his election are now advising him what not to do. Newspaper headlines claim Trump is pulling back on his campaign promises. Editorials encourage him not to do everything he pledged, although his pledges are what got him elected. The ACLU bought a full-page ad in The New York Times, vowing to use its army of lawyers and volunteers to thwart Trump's agenda.
Donald Trump's impressive victory in Tuesday's election offers him a rare opportunity to change the narrative. Secular progressive policies at home and abroad are not working. The establishment has had its chance — multiple chances, in fact — to fix things, but it has failed, or didn't try, under Republican and Democratic administrations. Voters are taking a big chance with Trump, but things have gotten so bad that the election shows many millions of Americans are willing to try something new.
As a former "Never Trump-er," I have been interested in others who have converted, however reluctantly, if not into Trump supporters, then pragmatic accepters of Trump against Hillary Clinton. Call us ever-Trump-ers.
If Donald Trump wants to win this election and thwart the attempt by the corrupt Clintons to acquire the White House again, he must close the deal with persuadable voters in a nationally televised address. Here is how it might go. My fellow Americans, running for president of this country I love and that has been so good to me is the greatest privilege I have ever known. Only being elected president would be a higher honor. I know the concerns many of you have about me. I am far from perfect and have made mistakes, but I have learned from those mistakes and I promise you a presidency that will make you proud.
I love definitions because they help focus the mind. Under dictionary.com's definition of "corrupt" one finds the following: 1. Guilty of dishonest practices, as bribery; lacking integrity; crooked: 2. Debased in character; depraved; perverted; wicked; evil: 3. Infected; tainted.
Last Saturday, Donald Trump delivered a speech in Gettysburg, Pa., that he should have given much earlier in the campaign, minus the usual threats against women who have accused him of sexual assault. The speech, which was probably written for him because "deep" and "thinker" are likely not the first two words that spring to mind when you hear the name Trump, set out an agenda for what he promises to do should he be elected president. Trump's promises were divided into three sections. The first action, he said, would "clean up the corruption and special interest collusion in Washington, D.C."
Students of the Watergate era (or those old enough to have lived through it) will recall the "dirty tricks" played by Richard Nixon's henchmen, most notably Donald Segretti. Segretti, who was hired by Nixon's deputy assistant, Dwight Chapin, was tasked with smearing Democrats, including senator and 1972 presidential candidate, Edmund Muskie of Maine. Among several "tricks," Segretti composed a fake letter on Muskie's letterhead falsely alleging that Sen. Henry "Scoop" Jackson (D-WA) had fathered a child with a 17-year-old girl.
Way too many Millennials are okay with electing either a socialist or communist.
Many millennials are OK with socialism, even communism, according to a YouGov poll commissioned by The Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation. Forty-five percent of those polled between the ages of 16 and 20 years old said they would vote for a socialist, while 20 percent said they could vote for a communist. Maybe that explains the Che Guevara T-shirts so many of them like to wear. Responding to the poll, Marion Smith, the executive director of the organization, said, "An emerging generation of Americans has little understanding of the collectivist system and its dark history." Partial credit for this should go to former presidential candidate and avowed socialist Bernie Sanders.
Modern journalists have little in common with those I was privileged to know when I was a copyboy at NBC News in Washington in the '60s. Today's "journalists" will disagree, but as numerous surveys have shown, the public trust in what is collectively called the media has sunk to an all-time low. Only the media think they don't have to change and can continue to sell a product more and more people refuse to buy. WikiLeaks dumps of Clinton campaign emails with reporters should contain enough proof for any reasonable person that big media is in the tank for her. In what may be unprecedented, The New York Times allowed Hillary to edit her own quotes.
Not since George and Martha in the play "Whose Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" or for older readers Don Ameche and Frances Langford in the radio comedy "The Bickersons," have we seen the kind of verbal pugilism practiced in Sunday night's presidential debate between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton. If the business of Trump's lewd language about women caught on tape 11 years ago and Bill Clinton's sexual history with Hillary enabling him in the trashing of his conquests could be set aside, only the issues would remain, and wouldn't that be good?
This election is about a lot of things, but it is fundamentally about the U.S. Constitution and whether federal judges will adhere to their oath.
What would you think of an individual or a company that earned a pre-tax profit of $29.9 million in one year, paid nothing in taxes and still received a $3.5 million refund? Am I speaking of Donald Trump? No, it is The New York Times Company. Forbes magazine studied the newspaper's 2014 annual report, in which the company explained: "The effective tax rate for 2014 was favorably affected by approximately $21.1 million for the reversal of reserves for uncertain tax positions due to the lapse of applicable statutes of limitations." In other words the Times took advantage of tax laws that only good tax attorneys understand and in doing so was no different than Donald Trump. The Times, which obtained Trump's supposedly confidential tax returns, made a big deal out of the Republican presidential candidate's use of loopholes to avoid paying taxes.
In every election cycle since Jimmy Carter introduced "born again" into the political lexicon, a politician's faith has been an object of curiosity and contention. At an appearance in Iowa in January, Hillary Clinton responded to a question about her faith, saying she is a Christian and a Methodist and that to her "the most important commandment is to love the Lord with all your might and to love your neighbor as yourself." She is correct, but the challenge comes in how that commandment and Scripture are applied in the political arena. The same Scripture in which Hillary Clinton says she believes also teaches that marriage is between a man and a woman and that human life begins at conception. Hillary Clinton is pro-choice and favors same-sex marriage and the repeal of the Hyde Amendment, which prohibits taxpayer funds being used for abortion.
Donald Trump scored a gentleman's "C" in his first debate with Hillary Clinton. She was programmed, like one of those androids from the film "Westworld," spewing out well-rehearsed sound bites, smiling (sometimes condescendingly), and even tossing in a few wiggles. It was all designed to make her look warm and wonderful. As the saying goes, if you can fake sincerity, you can fake anything. Trump did best when he didn't focus on himself and this is the pattern he should follow in the next two debates. As a seasoned debater, who has taken on professors and liberal thinkers on campuses from Harvard, Dartmouth and Yale in the east, to the University of California, Davis in the west, I think I can say without too much hubris that I know how to destroy a bad argument.
