Month: August 2018

A Federal Bill Is Not A Chinese Menu

This won’t be too long and though it uses the Trump administration as its example it is not directed at him but at a line of modern presidencies that have blatantly violated the U.S. Constitution.

This week Trump signed the current Defense Appropriations Act, a law appropriating a record $716 billion for the Defense Department. This writing is not to dispute that legislation as excessive, bad fiscal policy or unhinged defense policy, though I think it is.

It is not to note — as I am about to — that although his peers in the Congress honored the ailing Sen. John McCain by naming the law in his honor, Trump, who hates McCain, did not so much as mention him during the public signing.

No, the purpose here is to comment, as reported by the New York Times, that in signing the law Trump claimed authority to ignore various mandates in the statute.

Continue reading “A Federal Bill Is Not A Chinese Menu”

The Best of Friends

A Politico story today (Aug. 3, 2017) reports  Trump says he has a better relationship with European leaders than any American president ever has had. Really? He has a better relationship with Theresa May than FDR ever had with Winston Churchill — that was his name wasn’t it? The PM of England who declared in Commons in May 1940, “We shall never surrender.”
Really? He has better relationships with European leaders than President Eisenhower, who pretty much knew them all for years before becoming president in 1953, having led the Allied Expeditionary Force that liberated Western Europe from the Nazi yoke during WWII and who then put his five-star uniform back on in 1949 to serve as the first commander of NATO?
Well then, isn’t it obvious that the president has better relationships with European leaders than any president ever has? After all,  he only had to spend a few hours with PM May to cement their so obviously dear and close friendship and partnership.

Continue reading “The Best of Friends”