Tuesday Night Blindside

James Comey (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The firing of FBI Director James Comey by President Donald Trump came as a complete surprise to just about everyone.  What isn't clear is why it happened and what comes next.

Comey, it must be said, was not well liked by either Democrats or Republicans because he had a tendency to mess things up when it was least expected, and was known to say things he shouldn't have in public.  Having been appointed in the Obama administration in September 2013 with a ten-year position, he should have been above politics.

Instead, Comey more or less cost Hillary Clinton the presidency because of his late-October decision to reopen the investigation into what was in the private e-mail server of the former Secretary of State.

The removal of Comey came as Congress is investigating charges that the Russians meddled their way into the 2016 presidential election, and that Trump campaign staff may have been involved.  The most prominent victim thus far is Michael Flynn, who had only been National Security Adviser to the president for a couple of weeks before he was found to be colluding with the Russians during the transition period.  So yes, the timing is curious.

Congressional members, most of them Democrats, have been hollering about the need for a special prosecutor to handle this case.  With the dismissal of Comey, however, the President gets to pick his own candidate for not only the next FBI director, but also the special prosecutor if he chooses.  Which makes you wonder how independent this person is going to be, right?  As for Congress hiring its own prosecutor, what are they waiting for?  Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell's permission?

Trump is only the second President to fire the person who was launching an investigation against him.  The first was Richard Nixon.  Those of you with long memories will recall what happened on a Saturday night in October 1973.  Attorney General Elliot Richardson and his deputy William Ruckleshaus were both let go for refusing Nixon's order to fire Watergate special prosecutor Archibald Cox, who refused to accept the White House's version of summaries of the Watergate tapes.  It took the Solicitor General to deliver the bad news to Cox.  Days later, eight impeachment resolutions were introduced in the House of Representatives as Nixon said he would turn over the disputed tapes.

Times and scandals are different, of course.  One was a botched robbery at a rival's campaign headquarters that led to a cover-up, an investigation, and a President who resigned.  Another was the alleged interference by a foreign government of an American presidential election, benefiting the man who currently resides in the White House, which has also grown into a cover-up and a crisis months into his administration.

What happens to the investigations now depends on who President Trump nominates as his new FBI director, and whether the agency and others will find enough evidence to convict the people responsible.  If the politicians care anything about the country, the investigations should continue.  Otherwise, there will be more blindsides to come.

Trumpcare: Aiming For The Moving Target

Zoom and Bored (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Ever since the Affordable Care Act (aka Obamacare) was passed in 2010, which despite its flaws enrolled millions of people in health insurance programs that were previously denied them, Congressional Republicans have been devising ways to "repeal and replace" the law with their own version.  Most of those efforts have had as much success as Wile E. Coyote's attempts to subdue the Road Runner in those Warner Brothers cartoons.

But now they've found a version of the American Health Care Act (aka Trumpcare) that actually passed the House of Representatives, without so much as public or governmental scrutiny, on a party-line vote of 217-213.  There was a celebration at the White House with President Donald Trump, who hasn't had much Congressional luck other than getting a spending bill passed that keeps the government in business for a few more months, high-fiving everyone who had anything to do with the health care bill.  That, folks, is like the New England Patriots celebrating a Super Bowl championship at the end of the first quarter.

The bill now goes to the Senate, where it faces an uncertain future depending on how much radical surgery they choose to do on it.  For now, in case you've forgotten, here's some of what's in the AHCA bill.

• It allows insurers to raise premiums on people with pre-existing conditions.
• It restricts expansion of Medicaid after 2020.
• No penalties for those who don't buy insurance, but will let insurers charge 30 percent more for those who waited until after they got sick to get insurance.
• No cost-sharing for low-income folks to help pay for their deductibles.
• States can apply for waivers of mandatory coverage, which includes coverage for maternity care and emergency room visits.
• No taxes on the wealthy and others who helped pay for Obamacare.

The public outcry over the latest sneak attack on their right to better health care has included veiled threats against continued employment for House GOP members who voted for the AHCA.  Democrats, many of whom voted against the bill, have been heard singing "Na Na Na Na, Hey Hey Hey, Goodbye" (the 1969 rock anthem by Steam) in the House chambers, as if this were a sports arena.

If this were the fall of 2018, all this unrest against an unpopular bill might have made a difference at the polls.  But this is the spring of 2017, a few months removed from the last election, which means there will be plenty of time for collective amnesia to set in.  At least the GOP hopes so.

The next few months will decide whether or not Obamacare really does get repealed and replaced by Congress.  For that to happen, the GOP should be timing their intentions just right so that they don't end up falling off a cliff.   Just like Wile E. Coyote.

Fun Facts About "Old Hickory"

English: Andrew Jackson - 7 th President of the United States (1829–1837) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Our current esteemed President considers Andrew Jackson, the seventh President of the United States, as a role model.  So much so that the President thought Jackson could have done something about stopping the Civil War if he was still in office.  And he very well might have if he weren't six feet under by the time the shots started firing in 1861.

We don't know how much of a student of history Donald Trump is, but there are a few things he should know about the man they used to call "Old Hickory".

• He was born on March 15, 1767 to parents Andrew Sr. and Elizabeth near the border of North and South Carolina.
• Joined the Revolutionary War at age 13 before being captured.
• Became an attorney, helped draft the Tennessee state constitution.
• Became national hero as a general during the War of 1812 when, with outnumbered American troops, defeated the British at New Orleans.  There he earned the nickname "Old Hickory".
•  Was briefly military governor of Florida before becoming a U.S. Senator from Tennessee.
• Owned up to 300 slaves at his Hermitage estate in Nashville, Tennessee.
• Lost contentious presidential election to John Quincy Adams in 1824, despite having won the most popular and electoral votes, but not enough for a majority.  The House of Representatives decides in favor of Adams.
• Defeated Adams in 1828.  He was President from 1829-37.
• His Inauguration devolved into a free-for-all after he invited supporters for a party at the White House, who then ransacked the place.
• Signed Indian Removal Act, which moved Native American tribes by force from their ancestral grounds to what is now Oklahoma.
• Faced down threat by South Carolina to secede from the Union due to a dispute over high tariffs on cotton, and economic policies that favored the northern states.
• Helped found the Democratic Party.
• Called for an end to the Electoral College.
• Became the only President to pay off the national debt.
• Introduced the spoils system, which gave government jobs to party members.
• Helped to shut down the Second Bank of the United States, moving the money to financial institutions run by cronies.
• Married Rachel Donelson Robards in 1791.  She died in 1828, shortly before Jackson took office.
• Died on June 8, 1845 at age 78.
• Jackson's face currently adorns the $20 bill, but is due to be relegated to the back when abolitionist Harriet Tubman takes her place on the front in 2020.

If you want to know more about Andrew Jackson, either go online or to your local library.  That goes for you, too, President Trump.

Traen Derailment at KQRS

KQRS-FM (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

KQRS (92.5 FM) is once again the center of controversy in the Twin Cities radio world, having said goodbye to popular personalities Terri Traen and Brian Zepp, both of whom had been hosting a late-afternoon show on the station for about a year.

Traen and Zepp had been regulars on "The KQ Morning Show", bantering with host Tom Barnard.  Traen's naive act did not sit well with Barnard, so she was the subject of many verbal put-downs that were less funny than mean spirited.  How she put up with it for three decades at KQ, we'll never know.

Judging by the comments on the local media's Facebook pages, most of those who posted blamed Barnard for Traen's ouster and vowed never to listen to KQ again.  Others bragged about not having listened for many years.

Isn't it also possible that Traen's and Zepp's show was canceled on its own merits?  From all reports (meaning we didn't listen to it either), the show was lacking artistically and in the ratings.

Barnard, meanwhile, has two more years to go on his contract at KQ.  He replaced Traen with Michelle Tafoya of NBC Sports, but otherwise things haven't changed much on the morning show.  Barnard still beats his chest over the issues of the day in a manner that would make Rush Limbaugh proud, talks about himself and his family, and plugs his separately-produced daily podcast.  The rest of his on-air crew react as if they were verbal bobbleheads.

Barnard's show used to be the most dominant on Twin Cities morning radio, to the point where every other station gave up trying to compete.  No longer.  The top-rated show is now "The Power Trip" on KFAN (100.3 FM).  Either this is an indication that the quality of morning radio has gone way down since Barnard started his show 30 years ago, or listeners have grown tired of him, or both.

Another familiar complaint is that KQ's classic rock format has devolved into playing the same number of songs from the same number of artists that were popular 40 or 50 years ago.  Classic rock has been a lucrative format for years, but is now becoming stale as more people find better music options and Baby Boomers are aging out of the 25-54 demographic.

Cumulus Media, KQ's parent company, has been accused of skimping on the hundreds of radio stations they own just so they could avoid bankruptcy.  So, for that matter, is iHeart Media.  CBS Radio is selling its stations to Entercom.  But as long as Cumulus still thinks KQ is making money in its current format, they don't see a reason to change.

Everyone who works in media gets fired at one time or another, and Terri Traen and Brian Zepp are no exception.  Maybe they'll find gainful employment somewhere else, maybe they won't.  But the years spent as well-known personalities at a top-rated rock station probably won't be duplicated.

100 Days of The Donald

English: Donald Trump at a press conference announcing David Blaine's latest feat in New York City at the Trump Tower. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

They say the first hundred days of a presidency is the most important, because it sets the agenda for what will happen during the next four to eight years.  For President Donald Trump, he's just now learning the do's and don'ts of what his new office entails.  What follows is a rundown of what Trump did and did not accomplish in his first hundred days in office.  Let's just say it's been interesting.

WHAT TRUMP DID:

• Drops out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a trade deal no one except President Barack Obama was excited about anyway. 
• Start a trade war with Canada over lumber.
• Reversed his stance on China as a "currency manipulator", and is getting along better with its leaders, if only to keep North Korea in line.
• Decided that NATO wasn't as obsolete as he thought it was, as long as member nations pay their bills.
• Nominated generals, climate change deniers, business leaders and other strange individuals to Cabinet positions.
• Separated himself from his business dealings by setting up a trust, handled by two unofficial advisors who also happen to be his sons.
• Brought in daughter Ivanka and her husband Jared Kushner to serve as White House advisers.  It also gives Ivanka a better platform for hawking her jewelry and clothing lines.
• Bombed a Syrian airfield in response to Bashir al-Assad's use of sarin gas on his own people.
• Spent weekends playing golf and hanging out at his Mar-a-Lago club on the taxpayers' dime.
• Gets his news from "Fox & Friends", the only source he doesn't consider "fake news".
• Dropped a 22,000-pound superbomb on an Islamic State bunker in Afghanistan, killing 94.  Who needs diplomacy?
• Neil Gorsuch became a Supreme Court justice, but only after the Republican Senate changed the rules to get him on the bench.
• Signed a dozen executive orders that affected federal regulations on such things as internet privacy, immigration and the environment.  In other words, reversing most of Obama's accomplishments.
• The stock market improved four percent since Trump took office.
• Has tweeted more than any President in history.

WHAT TRUMP DIDN'T DO:

• Failed to get his travel ban against people coming from mostly Muslim nations past the courts.  Twice.
• Didn't get his plan to "repeal and replace" Obamacare to a vote in Congress before the Republicans pulled it.  Yet.
• Did not declare war on North Korea.  Yet.
• Failed to convince folks that he's nothing more than a bobo for Russian President Vladimir Putin, or that the Russians gave him and his staff plenty of help to win the election.
• Let go of grudges against Obama or Hillary Clinton.
• The number of jobs created was half as many Trump claimed.
• Separate the rift between Kushner and chief strategist Steve Bannon.
• Convince more than half of the American public that he's doing a good job in office.  However, ABC News reports that 96 percent of Trump voters didn't regret choosing him.  Then again. the President considers polls to be "fake news" anyway.
• Get that wall built on the Mexican border.  Yet.
• Release his tax returns.
• Convince wife Melania to move to the White House from Trump Tower, or at least act like she enjoys being First Lady.
• Resign from office or get impeached.

What will the next hundred days bring us?  How about the next thousand?  One shudders at the thought, given what's happened the past hundred days.

Bill O'Reilly, Outfoxed

Bill O'Reilly at the World Affairs Council of Philadelphia, September 30, 2010 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Bill O'Reilly was spun out of Fox News Channel Wednesday after two decades.  He was the longtime host of the network's most popular show "The O'Reilly Factor", where his confrontational style and unabashed conservative leanings set the example for other cable discussion shows to follow, for better or worse.

O'Reilly's departure came when his corporate bosses at 21st Century Fox (also known as the Murdoch empire) wearied of his reportedly having spawned several sexual harassment lawsuits, resulting in millions of dollars in "buy your silence" payouts to the women involved.  Fox had planned to keep O'Reilly on the air until at least 50 major advertisers pulled out of "The Factor".  Then they really had to do something.  As usual in corporate America, the bottom line counts more than the complaints of women.

Charges of sexual harassment have run rampant in recent years at FNC.  It's what caused Roger Ailes, who guided the network to its greatest success, to be shown the door.  It's also what caused some of its best-known personalities to seek employment elsewhere:  Gretchen Carlson (whose lawsuit against Ailes started all this), Megyn Kelly and Greta Van Susteren, among others, have all left.

Both O'Reilly and Ailes have denied the charges against them.

O'Reilly has at least one supporter in President Donald Trump, who has also been accused in the past of making unwanted advances towards women.  Takes one to know one, right?

Tucker Carlson has been announced by FNC as O'Reilly's replacement starting Monday.  Carlson's show had already replaced Kelly's in January when she moved to NBC News.

Fox News Channel is one of the top rated networks on cable, and leads CNN and MSNBC among all news channels by a distant margin.  It should remain that way even after O'Reilly's departure, because where else are Republicans and other conservatives going to go for what FNC promotes as "fair and balanced" news?  They will remain relevant as long as the current President of the United States trusts their information more than he trusts the classified briefings he gets.

As for Bill O'Reilly, he now has plenty of free time to work on his "Killing" book and TV-movie franchise ("Killing Kennedy", "Killing Reagan", etc.).  Maybe the next volume should be titled "Killing My Career".

Making The Middle East Safe for Democracy. Again.

Coat of arms of Syria -- the "Hawk of Qureish" with shield of vertical tricolor of the national flag, holding a scroll with the words الجمهورية العربية السورية (Al-Jumhuriyah al-`Arabiyah as-Suriyah "The Syrian Arab Republic"). (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

A century after the United States entered World War I, a conflict that was notorious for introducing chemical weapons to the battlefield, Syria's leader Basher al-Assad ordered the use of sarin gas on the small village of Khan Sheikhoun, believing that members of the Islamic State have been hiding out among the rebels.  Instead he killed 80 people, mostly civilians.

Like most of the world, President Donald Trump saw footage of the aftermath on TV and reacted in much the same way we would when confronted with images of starving children in Africa or abused animals.  Only instead of writing checks, Trump sent 59 Tomahawk cruise missiles that damaged a Syrian air base.

The world, with the notable exception of Russia, China and Iran, cheered this development because it meant the Assad dictatorship was one step closer to being overthrown.  But the Syrian civil war has been going on for six years with no end in sight.  Millions have fled the half-destroyed country, creating a humanitarian crisis in Europe.  And there are no obvious successors to Assad, who has either killed or jailed his opponents for as long as he's been in power.

This should put to rest the notion that Russia and its president Vladimir Putin, who has supported Assad during the war, are buddy-buddy with Trump.  But what about reports that the Syrians and the Russians were given a heads-up about the bombing before it began?  That sounds mighty suspicious, don't you think?

What this airstrike really does for Trump, besides making him look like a hero, is to provide cover from all the bad publicity he and the Republican party have been getting lately.  Neil Gorsuch is finally sworn in as Supreme Court justice, but only after he got in via the "nuclear option" of GOP senators voting in their man on a majority vote.  Over the ashes of the first attempt to get rid of Obamacare rises a new health care bill that's worse than the first.  And, oh yes, the investigation into whether the Trump team colluded with the Russians to fix the presidential election in their favor continues.

What happens next?  Sanctions?  Further military intervention (as if the U.S. really needs another excuse to get into another Mideast war)?  Maybe Trump should have asked Congress for permission first.  But as we've seen in recent wars, that train's already left the station.  Or how about letting in people from Syria who are not card-carrying members of any terrorist group, instead of treating them like criminals?

Just like those ads on TV begging for your money so the starving children of Africa could have something to eat, or all those abused animals can be better cared for, President Trump's attempt at saving the Syrian people can be seen as emotional blackmail on gullible Americans to keep himself relevant.  What's going to happen if, for some reason, he blunders into another opportunity to make the world safe for democracy?  Then we've learned nothing in a hundred years.