White House

Wednesday March 14, 2018

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Wednesday March 14, 2018

Rex Tillerson just got brutally dumped from the White House

January 17, 2018

For the last several months, there have been rumors that President Trump was displeased with his Secretary of State and that he wanted to replace him with CIA Director Mike Pompeo. The White House has repeatedly denied that such a shakeup was in the offing, and Tillerson has repeatedly said that he doesn’t want to leave his job. But on Tuesday morning, Trump tweeted it out.

There is a lot going on here. Tillerson and Trump have never exactly jibed. The two have clashed over the Paris Climate Accords, North Korea, and the decision to move the United States’s embassy in Israel to Jerusalem. Most recently, Tillerson raised eyebrows by laying the blame on Russia for the poisoning of the double agent Sergei Skripal—something that Sarah Huckabee Sanders wouldn’t do.

August 12, 2017

All of that may be secondary to the fact that Trump has never quite gotten over being called a “fucking moron” by his secretary of state. Tillerson was caught unawares, with the State Department saying he “had every intention of staying. … The Secretary did not speak to the President and is unaware of the reason.”

Tillerson’s tenure was a disaster, marked by a historic gutting of his department, conflicts with the president that increasingly left him outside of major policy decisions, and a seeming hatred for the job. But perhaps Tillerson’s main problem was that he tried to act like a diplomat in an administration that hates diplomacy.

For those who are concerned about Trump’s erratic temperament, Pompeo and Haspel are alarming choices. Pompeo sees the War on Terror as a clash of civilizations and is a hawk when it comes to Iran. Haspel, meanwhile, played a “direct role” in the CIA’s extraordinary rendition program. With weeks to go before negotiations with North Korea supposedly start, Trump’s national security team just got a lot more hawkish. (Source: New Republic) 

 

Thursday May 11, 2017

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Thursday May 11, 2017

Firing Comey won’t save Trump from the flames of the Russia scandal

“This is Nixonian” was the reaction of Senator Bob Casey of Pennsylvania, to the news that President Trump had fired FBI director James Comey.

Casey, echoed by fellow Democrats, was referring to the infamous Saturday Night Massacre, when President Richard Nixon fired the special prosecutor and attorney general who were leading the Watergate investigation. The massacre did not derail the probe. It only fueled calls for Nixon’s impeachment.

We know that President Trump has a stunning ignorance of history. He recently flubbed the basics of the causes of the civil war and seemed to think the famous abolitionist Frederick Douglass was still alive and had “done an amazing job”. It’s certainly possible that President Trump doesn’t know the lessons of Watergate.

The most famous lesson is that the cover-up is always worse than the crime.

We don’t yet know the full story of Russia’s meddling in the election, but the abrupt firing of the FBI director, who was leading an investigation into possible collusion between Russia and the Trump campaign, certainly reeks of a cover-up.

The firings did not save Richard Nixon from impeachment in the Watergate scandal and getting rid of Comey won’t save Donald Trump from the flames of the Russia scandal.

Comey’s abrupt removal as FBI director only brought calls for an independent prosecutor to a fever pitch. Senate minority leader Charles Schumer said unless such a prosecutor is appointed, “everyone will suspect cover-up.” (Continued: The Guardian)

 

Monday February 13, 2017

 

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Monday February 13, 2017

A face-to-face meeting is Trudeau’s best bet for dealing with Trump

Batten down the hatches. All the old Canadian insecurities are about to gust up to hurricane force.

January 11, 2016

A young, inexperienced, left-leaning Canadian prime minister, alone in the Oval Office with a NATO-chomping Republican silverback who will — not — shut — up — about how tough and smart and smart and tough and winning and tough and smart he is.

It’s enough to make you cover your eyes and peek between fingers. The kid’ll get eaten alive. There’ll be nothing but freshly picked-over bones of part-time drama teacher on the grassy floor of the Trump enclosure when it’s done. The Sun headlines write themselves.

There’ll be time for Kevin O’Leary to shout “Bambi vs. Godzilla!” 40 times before Justin Trudeau’s aircraft even leaves the tarmac at Ottawa airport.

Unless things work out differently. They could, you know.

November 12, 2016

Twenty days elapsed between Donald Trump’s inauguration and the announcement, Thursday morning, that Justin Trudeau will spend Monday in Washington. Surely that was plenty of time for the prime minister and his staff to go back and forth a dozen times over whether it’s even a good idea to get into the big guy’s personal space.

Maybe this whole relationship could be managed by telephone. Maybe they could tweet at each other. Maybe surrogates could do the heavy lifting. Harjit Sajjan, the defence minister, has worked with American soldiers. Chrystia Freeland’s been on CNN. Maybe Trump and Trudeau could meet, but just not quickly. Give everything a chance to settle down. What harm could there be?

Those sentiments seem to have put an extra week or two into the delay before Trudeau’s trip. But there are good reasons not to wait longer. (Continued: Paul Wells, Toronto Star)

 

Tuesday January 24, 2017

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Tuesday January 24, 2017

Welcome to the White House website, home of ‘alternative facts’

In just one weekend, the website has posted false statistics about rising crime, when crime has actually gone down over the last eight years and has ripped down sections about climate change, civil and LGBT rights

If the reader needs evidence that the White House is shifting towards a dictatorial, opaque administration, look no further than its own website

US Presidential Wall Chart by Graeme MacKay

Peruse the site at your own leisure; no need to access this evidence via the “dishonest” media.In just one weekend, the website has posted false statistics about rising crime, when crime has actually gone down over the last eight years. It has ripped down sections about climate change, civil rights and LGBT rights. It has also failed to update its website in a timely fashion, including the executive order section, despite the President having already signed several, including “easing the burden of Obamacare” which threatens millions of Americans with no health care coverage.

The President, his press secretary, senior adviser and chief of staff have all attacked the media in the last three days, saying they have been “deliberately dishonest”.

Press secretary Sean Spicer walked out of his first press conference on Saturday after an angry speech about how the media reported the crowd size at Donald Trump’s inauguration. He did not take a single question. The press briefing part of the website has not been updated.

Senior adviser and former campaign manager Kellyanne Conway defended her colleague, saying he provided the media with “alternative facts”.

The gaffes continue. On the White House’s official page of First Lady Melania Trump, staff added the name of her jewellery brand and then swiftly deleted it after they were accused of promoting her commercial venture.

The same page also reads that Melania Trump “paused her studies” at university to pursue modelling, whereas the campaign’s previous website said she had completed a degree in Slovenia.

Selective curation to advance a right-wing agenda is also being carried out on the website of the US government’s supposedly independent House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. In the “news section” there is an article by right-wing outlet the Washington Examiner, which accuses the director of the Office of Government Ethics, Walter Shaub, for making negative comments about Trump’s alleged conflicts of interest but failing to report alleged conflicts of interest under Obama. (Source: The Independent) 

 

Thursday January 12, 2017

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Thursday January 12, 2017

Trump blasts explosive Russia reports as ‘phoney’ at wild press conference

President-elect Donald Trump angrily denied sensational claims about his relationship with Russia at his first news conference in 168 days, a wild Wednesday spectacle at which he also blasted American intelligence agencies, briefly acknowledged Russia as the culprit in hacking the Democratic party and announced a plan for his business assets that ethics experts say is unsatisfactory.

Trump spoke the day after the publication of two explosive stories about him. CNN and other outlets reported Tuesday that top intelligence officials had briefed him on the claims of Russian operatives to have compromising information on him. Later Tuesday, BuzzFeed published a dossier, compiled by a former British intelligence employee hired by Trump opponents, that included a series of detailed but unverified claims about what the material might be.

“It’s all fake news. It’s phoney stuff. It didn’t happen. And it was gotten by opponents of ours,” Trump said at Trump Tower in New York City.

The press conference was unusually chaotic. Reporters shouted to get his attention. Trump pointedly refused to accept a question from a persistent CNN reporter his team later threatened to evict if he interjected again. The event began with vice-president-elect Mike Pence and Trump spokesman Sean Spicer assailing media outlets as irresponsible and wrong; Spicer referred to BuzzFeed as a “left-wing blog.”

In the most colourful moment, the president-elect denied a claim in the dossier about Russia supposedly filming a hotel liaison between him and prostitutes. He said he had always been careful to warn his associates that they might be filmed by hidden cameras in foreign hotel rooms. He added, in denying a particular detail of the supposed encounter, “I’m also very much of a germaphobe, believe me.”

Asked about one of the most serious claims — that Trump’s team had regular contact with Russia during the campaign — he simply ignored the question and answered another. (Source: Toronto Star)