Category: Politics

Former President George W. Bush and His Art…

Former president George W. Bush painting. (Grant Miller/George W. Bush Presidential Center)

Former President George W. Bush is a fair and improving amateur painter. Since leaving office he has devoted time to painting and his “Portraits of Courage” , currently No. 1 on The Washington Post bestseller list.

There is another side to President Bush not often seen during his presidency. It is a more reflective side that shows empathy and sympathy. The qualities are present in his paintings and “Portraits of Courage” .

From The Washington Post:

George W. Bush is getting better as a painter. It’s been four years since a Romanian hacker named Marcel Lazar Lehel (a.k.a. Guccifer) hacked into Bush family email and exposed to the world the former president’s early paintings, including two self-portraits made in the bathroom. Guccifer is now in jail, but Bush is still at the easel and has released a volume of his recent work, portraits of military personnel and veterans who have served the country since Sept. 11, 2001.

“Portraits of Courage,” currently No. 1 on The Washington Post bestseller list, includes 66 individual portraits and a foldout reproduction of a four-panel mural. Most of the images are made from photographs, focused on the face and thickly painted with a limited but generally bright palette of colors. Highlights and shadows are strongly emphasized, and Bush lavishes particular attention on the eyes and exaggerates bone structure. A few of the paintings capture their subjects in motion — including Staff Sgt. Scott P. Lilley (who lost a part of his skull in an IED attack) holding his daughter, and Sgt. Saul Martinez (who lost both legs in Iraq) playing golf. But most of them show the head and face full size, seemingly bursting out of the frame with genuine presence and considerable expressive energy.

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Bush’s opening essay and the capsule biographies he writes about each subject are charming. He lightly ribs his mother in this account of his first experience with the paint brush: “For the first time in my sixty-six years, I picked up a paintbrush that wasn’t meant for drywall. I selected tube of white paint and another labeled Burnt Umber. While I wasn’t aware at the time that it was a color, I liked the name, which reminded me of Mother’s cooking.”

In his descriptions of the men and women he paints, he cites their struggles with grievous war wounds, post-traumatic stress disorder, traumatic brain injury and the myriad difficulties of reintegrating into civilian life. Although there is increasing concern in the medical community about whether we are over-diagnosing PTSD and including too many disparate psychological issues under its label, there is genuine empathy in Bush’s embrace of the stories told by these soldiers.

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Cynics will see a familiar, guy’s-guy tribalism in these accounts — many key episodes in Bush’s relationship with these people happen on the mountain bike trail — but his sympathy and understanding ring true. Those who think what now seems to be the case, that the war in Iraq was the most catastrophic foreign policy mistake this country ever made, will not find these paintings sufficient absolution for the cost, the trauma (here and in Iraq) and what will probably be decades of regional destabilization wrought by the war.

But that doesn’t seem to be Bush’s intent, or the purpose of this book, the profits from which will be donated to a military and veterans’ initiative run by the George W. Bush Presidential Center. There is nothing in this volume to support the thesis that Bush is using painting to work through his demons, or any regrets he may have about the wars he initiated.

There is, however, ample evidence that the former president is more humble and curious than the Swaggering President Bush he enacted while in office. And his curiosity about art is not only genuine but relatively sophisticated.

It’s worth making some distinctions. There is the presidency, the president and the man who is or was the president. Since the rise of Donald Trump, Bush’s respect for the institution of the presidency — especially the way he has honored the unwritten rules of conduct for how a president retires and the respect he shows his successors — has been seen in sharp relief. And while many may still strongly disagree with what he did as president — as a partisan political actor — that is now being tempered by a better understanding of who he is as a man. …

Say what one may about GWB he was, and is, more presidential as well as more human than Donald J. Trump will likely ever be.

Our Nation’s Most Powerful Check On President Trump…

Just finished reading an interesting opinion article of truth by The Washington Post editorial board. Donald Trump during his campaign for the presidency and in his address to the joint session of congress made many promises, promises that reality will block him from keeping. Both domestic and global realities will prevent Trump from succeeding in providing his vision of Making America Great Again.

THE ELECTION of President Trump has prompted a lot of talk about the checks and balances of the American constitutional system. As guarantors of freedom and stability, James Madison’s cherished devices — separation of powers, an independent judiciary, freedom of the press — will be tested as never before, it has been said. But another potential check on presidential action has gotten less attention: the sheer power of reality. There are some things Mr. Trump won’t be able to do because, well, he just can’t. Call it the reality check.

To be clear: We are not referring to political reality. Of course there are certain things the president can’t do, at least not immediately, because of opposition at home or abroad: In the face of Arab-world opposition, for example, he has hesitated on his promise to move the U.S. Embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. What we have in mind, rather, are things that are impossible, period — such as massively cutting taxes and leaving entitlement programs alone, while simultaneously reducing the federal debt. Or deconstructing the “administrative state ” while beefing up the federal government’s capacity to find and deport undocumented immigrants. Or protecting a sacrosanct right to gun ownership while stopping the mayhem in Chicago.

The contradictions have been heightening as Mr. Trump and his team attempt to cobble together a federal budget, with a blueprint for discretionary spending due on March 16. At his Senate hearing to be confirmed as treasury secretary, Steven Mnuchin asserted forcefully that the Internal Revenue Service needed more funding, which would more than pay for itself in enhanced tax compliance. Yet the White House budget office, searching for cuts to pay for Mr. Trump’s proposed $54 billion defense increase, has proposed slashing the already tight IRS budget 14.1 percent. Mr. Trump is bound and determined to step up security along the U.S.-Mexico border, including by building a wall. To get the resources, his budgeters are reportedly targeting the Coast Guard’s $9 billion budget for a $1.3 billion cut. Sounds like an invitation for drug smugglers and migrants to come in by water instead of by land.

Mr. Trump’s pitch to the American electorate in 2016 was that they could have it all — low taxes and generous government benefits; a dynamic economy that “protects” existing jobs — and that the only thing preventing this nirvana was the perfidy of Washington’s elite. Entrust me with power, he declared, and everything will be different. Of all his many false promises, this was probably both the most effective and the phoniest. Government’s resources and capabilities are limited, and trade-offs are real. Like all his predecessors, Mr. Trump will be forced, by reality, to set priorities and make choices, whether he ever acknowledges that openly or not. And sooner or later, he will be held accountable for them.

One of these realities, our constitution and rule of law, thankfully stands solidly in the way of Trump achieving his authoritarian agenda. Another powerful force standing in Trump’s way is the free and independent press with its multitude of ethical journalists that continue to call Trump out on his falsehoods.

Trump Fires 46 Obama Appointed Prosecutors Friday…

To the victor goes the spoils. The Trump administration completes the sweep of Obama appointed prosecutors.

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration on Friday moved to sweep away the remaining vestiges of Obama administration prosecutors at the Justice Department, ordering 46 holdover United States attorneys to tender their resignations immediately — including Preet Bharara, the United States attorney in Manhattan.

The firings were a surprise — especially for Mr. Bharara, who has a reputation for prosecuting public corruption cases. In November, Mr. Bharara met with then President-elect Donald J. Trump at Trump Tower and told reporters afterward that Mr. Trump had asked him about staying on, which the prosecutor said he expected to do.

But on Friday, Mr. Bharara was among federal prosecutors who received a call from Dana Boente, the acting deputy attorney general, instructing him to resign, according to a person familiar with the matter. A spokesman for Mr. Bharara declined to comment.

Sarah Isgur Flores, a Justice Department spokeswoman, said in an email that all remaining holdover United States attorneys had been asked to resign, leaving their deputy United States attorneys, who are career officials, in place in an acting capacity.

“As was the case in prior transitions, many of the United States Attorneys nominated by the previous administration already have left the Department of Justice,” she said in the email. “The Attorney General has now asked the remaining 46 presidentially appointed U.S. Attorneys to tender their resignations in order to ensure a uniform transition.”

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Mr. Trump invited Mr. Bharara to meet with him during a public get-together at Trump Tower during the transition. Afterward, Mr. Bharara told reporters that he had been asked to remain on in his job — and that Mr. Sessions had asked him to stay on.

A person familiar with the calls that have been made said there was no advance warning of the move. It came less than 24 hours after Sean Hannity, the Fox News commentator who often speaks with Mr. Trump, called for a “purge” of Obama appointees at the Justice Department on his show.

Full story found BENEATH THE FOLD.

Ya Just Can’t Make This S**t Up…

This folks is representative of many GOP’ers. Apparently some that are responsible for running OUR government.

AP – A Pennsylvania congressman has accused former President Barack Obama of staying in Washington solely to run a “shadow government” to undermine the GOP agenda.

U.S. Rep. Mike Kelly made the claim to fellow Republicans at an event Saturday north of Pittsburgh.

A video clip posted to YouTube shows Kelly saying that Obama remained in Washington for “one purpose only … to run the shadow government that is going to totally upset the new agenda.”

The Obamas have said they would remain in the nation’s capital until their youngest daughter, Sasha, completes high school.

Kelly’s spokesman said Friday the congressman was just “sharing the frustration of everyone in the room over how they believe certain Obama administration holdovers” are trying to upset President Donald Trump’s agenda.

2018 and 2020 must be the year of removal of these cretins.

Trump Is Not Responsible For Strong Job Numbers, Yet…

Bloomberg – President Donald Trump used the first federal jobs report of his presidency to promote a narrative of an invigorated economy that may strengthen his political position as begins the drive to win passage of legislative priorities including an Obamacare replacement and a tax overhaul.

“GREAT AGAIN: +235,000,” Trump posted on his Twitter account in a retweet of a Drudge Report headline on Friday minutes after the Bureau of Labor Statistics released payrolls data for February showing the U.S. added a net 235,000 jobs during the month.

Gary Cohn, the former Goldman Sachs Group Inc. president who’s now director of the National Economic Council, used the report as validation of Trump’s approach to bolstering the economy, which has included bringing in corporate executives to the White House to press them for hiring commitments and publicly scolding companies over plans to move production abroad.

Sounds GREAT! Certainly will have all the Trumpians ecstatic and singing The Bullshitter In Chief’s praises.  But wait a minute. Lets put on the thinking cap and examine this just a bit.

FiveThirtyEight – Hiring was strong and wage growth accelerated in President Trump’s first full month in office. But don’t give Trump credit, at least not yet.

The U.S. economy added 235,000 jobs in February, the Bureau of Labor Statistics said Friday. That topped economists’ expectations and marked the second consecutive month of strong hiring. The unemployment rate fell a tenth of a percentage point to 4.7 percent, reversing its January uptick. Average earnings rose six cents an hour and were up 2.8 percent from a year earlier.

Trump will probably point to the report as proof that his economic policies are working. (On Friday, he retweeted a Drudge Report tweet hailing the jobs number as “great again.”) That isn’t supported by the evidence. Hiring was essentially the same in February as it was in January, when President Obama was still in office, and represented a continuation of an existing pattern of steady job growth. The jump in wages was widely anticipated by economists following an unexpected slowdown in January, and the unemployment rate has been stuck in a narrow band just below 5 percent for most of the past year.

Even if the economy does start to change direction in coming months, it’s unlikely Trump or his policies will be the primary cause. Presidents in any case have little control over the economy, especially in the short-term. The government can (probably) help ease the impact of a recession, and bad policies can (definitely) slow down growth. And presidential policies on things like education, infrastructure and tax policy can have long-term effects, for good or ill. But presidents have little influence over the month-to-month ups and downs of hiring or inflation.

What Friday’s report does show is that the economy continues to hold in the steady-but-not-spectacular pattern that it’s been in for most of the seven and a half years since the recession ended. U.S. employers have now added jobs for 77 consecutive months, a record, and the improving job market has begun to draw more Americans into the workforce. Recent hiring has been relatively broad-based, with good-paying industries such as construction and professional services adding jobs alongside lower paying sectors such as retail and hospitality. (Retailers actually cut jobs in February, although that was probably a one-month blip.)

So, basically what we’re really seeing is the long term effects of the economic policies of the prior administration at work. Seven and a half years of policy and history is certainly more indicative the present than the one month Trump has played president. But as we all know, Trump is incapable of doing anything other than tooting his own horn and telling everyone HE is responsible for making things Great Again.  Even when he has NOTHING to do with it.

Much more relevant, interesting, and truthful data BELOW THE FOLD.