Let me get this straight: The stock market tanks and Donald Trump blames former President Biden for it.
The market then rallies big time … and Trump is silent.
No love for Biden. Why is that? Does the former president deserve to be showered with praise? No. Not really.
The point, though, is that Trump’s hair-trigger is far too quick to dish out criticism while his so-called kinder side just cannot be motivated to hand out a word of praise.
He’s a weirdo, man.
Right-wingers’ vendetta against public radio and television would be laughable … if the consequences of this battle weren’t so frightening.
They want to defund National Public Radio, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and the Public Broadcasting Service. Why? Because they contend erroneously that it’s all “fake,” that it’s biased against conservatives and that the right-wing cabal just won’t tolerate it any longer.
Good fu**ing grief!
In in the interest of full disclosure, I will say I have some experience working for both public media. I freelanced for Panhandle PBS and for High Plains Public Radio for a time after leaving print journalism in 2012. And I worked for a time for KETR-FM public radio in Commerce, Texas, for a while after my wife and I moved to the Metroplex.
I have seen their work up close and I can attest to the absolute professionalism I witnessed while working for them.
I long have held the view that bias rests in the hearts and minds of news consumers, not necessarily in those who deliver it.
I recall a conversation I had with an NPR news director once who explained to me the rules that the broadcast network places on those who deliver the news over the air. They must avoid terms, he said, that connote a point of view. One of those words, he explained, is “reform.”
When discussing legislation aimed at changing current public policy, NPR journalists were told to use the term “overhaul” policy, not “reform” it, as reformation means it would be an improvement.
My friend was quite adamant in telling me that public radio takes its responsibility to be fair, neutral and unbiased quite seriously.
What’s more, I have to point out that the founders protected a “free press” from government interference. They set those protections for the only industry functioning then — and now — in the Constitution.
The right-wing cabal needs to get a grip and perhaps look inward to determine the source of the bias it seeks to eliminate.
National security adviser Mike Waltz has been shown the door by Donald J. Trump for his role in the leak of sensitive material via a social media platform.
Hey, I’m good with it. Trump needed to get him the hell out of there.
But … wait a second. What about the defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, the clown Trump appointed to run the Pentagon and who also, by the way, is involved up to his armpits in the same matter that befell Waltz?
Trump has surrounded himself with ignorant boobs, buffoons and misfits. Chief among must be Hegseth, the former Fox talk show host who got elevated to run the world’s most lethal military operation. Watch him today, and you get the impression he still is pandering to a right-wing TV audience while discussing military policy matters … of which he knows not a damn thing.
Waltz got caught sending material out via a social media platform. It was highly classified material. The same kind of material that Hegseth blabbed about to his wife and other family members.
Trump once boasted in 2016 while forming the executive branch of government that he would hire “the best people.” It didn’t happen then and it hasn’t happened this time around. He hired an education secretery, Linda McMahon, who recently confused AI, shorthand for artificial intelligence, with “A-1,” a brand of steak sauce.
Robert Kennedy Jr., a premier conspiracy theorist and vaccine denier, now runs the Health and Human Services Department, and is threatening to endanger the lives of children and teenagers throughout the world.
Now, Trump has declared he “runs the government and the world.” Huh? Yeah. He said that. Except that he runs only one third of the federal government, the one lined out in the Constitution as the excutive branch.
I’m glad Mike Waltz is no longer providing national security advice to the Numbskull in Chief. He’s only one of many who need to go.
My late parents departed this Earth long before Donald J. Trump burst onto the nation’s political scene.
Dad was gone in 1980; Mom died four years later. Neither of them had the displeasure of suffering from the whims and machinations of this truly bizarre individual. Still, I think about them every day even without having to attach their names to what they might be thinking about what the current president is doing to our economy and to our standing in the world.
I’ll be candid on assessing their analytical skills. Dad wasn’t much of a critical thinker. He relied on his gut. A side of me actually thinks he might have been impressed by Trump’s phony bravado. Dad was a proud World War II veteran, though, and my hope is that he would be repulsed by Trump’s blatant disrespect for those of us who did don the uniform of our country.
Mom, however, was a much deeper thinker than Dad. I will presume that she would be aghast at Trump’s homophobia, his racism, lack of empathy and compassion, his boasting of business skills when he’s run every endeavor he’s ever touched into the ground.
Therefore, on these matters, I am much more my mother’s son than I am a part of Dad.
They’re no longer around and I shudder to think how they would respond to what is unfolding during this second Donald Trump turn as POTUS.
I shudder, indeed, at how Dad might be cheering the charlatan on as he lies through his teeth. More importantly, though, I shudder at how Mom would respond to this individual’s overall unfitness for the nation’s highest and most honored public office.
Never in my advanced years on this good Earth have I experienced the loss of friendships in the manner I have done in recent times.
Yes, during the Age of Donald John Trump.
This novice politician has cost me friendships I thought for many years would be unbreakable. They might bend to the point of breaking. They would snap back like a sapling.
No longer.
Three quick examples come to mind of the relationships that been torn apart.
One involves a fellow I knew when I worked in Amarillo. He hails from Pampa. We met for lunch on occasion. We didn’t talk politics when we shared a meal, but we sure did when we sat behind our keyboards. We got into a snit one time and my pal cut me off. He was gone.
Another was a former colleague of mine at the Amarillo Globe-News. I left the paper in August 2012, he stayed on. We argued over this and that Trump policy. We became ex-friends. We stayed that way until he suffered a stroke and died a few years ago.
Yet another was a friend with whom I worked in Beaumont. We maintained our friendship even though he hailed from Arkansas and detested Bill and Hillary Clinton; I felt differently about them than he did, but our friendship survived. Along came Trump and my friend severed our relationship. It remained that way for the rest of his life.
I have struggled to understand why now do political differences get in the way of friendships. I have concluded this must be the nature of the politician who is the common denominator. Trump destroys friendships by turning on men and women on whom he depends. When they cross him, he cuts them off, sends them adrift.
Therefore, it seems to me, the same “logic” follows among those who adhere to the Trumpian blathering and those who oppose it … and him.
I am uncomfortable functioning in this environment. It’s not that I count many acquaintances as “friends.” I have few actual friends in this world. The rest of them are acquaintances, many of them do evolve into actual relationships.
I am happy to report that the few lifelong friendships I have forged over many decades are surviving this tempestuous time. However, we aren’t yet past this tumult.
A possible decision might be looming for High Plains Blogger … that would be yours truly.
The decision involves whether I want to keep pursuing this daily goal of posting commentaries,. Yes, the daily goal. I have been writing blogs each day since The Flood, or so it seems. I have had good spells and slow spells.
I am deep in the midst of a slow spell. I have plenty of topics on which to comment. The response has been, well, rather sparse. As in very sparse. I’m in a slump.
I am unsure if my audience, such as it is, has grown weary of my rants. Maybe I’m not as sharp as I once claimed to be.
I believe I’ll know what to do soon after I post this particular item on Highs Plains Blogger. If the comments pour in from readers saying they want me to keep going, well, then I’ll respond accordingly.
If it remains quiet out there in Blog Land, I think that will tell me something, too. Maybe I can monkey around with the blog platform I use to get more response.
Just know that I truly enjoy sharing my world view with you. It’s my view only. I know it has its friends and its foes. Critics are welcome to offer their negative responses. I am a grownup and I can take it. I’ll be honest, I prefer to hear words of support.
I have sought to broaden the subject matter, to include more slice of life entries, rather than just relying on politics and policy.
I’ll know in due course what my decision will be. I’ll keep you posted on what I decide.
Meanwhile … have a great day.
OK, I am far, far away from the front in the war between Ukraine and Russia, so I don’t have a particular dog in that fight.
However, if Russian goon/strongman/thug Vladimir Putin is going to unilaterally declare a three-day ceasefire in the fight he is losing to Ukraine then why in the hell doesn’t he just end it? Now! Go back home, Vlad, and take your overmatched and outfought troops home with you!
I don’t even know if this ceasefire will hold. Russians must be frustrated beyond all that is reasonable. Ukrainians, must be too, given that they have spent thousands of lives protecting their sovereign homeland against an invading aggressor nation.
I will never accept — not ever in a million years — the notion that Donald Trump has pushed that Ukraine is to blame for the start of this war. He calls Ukraine President Volodymyr Zellenksyy a “terrorist” and chides him for — yes, actually chides the man — for continuing to fight for his nation’s honor.
Putin is making zero concessions to end the bloodiest ground war in Europe since WWII. Trump is demanding nothing from this killer. He called Putin’s decision to invade Ukraine the act of a “genius.” Good grief, man. It’s the act of a madman!
So now the Russian dictator wants to stop the shelling, shooting and killing for three days. To what end? Who in the hell knows?
I am far away from the fighting, but as an American patriot who fears for the world’s safety, I want this war to end.
It was 50 years ago this week when a war we thought might never end actually concluded.
The end of the shooting in Vietnam occurred on Aptil 30, 1975 when Bui Tin reportedly accepted the surrender of forces commanded by Durong Van Minh, also known as “Big Minh.” I guess the gentleman was much larger than your average Vietnamese man.
Why bring this up? Well, in November 1989, I had the high honor of meeting Bui Tin in a dingy Hanoi conference room. I was touring Vietnam with fellow journalists and we arranged for a meeting with Bui Tin and heard his first-hand account of what happened the day North Vietnamese tanks rolled into Saigon, captured the enemy government, renamed the city after “Uncle Ho” Chi Minh and began to rebuild the nation torn asunder by decades of war against the Japanese, the French and, finally, the Americans.
Bui Tin eventually fled Vietnam and lived in France for the rest of his life. He died there on Aug. 11, 2018.
He was an unpretentious man, as I recall. He spoke matter-of-factly — through an interpreter — of when he accepted Big Minh’s surrender. His version of events has been disputed by the Vietnamese government in the decades since the end of the war.
For me? I’ll go along with Bui Tin’s story. I recall at the time that he sounded credible and I don’t recall any of my colleagues questioning the veracity of the story he told us.
Many of us among the journalists who made that journey are Vietnam War veterans and for those of us who returned to Vietnam after serving there during war, the whole return was an event that changed many of our lives.
It damn sure changed mine!
The U.S. war effort had ended in January 1973. We brought our remaning troops home, left the embassy in Saigon under fire and began to rebuild our own nation’s life once American blood stopped flowing.
Vietnamese continued to suffer from what we left behind. It’s been quiet there since 1975 and Vietnam is now an ally … of sorts. Yes, even the bitterest of enemies can make it right between them.
Quite soon, Princeton, Texas — the city I have called home for the past six years — is going to assume a title I don’t think anyone ever wants for their community.
Princeton will become known as the City to Avoid at Rush Hour.
How do I know that? Because the Texas Department of Transportatio is going to lay waste to the major east-west thoroughfare that runs straight through the middle of Princeton.
U.S. Highway 380 is going under the bulldozer’s front as TxDOT starts to expand the highway from four lanes to six. Here, though, is the kicker: To expand the highway, TxDOT is going to narrow it, turning it from a four-lane right-of-way to a two-lane.
None of this, I hasten to add, will have much to do with the construction of the freeway bypass TxDOT is planning along the 380 route from Denton to Greenville.
One can argue that Princeton already has the Rush Hour ban label already. Traffic slows to a near stop west bound in the morning and east bound in the aftenoon along U.S. 380. I try to wrap my noodle around what will happen when TxDOT decides to narrow the highway from four lanes to two. It boggles my noggin.
To be candid, at my relatively advanced age I don’t expect to live long enough to see the completion of the bypass route around Princeton. Or around any of the other cities along the 380 route for that matter.
The state is facing some serious property condemnation issues as it seeks to purchase the land on which to carve the new highway. The Fifth Amendment to the Constitution does require government to give “just compensation” for property it takes as its own. It’s going to be mighty expensive to build it … you know?
I long have favored development. I want my community to grow and to prosper. I believe Princeton will prosper once the highway gets improved and once the state finishes its bypass project.
But damn! The nightmarish inconvenience of it will make it mighty difficult to anticipate good things when the end of the work arrives.
I believe Princeton needs an identity to give the city a personality. This isn’t quite the ID I anticipated for the city where I choose to live.
Manning a post that puts someone in charge of the finest miliatary organization in world history requires an individual with immense talent and knowledge of the intricacies of geopolitics.
What did Donald Trump get when he selected Pete Hegseth to be secretary of defense? He got a buffoon who has spilled the beans hither and yon about deeply classified military intelligence. Now we hear that Hegseth, the former Fox talking head, has let his phone number be known around the world.
This clown is a threat to the 1.5 million men and women who wear the uniform of this great country.
Hegseth’s top staff is bailing on him. The Pentagon has turned into a clown show. Think about that for a moment: the Pentagon has become a laughingstock!
And why? Because the president of the United States needed a blind loyalist to lead the world’s most lethal military force. He didin’t look for anyone with any smarts, any organizational skill, any sense of the gravity of the information he possessed.
Instead, he hired a dipshit.
And a dangerous one, too!
I guess we can set aside all the crap about his alleged mistreatment of women, or his alleged heavy drinking on the job. Now we need to worry that this moron is blabbing to anyone who will listen about top-secret military matters.
Get him the hell out of there!