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Go get ’em, VA

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It’s been a while since I last sang the praies of the Veterans Administration, on which I depend for my primary medical care.

So, I’ll offer a word of praise.

An unusual event occurred today. I returned from a vacation in Greece. Then I developed a pain in my right foot. It continued to worsen. I called my physician at the Rayburn VA Medical Clinic in Bonham. I got a physician’s assistant on the phone and told her of my concern. She recommended I check into an ER today to have someone look it over.

I did. I went to Medical City/McKinney, not far from my house. The PA had given the number of the VA’s hotline, which I called to let them know I had checked into the ER.

With that phone call, the VA became hooked up with a private medical provider.

The ER did an ultrasound, looking for evidence of a blood clot. They found nothing. The doc came out, counseled me on what to do, prescribed some high-powered pain meds he said would attack the inflammation in my foot. “We are going to treat this as gout,” he said.

Fine. I was out of the ER and back home in three hours.

Not bad at all.

I am a major fan of this pre-paid medical care I earned from my two years in the. Army.

Donald Trump, national news, political news

Counsel heaves new grenade into Trump’s lap

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You just had to know that special counsel Jack Smith would have more to say about Donald Trump’s role in the Jan. 6 uprising.

Today, Smith delivered the goods in a stunning 165-page filing that chronicles what many with the government told Trump in advance of the assault on the government.

According to ABC News: Trump intentionally lied to the public, state election officials, and his own vice president in an effort to cling to power after losing the election, while privately describing some of the claims of election fraud as “crazy,” prosecutors alleged in the 165-page filing.

Do you get what Smith is suggesting? It is that Trump knew right after the 2020 election that he had lost to Joe Biden … but he insisted anyway on contesting the results of what has been described as the “cleanest election in U.S. history.”

Vice President Mike Pence told Trump the truth.  So did others within the Justice Department, his key campaign aides and advisers and others within the White House national security staff.

Trump blew it all off.

This filing only makes me return to a question I keep asking of my Republican friends, many of whom say they intend to vote for Trump this time around: How in the name of all that is righteous and holy can you vote for an individual who knowingly sought to commit a criminal act by overturning a legal, fair presidential election?

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Traffic nightmare awaits

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Every single trip I make along US Highway 380 through McKinney, Princeton and Farmersville only reminds me of what lies ahead for North Texas motorists in the months ahead.

We are facing a traffic-flow nightmare as the state highway department starts breaking up asphalt along the highway.

They’re going to close down two of four existing lanes of traffic soon to begin work to expand 380 from four lanes to six.

Then in 2027, the Texas Department of Transportation is going to accept bids to build a series of freeway bypasses around several cities aimed at relieving traffic congestion.

Until all of this is done, ladies and gents, you and I are headed for an endless stream of frustration, teeth-gnashing, four-letter words and assorted expressions of angst as we do battle with our neighbors and friends seeking to navigate the congestion nightmare that awaits all of us.

This is the part where I will pray for favorable weather to enable the crews to finish their monumental task sooner rather than later.

Sports news

Charlie Hustle got what he deserved

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One of Major League’s Baseball’s fiercest competitors has died and thus he never will be around if the MLB makes what I consider to be a regretful decision.

That would be to include Pete Rose in the Hall of. Fame.

Rose, the all-time leader in hits, at-bats and games played is gone. His legacy, though, will remain stained forever by a decision he made consciously and with a full understanding of the consequences of that decision.

In the late 1980s, Rose bet on baseball games. He competed in some of those games on which he wagered. The MLB rule book speaks with crystal clarity: Anyone caught betting on baseball shall be banned from the organization for the rest of his life.

OK, now he’s gone. Does that mean he becomes eligible for the Hall of Fame?  If I were King of the World, I’d say “no!”

The late Bart Giamatti, MLB’s commissioner at the time of the infraction, made the right call in banning Charlie  Hustle from the game.

Rose wasn’t the most talented player ever to suit up for big-league hardball. He arguably was the most driven. Sadly, though, that drive led him astray … and he paid the price he knew he would pay.

national news

Pardon the traitors?

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Of all the things Donald J. Trump has pledged to do if hell freezes over and he wins the next presidential election, one of them stands out as genuinely spine-chilling and dangerous in the extreme.

He vows to issue blanket presidential pardons to the hundreds of traitors who stormed the Capitol Building on Jan. 6 while attempting to overturn the results of the 2020 election.

There you have it, kids. The mob that sh** on the floor of the Capitol, threatened to murder Vice President Mike Pence, who injured dozens of Capitol cops, who inflicted serious damage to our sacred public property could get a pardon from the idiot who called on them to do what they did.

I cannot think of a single more compelling reason to vote against this Republican monster than that.

What in the world does such an act signal to any other traitor who would plot such a heinous act?

It gets more difficult for this patriot — that would be me — to watch video of what happened on that day. Trump praised the mob, has called them political prisoners. He let them storm the Capitol for more than two hours before issuing a tepid request for them to go home.

And then he called them “special people” who he “loves.”

Good grief! They were traitors to the nation. Every …. damn … one … of … them!

Please ponder the consequences of endorsing an individual who embodies such visceral loathing for the rule of law.

national news

What does the VP do?

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Critics of Kamala Harris continue to knock me out, bowl me over and simply slay me with their line of criticism.

It goes something like this: What has she done in the nearly four years she has served as VP in the Biden administration?

They contend that she’s been little more than a potted plant in Cabinet meetings, in the Situation Room, or any Oval Office conference led by President Biden.

Biden, of course, says she has been a vital member of his inner circle.

Here’s something we all need to ponder: The US Constitution purposely created the vice presidency with no actual power. All the VP can do under the law is break tie votes in the US Senate, where the VP serves as presiding officer. Vice President Harris has been called upon to break those tie votes when a sharply divided, even-steven Senate cannot find a majority vote to enact legislation.

President Obama has said many times over the years that Vice President Biden often was the last person to leave a Cabinet meeting and Biden often would tell Obama where he disagreed with a policy decision. Obama said he valued that disagreement, as it helped him maintain some level of perspective.

Biden has said much the same thing about Harris.

Biden has asked Harris to be his point person on reproductive rights and on border security issues. As near as I can tell, she has done well on both matters.

Does she have any real authority? No more than any of the men who preceded her. I will say, though, that the office is far more than what that crusty Texan, Vice President John Nance Garner, described of the office he held under FDR.

It is far more worthwhile than a “bucket of warm piss.”

And it has prepared Kamala Harris for the next — and final — step toward the pinnacle of power.

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Football alignments gone mad

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What is wrong with this picture? Oregon played UCLA last night in what was billed as the Ducks’ “Big 10 opener.”

What? Huh? Are you kidding me?

The Ducks smoked the Bruins, which did my heart good. Those of us who grew up on the Pacific Coast, who cheered for Pac 12 teams’ success against the Big 10 in the Rose Bowl at the end of every college football season, are finding it a little tough to swallow that the Ducks, Huskies, Trojans and Bruins are now part of the hated Big 10 … which has morphed into the Big Monstrosity

I get that money drives everything these days. The Pac 12 no longer really exists. The Big 10 is now the Big 20 (or maybe it’s 30). What’s more, the Ducks beat the Bruins in the Rose Bowl, which doubles as the Bruins’ home field when it isn’t serving as the site for the “Granddaddy of All Bowls.”

I am going to realign my own gridiron bias.

national news

He defies the odds … again!

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I keep asking: How is this presidential campaign so dadgum close?

Democratic nominee Kamala Harris advises her staff to run this campaign as if she’s the underdog. The polling data I keep seeing suggest that it might not be as close as we are being led to believe.

Republican nominee Donald J. Trump keeps trotting out the same grievances that wore well in 2016, not so well in 2020.

I have concluded that Trump has managed to remake the Republican Party into something only he could admire. The holier-than-thou wing of the GOP gives Trump a pass on his sexual assaults, his philandering, his denigration of people with handicaps, his disrespect of war heroes captured and tortured during the Vietnam War.

GOP faithful are being led to believe him when he calls Biden the worst president in U.S. history. Yet they dismiss his multiple felony convictions, his admitting to cheating on all of his wives. The GOP holy rollers once disqualified candidates who didn’t meet the “character test.” Not now!

Kamala Harris stormed onto the political stage when President Biden performed that rarest of political acts: he gave up the enormous power of his office. Yes, there has been a surge of excitement over Harris’s 11th-hour candidacy. Trump, though, continues to pretend as if he has a chance of winning.

The GOP nominee’s pretense seems to play well among the gullible gang who comprise his base.

How in the world does this guy manage to make this a contest? I cannot find the answer.

local news

Get ready for traffic collapse?

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This information comes from a North Texas public school administration, a fellow I trust to be truthful and one who isn’t prone to spreading vicious rumors.

It goes like this: He has heard from a leading Princeton public official that U.S. Highway 380 is going to narrow to one lane of traffic each way (east and west) while the state widens the highway from four lanes to six.

I am not going to name any names here, because I cannot confirm it. I already knew about the Texas Department of Transportation plans to widen 380. It’s been in all the papers. What I didn’t know was that to widen the highway from four lanes to six it has to narrow the traffic lanes from four to two.

The traffic along 380 is becoming the stuff of legends in this part of Texas. Damn near everyone I know who lives near me — neighbors, assorted friends and acquaintances, my mail carrier — all complain about the traffic.

This new development, though, is going to require me to find alternate routes heading east and west out of Princeton. The westbound alternative might be easier to identify.

Absent that alternative, I fear the Mother of All Traffic Nightmares is going to visit us in Collin County … and she won’t go away quietly.

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Listen to the governor!

Now that Ron DeSantis is back home doing the job to which he was elected, it is time tp take the Florida governor’s warning with utmost seriousness.

OK, so the Republican governor didn’t fare well as a candidate for his party’s presidential nomination. However, with Hurricane Helene bearing down on his state, Gov. DeSantis has informed his constituents that they are facing almost certain death if they try to ride out the storm surge that is coming their way.

My overarching issue at this moment is this: Where do you go and how do you get there?

As I watch Floridians and other coastal residents deal with the increasing frequency and ferocity of these storms, all I am left to do is pray for their safety and hope for all I can muster that they are able to get out of the path of the surge.

DeSantis says the Gulf tide might swell by 20 feet — or more — as Hurricane Helene heads for landfall. It has been called a Category 4 hurricane, which is about as horrific as it gets.

I now must wonder aloud whether the governor is having second thoughts about the way he dismissed climate change while he campaigned for the presidency. My view from North Texas? It’s real, governor.

I am going to set that debate aside for another time and simply join the rest of the nation in wishing you and your constituents well as you fight this seaborne monster.

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