I had made a vow after Donald Trump left the presidency that I wouldn’t purchase any more books that discussed his time in office.
Today, I broke that vow. I purchased the paperback version of “Front Row at the Trump Show” written by ABC News White House correspondent Jonathan Karl.
Karl is making the talk show rounds to talk about what happened in the White House after the pandemic hit the nation. His initial version of “Front Row” was published prior to the pandemic’s arrival here. So he had to rewrite some of the book and added a new afterword to freshen up the news contained within its covers.
So I bought the book. It will arrive tomorrow.
There is just so much to learn about what a total clusterf*** operation Trump ran at the White House.
The last remaining member of the Public Utility Commission of Texas has resigned … at the request of Gov. Greg Abbott.
Holy cow, man! Arthur D’Andrea was the last man standing at the PUC. His two colleagues had quit already, including the chairman DeAnn Walker. Why the exodus?
Well, the PUC overseas the management of the electrical grid, which is run by the Electric Reliability Council of Texas. ERCOT, though, made some boneheaded decisions during the February snow and ice storm that paralyzed most of the state. Millions of Texans lost power. More of them lost water.
The PUC along with ERCOT became the whipping kids.
According to the Texas Tribune: “Tonight, I asked for and accepted the resignation of PUC Commissioner Arthur D’Andrea,” the governor said in a statement, adding that he plans to name “a replacement in the coming days who will have the responsibility of charting a new and fresh course for the agency.”
Abbott added: “Texans deserve to have trust and confidence in the Public Utility Commission, and this action is one of many steps that will be taken to achieve that goal.”
I’m glad spring is about to arrive. There is no time to dawdle. We need to “chart a new and fresh course” for the PUC.
Donald J. Trump, the one-time pandemic denier in chief, has issued a statement that urges Americans to get vaccinated against the COVID-19 virus. I know what some of you are thinking. This can’t be true. Can it? I thought the same thing when I first heard it.
However, the ex-president has gone on the record in a Fox News interview that the vaccines out there are safe and are effective against the pandemic. Trump and his wife got vaccinated in the final days of the Trump presidency, only they didn’t tell anyone about it.
Trump’s suggestion for Americans to get vaccinated comes after Dr. Anthony Fauci — who needs no introduction — urged him to do what he did. “I think it would make all the difference in the world,” Fauci said on Fox News Sunday. “He’s a very widely popular person among Republicans. If he came out and said, ‘Go and get vaccinated; it’s really important for your health, the health of your family and the health of the country,’ it seems absolutely inevitable that the vast majority of people who are his close followers would listen to him.”
It remains to be seen if his followers, many of whom remain skeptical about the vaccine and its efficacy, will follow suit. If they don’t and get sick, well … you know.
I am going to do something I didn’t think I would do, which is to thank Donald Trump for doing what, admittedly, he should have done a long time ago.
As I write these words, my fancy I-phone weather app tells me it is 72 degrees in Amarillo, Texas.
Tomorrow? Blizzard warning is in effect. It’s the middle of March!
Which brings me to a brief point. The weather in the Texas Panhandle keeps everyone on their toes. My wife and I lived there for 23 years. We saw snow in April; we also saw the temperature rise to, oh, 70 degrees on the same day!
Someone I met there once said you could “experience all the seasons of the year in a single day.” He wasn’t kidding!
It’s good to remember that Amarillo sits just about 3,700 feet above sea level. Rocky Mountains are about a three-hour drive to the west. The wind blows incessantly there from the north and west during the winter and early spring.
So today the warmth bathed the region. Snow is coming in just a few hours. And when the National Weather Service issues a “blizzard warning,” well … then you’d better unpack your parka.
The weather there is sure to give complete strangers something to talk about as they go through their day.
All this back and forth among friends, acquaintances and even total strangers is amazing in the extreme.
I am referring to those who are using social media to proclaim that they have gotten vaccinated against the COVID-19 virus. Hey, I share their joy. I am vaccinated, too. So is my wife. Same for one of my sons; my other son has “antibodies” in his system, which tells me he must’ve caught the virus but didn’t show any symptoms.
This is a peculiar side effect of the pandemic response.
The vaccines are rolling out, tens of millions of doses at a time. Three big pharma companies have yanked out all the stops to deliver the vaccines in virtually no time. Operation Warp Speed kicked in and the drug makers delivered the goods.
I am just astonished at the enthusiasm we are expressing when we are able to obtain a vaccine. I cannot remember any time when public response to a crisis has reached this kind of level.
We are hearing the occasional grumbling, too. A member of my family had two vaccine appointments canceled when she was informed that she didn’t qualify under one of the two initial groups that were getting the shots. That changed today. She went to her local pharmacy and received her first dose of the Pfizer vaccine. What did she do? She called me to share the good news!
We’re getting giddy about the vaccine. I am going to wait anxiously for the time when we get word that we have reached the threshold of “herd immunity,” which is when a significant majority of Americans are inoculated.
If this initial reaction to the arrival of the vaccine is going to produce the kind of response I sense that we’re getting, well, then it’ll be Katie-bar-the-door when enough of us get inoculated against a disease that is still causing too much misery for us to cheer too loudly.
But I welcome the reaction. It’s as if we’re all having babies.
When I watch Christopher Krebs recount the immense security measures implemented to protect the 2020 presidential election against chicanery by foreign actors, I cannot let go of the incredible irony that Krebs presents.
Donald Trump hired Krebs specifically to protect the U.S. election system against foreign interference. Krebs did his job brilliantly. The 2020 election, he said, was the “most secure election” in U.S. history.
Then we heard Trump, who lost the election, make bogus claims that it was “stolen” from him and handed to Joseph Biden. What does he do then? He fires Krebs who did precisely what Trump had hired him to do!
Now we hear from the U.S. intelligence community that has just issued a final report declaring that Krebs was right, that the election was safe, it was secure and that there was no foreign tampering.
The intel report drives the nail into the proverbial coffin containing the Big Lie that Donald Trump continues to preach.
Donald Trump will be remembered ultimately as a failed president, one who damaged the institutions of our democracy and someone who came dangerously close to destroying the fabric of our republic.
He called himself a “consequential” president. He was all of that. And more.
Thus, his imprint will be difficult to erase from what he left behind.
I say all this because his rhetoric still resonates with so many Americans. Many millions of them voted to return him for a second term as president. Many millions more, though, voted to elect Joe Biden as president in 2020. I was among the latter category of voters, as if you didn’t know it already.
Trump’s followers continue to cast doubt on President Biden’s election, fueled by Trump’s refusal to acknowledge that he lost fair and square to someone who outsmarted and outcampaigned him.
The near-destruction of our government, of course, occurred on Jan. 6 with the insurrection provoked by Trump.
I cannot yet identify what will be the overarching legacy that historians will determine is Trump’s most, um, significant imprint.
It might be the riot on Jan. 6; it could be the terrible spike in race-related hate crimes that occurred on his watch; it might be the fraying of alliances around the world with nations that used to depend on the U.S.’s power and influence.
My personal “favorite” ought to be the mishandling of the pandemic that exploded on the world in late 2019. Trump lied about the misery that awaited us, despite knowing that the pandemic would do the damage it has done … and is still doing!
To be sure, Trump will tout the three justices he selected to the U.S. Supreme Court. I don’t begrudge the fact that Justices Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett sit on the court. Elections do have consequences and the 2016 election installed a president who sought to shift the court dramatically to the right. It remains to be seen, though, just how far right the court will tilt over time.
Donald Trump is gone from the White House. My sense — and certainly my hope — is that he never darkens the door of my house ever again. He is not forgotten. Wiping away the stain left by a consequential presidency will take time.
Dr. Anthony Fauci has issued a timely and seemingly authentic plea to the 45th president of the United States.
Fauci, who is President Biden’s chief medical adviser, has asked Donald J. Trump — who he describes as enormously popular among those who continue to follow him — to encourage his millions of supporters to get vaccinated against the COVID-19 virus.
This is just my view, but my hunch is that Trump isn’t likely to listen to too much that Fauci says about anything. I mean, he did call Fauci an “idiot” after the renowned infectious disease expert challenged an assertion that Trump had made.
Fauci is trying to de-politicize the vaccine debate. The Trumpsters keep resisting the vaccine. Other Americans are lining up to receive them. The infection rate is falling, as is the positivity test rate — and the death rate.
Indeed, we now know that Donald and Melania Trump received their vaccines in private just a few days before leaving the White House. The POTUS and the FLOTUS didn’t want to let it be known that they had gone against Donald Trump’s own stated resistance to the severity of the pandemic.
The beans have been spilled and Dr. Fauci is seeking ways to get to the millions of Americans who hang onto the goofy notion that the vaccine is going to harm them. Fauci and the many other scientists say they only will help us.
Any of them would be acceptable, Fauci said: Pfizer, Moderna and Johnson & Johnson.
I applaud Dr. Fauci for seeking to talk sense to those who at times seem to lack any sort of rational thought. If they hear from their hero/idol/cult leader that the vaccines are safe and effective, then perhaps we can accelerate the return to what we used to think of as “normal living.”
Who in the name of gullible listeners does Ron Johnson think he’s kidding?
The Wisconsin Republican U.S. senator is now trying to take back what he told the radio talk show host the other day about the insurrection of the Sixth of January on Capitol Hill.
I am certain beyond a doubt that he said that the crowd that stormed Capitol Building would “never” do anything to break the law, that they have “great respect” for law enforcement and that had the rioters belonged to Black Lives Matter or Antifa that he would have “been concerned.”
Now the Cheesehead nut job says the media twisted his remarks. That his statements were taken out of context. Huh?
Respect for law and order, for the police? What about the cops who were injured by the rioters/terrorists? Or the young Capitol Police officer who died from his injuries?
I heard what Johnson said. I heard all of it. I know what I heard.
Ron Johnson said it. He needs to own it. Oh, and while he’s at it he ought to resign from the U.S. Senate.
This time change thing has produced more debate on whether we should keep it or switch to a permanent time standard.
To be honest, none of this affects me personally all that much, but if I had to make a choice, here is what I would suggest.
Switch to a permanent Daylight Saving Time. Make it national. Pass a law that says that all of our states adhere to the same way of determining what time of day it is.
Texas flirted with the idea of switching to either permanent DST, permanent Standard Time or keeping the status quo. The 2019 Legislature ran out of time to send the issue to the voters.
Now we hear a bipartisan group of U.S. senators backing a notion to switch to a permanent Daylight Saving Time arrangement, according to a report on National Public Radio.
When was the last time you had Democrats and Republicans agree on something? I know. It seems like forever.
Sen. Marco Rubio, a Florida Republican, is trying to resurrect the permanent DST issue. As NPR reports: He cited multiple benefits to permanent DST including potentially fewer car accidents and easing seasonal depression.
What’s more, according to NPR: The effort is supported by a bipartisan group of lawmakers, including Sen. Ed Markey of Massachusetts, who echoed Rubio in highlighting the potential benefits of extending DST. “Studies have found year-round Daylight Saving Time would improve public health, public safety, and mental health — especially important during this cold and dark COVID winter,” Markey said.
Not everyone is on board, according to NPR: Opponents of permanent daylight saving time note that winter mornings would be darker, with children more often having to wait for the school bus in the dark.
I happen to prefer the longer afternoon and early evening daylight, which DST brings to us. Remember, too, that one of the selling points of DST is that it would conserve electrical energy, given that we don’t turn our lights on so early at the end of the day.
I am not going to lose any sleep over this, no pun intended. I’m just delighted to see Democrats and Republicans agreeing on something … for a change.
