national news

Trump ‘losing streak’ continues at full speed

Donald J. Trump’s boasting of being a “winner” has taken another punch in the gut.

Special counsel Robert Mueller has indicted the president’s former campaign boss, Paul Manafort, of money laundering in his probe of the “Russia thing” that caused Trump to fire former FBI director James Comey.

Hmm. Where does this go? I intend to wait with bated breath. How about you?

The indictment of Manafort, along with that of campaign official Rick Gates signals a new pace in this investigation, which began when the president gave Comey the boot.

The ultimate aim appears to be determining whether the Trump campaign “colluded” with Russian hackers in an attempt to influence the 2016 presidential election outcome. The president bellows “witch hunt” and “fake news” and all kinds of other things.

My understanding of Mueller, though, is that the special counsel is as serious, measured, thorough and meticulous a lawyer as they come. I don’t think he’s going to indict a proverbial “ham sandwich” just to score some points.

And so … the hunt continues.

This case is going to get even more curious as Mueller’s team continues its work.

As Politico describes it, Meuller’s task has turned into a sprawling probe.

local news

Happy Trails, Part 52

I am happy to report that we have returned from another highly successful retirement sojourn.

It covered 4,279 miles — give or take a few — from Amarillo to the Pacific Northwest and back.

What I want to mention specifically is that Big Jake — our 3/4-ton pickup that hauls our fifth wheel RV — has flexed his proverbial muscle and has demonstrated beyond a shadow of a doubt that he’s up to the task.

Jake lugged my wife, Toby the Puppy and me — along with our fifth wheel — up and over some of the most rugged climbs we believe we’ll ask as we continue our lives in the Age of Retirement.

We set out Oct. 9 for points west. We made stops in Gallup, N.M., Needles, Calif., Chowchilla, Calif., Grass Valley, Calif., Eugene, Ore. and finally in Portland, Ore. Jake took us on some hefty climbs along the way — through New Mexico and then into the Sierra Nevada.

Ah, but it got a bit more stringent on the return trip.

We set out for home on Oct. 23, with stops in Bend, Ore., Winnemucca, Nev., Provo Utah, Glenwood Springs, Colo., and Fountain, Colo. It was the Glenwood Springs-to-Fountain leg where Jake earned his spurs, his stripes; the Provo-to-Glenwood Springs leg was no picnic, either.

We managed to climb to 10,600 feet at Vail, Colo. Then we descended, only to climb again, when we reached 11,100 feet at the Eisenhower Tunnel just west of Denver.

Oh, my! Jake did well.

My wife and I knew we bought a winner when we acquired this beastly truck more than three years ago. Jake had hauled us through the Appalachians, the Ozarks and through the Black Hills. No sweat.

This trip, the longest yet in terms of distance, proved to be a stellar test of the muscle contained under Jake’s massive hood.

Big Jake passed. He gets an “A.” Now we’ll catch our breath, get ready for the next big transition in our life — getting our house ready to sell. Then we’ll hit the road yet again.

No worries. I am certain Big Jake is up the next challenge.

military news

This vet got one heck of a surprise

FOUNTAIN, Colo. — I am about to offer a brief illustration of just how far this country has come in its treatment of Vietnam War veterans.

It has come a long way from the bad old days when vets from that conflict were treated with maximum disrespect and, dare I say, dishonor.

We ventured to this city to meet with good friends. They recommended a place they were anxious to try out. It’s called “Sarge’s”; it is owned by a U.S. Army veteran and it caters to vets. Its walls are decked out in military insignia, pictures, knickknacks, this and that.

The owner of the place came to our table to chat us up. I didn’t get his name, so I’ll refer to him only as “Sarge.” I asked him about his career: He retired in the summer of 2016 after 23 years of active duty; he was an infantryman. “Oh, you must have seen combat,” I said. Yes, he answered, reeling off deployments to Bosnia, Iraq and Afghanistan.

Then I mentioned that my last duty deployment was with the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment, which formerly was based in Fort Carson, Colo., just up the road from where we ate our dinner; I served with the unit when it was based at Fort Lewis, Wash. I told him I had trained as an aircraft mechanic and then served in Vietnam with an Army aviation unit and then was sent to serve as a flight ops specialist at the I Corps Tactical Zone operations center in Da Nang.

“The Army, in its wisdom, then sent me to the 3rd Cav and let me drive a five-ton cargo truck,” I said. “Hey, it makes perfect sense me,” Sarge said with a laugh.

Then he summoned one of his employees over, whispered something to him and then declared he was reducing our dinner tab by 50 percent. “I take half off for all Vietnam and Korean War vets,” he said.

I … was … stunned. What none of us realized at the moment was that he discounted the tab for all four of us.

“Don’t I have to show you proof that I served in ‘Nam?” I asked. “Oh, no. You just said it without missing a beat,” he said. “That’s good enough for me.”

This likely would not have happened in 1970 when I returned home from my Army service. Please understand that I did not suffer the indignity inflicted on many other of my Vietnam War brothers. I merely watched it unfold in real time as we all sought to start our lives as we returned to “The World.”

I merely wanted to mention how Sarge has exhibited with a simple act of kindness to someone he didn’t know who merely said he had served in a long-ago conflict.

America, you indeed have come a long, long way.

national news

Here come the indictments

Robert Mueller’s planned announcement of indictments relating to “The Russia Thing” has taken on the look of a film premiere.

I’m on pins and needles.

A federal grand jury reportedly is set to issue indictments based on special counsel Mueller’s intense investigation into whether the Donald J. Trump presidential campaign “colluded” with Russian hackers who sought to influence the outcome of the 2016 presidential election.

Who’s going to be indicted? Former national security adviser Michael Flynn? Former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort? Might it be presidential son-in-law Jared Kushner?

Could it be all of the above?

Trump team gets ready

The Trump legal team reportedly is preparing some sort of reaction to the news that’s coming Monday from the grand jury.

Of course, the president continues to insist there’s nothing to hide. He says he didn’t collude with the Russians; yet he continues to bristle publicly that Mueller is continuing this investigation at all.

My take is as it’s been for months: If the president has nothing to hide, then he should just let Mueller and his team of legal eagles do their job. If he has done nothing wrong, then the Mueller team can say so publicly.

That’s not how this president rolls, though.

Which makes me wonder: Is this guy hiding something?

Hey, let’s all stay tuned. Pass the popcorn.

legal news, local news

Judge to step aside … and avoid a donnybrook

Texans love electing officials to public office. Even judges.

We elect them on partisan labels, which I’ve long hated. But in more than 30 years watching judicial races unfold in Texas, it’s rare to find an incumbent judge who’s doing a good job on the bench receive three challengers in a partisan primary contest.

Accordingly, the news that Randall County Court at Law No. 2 Judge Ronnie Walker will forgo a re-election campaign next year shouldn’t come as much of a surprise.

He had three challengers awaiting him next spring. The very idea that Judge Walker would attract such an aggressive primary opposition made me wonder immediately: What has he done to incur this challenge?

We won’t have to answer that question directly as the Republican Party primary campaign for Court at Law No. 2 develops. The challengers won’t have Judge Ronnie Walker to kick around.

If I were still in the daily print journalism game, I would be inclined to ask all the challengers precisely why they chose to run against an incumbent judge. Randall and Potter County political history has revealed to me an extreme reluctance among the local bar association to challenge incumbents who are doing a good — if not great — job in administering justice.

An incumbent generally is doing a bad job on the bench to draw the number of challengers that Ronnie Walker attracted. That’s at least what I’ve noted over many years watching Texas judicial campaigns.

As the Amarillo Globe-News reported: Walker said he would “continue to maintain the high standards and quality of my court” through his term, which ends Dec. 31, 2018.

“I will always appreciate the support and confidence of the people of Randall County who voted me in office beginning Jan. 2, 2007, as the first and only judge of the newly created Randall County Court at Law No. 2,” he wrote in his statement. “Randall County jurors are the greatest, possessing an ideal blend of attentiveness, logic, reasonableness and fairness.”

Still, the question lingers: What — if anything — did this guy do to attract such a vigorous primary challenge?

national news, political news

Still struggling with how to refer to the president

The struggle is continuing.

A critic or two of High Plains Blogger has wondered aloud why I keep resisting the urge to refer to Donald Trump as president. You know, put the words “President” and “Trump” together consecutively.

It’s personal, man. Really, that’s all it is.

If you’ve read this blog with any degree of care, you will have noticed that I have no difficulty writing the words “Vice President Pence,” or “Secretary of State Rex Tillerson,” or “Defense Secretary James “Mad Dog” Mattis.” Do you get my drift? Of course you do.

The president is another matter altogether.

All of those individuals I’ve just cited, plus the rest of the entire Trump team — except, perhaps, for his son-in-law and daughter — comport themselves with at the very minimum a semblance of dignity as they go about their jobs representing the United States of America. Ivanka and Jared are in their high-powered jobs only because the president loves his daughter and (I presume) son-in-law.

The president hasn’t made the grade. At least not yet.

Whether he ever gets there remains to be seen. This constant baloney about how smart he is, his recent repeated references to the “standing ovation” he got while meeting with his team, his continual insults and his ridiculous tweets regarding matters that shouldn’t even concern him all cheapen the office he occupies.

And then there are those petulant disputes with Gold Star families. And the clumsiness with which he handles virtually every matter that comes across his desk.

The words “President” and “Trump” don’t yet resonate with me. A part of me — admittedly a still-small part — wants it to change. Until it does, this blog will not go where it should.

Yes, Donald Trump is the president of the United States. I know it and get it fully.

However, he’s got to start acting and sounding like one.

International news, military news

Now … for a moment of ethnic pride

2 Comments

I make no apologies for the hyphenated nature of my U.S. citizenship.

I am a Greek-American, which was bred in me by my grandparents, all four of whom were proud old country Greeks. One of them, my paternal grandmother — Katina Kanelis — once informed me of a historical military action about which I knew nothing at the time. I must have been around 9 or 10 years of age.

It produced something of a national holiday in her native Greece. It’s called “Ohi Day.” What is that? I’m about to tell you.

My grandmother and I were sitting in her kitchen one day when she told me of when, on Oct. 28, 1940, Italian dictator Benito Mussolini issued an ultimatum to the Greek prime minister, Ioannis Metaxas: Let the Italian military use Greek bases from which to conduct operations in the Mediterranean Theater of Operations or else face the prospect of war.

Legend has it that Metaxas replied with a simple “ohi!” which is Greek for “no!” Grandma told me he said it with emphasis, meaning I suppose it was taken as “hell no!”

The Italians invaded Greece from Albania. Grandma said with great pride that the Greek army responded with such ferocity that they drove the Italians out of Greece. Mussolini’s forces supposedly were better equipped, better trained, more seasoned. They ran into a ruthless enemy in the Greeks.

I’ve done some research in the decades since I heard that anecdote from my dear, beloved grandmother. I learned that the Greeks essentially let the Italians storm into their country, then cut them off in the Pindus Mountains in northwest Greece — and then slaughtered them.

It was warfare at its ugliest. The Greeks then drove the Italians out of Greece, just as Grandma told me. The opposing forces fought to a stalemate in Albania, prompting the Nazi Germans to invade Greece in April 1941. The Axis forces eventually conquered Greece — but they would pay dearly for their occupation until they were driven out in 1944. The Greek resistance was among the fiercest of any in Europe during World War II.

I bring this to you courtesy of my late grandmother, who became a proud American, too, by choice.

Happy Ohi Day, everyone! Have a glass of ouzo to commemorate it.

national news

Call out POTUS … by name!

Republicans and assorted political conservatives got all over President Barack H. Obama for his refusal to refer to “radical Islamic terrorists” by that name.

They berated him. They badgered him. They called him a coward.

So … what is going on these days in Washington, D.C.? Republican lawmakers are quitting the game. They are chastising the leadership at the very top of their political party. U.S. Sen. Jeff Flake goes to the Senate floor and delivers a stirring speech against the “debasement” of American principles. U.S. Sen. Bob Corker quits, too, with a scathing statement against the tone and tenor of politics.

U.S. Sen. John McCain chides those who managed to get draft deferments during the Vietnam War because of “bone spurs.”

Former President George W. Bush delivers a blistering speech about the nature of current political discourse.

There was no mistaking to whom all of them are referring.

Any mention of its cause? Anyone willing to call out the president by name?

Not even a former president — as steady and strong a Republican as there is — has been willing to take that leap.

If these GOP leaders are going to pile on to a Democratic president for refusing to single out by name those who are creating havoc through terrorist acts, why won’t they follow suit when it regards the president of the United States?

national news

Ready, aim, fire … at whom in this intraparty war?

I might be the only American today who is unable to understand the political warfare that is taking shape within the Republican Party.

Follow me for a moment.

* Donald John Trump is trying to remake the GOP in his image.

* Former chief White House political strategist, Stephen Bannon, got himself fired by Trump, but Bannon has declared himself to the president’s “wing man” in the fight against the GOP establishment.

* Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell detests Bannon — and Trump. He’s got to smile with the president at his side because he wants to avoid incurring the wrath of a president who’s proven quite adept at bringing it in spades to anyone who crosses him.

* Other Senate Republicans are bailing out on the party, and Congress, because they can’t withstand a primary challenge.

The wild card in all of this appears to be Bannon, a guy I truly detest because of his far-right leanings and his seeming sympathy to white supremacists and those with anti-Semitic views.

What continues to make my head spin is how a guy who once sat at the grownups’ table at National Security Council meetings, then was demoted to the back room and then got himself shoved out the White House door can remain loyal to the guy who booted him out of the office.

But he is. At least he says he is.

I have lamented what I think might be the end of the once-Grand Old Party as we’ve known it. A critic of this blog told me he believes it’s far too premature to sound the GOP’s death knell. Maybe so.

It does cause me some concern that a party that once grappled with Democrats on matters of high principle is being turned into a party filled with know-nothings whose only loyalty is to the Know Nothing in Chief.

I’m going to try to stay focused on this fight as it develops. I also am going to try to make some sense out of what at the moment looks like a mishmash of confusion and chaos.

In the meantime, pray for the country.

national news

How do you keep this event a secret?

I just took part in one of those goofy online “polls” that asked: Do you think Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone in the assassination of President Kennedy?

I hit “yes.” Most of the respondents, more than 60 percent of them, said “no.”

This stuff makes me cringe. It makes me want to scream.

The conspiracy debate has been fired up yet again with the president’s decision to release nearly 3,000 pages of documents relating to the 20th century’s most heinous single crime. I keep circling back to a couple of key notions regarding the conspiracy idea that someone helped Oswald kill the 35th president of the United States.

One, how does one keep such a monumental event secret?

I have grappled with that one for decades. I am utterly baffled by the notion that someone or a group of people could hide their role in such a crime from anyone. These nutty ideas that they’ve all been killed just don’t add up. Why? Because someone did the killing. Who? How? Where?

Two, does anyone actually believe that a sharp-eyed journalist couldn’t or wouldn’t reveal to the world who did such a thing?

C’mon, folks! Those ding dongs who broke into the Watergate office complex in June 1972 were revealed in fairly short order to be working for a presidential re-election committee. We found a direct line to the truth in pretty quick order.

I’ll stipulate once again that I believe from the depths of my gut that Lee Harvey Oswald acted all by himself. No one saw this guy coming. JFK’s trip to Dallas in November 1963 had alarmed folks who were worried about an attack from the far right — the John Birchers, for instance — who were so highly critical of the president.  Oswald was a Marxist. He snuck in under everyone’s radar. Such things are possible, you know?

Dare I mention, oh, the attacks of 9/11? There, I just did.

I would ask that we cease and desist with this JFK conspiracy nonsense. Except that it won’t end. Not ever.

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