national news

‘Fine people’ among the neo-Nazis?

The president of the United States has provided so much grist for us out here in Flyover Country, I almost don’t know where to start.

OK, I’ll start with this: Donald John Trump Sr. said the Klansmen, neo-Nazis and white supremacists comprised “many fine” individuals who had gathered in Charlottesville, Va., to protest the removal of that statue of Gen. Robert E. Lee.

Does the president believe anyone who belongs to a well-recognized hate group would qualify as a “fine” person? Is that what he believes?

Well, yes he does. He said so today while launching into that amazingly stupid, ignorant rant about how “both sides” were to blame for the riot in Charlottesville.

Oh, sure, Trump paid tribute to the counter protesters, too, saying they had some good folks among their ranks. That was his way of equivocating, I suppose — kind of the way he used the “many sides” dodge in his initial response to the Charlottesville violence.

Mr. President, I don’t know any white supremacists, or neo-Nazis, or Ku Klux Klansmen. It might be that I refuse to associate with those of that particular ilk. Why? Because I set a pretty high standard for those with whom I associate.

They are “fine” individuals. None of those hate group members is anything of the sort.

national news

POTUS’s loathsome conduct on full display

That was some performance — yes? — from the president of the United States of America.

He walked this afternoon into the Trump Tower lobby, talked a little bit about infrastructure improvement and then opened the floor up for questions from the “enemy of the people,” aka the media.

Then it got real nasty. In a major hurry. Reporters weren’t there to talk about roads and bridges. They wanted to talk about another matter that’s on the minds of millions of Americans.

Donald John Trump Sr. has motivated me to explain why I loathe this man to my core — and to his core, for that matter.

It’s not ideology, because he doesn’t have one. It’s not his partisan leaning, because he doesn’t adhere to any partisan doctrine.

It’s his conduct, his demeanor, his utter lack of dignity, his ignorance and arrogance. It’s strictly personal, dear reader.

Trump put on a disgraceful display at that Q&A with the media today. It laid bare with absolute clarity just why I stand more strongly than ever behind the view that this man is unfit for the nation’s highest office. He is unfit to be called “president.”

Trump defended his hideous initial statement about the Charlottesville riot. Then he equated the Klan/Nazi/white supremacists with those who oppose them. He attacked the media yet one more time. He took a moment to chide Sen. John McCain — a celebrated Vietnam War hero — for his vote against repeal of the Affordable Care Act.

The president demonstrated clearly and without a trace of ambiguity why he is such a loathsome individual.

I won’t restate the myriad examples he provided for us while campaigning for the presidency. We’ve been down that road already.

He pledged to become more “presidential” once he was elected and getting ready to take office. He has gone in precisely the opposite direction. He has become an absolute embarrassment to the greatest nation on Earth. He has demonstrated to those of us who opposed his election precisely why we continue to detest him.

Yes, he has his supporters. I am acquainted with a number of them who live here in the Texas Panhandle, which voted overwhelmingly for his election in 2016. I choose to avoid discussing Trump with them; thus, I am not entirely certain if their faith in Trump today is as strong as it was when he took office. That’s for them to ponder.

Me? My mind was made up long before the election, let alone long before this shameful opportunist took the oath for the only public office he ever sought.

On this day, my loathing of this individual is stronger than ever.

national news

POTUS shows us once more he is unfit for his office

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XXzQ1cNXfxk

This video is about 23 minutes long. If you have the time — and if you have the stomach for it — take some time to watch it.

You will witness the president of the United States demonstrate a remarkable implosion. Donald John Trump Sr. said many astonishing things during this press conference on the ground floor of Trump Tower.

He reverted back to his “many sides” argument in response to the Charlottesville, Va., riot that was provoked by white nationalists/neo-Nazis/Ku Klux Klansmen protesting the removal of a Confederate statue.

Trump accused the so-called “alt-left” of attacking the racists.

The president once again blamed the media for its coverage of the event over the weekend, saying that the media were “unfair” in their reportage of the white supremacists.

POTUS also took shots at Sen. John McCain for voting against the repeal of the Affordable Care Act, as well as at “fake news” outlets and their representatives.

It was an astonishing display of maximum petulance today at Trump Tower.

The president in effect reverted to form this afternoon. He exhibited compelling evidence that his initial response to the Charlottesville event — where he said “many sides” were to blame for the violence — came from his gut and that his more restrained response delivered Monday was canned, strained and done against his will.

Oh, and he conflated the American Revolution with the Civil War, noting that George Washington and Thomas Jefferson owned slaves, as did the leaders of the Confederate States of America. He asked, then, if it’s time to remove statues of the Father of Our Country and the author of the Declaration of Independence.

My head is about to explode.

I watched every moment of Donald Trump’s disgraceful display this afternoon. I still cannot believe what I witnessed.

Take a look at the video.

medical news

CBO weighs in again: not good for ACA repeal

That doggone Congressional Budget Office has done it again.

It has released a report that suggests an attempt to repeal the Affordable Care Act — even through a back-door process — is doomed to cost Americans more than many of them can afford.

The CBO reports that Donald Trump’s threat to repeal the “cost-sharing” payments to Americans seeking health insurance under the ACA is going to cause premiums to skyrocket. Such a repeal also would balloon the deficit by $194 billion over the next decade.

The president has made the threat as a way to get congressional Democrats to bargain with Republicans after the GOP repeal/replace effort failed in the U.S. Senate.

The payments provide Americans a way to afford health insurance. They subsidize insurance companies as well, giving them a chance to provide coverage to Americans who otherwise could not afford it.

As I’ve noted already, my wife and I have benefited directly from the payments provided under the ACA and I am appalled that the president would threaten to cut them off, to use them as a bargaining tool — or, if you’ll accept this description, as a political football.

I’m glad the CBO has lined up on the side of Americans — such as yours truly — who want the president and Congress to improve the ACA, not repeal it.

national news

We aren’t born to hate

“No one is born hating another person because of the color of his skin or his background or his religion…”

— Former President Barack Obama

The 44th president of the United States fired this brief message out via Twitter over the weekend.

And what a weekend it was.

A riot broke out in Charlottesville, Va. Three people died as a result of the violence that erupted when white nationalists protested the taking down of a Confederate statue.

Obama’s presidential successor, Donald John Trump, had a chance to lead in the moment. He whiffed. He blew it. He choked.

Then came this tweet from Trump’s immediate predecessor. It has become the second-most “liked” tweet in Twitter history. I’ve been hooked up to Twitter for about five years, so I don’t have deep knowledge of the history of this social medium.

But the former president is so very correct. We aren’t born to hate. It is — if you’ll pardon this expression — a “learned” behavior.

Children who instinctively play with anyone are “taught” by their elders — be they parents, extended family or other so-called “adults” — to mistrust others. It’s a disgraceful, disgusting and so very dishonorable thing to teach our children.

As I look at the above quote from the former president, I am torn by conflicting emotions.

* One is to wish he could return to the post he had to surrender under the rules set for by the U.S. Constitution. I am longing for some semblance of dignity and decorum from our head of state. We aren’t getting anything of the sort from the man who now occupies the presidency.

* The other is to be glad for the president and his family to be away from the spotlight. They stood under the glare of the nation’s highest office for eight years. I am quite certain that historians will judge Barack Obama eventually as one of our nation’s most consequential and successful presidents — despite the partisan battles he fought virtually every step of the way.

Yes, these emotions are fighting with each other. I am afraid the first one — wishing for presidential dignity — is winning the fight.

national news

Hoping these Bannon reports are true

Oh, how I hope reports that have surfaced about Stephen Bannon are true, that he’ll be shown the door at the White House, the one leading away from the “real dump” where the president now lives and works.

A Bannon exit actually would verify that White House chief of staff John Kelly is the kick-a** Marine everyone says he is and that he cannot work with someone who (a) holds extreme right-wing views, (b) has the ear of the president of the United States and (c) is wholly unqualified to be the “senior strategist” for Donald John Trump Sr.

I have made no secret of my loathing of Bannon, the former Breitbart News executive whose publication has — and continues to do — published blatantly racist and anti-Semitic commentary on public policy. Bannon is the darling of the “nationalist wing” of the base that continues to cling, albeit in declining numbers, to its support of the president.

Bannon reportedly also has been feuding with another Trump grownup, national security adviser H.R. McMaster, who happens to be an active-duty Army lieutenant general; he, too, has been known to kick some back sides in his day.

The president is on vacation in New Jersey. He’ll be returning soon to the place he calls “a real dump.”

The changes that might await him are substantial, thanks to the work of Kelly, the retired Marine general. The potential changes likely won’t erase the immediate past — the “Russia thing” and questions about whether the president sought to obstruct justice in that ongoing FBI and special counsel investigation.

If only Gen. Kelly can control the president’s Twitter fingers. We’ll still have to see how that plays out.

environmental news, local news

We’re soaked around here, but is drought really over?

I’m going to have to do the virtually unheard of thing later today: At not quite the halfway point in August, I’m going to empty our rain gauge, which is full of water.

We’ve gotten slightly more than 5 inches of rain at our humble abode in southwest Amarillo so far this month. My wife and I empty it at the end of each month before waiting for more rainfall. This month has been a soaker, man!

The National Weather Service station near Rick Husband Amarillo International Airport reports that Amarillo has received 19 inches of rain year to date; that’s 5 inches more than normal and 6 inches more than we had at this time in 2016.

So, put another way, we’ve achieved just about our average annual amount of precipitation — and we still have more than four months to go in this calendar year.

All of this begs the question: Is the drought over?

I’ve heard it said about the crippling drought the High Plains endured in 2011 that it would take an epic amount of rain to bring us officially out of drought status. I cannot remember the specifics, but given that the Ogallala Aquifer takes so very long to recharge given its depth that the rain has to fall in virtually biblical amounts to break the drought.

I’m going to continue believing that and monitor my water use accordingly.

We don’t have one of those automated irrigation systems in our yard. So that’s not a particular issue for my wife and me. We serviced our outdoor faucets during the depths of the drought, so we’re good there. We do things in the kitchen such as turn on the sink faucet sparingly when washing dishes. We remodeled one of our bathrooms a couple of years ago and had one of those “gravity flush” toilets installed, which saves water.

We’re not paragons environmental purity. I don’t intend to portray us as such. Water preservation, though, remains on the top of my mind’s awareness, even when it’s pouring out of the sky.

I keep thinking, too, about that fabulous PBS documentary “The Dust Bowl” that aired not long ago. It told the terrible, horrifying story of how prolonged drought and reckless farming techniques formed a sort of “perfect storm” that created what has been called the nation’s “worst manmade environmental catastrophe.” The Texas and Oklahoma panhandles were in the bullseye of that hideous event.

Our farming techniques have improved since the 1930s. Yes, we can control how we take care of our land. The return of the kind of Dust Bowl-era drought, though, is far beyond our meager effort to dictate to Mother Nature.

Let’s keep that in mind — even as we welcome the rain that keeps drenching us.

national news

Did we elect a flaming racist?

1 Comment

Follow me through this sequence for a brief moment.

* A riot breaks out in Charlottesville, Va., when counter protesters objected to white nationalists, neo-Nazis and Ku Klux Klansmen gathered to protest the removal of a Confederate statue. Three people died. The president of the United States, Donald Trump, issues a tepid statement that talks of “many sides” being guilty of inciting violence.

* Two days later, after getting pounded by, um, many sides, Trump finally issues a statement condemning by name the white racist groups associated with the riot.

* Today, Merck CEO Kenneth Frazier resigned from the President’s Manufacturing Council over the president’s failure to respond appropriately to the race-based riot in Virginia. It took Trump all of 54 minutes to fire off a snark-laden tweet that suggests Frazier could now spend more time to deal with “rip-off drug prices.”

* Later in the day, Under Armour CEO Kevin Plank quits the same council. Plank cited the same reasons as Frazier. Trump remained quiet via Twitter. No criticism of Plank. Nothin’.

This is important, too: Frazier is black; Plank is white.

I need some help on this one. Why do you suppose the president was so quick on the Twitter trigger finger regarding Frazier’s resignation, but has remained silent on Plank’s decision to quit? Is there a relationship between those responses and the president’s initial public reaction to the violence?

Is it a coincidence? Or are there some motives that need careful examination? I’m just askin’, man.

media news

Once more in high praise of the media

The president of the United States has grown annoyingly fond of calling the media that publish and broadcast negative stories about him “fake news.”

The description he uses — and the context in which he utters it — demonstrate that Donald John Trump doesn’t understand what “fake news” really is. “Fake news” are the made up accounts, lies, fabrications … the kind of thing that Trump has done for many years. I’ll get back to that in a moment.

I want to offer another word of high praise for the media for the job they have done in covering the 45th president of the United States.

The world has witnessed a rebirth of sorts of traditional, gumshoe reporting by great print media. The Washington Post, The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal — three powerhouse print outlets — all have demonstrated the value of hard-nosed reporting. Were it not for their dogged pursuit of tips the nation wouldn’t know about:

* Russian hacking into our 2016 election process.

* Donald Trump’s presidential campaign’s potential role in that meddling.

* The issues related to the president’s firing of FBI Director James Comey.

* The possible conflicts of interests related to the emoluments clause in the U.S. Constitution.

That’s just four issues. The media have done their job. They have done what the media always do and what presidents — until the current one — have accepted as part of journalists’ calling.

Donald Trump instead has promoted actual “fake news” all along the way. He has promoted the scurrilous assertion that Barack Obama wasn’t constitutionally qualified to serve as president; he lied about “thousands of Muslims” cheering the collapse of the Twin Towers on 9/11; he has lied about “millions of illegal immigrants” voting for Hillary Clinton in 2016; he lies about the size of his electoral victory; his press office has lied about the size of Trump’s inaugural crowd.

And this man, then, has the audacity to accuse media outlets of promoting “fake news” that in actuality is merely news that doesn’t slather him in glowing praise.

Mr. President, that’s the way it goes. Every single one of your predecessors has gotten beaten up by the media. Have they blackballed news outlets? Have they called the media “the enemy of the people”? Have they called individual reporters “terrible, dishonest human beings”? No. They understand the value of a free press and have welcomed the media’s efforts to hold all public officials accountable for the words and actions.

They have reacted far more professionally and “presidential” than the thin-skinned weakling who occupies the Big Chair in the Oval Office.

As someone who toiled for nearly four decades as a print journalist, I am damn proud of the job my former colleagues are doing.

State news

Reason required cancellation of A&M rally

Reason and sanity have prompted an eminently wise decision in Aggieland.

Texas A&M University System Chancellor John Sharp has cancelled a white nationalist rally that was scheduled for the College Station campus.

Gosh, what do you suppose prompted the cancellation?

Oh yeah! It was that hideous riot at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, the one that resulted in the deaths of three individuals. Ku Klux Klansmen, neo-Nazis and assorted white nationalists gathered there to protest the removal of a Confederate statue. All hell broke loose when counter protesters showed up.

Texas A&M was set to step into the crosshairs by agreeing to play host to its own white nationalist rally set for Sept. 11.

Then the chancellor intervened. Sharp cited safety concerns in ordering the rally canceled. According to the Austin American-Statesman, several Texas legislators urged cancellation of the rally that had been organized by a group promoting the event as a “White Lives Matter” protest. Read the rest of the American-Statesman story here.

The Charlottesville tragedy has ignited a rhetorical firestorm. Donald J. Trump threw a load of flammable liquid on it Saturday by initially declining to condemn the racists/bigots whose protests provoked the response they received. The president had a chance to lead, but then he failed to do so.

Today, the president called out the racists by name. It’s likely not enough to quell the uproar.

To that end, the A&M System has done the profoundly correct thing — given the national mood of the moment — to cancel a rally that well could have turned into another riot.

Good call, Chancellor Sharp.

Commentary on politics, current events and life experience