local news, political news, State news

Welcome back, Beto!

I’m getting a little ahead of myself, but Beto O’Rourke is making himself quite at home in what might be considered “enemy territory.”

O’Rourke is the Democratic member of Congress who wants to succeed Republican U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz at the end of next year.

He keeps coming back to the Texas Panhandle. He’ll be here Tuesday, conducting a town hall meeting beginning at 6:30 p.m. at Austin Middle School in Amarillo.

What’s the deal? O’Rourke represents an El Paso district in Congress. He’s got a Democratic Party primary yet to win. He has returned back home to Texas during the August recess to resume his full-time campaign for the Senate seat occupied by Cruz.

O’Rourke has developed quite a fan following among local Democrats — yes, there are actually living, breathing Democrats in the Panhandle. They can’t get enough of this young man.

I’m curious about a couple of things regarding Rep. O’Rourke.

First, how much time is he going to spend mining a limited number of Democratic primary votes when there exist so many more in larger urban regions in, say, Dallas and Tarrant counties, in Bexar County, in Travis County, Harris County and, oh yes, El Paso County? Hey, it’s a big state and he’s got to get from place to place in a big hurry.

Second, if the young congressman gets nominated by Democrats next spring, will he come back to the Panhandle when the general election campaign kicks into high gear?

You and I know the rule of thumb regarding partisan Texas politics: Democrats generally have given up on the Panhandle, while Republicans take this region for granted. Just as national politicians campaigning for president focus on “battleground states” and ignore the trusty Red and Blue states, the same can be said for the intrastate campaign in Texas.

Do candidates for statewide office spend as much time in regions where the outcome is preordained? If I would run a Texas-wide campaign, I would focus my attention on those “swing regions” and seek to gin up turnout among my own partisans, be they Democrats in Austin and the Hill Country or Republicans in Amarillo and throughout West Texas.

I hope I’m wrong about Beto O’Rourke. Just maybe the young man will possess the energy and pizzazz to spend more general-election time far from his base of support.

You know, too, that I am no fan of the Cruz Missile.

Enough said.

media news, national news

End of cyber bullying? Yes, it starts at ‘home’

Mr. President: Your bullying hasn’t worked before and it won’t work now. No one is above the law.

— U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal, responding via Twitter to social media attacks from the president of the United States

There you have it. The president is using Twitter to “bully” a member of the U.S. Senate.

Donald Trump tweeted some intensely personal criticism of Blumenthal, a Connecticut Democrat, over the senator’s remarks this past weekend regarding the special counsel’s investigation of Russia’s efforts to influence our 2016 election.

Trump responded by calling Blumenthal a Vietnam War con man, referring to when Blumenthal was caught in 2010 fabricating stories about how he served “in Vietnam” during the war. He didn’t and apologized for the misleading statements he made saying that he had served “in country.”

Cyber bullying anyone? There it is.

Which brings me back to another point I’ve made already. First lady Melania Trump wants to make cyber bullying her signature effort as long as she and her husband occupy their respective titles. It’s a noble cause and I’ve applauded the first lady for bringing attention to the issue of cyber bullying, particularly among children.

However, Melania, you do need to start the campaign right at home, in the “dump” where you live part time with your husband, the White House.

Seriously, Mme. First Lady. Take your husband aside, reprimand him sternly and get him to stop using social media as a weapon with which he insults and bullies his political opponents.

national news, political news

POTUS remains an angry man

Donald John Trump is an angry old man. The 71-year-old president of the United States marked his 200th day in office with a series of tweets.

He blasted Democrats, the “fake” media, turncoat Republicans, Congress in general. The only folks who escaped his Twitter tirade it seems are his kin and Vladimir Putin.

What gives with this guy? The honeymoon period presidents traditionally get never materialized with this buffoon. Perhaps it was the tone of his inaugural speech, the one that talked about vowing to end the “American carnage” and painted a dark portrait of the world’s greatest, most powerful nation. There was no high-minded prose coming from the president. There was plenty of anger.

It’s gone downhill … from there!

He hasn’t filled a huge number of key staff posts. Judgeships remain vacant. Federal prosecutors need to be named. He’s changed his White House chief of staff, booted out his press secretary, fired the FBI director and the acting attorney general, tossed his national security adviser, kicked out his communications director. Am I missing anyone? Whatever.

My point is that the president is an unhappy man who this morning decided to torch a Democratic senator over an issue for which the senator has apologized. Take a bow, Richard Blumenthal.

Nothing of consequence has been accomplished — legislatively. Yes, he issued those executive orders removing the United States from the Transpacific Partnership and from the Paris climate accords. He tweeted something about banning transgendered Americans from serving in the military, only to get push back from the Pentagon brass at the highest levels of all the military branches.

Trump keeps getting caught in lies and duplicitous comments, thanks to the “leakers” inside the White House who are exposing his countless shortcomings as the head of state and government.

Those “easy” tasks, such as repealing and replacing the Affordable Care Act? Not done! The leader of the party that controls the Congress and the White House couldn’t get that one pushed across the finish line. So … he blames Congress for his own failures.

Getting Mexico to build a wall along our nations’ shared border? Forget about it. Tossing out the North American Free Trade Agreement? Pfftt!

Here’s the best part of all of this: We’re at Day 200 of the Trump administration. That means we’ve only got 1,261 more days of this ahead.

Maybe.

military news

Now it’s Sen. Blumenthal in the crosshairs

Donald J. Trump Sr. has pressed his foot hard on the presidential petulance pedal.

He fired off a series of tweets today attacking Democratic U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal after Blumenthal appeared on TV over the weekend to criticize the Justice Department’s emphasis on rooting out leakers.

Did the president call into question the specifics of Blumenthal’s criticism? Oh, no. He attacked Blumenthal for a lie he told about serving “in Vietnam” when in fact the senator — a Marine Corps reservist — didn’t set foot in the country during the Vietnam War.

Let’s see. That story came out during the 2010 campaign for the Connecticut U.S. Senate seat that Blumenthal was contesting. He apologized for his mischaracterization. As one who actually did set foot in Vietnam during the war, I was appalled at the time that Blumenthal would say such a thing. I chastised him heavily for it.

But that was then. It’s over.

Here is what I wrote about it at the time:

https://highplainsblogger.com/2010/05/scandal-crosses-partisan-divide/

However, since Trump did bring it up, I guess it’s OK to remind readers of this blog that young Donnie Trump didn’t exactly distinguish himself either during that period in our nation’s history.

He got a boatload of student and medical deferments to keep him away from the war. Trump did suggest during the 2016 campaign that his attendance at a military high school in New York was essentially the same thing as serving in the military. Umm. No. It’s not. Honest.

Check out Trump’s tweets here.

I read somewhere in the past few days that new White House chief of staff John Kelly might be able to bind up the president’s Twitter finger. I guess that hasn’t happened, at least not yet.

In the meantime, Donald Trump continues to demonstrate with startling effectiveness that he possesses the temperament of a child. To think this individual also has control of nuclear launch codes that could destroy the world.

national news, political news

Sen. Flake speaks hard truth to fellow conservatives

Political conservatives have been scolded by one of their own.

Are they listening? Are they taking heed? Will they act differently in the future?

The scolding comes from U.S. Sen. Jeff Flake, a lifelong Arizona Republican, who says conservatives were shamefully silent while the man who would become president told the ongoing lie about Barack Obama’s place of birth.

Flake also turned his fire on conservatives who chanted “Lock her up!” at Donald J. Trump’s campaign rallies.

Conservatives have misbehaved and have failed to follow in the footsteps of Flake’s political mentor, the late U.S. Sen. Barry Goldwater. Indeed, Flake’s new book, “Conscience of a Conservative,” mirrors the title of Goldwater’s 1960 book.

Flake is concerned about the fate and future of the Republican Party, which is now being led by a president with no apparent ideological compass. Flake wants Donald Trump to settle down, to demonstrate some discipline, to allow the White House staff operation to function as it should — and to curb his use of Twitter to make policy pronouncements.

Flake said he’ll continue to criticize Trump when he deserves and will support him when he deserves that, too.

He does pose a fascinating question about the conservative movement. He wonders how actual conservatives can continue to support someone who espouses “protectionist” trade policies, seeks to isolate the nation from the rest of the world and wants to spend enormous amounts of public money with funds that are missing from the federal Treasury.

I’ll add as well that conservatives ought to re-examine their support for someone who has spoken so crassly and profanely about his political opponents and behaved so boorishly in his own personal life.

My hope is they would look inward. My fear — which is being demonstrated daily — is that they’ll continue to stand by their man.

national news

Trumps’ ‘dump’ to get spruced up a bit

Donald J. and Melania Trump are accustomed, I presume, to some pretty sumptuous living quarters. They’re accustomed to glitz and glam, of which they have plenty at their various homes in New York, south Florida and New Jersey.

They have taken up part-time residence in an old house at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. Trouble is, though, the president thinks it’s a “real dump.” He made the remark to golf pals; Trump, as is customary, denies saying it.

Hey, not to worry. The first couple and their young son are now spending the next 15 or so days at their golf club in New Jersey. The “dump” in D.C. is getting a little fixup while they are away: a new heating and air conditioning system and some nips and tucks here and there throughout the residence.

Still, for millions of Americans who’ve seen the White House up close — as my wife, sons and I have been honored to do — the “real dump” comment is offensive to the core.

It’s been the home for presidents since John Adams. Yes, it got burned during the War of 1812. Presidents since that time have been forced to fix things up at the place. President Truman moved into the Blair House with his wife and daughter while crews repaired some flooring. President Clinton had some asbestos issues. The White House has been plagued by flies on occasion, too.

It’s not a “dump,” let alone a “real dump,” as Trump has called it.

Read more about the “dump” issue here.

Sure, the place is old. It needs repair on occasion. A “dump”? Hardly. It’s filled with history and its walls contain portraits of all the men and women who have called it home.

If only the current president could appreciate it. Maybe he will if the heating and AC are in proper working order when he returns from his vacation.

environmental news

Manmade or cyclical climate change? Doesn’t matter!

Let’s set aside for a moment the debate over whether Earth’s changing climate is the result of human activity or it’s just part of the epochal cycle the planet goes through every few thousand millennia.

I happen to think human beings do play a big part in it. That’s just me.

The bigger issue of the day is this: It doesn’t matter one damn bit!

Whether the planet’s climate is warming because of carbon emissions or deforestation or whether it’s part of Earth’s life cycle, human beings need to do something about it.

Now! Although it might too late.

The Trump administration has just informed the United Nations that the United States is formally withdrawing from the Paris climate accord, joining those two other stalwart nations that didn’t sign the accords in the first place: Nicaragua and Syria.

Earth’s temperature is rising. Sea levels are rising, too. Indeed, the levels will rise even more once a glacier the size of Delaware melts into the ocean; the iceberg broke off of Antarctica recently.

Climate change deniers — led by the current head of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency — insist that there’s nothing we can, or should, do to abate those changes. We have members of our Congress who suggest that since human activity isn’t the cause that human beings shouldn’t be held responsible to slow it down, if not stop it altogether.

The president of the United States calls climate change/global warming a “hoax” perpetrated by China and other great powers seeking to intimidate the U.S. fossil fuel industry.

I keep coming back to a simple, fundamental point: Whatever the cause — cyclical or at human hands — we human beings are the dominant life form on Planet Earth. Old Testament scripture instructs us to “fill the Earth and govern it.”

So, are we going to govern it or are we going to just sit back and let nature’s forces have their way?

Yes, I know that human beings cannot match nature’s power. I know we cannot change the flow of the rivers, or stem the tides that will rise no matter what we do to prevent it.

Human beings, though, can insist we stop decimating our forests, depriving the planet of vegetation that oxygenates our atmosphere; without it, the air fills with CO2 and, by design, grows warmer. It’s that simple.

Will any of that prevent Earth’s climate from changing? Probably not. However, it is better to seek to do something than to do nothing at all. That’s what good stewards of the world we inherited must do.

media news

Lesson learned about marketing a blog

I have just received a valuable lesson in marketing and (if you’ll pardon the expression) self-promotion.

It was delivered to me in the lobby of a movie theater by a woman who had a kind word about the work I used to do.

I purchased a ticket to a film I went to see with my son. When I stepped away from the ticket counter, a nice lady said, “I love your work at the paper, John.” I turned to see who made the remark.

The woman said she “I love what you write,” and gave me a thumbs-up. I thought for an instant: How do I handle this?

“Well, thank you, but I’ve been gone (from the Amarillo Globe-News) for five years now,” I said. The lady looked surprised. “You have?” she asked. “Yes, nearly five years now,” I said.

“Well, I’m embarrassed,” she said. “It’s OK, no worries,” I said.

Then she pivoted. “Well, I miss you.” I thanked her again and went on my way.

OK, where’s the lesson? I should’ve been carrying my business-card wallet with cards identifying me as the author of High Plains Blogger. You see, that way I could have just handed her a card and said, “I’m still writing. This is what I’m doing now.”

Simple, yes? Of course it is! That’s going to be my standard operating procedure from this day forward.

To be candid, I’m kicking myself in the backside as I write this brief blog post.

Five years after quitting my job I’m still getting these kinds of greetings from strangers. To be totally honest, I find it gratifying, even when I meet folks who might have disagreed with what I wrote for the Globe-News back in The Day.

***

Spoiler alert: I’m planning to post a blog entry in a few days commemorating the five-year anniversary of my departure from daily print journalism. That event hit me hard in the moment … but life has turned out to be far better than I ever imagined.

military news

Hiroshima debate will rage until the end of time

Seventy-two years ago today a single U.S. Army Air Force bomber dropped a single bomb on a Japanese city and ushered the nuclear age into modern warfare.

The plane was called the Enola Gay, named after the mother of the bomber’s commanding officer, Col. Paul Tibbetts. The place was Hiroshima. The atomic bomb killed many thousands of Japanese civilians — quite literally in a flash of light, heat and unimaginable concussive force.

Aug. 6, 1945 has gone down in history as arguably the most compelling moment of the 20th century. American air power would drop another atomic bomb three days later on Nagasaki, Japan. The Japanese would surrender a few days after that and World War II would come to an end.

The debate has raged for seven decades: Should we have dropped the bomb? Did we have to kill so many Japanese civilians? Would the Japanese have surrendered without having to suffer such horrific destruction?

I have some proverbial skin in that argument. A young man was stationed in The Philippines when the bombs fell on Japan. He was serving in the U.S. Navy and well could have taken part in the invasion of Japan had it occurred. We also well might have died in the effort, denying him the chance to return home and start a family that resulted in, well, yours truly being born.

Dad made it home from that terrible war, got married and produced his family. I wrote four years ago about how the Hiroshima decision remains quite personal:

https://highplainsblogger.com/2013/08/hiroshima-gets-personal-with-me/

President Harry Truman had been in office only since April 1945; he assumed the power of the presidency upon the death of President Franklin Roosevelt. He only learned about the A-bomb development after he had taken the oath.

The newly minted commander in chief was handed some information that could have shortened the war by weeks, maybe months. Yes, the option before him would cost a lot of Japanese lives and he knew that at the top. He had to make a stern choice: Do I deploy this weapon knowing the destruction it will bring to the enemy’s homeland or do I risk sending our young men into battle at the cost of many thousands of American lives?

The president knew the consequences of the choice he had to make.

In my mind — and in my heart and gut — the president made the correct call. I cannot be objective or analytical about this. It’s personal, man.

God bless President Truman.

national news

Now that we’re talking about presidential vacations …

Presidential vacations usually aren’t the stuff of water-cooler tittering, unless the president is a blowhard who brags about “never” taking them, only to bail from the White House for 17 days.

Donald John Trump Sr. is spending two-plus weeks away from the office at the “dump” where he and his wife and son reside. He’s playing some golf in Bedminster, N.J. — and doing some presidential duties.

The subject of vacation destinations, though, does become a bit of a media issue from time to time, depending on the destination itself.

Barack H. Obama was fond of vacationing at Martha’s Vineyard, Mass., during the summer; then he would jet to his hometown of Honolulu for his annual Christmas vacation. The media loved covering the president while he was on vacation.

Bill Clinton also enjoyed Martha’s Vineyard. George H.W. Bush had his family estate on the Atlantic shore in Kennebunkport, Maine. Ronald Reagan spent quality time at his Rancho del Cielo, just outside of Santa Barbara, Calif. Jimmy Carter would go back to Plains, Ga. Gerald Ford had his digs in Palm Springs, Calif. Richard Nixon enjoyed time away at San Clemente, Calif.

I skipped mentioning George W. Bush’s vacation spot for a reason. I want to discuss it briefly here.

President Bush was fond of going to Crawford, Texas, during the heat of the summer. It gets really hot in Central Texas, man! He has a ranch there and he’d venture onto the Back Forty to “clear brush” and perform assorted chores around the place. He found it invigorating and relaxing.

The White House media corps assigned to cover the president routinely reported on the miserable weather conditions in Crawford. One didn’t hear such gripes from the media when they covered presidential getaways at, say, The Vineyard, Waikiki or the rocky Maine coast.

This is worth mentioning, I suppose, in the wake of Donald Trump’s constant yammering about President Obama’s vacations and the now-debunked notion that the current president wouldn’t be taking vacations. He would be too hard at work trying to “make America great again.”

Just as media coverage of G.W. Bush’s vacations centered heavily on the Central Texas heat and the misery of reporters assigned to cover the president, I reckon the current president’s vacation coverage will center on just how much actual work is being done while he’s relaxing with his golf buddies.

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