International news, national news, political news

‘Wall’ taking various forms

Donald J. Trump’s “big, beautiful wall” isn’t going to be built anytime soon. If ever.

The wall is supposed to stretch along the United States’ southern border. The president vowed — loudly, in fact — that the wall would be among his first priorities during his first 100 days in office.

Well, the wall became part of the debate over how to avoid a government shutdown, that was reported to occur on Friday, on Day 99 of Trump’s term in office.

Congressional Republicans have pulled the wall out of the budget negotiation. Trump’s wall has been put on ice once again.

What is making me shake my head is the argument over the cost of the boondoggle. The president insists it won’t cost more than $10 billion. Congressional budget estimates put the cost at $25 billion-plus. Trump wanted a fraction of that amount included in this budget proposal; he won’t get even that.

Here’s where it gets real confusing: The cost disparity appears to center on the nature of the wall. Is it a real wall, concrete, rebar, razor wire and all that? Is it just a fence? Is it some kind of “cyber” wall with computer-operated cameras scanning the landscape?

Trump keeps talking as though it’s the real thing — the concrete/rebar/razor wire kind. It’s going to be sunk deeply into the soil along our border with Mexico. It keeps getting higher every time a critic in Mexico lambastes the president.

And speaking of Mexico, didn’t the president insist on the stump this past year that “Mexico is going to pay for the wall”? Well, they aren’t. We cannot make a sovereign nation do anything against its will — short of invading it and occupying it.

No the money is going to come out of our pockets. Yours and mine. Are you ready to pay for a wall that won’t work? Me neither.

We are witnessing the mother of all cluster f****, dear reader.

The wall is crumbling before it’s being built.

Do I favor an open border that allows bad guys to sneak into this country? Of course not! A wall is not the answer. And I haven’t even addressed in this blog post the logistics of building such a structure along thousands of miles.

I am willing to support strict enforcement at entry points all along both of our borders to ensure we keep criminals out of the country.

Good grief, man. If money is an issue, then spend it on beefing up existing border enforcement policies.

national news, political news

Still waiting for POTUS to act, sound like one

A critic of High Plains Blogger scolded me recently about how I reference the commander in chief, Donald J. Trump.

The critic wants me to use the term “President” in front of his last name. I told him I would consider it.

I’ve thought about it for a bit of time and have decided … that I cannot make that leap. I just cannot — at least not yet — connect the words “President” and “Trump” consecutively.

It’s not that I disrespect the office. Indeed, I have great respect for the presidency. I’ve harbored that respect going back to the early 1950s, when I became aware of the office and the man who occupied it.

I was born in December 1949, when Harry Truman was president of the United States. He left office in January 1953, when I was just barely 3 years of age. The first president I remember was Dwight D. Eisenhower. To borrow a phrase, I liked Ike.

My first vote for president came in 1972. I voted for George McGovern, who got trampled by President Nixon. I’ve voted for plenty of losing candidates and my share of winning ones ever since. I’ve always managed to refer to the men I voted against by their title. Why? Because they were dignified, they knew how to act and speak like the leader of the free world, the commander in chief, the head of state of the greatest nation on Earth.

The man who occupies the office now hasn’t yet learned how to do that. He keeps saying patently goofy things. He keeps behaving strangely.

Am I still angry at the outcome of the 2016 election? Sure I am. That’s patently obvious to readers of this blog; it damn sure is obvious to the critic who scolded me. I won’t apologize for harboring the anger that a profoundly unfit man got elected to the highest office in the land. Nor will I apologize for declining to refer to him by the title he earned through his election.

Donald Trump has to earn it. To date, he has fallen short. His penchant for prevarication is an outrage. His ignorance of government and the mechanics of how to govern is annoying in the extreme.

And I also am waiting for a full-throated apology for the “fake news” lie he kept alive by asserting that Barack Hussein Obama was constitutionally unqualified to serve as president of the United States. Trump kept alive the lie that Obama was born in Africa and therefore was not a “natural born citizen” of the nation he governed successfully for two terms. Donald Trump was the disgraceful godfather of the “birther” movement.

I hope the man grows into the office. I want him to succeed. Honestly, I do.

Until he does and until he demonstrates some level of the decorum the office deserves, I will refuse — with all due respect — my critic’s demand that I change the way to which I refer to the president.

local news, political news

Vote early for city election? No thanks … I’ll wait

Social media are buzzing with pleas from the bevy of Amarillo City Council, Amarillo College, and Amarillo school board candidates for residents to vote early.

I am not taking the bait. Per my custom, I am going to wait until May 6, Election Day.

I’m a sucker for tradition. I’d even call it a bit of pageantry. I like going to the polling place on Election Day to chat with other voters. There won’t be a huge crowds at my polling place, which usually is at Arden Road Baptist Church. There won’t be much chance to hobnob with other folks about having to wait in long lines … blah, blah, blah.

I’ll wait, though, to make my statement.

I’ve made up my mind for the City Council. I’m getting closer to deciding how I intend to vote for Amarillo College’s Board of Regents. I live in the Canyon Independent School District, but there’s no election, given that no one filed to challenge the incumbents who serve on the CISD board.

My reason for waiting, though, is a bit more, um, sinister.

I don’t want to be surprised in the final 10 days of a campaign by something seriously negative coming out about the candidate for whom I have cast my vote. Thus, I wait until the last day.

The City Council campaign is beginning to produce a smattering of negativity, to which I’ve alluded already in this forum. I’m a bit annoyed at the naysayers who keep yapping about how much money is being spent for an office that pays a lousy 10 bucks per public meeting.

Big bleeping deal?

My slate of City Council candidates looks solid to me. I’m sticking with them.

I trust they’ll understand that I intend to wait a few more days before making my ballot-box statement.

It’s dangerous to take anything — or anyone — for granted.

national news, political news

100 days: real — or phony — benchmark for POTUS?

Donald John Trump now calls the 100-day threshold for presidential performance a phony standard.

That’s not what he was saying, however, while he was running for the office in 2016. He said repeatedly — and loudly — that he would do more than any other president in U.S. history during his first 100 days in office.

How has he done?

Repeal of the Affordable Care Act? Nothing. Tax reform? Zip. Infrastructure renovation? Forget it. The Wall on the southern border? Ha!

Yes, the president has signed a lot of executive orders. I like a few of them; most of them are clunkers.

Legislative accomplishment? The president has come up empty.

That means the 100-day report card — when it comes due — is going to record a pretty dismal job performance. Unless, of course, you’re Donald Trump, who’s been saying in consecutive breaths that he’s done more than any president in history and that the 100-day benchmark doesn’t mean a damn thing.

Trump’s victory in the 2016 election rewrote the political calculus on so many levels. He wasn’t supposed to win; he didn’t know anything about government; he insulted too many key political demographic groups.

Despite all of that he won the Electoral College by a comfortable — if not a massive — margin over Hillary Clinton.

He’s parlayed that changing political dynamic into some sort of success in his own mind.

I’m not buying the president’s version of success. And, yes, the 100-day marker for first-term presidents does matter, no matter what the current president might think publicly about it.

military news, national news

‘Congratulations’ to Purple Heart recipient?

This video offers something instructive about the president of the United States.

Critics of this blog will see this as a nitpicking, trivial observation. Perhaps it is — at some level. At another level, it illustrates to me that the president doesn’t quite grasp the notion of “service to one’s country.” At least not yet.

He pinned a Purple Heart medal on U.S. Army Sergeant First Class Alvaro Barrientos. Donald Trump said that when he heard about the award ceremony, he wanted to “do it myself.” I give the president high marks for wanting to honor the young man who lost part of a leg while fighting for his country in Afghanistan.

But then he said something I find weird. He offered SFC Barrientos “congratulations” for receiving the medal.

Congratulations?

To be fair, I don’t know what the president said to the young soldier privately when he whispered to him. Nor do I know what he said to his wife, who stood nearby while the president pinned the medal on SFC Barrientos’s shirt.

But the public offering of “congratulations” to someone who lost part of his body on a far-away battlefield is inappropriate.

I don’t need to remind the president that the soldier didn’t compete for the medal. He didn’t want to be maimed. He served heroically. He deserves a nation’s thanks and gratitude … not its congratulations.

My hope is that the president learns the ins and outs of these public ceremonial events. No, they don’t shape public policy or have tangible impact on the lives of anyone other than those who are taking part directly in them.

The optics, though, matter … a lot!

Sergeant First Class Barrientos? Thank you for your heroic service to our nation.

national news

These are the ‘thoughts’ of the 45th POTUS?

I am going to attach a link to this blog that really ought to stand alone, with little — if any — comment from yours truly.

It’s the transcript of an Associated Press interview conducted with Donald J. Trump, the nation’s 45th president.

One comment has jumped out and received considerable media attention already. It’s the part where the president talks about his ratings on CBS News’ talk show, “Face the Nation,” and how his appearance on the show boosted the ratings to a place not seen since the 9/11 terror attacks.

Narcissism, anyone? Hmmm?

Beyond that, if you read the entire transcript, perhaps you might draw the same conclusion that I have drawn, which is this individual cannot communicate. He cannot focus. He cannot think clearly and express himself concisely.

Here’s the interview.

It’s full of sentence fragments, stream-of-consciousness riffs and rants, and an amazing lack of empathy or compassion.

I am left to ask: Is this how one “tells it like it is”?

business news, local news

City clearing the way toward more progress

I’ve actually discovered a downside to no longer working full time in the job I used to do.

It is that I am no longer “in the loop” with events that occur daily in Amarillo’s downtown business district. My perch as editorial page editor of the Amarillo Globe-News kept me close to the action. Those days are gone.

They’re knocking down an old retail building at the corner of Ninth Avenue and Polk Street. I had to find out about it by inquiring on social media.

I also learned that once was known as the Blackburn Building is going to become a parking lot for motor vehicles driven into downtown to use some of the other sites being rehabilitated, renovated and rebuilt.

There’s the usual expressions of dismay by those who lament the loss of an old building. I feel their angst and their pain. I hate seeing old structures knocked down, too. Then again, it’s fair to ask: What would the Blackburn Building have become had the wreckers hadn’t started leveling it?

This, I suppose, is my way of expressing continued support for the makeover that’s underway in Amarillo’s downtown district.

The old Levine Building next to where the Blackburn Building once stood is being redone. That’s a good thing, yes? On 10th Avenue, the old Firestone service center is being transformed into a residential/retail location, or so I understand. That, too, preserves an old structure.

There’s plenty of new-building construction also underway farther north along Polk. Let’s not forget the major makeover being done to the Commerce Building, which eventually will become home to West Texas A&M University’s downtown Amarillo campus; the WT site won’t resemble the Commerce Building and it will essentially be a new structure.

All this activity isn’t producing a completely positive short-term outlook. For instance, WT is going to vacate the Chase Tower, along with Southwestern Public Service, which is set to move into a new office complex on Buchanan Street. Many floors in the Chase Tower are going dark — and soon. Commercial real estate brokers have assured me that they are supremely confident the Chase Tower’s darkened offices will be filled again in short order.

Let’s hope for the best on that.

Change can be painful, especially when it involves wrecking balls, dump trucks and front-end loaders. We’re seeing some of the pain being inflicted now where the Blackburn Building once stood.

I remain hopeful that we’ll get past the pain just as soon as new business and entertainment activity breathes new life into Amarillo’s downtown district.

International news

Saudis on UN women’s panel? Huh?

Critics of the United Nations — and I am not one of them — gripe often about the absurd decisions the world body makes.

I have to concede that the U.N. has made a bonehead call by placing Saudi Arabia on its Commission on the Status of Women.

Huh? What the … ?

Does anyone need reminding here that women are not allowed to, um, drive motor vehicles in Saudi Arabia? How about pay equity? Women earn a fraction of what Saudi men earn. Saudi women aren’t even allowed to make critical decisions without a man’s approval, for crying out loud!

Sheesh!

The Miami Herald reports that the Saudis formed a “girls council,” but didn’t appoint any females to it.

Good ever-lovin’ grief, man.

The United Nations needs to think about this. I doubt the U.N. would rescind the appointment. Bureaucrats tend to cover their backsides even as they undergo push back from goofy decisions.

The anti-U.N. crowd in this country has been handed plenty of grist with which to beat the world body bloody. I won’t join them in calling for the end of the United Nations.

Decisions such as this one involving the Saudis and the women’s commission, though, does give me pause.

national news, political news

Trump keeps taking narcissism to new levels

My trusty American Heritage dictionary defines “narcissism” this way: An excessive love or admiration for oneself.

Do you think Donald J. Trump fits the bill?

Consider what he told The Associated Press in a rambling interview that seems to make zero sense when you read the transcript.

One of the things he mentioned was how the TV news/talk show ratings would zoom upward whenever he appeared on them. He said they were the “best since 9/11.”

Let that sink for a moment or two. The president of the United States somehow sought to equate the soaring ratings he brought to TV news shows to their coverage of one of the worst days in the history of the Republic.

Nearly 3,000 people died when the Twin Towers collapsed in Lower Manhattan, N.Y. More victims died at the Pentagon. Even more perished in that Pennsylvania field after passengers battled valiantly against terrorists aboard a doomed jetliner.

And yet …

The president manages to meld that terrible, horrifying tragedy with his TV ratings?

Trump is redefining narcissism. Indeed, they need to put his picture next to the dictionary definition of the word.

International news, national news, political news

No, not everyone loves the border wall idea

Before I launch into my latest criticism of Donald J. Trump, I want to stipulate something up front.

I recognize that politicians of all stripes play to their “base.” Whether on the left or the right, they know from where they draw their political strength.

There. That said, the president’s belief that the border wall he wants to build between the United States and Mexico is popular with his base and, thus, is worth doing is utter nonsense.

He isn’t just the president of the Republican Party faithful who got him elected — along with a few million formerly loyal Democrats. He represents all 300-plus million Americans. Take it from me, Mr. President, not all of us are the least bit fond of the idea of walling off this country from one of our nation’s most loyal allies.

The wall won’t work. It won’t keep bad guys from coming into the country. It will separate families. It will create untold misery. It also is highly impractical — if not impossible — to build, given all the technical and legal issues involved with property condemnation and how the two countries were to settle the myriad issues relating to its construction.

According to the Washington Post: In a recent interview with the Associated Press, Trump said: “People want the border. My base really wants the border. My base really wants it.”

Really, Mr. President? Do I need to remind this individual that the base comprises a tiny minority of Americans. Indeed, this man finished second in the popular vote count to Hillary Rodham Clinton. Sure, he won where it counted — the Electoral College — but the popular vote disparity wasn’t even close.

He’s not the first pol to proclaim his base’s support for controversial policy initiatives. He won’t be the last.

However, he is the man of the moment. Remember, sir, that you are every American’s president, whether you — or millions of your constituents — care to admit it.

Commentary on politics, current events and life experience