local news

Open road awaits

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This is the latest in an occasional series of blog posts commenting on upcoming retirement.

I happen to be a good place right now. At this moment.

One week from today, my wife and I will become fully retired.

What lies ahead? Well, we don’t know — precisely. We have lined out a general blueprint that involves travel in our pickup nicknamed Big Jake, our fifth wheel recreational vehicle, spending more time with our precious granddaughter and eventually — let me emphasize, eventually — moving from the High Plains of Texas to the Metroplex region.

I am having a wonderful time telling colleagues at the auto dealership where I work part-time about our upcoming plans. Invariably, they ask: What are you going to do? Where are you going?

My answer: I don’t know. That’s the answer to both ends of that question. We do not know.

It’s the adventure of it all that excites us at this moment.

I’ve been telling friends all over Amarillo that my wife and I believe we have one big challenge left to meet. This appears to be it.

We have decided to pick up and move everything we own down the road a good bit. Do we have a detailed, finalized plan lined out? Not yet. It’s coming.

Our plan at this moment is to simply “go on down the road.” We don’t yet know the location of our final destination. Our immediate plan is merely to travel, to see the sights and hear the sounds of this wonderful continent of ours.

We’ve set foot in 47 of the 50 states; we will make it a clean sweep — possibly very soon. We have visited four Canadian provinces: British Columbia, Ontario, Quebec and Nova Scotia. We’ll get to the rest of them, too … at least we hope.

The open road awaits us.

We will embark on it with joy in our hearts.

local news

Amarillo Matters hits the streets for its City Council slate

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The doorbell rang this evening.

I went to the door and greeted a young woman who was handing out single-page campaign sheets.

It came from Amarillo Matters, a political action group formed to promote a pro-growth agenda for Amarillo. I’ve written about this group a couple of time already. What’s interesting is the slate of City Council candidates that Amarillo Matters has endorsed and is recommending for election on May 6.

It’s an interesting and impressive slate of candidates.

Two things stand out about this slate: First: Amarillo Matters is recommending a female-majority City Council. Second: The group is recommending the election of an entirely new slate of council members to take office when all the ballots are counted.

You want “change,” Amarillo voters? Consider this slate of candidates. Not a single one of them has served on the City Council or on its earlier incarnation, the City Commission.

Amarillo Matters is recommending Ginger Nelson for mayor, who the group calls a “renowned lawyer and successful small business owner.” Interestingly, it doesn’t mention Nelson’s stint on the Amarillo Economic Development Corporation. That’s fine; I’ll mention it here.

It is recommending Elaine Hays for Place 1 instead of incumbent Elisha Demerson. It cites Hays’ work as a financial planner and calls her “one of the community’s best authorities on fiscal responsibility and smart budgeting.

Freda Powell gets the nod for Place 2 from Amarillo Matters, which cites her “balanced approach to problem solving.”

The PAC endorses Eddy Sauer for Place 3, recommending him as a “voice for positivity and real solutions to the challenges we face.”

Howard Smith gets Amarillo Matters’ endorsement for Place 4 over incumbent Mark Nair. The group cites Smith’s “kind, charitable spirit” and his desire for “helping countless Amarillo families find their home.”

Three incumbents are not running for new terms: Mayor Paul Harpole, Place 2 Councilwoman Lisa Blake and Place 3 Councilman Randy Burkett.

In my 22 years as an Amarillo resident, this is the first time anyone has ever rang my doorbell and handed me a piece of local campaign stationery stating an organization’s preferences for candidates seeking local government office.

You want change yet again at City Hall? Consider that Amarillo Matters wants to wipe the slate clean; it wants voters to fill all five council seats with newbies. Imagine that, will you?

I also am intrigued by the idea of a slate of candidates comprising mostly women. Big deal, you might say. What’s so special about that? Only this: Amarillo for many years has been run by various network of good ol’ boys. I am not demeaning the gender of the city’s political leadership, per se. I merely am noting that an influential political action group has decided to buck what I perceive to be the norm in Amarillo, Texas.

Demerson, Nair and Burkett joined the council in 2015. They all pledged “change” would come to city government. Of the three new guys, Burkett emerged as the loudest, most obnoxious agent of change. Demerson and Burkett knocked off incumbents who were seeking re-election; Nair won a seat that was vacated by an incumbent who was appointed to fill a seat upon the death of an incumbent, but who chose not to seek election.

Demerson and Nair have been more circumspect than their new-guy colleague, but their presence on the City Council seemingly hasn’t earned them recommendations from Amarillo Matters for new two-year terms.

Hey, I’m just one voter. My wife is just one more voter. I am impressed that Amarillo Matters’ door-to-door messenger this evening thought enough of us to talk at some length about this important election.

Oh, and make no mistake. This election, um, matters.

national news, political news

GOP rising against Trump’s bogus wiretap claim

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Donald Trump needs to take it back. He didn’t mean what he said about Barack Obama allegedly wiretapping his successor as president of the United States.

That’s the word coming from a growing number of Republican members of Congress, both senators and House members. They are feeling shamed by the president’s recklessness, his utter disregard for propriety and his misunderstanding of due process.

Will the president do as his fellow Republicans are demanding? I am not holding my breath. I am not at all confident that the president will issue anything resembling a sincere mea culpa for what he has done.

GOP piles on

What is that? He has essentially defamed his predecessor. He has accused the former president of committing a felony.

He said President Obama ordered a wiretap, which he cannot do under U.S. law. Who’s the authority on that? Oh, let’s see … the director of the FBI, James Comey, who on Monday shattered the president’s assertion about a wiretap that never occurred.

How does this president take it back? It would have to involve an actual apology, something Trump says he’s never done.

The wiretap allegation follows the pattern of lies, deceit and innuendo that Trump has demonstrated repeatedly since the moment he declared his presidential candidacy in the summer of 2015.

Many of us expressed concern from the outset about Trump’s fitness for the presidency. I will submit yet again that the president is not fit for the office he occupies.

Even a retraction of the Twitter tantrum that ignited this firestorm will do little to assuage concerns about his moral fitness to be president.

If it comes — and if the president follows the advice of his fellow Republicans — he damn sure better do a better job of it than when he declared at the end of a lengthy statement about some hotel he had opened that President Barack Obama was in fact born in the United States.

Would a retraction end this discussion? It might end talk of the specific allegation Trump has made against Obama. As for the president’s continual use of Twitter to make ridiculous statements that articulate some form of U.S. policy, well … that’s another matter altogether.

legal news, media news

So long, Judge Napolitano

Readers of this blog know that I am not likely to offer many compliments to the Fox News Channel.

I am about to break tradition and declare that Fox has done the right thing by taking a loudmouth “legal analyst” off the air for blabbing something utterly irresponsible.

Andrew Napolitano has been yanked off the air indefinitely by Fox for declaring on the air that a British intelligence agency was complicit in wiretapping Donald J. Trump’s campaign office in New York City. The agency, according to the former judge, was working at the behest of former President Obama; Napolitano, therefore, was giving credence to the scurrilous charge leveled by Trump that Obama had ordered the wiretap at Trump Tower.

FBI Director James Comey debunked Trump’s tweet today in a congressional hearing.

Fox gives judge the boot.

Meanwhile, we have this (so-called) judge keeping this lie alive by suggesting that the Brits played a role in an event that — according to Comey — did not occur.

I hope Fox boots this clown off the air for keeps, even though he most likely would end up somewhere else spouting such reckless right-wing bile.

Sports news

Feeling so-o-o-o busted

A friend of mine outed me this morning after I wrote a blog post criticizing the FBI for spending public money to look for quarterback Tom Brady’s stolen jersey.

I wrote that the feds didn’t have a role to play in looking for a damn shirt worn by Brady the day he led the New England Patriots to their stunning Super Bowl victory over the Atlanta Falcons.

My friend responded with this query: How would I feel if the trunks that Muhammad Ali wore the night he defeated Joe Frazier in Manila had been stolen?

Oh, my goodness! I was so very busted by my friend, to whom I responded “knows me too well.” He must know how I feel about The Champ. How I revered him for so many years as he fought with such power, speed and grace. And how he became such a huge civil rights voice during the time he was exiled from professional boxing because he stood up in protest of the Vietnam War.

My response to my friend was that I would feel differently. I joked that I would have mobilized the armed forces to find Muhammad Ali’s stolen trunks.

Actually, I wouldn’t do such a thing.

Although …

My friend clearly decked me with that question. He gave me pause.

The FBI has been in the news a good bit of late for reasons that speak directly to its mission. Looking for a quarterback’s stolen jersey just doesn’t seem to fit that bill.

https://highplainsblogger.com/2017/03/good-job-fbi-in-helping-find-a-shirt/

media news

Apologize, Mr. President, just say you’re sorry

Dear Mr. President,

I have no idea whether you or your staff reads the stuff that comes from this blog, but I’ll offer this bit of advice anyway.

Say you’re sorry for defaming Barack Obama. Admit you made a mistake. Come clean with an admission that you woke up one morning, that you weren’t quite awake or alert before you blurted out that tweet in which you accused the former president of wiretapping your campaign offices at Trump Tower.

The jig’s up, Mr. President. The FBI director, the guy who many Democrats believe torpedoed Hillary Clinton’s campaign with that e-mail-related letter to Congress on the eve of the election, has just blown your wiretapping tweet to bits.

He said he has no information to confirm what you have alleged. He said the Justice Department has no information either in any of its branch offices.

I get that you don’t apologize. I’ve heard all that stuff about you — and from you, sir. I have read about how you said you’ve never sought forgiveness.

Take my word for it, Mr. President: an apology doesn’t signal weakness. On the contrary, it signals strength. It tells us that you are man enough to own up to making a mistake.

Mr. President, you need a serious reset here. These tweets of yours are damaging the country at many levels. They compromise our national security; they send bizarre messages to our allies; they make you sound like a know-nothing teenager.

In the case of the Obama wiretapping allegation — which the FBI director has shot down in flames — they expose you to accusations of slander and defamation.

C’mon, Mr. President. Just say you’re sorry. Pledge to us you’ll close your Twitter account, and then do it.

The presidency deserves to be occupied by a grownup.

So far, sir, you aren’t acting like one.

legal news

Democrats sharpening their long knives

U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee Democrats are making it plain: They don’t want Judge Neil Gorsuch to take a seat on the U.S. Supreme Court.

Oh, my.

What these folks do not seem to understand — or choose to ignore — is this simple point: Judge Gorsuch’s confirmation to the nation’s highest court will not tilt the court’s ideological balance one tiny bit from where it was when the late Antonin Scalia served on it.

Not one bit. Not one iota.

Scalia, who died a year ago, was a conservative jurist, and an iconic one at that. Gorsuch is a conservative jurist. Yet we hear Democrats, such as Sen. Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, declare his intention to all he can to block Gorsuch’s confirmation; that includes a “filibuster,” Blumenthal said.

Give me a break, man!

This fight is unwinnable. Gorsuch will need 60 votes in the Senate to be confirmed; if it appears he’ll fall short of the magic number, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Republican, will change the rules to allow a simple majority to confirm Judge Gorsuch.

So, what’s the big deal? Gorsuch at worst will mirror Justice Scalia’s view of the U.S. Constitution.

Democrats need to sharpen their long knives — and then put them back in their scabbards and save them for when it really matters.

Such as when a liberal justice leaves the court. That’s when the court’s ideological balance becomes the defining issue.

Not this time.

Uncategorized

Comey’s reticence shouldn’t jeopardize his job

FBI Director James Comey strode onto Capitol Hill this morning and proceeded to shake the federal government to its very core.

He debunked the notion that Barack Obama ordered any wiretaps of Donald J. Trump’s campaign office, despite what the president tweeted about two weeks ago, accusing the former president of committing a felony.

Then he said the FBI is conducting an investigation into the Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election. That’s it. There’s an investigation under way. He didn’t say much more beyond that, except that it will take time to finish.

What, oh what, does the president do now?

The FBI director reports directly to the attorney general, who reports directly to the president. The AG, Jeff Sessions, has recused himself from any direct participation in the Russia matter. He’s out of the picture as it regards this specific issue.

The question of the day: Is the FBI director’s job in peril?

I hope not. Sessions dare not fire him. As for the president, he’d better — for once in his still-young public life as a politician — exercise some restraint and judgment and resist the temptation to cut the FBI boss loose.

Then again, were the president to declare “You’re fired!” to Comey, I cannot even begin to fathom the outcry — and the outrage — that would ensue.

International news, national news

Now it’s the Germans feeling Trump’s wrath

Let’s see. How many more vital U.S. allies can the president of the United States anger?

He tells Mexico that it will pay for a wall across our nations’ shared border; Mexico says “no way, dude!”

Trump calls Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Trumbull and then berates him over his country’s immigration policy before hanging up on him.

The president first accuses his immediate predecessor of wiretapping his offices and then accuses the British intelligence agency of colluding with President Obama; the Brits denied it, angrily.

Now it’s the Germans, who Trump now says have to pay more for their participation in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.

Germany has rejected Trump’s demand. The Germans say they don’t owe a “debt” to NATO and won’t do what the U.S. president has suggested.

Meanwhile, the 45th president treats Russia with kid gloves; he calls Vladimir Putin a “strong leader” and says he wants to make nice with the Russians, who are doing all they can to make life miserable for the United States and our allies.

Who’s next for Trump? Maybe he can build a wall across our northern border to keep Americans from fleeing to Canada … and then demand the Canadians pay for it, too!

legal news, national news, political news

Collusion or not? Let’s wait for the FBI to do its job

FBI Director James Comey today dropped two more live grenades into our laps.

The first one is that the FBI can find no evidence, zero, that President Barack Obama ordered a wiretap of Donald J. Trump’s campaign office in Trump Tower. He cannot locate any indication that any order was given by a federal judge; he cannot find evidence of any sort of surveillance.

So …

The suggestion that the president of the United States essentially defamed his predecessor — when he tweeted the allegation of wiretapping — now has been given some credence.

The bigger grenade might be the second disclosure that Comey made to the U.S. House Intelligence Committee.

It is that the FBI is investigating whether the Trump campaign colluded with the Russian government to influence the outcome of the 2016 presidential election.

Comey said FBI policy usually doesn’t allow comment on active investigations. The director made an exception in this case. The public interest is too great to ignore, he said.

What in the world does that mean?

I believe that if the FBI determines there was collusion, that the Trump campaign worked actively with Russian spooks/goons/intelligence officers to torpedo the campaign of Hillary Rodham Clinton … well, I think we have a certifiable impeachable offense on our hands.

To be fair, there hasn’t been a shred of evidence presented yet to suggest any such collusion. There’s been a lot of chatter, gossip and what might be called charitably “circumstantial evidence.” We cannot go on circumstance, however. We need incontrovertible proof, man!

Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Comey told committee members that this probe will require lots of time to complete. It’s complicated and detailed, he said.

Take all the time you need, Mr. FBI Director. I think we can wait for a detailed answer, no matter your conclusion.

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