local news

Ranchers respond with kindness

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You think humanity has gone to hell? You worry that we’ve become so very cynical that we care little about other human beings, that we no longer feel empathy for their heartache?

Perish the thought.

A lot of ranchers in the Texas and Oklahoma panhandles have endured more misery than anyone should endure. Wildfires scorched thousands of acres of grassland, from which these ranchers harvest their hay to feed their cattle, which they send to market and, thus, earn their livelihood.

So, how do other ranchers who have been spared the flames respond? They load up big flatbed trucks with bails of hay and send them many miles down the highway to their stricken ranching brethren.

I’ve heard about the convoys of trucks tooling down Panhandle highways. They come, of course, from neighboring ranches in the immediate region. They also are coming from neighboring states.

This kind of response helps me purge any latent thought I might have when I hear about cruelty and heartlessness among my fellow human beings.

We are proud in this region of the spirit of community that resides in the hearts of those who live here. We express it from time to time when disaster strikes. Lord knows the High Plains region is prone to heavy wind and Mother Nature’s violence. Fires do plague the region on occasion at this time of year.

That community spirit demonstrates itself when tragedy does strike.

Such as when we see trucks loaded with bales of hay heading toward the scorched Earth.

national news, political news

So, ‘wiretap’ doesn’t mean wiretap?

The White House has issued one of the strangest “clarifications” in modern political history.

It was that Donald J. Trump didn’t mean “wiretap” when he referred to it in a series of tweets regarding an allegation he leveled at President Barack Obama.

He had said that Obama had ordered a “wiretap” of his Trump Tower offices during the 2016 presidential campaign. Yes, he used  a very close variation of that word.

But, but, but …

The White House said today he didn’t actually mean “wiretap.”.

Do you follow me? I didn’t think so. I cannot follow it, either.

Here’s one of Trump’s tweets: “How low has President Obama gone to tapp my phones during the very sacred election process. This is Nixon/Watergate. Bad (or sick) guy!”

OK, so he didn’t use the word “wiretap” in this tweet. “Tapp my phones,” though, means the same thing. Doesn’t it? I thought so.

Oh, but no-o-o-o. The president didn’t mean it, according to the White House press office.

Meanwhile, the Justice Department has asked for a bit more time to provide proof — presuming that some might exist — that backs up the president’s scurrilous accusation that former President Obama broke the law.

national news

Congressman makes breathtaking statement

Steve King is a conservative’s conservative, I reckon.

That’s how he might describe himself. The Iowa Republican congressman also tends to say things that flutter dangerously close to idiocy.

Does this clown not understand the very nature of the nation he purports to govern as a member of Congress?

“We can’t restore our civilization with somebody else’s babies,” King said. Do you know what he means? I believe he means that immigrants — particularly those from, say, Africa, Asia and Latin America — aren’t welcome in the United States of America.

I believe this country is supposed to stand as a beacon for the rest of the world. It is supposed to be where others come to improve their lives, to seek opportunity, to embrace freedom and liberty. I do not believe the United States restricts entry to those of certain skin tone, or religion, or ethnic background.

King has fired off yet another outrageous remark that belies the very foundation of this great country.

Here is what Politico reports: “King told CNN that ‘there’s been far too much focus on race, especially in the last eight years.’ He accused liberals of ‘looking for hatred’ and being uninterested in unifying the nation’s racial divides.

“’Actually, if you go down the road a few generations or maybe centuries with the intermarriage, I’d like to see an America that’s just so homogenous that we look a lot the same, from that perspective,’ King said.”

We look a lot the same? Utterly breathtaking.

national news

Time to put up or shut up … Mr. President?

Today might be the day when the president of the United States delivers the goods on what he knows — allegedly — about a so-called wiretap ordered by President Obama on the Trump Tower offices.

The U.S. House Intelligence Committee reportedly has sent a letter to the White House asking for evidence that Donald J. Trump has to back up his allegation that Obama tapped the New York campaign offices to search for proof that Trump was colluding with Russian government officials who sought to influence the outcome of the 2016 election.

Trump hasn’t provided any proof. House Intelligence panel officials want to see it.

Is this a firm deadline? Ohhh, probably not. But the president needs to provide proof of the incendiary accusation he has leveled against his immediate predecessor. He has accused Barack Obama of breaking the law, committing a felony. That’s what this clown does; he says things to garner headlines without any substantiation.

Absent any proof we are left to wonder out loud about what the president is trying to do. Why in the world does he do these things?

Is this act alone — a reckless accusation that the former president has broken the law — an impeachable offense? There’s some chatter that, yes, it is. I am not prepared to jump on that haywagon.

This president, though, has demonstrated graphically a willingness to say anything, to damage anyone. He has yet to demonstrate an ability to corroborate his fiery rhetoric.

media news

Melania is MIA on her key issue as first lady

Melania Trump made a big speech during her husband’s campaign for the presidency.

She said she wanted to craft a theme as first lady that dealt with cyber bullying. Too many children are being bullied over the Internet and that if Donald Trump were elected president, she would take up the important cause of ending the scourge. She would use her position as first lady as a bully pulpit.

That’s what she said.

Since then? Well, she’s gone missing in action.

Yes, yes. I know about all the snickering and tittering about Mrs. Trump’s first lady theme.

“You need to start at home, Mrs. Trump. Tell that husband of yours to quit using Twitter to insult others,” came some of the response. I took note of the irony, too, in this blog at the time of her declaration.

Setting all that aside, the issue is an important one and the first lady of the United States — whoever she is — maintains a high-level platform to deal squarely and forthrightly with the key issues of our time.

Cyber bullying is one of them.

I’m still waiting to hear about the formation of a task force. Or about high-powered meetings with Internet executives at the White House. To my knowledge, the first lady hasn’t scheduled highly visible meetings with educators about what they are doing in their schools to deal with this crisis.

The first lady has dropped off the grid. She has kept a low profile while her husband continues to make outrageous statements about his political foes, his immediate predecessor, the media and anyone else who says critical things about him.

I am one American who would welcome at least a temporary diversion from all this chaos and madness. The first lady pledged to use her office for a seriously important public cause.

Many of us are still waiting, Mrs. Trump.

local news, political news

Amarillo is poised to regain its leadership footing

I want to make something akin to a campaign endorsement, which isn’t the style of this blog — but I do believe the time is appropriate.

The Amarillo City Council is staging an election on May 6. Under the city charter, all five seats are on the ballot. All council members run at-large; they all represent the entire city. Their jurisdictions are identical, as is their political clout; that includes the mayor, in the strictest of senses.

We’re going to welcome three newbies to the council when all the ballots are counted. They are the mayor and whoever is elected to Places 2 and 3.

My choice for mayor is Ginger Nelson, a bona fide big hitter. She’s a successful lawyer, a downtown building owner and is a former member of the Amarillo Economic Development Corporation. She enjoys the support of business and civic leaders throughout the city.

I’ve talked about her at length already on this blog. She will get my vote on May 6.

My favorite for Place 2 is Freda Powell, who won the endorsement of the council member she seeks to succeed. Lisa Blake won’t seek a full term as councilwoman after being appointed to succeed Dr. Brian Eades, who had been re-elected in 2015 but who moved away the following year.

I don’t know Powell well, but I do know her to be a conscientious, civic-minded resident who will bring the kind of steady hand that Blake used during her time on the council.

The third seat worth mentioning here is Place 3. The incumbent, Randy Burkett, isn’t seeking another term, either. Eddy Sauer is the clear choice to succeed the council’s gadfly in chief, except that Sauer — a successful Amarillo dentist — is far from the Burkett mold of rabble-rouser.

I do not know Sauer, but he — like Nelson and Powell — is being touted heavily by many individuals and groups in Amarillo with whom I am quite familiar and for whom I have great respect.

My sense is that Elisha Demerson will return in Place 1 and that Mark Nair will get the nod in Place 4. Those two joined Burkett in comprising the new majority on the City Council after the election two years ago. But unlike Burkett, they have managed to govern with a quieter effectiveness.

Amarillo’s gadfly quotient needs to be reduced and my hope is that it will with Burkett out of the picture.

I see a potential for a return to a saner municipal government, one that doesn’t get all riled up over matters relating to, um, personality conflicts — which was the case on occasion when Burkett would butt heads with lame-duck Mayor Paul Harpole, who is bowing out.

The city has made some tremendous strides in recent years, even pre-dating the election two years of those three aforementioned “change agents,” Burkett, Nair and Demerson. Our city’s economic base continues to grow and our downtown district is in the midst of a major makeover that — when it’s completed — well could trigger a tremendous boost in our city’s quality of life and economic health.

We don’t pay our City Council members much money to serve, not at $10 per meeting. You do this as a labor of love. Nothing more.

Amarillo is poised to restore a brand of good government at City Hall. It can regain its leadership footing. My hope is that the city’s voters will respond the right way.

military news, national news, political news

McCain: Prove it or drop it, Mr. President

John McCain is demonstrating yet again that he still might be angry at Donald J. Trump’s insulting assertion during the 2016 campaign that the former Navy pilot is a “war hero only because he was captured” by the enemy during the Vietnam War.

Whatever the motive, the Arizona Republican U.S. senator is on point with this declaration: Either provide proof that former President Obama wiretapped your offices during the 2016 campaign or retract it.

The president has done nothing to suggest he has a shred of evidence to back up his scurrilous contention that Obama ordered a wiretap. He has essentially defamed his predecessor by accusing him of committing a felony.

Trump has all the intelligence capabilities available to him to deliver the goods. He hasn’t. Absent any “goods,” he needs to take it all back, admit what many of us know already — that he sought to divert attention from the Russia election-meddling matter.

But, wait! The two things — allegations of Russian meddling and the wiretap allegation — are related!

national news, political news

Can we trust POTUS to tell the truth — ever?

Now that we’ve pretty much established that Donald J. Trump is a serial liar, let’s ponder what this might mean as he talks to other world leaders.

Do they believe him when he pledges the United States to a certain policy? Can they trust that his word is good? Will they be able to conduct their own policies knowing that the U.S. president has their back?

Trump has demonstrated repeatedly that his word is good — until he changes his mind.

He promised to stop using Twitter once he became president; he said millions of illegal immigrants voted in the 2016 election; Trump allegedly witnessed Muslims cheering the fall of the Twin Towers on 9/11; he said he “knows more about ISIS than the generals”; Trump asked several federal prosecutors appointed by his predecessor to stay on the job, then demanded their resignations; he has accused Barack Obama of wiretapping his campaign offices.

He once said “the shows” provide him with all the knowledge he needs to deal with foreign crises. Trump has said he is his own primary adviser, that he has a “great mind.”

There’s more examples to offer. But in all of those, either he told a flat-out lie or has failed to produce a shred of proof to back up anything he has said.

How does the president of the United States take that record of prevarication to the negotiating table with other foreign leaders? And how do they know whether to believe a single thing this individual says?

Ladies and gents, we have elected a patently untrustworthy man as president.

medical news

Politics, the art of the payback

The game of politics can be called the game of payback.

Consider the process that has produced something called the American Health Care Act, the Republican-sponsored overhaul of the Affordable Care Act, which the GOP faithful says it wants to repeal.

In 2009, Republicans griped themselves hoarse over the way congressional Democrats “shoved the ACA down our throats.” They bitched that Democrats crafted the ACA in the “dead of night” and then, using their then-congressional majority, got it approved without a single Republican vote.

Fast-forward to 2017. Republicans now are in charge. They control Congress and one of their own occupies the White House. What do they do? They produce the AHCA also in the “dead of night” and then they try to cram it down Democrats’ throats without knowing how much it’s going to cost.

You see, the Congressional Budget Office — the non-partisan agency — hasn’t “scored” the AHCA. We don’t know how much impact it will have on the annual federal budget deficit.

Was it wrong for Democrats to flummox Republicans with a health care overhaul? Sure. Is it wrong now for Republicans do essentially the same thing to their “friends” on the other side of the aisle? Absolutely.

This is yet another demonstration of how much of a contact sport politics can become.

As for the CBO “scoring” of the AHCA, how about waiting to see how much it would cost Americans before putting it to a vote?

environmental news

DST? Wait for the gripes

I slept in this morning.

My biological clock said it was a little before 7 a.m. when I rolled out; the clock next to the bed flashed a little before 8 a.m.

No sweat! My day began and will proceed just as it always does, Daylight Saving Time notwithstanding.

Actually, I am a big supporter of the principle behind DST. It’s not as new a policy as many of us have been led to believe. It’s been around in some form for many, many years. DST became all the vogue in the 1970s with the Arab oil embargo and the fear that we were burning too much fossil fuel when we turned on our lights in the evening.

So the federal government implemented DST to push the clocks forward an hour, allowing us more daylight as spring arrived and summer approached. We burned our lights a little less, saving valuable energy that at the time was coming from too many “hostile” sources in the Middle East. Some states don’t adhere to DST mandates, keeping their clocks set on standard time. That’s their call.

In the past four-plus decades or so we’ve done a good job preserving energy. DST has helped toward that effort.

Ranchers tell us all the time that their livestock doesn’t know the difference between Daylight Saving Time and Standard Time. Cattle and horses still need to be fed at the same time no matter what.

So, they rely on a form of Bovine or Equine Standard Time to go about pursuing their livelihoods on the ranch.

I get that.

The rest of us city slickers have different concerns. Those who work for a living have to be somewhere at certain times each day.

Are you worried about being late once you have to push the clock forward an hour? No worries. Go to bed an hour earlier.

Be sure you turn off the lights — and keep saving that still-priceless energy.

Have a great day, y’all.

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