local news, political news

City is getting its infrastructure act together

childers

I’ve been yapping and yammering for a year about all the “change” that arrived at Amarillo City Hall with the election of three new City Council members.

Some of it has been good. Some, well, not so good.

I want to address one of the “good” changes that is developing as I write this brief blog post.

Amarillo interim City Manager Terry Childers has laid out the case for the city to ask its residents — the bosses, if you will — this question: How much are you willing to pay for some critical infrastructure needs?

He spoke to Panhandle PBS on Thursday night in a “Live Here” segment that, to my ears, illustrates a fundamental shift in the city’s approach to applying good government.

Here’s the interview:

http://video.kacvtv.org/video/2365817588/

Amarillo has long boasted about its low municipal property tax rate. It’s the lowest of any city “of significance” in Texas, Childers said. The issue, though, is that it’s not enough to take care of those capital needs and “maintenance and operation” the city must meet.

Childers talked about the need to repair and replace roads, sewer lines and to modernize the Civic Center. How is the city going to do that? It has to ask the residents to pony up the dough.

There might be a 1-, 2-, 3-, or 4-cent increase in the municipal property tax rate. Each penny of increase in the amount per $100 assessed property valuation will enable the city to borrow funds to pay for the improvements.

Given that the city is virtually debt free, Childers seems to suggest that the time has come to ask for residents for some help in paying for these needs.

Amarillo already is undergoing a serious makeover of its downtown district. There’s already been some public commitment, but the bulk of the money is coming from private investors. Very soon, the city will start knocking down the old Coca-Cola distribution center to make room for that multipurpose event venue. I remain delighted to see the changes that have occurred already downtown — and await eagerly the changes that are about to come.

But the city needs to do a lot of work to fix its streets, sewer lines and other infrastructure amenities that we all need.

Childers is making a strong case for those needs.

national news, political news

How do you ‘rig’ a U.S. presidential election?

shutterstock_331242347.jpg-voting

I’m going to crawl way out on a limb.

Hillary Rodham Clinton is going to win several states this fall that normally vote Republican in presidential elections.

I won’t suggest that Texas will be one of them. There are some others, though, that appear vulnerable to an electoral flip: Arizona comes to mind; Missouri, too; maybe North Carolina; and, yes, even Utah. Let me throw in Montana and the Dakotas just for giggles and grins.

Which brings to mind the weird prediction that Republican nominee Donald J. Trump has leveled at the electoral process. He says the election will be “rigged.”

My question centers on how you “rig” a national presidential election in which each state awards its Electoral College votes in a system run by state politicians.

The state’s I’ve mentioned have substantial Republican majorities in their legislatures. Missouri is governed by a Democrat, but it has gone Republican for several election cycles.

Trump, though, suggests that Clinton is going to manage to “rig” the election.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/president-obama-says-donald-trump%e2%80%99s-claim-that-election-will-be-rigged-is-%e2%80%98ridiculous%e2%80%99/ar-BBvgPV9?li=BBnbcA1

Trump provoked a strong response from President Obama, who today called the “rigging” accusation “ridiculous.”

The president mentioned that it’s impossible for him to understand how a candidate can suggest something like that would happen before the results are in. If the GOP nominee were leading by 15 points on Election Day and still lost, the president said, then he might have reason to question the results.

My point here, though, is that presidential elections aren’t really managed at a single location. They are managed in 50 state capitals, with its hefty share of Republican-controlled legislative chambers and governor’s offices.

Trump’s weird prediction, therefore, sounds like the whining of someone who knows he’s going to lose badly in about 96 days.

military news, national news, political news

Nuclear knowledge becomes an issue

by Snoron.com

Seventy-one years ago the United States of America set a terrible — but necessary in my view — precedent in the conduct of warfare.

A B-29 bomber crew on Aug. 6, 1945 dropped a bomb on Hiroshima, Japan. The device killed tens of thousands of Japanese civilians in instant. Another crew took off three days later and did even greater damage to the Japanese city of Nagasaki.

World War II would come to an end just a few days later.

I raise the issue today because of some remarkable things that the Republican Party nominee for president — Donald J. Trump — has said about the use of nuclear weapons.

Trump has said several astonishing things along the way to his nomination.

* He said Japan and South Korea should be allowed to develop nuclear arsenals to defend themselves against North Korea.

* Trump has said he wouldn’t object if other countries, such as Saudi Arabia, developed nukes.

* He was unable to answer a question about the so-called “nuclear triad.”

* Trump told a TV interviewer that he wouldn’t take the use of nukes “off the table” in the Middle East or even in Europe.

The United States built its nuclear arsenal during the 1950s and 1960s to deter the other great nuclear power — the Soviet Union — from using the weapons against us or our allies. We didn’t build the weapons to use for offensive purposes. We built them to scare the daylights out of the Soviets.

Donald Trump is campaigning for the presidency with no apparent knowledge of our nuclear weapon policy or even any knowledge of why we have the weapons in the first place.

I’m old enough to remember the famous “Daisy” ad that President Lyndon Johnson’s campaign ran a single time on TV in 1964 against Barry Goldwater. It was meant to send the message that Sen. Goldwater could not be trusted with the nation’s vast nuclear arsenal.

I don’t expect another such ad to appear this time around.

However, Trump’s astonishing lack of understanding of nuclear weapons policy should give every American serious pause as they ponder who should become the next commander in chief of the world’s most powerful military machine.

national news, political news

Allow this dissent on ‘most qualified’ candidate for POTUS

HOUSTON, TX - DECEMBER 01: President George H.W. Bush waits on the field prior to the start of the game between the New England Patriots and the Houston Texans at Reliant Stadium on December 1, 2013 in Houston, Texas. (Photo by Scott Halleran/Getty Images)

“I can say with confidence there has never been a man or woman — not me, not Bill, nobody — more qualified than Hillary Clinton to serve as president of the United States of America.”

So said the current president, Barack H. Obama, this past week at the Democratic National Convention that nominated Clinton to run for the presidency.

I am going to quibble with the president on this one.

Hillary Clinton probably is more “qualified” on paper than either Obama or her husband to become president. Obama served in the Illinois Senate and then briefly in the U.S. Senate before being elected president in 2008. Bill Clinton served as Arkansas attorney general and as governor of his home state before being elected president in 1992.

Clinton’s wife served in the U.S. Senate and as secretary of state after serving as first lady — while taking an active role in policy decisions made during her husband’s administration.

But is Hillary Clinton the most qualified person ever to seek the office?

For my money, the honor of most qualified candidate — in my lifetime, at least — goes to a Republican.

I give you George Herbert Walker Bush.

You are welcome to argue the point with me if you wish.

But G.H.W. Bush’s pre-presidency credentials are damn impressive.

He flew combat missions in World War II as the Navy’s youngest fighter pilot. Bush then came home, moved to Texas and started an oil company. Then he served in Congress, where he represented the Houston area for a couple of terms before losing a Senate bid to Democrat Lloyd Bentsen.

That wasn’t nearly the end of his public service.

He would later be appointed to serve as head of the CIA, as special envoy to the People’s Republic of China, as chairman of the Republican National Committee, as ambassador to the United Nations — and then he served as two vice president for two terms during Ronald Reagan’s administration.

I get that President Obama wants to cast his party’s nominee in the best possible light. Given that she’s running against someone — Donald J. Trump — who is likely the least qualified candidate for president in U.S. history, the president perhaps can be excused for a bit of embellishment.

But a great man is still with us.

Sure, President Bush lost his bid for re-election to Bill Clinton. That, though, must not diminish the myriad contributions he made in service to our beloved country.

national news, political news

Another actual Republican bolts from Trump

vin

The last time I thought about this guy, I understood that he was a seriously conservative Republican.

Vin Weber served a dozen years in the U.S. House of Representatives. He worked closely with Speaker Newt Gingrich. He’s the real GOP deal.

His view of his party’s presidential nominee, Donald J. Trump?

Weber says his party has made a mistake of “historic proportions” by nominating Trump.

http://www.politico.com/story/2016/08/vin-weber-trump-mistake-226630

In the past, whenever I raise issue of former officeholders who have been critical of Trump, I get the “has been” rejoinder from my conservative friends. Who cares what Vin Weber thinks? some of them likely are going to say, just as they’ve said it about other Republicans.

Weber is a serious thinker. He is among the latest of several key Republicans who’ve bolted from Trump. According to Politico: “Weber joins a growing list of notable Republicans who have recently said they will not support Trump’s candidacy, including HP CEO Meg Whitman, Sally Bradshaw, a longtime aide to Jeb Bush, and Maria Comella, a former top aide to New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie.”

Despite all this, Trump keeps saying his campaign is in great shape.

Sigh …

We’ll see about that.

International news, military news, national news, political news

Does this officer deserve the Medal of Honor?

Humayun-Khan

This isn’t an original thought. Others have said this on social media, but I’m going to chime in briefly.

The late U.S. Army Capt. Humayun Khan has been in the news lately. He was killed in Iraq in 2004 when an enemy explosive device detonated. Capt. Khan was trying to save his men when he was killed.

His parents, Kzhir and Ghazala Khan, stood before the Democratic National Convention this past week and Mr. Khan delivered a soliloquy that opposed the candidacy of Republican presidential nominee Donald J. Trump.

The firestorm that erupted from Trump’s crass response to the Khans’ support of Hillary Rodham Clinton hasn’t yet abated. Trump said the Khans, who are Muslim, had “no right” to criticize him. Actually, of course, they had every right as proud American citizens.

The thought I’m putting forward here?

Humayun Khan, from what I’ve heard acted with extreme heroism on the battlefield in Iraq. As one of my social media friends noted today, Khan’s action was tantamount to throwing his body on a hand grenade, which is the kind of action that has produced Medal of Honor recipients.

Therefore, it seems fair and reasonable to wonder whether Humayun Khan deserves consideration for the Medal of Honor.

Well … ?

legal news, State news

Texas AG seeks to do the seemingly impossible

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Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton deserves credit for perseverance.

He’s been indicted by a grand jury on charges of securities fraud. Paxton says he’s innocent and has entered a plea to that effect. He’s now taking his case to the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, the state’s highest criminal appellate court.

He wants the CCA to do for him what it did for former Gov. Rick Perry, when it tossed out an accusation that Perry had coerced a public official by demanding her resignation after she had pleaded guilty to a drunken driving charge. Perry had been indicted by a Travis County grand jury and complained that the Democratic-leaning county had stacked the grand jury with Democrats pre-disposed to indict a Republican governor.

Perry made the case to the all-Republican Court of Criminal Appeals.

Paxton’s indictment is quite a bit different.

A Collin County grand jury indicted him on charges that he failed to improperly report personal profit from investment he had given; the Securities and Exchange Commission also has filed a complaint against the AG.

Now, why is this so interesting?

Paxton represented Collin County before he was elected attorney general in 2014. The county is among the more Republican-leaning counties in Texas. I don’t know this, but I’d be willing to bet real American money that many of the grand jurors voted for him as attorney general and also for him when he ran for the Legislature, where he represented Collin County.

The grand jury indicted its home boy, not some political outsider.

https://www.texastribune.org/2016/08/03/brief-august-3-2016/

Which makes me wonder whether the attorney general is going to get a favorable ruling from the Court of Criminal Appeals.

national news, political news

Trump learning that, yes, news can be ‘bad’

donald-trump

Donald J. Trump’s first-ever political campaign has turned into a train wreck.

And yet, the Republican presidential nominee, keeps operating on the notion that there’s no such thing as “negative publicity.”

Actually, of course, there is such a thing. Trump has begun bleeding profusely. He’s exsanguinated so badly that in the past 24 hours or so there is actual talk among Republicans about how they might be able to take their presidential campaign forward without Trump as the party’s nominee.

Count me as one American who doesn’t think Trump will quit, although it’s an interesting notion to consider.

https://highplainsblogger.com/2016/08/try-this-conspiracy-theory-on-for-size/

Several news organizations are reporting that GOP leaders are trying to (a) get Trump to reset his campaign, (b) persuade him to start acting like a serious presidential candidate and (c) figure out how to persuade Trump to drop and then find a way to nominate someone else.

Trump’s campaign performance has been disgraceful, comical, ridiculous and nonsensical.

Were he to quit the race, though, would be to hand Democratic nominee Hillary Rodham Clinton the keys to the White House. Moreover, it would be the perfect prescription for a 50-state sweep by Clinton, which would flip the Senate and the House of Representatives from GOP to Democratic control.

The Republican brass might need to rethink the seriousness of any effort to get Trump to quit the campaign.

They would have to cope with the outrage of the Trumpkins who voted for Trump during the GOP primary. He collected a lot of them — which he has been more than eager to remind us all along the way. Are they going to vote blindly for the replacement nominee, whoever he is? You may stop laughing now.

But for now, the Trump campaign is bleeding. His foes smell it.

entertainment news, national news, political news

Actor criticized for attending DNC … why?

american_sniper

Bradley Cooper is a fabulous artist.

His most memorable portrayal arguably is of the late Navy SEAL Chris Kyle in the film “American Sniper.” I saw the film and was riveted by it.

Lately, though, Cooper has been taking some flak from Republicans who criticized him for attending the Democratic National Convention in his hometown of Philadelphia. He wanted to hear President Obama’s speech at the convention in which he extolled the virtues of Democratic nominee Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Cooper said as well that Obama is a great public speaker. He took his mother to the convention so she could hear the president’s remarks.

So, why the criticism? I can only surmise that it’s because anti-Obama activists and other observers thought that the actor who portrayed the iconic Chris Kyle was somehow disloyal to the late SEAL’s values … and that he since he assumed Kyle’s identity in the film that he also embraced the brave special forces warrior’s politics.

Hmmm.

If that’s the case, I only have one response.

That’s why they call it “acting.”

http://www.ew.com/article/2016/08/03/bradley-cooper-outrage-dnc-corden

national news, political news

Try this conspiracy theory on for size

2 Comments

donald-trump-s-presidential-campaign-manager-arrested-1459339462-4920.jpg

Those who believe conspiracies exist behind every decision or public policy action might be inclined at this moment to believe the following …

That the Republican Party’s presidential nominee, Donald J. Trump, really doesn’t want the job for which he has been campaigning and is throwing the election on purpose.

Do not count me as a conspiracy theorist. I believe men have walked on the moon, that the 9/11 attacks were a surprise and that Lee Harvey Oswald alone killed President Kennedy.

The Trump phenomenon, however, has me thinking — yet again — about whether the guy really wants to become president of the United States.

He gets his party’s nomination, then sits through four days of watching the Democrats nominate Hillary Rodham Clinton the next week.

Then, right out of the chute after Clinton secures the nomination, Trump goes after the parents of a fallen U.S. Army soldier who happened to be Muslim, and then insists that a crying baby be removed from a rally at which he was speaking. Then he said he wished he could have earned a Purple Heart in combat.

What in the name of the Theater of the Absurd is going on here?

Time and time and time again, Trump has demonstrated a complete lack of understanding of anything regarding governance. He reportedly quizzed a senior campaign staffer about why the United States was prohibited from using nuclear weapons; Trump’s campaign has denied that he asked the question. OK, Don … whatever you say.

The Republican Party brass can’t stand him. His campaign appears to be disintegrating before our eyes.

Is it on purpose? Is the GOP nominee deliberately sabotaging his campaign so he can stick it in the collective eyes and/or ears of those who fear for their party’s viability as a legitimate political instrument?

Look, I don’t know if any of this is true. It’s just that the unpredictability factor of this campaign makes it impossible to dismiss what — in normal times — would seem to be preposterous in the extreme.

Nothing at all would surprise at this point.

After all, the Republican Party nominated this guy to run for president of the United States of America. Is there anything more preposterous than that?

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