national news

RFK is spinning in his grave

Robert Francis Kennedy ran for president of the United States seeking to heal a nation torn apart by divisions over the Vietnam War and over continuing tension among Americans divided by race.

An assassin ended RFK’s bid to heal a nation. They buried the U.S. senator and former attorney general, where he has rested since June 1968.

Now comes his son, RFK Jr., serving as health and human services secretary in an administration led by the most divisive, boorish narcissist imaginable.

I long have wondered what Daddy Kennedy must think about the turn his son has taken.

Bobby Kennedy would turn 100 years old later this year. I believe that were he able he would rise from his grave and throttle his son.

national news

Trump rewrites the rules

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Try to imagine if you dare any president prior to Donald Trump’s arrival on the political scene in 2016 saying the things that often fly out of this guy’s mouth.

Take your pick of any of ’em. Republican or Democrat. It makes no never mind. Think of what the reaction would be if any president said out loud that he might seek a third term in office. Think of the insults any of them could level at former national security advisers or chairmen of the Joint Chiefs. Think of the kind of epithets they might hurl at fellow politicians. Think, too, of seeking to eliminate news organizations simply because they provide commentary you deem critical.

They would be impeached by the House of Representatives. There’s a decent chance they could be convicted of a high crime and drummed out of office.

Not now, man! No way. The current POTUS has rewritten the rules of conduct, of decorum, of behavior.

It’s now OK to talk like a junior high schooler, to speak of others in the most unkind language imaginable. It’s all right to lie openly.

It’s OK if you’re Donald John Trump!

Dude gets away with it … because he instills fear in those who might be inclined to speak out.

President George H.W. Bush once promised to turn the nation toward a “kinder, gentler” political climate. Donald Trump has torn that playbook into shreds, leading us to an environment full of insult and invective.

I prefer the G.H.W. Bush version of politics.

local news

Two pups, two personalities

I have had two cherished pooches in my life … one was Toby the Puppy, the other is Sabol, who I also refer to as “puppy.”

They’re both Chihuahua-mix puppies. I lost Toby to cancer in December2023. They have similar coloration. Both are about the same size, although Sabol is a bit pudgier than Toby.

That, however, is where the similarity ends. Toby hated water. That included lawn sprinklers and rainfall. He was good with a bath, though. Sabol? She loves to play in the rain. She rolls around in the mud.

Here’s another difference, which is the point of this blog post. Toby didn’t like loud noises, such as the one the lawmower makes. Sabol seems to relish the sound.

This morning I mowed my back lawn. Whereas Toby would have run like a thief from the sound, Sabol today followed me around the yard barking joyfully at the rumbling Craftsman machine. I had to shoo her away a couple of times when she got too close to it for my comfort.

Sabol didn’t interfere with my lawn-cutting chore. She was just, um, a presence who felt as if she had to make herself known to me while I was in the middle of an important task.

Understand this about Sabol. She joined my family in September 2024, after I had put the lawnmower up for the winter. The sound of the machine was new to her. The lawnmowing session was the first of this grass-growing season for me.

What will I do in the future when it’s time to fire up the lawnmower? I likely will have to keep Sabol restricted indoors while I finish the job. I’m tellin’ ya, puppies are as unpredictable as kids.

media news

Obama: What if I did this?

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Barack Hussein Obama, speaking to a crowd of college students the other day, raised a fascinating subject out loud.

The 44th president of the United States wondered, “What if I did any of this?” He explained himself. “What if I had banned Fox News” from the White House briefing room? The outcry from the right, he said, would be vociferous.

He is correct. What’s more, the right would have been justified in expressing anger at a president banning a media organization from access it was giving to other such media outlets.

Then he went on. He noted how Donald Trump has banned some news outlets that have been critical of his policies from access to White House sources. “It’s not a partisan issue,” President Obama said. “It’s about who we are as a culture,” he added.

Indeed, the very people who would be angry as hell at a Democratic president doing such an outrageous thing have grown silent as their guy, Trump, seeks to silence The Associated Press, CNN and MSNBC as they seek to cover the events dictated by the current president.

Obama also noted that “a good many of my predecessors” would be aghast at what is transpiring these days within the White House now run by Trump, the MAGA morons who back him and Elon Musk, the richest man on Earth.

Trump has declared his desire to see MSNBC taken apart. By whom or what, he doesn’t say. The implication, though, is clear. He wants to sic the government on the left-leaning network. Trump, who is astonishingly ignorant of the Constitution, seemingly doesn’t know that the First Amendment declares that a “free press” must be kept free of any government interference.

President Obama was spot on in delivering his rhetorical question. He is right to question aloud where we are as a culture that allows people to accept as normal the machinations of a wildly out-of-control chief executive who exhibits every sign imaginable of wanting to run this country as a dictator.

economic news

Do the math, Donald!

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Well, that was quite a day … don’t you think? The Dow Jones Industrial Average opened today in the tank per usual the past few days.

Then Donald Trump announced he would suspend tariffs levied against most nations for 90 days … except for China. What happened next was a rally for the books.

The DJIA launched itself into heavens, closing up nearly 3,000 points. The Standard and Poors 500 finished even stronger percentage-wise.

What does all of this say about Trump’s tariff tempest? It tells me that investors who control people’s retirement accounts, their livelihoods, and their run-around funds think ill of the notion of penalizing Americans because the president of the USA doesn’t understand the damage tariffs do here at home.

Trump’s tariffs would raise the cost of damn near everything we buy, given that we are a nation that imports so many essential goods, services and commodities.

Investors have good reason to be skittish over Trump’s unilateral — and unprovoked — trade war against our closest allies and trading partners. If investors are squeamish about it, think of how all of this affects people like you and me.

And do you believe Trump has any interest in protecting the interests of those he was elected to govern? If he stalls implementation of the tariffs and seeks better trade deals with our partners, then I’ll cling to a glimmer of hope that he does care.

However, I am not betting the farm on it.

local news

I missed the internet

Admit it, ladies and gents: You’ve laughed at and ridiculed the internet as a joke and as a crutch for those who need to get a life.

Me, too. I’ve done so myself.

I’m not laughing at it now.

The internet crashed sometime yesterday morning. It was kaput for the rest of the day, and into the night. The internet provider said it would be stored at or around midnight. I woke up this morning. No luck.

It was still down.

When the internet goes down in my house, everything goes down. TV, phone, computer. It got a little weird during the day when I discovered that my cell phone would work if I took it down the street and around the corner. That’s what I would do if I wanted to communicate with someone. I own a “smart home” in North Texas and I tell Alexa to perform certain tasks for me. During the down time,  Alexa would bark back, “I don’t undestand that!”

I also wanted to keep track of the news, particularly the stock market which holds my retirement money. I’ve been watching the market with particular interest since the Numbskull in Chief announced his worldwide tariff catastrophe.

Maybe I was better off not knowing what the market did today.

Whatever, I realize at this moment that I depend on the internet far more than I was willing to admit.

Listen up, gang. I no longer will laugh in derision at the mention of its name.

military news

No on parade, Donald!

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Donald Trump is turning 79 years old in June. How is the dipsh** in chief planning to celebrate it? With a slice of birthday cake and a Diet Coke? Hah!

He wants to throw a parade stretching from the Pentagon to the White House. It’ll be a military extravaganza, complete with tanks, artillery p;ieces and soldiers marching.

All to commemorate the birthday of a man who:

  • Has said he doesn’t want to be photographed with wounded warriors.
  • Avoided service during the Vietnam War, citing bone spurs.
  • Has called men captured by enemy forces during war “losers.”
  • Denigrated Gold Star families who lost sons in battle.

This individual wants to spend tens of millions of dollars on a parade ostensibly to mark the Army’s 250th anniversary. In reality, he wants to stand at the center of it all and bask in the reflected glory of the men and women who defend a Constitution that Trump is seeking to shred into a million pieces.

This clown is a disgrace.

economic news

Yeah, I’m tired of ‘winning’

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Donald Trump’s version of “winning” bears no resemblance to what the rest of us think of the term.

He insists America’s unprovoked trade war that has spread across the planet like a Texas prairie wildfire has earned the respect and admiration of our allies.

Um, Earth to Donald: No. It hasn’t.

Canada has vowed to retaliate. So has Mexico. We start with our two closest neighbors and two of our most reliable trading partners, and it only worsens beyond that.

The European Union is aghast that Trump would impose steep tariffs on goods imported from France, the UK, Italy and Germany. What’s a bottle of wine going to cost now that Trump has imposed steep tariffs on that item?

Here’s the bitterest irony of all the international reaction. Russia, Turkey and Hungary – nations all run by ham-handed dictators and thugs – aren’t feeling the tariff pinch the way our traditional allies are feeling it. Why is that? It must be that Trump so deeply admires dictators, so much so that he is exhibiting signs of becoming one himself.

And yet the POTUS keeps yapping about the “winning” strategy of declaring economic war on our allies. He says they’ll come around to seeing it our way. Really, dude?

It’s looking all more likely to this old man’s eyes that our allies are fed up to here – and you can determine where “here” is – with Trump’s ignorant push for tariffs that only punish Americans.

Am I tired “winning”? Yeah, I am sick and tired of it in terms that Donald Trump applies it.

education news

Public ed faces the axe

The Texas public education system is about to feel the budget axe as the Legislature prepares to approve a school voucher plan and send it to Gov. Greg Abbott’s desk for his signature.

What a crock of steer manure!

House Speaker Dustin Burrows says the House has enough votes to approve a measure that would allow the state to siphon off public education money and set it aside for parents to use to pay for private education for their children.

Burrows, a Lubbock Republican, is serving his first term as House speaker. I had a glimmer of hope he might have followed the lead of two former GOP speakers — Dade Phelan and Joe Straus — in resisting this gutting of public education.

Frankly, the move to gut public school districts of money runs totally counter to traditional Republican support in rural areas of the state. Many communities represented in Austin by GOP lawmakers, depend on healthy and vibrant public school systems to hold their towns together.

Those systems will be deprived of funds they need from taxpayers’ pockets once this goofy idea becomes law.

Abbott, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick and many MAGA Republican lawmakers are dead set on depriving public schools of the money they need to strengthen themselves and provide quality education to our public school children.

My wife and I brought two sons into this world and they attended Texas public schools until the early 1990s. I believe they both received good educations that enabled them to attend and graduate from higher education institutions. They both have flourished in their professional lives as a result.

I only can hope that future generations of Texas kids can enjoy the fruits of a solid public education. I don’t feel good about where the state is going.

Uncategorized

LBJ would have none of this

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Lyndon Baines Johnson would be appalled and aghast at the state of American politics today … of that I am absolutely certain.

The nation’s 36th president took office in a time of national grief. A madman with a rifle shot his presidential predecessor to death in Dallas on Nov. 22, 1963. LBJ, a long, tall Texan, took the oath of office aboard a crowded Air Force One jetliner.

Then he commenced to finish the work started by President John F. Kennedy. He had asked the nation for its prayers as he took the reins of power.

President Johnson knew a fundamental truth about politics, about governance and about the government he inherited. It was that to get anything across the finish line, he needed help from those on the other side of the aisle. Johnson was a true-blue Democrat but he had plenty of Republican friends on whom he could count.

His first legislative task was to get the Civil Rights Act approved. Democrats were led by Southern segregationists who adhered to Jim Crow beliefs about racial separation. What did LBJ — himself a Southern Democrat — do? He sought the help of GOP senators such as Everett Dirksen of Illinois and Hugh Scott of Pennsylvania. Johnson, a former Senate majority leader before he became VP in 1961, knew how to work the system.

The Civil Rights Act passed. Then came the Votng Rights Act. LBJ needed the same cast of friends to help him enact legislation guaranteeing the civil rights of all Americans, especially Black Americans.  The Civil Rights Act came into being in 1965.

LBJ also shephered Medicare into existence that year, again gathering GOP help.

I mention all this because Lyndon Johnson would be horrified to see the denigration of alliances he helped build at the hands of Donald Trump and the cabal of MAGA morons who run things in D.C. these days.

Trump is governing only to appease the base of what used to be the Republican Party. The one-time party of Abraham Lincoln, which reached out to minority Americans, and the one-time party of Ronald Reagan, which preached fiscal restraint, has been taken over by an ignorant authoritarian. Donald Trump has plunged the world into a global recession, has cost many millions of Americans billions of dollars in retirement funds and has declared economic war on our most faithful allies.

How? Because he is enamored of the term “tariff” and has enacted a measure that only is going to harm Americans … and no one else.

Would Lyndon Baines Johnson stand for that? Never!

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