military news

Gesture speaks of nation’s maturity

Americans of a certain age or older remember how it used to be in this nation when it came to our military veterans.

We were treated like, well, the spawn of Satan. Folks scorned veterans during the Vietnam War even though we were merely following lawful orders, which were the policies of politicians. The war was unpopular. Americans were rioting and veterans bore the brunt of the criticism.

This is my kinda strange way of telling you about a gesture I received this morning when I walked into a cafe to have breakfast after dropping Toby the Puppy off at the doctor’s office, where he is being treated for cancer.

I walked into Norma’s Cafe in Dallas. I sat down and a young cafe staffer noticed I was wearing one of my Vietnam vet gimme caps. He placed a Veterans Day weekend menu in front of me and said, “All vets eat for free this weekend.”

OK. I know it’s a gesture being repeated by businesses all across this great land. It seems routine, right? Yes. It should be routine and veterans everywhere no doubt appreciate gestures such as the one I received this morning.

I mention this only because it was just a couple of generations ago that Americans were unable or unwilling to exhibit any level of appreciation to those who donned a uniform and served to defend the nation we all love.

We have come a long way, indeed.

Nice going, America … and thank you.

national news

Do they want to lose?

Republicans running for president can stand behind their sanctimoniousness all they want, but the voters they seek aren’t buying into their rhetoric on at least one critical issue: abortion.

We heard most of the candidates standing on the Miami stage last night proclaim their “pro-life” principles. They oppose abortion and most of the debate participants want to place a national limit on when women can terminate a pregnancy. One notable exception was former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, who stands behind states’ ability to make those decisions.

That’s all fine. Except for this fact. The voters in GOP primary states aren’t buying it. They keep rejecting ballot measures and referenda calling for national limits Indeed, the voters take an entirely different view on abortion than these individuals who want to take office in January 2025.

Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina proclaimed loudly that he is a proud Christian and wants the nation to return to laws based on “Judeo-Christian principles,” but he forgot to mention something I believe is important: The founders created a secular government that adheres to a secular document, the Constitution. Voters seem to understand that fact more than the individuals who want to be elected POTUS.

Oh … and Donald Trump, who skipped the debate? He is unprincipled, untethered to any moral standard. His views on this stuff don’t matter one damn bit.

I am beginning to believe the notion put forward by a USA Today columnist, Ingrid Jacques, herself a conservative who doesn’t want President Biden and Vice President Harris re-elected.

She writes: “It kind of seems like they want to lose.”

national news

GOP on wrong side in abortion fight

Abortion is a political issue that gives me the heebie-jeebies, given the intensity of views on both sides of the great divide.

I consider myself to be pro-choice, but clearly I am not pro-abortion. And, no, those terms are not mutually exclusive. I merely cannot counsel a woman to obtain an abortion; then again, I do not deserve to have any say on how a woman should make such a gut-wrenching decision.

Republican politicians, therefore, are on the wrong side of history when they continue to dictate to women what they can and cannot do to manage their own biological affairs. Voters across the nation are making their feelings clear as well on that issue, turning back GOP-led efforts to ban abortion, to make it illegal.

Ohio voters spoke loudly and clearly on the matter by ratifying a measure to make abortion rights part of that state’s constitution. Other states’ voters in places such as Kansas, Mississippi, Kentucky and Virginia have offered the same message to GOP pols: Do not dictate to us how we can make these decisions.

The Dobbs decision by the U.S. Supreme Court struck down Roe v. Wade earlier this year, energizing abortion-rights advocates across the land. Let us not be coy about this fact, either: abortion is going to play a major role in every election going forward as we march toward the 2024 presidential election.

Voters already are speaking with absolute clarity on this issue. They have warned the pols in D.C. to keep their mitts of women’s reproductive rights. The key question now is this: Will the hide-bound politicians listen to what their constituents — their bosses — are telling them?

Joe Biden

Stay the course, Mr. POTUS

You are more than welcome to join me in tossing aside calls from some Democrats want Joe Biden to walk away from his re-election campaign.

For the life of me I cannot grasp the notion being bandied about among Democrats who want President Biden to step aside and allow someone else to carry their partisan banner forward.

The president’s mental acuity is the issue, they contend. Baloney! Bullsh**! It’s nothing more than a tinny echo of Republicans who want to insert the president’s fitness to continue his job into the campaign.

President Biden is a smart, well-educated, seasoned man. He has served in public service for more than 50 years. He was elected to the U.S. Senate in 1972 … before he was old enough to take office; his birthday came that November and placed him at the 30-year minimum age for senators.

I am going to continue to support this president for as long as he wants to run for re-election. President Biden has done a good job governing the world’s most indispensable nation.

He needs to continue.

State news

Legislature keeps on keepin’ on …

Republican government inefficiency is flooding into the chambers of the Texas Legislature, demonstrating that GOP ineffectiveness isn’t just a “Washington thing.”

The GOP-led Legislature adjourned sine die this morning with two of Gov. Greg Abbott’s top legislative priorities left undone: school vouchers and border security.

House Speaker Dade Phelan is feuding openly with Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick — apparently spilling over from the House’s impeachment of Attorney General Ken Paxton and the Senate’s acquittal of Paxton on all the charges brought by the House.

Let’s remember something about the Legislature: It’s a “citizen body” comprising 150 House members and 31 senators who have day jobs — so to speak — back home. If you’re a working stiff who got elected to the Legislature to do something good for the state, then you’d better get the job done during the 140 days the Legislature meets every other year.

Or else!

The “or else” happens to be more time taken away from your jobs, your livelihood, your family … and your life, for God’s sake!

Welcome to the new world of GOP dominance, in-fighting, squabbling and inability to govern properly and cleanly.

It reminds me just a bit of the turmoil and tumult that infects D.C. pols who continue to fight among themselves over issues that in an another era would have pulled them together. Aid to Ukraine in its fight against Russia? Support for Israel in its ongoing war with terrorists? Backing the national debt, as the U.S. Constitution  requires? All of that has been tossed aside as Republicans quarrel among themselves over electing a speaker and arguing over whether to default on our financial obligations.

This is a new and uncomfortable era in politics, my dear friends.

Gov. Abbott threatens to call the Legislature back for a fifth special session if they cannot enact voucher and border security measures. When you think about it, that’s easy for him to say, given that he gets paid a handsome full-time salary to govern.

The Legislature, the horde of 181 Texans who supposedly serve for the love of their state and country? I hope your employers cut you plenty of slack.

local news

Partisanship takes hold

If you thought the elections for city council and school board trustees were strictly non-partisan exercises, well … you’d better rethink that silly notion.

I went to vote this morning for Princeton City Council, Princeton ISD school board trustees, Collin County bond issue, Princeton bond municipal bond issue and those 14 Texas constitutional amendments.

I was greeted by a Princeton ISD trustee who handed me a card that had a list of candidates endorsed by the Collin County Republican Party. Her name, naturally, was among the endorsees.

The card had a message imploring voters to “Keep Princeton Red,” meaning, of course, that voters should ensure the candidates endorsed by the local GOP should be elected. The others? Who needs ’em? according to the flier.

This is the kind of partisan crap that doesn’t belong in these local races. We do not elect council members or board trustees on the basis of their party affiliation. We elect them based on how they feel about police protection, water services, street repair, school curriculum, teachers’ benefits and campus security.

Is there a significant difference between the two parties’ approach to these matters? I suggest there isn’t.

Thus, the political parties need to keep their mitts off these campaigns for local office.

national news

Wait for the trials … and convictions!

Norm Ornstein is one of those Washington, D.C., gray eminences whom the media turn to for a look at the political landscape and whether it is changing under our feet in real time.

Ornstein believes that Donald Trump’s current standing as the “frontrunner” for the 2024 presidential election is going to change “when and if the convictions” start rolling in from the felony criminal trials that await the former POTUS.

I believe he is correct. At least I hope he is correct. You see, the polling data showing Trump ahead of President Biden in several key battleground states simply baffles me beyond all measure.

Ornstein suggests that Biden could be in serious trouble if he is unable to persuade Americans that the successes he has enjoyed are the real deal. I believe they are, but he continues to underperform among voters who continue to tell pollsters that the country is headed in the “wrong direction.”

Huh? I don’t get it! Unemployment remains below 4%. Jobs keep piling up. Inflation, while still troublesome, is beginning to level off. The Fed appears set to put the brakes on interest rate increases.

Yes, we have war in the Middle East. And in Ukraine. Biden has held our alliances together.

The border crisis? It still is a serious problem, but it’s good to remember that we’re still detaining and deporting thousands of undocumented immigrants weekly.

“One of the things that I think is clear here is that most voters have paid no or little attention to Donald Trump’s legal problems,” Ornstein told MSNBC’s Ali Velshi. “That will change when we get criminal trials. And especially if and when we get convictions.”

It’s good to ask ourselves: Are Americans really and truly so stupid, gullible and ignorant that we want to elect a convicted felon as POTUS?

If we are, then this nation of ours is headed straight into the crapper.

We are much better than that.

local news

Despair arrived … then vanished

Almost from the moment I began to shake myself loose from the intense pain I felt on the worst day of my life, I knew days like today would knock me back on my heels.

My worst day occurred on Feb. 3, when my beloved bride Kathy Anne was taken from us by an aggressive form of brain cancer. My journey since then has experienced its ups and downs; the good news is that the down periods are far less frequent these days as the light along my emotional trail gets brighter.

Then days like today arrive. This is Kathy Anne’s 72nd birthday. It’s the first such birthday without her. Those of you who have lost loved ones — and that includes just about every human being who’s ever lived — understand the difficulty of these “firsts.”

My sons and I went to the cemetery to pay our respects to her and to tell her we are doing OK. We miss her terribly. However, it is important for me to stipulate that Kathy Anne was a pragmatic woman. She dealt with reality often stoically. She wasn’t one to wallow in her own sorrow and didn’t like it when others did so.

She all but ordered me many years ago to get on with my life if she were to depart this good Earth before me. Like most husbands who enjoy successful marriages, I am doing what I was told to do. I have re-entered the world of social interaction. Therefore, I have reason to hope for many more brighter days and far fewer darker ones.

I believe today was about as dark as it is likely to get for me moving forward. My sons, my daughter-in-law and my granddaughter are suffering through their own pain as well. The good news is that we all know we are there for each other.

So … my journey continues. The pain that returned when I awoke this morning was expected. I was ready for it. I got through it.

What’s more, I am quite certain tomorrow will arrive with the sun shining brightly. I will enjoy the day. Kathy Anne would insist on it.

national news

GOP gnashes its own throat

What in the world is happening to what passes for a once-great political party? Republicans cannot seem to rally around political leaders of any stripe, or so it seems.

U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson, a MAGA darling of the first order, is taking heat from those on the MAGA right wing of the party. Why? Beats the dickens out of me, man!

Former Fox propaganda network blowhard Tucker Carlson has gone after Johnson. According to Newsweek.com: On Thursday night, the House passed a proposal by Johnson that pairs $14.3 billion in emergency funding for Israel with $14.3 billion in cuts to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). The measure passed 226-196, largely along party lines, with most Republicans supporting the bill and most Democrats objecting.

Carlson is trying to shake something out of Johnson that suggests the speaker is “prioritizing” foreign aid to Israel … whatever the hell it all means.

My point in all of this is that Speaker Mike Johnson says he wants to be speaker for “all Americans,” but he cannot seem to rein in the disparate elements within his own party.

As for the IRS cuts, let’s remember that the more you gut from the budget of the tax-revenue-supported agency, the fewer dollars the government is going to receive to pay for the myriad government programs that Americans say they want and support.

The MAGA cult is learning in real time how difficult it is to operate a government as complex as the machinery that makes the government of the world’s greatest nation.

Then again, the MAGA cultists who call the shots in the House are more interested in making noise than in crafting laws.

Donald Trump, national news

Polls are testing my faith

All those national public opinion polls showing Donald J. Trump with surprising strength in the Republican primary are testing my stated belief on the outcome of his quest to become POTUS once again.

They tell us he is the favorite to be nominated by the GOP next summer … and that he well could defeat President Biden in the November2024 election.

I have said from the beginning I had serious doubts about either his nomination or his election.

You know what? I am going to stand by my earlier suggestion.

Trump is going to be a convicted felon before the primary season begins. He will stand trial on any number of allegations. He faces a civil verdict soon in the case of his defrauding the government over the value of his estate and property. He could be convicted of pilfering classified documents from the White House. He could be convicted also in Georgia court for seeking to interfere in the 2020 presidential election. He could face conviction over whether he incited the assault on our government on 1/6.

Is this country really going to elect a multiple-times convicted felon, allow him back into the White House, give him the launch codes to our nuclear arsenal, allow him to embark on a vengeance campaign against his political foes or back out of defending Ukraine against the immoral and illegal invasion by Vladimir Putin’s forces?

If it comes true and we elect this traitor to the nation’s highest office, then we are in the deepest trouble imaginable as a nation.

Many of us might be stupid, but I refuse to believe that most Americans are that stupid.

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