legal news

No one is above the law? Pfffttt!

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If you thought for a nanosecond — as I did — that “no one is above the law,” then what we have received today from the U.S. Supreme Court is a decision that dispels such foolishness.

The court, ruling 6 to 3, has decided that Donald J. Trump is granted “presumptive immunity” from prosecution for acts committed while he was still in office. That includes pressuring Vice President Mike Pence to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election.

The six votes all came from Republican-appointed justices; the three dissenting justices all were selected by Democratic presidents. Who knew … right?

Chief Justice John Roberts wrote for the majority. According to The Hill: Roberts wrote that whenever the president and vice president are discussing official responsibilities, they are engaging in official conduct — and, presiding over the certification of the 2020 presidential election results is a constitutional and statutory duty of the vice president.

“The indictment’s allegations that Trump attempted to pressure the Vice President to take particular acts in connection with his role at the certification proceeding thus involve official conduct, and Trump is at least presumptively immune from prosecution for such conduct,” Roberts wrote.

The indictments of Trump presumed what Attorney General Merrick Garland has preached, that “no one is above the law.” Not true, according to the SCOTUS. The court’s logic applies even to discussion that involve knowingly conspiring to break the law.

SCOTUS did kick some of the indictments back to a lower court. More delay is coming up. The case involving the Jan. 6 assault on the government likely won’t go to trial until after the election.

Then, if — God forbid! — Trump wins, well … you know how that ends.

local news

My journey is complete

Drum roll, please, for I am about to make an announcement.

The journey through darkness I have written about extensively on this blog since I lost my lovely bride, Kathy Anne, to cancer has for all intents reached its end.

So much has happened to my family and me since the worst day of our lives came crashing down on us. We lost the pillar of our family to glioblastoma, an aggressive form of brain cancer. She lost her valiant battle and left her family and friends in a profound state of grief.

I commenced my return back from the darkness by writing about that journey on High Plains Blogger. You know what? It helped me beyond measure. I found it within myself to share my grief with the whole world. The process filled me with hope that I could get through this period.

And I have done so!

I have told you about how I searched for light at the end of this journey. I am happy to report that the light on this day is far brighter than I ever imagined it would be immediately after Feb. 3, 2023 … which I have labeled as the worst day of my life.

Every one of those who comprise my worldwide network of friends and acquaintances have said the same thing: The pain never will go away. It will return without warning. You, though, will learn to manage it. You know what? They all were right! Here is a compilation of the entries I posted on High Plains Blogger.

Kathy Anne | Search Results | High Plains Blogger

I have learned that the overarching lesson in dealing with grief is to not let it consume me. It hasn’t. I am moving on with my life. Yes, I have some aspects of that new life to work on … but I can do so with a clear head and a heart that is not nearly as damaged as I reported earlier on this blog.

As one of my sons informed me, “If you can get something positive accomplished in spite of your grief, then you’re doing OK,”

There you have it … but I am happy to declare myself to be far better than OK. Kathy Anne would insist on it.

national news

Stay the course, Mr. POTUS

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You are getting boatloads of advice, Mr. President, on what to do in the wake of your dismal debate performance the other evening.

So, I reckon you won’t mind one more nugget from the Heartland.

This American patriot wants you to stay in the race. Don’t surrender to those who want to cut their losses, believing now that you are doomed to lose to Donald J. Trump. I am not one of them.

Advice nugget No. 1:  get rid of the team that prepped you for that first encounter in Atlanta. At the very least, shed yourself of the person in charge of the team.

I watched every cringeworthy moment of the debate, Mr. President. You looked to my eyes as if you were crammed full of facts. You unable to unload many of them on Trump, the pathological liar who demonstrated once more his inability to tell the truth. Every … single … thing that flew out of Trump’s mouth was a lie.

The editors of some of America’s great journalism institutions have swallowed “needs to quit” bait.

I am not taking that bait. There remains plenty of time for you get your campaign aimed in the correct direction, You also have another debate scheduled in September.  You have been through enough of these to know what you need to do,

Your foe is a shameful frontrunner who doesn’t give a damn about those of us out here in the heart of America. I believe in your decades of public service, Mr. President. I want other Americans to believe in them, too.

You, sir, are the only person who dan deliver that message.

national news, political news

How can GOP go through this change?

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Never, not ever in a zillion years, will I understand what has become of the modern Republican Party.

It has gone from being a party that prided itself on moral rectitude, on so-called “family values” and on insisting that character matters in selecting candidates for our cherished public offices to a cult-following mob of miscreants who tie their hay wagon to the heels of a man named Donald John Trump.

Trump stood before us this week and launched into a never-ending tirade of lies that will not draw a single rebuke from what passes as leadership within the once-Grand Old Party.

His brazenness defies logic.

I’ve already discussed briefly the abysmal performance turned in by President Biden. However, I am not going to join the amen chorus calling on him to step aside.

I am, however, going to call attention to the moral decline of the Republican Party. For the third presidential election cycle in a row, the GOP is nominating a convicted felon, an admitted sexual assailant, a serial philanderer, someone who has been found liable in a court of law for the rape of a woman.

There once was a time when the parties sought to nominate the best among us for our nation’s highest office. Donald Trump represents the worst of us.

If we Americans are so damn stupid to give this guy the keys to the White House once again, then we are in far worse condition as a nation than I ever thought possible.

national news

Turning away from debate

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All eyes are turning — or at least many of them are doing so — toward the Atlanta stage where President Biden and Donald J. Trump are going to joust in that much-anticipated first presidential debate of the 2024 campaign.

This blog post is going to point itself elsewhere for the time being.

We have a lot of issues to settle in this angry world of ours.

How do we negotiate a settlement between Russia and Ukraine? How do we do the same in Gaza where Israel has gone to war with Hamas? How do we make sure Iran doesn’t acquire nuclear weapon capability? How do we secure our border? How do we control inflationary pressure on those things we purchase at the store? How can we improve public education?

Biden and Trump aren’t likely to come close to providing any solutions. We instead are going to focus on the show biz aspect of the joint appearance.

I am going to concentrate my energy on seeking solutions to the critical problems facing this nation. I am sure my phone will ring tonight after the debate. My friends and family will ask who I thought “won.” I won’t be callous and say, “I don’t know and I don’t care.,”

I suppose all of this is my way of lowering expectations for what happens this evening. Two men who are thought pretty universally to be profoundly unable to face the problems that trouble us won’t provide any answers,

It’s all for show, man. Got it? Good.

Uncategorized

Thank you, firefighters

Perhaps you can join me in making this admission: We don’t offer our thanks often enough to the men and women who serve in our fire service.

What brings this up? Well, today I went on a photo assignment for the Princeton Herald. My boss asked me to take some pictures of Princeton firefighters reading to children at the Lois Nelson Public Library. It was scheduled for mid-morning. Just a few minutes before the firefighters were to begin reading to the kids, the library filled up rapidly with children and their parents.

I mean it was chock full of kids. They were sitting in a reading room. I guess there might have been about 150 Princeton-area kids and their parents gathered to learn about fire trucks, which a young fireman, Joe Vega, explained as he read the text.

To be sure, many of the kids were too young to even know what they were hearing. That is not the point. The men and women who serve in our fire service are ambassadors for the city they represent. They are present to do things such as what I watched today. They spoke to the kids who wanted to know about what they do … and to the parents whose taxes pay for the firefighting infrastructure that is so valuable an asset that protects the community.

I have a bit of personal experience with the professionalism these individuals display. I had a medical emergency in my home in January 2023. I called 9-1-1 and told the dispatcher of my need for someone to arrive immediately. They sent a fire crew to my home and it was there within, oh, two minutes of the call. The men who burst into my home to tend to my wife could not possibly have been more courteous … even as they went to work immediately tending to Kathy Anne’s emergency.

That’s only one part of the job they do. They rush into burning buildings. They respond to motor vehicle crashes. And they read to children, telling them about what they do to protect our community.

I feel the need to thank them publicly for all they do to keep us safe.

medical news

Pro-birth … not pro-life

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I am on the verge of abandoning the long-held term used to identify those who oppose a woman’s reproductive rights.

They call themselves “pro-life.” The reality is that they instead are “pro-birth,”

Why the change? It stems from the draconian measures enacted to restrict abortion in many states, including Texas. Here, legislators approved a ban on any abortion when a woman has been pregnant for six weeks or longer.

It makes no exception for the health of the unborn babies. Consider what happened to a Dallas woman who had to go out of state to obtain an abortion because one of the twins she was carrying had no chance of survival. She obtained the abortion.

Legislators are requiring women to give birth to children even when that act would jeopardize the health of the child and possibly destroy a woman’s ability to give birth in the future.

That is not a pro-life position. It promotes birth …. and it is a lie!

Should the 2024 election turn on this issue? Damn straight it should!

The Republican nominee in waiting has bragged about how he “single-handedly” deprived women of their right to govern their own bodies. The Democratic nominee, President Joe Biden, cannot let his opponent get away with that idiotic boast.

national news, political news

Waiting anxiously for debate

For a long time I have been cautious about referring to events when two or more politicians stand on a stage as “debates.”

They aren’t, really. they have allowed the candidates to pontificate and excoriate their foes. But they do occasionally bring moments of excitement. They even have helped turn elections in favor of candidates.

Do you remember the time in 1976 when President Ford said Eastern Europe was “not dominated” by the Soviet Union? Of course it was! He lost the election that year. Or when Ronald Reagan asked us in 1980 whether we were “better off than you were four years ago.” We weren’t. Reagan won in a landslide.

The format for the Thursday appearance with President Joe Biden and Donald J. Trump will be without a studio audience and will have a sound cutoff when the candidates exceed the time limit or when they tell a lie knowingly.

I am one American patriot who will wait anxiously to see how Trump handles the mike sound issue. He and his MAGA cult followers already are saying the debates is rigged. Who knew?

Something tells me we might see more than our share of meltdowns as Trump seeks to lie his way past the silent mikes. Will it influence the end of this miserable campaign? I damn sure hope so.

local news

Time for a rant!

Rarely do I use this blog to rant and rail about personal matters … but today I am going to make a brief exception.

I see a lot of “No Soliciting” signs on people’s front yards. I have nothing to sell, so I have no good reason to knock on someone’s door.

There is a “No Soliciting” sign in the flower bed in front of my front door. It’s there just as plain as the schnoz on my puss.

What’s the rant? You know where I am going with this. It is to bellow angrily at salespeople who (a) ignore the sign, (b) don’t see it or (c) ring my doorbell just to piss me off.

I won’t think the worst of folks, so I’ll rule out the last “reason.”

However, I don’t put those signs out because I like the way they look among the front-yard flora. I put them out there because I do not want salespeople seeking to sell me something this old grouch doesn’t need or want. The kid today sought to sell me a pest-control product he said would get rid of spiders. “I’ve talked to your neighbors and they told me they have spiders,” he said.

OK. My rant is over. Now I’ll return to more worldly items on which to, oh I don’t know … maybe offer a complaint.

local news

Sanity grips city council

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How about that? Sanity reared its welcome head in the Texas Panhandle as Amarillo rejected a goofy notion of turning the city into a “sanctuary for the unborn.”

The Amarillo City Council voted against a measure that had many Texans — such as me — worried about how the city would enforce such a nutty notion.

The plan called for the city to prohibit anyone from using public roads and streets to obtain an abortion. It empowered residents to rat on their neighbors and friends who need to end a pregnancy but were denied that right because Texas has all but made the process illegal.

According to the Austin American-Statesman: Councilmember Tom Scherlen expressed concerns over the impact of the proposed anti-abortion ordinance on local companies. He said it may impact those that provide travel for abortion in their insurance plans and could impede economic development as future businesses may avoid relocating to the area if the ordinance was in effect.

Money does talk. In this case it spoke loudly enough to prevent a Texas city from falling victim to governmental idiocy.

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