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Peeking back in time

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CESKY KRUMLOV, Czech Republic — My friends Martin and Alena invited me to visit them shortly after I lost my bride, Kathy Anne.

I had intended to see them in their house and get reacquainted with their children. To be honest, I wasn’t prepared to see the sights Martin and I saw over the past two days in this marvelous community tucked in the heart of the region known as Bohemia.

Church steeples reach into the sky. Apartment buildings reek with charm. The Moldava River courses through the city. And castles are, well … they’re damn near everywhere.

I got a look back at a community that still bristles with life long after its so-called heyday in the 15th century. Tourists come here now with cameras in hand. Martin informed me that by summer, say in July and August, the streets become virtually impassable as they will be clogged with tourists.

Driving is not allowed in the market area. You have to park in a lot outside the city on the other side of a moat that surrounds one of the castles.

I am thrilled to have gotten a look at this place. I had a bowl of pho — which is a sort of hearty soup served in Vietnam., We ate well. Maybe a bit too well, if you get what I mean.

We had a great time walking along the stone streets and enjoying the sights, sounds and smells of a community that knows no end to its existence.

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Eiffel Tower looms large

PARIS — Mission accomplished, but it took some doing.

My large Airbus 330 jetliner landed at Charles de Gaulle International Airport right on time. The task that lay before me, though, proved daunting in the extreme.

I had to find my way out of the airport. It was my first time visiting this terminal. I didn’t know my way. I saw countless “Exit” and “Sortie” signs guiding me ostensibly out of the airport. I must’ve walked many miles before I finally found an exit sign that actually pointed directly to the outdoors.

I found a cab stand. I told the cabbie “Eiffel Tower, sie vous plais.” Yes, he agreed.

I’ll need to stipulate that I do not speak French and he didn’t speak English. I asked him as plainly as I knew how if he could bring me back to the airport once I took a look at the Tower. He thought I asked him to return directly to the airport. So … he did.

I had tell him, “No, Eiffel Tower.” He sighed and returned to taking me to the one-time manmade wonder of the world.

The traffic, to say the very least, was unbearable. But we got there. I snapped a selfie … which I’ll post later.

But I am proud to say that I have actually visited Paris, France — if only briefly,

What a thrill!

One more thing: the cabbie couldn’t wait for me. He left after I paid him and I hailed another taxi for the ride back to de Gaulle Airport. The trip back was far less stressful than the one I took out of there.

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Battle was so ‘beautiful’?

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Jon Stewart said it so well I cannot possibly improve on it.

The comedian critiqued magnificently the 45th POTUS’s description of the Battle of Gettysburg, arguably the most decisive battle of the Civil War.

The former Orator in Chief launched into a flood of ignorant platitudes. I will leave it at that.

Take a look here at what Stewart had to say about it.

Jon Stewart Tears Donald Trump Apart Over Civil War Speech (msn.com)

 

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Courts have become political

Our nation’s founders, the men who crafted a federal judiciary they intended to remain “above politics,” surely are doing somersaults in their graves.

The nation’s federal judiciary has become a third political branch of government, not a branch intended only to determine the constitutionality of laws enacted by Congress and signed by the president.

Democratic senators have signed a petition that aims to stop “judge shopping” by conservative activists seeking judges who they believe will rule in their favor. Of particular concern is the federal court based in Amarillo and which is presided over by U.S. District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk, who was nominated for that seat by the 45th POTUS. Kacszmaryk succeeded a judicial legend in the Texas Panhandle, the late Mary Lou Robinson, of whom no one ever complained was being “too political” in her rulings.

Robinson was nominated by President Jimmy Carter in 1980 and served with distinction and high honor. Now comes Kaczmaryk, whom conservatives seek to overturn policies enacted by Democratic and progressive members of Congress and presidents.

Schumer, McConnell introduce judge shopping bills | The Texas Tribune

“As I have said before, the problem with venue shopping is not a judge in North Texas,” Senate GOP leader Mitch McConnell said from the Senate floor. “It’s a national problem driven by the ability of single judges everywhere to grant injunctions that are national in scope.”

The founders couldn’t possibly have envisioned this kind of mess developing within a judicial system they created.

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Judge goes political … shamefully

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Judges are supposed to stay above and apart from political battles, at least that’s what I always have thought.

Oops. Not so fast. A Texas Supreme Court associate justice said the other day he believes Democrats are going to rig the 2024 election to keep the presumed Republican nominee from being elected president.

Justice John Devine needs to have his mouth washed out with soap. According to the Texas Tribune: “Do you really think the Democrats are going to roll over and let Trump be president again?” Devine asked in a keynote speech at the Texas Tea Party Republican Women’s 2023 Christmas event. “You think they’re just going to go away, all of a sudden find Jesus and [there will] be an honest election? I don’t think so.”

What is he saying? Is he implying crookedness in the election? Looks like it to me! It’s also totally inappropriate for a judge — who well might hear a case involving a two-party political dispute — to shoot off his mouth in such a fashion.

SCOTX Justice implies Democrats will cheat in 2024 election | The Texas Tribune

This is crap! The judge ought to know it, too.

“Judges should be honestly evaluating and applying our state’s laws, not giving partisan speeches baselessly accusing members of a different political party of ‘cheating’ in elections,” Houston County Attorney Christian Menefee said.

Justice John Devine needs to step away from the political fight.

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Heading for the ‘inferno’

Just kidding with the headline on the top of the blog post.

Although I am driving tomorrow to the scene of where more than 1 million acres of grassland burned in what has been described as the worst wildfire in Texas history.

Amarillo is my destination, where I will attend Easter services and catch up with friends I haven’t seen in more than a year. The massive fire didn’t encroach the city limits, but it brought plenty of misery and tragedy to communities nearby.

The Fritch fire chief perished as he sought to save someone trapped by the blaze. Thousands of livestock died in the fire, along with several other human victims.

I haven’t yet heard if the fires have been extinguished, although I do know they’ve been contained.

I hear snippets of good news. The grass is recovering nicely from the charred remains of what the fire did to our good Earth. I look forward to seeing it in person in short order.

it’s always good to go back to where my wife and I called home for more than 20 years. Amarillo was the longest stay during our 51 years of marriage.

Friends await and I look forward to feeling the love.

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Pelosi should laugh out loud

Of all the members of the U.S. House who should be laughing out loud at the shenanigans of the MAGA cult, it is the most recent Democrat to hold the office of speaker of the House.

That is Nancy Pelosi, who now carries the title of “House speaker emerita,” which I guess is a way of declining to identify her as just another member of the House, representing her Bay Area, Calif., district.

Oh, no. She is a woman of supreme accomplishment, serving as the only (so far!) female House speaker. She served two stints as the Lady of the House, from 2007 to 2011 and from 2019 to 2023. Yes, she had more comfortable majorities than what the current Republican speaker, Mike Johnson, has working with him; although Pelosi’s Democratic majority in the 117th Congress was just 10 seats, which gave her little wiggle room to enact legislation.

She still got the job done.

Moreover, while Speaker Johnson and his immediate predecessor in office, Kevin McCarthy, have battled the MAGA crowd in the House, Pelosi had to do battle with her own intraparty demons. They comprised an equally vocal cabal of ultra-progressives who wanted her to veer far from traditional Democratic orthodoxy. Pelosi’s response to The Squad and others on the far left? Pipe down and be quiet!

She never lost control of the House, which is happening now with Johnson having to fend off challenges to his own leadership from within his own party.

The House managed to approve many landmark bills during her watch as speaker, most notably the Affordable Care Act, when she held the Democratic caucus together to see the ACA become law.

So … let’s not vilify the speaker emerita just because she is a “liberal Democrat.” I choose to recall with admiration and respect the job she did as the No. 2 person in succession to become president of the United States.

She was a powerhouse … period and full stop!

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Civility isn’t dead after all!

For the past few years I have been presuming that collegiality and civility have died a slow, painful death, that they have been replaced by rancor and hatred for those with opposing points of view.

Then I read an editorial in the Dallas Morning News that told me to hold on, that it ain’t so.

The editorial talks about two justices of the U.S. Supreme Court, Amy Coney Barrett and Sonia Sotomayor, who spoke to the National Governors Association. They talked about how the justices can differ, but they do not see each other as enemies.

The editorial states, in part: Civility and compromise are values in our democracy that, as of late, are buried in bitter arguments or smothered in misinformation.

Barrett is a deeply conservative member of the high court; Sotomayor is an equally fervent progressive jurist. The editorial notes: “When we disagree, our pens are sharp. But on a personal level, we never translate that into our relationships with one another,” Sotomayor told the crowd at one event.

The DMN editorial takes particular note of the extraordinary friendship forged long ago by two justices, the late Antonin Scalia and the late Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Their friendship became a talking point around the country as to how people with widely divergent points of view can retain personal affection.

The editorial is posted here: Two Supreme Court justices are reminding us how to act like adults (dallasnews.com)

Barrett said: “We don’t speak in a hot way at our conferences,” Barrett said. “We don’t raise our voices no matter how hot-button the case is.”

I am heartened to hear the words of two jurists who have told the world what goes on behind closed doors at the nation’s highest court. May their secret be repeated in other governmental chambers — such as the Congress — where the principals do raise their voices and speak ill of each other.

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How do you measure strangeness?

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I am at a complete loss over this issue … which deals with measuring political strangeness.

The past two election cycles produced campaigns that competed for the title of Weirdest Campaign in Political History. The 2016 campaign resulted in the fluke for the ages when Hillary Clinton lost the Electoral College vote while garnering 3 million more votes than the nimrod who won.

Then came the next four years of chaos and confusion.

The 2020 election resulted in the aforementioned nimrod losing the White House to Joe Biden. Then the Liar in Chief refused to concede the election loss, depriving the president-elect of the “peaceful transition of power” that he deserved.

Those two elections were weird.

Now comes the third in a row. How in the world do we measure its bizarre quotient.

It’ll be the same two men, apparently, competing for the presidency. Joe Biden is the incumbent this time. His opponent will be the moron he defeated four years ago. Polls show the Republican challenger leading, but by the slimmest of margins.

Will these two men debate each other? Hah! I am not going to wait for that to occur. Because they likely won’t. And why is that?

Do you think the challenger wants to answer questions about the upcoming trials that await him? He has been charged with felonious conduct relating to (a) the theft of classified documents, (b) whether he incited the mob assault on the Capitol on 1/6 and (c) whether he interfered with the 2020 election by demanding that Georgia officials “find” enough votes to overturn that state’s 2020 presidential election result.

To be sure, President Biden has some walls to scale if he wants to be re-elected. He has to deal with the immigration crisis; he must find a solution to the war in Gaza; he needs to keep the heat on Russia as it continues its illegal war of aggression in Ukraine. The GOP challenger is making hay on the border crisis … but he has no solutions to offer.

Biden’s State of the Union speech the other evening was a stemwinder. He has set the table nicely for a spirited campaign. However, I hate the notion of this presidential election causing one to nibble on his or her nails.

It should be a cakewalk for the incumbent. The nature of the challenger’s hold on so many MAGA minions, though, lends a quality that, for my money, makes this race the weirdest of them all.

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North Texas gripped by GOP ‘disease’

North Texas Republicans politicians appear to be suffering from the malady that has gripped the national Republican Party in the era of the 45th POTUS.

If they vote a certain way, or if they oppose certain high-profile pols, they become victims of the “primary disease” that spawns opponents within their own party.

I want to single out a couple of North Texas legislators who are fighting this intraparty squabble: Candy Noble and Jeff Leach.

Noble represents little ol’ me and my neighbors in Princeton. She has drawn fire from within her own party. Her “sin’? She voted to impeach Paxton. She has been accused — incredibly, I must add — for wanting to bring “Sharia law” into Texas public education classrooms. What … the … hell?

I put my mitts on a Noble campaign flier that declares she “fought for cutting property taxes, parental involvement in education, better health care options and securing our southern border.”

Wow! Radical stuff, eh? Her MAGA foes, though, say she favors Muslim interests over, um, Christian interests. They want to start a religious tussle within the party? Not a good look. Abraham George, a former Collin County GOP chair, is running against Noble in the primary.

Leach is a Republican legislator who this past year took part in the impeachment trial of GOP Attorney General Ken Paxton. He voted to impeach the AG and then served as a prosecutor in the Senate trial that ended up with Paxton’s acquittal.

Paxton then vowed to go after all the Republicans who stood against him … the jerk! A primary opponent emerged to run against Leach, who continues to tout his conservative bona fides. And they’re real.

Daren Meis is the MAGA candidate opposing Leach. He is a former Allen city councilman who didn’t bother to take part in the Dallas Morning News interview process with the candidates.

So many of these Republican challengers are campaigning on hatred for those who stand on principle. As the DMN said in its editorial endorsement of Leach’s primary bid:

“We don’t think most Republicans take them seriously. But we hope this sort of politicking does cause voters to reflect on just how bad things have gotten in their party.”