Category Archives: Uncategorized

International news, Uncategorized

If they can do this, why not do that?

Maybe you’ve uttered this expression of frustration yourself over the years … and it goes something like this: If they can land a man on the moon, why can’t they solve this problem here on Earth?

I’ll admit to expressing such a thought myself in the past 24 hours in the wake of Donald Trump’s brokering of a deal that well could lead to an end of centuries of bloodshed in the Middle East.

If the president of the United States can clunk the heads of Israeli and terrorist leaders together to get them to stop killing each other, why can’t he do the same with Republicans and Democrats who are digging in while the federal government remains shut down?

House Speaker Mike Johnson is keeping the House off the clock until Senate Democrats agree to a stopgap spending plan to reopen the government. No can do, say Democrats, who contend the GOP plan will gut insurance benefits for many thousands of Americans.

Meanwhile, Trump is basking in the deserved glow of success in the Middle East. The government he has been tasked to running, though, remains dark with no solution in sight.

What the hell? Let’s get busy and fix this matter … shall we?

Uncategorized

Growth makes my head spin

Blogger’s Note: This item was published initially in the Dallas Morning News as a guest op-ed from … yours truly.

It wasn’t long ago, or so it seems, that few among us knew where to find Princeton, Texas.

My wife and I moved to the Collin County community in February 2019 and my stock answer to the question from asking where we had decided to sink our stakes, “Where is Princeton?” was, “We’re eight miles east of McKinney on U.S. Highway 380.” Then came the knowing nod.

Today, six years later, fewer of us have to ask where one can find Princeton. Because the city has become the fastest-growing city in the United States, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

Here are some numbers. The 2010 Census pegged Princeton’s population at 6,807 residents. The 2020 Census elevated that number to 17,027 residents, except that the 2020 Census figure was obsolete before they posted the signs entering the city. The Census Bureau estimated the city population to be around 37,000 in 2024. But wait! Newly appointed Princeton City Manager Mike Mashburn estimates the actual population to be well more than 42,000 residents, based on the number of water meters that are online.

So, the city has exploded from 6,807 to more than 42,000 residents in 15 years.

And guess what … it isn’t letting up. Not even a little bit.

You might wonder: Why did we pick Princeton? It’s close to Allen, where our son and his family live, and his family includes our only grandchild. My wife found the subdivision one night while scrolling online. She told me about what she found. We found out the houses for sale were within our price range, we selected a house, we negotiated a deal. It was done! And I don’t regret making our investment in Princeton.

The City Council realized it didn’t have sufficient infrastructure to serve the burgeoning population. It enacted a moratorium in 2024 on new residential construction. The first ban lasted six months. Then the council extended it. The council likely will have to keep extending it until two things happen: It can have infrastructure in place and it completes all the pending building permits the city issued prior to declaring the ban on residential construction.

I am not an urban planner, but I do get a snootful from officials throughout my community about the perils associated with this rapid growth.

The Princeton public school system is in the midst of a building boom to accommodate the thousands of students expected to enroll in Princeton ISD. Superintendent Donald McIntyre rolls his eyes when he talks about the growth, saying he “can’t build these campuses quickly enough.” They open new campuses and learn immediately that they are stuffed beyond capacity. The district installs portable classrooms immediately to accommodate the overflow. Lowe Elementary School was erected in 2020 and installed two portable classrooms during its first year of operation. The district is now building an elementary school near the Lowe campus to give students moving into the neighborhood a second place to attend class.

Two middle schools are under construction and in 2027, PISD plans to start building a second high school … and has purchased land to accommodate a third high school eventually.

McIntyre agrees he’d rather have this problem than the kind facing other districts – such as Keller and Fort Worth ISDs – that are having to close campuses. However, the growth explosion makes projecting student population with any accuracy a virtual impossibility.

How does the city provide infrastructure? It must hire more police officers and firefighters. That process, of course, takes time, given that applicants have to complete certification training before they can suit up and report for duty. The Princeton Fire Department recently opened two new stations to serve the population north of U.S. 380 and farther southwest along Myrick Lane. It recently completed work on a water treatment plant near the western city limit. The police department, last I heard, was more than 30 officers short of what it needs to keep the peace and enforce the law in Princeton. Police Chief Jim Waters has his hands full, too, keeping pace. The city recently voted to cease providing fire protection for residents living in the unincorporated areas around the city because the city must provide coverage for the growing number of residents moving into homes inside the city limits.

On top of all this, Princeton faces is a stunning lack of commercial development. It recently rezoned a 90-acre parcel on the north side of US 380, expecting to break ground on a massive commercial project. No ground has been broken. The growth continues to be almost exclusively residential, with families being lured to Princeton by the relatively inexpensive real estate prices. And the city has struggled with a contractor and a developer who keep fighting while a massive apartment complex along US 380 seemingly – in the middle of construction — sits idle with little progress being made toward its completion.

I need to mention, too, that traffic has become a nightmare around here. The Texas Department of Transportation has laid out grand plans to build a freeway bypass around Princeton. The state’s road crews no doubt will slow traffic along US 380 even more than what is occurring now as the state seeks to divert through-traffic away from US 380 and onto the bypass.

And only God knows when the bypass will get done.

I have wondered on occasion over the years what it would be like to live in a rapidly growing city such as Princeton, Texas. Now I know. It’s not what it is cracked up to be.

The good news is that it eventually will get done. The city will mature fully and will become a place familiar to anyone seeking a place to call home. I hope I live long enough to enjoy it.

Uncategorized

Faith is strong, but beware …

My stated faith in our constitutional government to withstand direct assaults on its very existence remains strong … but today I want to briefly examine the existential threat that poses a significant threat to the democratic principles to which we adhere.

Readers of this blog have seen me refer to Gerald Ford’s declaration that “our Constitution works,” a statement he made moments after assuming the presidency after Richard Nixon resigned in disgrace. President Ford was correct to make that declaration, as the crisis that forced Nixon out of office spoke volumes to the resiliency of the Constitution’s balance of power.

The court system ultimately had the final say in the Watergate scandal, declaring that Nixon’s attempt to cover up what he knew about the firestorm could not last. The Supreme Court ruled the president had to turn over the tape recordings of him telling the CIA to cover it up.

It was “game over.”

Fast-forward more than 50 years and we have another individual seeking to usurp power from Congress, defying the federal court system and actually fomenting the notion that the Constitution’s 22nd Amendment limiting the president to two elected terms could be tossed aside.

This is real stuff, man! It is, as they say, a big fu**ing deal!

I will not sell short the current president’s aims. It is clear through his repeated public statements and his actions since taking office at the beginning of the year that he intends to exact revenge on his political foes. He has loaded his Cabinet with yes men and women. And he has bullied the Republican majority in Congress into becoming a cabal of cowards unwilling to stand their ground against these blatant and bald-faced efforts to take power out of their hands.

He seeks to rig congressional elections to ensure a greater GOP majority in Congress. Look at what he is doing in Texas, demanding the Legislature to redraw congressional boundaries to make them more suitable for Republicans. The GOP majority in Austin, to its enormous discredit, has rolled over. It has let the MAGA morons call the shots.

This assault is being launched on multiple fronts. In the end — and there is an end to it — I believe the assault will fail because the Constitution, as designed, will hold up. It will beat back these efforts to water it down. It will withstand the assault that Trump and his cowardly gang will launch.

I have said it once again. I know that saying something won’t make it happen. Our shared belief in the system, though, can help sustain it against the existential threat posed by the tinhorn despots like Donald Trump.

Uncategorized

A chance for peace?

Donald Trump and his good buddy Vladimir Putin appear to be preparing for a bilateral summit to figure out a way to end Putin’s illegal, immoral war against Ukraine.

While I welcome an effort to end the bloodshed, I am troubled by the seeming absence of the third party to this horrible event: Ukraine President Volodymr Zelenskyy. If there’s a hero among the three of them, it clearly is Zelenskyy and given that he has been leading the fight to preserve his democratic nation, he ought to be a party at whatever peace talks occur.

I am going to give Trump a measure of credit for at least calling Putin out on the way he has prosecuted this bloody war. It isn’t known how Putin has taken the open criticism. Nor is it known even if Trump will follow through on his threats of sanctions against Russia if Putin reneges on any portion of whatever agreement is found.

I have the fear expressed by many that Putin doesn’t take Trump seriously as a world leader. The Russian goon is the former head of the Soviet spy agency, the KGB. The guy is a killer, which makes him someone to be feared, even though he commands a third- or fourth-rate conventional military machine. He does possess those nukes.

The world will await the outcome of this summit. I only am left to express the hope that it is expanded to include a third chair at the negotiating table.

Uncategorized

Trump will cook the jobs books?

Someone will have to help me understand how this will work, so bear with me.

Donald Trump received some grim jobs numbers from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. His reaction was to fire the individual who ran the BLS, the same person who was approved by the Senate in 2024 with 86 “yes” votes. Trump shot the messenger, the individual who merely was reporting jobs data that reflects a slowing of the economy and the withering job market.

Trump said he doesn’t believe the numbers. They should be better than the 73,000 jobs added to the non-farm payrolls in the past month. Or so he said while firing the BLS chief.

Hmmm. What happens now?

Is Trump going to find an individual who will deliberately cook these jobs outlooks to make him look good? Will he tell the next BLS boss to lie to the public?

The numbskull in chief is off his rocker. This firing of someone whose job was to report jobs figures fairly and without favoritism tells us all just what we have in charge of our government’s executive branch.

We have elected a madman!

Uncategorized

How did she escape blame?

I want to revisit one of the darker chapters in our nation’s glorious story, the 9/11 terror attack that killed 3,000 or so innocent victims.

Netflix has produced a three-part documentary that chronicles the effort to hunt down Osama bin Laden, mastermind behind the 9/11 attack. It’s more than four hours of really gripping TV. It takes the viewer through all the pre-9/11 attempts to hit the United States. There are interviews with key officials from the Clinton, Bush and Obama administrations.

We remember what happened that day. It was a gorgeous September morning in New York. A jetliner crashed into one of the Twin Towers. Then a second plane tore into the other Tower. A third plane smashed into the Pentagon. A fourth jet crashed into a Pennsylvania field after passengers fought with hijackers for control of the doomed craft.

The documentary sought to assess responsibilty for the catastrophic intelligence failures that produced the tragedy. I didn’t hear one time the name of an individual at the center of the intelligence network, nor did I hear a single reference made to anything she did or didn’t do: Condoleezza Rice, national security adviser for President Bush.

It has been a major puzzle to me how in the world she has escaped any recrimination for the failure to detect or act on any clue that might have materialized prior to the events of that horrifying day. I recall at the time as the nation endured the shock of what happened that no one seemed to mention Rice’s name publicly. My goodness, she was at center of our nation’s intelligence-gathering network.

President Bush selected Rice to be his national security adviser because she is known to be a deep thinker, a critical analyst, one who studies her craft thoroughly … and for my money, someone who should be held accountable for whatever failings occurred on her watch that led to the mass murders and destruction of the World Trade Center.

The series concludes with a detailed look at the planning that went into the eventual killing of bin Laden by the SEALs. I was struck by this nugget as well. President Obama was told that his national security team had less evidence of bin Laden’s presence in that Pakisani compound than what was used to persuade Americans that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. He didn’t have the WMD and we went to war in March 2003. All Obama had was purely circumstantial evidence that bin Laden was in the compound.

I am still waiting to learn, though, whether Condoleezza Rice ever will be asked to answer this question: Did you do all you could have done to prevent 9/11?

Uncategorized

Trump makes startling admission

The Donald Trump-Elon Musk bromance is a goner, but left virtually untouched has been a startling admission that Trump made while denigrating the character of the world’s richest human being.

Musk has called Trump’s “big beautiful bill” an “abomination” and said Trump should be impeached. Trump’s response? He called Musk a man with a serious drug problem. I forget the exact words he used, but he said that Musk has been battling drug addiction.

OK. Here’s what is so remarkable. Trump hired a drug addict to remake the federal government, allegedly. He hired a guy he said couldn’t be trusted to remain sober long enough to make intelligent decisions about the future of government programs upon which millions of Americans depend.

What the f***?

Of course, Trump didn’t offer a single shred of proof of the allegation he has made about Musk’s alleged drug habit. The point, though, is that Trump has said time and again how he relies on hiring the “best people” to do the work on his behalf.

Which is it, dude?

Moreover, where is the media on all this? No one has explored the substance of what Trump has alleged about Mr. Tesla/SpaceX and the things he says drives this world’s richest human.

This idiot, the president, needs to be held accountable for the recklessness of his rhetoric.

Uncategorized

Standing by the Constitution

My belief in our system of government is as strong as ever, despite the myriad challenges being mounted against it by the likes of Donald J. Trump, the MAGA morons, DOGE and Elon Musk.

I feel it’s important to make that declaration now as we enter the summer months. Trump will continue to push our system to its limit. He will seek greater executive power than the U.S. Constitution allows. He will continue to scrawl that signature of his on executive orders. He will seek to undermine the checks and balances written into the nation’s governing document.

However, I am going to maintain my faith that the judicial system the founders created will rise to the occasion and determine that the “rule of law” is more vital to our nation’s well-being than the machinations of a tinhorn tyrant.

How do I come to that conclusion? We are beginning to see evidence of Trump appointees to the federal bench relying more on their fealty to the Constitution than to the nitwit who placed them into their lifetime jobs. Why, even a member or two of the nation’s highest court appear willing to administer what could be the death knell to the liar in chief’s tariff tantrum.

I have held a longstanding belief in the founders’ wisdom when they crafted the Constitution after winning independence from the British Crown in 1781. They built a foundation with the intention of expecting it to be challenged. Indeed, we have gone through four presidential impeachments, four Senate trials of presidents, the Great Depression, two world wars, a civil war, and myriad crises of varying significance over the span of 250 years. We have amended the document 27 times in an effort to create a “more perfect Union.”

The Constitution has withstood all of that. It remains the pillar of our nation.

I am going to rely on the Constitution to do its job as Americans challenge what passes for the wisdom of the current president and his cabal of sycophants.

Uncategorized

A positive result to report

I want to report to you some astounding news I received this week from my primary care physician … and it appears to be a result of the nutrition class I attended at home offered by the Department of Veterans Affairs.

My doctor has removed my daily dose of cholesterol medication from my routine. She told me my lab results are so positive that she doesn’t see the need to continue taking the pills each day.

I looked at her and said, plainly and simply, “Wow!”

I sought professional help from the VA because I had gained a lot of weight in the two years since I lost my bride, Kathy Anne, to an aggressive form of brain cancer … glioblastoma. I had been taking the anti-cholesterol meds for many years prior to that tragic event. The meds had done their job, reeling in my cholesterol and triglycerides to within range of normal. Indeed, when I first saw a doctor in Amarillo way back when, he told me the substance they drew from my arm “didn’t even look like blood.” My lab numbers were off the charts. He declared that I was fortunate to have avoided serious impairment or death by a stroke.

The VA nutrition program was intended to jump-start a weight loss effort. That didn’t happen. Although I have peeled a few pounds off this overfed old man’s body. What did happen was a change of lifestyle. I can state with clear honesty that I have changed my eating habits. I forgo the junk food that would formerly entice me.

This week, I got some hard numbers that told me my efforts have paid off. I want to share that with you because of the support I have gotten from Blogger Land from those who tell me they want me to stay in the game of commenting on world affairs.

So … there you have it. Life is good. I intend to keep living it for a while longer.

Uncategorized

‘MAGA’ takes root in vernacular

When an acronym becomes a word is when you know that the term has become ingrained in our skulls, even the noggins of those who abhor the meaning of the word.

The term “MAGA” appears to be the latest such term to have been given a sort of new life. When you simpy say “MAGA,” the rest of us know about whom you are referring … it is the cadre of individuals who believe in Donald Trump’s vow to “Make America Great Again.”

I long have considered that to be a preposterous notion, as the United States has been the world’s pre-eminent power since the end of World War II.

We now refer to issues as “MAGA policy,” or “MAGA ideas,” or the “MAGA crowd.” No need to insert the explanation of what “MAGA” means. I need to state that Trump isn’t the first politician to vow to “make America great again.” Bill Clinton did so, too, while running for president in 1992. Clinton’s followers, though, weren’t fervent or rabid enough to keep repeating or even to form the words into an acronym.

Did you know that “TEA Party,” one of MAGA’s predecessors, is an acronym that also became a word? The “TEA” in the party stands for “Taxed Enough Already.” TEA Party faithful formed the coalition because they were tired of paying what they believe is too much in taxes to the federal government. Hence, TEA Party was born about 20 years ago.

I also capitalize “SCUBA” when referring to divers wearing on their backs what stands for Self-Contained Underwater Breathing Apparatus. I don’t know when the terms “SCUBA divers” or “SCUBA gear” became part of our language. It just did … a long time ago!

The language is full of such examples. Too many of them to delineate here. Because I’m a bit of a rhetorical perfectionist, I am going to continue to capitalize these acronomyical terms as a show of respect to their origins.