Category Archives: political news

media news, national news, political news

Do as Trump says, not as he does

Donald J. Trump cracks me up.

Except that I’m not laughing with the president, but rather I’m laughing at him for the preposterous declarations he makes about the media — and what he does before and after he makes them.

Trump stood before the Conservative Political Action Conference audience this week and excoriated the media — the “enemy of the people,” remember — for using anonymous sources.

What, then, occurred that makes this attack so laughable?

His White House staff talked to a select group of media on the grounds that they be allowed to speak anonymously.

D’oh! Huh? Eh? What the … ?

Trump’s CPAC rant was the latest ramping up of his war against the media, the folks whose task is to report to their own constituents what is going on with the White House, the president’s staff and, by golly, the president himself.

This ridiculous and nonsensical rant in which he blasts the media for granting anonymity to sources only demonstrates the president’s utter ignorance of the traditional role between the media and the White House.

It’s supposed to be adversarial. Every single president — regardless of party or ideology — has bitched about his treatment by the media. Some have taken that complaint to more intense levels than others; President Nixon’s troubles come to mind.

However, every single one of them has said essentially the same thing: The media treat me unfairly; they’re too harsh; they’re too probing; they pry too much and too deeply.

The treatment Trump is getting is really no different than what has occurred since the founding of the Republic.

Now, for him to blast the media for granting anonymity — while allowing his staff to request it of the media — simply makes me shake my head in sheer amazement at this president’s ignorance.

national news, political news

Trump’s Cabinet: at best, a mixed bag

Donald J. Trump hasn’t picked a gang of losers for his Cabinet.

He’s got some winners in the bunch. I am not equipped just yet to assess all of the president’s team members. Some have yet to take office, such as Energy Secretary-designate Rick Perry.

But I do feel driven to offer a word or two on a few of the more visible selections Trump has made.

First, the good picks.

James “Mad Dog” Mattis at Defense might be the best of the bunch. The retired Marine Corps general has turned out to be a seriously mature and thoughtful fellow. Imagine someone with the “Mad Dog” nickname earning that designation.

Gen. Mattis has declared that the United States won’t “torture” enemy combatants, nor will it seize Iraqi oil. He has managed to contradict the president directly on those two key elements. Semper fi, Gen. Mattis.

John Kelly, another Marine general, is a plus at Homeland Security. He’s kept a low profile so far, but has toured the southern border to take a first-hand look at the so-called “porous” border.

Rex Tillerson might be the big surprise at State. The former ExxonMobil CEO brought some serious baggage to his job. I remained worried about whether Tillerson’s relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin is going to skew the U.S. policy toward Russia.

But he is talking reasonably and thoughtfully about U.S. foreign policy so far. His political foes have been quieted somewhat now that he’s on the job.

Let’s look at three Cabinet clunkers.

Betsy DeVos at Education shouldn’t be there. She has no experience — let alone understanding — of public education; she never attended public schools; nor did her children. She favors voucher programs that peel away public funds to pay for private education for parents and their children.

My friend, 2015 National Teacher of the Year Shanna Peeples, has invited DeVos to visit public schools here in Amarillo, hoping she can collect some level of understanding about the hard work that’s going on in public classrooms. I do hope the secretary accepts Shanna’s invitation so she can learn something about the agency she is now leading.

Ben Carson at Housing and Urban Development is another loser who has no business running an agency about which he knows not a single thing. The retired — and famed — neurosurgeon said so himself, through a spokesman; he isn’t qualified to run a federal agency. Trump picked him anyway. Enough said there.

Scott Pruitt, the new director of the Environmental Protection Agency, might be the worst of the bunch. How does the president justify selecting a sworn enemy of the agency he now is leading. Pruitt hates the EPA and sued the agency 14 times while serving as Oklahoma attorney general. He’s a friend of big oil and he detests EPA’s efforts at developing alternative energy sources for the purpose of, that’s right, protecting the environment.

Sheesh, man!

I am hoping for the best. My fear, though, falls short of that. As for the Trump Cabinet winners, I hope their strength rubs off on their weaker colleagues.

local news, national news, political news

Wedding plans prove to be, um, breathtaking

I am trying to catch my breath as I write these next few words.

Richard Ware, the high-powered Amarillo banker, is getting married this weekend. That isn’t news all by itself, except perhaps for Ware’s family and closest friends.

His fiancée, though, deserves special attention. Her name is Katherine Harris, whose name is quite familiar to the most avid political junkies.

Harris served as Florida secretary of state in 2000, when that year’s presidential election hung in the balance over the counting of ballots in the Sunshine State. Harris was the chief elections officer in Florida and she finally certified — after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Texas Gov. George W. Bush’s favor — that Bush would win Florida’s electoral votes.

The wedding will occur in Texas. I hear that Mr. and Mrs. Ware will live some of the time in the Lone Star State.

I’m not quite sure what to say about this. I am left to offer only that during her 15 minutes at the center of the political stage, Katherine Harris became one of the more polarizing figures in recent U.S. political history. Suffice to say she made plenty of foes as well as friends as she operated in the middle of a tremendous national political swirl.

I’m still breathless.

local news, political news

That is some platform, Mayoral Candidate Nelson

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I have just examined the platform on which Ginger Nelson is running for Amarillo mayor.

Three words come to mind: W. O. W!

My sense is that Nelson either possesses the greatest memory known to humankind or she is going to keep this position paper with her 24/7 if she get elected on May 6.

The Amarillo lawyer has presented an impressive array of issues, policies and strategies to implement them.

She is focusing, quite naturally, on economic development. No surprise, given that she once served on the Amarillo Economic Development Corporation board and is invested heavily in some commercial property downtown.

She breaks down her platform into six essential planks: job creation and economic development; neighborhood safety; street and highway improvement; communication and participation; customer service; and fiscal responsibility.

At the surface level, it’s impossible to disagree with any of the policies she has targeted for enhancement and/or improvement. I mean, who doesn’t want more jobs, better streets, better communication, better customer service, safe neighborhoods and sound fiscal management?

To be honest, Nelson’s platform is the most detailed and expansive I’ve seen from any Amarillo mayoral candidate in the 22 years I’ve lived here. Most of that time — when I was working for a living — my job as a journalist was to keep tabs on what candidates for public office were pledging to do.

I noticed a holdover from one of Mayor Paul Harpole’s priorities: graffiti abatement. Harpole took aim at the defacing of private property by assorted juvenile delinquents or gang members. He claims progress in that effort and I’m glad to see Nelson pledging to continue that effort.

Perhaps the most impressive aspect of Nelson’s platform is that she’s pledging to do all this while earning virtually nothing to serve as mayor. The job pays a whopping $10 per public meeting; oh, yes, there are some assorted expense reimbursements along the way. But this is basically a volunteer job, a labor of love.

She’s talking about better outreach to the community, cutting red tape, business recruitment, working with local colleges and our university on various partnerships, making utility billing more efficient and — I presume — more accurate, working to improve emergency response times … and on it goes.

She has two opponents in this race for mayor. I’ve already declared my preference for who I think should succeed Harpole, who’s not running for re-election. It happens to be Nelson.

I will await the platforms to be crafted by candidates Renea Dauntes and Jim Lowder II. Dauntes told the Amarillo Globe-News she wants to “improve civic pride”; Lowder plans to deal with conflicts of interest. I am confident their full platform statements won’t be as detailed as the one Nelson has presented. But, hey, if they prove me wrong, I’ll welcome their contributions to the public discussion.

If you don’t want to take my word for it, that Nelson has gone into great detail, check it out here.

If Nelson becomes our next mayor — and I hope she does — I strongly suggest she keep the platform document handy.

political news

Robby Mook: campaign loser lands on his feet

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I occasionally become amazed at how failed political operatives have this way of continuing to land on their feet.

They lose national elections and yet the TV news networks — cable and broadcast — seek them out for their “expert analysis” on all things political.

Robby Mook is the latest such example of that.

It puzzles me a bit.

Mook managed Hillary Rodham Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign. Clinton was the prohibitive favorite to win that election. Every pundit from coast to coast to coast said she’d clobber Donald J. Trump. Some of them predicted a landslide … for Hillary!

Well, it didn’t happen. She lost, albeit narrowly. Sure, she won the popular vote and finished ahead of Trump by about 2 percentage points, which is about where the polls had pegged it.

However, the campaign missed a number of key strategic opportunities in critical Rust Belt states. Trump captured those traditional Democratic strongholds.

Who’s to blame for all of that? You’ve got to lay it squarely in the lap of the campaign manager. Mook called the shots. He ran the show. He was supposed to ensure his candidate won. It was his job to make sure Hillary spent her time where it counted the most.

He blew it, bigly.

How does this guy hold up as an expert?

Oh, wait! He’s “telegenic.” That’s got to be it.

International news, political news, State news

Hunters seek to blame ‘illegals’ for their own blunder

I can hear the chants now: only in Texas would this happen.

Maybe, maybe not. Anyhow, here’s the crux of it.

Two hunters — Michael Bryant and Walker Daughetry — have been charged with discharging deadly weapons illegally. They accidentally shot each other while on a hunting excursion in Presidio County along the Rio Grande River.

But wait! The shooting took place in early January. When they called for help, they then blamed the incident on “illegal aliens” they said were crossing the border.

It turns out they lied to investigators. There were no “illegal aliens.” They had discharged their weapons “in the direction of others,” meaning each other, which is a third-degree felony.

It gets even better than that.

Texas Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller, the loudmouth advocate for building a wall along our state’s border with Mexico, posted the bogus story on his Facebook page. Miller — who had been considered for a spot in Donald J. Trump’s Cabinet — said the incident proves the need to build the wall, per the president’s persistent mantra.

Well, the truth has come out. The hunters made it up. They were too embarrassed to tell authorities what really happened.

Miller’s Facebook post has since disappeared. The two men face some jail time if they’re convicted.

Is this what one would call “fake news”?

military news, national news, political news

‘Mad Dog’ emerges as reasonable, sane adviser

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Let me see a show of hands. Who among you ever thought that a man with a nickname “Mad Dog” would emerge as a reasoned, thoughtful and nuanced secretary of defense?

Well, me neither.

Retired Marine Corps Gen. James “Mad Dog” Mattis has emerged as just that person. I want to sing the praises of the defense secretary, who over the weekend had the courage to speak reasonably — and in direct contradiction — to a reckless declaration that the president of the United States had made.

Mattis made a quick trip to Iraq and proclaimed that the United States will not seize Iraqi oil. Donald J. Trump famously said he intended to do that very thing if he were elected president. The idea, Trump said, was to deprive the Islamic State of the revenue it gleans from oil to fund its terrorist activities.

Gen. Mattis said, um, no … we aren’t going to do that.

Mattis is becoming arguably my favorite Cabinet official in the Trump administration. Heaven knows that there aren’t many of them for which I would express such admiration.

It is reasonable to wonder if Mattis is going to last for the duration of Trump’s term. Trump is known to be an impulsive, not terribly thoughtful individual. He says things that pop into his noggin without ever considering the consequences of what he says.

Seizing the Iraqi oil fields was one of those ill-considered statements. Ain’t no way we can do that cleanly and without shedding a lot of American blood.

Mattis, career military man that he is, understands a lot more about such matters than the commander in chief. I am delighted, too, that he is expressing himself with the confidence that those general’s stars have given him.

Thank you for your service, Gen. Mad Dog. Keep up the good work … if the president will allow it.

national news, political news

Democrats to grass roots: Cool it with the ‘I-word’ talk

The “I-word” might be gaining some traction among rank-and-file Americans who profess worry — even fear — of Donald J. Trump.

Democratic Party officials are issuing a wise word of caution. Avoid the rush toward an impeachment of the president of the United States.

I happen to agree with the Democratic Party elders/wise folks.

Impeachment is a serious matter. It’s only occurred twice in the 228-year history of the Republic. The 17th president, Andrew Johnson, came within a single vote in the Senate of being tossed out; the 42nd president, Bill Clinton, was acquitted by healthier margins on all three counts heard during his Senate trial. A third president, Richard Nixon, was on the verge of being impeached before he resigned in disgrace in 1974.

Trump has stirred plenty of enmity during his single month in office. To suggest that he ought to be impeached is at best far too premature an act to even consider; at worst, well, it might be a fool’s errand.

As Politico reports: “’We need to assemble all of the facts, and right now there are a lot of questions about the president’s personal, financial and political ties with the Russian government before the election, but also whether there were any assurances made,’ said California Rep. Eric Swalwell, a member of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. ‘Before you can use the ‘I’ word, you really need to collect all the facts.’

“’The ‘I’ word we should be focused on,’ added Pennsylvania Rep. Brendan Boyle, ‘is ‘investigations.'”

I happen to share the concerns of many of my fellow Americans about the questions that are looming large over the Trump administration. So soon after the president’s inauguration, Americans would be wise to give the guy some time to clear out some of the wreckage he has brought upon himself and his administration.

I want to offer a slightly conciliatory word here. Trump became president with zero experience in government. He hadn’t spent a single moment of his life in public service until he placed his hand on the Bible and took the oath of office of the presidency.

It might be too much to ask that a zillionaire businessman/TV celebrity could know all the nuance and complexity of forming a government as massive as the one he now commands.

He has made some remarkable missteps in just a few weeks on the job. He has said some amazingly stupid things and made some ridiculous gestures. Are any of them impeachable? No.

But he’s got this personal enrichment matter he must clear up. That “emoluments clause” that bars presidents from profiting from relationships with foreign governments is pretty clear. The president hasn’t done nearly enough to clear himself of that mess.

He had better get busy.

The fired-up grass roots Americans who are hell bent on impeaching the president had best listen to the political elders who know about these matters.

Their advice? Cool it.

national news, political news

Right-winger draws rebuke from conservatives … good!

It turns out that political conservatives have their limits on the level of provocation they are willing to tolerate.

My spirits are lifted when I read such things.

Milo Yiannopoulos, a right-wing provocateur, has been disinvited to speak at the Conservative Political Action Conference annual meeting after drawing a sharp rebuke from other conservatives.

Yiannopoulos, who is openly gay, recently stated that younger gay men would benefit from a relationship with — ugh! — older men. Oh, but he has condemned pedophilia and, I guess, he has tried to legitimize his hideous views by telling of the sexual abuse he suffered as a child.

He’s also written extensively against homosexuality. Go figure.

Right-wing bloggers, pundits and consultants are outraged that CPAC would invited this guy to speak in the first place.

According to The Hill: “Conservative blogger Erick Erickson on Monday slammed the ACU’s decision to include Yiannopoulos among their speakers, casting the move as more of a publicity stunt than a contribution to conservative dialogue.”

I am heartened to learn that conservatives have their limits on the level of bile and vitriol they would tolerate. Let’s flash back, oh, about two decades or so.

Conservatives were none too shy about defaming President Bill Clinton and his wife, Hillary, by suggesting they were complicit in what they said were the murders of their political opponents. None other than the late preacher/demagogue/”Rev.” Jerry Falwell actually produced a video, “The Clinton Chronicles,” that suggested the Clintons were responsible for the suicide death of their longtime friend Vincent Foster.

I don’t recall hearing much protest then from the right about that shameful act of defamation.

That was then. Today is a new day, I reckon.

Milo Yiannopoulos is getting the scorn he deserves from his so-called political brethren.

As conservative consultant Matt Mackowiak said of CPAC’s decision to disinvite Yiannopoulos: This is not a hard call.

national news, political news

Trump’s ‘fine-tuned machine’ needs help

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I found myself somewhat amazed as I read a story in the Sunday New York Times about Donald J. Trump’s apparent inability to get his administration fully staffed.

The article talked about Trump’s insistence on loyalty. Those who say negative things about The Boss are fired; those who fall into that category are disregarded as potential new hires.

I totally understand the president’s desire to have loyal team members on board. The head of our government is entitled to insist that his lieutenants follow the policies set at the top.

Still, Trump crowed this past week about the “fine-tuned machine” that is his presidential administration. Except that he hasn’t hired a whole lot of assistant secretaries or deputy secretaries to assist his Cabinet picks.

But here is where the amazement kicks in.

Loyalty hasn’t been Trump’s No. 1 requirement in filling at least two Cabinet places.

Can you say “Ben Carson” and “Rick Perry”?

Carson is the housing secretary who ran against Trump in the 2016 Republican Party presidential primary. He and Trump clashed openly at times on the campaign trail and on debate stages across the country. I recall Dr. Carson saying some pretty harsh things about the president-to-be as his own campaign went down in flames.

But then there’s former Texas Gov. Perry, another former GOP foe. It was Gov. Perry who called Trump a “cancer on conservatism.” He’s now slated to become secretary of energy.

The Times reports, though, that Trump or his senior advisers are nixing appointments because of what individuals have said about the president. Meanwhile, all these posts remain vacant, their offices are dark and top-level administration officials are being denied the kind of help they need in carrying out Trump administration policies — whatever the hell they are.

I love this passage from the Times story: “It is not just Secretary of State Rex W. Tillerson who has no deputy secretary, much less Trump-appointed under secretaries or assistant secretaries. Neither do the heads of the Treasury Department, the Education Department or any of the other cabinet departments. Only three of 15 nominees have been named for deputy secretary positions. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis has a deputy only because he kept the one left over from President Barack Obama’s administration.”

This is a “fine-tuned machine”? It needs a healthy dose of WD-40.