Category Archives: political news

national news, political news

POTUS disgraces himself — yet again! –with CPAC tirade

Mr. President, you keep outdoing yourself.

You stand before crowds of fervent supporters and fly off the rails. There you were again today in front of the Conservative Political Action Conference firing off an expletive-laden tirade against your foes.

You’re not sounding very “presidential,” Mr. President — and your performance today makes me wonder if I should even refer to you with that courtesy title. You haven’t earned it.

But I’ll do so out of respect for the office, even though I still cannot connect the words “President” and “Trump” consecutively.

How dare you mock the accent of former Attorney General Jeff Sessions! How dare you also refer to House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff as “sh***y” Schiff.”

Get a grip, Mr. President

Mr. President, you don’t deserve the title you hold. I get that you were elected to it as prescribed by the U.S. Constitution. I so want to call you “my president.” Displays such as the one you put on today make it increasingly more difficult for me to bestow the respect to which your high office should entitle you.

You, sir, are a disgrace.

national news, political news, State news

Waiting for Beto’s decision

I think it’s a good bet that Beto O’Rourke, who says he’s made his decision regarding the 2020 political season, is not going to run for a seat on the El Paso County Commissioners Court.

Nor is he running for the U.S. Senate against John Cornyn, the senior Texas Republican senator.

Oh, I get it! He’s going to announce he is running for president of the United States. Is that it? Sure it is! Or so many observers are saying.

I am trying to get excited about it. I am not there. At least not yet.

O’Rourke came tantalizingly close to defeated U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz in 2018. He got Texas Democrats all fired up. He gave them hope that if a Democrat can come within a couple of percentage points of winning a statewide race, then perhaps there will be a chance for the party to break the GOP vise grip on the political structure.

But is the young man, a former El Paso congressman, ready for the Big Show? A big part of me wonders if he’s up for the biggest job on Earth.

Were he to be nominated and then run against Donald Trump for the presidency, O’Rourke would have my support. I just wonder if he’s able to defeat a gigantic field of Democrats lining up to take down the president of the United States.

He’s going to liven this contest up . . . even more than it is already.

political news

Why not a maximum age for POTUS?

Garland, Texas, resident Cynthia Stock poses an interesting question today in a letter to the editor of the Dallas Morning News.

She notes that we have a minimum age for U.S. senators (30 years); she doesn’t mention that you have to be at least 25 years of age to run for the U.S. House and 35 to run for president.

Stock wants to know why we don’t impose a maximum age for presidential candidates. Hmm. Let me think. Does she have a couple of senior citizens in mind, such as 77-year-old Sen. Bernie Sanders (who’s running for the Democratic nomination) and former VP Joe Biden (who might run for POTUS in 2020)?

The nation needs fresh ideas, fresh vision, fresh leadership, she writes. I wonder if “fresh” is code for “young.”

That’s not a half-bad notion, the more I think about it.

I oppose term limits for members of Congress. I suppose you could take that argument even farther by repealing the 22nd Amendment to the U.S. Constitution that limits presidents to two elected terms; perhaps we could replace it with another amendment that places upper-end age limits on presidential candidates. Or would that amount to “age discrimination”? I’ll have to think about that.

Stock, though, makes another good point. She notes how the presidency has aged so many of its officeholders. President Franklin Roosevelt was not even 65 years of age when he died in April 1945 of a cerebral hemorrhage; same for President Johnson when he died in January 1973. The presidency took savage tolls on both those wartime presidents.

They were not old men when they died. The office made them much older than their years on Earth.

I’m not endorsing what Ms. Stock has proposed. I just thought it to be worth noting.

political news, State news

Two-thirds rule likely to scuttle key Texas appointment

The Texas Senate operates on a rule that is designed ostensibly to promote bipartisanship.

It’s the two-thirds rule, which requires 21 of the Senate’s 31 members to approve legislation — and appointments.

However, all 12 of the Senate’s Democrats are going to oppose the nomination of David Whitley as the next Texas secretary of state. That leaves him with just 19 votes, all of which will come from Senate Republicans.

It seems that Whitley, who’s been acting as secretary of state, blew it when his office “flagged” several thousand voters who were thought to be illegal residents of Texas. It turns out that many of those flagged were quite legal. One of them happened to be a key member of a Senate Democrat’s staff.

Can we hear an “oops”?

Gov. Greg Abbott appointed Whitley to be the state’s top elections officer this past year, but the Legislature was not in session, meaning that the Senate hadn’t yet formally approved his nomination. With the Senate’s 12 Democratic members now on record as opposing his appointment, it appears that Abbott might have to look for someone else to run the state’s election system.

The Secretary of State’s Office committed a fairly embarrassing cluster flip with the flagging of those names. It sought to purge the system of what it said were illegal voters, only to determine that the list of flagged voters was significantly inaccurate.

Abbott said he still supports Whitley fully, which is what one would expect him to say.

I’ll offer this bit of advice: David Whitley needs to bow out; the governor needs to find another nominee. Then we can get back to the task of running our state elections instead of looking for bogeymen where they likely don’t exist.

Yes, the Texas Senate’s two-thirds rule works.

legal news, national news, political news

Mueller probe coming to an end? Let the public see its results

U.S. Attorney General William Barr reportedly is set to announce the end of special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into alleged “collusion” between Donald Trump’s presidential campaign and Russian operatives who attacked our 2016 electoral system.

He might do so next week, according to CNN.

Well now. I hope the reports from CNN are correct. I want this probe to end. I am weary of it. And I haven’t lifted a finger to aid in it, although I’ve lifted plenty of fingers commenting on it.

Transparency matters a lot

The future of Donald Trump’s tenure as president hangs in the balance. If Robert Mueller has come up empty, we’ve got Trump for at least until January 2021. If, however, he has something else — such as the goods on the president — then all bets are off.

Barr reportedly has said he intends to be a transparent as the law allows. He supposedly is getting set to prepare a final report for Congress.

Here’s my fondest wish: Let the public see as much as possible. I understand the need to protect national security secrets. That is all we should protect.

I want to reiterate that this is a publicly funded exercise. Mueller has spent a lot of public money poring through mountains of evidence into Trump’s conduct as a candidate for president and as president of the United States. That’s our money. Yours and mine.

Thus, the contents of this report belong to us.

I am prepared fully to accept whatever Mueller concludes. Yes, even if it exonerates the president of any wrongdoing. I trust Mueller — a former FBI director, a former Marine, a Vietnam War combat veteran — to do a thorough job.

However, I do not want the results hidden in a vault somewhere. It’s ours to review and to determine what — if anything — we need to do about the president of the United States.

political news

Not going to feel the ‘Bern’ this time, either

Readers of this blog no doubt understand that I want Donald Trump to be defeated for re-election in 2020. He is unfit for office. He is unfit for public service at any level. I want him to disappear from public view. The sooner the better.

That all stated — yet again! — I am chagrined that one of the possible challengers to the president has decided to re-enter the fight.

U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, the independent from Vermont, is now a member of the gigantic and still growing field of Democrats running for president in 2020.

Please, Bernie. Why are you back in this race?

Sanders isn’t even a Democrat. He runs for the Senate as an independent, meaning he is unaffiliated with either major political party. He caucuses with Senate Democrats, votes with them on virtually all legislative matters and so I guess that makes him a  de facto Democrat.

My hope remains as I stated it some months ago: I want the next Democratic Party presidential nominee to be someone no one has heard of. I want that person to emerge from the tall grass, to burst on the scene with flair and panache.

Please forgive me if I sound like an ageist, but I also want that nominee to be someone a lot younger than the 77-year-old Bernie Sanders.

Bernie Sanders is a political retread. He ran for the Democratic nomination in 2016 essentially on a single issue: income inequality. He beat that issue bloody while losing the nomination fight to Hillary Rodham Clinton. It is a totally legitimate issue, but it is not the singular issue that commends him to the highest office in the United States.

Indeed, the senator needed to demonstrate a much wider range of knowledge than he has exhibited.

I suppose his candidacy elevates him immediately to the top tier of potential Democratic nominees. He’s up there with, say, Sens. Cory Booker, Kamala Harris, Amy Klobuchar and perhaps even Elizabeth Warren.

The roster of candidates is sure to grow. Goodness, it might exceed 25 or so candidates.

I want one of those Democrats to emerge as The One, the individual who can take the fight directly to Donald Trump.

It’s just not Bernie Sanders.

Donald Trump, national news, political news

Run, Gov. Weld, run!

Wouldn’t it be just a kick in the backside if William Weld re-creates a Eugene McCarthy moment in the 2020 race for the presidency of the United States?

Weld, the former Republican governor of Massachusetts, has formed an exploratory committee to determine whether to mount a primary challenge against Donald Trump. Weld said many other Republicans “exhibit all the symptoms of Stockholm syndrome, identifying with their captor.”

Weld ran for vice president in 2016 on the Libertarian ticket headed by former New Mexico Gov. Gary Johnson. The ticket didn’t do too well, gathering just 4.5 million votes, or about 3 percent of the total.

He wants back into the fight, this time as a Republican.

The McCarthy moment? In 1968, the Vietnam War was raging and Sen. McCarthy, a Minnesota Democrat, mounted a Democratic Party primary challenge against President Lyndon Johnson. McCarthy — a vehement anti-war candidate — took his campaign to the nation’s first primary state, New Hampshire.

He then finished a very strong second to President Johnson, sending shockwaves through the Democratic Party establishment. McCarthy’s strong showing brought Sen. Robert F. Kennedy into the race. Then on March 31, 1968, LBJ spoke to the nation to announce an end to the bombing campaign against North Vietnam — and then said he would not seek or accept the Democratic nomination “for another term as your president.”

History does have a way of repeating itself. If only Gov. Weld can mount any sort of serious challenge to the wack job serving as president of the United States.

One’s hope must spring eternal. Mine does.

political news

Dems worry about intraparty conflict? Get over it!

U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi reportedly is worried that factions within the Democratic Party are too busy fighting with each other while not fighting hard enough against, oh, Donald Trump and the Republicans.

Hey, get over it, Mme. Speaker and your fellow party honchos.

Your friends on the other side have had their share of intraparty squabbles, too. There have been spats between the so-called Establishment Republicans and the TEA Party wing of the GOP; the TEA Party has morphed more or less into something called the Freedom Caucus, which continues to raise Cain against the Establishment types.

The Republican Party is going through much of the same kind of tumult, tempest and turmoil that plagued the Democrats back in the 1960s. Perhaps some of today’s Democratic leaders recall when the Vietnam War split the party — and the nation — between the Hawks and the Doves.

Fights sometimes are worth having

I don’t believe there’s as much to “worry” about as some within today’s Democratic Party seem to suggest there is.

A little internal fighting is good for the organization. It keeps everyone sharp, on both sides. Republicans have sought to take that lesson away during their own ideological struggles.

These lessons know no partisan boundaries.

Donald Trump, national news, political news

How might POTUS defend his record?

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The 2020 presidential election campaign is taking shape. Democrats are lining up seemingly by the dozens to campaign against Donald J. Trump, the Republican incumbent.

I’ll have more to say about the contenders later. Today, I feel the need to explore the type of campaign this incumbent president is going to wage.

Donald Trump had no public service record to commend him for election as president in 2016. He relied instead on a phony argument that he was a self-made zillionaire who worked hard to build a real estate empire from scratch. It turned out that isn’t the case. Voters bought it anyway and he was elected.

Now he’s running for re-election. As the incumbent, the president has a record now on which he must run. He is going to be asked to defend his record. How in the world is he going to do that?

The nation already has undergone two partial government shutdowns on Trump’s watch; a third shutdown might occur at the end of the week. He has groveled in front of Russian strongman Vladimir Putin, refusing to acknowledge publicly that Russians attacked our electoral system in 2016. Trump has heaped praise on North Korean despot Kim Jong Un after threatening to blow his country to smithereens with “fire and fury” the likes of which the world has never seen.

He went to Europe and scolded NATO allies because they weren’t paying more for their defense; along the way he has hinted that the United States might withdraw from its most vital military alliance.

Trump campaigned in 2016 on a pledge to build The Wall along our southern border and said “Mexico is going to pay for it”; Mexico isn’t paying for it, period, meaning that he wants you and me to pay the bill. The president’s rhetorical clumsiness has revealed a host of frightening views, such as his assertion that the KKK/Nazi rally in Charlottesville rally and riot included “fine people, on both sides.”

Now that Trump has a record to defend, I am left to ask: How in the world is this guy going to sell it to voters? How does he reach beyond his base of supporters to ensure that he gets re-elected?

He has spent his term in office kowtowing to his base. He has done damn little to reach beyond that core 38 percent of voters who think he is the best thing to happen since pockets on shirts.

Just as Donald Trump defied conventional wisdom by being elected in 2016 with zero public service experience, he seeks to do it again in 2020 by defending a presidential term that has far less to show for it than he will trumpet along the campaign trail.

He savaged his Republican primary foes with insults and innuendo en route to the GOP nomination in 2016; he continued to toss grenades at Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton. I look for much more of the same from the incumbent this time around.

The 2016 presidential campaign was ugly enough. The 2020 campaign is looking like a bloodbath.

local news, political news

Potential tumult awaits officials in Amarillo

A still-small part of me wishes I could settle into a ringside seat in Amarillo, Texas — where I used to live — to watch what might be a burgeoning political tumult involving two elected governing boards.

One of them is the Amarillo City Council, the other is the Amarillo Independent School District Board of Trustees.

Under the city charter, all five council seats are up for election in odd-numbered years. In 2017, voters elected an entirely new council, which had been roiled in dispute, tension and dissension.

The city has continued its march toward a serious economic revival in the two years since the new council took office. The council did manage to ensnare itself in a controversy involving policies governing public comment at public council meetings. I am not sure whether that tempest has subsided entirely.

Were I to vote in Amarillo, I likely would cast my ballot in favor of returning all the incumbents, if all them run for re-election. That cannot happen, as I now live in Collin County. However, I retain a considerable interest in Amarillo politics. It’s tough to shake it off after living there for 23 years, spending most of that time on post at the Amarillo Globe-News.

The Amarillo ISD board, though, is facing an entirely different circumstance. Three board members’ seats are up this year. AISD voters have a chance to select three new board members. It is my strong hunch they’ll have that chance, given the mess that has been stirred up on the board.

You might know the story. I’ll recap it briefly. An Amarillo High School girls volleyball coach, Kori Clements, quit her job after a single season. She walked away from one of the state’s most storied high school athletic programs, citing what she called parental interference; she also stated publicly that the AISD administration –and the school board — did not have her back.

It gets complicated. The allegedly offending parent reportedly is a member of the school board, who clearly should know better than to meddle in the work of a school district employee. That board member’s seat is not one of the three seats to be decided this year. Her term ends in 2021.

My equally strong hunch is that the three seats to be contested are likely to change hands, given the school board’s stone-cold silence on the coach’s resignation or on the issue that allegedly brought it about.

To be sure, I’ll be watching from afar. I simply hope for wisdom and discernment among voters when they go to the polls later this year. This election could be one for the books.