Monthly Archives: June 2016

national news, political news, religious news

Profiling Muslims a possibility … seriously?

don trump

The presumptive Republican presidential nominee, Donald J. Trump, thinks profiling Muslims is something that U.S. law enforcement should consider.

Yes, that’s right. The nation that proclaims itself to be the champion of religious freedom, where the government doesn’t care which faith you worship … or even whether you worship at all, should consider singling out Muslims, according to Trump.

But wait a second! Hasn’t Trump proposed banning Muslims from entering the United States? Who, then, is he suggesting we profile?

Oh, I get it. That would be Americans!

I’ll set aside the obvious — in my view — un-American aspect of such a proposal.

How does one identify a Muslim? Would it be the scarves that women often wear? Would it be the names of the individuals being profiled? How does law enforcement discern who deserves profiling and who doesn’t?

I ask these questions because Muslims come from all ethnic backgrounds. What about the red-headed and freckle-faced Irish man or woman who converts to Islam? Or the blue-eyed blond from Scandinavia?

Oh, and then you have, say, the Palestinian who happens to be Christian. I have a bit of experience with meeting someone of that ilk. In 2009, my wife and I toured Bethlehem on the West Bank. Our tour guide? A young Palestinian who proclaimed his love of Jesus Christ as “our Lord and Savior.”

Trump told CBS’s “Face the Nation” host John Dickerson this morning that we ought to follow the model set by Israel, which he said profiles Muslims.

I’ll just add one more bit of personal privilege here. Having traveled to Israel and endured the grilling by security officers at David Ben-Gurion International Airport, I can state without reservation that the Israelis profile everyone who leaves the country through the Tel Aviv airport.

Take my word for it, you haven’t lived until you’ve been interrogated by an Israeli airport security guard.

http://www.politico.com/story/2016/06/donald-trump-muslims-profiling-224529

Trump told Dickerson he hates “the concept of profiling.”

Fine. So do I. So should all Americans.

national news, political news, Uncategorized

So much grist on which to comment this election year

2 Comments

trump

I ran into a former colleague of mine at the grocery store in southwest Amarillo this afternoon.

We exchanged pleasantries, talked a little about how he’s doing at the Amarillo Globe-News, where I toiled along with him for a number of years; he offered me a glimpse of the pressure he’s feeling in this new era of daily print journalism, as he’s wearing multiple hats these days.

My friend then paid me what I took as a compliment when he said, “I enjoy reading your blog … especially the stuff you’re writing about the election.”

Ah, yes. I took a breath. “God bless Donald Trump,” I told him. “He’s giving me so much material.”

Indeed, it never seems to end with Trump as he marches toward the Republican Party’s presidential nomination.

I told my friend that my confidence in an early prediction I made about a Hillary Clinton landslide was shaken a bit as Trump closed in on the magic number of delegates he needed to secure the GOP nomination. He seemed to pick up some momentum.

However, as I mentioned to my young friend, that confidence is being restored a bit by the unrest and unease being expressed by Republicans about the man they are about to nominate. Their angst is brought forward by the manner in which Trump has responded to recent crises and the continuing barrage of insults and innuendo he’s leveling at his critics.

Just so you know, I pay hardly zero attention to what the Democrats are saying about the prospect of running against Trump. I’ll just remind my Democratic friends out there what the Democratic moguls were saying back in 1980 when that cowboy former California governor/movie actor, Ronald Reagan, decided to run for president. Why, they couldn’t wait to run against The Gipper.

Bring him on! they crowed. We’ll make mincemeat of him.

It didn’t work out too well for President Carter, as he won a grand total of six states and lost by 10 percentage points in a serious landslide.

Republicans that year were brimming with confidence. This year it’s a different story, with Trump set to mount his steed while carrying the GOP banner into battle against Clinton and the Democrats.

My trouble with this blog that I write is that I’m having trouble focusing on things other than the myriad negatives that Trump is bringing to this campaign. I feel almost as though I need an intervention.

I’m going to try to do a better job from this point forward in finding some positive policy topics on which to comment. I can project with decent certainty that Trump won’t provide them.

I’ll have to look elsewhere.

When I find those topics, you’ll be the first to know.

national news, political news

Bad options await GOP convention delegates

Donald-Trump-Bad-Hair-Photo-1

If you’re a Republican intending to take part in your party’s presidential nominating convention, you are facing at least two seriously grim options.

The Dump/Never/Anyone But Trump movement has resurfaced — more or less — in the wake of presumptive presidential nominee Donald J. Trump’s latest volley of outrageous rhetoric.

It goes like this: Convention delegates might be given a chance to opt out of voting for the candidate to whom they are pledged. Thus, the belief lingers that enough of Trump’s delegates might decide to abstain on the first ballot and then free themselves to vote for someone else on a subsequent round of balloting.

All hell would break loose.

This bodes poorly for the GOP as it prepares to face the Democratic nominee, Hillary Rodham Clinton.

So does the alternative, which is to nominate Trump.

Why the grim outlook?

Option No. 1: Nominate Trump and let him go down in flames.

Trump’s campaign is in a state of disarray. He made an empty pledge to become “more presidential,” only to revert to his insults, name-calling and innuendo. The Orlando massacre brought out the latest from Trump, when he boasted about “being right” about the threat of Islamic terrorism — while the nation was mourning the loss of 49 lives in that nightclub.

He is likely to continue railing, ranting and raving. He suggested the president of the United States might have some nefarious motive in refusing to identify the threat as coming from “radical Islamic terrorists.”

Trump’s hideous innuendo has managed to anger many within his party. Some key officeholders have pulled their endorsements. House Speaker Paul Ryan has told members of Congress they are welcome to “vote their conscience.”

Some of then actually might let their conscience support someone else, which might also carry over to their constituents out here in Voterland.

Option No. 2: Let the delegates pick someone else.

This is highly unlikely to happen. The reason might be the reality that Trump won more delegates than anyone else, by a mile, during the primary season. He collected a record number of GOP-primary votes. He won 38 states fairly and squarely.

To deny him the nomination after he won the war of attrition against 16 primary foes would be seen as a serious slap against those who voted for him.

If the delegates mount their coup and deny Trump his nomination, well, then you’re talking about a serious revolt occurring with the Republican Party.

The first option look bad for Republicans, given the nature of Trump’s temperament.

The second option looks even worse, given the reaction that would occur from those who have backed him to the hilt.

Good luck, GOP convention delegates. You’ll need it.

national news, political news

As nation grieves, Trump boasts

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“Temperamentally unfit … ”

We’re likely to hear that a lot during the next few months as Hillary Rodham Clinton campaigns for president of the United States against Donald J. Trump.

Examples? We’ve got plenty of them.

The latest example of temperamental unfitness presented itself in the hours after this past weekend’s slaughter of 49 people at the Pulse, an Orlando, Fla., nightclub.

The nation went into shock at the most gruesome mass murder in U.S. history. Trump’s response was to send out a tweet that boasted about how he predicted that Islamic terrorists were going to strike.

Trump said he called it. He was right. The president of the United States has been “weak” in the fight against terrorism, he said.

Republican insiders now are saying that Trump blew it badly by bragging during this time of national bereavement. “Only an a**hole says ‘I told you so’ the same day 49 people are killed on American soil by a terrorist,” said a New Hampshire Republican, who, like all respondents, completed the survey anonymously, according to Politico.

http://www.politico.com/story/2016/06/trump-orlando-response-224479

The massacre in Orlando has been generally categorized as an act of terror. The killer — an American — seems to have been radicalized by his fealty to the Islamic State.

It’s also been called the “worst act of terror on U.S. soil since 9/11.” That’s now a given.

I now shall remind us all of what national security officials said in the wake of the 9/11 attacks. Almost to a person they predicted then that we’d get hit again. That the terrorists had smelled our blood and they wanted more of it.

It’s also been a given that we would feel this kind of pain.

Trump’s braggadocio was so profoundly inappropriate that it only feeds the narrative that Hillary Clinton is going to recite time and again as she campaigns for the presidency.

political news, State news

Clinton, Trump: party unifiers

donald

Texas Democrats are meeting in San Antonio this weekend.

They appear to be downright giddy about their chances in this election year. Then again, they proclaim their giddiness at every election cycle, only to be disappointed when the ballots are counted.

Do you remember when former state Sen. Wendy Davis of Fort Worth ran for governor in 2014 and how Democrats said that was the year? It wasn’t. Republican Attorney General Greg Abbott thumped Davis by more than 20 percentage points.

That was then, Democrats are saying now.

They’re squaring off against a Republican Party being led by one Donald J. Trump as their party’s presidential nominee.

State Sen. Rodney Ellis of Houston asked convention attendees: “Can you really believe that they nominated Donald Trump?” Why, the delegates couldn’t get enough of the “good news.”

Trump is going to be the unifier the Democrats need to help them carry Texas this fall with Hillary Rodham Clinton at the top of their ticket.

https://www.texastribune.org/2016/06/18/analysis-republican-whos-keeping-texas-democrats-t/

But here comes the wet blanket.

Hillary Clinton is going to unify the Republicans, too.

There are differing dynamics, as I see it, working against both parties’ presumed nominees.

Democrats cannot believe that Trump — the huckster, reality TV celebrity, hotel and real estate mogul, thrice-married media star — is actually running for president of the United States of America. They dare not take him too lightly, and delegates are being warned of the risks inherent if they do.

Republicans, meanwhile, detest Clinton. They’ve been looking high and low for something that rises to the level of an indictment. They can’t find anything. They’ve hated her since her husband was president from 1993 to 2001.

I’m not going to project which emotion — the Democrats’ perverse joy or the Republicans’ loathing — is going to be the greater partisan unifying effect.

The major concern facing Republicans in Texas might not be the Democrats. It might be that their own party is showing signs of splitting apart because of their nominee’s own trouble within the party he wants to lead.

That, all by itself, might be enough to put Texas in play for Democrats, giving them a real honest-to-goodness reason for optimism.

national news, political news, religious news

Trump having trouble with key GOP bloc

trump mormons

They’re calling it a “Mormon wall.”

The term describes a critically important Republican bloc of voters who normally stand firm behind the party’s presidential nominee … who doesn’t have to share the faith of those voters to win their hearts and minds.

Donald J. Trump is seeking to court Mormon voters in Nevada, which is emerging as one of those battleground states where he and Democratic nominee Hillary Rodham Clinton will pay careful attention.

Trump, the presumptive GOP nominee, isn’t winning them over.

http://www.politico.com/story/2016/06/donald-trump-mormons-nevada-224504

The 2012 Republican nominee Mitt Romney is a devout Mormon. He won big in neighboring Utah, which was settled in the 19th century by Mormon missionaries. President Barack Obama, however, captured Nevada in 2008 and 2012.

This is worth noting because of Trump’s claim to be a social conservative who now believes in the Republican Party platform that opposes issues such as abortion and marriage equality.

Mormon voters who comprise such a solid Republican bloc aren’t too keen on the guy who’s about to become the party’s next presidential nominee.

According to Politico: “Usually our people are very involved in being engaged, trying to get other people engaged,” said Cory Christensen, a GOP operative active in the LDS community, who hasn’t decided yet whether to support Trump. “Some very significant, key people that are seen as political leaders—that aren’t elected officials but everybody knows they are involved, and look to them for advice—those people are not making the calls, doing the work, selling people on the fact that they need to be with him. That’s where the big impact would be felt.”

Politico also reports that Mormons comprise only about 4 percent of Nevada’s population, but they do make up a large concentration in Clark County, which includes Las Vegas, the rapidly growing largest city in Nevada.

I believe Trump’s difficulty with the Mormon bloc of GOP voters bodes poorly for how he intends to fare with other staunchly conservatives within the Republican Party. Will they cast their votes for Hillary Clinton to “protest” Trump’s bizarre behavior? Hardly. They’re likely to vote for someone else, or not vote at all for president.

This puts the GOP ticket led by Donald J. Trump potentially in some seriously deep doo-doo.

local news

No Muslim, no terrorist

crime-scene-tape

Crises have this way of turning normally rational people into jittery jive talkers.

Americans were reeling this past weekend from the news out of Orlando, Fla., where someone opened fire in a nightclub and killed 49 people in the worst mass murder in U.S. history.

The police killed the gunman.

It turns out the monster who did this deed was an American, born in New York state. He was a Muslim. His parents were Afghan immigrants. He supposedly pledged allegiance to the Islamic State before committing his horrendous act.

Two days later, a guy walks into an Amarillo Walmart store, takes a couple of hostages, fires a gun into the ceiling and then is shot to death by Amarillo Police Department SWAT officers.

How did the hair-trigger rumor mill handle this? It went wild.

The gunman was “identified” — by whom remains unclear, I guess — as a Somali Muslim immigrant. I would bet anyone some real American money that a lot of Amarillo residents suspected the guy had terrorist leanings.

He didn’t. It turns out he wasn’t from Somalia. He was from Iran. He wasn’t even a Muslim. He was a Baha’i, which is one of the most peaceful religions on the planet.

Mohammad Sadegh Moghaddam left Iran in 2003. He came to the United States to start a new life. He fled the repression and terror of his homeland. He was married; he had children. He became a naturalized U.S. citizen.

This man worked at Walmart. But he got into a dispute with a store manager. Something snapped.

http://m.amarillo.com/obituaries/2016-06-17/walmart-hostage-taker-neither-muslim-nor-terrorist#gsc.tab=0

The tragedy in Orlando won’t wash away anytime soon. Americans are fearful of what might happen in their communities, no matter where they live.

Amarillo is not immune from that fear, as we learned from the incident at Walmart and the reaction in its immediate aftermath.

That fear, though, mustn’t consume us and lead us toward erroneous conclusions about those who react badly to circumstances that lead to violence.

 

media news, national news, political news

‘Thin skin’ label gets under Trump’s thin skin

donald-trump

Elizabeth Warren calls it as she sees it.

Donald J. Trump, says the senior U.S. senator from Massachusetts, is a “thin-skinned racist bully.”

So the attack continues. It will continue through the rest of this political campaign as Trump runs for the presidency against his certain Democratic Party opponent, Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Trump’s camp needs to worry about their guy.

The presumptive Republican Party presidential nominee has demonstrated time and again an inability to answer criticism of his statements and what passes for “policy” without resorting to name-calling and insults.

Take his standard-fare response to Warren’s criticism. He keeps referring to her as “Pocahontas.” Why? It’s because Warren claims to have some Native American ancestry in her background.

When the criticism comes from Clinton, Trump responds with “Crooked Hillary” barbs. Former GOP foes Ted Cruz became “Lyin’ Ted,” Marco Rubio became “Little Marco,” and Jeb Bush became “Low Energy Jeb.”

Trump has labeled the media as “sleazy,” “dishonest,” “pathetic,” and “phony.” Why? Because the media have shown the temerity to report on negative elements of Trump’s past.

I’m sure someone within Trump’s inner circle — if he’s actually got one — will need to inform him of this truth.

“Donald, it’s not going to get any easier from this day forward. In fact, dude, it’s going to get even rougher. The more insults and pejorative labels you sling at your critics, the more they’re going to come back at you.

“It’s long past time, Donald, for you to start arguing policy differences with Hillary.

“However, first things first. You’ve got to come with a set of policies you can call your own.”

Will he heed that advice?

I’d wager — if I were a betting man — he’ll ignore it … at enormous political peril.

education news

Teacher of the year now going to teach more teachers

shanna

I have this friend — with whom I used to work in a previous life — who this past year received the highest honor someone in her profession can get.

She was named National Teacher of the Year. Shanna Peeples went to the White House, where she was honored by President Barack Obama, who said many wonderful things about her and the dedication she has demonstrated in educating young people.

Peeples, quite naturally, turned the emphasis on her colleagues who also were gathered on the White House lawn. Shanna accepted the teacher of the year award in their honor, she said.

What makes her such a stellar teacher? Her undying love of the children who learn from her. She teaches English … and until just recently she was teaching students at Palo Duro High School in Amarillo.

Now, though, she’s being promoted.

The Amarillo Independent School District has decided to put her teaching skills to work at a higher level. As Peeples writes about her new assignment: ” … I’ve been trusted with the task that my friend, Jennifer Wilkerson has done so well for our district: Core Curriculum Specialist, ELAR 6-12. For my non-Ed-jargon friends: that’s the responsibility for growing teachers and shaping literacy learning in middle and high school.”

Are we clear? She’s going to teach the teachers how to do their jobs better. At least that’s what I read in what she wrote.

https://www.facebook.com/notes/shanna-peeples/you-cant-burn-the-suit/10209664555035203?utm_content=buffer7daf4&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer

The next thing I want to say might be taken the wrong way. I do not intend at all to sound like a Negative Norm. There’s a certain irony, it seems to me, in taking a teacher who’s just been told she’s the best in the nation at what she does and then assigning her to do something different.

Shanna Peeples certainly doesn’t dismiss the new task she’s been given at Amarillo ISD. Nor do I. Her many friends throughout the Texas Panhandle are proud of her and proud of what she has accomplished in the classroom.

Her emphasis now will be on helping other classroom teachers become the best they can be, which then will enable them to pass on the joy of learning to the young people assembled before them.

As Shanna writes: “God help me, I’m a teacher. As I told a radio interviewer: ‘It’s like Peter Parker being bitten by the radioactive spider. You can’t just quit being a teacher like I say, quit being a deejay or a short order cook at the bowling alley. You’re a teacher for life.’

“Trust me, I’ll have plenty of assignments for other people. This work is big, important work. And it won’t ever be even partway done before I die. But that’s what makes it worth giving my heart to. And my heart is with teachers as much as it is with students. Always and always and always.”
Well said. As always.
national news

Lower the flags, fella!

flag

Tucker Dorsey needs to have his head examined.

He might be certifiably … well, let’s just say he’s as wrong as he can be.

Dorsey chairs the Baldwin County, Ala., commission. He has refused to order flags on county buildings lowered to half-staff in honor of the 49 people slaughtered this past weekend in Orlando, Fla., per orders from President Obama and Alabama Gov. Robert Bentley.

What passes for Dorsey’s “reasoning” defies logic, common sense and several basic tenets of human decency.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/alabama-county-wont-lower-flags-for-orlando-victims/ar-AAhgaQ1?li=BBnb7Kz

According to CBSNews.com: “Once again I have to copy this post regarding lowering the flags because another follower of Islam decided to shoot up a bunch of innocents in a place where they didn’t have the chance to defend themselves or flee,” Dorsey began a Facebook post explaining the decision. “When are we going to acknowledge the truth? When will we stop the PC and identify the enemy?”

I’m a bit slow on the uptake at times, but someone’s got to explain what political correctness and “identifying the enemy” has to do with honoring the memories of those who died at the hands of a madman.

There’s more. Again, from CBSNews.com:

“When the flag is at half-staff, our country’s head is figuratively held low, and quite frankly, I am not willing to hang my head down because of a terrorist attack against our people and our allies,” Dorsey said. “I am not willing to hang my head down because evil shoots up a church, school, or movie theater. We need more than a gesture as a response. I want us, as Americans, to stand tall, courageously, and fight back against the forces of evil, and let’s fight like we intend to win.”

Good grief, dude. You grieve for the lives lost. Then you resolve to do what you must to eradicate the evil that resulted in this tragedy.

What is so difficult about doing that?

And despite what this guy says, lowering the flags to half-staff to mourn these national tragedies is quite consistent with long-standing tradition.