Monthly Archives: August 2016

national news, political news

Campaign becomes ‘race war of attrition’

ClintonTrump-Split_jpg_800x1000_q100

Donald Trump calls Hillary Clinton a “bigot.”

Clinton says Trump’s campaign is being fueled by white supremacists.

Back and forth they are going. Trump, the Republican presidential nominee, says his Democratic opponent, Clinton, is the enemy of black Americans.

http://www.politico.com/story/2016/08/trump-clinton-bigotry-fight-227443

Is this what we — the voters — are going to get from now until Election Day?

I do hope the campaign can evolve into something a bit more edifying and educational.

I remain befuddled by Trump’s immigration policy … his softening and then re-hardening of his plan to deport undocumented immigrants.

What’s more, I also am equally befuddled as to how Clinton is going to explain whether foreign governments have sought favors from her by their huge donations to the Clinton Foundation and/or the Clinton Global Initiative.

This week, though, the candidates are exchanging rhetorical artillery fire over who between them is more of a bigot.

Is there any reason to doubt just why public opinion surveys indicate such a low opinion of these two major-party candidates for president?

national news, political news

Listen to the doctor, Mr. Trump … on second thought

carson

Ben Carson knows what bigotry looks like.

He also knows that using the term “bigot” in a battle between candidates for the highest public office in the land is counterproductive in the extreme.

The former Republican candidate for president has advised his party’s nominee, Donald J. Trump, to cease calling Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton a bigot.

http://www.politico.com/story/2016/08/ben-carson-trump-clinton-bigot-227453

Dr. Carson said this about Trump’s name-calling:

“I kind of left that behind in the third grade. I certainly don’t encourage it because the issues that we’re facing are incredibly important—for us and for the future generations.”

Do you think Dr. Carson, the surgeon who’s also African-American, will be able to persuade Trump to cool it with the bigot talk?

Probably not.

As Trump’s campaign continues its flailing ways, the candidate is left to say things about Clinton that have nothing at all to do with policy differences he might have with her. Oh, but wait! Trump doesn’t have any policies of his own, which leaves him to rely on the insult machine he oils daily.

Carson, of course, isn’t going to let Clinton off the hook, either. “That’s what people do who don’t have anything to talk about,” he said while referring as well to Clinton’s use of the term “racist” to describe Trump’s statements.

While the Democratic nominee attacks the words that come from her opponent’s mouth, Trump has decided to define his foe’s character by accusing her of being an outright bigot.

This campaign should proceed on a much higher plain.

I fear that it won’t.

political news, State news

Austin is ‘weird,’ all right

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There’s a saying one sees on bumper stickers or on wall posters in Austin, the capital city of Texas.

It urges everyone to “Keep Austin Weird.”

Well, a fellow named Robert Morrow is doing his part. He’s doing more than his part, actually. He’s gone above and beyond the call.

Morrow is the former head of the Travis County Republican Party. He had to quit his party job when he announced he would run as a write-in candidate for president of the United States.

But before he left his party office, Morrow had some choice words to say about the GOP’s presidential nominee.

When Trump appeared at a campaign rally earlier this week in Austin, Morrow paraded outside the meeting hall with a sign that read “Trump is a child rapist.”

https://www.texastribune.org/2016/08/25/travis-county-gop-set-try-oust-morrow/

Morrow said later that the party sought to oust him because he had “embarrassed the living f*** out of Trump.”

Texas GOP Chairman Tom Mechler of Amarillo, of course, is having none of Morrow’s behavior. He wants him gone. Morrow, according to the Texas Tribune, responded by inviting Mechler to “perform a sex act” on him.

Mechler, someone I’ve known for years, is moving forward with selecting a new Travis County party chair.

Good luck, Mr. State Chairman, in that search. Just remember: There’s a reason Austin is proud of its weirdness.

national news, political news

‘Alt-right’ becomes part of the political lexicon

trump-alt-right-supporter

What we used to call “white nationalism” now has a new name.

It’s called “alt-right.”

We all began hearing this term kicked around a few weeks ago. Its use is most commonly heard among progressive politicians, journalists, online news services. It’s being used to define the politics being championed these days by Republican Party presidential nominee Donald J. Trump.

I sincerely doubt we’ll hear right-wing pols and pundits toss this term around.

The term jarred me when I first heard it. It sounded oddly foreign — which is a bit of an ironic feeling, when you think about it.

I’m not yet sure if I’m going to adopt the term for regular use on this blog.

The bit of research of I’ve done on this term has revealed that it doesn’t define an ideology per se. It’s become something of a euphemism to describe those who adhere to white nationalism, white supremacy, anti-Semitism, nativism.

It’s an umbrella term meant to include a multitude of, um, ideas … I reckon.

I’ll likely stick with the real deal.

If I hear someone utter an anti-Semitic epithet, or suggest that immigrants are spoiling the “American culture,” or that white folks are superior to people of other races, I’ll call it what it is.

I’m wondering, though, if those on the right are going to come up with a name for the more progressive politicians and pundits out there.

Does “alt-left” do anything for you?

If so, what principles or policy statements do you suppose it would include?

local news, Sports news

Here’s why minor-league baseball is good for Amarillo

baseball

I’ve spoken already about my hope that Amarillo can reel in a baseball franchise that would play ball in a new downtown ballpark.

What I want to explore briefly here today is why the potential new franchise is so much more desirable than what the city has at this moment, which is a “franchise” in name only.

The current baseball team calls itself the Texas AirHogs. It is an “independent” team that splits its home schedule between Amarillo and Grand Prairie.

When these guys play their Amarillo half of their “home” schedule, they suit up and perform at the Potter County Memorial Stadium, which in reality is a dump.

I’m not sure what next season will bring us. The AirHogs might go somewhere else next year. They might devote their full home schedule to Amarillo. Or, they might decide to stay full-time in Grand Prairie.

The push now is on to lure a Double A franchise from San Antonio. The Missions are affiliated with the San Diego Padres of the National League. The Padres appear to be a well-run major-league franchise. They produced a Hall of Fame outfielder, the late Tony Gwynn. Indeed, Gwynn finished the 1981 season in Amarillo, hitting .462, which was a precursor to the brilliant career he forged with the Padres.

Amarillo is no longer a one-horse burg known only for Cadillac Ranch and the gigantic steak. We’re on the cusp of passing the 200,000-population barrier; we might already have passed it, for all I know. We are blessed with a healthy local economy and an increasingly diversified work force.

The city has committed to building a downtown ballpark. It cost is about $50 million. Demolition and construction will begin perhaps later this year. The city is now negotiating with the sports group that owns the Missions to bring that franchise to the Top of Texas.

My hope is that the city can sell itself to the Missions, persuade them to come here, rather than go somewhere else. My expectation doesn’t yet match my hope, but the gap between them is narrowing.

The Amarillo City Council has done a good job of jerking my emotions around. The council occasionally says the right things to assuage my concerns about the direction the city might be going. Then some council members blurt out intemperate remarks that get people’s attention — for the wrong reasons.

An affiliated minor-league baseball franchise would be wonderful for Amarillo. That it would play baseball in a new venue downtown would produce a fine return on the investment being made in that venue.

Again, this only is a hope, but I think it’s a reasonable one: The crowds attending baseball games downtown could bring plenty of what we could call “recreational revenue” to many of the businesses that would be clustered in the downtown district.

I will presume the city is negotiating with the group that owns the Missions is bargaining in good faith. If it comes to pass, as one council member has suggested will happen soon, then the city will reap the benefit.

How do I know that? It’s happened thousands of times already in many American cities. It surely can happen here.

I believe it will.

political news, State news

Texas GOP coasts while others sweat Trump

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The Texas Tribune headline describes the article below as an analysis of how the Texas Republican Party is so serene in this tumultuous election year.

While other state party leaders are sweating bullets over the fate of their down-ballot candidates in a campaign led by GOP presidential nominee Donald J. Trump, Texas’s Republican Party is as confident as ever about success.

I think I know the reason.

It’s the lack of a viable Texas Democratic Party.

https://www.texastribune.org/2016/08/24/analysis-why-texas-gop-isnt-panicking-over-trump/

Trump continues to hold a lead over Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton in Texas. The latest PPP poll puts Trump up by 6 percent; yes, it’s a smaller margin than what Mitt Romney or John McCain won by over Barack Obama in the previous two elections, but it’s also outside the margin of error.

Ross Ramsey’s piece in the Tribune seeks to break apart where Democrats remain strong and where Republicans maintain their strength.

I think it’s a simpler issue than that.

The Texas Democratic Party hasn’t found its voice. It hasn’t discovered a way to break the GOP vise grip on statewide offices. It hasn’t fielded candidates for statewide or regional offices who can find the magic it takes to persuade diehard Republicans to cross over.

Republicans win in this state simply because they are of the “right” — meaning “correct” — political party.

Trump likely win the state’s 38 electoral votes this fall because (a) we still have straight-ticket voting available and (b) because the state’s Democratic Party doesn’t have the heft to mount any kind of ground game challenge.

Do I wish it were different in Texas? Certainly, but not necessarily for the reason you might think.

Some readers of this blog consider me to be a yellow dog Democrat. Not true. I bemoaned the same one-party domination when I first arrived in Texas back in the spring of 1984. I took up my post with the Beaumont Enterprise, in the Golden Triangle region of the state, where Democrats controlled everything.

I called then for a stronger Republican Party because I feared the dominant party would become arrogant and would force-feed its agenda on constituents without proper debate.

The same thing has happened now that Texas has flipped from solidly Democratic control to even more solidly Republican control.

Texas GOP pols have good reason to feel “sanguine,” as Ramsey states.

They have no competition.

International news, national news, political news

Trump’s ‘softening’ stance on immigration carries huge risk

trump-campaign-signals-possible-shift-on-immigration-stance-1471865686-3208

Donald J. Trump’s apparent — and it’s not quite clear — decision to pull back from his signature issue while running for the Republican presidential nomination is, to borrow a word, y-u-u-u-g-e!

But not in the way the GOP nominee perhaps is expecting.

Trump rode down that escalator at Trump Tower in the summer of 2015 to announce his presidential campaign and declared right out of the chute that he plans to “build a wall” across our southern border with Mexico. He said the Mexican government is sending “rapists, murderers, drug dealers” into the United States, adding “and I’m sure there are some good ones, too.”

He also announced his plan to deport every single one of the 11-12 million people who reportedly are here illegally. He was going to send them back.

What about the children who were born in this country? Family unity? Forget about it! “The illegals” are going back!

The response from the Republican Party base voters was, well, astonishing. They loved it. They adored and embraced their guy for “telling it like is.” No more political correctness, they said; we won’t tolerate it.

It got him the GOP nomination fair and square. Now, though, he’s struggling with the rest of the electorate. His cure to end the struggle is to sound as if he’s taking back the single issue that marked him as the “future of the Republican Party.”

How’s that going to play among the GOP base bloc that is standing by its man. I know a few of them here in the Texas Panhandle. I’m waiting to hear their response.

Will they continue to support the guy, the man with zero government experience, zero public service record, zero idea of what the U.S. Constitution allows the president to do, zero demonstrated interest in a single thing except personal enrichment?

The TEA Party wing of the GOP has wrapped its arms around Trump to date because of his rejection of what they call the “status quo.” What say those folks now?

As for the rest of the voters whose support he is seeking, they likely understand what is transpiring. Donald Trump has no clue about how to develop a cogent, coherent immigration policy. They are witnessing a desperate attempt to make sense out of nonsense.

national news, political news

Presidential ‘vacations’ … don’t occur

vacations-retreats-10-A

Barack Obama is back at his post in the Oval Office.

He’s making decisions, doing things that presidents do during the course of their regular work day.

Welcome back to the People’s House, Mr. President. But I am not going to ding you for spending some time away from the place with your wife and daughters.

Presidents don’t take “vacations” the way you and I do. They do not “get away from it all.” The “all” follows them wherever they do. The guy with the “football” — the briefcase containing the nuclear launch codes — is never more than a few yards from the commander in chief. The president gets national security and domestic issue briefings daily. He’s never off the clock.

Now, I say this having already said that the president needed to go to Louisiana to tour the horrific flood damage. He could have taken a day from his “vacation” to hug some folks in trouble.

He chose not to do that, going instead to Louisiana after returning to the White House. Well, no harm done.

All this yammering about the president’s “vacation” ignores the point I’ve tried to make here. I’ve never — ever — made presidential vacations an issue. President George W. Bush spent many more days away from the White House than his successor. Big deal, man! President Bush had the same security briefings while he was cutting brush at his Central Texas ranch. Same with Presidents Bill Clinton, George H.W. Bush and Ronald Reagan.

So, let’s stop carping about presidential “vacations.”

They don’t exist the way you and I experience them. That’s because the president of the United States occupies the most demanding job on the planet.

national news, political news

Let’s see the audit letter, Mr. Trump

tax-return-form

Republican presidential nominee Donald J. Trump has made a lot of noise about several aspects of Barack Obama personal history.

* He demanded to see a birth certificate proving that Barack Sr. and Ann Dunham Obama’s son was born in Hawaii and not in Kenya. The president produced a long-firm birth certificate issued in Honolulu. Trump still isn’t convinced that, yep, Barack Obama is constitutionally qualified to hold the most powerful office in the world.

* He continues to demand to see academic records of young Barack’s college career.

So, how is he dealing with demands that he reveal his tax returns, which has been a custom for major-party presidential nominees dating back to the 1976 campaign?

He refuses. Trump says he is being audited by the Internal Revenue Service; the IRS, though, says a routine audit does not impede someone from releasing the returns.

So, as long as Trump has been making demands of, say, the president of the United States to prove certain things about his past, let’s try this one on for size.

Why won’t Trump release a copy of the letter from the IRS informing him of the audit?

No one has seen the letter.

I believe, therefore, it is fair to ask: Is Donald J. Trump really and truly being audited by the IRS?

Well … ?

local news, Sports news

Is an Amarillo baseball deal at hand?

ballpark

“Amarillo Councilman Randy Burkett said he expects his city’s leaders will sign an agreement with Elmore Sports Group in late September or early October.”

— From an Amarillo Globe-News Facebook post

What prompts Councilman Burkett to make such a bold prediction? Lubbock missed a deadline to put a proposed tax increase on the November ballot that would pay for construction of a new baseball stadium.

Lubbock’s late entry into the baseball franchise hunt appeared for a moment to hinder Amarillo’s own quest.

Thus, the deck now appears cleared for Amarillo to negotiate aggressively to bring the Double A minor-league baseball franchise to the High Plains. The franchise currently does business as the San Antonio Missions.

The Missions are planning to vacate the Alamo City, which is angling to bring in a Triple A franchise.

I am not privy to the goings-on at City Hall. I just sit out here in the peanut gallery hoping for the best.

And “the best” appears, if Burkett is correct, to be taking shape.

Amarillo is set to begin making room for its downtown ballpark. Crews will begin demolition of the old Coca-Cola distribution building across the street from City Hall. Once the lot is swept clean, then the plan is to build the multipurpose event venue that voters endorsed with their November 2015 referendum vote.

So, if an agreement is about a month away, then the franchise that now plays hard ball in San Antonio will bring its act to Amarillo — hopefully soon.

Then the city can have a legitimate minor-league baseball franchise to root for in a shiny new ballpark. It would be a significant improvement over the half-in, half-out bunch that splits “home” games between Amarillo and Grand Prairie and plays half of its “home” schedule at a rat hole ball park at the Tri-State Fairgrounds.

Amarillo can do better than that.