Monthly Archives: January 2017

business news

Well done on job growth, Mr. President

The final monthly job-growth report card is in on President Obama’s two terms.

* 156,000 non-farm jobs were added to the nation’s payrolls in December.

* Joblessness ticked up to 4.7 percent.

* The president goes out of office while the nation enjoys 75 consecutive months of job growth, the longest such streak since 1939.

Not bad a legacy, Mr. President.

To be sure, the economic recovery hasn’t been as robust as Obama’s team would have wished. Wages haven’t grown as much; many jobs have been lost to automation as well as some companies have decided to take them offshore.

However, I need to say once again — with emphasis! — that the economy is nowhere near the dire straits that Obama’s foes have suggested. The foe in chief, the president-elect, injected a lot of unfounded fear in the hearts and minds of voters with suggestions that the economy was heading straight to hell. Donald J. Trump parlayed that fear into enough votes to be elected president.

http://thehill.com/policy/finance/312977-december-jobs-report

We aren’t where we need to be economically. The nation, though, is a heck of a lot closer to that destination than it was when Barack Obama became president of the United States.

Well done, sir.

International news

‘No. 1 geopolitical threat’ cheers Trump victory

Let’s see how this has gone.

Four years ago, Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney said Russia had emerged as the nation’s “No. 1 geopolitical threat.” Liberals scoffed at Mitt; I was one of them. What do you mean, Gov. Romney? Those Russians don’t pose any serious threat to the world’s most exceptional nation.

Then in 2016, Russians are now known to be cheering the election of the latest GOP nominee, Donald J. Trump.

CIA intercepts have captured information revealing that our former top geopolitical foe was acting mighty happy at the prospect of Trump would become president of the United States.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/us-intercepts-capture-senior-russian-officials-celebrating-trump-win/ar-BBxWUUL?li=BBnb7Kz

Senior Russian officials were simply thrilled that Americans had elected someone friendly to their world view.

What gives here? Are they are our friends or foes?

Oh, wait! The president-elect has dismissed allegations that the Russians hacked our election system; Director of National Intelligence James Clapper (pictured) has “no doubt” the Russians did as they have accused of doing. Trump has nominated ExxonMobil CEO Rex Tillerson to be secretary of state; Tillerson has a close personal and professional relationship with Russian President (and former KGB boss) Vladimir Putin, who once awarded Tillerson the Medal of Friendship.

This is just me, but I wouldn’t trust this so-called “friend” as far as I can throw him.

military news, national news, political news

Trump is about to get an earful from U.S. spooks

My fondest wish at this very moment is to be a fly on the wall at the Trump Tower office where the president-elect of the United States is going to hear from the intelligence he has disparaged about what they know about Russian efforts to hack into our electoral process.

Donald Trump is playing host Friday to the director of national intelligence, the Defense Intelligence Agency director, the National Security Agency and the Central Intelligence Agency. They’re going to tell them what they know about Russian efforts to influence the presidential election we just endured.

Will the president-elect disparage these intelligence professionals to their faces? Will he tell them they don’t know what they’re talking about? Will he stand by the assertions of the WikiLeaks founder, Julian Assange, who’s been hiding in a foreign embassy to avoid prosecution on criminal charges?

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/six-big-take-aways-from-the-extraordinary-congressional-hearing-on-russian-hacking/ar-BBxWytL?li=BBmkt5R&ocid=spartandhp

DNI Jim Clapper said there’s a line between honest skepticism and “disparagement.” Indeed, Trump has disparaged the intelligence community’s ability to do its job, which is to provide national security information that presidents need to protect Americans from foreign adversaries.

Clapper was one of the intelligence honchos who spoke today to the U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee about the Russian hacking story. It was an amazing hearing. It produced pointed questions about the doubts that Trump has cast on the intelligence community. It also produced amazing answers from the intelligence pros about whether they would believe Julian Assange’s assertions dismissing Russian involvement in these hacking efforts.

The hearing today was a preliminary event, a setup for the main event set for Friday at Trump Tower.

I need serious help as I seek to turn into that fly on the wall. Oh, to listen to what the spooks tell Trump the evidence they have about Russian hackers.

local news, political news

Getting to know a possible mayor

I shook the hand of a most engaging young woman today.

She is a candidate for Amarillo mayor. I had heard from friends of mine around the city that she’s the real article: smart, articulate, dedicated to the city’s well-being.

I am a believer.

Ginger Nelson spoke to the Rotary Club of Amarillo today at noon. She wasn’t there to talk about her mayoral candidacy. She spoke to us about her ownership of the Amarillo Building, which she and her husband Kevin have owned for the past several years.

A mutual friend of ours introduced me to her when I arrived at our meeting venue.

I believe she would do a marvelous job as the city mayor. The first impression I got was, well, impressive.

https://highplainsblogger.com/2016/12/welcome-to-the-fray-mayoral-candidate-nelson/

I was impressed by the passion with which she spoke about the Amarillo Building, which has a remarkable history. Nelson — a lawyer and a former member of the Amarillo Economic Development Corporation — offers a vision of how our past shapes our future. She seems to believe the Amarillo Building’s past is just a prologue to whatever comes along.

To hear her deliver the message and to hear the love she has in that piece of downtown Amarillo property is to get a brief preview of how this person could use the mayor’s office as the bulliest of pulpits.

My strongest sense, given her commitment to economic development and the need for the city to pull together as one, is that she will use that pulpit with great wisdom.

Ginger Nelson looks — at first glance — like the real deal.

military news

POTUS pays glowing tribute to those ‘who do the work’

Barack Obama said it as well as it can possibly be said.

The president bid farewell this week to the men and women who serve and protect us. They wear the uniform of the “greatest military in the history of the world,” he said.

The president reminded them — and the rest of the nation — that he is the “front man.” As commander in chief of that awesome military establishment, he gets his share of the credit for the successes achieved in defense of the nation.

“You do the work,” he told the men and women who he served as commander in chief.

Americans heard a lot of rhetoric during the recent presidential campaign about a military establishment in decline. They heard from the president-elect, who declared he knows “more about ISIS than the general.” Americans were subjected to put-downs and insults of our military forces who fight every day against international terrorists.

That kind of characterization does them a profound disservice.

I was glad to hear the commander in chief say the things he said to Defense Secretary Ashton Carter, to Vice President Joe Biden, to the Joint Chiefs of Staff, to the service secretaries and to the warriors who take essentially the same oath taken by the president himself.

President Obama also stated correctly that the young Americans who answer the call to put themselves in harm’s way “are among the greatest generations.”

Let us never forget what they do.

Thank you as well, Mr. President, for your service to the country.

national news

Size may matter at the next inaugural

Size became something of a back-story issue during the 2016 presidential campaign.

Donald J. Trump boasted continually about the size of the crowds at his rallies. He compared them to those of his Republican Party primary rivals and then to those of Democratic Party nominee Hillary Rodham Clinton.

And, oh yeah, size of an entirely different kind became a talking point during one of those endless GOP presidential debate with Trump and his horde of challengers. I won’t go any further with that one.

But, take a peek at the picture attached to this blog post.

It was taken on Jan. 20, 2009, when Barack H. Obama delivered his first inaugural speech in front of the U.S. Capitol Building. The size of that crowd is now generally accepted as the largest assemblage ever for a presidential inaugural. The previous record crowd was thought to be at President Lyndon Johnson’s inaugural on Jan. 20, 1965.

LBJ had just been elected in his own right in a historic landslide and he — like Obama — took office amid a national mood of hope for a better day. Lord knows the country had gone through the tragic nightmare of a presidential assassination in November 1963.

My thought, then, is this: Will Donald Trump be able to boast about the size of the crowd that gathers before him in 14 days as he delivers his inaugural speech?

That ol’ trick knee of mine is telling me the Trump inaugural crowd is going to be, um, substantially smaller than the one pictured with his post.

And it well could speak volumes about the hope — or the lack of hope — much of the country will feel when the new president takes the oath of office.

But, hey. It’s only a crowd and in this context — in the world of Trump — size really doesn’t matter.

Or does it?

legal news

Killer tests anti-death penalty principle

I just can’t stand it when one of my long-standing principles gets tested by sociopathic monsters.

It is happening now as I listen to the rantings of the young man who opened fire in that Charleston, S.C., church, killing nine people with whom he had been praying just moments earlier.

A trial jury has convicted the killer — who I will continue to refuse to identify by name — of multiple murder. The moron then fired his defense counsel and is representing himself in the sentencing phase of the trial.

The judge questioned the killer’s ability to provide himself with an adequate defense. The killer said there is “nothing wrong” with his mind. I guess the judge believes him. Fine.

This individual is going to get the death penalty.

My own view against capital punishment is steeped in my belief that it does nothing to deter people from committing the kinds of acts that occurred in Charleston. The shooter surely knew what awaited him when he opened fire on the people inside the church.

The killer, a racist who admits to wanting to start a race war by killing the nine African-Americans in the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church, is beyond redemption. He says now he has no regrets over what he did; he will not apologize for it.

Although I still believe that capital punishment is the wrong way to punish this monster, I won’t grieve for one moment when the state finally puts him down.

business news, entertainment news

Craft beer: Is its time coming in Amarillo?

Take a look at this illustration. The building it depicts is going to be built in downtown Amarillo.

What’s it called? Six Car Pub & Brewery.

Yep. It will be a brew pub, a place where one can purchase a cold one brewed in the back room. Right there. On site.

I have lived in Texas for nearly 33 years. We moved to Beaumont in the spring of 1984, gravitating to Amarillo early in 1995. I’ve never quite understood why craft breweries have not yet become part of either city’s commercial landscape.

My family and I moved to Texas from a community in the Pacific Northwest where craft beer has become the norm; it’s part of life in Portland, Ore. If you’ve been to the City of Roses, you’ll see a city bursting with life that includes brew pubs throughout its downtown district — and in neighborhoods all over the city.

Will the Six Car operation break the mold in Amarillo? Will it become the first of many such outfits here in the Yellow City? I do hope so. It’s not that I am going to consume a lot of beer at this place; I drink little of it, although I do like the taste of a cold one on a hot day.

We had that brewery on Olsen Boulevard. Then it closed. The Big Texan now has a brewery on site. If there are other such sites in Amarillo, I’m unaware of them.

Now we’re getting this Six Car Pub at Seventh Avenue and Polk Street.

This clearly is part of what appears to be the fundamental reshaping of Amarillo’s once-moribund downtown district. They’ve cleared the site where they hope to build the multipurpose event venue. The Embassy Suites hotel job is getting closer to its finish, right along with that parking garage next door.

Even though I don’t intend to imbibe regularly at this new place, my enthusiasm for its presence in downtown Amarillo is no less vigorous. My hope for the city is that it signals a new era as the city continues reshaping its downtown district.

And no, I’m not advocating that Amarillo become a city of drunkards and sloths. I do advocate that the city transform its central business district into a top-tier after-hours place where residents can chill out, relax and enjoy a better quality of life.

legal news, national news, political news

SCOTUS fight drips with irony

I cannot resist commenting on the irony that envelops the upcoming fight over filling the ninth seat on the U.S. Supreme Court.

Donald J. Trump is going to nominate someone to fill the seat vacated by the death of conservative icon Justice Antonin Scalia. U.S. Senate Democrats are vowing to fight whoever the new president nominates.

For the record, I’ll stipulate once again that I believe strongly in presidential prerogative on these appointments. I believe the president deserves to select whoever he wants to sit on the highest court; I also believe in the Senate’s “advise and consent” role in deciding whether to approve these nominations.

http://www.politico.com/story/2017/01/senate-supreme-court-fight-mitch-mcconnell-chuck-schumer-233194

But here’s where the irony covers this discussion.

Senate Republicans blocked President Barack Obama’s effort to nominate a centrist jurist, Merrick Garland, to the seat after Scalia died. They denied Garland a hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee. They said within hours of Scalia’s death that Obama must not be allowed to fill the seat; that task, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said, belonged to the new president.

Senate Republicans denied Barack Obama the opportunity to fulfill his constitutional responsibility. They engaged in a shameless — and shameful — game of politics.

Their response now? Why, they just cannot believe that Democrats might vote en masse against anyone Trump nominates. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer vows that Democrats are going to dig in against anyone Trump picks for the court.

Revenge, anyone?

Senate Democrats likely cannot do what Republicans did when they denied Merrick Garland even a hearing to determine whether he should take a seat on the Supreme Court.

Indeed, the court needs a ninth vote to avoid deadlocked decisions. For that matter, the court should have welcomed the ninth justice long ago when President Obama nominated Merrick Garland.

Ahh, the irony is rich. Isn’t it?

medical news

VPOTUS to continue ‘moon shot’ work to fight cancer

Vice President Joe Biden has let it slip.

He didn’t mean to tell us about his post-public-office plans. But he did. They involve continuing his “moon shot” effort to find a cure for cancer through the Biden Trust.

Allow me to cheer this accidental scoop.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/biden-accidentally-reveals-post-inauguration-plans/ar-BBxRH4f?li=BBmkt5R&ocid=spartandhp

Biden let it slip and the news was picked up by a C-SPAN microphone.

He’ll set up his “moon shot” operation at the University of Pennsylvania. The Biden Trust will administer the work that the vice president will do, presumably to raise money dedicated to continuing the scientific research that’s underway to find a cure for cancer.

The vice president, of course, has some serious skin in this game. His beloved son, Beau, died of brain cancer in 2015 and it is believed that Beau’s death — and his father’s profound grief that followed — prevented the vice president from running for president in 2016.

Indeed, I was hoping the vice president would be retained in some capacity by the new administration to continue his “moon shot” work using the imprimatur of the White House, the surgeon general or the Department of Health and Human Services.

The Biden Trust, though, is a valuable venue to continue this important work.

I wish the vice president well and pray his “moon shot” hits pay dirt.