Monthly Archives: March 2017

medical news

ACA just might survive GOP in-fighting

The Affordable Care Act has been called as good as dead, a goner, a “miserable failure.”

The Republican majority in Congress fought it tooth and nail for the past seven years. Then a Republican got elected president in 2016 and the GOP became downright giddy at the prospect of repealing the ACA, President Barack Obama’s chief domestic achievement.

Then it happened.

The Republicans cobbled together something called the American Health Care Act. Then they sent it to the Congressional Budget Office for some “scoring.” The CBO then delivered some numbers the GOP didn’t want to hear: 24 million Americans would lose health insurance, the CBO declared.

The GOP’s response? The CBO doesn’t know what it’s talking about, congressional leaders said.

But isn’t the CBO the gold standard for determining these matters?

Now the TEA Party wing of the GOP is rebelling against the AHCA. It’s “Obamacare Light,” they say. They hate the AHCA. Of course, they hate the ACA even more, which is no surprise, given that a Democratic president happened to be its founding father.

Oh, and Democrats? They’re unified against any effort to repeal the ACA and replace it with something that relies heavily on “tax credits” for Americans to buy insurance; Democrats call it code for “tax relief for the wealthiest Americans.”

Which brings me to this point: If the Republican Party’s congressional elders cannot come up with an alternative to the ACA that all its members can endorse, can this party actually govern?

local news

Memo to council candidates: hands off red-light cams

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I am going to make a request of the individuals running for Amarillo mayor and the four City Council seats.

It is this: Do not mess with the city’s red-light cameras, presuming the Texas Legislature allows you to make that call.

I looked through mayoral candidate Ginger Nelson’s detailed platform statement this afternoon after the thought occurred to me that I’ve heard nothing from the candidates about what they intend to do with the cameras. I pored through Nelson’s platform and didn’t see a single mention of the cameras.

Does that mean she intends to leave ’em alone? Or does she want to pull the plug on them without warning us in advance? I doubt it’s the latter, so I’ll just proceed with my request of her and the others who are running for mayor and council member.

The cameras have been in operation for nearly a decade now, thanks to some foresight shown by a previous city commission/council, led by then-Mayor Debra McCartt. The police department had expressed concern about motorists running red lights, in some cases ignoring them completely while zooming through them from a dead stop when there was no other traffic.

The cameras were installed to photograph the license plates of the offending vehicle, with the citation sent to the vehicle owner’s residence.

I get all the griping from offending owners who would say that someone else was driving their vehicle. Of course, they have recourse; they can take their complaint to the Municipal Court and argue their case before the judge.

The Legislature allowed cities to deploy the cameras a few sessions ago, but placed some restrictions on how to spend the money collected. The city must dedicate the revenue to traffic improvement methods. There can be spending of that revenue on city manager frills, or new drapes for the traffic engineer’s office.

This technology has its foes. Some of them are in Legislature. They have threatened to rescind the cities’ authority to deploy the devices, which I find ironic, given some legislators’ insistence that they — not mayors, city council members or senior city administrators — understand the local concerns better than those on the ground in the affected cities.

If the 2017 Legislature does the right thing and allows cities to make that determination for themselves, then my hopes is that Amarillo decides to keep the cameras on the job.

They are doing what they are supposed to do. They are deterring motorists from breaking … the … law.

business news

Trump tax return reveals … that he’s real rich!

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The release of one year of Donald J. Trump’s tax returns has a kind of Al Capone’s vault feel to it.

Remember when Geraldo Rivera found the vault of the late mobster? He opened it and found — nothin’ man!

So, now we know that in 2005, the president made about $150 million and paid $38 million in federal taxes. Yes, the guy who told us during the 2016 presidential campaign that he worked to pay “as little as possible” in taxes actually paid a lot of them.

That was a dozen years ago.

What about the more recent returns? What about the money he was making while running for president? And what about those international business interests?

Americans haven’t seen the more relevant tax information from the president of the United States.

He told us he would release the returns once the Internal Revenue Service completed its “routine audit.” Except we don’t even know for certain whether the IRS is actually auditing Trump, who’s provided no proof or evidence that an audit even ongoing.

The White House decided to seek to get ahead of a story that had been hyped by MSNBC host Rachel Maddow, who tonight released the 2005 returns.

As it has been reported, the 12-year-old returns constitute a “nothing burger.”

Where’s the beef? I suspect it lies somewhere within the more recent returns that the president of the United States continues to refuse to release to Americans — such as yours truly — who want to know what is in them.

legal news

Trump now relying on others to prove it?

White House press flack Sean Spicer says Donald Trump is “confident” that Justice Department officials will prove what the president has asserted.

Which is that former President Barack Obama committed a crime by ordering a wiretap on Trump’s campaign offices in New York City.

The president made that scurrilous allegation in a tweet several days ago. He hasn’t produced a scintilla of evidence to back it up. DOJ is now looking for proof. Spicer says Justice will find it.

Here’s my question: If the president had the proof when he fired off that tweet, why didn’t he produce it at the time he made the accusation?

Let me think. Oh, I know! That’s because he didn’t have it! He doesn’t have it now! The Justice Department won’t find it, either.

This is yet another game of verbal gymnastics that Trump’s spokesman is playing with the media that Trump despises.

If the president had the goods he should have produced them long before now.

media news

HPPR quenches news junkies’ thirst

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I am a happy radio listener.

High Plains residents — those of us who like news, information and well-reasoned analysis of current events — are getting an additional treat on our radio dial.

It’s called 9.49 Connect. It’s an expanded news offering provided by High Plains Public Radio. When HPPR’s morning news shows go off the air — while being broadcast simultaneously on 94.9 and 105.7 FM — 94.9 Connect stays on the air with more news and commentary.

HPPR rolled out its expanded news offering this past week. In doing so, it has decided to quench the thirst for news junkies such as yours truly.

National Public Radio for too long has gotten a bad rap by those who suggest it is some sort of “liberal organ” that only squishy lefties would appreciate.

Wrong, man! Double wrong! Triple wrong!

If you’ll pardon my lifting a common mantra from the 2016 presidential election, NPR “tells it like it is.” So does its affiliate station, HPPR, which is headquartered in Garden City, Kan.

I am happy to sing the praises of a non-commercial radio station, given that public radio relies on listener support and corporate “underwriters.”

And make no mistake, its news presentation strides down the straight and narrow. It doesn’t pepper its coverage with buzz words and partisan rhetoric, which I suppose is what its critics — mainly those on the far right — wish it would do.

Only they want the news slanted in their direction.

High Plains Public Radio has just enhanced the quality of life for public radio listeners — and news junkies — across our vast region.

Thank you, HPPR.

national news, political news

Ryan won’t defend Trump? Good deal

Those darn audio recordings have this way of sticking around.

Breitbart.com has just posted an October 2016 recording of House Speaker Paul Ryan pledging to never defend then-Republican presidential nominee Donald J. Trump. It came after the release of those ghastly statements he made about groping women and related matters.

Ryan hasn’t been precisely true to his pledge. It’s good, though, to have it reintroduced just so we can hold the speaker accountable for the words he utters.

It’s pretty damn clear that Trump never holds himself accountable for the things he says.

My question is whether Breitbart posted the audio of Ryan to do damage to the speaker or to do something to the president.

My hunch is that the speaker is the target.

media news

So many lies, so much damage

The president of the United States has lied with such recklessness since entering the political world, it’s becoming difficult to single out which lie has done the most damage.

I believe I should look at one lie that on the surface seems the least consequential, but which has produced the most serious consequence.

It was his pledge to stop tweeting once he became president.

Yep, Donald J. Trump made that pledge. I cannot remember when he did, but he did. He said he would be more “presidential” once he actually took the oath, settled into the big chair in the Oval Office and started signing executive orders to do the things he promised to do.

Has he kept that pledge? Hah! No.

What has been the result? It’s been pretty far-reaching. I’ll start with the most recent tweet, which he fired off more than a week ago early on one morning. It was where he said Barack Obama “wiretapped” his office at Trump Tower. He said his predecessor did it, that he broke the law, that he committed a felony. He called it a “fact.”

Trump’s tweet has ignited a firestorm. I mean, it’s a serious conflict in Washington, D.C. He has generated bipartisan criticism, although the volume has been much louder among Democrats than Republicans.

Is this Twitter tempest ever going to end? Is this how he’s going to conduct foreign and domestic policy, through the use of a social medium in which he makes statements without consulting his senior staff?

Didn’t this clown say he would surround himself with the “smartest people” in the history of humankind? If that is what he has done, why aren’t they telling this idiot to cease and desist with the Twitter nonsense? Maybe they are … and he’s not listening.

The liar in chief is out of control.

You want any more examples of how dangerous this behavior can become in a world fraught with serious peril? We are witnessing it as it is happening.

national news

Rite of passage awaits — possibly

This is the latest in an occasional series of blog posts commenting on upcoming retirement.

A possible rite of passage associated with, um, growing older has just arrived in my e-mail inbox.

It involves a high school reunion advisory. No. 50 is on the horizon. Planning is underway, the message said; they want to update the information they — whoever they are — have on me.

Here’s the quandary: Do I go or do I stay away?

Why the conflict? I’ve attended two reunions of the Parkrose (Ore.) High School Class of 1967. One was the 10-year reunion in 1977; the other was the 30-year gathering in 1997.

The 30-year reunion was such a downer for me I made a pact upon departing Portland for Amarillo that I’d never return for another one. Why? Well, I made an unpleasant discovery at the 30-year reunion, which was that I didn’t have as many “friends” as I thought I did.

I had moved away from Portland in 1984 after starting my career in journalism. I had been married for more than dozen years at that point; my wife and I produced two sons, who at the time of the move were coming of age. We embarked on a new journey in Texas and more than three decades later, we look back on that journey and marvel at the things we’ve seen, done and experienced.

I got word of the 40-year reunion sometime in 2007, but opted to stay away for the reason I mentioned a moment ago. I didn’t care to go back to find something that I knew wasn’t there: a kinship, a reason to renew old relationships … because there was precious little on which to build such a renewal.

Twenty years have passed since that 30-year reunion. I am now in a totally different place. I am retired from that career. My wife and I have much more “free” time on our hands.

I mentioned to her this morning that I had gotten the e-mail advising me of the planning that was underway for the 50-year reunion. Her response? “We could take our fifth wheel back to Portland and we could attend your reunion — if that’s what you want to do.”

Great idea! We could plan a cross-continent excursion around such an event, see the sights we want to see, relax and enjoy the fellowship we would have with each other and with Toby the Puppy. Then we could show up at wherever they are having this reunion and I could shake a few hands, slap a few backs, perhaps get a hug or three from classmates and then we’d be on our way.

I’m going to ponder this some more. Even though we aren’t yet quite fully retired, the notion of adding this event to a busy travel schedule doesn’t sound quite as, oh, onerous as it did two decades ago after Reunion No. 30 had concluded.

Time has this way … you know?

medical news

CBO numbers are in: not good for AHCA

Donald Trump promised that no one would lose their health insurance under a re-crafted plan to replace the Affordable Care Act.

The Congressional Budget Office’s verdict? Wrong, Mr. President!

There goes a major campaign promise.

As predicted, the Trump administration dismisses the CBO report, which is supposed to be the gold standard in determining the fiscal viability of sweeping, landmark public policies.

The CBO projects that 24 million more Americans will lose their health insurance by 2026 under the American Health Care Act. Not good, right?

Health and Human Services Secretary Dr. Tom Price — a leading critic of the Affordable Care Act — says the CBO report is incomplete and inaccurate. Well, of course he would say that.

As the New York Times has reported: “The much-anticipated judgment by Capitol Hill’s official scorekeeper did not back up President Trump’s promise of providing health care for everyone and was likely to fuel the concerns of moderate Republicans. Next year, it said, the number of uninsured Americans would be 14 million higher than expected under current law.”

The president has said “no one” would lose their health insurance. If it were anyone else, I would stand and applaud such a declaration. The problem, though, with this president is that I cannot trust that his word is true, that he’s actually speaking from his heart.

I just do not know any longer when or whether he’s telling the truth.

Therefore, I shall rely on the analyses of others, such as the CBO.

***

One more point …

The White House doesn’t want the AHCA to be nicknamed Trumpcare, much the way the ACA was given the name of President Barack Obama, who signed the ACA into law in 2010 and has become identified as the former president’s signature piece of domestic legislation.

Well, too bad. Trumpcare it is!

The Republican leadership in Congress has crafted it. The president has signed on to it.

Let’s hang the president’s name on it.

local news

Ranchers respond with kindness

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You think humanity has gone to hell? You worry that we’ve become so very cynical that we care little about other human beings, that we no longer feel empathy for their heartache?

Perish the thought.

A lot of ranchers in the Texas and Oklahoma panhandles have endured more misery than anyone should endure. Wildfires scorched thousands of acres of grassland, from which these ranchers harvest their hay to feed their cattle, which they send to market and, thus, earn their livelihood.

So, how do other ranchers who have been spared the flames respond? They load up big flatbed trucks with bails of hay and send them many miles down the highway to their stricken ranching brethren.

I’ve heard about the convoys of trucks tooling down Panhandle highways. They come, of course, from neighboring ranches in the immediate region. They also are coming from neighboring states.

This kind of response helps me purge any latent thought I might have when I hear about cruelty and heartlessness among my fellow human beings.

We are proud in this region of the spirit of community that resides in the hearts of those who live here. We express it from time to time when disaster strikes. Lord knows the High Plains region is prone to heavy wind and Mother Nature’s violence. Fires do plague the region on occasion at this time of year.

That community spirit demonstrates itself when tragedy does strike.

Such as when we see trucks loaded with bales of hay heading toward the scorched Earth.