Sean Hannity ‘bad for America’?

I feel the need to take issue with legendary newsman Ted Koppel, who believes a notable Fox News commentator is “bad for America.”

The target of Koppel’s epithet is Sean Hannity, the well-known conservative provocateur and gabby apologist for Donald John Trump.

Koppel scolds Hannity

Koppel told Hannity to his face — on a “CBS Sunday Morning” segment — that he is a bad influence on listeners to his radio show and viewers to his TV show. Hannity’s response was on target, in my view. It was that viewers/listeners know when they’re listening to opinion or straight news.

Given that Hannity is not a journalist by training, he spouts opinion on the air. I get that. As I’ve always said … and this is the clean-up version: Opinions are like certain body orifices; everyone has one.

Do I think he’s “bad” for the country, that he somehow poisons Americans with his right-wing dogma? Not really.

You see, we all have choices. I’ve made my own as it regards Hannity. I don’t listen to his radio show or watch him on TV. I know what he thinks. I disagree with him. I choose instead to listen to more thoughtful conservatives. A number of them come to mind.

If I want to hear an analysis from a smart conservative, I’ll look elsewhere.

Hannity? He’s simply a blowhard.

They want to let ACA ‘explode’ before stepping in?

Donald J. Trump couldn’t have been clearer immediately after the Republican “alternative” to the Affordable Care Act went down in flames.

The president said he intends to let the ACA “explode” before doing anything else. That’s it. The president is ready to watch millions of Americans lose their health insurance the instant the existing health insurance plan disintegrates.

Budget Director Mick Mulvaney echoed the president’s view this morning in an appearance on “Meet the Press.” Let it blow apart, he said. Then we’ll get busy with an alternative.

What a crock!

First of all, many of us doubt the Trump team’s belief that the ACA is doomed to fail. Millions of Americans keep signing up for health insurance covered by former President Obama’s signature domestic initiative. They’re continuing to purchase insurance they couldn’t afford until the ACA was enacted.

Yet we keep hearing assertions about the ACA suffering from a “death spiral.” That it’s doomed to croak.

I believe it’s good to remind congressional Republicans that they had nearly eight years to come up with an alternative to the ACA. They didn’t. They threw something together after their guy Trump took office.

Is it going to blow apart? The Trumpkins believe it will. I guess they’re entitled to their belief. However, if they’re so damn certain that the ACA will fail, why in the world are they waiting for the worst outcome before coming up with a way to improve it?

That isn’t leadership. It’s petulance.

Wheeler-dealer has been revealed as a fraud

A big part of what has gotten Donald J. Trump into so much trouble during the past few days has been his own big mouth and penchant for braggadocio.

He boasted many times while winning his campaign for the presidency that he would cut the “best” deals ever. He would renegotiate international trade deals; he would persuade companies to bring jobs back to this country; he would force Mexico to pay for “the wall” across our countries’ shared border … oh, and he would “repeal and replace” Obamacare on “Day One” of his presidency.

What about that last thing, repealing the Affordable Care Act and replacing it with something better?

He didn’t deliver the goods. Not only did he not make good on that grand campaign promise, he revealed himself to be a fraud, a sucker.

None of this would matter nearly as much were it not for the undeniable fact that Trump bragged so openly — repeatedly and loudly — about how he would transfer his legendary business acumen into running a multitrillion-dollar government operation.

No president can force other politicians to do his bidding. No president can perform a single-handed midcourse correction of the federal government.

He told us at the Republican National Convention that “I, alone” can fix the things that need fixing. Mr. President, good governance — something that is foreign to you — inherently is a team sport. It requires a partnership between two of the three branches of government: the executive and legislative branches. That’s how the founders set it up and that’s how it is intended to function. What’s more, if either of those two branches screw it up, we have the third branch of government — the federal court system — to determine whether they violate the U.S. Constitution.

Can the 70-year-old president who prior to taking office had zero direct experience with government change his ways? Can this guy ever learn how to govern?

I refer to a part of Maureen Dowd’s brilliant column in today’s New York Times. She refers to how Trump likens his ascent to power to when Ronald Reagan became president in 1981. There is an essential difference between the 45th president and President Reagan.

It is that Ronald Reagan “knew what he didn’t know.” So he sought to hire the best minds he could find to teach him. Donald Trump has yet to acknowledge that he knows nothing about the job he now occupies.

Deal maker? Big-time negotiator? The president is a fake.

Happy Trails, Part Three

Today has been a grand day.

The sun rose in the east this morning. The sky is blue. The air is calm. The temperatures are balmy.

And some colleagues of mine sprang for lunch for my wife and me. They wanted to treat us to a goodbye meal. We had a retirement party at a local restaurant.

Why is that a big deal? It is because I received something I had wanted to get from my employer in a previous life. Circumstances beyond my control precluded a retirement party from the Amarillo Globe-News. The guy who runs the newspaper decided in the summer of 2012 to “reorganize” his news/opinion operation, forcing everyone to apply for whatever jobs they wanted; I applied for the job I’d done there for 17-plus years, but they decided to hand that job to someone else.

I had two choices: apply for another job for less money and a demotion or resign. Since I was uniquely qualified to do the job that was delivered to another individual, which gave me virtually zero chance of staying employed at the Globe-News, I chose to walk away.

Then I began a new life that led me in July 2013 to Street Toyota in Amarillo, where I worked for more than three years as a service department concierge. The job was a blast. My job description was simple: Just greet service customers with a smile, make them feel comfortable and try to turn their visit to the dealership into a pleasurable experience.

That job comes to an official end Tuesday. Full-time retirement awaits. My wife and I — along with Toby the Puppy — plan to hit the road for points all across North America.

Today, though, we had a wonderful lunch with several of my auto dealership colleagues. We joked about the ups and downs of the past three years. They said some nice things about our relationship, wished my wife and me good luck and Godspeed as we prepare for the next phase of our life.

And they gave me a going-away watch. Hey, it’s not a solid-gold Rolex, but it keeps good time!

These sweet colleagues not only made my day, they delivered to me a certain kind of closure I had hoped to receive in that prior life.

This one, though, feels just right.

Final Four matchup converts a college hoops agnostic

I am entitled in this blog to acknowledge that I spoke a bit too soon about March Madness, that annual rite involving the college men’s basketball tournament.

I tweeted something the other day about not giving a damn about March Madness. In the moment, I didn’t care.

Then a member of my family reminded me that the University of Oregon Ducks were taking part in the tournament.

Fine. I’ll care about the men’s tournament as long as the Ducks are in it. I’m allowed, given that I’m an Oregon native. So what if my view of March Madness has evolved. Sue me if you wish, OK?

Here we are. The Ducks not only are “in it,” they’re one of four teams that will gather in Glendale, Ariz., to play for the national men’s basketball championship. As I’m writing this blog, the final team in that foursome has yet to be determined; it’ll be either North Carolina or Kentucky, two programs with plenty of Final Four experience. The winner of that game will play the Ducks in the semi-final round in Glendale.

The Ducks were there once before, in 1939, the first year of the NCAA men’s tournament. Oregon went on that year to win the championship. They were called the Tall Firs. They remain a legendary presence in Oregon sports annals.

They haven’t been back since. Until now!

The other two are little ol’ Gonzaga, that school in Spokane, Wash., and the University of South Carolina. They’re both going to the Big Show for the first time in their history.

There you go. The Ducks, the Zags, the Gamecocks; still waiting for the Tar Heels and the Wildcats to finish their game.

Do I care now about the Final Four? Uh, yeah! Go Ducks!

Back and forth, the political fortunes keep changing

First, it was Democrats who were smiling smugly at Republicans for nominating a TV celebrity/carnival barker/real estate mogul as their presidential nominee.

Then the Republicans had the next laugh as Donald J. Trump actually got elected over the Democrats’ presidential heiress apparent, Hillary Rodham Clinton.

One party is up. The other is down. Then the roles flipped.

What in the world then happened? The “up” party — which now controls Congress and the White House — produced a health care overhaul plan that couldn’t get enough support within its own ranks, let alone from the folks on the “other side of the aisle.”

That’s right, Republicans drove their repeal of the Affordable Care Act straight over the cliff.

Who led the suicide mission? Was it the carnival barker/president? Was it the speaker of the House of Representatives, the so-called “policy wonk”? Both of them appear ready to throw the other one under the proverbial bus.

This much appears certain: The party that sought to govern has been revealed to comprise a bunch of folks who cannot hit their backside with both hands.

As Frank Bruni writes in today’s New York Times: “For the entirety of his campaign, Donald Trump crowed about his peerless ability to make deals, one of which, he assured us, was going to be a replacement for Obamacare that would cut costs without leaving any Americans in the lurch. Last week proved that there was no such swap, that he hadn’t done an iota of work to devise one and that he was spectacularly unprepared to shepherd such legislation through Congress.”

Bruni skewers Trump.

These change of fortunes are giving me a case of vertigo. I can barely remain upright while watching the new Big Men On Campus make a mess of what they promised — repeatedly and with maximum boastfulness — to do once they acquired the keys to the White House.

I won’t take much, if any, of this to the bank just yet. The fickle winds of political fate have this way of changing course in an instant.

Still, Republicans across the land drooled at the prospect of a Trump presidency to go along with GOP control of Capitol Hill. I must wonder today if they regret seeing their wish come true.

Yep, 2 + 2 still equals 4

Let’s try to add a couple of things up and see if we agree on the result.

Donald J. Trump puts a tweet out Saturday morning after he and congressional Republicans fail to enact a repeal of the Affordable Care Act.

In the tweet, the president encourages Americans to tune in to the Fox News Channel and watch former prosecutor — and current Fox host — Jeanine Pirro’s show.

Pirro goes on the air and demands the resignation of House Speaker Paul Ryan.

But wait! Didn’t the president praise his new best friend Ryan for working so very hard to push through the ACA repeal legislation? And didn’t the speaker return the compliment by telling us that Trump busted his butt to close the deal with balky conservative GOP lawmakers? Aren’t these fellows friends for life now?

The way I interpret Trump’s tweet, however, I have discerned quite another point of view from the president about the speaker.

He implored Americans to watch a TV talk show in which the host calls for the speaker to quit. Hmmm. That doesn’t sound like much of a “bromance” to me.

The sum of what happened adds up to what many of us believe: The president wants to blame the speaker for the two men’s joint failure to make good on their No. 1 campaign promise.

Trump is no Obama as a negotiator

Donald J. Trump’s reputation as a first-class “dealmaker” is now in shambles. It’s been trampled by his own ego and his own petulance.

The deal to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act became a victim of the president’s inability and unwillingness to even talk to Democrats. Let’s forget for a moment that the replacement bill couldn’t get enough Republican votes in the House to approve it. It was cobbled together virtually overnight, in secret, by Republican congressional leaders who handed it to a president who didn’t know — or care — about the details it contained.

How did the ACA come into being?

Its author, President Barack Obama, sought out congressional Republican leaders. One of them happened to be now-Speaker Paul Ryan, who at the time was chairman of the House Budget Committee. He sought out Sen. Mitch McConnell, who would become majority leader in the upper chamber. He talked to Republicans and implored them to come up with a better plan than the one he and his administration had assembled.

The GOP didn’t budge. The president then was left to rely on his Democratic colleagues in the House and Senate to approve the ACA. They did. Republicans howled about having the bill “shoved down our throats.”

What happened this past week bears little resemblance to what happened in 2010. What the current president and the current speaker sought to do was foist a bill on the public that didn’t have the support of most members within their own political party.

There. That’s my take on it.

Do not believe the baloney that Donald Trump is a master “dealmaker.” He’s nothing of the kind. The president has been schooled by politicians who don’t like being bullied.

Trump told us that “I, alone” can repair the things he said need to be fixed. No sir. You alone cannot.

***

I want to share with you a hilariously astute column by one of the best columnists in America. The New York Times’ Maureen Dowd has peeled the bark off the president, someone she says she knows quite well.

Dowd speaks a blunt, brutal truth in her “letter” to the president of the United States.

Hoping the ‘loop’ becomes a loop for Amarillo

I have many wishes for the city where we live.

Amarillo is a wonderful city. It’s on the move. Its downtown district is undergoing a major makeover and will become a wonderful place to go for entertainment and business.

One of my wishes? It’s for Loop 335 to become an actual loop that circles the city of nearly 200,000 residents.

It is no such thing at the moment. It hasn’t been for, oh, several decades. Loop 335, aka Soncy Road on the city’s western border, has become just another busy street.

What is the state highway department planning for the loop?

Here’s what I understand.

The Texas Department of Transportation plans to extend the western corridor along Helium Road, about a mile west of Soncy. How far along is TxDOT in this endeavor?

My wife and I drove along Helium Road just the other day while running an errand. We found a gravel road from Hollywood Road north almost to Interstate 40. No work has yet begun on Helium.

Now, is there work ongoing on the loop? Yes. It’s occurring on the southern stretch of Loop 335 between Bell Street and Washington Street. TxDOT is turning the loop into what it calls a “limited access” highway.

The Soncy corridor needs lots of work.

We’ve been able to travel through a good bit of Texas during our three-plus decades living here. We’ve been to communities of Amarillo’s size and considerably smaller with actual loops that allow easy transport around those communities.

If a truck is eastbound on I-40 and must exit the freeway because it is carrying “hazardous cargo,” the driver must exit at Soncy — where he or she might choose to drive southbound through traffic that is choked often to a stop.

My wife and I will be long gone before the western loop extension is completed. We hope to return to visit frequently in the years to come. When we do, my hope is to see much of that interstate traffic diverted away from Soncy — and onto an extension that deserves the name Loop 335.

What we have now is nothing of the kind.

Time for Thornberry to step up on this Russia matter?

I’ve been scrolling through U.S. Rep. Mac Thornberry’s website, looking for something topical and current about the “Russia story,” the one dealing with Russian attempts to influence the 2016 presidential election.

Russians used cyber attacks to hack into Democratic Party files. They disseminated unflattering information about Hillary Rodham Clinton. They sought to swing the election in Donald J. Trump’s favor.

That’s what intelligence experts have said. Everyone believes the analysis, except for Trump. He’s dissing the intelligence community.

Thornberry, as near as I can tell, has been quiet on this issue.

Where does Thornberry fit into all of this? Well, the Clarendon Republican chairs the U.S. House Armed Services Committee. He also once chaired a Republican-led congressional task force that was supposed to make recommendations to protect our national computer systems against attacks such as the one mounted by the Russians.

His website has a lot of interesting tabs. One of them is marked “Issues.” I found this item:

http://thornberry.house.gov/issues/issue/?IssueID=44735

It’s a policy paper on cybersecurity. It’s all quite interesting … if you are fluent in cyberspeak. 

I looked at it carefully and didn’t see any mention of the current issue: Russian hacking and meddling in our electoral process.

For that matter, as I looked at Thornberry’s press releases I saw no mention there, either, of what has transpired with regard to the Russian-meddling-interference.

I go back a number of years with Rep. Thornberry. I have joked with him over the years that he and I started new careers in the Texas Panhandle at the same time. He took office in January 1995 — after being elected to the House in that historic 1994 election — just days before I arrived to become editorial page editor of the Amarillo Globe-News. I have watched him carefully for most of the past 22 years.

I am waiting to hear from him, though, on this Russia hacking matter. He once was the Republicans’ go-to guy on cybersecurity. Is he no longer that guy?

I know Thornberry is aware of the seriousness of this still-developing story. My hope is that my congressman will contribute significantly — and soon — to the growing public discussion about the integrity of our electoral process.