Monthly Archives: March 2017

business news, local news

Yes, Amarillo matters to Amarillo Matters

I have gotten a little better idea of what is driving a new political action group in Amarillo.

It’s called Amarillo Matters. Its website still doesn’t reveal too much about the organization, other than it cares greatly about the future of the city. As if that’s a novel concept, right?

Here’s the website. Take a look and see if you can glean more than I’ve been able to do.

http://www.amarillomatters.com/about_us/

Still, I’ve been able to determine that it comprises successful businessmen and women, civic leaders, folks who’ve demonstrated a commitment to improving the city.

I hear rumblings about Amarillo Matters backing certain candidates for the City Council; the city is conducting an election May 6, with all five council places up for grabs, per normal.

I don’t know what the future holds for Amarillo Matters, but my hope is that isn’t a flash in the pan, as the Amarillo Millennial Movement turned out to be.

AMM was formed to promote passage of the multipurpose event venue/downtown ballpark referendum that was on the November 2015 ballot. Voters approved the MPEV measure, which was non-binding; the City Council wasn’t obligated to abide by voters’ wishes, but it did.

AMM, though, has vanished. Not a word has been heard by the group. Oh, well.

Amarillo Matters, though, looks as though it might have more staying power.

We’ll all need to see demonstrated future activity as the new City Council takes office after the May election.

I remain the eternal optimist that the city will keep moving forward, even as it gets a push from Amarillo Matters.

national news

Trump said he wouldn’t take vacations … honestly!

https://www.truthexaminer.com/2017/03/watch-this-video-where-donald-trump-says-hell-never-take-vacations-watch-here/

Take a look at this video. It’s only a few seconds in length.

It shows presidential candidate Donald J. Trump and a former Republican Party primary opponent, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie.

Trump is pledging he’ll never take vacations. The job of president, he said, is too big. It’s too important. It’s too demanding for the president to take any vacations.

Hmmm.

What’s he done since becoming president? He’s jetted off aboard Air Force One to his posh resort in South Florida. Oh yes ! He’s played a lot of golf, too.

I don’t begrudge him the time off, or the golf.

I do begrudge him for, um, telling yet another lie about how he intended to conduct himself as president of the United States.

Hey, I know it’s no big deal. But really … ?

national news, political news

Palin? … Palin? … Palin?

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I am risking getting some grief from readers of this blog by mentioning it … but where is Sarah Palin?

We all remember the former half-term Alaska governor, the 2008 Republican vice-presidential nominee, the former Fox News “contributor,” the former reality TV celebrity.

She was an ardent and vocal critic of the Affordable Care Act. You remember that, too?

She was out there yapping about “death panels” and how bureaucrats would determine who gets to live and who must die.

Palin also was an equally ardent supporter of Donald J. Trump’s candidacy for president and was thought to be a possible selection for veterans affairs secretary when the president was picking his Cabinet.

With all the debate and discussion about “repealing and replacing” the ACA, I keep waiting for Palin to weigh in. I await her pearls of wisdom about the best way to replace the ACA.

Where in the world is she? Has she retreated to Wasilla, Alaska, from where she emerged in 2008 to become U.S. Sen. John McCain’s running mate?

I know what you’re thinking about yours truly: You’ve trashed Palin incessantly; you cannot contain yourself every single time she opens her mouth; you don’t take her seriously. Why do you want to hear from her?

My answer? I don’t know. I just do.

She did become a major political figure, if only for a brief period. Running for VP on a major-party ticket made her a big deal. The McCain-Palin ticket did garner more than 59 million votes in the 2008 election — which ain’t bad, man!

Palin did become a darling of political conservatives, even as she went “rogue.” Her Fox colleagues welcomed her, as did those who watch the cable channel. I am going to presume, moreover, that she retains a considerable fan following among those very conservatives.

I’m not one of her fans. However, she bitched up a storm about the ACA when it was being debated in Congress and then enacted into law.

Here’s your chance, Sarah. Speak up! Tell us how we should provide a better health insurance plan for Americans.

national news, political news

Democrats becoming the new ‘Party of No’

Accuracy is the first rule of journalism.

Fairness, arguably, is the second rule.

I always sought to be accurate and fair during my nearly 37 years toiling in daily print journalism. Therefore, my sense of fairness compels me to suggest that the Democratic Party should refrain from becoming the new Party of No.

Democrats were poised to seize control of the federal government once the ballots were counted during the 2016 presidential election. Then the unthinkable happened: Donald J. Trump defeated Hillary Rodham Clinton, the Senate didn’t flip to Democratic control and the House remained solidly in Republican hands.

Democrats found themselves, quite unexpectedly, in the political wilderness.

I was one of those commentators — using this blog as my forum — to rail, rant and rave against Republicans’ obstruction of every damn thing that Democratic President Barack Obama sought to do. Health care reform, economic stimulus, you name it. If Obama wanted, Republicans were sure to oppose it.

The GOP proved their obstructionist mettle with the president’s nomination of Merrick Garland to join the Supreme Court after Antonin Scalia’s death a year ago.

So, what are Democrats supposed to do?

Do they return the “favor” and become the new Party of No?

I hope not.

Don’t misunderstand me. I detest the idea that Donald Trump is president as much as many millions of other Americans. However, he is the president. He won the Electoral College majority he needed.

Just as I always have believed that “good government” requires compromise and cooperation between the two major parties, I believe that principle still can apply as Democrats do battle with the Republican in the White House and the Republicans who control both chambers of Congress.

Should they sacrifice whatever principles for which they stand? No more than anyone should expect Republicans to sacrifice their own principles.

I understand the anger that many in Washington are feeling right now. Just two months in the presidency of Donald Trump, Democrats still cannot get past the idea that they managed to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.

Is that Republicans’ fault? Democratic chieftains need to own it.

They have their agenda, although to be honest, I’m not yet entirely sure what it is. They’ve just elected a new party chairman and they need to get their ducks lined up. They need to dust off their policy books.

They need to argue their point with Republicans. Somehow there needs to be some common ground. Health care overhaul? Federal budgeting? Environmental regulations? The myriad foreign policy trouble spots?

Party of No

It’s not enough to just say “no” to everything Republicans want to do. Good government requires a loyal opposition to perform in a manner that the very term defines: to oppose the party in power, but to be loyal to the government they all take an oath to uphold.

I dislike this Party of No business that’s beginning to take form in Washington. Republicans played the part badly when we had a Democrat in the White House. I don’t envision Democrats doing so with any more grace now that a Republican has taken his seat behind that big desk in the Oval Office.

legal news, national news, political news

Rep. Schiff: We’re at the ‘bottom’ of wiretap story

Adam Schiff strikes me as a thoughtful young man.

He’s the ranking Democrat on the U.S. House Intelligence Committee. He and the Republican chairman, Deven Nunes, also of California, have become a sort of tag-team that seeks to get Donald Trump to produce proof of a dangerous allegation he has made about former President Obama.

Today, Schiff said on “Meet the Press” that Congress appears to have reached “the bottom” of the president’s assertion — that Obama ordered a wiretap of Trump’s offices in New York City.

There is no “bottom,” Schiff said. No proof. No evidence. No substantiation. The president, said the congressman, has now introduced a dangerous new standard for recklessness that could have profound impact on any business the United States seeks to conduct at home or abroad.

Indeed, how are our allies going to react to anything that comes from the president’s Twitter account? He’s already dragged the British intelligence network into this tawdry matter, asserting that the Brits had a hand in the alleged wiretap.

He stood with German Chancellor Angela Merkel and sought to lure her into the ongoing matter, suggesting that Obama had wiretapped Merkel and other European allies.

The president is not backing off. He’s offering not a hint of proof. Nor is he offering the scent of contrition.

What in the world is this man — the president of the United States — going to do next? Who else is he going to slander?

We might find out plenty this week when FBI Director James Comey walks onto Capitol Hill to testify about what he knows and whether there was any authorization given to do what Trump has accused the former president of doing.

I would think the FBI boss would know.

If not, well, Rep. Schiff is right. We’ve found the bottom of this story. And as the late Gertrude Stein once said of Oakland, Calif.: We’ve found “there is no there there.”

legal news

‘Ideological balance’ not a SCOTUS issue

Reuters News Agency has declared in a headline that Neil Gorsuch’s selection to the U.S. Supreme Court means the court’s “ideological balance” is at stake.

Excuse me for a moment while I clear my throat.

Cough, cough …

Um, no. It isn’t.

Judge Gorsuch has been tapped by Donald J. Trump to succeed the late Justice Antonin Scalia. As my dear old Dad would say, “It’s six to one, half-dozen to the other.”

Gorsuch is a conservative. So was Scalia. And yet, progressive thinkers are all a-flutter  because Gorsuch, they say, according to Reuters, “that he is a pro-business, social conservative insufficiently independent of the president.”

Do they think Scalia would have been any different had he not died before Trump took office? Do they think Gorsuch is going to somehow become so persuasive in his opinions and writings that he is going to bring some progressive court justices to his side of an argument?

Let’s get a grip here.

Scalia was an iconic figure among judicial conservatives. It’s not yet clear whether Gorsuch will attain that kind of status if he gets confirmed to the Supreme Court.

My advice to Senate Democrats and their progressive allies in the judicial community is this: Save your ammunition for the day one of the high court’s liberal justices takes a hike.

Although I agree fully that Trump never should have been given the chance to replace Scalia. That task should have been fulfilled by his presidential predecessor, Barack Obama, who nominated an equally qualified jurist, Merrick Garland, to take his place on the high court. Senate Republicans played bald-faced politics, declaring that Obama didn’t have the right to appoint someone to the court; that task, they argued, belonged to the next president.

That’s utter horse manure. The GOP’s tactic worked. Trump got elected and now he has appointed a judicial conservative to the court — just as he pledged he would do.

As one who stands foursquare behind presidential prerogative on issues such as this, I recognize that elections have consequences.

One “consequence” of the 2016 election is that Trump has chosen a “well-qualified” jurist — in the words of the American Bar Association — to become the next Supreme Court justice. There is no “ideological balance” to discuss with this selection.

What about the next one? And what if it involves the departure of a liberal justice?

Well, that’s a different matter altogether.

State news

State takes step toward motor vehicle sanity

Texas is one step closer to joining several other states in doing something all states should do.

They should issue statewide bans on using handheld telecommunications devices while operating a motor vehicle.

The Texas House of Representatives has voted in favor of such a ban. It now goes to the state Senate. If it clears the Senate, it goes to Gov. Greg Abbott’s desk.

It’s not the first time a Texas governor has seen this kind of legislation. Abbott’s predecessor, Rick Perry, vetoed a statewide ban in 2011.

The dummy. He said the bill constituted a government intrusion.

https://highplainsblogger.com/2009/03/multi-tasking-at-the-wheel/

Please! The issue is public safety.

Fortunately, the Panhandle’s House delegation — all Republicans just like Abbott and Perry — is on board with this bill.

If we adhere to Gov. Perry’s logic, then we wouldn’t have laws mandating seat belt use, or banning drinking and driving.

Let’s finish the task, Texas senators and send it to Gov. Abbott’s desk. And let’s make the bill a state law that provides a uniform code for all motorists driving along every mile of Texas streets, roads and highways.

International news

North Korea: most dangerous worldwide threat?

Let’s turn our attention for a moment or two to North Korea and its lunatic leader, Kim Jong Un.

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said the other day that military action against North Korea is “on the table” if Kim decides to do something foolish, such as launch a missile in the direction of the United States or one of our allies, such as, say, Japan or South Korea.

I guess it’s always been understood that military action would be an option for the United States. However, for the secretary of state to tell Kim Jong Un out loud and to put this guy on alert seems to me to be a dangerous potential gambit.

I’ve noted already that Kim may be nuts, but he ain’t stupid.

It’s the nuttiness that should cause us all grave concern.

North Korea has more than a million of its citizens in the military. The country has a total population of around 25 million. It spends far more than it can afford on its military apparatus.

Do you wonder what a guy like Kim would do to avoid a war with the United States? Look at this way: A leader who would allow his people to starve to death, to subject them to famine and to deny them health care just so he can build a military machine is capable of just about any act of idiocy imaginable.

Yeah, this guy is a frightening individual.

I am not sure whether Tillerson thinks his talk about the “military option” is going to persuade Kim Jong Un that a fight against the United States is not winnable.

My hope would be that it would give Kim pause. My fear is quite different. I fear he might conclude that a U.S. attack would finish the destruction of his country that he and his communist forebears have begun.

How in the world does one analyze what goes through what passes for this individual’s mind?

My next question is this: Does the president of the United States and his national security team have the moxie and savvy to contain this guy?

legal news

Big week awaits the president

Donald “Smart Person” Trump is going to have a big week.

Part of it might bode well for the president. The rest of it, well, possibly not so well.

* Neil Gorsuch takes the stand this coming week as the Senate Judiciary Committee grills him on why he should take a seat on the U.S. Supreme Court.

Gorsuch is Trump’s choice to fill the seat vacated by the sudden death of conservative icon Justice Antonin Scalia — more than a year ago! The seat should have been filled by President Obama, who picked Merrick Garland, but the Republicans who control the Senate stonewalled the president and blocked Garland’s confirmation.

Now we have Gorsuch. He’s a solid jurist. He’s a bit too conservative for my taste, but hey, Trump’s the president, not me. He gets to pick someone for the high court. The American Bar Association has declared Gorsuch to be “well qualified.”

* Then we get to hear from FBI Director James Comey, who’s going to have a thing or three to say about wiretapping and whether Trump has the goods on whether President Obama ordered the bugging of Trump’s offices in New York.

Comey has hinted broadly that Trump has fabricated the assertion that Obama committed a felony, which to my way of thinking is a defamatory accusation. Senators will get to grill Comey heavily on all of that.

It’s ironic in the extreme that Comey would turn on Trump, given the manner in which he torpedoed Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign 11 days prior to Election Day with that letter to Congress announcing he was taking a fresh look at those “damn e-mails” that dogged Hillary’s campaign from its outset. Trump was ecstatic about the disclosure of the letter and just couldn’t say enough positive things about the FBI director.

I wonder what he’s going to say if and/or when Comey debunks this ridiculous notion that President Obama bugged Trump Tower.

Let’s all stay tuned. Get the popcorn ready.

national news, political news

Government teaches POTUS a stern, necessary lesson

It’s been a lot of fun watching the president of the United States getting the education of his life about how the U.S. government actually works.

It’s not how he wants it to work. Donald J. Trump cannot snap his fingers and make things happen just because, well, he can. Oh no. The system is designed precisely to prevent such things from happening.

Trump got elected while promising to “drain the swamp” and get things done. “I alone” can repair what ails the country, Trump declared at his nominating convention this past summer.

No, sir. You alone can’t do a damn thing!

Which is fine by me. Think of it.

* He seeks to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act with something called the American Health Care Act; then he and congressional Republican leaders run smack into the TEA Party caucus within the GOP, which hates the AHCA. Oh, and those damn Democrats hate it, too!

* Trump declared his desire to ban all Muslims from entering the United States. Then after being elected he cobbles together a measure to ban refugees from seven Muslim-majority nations from entering the United States. Who steps in? The courts. No can do, Mr. President. A federal judge in Washington state strikes down the first ban; then the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upholds the judge.

* He tries again. Trump reintroduces what he calls a “watered-down version” of the first ban. The courts strike again. Uh, Mr. President, this order violates the Establishment Clause of the U.S. Constitution, the one that says government cannot favor one religion over any other; it’s in the First Amendment, Mr. President. You ought to read it.

* His budget? The president seeks to boost defense spending by $54 billion while cutting myriad programs that help poor Americans. Meals on Wheels … for example? Gone. Congress has declared the president’s proposed budget to be essentially DOA, which is the way it’s done in Washington, Mr. President.

As it’s been said often, sir: The president proposes, while Congress disposes.

He’s getting grief from Americans who are angry because his wife and young son aren’t living in the White House, costing the government many millions of extra dollars to keep them safe while they live in Trump Tower — in New York City!

More grief is coming from those who wonder why the president keeps jetting off seemingly every weekend to his glitzy, decadent resort in Palm Beach, Fla. That’s costing a lot of dough, too.

It’s all not very, um, populist of you, Mr. President.

This business mogul is used to getting things done his way. He is learning that the presidency doesn’t allow that kind of thing.

You see, one cannot govern the United States of America the way you’d run a business. I don’t give a damn what anyone says to the contrary. You see, the founders had it right when they crafted a government full of all kinds of restraints, checks and balances, and assorted roadblocks to prevent an omnipotent presidency.

Welcome to the world of governance, Mr. President.