Monthly Archives: April 2017

media news, national news, political news

Hoping to head off Trump Fatigue

I might need an intervention.

News junkie that I am, I usually cannot resist watching cable and broadcast news channels’ discussion of current events, of public policy and, yes, even politics.

Until now.

I awoke this Sunday morning and decided to avoid the weekly news/commentary/analysis talk shows. I didn’t watch George or Chuck on ABC or NBC, respectively. I had no particular desire to listen to the talking heads on “This Week” or “Meet the Press.”

Why? I fear it’s because of the subject matter: Donald John “Smart Person” Trump, the current president of the United States of America.

The guy is starting to wear me out. We’re not even at the 100-day mark in his presidency. Good grief! That means we have another nearly four years to go before the next presidential election!

Heaven help us. Or maybe just me.

I don’t intend to stop commenting on this clown’s tenure as president; I consider contributions to High Plains Blogger to be a form of therapy. I might even be able to fend off the Trump Fatigue I fear is beginning to overtake me.

Maybe I just need a day or two — or maybe three or four — away from the TV set.

Wish me luck. I’ll extend the same to you.

national news, political news

FBI managed to muck up a murky election

I continue to have great respect for FBI Director James Comey — even after reading a lengthy New York Times article providing excruciating detail about how might have changed the course of political history with a single letter to Congress.

Comey was holding on to information that I reckon he felt he had to make public while keeping secret other information related in some fashion to what he was about to disclose.

Did the nation’s top cop swing the 2016 presidential election all by himself by giving up the goods on Hillary Rodham Clinton while keeping quiet what he was looking at regarding Donald John Trump? I don’t believe that’s the case. But, damn! He made a tough call at the just the wrong time!

The article is long, but worth your time. It details the agony that Comey endured during the final months of a bitter presidential campaign.

Eleven days from Election Day, Comey decided he had to send a letter to Congress telling lawmakers that he had more information that might be pertinent to an investigation he had concluded regarding Clinton’s e-mail use during her time as secretary of state.

Do you remember how he held that press conference in July 2016 in which he criticized Hillary’s “careless” use of the personal server? And how he then said he had no grounds to prosecute her? That presser was, in itself, highly unusual.

When some more e-mails became available, he then seemed to believe he owed the public some sort of explanation of what he found.

But, man, the timing was terrible!

While all this is engulfing the campaign, we didn’t know that Comey’s agency was probing allegations that Trump’s campaign might be colluding with Russian computer hackers seeking to influence the election, trying to help the Republican nominee defeat Hillary.

He didn’t reveal any of that. Indeed, he only went public with that tidbit just a few weeks ago during a congressional hearing.

FBI policy had been to stay out of partisan political activity. It cannot be seen as a factor in deciding elections. I get it. So does everyone else.

As for whether Comey’s disclosure of the e-mail issue late in the campaign and whether it proved decisive … I’ll simply make this point: Hillary Clinton’s campaign never should have had to worry about an election outcome in the first place.

She and her team made enough mistakes without that disclosure to keep Trump’s campaign close enough to catch them.

Hillary Clinton is far more qualified to be president than the man who defeated  her. Her abject failure to communicate with voters as a living, breathing human being — to talk directly to them and to spell out a clear vision for how she intended to lead the country — doomed her effort to make history.

business news, national news, political news

Trump Hotel poses potentially huge conflict for … Trump the POTUS

How in the world does Donald John Trump get away with this?

He serves as president of the United States. He continues to hold onto business interests, such as the Trump International Hotel, which plays host to foreign government leaders; those foreign governments spend money doing business at this hotel.

And the president somehow doesn’t violate the “emoluments clause” of the U.S. Constitution, the clause that says president’s cannot accept money or other inducements from foreign governments?

It’s an anti-bribery clause, in a manner of speaking.

Yet the president continues to dine there, which I suppose he is entitled to do. What is making my head spin is how this particular hotel can, in the words of The Hill, be the “go-to” place for foreign government dignitaries.

Isn’t the Constitution clear about this?

The emoluments clause is in the very first article of the Constitution. The founders were clear, I have thought, to prevent the president from doing any form of private business with any “King, Prince or foreign State.”

Let’s remember that Trump hasn’t divested himself of his vast business empire; he’s handed it all over to his sons

But as The Hill reports: “The hotel has been the go-to location for foreign leaders and dignitaries since it opened last fall, when Trump was still a presidential candidate.”

He’s no longer a candidate. He’s now the man. The president of the United States. Leader of the free world. Commander in chief. Head of state.

Unless he’s giving away all the services his hotel is providing those foreign “dignitaries and leaders,” it seems to me that he’s committing an unconstitutional act.

legal news, national news, political news

No intention to lecture AG about the law, but really …

I am acutely aware that Jefferson Beauregard Sessions is an educated man.

He went to law school; passed the Alabama state bar; served as a federal prosecutor; tried to become a federal judge in the 1980s, but was rejected by the U.S. Senate because of some things he reportedly said about black people; then he was elected to the Senate.

He now serves as U.S. attorney general, thanks to an appointment by Donald John Trump.

There. Having stipulated all of that, I need to remind the attorney general that he should not disrespect the tenet of judicial review that the nation’s founders established when they formed our republic more than two centuries ago.

I say this with no desire to lecture the AG about the law, or the U.S. Constitution.

However, when he pops off about a federal judge sitting on the bench “on an island in the Pacific,” he has disrespected one of the basic frameworks set aside by those founders.

The judge presides over a federal court in Hawaii, one of the nation’s 50 states. U.S. District Judge Derrick Watson ruled against Trump’s temporary travel ban on constitutional grounds. The travel ban is now heading to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.

You’ll recall, too, that the president himself referred to another federal jurist in Washington state as a “so-called judge” when he struck down an earlier travel ban involving refugees from seven Muslim-majority countries. Trump might need a lecture about the Constitution and the separation of powers written into it; he might need to be told about how the founders intended for the judiciary to be independent of political pressure. Given that Trump had zero government experience prior to becoming — gulp! — president, he might be unaware of the not-so-fine print written in the Constitution.

The attorney general should know better than to disparage a federal judge in the manner that he did.

An island in the Pacific? C’mon, Mr. Attorney General.

Suck it up. Let the courts do their job. Sure, you are entitled to challenge court decisions’ legality. However, let’s stop the petulant put-downs.

Same thing goes for you, too, Mr. President.

local news

Puppy Tales, Part 34

Take a look at the dog in this picture.

This is Toby, our 3-year-old Chihuahua-mix who we address simply as Puppy. We only refer to him to others by his name. To us he is just Puppy.

He believes he is the baddest pooch on the block. On second thought, he believes he is the baddest pooch of all time. He is fearless. He has no qualms about approaching other dogs — regardless of size or the sound of their bark.

I mention this because Toby the Puppy just came from a walk through the ‘hood with my wife and me. We routinely walk by fenced-in yards that are home to other dogs. They routinely bark, snarl and growl at Toby as we saunter on past. What does Toby the Puppy do?

He wants at ’em. He pulls at his leash as if to tell Mommy and me, “Let me take care of bidness.”

Well, we don’t encourage him. We tell him to “heel.” He complies, generally.

Toby entered our family nearly three years ago. It was love at first sight — both for him and for us.

We learned a couple of things right away about our puppy, who was 5 months old when we took over our household. One was that he had a bark that was much larger than his physical size; he now weighs about 9 pounds, but sounds like a bigger, badder dog than that when he chooses to have his voice heard — which isn’t very often.

The second thing we learned was that he is without fear.

To our knowledge, he has had just one semi-serious altercation with another dog. It was with our next-door neighbor’s pooch, who weighed about 50 pounds. Lily came onto our driveway; she and Toby sniffed each other for a moment then she started fighting with him. Toby gave as good as he got for the second or two they were tussling.

After that Toby and Lily were just fine.

When we visit our son, daughter-in-law and granddaughter in Allen, Toby uses his (lack of) size to his advantage while play-wrestling with Madden, the kids’ hulking black Lab. Toby is fond of avoiding Madden by scooting underneath the big dog, frustrating his pal to no end.

We have joked with those who tell us when they meet Toby, “Oh, he looks just like a German shepherd!” We have answered that he’s a “miniature version” of the renowned breed. A couple of folks have actually believed it.

Toby doesn’t realize he’s a small dog. He’s not supposed to want to tangle with big ol’ pooches who challenge him. As long as he’s on our leash he won’t venture where he shouldn’t go.

He’ll have to be satisfied merely with making his mother and me laugh daily.

political news, State news

Even Texans are mad at Trump … go figure

When residents of Texas are polling negatively against Donald John Trump, well, then you’ve got a problem.

Are you paying attention, Mr. President?

Texas Monthly reports that a Texas Lyceum poll suggests most of us here in the Lone Star State disapprove of the job Trump is doing. The poll surveyed everyone — those who vote and those who don’t. Texas Monthly reports further that among Texas Republicans who do vote, the president remains popular, with an 85 percent approval rating.

According to Texas Monthly: “The key seems to be which group of Texans you’re talking about. Overall Trump’s disapproval/approval rating among all Texans was 54 percent/42 percent. But while Republicans support him, 86 percent of Democrats disapprove of his job performance, along with 73 percent of the millennials and 61 percent of Hispanics. Sixty percent of whites view Trump positively.”

Trump in trouble in Texas?

I am not going to presume for a second that Trump couldn’t win Texas yet again if an election took place in the next day or two. Texans have shown a propensity over many years to be intensely loyal to whichever party is in power.

I’ve noted already that a semi-trained chimp could get elected to public office if he was a Republican.

To be, um, fair and balanced, you could have said the same thing 40 years ago about Democratic candidates for office.

The tide has turned here. Having been at ringside in Texas as the state turned from moderately Democratic to strongly Republican, I borne witness to the shocking nature of the transition.

The Lyceum poll also suggests that U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, who’s up for re-election in 2018, might be in some trouble against a strong Democratic challenger. The poll puts Cruz and U.S. Rep. Beto O’Rourke — the only announced challenger for Cruz’s seat — in a dead heat.

But … as they say: A week is a lifetime in politics. In Texas, I’m not about to count Cruz out as dead meat more than a year away from the next election.

As for Trump, his relatively poor standing is emblematic of the trouble he is encountering throughout the nation. He wants to repeal the Affordable Care Act, which remains popular with a majority of Americans; and he wants to build that wall along the Rio Grande River, a notion that I keep hearing isn’t popular at all among rank-and-file Texans.

But, hey. If we were to ask Trump about his low poll standing, he’d blow it off. He’d call it “rigged.” He would say it’s cooked up by the media that he describes as “the enemy of the people.”

You know what? Most Texas Republicans would believe him.

Imagine that.

local news

Happy Trails, Part 10

This retirement life allows my wife and me to spend more time holding hands while walking through our southwest Amarillo neighborhood.

While we do this activity with Toby the Puppy, I am free to look at my surroundings and entertain strange thoughts.

This one popped into my noggin this morning.

We live on a “place.” The street that t’s into our street is a “drive.” It originates from another right-of-way labeled a “lane.”

They all do the same thing: They convey motor vehicle, non-motorized vehicle and pedestrian traffic.

What’s the difference among them?

I looked the terms up in the dictionary I keep on my desk. I found the term “lane” and saw that it refers to a narrow roadway. “Drive” has many applications, most of them are verbs. There’s no street reference to “place.” Get this: The “lane” one block north of our house is the same width as the “place” where we live. Go figure.

I noticed long ago, too, that Amarillo labels its major east-west thoroughfares as “avenue,” while those that run north-south are “streets.” My hometown of Portland, Ore., does something similar. Hmm. Streets and avenues do the same thing, too.

Boulevards are different. They usually refer to broad streets with medians. I’m aware of only one “boulevard” in Amarillo. It does have a median west of the major commercial area through which it passes.

I know I could solve all this curiosity with a phone call or two to City Hall. What fun is that?

I’ll entertain any suggestions or ideas.

International news, national news, political news

How did The Wall become our responsibility?

Hey, didn’t Donald John Trump vow, declare it a lead-pipe cinch that Mexico would pay for a “big, beautiful wall” along the border between that country and the United States of America?

Didn’t he say he would force Mexico to foot the bill because, after all, those criminals and terrorists were “flooding” the country through our southern neighbor?

He got into an immediate war of words with Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto after taking office this past January. Why? Pena Nieto said “no way” would his country spend a nickel to pay for the wall.

Here we are, nearly 100 days into the Trump administration’s existence. The wall is now central to a domestic political dispute — in the United States. The federal government might shut down if Congress cannot come up with a plan to stick American taxpayers with the bill to build a wall that (a) won’t work and (b) will blow up the annual budget deficit.

What’s the cost of this boondoggle? $20 billion to $25 billion? For starters?

Congress and the president are squabbling over whether to approve one of those “continuing resolutions” that would fund the government for the short term. Meanwhile, that damn wall is still being negotiated between Republican congressional leaders and the Republican who now sits (once in a while) in the Oval Office.

If there is a more impractical, illogical and ill-conceived idea than building such a barrier between two ostensibly “friendly” nations, then someone will have tell me.

A huge portion of the U.S.-Mexico border happens to be along a mighty river — the Rio Grande — that separates Texas from Mexico. How in the name of civil engineering does the president build the wall along that border? How does the president propose to seize all that private land without adding to the already-enormous cost? The U.S. Constitution’s Fifth Amendment requires “just compensation” for any “private land taken for public use.”

Well, why quibble over the small stuff?

The very notion of this wall becoming central to this political dispute simply illustrates yet another blind and thoughtless campaign promise the president cannot keep.

And if he made that promise knowing that he couldn’t fulfill it, isn’t that just another flat-out, bald-faced lie?

national news

How might Trump honor predecessors?

The thought occurs to me late in the day.

How might Donald J. Trump honor his two immediate predecessors? Might he feel that George W. Bush and Barack H. Obama deserve to be honored with the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor?

It’s common for presidents to honor their predecessors in this fashion. Barack Obama honored former presidents George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton; Bush honored former President Ronald Reagan; Clinton honored President Carter and President Ford; Carter honored President Johnson, who honored President Kennedy, whose administration established this award.

I keep wondering whether Trump would bestow this honor to Obama and George W. Bush.

He spent years savaging President Obama, implying he was a foreign-born individual who was not qualified to serve as president; he has called President Bush’s prosecution of the Iraq War one of the nation’s most disastrous misadventure. Don’t forget that he also tore into the president’s brother, Jeb, while campaigning for the presidency in 2016.

In my view, both men deserve to be honored for their service to the country. I am merely intrigued by the notion of the current president setting aside all that fiery rhetoric to do what’s right and decent.

national news

This presidency seems so, so lengthy … already!

Do you mean to say we haven’t gotten to that 100-day mark in the presidency of Donald John Trump?

This guy is wearing me out. How about you?

Trump has been president for about 92 days. Almost every single day there is something that causes concern. Sometimes it’s big. Sometimes it’s not.

Every single day the media are reporting on some investigation into possible corruption involving conflict of interest, probable meddling by a foreign government in our electoral process — and whether the president’s campaign was complicit in it — and whether the president’s daughter is fattening her bank account because of her role in the administration.

The president has fired his national security adviser, hired his son-in-law to be a senior adviser, reportedly considered a wholesale shakeup of his senior White House staff.

He has jetted off to his ritzy resort in south Florida, costing the Treasury a ton of money it doesn’t have.

And to think we’re barely three months into this guy’s term. We’ve got 45 more of them to go!

This is going to be the longest four years — if he lasts that long — in anyone’s memory.

Guess what. There’s actually the tiniest silver lining in all of this. For those of us who are getting a little long in the tooth, we often lament how quickly time flies especially when we’ve lived most of our lives already; there’s relatively little time left on this Earth for many of us.

The turmoil we’re enduring with Donald Trump’s tenure as president seems to make us think that time is slowing to a halt.

I know. That’s not a good thing.

All I believe at this point is that the past three months seem to have gone on forever.

This is not how a “fine-tuned machine” is supposed to run.