Monthly Archives: May 2017

International news, legal news, national news, political news

Invoking the Fifth usually doesn’t imply innocence

What in the world are we to make of this bit of news, that former national security adviser Michael Flynn will reject a U.S. Senate committee subpoena and invoke his Fifth Amendment rights protecting him against self-incrimination?

Let me think. My takeaway is that Gen. Flynn doesn’t want the world to know certain things about, um, certain foreign governments.

Flynn’s role in the still-burgeoning controversy surrounding Donald J. Trump’s presidential campaign and its potential relationship with the Russian government has taken another, apparently far more serious, turn.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/ap-source-says-flynn-will-invoke-fifth-amendment/ar-BBBowHX?li=BBnb7Kz

The Associated Press is reporting that Flynn won’t appear before the Senate Intelligence Committee and that he’ll clam up under his constitutional protection.

If someone were to ask me, I’d say that he doesn’t want to say something that’s going to get him tossed into prison. What might that be?

Hmm. It might be that he did do something potentially illegal when he went to work for Turkey’s government, drawing a substantial stipend for the Turks as a lobbyist while also serving as the president’s national security adviser.

Gen. Flynn, who also served on Trump’s transition team, also might have said something to say about Russian officials who had worked to undermine the 2016 presidential election. There well might be some collusion between the Trump team and the Russians to be revealed … yes? Well, maybe.

Flynn also reportedly sought immunity from prosecution in exchange for testimony after the president fired him as national security adviser.

I’m smelling something terribly foul. Do you smell it, too?

entertainment news

Billy Bush is ba-a-a-a-ck … sort of

Billy Bush is trying to wiggle his way back into the media limelight.

I never thought I’d be commenting on him ever again. You know who this guy is, right? He was the other guy in an infamous 2005 video talking to a reality TV celebrity/real estate mogul about certain aspects of his private life.

The fellow to whom he was talking that day now is the president of the United States, Donald John Trump.

Bush is now 45 years of age. He got fired from the “Today” show after the video surfaced. Many Americans — yours truly included — thought for certain that Trump’s presidential campaign would go down in flames after the video surfaced. It had some audio with it in which Trump joked about how he grabbed women by their private parts.

Yep, the man who would be elected president actually admitted to committing sexual assault.

Ahh, but then we have Bush, the fellow who yukked it up with Trump as he regaled “Access Hollywood” listeners about his boorish behavior.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/tv/news/billy-bush-breaks-his-silence-on-trump-the-access-hollywood-tape-nbc-and-a-comeback-plan-exclusive/ar-BBBnmi3?li=BBmkt5R&ocid=spartandhp

Does this guy deserve to return to the public spotlight? Not if I had any pull over his future. Then again, I am just one individual.

Pop culture being what it is, however, I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised to see this clown re-enter the entertainment world. I’ll just have to make a point to look the other way.

International news, national news, political news

Rep. Chaffetz spoils possible role as truth-seeker

I had thought Jason Chaffetz might emerge in the U.S. House of Representatives as a lame duck with some bite.

The Utah Republican for now chairs the House Committee on Government Oversight and Reform. He’s about to surrender that chairmanship and apparently his congressional seat as he heads back home to ponder what he wants to do next.

My hope had been that Chaffetz would be unafraid of political blowback as the congressional probe of Donald J. Trump’s relationship with Russian government officials picked up steam. The committee he chairs plays a principal role in the search for the truth.

Thus, I figured that Chaffetz — free from the pressure of seeking re-election — would be unleashed as he pursued all the facts.

But he’s going to leave the House of Reps at the end of June. His committee chairmanship will go to someone else.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/republicans-watch-their-step-in-a-slow-retreat-from-trump/ar-BBBmjUS?li=BBnbcA1

In the meantime, there’s reporting now that congressional Republicans are beginning to pull back from the president as his domestic political troubles deepen even as he continues his first overseas trip as president. Trump’s journey to the Middle East got off to a good start with his speech at the Arab summit in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. His trip continues in Israel, where he well might face a rockier reception, given the trouble he got into regarding his release of Israeli intelligence information to visiting Russian dignitaries at the White House the other day.

There well might come a moment if the FBI probe deepens into the president’s Russia connections, or as the investigation led by special counsel Robert Mueller picks up steam when key congressional Republicans tell the president the political truth. That his support is dwindling to dangerous levels.

I had thought that Chairman Chaffetz might emerge as that GOP go-to guy, given that he won’t face a re-election in 2018. That’s not going to happen.

At issue, of course, is whether Russian hackers sought to influence the 2016 presidential election. Chaffetz lamented today that the president has been eerily silent about those allegations, other than to dismiss them and disparage the intelligence agencies that have concluded that the Russians did try to manipulate the election.

“You would like, I would think, the president to kind of beat (Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov) over the head with the fact that, if they actually did interfere in any way, shape or form, how wrong that is and how outraged America is on both sides of the aisle,” Chaffetz said on ABC’s “This Week.”

The president hasn’t done such a thing. Instead, he bragged about the “great intel” he had and spilled many of the beans about what he had regarding certain Islamic State activities in the Middle East.

No can do, Mr. President.

As for Chaffetz, he’s nearly a goner and he’ll hand over a key congressional committee gavel to a politician who won’t nearly be as candid as the lame-duck chairman.

national news

This reunion thing can get maddening

I am blessed beyond measure with wisdom that comes from members of my immediate family.

My frame of reference is my wife and my two sons.

One of them offered me a bit of wisdom this weekend that is giving me serious pause about whether I should attend a reunion of my high school graduating class.

It’s the 50-year reunion that is coming up in October. I had leaned against attending. As of this moment, I’m back on the fence. Totally neutral. I have indicated to close friends that I could be “talked into” going.

My wife and I attended my 10-year reunion in 1977; I flew back for my 30-year reunion in 1997 — and I hated almost every minute of it. I vowed then I wouldn’t return for any subsequent reunions. The 40-year reunion occurred without me. I had no regrets about staying away.

But then my son and I had a conversation this weekend that went something like this:

Me: You know, of course, that I am thinking about whether I want to go to my 50-year high school reunion.

Son: Yes, I know. I also know that you aren’t too keen on going.

Me: That’s right.

Son: Let me offer this bit of advice. You said your 30-year reunion was a bummer, that you hated it. I think the reason was that you went alone. Mom wasn’t there. You also set the bar too high. Why not just go this next reunion with Mom, see your friends, have a good time — and then go do whatever you want to do with Mom?

Do you see what I mean about wisdom? I’ve never told my sons that I was the knower of all knowledge. I’ve always had an open mind to whatever advice either of them — along with my wife — were willing to give me.

My wife and I now are retired. We purchased a fifth wheel recreational vehicle, which we tow behind a big ol’ pickup. Were we to go, we likely would haul our RV to Portland, Ore., where we both graduated from high school.

As I understand it, our Parkrose High School class of 1967 is planning a dinner in October at a hotel near Portland International Airport. We could attend the dinner, have some laughs, get caught up; my wife knows a couple of my classmates — one quite well, the other not nearly so.

Then we could say goodbye. Go back to our RV, visit some family and a few of our many other friends we have in the city of my birth.

Then we would be on our way to, oh, destinations to be determined.

I won’t set the bar too high. I won’t seek to rekindle relationships that I learned at the 30-year reunion did not exist in the first place.

Hmm. I am now thinking carefully about the wisdom I received from my son. That reunion is beginning to beckon — and I am beginning to pay attention.

I’ll keep you posted.

International news

U.S.-Israeli friendship set for big test

Donald J. Trump is likely going to find out just how strong — or fragile — is the friendship and alliance between the United States and Israel.

The president has concluded a successful visit to Saudi Arabia. He will fly to Israel. My trick knee tells me the reception he gets will be publicly joyful and perhaps privately a good bit chillier.

You see, Trump made a mistake back home, in the White House. He was visiting with two Russian dignitaries when he blurted out something of great interest to his Russian guests: it involved some classified information regarding the ongoing fight against the Islamic State.

The information, though, had been obtained by U.S. intelligence authorities from another source. That source, dadgummit anyway, happened to be Israel.

The president was boasting to the Russians about the “great intel” he gets. Then out it came. He blabbed when he shouldn’t have.

National security adviser H.R. McMaster later issued a sort of non-denial denial, in which he said the president didn’t reveal any tactical or operational secrets to the Russians. Big bleeping deal! They’re smart and sophisticated enough to cobble together pieces of information and develop their own strategies based on what they hear.

Reports have been circulating since then that the Israelis’ spies working within Iran might be in danger, given that the Russians and the Islamic Republic of Iran are close allies. The Israelis have deep-cover agents working throughout the Middle East, scouring their sources for intelligence regarding the sworn enemy of civilized nations around the world. That would be ISIS.

Just how angry are the Israelis? How ticked off is Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu? Publicly, he hasn’t much. It well might be a different matter when the two men meet in private.

I think we ought to look for words like “frank” and “candid” when U.S. and Israeli flacks describe the closed-door meetings between Trump and Netanyahu. If either description surfaces, my hunch is that Netanyahu will have given the U.S. president a major-league tongue lashing.

International news

Good vs. evil ‘has nothing to do with religion’

Great day in the morning! Could it be that the Trump administration finally is awakening to the reality of what this “global war on terrorism” is all about?

Donald J. Trump stood before a large room full of Muslim heads of state, potentates, kings and crown princes and spoke for 35 minutes without uttering the words “radical Islamic terrorism.”

Instead, he framed the fight against international terror in much the same language used by his two immediate predecessors — Republican George W. Bush and Democrat Barack H. Obama — as a war of “good vs. evil.”

Then up stepped Secretary of State Rex Tillerson to say that the conflict between our side and the other side “has nothing to do with religion.”

Really! He said that. He echoed the long-awaited and much-belated message the president delivered.

I hope hell hasn’t frozen over. I hope Earth will continue to spin on its axis. I trust the sun will rise in the east tomorrow morning — and beyond.

http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/334474-tillerson-in-saudi-arabia-this-is-a-fight-of-good-against-evil

“And I think the context of all of this where the President begins his journey here at the home of the Muslim faith under the leadership of the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosque – this great faith, the Muslims – then to travel to the home of Judaism and then to the great leader of Christianity, that the President is clearly indicating that this fight of good against evil has nothing to do with religion,” Tillerson said in a press conference after the president’s speech.

Trump and his team have sounded alarmingly bellicose ever since the billionaire business mogul entered politics by running for the presidency. He once pledged to ban “all Muslims” from entering the United States. While running for office, Trump said “Islam hates America.” Once elected, he sought to impose a travel ban on refugees fleeing certain Muslim countries; that effort is tied up in the federal court system that has ruled it unconstitutional.

Today, the president sounded quite different as it regards this war against terror.

The religious perversion that has overcome the monsters who purport to be Muslim too often gets lost in the United States. Too many Americans have taken the bait that “Islam” is the enemy. It is no such thing. The enemy are those who commit these heinous acts around the world — mostly against Muslims — in the name of a great religion.

President Bush made that point immediately after 9/11. President Obama continued to recite that mantra, often to criticism that he was a “Muslim terrorist sympathizer.”

I doubt we’ll hear any such fecal matter coming from those who continue to support Donald John Trump. Nor should we ever have heard it.

International news

Well stated, Mr. President

2 Comments

I am a man of my word who once declared I would speak well of Donald J. Trump when the moment presented itself.

Today is that day.

I just listened to the president’s speech to a gathering of Muslim heads of state and was impressed with what he did not say during his remarks: “radical Islamic terrorism.”

The president today delivered — by far! — his most nuanced, sophisticated foreign-policy speech as it regards our nation’s fight against international terrorism. For that I applaud him.

He spoke to an Arab summit meeting in Saudi Arabia, the country that is home to Islam’s two holiest shrines. He spoke of Islam as a “great faith.” He also repeated a mantra first delivered by President George W. Bush in the aftermath of 9/11 and repeated by President Barack Obama during his two terms in office: It was that we are not at war with a faith, but we are at war with “criminals” who have perverted it.

“We are not here to lecture — we are not here to tell other people how to live, what to do, who to be, or how to worship. Instead, we are here to offer partnership — based on shared interests and values,” Trump said.

http://www.politico.com/story/2017/05/21/trump-islam-terrorism-238643

The speech signals a remarkable about-face for a president who as a candidate and also earlier in his still-brief tenure in office would sail off into unscripted riffs about our war against terror. None of that occurred today. He spoke like the leader of the world’s most powerful nation.

Now … does this wipe away his problems at home? No. He still has the “Russia thing” with which to contend and a special prosecutor is going to look deeply into whether crimes were committed during Trump’s campaign for the presidency.

Today, though, marked a serious change in tone from someone who is leading our nation in its on-going fight against international terror.

Well stated, Mr. President.

media news, national news

Trump, as POTUS, has nowhere to hide

The Atlantic magazine has published a lengthy article detailing the difficulties facing Donald John Trump.

It goes through a lot of what many of us know already: his missteps, his hiring decisions, his carelessness with classified information and, of course, his international relationships.

Here’s the article:

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/05/all-the-kings-men/526980/

It paints a grim picture and suggests that Trump’s presidency is collapsing before our eyes.

Maybe it is. Maybe not.

The most interesting analysis in my mind, though, comes near the end. The Atlantic notes that as a private business executive, Trump could fire people at will; he was the CEO and no one would dare question his authority. As a candidate for the only public office he ever sought, the presidency, he could change the subject when he misspoke or — more likely — revealed some dark spot in his heart.

As president, though, he has nowhere to hide. He must stand front and center for every single thing he does or says.

And, yes, the media are there to watch, to listen and to report his dealings to the world. It’s what the media do.

The president no longer can get away with blaming “fake news” media reports. Every wound from which he suffers has been self-inflicted by someone whose business acumen simply doesn’t translate to political knowledge.

legal news, national news

Comey set to return to center stage

I understand James Comey is a good lawyer.

He knows the consequences of committing perjury. He understands that when he takes an oath he is bound to tell the whole truth.

The former FBI director, whom Donald J. Trump fired just the other day, is heading to Capitol Hill in a few days to talk to the Senate Intelligence Committee.

Reports now are surfacing that Comey is going to tell senators that the president sought to meddle in an investigation Comey was leading. Trump is the focus of the investigation, which now has been taken over by special counsel Robert Mueller. Comey said the FBI was examining whether the Trump campaign colluded with Russians seeking to influence the 2016 presidential election.

Trump denies collusion. He has told TV networks and other media that he fired Comey because of the “Russia thing” and Comey’s investigation into the actions of former national security adviser Michael Flynn. He also reportedly blabbed as much to Russian dignitaries who were visiting him in the Oval Office; the Russians have denied that Trump said discussed Comey.

Hmmm.

Comey on the stand

Now we’ll get to hear from the former FBI director himself. I’m quite certain that senators — particularly those on the Democratic side of the dais — are going to get right to the heart of the Big Question.

Did the president of the United States — in your opinion — obstruct justice by asking the FBI director to shut down his probe of Flynn and the campaign’s Russia connection?

Be sure you tell us the whole truth, Mr. Comey.

business news, local news

Here’s an idea: How about sprucing up AMA?

Amarillo Mayor Ginger Nelson rode into office partly on the strength of an ambitious six-point campaign platform.

It pays a lot of attention to economic development, fiscal responsibility, accountability to taxpayers and even makes a nod toward improving the appearance of public rights-of-way along our interstate highways.

I didn’t see any mention of Rick Husband Amarillo International Airport. Indeed, I am keeping my copy of an Amarillo Globe-News story that profiled Nelson’s campaign platform; my intent is to remind myself of issues she is addressing and which of them she needs to devote more attention.

About the airport.

I just returned this evening from a quick trip to AMA and noticed a couple of things about the site.

One is that the grounds immediately around the covered parking structures look better than they have looked in recent months. The grass is cut and trimmed. I did notice a number of weeds sprouting through the pavement in the parking lot. Tsk, tsk.

The other thing I continually notice as I drive along Airport Drive is that it, um, is so non-descript. I didn’t notice a “Welcome to Amarillo” sign, or any roadside artwork that depicts the personality of the community travelers are visiting … many for the first time, or perhaps for the only time.

I make the point about AMA for this reason: In the 1990s, the city spent a lot of tax money to subsidize jet traffic provided by American Airlines. The idea of spending Amarillo Economic Development Corporation sales tax revenue on these jet aircraft was to make air travel more comfortable for business travelers. The AEDC subsidy was intended to lure business to Amarillo. It drew its share of criticism from other communities. Frankly, it sounded like so much sour grapes.

I found the strategy to be innovative, aggressive and ambitious. The city ended the subsidy. American Airlines pulled the jets out of its Amarillo-to-D/FW route — for a time. Then the airline brought jet traffic back to AMA, as did United Airlines and Continental; Southwest always flew jets in and out of AMA.

The city once staked a lot of public money on air service at its airport. What’s more, in recent years the city has renovated and remodeled AMA, modernizing the terminal, turning it into an attractive site.

We have a new mayor and an entirely new City Council making policy at City Hall. Our new city manager, Jared Miller, came here from San Marcos with a reputation as someone who emphasized economic development.

I’ll throw this idea out to them all for consideration: How about developing some sort of strategy to make Rick Husband Amarillo International Airport a good bit more inviting to those who come here from the Metroplex, from Houston, Denver, from Las Vegas or from Phoenix?

There might be a business opportunity to be gained for the city if the traveler gets a first-glimpse look at what the city has to offer on his or her way out of the airport.

Just some food for thought, folks.