Monthly Archives: June 2017

local news, Sports news

Now we get to wait for the first pitch

I likely won’t be around when they throw out the first pitch, but I’ll be cheering the event nevertheless.

Amarillo’s Local Government Corporation has secured a deal that brings organized baseball back to the city. It comes in the form of the San Antonio Missions, which will depart the Alamo City and relocate in the Panhandle in time for the start of the 2019 season.

This is a good deal. It’s a huuuge deal. It revives the hope of those of us who want to see the city build that multipurpose event venue downtown and want to see the city’s central district restored in a new fashion.

The Elmore Sports Group, owner of the Missions, wants to move to Amarillo because of the promise of the downtown ballpark that will be erected across the street from City Hall. It will cost $45.5 million — give or take — and it will be funded primarily with hotel occupancy tax revenue.

According to the Amarillo Globe-News: “We are very excited,” said D.G. Elmore, group chairman. “We have moved teams at various times in our 36-year history of owning ballclubs, and as I reflect, I don’t think there is a time we have seen the level of business support like this.”

“In many ways, it’s unprecedented,” Elmore said. “This type of support is fantastic.”

Is this project criticism-free? Hardly. We are going to hear from those who do not believe the city should invest so heavily in its downtown district. They want the city to spend money on other areas, on other neighborhoods, on other projects.

What I see happening is a revival that is going to ripple across the city. The MPEV/ballpark will generate considerable interest for the city’s downtown district. That interest translated directly into revenue for the city. That revenue can be spent — wisely, of course — on myriad projects and improvements all across Amarillo.

Now that the LGC has received the commitment it wanted from the Missions, work can begin in earnest on specific design plans for the MPEV. Crews have cleared out the lot. The Coca-Cola distribution center that once occupied that downtown property has relocated to a business park on the east side of the city.

The sounds of baseball being played downtown will be new to those who have lived here for any length of time. My wife and I have called Amarillo home for more than two decades. Our life is set to change in due course as we continue to prepare for our relocation.

The city’s life is about to change, too. Also for the better.

Affiliated minor-league baseball is returning to Amarillo, which used to be home to the Gold Sox, a team affiliated with the San Diego Padres of the National League. And that makes the Missions’ relocation somewhat poetic and symmetrical, as that team also is part of the Padres organization.

There’s much to do. But with the announcement today that the Missions have signed on the dotted line, the LGC can claim much work has been done already.

Let’s get busy.

political news

So much for the Democratic ‘tide’ forming in Georgia

Jon Ossoff got thumped. Karen Handel is the new congresswoman from Georgia’s Sixth Congressional District.

It was supposed to be a potential sign of a Democratic Party “wave” that could sweep the minority party back into control of the House of Representatives.

One little thing happened, though. Democrats fielded a candidate with an eligibility problem. He doesn’t live in the district. 

Ossoff lives about six miles outside the district; he’s sharing a residence with his fiancée. Ossoff said he grew up in the district, he knows it well and the fact that he didn’t abide by the electoral rules didn’t matter. Well, actually, young man — it does matter. A lot.

As for Handel, she tied Ossoff at the hip to House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, whose name has become a four-letter word among Republican political operatives.

Did I want Ossoff to win? Sure. I’ve said that already. I did express some concern earlier about this residency issue and how it might nip him in the backside. It did.

The Sixth District is a reliably Republican one. It’s former representative, Dr. Tom Price, now serves as health and human services secretary. Donald J. Trump carried the district by a percentage point in 2016, while Price was being re-elected by double digits.

If Democrats have any hope of peeling off GOP districts in the future, my suggestion is to find better-quality candidates to carry the message forward.

They can start by ensuring their candidates actually live in the district they seek to represent.

national news, political news

Moment of ‘truth’ on alleged WH tapes on tap

Donald J. Trump could have prevented a lot of the hubbub surrounding his presidency. He chose to keep it roiling.

The president is now supposed to tell the nation Thursday whether he actually recorded conversations he had with former FBI director James Comey.

Few people close to the matter believe that Trump recorded them, yet he managed to tweet something right after he fired Comey that the former FBI boss had “better hope” there are no tapes.

Come clean, Mr. President.

The president once again has demonstrated the behavior of a juvenile delinquent. He and his White House staff have refused to answer the question: Did the president record conversations with Comey? Rather than answer the question, the president has played coy in a stupid and childish game of political chicken. So have his press spokespeople.

Suppose on Thursday that the president declares he was just kidding. He didn’t intend to threaten the release of tape recordings. He was trying to run a bluff on Comey and the media.

Will that end this discussion? Will it put to rest the idiotic notion that this guy disseminates public policy via social media? I doubt it seriously.

I suppose it’s fair to wonder whether the president’s penchant for social media petulance will ever enable him to win the trust of Americans and our nation’s allies. If he puts to rest the ridiculous report of audio recordings, then how can we believe anything that this guy says going forward?

Then again, if he has tapes stashed away, we’re talking about a serious game-changer.

I’m going to stick with the notion that Donald Trump will seek to wiggle away from that moronic tweet.

national news, political news

Wake up, Congress, to greater civility

Ted Cruz believes this past week’s shooting at a baseball practice that wounded several of his fellow Republicans should be a “wake up call” for members of Congress.

The Texas U.S. senator is right, of course. He almost seems to state the obvious, that the tenor and tone of current political discussion has been filled with too much poison.

Five people were hurt in Alexandria, Va., while practicing for Congress’ annual charity baseball game. The shooter was angry at Donald J. Trump and, apparently, at GOP U.S. Rep. Steve Scalise, who was wounded by a rifle shot from the gunman. Scalise’s condition is improving and for that we all are grateful.

The gunman died in a shootout with police.

“We may disagree on whether the federal government should have a simple flat tax or a massively confiscatory federal income tax, but those differences should not lead to demonization, vilification and personal attacks,” Cruz said in remarks to supporters.

But that’s what we’ve been hearing. It goes back many years. It’s been a bipartisan mantra. Democrats and Republicans point at each other across the aisle on Capitol Hill and question each other’s motives for whatever it is they seek to accomplish.

Politics used to be a noble calling. That’s not the case these days. It has become a contact sport. Some suggest politics has turned into a blood sport.

The dips*** shooter in Alexandria exemplified the danger of letting our emotions get the better of us.

legal news

Top lawyer ‘lawyers up’; more to come, maybe?

If you’re keeping score, it’s good to know how many of Donald J. Trump’s key administration staffers have hired lawyers to represent them.

You have the president’s son-in-law and senior public policy adviser, Jared Kushner seeking outside counsel; Vice President Mike Pence has hired a lawyer to represent him and might be able to use campaign funds to pay for the counselor’s advice; today we got word that Attorney General Jeff Sessions has joined the lawyering-up club.

And oh yes, the president himself has hired a team of lawyers.

Why all this legal eagle activity? You know the reason, but I’ll mention it anyway. Special counsel Robert Mueller is investigating whether the Trump campaign worked in cahoots with Russian hackers, who tried to influence the 2016 election outcome.

Of all the people mentioned here, I find Sessions’ decision to be most interesting. He’s the nation’s top lawyer. He runs the Department of Justice. He also has recused himself from anything to do with the Russia investigation.

Throughout all of this Russia investigation, we hear the president toss out terms like “witch hunt” and “fake news.” He doesn’t condemn the notion that Russian government goons might have sought to influence the election.

The special counsel has a lot of information to sift through. The former FBI director, James Comey, told Senate committee members that the president pressured him to back off a probe into the Russia matter. The president launches into those tweet tirades that seem to undermine his own message, not to mention his legal defense against whatever might be tossed at him.

We’re a long way from knowing the truth behind all of this.

The high-priced legal community is riding a serious gravy train, thanks to the concerns being expressed by the president of the United States and some among his senior team members.

military news

Tragedy reveals tale of heroism

The word “hero” arguably is one of the most abused words in the English language. We hang that description on athletes and actors.

Word has come out about the truest form of heroism. It came in the actions of U.S. Navy Fire Controlman First Class Leo Rehm Jr., who saved the lives of 20 of his shipmates before drowning in a tragic collision in the Sea of Japan.

Rehm was one of seven sailors who died when their ship, the destroyer USS Fitzgerald, rammed a merchant ship near the Japanese coast.

The Fitzgerald was struck below the water line. It took on water rapidly. Rehm managed to get 20 of his mates out of danger, and then went back down — only to have the hatch closed behind him as the crew sought to prevent the ship from sinking.

That’s when Rehm died along with the six other sailors.

Rehm was slated to retire soon from the Navy. He would return to his home state of Ohio.

This information is heartbreaking in the extreme.

The Daily Beast wrote extensively about Rehm and his actions aboard the stricken warship. Read the full piece at The Daily Beast.

Heroes are among us. They serve in many capacities. They are first responders. They are Good Samaritans who run to aid others in need. They wear our nation’s military uniforms.

They are men like Leo Rehm Jr.

political news

Divine intervention in Georgia?

We’re going to know soon who will win the special election in Georgia’s Sixth Congressional District.

Democrat Jon Ossoff reportedly won a significant majority of the ballots that were cast early. Republican Karen Handel is hoping for a big turnout today to win the seat once occupied by Tom Price, who’s now secretary of health and human services.

Then the rain came. Lots of rain. I watched video of the torrent. It looked, dare I say it, downright biblical in the volume. Flooding occurred. Cars were stranded.

If the turnout is depressed today because of the rain that inundated suburban Atlanta, are to presume something special is occurring?

Might someone out there suggest out loud that God wanted Ossoff to win this seat?

Just askin’, man.

medical news

Americans are numb to congressional hypocrisy

It’s no surprise to anyone that hypocrisy exists in the halls of federal government power.

What I think is a surprise is how we are now so numb to it, that it doesn’t bother us.

U.S. Senate Republicans are in the process of doing precisely what they criticized their Democratic colleagues of doing just eight years ago. They are meeting in secret to cobble together a health care overhaul they say will replace the Affordable Care Act. In 2009, Republicans were frothing at the mouth because of what they said was occurring when Democrats crafted the ACA.

Video recordings of Republican Senate and House leaders bear out their anger then. Eight years later, well, here we go again.

The weirdness of it, though, shows itself in the apparent tolerance among average Americans at what’s going on.

A newly elected president, Barack H. Obama, sought Republican help in crafting the ACA. He didn’t get it. They stiffed him. The ACA process did include public hearings and testimony from those who favored and opposed it.

Another president new to his office, Donald Trump, hasn’t extended his hand to Democrats. Meanwhile, congressional Republicans are plowing ahead with an ACA replacement with no input from Democrats, no public hearings, no testimony.

Same song, different verse? Yes. The major difference appears to rest in the tacit acceptance that hypocrisy is now the norm in Washington, D.C.

I’ll go on record here to say that not all Americans accept this as business as usual. I believe it stinks to high heaven!

International news

When does the clock start on ISIS destruction?

Is it fair to wonder if the time is approaching to start holding Donald Trump accountable for his boasts about getting rid of the Islamic State?

The president told us during the 2016 campaign that he knows “more about ISIS than the generals do. Believe me.” He vowed to destroy the hideous terrorist organization. He has declared the end of an era in which the United States is “losing” in the fight against its worldwide enemies.

So I’m wondering when we might start some sort of countdown clock. When does the president become fully responsible for any failure to make good on the bold boasts he made while seeking the office he now occupies?

If we are not going to formulate a countdown clock, then it well might be time to start pressing the commander in chief about whether he intends to make good on his campaign promise.

I was struck during the campaign by the ease with which these boasts poured forth. He made it sound as if all he had to do to rid the world of the Islamic State was to bomb the terrorists into oblivion. Didn’t he once say he’d “bomb the s***” out of them? Hey, we’ve got the ordnance. Let’s use it, he said.

They’re still out there, Mr. President. ISIS is still fomenting terror. It’s still taking responsibility for terrorist activities. It’s still causing American service personnel considerable grief.

It’s time to get busy, Mr. President.

media news

No more ‘Fair and Balanced’

Fox News Channel is dropping its long-standing mantra of being the “fair and balanced” news network.

I don’t quite know whether to cheer loudly or to sigh out of exasperation.

Fox is going to adopt a new slogan eventually, according to reports. For now it’s dropping the “fair and balanced” label, which was the creation of ousted Fox president Roger Ailes, who lost his job in 2016 after being accused of sexual harassment.

I’ve long believed the network is neither “fair” or “balanced” in its presentation of the news. I also have long acknowledged the impressive audience it has created out here in TV Viewer Land with its decidedly conservative slant.

Go to any public location in the Texas Panhandle where you’ll see TV sets — doctor’s office, dentist’s office, restaurants, banks or other financial institutions — and you see Fox News anchors giving you their version of the news. That is the power of the network that Ailes founded as an antidote to what he believed was a liberal tilt to the presentation of news.

Fox has done a number of things well. For instance, it spiced up its news programming with a bit of pizzazz, bringing other cable news outlets along to do the same for their presentation.

Fair and balanced? It never was any of that. At least not to my eyes and ears.