Monthly Archives: July 2017

medical news

What do those health care experts know?

Darn those silly ol’ health care experts who keep coming up with evidence that contradicts Republican politicians’ dire predictions about the Affordable Care Act.

The latest report comes from the Kaiser Family Foundation — hardly a group known for its radical left-wing ideology. It says the ACA is “stabilizing” in markets across the country. That it’s not “collapsing” as GOP politicians keep insisting.

Oh, yeah. These are the same GOP pols who want to toss out the ACA and replace it with an abomination that would toss 22 million Americans off the ranks of the insured over the next 10 years.

The foundation reports: “Early results from 2017 suggest the individual market is stabilizing and insurers in this market are regaining profitability,” the study finds. “Insurer financial results show no sign of a market collapse.”

So, which is it? Is the ACA in a death spiral or is it beginning to do the job that it was intended to do, which is provide health insurance to Americans who previously couldn’t afford to have it?

Stable or not?

Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell is signaling an apparent willingness to work with Senate Democrats to repair what’s wrong with the ACA if the GOP cannot push its repeal legislation over the finish line. It doesn’t look too good for Republicans at the moment.

President Obama declared repeatedly his willingness to mend the ACA if Republicans could find ways to improve it. Current congressional Democratic leaders are saying much the same thing. So far, GOP leaders are having none of it.

The Kaiser Family Foundation has given ACA supporters a glimmer of hope that sanity might be restored to this debate. We’ll have to wait, though, for the GOP politicians’ response that will find ways to punch holes in the report from the folks who examine these issues for a living.

I’m going to stick with the medical experts on this one.

national news

Donald Jr. steps in it … bigly?

Did the eldest son of Donald J. Trump just say something terribly incriminating?

Don Jr. has told the New York Times that he met with a Russian lawyer on the promise that the Russian had some dirt that the Trump campaign could use against Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Collusion anyone?

Isn’t that precisely what special counsel Robert Mueller is examining, whether the Trump presidential campaign worked hand in glove with Russian operatives seeking to damage Clinton’s presidential campaign?

The president denies any collusion. Indeed, there’s been no proof of any collusion. So far it’s all been speculation and allegation.

Now, though, Don Jr., has poured some fuel on the smoldering embers that keep producing all that smoke.

The Washington Post reported the Times story and took particular note of something that Trump the Younger said. According to the Post: “‘It became clear to me that this was the true agenda all along and that the claims of potentially helpful information were a pretext for the meeting,’ Mr. Trump said.

“Read that last part again: ‘the claims of potentially helpful information were a pretext for the meeting.’”

So, if the young man is telling the truth, he went into the meeting expecting to receive dirt on Clinton. Did he pass it on to Dad? Did Dad do anything with it?

This story is getting murkier by the hour.

International news, national news

Not the dumbest idea, but it’s close

Lindsey Graham said this in response today to a question about a joint U.S.-Russia initiative to combat cyber hacking: “It’s not the dumbest idea I’ve ever heard, but it’s pretty close.”

That was among some of the critiques that the South Carolina Republican U.S. senator offered on Donald J. Trump’s meeting with Vladimir Putin in Hamburg, Germany.

Graham went on during his interview with “Meet the Press” moderator Chuck Todd: “He gave a really good speech in Poland, President Trump did, and he had what I think is a disastrous meeting with President Putin. Two hours and 15 minutes of meetings. (Secretary of State Rex) Tillerson and Trump are ready to forgive and forget when it comes to cyber-attacks on the American election of 2016.”

Donald Trump, to no one’s surprise, is calling his second overseas trip as president a success. The Putin meeting, by many accounts, was anything but a victory for the president. He “pressed” Putin on allegations that Russian government officials meddled in our 2016 election; Putin denied it. Then the two men announce this joint effort to combat cyber attacks? Are you kidding? Sadly, no. They aren’t.

Trump once again revealed that he appears to be the only world leader on the planet who refuses to accept that Russia launched an attack on our electoral process. He keeps giving the Russians cover. He keeps saying things like “We don’t really know” who is responsible for the hacking of our system. Actually, a lot of intelligence experts in this country do know who did it. They say it’s the Russians.

Meanwhile, U.S. politicians from both political parties are demanding that Russia be held accountable for what they did. Instead, the president wants to form a partnership with them to put an end to the Russians’ effort to subvert our electoral system?

I agree with Sen. Graham. It’s a pretty damn dumb idea.

media news

No longer missing the sniping from left and right

I once posted a blog item about two fellows with whom I had a sort of professional relationship.

One is an ultraconservative firebrand; the other is an ultraliberal firebrand. I offered the notion that I must be doing something right to have angered both of them for essentially the same reason: I tilt too far the other way.

Here is what I wrote in July 2010.

https://highplainsblogger.com/2010/07/barbs-from-the-left-and-the-right/

I was working full time at the Amarillo Globe-News then, as editor of the Opinion pages. I would leave that job about two years later. I’m still blogging my brains out.

What I find refreshing about blogging in this context — as a retired former journalist — is that I no longer have to argue with critics who say I tilt too far in the opposite direction.

I tell people now — and I’ll reiterate it here — that I am now free to speak without apology. It’s not that I ever apologized for what I wrote when I was a working print editorialist. It’s just that I felt the need to correct whatever misinterpretation a critic would level at me.

“Your paper is too liberal,” they might say. “That rag of yours is too conservative,” others might say. No one can say that about this blog.

As the sayings go: “It is what it is,” and “What you see is what you get.”

As time marches on since my departure from daily print journalism I find myself separating myself more easily from the regular occurrences that would develop, such as the one noted in that July 2010 blog post.

I love telling friends with whom I cross paths that these days I am: unfettered, unchained, unrestrained, unleashed, uncaged, untethered, unrestricted … you can put the prefix “un” in front of any descriptive term you want.

That’s me. I’m having a blast, man.

International news

Sen. Graham tells it bluntly about Trump, Russia

Donald J. Trump needs to hear a lot more blunt talk from members of his own political party.

He got it today from U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham, the South Carolina Republican, who pulled zero punches when talking about the president’s “blind spot” as it regards Russia, Vladimir Putin and the Russian effort to undermine our electoral process.

Sen. Graham said this, among other things, on “Meet the Press” this morning: “When it comes to Russia, I am dumbfounded,” Graham said of Trump’s actions. “I am disappointed and, at the end of the day, he’s hurting his presidency by not embracing the fact that Putin’s a bad guy who tried to undercut our democracy and he’s doing it all over the world. He is literally the only person that I know of that has any doubt about what Russia did in 2016.”

Read more of what Graham said here.

The reality is that the president and Putin met in Hamburg, Germany, in advance of the G20 summit and Trump has decided it’s now time to “move forward” after hearing Putin deny Russian effort to meddle in our 2016 presidential election.

That’s it. Vlad says he didn’t do anything and that’s good enough for me … or so Trump seems to be saying.

Graham is having none of it. Nor should he. Nor should the intelligence professionals who have concluded that the Russians sought to influence the election outcome.

I agree with Graham, moreover, that whatever the Russians did likely didn’t affect the outcome. Trump was elected fair and square. However, the point of Graham’s tirade is that Trump shouldn’t accept Putin’s denial while denigrating — on foreign soil, no less — the U.S. intelligence apparatus’s capability, which Trump did in Hamburg.

Will any of this straight talk matter to the president? No one believes it will change this man’s point of view. His blind spot toward Russia and Putin, though, is “hurting his presidency.”

That means, to me, that he’s hurting the nation.

media news

Here is a seriously valuable public service

I invite you to read this item from today’s Amarillo (Texas) Globe-News.

You cannot make this stuff up.

It comes from the paper’s weekly “food inspection report” collected from Amarillo municipal code enforcement officials. It’s part of the public record. It’s available for anyone to see upon request. The newspaper has for a number of years been publishing this report as a form of public service. It lists eating establishments and watering holes around town. This particular joint is a strip club in southwest Amarillo.

This feature is enormously popular among readers of the newspaper.

I don’t read the newspaper regularly. In fact, I rarely have read the paper since resigning from the AGN in August 2012. Many of you know the story about that, so I won’t go there; I’ll save it possibly for another day.

I do like this feature and I admit that I miss seeing it.

This item might be the most bizarre complaint I’ve seen.

The media are getting their share of hits from disgruntled Americans who’ve taken the bait dangling from politicians who accuse them of offering “fake news” and other such things.

This inspection report isn’t fake anything. It’s real and it highlights the serious public service that the media can — and do — provide on a regular basis.

But seriously? “Breast implants found inside bar utensil holder … “?

Uncategorized

Does this counterprotest remind you of anything?

I really enjoy hearing about current events that conjure up previous such events with which I have some familiarity.

Some Ku Klux Klan members sought to protest the removal of a statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee in Charlottesville, Va. Then they were met by a boisterous and rowdy counterprotest from those who wanted to drown out the KKK’s point of view.

I find it so very interesting that the KKK would protest this statue removal. It’s also ironic, given the view expressed by some Americans that honoring Gen. Lee only honors “tradition” and “Southern heritage.” The irony is that the Klan would mount the protest. The Ku Klux (bleeping) Klan! The racist hate group known for its extreme violence over many years against African-Americans and non-Christian minorities.

Heritage? History? Give me a break.

But … back to my point.

The counterprotest reminds me of something that occurred right here in Amarillo, Texas, in 2006. The Klan wanted to protest federal housing policy, so they decided to come to Amarillo. City officials granted the Klan a permit to demonstrate at City Hall. Just as the KKK started to blather its nonsense, in walked a horde of counterprotesters led by none other than the late Stanley Marsh 3.

Marsh — who was wearing his familiar white suit that looked as though it was borrowed from Col. Sanders — was banging some cymbals, if memory serves, and he was walking in front of a lengthy line of horn-blaring, drum-pounding, shouting protesters who — just like those in Charlottesville — sought to outshout the Klansmen.

I get that the KKK is entitled to free speech under the First Amendment’s guarantee of that particular civil liberty. So, too, are those who wanted them shouted down.

Here’s how the Washington Post reported it.

They did it in Charlottesville, just as they did in Amarillo.

I’m on the side of the counterprotesters.

medical news

Work with Dems to fix ACA? Wow, what a concept!

Am I hearing things or did I actually hear U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell say he might be willing to work with Senate Democrats to improve the Affordable Care Act?

Yep, I think I heard the Kentucky Republican say such a thing.

What a friggin’ concept, Mr. Majority Leader. Who’da thunk it?

Senate Republicans cannot muster enough votes among themselves to repeal the ACA and replace it with the abomination they cobbled together. Donald J. Trump called the House of Representatives’ version of ACA replacement the greatest thing since pockets on shirts, then the president called it “mean.” He wanted the Senate GOP to come up with a bill with “heart.”

It didn’t. The Congressional Budget Office — that non-partisan agency — issued its “score” on the Senate bill and found out that 22 million Americans would lose their health insurance over the next decade. That’s pretty mean, too, right? Yes.

GOP moderates hate the Senate bill, as do GOP conservatives, although for different reasons. Senate Republicans can afford to lose only two of their votes; at last count, about 10 or 12 of them dislike the bill that’s on the table.

What’s the alternative? McConnell is signaling that the ACA might stand, but that his Republican caucus can work with Democrats to tweak and tinker with what they dislike about the ACA.

My memory now reminds me that President Barack Obama said on numerous occasions during his time in office something like this: I have no deep pride of authorship of the ACA. If Republicans can find a way to improve it, to make it better, then I’m all in!

Didn’t the former president say something like that? Yes, I believe he did.

So, here we are. After all the futile votes to repeal the ACA in the GOP-controlled Congress, all the declarations that the ACA was ruining the lives of Americans and that it is failing, the Republicans in both congressional chambers cannot agree on a plan to replace it.

So, let’s fix what’s wrong with it.

Time to get busy, ladies and gents.

International news, national news, political news

Ex-DNI: Evidence of hacking points to Moscow

James Clapper has contradicted the president of the United States, who says “others” might have hacked into the U.S. electoral system along with the Russians.

Not so, says the former director of national intelligence. The Russians did it. There’s no evidence of any other nation getting involved.

I’ll go with ex-DNI Clapper on this one.

Clapper is clear: It’s the Russians

Donald J. Trump keeps trying to blanket Russian government goons in political cover by suggesting that other nations might be involved. He famously alluded to some 400-pound guy lying in bed somewhere who might be hacking into our electoral process.

The president keeps demonstrating this outrageous reluctance to drop the hammer on Russian President Vladimir Putin. Meanwhile, the intelligence professionals — the folks who do that kind of work for a living — say something quite different.

I’m inclined to believe the career spooks’ assessment of what went down during the 2016 presidential election.

local news

Happy Trails, Part 30

We had hoped it would be the Mother of All Garage Sales.

It turned out to be a first cousin once removed, or some such thing. Still, I rate it a success, but not the wing-dinging rousing success my wife and I had sought.

We had hoped to sell a big and beautiful entertainment center. We purchased it about 30 years ago in Beaumont, Texas. Then we hauled it way up yonder to the Texas Panhandle in January 1995. A neighbor came by this afternoon and said, “I wish I could find a place for that,” to which I replied, “I do, too” wish he could find a place for it.

Then he talked himself into snapping a picture of it and sending it to his wife. He left and said he’d call later after taking care of some errands. We chatted a couple of hours later and it turned out that his TV is too big to fit in the centerpiece of the entertainment center.

No deal. Damn!

But no sweat. The furniture piece is now ensconced in a charitable organization warehouse and it will be peddled to someone who can use it.

Our garage sale is over. It’s likely our final such event before we pull up our stakes and head southeast toward the greater Dallas/Fort Worth area.

First things first.

We’ve got to find a place to store the worldly goods we have left in our possession. We have to do a couple of things to the house we’ve called home for 21 years. We have to contact a Realtor. Then we put our crib on the market … and hit the road in our RV.

Our retired life is unfolding in increments. We take one step at a time. Still, our retired life today cleared a big hurdle.

Now, for the next one.