Monthly Archives: September 2017

State news

A&M chancellor takes on a huge new rebuilding task

Hurricane Harvey’s devastation along the Texas Gulf Coast has delivered an important political metaphor.

It is that human misery crosses party lines. To that end — and this appointment likely isn’t being done to illustrate that point expressly — Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican, has tapped a leading Texas Democrat to lead the Gulf Coast rebuilding effort.

Texas A&M University System Chancellor John Sharp, who’s got a most-demanding full-time job already, is going to lead that rebuilding.

Indeed, Chancellor Sharp has serious skin in this game. He served in the Texas Legislature — in the House and then the Senate — while living in Victoria, a community that was rocked by Harvey’s first landfall on the Texas coast. So, he feels the pain of the folks suffering the ongoing misery that Harvey left behind.

Sharp also is the latest Democrat elected to statewide office in Texas. He served as comptroller of public accounts from 1991 until 1999. I have no particular reason for mentioning that, other than to note that Sharp’s partisan affiliation is well-known; it speaks well, too, of Abbott’s willingness to reach across the political aisle to find someone to lead this massive effort.

I join the rest of the state in wishing the chancellor well and Godspeed as he takes on this huge task. He surely knows what awaits him as he takes charge of the governor’s new task force.

It’s big, John Sharp. Real big.

International news, political news

Putin, Russians can declare: Mission Accomplished

If Vladimir Putin were so inclined, I might expect to see the Russian president unfurl a banner in Red Square that reads, in Russian of course, “Mission Accomplished.”

The Russians meddled in our 2016 election. They sought to influence its outcome. They attacked our electoral process. They declared a form of war against our democratic process.

U.S. intelligence agencies have concluded as much. I believe them. The winner of the 2016 presidential election, Donald John Trump, has yet to draw that conclusion.

Oh, no. Instead, he has disparaged our intelligence apparatus. He has sought to deflect criticism of the Russians through equivocation, saying that “it could be anybody” who meddled in our election.

Now, do I believe the Russians actually swung the election in Trump’s favor? Do I believe their meddling, by itself, resulted in a Trump victory? No. I believe the president defeated Hillary Rodham Clinton legally. I also believe Clinton made too many fatal mistakes down the stretch to salvage a campaign that she should have socked away long before Election Day.

But you see, the Russians have succeeded famously. They have thrown the U.S. political discussion into near hysteria. Accordingly, they have accomplished one of their primary missions, which is to cast doubt on our electoral process.

We’ve got congressional committees examining the interference. The FBI is examining it, too. The president fired former FBI Director James Comey over the “Russia thing,” and the Justice Department has appointed a first-rate special counsel, Robert Mueller, to conduct an independent probe of that Russia matter.

There might be indictments forthcoming. The president himself might find himself in a world of political hurt. Trump has been so consumed by this investigation that he cannot take the time he needs to fill critical spots within the nation’s executive government branch.

I cannot predict how all these investigations will conclude. I feel fairly confident in suggesting that no matter the outcome, that Vladimir Putin has succeeded wildly in undermining the electoral process of the world’s remaining superpower.

environmental news

Climate change is real, NW fires notwithstanding

I’m seeing a bit of social media chatter that needs to be put in perspective.

Some of it is conflating a couple of key issues: climate change and those horrific fires that have scarred many thousands of forestland in Oregon and Washington.

Critics of climate change deniers are pointing to the Oregon and Washington fires as evidence that climate change is real.

I agree with the notion that Earth’s climate is changing, that its temperatures are warming. The fires that began along Eagle Creek just east of Portland, though, were the result of a dumbass who allegedly was playing with fireworks in tinder-dry woodlands above the Columbia River.

Oregon State Police have a suspect. He’s a teenager. He is a minor, so we won’t know his name, which I guess gives me license to refer to him as a dumbass.

Back to the issue of climate change/global warming. It’s playing out far from the Pacific Northwest.

The Texas Gulf Coast just got hit with a Category 3 hurricane/tropical storm. It dumped 50-plus inches of rain on Houston and the Golden Triangle; it brought killer winds to the Coastal Bend. It has created unspeakable grief, agony and misery along the coast.

But wait! Now there’s a Category 5 storm blasting its way toward South Florida. It has winds of 185 mph; gusts are reaching 225 mph.

Meteorologists and other scientists are speaking in unison — more or less — on this subject: We’re going to see more catastrophic storms in quick succession in the future because of climate change.

The debate, though, centers on the cause of this change. The scientific consensus appears to suggest that human activity has exacerbated the change, through carbon emissions and immense deforestation.

The fire will be extinguished. I remain supremely confident that the forest will be restored over a lengthy period of time. Humankind can repair the damage done by a single thoughtless idiot.

The frequency of those storms? The rising sea levels? The intensity of the savagery that boils up out of the ocean?

That problem requires our immediate attention, if only we’d stop bickering over whether the climate is changing. It is. Let’s get busy finding solutions to this worldwide crisis.

national news, political news

What do we make of this strange new alliance?

Donald J. Trump might have validated what some of us think about him: The president is a Republican In Name Only.

I’m shaking my noggin in disbelief at what happened in the White House today.

The president said in a room with congressional leaders of both parties. There was Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and House Speaker Paul Ryan; also there was Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi.

What does Trump do? In the presence of his fellow Republicans, McConnell and Ryan? He sides with Schumer and Pelosi, two of those dreaded Democrats in accepting a plan to fund the government for three months and providing immediate federal relief for Hurricane Harvey victims along the Texas and Louisiana Gulf Coast.

McConnell and Ryan were furious; Schumer and Pelosi were gleeful.

What does this mean for Trump’s ability to govern? Beats me, man.

Read the story from The Hill here.

I am a bit baffled, though, on why Trump accepted the Democrats’ shorter-term debt limit while Republicans had pitched a longer-term deal.

My own Democratic-leaning preference tells me the president is open to negotiate with the “other side,” which many hard-core GOP leaders have been unable or unwilling to do. That’s not a bad thing, in my humble view.

I’m left to wonder whether Donald Trump has just inflicted a potentially mortal wound in his already-tenuous relationship with leaders of his own party. I also wonder if he is able to mend the wound in time for the 2018 mid-term election.

Meanwhile, Donald Trump has become big-time pals with “Nancy and Chuck.”

entertainment news, environmental news, national news

Daddy Dittohead goes bonkers once again

I have decided to no longer refer to Rush “Daddy Dittohead” Limbaugh as a “conservative radio talk-show host.”

He’s certifiably loony. His goofiness goes beyond ideology, whatever his might be.

Limbaugh said this about Hurricane Irma, a Category 5 killer storm that is threatening Puerto Rico, South Florida and the Carolinas:

“Here comes a hurricane, local media goes on the air, ‘Big hurricane coming, oh, my God! Make sure you got batteries. Make sure you got water. It could be the worst ever. Have you seen the size of this baby? It’s already a Cat 5. Oh, my God, oh, my God, it’s bigger than the island of Haiti. Oh, my God.’ People run to the stores, they stock up everything, and they hoard. And they end up with vacant stores, nothing there. And it’s a big success. TV stations got eyeballs, the advertising businesses have sold out of business, gotta restock and the cycle repeats.”

Do you get it? He says Irma is a conspiracy to promote makers of emergency supplies. This storm ain’t a punchline, dude!

Limbaugh has said that these killer storms have been used to promote “liberal agenda” items, such as global warming/climate change. He’s not buying it.

He also said: “You don’t need a hurricane to hit anywhere. All you need is to create the fear and panic accompanied by talk that climate change is causing hurricanes to become more frequent and bigger and more dangerous, and you create the panic, and it’s mission accomplished, agenda advanced.”

Earth to Rush: These storms are causing serious human misery. Millions of Americans on the Gulf Coast are suffering at this very moment. Perhaps millions more Americans will suffer from Hurricane Irma’s savage attack on U.S. territories and on South Florida.

Let’s not minimize the impact of these storms by dismissing worry about future calamities that could be a result of climate change.

I once wrote in a column that Rush Limbaugh is to political commentary what Willard Scott — a former TV weatherman/funnyman — was to meteorology. “Except,” I wrote, “Willard Scott makes me laugh. Rush Limbaugh makes me sick.”

national news

Stop the whopper about taxes, Mr. President

I won’t hang a goofy nickname on the president of the United States, such as, oh, “Lyin’ Donald.”

But for crying out loud, Mr. President, you keep repeating that whopper about Americans’ tax burden. Knock it off already!

Donald Trump is heading for North Dakota today to pitch his notion of comprehensive tax reform. He keeps saying that the United States is the “most taxed nation” on Earth. No! It is not. It’s not even close to the most taxed.

According to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, the United States ranks as No. 28 among nations on the total tax burden as a percentage of Gross Domestic Product. Those are 2015 figures, but my hunch is that they haven’t changed much in just two years.

The most taxed nation is Denmark, followed by France, Belgium and Finland. The U.S. burden is just less than Switzerland and a bit more than South Korea.

The tax burden percentage sits at around 27 percent, according to the OECD.

This is just yet another example of Donald Trump making things up to drive home some sort of political point.

Does he know he’s fabricating this tax burden notion? I suppose that if he makes this false statement knowingly, well, that would mean he’s telling an outright lie.

Imagine that, will ya?

environmental news

Happy Trails, Part 38

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I think I’ve just made a command retirement decision.

My wife, Toby the Puppy and I are not going anywhere near the Gulf or Atlantic coasts in August or September.

Hurricane Harvey crashed ashore twice along the Texas coast as a Category 3 monster. First it hit Corpus Christi and Rockport. Then it backed up over the Gulf of  Mexico, downgraded a bit to a tropical storm, then wiped out Houston and the Golden Triangle under 50-something inches of rainfall.

OK, then. The Gulf Coast is out.

Now the nation is awaiting Hurricane Irma, a Category 5 hurricane that is reportedly the most dangerous Atlantic storm ever formed!

Miami and Miami Beach are in Irma’s bulls-eye. Sustained winds are at 185 mph. Residents are starting to flee.

You know what that means? It means we aren’t going that way, either in late summer … not ever!

Climate change is making these monster storms a more frequent occurrence. Do not bitch at me about climate change! I won’t be dissuaded from what I believe, which is that Earth’s climate is changing. I won’t argue with you today about whether it’s manmade or whether it’s part of Earth’s “normal cycle.” The cause doesn’t matter in the context of this decision.

Earth’s climate is changing and that means — for those of us in our household — our happy trails are going to lead us elsewhere at this time of the year.

environmental news

Let’s learn from Tillamook Burn recovery

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I have received a chilling message from a friend of mine who lives in Portland, Ore., the city where I was born … a very long time ago.

“We’ve lost the Gorge,” my friend wrote. The wildfires that have consumed much of the Eagle Creek region east of Portland and have jumped the Columbia River into Washington, according to my friend, have consumed much of the Columbia River Gorge. I’ll take his word for it, that the Gorge — one of America’s true scenic treasures — has been scarred deeply by the fire.

The Gorge forms a significant portion of the border between Oregon and Washington along the Columbia River — which the U.S. Coast Guard has closed to all traffic because of the fire.

Oh, man. This is heartbreaking in the extreme.

The picture I’ve attached to this blog shows the fire as seen from Stevenson, Wash., across the river from Eagle Creek.

My friend, though, reminded me also of that the damage need not be permanent. It might last a long time. However — as the saying goes — time can heal the wounds.

Eighty-four years ago, a huge fire broke out along the Coast Range of Oregon. It was the first of a series of blazes that burned near the town of Tillamook, a coastal community. The fires took out many thousands of acres of pristine forestland. The final blaze in the series occurred in 1951. It came to be known to us as The Tillamook Burn.

I remember driving to the beach with my parents and sisters and passing through many miles of scorched timber. The photo below is of the Burn in 1951.

That changed over time. I am proud to say that I played a teeny-tiny role in the recovery of the forest. I was a Boy Scout and my fellow Scouts and I would venture many times in the early 1960s into the forest to plant trees. We were not alone. Other groups did the same the thing: churches, civic organizations, even large families would make an outing of tree-planting in The Tillamook Burn.

Today, I am happy to report — as my friend noted in his message to me — that the forest is back. My friend wrote: “On our way to the coast we often stop at the Tillamook Forest Center. That’s inspiring to me, the way that Oregonians … came to fix a destroyed forest that we enjoy today. We might have to do that again.”

When the fire is extinguished, I believe there will be a concerted effort to do precisely what occurred along the Oregon Coast Range.

The Columbia River Gorge might be “lost” today. One must not bet that it will stay lost forever.

International news

Trump makes our heads spin over DACA

My head is spinning. I feel almost like the Linda Blair character in the film “The Exorcist.”

Donald Trump decides to rescind the Deferred Action on Childhood Arrivals executive order; he gives Congress six months to find a legislative solution.

He then says he’ll “revisit” the issue if Congress fails to come up with a way to shield undocumented immigrants who were brought here by their parents when they were children.

He does all this while — and this is truly mind-boggling — granting a full presidential pardon for a former Arizona sheriff who was convicted of breaking the law. “Sheriff Joe” Arpaio, the ex-Maricopa County sheriff, got a pardon after a judge convicted him of flouting a federal court order that banned him from rounding up individuals who he suspected of being illegal immigrants.

So … Trump rescinds DACA, then says he’ll “revisit” the issue, sending out a signal that he might take back his decision to rescind DACA order. He spoke this week of the feelings he has for DACA residents, how he “loves” them, how heavily the issue weighs on his heart.

I might be inclined to believe the president on that score — except for the Arpaio pardon!

Which is it, Mr. President? In what direction is this individual leaning?

There goes my head again. It’s spinning.

national news

Trump’s DACA decision tests civility boundaries

The president of the United States is testing my pledge to speak with a civil tone.

Donald Trump’s decision to rescind the Differed Action on Childhood Arrivals order has me straining against my more angry angels. But I shall resist the temptation. I shall remain civil.

The president has given Congress a six-month deadline to enact a legislation solution to DACA, which President Obama signed to protect undocumented immigrants against deportation. Specifically, DACA aims to shield those who were brought to this country as children, but who grew up as de facto Americans, from being kicked out of the only country they’ve ever known.

Is there a compelling need to rescind that order? No.

Did the president have to act for reasons other than fulfilling a campaign pledge? Again, no.

Does the president have a plan ready to go six months from now in case Congress fails to enact a legislative solution? Probably not.

We’ve got about 800,000 U.S. residents who have grown up as Americans. Many of them are now university students; they hold responsible jobs; they are serving in the military — and some of them have died in service to this nation.

These folks were brought here by their parents. They were children. Some were infants, or toddlers, or in grade school. They came here because Mom and Dad sought a better life. Should the parents have come in legally? Should they have sought legal immigrant status? Yes. I don’t dispute that.

Why, though, are we punishing the children — the so-called Dreamers — who were brought here because of a misjudgment by their parents?

I do not understand it. I never will understand it.

Ezekiel 18:20 tells us, “The child will not be punished for the parent’s sins … ” Mr. President, is your DACA decision in keeping with what Scripture instructs us?