Monthly Archives: October 2017

local news, State news

All hell is about to break loose in Austin

You want to hear the rumble of thunder under your feet?

Put your ear to the ground and get a load of the racket emanating from a Texas legislator’s announcement that he won’t seek re-election in 2018.

That would be House Speaker Joe Straus, a San Antonio Republican, who stood firm, tall and steady against the onslaught of the far right within his party. Straus is calling it quits.

The Texas Tribune is reporting that a political earthquake is under way in Austin. A Rice University political scientist says the “political center in Texas” has just collapsed.

That might be the truth.

Straus fought against the TEA Party and other fringe elements within the Republican Party. Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick sought to shove the Bathroom Bill down our throats. Straus was having none of it; a bill that would require people to use public restrooms according to the gender noted on their birth certificate. The Bathroom Bill discriminates against transgendered individuals and Straus wouldn’t stand for it.

His stubborn refusal to let the bill get a vote in the House has drawn the outrage from those on the right. So the speaker is out of there.

And the successors are starting the line up. One of them might be a friend of mine, Rep. Four Price, an Amarillo Republican first elected to the House in 2010. I asked Price about the speaker’s future a few weeks ago, but he said he was standing behind his guy, Straus.

Now that the speaker is on his way out, there exists an opportunity for one of Straus’s key lieutenants — that would be Price — to step in and maintain the moderate tone that the House ought to keep.

As the Texas Tribune reports: More than any other Texas Republican with real power, Straus was seen as a voice of moderation. On issue after issue, he and his team alone stood in the way of the kind of runaway populism that Donald Trump championed and major statewide Republicans endorsed.

Here’s the Tribune article

Will another moderate step up? Might it be Four Price? And would a Speaker Price resist the pressure that’s sure to come hard from the far right?

Meanwhile, the ground continues to rumble.

national news

POTUS does the impossible

Donald John Trump has done the seemingly impossible.

He has turned yours truly into a fan of Republicans who — prior to Trump’s ascendance into the presidency — likely wouldn’t get a good word from this blog.

Who … knew?

I’m going to single out three GOP senators briefly.

* John McCain. This man is a hero. He fought bravely during the Vietnam War. He served heroically as a prisoner of war after being shot down. McCain’s valor is beyond dispute. His commitment and love of country cannot possibly be questioned. He’s now fighting for his life against brain cancer.

* Bob Corker. I am less familiar with this fellow. He’s ending his Senate career after just two terms. He’s a conservative. He is a mainstream fellow. He seems intelligent, measured, reasonable.

* Jeff Flake. He, too, is ending his Senate run at the end of next year. He’s another conservative. He’s also a true-blue Republican.

All three of these men have another thing in common. They detest the president of the United States. So do I. Wow! Imagine that. I agree with them — and other lawmakers in both houses of Congress — in their assessment of Trump’s competence.

Donald Trump is not competent enough to do the job to which he was elected. What’s more, he’s not even a real Republican. He is no Democrat, either. He’s a man without a party, or a man with a party he is seeking to craft in his own image.

What an image that would be, yes?

A fellow inherits a stake from his wealthy father; he invests it in real estate development; he makes a ton of money. Then he ventures into beauty pageant management/ownership. Then he becomes host of a reality TV show.

Oh, then he marries three women, produces five children with all three of them. He cheats on his first two wives — and brags about it! He admits to groping women and grabbing them by their, um … oh, you know. He mimics a disabled reporter. He disparages a Gold Star family. He hides his tax returns from public review.

Trump doesn’t know how to govern. His “fellow Republicans” do understand how run the government. They are frustrated, angry and mortified at the so-called “leadership” coming from the White House.

I am on their side in this growing dispute.

The common denominator who has brought me to the Republicans’ side? He sits in the Oval Office.

national news

Happy Trails, Part 51

WINNEMUCCA, Nev. — We might have discovered the nicest stretch of highway in the continental United States of America.

It’s not necessarily the most scenic. The quality of the highway, though, is unmatched by any other prolonged stretch of blacktop on which we have traveled in our retirement life.

I want to give a shout out to U.S. Highway 20 from Bend, Ore. to Burns, Ore.; then to Oregon Highway 78 from Burns to Burns Junction, Ore.; then on to U.S. 95 from Burns Junction to Winnemucca, Nev.

The stretch of highway(s) runs 354 miles.

I want to mention this briefly because the road was pothole/chuckhole free. We didn’t see a single blemish on the roadway from Bend to Winnemucca.

Our latest sojourn in our RV hasn’t been this smooth. Not by a long shot. We encountered a bit of rough riding along California Highway 99 through the middle of that great — smoke-clogged — state. I will not toss out any blame here; I merely am stating a fact.

Those who like to travel as my wife and I do will appreciate the observation, I hope, that the country does have some highly drivable rights-of-way.

The entire journey from Bend to Winnemucca was scenic as well. It was desolate, particularly the stretch from Burns southwest along Oregon 78. Even that has its form of beauty.

With all the talk we’ve heard in recent years about “crumbling infrastructure” and the need to rebuild our nation’s highway grid and bridges, I want to proclaim that a 354-mile stretch of highway way out West is in fine shape … thank you very much.

political news

POTUS seeks to reaffirm his smartness

Why in the name of Mensa membership does Donald John “Smart Person” Trump Sr. keep doing this?

He keeps telling us how he got an Ivy League education. He keeps insisting he’s a smart guy. He insists as well that he’s fabulously rich, that he’s the best negotiator and deal maker since the beginning of Planet Earth.

The president was responding to the attack that came from retiring U.S. Sens. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., and Bob Corker, R-Tenn., both of whom have peeled the bark off of Trump in recent weeks.

So we hear — yet again! — from the Leader of the Free World that he really is the smartest guy in the proverbial room.

My experience over many decades of living — while working with other really smart people — has told me this fundamental truth: Those who really possess serious intellectual wattage never have to say how smart they are. They are not compelled to assert what should be obvious to those who know them.

I have members of my family along with a few friends who are bona fide geniuses. None of them has expressed — at least in my presence — that they are loaded with intellectual firepower.

My life’s experience has taught me another key lesson. It is that those who insist on telling you how smart and rich they are usually are neither.

national news, political news

Has the GOP gone on to its great reward?

I fear the time may have arrived to say goodbye, farewell, adieu to a once-great American political party.

The Republican Party may be drawing its last breath in the Age of Donald John Trump Sr.

U.S. Sen. Jeff Flake has announced he is leaving public office at the end of next year. So is Sen. Bob Corker. They are two standup up guys. They represent the traditional Republican Party. They have sought during their Senate careers to work within a political system that includes Democrats. I don’t recall hearing them use the kind of language that’s become the apparent norm these days during the Trump Era.

Sen. John McCain is no friend or political ally of the president. And no matter how many smiley faces they make in Trump’s company in front of the camera, I do not believe Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell or Sen. Lindsey Graham, or Sen. John Cornyn are actual Trumpkins.

And the members of the Trump brigade need to stop denigrating their service by referring to them as RINOs, Republicans in Name Only. The RINO in chief, Trump, fits that description to a T.

We’re seeing more and more “establishment type” Republicans facing primary challenges, which is what drove Flake to the sideline.

As the Politico article attached to this post indicates, Trump is driving these people away and turning the GOP into a party in his image.

What an image it is, too.

Trump “tells it like it is,” his fans say. No, he tells it like he wants it to be. And for the life of me I cannot understand how a once-great party tolerates someone speaking of others in the manner that he does.

Donald Trump has defied every norm not just of political convention but of personal human decency since announcing his presidential campaign in June 2015.

A man with no public service experience ascended to the most exalted public office on Earth and nearly a year into his term has next to zero to show for it. His response has been to blame others time and again for his failure.

So here we are. The Republican Party — which once prided itself on being the Party of Abraham Lincoln — has become the Party of Donald John Trump.

Rest in ever-loving peace, GOP.

national news

Idiot in chief now goes after Denali?

The nation’s idiot in chief, Donald John Trump, reportedly is demonstrating even more his loathing of his immediate predecessor.

For the life of me I cannot grasp this clown’s anti-Barack Obama fetish.

The former president signed an executive order that changed the name of Mount McKinley to Denali. The latter name is the ancient name used by indigenous people in Alaska.

It’s being reported that the current president some months ago asked Alaska’s two Republican senators, Lisa Murkowski and Dan Sullivan, whether he should reverse President Obama’s executive order. The senators reportedly said “no.”

This is the kind of ridiculous game-playing that the president seems to enjoy. He monkeys around with threats to repeal this and/or that Obama executive order.

What’s Trump up to?

I am in no position to predict what Trump will do as it regards Denali. The majestic peak’s former name honored the memory of the late President William McKinley, who was murdered in 1901. McKinley hailed from Ohio, which Trump won in the 2016 presidential election.

Is it just me or is Trump listening to the howls from a state he carried? Is the president truly considering an action merely on that basis?

national news

Happy Trails, Part 50

BEND, Ore. — Our retirement journey has taken us to the place where our life together began slightly more than 46 years ago.

My wife and I got married at 2 p.m. on Sept. 4, 1971. Then we jumped into Dad’s car and drove to our honeymoon location in the middle of the Central Oregon Cascade Range.

But this post isn’t about that event. It’s about how I am discovering new things about our incredible journey so many years later.

We came here to visit with a couple members of our family who retired here five years ago. We have shared a lot of memories, some thoughts about current events and some views about what the future holds for all of us.

I mentioned to my cousin that he seems “well-grounded here.” I said he seems to “know the lay of the land.” He answered, “But you know the lay of the land in Amarillo, yes?” Absolutely, I answered, but “we’ve lived there for 22 years.”

We’re preparing the next phase of our life together. I told my cousin that we are preparing now to learn the “lay of the land” in a new community. We don’t yet know the precise location of where we’ll end up. We do know that we’re going to start over. We’re going to make new friends. We’re going to establish our identity among people who at this precise moment are complete strangers to my wife and me.

Does it frighten either of us? Certainly not my wife. She’s transitions well from place to place. Not me, either. I’ve learned already that I am far more adaptable than I ever gave myself credit for being. I discovered it when our young family moved from Oregon to the Texas Gulf Coast in 1984. We had a great run there. Then my wife and I moved up yonder to the Texas Panhandle.

We’re getting ready for yet another big change.

Thus, the challenge awaits.

I’ve long thought that we all need one final major challenge in our life. For me, at least, this one is it.

national news

Sen. Flake joins the anti-Trump exodus

What do you know about that?

Another Republican U.S. lawmaker of considerable standing has bailed out on his public service career and is launching a fusillade against the president of the United States — who hails ostensibly from the same political party.

Jeff Flake of Arizona has announced his retirement from the Senate. He took the floor of the body today and raked Donald John Trump Sr. over the coals, following the lead of another key Republican. Bob Corker of Tennessee has announced his retirement as well and has just recently said if he had to do it all over again he couldn’t — and wouldn’t — support a Trump presidential candidacy.

Folks, this is getting very strange.

Flake was facing a challenge from within his party. The Trump Wing of the GOP — however one chooses to define it — had planned a primary challenge for Flake. Why is that? Because Flake had the temerity to write a book that is highly critical of Trump’s tenure as president.

Flake quadrupled down today in his retirement announcement speech. As the Washington Post reported: The charged remarks from Flake — a totem of traditional conservatism who has repeatedly spoken out about his isolation in Trump’s GOP — came hours after Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) questioned the president’s stability and competence, reigniting a deeply personal feud with the president.

Flake unloads

More from the Post: Flake added: “We must stop pretending that the degradation of our politics and the conduct of some in our executive branch are normal. They are not normal. Reckless, outrageous and undignified behavior has become excused and countenanced as ‘telling it like it is’ when it is actually just reckless, outrageous and undignified.”

Hmm. Who do you suppose he’s talking about?

Does it matter to the Trumpkins who keep standing by their guy? Oh, probably not. Sen. Flake, though, has said out loud what has needed to be said since the day Donald Trump was elected president of the United States.

national news

JFK conspiracy talk might fire up again

1 Comment

You may now consider me an official JFK anti-conspiracy believer.

Donald J. Trump has decided to allow the release of thousands of pages of FBI and CIA documents relating to the Nov. 22, 1963 assassination of President Kennedy in Dallas.

I’m glad the president has made this call. It should help dispel the loony conspiracy theories that have been kicked around since Lee Harvey Oswald shot the president to death and severely injured Texas Gov. John Connally.

The release should do this. It won’t. It is likely to fire up the goofballs.

For the record, here is what I believe.

I believe Oswald was able to sneak into the Book Depository Building. I also believe he was able to fire off three rounds at the president’s limo in the time investigators believe it took for the three rounds to inflict their deadly damage. I further believe Oswald acted alone.

I never have bought into the conspiracy lunacy. I never will.

Instead, I look at this event thusly: There is no way in the world to keep such a conspiracy a secret for 54 days, let alone 54 years. Does any serious person really believe an enterprising reporter couldn’t ferret out the truth to such a conspiracy if one really existed?

I am going endorse the theory posited years ago by the late Los Angeles County District Attorney Vincent Bugliosi, who wrote what I consider to be the definitive book on the Kennedy murder.

Bugliosi believes the reason the conspiracy theories likely will live forever is that Americans cannot believe a loser such as Oswald could pull off what some have called the Crime of the 20th Century.

I happen to believe that Oswald’s status as a chump loser makes him the perfect candidate to exact the demented form of vengeance he sought against the president or perhaps even Gov. Connally.

So, on Thursday the records will be released for public review. I welcome them. I want them to put to rest these idiotic notions about conspiracy, second gunmen, the Mob, the Soviet Union or the Cubans having some hand in this murder.

That’s my hope. My fear is that the conspiracy nut cases will fire up their nonsense yet again.

https://highplainsblogger.com/2013/11/jfk-murder-myth-will-live-forever/

Sports news

How ’bout them Astros!

This year’s World Series is going to carry very special meaning to one of the cities represented in Major League Baseball’s championship event.

I’m talking about Houston, Texas, from where the Houston Astros hail. They won the American League pennant with a stirring seventh-game victory over the New York Yankees.

OK, here goes. I’m going to pull extra hard for the Astros to beat the Los Angeles Dodgers in the Fall Classic.

Houston has been through Hell on Earth since Hurricane Harvey inundated the nation’s fourth-largest city under 50 inches of rain that fell over a 24-hour period. The heartbreak and cataclysmic misery felt throughout Houston defies description.

Indeed, as the Astros and the Dodgers prepare for the World Series, the city is still seeking to reconstruct itself. Its millions of residents are trying to make sense of their lives upended by the deluge.

My heart usually rests with the American League team as it is. I grew up rooting hard for the New York Yankees. I was a Mickey Mantle-worshiping kid. Indeed, I truly enjoyed big-league baseball long before the Age of Free Agency changed the game forever by giving players opportunities to move from team to team — which they have done with stunning regularity for the four-plus decades since free agency became the vogue in MLB.

I used to follow the careers of players who stayed with one team their entire career: Ted Williams (Red Sox), Stan Musial (Cardinals), Roberto Clemente (Pirates), Cal Ripken Jr. (Orioles), Tony Gwynn (Padres).

I long have watched the Astros compete in the National League. Then they switched to the AL, which means the Astros are the first big-league franchise in baseball history to compete for the World Series crown representing both major leagues; they were swept a few years ago by the Chicago White Sox.

Here we are. In the moment. Houston has suffered terribly from the savage beating delivered by nature’s wrath. Its residents are in dire need of something to cheer.

A World Series title by the Houston Astros would be the nearly perfect tonic for a city in deep distress.