Monthly Archives: November 2017

national news, political news

Earth to POTUS: You won!

Dear Mr. President …

There you go again, trying to re-litigate the 2016 presidential election.

Hillary Rodham Clinton has been blasted yet again by her fellow Democrats for supposedly “rigging” her party’s nomination fight. She’s been exposed by so-called “ally” Donna Brazile, a longtime Democratic Party operative and former interim Democratic National Committee chairwoman.

It’s a party matter, Mr. President. You’re a Republican (supposedly). So, why are you tweeting your brains about calling on the Justice Department to investigate the woman you keep disparaging with that nasty nickname?

The most ridiculous assertion you make is this:  “Everybody is asking why the Justice Department (and FBI) isn’t looking into all of the dishonesty going on with Crooked Hillary & the Dems. New Donna B book says she paid for and stole the Dem Primary,”

Everybody is asking, Mr. President? I hate to break the news to you, but “everybody” isn’t asking. I’m not. My wife isn’t, either. I’m pretty sure that most of the 65 million Americans who voted for Hillary aren’t asking, either. It might be, too, that many of the 62 million who voted for you aren’t all that concerned, either.

But, hey, you won the election. You’ve got a pretty full plate of things to consider. Why don’t you just get past the 2016 election and get on with the business of governing the nation?

As long as we’re talking politics, Mr. President, this isn’t your fight. It should be settled by Democrats.

So, with all due respect, sir … butt out!

Sports news

When did WH visit become an issue for champs?

I have long thought that when a sports team wins a national championship a White House visit at the invitation of the president was a done deal. No questions asked. Nothing to consider. Let’s just go and have fun!

No longer … I guess.

The Golden State Warriors won the National Basketball Association title this past season. They balked at attending a White House ceremony over disputes with Donald J. Trump and his criticism of on-field protests by pro football players. The president then disinvited the Warriors.

Now we have the Houston Astros, who’ve just won the World Series.

Astros Manager A.J. Hinch says the team will decide later whether to attend a White House ceremony to commemorate their stirring victory over the Los Angeles Dodgers.

Eh? When did this become a discussion point? Oh, I know. It became one about the time Trump became president and continued his campaign of divisiveness, anger and rancor.

He’s managed to alienate professional athletes because he throws his presidential weight around over issues that usually don’t concern presidents of the United States.

Now it appears the World Series champs are going to take their time to decide whether to accept a White House invitation.

Bizarre.

entertainment news

Walk of Fame to get thinned out?

With all this sexual abuse/harassment/assault talk overtaking many Hollywood entertainment giants, the thought occurs to me.

What are they going to do about all those stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame?

Dustin Hoffman, Harvey Weinstein, Kevin Spacey? Don’t they all have their names engraved on that walk? Will they — and maybe others — be dishonored for life? When does all this stop?

I don’t usually think much about these kinds of things.

I am thinking the Walk of Fame likely could — and should — be culled of many of the names now honored with those stone plates planted into the ground.

The list of names already sullied by these allegations is long already. It’s likely to get a lot longer.

military news

Bergdahl gets off too lightly

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Count me as one American who believes Bowe Bergdahl deserves to serve time in prison.

I had given the one-time U.S. Army Ranger the benefit of the doubt when he was returned to U.S. custody after being held captive by the Taliban for five years. He came home after the Obama administration negotiated for his release from the hideous conditions under which the Taliban kept him.

Then came questions about the nature of his “capture.” Did he go willingly into enemy hands?

Bergdahl admitted to desertion and misbehavior before the enemy. Yep, he did it all of his volition.

Today, the judge hearing the case spared Bergdahl prison time. He ordered him to receive a dishonorable discharge that, of course, will stay with him for the rest of his life.

It’s not punishment enough for what he has admitted to doing.

Bergdahl faced a potential life term in prison for the misbehavior charge. I don’t know that he actually deserved to spend his entire life behind bars. However, the former Army sergeant did put his men in danger when they went looking for him. What’s more, he deserted his unit that had been placed in harm’s way to fight the monstrous enemy force that supposed “captured” him.

I do not dismiss the terrible conditions under which Bergdahl was kept by the Taliban. However, it does not lessen the betrayal he committed against the men with whom he was serving.

I believe the judge today made a mistake in leveling such a light sentence against Bowe Bergdahl. May this deserter thing long and hard for the rest of his life about what he did.

International news, military news

Honoring a new ‘Greatest Generation’

I am re-reading a book I’ve owned for a couple of decades.

The great broadcast journalist Tom Brokaw penned “The Greatest Generation” to pay tribute to the men and women who saved the world from tyranny during World War II.

Brokaw’s thesis is one that I still accept, that those 16 million Americans who answered the call to fight a global war on two fronts — in Europe and the Pacific — exhibited unparalleled devotion. They served “for the duration” of the war. They finished the job and came home to start their lives.

I’m reading the book, though, with a slightly different take than I had when I picked it up the first time.

The current generation of fighting men and women is rising to the level of devotion and dedication that my father’s generation did more than 70 years ago.

Under vastly different circumstances, to be sure.

They are fighting an enemy that is every bit as cunning and resourceful as the Nazis were in Europe and the Japanese were in the Pacific. These terrorists against whom we keep sending these young Americans to fight are ruthless and dedicated to the perverted principles they are following.

Today’s generation of young American warriors is facing multiple deployments onto the battlefield in Afghanistan and other places — some of which are undisclosed. Four Army Special Forces troops died recently in Niger, bringing into the open a deployment few Americans knew was under way.

I long have saluted my father for his contribution to fighting tyranny during World War II. I am proud of what he did as a sailor who saw more than his share of combat in the Mediterranean Theater of Operations.

I also want to salute other members of my family who’ve thrust themselves into harm’s way during the current war against international terror. My cousin served multiple Army tours in Iraq and Afghanistan. I have a nephew who drove an Army tank into Iraq when that war broke out in March 2003; he would return to Iraq for a second tour.

The war on terror just might be a conflict that has no end. There might not be any way for the United States to declare total victory as this country was able to do in 1945. The enemy surrendered unconditionally, giving The Greatest Generation of Americans its ticket home.

Can we achieve a similar end to the current war? I am trying to imagine how that gets done.

Meantime, the current generation keeps fighting. These young Americans have earned their status as the newest Greatest Generation.

I am proud of them beyond measure.

Uncategorized

Will this Senate race really become a contest?

My wife and I sat across a restaurant dinner table recently with friends in Colorado when the question came from one of them.

“Do you think Ted Cruz is going to get beat next year by that guy from El Paso?” our friend asked.

I had to answer honestly. “No. I don’t think it’s going to happen,” I said.

Cruz is the first-term Republican U.S. senator I have labeled as the Cruz Missile. The guy from El Paso is a Democratic member of the U.S. House of Representatives named Beto O’Rourke.

Both are young men. Both are dynamic in their respective ways. Cruz, though, holds all the cards in this year’s election cycle. Why? The answer is clear cut: He is a Republican running for re-election in what clearly is among the most Republican-friendly states in the United States of America.

O’Rourke is seeking to mine what Democrats believe is the changing demographic makeup of Texas. They are hoping that with more Latino residents who tend to vote for Democrats that O’Rourke will be able to knock Cruz out of the Senate.

I am no fan of Ted Cruz. He has shown himself to be a blowhard and showboat since taking office in 2013.

I believe I am a realist, though, in trying to assess the political landscape in Texas.

Voters here seem obsessed with voting for Republicans. I see no change in the state’s GOP-leaning pattern in 2018. It seems the only thing that can derail a Cruz re-election would be a scandal of monumental proportions.

I don’t see it happening.

Beto O’Rourke might be the perfect candidate for the U.S. Senate. Except that he’s running in Texas, which hasn’t elected a Democrat to statewide office since 1994. The losing streak isn’t about to end.

Sad.

environmental news

Follow the logic if you can

U.S. Energy Secretary Rick “Oops” Perry has made a curious leap between fossil fuel development and consumption and sexual abuse.

I’m trying to connect the dots. I am having a difficult time of it.

Perry said fossil fuel consumption can prevent sexual abuse because the “lights are on.” The Energy boss made his remarks at a forum sponsored by NBC News and Axios.

According to The Texas Tribune, Perry said: “It’s going to take fossil fuels to push power out into those villages in Africa, where a young girl told me to my face, ‘one of the reasons that electricity is so important to me is not only because I’m not going to have to try to read by the light of a fire and have those fumes literally killing people.’”

Oh, boy.

Is he pushing fossil fuels as an energy source or is he speaking about the brutality of sexual abuse suffered by villagers?

I’m going to assume — given the secretary’s former position as the governor of Texas, which produces a goodly amount of oil and natural gas — that he is pitching fossil fuel consumption.

Or is he?

Here seems to be where the Trump administration that Perry serves is missing the boat. This big world of ours is full of alternative energy sources that also can keep the lights on. Wind, solar, hydropower … they all are renewable, clean and safe. I’ll also throw nuclear power into that mix, too, even though nuke plants — which are safer than they used to be — aren’t yet totally safe from cataclysmic accidents.

Perry went on, according to the Tribune: “But also from the standpoint of sexual assault, when the lights are on, when you have light that shines, the righteousness, if you will, on those types of acts,” Perry continued.

The Sierra Club, one of the nation’s foremost environmental interest groups, has called on Perry to quit in light of his remarks. I won’t go that far.

Perry offers confusion

I do question the logic the energy secretary is employing in connecting fossil fuels with sexual predation.

He lost me.

business news

GOP plans to read tax bill eventually

Let’s call it the same song, second verse … or just the same ol’ same ol’.

U.S. Senate and House Republican leaders have cobbled together a tax cut bill that the rest of their GOP colleagues haven’t yet read. They say they plan to examine the legislation before voting on it.

Gosh! What a concept!

The tax bill is drawing some independent analysis, however, from those who tell us it will jumpstart an economy that’s already moving along pretty well. Others say it helps the rich more than it helps the middle class.

Donald Trump calls it the biggest tax cut in U.S. history.

What I find most amazing/amusing/troubling is that the GOP plans to rush this bill through before Thanksgiving. I am not alone in wondering about the wisdom of such a fast-track effort. The most recent landmark tax reform package took months of debate and hearings before it went to President Reagan’s desk in 1986. How in the world does this version of GOP leadership plan to enact the nation’s most historic tax cut in such short order?

The idea that legislators haven’t read it, of course, isn’t new. Democrats said much the same thing before they brought the Affordable Care Act forward in 2009 and 2010. Yes, the ACA had some serious hiccups during its rollout, but it is working — despite what GOP leaders keep saying to the contrary.

Congressional Republicans are feeling the heat to do something of substance. They couldn’t repeal and replace the ACA; they haven’t secured money to build the president’s “beautiful wall” across the southern border. Now they’re hanging their fortunes on tax reform.

They haven’t read the bill. They aren’t commenting on its specifics.

I keep wondering the same thing that I asked about the ACA repeal/replace effort: Why can’t — or won’t — these majority congressional members work with Democrats to get their input in legislation that affects all Americans?

local news

‘Living the dream,’ really and truly

We’ve all either said it or heard it said by someone else.

“How’s it going for you?”

“I’m living the dream, man.”

We know that the “living the dream” quip is meant usually as a bit of self-deprecation. When I say it, though, I mean it. I am not making fun of myself. I truly am living the dream.

The dream includes coming and going (more or less) as I please; my wife of 46-plus years has a bit to say about that, but she’s not terribly demanding of my time.

Today I got a chance to speak to an Amarillo, Texas service organization. Someone from that group was familiar with this blog; he said he reads it “fairly regularly” and likes a lot of what I write. He admitted he’s not too keen on the political stuff that spews from High Plains Blogger. I get that. I live in the middle of Republican-Red Trump Country and this blog is decidedly not cast from that mold.

He likes to read the retirement posts, entries about my precious granddaughter, about Toby the Puppy and the other “life experience” matters that grab my attention from time to time.

So he asked me to speak to his service club. I did so. I got to boast — if you want to call it that — about the indisputable fact that there truly is life after journalism.

I pursued print journalism singularly for nearly 37 years, I told these good folks. I gave them the extremely short version of how that fruitful and moderately successful career came to an end at the Amarillo Globe-News on Aug. 31, 2012. I told them about how Mom and Dad suggested journalism to me at the dinner table one night in 1970 shortly after I returned home from the Army and was getting ready to go back to college.

I then told them a bit about my career and how I enjoyed it so greatly for almost its entire length of time.

But that was then. The here and now allows me to write this blog and to express myself beholden only to my own conscience. I no longer work for The Man.

Thus, I am living the dream. It’s no put-down, either.

legal news

Trump’s Twitter fingers might muck up search for justice

Donald Trump’s Twitter fingers need to be tied up, rendered inoperable … maybe.

The president went bonkers the other day when a man rammed a rented truck into a New York City crowd. He said the suspect, an immigrant from Uzbekistan, should (a) be sent to Gitmo as an “enemy combatant” and (b) face the death penalty.

Oops, Mr. President. You shouldn’t say such a thing, given that you’ve already called the U.S. justice system a “joke” and a “laughingstock.”

The president walked back his Gitmo remark, but is holding firm to his view that the NYC drug-ramming suspect deserves to receive the death penalty. Legal analysts suggest that Trump’s tweet on that issue might complicate efforts to prosecute this guy. It could make it easier for the man’s legal counsel to obtain a lesser penalty if, of course, he gets convicted of killing those eight people in what is being called an act of terror.

The suspect is a radical Muslim who came here legally in 2010 and then professed allegiance to the Islamic State.

As the New York Times has reported: Presidents are typically advised never to publicly weigh in on pending criminal cases. Such comments can be used by defense attorneys to argue that their clients cannot get a fair trial — especially when the head of the executive branch that will prosecute a case advocates the ultimate punishment before a judge has heard a single shred of evidence at trial.

Of course, none of these concerns about the president’s idiotic Twitter rampages is likely to register with the man himself. He doesn’t care or doesn’t understand the potential consequences of his actions and public statements.

Weird.