Monthly Archives: December 2017

national news

Taxpayer bill on harassment settlements grows

It turns out that Republican U.S. Rep. Blake Farenthold  is far from the only lawmaker to dip into a public cache to pay off sexual harassment settlements.

Farenthold recently announced plans to take out a personal loan to pay back $84,000 he used from the Office of Compliance to pay a settlement to a woman who alleged he sexually harassed her.

Oh, but there’s more.

Now we learn that Rep. Alcee Hastings, D-Fla., used the fund to pay $220,000 to a woman who alleged he groped her and sought sexual favors from her. Hastings said he was unaware that the payoff came from public funds until it was just revealed to him. He contends it was all settled without his direct involvement.

There have been resignations from Congress of late over sexual abuse allegations. Democratic U.S. Sen. Al Franken is quitting; Republican U.S. Rep. Trent Franks has already quit; Democratic U.S. Rep. John Conyers is “retiring.” Will there be more? Stay tuned. I’m betting we’re going to hear about more congressional “retirements” and resignations.

As for this nonsense about using taxpayer money to settle these suits, it has to stop. There must be amendments to the law that created this fund in the fund in the first place.

I happen to be outraged to the max that public money is being used to pay these complaints off. These members of Congress aren’t misbehaving with taxpayer approval, correct? They are acting on their own. Thus, it makes zero sense to settle these complaints with public money that comes out of our pockets … yours and mine.

This newfound culture on Capitol Hill needs to include some serious reforms in the Office of Compliance. There is no justification for using public money to settle sexual harassment or sexual abuse claims leveled against members of Congress.

Sports news

Army-Navy game: always so very special

Army beat Navy today by a single point.

The Black Knights beat the Midshipmen 14-13 while snow fell on the football field during the entire game.

I’ll stipulate that I was pulling for Army and I am delighted the Black Knights beat the Middies. There, I got that out of the way.

But this game always brings out the best in college sports. We’re all proud of these young athletes and not just because of their athletic prowess. They are scholars. They excel in the classroom.

They also are preparing to do something relatively rare among college students. They are going to serve their country while wearing military uniforms. The Middies either will receive their Navy commissions or they might become officers in the U.S. Marine Corps. The Knights are heading to service in the Army.

They’ll perform their duty. Many of them might see combat duty somewhere in one of the many trouble spots where the Pentagon is deploying young men and women.

As I watched most of the game today, I couldn’t help but think of the futures that await these young men. They make me proud, as I am sure they make you proud.

Think of this for a moment. There once was a time — a couple of generations ago — when Americans didn’t express this level of pride in their military academy students, let alone for the soldiers, airmen, sailors and Marines who came home from their active duty assignments.

But that was then. The here and now fills us with pride in these young Americans.

To see them compete today on a snow-covered athletic field filled me with pride not just at watching them playing tackle football, but in anticipating the contributions they are set to make in defense of the country we love.

national news, political news

Turn off the TV, Mr. President

Donald J. Trump told us he wouldn’t tweet once became president of the United States.

“I’ll be too busy” making America great again, building a wall, defeating ISIS and bringing back jobs that had been shipped to “China and Mexico,” the president said.

The president has gone Twitter crazy. He can’t stop tweeting policy decisions, criticism of foes, friends and the media.

He also told us he wouldn’t have time to play golf, that he doesn’t even think he’ll take vacations once he took the presidential oath. How’s he done there?

Trump is set to play more golf in his first year than his predecessor, Barack H. Obama, did during his eight years as president.

He’s now zero for two.

OK, now he says he doesn’t watch much television. No time for that, either. The president says he reads “a lot of documents.” Is he telling the truth on this one? The New York Times reports that Trump watches more than four hours of TV daily; it might be as much as eight hours.

He watches CNN, Fox, a little MSNBC, perhaps a broadcast network news show or two, according to the Times. Then he tweets almost immediately after hearing the news, whether it’s “fake” or whether it comes from Fox — his favorite news network.

So, by my score, the president is zero for three on these promises and declarations.

Oh, but what the heck. He “tells it like it is.”

national news

‘Pretty wild scene’ … do ya think?

I really have to hand it to Donald John “Orator in Chief” Trump.

The man has an amazing way of understating monumental historical events’ impact on our nation’s life, its history, its very identity.

The president played host to survivors of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, which occurred 76 years ago this week.

He turned to one of the men who lived through that hell on Earth, telling him “That was a pretty wild scene.”

Yeah. Pretty wild it was, Mr. President. Why, you even told a small gathering of Navajo “Code Talkers” recently how much you “like” them. That was so, um, nice of you to say that.

It makes me wonder how this president would have reacted had he been standing at the Capitol Hill podium the next day to ask Congress for a declaration of war. Whereas President Franklin Delano Roosevelt called it a “date which will live in infamy,” and a “deliberate, dastardly attack,” I keep wondering whether Donald Trump could muster up the kind of awe-inspiring rhetoric that came from FDR that day.

Something tells me we’d be called to arms with “pretty wild scene.”

local news

Welcome to grandparenthood

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I have introduced you to Emma Nicole, our granddaughter. She’s now 4 years of age and she’s growing way too rapidly.

Soon — hopefully even sooner than that — we plan to relocate nearer to her and her parents and brothers.

But last night at a Christmas party my wife and I attended, we got to experience something that I found oh, so very refreshing. We ran into a couple I have known for many years. He is a lawyer, she is a former elected official in Amarillo who does some business consulting around the area.

They are brand new grandparents. Their grandbaby is now three weeks of age. They are giddy beyond the stars, the sun and the moon. Their granddaughter lives in Austin with her parents — our friends’ son and his wife.

And guess what they’re planning to do? They’re making preliminary plans already to pull up their deeply rooted Amarillo stakes and move to the People’s Republic of Austin for the expressed purpose of living near their little baby granddaughter.

“I’ve made many trips already,” Grandpa told me last night as we laughed and shouted above the party din. “My wife is likely to drag me down there” to live, he said. Yeah, right, bub. There will be little “dragging” going on here. I heard it in his voice.

We have one thing in common with these good folks, apart from our shared world view of political and public policy matters. Their granddaughter is their first, just as Emma is our first “biological” grandbaby.

I’ve regaled many of our friends and family members over recent years about our joy at becoming grandparents. I’ll continue to do so at every opportunity. Heck, I might even look for opportunities.

Last night’s shared joy with a lovely couple, though, was a relatively new experience for us. We were given the chance to receive their exuberance at welcoming a treasured young one into their lives.

As the bumper sticker says so eloquently: If I had known grandkids would be so much fun, I would have had them first.

 

environmental news

‘Climate change’ anyone?

I am acutely aware that one cannot pigeonhole weather forecasting into neat categories.

What’s more, I also know that trying to predict what Mother Nature brings to any region is a crapshoot even in the best of circumstances.

But what in the world is going on this week?

Here we are in the Texas High Plains region. We’re tinder dry. It’s cold, but we’re continuing this dry pattern that’s beginning to cause the TV weather forecasters some anxiety.

Then we get news that snow is blanketing regions of this state and points east. It’s snowing this week in regions where (a) it hardly ever snows and (b) the snow is supposed to fall long after it blankets the Texas Panhandle.

We remain snow free. The Texas Gulf Coast is under several inches of snow. My friends along the Coastal Bend, Houston and the Golden Triangle are bundling up and driving ever so slowly and cautiously in conditions with which they are totally unfamiliar.

Is all of this a symptom of climate change? I’ve long argued that one cannot take a single weather event and equate it with whatever might be happening globally. I usually argue that it’s best to argue climate change by seeing the big picture.

This very weird reversal right here in big ol’ Texas, though, seems to suggest to me that we might be witnessing one element of a much bigger weather story.

national news

Sexual harassment accusation takes weird turn

I never thought sexual harassment could become such a, um, creative endeavor.

I am not making light of it, but the case of former U.S. Rep. Trent Franks, R-Ariz., has taken this saga down a strange, dark and bizarre path. He quit the House of Representatives effective immediately after reports surfaced about how he reportedly wanted to impregnate a congressional staffer so she could become a surrogate mother.

Reports surfaced a few days ago about Franks “discussing” surrogate pregnancy with female staffers. He announced his decision to quit in January. Then he changed his mind and walked away now. He’s gone.

Politico reported the new developments, citing “sources” close to the situation. According to Politico: The sources said Franks approached two female staffers about acting as a potential surrogate for him and his wife, who has struggled with infertility … but the aides were concerned that Franks was asking to have sex with them. It was not clear to the women whether he was asking about impregnating the women through sexual intercourse or in vitro fertilization. Franks opposes abortion rights as well as procedures that discard embryos.

Aides fretted over Franks’ intentions

Franks has run for the House while proclaiming his deep religious faith. To be candid, I kind of smell a rat here. If he was referring to IVF, that would something he could clear up with a simple, declarative statement. Yes?

If he meant something else, well, is that why he decided to vacate his office much sooner rather than later?

Yep. This sexual harassment matter is likely to claim a good many more powerful men.

Sports news

‘The Gun Guy’ is getting back into the game

Well, I’ll be hornswoggled.

Jerry Patterson wants his old job back. What is that? He is the former Texas land commissioner who four years ago decided against seeking a third term.

His successor is George P. Bush, the grandson and nephew of two former presidents of the United States. Patterson doesn’t think Bush has done well at the Land Office. He considers him to be too much of a politician with his eyes seemingly on grander political prizes.

So the former Texas state senator who once was known primarily for authoring the state’s concealed handgun carry legislation in 1995 is wanting to get back into the political game.

I welcome Patterson back. The former “gun guy” is going to liven the Republican Party primary if he actually takes the plunge.

I remember meeting him years ago during his time as land commissioner. I found him to be self-deprecating yet smart at the same time. I recall him mentioning how he finished “in the top 75 percent of my class at Texas A&M.” He was acutely aware that his primary legislative accomplishment — enactment of the concealed carry bill — would brand him with the “gun guy” moniker.

Those two matters endeared him immediately as someone who did not take himself as seriously as he takes his public service responsibility.

I’ve never met George P. Bush, although I do remember him speaking on behalf of “Poppy” Bush during the 1992 Republican National Convention in Houston. The youngster stood at the Astrodome podium as a 16-year-old and declared “Viva Boosh!” in an appeal to Latino voters, given that his mother is an immigrant from Mexico. He brought the house down.

The next time I would see his name would be during the 2014 campaign for Texas land commissioner.

Patterson seems to be primed for a tough battle against the incumbent, according to the Texas Tribune: “Patterson has been a regular critic, recently sending an editorial contrasting the land office’s response to Hurricane Ike, when he was in charge, with his response to Harvey this year. “Harvey victims still living in tents along the coast are, at least in part, victims of a politician’s desire to look good for the next election by being a ‘small government Republican,'” Patterson wrote in what looks like a preview of his political campaign.

This could be a fascinating campaign to watch.

Go for it, Mr. Gun Guy!

national news

Wall serves to remind us of darker time

These toddlers don’t yet know what they’re seeing. They don’t yet know what those names engraved on that black wall symbolize.

My sincere hope is that Grandma and Grandpa will tell them one day. I hope, too, that when they show the children pictures of them standing next to that wall that they’ll explain the names and tell them what their presence on that wall means.

I ventured to John Stiff Memorial Park in southwest Amarillo this morning to pay my respects to the 58,000 men and women who died in the Vietnam War. “The Wall That Heals” is here through the weekend. The miniature version of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C., will be open 24 hours, enabling Vietnam veterans — if they so choose — to visit the wall and to reflect quietly on what it symbolizes.

I had hoped to talk to vets about their emotions, perhaps to share with them how I was able to heal my own heart in 1989 by visiting Vietnam 20 years after I reported for duty at an Army surveillance aviation battalion at Marble Mountain, just south of Da Nang.

It didn’t happen. I chose to keep my distance from those men. I don’t regret failing to engage them in conversation, as I am confident they have had The Talk with other peers, family members and strangers.

The wall, though, always is worth seeing. It provides a “welcome home” to those Vietnam veterans who didn’t get that simple greeting in real time as they were coming home from war.

Too many Americans did the unthinkable back in those days. They took their anger at a deeply flawed military and foreign policy on the men and women who merely were following orders. They did what their government ordered them to do. For that they were scorned.

It was a moment that will live in eternal shame.

I was among the more fortunate veterans, as I didn’t witness any of the spitting and name-calling, let alone experience it.

We all know it happened.

Time does have a way of making people — and nations — wiser. It did so with our national relationship with Vietnam War veterans.

The Wall That Heals is a demonstration of those evolving attitudes.

Let us hope as well that the children pictured with this post hear also from their elders about how the nation has grown up.

national news, political news

That did it! Moore equates ‘slavery’ with U.S. ‘greatness’

Roy Moore shouldn’t have said it. But he did. Now it’s out there.

The controversial Republican U.S. Senate candidate from Alabama fielded a question earlier this year about American greatness. Someone asked Moore when he thought this country was truly great. He said:

“I think it was great at the time when families were united — even though we had slavery — they cared for one another … our families were strong, our country had a direction.”

Even though we had slavery? Is this fellow suggesting that slavery was part of the formula for greatness?

Moore does it again

Why in the name of rhetorical clumsiness did he have to add that qualifier?

As I look at his statement, the candidate — who’s also been accused of sexual misconduct with children — could have omitted the slavery reference altogether. He didn’t. He tossed it out there.

From my standpoint, the notion that this nation would allow the level of human bondage and captivity that it did prior to the Civil War is a mark of supreme condemnation. It never — ever! — should be included in a discussion of American “greatness.”

American greatness effectively began when African-Americans were emancipated, freed from the hideous bondage of slavery.

This is yet another reason why Alabama voters should reject this man’s candidacy for an important public office.