Monthly Archives: December 2017

national news, political news

Watch this intraparty battle get real hot

Mitt Romney wants to run for the U.S. Senate seat in Utah.

His candidacy will depend on whether Orrin Hatch seeks re-election next year. Hatch, the Senate’s longest-tenured Republican, hasn’t yet made his decision.

But, oh my, this fight is getting nasty before it’s even started.

You see, Mitt is no fan or friend of Donald John Trump. He has called the president a “fraud” and a “phony.” The president’s wing man, former White House strategist Stephen Bannon, has decided to suggest that Mitt was a draft dodger, that his religious mission work in France during the Vietnam War was a tactic to keep him from serving in the military.

Romney’s allies in Utah are coming to his defense. They have blasted Bannon for questioning Romney’s love of country, his patriotism, his character; Bannon even took a swipe at Mitt’s entire family.

Hatch defends his friend

There has been some speculation that Romney, the 2012 GOP presidential nominee, might run even if Hatch decides to seek another term. I would doubt that will occur.

My hope is that Mitt goes for it. I also hope Hatch decides to retire. He’s been on the job for decades. Hatch, at times, has shown an ability and willingness to reach across the aisle to work with Democrats; my guess is that Romney could do the same if he gets elected.

As for Bannon — the guy that Trump and White House chief of staff John Kelly fired — he ought to tone down the tough talk. It’s unbecoming.

What’s more, Romney has done more in service to his country than Bannon ever thought of doing.

Finally, Romney happens to be right about the president, someone I consider to be the phoniest fraud ever to occupy the office. A U.S. Senate seat would give him a wonderful platform to hold the president accountable for his words and deeds.

political news

Best guess: Franken soon to become a ‘former senator’

The late “Dandy Don” Meredith, the former Dallas Cowboys quarterback and football commentator, was fond of singing “turn out the lights, the party’s over” when a pro football team was blowing another one out on national TV.

Um, U.S. Sen. Al Franken? The party appears to be over.

More women have come forward to accuse the Minnesota Democrat of groping and unwanted kissing. Droves of Democratic senators now are singing the same chorus: Franken has to quit.

It sounds to me as though the party is over.

Senators turn on one of their own

As a friend of mine noted on Facebook, Franken is about to “spend more time with his family,” but he wonders whether his family will want to spend more time with him.

Let’s all understand something here. There have been no criminal charges filed against Franken. This is purely a political matter. There’s an element of “due process” to follow, but it’s not nearly as critical as it would be if there was criminality involved.

The process is supposed to include an ethics investigation by a Senate committee charged with looking at these matters.

But just as Rep. John Conyers was damaged beyond repair over the allegations that took him out of office, the same appears to be said of Franken.

If his fellow Democrats are turning on him in this fashion, Franken cannot possibly continue to serve in the Senate.

So much for a 2020 presidential campaign, eh?

media news

They have initiated a change in our culture

Time Magazine has done it!

The publication has hit a grand slam home run with its selection of its 2017 Person of the Year — and, no, Donald J. “Grandstander in Chief” Trump, it ain’t you!

It selected the Silence Breakers, the women who came forward to found a movement called “Me Too” to sound the alarm against sexual predators.

The magazine’s cover features several women who have been at the forefront of this movement. In reality, they symbolize a much larger segment of a population that has been terrorized by powerful men.

And the movement has inflicted plenty of casualties in this fight against sexual harassment, abuse and predation. Good … for … them!

Media stars have tumbled off their pedestals. Politicians have fallen, too. Movie and music executives stand accused. Careers have been trashed — and deservedly so!

Read about the Silence Breakers here.

The Person of the Year goes to individuals or groups of individuals who have made a profound impact on our world. It has gone to some notorious and downright evil monsters: Josef Stalin, Adolf Hitler and the Ayatollah Khomeini come to mind immediately.

This year? The Silence Breakers symbolize maximum courage and grit in the face of a culture that for too long looked the other way as men preyed on their victims.

Great call, Time.

national news, political news

If Moore wins, his victory will be pyrrhic

Talk about “pyrrhic victories.”

I am beginning to believe that Alabama voters are going to send a man accused of sexual abuse of children to the U.S. Senate. Republican Roy Moore well might become the Senate’s newest member.

If that happens, it will be to the ever-lasting shame of those who backed this guy.

There now also appears to be zero chance that the Senate will expel its newest member. Republican Senate leaders don’t want him among their ranks. Democrats damn sure don’t want him anywhere near Capitol Hill.

But, by golly, he has the endorsement of Donald J. Trump Sr., the president who’s also got his share of difficulty involving accusations of his own behavior with women. If Moore wins, Trump will crow about it. He’ll take all the credit in the world for pushing this twice-ousted state supreme court chief justice over the finish line ahead of his opponent, Democrat Doug Jones.

It’s going to be sloppy, chaotic and confusing as Moore takes his seat.

I cannot get past the prospect of a U.S. senator being politically neutered — yes, I meant to use that description — the minute he takes his oath of office.

And that brings me back to the question I cannot shake: Do the voters of Alabama really want to elect someone who can do nothing for the folks who sent him to the U.S. Senate?

Sure, he’ll have a vote. He’ll be able to have his voice heard that way. He’ll be the only voice one will hear. I cannot imagine his fellow Republicans standing with him as he makes policy pronouncements or declares his loathing of the “fake news” mainstream media, or the so-called godless heathens who oppose him on, oh, just about everything.

Yes, indeed. Roy Moore’s possible election is likely to sink the level of policy discourse in the halls of the World’s Greatest Deliberative Body to depths it hasn’t seen since, oh, the days of Joe McCarthy.

God help us.

International news

Take it easy with the ‘P-word,’ Mr. President

Donald John Trump isn’t known for possessing any sense of circumspection. He kind of blurts words out without thinking of how they might sound.

Such as when he endorsed Roy Moore in his race to become the next U.S. senator from Alabama. He said he doesn’t want a “puppet of Nancy Pelosi or Chuck Schumer” to serve in the Senate, referring to the Democrat in the race, Doug Jones.

Imagine the president calling anyone a “puppet.” How can someone who many of us believe is a puppet of Russian strongman Vladimir Putin hang that pejorative tag on another politician?

The Russian government, which Putin runs with an iron fist, interfered in our 2016 election. Intelligence analysts believe Putin wanted Trump to defeat Hillary Rodham Clinton. Trump has refused to acknowledge publicly what the nation’s top intelligence agencies have said already about Putin’s involvement in meddling in our electoral process.

Other analysts contend that Putin is playing Trump.

Let me think for a moment.

Isn’t that how someone manipulates a political puppet?

business news, local news

Amarillo goes smoke-free … without a city ordinance

I feel like revisiting an issue that some years ago got a lot of Amarillo, Texas, residents all fired up.

I am referring to smoking indoors.

Over the years I have discovered something curious — and quite welcome — about the city where my wife and I live. It’s damn near impossible to find an eating establishment that still allows indoor smoking.

I haven’t been to every single such establishment in the city, so this isn’t a declaration of fact. It is a perception that has dawned on me.

City residents twice in recent years rejected municipal referendums calling for a citywide ban on indoor smoking. The calls for a city ordinance came from the medical community that sought to mandate that business owners order customers to keep their smokes unlit while they ate and drank indoors.

I worked during at least one of those elections for the Amarillo Globe-News. Our newspaper’s editorial policy opposed the mandate. We stated our preference for business owners to do the right thing without being forced to do so by the government.

I gritted my teeth while writing editorials taking that position. My personal preference — and it remains so to this day — was that the city should put residents’ health first. Second-hand smoke is dangerous to those who inhale it. What’s more, a former city councilman — a physician — once admitted to me that his personal preference was to enact a smoke-free ordinance, but that he didn’t want to be the sole vote on the five-member governing panel.

But now, years later, my wife and I are still eating out on occasion. We have discovered that none of the establishments we frequent allow indoor smoking. Indeed, some of these businesses — which formerly allowed it — have gone smoke-free on their own. Imagine that! It turns out that the newspaper’s opposition to was on the mark.

A couple of well-known places along Historic Route 66 have gone smoke-free. I interviewed one business owner while working part-time for KFDA NewsChannel 10 and learned that although she opposed the ordinance she was adamantly opposed to smoking inside her restaurant.

This is all my way of paying tribute to those business owners who have stayed true to their conscience while improving the health climate for their customers.

I am pretty certain some readers of this blog are going to remind me that there remain some joints around the city that still allow smoke to billow from stogies and cigarettes.

Fine. I just can’t find them. I prefer it that way.

International news

Will the bombs and bullets start flying in Israel?

Donald J. Trump well just might have doomed any immediate prospects for peace between Israel and the Palestinians.

The president of the United States apparently is about to make good on his pledge to move the U.S. Embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.

This is an extremely big deal, dear reader. Here’s why.

Palestinians contend that Jerusalem belongs to them. So does Israel. Trump has aligned with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

I want to stipulate that I happen to sympathize with Netanyahu’s hard line against the Palestinian terrorists who keep lobbing bombs at Israeli neighborhoods. The so-called “two-state solution,” which involves the creation of an independent Palestinian state, remains a distant dream for peacemakers in the region.

The U.S. president’s decision to place the embassy in Jerusalem is likely to make that dream more distant than ever.

And for what reason? Because his pal Bibi Netanyahu wants him to do it.

It’s unclear to me why the president would choose to provoke the Palestinians with this ostensibly simple gesture. Trump is likely to find out — maybe in short order — how seemingly simple actions can provoke intensely complicated responses.

Sports news

Olympics joins the world’s squirrely nature

As if this world of ours hasn’t gone batty enough … we get this word from the International Olympic Committee.

The IOC has banned the Russian Olympic Committee for what it calls “systematic doping” among Russian athletes. Is that clear?

Sort of. Get this: The IOC says Russian athletes can compete as “neutral” competitors; they won’t stand under the Russian flag, nor will they compete in the name of their country.

My question is this: What happens if a Russian wins an event? Tradition says they play the national anthem of the gold-medal winning country during the award ceremony. Will they play the Russian anthem?

The Russian Olympic Committee has threatened a boycott if this ruling stands. I think it will. Thus, the Russians will do what they did in 1984 when the Soviet Union boycotted that year’s Summer Olympics in Los Angeles; that boycott retaliated against the U.S.-led boycott of the Moscow Summer Olympics in 1980 after the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan.

I do not object to the IOC ruling regarding the 2018 Winter Games in Pyeonchang, South Korea. The IOC has accused the Russians of state-sponsored doping that has been detected among dozens of Russian athletes.

Doping is cheating. The Olympics are supposed to symbolize the best in sports. The Games are meant to pit athlete against athlete, pitting men and women against each other fairly and on level playing fields. The Russian efforts to boost their athletes’ prowess through drugs slaps the Olympic spirit squarely in its face.

It must be a Russian-government ethic that has pervaded the once-pristine world of sports. Hey, does this episode remind anyone — other than me — of the Russian attempts to influence the 2016 presidential election?

Sports news

This award transcends athletic prowess

I cannot stop smiling when I think of this news item.

J.J. Watt and Jose Altuve have been named Sports Illustrated’s co-Sportspersons of the Year.

Why does this bring a broad smile to my face?

For starters, Watt — a standout All-Pro defensive end for the Houston Texans — hasn’t played a lot of football this calendar year; he has been injured. He did, however, step up in a big way to help Houston’s beleaguered residents recover from the battering delivered by Hurricane Harvey this past summer.

Watt helped raise more than $37 million for hurricane relief. He became the voice and the face of Houston’s still ongoing battle to rebuild after being inundated by record-breaking rainfall that Harvey brought with it.

And then there’s Jose Altuve, the American League’s Most Valuable Player in 2017. He had a stellar season for the World Series champions. However, SI decide to honor both young men because Altuve, too, embodied the “Houston Strong” motto that has helped fuel the city’s recovery from Harvey’s wrath.

As the Associated Press reported: “I think the World Series gave the people a big smile and hope during the tough time they were getting through,” he said. “And I feel really happy that we did it because they really deserved it.”

For those of us who have grieved along with the Texas Gulf Coast residents affected by nature’s intense power, this award sends a heartfelt message that professional athletes — who often receive their share of criticism for their off-the-field antics — are quite capable of exhibiting heart and compassion to those who are struggling.

Indeed, many professional athletes have done much to lend their high profiles to worthy and noble efforts. This award should be seen as a statement of thanks for all the good work that these men and women do when most of aren’t looking.

Sports Illustrated chose well.

political news

Conyers has ‘retired in disgrace’

John Conyers has given us a new definition of how a politician leaves public life.

The Michigan Democratic congressman today has announced his retirement effective today. By my standard, he has decided to “retire in disgrace.” He didn’t just resign. He didn’t wait until the end of his term to walk away.

Conyers, facing sexual harassment allegations — and a settlement he paid to one of his accusers — has called it a career.

It’s a fascinating and correct end to a lengthy career in politics.

Conyers is the longest-serving member of the U.S. House. He’s been on the job for 53 years. He has held positions of extreme power and influence and, according to several women, allegedly abused his power and influence in disgusting and disgraceful ways.

Here’s a serious non-shocker: Conyers is citing factors unrelated to the allegations as his reason for retiring. According to The Associated Press: “Conyers’ attorney, Arnold Reed, has said Conyers’ health would be the paramount consideration in whether he decides to step down from his House seat. He has already stepped aside from his position as ranking member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee.”

This is what politicians do. Faced with mounting pressure stemming from misbehavior, they cite other “reasons” for deciding to give up the fight. Those “reasons” might have merit or … they might be made up to divert attention from the reality of the moment.

I don’t know about Rep. Conyers’ health, although he is past 80 years of age. So, I suppose his health might be an issue.

Whatever the case, the man needs to go. He’s served long enough and from this moment forward every single day he remains in office will be clouded by the hideous allegations that have become all the talk in Washington, and Hollywood … and even on Main Street.