Monthly Archives: December 2017

media news, national news

POTUS is a ‘wannabe autocrat’?

Walter Shaub isn’t going quietly into the night now that he has left an important public service job.

Oh, no. The former head of the Office of Government Ethics has kept his voice and is using it to criticize the man who made his job impossible to navigate.

Donald J. Trump posted a tweet showing “CNN”s blood on the sole of his shoe,” according to Shaub.

Shaub then fired off a tweet in which he called the president a “wannabe autocrat” who sends out “colicky tweets (that) reveal he is hurting this weekend. They make him (and our country) look weak.”

Trump keeps tweeting his message

The president has made clear his intention to use this social media device as his preferred method of communication. He tweets incessantly, spouting public policy pronouncements alongside petulant insults and even the occasional disrespectful utterance about this or that cherished institution or individual.

He won’t stop using this method. I am accepting this now as Trump’s modus operandi. 

However, he exposes himself to critics — such as government ethicists such as Shaub — to call it how they see it.

I happen to agree with the ex-government ethics watchdog.

Trump is weakening the presidency — and the country — with these idiotic Twitter tirades. This isn’t how you “make America great again,” Mr. President.

media news, national news

Free press: enemy of dictators, not the ‘people’

John McCain speaks with authority when he discusses freedom, the media, authoritarian regimes and liberty.

He lost more than five years of freedom at the hands of captors who held him in bondage during the Vietnam War.

He came home and stayed in service to his country, entering politics. He now serves in the U.S. Senate; he ran twice unsuccessfully for president of the United States. He now is held in high regard for his wartime heroism, his principled public service and his brave battle against cancer.

Comments he made earlier this year were rebroadcast today. He told “Meet the Press” moderator Chuck Todd that Donald Trump’s assaults on the media are destructive to our democratic system and they undermine one of the principles on which this country was founded.

Sen. McCain noted that the president’s bullying of the media and his habit of calling out individual journalists is counterproductive in the extreme.

He joked with Todd that he might “hate you,” but the country needs the media to be free of intimidation and it must be allowed to do its job without the kind of bullying that’s coming repeatedly from the president and his White House team.

Yet, the president insists on attacking the media. He continues to curry favor with the Fox News Channel while condemning the work being done by other media. Why? It’s obvious that Fox tilts toward the president and declines to ascribe much critical analysis of his policies. The network appears to many eyes — mine included — to be fulfilling Trump’s insatiable desire to be complimented, to be admired.

That’s not the role the media are supposed to play. The nation’s founders said a “free press” must not be controlled by the government in any fashion. They wrote it down, codifying it in the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

This independence enables the media to do their job. It allows them to hold public officials at all levels accountable. If they speak untruths, the media are compelled to call them on it.

Finally, they cannot be coerced into shying away from their responsibility because politicians — even the president — like to label them as “fake news.”

John McCain is far from the only contemporary politician who understands this tenet. The problem is that the country’s most powerful politician — the president — is poisoning the political process by trying to intimidate the media, which must remain free of such pressure.

As Sen. McCain told Todd: Trump’s bullying of the media is the conduct of a dictator.

local news

Who needs Christmas ‘trappings’?

I have made another discovery, so I’ll share it with you here.

The discovery is that Christmas does not require one to become enveloped in all the festive trappings associated with this joyous and holy holiday.

How do I know this? Because we are living it in 2017.

We have no tree. We have wrapped a few presents, which we’ll exchange with family members in the next couple of days. We’re holed up in our recreational vehicle, getting ready to hit the road very soon.

Lights outside? Nope. Stockings for Santa to fill? Nada.

We are enjoying the spirit of the season.

My wife grew up in a family that celebrated Christmas on the eve of the big day. They sat around the tree, opened gifts, laughed and carried on, then went to church to celebrate the season’s actual significance to us Christians.

My family celebrated the big day the morning after Santa arrived. We, too, would gather around the tree after rousting Mom and Dad out of bed. We’d carry on and laugh as we opened our gifts. We would decorate our house with plenty of lights, a task which yours truly inherited as I grew old enough to climb onto the roof.

Oh, and we would leave milk and cookies for Santa. We awoke Christmas morning to find a half-eaten cookie and a partially consumed glass of milk … along with a thank-you note from Santa for the snack. And we didn’t put together the coincidence that Santa’s handwriting matched Mom’s impeccable penmanship. Who knew?

This year the holiday brings an entirely different meaning for my wife and me. We will attend a Christmas Eve service tonight at our church. Then the next day we’ll share a Christmas dinner in our RV with one of our sons and we’ll swap gifts with him.

Before that, we’re going to strap on aprons at the Salvation Army and serve homeless Amarillo residents. It’s something we thought would imbue some additional actual Christmas spirit into our hearts.

So it will be for us.

I’ve told you already about a memorable Christmas we spent as we moved into a newly built house in Amarillo. That was then. I am utterly certain this year’s holiday is going to produce even more indelible memories.

Even without all the trappings.

Merry Christmas.

national news

This former GOP rep has, um, ‘evolved’

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Joe Scarborough has gone through an interesting evolution since when he was a young member of Congress from Florida.

He was a conservative Republican who once voted to impeach President Clinton. Then he left public office in 2001 and has pursued a career as a cable news host and commentator.

Now he is one of Donald J. Trump’s most reviled critics. He has left the Republican Party; he’s engaged to be married to his MSNBC “Morning Joe” co-host, Mika Brzezinski.

He is now speaking more, um, candidly about the president and, to my mind, is speaking more truthfully about many of the nonsensical things that fly out of the president’s mouth.

He said this week that had Democratic presidents, such as Barack Obama or Bill Clinton, “slandered” the FBI the way Trump has done, conservatives would mount a virtual all-out rebellion against either of them. They would give Obama or Clinton “holy hell” for saying the things Trump has said.

He now accuses the GOP of being “accomplices with their silence” about the president’s harsh criticism of the FBI.

Indeed, there once was a time when Americans hardly ever heard Republicans say things out loud that one could construe as critical of law enforcement. Indeed, the GOP was often considered to be the “law and order” party.

Those days are gone. The roles seem reversed, with Democrats now standing solidly behind the FBI as it seeks to do its job.

So, too, is Joe Scarborough, the one-time Republican who’s had enough of his former political party and its leader, the president of the United States.

Welcome to the club, Joe.

national news

Trump politicizes ‘Challenge Coin’? Honestly?

Donald Trump has infused politics into a presidential tradition.

Imagine my non-surprise!

The president has allowed the issuance of a new “Challenge Coin” that normally contained a presidential seal and the national motto, “E Pluribus Unum,” which, of course, is Latin that translates to “Out of many, one.”

This time the coin, which presidents have handed out as keepsakes over many decades, contains the phrase “Make America Great Again.” Yep, the president has memorialized a campaign slogan onto this formerly time-honored tradition.

As Ricky Ricardo might say: Aye, caramba!

As The Hill reported: “The commemorative coins stem from the military tradition of exchanging coins covertly through a handshake. Presidents give them to troops, visitors and other members of the public. The coins have become collector’s items, and are sometimes sold for hundreds of dollars.”

OK, but are they meant to continue a president’s campaign theme? Are they intended to remind us of a slogan the president used to win election?

Weird.

national news

‘Dreamers’ still waiting for end to nightmare

One segment of the nation’s population is awaiting with added anxiety some resolution to Congress’s inability to craft a long-term budget deal that keeps the government running.

I’m referring to those Americans who came here when they were children by parents who sneaked into the country illegally. They’re called “Dreamers” these days. They are people who have grown up as Americans, know no other country than the United States, but who are here illegally merely because of something their parents did.

You’ve heard stories about some of these individuals achieving great success. They have become graduating class valedictorians; they have received scholarships to prestigious universities; they have become successful in myriad professions.

President Barack Obama signed an executive order granting a form of temporary amnesty for these individuals. Donald J. Trump rescinded that order, but then told Congress to come up with a solution. All told we’re talking about roughly 5 million U.S. residents who are left hanging in limbo.

This is unconscionable. There can be no more heartless decision than to round these individuals up for deportation to a country they do not know. The vast majority of those who came here under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals policy were brought here from Latin America.

The longer it takes for Congress to settle its budget battles, the longer the odds get for those “Dreamers” to realize they can remain in the country where they came of age — and where they have achieved varying levels of success.

No deal here

Yet they hear statements from Donald Trump that he doesn’t see any “deals” to find common ground with congressional Democrats, who recently backed out of a meeting with the president that was supposed to help move them closer to a resolution.

It is inhumane to punish these de facto Americans because of their parents’ actions.

Truth be told, a member of the president’s Cabinet — former Texas Gov. Rick Perry, who’s now energy secretary — understands the value that DACA residents have brought to this country. If only he could persuade the Big Man to understand it as well.

national news

Trump trashes FBI yet again

Put yourself in the shoes of a professional law enforcement officer with desires to work for the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Your director works at the pleasure of the president of the United States. The FBI director’s job is to manage arguably the world’s premier investigative agency. Yet the president calls out the management of your agency almost daily, using language one hears on junior high school playgrounds.

The FBI has long been considered a place where trained professionals do their jobs with skill and precision. Yet the president — the nation’s top dog — keeps questioning its competence and its professionalism.

POTUS takes aim at FBI

Donald J. Trump seeks to embark on a sort of scorched-Earth policy with regard to the FBI. The man he chose to lead the agency, Christopher Wray, is now being hamstrung by the man who hired him. Wray cannot shake himself loose from the shackles that Trump clamps around his ankles.

The president keeps invoking the name of the man he fired, James Comey, who was investigating whether Trump’s presidential campaign colluded with Russian hackers who sought to influence the 2016 election outcome. And, yes, he attaches epithets to Comey’s name, along with that of Hillary Rodham Clinton, the president’s election opponent.

Now the president has joined the conservative chorus in seeking the departure of Andrew McCabe, who was Comey’s chief deputy at the FBI. Trump has accused McCabe of being too cozy with Clinton while the agency was investigating her use of private email servers while she was secretary of state during the first term of the Obama administration.

I guess I just cannot put myself into the shoes of anyone with designs of becoming an FBI agent. The president’s Twitter tirades against the FBI cannot possibly be a lure to anyone who seeks to serve their country.

national news, political news

Trump has a Christmas chip on his shoulder

Donald J. Trump seems to be picking a fight during this season of joy, merriment and holy worship.

He is peppering his speeches with Christmas greetings, implying — falsely, in my view — that Americans have been inundated with politically correct “happy holidays” greetings that diminish the true significance of Christmas.

I want to invite the president to look around and listen carefully to television and other media’s treatment of the holiday season. I am hearing plenty of “Merry Christmas” greetings from TV hosts, journalists, merchants, children … you name ’em, they’re saying it.

The president, furthermore, keeps insisting that his immediate predecessor, Barack Obama, diminished Christmas’s significance in our culture by saying “happy holidays” when, in Trump’s view, he should be wishing us Merry Christmas. Of course, he is mistaken. The president and Michelle Obama decked the White House halls of plenty of Christmas décor, just as George W. and Laura Bush, and Bill and Hillary Clinton did and, well, you can go back to George and Martha Washington if you wish.

No ‘war’ on Christmas

What I suspect is occurring here is that the president is continuing the ongoing phony “war on Christmas” narrative that many in the conservative media have declared was underway.

C’mon, Mr. President. Give it a rest. Enjoy the holiday and wish happiness for everyone, even those who don’t celebrate Christmas.

national news

Mitch is striking ‘bipartisan’ tone for new year

Can it be true? Is the Senate majority leader finding some form of “religion” on how to govern?

Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., is talking about a more “bipartisan” approach to legislating in the coming year. Well now. Imagine that.

The New York Times is reporting that McConnell is going to shy away from highly partisan measures and concentrate more on issues that have broader bipartisan support. He’s going to look for more Democratic support to go along with the Republican majority that controls the flow of legislation in the U.S. Senate.

Dodd-Frank, which governs the financial industry, has bipartisan support for overhauling the law enacted in the wake of the 2008 banking crisis. McConnell said he virtually certain to push that overhaul forward.

Mitch is going bipartisan

As Politico reports, McConnell and other Republicans failed in their effort to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act this year. “I wish them well,” he said of efforts to continue to repeal the ACA and replace it with … something!

As an American who favors a bipartisan approach to legislating in Congress, I welcome the majority leader’s stated intention to seek another way to govern.

Now … if only Sen. McConnell can persuade the guy in the Oval Office that cooperation works far more effectively than confrontation.

local news

Season of joy … and big change

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I posted this picture a year ago on Facebook, and the site reminded me of it today as a look back.

Initially, I was reluctant to re-post this image. It made me mildly sad this morning when I saw the Facebook “memory.”

This picture depicts the final Christmas in the house we called a home for 21 years. It’s dark this year. We’re no longer living there. We have moved on — more or less. Our “home” these days is a 28-foot fifth wheel recreational vehicle. It’s parked in a location on the other end of Amarillo. The house? It’s heading for the market, folks.

This is a season of joy for us. It’s also a season of big change that awaits us just down the road. We don’t quite yet know precisely where the road will take us.

Don’t misunderstand. We have a general idea where we’re going to resettle. It will be somewhere near our granddaughter, who’s now 4 years of age. Every friend we’ve told of our plans — and the reason for our move — has expressed total understanding and support for us. “That’s the best reason I can think of,” I’ve heard from many of our friends.

However, as I look at the picture attached to this blog post, I am reminded of one of the precious memories this house brought us.

***

It was Dec. 22, 1996. We had just taken possession of this house, which we had built. We had lived in a one-bedroom apartment since early 1995. Our furniture was stashed away in a storage compartment.

We closed on the house. We called the mover, who then delivered our goods. We unpacked them.

Our Christmas tree that year was a potted live Norfolk pine we brought with us from Beaumont. It stood about 4 feet tall. We found some Christmas lights, strung them around the tree.

We commenced opening our packed boxes and rediscovered the possessions we hadn’t seen in nearly two years.

It was — hands down — a glorious Christmas indeed in this structure that was filled with that “new house smell.”

That, too, was a season of change. To that end, the season has come full circle. We are anxious — and we are ready for whatever awaits.