Monthly Archives: December 2017

business news, national news

Tax returns would prove whether POTUS takes a hit

OK, here we go. The Republican-passed tax cut is heading for Donald Trump’s desk. The president will sign it, probably soon.

He keeps telling us how much of a beating he’s going to take from the tax overhaul. “Believe me. Believe me!” he implores us.

Sure thing, Mr. President. We’re supposed to take your word for it. I mean, your word is your bond, isn’t that right?

Well, here’s the deal. Some independent tax analysts have sung a different tune about the tax plan. They’ve told us the very wealthy are going to do quite well; that would include Donald John “I’ve Made a Lot of Money” Trump.

How in the world can we know for certain whether the president is going to take a beating or whether he’ll benefit bigly from the tax plan?

Oh, I know! How about releasing those tax returns he keeps refusing to disclose for public review? Trump has told the Internal Revenue Service is conducting a “routine audit” of his returns. Let’s see, when he first say that? He said when he declared his presidential candidacy in June 2015. The IRS says an audit doesn’t preclude anyone releasing their returns.

The IRS doesn’t comment on whether it is conducting an audit. Which begs the question: Is the IRS really auditing Donald Trump’s tax returns? We haven’t seen any evidence in the form of a letter from the IRS to the Trump business empire that it would audit the company’s tax returns.

The corporate tax rate under the overhaul declines from 37 to 21 percent. There also are reportedly other perks for businesses involved in, um, commercial real estate.

I am unwilling to take the president at his word that he’s going to get hammered by the tax cut plan. I want proof. I want to see his tax returns.

local news, national news, political news

Every vote counts … in a big way!

Just when you thought your vote didn’t count …

Get a load of what happened in Virginia.

That state’s House of Delegates has flipped from Republican control to a 50-50 partisan deadlock on the basis of a single vote in a race for one of the delegate seats.

Incumbent Delegate David Yancey, a Republican, held a 10-vote lead in the race for his seat against Democrat Shelly Simonds. So they launched a recount as required under state law. They counted the ballots and Simonds has emerged the winner — by a single ballot. Simonds won with 11,608 votes to Yancey’s 11,607.

The GOP held a 51-49 majority in the House of Delegates. It’s now 50-50, or at least it will be when they certify the result of the recount. Virginia has no tie-breaking process in its House of Delegates. If one should occur on a piece of legislation, there needs to be some sort of power-sharing arrangement that the two parties will need to work out.

There is a huge lesson here. I’ve heard gripes over many years covering elections as a journalist from those who say “Why vote? My vote doesn’t matter. It doesn’t count.” These bystanders leave critical public policy decisions to others.

Locally, here in Amarillo, dismal voter turnouts long ago became the norm, to the voting public’s ever-lasting shame.

Does your vote matter? Does it count?

Uh, yeah. It does. In a major way. The balance of power in one of our states has just flipped because of a single ballot.

national news

Deficit hawks have turned chicken

What has happened to the deficit hawks who used to dominate the Republican Party?

They have become chicken hawks, or just plain chicken.

Congressional Republicans used to rant, rail and express rage over budget deficits. Ronald Reagan derived a lot political advantage in 1980 by ridiculing the $40 billion budget deficit run up annually during the Carter administration.

Fast-forward to the present day.

Republicans are going to enact a tax cut that will blow up the deficit. It will add $1 trillion — or so — to the deficit over the next decade. That’s $100 billion annually.

But here’s the ironic aspect of this deficit business.

A Democratic president, Bill Clinton, managed to craft a budget that produced a surplus by the end of his presidency. He had help from Republicans in Congress, but the point is that the president and the GOP congressional leadership managed to cooperate and work together for a common good.

Another Democrat, Barack Obama, also managed to take huge bites out of a trillion-dollar-plus annual budget deficit. By the time President Obama left office, the budget deficit had been slashed by about two-thirds annually.

There were tax increases along with targeted budget cuts.

Did the GOP members of Congress give the president any credit? Nope. Didn’t happen. They instead changed the subject by targeting the Affordable Care Act, concocting reports of “dismal failure.”

But here we are today. A new president has taken over. He has sought desperately to achieve some kind of legislative “victory.” Republicans in both congressional chambers are poised to give it to him.

At what cost? Oh, yes. The deficit is set to grow once again. The one-time Party of Fiscal Responsibility has changed it stripes.

Sports news

Feeling a friend’s bowl game ‘pain’

A friend of mine, a native Texan, posted this message on Facebook the other day:

If you want to know the extent to which college football has strayed from the primrose path I thought would never end, here’s this year’s Cotton Bowl match up:
1. Neither team from Texas
2. Neither team from the old Southwest Conference.
3. Neither from even the Big 12.
4. Cotton not grown anywhere near these two universities.
5. Game no longer on New Year’s Day.

What’s our sports world coming to?

I feel his pain. The Cotton Bowl matchup this year features the University of Southern California vs. The Ohio State University.

It strikes me that the Cotton Bowl will involve teams that used to play exclusively in the Rose Bowl, which used to invite  the champions from the Big 10 to play the champs of the Pac 12.

And … speaking of the Rose Bowl — the game I watch with great interest, given that I grew up on the Pacific Coast — has an, um, interesting matchup as well.

The University of Georgia will play tackle football against the University of Oklahoma. Georgia comes from the Southeastern Conference; Oklahoma hails from the Big 12.

There’s a glimmer of good news to report. At least the Rose Bowl will be played on New Year’s Day.

But I get my friend’s angst over the jumbling of these bowl dates and the matchups that have not a damn thing to do with intercollegiate football tradition.

national news

Infrastructure repair? Not an issue with this derailment

There goes the immediate argument for repairing, rebuilding and renovating our nation’s rail infrastructure.

It’s not that we don’t need to fix our total infrastructure — highways, bridges, airports and, yes, railroads. Accordingly, Donald Trump’s insistence that the government spend a trillion dollars for a comprehensive reworking of our nation’s transportation system is spot on.

However, the derailment that occurred Monday morning in the Seattle-Tacoma, Wash., area appears to be the result of human error. You see, the Amtrak train that few off the rails was roaring along at 80 mph on a stretch of rail with a posted speed limit of 30 mph, according to the National Transportation Safety Board. That’s nearly triple the speed limit.

The train was making its initial run on a route between Seattle and Portland.

The wreck has killed at least three people, injured scores of others.

It also has created a serious discussion about training rail engineers and whether this particular engineer was (a) asleep at the controls, (b) distracted by someone in the locomotive or (c) simply being careless.

In the meantime, we should offer prayers and support for the loved ones of those who died and for those who were injured in this terrifying event.

national news, political news

Expecting more from our elected officials

I’m hearing the first hint of grumbling over the “Me Too” movement and fallout.

It comes from those who are wondering whether we’re expecting too much of our elected officials who’ve been caught abusing women sexually. Are we asking that only prudes can qualify for public service?

I’m as liberated a male as there is, but I remain fairly old-fashioned on some matters. I don’t believe in knowing the sex of unborn children; I hate the designated hitter rule in baseball … just for example.

Moreover, I expect my elected officials to represent the very best of the people they represent. They are our ambassadors. They are supposed to appeal to the very best of in all of us.

The accusations of sexual misbehavior and misconduct are troubling in the extreme to yours truly.

Yeah, yeah … I understand that no one is perfect. I don’t demand perfection, however. I merely want the individuals we elect to public office to know how to treat other human beings. Threatening them with the loss of job if they don’t “perform” is not part of the routine I want them to follow.

Let’s understand that they work for us. We are the bosses, not them. If they don’t behave the way we want or expect them to behave, they need to prepare to get the boot from those of us who expect more of them.

local news, religious news

No ‘real Christian’ would do this

You likely cannot see the writing on the side of the building shown here.

It says “Happy birthday, Jesus Christ.” Then it adds, “From a real Christian.” The building happens to be a mosque in Clovis, N.M., the only such house of worship in the city.

What does one say about such a disgusting act?

I’ll start with this … whoever did this is no “real Christian.” He or she is a religious pervert. He or she is as faithful to Christianity as the perverts who commit acts of terrorism in the name of Islam.

Scripture teaches us many lessons about how Christians should act. Vandalizing property that belongs to those who follow another religious faith is nowhere to be found in either the Old or New Testaments.

Indeed, what I think we have here in Clovis is an act of terrorism. The dictionary defines the term as an act that seeks to make some sort of political point.

When police capture whoever is responsible for this hideous act, perhaps they can consider asking Curry County prosecutors to charge them with committing a terrorist act.

Real Christian? Whoever did this is nothing of the sort.

national news, political news

GOP ‘wins’ while their guy loses

Republicans far and wide are breathing more easily today than they were a week ago.

Last week they were worrying that one of their own, Roy Moore of Alabama, was going to win a special election to a U.S. Senate seat. He didn’t. Moore lost that contest to Doug Jones, a Democratic former federal prosecutor.

I’ll leave it to my old pal Tom Taschinger — who succeeded me more than 20 years ago as editorial page editor of the Beaumont Enterprise — to explain in detail how Republicans won while losing an election.

Read Taschinger’s essay here.

Moore was a damaged candidate even before allegations surfaced from women who accused him of sexual misconduct. He is a religious zealot who doesn’t work well with so-called “establishment” Republicans, many of whom cringed at the idea of him joining the ranks of the U.S. Senate.

Moreover, other GOP candidates would have had to run under the banner of a party that elected someone accused of the hideous acts that Moore is alleged to have committed. That’s if he won.

Since he didn’t, Republicans now have been spared the misery of campaigning under the specter of a “Sen. Roy Moore.”

Does this put the Republicans in the clear? Does it make a forgone conclusion that they’ll hold onto their slim Senate majority after the 2018 midterm election?

Hardly. The fight has just begun.

media news

One is African-American; the other isn’t?

This blog post features two prominent Americans who have something in common. It’s actually, though, about the media and the way they have covered these two individuals.

One of them is the young woman pictured above: Meghan Markle, the fiancée to Great Britain’s Prince Harry. They’re getting married in May at Windsor Castle.

The other person is the fellow you all know: Barack H. Obama, the 44th president of the United States of America. He’s now a private citizen.

Their commonality? They both are African-American. Markle’s mother is black; her father is white. Obama’s mother was white; his father was black.

Here’s the head-scratcher that gives me cause to post this brief blog item: Why do the media decline to refer to Markle as an African-American woman who’s marrying into British royalty? The media made a lot out of President Obama’s standing as the first African-American ever elected to the presidency. And, yes, Obama’s election in 2008 was a big deal partly for that reason.

To be fair, I am not consumed by the Meghan-Harry romance. I don’t follow it as closely as millions of other Americans. So perhaps the media have made the African-American reference many times beyond my earshot.

Still, someone might have to explain to me why the media are treating these two celebrities so differently. Is it because Markle’s racial heritage is not part of the larger story, while it was a part of Obama’s story?

I am all eyes and ears.

environmental news, national news

Seven words CDC won’t allow?

Wherever he is, the late comedian George Carlin must be laughing his a** off.

Carlin once made famous those “seven words you can’t say on TV.” I won’t repeat them here. Many of you know them already.

Now we have the Centers for Disease Control being told not to use seven supposedly hot-button words in future budget proposals.

Oh, my. What is the world coming to?

The CDC’s banned words are: fetus, diversity, transgender, vulnerable, entitlement, evidence-based and science-based.

You can’t say it

I want to focus on one of those banned words: science-based.

What in the name of hocus-pocus is going on here? I mean, we’re talking about the Centers for Disease Control, aren’t we? Doesn’t the CDC deal directly and wholly with science? I do not understand this directive. I do not grasp why the CDC — of all agencies — would get this kind of directive from on high.

Critics of the Trump administration have alleged that it is being run by science-deniers. Here’s one example: They deny the existence of climate change despite mounting scientific evidence that Earth’s climate is changing, that it is getting warmer.

So now the CDC is being told it cannot use “science-based” terminology?

What in the world would George Carlin do with this bit of idiocy?